“He says he knows you,” Michael entered first, referring to Derek who followed close behind.
“Son of a—!“
“—Daddy, no!” Sarah jumped in her father’s way as he made a b-line for a very surprised and battered looking Derek.
Michael didn’t know what was going on as he watched his partner push past his daughter and grabbing hold of the stranger’s arm, shove him up against the wall as he reached for the handcuffs on his nonexistent belt.
“What’s going on!” Derek shouted surprised, his face being pressed into the wall by the angry officer’s forearm.
Realizing that he hadn’t finished getting ready yet, Phil turned to his partner. “Cuffs!”
With still no idea what was going on but realizing that he should help his partner, Michael handed his cuffs to Phil and helped to restrain Derek as they were applied.
“Daddy stop!” Sarah cried.
“What’s going on?” Katie called from the top of the stairs, shocked to see her father and his partner restraining her sister’s boyfriend.
“Go back to your room!” Phil shouted as he secured the cuffs.
“What did I do?!” Derek protested, his words slurred by the wall.
“You’re under arrest for murder,” Phil began reading him his rights.
“Murder?” Michael responded shocked.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
“Daddy, let him go! The tape’s not real!”
Completely confused, but eager to find out what had happened prior to his arrival, Michael looked over at the image on the T.V.. Frozen on the screen was a black and white close up of the man in custody, but more telling was the image of what appeared to be a dead body lying on the floor behind him.
“Do you understand these rights?” Phil finished.
Derek didn’t know how to respond. He’d just arrived back from Tampa, ready to tell Sarah that his plan had failed and that they were going to have to somehow convince her father about the whole situation with Jason. He wasn’t prepared to be brutally attacked again, this time for reasons unknown.
“Do you understand these rights?!” Phil repeated.
“Yes,” Derek mumbled.
Pulling him away from the wall, Phil shoved Derek toward his partner. “Put him in the car. I’ll get the tape.”
Glancing over at the television, Derek finally understood what was going on as Mr. Bishop’s partner guided him back out the front door.
“Daddy, he didn’t do anything,” Sarah pleaded.
“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on? What did he do?” Katie asked, now from halfway down the stairs.
“Didn’t I tell you to go back to your room?!” Phil barked as he ejected the tape and quickly made his way into the kitchen.
Following her father, “Jason altered the tape,” she continued to plead Derek’s innocence as her father grabbed his gun and belt from the counter and quickly made his way toward the front door.
“Listen,” he turned and paused to address his pursuing daughter. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you and I are going to have a long talk when I get back. Now look after your sister,” he ordered as he disappeared onto the front porch, closing the door behind him.
“And I thought Daddy was hard on my boyfriends,” Katie joked.
“Shut up,” Sarah snapped as she ran for her keys.
FORTY-FOUR
“Now, we’re going to go over this one more time,” Phil leaned across the table, stopping within mere inches of Derek’s face, “Why’d you do it?”
“I told you. It wasn’t me,” Derek repeated the same explanation he’d been giving for the last two hours since being arrested, booked and chained to the interrogation room table, behind which he now sat.
The frustrated officer withdrew, dropping back in his chair on the other side of the table. “Really?” he uttered in frustration, eyeing his partner who stood behind Derek on the other side of the room. “We have a tape of what is unmistakably you killing that clerk, and you want to continue to claim that it was some other guy? What was his name?”
“Jason,” Derek mumbled.
“Yes, Jason Fook, the grandson of nice old Mr. Fook’s sister you said.”
“Yes,” Derek insisted. “He must have doctored the tape.”
“What, does he work for George Lucas or something? Tapes can be altered, I’ll give you that, but this thing is clear as day. Do you wanna watch it again?”
“I really don’t,” Derek thought. He’d already been forced to watch the horrific footage three times since being placed in the room. The television and VCR on the rollable cart still stood at one end of the table and Sarah’s father seemed more than eager for another showing to get his point across. He could understand the officer's disbelief. The footage was very well done, but that wasn’t hard to believe given the amazing editing software available to Jason in his time. While the early nineties weren’t exactly the stone age, a lot had changed in the last twenty three years but he’d so far opted to leave the whole, I’m from the future explanation out of his defense. It was hard enough for them to believe that a video could be so well altered. How exactly could he convince them that his presence in their time was the result of magical blood and a machine that he’d built into a briefcase? It even sounded ridiculous to him.
