The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 3): Lost Time

by White, Samuel Ben

  At that moment, the front door of the diner opened and a big, stereotypical production of a Texas sheriff walked through the door. He was six-four, weighing close to two hundred and fifty pounds with thinning blonde hair and a "good ol' boy" smile. He smiled to Bronwyn Kerrigan and was just about to lean over and kiss her hello when he noticed there was another Bronwyn at the table. He stood there frozen for a moment, as if every muscle in his body had locked into place, before his wife introduced, "Honey, that was Bronwyn Kerrigan you were about to kiss."

  He eased slowly into the remaining seat and merely replied, "You're kidding." He suddenly jerked his head toward Louise and called out, "Big cup of black coffee, please." After a large gulp, in which the only other noise was Jason eating, he finally turned to his wife and asked, "You have a sister you never told me about?"

  "We just met," his wife replied. "And, as far as I know, she's not my sister. We're just identical and have the same names."

  "You mean you two aren't related?" he asked incredulously.

  "Not so far as I know." She turned to Bronwyn Kerrigan and asked, "We're not, are we?"

  Bronwyn glanced at Jason, then replied, "No. I can't see any way we could be."

  Bronwyn Hollander laughed and said, "It's just amazing, you know that? They say everyone's got a twin somewhere, but . . . " she let the sentence trail off as she shook her head.

  Jason finally extended his hand across the table and said, "I know I don't look like anyone, but I'm Jason Kerrigan."

  "Cabot Hollander. Pleased to meet you. New in town?"

  "I'm with the highway department. Just here for a little while. But they let me bring my wife along for the trip."

  Bronwyn Hollander asked Bronwyn, "So where are you from?"

  "Mineola," Bronwyn quickly replied. For the last eight months they had been telling everyone that she was from Tyler, but suddenly that story wouldn't work any more.

  "I've got an aunt from Mineola," Cabot smiled. "You know Gertude Abrams?"

  With as little hesitation as possible, Bronwyn Kerrigan replied, "No. I actually left there when I was three. My father was always moving around with the oil field so nowhere seemed like home. So I always just said Mineola was my home."

  Jason thought about saying, "Good recovery!" but didn't. He was finishing up his food so he looked at his watch and said, "Honey, I've got to get back to work."

  Bronwyn nodded and stood up with him. "It was awfully nice to have met you," she said, actually meaning it. "But, and I'm sure you'll agree, really strange." She would have loved to have sat down with her counterpart and discussed growing up, just to find out how much of their lives were similar. But there didn't seem to be any good way to bring that up, and to do so seemed to flirt with danger, so she was ready to leave even though she had barely eaten anything.

  "How far along are you?" Bronwyn Hollander asked.

  "About six and a half months. Do you have any kids?"

  "Not yet," the seated Bronwyn replied, though there seemed to be something in her voice. Something sad.

  "Ya'll have a good day now," Jason said as he and Bronwyn left.

  "So, was that strange enough for you?" Jason asked as they got into the highway department pickup truck.

  "That was, without a doubt, the strangest thing I have ever been through. Weirder than anything else we've seen since coming to this world. Weirder even than seeing the future." As Jason went around and got in, she turned to face him—as much as her body would let her, anyway, and asked, "Did she look as much like me as I thought?"

  "If you weren't pregnant, I don't think I could have told the difference. Same mannerisms and everything. You were even more like her than the Susan in Haskell was like my Susan. I couldn't decide whether it fascinated me or gave me the creeps. I couldn't get out of there fast enough for me."

  "Meeting someone like me gives you the creeps?” she chided, with a slap to the arm. “I know what you mean, but . . . I wish I could have talked to her for hours. Find out what she was like. See if we had the same friends growing up and everything."

  "Wouldn't that be kind of dangerous?"

