The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller (2 page)

I drove back to the man's house, drifting up to the curb at the edge of his yard. I popped the hood and disconnected one of the fuses, then spent another minute poking around, keeping an eye out for any helpful neighbors. Leaving the hood propped up, I toweled off my hands, careful to leave some of the grease in my knuckles and nails, put my lockpicks in my pocket, and knocked on the man's front door.

He answered with a reserved smile. "Can I help you?"

"Car broke down." I jerked my thumb at the sedan, its hood raised in the universal sign of distress. "Can I use your phone?"

His smile took on a layer of sympathy. "Of course. Come on in."

I stepped inside. It certainly wasn't impossible to get a phone, but it was one of those things intruders rarely bothered with. Then again, most of them rented motel rooms or lived out of vans. This guy had a house.

His black shoes sat on a carpet in front of the closet by the door. Hardwood floors stretched wall to wall. The place smelled lived-in. Mail on the coffee table. I blinked, snapping pictures through my pupils. The letters were addressed to David Prince. The name rang no bells. Only an idiot would use his Primetime name offworld, but I'd crosscheck later. But the fact he got mail at all meant he was almost certainly normal. Not normal-normal; he had, after all, walked several blocks to a hardware store in his suit. But he belonged.

"Phone's right over here." He led me to the kitchen. An antique phone hung from the wall.

"Got a yellow pages?" I said.

He smiled, opened a cabinet, and handed me a book. The name on its address label matched the letters on the coffee table. I pawed over to automotive, then glanced at his tie, as if just now noticing his upscale dress.

"Am I interrupting? Are you expecting guests?"

David waved his hands. "No, go right ahead. I work from home. When I started up full-time, I learned I got a lot more done if I put on a suit rather than hanging out in sweatpants all day."

I laughed and ran my finger down the list of phone numbers. "What do you do?"

"Computers."

"Software?"

He shrugged. "Started out there. Security and data retrieval. But lately I've gotten into making desks." He honked with laughter. "What can I say. The money's not half as good, but it's twice as fun."

"You don't say." I dialed up one of the auto places, who told me they'd send a truck around, but that it could be an hour and they wouldn't be able to take a look at the car until tomorrow morning. I agreed to everything and hung up. "Know what, I'm going to take another poke at it myself."

David smiled. "Need a hand?"

"I'll be fine. Thanks so much."

He saw me outside. I waved and bent over the engine. The front door closed. I jiggled the wires around, putting on a show, then got in and tried to turn it over, getting nothing. I fiddled around with the engine some more, then reconnected the fuse, drove back to the motel, called up the garage, and canceled the tow truck.

I opened my laptop, fed in the name "David Prince" and the pictures I'd taken of his face. I got no hits on either. That didn't rule him out completely—my database was only a collection of Central employees, known criminals, and a few private tech workers—but the man felt legit. He had a house. A phone. Got bills. He didn't talk like someone from Primetime, either. No modern slang. Had the archaic cadence of the late 20th century. He was a dead end.

I burned a few hours comparing pictures from the park to my database, then drove past the Jasos' and parked at the end of the block to watch the night. A truck banged past at dawn, jolting me awake. My heart jumped. Sleeping in a car by the curb was the sort of thing that got you talked to by cops. Cops usually weren't big fans of people who couldn't prove they existed. I glanced at the house. All quiet. I went back to the motel.

I'd been spending too much time watching from too close. I might already have spooked the killer. I headed to the park to people-watch and think things through.

I spread my book on my lap. Early yellow light gleamed on the cold morning dew. I'd been here a couple days. Seen the boy. His routines. He led a very average life. Go to school, go home, the park, errands with mom. According to the news the Pod had sent with me, on the day of the event, Stephen Jaso would go to school in the morning and never come home. On my laptop, I had news reports stretching years after the killing, but no one had ever figured out exactly when Stephen disappeared. His teacher wouldn't remember whether she'd seen him after lunch—would he be taken at recess? When school let out? In front of his house when the bus dropped him off? A couple of classmates would tell police he'd gotten on the bus, but one girl would claim he hadn't. Would he wander away after school and be taken then?

