Killing Time (18 page)

That was what she loved most about Byron, the fact that he
listened
to her and didn’t discount her feelings. Since Rebecca’s death, she had lived in such an emotional desert that the attention he paid her was like water being poured on parched skin; she soaked it up, reveled in it, bloomed in his presence, and when she was away from him, he was all she could think about.

She made a wry face. “Rebecca would likely fuss at him for waiting this long. They were good together; it was like they were two halves of a whole. They fit perfectly. She would want him to be happy. That makes me feel so selfish, but—”

“But?” he prompted, when she was silent for a moment.

“I feel as if I’ve lost him, too. He tried so hard to bring her back. The medics told me that when they got there, he was so exhausted from doing CPR that he just rolled over on his back; he couldn’t even get up. And he was crying. Until now, it was as if we
shared
this—this emptiness where she had been. As if I didn’t have to bear it alone.”

He paused, then delicately asked, “Your husband doesn’t—?”

She laughed, the sound bitter. “Oh, he cried, but when she was buried, that same night he went out looking to get laid. If he grieved, he showed it by doing what he’s always done, chasing after every woman who’ll look at him.”

Byron’s hand moved gently on her belly. “I would say I’m sorry, but if he were a perfect husband, then you wouldn’t be here with me. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you before he did, but would it be terrible if I admitted that I’m glad you’ve been unhappy with him?”

She gave him a tender smile. “No, it isn’t terrible. It’s honest. And flattering.” Ruth snuggled close to him, turning so she could curl one arm over his shoulder and touch his hair. She loved touching him. Until Byron, she had gone so long without touching and being touched, without love or sex or any combination of the two, that she had felt like a virgin going into his arms. Everything had been new, and frightening; she had been so nervous that she hadn’t been as ready as she might have been, and the first time had been a little painful, just as if she truly had been untouched.

To tell the truth, she had never felt like a very sexual woman; she had gone for security instead of love, and shut down those feelings. The choices she’d made had given her Rebecca, but when her daughter died, she had been left empty and bitter. All her days had passed in bleak sameness, without hope, until she’d met Byron. He had given her the affection for which she was starved, but even more, he’d given her a reason to live, to undo the pain and loss of the past.

There were a lot of things she liked about him. For one, he wasn’t local. When they met, it wasn’t in Pekesville, but in the next county to the west, so she didn’t have to worry about running into someone she knew. To some people the next county might be considered local, but she’d lived in Pekesville her entire life and never traveled much at all, so local meant something different to her.

He wasn’t a tall man, only a few inches taller than she, and Ruth found she liked that. They fit together very well, and Edward was a tall man, so she was glad that nothing about Byron reminded her of her husband—except that they both had penises, of course, but the way they used them was very different. Edward had always been sexually selfish; Byron was the opposite, kind and patient in bed, willing to give her satisfaction no matter how long it took, or how. He didn’t seem to think his penis was the sole purveyor of pleasure; he loved her with his entire body.

He was younger than she, almost six years younger. She enjoyed that, too; it was a subtle stroke to her ego that she hadn’t known she needed. Byron liked books, and movies, and taking quiet walks during which he held her hand almost the entire time. He would occasionally, and absently, lift her hand and kiss it, a spontaneous and unconscious giving of affection that almost made her burst into tears the first time he did it. He liked talking to her, and he was intelligent. He had theories and experiments that he explained to her, demonstrated to her, showing how much he appreciated her own intelligence. There were some details she didn’t quite understand yet, but at this point she trusted him implicitly. If he told her something would work, she believed him.

“Who was the woman you saw with Davis?” he murmured against her temple. “Do you know her?”

“No, I’d never seen her before. She’s some blond named Tina. He introduced us, but didn’t mention her last name. They were in Wal-Mart, shopping—before eight this morning. I think they’d spent the night together.”

“Because they were at Wal-Mart?” he asked, his brows wrinkling in confusion.

“No, because they were shopping
together
at Wal-Mart before eight, and she was buying clothes and underwear, makeup, ordinary stuff like that. You might run into the store that early to pick up one item that you’re out of and need, but you don’t go
shopping,
especially together. I think she spent the night with him, and didn’t have what she needed this morning, so they went out to buy it.”

“But why wouldn’t she just go to her home?” He still had that confused look.

