Time Sensitive

by Elyse Douglas

  Charlotte could picture Steven inhaling a breath, all numb composure, ever the professional. “The LAPD spotted a man fitting his description, strolling just north of Hollywood and Vine, near the Capital Records building. As they approached him, he pulled a gun and fired. He struck two officers before a third fired back. He’s dead. He had no ID.”

  Charlotte worked hard to break through the fog of despair and disbelief.

  Steven continued. “I can only speculate as to why neither the CIA nor the LAPD were able to find and stop Sirhan Sirhan. And then there’s a report about the possibility of a girl in a polka-dot dress being involved. It’s all a confused mess right now.”

  Charlotte rose to her feet, reached for a tissue and dabbed at her wet eyes.

  “Come into the office as soon as you can, Charlotte,” Steven said. “And be prepared to put in some long hours for the next few days.”

  Without hesitation, Charlotte climbed the stairs, quietly pulled some clothes from her closet and dressed in the bathroom. She was backing out of her driveway within fifteen minutes. She had left Paul, Lyn and Lacey all sound asleep.

  CHAPTER 29

  Barely awake and yawning, Jay Anderson was behind the wheel of his Chevy Belair, and 76-year-old Charlotte sat stiffly in the passenger seat. It was 3:55 a.m., and they were traveling toward Marlow Heights. Charlotte looked anxiously at her watch. If nothing had changed due to her time travel, the fire would start at about 4:30 a.m.

  Earlier, a light rain had fallen, washing the streets. With her window rolled down, Charlotte inhaled the sweet scent of rain and spring flowers. She gazed up and saw a crescent moon swimming through broken, dark clouds.

  There was a certain release in being in motion, and Charlotte felt a surge of energy now that she was finally on the last leg of her time travel journey.

  Several times, Jay had tried to ask questions or initiate conversation, but each time, Charlotte had given only clipped answers, or had remained altogether silent. After he’d arrived at the Willard Hotel lobby an hour before and they were in the car, she had given him a sealed 9x12 envelope containing the letter she had written to young Charlotte, along with her account of all the events which had led up to that night. Inside was also the family photo she’d brought from 2018, as well as the safe deposit box number, the password and the key. She had placed $40,000 in cash in the safe deposit box for Young Charlotte. Jay had looked at the envelope, confused.

  “I want you to do something for me,” Charlotte had said.

  “Anything, you know that.”

  “Give this to the person it’s addressed to if anything happens to me.”

  Jay had drawn back, twisting up his lip in protest. “What is this all about? Nothing is going to happen to you.”

  “Please, Jay. It is very important. Please promise me you’ll deliver it in a week if anything happens to me. I know I can trust you.”

  His eyes shifted about. “You’re scaring me a little, you know.”

  “Please, Jay.”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

  Charlotte had then reached into her purse and drawn out a letter-sized envelope. “This is the money I owe you.”

  Jay’s face pinched up. “What are you talking about?”

  “We had a deal. I agreed to pay you if you were my chauffeur. That was our deal.”

  “I don’t want your money. Don’t insult me. We’ve come a long way since last Thursday. Put your money away.”

  Charlotte had held his eyes, softly. “Your wife Sally Ann was a very lucky woman, Jay. You’re a very special man.”

  “Aw, stop it, I’ve got plenty of faults. Just wait until you get to know me better.”

  She touched his arm. “Thank you for everything.”

  “You sound like this is the end or something. I don’t know why we’re going on this drive so early in the morning, but the fact that I’m taking you, without questions, should prove that I want to be with you, no matter what.”

  They drove to Temple Hill Road and turned right on Leslie Avenue. It was time to implement the first part of her plan. As instructed, Jay stopped near a lighted public phone booth. Charlotte left the car, walked to the booth and entered.

  With her lips pulled tightly together, she inserted a dime, dialed her former home number and let it ring. When she heard Paul’s sleepy voice say “Hello,” she spoke quickly.

  “Paul, this is a friend. Please do as I say and don’t ask questions. The house is about to catch on fire. Take the girls now and leave the house.”

