Sand City Murders

by MK Alexander

  “What the hell?”

  “What’s this about, Patrick?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Joey raised an eyebrow but left it at that for now.

  There were my own memories too. They lingered. In spite of what Fynn had said, I still remembered the first two murders, Clara and Debra… Oh, and not to mention Roxy, the lapdog. As for Lorraine Luis, I hadn’t turned up a thing… yet. The coroner did though: a toxicology report came back for the Sunset Park murder. Not a suicide. The cause of death was still in question. The medical examiner’s office called it a central nervous system collapse. Apparently, her brain chemicals were completely out of whack. No one had ever seen anything quite like it. No drugs were found in her system either, though she had been drinking moderately. There was something else too, according to what Detective Durbin told me off the record, but they had to run more tests.

  ***

  Fynn and I had agreed on a Map Quest. I don’t think he ever understood why I chuckled anytime he mentioned it. What he meant of course was my vague promise to visit every site on the placemat map, every Friday, or any other day we might find between us. I warned him in advance that there were some locations we wouldn’t be visiting, any one of several mini-golf courses, numerous restaurants that had yet to open, the town dump, and probably Chamblis’ yacht club.

  “That hideous green building is the yacht club?”

  I nodded.

  “And the town dump?” he asked.

  “The Waste Transfer Station, near the Marina. We drove by it once,” I reminded him. “Didn’t you notice all the seagulls flying around?”

  “Ah yes, and the barges piled with rubbish. It would be a good place to dispose of a body.”

  “What?” I asked and looked over at him. I immediately knew he was joking. “Like I said, there are things on the map that we won’t see,” I cautioned again. “And a couple of things that are not on the map.”

  “Such as?”

  “The old asylum for one, the abandoned hospital.”

  “What kind of hospital?”

  “A sanatorium. Some rich doctor built it in the nineteen twenties. Had some crazy notion about the healing powers of salt air… oxygen ions or something.”

  “I see… quite interesting.” Fynn paused. “Tell me, are the records for this hospital available?”

  “I doubt it… I mean, medical files are hard to access to begin with… and the place shut down before computers… in the nineteen eighties, I think.”

  “And why is this off the map?” he asked.

  “The powers that be requested it. Not exactly a prime tourist destination,” I pointed out. There was more to the story though… It was a big headache for Durbin and the force. They always had to send a patrol car around for a look-see. In all seasons, kids went up there to drink, to party, to crash, whatever… In the summer it was even worse. Officers Allen and Adams spent a lot of duty hours stationed out front.

  “But this will be one of our destinations someday, yes?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s creepy and I don’t like going there…”

  Fynn gave me a dubious look. Today on the map was Long Neck Beach and our first walk along Serenity Bay. It was windy, chilly, and neither of us had dressed properly. Fynn didn’t seem to notice, wearing just a shirt and a wool cardigan. I was freezing my butt off in a black hoody. I zipped it up as far as it would go. We started along the boardwalk at the Grande Vista, once a hotel, now a condo complex, open year round, but only crowded in the summer. According to Kevin at the Historical Society, it was built just after the interstate carved Fairhaven right in half, sometime in the mid fifties; and he insisted it looked like something out of the Jetsons. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, something about an arching superstructure that had been dismantled years ago. By all accounts though, it was the first real attempt to make Sand City a resort destination.

  The side streets were filled with small repair vans: electricians, plumbers, painters, cabinet guys, you name it, they were all there, except maybe landscapers. The boardwalk itself was pretty tame down this end, even at the height of the season. Now, all we could see were a bunch of closed restaurants, a small arcade, a candle shop and a candy factory. The last place was open for no apparent reason and Fynn went inside. After some deliberation, he bought a bag full of salt-water taffy. He paid in cash and refused his change with a friendly smile.

  We continued north and the boardwalk changed character a little. It was still a ghost town, everything closed down and boarded up, but there were a lot more concession stands here: hot dogs, curly fries, cotton candy, and the world’s best pizza. At least that’s what the sign said. Other marquees boasted games of chance, squirt-gun racing, a ring toss, and a sharp shooter rifle range, among others. All closed up though. To our left, was a small pier that held an array of amusement park rides. We passed by quickly. I glanced over, and under the tarps, I could make out all the standards: a Ferris wheel, a carousel, the Zipper, the Gravitron, Swiss bobsleds and a modest roller coaster. Not a soul about, no giant furry prizes, no crowds, no smiling barkers, no blaring music, just the wind whistling through the painted shacks, creaking wood, and the flap of canvas beating against some metal pipe.

  I cautiously broached the topic of time travel. I’m not sure why, it could only end badly. I’m not sure about my own motives either— I’ll be honest. I don’t know if I was just being a pain, a devil’s advocate, or just toying with the inspector.

  “I am more than happy to answer all your questions, but I think I must wait until your doubts have evaporated.” Fynn squinted against the wind, strands of his silver hair flitted across his forehead.

  “Doubts?”

