Sand City Murders (22 page)

“Are you serious?”

“No. I’ll take a wait and see attitude for now.” I started to re-imagine what it might be like to work on a daily. Would Jack Leaning be my boss?

I was back at my desk a bit later working on the follow-up to the Baxter Estates story. After a close vote, the planning commission had approved the initial proposal, pending an environmental impact study. More drainage into the salt marsh, less trees in the woodlands. Somebody was making a ton of money off this and it wasn’t just Chamblis. And how the hell were they going to get past the wetlands protection act? I was going through my notes when I came across a printout stuck to my pile of scattered papers. It caught my eye. “Wow, who changed the masthead?” I asked Eleanor, knowing full well that only she could make that decision.

“Is that a rhetorical question, Patrick?” she replied and smiled.

“I guess so. It’s just that I’ve gone from reporter to senior correspondent.”

“Yes, and congratulations…”

“Thanks… And who is Lucinda?”

“Patrick, sometimes I just don’t get your sense of humor.”

I wasn’t joking. Who is Lucinda Roberts? And why is she on the masthead as an Account Representative? What happened to Jo-Anne?

***

Eventually, it was time for a gentle confrontation with Inspector Fynn. Things could not go on as they were. Not for me anyhow. I found him in his office, or rather Chief Arantez’s. He was looking quite comfortable. The inspector greeted me with a big smile and a firm handshake. “Patrick, my friend, good to see you. And what brings you here today?”

“Good news, bad news, I guess you could say.”

“Eh? Well that’s better than good cops, bad cops.” He laughed at his own joke.

I was less amused.

“Start with the bad.”

“There’s no missing person report for Loraine Luis.”

“What? But how can this be true?” The inspector seemed surprised. He lowered himself back into the chair rather slowly. “Where did you check?”

“Where
didn’t
I check?” I replied. “Most of all, nothing in the county records, at the courthouse.”

“This surprises me.”

“Okay, well more bad news. All the other records I did try to check are missing, maybe even sabotaged.”

“But what can this mean?” Fynn asked with obvious concern.

“Our own archives, the
Chronicle’s
morgue: missing issues… stolen?” I made a questioning face. “The library? Archives for the
Bulletin
and the
Gazette
? Inaccessible because of a broken microfiche machine. The Fairhaven
Times
? Someone hacked their computer… all the records for Lorraine Luis? Gone.”

“But this is incredible…”

“That’s what I thought.”

The inspector stared at me for several moments, then blinked. “Am I a suspect here? A saboteur?”

“Are you?” I asked.

“I suppose I am the former. But there are steps to be taken immediately, I should think.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Practical steps.”

“Like?”

“To begin with, we must fix the machine at the library, yes? Or find another.”

This was not the response I expected. Not at all. I was looking for evasion, vague replies, a dismissive attitude, or even a complete lack of interest. “It might take a couple of weeks,” I said.

“That’s too long. Let me think for a moment… Alright, the
Times
in Fairhaven… surely their records must be duplicated by some other means? This microfiche again, or actual bound copies of old papers?”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“And the
Chronicle’s
archives? They are only on paper? There are no back-up records anywhere?”

I hadn’t thought of that either.

“I find this most distressing, Patrick. I’m glad you came to me. What can I do to help?”

“You might be able to charm Mrs Lovely at the library.”

“Then I will do so at once.” The inspector practically leapt to his feet. “And what about the good news?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Right… um… did you know your wife was a sculptress?”

“Of course I know this. She does beautiful work. Polished stone with inlaid metals…”

“Well, one of her sculptures is still standing in Spooky Park.”

“Spooky Park? I don’t remember that being on your map.”

“That’s what the locals call it. On the map it’s labeled as Central Park.”

“We will have to plan a visit then.”

“We could check for fingerprints,” I said.

“On her sculpture?”

“We might get lucky.”

“After almost forty years? It’s highly doubtful. And why should we want to in the first place?”

“To prove your story. It would be hard evidence. Prints that match?”