  As expected, Paul was drowsy and irritated. “Who is this?”

  “Please just do as I say. It is a matter of life and death.”

  Paul hung up.

  Undaunted, Charlotte returned to the car, slipped in and closed the door.

  “What now?” Jay asked.

  They sat in a cocoon of silence before Charlotte turned to him. “I have one more thing I’d like you to do for me, Jay.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “When it’s all over, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

  Charlotte glanced down at her watch. “I’m going to get out and walk the rest of the way to the house. I want you to wait here, and then at exactly 4:20, I want you to call the fire department and report a fire at 2407.”

  She handed him a sheet of paper with the house address on it. Jay squinted a look at it and then slowly, his suspicious eyes came to hers.

  “I know where the house is. We’ve been there twice. Calling the fire department on a false alarm is a crime… a very serious crime.”

  “It won’t be false.”

  Jay’s expression expanded in sudden anxiety. “What are you going to do, Charlotte?”

  She took his hand and patted it, managing a nervous smile. “Don’t worry. I’m going to do something I should have done fifty years ago. Please, Jay, make that call. Will you promise me?”

  “Are you still working for the government, Charlotte? Is that what this is about?”

  “I don’t have time to explain right now. Please, will you make the call?”

  He sighed heavily and faced away. “All right… But this is the last thing I’ll do without an explanation.”

  Charlotte leaned and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re a good man, Jay. Thank you.”

  She exited the car, leaving Jay shaking his head.

  Charlotte started forward, making noiseless footsteps, as a humid breeze swept in. She passed nice homes and well-kept lawns, and she had to cross the street to avoid harassing a barking dog that stood on hind legs against a backyard fence.

  Her strategy was simple: According to the old fire inspector report, the fire began somewhere between 4:30 a.m. and 4:45. At 4:25, she was going to stride up the walkway of the house, climb the stairs and wait on the porch until 4:30. She’d start ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door until she saw lights come on. She would keep pounding until Paul came to the door.

  The day before, she had scouted out the house. She’d asked Jay to take her there before they drove to his place for TV dinners and a movie. She wanted to see Paul return home from work, wanted to witness Lacey and Lyn boil out of the house to meet him and be gathered up in his arms. The impact of seeing them again had taken her breath away. Her heart ached, her emotions nearly overwhelming her.

  Irrationally, she’d wanted to burst from Jay’s car and run to them, hold and kiss them, and tell them everything was going to be okay.

  Charlotte pressed on, now only about a block away from the house. She saw a flash of lightning in the distance and turned her head away as a car approached, its head lights glaring.

  Her pulse raced, and she heard the thud of her heart in her ears. She was almost there. Finally, after a lifetime of regret, she could right all the wrongs.

  Her once sure stride began to wobble. Her color went sick. A hammer blow struck her heart and she cried out in pain. As the world veered and tipped and spun
away, Charlotte clawed at her chest. A heavy wind pushed at her. She staggered, as pain surged and squeezed her heart like a vice grip.

  She stumbled toward a nearby lawn as she began to lose focus. When she opened her mouth to call out for help, she only managed a feeble, hollow wheeze. She knew it was the hopeless and terrible sound of a dying woman. Even then she fought to stay on her feet, reeling about like a drunken woman.

  She crumbled like a rag doll onto the damp grass, arms reaching out toward her house. In her head she screamed and called for help. Just a little further. Please, God, just a few more steps and she would save her family. The wind gasped and circled.

  She managed to gulp in an agony of breath and let it out harshly. A slashing pain knifed through her body and still she clawed at the ground, eyes wide, mouth open, silently screaming for help.

  As the light drained from her eyes, the first wisps of smoke were rising from the house at 2407.

  CHAPTER 30

  On the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, 26-year-old Charlotte drove like a mad woman, weaving in and out of lanes, laying on her horn whenever she encountered slow drivers. She was listening to the radio broadcasts about the assassination of RFK. She was almost at the office when the image of the old woman’s piercing eyes rose before her, confronting her. Charlotte grew short of breath, as panic filled her like a cold liquid. If the letter was true—if everything had happened as the writer had said it would, and if the writer was the old woman, then what about the woman’s warning to her?