  “You still have many doubts. I can sense this— not that I blame you.”

  “Well, I do have some questions…”

  “Ask away, by all means.” He smiled pleasantly.

  “How do you travel to the present?”

  “Hmm? I am in the present now.”

  “But how do you get here, or get back, if you’ve gone someplace else. I sort of understand traveling to the past, re-entering a previous self… And, I sort of understand going to the future… a brand new you, as you described… The two modes of travel... But how do you return to the present?”

  “Ah, this is the most difficult of all my journeys.” He turned to me, his silver hair went sideways across his face. He tried to push it back in vain.

  “Huh?”

  “Returning to the present can be quite difficult. It is the most elusive destination, as you can well imagine, but it largely depends on where I’m coming from.”

  “Can you explain this?”

  Fynn narrowed his dark eyes. “There is some problem with the language, I think.”

  “What problem?”

  “Well, the words do not translate well into English: Jumping Backs.”

  “Jumping jacks?”

  “No.”

  “Back-Jumps?”

  “Yes, that will do nicely.” Fynn smiled. “If I am returning to a particular present from the future, it’s quite straight forward. I merely return to my previous self. I back-jump, as you say.”

  “But you can’t bring passengers, right?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, like say, a twenty dollar bill?”

  “An unlikely passenger... but you are correct. Only my consciousness can back-jump to the past, or your present as it were. This I call a soft jump.”

  “A soft jump?”

  “Yes, but it has to do with how I land more than anything. A jump to the future is called a hard jump.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You will have to understand more before I can explain this to you.”

  “Okay, how about if you are already in the past and want to return to the present? Which would be your future...”

  “Yes, as you may recall, the past always changes the future, so, I
cannot in reality return here from the past. The future is always unfolding anew. It’s never the same when I return.”

  “Well that’s it then… the whole thing is impossible. Time travel I mean. If you can’t merge back to the present, this whole thing doesn’t work.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then... how?”

  “Over the years, I’ve worked out a few tricks.”

  “What tricks?”

  “Three tricks really…or perhaps technique is a better word. The first is rather easy. I would simply leap ahead in time and wait for you to catch up.”

  “That does sound easy.”

  “Yes, though not very practical. Sometimes the wait is rather longer than I would hope for. So, the best way for me to return to the present, is to slip to the future and then back-jump from there. Do you follow what I mean?”

  “Not really.”

  “Say, I wish to return to this approximate moment, this present time. In theory, it’s rather easy. I jump to the future, a new future, a new me. I count to ten… and then I back-jump to the past, which is the present me, just a moment before I left. In this way I do not alter the past.”

  “How is that easy?”

  The inspector chuckled slightly. “I suppose you’d want me to demonstrate this.”

  “That’d be great.”

  Fynn stopped in his tracks and took a long look up and down the boardwalk. There was no one in sight. He reached into his pocket and took out his compass, then looked to the sky briefly. He adjusted the dial and faced roughly north. His whole body tensed and he seemed ready to spring like an old cat. He looked down at the compass again and then relaxed. “Ah, this is a bad time of day to travel forward… and it’s too windy, I think.”

  “Too windy?” I was hugely disappointed, and I’ll admit, almost fooled by his little display.

  “What we are discussing is easy in theory. But, in reality, I am not so accurate with my jumps.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, we’ll try it another day perhaps.”

  “What’s the other trick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The third technique for returning to the present.”

  “Ah yes, I masquerade as myself.”

  “Come again?”

  “I can only travel forward as a new me, since I am no longer there. You understand this?”

  I nodded noncommittally.

  “If I try to travel from the past to the present, such is impossible because I exist there no longer. I must pop into the present as a new me. I am an impostor of myself, so to speak. Of course, I have all my recent memories so it’s fairly easy to impersonate myself.”

  “I think my brain is starting to hurt.”

  Fynn laughed.

  “Does this happen a lot?” I asked.

  “More than you might imagine.”

  “Doesn’t anyone notice?”

  “Not usually… and it’s rather easy to explain. ‘Oh, I’ve been away on holiday,’ I might say to someone who asks.”

  “Wow,” I commented but felt regret creeping in. Why did I even ask about time travel?

  The boardwalk changed again. The white shacks ended abruptly; now there was an iron railing, a good view of Serenity Bay, and wooden steps leading down to the wide, flat beach. A line of countless empty benches led us closer to the Californian. It loomed large as we approached. Built in the mid sixties, it was a typical concrete and glass box, like a hotel you might see in Hawaii. The Californian had been converted into a timeshare complex in the eighties, though it still functioned as a hotel. There was a lobby and a skeleton staff in the off season. Nobody did much sharing in the winter months and the whole place was very quiet for now.

  “There is of course one exception,” Fynn said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t wish to complicate matters…” He seemed a bit evasive.

  “Really, what is it?”

  “On rare occasion, I can travel back in time, yet not re-occupy an old self. My present self physically travels there.”

  “What, like a future jump, a hard jump... but to the past?”

