Story 2: Beyond the Pale

It was a miserable July night. The temperature hovered around eighty-five, and I’d sweated through my shirt. The badge pinned to that shirt said, “County Sheriff.” I’d been one for almost twenty years.

I usually don’t get called out at 3 AM. But tempers fray when the weather gets hot. And occasionally, one of our fine citizens gets it in his head to drink too much and touch up the wife.

Two of my guys responded to the call. When they got there, the moron chose to add an extra ten years to his sentence, by taking a shot at them. That was when they called me.

The red and blue flashers lit up the neighborhood; if a collection of dilapidated mobile homes could be called that. The gunman’s decrepit residence was mostly rust colored, with some of the siding coming off. There was no evidence of air conditioning, which might explain his attitude.

We were thinking about giving his pathetic little hotbox a lot of extra ventilation, just to flush the varmint out. But, killing innocent bystanders doesn’t sit well with the constituency; and our nine-mils would have gone through his place, and a couple of the neighbors.

Plus, the idiot’s wife was in there, and, she hadn’t given us convincing proof that we should take HER out of the gene pool. Even if, culling her husband would have been a service to humanity.

So, we just sat there in the heat, listening to the katydid’s and the sound of loud ranting inside. I suppose the dude regretted shooting at us. In fact, I imagine he was sorry he had even opened his third bottle of Jack.

I sighed and said, “We’re gonna be here forever if I don’t do something.”

I looked at both of my men and said, “Do you guys care whether he shot at you?” Both shook their heads “no.” So I took a deep breath and stood up. A shot went whistling over my head.

I yelled, “If you come out right now Melvin we are NOT going to charge you with shooting at us. If you take another shot, you are going to do hard time for a decade. If you hit me it’s going to be life. So, which is it? You have ten seconds to decide.”

There was a hesitation. Then the door of the trailer opened, and Melvin came out bleary eyed, unshaven and wearing a pitted-out wife beater. He was holding his hands up. I said, “Smart move buddy.” Then I grabbed him and handcuffed him. God! He stank!

I handed him to the two patrol officers and they threw him, none too gently, into the back of their cruiser. I said wearily, “You two get the wife’s statement and then lodge him.” They were on duty. I wasn’t.

I got into my cruiser and headed back down Wisconsin 121. It had been a bitch of a night and I wanted a couple more hours of rack time before the sun came up.

Geographically, Wisconsin sits between the Great Western Prairie, the frozen Canadian north and the dynamic mixing-bowl of the Great Lakes. So, it can get some seriously wild weather. The entire State had been smothered in a long stretch of hot summer days and we natives knew what that meant.

There would be the devil to pay when the weather broke.

My luck being what it was, the devil decided that the bill was overdue. All of my senses told me that the storm was coming, vision, smell, touch, and hearing. The hot humid wind picked up. The fast-moving air was charged with electricity. I thought to myself, “Great!!! Armageddon!”

The trailer park was outside Perkinstown. So, my route took me through the heavily forested Plain State Natural Area. I had just gotten on the bridge over Chequamegon Waters when the storm, which had been nothing more than flickering lightning in the distance, arrived with a vengeance.

There is nothing like being caught on a bridge over dark water in the middle of a thunderstorm. It’s terrifying. The first thing that happens are the wind gusts. Fortunately, my cruiser was built to police specs and it could take that kind of thing. But the wind still rocked it on its suspension.

Then the first fat drops arrived. Their impact sounded like I was running through a massive swarm of Wisconsin June Bugs. I slowed to 20 miles an hour as I re-entered the forest and turned on the wipers. They didn’t help. It was like driving through a car wash.

I was getting worried. My wipers were going full blast. But, I couldn’t see ten feet in front of me. Then the lightning started. It was a continuous sequence of forks, with strikes all around me in the forest. The noise of the thunder was calamitous. I couldn’t drive any further.

I’ve been a cop for three decades and I’ve faced a lot of scary situations. But sitting there alone, in THAT forest, was the worst I’ve ever experienced. The rain made it impossible to see and the constant flashes of lightning and deafening volleys of thunder lit up the area with a nightmare ambiance.