  “Whatever you do, take your family and leave town by June 4th. Please listen to me and do this, Mrs. Vance.”

  Charlotte took the next exit, changed direction and sped off toward home. The car bounced and ramped, bending around curves, tires squealing, Charlotte’s hard, determined eyes locked on the road. As she whipped the car onto Leslie Avenue, her heart jumped, and she made a sound of terror. As she approached her house, she saw an orange flickering light in the upstairs window, and billowing smoke rising from the roof.

  She skidded to the curb, cut the engine and bolted from the car, leaving the car door open. As she sprinted up the walkway, she heaved in hot dry breath, mounting the stairs. Fumbling in her purse for her keys, she finally inserted a key into the lock, turned it and put a shoulder to the door. Inside, she coughed, acrid billowing smoke attacking her throat and lungs. She knew the house was about to be engulfed in flames.

  Charlotte was only vaguely aware of distant wobbling sirens, piercing the night, as a hook-and-ladder truck was racing to the scene.

  In a dead run, Charlotte charged up the stairs, an arm covering her mouth, as a wall of shimmering heat engulfed her. With the flat of her hand she hit the partially opened bedroom door. Through thick, rolling smoke, she saw Paul on the bed, not moving. Fire licked at the curtains, their bathroom already an inferno. Undaunted, she scrambled over to him, and through burning slitted eyes and a hacking cough, she reached him, tugging, screaming and slapping his face. Finally, he stirred, coughing violently.

  “Get up,” she yelled. “Get up!”

  She pulled and yanked until Paul pushed up while Charlotte threw off the sheet. Dressed only in his bottom pajamas, Paul clumsily swung his bare feet to the hot floor.

  “Come on, we have to get the girls!” Charlotte yelled.

  That galvanized him, and using Charlotte’s shoulder for support, they stumbled out of the bedroom and across the hall where the girls slept.

  Bursting inside a now burning room billowing with ugly, curling smoke, the parents staggered to the bedsides. Both girls were listless and unconscious.

  Paul grabbed Lacey, lifting her into his protective arms. Charlotte seized Lyn, clutching her tightly against her shoulder. She and Paul ducked away and had just meandered away from the fire when it exploded a window and burst through the room.

  Punished by the smoke and blinding heat, Charlotte and Paul blundered down the stairs, drenched in sweat, and in a last gasp of effort, managed to escape the house just as the hook-and-ladder truck arrived. Firemen sprang into action, shouting commands, tugging at hoses, and encircling the house. Soon, water surged from the hoses, arching up, attacking the spreading fire that lit up the night.

  On the front lawn, Charlotte called for help and two firemen hurried over with oxygen. Paul handed Lacey over and then he collapsed into a spasm of coughing.

  Minutes later the firemen clapped an oxygen mask over Lacey’s and Lyn’s noses and mouths.

  One fireman glanced up to see Charlotte’s terrified face. He said, “Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. You got them out in time.”

  When an ambulance arrived, Paul and Charlotte were swiftly treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. As they lay on stretchers, they watched in horror as the roof buckled and plunged, and the walls collapsed into great sweeping plumes of fire.

  And then Charlotte lay back and shut her eyes. She whispered a silent prayer of thanks to the old woman who had saved their lives.

  Seventy-six-year-old Charlotte Wilson was taken to George Washington University Hospital and was pronounced dead at 6:30 a.m. on June 5, 1968.

  Jay Anderson had found her sprawled on the lawn, and he was by her side, holding her hand when the ambulance arrived. As it drove away, he stood in the lonely, helpless night, aware of the burning house just down the block, but he didn’t move toward it. A concerned neighbor, wearing a housecoat and slippers, asked if he was all right, but Jay didn’t hear the man. He just stood staring, sad and lost.