  "Oh, I know," she nodded. "I didn't say I was going to do it. I just said I wish I could." As she turned and looked out the window, she said, "It's nice to see Tyler again, but, I almost wish I hadn't come. For the next couple days, I guess I better just stay in the motel or I'm going to run into a ton of people who I know—and who think they know me—but I can't talk to them. I see now what you were up against in Haskell. Except that these people would think they knew me and I might say something that . . . I don't know."

  "Sorry I brought you into this."

  "No, I'm glad I came. I would have always wondered if there were another me out there. It's kind of neat to know. Now I'm glad I'm past it." She sighed with resignation, then said, "I know. I'll make myself spend these next two days working on that manuscript. I'm up to the chapter where Lincoln freed the slaves. Oh, and I forgot to tell you because the other Bronwyn came in, but I may have found a publisher. Just one of the pulps, but I pitched my story to one of the editors and he said he would like to look at it. I think the fact that it’s a story written by a woman that isn’t a romance that intrigued him."

  “That’s wonderful! Tell me more.”

  As they listened to the music playing on the tinny speaker of the little radio in their motel room, they were both startled to hear a knock on the door. Jason went over cautiously and, making sure the chain was in place, opened the door and peeked out.

  He was surprised to see Sheriff Hollander and his wife standing there. "May we come in?" the sheriff asked.

  "Uh, sure," Jason shrugged at Bronwyn as he closed the door, then undid the chain and opened it again. "What can I do for you, Sheriff?" He looked at the sheriff's wife and nodded, "Mrs. Hollander."

  The couple came in and sat down on the little couch by the window. They looked at each other, appearing confused, then Cabot Hollander looked at Bronwyn, then at Jason. He finally cleared his throat and said, "I am here in an unofficial capacity. But I would like to ask you a question or two, if I may."

  "What questions?" Bronwyn and Jason asked in unison, with harmonizing suspicion in their voices.

  Cabot nodded at his wife and she produced a glass—wrapped in a cloth napkin—from her purse and handed it to him. Cabot looked at Jason's Bronwyn and said, "I am a curious person by nature, Mrs. Kerrigan. And, after seeing how much you look like my wife—I'm still not sure why I did it—I lifted the glass and silverware you used at the diner today."

  "Why?" Bronwyn asked narrowly.

  "We um, we just got a new finger-print set at the office and, in fact, the man who is teaching us how to use it is still there. Like I say, I don't know what made me do it, but I took your glass and silverware to the office and, just for laughs, had him take your fingerprints off of 'em and compare them to my wife's. You know what he found?"

  "What?" Bronwyn asked even more suspiciously. "And wouldn't you need some sort of warrant or probable cause to do that?"

  "Legally, yes. But this is just friendly curiosity," Cabot told her. Holding up the glass, he said, "He found that your fingerprints are identical to my wife's. Not just similar, but identical."

  "Maybe you picked up your wife's glass—" Bronwyn started to offer.

  "Identical except one thing." He held up his wife's right hand and said, "Two weeks ago our cat bit Bronwyn on her index finger. See, you can just barely see it. Showed up on the prints, though. That was the only difference between her fingerprints and yours."

  "That's amazing," Bronwyn muttered. Jason couldn't bring himself to say anything at all.

  Suddenly, Bronwyn Hollander jumped in and said, "You're not in trouble or anything. I just—we just wanted to know if you have any idea how you and I could be so much alike. I—I got the feeling you know more than you're saying."

  Cabot injected, "I checked you two out. You're just who you say you are. No criminal record or anything and I've
got no reason to think otherwise. But you've got to admit, this is really strange."

  Jason was about to say he knew nothing about it when Bronwyn—his Bronwyn—jumped in, and said, "We're not here entirely by accident. I had heard once that there was someone else with my name who lived in Tyler. So when I heard Jason was getting sent here, well, I wanted to come along. Then, that waitress acted like she recognized me—then told me you were coming in soon—so I guess I had a little more forewarning than you did. Still, I just can't believe it."

  "Thanks for stopping by," Bronwyn called as the sheriff and his wife got in their car. "Sorry we couldn't clear up the mystery for you any."