Whatever would happen, it centered around the school. It was time to stop following the victim and try to circle around to the killer.

As long as I was in the park, I took pictures of everyone there, then drove back to the motel and pawed through the phone book for the school district. The woman on the other end informed me it would take 5-10 business days to process and mail the records.

Wonderful. That would only leave the boy dead for two to seven days. I checked the map at the front of the phone book and drove to the county seat forty minutes outside town. The land was dry and earth-toned, pale green sagebrush speckling hills of yellow grass and brown-gray dirt.

The seat was a quaint farm town and I found the district office in just a couple minutes. The receptionist went to pull and copy the files while I sat in the little lobby reading the sports section. Griffey, Jr. wanted a trade. The woman brought back my papers and I thanked her and drove back across the desert to the cities on the river.

I stopped at a gas station. It took me a minute to locate the fuel door release and a minute after that to understand I had to pay inside first. I gassed up and drove to the park, where I searched the list of school employees for everyone hired within the last few months. At Stephen's school, the list was just four names long. Kendra Wilkins, 26, aide. Ernesto Morales, 44, custodial. Nina Berks, 55, teacher. And Leonard Amsel, 34, administration.

The Berks woman sounded like a nonstarter, but the minute you start imposing patterns on your data is the minute you start losing victims. Berks was in the phone book. I drove by her place to give it a look. Her house was a little yellow place on the edge of town. Lawn ornaments of a man and woman bent over to garden, backsides showing above their pants. Wash lines in the back yard. Welcome sign with her name on it beside the front door. The paint was sun-faded and the wood was wind-worn.

Kendra Wilkins lived in the Oceanside Apartments in the middle of town. Shabby three-story walkups. Three Camaros in the parking lot. Window-mounted AC units. Housing where the residents stayed no longer than they had to. Lots of turnover. The sort of place an intruder could set up shop and then disappear without raising an eyebrow.

Leonard Amsel wasn't in the book. Ernesto Morales lived across the river. I drove across a white suspension bridge into a small downtown with bilingual signs fronting the shops. His house was an average place. Chain link fence. Grass was a little long. The phone book listed a wife, too, but I sat in my car and watched the house. An hour later, a shirtless kid ran out the front door, giggling, pursued by a grinning golden retriever. A woman came out the door and watched the dog tackle her child into the grass. She smiled.

A marriage can be as poisonous as anything else; it wasn't unheard of for Primetime couples to skip out together and have a little fun in the other worlds. But having kids? A cover job as a janitor? It wasn't impossible, but it would be obsessive. Diabolical. A cover story that would require the sacrifice of years of both their lives.

Even so. I popped the door, got out, walked a few blocks down the sidewalk, then looked around in obvious confusion.

"You lost?" Mrs. Morales called.

"Afraid so," I said. "Is the post office near here?"

"Oh yeah," she laughed. "You're lost."

She provided detailed directions. I thanked her, got in the car, and followed them. They led straight to the post office. I scratched the Moraleses off the list.

I drove back across the river. It was early afternoon. I waited until school got out, then called the front desk from a payphone and asked to be transferred to Kendra Wilkins. A moment later, an old woman picked up.

"Hello?"

"Who am I speaking to?" I said.

"Irene Kleitz. May I help you?"

The back of my neck tingled. I knew the name. She was Stephen Jaso's teacher. "I'm calling about Kendra."

"Yes?" A note of concern entered the woman's voice. "Are you a parent?"

"No," I scrambled. "An old friend. I think I am, anyway. Did she go to school around here?"

"High school?"

"Yeah."

"Oh yes, she's a local. Kannekut grad. Would you like me to leave her a message?"

"Kannekut," I said. "No, sorry. I have the wrong person."

I hung up. I watched the kids pile onto buses and their parents' cars. I couldn't keep hanging around the school like this. I don't care what era it is, people have never looked kindly on grown men hanging around elementary schools. I waited for Stephen to get on the bus, then drove off.

