Corrector

by Blink, Bob

  Jake didn’t know or particularly care about the ideological questions about what he did. It could easily become overwhelmingly complicated if he tried to think too hard on the matter. He’d long ago decided he’d go with his gut feelings.

  “I’m glad there haven’t been any serious situations for a while,” Karin had said last night.

  He was glad as well. It had been pleasantly uneventful. One or two minor events he’d been able to resolve with minor tweaks to situations with no one getting hurt was all. There had been a couple of major tragedies overseas, but they were not of the kind he could personally affect, and they were too far away anyway. The team had tried though, and they had learned what he had seen in the past. There had been a major explosion in a factory in Australia that had killed over a hundred workers. Jake had tried to contact the factory and the local police there to warn of the impending [after he back-tracked] explosion, but he wasn’t believed and the interest was more on who he was and why he was calling in such a threat. The others had seen how much trouble he’d had. If any action was taken in response to his warning it wasn’t apparent, and the explosion had occurred when and where he’d said. Another case in Europe was similarly unrewarding.

  Jake had spent most of the last seven weeks working. He’d accepted a project from NASA to divert his attention and push aside the other side of his existence. Now that was behind him and he had to consider what he wanted to tackle next. Last week he and Nate had gone to the local gun show. He’d wanted to replace the handguns and parts that he’d disposed of. Despite efforts to control the sales, undocumented exchanges were relatively easy between the private individuals who visited such events.

  “Are you sure you want another Sig?” Nate had asked him after he acquired a nearly new replacement for the semi-auto that had gone into the bay.

  “I have lots of parts and barrels for it. I’m also comfortable with the way it shoots. Just having the same gun isn’t incriminating.”

  Jake had also purchased a Browning Hi-Power and an older, but very serviceable, Smith and Wesson Model 39 that had come with three magazines. He doubted he would be able to locate a threaded barrel for the Smith, but it was a compact weapon and not every situation called for a silenced handgun. The main thing was all three weapons were acquired without the need to provide any documentation. All were cash and carry. He also acquired a couple of slides and factory barrels for the Glock. Most of these were from the Wolfe table, and once again, for the parts he didn’t need to provide any ID.

  Identification had been something else on his mind. He made a drive down to Carson City and located the man who provided him such things, albeit for a substantial fee. It was time to renew the sticker on the Camry, and the same source was able to get a new tag for the vehicle registered to the corporation for him somehow every year. This eliminated the need to have it sent to him, which might leave a trail. He’d asked for the sticker, the new ID in the name he provided, and had returned a week later with a large bundle of cash for the exchange. After returning home, he’d used his own skills to order several credit cards that could be used with the new ID. Then he’d shredded the older documents, which he felt he’d relied on far too long.

  Jake turned away from the window. He’d wait and see what the weather did. If they had a string of clear days and he felt he could trust the weather projections, he might ask Karin to fly down to Vegas with him for the weekend. They could catch a few shows and have some fun. Reno had its casinos, but it wasn’t anything like Vegas. Besides, he hadn’t flown the plane since a couple of days after the events in San Francisco. He liked to stay current, and felt it was good for the plane as well. He had a couple of days to decide. He’d probed Karin the other night and knew she had no major plans for the coming weekend.

  Chapter 26

  It was just after ten AM when the telephone rang, which was unusual. Jake seldom received many calls, and hardly ever at this time of day. He expected some kind of wrong number since the display was showing a blocked call, which frequently meant someone selling something. Jake reached over and retrieved the phone from the corner of his desk where he had been finishing up a summary of the new software he intended to ship off to NASA later in the day.

  “Jake, can you come over to Cheryl’s house right now?” Karin’s said into his ear. He could hear the urgency in her voice.

  Zack’s place? Are they back? I somehow didn’t expect them for a few more days yet.”

  Zack and Cheryl had been in Australia, spending three weeks enjoying a vacation they had saved for over the past several years. Jake had lost track of time and didn’t recall when they were due back. He’d received a single email from them more than a week and a half ago that had contained a picture of them in Sydney near the opera house. Even then it had been dated, as that picture had been taken the day they had arrived.

  “They just returned home. I picked them up at the airport earlier, and we just got here a short time ago. Something terrible has happened.”

  Given the urgency in Karin’s voice, Jake already knew that much. Before he could ask for specifics, Karin told him what had happened.

  “There was a message on their machine when they got home. It was from Cheryl’s brother. With their undocumented vacation route down under, he had no way of reaching them in Australia, and this was the only way he could contact them. Cheryl’s mom was murdered a couple of days ago. She’s on the phone with her brother right now trying to get details.”

  Jake immediately knew what Karin was thinking. Jake would be able to back-track and fix the situation. Why not? He’d done as much for many strangers, and there was no doubt he owed Cheryl. This might be his chance of repaying her.

  “I’m on the way,” he said. “Tell Cheryl not to worry. It probably can be undone.”