An atavistic feeling of dread crept over me. It probably hearkened back to the days when we lived in caves. We were the prey back then, not the hunters, and looming trees and impenetrable darkness hid a lot of terrifying things. I quickly found out just how true that premonition was.

I loved a woman once, and I knew that she loved me. I’d met her while I was looking into her murder.

Her murder? Well, that requires a little explanation.

I was a bright-eyed and bushy tailed Sheriff’s detective, married to an intelligent and beautiful woman. My wife, Janet, was everything you’d ever want in a wife, until she got into politics.

They say that power corrupts. Well, Janet was a case study. She hopped on the slippery slope and never got off. I was in on her bust. She got witness protection. I got a divorce.

After that, I vowed that I would never have anything to do with the treacherous creatures.

Then I stumbled on Mavis. In truth, I nearly ran her over. It was certainly NOT your classic boy-meets-girl situation. I was driving through the Nicolet Forest in the middle of the night. The setting was eerily similar to my present state-of-affairs. Except it was only raining hard, not the Apocalypse.

Mavis thought the year was 1946. So, naturally I took her to have her head examined. The local Doc certified that her belfry was totally bat-free, and she DID seem to know things that would make the local historical society jealous. Plus, she dressed and acted the part. Of course, there was no way her story made sense.

That is, until I began digging into it. After a couple of weeks, I found out a bunch of interesting things.

A woman named Mavis Pritchett had indeed disappeared in 1946. I subsequently learned that she had been murdered by one, Felix Wynn. How did I know that? Well, Wynn confessed to the crime. He did it while he was dropping dead at age 95. Meeting the person who you thought you’d murdered seventy years ago, can do that to a fellow’s heart.

The problem was that, while Wynn was in his nineties, Mavis was a stunningly beautiful raven haired blue eyed, fresh-faced twenty-five-year-old. That only added to her mystique.

Having solved the murder, I was left with what to do with Mavis.

Let me describe her. She is smart, spirited, genuinely funny, brave and deeply loving. She can cook like Julia Child and fuck like Mata Hari on meth. The latter took place every evening of our life. So of course, I married her.

Oh yes, the child. Well you see, we kind-of conceived her early in our relationship. We were planning on getting married anyhow. So, the advent of little Ava was another blessing in a long line of wonderful things that happened to me.

Then, I spent nine years living with a person who was so excruciatingly beautiful and accomplished, in everything that make females a superior species, that I thought my heart would burst with happiness.

Instead, it broke.

There had always been the inconvenient fact that a person with Mavis’s name was a 1946 murder victim. That couldn’t possibly be MY Mavis. This one was wrapped in delectable corporeal flesh; and she was very much a part of the here and now. Hence, I filed all other options under the heading of, “alternative explanation required.”

That was until somebody dug up the long-buried body. I rushed home to find an empty house.

We utilized every investigative resource available. But, it was like Mavis had dropped off the face of the earth. Finally, I accepted the fact that she was gone forever. So, I held a memorial service for the body of a recently dug-up murder victim. Most people thought I was nuts. That is, except for four true friends.

The grave is still there, on the hill right next to the house. It is overseen by a marble angel and a grieving husband. But, life is a march or die proposition and I was afraid to die. So, I marched.

My nine-year-old daughter saved me. It was the love and devotion that I poured into Ava’s upbringing that kept me on the rails.

Ava makes me proud. At age twenty, she is the spitting image of her mother. A stunning young woman with a perfect body, honed by years of dance and a flawless face; which in Mavis’s case was so beautiful, that it drove an unbalanced man to murder.

Me? I’m still just a County Sheriff. I do my best. But people never see me smile. That is, unless they are with me on that lonely hill, when I am talking to my wife. They’d think I’d lost my mind if they heard me. But I sincerely believe I’m with her then.

I was parked in the middle of the road, waiting for nature to get the end of the world out of its system. My flashers were advertising my presence. There were a series of violent ground strikes and then the sky above the trees lit up with ball lightning.

What happened in the instant after that is a little hazy. I remember that the rain passed like somebody had pulled a curtain. And, I was looking down a rutted gravel road with a bright sunny sky over my head. That was deeply disturbing since the road was blacktop the last time I had seen it and the sky had been anything but tranquil.

