Beyond This Time: A Time-Travel Suspense Novel (42 page)

Timothy Biggers had two men in his rifle sights.

“Those must hurt like a bitch,” Biggers said, referring to the glass shards embedded in Mitch’s shoulder. “When things settle down a bit I’ll take a look.”

Mitch pointed to the shattered front of the building. Sheets of hard driving rain blew in through the gaping hole; the entire foyer was fast becoming a small lake. “Looks lie you have lake front property now, Timothy.”

“Damn fools tried to blow my place up.”

The two men seated on the couch glared at the doctor and Billy Lee bared his teeth. But neither moved an inch.

“Is it safe to assume they are now having second thoughts?” Mitch asked.

“Ain’t none your business, Yankee boy,” Billy Lee snarled.

“Well hell, if it ain’t a small world,” Mitch said. “Hello, Mr. Mitchell.”

“I shoulda known you’d be rubbin’ noses with Dr. Nigger.”

“I’m confused, maybe you can clear things up, Billy Lee. You and your pal did a job on the door, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“I mean, you had the dynamite and the balls to blow this place to kingdom come. Right?”

“Yeah,” Billy Lee said warily.

“So, then why are you two sitting on the sofa with a gun in your faces and not the doctor?”

“Fuck you, Yankee boy.”

Mitch turned to Biggers. “I just love the Southern gentry. Such a classy way of speaking.”

“We take pride in our boys down here,” Biggers said. “They can go anywhere in the world and be immediately recognized as a racist jackass.”

“Fuck you, Dr. Nigger,” Billy Lee snarled.

“A limited vocabulary,” Mitch said. “But for a jackass, I guess it’s impressive.”

“Best if you shut up right now,” Billy Lee said. “And even better if you’d high tail it north, ‘cause I ain’t gonna be sitting here much longer.”

Mitch laughed harshly. “Truer words were never spoken, old man. But I have a couple of people waiting outside  who I need to take care of before my time’s up.”

Billy Lee jerked his head around and looked out the window. “Goddamn it! That’s my car out there and my—”

“And your wife and daughter.”

Before Billy Lee could respond to Mitch’s taunting, Lamar barreled down the staircase. He nearly went head first into the wall before he performed a skidding about-face on the wet hardwood. His saucer eyes panned across the group in the waiting area. When he saw Billy Lee’s bloody arm, his face turned gray.

“Mr. Mitch,” Lamar wheezed. “She done went and killed him.”

Mitch and Biggers exchanged glances. “We better get up there,” Mitch said.

“First we have to lock those sons-a-bitches in the closet,” Biggers said. “I keep the key in the door lock all the time.”

“I’m bleedin’ to death here,” Billy Lee complained. “You can’t lock me up in this condition.”

Biggers picked up a wet roll of gauze dressing from the floor. “Wrap this around your arm,” he said, throwing the sopping mess across the room.

“This ain’t even dry. Or clean,” Billy Lee complained, as he squeezed the water from the gauze roll.

“Then you better pray you don’t get gangrene,” Biggers said.

Mitch ended their conversation with a couple of prods from the business end of his .38. “Get up and move,
slowly
, over to the exam room.”

“That nigger loving son-of-a-bitch ought to fix my arm. He’s the doc—”

“Billy Lee, if I was in your shoes, all shot up and bleeding, I’d keep my mouth shut,” Mitch advised.

“But he—”

“And I’d shut it right now.” Mitch opened the closet and forced them inside. It was a tight fit, barely enough room to breathe, but it would hold them for a few minutes. “Get your pal to help you with the bandage. I hear he’s good at tying people up.” He slammed the door and turned the key, then tossed it on the exam table.

* * *

The second floor could have been mistaken for a mausoleum. The silence heavy and foreboding. Rain ticked against the big bathroom window, green leaves and red rose petals clung to the glass. Biggers and Mitch turned right at the top of the stairs then stopped.

“You wait here, Lamar,” Mitch said.

“That’s what I’m gonna do. I don’t never want to go back in there,” the boy said. “I already seen too much blood.”

“Go sit in my office, son,” Biggers said. “I’ll come fetch you in a bit.”

Lamar nodded and quickly walked away.

“Ready?” Mitch asked. Biggers nodded and they cautiously approached the corner room.

Mitch took point and entered first.

Lettie Ruth and Pastor Gordon stood to his left, in front of the television set, their faces were mirrors of the horror they’d witnessed.

Kat sat against the wall to his right, near the door. Her revolver, held in a two-hand grip, pointed toward a shaken Little Carl seated on the sofa.

“What’s going on, Kat?” Mitch asked, his voice low and level. When Biggers tried to go around him, he held up a hand. “Wait up,” he whispered.

“Got one of ‘em,” she said, her voice devoid of all emotion.

The blank look on her face made Mitch think twice about walking in front of the loaded weapon. He didn’t know if she was fully cognizant of her surroundings, or if she even recognized him.