“I have nothing to prove, Patrick. Perhaps you do though.”

“Well, there’s this too.” I took a single folded sheet from my pocket and put it on the chief’s desk.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Birth certificate for Lorraine Luis.”

“Well done… but how does it help us?”

“We could match the toe print,” I suggested, “to… um, the victim.”

“To what end?”

“That would be absolute proof that she is Lorraine Luis, and that she disappeared thirty-six years ago.”

The inspector eyed me. “Again, to what end? It is a certainty that they are the same person.”

“Well, Durbin…”

Fynn laughed a little. “I am sure that would be quite disturbing to the good detective. Yet how would it help solve this crime… or prevent it?”

“But it proves everything you’ve been saying.”

“I see…” He passed a glance at me. “You are in need of proof then.”

He was right but I had no reply. Another expert two-step. Another way to keep his delusion intact. My mind shifted into gear… how was I going to get a toe print off a corpse? I sort of knew Willard at the funeral home… not as well as Pagor… maybe a distraction… an ink pad…  some paper… some excuse to take photographs... I’d have to think this through. They had probably already moved the body to Fairhaven, to the county morgue, or worse.

chapter 16

libra lapsus

Eleanor tossed a copy of the Fairhaven
Times
onto my desk. She gave me that
look
. Well, maybe a bit more. She seemed angry.

“What?” I asked.

“Page sixteen,” she said

I flipped through and found a feature article on Inspector Fynn. I looked right to the byline: Jack Leaning.

“How did they beat us to this story, Patrick? Your story. I thought you had a rapport with the man.”

“Well, I do… sorry, my bad…” I looked over the article. “Hmm...”

“What?” Eleanor asked sharply.

“The phrase Leaning uses here… and in quotes: ‘bachelor detective...’ I was under the impression that Fynn was married.”

Eleanor insisted that I do a big feature on Detective Chief Inspector Tractus Fynn, at least a three page spread. I don’t know why I had any hesitation, but I did. I don’t know why I procrastinated. This was the perfect story for me, and for the
Chronicle
. It was a strange reluctance. Maybe I was avoiding him.

I met Fynn on a Friday at the elementary school and made a conscious decision not to talk about murder or any other crimes, or anything else for that matter. He had just finished giving a talk to the kids about Interpol and seemed to be in a great mood as usual. The school had emptied out already, oddly it seemed almost abandoned. Most of the lights in the rooms and the corridors were switched off. Hardly a teacher roamed the halls. Okay, maybe I was more than ten minutes late this time. I found the inspector in a darkened classroom, 4B. Only half a bank of florescent lights were still on. He was sitting on the teacher’s desk in front of a large old fashioned blackboard, well, it was more of a greenish color.

“Patrick, good to see you.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“That means very little to me.” He laughed broadly.

“How did it go?”

“Hmm?”

“With the fifth graders.”

“Very well. A promising group of youngsters to be sure. No particular interest in modern policing methods though… There were a great many questions about tulips and wooden shoes, and who stuck their finger in the dyke.”

“Who
did?
”

“Hans Brinker of course, yet he is not Dutch at all.”

“Um…” I chuckled, then paused uncomfortably. Somehow this was business, not personal. “I need to do a story on you for the paper. An interview with a photo… you know, kind of introduce you to the community.”

“Of course,” Fynn said and smiled, then asked, “Is a photograph really necessary?”

“Absolutely.”

“Very well.”

“This is good.” I took out my camera and framed a shot of Fynn against the chalkboard. He was sitting, giving an official looking smile; his hands on either side grasped the edge of the desk. Behind him I could make out two words written against the green board: “
Libra
Lapsus.
” I snapped off a bunch of shots, the flash fired. I lowered my camera and looked at the writing again.
Libra
Lapsus
was chalked out in neat letters and underneath that there seemed to be a complex equation written out, like something you’d see in a physics lab. It made absolutely no sense to me. It had all kinds of capital letters that were squared, or subtracted from, or divided by… I noticed more than a few Greek letters also.