  Jake hung up the phone and closed the file he had been working on. That could wait. He grabbed his leather bomber jacket from the rack in the hall and headed out to the garage. Moments later he was pulling away, the garage door closing automatically behind him.

  Zack answered the door when he rang, and led Jake inside to where Karin and Cheryl sat on the sofa. Cheryl’s eyes were puffy and red from crying, and Karin was talking softly with her. They both stood and hurried toward Jake when he walked into the room behind Zack.

  “Oh Jake,” Cheryl said shakily. “Can you really do something?”

  Despite knowing what he had done in the past, this time it was personal, and Cheryl obviously was a little afraid to believe.

  “Probably,” he replied. “I need to know everything about what happened so I can plan. Most important, it was only three days ago, so we have time to plan and act carefully. Tell me what you know?”

  Karin gave him a quick hug as they all sat down, Zack looking somber, not knowing how to console Cheryl.

  “It was my stepfather,” Cheryl explained. “He shot and killed my mother on Monday.”

  “Were they fighting? What exactly happened?”

  “I’ve never told you much about my family. My real dad died when I was five, and my mom remarried a couple of years later. My stepfather was some kind of a big shot businessman. He turned to politics and is fairly well known in the area. I think he had visions of moving into state politics, but that hadn’t materialized for him. I never really liked him, and it was often a sore point between my mother and me.”

  “My brother Alex said that my step dad tried to make it look like a home invasion where my mom was killed, but he screwed it up and was seen by a neighbor. He fled, and they later found him dead after committing suicide.”

  “What would have been his motive?” Jake asked.

  “According to Alex, my mom had learned that my stepfather had a mistress, and she was planning on divorcing him. She hadn’t told him, but it appears he discovered her plans. From the initial investigation, it appears that he was in a lot of financial trouble, with some unsavory contacts. The police think he feared that a divorce would have exposed his situation, which
would have put his political career at risk, and maybe even have landed him in jail. By killing her, he could have protected himself from that.”

  “Where did they live?” Jake asked.

  “In Laguna Beach, California. They had a nice place down by the ocean there. You’d have thought they had a lot of money if you saw it, but it appears now that they were actually in debt. I don’t know if my mother realized that or not.”

  “And the killing happened in the house?”

  Cheryl nodded.

  “What time of day and was anyone else there?”

  “No one else was there, but I don’t know what time of day it was? Does it matter?”

  “It depends on how we do this. It might.”

  Jake was thinking quickly. This should have been easy, except the vacation that Zack and Cheryl had been on complicated matters. Normally he would have suggested back-tracking, then flying down to Laguna Beach with Zack and Cheryl and warning her mom after he explained to them what was going to happen. Since they knew about his ability, they would easily enough accept his story. With Cheryl’s mother warned, they could move her out and way from any danger and the situation would be resolved. Unfortunately, they weren’t available to do it that way in the time frame he could work with.

  Since his two friends had been wandering around Australia for several weeks, which exceeded his back-track limits, he couldn’t go back and contact them and have them go along with him. He couldn’t warn her mother himself because her mom had never heard of him, and would have no reason to believe anything he said. She’d think him a nut. The situation meant he would have to handle this himself, but differently. If he could interrupt the event as it happened, her mom would see what was happening, and he could stop her from being harmed. He wouldn’t even have to harm her stepfather. He would probably flee when his attempt was thwarted, and then Jake could simply disappear. It might work. He needed to think it out in greater detail.

  “We need to go down there,” he said after a few moments. “I want to see the house, talk with your brother, and hopefully see what the police have learned. The more information we can get, the better chance of doing this properly.”

  “All of us?” Cheryl asked.

  Jake nodded.

  “I have to work,” Karin said. “You three can go.”

  Jake grinned. “Skip work. It won’t matter. None of what we are going to do the next couple of days will have ever happened when this is finished. We’ll come back, I’ll back-track and fix it, and then we will never have reason to make the trip.”

  “This stuff still confuses me,” Karin admitted. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. We’ll need some reservations.” Then he hesitated. “We have some time. You two just got off an international flight. Perhaps you want to wait until tomorrow and have a chance to get some rest to adjust to the local time. We don’t have to hurry. A day or so won’t change this.”

  Cheryl looked at Zack. “I want to go. I can’t just sit around. It’ll be better to be doing something.”

  Zack nodded. “Let’s go today. It should be easy enough to get reservations on Southwest Airlines. I can arrange a rental car and a hotel near Cheryl’s mom’s house. I don’t think we want to stay at the house.”

  Cheryl shuddered at the thought.

  “If you can handle that, I’ll take Karin so she can pack a bag. Then we’ll go by my place, and I’ll do the same. Call me on my cell with the flight time and we’ll meet you at the airport.”

  Less than six hours later they were on the 405 freeway heading south, a few miles from Laguna Beach.

  “Where first?” Zack asked.

  “To the police department,” Jake said. “The house may still be a closed crime scene. We need to tell the police who we are and get permission to go inside. Also, they might be able to tell us some things we need to know.”

  “What about my brother?”