“Okay if I take a look?” he asked. When Kat nodded her permission, he crossed the room. From the front, Floyd looked as though he were sleeping, but closer inspection of the back of his head told an entirely different story.

“Crazy nigger bitch blew Floyd’s head off,” Little Carl bleated. He sat erect on the sofa, a thin white rope looped around his wrists. Mitch doubted it would hold for more than two seconds if he really wanted to escape.

The .45 sounded like an indoor thunderclap. The bullet dug into the sofa, hunks of cushion foam floated in the air. Kat’s face remained impassive, as though her actions were controlled by an outside force.

“Hey, partner,” Mitch said, hoping his voice and words could shake her out of the trance-like state and back into this reality. And get her finger off the trigger. “That one hit a little close to me.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m just gettin’ so damn tired of being called a nigger.”

Mitch walked over and squatted beside her. “I think you’ve got these boys pretty much in line. How about you hand over your weapon?”

Kat shook her head.

He took a deep breath, trying to maintain an even keel. She was so close to the edge she might as well have already jumped off. “What’s next?” he asked, eyes on her trigger finger, anticipating the next twitch. “You plan on taking both these guys out?”

Her eyes shifted in his direction.

In the brief flicker of inattention, Little Carl, ropes flying, launched himself across Floyd’s corpse.

Kat nailed him in mid-air.

Too late, Mitch rammed his shoulder into her, knocking her sideways. He wrenched the gun from her hand.

“That’s two,” she said coldly.

This time Biggers didn’t stop at the door. He knelt beside Little Carl, trying to staunch the blood gushing from his mid-section.

Lettie Rose flung open the closet and grabbed several boxes. In a few seconds she and the doctor were working together like a well-oiled machine.

The discarded medical supplies and bloody bandages multiplied rapidly. To Mitch’s untrained eye it seemed they were losing the battle.

“That’s it,” Biggers said, after a few more moments of frantic activity. “Nothing more to be done for him.”

Mitch closed his eyes. Two dead men. Make that two dead
white
men, he thought, killed by a black woman. Jesus H, things had gone wrong. And then some. Nothing made sense to him anymore. The past was fast becoming the future and vice versa. Dear God, he wanted to go home.

Kat pulled the Arson/Fatality sheet out of her pocket and unfolded it. She looked up and smiled.

And it frightened him more than anything he’d ever seen.

“See?” she said, pointing to the paper.

He leaned over. “See what, partner?” He would rather stare at the damn list for the rest of eternity than look in her dead eyes or see that ghoulish smile again.

“Everything’s all right again. Lettie Ruth is still alive.”

“What?”

“Just look.”

So he did.

At first Mitch didn’t understand what he saw. It was true, all the newest entries for April 7 were gone. But Floyd and Little Carl weren’t on the list. Why not? If Kat’s theory was to be believed, she was the eye of the hurricane and that particular hurricane had just blown away two full-grown men. So why didn’t their names show up?

The list now ended with Louis Smith. Time of death: 06:45 PM.

Kat looked at her watch. “ It’s 6:44 We can go home in one minute, Mitch,” she said.

Louis Smith
! He’d left him locked in the downstairs closet with Billy Lee. And he hadn’t searched either one. Mitch felt incredibly stupid, of course his father would be carrying—his type always did.

He jumped up and started running. He took the stairs two at a time, halfway down his foot slipped on the explosion debris and he tumbled to the bottom. Dazed, he lay motionless outside the exam room.

Inside, the sound of gunfire.

Back on his feet, he skidded around the corner. Grabbed the skeleton key off the exam table. He fumbled with it, but it wouldn’t fit in the lock. Frustrated, Mitch flung open cupboards and drawers until he found a red handle screwdriver. Returning to the closet he shoved it between the door and the strike plate. The old wood cracked and he yanked the closet open.

Louis Smith tumbled out. Thrown off balance, Mitch struggled with the body.

Revolver cradled in the palm of his hand, Billy Lee Mitchell swung.

Mitch didn’t have time to duck, the blow struck him in the temple and he fell backwards. Through a red curtain he saw his father race from the room.

* * *

Lettie Ruth secured the square gauze pad over the stitches in Timothy’s cheek with surgical tape, then leaned over and whispered in his ear, “What are we goin’ to do?” She didn’t want the Gordon’s or Alvin to hear any more than necessary. In fact, they already knew more than she liked.

Biggers shook his head. “I’m not thinking clear enough just yet.”

She stole a glance at the three bodies laid out in the exam room floor. “Folks is gonna be looking for those boys,” she said, a slight tremor in her voice.

He inclined his head toward the waiting area.

Through the open door she saw Kat lying on the sofa, knees drawn up to her chest. The girl’s eyes were squeezed shut.

“That one’s not in too good shape either,” he said.

“Maybe it’s best for now,” Lettie Ruth said. “That child’s faced more than her share of troubles, that’s for sure. How much can a person be expected to bear?”