A beginner's guide to time travel
a NaNoWriMo project
The drive out to the Densmore County morgue gave me time to think; maybe too much time. I was supposed to meet up with both Jimmy and Bobby this weekend. Bobby had called to tell me he’d finally gotten hold of Jimmy, and while he said Jimmy didn’t seem too happy about the whole idea, he said he could understand why it had to be done. I’d imagined he was just as curious as Bobby and me about what was in the trunk.
The Crown Vic she drove took the hi-way with long, slow dips that soon had me drifting off to sleep. She didn’t try to wake me. I think she decided it might be best for me if I slept; she even turned the radio down to a near whisper. The heater was on, which made it easier. I just hoped she didn’t fall asleep while we were driving.
I found myself in a strange dream where Bobby was sitting with Mandy in a bar. I asked him where Jen was and Mandy said she’d be coming over later. And then I saw Jen sitting at the bar, watching us.
“Dad’s gone,” I said.
“I know,” Jimmy said.
“No, I mean, like really gone. He took the bracelet out of the trunk, but he’s not wearing it,” I said, not understanding how Bobby was now Jimmy.
“So where is it?”
“How would I know?”
“So when you say he’s gone, you mean, he’s not sleeping in his bed? He’s really gone?” Mandy asked, and I wondered why she was even there. And then the next moment she looked at me, she was the cop beside me; I opened my eyes, looking at her as she shook me awake.
“Well, that was just fucked up,” I said without thinking.
“You needed the rest.”
“I didn’t need the dream.”
“I can’t help you with that,” she said, picking her hat up and opening the door.
The dome light came on and I shut my eyes against the brightness before opening the door and stepping out of the car. There was a chill in the air. The morgue was naturally in the hospital, in the back by the look of it. The hospital served three surrounding Counties, was four stories high, had two wings branching off of a central section, and was built on a grassy knoll. It made sense if there was a flood, I thought. I tried not to think about the last time I was here.
“I guess we’re early,” she said, looking at the near empty parking lot.
“I’m good with that,” I said.
“I’m sorry, maybe coming here wasn’t such a great idea? I know how hard it is to lose someone.”
“Yeah, sorry for your loss,” I said, and turning around, I leaned against the car.
As soon as I said it I knew she hated me for it, but at the moment it was the last thing I wanted to hear from anyone. I’d just lost my brother and his family. How could anyone else’s loss compare to that? I mean, the children, too? And all of them murdered? That was the part that was so hard for me to understand.
I took out a smoke and lit it, looking toward the East at the coming dawn as it spread against heavy clouds. I felt like an asshole saying what I’d said, and didn’t blame her for clamming up, but I needed time to think. I did not want to be here. I knew, as the next of kin, that I had to officially identify the whole family, but I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. I didn’t want to look at the boys. I didn’t want to think about what had happened or what they’d thought in those last moments of their lives. I didn’t want any of this.
I took a drag and dropped my cigarette on the ground, grinding it under my foot before turning around to look at her. I felt bad about what I’d said, and told myself I should apologize. Her loss, whatever it was, whoever it was, wasn’t any less than mine, and I wanted her to know that.
“I’m sorry, that was s shit thing for me—”
There were tears in her eyes.
“Oh, God,” I said, and stepped around the car to face her. She looked up at me and I put my arms around her, without even thinking about what I was doing. I could see the hurt in her eyes and felt how it mirrored the hurt in my own heart, and let my arms wrap around her.
It felt good just holding her. A complete stranger, and a cop at that, with all that stuff hanging off her belt and digging into my body, I could feel her shaking as she wept against me. At first, she tried pushing me away. She was a cop after all, and it was so obviously against every cop protocol I could ever imagine—not that I knew of any—but I told myself she was a person as well. Whatever had happened in her life, I told myself it probably didn’t help to be reminded by what had happened to my family. Maybe that was the real reason she was out on patrol and not at the crime scene? The Department was looking out for her. I didn’t want to ask her what happened. I told myself it didn’t matter. I needed someone to hold me as much as she obviously needed me to hold her.
It was all about love, and compassion, and empathy; it was about all those feelings Mandy said I had a hard time expressing. It was the reason she’d gone off with that accountant. All I knew was that I needed someone to hold. I could feel the tears coming to my eyes again, and as much as I fought back against hem, I knew I’d never be able to control myself. It was better just to let it all out and face the trauma.
We finally let each other go. It felt awkward , just the two of us in that empty parking lot, and we both smiled at each other, wiping the tears out of our eyes and stepping away from each other the way people do when they find themselves in an embarrassing situation.
“Gosh, I don’t even know your name,” I said, and then laughed, feeling like I was a kid talking to a girl after having asked her for a dance at the school dance.
“Helen,” she said. “My name’s Helen Masterson.”
“Like Helen of Troy,” I said. “ ‘The face that launched a thousand ships.’ ”
“Nobody’s said that to me for years,” she smiled.
“Must be the haircut,” I said.
“I think that’s why I did it. I mean, besides it being a hassle tying it up every morning. It was too much of a distraction. Long, blonde hair just seemed so cliché for a female cop. I didn’t think people were taking me seriously.”
“So you cut it?”
“I didn’t just cut it,” she laughed. “I got drunk and took the hair clippers to it. I went full-blow GI Jane.”
“That must’ve been quite the sight,” I said, and felt myself smiling again.
“That’s what Roger said when we woke up the next morning. ‘Wow, quite the sight.’ ”
“Is that your husband?”
