Set in Stone

by David James Warren

  He’s young and tidy, crew cut, sharp shouldered. Probably on the ball. He stands. “Yes, sir. I finished cleaning it out this morning. It’s ready for you.”

  I open my door.

  “Sir—there’s a—”

  “I see her,” I say as I spot a woman sitting on the sofa in the room. She’s young, maybe mid-twenties, with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and deep brown eyes. She’s wearing a gray jacket, a pair of dress pants and heels. And most importantly, a press pass around her neck.

  She looks familiar, but I know I’ve never met her before. I don’t close the door. “Hello?”

  She rises. “That was amazing, Rembrandt. I didn’t know half those things about John.” It almost looks like she’s been crying, her eyes reddened. “Thanks for that.”

  Clearly, we know each other, and thankfully, her name is on her pass. I’m not trying to be creepy, but my gaze flickers down to her badge.

  Frankie Dale. Star-Trib reporter.

  “Can I help you?” I ask.

  Behind her, the windows open up to a view of the skyline, and in case I’m not sure when I am, the sun is glinting off the silvery sloped dome of the Minnesota Vikings stadium so it’s probably noon; and I’m starved.

  Mostly, I want to find Eve.

  And hide.

  No, not really, but maybe a little.

  “John would have been really proud,” Frankie says.

  “Thank you.” I wait for her to continue but she doesn’t. So, “Do we have an appointment?”

  She frowns, but then nods. “You said I could shadow you on your first day. Just to do an informal report on our new chief of police.”

  Uh, no. Not a chance. Sorry, but who out there thinks this is a good idea?

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I won’t get in the way.”

  I hold up a hand. “Not today.”

  “But—”

  “No!” And I don’t mean it quite as emphatically as it comes out, so I cut my voice down. “Listen. It’s not a good day, okay?”

  “Why not?”

  Really? I don’t know why, but her tone has set off a fuse inside me. Call it fatigue—after all, I barely slept. And then there was the field of dead bodies. And, maybe just a little, the niggling fact that Ashley is dead again, and I don’t know how.

  So yeah, I’m struggling to be charming. “I have too much going on.” I shake my head and walk over to my desk.

  She follows me. “Rembrandt. Talk to me.”

  Her voice is soft, and I have the weirdest feeling that I know her well. Too well?

  Not good.

  “I’ll keep it off the record. You know that. But…is it the Jackson killer?” Her expression is almost kind, and it unnerves me.

  She gives me a wounded half smile. “You know I know.”

  I do? And I’m not sure why—maybe the way she doesn’t move. Maybe the way she swallows, looking like I’ve hurt her. Maybe it’s just that this woman seems to know me—well enough to call me by my name—and I haven’t a clue who she is, but weirdly, I feel like I trust her.

  Even so, yelling erupts in the back of my head—shut up, Rem!—as the words escape. “Listen, I have a gang that has declared war on policemen, a guy on parole who should still be locked up, a mayor who is out to get me, a field of dead bodies and—”

  Whoops.

  Her eyes have gone wide.

  “It’s the Jackson killer, right?”

  Great. Day one on the job and I’ve already blown it. “I can’t talk about it. And…you have to go. I can’t—”

  “But you found more bodies.”

  “We’re done.” I come around the desk. The door is still open. “Go.”

  She’s giving me a hard stare, then shakes her head. “You know I’ll find out anyway.”

  I’m not sure if that’s a threat, a statement, or a promise. But I stand at the door, holding it, waiting.

  “Fine.”

  The look she gives me as she leaves again feels so laced with a familiar disgust that I’m just a little shaken as I close the door.

  This is why I shouldn’t be chief. Did no one remember I wrote a memoir about my first year as an investigator? I am not good at secrets.

  Let’s be honest. It’s a small miracle that I’ve kept my mouth shut about my time travel so far.

  I can’t face whatever pile of work is on my desk, so after a few minutes, I leave and head over to the Dayton Deli, grab a couple ham salad sandwiches and return to Eve’s office.