“I don’t know.” That solution did make more sense. “Maybe she doesn’t live here. But in that case, why would she be with Knox? Why wouldn’t she just drive her own car to the store? I mean, she would have to go home and get her car before going to work, or she’d be stranded. So there was no need to go shopping if he was taking her home anyway. That doesn’t make sense.”

Byron was really frowning now, the way he did when he was working out equations on his computer. “What did you say her name was?”

“Tina. Why?”

“And she’s blond?”

“Do you know a blond named Tina?”

“No, nothing like that. I was wondering . . . that woman he was with yesterday . . . supposedly she left town.”

“Yes. Jason MacFarland said that Knox told him she’d decided their cases weren’t connected after all, so there was no reason to stay.”

His brown eyes were kind as he stroked her hair. “But we know she wouldn’t have said any such thing, don’t we? She wouldn’t leave, because Pekesville is where she needs to be. She and Knox spent a long time together yesterday. And it’s very easy to change one’s hair color, after all.”

Ruth gasped in horror, sitting up in bed and twisting around to stare at him. “You think that Tina is— Are you certain?”

“No. I’ll have to see her before I can tell. But I think there’s a good chance she’s the same person, don’t you?” He smiled. “If so, then knowing that’s to our advantage. If you know where Knox lives, I can set up surveillance on the house. We’ll know the truth very soon.”

19

In less than an hour Nikita had gotten all the names of the city councilmen and county commissioners in 1985; because she had time on her hands and was nothing but thorough anyway, she also pulled up the article reporting the suicide of Howard Easley. The reporter, Max Browning, had nicely captured the shock and grief of the high school students and his fellow teachers, but especially that of the football team. Coach Easley had been a popular man. A sidebar listed the symptoms of depression, and warning signs of suicide. The obituary told where he’d been born and gone to college, how long he’d been coaching, where he went to church.

The list of pallbearers was interesting, in that some of the councilmen and commissioners mentioned in Nikita’s list of names had carried Coach Easley to his final resting place. She made a copy of the obituary and article for Knox to read. She couldn’t think how it would be relevant, but Knox had lived here most of his life and he might notice something amiss that went completely over her head.

Her official work finished, Nikita then spent a very happy couple of hours wandering the stacks. She slipped her miniature camera out of her bag and very discreetly filmed things she thought would be of interest in her time. The camera needed no additional light to take high-quality photographs, and the entire mechanism—indeed, everything she had brought with her—was specially made to mimic organic compounds in composition, so it would transit between times.

That human beings were carbon-based life-forms had greatly complicated matters for the scientists when they were working out the theories and practical applications of time travel. The matter of clothing was the easiest, because after all the fabric didn’t have to
do
anything except hold together and provide reasonable covering. Adapting all their technology to time travel had been even more difficult than transiting the human body. In the original experiments, often the machinery casings would survive but the working parts of whatever equipment they’d used for the experiment would simply be fried—and that was the best-case scenario. Sometimes they were simply gone. Whether they materialized in another time and place was anyone’s guess.

So her laser pen, the DNA scanner, her clothing, her camera, her EN—all of it was made to mimic organic material on the molecular level.

So how had the spear been brought through time?

The thought sent shock waves through her brain. Why hadn’t this occurred to her before?

The spear in the museum had predated time travel, and the spear had been stolen. When McElroy had reported that he’d seen Taylor Allen murdered with a spear, and that he’d tracked the UT to the Allen house, what else were they to think other than that the spear was the same one, used because of its symbolic value to the ATT—anti-time-travel—groups.

So if it predated time travel and had been succesfully transited, what had it been made from? Not wood and steel; wood traveled well, but steel wasn’t organic. At any rate, when China had been mass-producing the spears, they hadn’t been using steel and wood. They had used ceramics and other materials, none of which had come from a living organism.

The only conclusion she could draw was that the spear used to kill Allen hadn’t come from the future, that in fact it was contemporary. And if it was contemporary, then it was traceable.

But why would the UT go to the trouble of finding a spear and using it to kill Taylor Allen if it didn’t have symbolic value and he wasn’t using it to make a statement? There were much easier ways for him to kill, such as by a laser, if he had access to laser weaponry, and if he had access to the Transit Laboratory, then it was at least feasible that he could get a laser weapon, as they were easier to attain than entry to the lab. Or, failing that, he could have acquired a weapon here; the gunpowder-propelled bullets were very efficient.