“Was,” she said.
“Divorce?” I thought maybe I said it sounding too hopeful.
“Cancer,” she replied.
“Sorry.”
What else could I say? Divorce would’ve been easier, but then, losing her husband would explain her sudden meltdown, wouldn’t it? I suppose this would’ve been the time where the compassion and empathy Mandy said I lacked would’ve come into play. I didn’t know how to react. I’d never met a woman as young as her who’d lost a husband to cancer. I knew it happened. I’m sure it happens all the time. It’s just never happened in my world.
“That sucks,” I said after a moment.
“Yeah, it does.”
We were both relieved when we saw headlights in the distance.
She looked up at me.
“I think that’s them. Are you ready for this?”
“No,” I said, watching the approaching headlights and hoping maybe it wasn’t them; maybe it was just a lone vehicle on the hi-way and they’d keep on going.
“There’s a coffee shop nearby; we can get a bite to eat first.”
“Eat? How can you think about eating? I’ll probably chuck my guts up as soon as I see—no. No.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just that I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Then why start now?”
*
Of course it was them. There were several cars in what looked to be a small convoy. Three of them were from the coroner’s office, which I somehow doubted was in the basement of the hospital; the other two were cop cars.
I rubbed my face with my hands, peeking through the fingers as all five cars turned off the hi-way and made their way into the hospital parking lot. The two cop cars parked in the front and the coroner’s vehicles drove around the back, where we were stand.
“Come on,” Helen said, “you don’t want to watch this.”
She led me to a side entrance I hadn’t noticed because we were standing in the parking lot and the hospital was on a rise. It was something you just had to know was there, I guess. She knew it. I wondered if she knew it because she was a cop, or if she knew it because she was here visiting her dying husband.
We entered through a set out pneumatic doors that opened inward, the lights so bright I had to squint until my eyes got used to it. It just reminded me of how much I hate hospitals. There’s never anything good about being in a hospital. You’re either there because you need help, or you’re there because someone’s sick, and they need help.
We followed the lines on the floor to a bank of elevators and she pushed the call button. I was nervous. I think she could see it. She put a hand on my arm, telling me to take deep breaths.
“We’ll be out of here in no time. This is just routine. You know that, right? Don’t dwell on it. Just take a quick look and acknowledge their identities to whoever’s filling out the paperwork. You’ve got this,” she added, and I looked at her as the elevator door opened.
“I’ve got this,” I said to myself.
The ride down was mercifully quick. She knew the way, and I followed her, trying not to think about what was about to happen. She pushed the doors open—and yes, they did say MORGUE on a placard on the wall—and I stood inside, waiting.
There were two cops talking to a doctor in scrubs, and they all looked up when we entered. The taller of the two cops looked at us and tried to smile. I guess he thought better of it, realizing why we were here in the first place, and held out his hand.
“I’m Sheriff Thompson,” he said, and then nodded at the other cop who quickly stuck his hand out. “This is Taylor.”
“Hi,” I said. “Ricky Baxter. Did you get hold of my brother Jimmy?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Taylor said.
“Kinda strange, don’t you think?”
“Well, not knowing what would be unusual behaviour, or not, I can’t say,” Sheriff Thompson said.
“Of course not,” I said, accepting what he said because it was easier than trying to explain things. But yeah, I thought it was kind of strange.
“We should get this over with,” the doctor said.
“This is Dr. Drusano. He’ll be preforming the necropsy.”
“Okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
We walked through a set of double doors into a small cramped area that was warmer than I was expecting. I guess I’m a child of TV, because I was expecting it to look like something out of an early black and white rerun of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. I was thinking it would be dark and dreary rather than brightly lit and sterile. There was an operating table, or what I imagined what an operating table, but it was at a slight incline, with a small gutter on both sides you had to look twice to see. I supposed it was to catch bodily fluids. There were drawers against one wall, and he read the tags on each of them. Five, in total.
I was wondering why he had to read the tags when they were the only ones in the room. He opened the first one, pulled a plastic tarp back, and I looked at the face of my nephew staring up at me. He looked to be sleeping, and I was grateful for that.
“Jason Baxter?” Drusano said, and I nodded. He slid the drawer closed and we moved on to the next one, below it. He pulled it open.
“Jonathon Baxter?” And I remembered the last time I saw him in the back yard on the motorcycle Bobby was working on, his mother chasing him with a helmet in her hands.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to say their names.
“That’s Johnathon Baxter. The one above him, is his brother, Jason.”
“Jason Baxter?” Drusano said.
I nodded, then said yes.
He opened a third drawer and I looked down.
“Albert Baxter.” The youngest, I reminded myself. Just like me.
He pulled open a fourth drawer and I saw my brother staring up at me. His eyes were wide open, and his face pulled back in pain. He looked drained. I didn’t say anything for a while. I just stared at his thin face. He was pale, his cheeks drawn in; he looked gaunt.
“Robert Jarvis Baxter, 1952,” I said at last, and he slid the drawer closed.
He opened the last one, pulled the plastic cover back, and I looked down at Mandy’s face staring up at me. I staggered back, almost falling—would’ve fallen if Sheriff Thompson hadn’t caught me.
“What the fuck!” I said. “What the fuck!”
“What’s wrong?” Helen asked, helping me to a nearby chair.
“That’s not Jen. It’s Mandy.”
“Who’s Mandy?” Taylor asked.
“My ex wife.”