Sand City Murders (46 page)

“I prefer the word friend.”

I laughed but only a little, and maybe out of nervousness.

“Mortimer is hardly the type of person to inspire trust. More likely, he would appeal to a person’s baser instincts… or blackmail perhaps.”

“Just the one, then? I mean only one
real
accomplice.”

Fynn paused. “There maybe more than one. On past occasions, Mortimer has befriended people who are locked away in asylums… He grants them freedom sometimes, and they in turn develop a misplaced loyalty towards him.”

“Hmm…. Like Saint Alban’s?”

“How do you mean?”

“The place not on the map.”

“Ah yes, the place you do not wish to visit. Is there anything more you can say about this sanatorium?”

“It closed down in the eighties.”

“When did it begin?”

“Nineteen twenties?”

“Very curious. Not a coincidence I am now thinking.”

I changed the subject. “How much does he know about you?”

“Too much it would appear. Though, out of some instinct, some innate caution perhaps, I was always careful not to reveal my name.” Fynn smiled. “And I will say, I’ve had many names over the years.”

“Many names?”

“Yes.”

“So he doesn’t know you as Tractus Fynn?”

“He may or may not… but more to the point: Is he still here? Has he moved on? Will he return?”

“He’s our killer though?”

“We have crimes from the past and those in the present. I can say with certainty, Mortimer committed the first crimes: Clara, Debra and Lorraine. I cannot say for certain the crimes of the present were committed by him: Doctor Samuels, the girls at the kennel, Lucinda and Elaine… though they are in keeping with his brutal nature.”

“But all the evidence points to him: the shoes and the cane,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What else can you say about him?”

“There are some things I can say, and some things I can deduce.”

“Like?”

“At the beginning, Mortimer knew little about my life here in Sand City in the nineteen seventies, hence the random killings. Clearly, he was not present in those early days.”

“Okay.”

“We might conjecture that he is very much in the present, across several timelines perhaps, but here with us.”

“Across timelines?”

“He may be hiding in the cracks between realities.”

“What do you mean?”

“He may be attempting to manipulate this reality in subtle ways... to disguise himself.”

“Whose reality?”

“Well, everyone’s. I am immune to this strategy and it seems you are too. But others?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“The past changes the present. He merely has to slip back, change some small event and the present seems completely different, yes?”

“Like Durbin sees the world?”

“Yes, like Durbin. He goes from not knowing me, to me being his chief, to me being a special consultant. He does not recall the differences.”

“Okay, I get it. The cracks, the cracks between timelines.”

“Exactly so. You must be especially watchful to any small changes you notice. Perhaps this is the way we can ferret him out.”

“He doesn’t know about me?”

 “I’m sure he knows all about you.”

“That’s not what I mean. He doesn’t know about my
memory
.”

“Ah, this I hope not. It maybe our only edge.”

“What will you do if we catch him?”

“Hmm? Catch him? You’re thinking too far ahead. We have to find him first.”

“I know, but if we do catch him, how do we stop him? How do you stop Mortimer from jumping back to the past or into the future?”

“I see what you’re saying.” Fynn turned to look at me. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“I promise.”

“Well, it’s really quite simple. We prevent him from jumping.”

“What?”

“
Libra lapsus
… we prevent him from that and he is stuck in this one place.”

“But how?”

“Chains, shackles perhaps, heavy weights?” Fynn laughed. “I suppose these would do the job.”

“How do we bring him to justice in the present?”

“That may not be possible.”

“That sort of limits our options.”

“Well, there is the law and there is justice. We may at some point have to forgo the present state of law.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Yes, I agree. If we can devise a way to make this present untenable for Mortimer, he might leave and never return.”

“How do we do that?”

“It’s difficult. The threat of great harm or death might do the trick.”

“Hypothetically speaking, you mean?”

“To stop Mortimer once and for all, I would have to strap him down and kill him. But I cannot bring myself to do this. At the very least, I would try to send him far from here, far from this timeline to a wholly unfamiliar place, perhaps by causing him to free fall in an unpredictable way.”