“Well, you have my press sheet, my biography,” Fynn said with a certain reluctance. “There is a Wiki page… and of course we’ve had many a conversation already. I don’t know what else your readers should want to know about me.”

“Some personal details, maybe.”

“Personal details? I’d rather not talk about—”

“Not
personal
personal. More like, what’s your favorite…?”

“My favorite what?”

“You know, your favorite… um, sports team, favorite food, favorite wine maybe… do you read books? Watch movies… that kind of thing.”

“Ah, trivia.”

“Well, I guess.”

“I prefer a strong wine, red, a burgundy, though merlot will do in a pinch. My favorite cheese is probably muenster, or feta perhaps. And I never drink cheap scotch.”

“You sound like the most interesting man in the world.”

“Pardon?”

“What kind of beer do you like?”

“I rarely partake. A lager, I suppose.” He looked at me. “Do you need to write this down?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Well then…if there’s nothing else?” The inspector lowered himself to the floor carefully, and walked towards the front of the classroom.

I took the bait. “What’s that on the board?”

“Ah…
Libra Lapsus
. Free Fall. You were curious about how I traveled.” Fynn turned and smiled at me. “If you have the time, I thought I might enlighten you.”

“Are you prepared to demonstrate today?”

The inspector’s dark eyes flashed. He smiled again. “No, not today…”

My disappointment was obvious.

“Patrick, traveling in time takes a bit of caution, some planning even. It’s not something that can be done just willy-nilly.”

“Okay.”

“There are consequences… a chain of causality…” he began to make excuses.

“If you were to travel now, and I’m just saying hypothetically... What would it look like? To me, I mean.”

“It depends where I go.”

“What?”

“If I traveled to the future… right now… to you it would seem as if I just vanished. Pop,” he said and snapped his fingers. “I would be gone. I would disappear.”

“Cool.”

“Indeed… If I were to travel to the past. You might notice nothing unusual. Nothing at all.”

“Why’s that?”

“By traveling to the past, this exact present is inexorably altered. It would be as if I had never arrived here. Most people would have no conscious memory of me. Recall what I said?
The past changes the present
.” Fynn gave me a huge grin. “Of course you seem to be exempt from this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your peculiar memory.”

“Right…”

“But for most others, it would certainly seem as if I never existed.”

“I sort of understand that part. But why would you disappear if you traveled to the future?”

“Well, we have a history together. We have a past, memories, a relationship of sorts. And we are sharing this present moment. If I were to leave… all your memories, our history, would remain intact. But, we would not be sharing the present any longer. So to you, it would seem like I vanished into thin air.”

“What does it seem like to you?”

“Pardon?”

“When you travel. What’s it like on your end?”

“Again, it depends on which mode of travel I employ. Each experience is distinctly different. One is an almost pleasant feeling, the other is quite the opposite.”

“But what’s it like? Flashing lights, swirling colors, a tunnel, a vortex or something?”

“No, nothing so dramatic. One second I’m here, the next I’m there.” Fynn paused. “Funny you should ask this; I usually close my eyes when I jump.”

I was disappointed again.

“Yet in either case, in order to travel, I need to be in free fall.”

“Yeah… what is that exactly?”

“I must be physically off the Earth… even if for the briefest of moments or the smallest of distances.”

“Really?” I tried to think what he meant. “Like a jump or something?”

“Exactly this. My feet must not be touching the planet.”

“I don’t know… sounds pretty weird to me.”

“I agree whole-heartedly. But remember my story? The first time I traveled was in the moment I let go of the rope and fell into the river with a splash.”

I couldn’t help but think back on the crazy story Fynn had told me on the beach. Hoplites and Centurions? Really? I had a hard time imagining him as a young man, let alone a small boy hanging from a rope and swinging around his idyllic river glen.

“Why you?” I asked.

“Ha… such a question. I don’t know. There is something wrong with my atoms, I suppose. They are entangled in some strange way.”

“Entangled?”

“You’ve not heard of quantum entanglement?”

“I’ve heard of it, but my physics is a little lacking.”