No, the spear had been used for a reason, but what? And a spear had been stolen from the museum. The coincidence was too large for her to ignore; it had to have some significance.

She sat down at a secluded table and took out her EN. Flipping it open, she began writing on the screen, muttering under her breath to herself as she did so.

“Did you find the names okay?”

She jumped, and the stylus flew from her hand to roll across the floor and under a stack of books.

Knox got on his hands and knees to retrieve it, his amusement plain on his face. “You were concentrating pretty hard on something,” he commented, “to not hear me walking up.”

“Sit down,” she said urgently, indicating the chair beside her.

He lifted his eyebrows in question, but obediently sat. “What’s up? Did you find something?”

“Not in the newspapers, if that’s what you mean. I did get the names, but something else occurred to me.” She bent her head close to his. “The spear. It
couldn’t
have come from my time.” She kept her voice low, almost whispering; the library was still sparsely populated, but as the morning had grown old, more and more people were coming in.

The eyebrows went up again. “How do you figure that?” Then his eyes narrowed, and she could practically see the thoughts churning in his head. “Organic. You said things have to be organic, or mimic an organic compound.”

“That’s right, and the spears that were in the museum were made before time travel, so the technology didn’t exist to manufacture them out of materials that would transit even if someone had wanted to waste the money making them. If I remember correctly, the spears in the museum had fiberglass shafts, and the spearhead was ceramic.”

“Looked like wood to me. The shaft did, that is. The head was buried in Taylor Allen’s back.”

“No, I’ve seen those spears. The shafts in no way resemble wood.”

“Then our spear didn’t come from your museum.”

“A spear was stolen from the museum,” she said slowly, running through the facts in her mind and trying to put them into a plausible scenario. “When McElroy reported that Allen was killed with a spear, it was a logical conclusion that the stolen spear had been used.”

“Wouldn’t everyone know it couldn’t have been the stolen spear?”

“Only if they’d seen the collection. If a spear was reported stolen and then an agent says a spear was used to commit murder in the time that developed the beginning technology for time travel, in the place
where
it was developed, and if the stolen spear would have had a symbolic value to the ATT groups, then it would be eminently logical to assume the UT had stolen that spear and transited with it in order to kill the person who supposedly was the beginning of it all.”

“Whoa,” he said. “You’re talking too fast, and I think that was all one sentence. Back up, and slow down.”

Nikita took a deep breath, containing her impatience. More slowly, mimicking his cadence, she repeated the salient points.

“Okay, got it,” he said. “So this other agent, McElroy, wouldn’t have known what the stolen spear looked like?”

“Not necessarily, no. I’ve spent a lot of time in museums because of the extra studies I undertook.”

“I can see how the conclusion was drawn. Probably by your time everyone is so accustomed to the organic-only rule that it never occurred to anyone to check what the spear was made of.”

She nodded. “It’s also general knowledge, not security-coded.”

“Then why use a spear that has no significance? There are easier ways to kill someone. Why not just shoot him?”

“Exactly my thoughts. The only thing that makes sense is if someone
wants
us to think it’s one of the ATT groups. Someone went to the trouble to steal the spear in my time, and either locate or manufacture a spear in this time. But . . .
why
? If it’s an ATT group, they don’t have to use a spear, they can just do the murder and claim credit. It’s as if the spear was used to deliberately convince us the murder was committed by an ATT group.”

“Slow down,” he cautioned. “I must be listening faster, though, because I caught the gist of that. It looks as if someone in your time is either trying to destroy the ATT groups by stirring up big-time action against them, or is diverting attention away from themselves.”

“But who, and what would be the benefit?” She was silent a moment, then said, “The ‘who’ is obviously someone in the FBI, possibly even my own unit. We know that. But what would be the point, unless whoever it is holds a personal grudge against someone in an ATT, and in any event why kill innocent people because of it? Why send your own people in to be killed?”

“Because he has to,” Knox said slowly, thinking hard. “Sending agents in is what he would normally do, so he can’t deviate from that norm without attracting attention. But he somehow warns his accomplice, so the agents are either stymied or killed. My guess is McElroy must not be a top-notch investigator, because he never got close to this guy or he wouldn’t have gotten out alive.”