  “Give him a call and tell him we’ve arrived and that we are going to see the police first. Maybe he can meet us at the house later, or later for dinner. You probably have a better idea than I do as to his availability.”

  “He’s been missing a lot of work the past couple of days. He might prefer to meet us later.”

  “So, you’re the daughter,” Detective Tim Keller said sometime later after they had worked through the red tape at the station. Keller had been involved in something else when they had arrived, and it had taken more than an hour before he was available. Surprisingly, he had allowed them all into his office, so they were now crowded into a small area, with Zack and Jake standing behind the two women who were seated in the only chairs available for guests. “We tried to reach you, but your brother indicated you were out of the country.”

  “Australia,” Zack offered without thinking.

  Keller’s eyes flicked up at him, then back toward Cheryl. “Who are these other people? Normally we restrict our talking to family.”

  Cheryl made the introductions.

  Keller looked at each of them as they were introduced. Finally he sat back. “Okay, what can I do for you? I expect your brother has told you most of what happened. I have explained to him what we have learned. It is a straight-forward case. Is there something you are hoping to learn?”

  “We want to go into the house,” Cheryl said. “We didn’t know if we needed permission to do so.”

  “We are done there,” Detective Keller said. “It’s open to you. It might take some time for someone to chase down the keys, but you are free to do whatever you want there. I’ll warn you that the blood is still there, which might be unsettling.” He looked meaningfully at Cheryl, who swallowed.

  “I have my own set of keys,” she said.

  “When and how was she killed?” Jake asked.

  Keller shifted his gaze to Jake. After a moment he shrugged. “She was shot twice with a .38 revolver. Short range, maybe fifteen feet. This happened just after 9:30 in the morning according to the neighbor who heard the shots and saw Mr. Green fleeing. That time is consistent with what the coroner found.”

  Cheryl asked a couple of questions about her stepfather and his possible motivation, getting a short version of what her brother had told her earlier.

  “If someone had called and warned the police, could they have prevented this from happening,” Jake asked.

  “Unusual question,” Keller said. “Did someone know they were having trouble?”

  “Not that we know of,” Zack said. “It’s just something Cheryl wondered about. Could it have been prevented?”

  Keller hesitated, and then answered frankly. “The truth is, we have been surprised by what we have learned recently about your stepfather. He was a well thought of man, and with considerable influence in the town. I doubt anyone would have taken claims that this might happen very seriously without some kind of proof. I still have a little trouble believing it.”

  “There it is,” Cheryl said pointing ahead toward a large sprawling two-story home across the street from the beach. They pulled into the driveway next to a late model Ford SUV.

  “That’s got to be Alex's car,” Cheryl said.

  At almost the same time, the front door opened and a tall, brown haired young man stepped outside. He walked toward their vehicle as they climbed out of the rental. Jake could see the family resemblance to Cheryl as the two siblings embraced.

  “Are you sure you want to go inside?” Alex asked Cheryl. “It’s a bit depressing.” Alex looked at Zack who he knew, and then at Jake and Karin who he didn’t.

  Cheryl nodded, then introduced her friends. They all went inside, Jake and Karin bringing up the rear.

  Jake had already decided that trying to alert the police wasn’t going to work. After hearing what Detective Keller had to say, he was going to need some proof if he wanted decisive action. More and more it appeared that interrupting the attempt would be the best way to alert her mother to the danger and to derail the attempt. Her mother could then go to the police, which would also serv
e to keep him out of it. Her mother would be confused as to who he was and why he was there, but since she didn’t know him, he could more than likely simply fade away.

  While Zack and Cheryl talked with Dave, Jake walked around the inside with Karin. She gasped and turned away when they came upon the blood stains. Jake noted where they were. There was only one likely place where Cheryl’s stepfather could have been hiding in wait. When Cheryl’s mom had come down the stairs for breakfast, he’d been waiting.

  Jake then led Karin outside, partially to get her away from the stain, but also to get a look at the backyard and the possible entry points. He’d done this enough times now that it only took a few moments for him to see how he’d get in and out. Access to the house itself wouldn’t be a problem because Cheryl had already told him where the spare key was hidden.

  After a bit, he and Karin went back inside. They would have dinner with Cheryl’s brother, then stay the night. It was already late and his friends had to be exhausted, both physically and emotionally. The overnight would give him a chance to think, and they would still be in the area in the event there was something else he wanted to look at before they flew back to Reno.

  Chapter 27

  Jake checked the small case that he used to transport his handgun. Today he would be bringing the Browning High Power he had recently acquired, along with three loaded magazines. He wouldn’t need a suppressor. In fact, he didn’t expect to fire a single shot this time. His presence with the firearm should be enough to encourage Cheryl’s stepfather to withdraw. If he needed to fire a warning shot, the sound would be advantageous, and he’d simply ditch the weapon somewhere afterwards. He closed the case, which looked more like a businessman’s document case than something for transporting firearms. Inside the case he had gloves and a pair of small earplugs that would protect his hearing from firing the gun indoors.