  I know I’ve been here thousands of times, but this feels new as I walk in. She’s got her own office that overlooks 3rd Street, but the room is filled with stainless steel tables, white boards, workstations and computers. A group of younger CSI techs are garbed in gloves and masks, labeling and examining evidence.

  I’m so proud of Eve. She’s worked hard to become the woman she is today. Although in this timeline, some of that work was in Miami.

  We’re not done with that conversation, I promise you.

  Silas is in an adjacent office. He’s the deputy CSI director, and one of Eve’s best friends. He looks up as I pass his office. Neither of us smile.

  He’s never liked me, so of course he backed up Eve when she wanted to divorce me two timelines ago. I’ve always believed that Silas would have stepped into the void if Eve and I called it quits, and I believe he still has it in him.

  Eve is at her desk. I knock on the open door and she looks up as I hold up the bag.

  “It could be called creepy the way you can read my mind.”

  This time, I’m innocent. But I smile and wink at her and realize that suddenly I don’t feel quite so peeved with my day. This life.

  I’ve been rolling what-ifs through my head all day, thinking about the watch. But this is the best version of my life I’ve returned to, and you saw what happened last time I tried to fix something.

  I can probably live with this version. Like I said, it’s almost right.

  “Rembrandt Stone.”

  The voice comes from a man standing near her bookshelf. Tall and wiry, Norwegian in his complexion and thinning hair, blue eyes. He looks like he’s spent his life indoors and he’s holding a book.

  I know him, although the recognition takes a moment. “Professor Gunter?”

  “I hear you’ve been promoted to police chief,” he says and switches hands so he can shake mine.

  “It’s just a short-term gig.”

  “You’re just in time, Rem,” Eve says. “I was going to call you. Professor Gunter came in with a theory about our serial killer.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time I pulled in help from the behavioral analyst, so maybe he’s a regular.

  He puts the book down on Eve’s desk as she unwraps her sandwich. I offer him mine, but he waves me off.

  “I brought you my book on the psychology of serial killers,” he says. “But Eve already has it on her shelf.”

  “A little light reading,” she says as she takes a bite.

  I pull up a chair and open my sandwich.

  Gunter smirks and puts his hand on his book. “I think what you have here is a power-based killer. I was looking at your victims. All of them are in service professions—bartenders, waitresses, a couple Uber drivers, and a number of, ahem, ladies of the night.”

  I look at Eve and she’s hiding a smile.

  “I believe Jackson wants to exert his power over these women. He waits for them, runs them down and overpowers them. Strangulation is a very personal crime. It takes time—and the killer must watch as the life drains from the victim’s face. Most of the kills happen with the killer astride the victim, his thumbs on her throat, like this.”

  He makes to reach for me to demonstrate but I hold up a hand. “I get it.”

  “Yes, well, okay.” He smooths his tie. “Because of this, these types of killers enjoy watching the police hunt them. They like to make the investigators feel powerless by sending them notes, and even leaving fake clues.” He looks at E
ve, and back to me. “They like to play games.”

  I’m not hungry anymore. “Like burying murdered women in the yard where I spent my childhood.”

  He nods.

  I grab my coffee and lean back in my chair. “Why me? I’m not the only one working this case.”

  Eve caps her water bottle after taking a drink. “Rembrandt, you’ve been hunting this guy for…well, I remember the first time you told me about him. Over twenty years ago.”

  “Me too.” I meet her eyes and smile.

  She doesn’t. “And the next day, you drove out to a bar in Montrose and beat the guy up.”

  Gunter looks at me. “You assaulted him?”

  I hold up my hands. “Believe me, the guy can handle himself. He’s ex-military.”

  I unconsciously reach up to touch the tiny scar on my forehead.

  Gunter ogles the uneaten half of my sandwich. “You gonna eat that?”

  “Knock yourself out.” I push it toward him.

  He takes a bite. “Ham salad. My favorite.”

  “Eve says you think he’s getting ready to do something big. A stunt. Why?”