I started the cruiser, put it into gear and bumped my way down the road. It took me almost an hour to get to the end of the forest. That was confusing in-and-of-itself. Since by my reckoning it was no more than a mile until I got into open country.

The road was gravel until I got to Wisconsin 73, which was narrow concrete now, instead of a broad two-lane State Road. Where was I?

I swiveled the laptop to call up the navigation program. But the browser wasn’t hooked to the internet. There was also no sign of the monster storm, that had just passed over me. That was puzzling? So, I turned south and started down 73 in a bright Wisconsin morning.

I felt like I had slept all night instead of spending most of it prying a drunken loser out of his squalid little home. My watch said it was 8:45. I didn’t recall the lost time. But I must have fallen asleep during the storm. That was the only way I could explain the gap.

The fields were full of corn, and I could see farmers on antique Ford tractors. There were none of the big combines and other farm equipment that I was used to seeing. Several of the people stopped to gape at the cruiser as I drove past. It was like they had never seen a Crown Vic before.

I got to Cadott and turned down State 27 headed for home. Everywhere I went people gawped at me. It was like I was driving a flying saucer.

I got to the Hot Spot, parked and went in for my morning cup of Joe. As I sat down, everybody but the waitress rushed to the window.

I looked around the diner. They must have remodeled the place. Because, it was laid out with stools along a counter and tables, not booths. It was like they were going for diner kitsch.

The waitress came over. She was new since the last time I’d been in. She said, “What can I get you Sheriff?” She’d noticed my uniform, badge and tool-belt; Glock 19, extra ammo pouch, pepper spray, handcuffs and Asp.

I said. “Coffee and eggs.” She turned to a kid who was hanging around behind the counter and said, “Get the Sheriff some coffee Dot.”

I thought, “That’s interesting the current owner’s name is Dot, too.”

The kid was very pretty and clearly smart. She was about 12, just starting to get a figure, and it promised to be a doozy. She got a cup down from a stack and poured the coffee out of an elaborate antique coffeepot. It looked like the kind you see in the old cartoons. That 1940s vibe just kept getting stronger.

The little girl said, “What’s that car you’re driving? It looks like a P-51?”

I’d never heard the stodgy old Crown Vic compared to a World War II fighter before. I said proudly, “It’s a Ford, a Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with the Apprehender package. It can do 150 miles an hour if I need it to.”

The girl’s eyes widened. She said excited, “Can I ride in it?” She was a feisty one indeed. She had also apparently never heard of child predators.

I said, “I’ll take you for a ride if your mother approves. But you should never get in a car with strangers.”

She turned to the waitress, who was obviously her mother, and bawled, “MAAAAA!! can I ride in the Sheriff’s car?”

The waitress laid my eggs down in front of me and said exasperated, “Stop bothering the man Dot. We need you here.” Then she turned to me and said, “That’ll be two bits.”

It took me a second to translate that into English. I said, “Do you mean an entire breakfast is a quarter?”

She said defensively, “We charge more because the food’s all fresh.”

As I dug a quarter out of my pocket, I thought, “They must be having some kind of promotion to advertise the new decor.” The waitress looked at the quarter and said, “Wait a minute, what’s this?”

I said, “It’s a quarter.”

She said, “No it isn’t. THIS is a quarter,” and she held up one of those old-fashioned ones, before they started putting the State stuff on the back.

I dug in my pocket and found an old one and said, “Are you a collector of old coins?” as I handed it to her.

The waitress said, “What are you talking about? This one is from this year.”

Her quarter had 1946 embossed on the bottom underneath Washington’s head!!

I had a moment of vertigo. I sat back down on the stool and said, “Wait a minute. What’s the date?”

The waitress looked at me like she thought that I was messing with her and said, “It’s July 29th.”

I said with growing unease, “What year?”

She thought I was joking. She laughed heartily and said, “The last time I checked it was 1946. Isn’t that right Dot?”

Dot giggled and said mischievously, “No I think it’s 1846.”

The reality of my situation was sinking in. This was the REAL Dot. I had last seen her a week ago. She was eighty-two years old!!