  She shut the door and leaned against it as she looked at Jason. "That was close. Think they're still suspicious about us?"

  "Wouldn't you be?"

  "I found out something else—while you were out there showing him those highway plans. I found out she's pregnant, too."

  "Really? She must not be very far along."

  "No. In fact, she hasn't even told him, yet."

  "But she told you?"

  Bronwyn nodded as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "It's like we're the sister neither one of us ever had. I think I understand those stories you read about twins that are raised separately then meet one day and hit it off instantly. We were just like that. I could have talked to her forever. Anyway, she hasn't told him because they just went through a miscarriage not too long ago and she doesn't want to get his hopes up until she's a little further along."

  "If it were me, I'd want to know."

  Bronwyn nodded again, then said excitedly, "But that's not the exciting—or interesting—part of it. When she told me about the miscarriage, I got to thinking that she must have gotten pregnant about when I did. Isn't that weird? That we would even have that in common?"

  Jason stood up and began taking off his shirt. "This is weirder than anything I could have imagined. If she had been able to carry that baby out, it would have been interesting to know if it would have been the same sex as ours."

  "They say gender comes from the father," Bronwyn shrugged.

  "I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted," he said as he pulled back the covers and climbed in.

  "I'm too excited to go to sleep. You know, I think this might be a story for me to write some day. If I can sell my story about Lincoln and the alternate world and all. You mind if I stay up and write a while?"

  "I won't even notice," Jason said, asleep almost before he finished his reply.

  Bronwyn pulled out one of her writing tablets and sat on the little couch. She began to jot down titles for the story she wanted to write.

  Twin Sisters

  Unrelated Sisters

  Me2

  Lost Time

  Chapter Sixteen

  Durango, Colorado, fifty-seven years later.

  As Heather and Jody flitted from one shop in Durango to another like charge-happy butterflies, Garison and Bat found another bench to sit on. The shade over their last perch had moved, so they had gone in search of another bench like two old men. In fact, there were two old men nearby who were upset with the whippersnappers for encroaching on their turf.

  As they settled in, Bat asked, "Think we'll have any money left by the end of the day?"

  "Doubt it," Garison replied. Though they had spent the whole day together, he and Bat had hardly talked at all. In spite of the fact that the other Garison seemed to have eventually come to like Bat, this Garison couldn't bring himself to more than tolerate the private eye. "And you know what it's like when Darla's along."

  "They can out-spend the Pentagon! "

  "That's because Darla's got more money than the Pentagon."

  "Darla's a good friend of mine, too, but I'm really not too sad that she's not going to make it out on this trip. Something about having to do a lot of work at the Breckenridge office all this week.

  "You know," Bat mused, "Ordinarily, Jody is not a shopper. If we go to a store or even the mall, she goes in for whatever item we have come for, and turns around and leaves. She doesn't buy unnecessarily and sometimes I even have to tell her to buy something for herself. Even on things she really wants, she'll hesitate. But put her and Heather together . . . "

  Garison nodded and added, "I know what you mean. But when you think about it, they hardly ever come back with all that much stuff. Oh, it's more than they would bring back by themselves, but it's not like they fill up the pick-up or anything."

  "I go golfing with my friend Bill Fulton every now and then even though golf doesn't excite me much more in real life than it does on TV. Well, actually, I generally hate golf. But I'll go just to spend the afternoon with him. They're probably the same. It's the time spent together that they enjoy as much as anything."

  Garison smiled and nodded in agreement, "Especially now that they're both expecting."

  Bat faked a shudder and said, "I'm really glad I'm not around to hear those conversations."

  "Don't want to be a father?"

  "I can hardly wait to be a father," Bat beamed. "What I can't stand is all the talk that pregnant women seemed obligated to engage in. All the details about what's happening to specific internal organs and what-not. I just don't care to hear some of that."

  "Oh, we would probably be the same if our bodies were going through phenomenal changes like that."