“It has to be one of my superiors.” Nikita wondered if she looked as pale as she felt. “I would imagine the Transit Lab has been taken under FBI control for the duration of this mission, which would make it easier for this person to perhaps send information back, or even transit himself if direct communication was needed.”

“Have you thought the killings may not have anything to do with the time-travel technology? If the spear is a diversion, the reasoning behind it may be, too.”

“Your time capsule was stolen,” she pointed out. “By someone who traveled from my time to take it. But why take it if not for safekeeping?”

“You’re assuming a good guy has it.”

“I’m still here,” she said simply.

Again he thought hard as he stared at her. “If the contents of the capsule had been destroyed, and if something in there was crucial to the development of the technology, then time travel wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t be here.”

“Exactly. As long as I’m here, the paper or whatever still exists.”

He looked horrified. “You mean I could be in the middle of kissing you and you’d, like . . . wink out?”

“Theoretically.”

“Damn, don’t do that! I’d have heart failure.”

“
If
you were kissing me, which you won’t be.”

“Don’t be so sure of that. But think: who, other than the ATT groups, want to prevent time travel from happening? What’s the benefit? And why kill both Taylor Allen and Mayor Forbes, neither of whom would have known anything about time travel? Hell, from what I know about the old mayor, he wouldn’t have admitted time travel existed even if someone vaporized on top of his ass. He didn’t think the moon landing was real, either.”

Nikita blinked in astonishment. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he said, raising his right hand in silent oath.

She was silent for a moment as she grappled with the magnitude of such denial in the face of a virtual avalanche of facts.

“Some people still think the earth is flat,” he added.

“I’ve heard of them. They’re in our history books. When our first colony on the moon was established, one of the Society’s leaders was taken there. He was convinced, but his followers weren’t. For a long time they still insisted it was a stage set, that he hadn’t really been on the moon.”

“How were they finally convinced?”

“The pope went.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his face turning red. Abruptly he got up and walked at a fast clip toward the public bathrooms, his shoulders heaving. He managed to contain himself until he actually got inside the bathroom, and the closing door muffled his whoop of laughter.

Nikita tilted her head. What was so funny about the pope going to the moon?

When he returned, his eyes were wet and his lips kept turning up in a smile. “Sorry,” he said in a strained tone. “It was just . . . I imagined him sitting in a rocket, wearing all his vestments . . .” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “He wore a space suit just like everyone else.”

Knox choked, and went back to the bathroom.

He was the most easily sidetracked person she’d ever seen, she thought. They could be having a serious discussion about the investigation and the next thing she knew she was explaining about how time travelers would arrive naked if they wore polyester.

While he was gone, she looked back at the notes she’d scribbled on her EN, and did some more thinking.
What was the benefit?
The why and the who were always tightly connected; find one, and you could find the other.

The killer—or killers, since there were certainly at least two, perhaps more—obviously hadn’t found what he was searching for, and he was working his way down the list of people who’d had anything to do with that time capsule.

Knox finally returned, and Nikita forestalled any more possible outbursts of hilarity by tapping the list of names. “Someone on this list is the killer’s next target. What can we do to keep them alive?”

That question wiped the last remnant of amusement from his expression. He stood looking down at the list, and he finally said, “Not a lot. There are too many of them. The sheriff’s department and the city police combined don’t have the manpower that would be needed. Several of them have already died”—he took his pen, leaned down, and drew lines through their names—“but that leaves twelve people. The best Sheriff Cutler could do would be to warn them. That’s if any one of them would believe someone was out to kill him because of a time capsule that was buried twenty years ago.”

“We have to interview them ourselves,” she said.

“Nope.
I
have to interview them.
You
have to stay out of sight. Agent Stover left town, remember? You’re Tina, my new live-in lover.”

“I don’t think so,” she said coolly.

“I know so.” He planted one hand on the table and the other on the back of her chair, leaning over her. “That’s exactly what Ruth was thinking at Wal-Mart this morning, and exactly the way we’ll act when we’re out in public. It’s the only way I can think of to keep you safe and keep you involved. The other option is for you to hide out somewhere.”

She stood so fast he had to straighten or have his head cracked. “Very well. But if you take advantage of the situation, the next time I have to hit you, I’ll break your jaw. That’s a promise.”