Fynn and I had been walking north and west all this time, funneled towards North Point. The beach was ever-narrowing until we came to a place that was nearly impassable. Huge boulders blocked our path, almost as if some giant had just tossed a handful of pebbles, giant pebbles though.

“Well, that’s it then,” Fynn said with a certain finality. “It’s been a very productive conversation. I believe you are correct about the beach.”

“What?”

“There is not a problem which cannot be solved.”

I laughed at that and we started our return. I walked quietly next to him. The wind was at our backs now.

“Okay, well how did you make this guy so freaking angry?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“I did nothing really. I thought I was helping him.”

“Well, explain what happened.”

“It’s rather a long story.” Fynn was evasive.

“Seems to be an important story.”

“Yes. Very well…” The inspector put his hands behind his back and slowed his pace a bit. “Mortimer and I have encountered each other several times. It’s difficult to say now which was the first.” Fynn gave off a grave expression. “Most salient perhaps is our encounter at the Bedlam asylum.”

“Bedlam?”

“He was a patient.”

“And you were...?”

“A doctor of sorts.”

“Not a policeman?”

“No. But I recognized his abilities almost at once. I didn’t think he was insane at all. I was quite convinced that he was a fellow traveler. We had a rather long conversation. And, at the time, I thought I assisted him.”

“How?”

“I helped him become aware of his natural proclivity.”

“When was this?”

“The sixteen hundreds, sixteen thirty-eight, I believe.”

“Can you go back and un-meet him?”

“Eh?”

“Revisit that life and avoid him at all costs.”

“That is a possibility… but one for the future, not the present.” Fynn paused. “Such would require extraordinary measures.”

“How did you realize he was like you?”

“He’s not at all like me.”

“I mean, how did you find out about his special ability?”

One of us made an off hand remark, but a remark that could only be made if you recognized that the timeline had changed.” Fynn paused. “I met him again in Istanbul, at the height of the Ottoman Empire, but a hundred years earlier... the mid fifteen hundreds. At that point we both recognized the same abilities in each other.”

“Who was he back then?”

“A rug merchant, of all things.”

“What were you?”

“Me? A policeman, of course, at least of a sort.”

“Of a sort?”

“I do not wish to go into a lengthy history of the Ottoman Empire at present.” Fynn smiled.

“Sorry.”

“We began to run across each other quite frequently… always in a different time or a different place… Let’s say we struck up something of a friendship. We would spend the night together on occasion, share a meal, a drink, a campfire or a hearth, and we’d converse far into the morning… He began to wonder if we were entangled, our destinies so to speak, as it seemed we were entangled in time. But these discussions left me rather cold. My relationship with him chilled somewhat. I began to have my doubts about the man.”

“What, are you two guys entangled in some way?”

“This is the claim that Mortimer makes, but there is no substance to it.”

“When did you see him next?”

“I avoided him for years. If I encountered him in a particular place, I would move on, sometimes quite hurriedly, indeed, even if it meant violating my third rule of travel.”

“Which is?”

“Stay as long as possible.”

“Right, I remember… so, what happened next?”

“Next is certainly not the correct word to use but I take your meaning.” He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “I recall him as a minor historical figure... Napoleon’s personal guide.”

“What? Napoleon Bonaparte?”

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

“During his Egyptian Campaign.”

“What kind of guide?”

“A tour guide of sorts.”

“You knew him then?”

“No. He told me this.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why would he lie about such a thing?”

“Go on…”

“Mortimer talked to me about the possibility of jumping together. It had never been tried.”

“Jumping together... Like holding hands?”

“Something like that. He wondered if we’d end up in the same place.”

“Did you?”

“Not exactly.”

“What happened?”