  "Yeah, but I like to think we wouldn't be so anatomically articulate about it." Bat laughed, "And another thing: if men had the babies I can guarantee you that no family would ever have more than one."

  Garison laughed and nodded in agreement. Thinking back to the manuscript he had read back in the spring, he asked, "Bat, why do you think you and I have never gotten along?"

  Bat shrugged, but didn't answer. He had an answer, but it didn't seem like it would be polite to say. He dodged the question by asking one of his own, "Why do you think we've never gotten along?"

  Garison easily replied, "Because you're weird."

  "Well ain't that the pot calling the kettle kitchenware," Bat responded.

  "See. It's stuff like that. You're a strange person, Bat."

  Bat turned and looked at Garison. He accused, "You're stranger than I am. Stranger than probably even Heather knows. I just don't feel like spoiling her good image of you. I still remember that first time we met."

  "When you were working on that case and I came along for the airplane ride? I was just talking off the top of my head that day about the outer limits of science. I wasn't being serious."

  "No, not that day," Bat shook his head. "That wasn't the first time we met."

  "Sure it was. I had never laid eyes on you until that day we all flew to Gallup in Heather's plane." At Bat's skeptical expression, Garison assured, "That was the first time we ever met, Bat."

  "Oh come on. It was a pretty good disguise—but you didn't fool me. You even told me your real name."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Bat laughed and said, "And using the name of a cartoon character. Of course, I hadn't heard of the cartoon at that point—"

  Garison's eyes suddenly got big and he asked, "Just where do you think you first saw me?"

  Bat replied innocently, "At Sul Ross, when I tried out for the baseball team. You were in disguise and calling yourself Burt Cottage for some reason; but you told me even then that your real name was Garison Fitch."

  Garison's eyes had become the size of quarters and he swallowed hard. He finally managed, in a voice just above a whisper, "You shouldn't be able to remember that."

  Chapter Seventeen

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Bat asked in disgust. He had tried and tried to like Garison Fitch, but could never make himself do it. From that very first meeting, he had always thought Garison was just a little too weird and he had never liked the idea of Heather falling in love with a flake.

  He wasn't sure what he had wanted for Heather. When he had found out that Jody really was alive, there had never been any doubt in his heart or mind that
he would marry her. Jody was the love of his life and had been almost since the moment they met—even through the one breakup. But then he thought she was dead and had begun to fall in love with Heather and, well . . . he had had a soft spot for Heather and just hadn't liked seeing her involved with Garison. But, she had seemed happy and she swore up and down that Garison wasn't the weirdo Bat thought he was so he had really tried to like the lawyer-turned-scientist. Or scientist-turned-lawyer.

  It just hadn't happened.

  "I mean," Garison stammered, looking much as Bat figured someone who was about to be run over by a train would look, "I mean you shouldn't be able to remember that. It never happened."

  "What do you mean it never happened? Do you ever make sense, Garison?"

  Garison leaned back against the bench and put his forearm over his eyes to shield them from the bright Colorado sun. After a moment, with his eyes still covered, he said, "You remembering that is one of the most unbelievable things I have ever heard."

  Doing his best Jimmy Stewart imitation, Bat asked, "You a hypnotist?" When Garison merely shook his head, Bat asked in his normal voice, "What are you talking about, Garison? Were you hiding out from the Feds back then or something?"

  Suddenly, Garison stood up and said, "I've got to find Heather."

  "Why? What did I say?" As he followed Garison hastily down the street, dodging the other early summer shoppers, Bat called out, "What? You're hiding something from Heather? Your secret's safe with me if you'll tell me what it is!"

  At that moment, Garison spotted Heather and Jody coming out of a shop across the street. With only a cursory glance at the traffic, he darted across the street. Bat, only steps behind, was forced to wait for the traffic before crossing. He still elicited an almost unwarranted barrage of car horns and a few unsavory words—mostly from people who seemed to realize Garison was paying them no mind so they ought to spend their invectives on someone who was listening.