I hastily ate and left. Maybe one of the lightning strikes had gotten me. Maybe I’d had an aneurysm and was lying unconscious in the middle of the forest. Maybe I’d really been transported back to the 1940s? Whatever the circumstances, I was clearly NOT in Kansas anymore.

I should have been appalled. But, I’m a hard-headed practical man. The whys-and-wherefores of my situation were irrelevant to me. My only thought was that Mavis was still alive and I could save her!!

I had memorized every detail of the case. The murder didn’t occur until two days hence, on the 31st. Of course, I had a problem. In 1946, Mavis Pritchett was a total STRANGER.

I would deal with that later. But, first I had to get rid of the cruiser. The last thing I needed was for people to ask me questions, and the cruiser attracted too much attention. More important, I needed money. I had plenty of 21st Century cash. But I would’ve been washing dishes back in the diner, if I hadn’t dug up an old quarter.

I could kill two birds, with one stone, by selling the Crown Vic.

There was a garage in Fall Creek, which had been in constant operation since the 1930s. The garage was there all right. It looked well-to-do, and it was selling cars. I chuckled gleefully, “The owner ought to LOVE what I have to offer.”

I parked and opened the hood. Four men stirred from where they had been lounging to come over and stare. Then the guy who was clearly the owner came out. They all looked puzzled.

I was counting on the uniform and gear to establish my bonafides. The owner was a rawboned guy, tall and gaunt, with grease-stained overalls. He walked up to me, not too friendly, and said, “What can I do for you SHERIFF?” It was clear than none of them liked cops.

I said in my friendliest tones, “I’m looking to sell this fine automobile. The Department doesn’t need it anymore and I want somebody local to benefit from it. I’ll throw in the shotguns and the special radio for the right price.”

The owner looked skeptical. He said, “What is this thing anyway?”

I said, without batting an eye, “It’s a Lamborghini.” Even though the blue oval clearly said, “Ford.”

I added persuasively, “It’s an experimental car. The government gave it to us. They made it out of spare parts from one of their fighter planes.” Dot gave me THAT idea.

A lounger said, “How fast does it go Sheriff?”

I said, “It’ll do 150 at the top end. But you can drive it at 120 all day.” They all gasped in wonder. Since most of their passenger airplanes cruised under 200 miles an hour that was unheard of speed.

It was obvious that the owner wanted it so badly that his teeth hurt. He said, “What do you want for it?”

It had initially cost fifty-six thousand. I knew that I had to scale that back to 1940s prices. I said, “Five thousand.” I could tell I might as well have asked for fifty million.

The owner shrugged eloquently and started to walk away. I hastily added, “Okay, since you’re local I’ll let you have this fine automobile for two thousand cash, if you’ll throw in that little beauty over there.” I pointed at an immaculate blue 1940 Ford convertible.

Two thousand was a year’s salary, back then. But, the guy’s eyes lit up like he thought he was stealing the cruiser.

We rode down to the Fall Creek Bank. The owner spent the whole time playing with the shotguns racked in the front seat. I said irritably, “If you blow a hole in the roof, you’ve bought it anyhow.”

He said, “What’s that?” He was pointing at the laptop between us.

I said, “It’s an experimental radio that the government uses to monitor spies.” In the 21st Century’s world of electronic surveillance, that wasn’t really an exaggeration.

The owner withdrew twenty, one-hundred-dollar bills and handed me the money. We rode back. He handed me the title and keys to the Ford. I handed him the keys and signed the title for the cruiser. I was hoping he didn’t notice the year it was manufactured.

Then we shook hands and I drove away. Phase one was complete.

I needed a place to stay. So, I went back to the Hot Spot. Dot was standing at the counter polishing a soda glass. She said, “What happened to your car?”

I said, “I traded it in for something a lot cooler.” I was getting into that 1940s slang. Dot looked at the little roadster, which was sitting outside with its top down, and nodded approvingly.

I said, “Are there any boarding houses around here?”

She said, “Sure Sheriff. My mom runs one. Do you want me to show you?” And she rushed around the counter, grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out the door.

We walked over to the next block. Dot never let go of my hand. Did I detect a crush?

We arrived in front of one of those big, solid, stone, two story colonials. You see them all over the affluent parts of Wisconsin., Dot dragged me in, without ceremony.