  He swallows. Nods. “Because although his kills are coming faster, you still haven’t mentioned him in the media. He wants to be noticed by you. To have you call him out and pay attention to his handiwork. He wants you to play his game.”

  “Could these women be the big stunt?”

  “How did you know they were there?”

  “Zeke said it was an anonymous tip to the 911 line,” Eve said.

  “Can they track the call?” Gunter asks.

  Eve nods. “We can try.”

  He takes another bite of the sandwich. I stare out the window. The sky has turned dark, gray clouds jockeying for position. The air feels thick and heavy.

  “He’s made this personal.” Gunter finishes off the sandwich and wipes his mouth. “So be careful, because he’s intelligent.”

  Yeah, well, so am I. And I have three versions of the past I can access to find him.

  And you’d better believe, if you thought I cheated before, you haven’t seen anything yet.

  If I’m going to stick around in this world, then I’m going to make sure it’s safe to live in.

  5

  I’m at the gym, beating up a heavy bag.

  Quincy's has always been my refuge. It's an old warehouse with high ceilings, open piping, and the sounds of guys, mostly, hitting things—each other, as well as heavy and speed bags—all punctuated with the hard thud of free weights dropping onto the black rubber mats place throughout the gym.

  Inside struggles being worked out on the outside.

  I'm sweating, I smell bad, my muscles hurt and I just have to keep punching until I sort this out.

  The problem is, and maybe you've noticed, that I’ve started to think of myself as a time traveler. Started to believe that everything I see here is not fixed but rather simply a chess piece I can move if I think through it hard enough. I’ll just go back in time and dodge some things, show up for others and maybe I return to a world where everything is put right.

  I don’t need to get back to my timeline. I know that’s long gone. I just need a world I can live in. I’ll take any world where my daughter is still alive.

  But what if I go back, in some—yet again—desperate attempt to change things, and I return to an unthinkable darkness.

  This alternative sends a cold finger down my spine despite the heat I’m pumping through my body.

  It doesn’t matter, though, does it? I can’t do anything without the watch. Booker is dead, he didn't give me the watch, and that's the end of it, isn't it?

  Which puts me in the conundrum of trying to figure out how to live in this world. And before you say, What's your problem, Rem? Why do you always have to change things? I'd like to remind you that I'm a guy. We fix things. And a detective. We solve things. And deep down inside, I'm also still a writer. (I don't know if that urge ever leaves.) And writers like to analyze things, pick them apart, find the deeper layers.

  So I'm stuck in this grayscale, no man's world of not being sure of what I want to do. And frustrated that I don't have a choice.

  The bag shudders as I pound it.

  “That kind of day, huh?”

  I catch the bag and turn, breathing hard.

  Eve is standing behind me, her satchel over her shoulder, her hair a little damp from the drizzle outside.

  She’s so pretty I lose my breath, and it’s all I can do not to walk over and kiss her. But I smell pretty bad, so—

  “I just need to figure some things out.”

  She was smiling, but now it falls, and she nods, looks down. “Are we going to talk about it?”

  About—? Fitzgerald? The fact that it’s gotten personal? Or maybe Mayor Vega’s hatred of me? Maybe the weird conversation with Frankie the reporter? Or, how about the fact I had to take an Uber to the gym because my Porsche got blown up?

  Yeah, that irks me more than I thought it would. As a time traveler—there, I said it again—we need touch points to our real world.

  My Porsche has been with me since the beginning.

  This is the most unjointed I’ve felt after a return from the past. Like I’m standing in quicksand. Maybe it’s because I know, this time, I’m staying.

  I think.

  The one sure thing I have, however, is Eve. I can live without my Porsche, right?

  I’ve taken too long to answer and now Eve looks up at me. “Right. Okay.” She sighs. “I know you blame me, Rem.”

  “Uh…” I frown, give a shake of my head. “Eve—”

  “It’s okay. Let’s just go.”

  She looks away, and wipes a tear from her cheek.

  How did we get here?