  “Exactly this.”

  “How?”

  “There are gaps in my concurrency, places in the past where I have never lived. If I manage to travel there, it is the same as traveling to the future.”

  I thought about this for a second. “So you could bring something back to the past.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Like a passenger?”

  “An object maybe.” Fynn paused. “As I say though, this is an exceptional form of travel. In practice, it’s very difficult to find these gaps in my past lives.”

  The boardwalk ended abruptly. There was a virtual mountain of sand in our path and it blocked our way entirely. Fynn seemed quite curious about this and climbed to the top.

  “Storm damage,” I explained. “The wind and the surf lifted all the sand from the beach and dumped it here on the boardwalk.”

  “Extraordinary.”

  “Happens all the time really, well, any big storm like last week’s, a nor’easter.”

  “What’s to be done?”

  “Hmm, the DPW will show up in the next couple of days with bulldozers… They’ll push all the sand back to its regular place.”

  To our north was Boxtop Beach and beyond that, Bayview. We agreed to walk a bit further and ambled down the newly formed dune to the bike path that ran parallel. We made good use of it for another mile or so before turning back.

  “Is that the location you spoke of?” Fynn asked.

  “What?”

  “The place not on your map,” Fynn said and pointed up the bay. Far in the distance, Saint Alban’s was just visible, nestled against the bluffs, tucked away in a small cove just above the sea wall. It had a menacing outline, sort of neo-gothic with numerous turrets poking into the sky and tiny barred windows. The faded red bricks looked gray this afternoon, despite the ivy-covered walls. If ever there was a place for a mad scientist to carry out his diabolical experiments, this was it. Whose idea was it to build an asylum in a resort town? Whoever it was, he wasn’t doing Sand City any favors. Of course when it was built back in the day, Sand City didn’t even exist. It was just a quarry town with a bunch of fishing shacks, plagued by mosquitos and horse flies. No one in their right mind would ever spend a summer here.

  ***

  The following week, our destination was the lighthouse at Rocky Point, though we only walked around the outside. Inspector Fynn absolutely refused to go up top. “I don’t like heights,” he said.

  It was all in the guide book: The Lighthouse, The Sentinel, built in 1802… fully automated now. A very popular tourist attraction, access by foot or bicycle only. The closest parking lot was at least half a mile away. The lighthouse itself stood atop a two hundred foot cliff of granite, a windy bluff. There was no lee side, it’s where the two winds meet, from the bay and the ocean. And down below was downright treacherous, at high tide, impassable. You’d find yourself with no beach to walk on, smack up against the cliffs with a cold surf pounding in on you. Not a summer goes by when someone gets trapped there, and it’s not usually for the best. The Coast Guard knows this all too well. Don’t be fooled, at low tide, there’s a natural jetty and a sandy beach that looks inviting until the water comes rushing in from out of nowhere.

  I gently confronted Inspector Fynn on the cold walk back to the parking lot.

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Which question is that, Patrick?”

  “On the beach… how I’m supposed to help you… with um, the murder, or murders?”

  “Yes, I’m very glad you asked. Are you quite sure you’re ready?”

  “I guess.”

  “Excellent.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Simply make use of your memory. Make note of any odd occurrences, changes in your timeline, so to speak. You have an intimate knowledge of this present which I do not possess.”
>
  “How does that help?”

  “There is someone in Sand City who is not who they say they are, and I believe they are manipulating events. You must help me find them.”

  “A man or a woman?”

  “A man.”

  “His name?”

  “His name is probably not relevant. I last knew him as Javelin Mortimer.”

  “What does he look like, this Mortimer?”

  “There’s little I can say, except that he is quite tall, a big man, and he may have only one eye.”

  “One eye?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like an eye patch or a glass eye?” Evan James, the Chronicle’s stringer came immediately to mind.

  “Either, I suppose.”

  “How tall?”

  “About two meters.”

  “Six feet… that’s not that tall. What else? Young? Old? Middle-aged?”

  “He could be.”

  “What do you mean he could be?”

  “Well, I’ve seen him as a very young man, and... as an old man.”

  “Oh, that’s right, he’s a time traveler too…” I tried not to sound condescending, it just sort of slipped out. I could feel my frustration growing. Why did I even go down this road? Maybe Fynn was right. Maybe I wasn’t ready. “Can’t you go back in time and just fix things again?”

  “I’d risk much going back. It is too soon.”

  “Too soon for what?”

  “There is still much to know. For example, perhaps this man is not acting alone.”

  “What, like an accomplice?”

  “It is a distinct possibility.”

  “Someone I know?”

  “Probably.”

  I didn’t like where this conversation was going at all. Paranoia crept in. Was Fynn’s delusion starting to go south? Turning ugly? Was I sensing an agenda all of a sudden? I decided to steer the conversation elsewhere. “How did she die? Your wife, Lorraine… How did any of these women die?”

  “Shock, as the corner report says.”

  I had no response at first. “What killed them though?”