Her mom had shed her waitress uniform and was standing there in a house dress, with her hair up in a bandana. She had obviously been cleaning. More importantly, she was a dead ringer for Eve Pederson, the Doc’s wife. Dot would soon look like her mother, whose name was Barbara, and Eve looked like Dot. So, apparently Swedish beauty ran in the family.

Dot said breezily, “The Sheriff needs a place to stay while he’s in town.”

Dot’s mom, said, “You can have a room and full board for five dollars a week. I know that sounds like a lot but I’m a good cook.”

I took out one of my hundreds. She looked at me like I had handed her a sack of gold doubloons. I said, “That’s five months in advance; in case I need it.”

I thought to myself, “Man, I’ve got to break one of these hundreds.”

I had one more chore to do before I went to find Mavis. That was, to get a toothbrush and some 1940s clothes. There was a haberdashery on Main street. It was next to the hardware store and just two blocks from my new residence. So, I walked there.

I have been in a lot of clothing stores. But, I have never been in one like that.

The clothes were in bins. There were none of the subtle marketing gimmicks, and the proprietor followed you around recommending things. It also had the board floor, musty smell and general appearance of a feed store, not a place with fine men’s accessories.

The proprietor was an older man, very well dressed and genteel by rural Wisconsin standards. He was talking in a neighborly way to an early thirties guy with a lot of dark hair and one of those pencil slim Clark Gable mustaches above his lip.

Both men were much smaller than I was. But, I had noticed that about almost all the men I had met so far. They scoped out my outfit and the one guy stuck out his hand and said, “Welcome to our town Sheriff. I’m William Morton, the town Doctor, and this is my friend Stanley Wilkes. Where’re you from?”

I took his hand, shook it and said, “My jurisdiction is a long way from here. I’m just in town to clear up the details of a murder case.”

Seriously??!! Well it was true. The jurisdiction was seventy years in the future and no murder was going to happen on my watch.

I was aware of the irony. If I prevented the murder, then the Mavis I would meet seventy years later would be in her nineties. But, I firmly believed that I was here for some reason and the only one I could think of, was to stop what was going to happen two days from now.

I loved Mavis with every fiber of my being. So, I didn’t want harm to come to her; no matter what the consequences were for me.

I gave a rueful smile and said, “My luggage got misplaced on the way here.” Yeah sure! By about seven decades.

I added chuckling, “I can’t wear this uniform all the time. So, I need some clothes to tide me over; just a couple of shirts and pants and other necessaries.”

The Doc provided a running commentary as his buddy helped me. People didn’t run to the doctor for every little thing back then. It was obvious that Doc had a lot of time on his hands.

He said, “We have a nice little town. People are really friendly. We haven’t had a Sheriff, since Orville Hickenlooper died, and we could sure use one. When you get your murder case resolved, you ought to think about settling down here. I know they would be interested in hiring you.”

I was thinking, “If this isn’t a dream I might take him up on his offer.”

The total cost for three short-sleeved plaid shirts, a week’s supply of boxers and two pairs of khaki pants was almost twenty-four bucks. I paid the man with one of my hundreds. He looked nonplussed. The Doc said kindly, “Why don’t I take you to our bank and we can break that for you.”

So, he escorted me up the street to the bank. The main thing I noticed about the bank was the lack of electronics; no ATM’s, no workstations, no screens in the teller’s cages, just ledgers and cash drawers. The other thing was the small-town hominess. Everybody knew everybody else, and there was a lot of joshing. It was like a family restaurant. Not the sterile bank atmosphere I’m used to.

I broke the first hundred and got a bunch of change for another. The Doc chattered all the way down and back about what a nice town this was. It really wasn’t a whole lot different than it was in the next Century. There were a few missing buildings and more open lots and alleys. But the general shape of the place was completely familiar.

The haberdashery guy actually wrapped my purchases in paper and tied a string around them. I said “thanks” and was carrying them out the door, when I ran smack-dab into my destiny.

Mavis was rushing up the street. She had her eyes down and she looked a little upset. The door of the haberdashery opened directly onto the sidewalk and I didn’t see her coming. So, I stepped out and we collided.