In just over four days, he would be snatched up, used up, and thrown away. My only real lead was Leonard Amsel. Besides him, the crime was a black box. Unless I made progress, I would have to play the dangerous game of sticking close enough to the boy to nab the killer while staying far enough back not to tip him off.

With that in mind, I didn't want to stroll right in and ask to see Amsel face to face. But this was an elementary school. An old one. Not a lot of young men in the workforce. I parked in the staff lot, keeping both eyes out for cops, got out to take pictures of every plate in the lot, then got back in my car to watch.

Teachers and aides filtered out to their cars. Almost all were women. A man walked out, smiling to his coworkers, but he wore a button-up shirt and his hair reached his collar. I was looking for admin. Suit. Tie. A proper haircut. I had brought my laptop with me, so I cracked it open to make it look like I was working rather than being a pedophile or a stalker or a man from the future whose job is so dangerous, time-consuming, and alienating that the only people he knows are other employees of the Cutting Room.

My mark walked out 45 minutes later. About my age, neat blond hair, blue suit, red tie. He got into a black Lexus and twiddled with the mirrors. I turned around in my seat, zoomed in on his plate, and winked, grabbing a picture. As he continued to fool with his mirrors, I closed my left eye and examined the pic. No plate. The car was brand-new.

My pulse picked up. The man backed out and pulled into the street. I gave him a few seconds before following. He swung onto the main drag, giving me plenty of cover in the mid-afternoon traffic. As the light went yellow, he darted into the left turn lane and accelerated through. I stopped for the light, jaw clenched. He didn't look back. With any luck, he had just sped up to make the light.

He pulled further and further away, passing a supermarket and a row of shops. Cars swept past, obscuring my sightlines. Traffic cleared and I glimpsed the tail of the black Lexus turning right and disappearing behind the buildings.

The light turned green. I headed down the road, slowing at the side streets, trying to see where he'd made his turn. A couple blocks past the supermarket, a right turn led to a trailer park.

I hung a right onto lumpy asphalt, drifting past the gravel drives. There was just one black Lexus in the park, set at the curb in front of a plain white trailer. No plates, papers taped to its rear window. A big white van hogged the driveway.

It fit. Jump through space, pick out a school in need of an immediate hire. An identity just robust enough to pass the basic tests. Rent a trailer, cash, no questions asked. Same with the car. It's all funny-money anyway. At school, pick out a mark, then take him away. It would require no more than a few weeks in total. Quick enough to jump back out before your lack of a background catches up with you.

I smiled. I had my killer.

But you never know until the act unfolds. When it comes to the timeline, first, do no harm: and killing an innocent man would wound this future in ways it would never recover from. I had to be positively, no-doubt certain. Yes: that meant exposing the Jaso boy to a certain amount of risk. But I had a place, a time, and a suspect. It doesn't get much safer than that.

The trailer park only had one entrance. I parked just down the block outside a laundromat and watched to see if Amsel would leave. If I could catch him sniffing around the Dumpsters, my case might be tight enough to yank him back to Primetime on the spot.

The sun drooped. So did my head. The only thing consistent about my sleep these days was that I wasn't getting enough of it. It was early evening. If Amsel was going to move, it wouldn't be until dark. That was when these people felt at home. I jogged around to the grocery store and bought cans of soda and a box of crackers. It's tough to fall asleep when you're crunching something between your teeth.

Evening retreated and night advanced. I nodded off around eleven, and then again around one. Traffic in and out of the trailer park was light. I didn't see the black Lexus or the white van leave or return. I fell asleep again and woke angry. This was pointless. You can only fight biology so long. I went back to the motel, set the alarm, and picked up a few hours of sleep before waking up to cruise past the Jasos' just in time for Stephen to get on the bus.

I spent the morning and early afternoon trying to dig up anything I could on Leonard Amsel. Prior to the web, this is never an easy task. Particularly when your goal is to interact with as few people as possible. Every touch in time leaves a ripple.

I dropped by the courthouse. Called the state colleges for a record of Amsel's attendance. Nothing. This was wholly circumstantial—he could be from out of state, or an alumnus of a private college—but wherever I looked, there was no trace of the man's history. He was as much a ghost as I was.