“This was a hundred years later or so. We found each other in Paris around the turn of the next century… That evening did not go well. We were drinking absinthe... it was Montmartre… Both of us got quite inebriated. In the end, I dropped him from a rooftop, though there’s a bit more to the story than that…” Fynn’s voice trailed off. He walked on in silence, presumably trying to recall this event. The inspector stopped along the water’s edge and let the surf curl up around his ankles again.

“As I said, we were both quite drunk and decided to risk a rather foolish jump from a great height. How exactly we ended up on that rooftop is still unclear to me. I vividly remember the tiles giving way, sliding one at a time, until it became a virtual cascade. We both lost our footing. I was slipping, he was slipping too. Mortimer found himself at the edge of a roof, dangling. I grabbed him and held on for dear life, but I could not hold on indefinitely— from the strength in my arms which was failing, to the crumbling tiles, which were falling and shattering on the streets below. Nor did he have any way to hoist himself back up. I looked him right in the eyes. He knew I would have to let go. He nodded to me, closed his eyes and seemed to prepare himself for his
libra lapsus
. It was a long way down and consequently, it would be an unpredictable journey, perhaps even his doom.” Fynn resumed his pace southward. I followed in silence.

“At the very last moment I changed my mind. I decided that if he were to fall, I would go with him. At the very least, my thinking went, we might end up in the same place, and perhaps help each other… Such was not the case. A moment later, I landed, rather injured, but he had vanished. That could only mean one thing. I had made a hard jump, while he took a soft one. He returned to a familiar place, a previous self. I had not. Everything was new to me. Yet, I soon had to ask myself, why in heaven’s name would anyone wish to return to such a place?”

“Where was it?”

“Ah, it was… the prison.”

“The prison?”

“A terrible place. A place created from fear and ignorance, perpetuated eternally and wholly by accident.”

“What sort of place was it?”

“The prison called
Flatlands,
and it was ingeniously designed. No more than an island, pleasant in that respect, but there was nary a place to climb— not a rock, a chair, a table, a stool, a bed— nothing. It existed in one dimension only.”

“You mean no place to jump from?”

“Yes. We were shackled most of the day and made to wear heavy weights on our legs.”

“We? You and Mortimer?”

“No. I learned soon enough that Mortimer was a warden at this prison.”

“A guard.”

“Yes… but you must understand this place is a morass, a prison for travelers such as myself, such as Mortimer as well. But recall, when we jumped from that Paris rooftop, he disappeared, so I knew he had gone back to somewhere he had been before. I traveled there anew. He was a guard and I was an inmate.”

“That’s incredible.”

“In the end I managed to make my escape.”

“How?”

“This is even a longer story. For another time perhaps. I will only say, that as the result of my stay there, I have developed very strong legs.”

“That’s it?”

“That was quite enough.”

“No, I mean that’s the last time you saw Mortimer?”

“The latest occurrence was at a cocktail party in London, nineteen sixty-four. Mortimer came at me with his cane and a murderous intent, as well as a look of hatred on his face. I barely got free and then he disappeared rather suddenly.”

“What happened?”

“Enough to say this was the first time I became aware that he bore me a grudge and quite a large one.”

“You haven’t seen him since?”

“No.”

“What did he look like?”

“When?”

“That last time.”

“He was a young man, in his twenties perhaps.”

“And he had this cane?”

“Yes, most peculiar. It had the head of a jackal on top, rather ominous, I thought.”

“You mentioned prisoners. How many other time travelers are there? How many have you met?”

“Not many, I suppose… less than a dozen.”

“But there could be more?”

“There could be many more.”

“Could they be working with this guy?”

“That’s doubtful. Of those I’ve met, they’ve all had a deep respect for human life. They are not killers. They are in fact quite normal, if that’s the correct word.”

“And this Mortimer guy, he’s not?”

“No. I believe he’s barking mad. There is certainly not a shred of humanity remaining in the man.”

“It sounds like we have our work cut out for us then.”

“Indeed.” Fynn smiled grimly. “So in the end we might ask, who is manipulating your reality? Him or me? Or even yourself.”