  Two days later, as he was searching his glove compartment looking for a flashlight, he found a bulging manila envelope with his name written on it. He sat back and opened it. To his astonishment, it was filled with 100-dollar bills that totaled eleven thousand dollars. The hand-written note said:

  Dear Jay:

  You were an expert and courteous chauffeur; a dear friend and I dare say you would have been a wonderful husband. Please accept this little token of my gratitude for all you have done for me. Believe that it comes from a weak, but a full heart.

  With love,

  Charlotte

  EPILOGUE

  2018

  Cyrano Conklin was in his office, bouncing a tennis ball on the wood floor. Then he threw it against the wall, caught it, threw it again—a slow and mechanical game that went on for over five minutes.

  When his phone rang, he aimed the ball at his waste basket and, in a little jump shot, released the ball. It hit the rim, glanced off and bounced to the other side of the room. He shook his head in weary disappointment and reached for the phone.

  “Mr. Conklin, there’s a woman here to see you. She said she has an appointment.”

  “What is her name?”

  “Charlotte Vance.”

  He paused, screwing up his lips in thought. “An appointment?”

  “Yes, sir… just a minute. She’s telling me something.” The secretary cleared her voice.

  “Yes, well, Mrs. Vance says that it’s a 50-year appointment.”

  Cyrano lowered himself down into the leather swivel chair and swiveled back and forth, his mind alive with circumspection. “Well, I suppose you’d better send her in. Oh, and escort her into the conference room, if you would please.”

  Cyrano was suddenly distracted by two flower pots lingering on the window sill. He made a sour face. He didn’t know what the flowers were. His wife had brought them months ago, mumbling something about the office needing a woman’s touch. He frowned at the flowers, feeling a pang of guilt. The poor, wilting things looked at him as if they were being held prisoner, withering away in their chipped clay flower pots. Did they receive too much light? Not enough light? Did they need water? Had he watered them this week? Who could remember such things. The whole flower thing perplexed him.

  He grabbed his paper cup half filled with water and drizzled them, nodding, proudly, as if he’d just saved a life.

  Minutes later, Cyrano entered the well-appointed conference room and was surprised to see a tall, vital woman, w
ith clear eyes, a radiant face and short, silver gray hair. He guessed her age at seventy-five, maybe seventy-six, but she possessed a fine carriage and a confident demeanor.

  She stood, and he offered her his hand.

  “Mrs. Vance, I presume?” Cyrano asked, pleasantly.

  “Charlotte Vance, yes. Please call me Charlotte.”

  She looked at him rather strangely, he thought. He noticed an old manila envelope on the table.

  “Well, I hope you’re feeling well on this hot August morning. Please, sit down, Charlotte.”

  Cyrano sat opposite her, folded his hands, and inhaled and then released a breath, signaling it was time to begin.

  “Now, what can I do for you?”

  Charlotte lifted and settled her shoulders. “I thought you might know me. I thought you might be expecting me. You don’t seem to.”

  He sat stiffly, with a tolerant smile. “I’m afraid I don’t know you, Mrs. Vance…Charlotte. To my receptionist, you mentioned a 50-year-old appointment?”

  Charlotte’s eyes rested on the manila envelope. “I don’t quite know where to begin. I’m sure I’m at the right place. This is TEMPUS, isn’t it?”

  Cyrano nodded. “Yes.”

  “And, obviously, you are Cyrano Conklin.”

  “I am one and the same.”

  Charlotte blinked around the room and gave a little shake of her head, as if perplexed.

  “Then I don’t know why I’m here.”

  Cyrano leaned forward, his expression turning curious. “Perhaps you can just tell me why you came? Did someone send you?”

  Charlotte looked at him pointedly. “Yes, someone did.”

  “And who would that be?”

  Charlotte reached for the manila envelope and then rested her hand on it. “Mr. Conklin… is TEMPUS involved with time travel?”

  Cyrano studied her carefully. The skin around his eyes tightened. “Time travel?”

  “Yes…”

  Cyrano sat back. “Charlotte, TEMPUS is a research organization whose primary focus is on Suspended Animation, which literally means, putting life on hold. The preferred scientific term for the procedure is emergency preservation and resuscitation.”