  “Eve—C’mon. What’s going on?”

  She looks at me then, something fractured in her eyes. “Really?”

  Um.

  “I know you haven’t forgiven me for Miami, okay? And I get it.” She takes a breath. “I haven’t forgiven myself, either.”

  What the hell happened in Miami? But I take a step toward her, despite my emanating odor, and catch her hand with my glove. “Babe. Of course I forgive you.” Because whatever it is, the answer is yes. “It’s done.”

  She meets my eyes, and my strong Eve is breaking, a fracture deep inside. What—? “Like I said, let’s just go. Please,” she says and steps away from me.

  Sorry, but I’ve been through too many lifetimes to just let this sit.

  Besides, remember what I said about fixing things?

  “Eve, let’s talk about it.”

  “No. It’s in the past, and we promised never to talk about it, ok?” She holds up her hands. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  Aw. “Listen, Eve—”

  “Do you want me to wait for you, or do you want to take an Uber home?”

  Right.

  “Let me change. I’ll be right out.”

  She’s leaning against the wall, near the door, absently running the heart charm on her necklace along the chain when I emerge, freshly showered, but unshaven, my hair wet. It’s a familiar gesture, and usually precedes one of her eureka moments.

  Outside, the rain is starting to pelt the parking lot and when she sees me, Eve pockets her phone and runs out to her Escape before I can circle back around to our conversation.

  The radio is on in the car and I get the hint.

  Maybe Burke knows what went down in Miami.

  “I ordered wings from Gino’s,” she says and pulls into a pizza joint just a few blocks from our house. I run in and grab the order.

  We drive in silence to the house.

  I wonder why I haven’t remodeled it yet. In my original time, I had embarked on a whole-house overhaul that included new flooring, a bigger, updated kitchen and restoring the original woodwork to its natural oak shine.

  The rain is coming down in sheets as we pull in.

  I can’t help but look at the empty stall as I get out. In fa
ct, I stand there, looking at the space.

  Eve stops on the stoop to the inner door. “Sorry about your Porsche,” she says, and I look over.

  The woman can read my mind. And the fact that she’s married to me in this lifetime suddenly strikes me as a gift.

  Whatever happened in Miami made her return to me. Maybe I don’t want to know.

  Maybe I should just accept the life I’ve been given.

  “It’s just a car.”

  “No, it’s not. You restored it with your father. It’s a lot more than just a car.”

  Now there’s heat in my chest. “Shelby seems to think it was an attack by a Russian gang.”

  “Pipe bomb under your tire in the parking lot of the station. Could have been worse—no one was injured.”

  “Do you think Ramses Vega could have done it?” I head toward the house and she goes inside, taking off her shoes at the door.

  “I don’t know. He’s always been angry at you, but—that was twenty some years ago.”

  “Mariana says he’s mentally unstable. And a victim. That we never caught the real bomber.”

  She takes the wings from me. “No, we never caught the bomb-maker. He’s the bomber, or at least the one who set them. You got him cold, Rem.”

  “If only we could have made it stick.”

  She touches my cheek. Smiles. “I know.”

  I think we’re going to be okay.

  “What do you mean, the bomb-maker?” I take off my shoes and follow her into the kitchen.

  She looks over her shoulder, and frowns. “You thought that Vega wasn’t smart enough to build the bombs. He didn’t have the training. It had to be someone else, right?”

  True. I nod, because I think I did say this.

  “In fact, I don’t think you ever completely closed the case. It might be in your cold case files in your office.”

  My cold case files in my office.

  She’s pulling down plates, as I head into my den. I didn’t see the file box before, but now I find it under my desk, shoved way in the back. I pull out the cases.

  Is it weird that I feel like I’ve found old friends, like looking through a yearbook, pulling out memories?

  I pull out the box and sit on my leather chair, taking out the stack of manila files.

  The coffee shop bombings are not there. Neither is Danny’s and Asher’s murder. But I do find Lauren Delaney, however, and Gretchen Anderson, Fitzgerald’s girlfriend.