I’m six-two. She’s five-two. You can imagine who won THAT encounter. I grabbed her by both arms to keep her from falling into the street. Then I swung her back to face me.

She looked into my eyes and I could feel the energy crackle across seven decades. She could too. She looked astonished, as well as horrified.

I had the advantage. All Mavis saw was a big intimidating lawman in a Smokey the Bear hat; tools of the trade strapped to his waist. But, I had lived with her as my beloved wife and the mother of my child for almost ten years.

Still, I couldn’t exactly whip out the wedding album. It was far too early. I said formally, “Pardon me Miss.”

She just stood there staring at me mouth open, with those incredible china blue eyes registering a firestorm of emotion. I was getting emotional myself. I had loved her, and fate had snatched her away. But, I’m pragmatic enough to hold onto my cards. My only aim was to snatch her back.

I said, trying to keep what I was feeling out of my voice, “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”

I resisted the urge to throw her over my shoulder and head for the nearest Justice of the Peace.

She shook herself like a dog drying itself and said hesitantly, “I don’t believe so Sheriff.”

It was obvious she thought that she knew me too. But, she ALSO felt it was prudent to keep her cards close to her delectable chest.

Just as Mavis said that, a greasy little pretty-boy, complete with cupid-bow lips and a genuine Elvis hairdo, grabbed her by the arm and said, “What are you doin’ talking to this guy Mavis. You’re my girl.”

The condescension and possessiveness in his voice almost made me reach for my Asp. She said, “Don’t flip your wig. I was just jawin’ with the Sheriff Jimmy.” Okay, they would probably think that our 21st Century argot was outlandish too.

He said, “Well you’d better get around to provin’ it or I might find myself another girl.” And he yanked her up the steps toward her apartment. She looked back longingly in my direction.

At that point the Doc came out. He watched the two of them enter the apartment. He said, That’s Jimmy Rawlins. He’s a no-good punk. But, his parents have money. She’s a beautiful girl. I don’t know what she’s doing hanging around with him. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”

Mavis respects strength in a man. So, she would gravitate toward anybody who appears decisive. Jimmy-boy was an arrogant little shit. So, I understood why she was with him. Of course, I planned to alter that arrangement.

I was just getting into the car when the sound of Mavis moaning wafted out the wide-open windows of her apartment. Air conditioning was a rarity in the forties. So, of course they would have the windows open.

I thought, “Great!! Just what I needed to hear.”

I had nothing to say about it YET. Technically I wouldn’t be born for another 27 years. But the sound of the love of my life making sexual music with another man just about killed me.

Dot rolled me out at 7:00 the next morning. I had slept like the dearly departed, in the cozy comfort of her mother’s house.

Dot said, “It’s Tuesday and I’m off today. So, you can take me for a ride in your little car.” I loved her chutzpah.

I said, “What does your mother think about that?”

Dot laughed and said, “She thinks you’re great. Maybe you can be my OTHER daddy.”

I laughingly said, “Out!! You already have one!!”

Her dad was an older Swedish man whose English was questionable. But who clearly doted on his daughter. I think all of that unconditional love was what made Dot so spirited.

Breakfast was at the Hot Spot. It was one of the perks of being a lodger. Dot and I were just finishing up when Jimmy and Mavis walked in and sat at a nearby table.

Dot went over and joined them. She was excitedly telling Mavis about the day that we had planned.

Jimmy looked like he was channeling James Dean’s character in, “Rebel Without a Cause.” But in his case, the impression was more like, “Rebel Without a Clue.”

He was wearing the uniform, of the 1940s punk; white t-shirt, with a pack of Lucky’s rolled up in one sleeve, a pair of the old fashioned heavy blue jeans and motorcycle boots. His thick black hair was carefully styled into an oily waterfall over his forehead. The grease was slowly oozing down his nose.

Mavis loves children. I already knew that. She was a fantastic mom in another realm. She was animatedly talking to Dot, while she was longingly eying ME. She still looked confused. I didn’t blame her. I was no better off than she was.

Dot was chattering about her day, when Fuckface decided that it was time to be an asshole. He grabbed Mavis and swung her around in her chair. He said angrily, “Stop talking to that brat. You’re supposed to be with me. I don’t tolerate disrespect from my woman.”