“Do ya?” Phil asked again, holding the remote, his finger ready to push play.
“No.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what’s really going on.”
“I already told you who did it.”
“Yeah, this Fook guy. Your roommate.”
“Yes, but there’s something I didn’t tell you,” Derek glanced up at the clock, concerned by the time. More than half the day had been wasted already and Sarah’s sister was running out of time. At this point the chances of figuring out a solution in time were slim so he decided to level with the guy, even if it meant sounding like a lunatic and probably spending the rest of his life in prison. “There are more victims.”
“You killed someone else?” Phil seemed shocked by the unexpected confession.
“No, Jason.”
“Of course,” Phil sighed.
“Are you going to take this serious or not?” Derek raised his voice.
Taken aback, Phil leaned forward. “Alright, I’m listening.”
“Tabitha Tillmore. Her and her husband were killed last night at their house in Scituate.
Phil just stared into Derek’s eyes. He appeared to be telling the truth, or at least he believed he was. Looking up at Mike, “Go check it out.”
Nodding, Officer Lucern left the room.
“And you didn’t kill these people?” Phil continued to probe.
“No.”
“So how do you know about it?”
“I was there. I saw Jason do it.”
“So you were an accomplice?”
“No. We tried to stop him but couldn’t.”
“We?”
“Shit,” Derek thought. So far he’d left Sarah completely out of this. Other than telling her father that they’d recently met, he hadn’t said another word about her and had avoided the subject whenever it came up.
“I meant I,” he lied.
“Is my daughter somehow involved in this?”
“No.”
“Don’t fuck with me. My daughter brings you home from college unexpectedly. Nobody knows who you are or what your story is. Hell, I didn’t even know she was seeing anybody.
“We’re not—“
“—Shut up.”
Derek complied.
“Where was my daughter when you saw this Fook character killing them?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see Sarah until early yesterday morning when she picked me up.”
“For a murderer, you don’t lie very well. Let’s hope you can find a lawyer better at it than you are.”
Derek didn’t know how to respond as he leaned back in his chair, wanting to tell th
e man that his other daughter was next, but unable to find the words.
Seeing the defeated look in Derek’s eyes, Phil also leaned back in his chair, the soft click and the squeak of the interrogation room door, finally breaking the deafening silence between them.
“It’s true,” Michael whispered in Phil’s ear as he looked at Derek. “Two bodies, Mr. and Mrs. Tillmore, killed sometime the other night.”
“How?” Phil looked at Derek.
“Mrs. Tillmore was stabbed in the back and Mr. Tillmore…well.”
He could tell that his partner was bothered by the details he’d just received from the Scituate police department. He’d spent his entire career in the town of Cannon. The worst things he’d had to deal with so far were juvenile delinquents and the occasional domestic violence calls. Never murder.
“Any witnesses?” Phil whispered back, continuing to keep an eye on Derek.
“Just one. The next door neighbor claims to have heard some sort of commotion. She said that she saw a man, matching his description, getting into a car with…someone else.”
“Shit,” Derek thought.
“Who?” Phil looked up at his partner.
“The description sounds like Sarah.”
Phil turned back to Derek. What had been a look of frustration and anger toward Derek, instantly became a rage filled hatred as he stood from his chair and grabbed Derek by the front of his shirt.
“Phil!” Michael exclaimed, worried about what his partner might do.
“You listen here you little shit,” Phil addressed Derek through clenched teeth.
Derek had nowhere to go. His hands and feet were cuffed together and chained to the table. He didn’t know if the incensed father was going to push, punch or shoot him.
“I don’t know what you have gotten my daughter into but you can rest assured that—“
“—Your daughter is in danger,” Derek blurted out. Why not he thought. He was going to be convicted for the murders that Jason committed anyway. His only defense was that a man, with the ability to travel through time, had come back to enact revenge on the mother’s of the girls who had wronged him in high school. Yeah, that should be an easy sell to a jury.
“What did you say? You’re not going to mention Sarah ever again or I’m going to—“
“—Not Sarah, Catherine, Katie. She’s next.”
“You’re not going to touch my daughters, either of them,” he lifted Derek out of the chair, pulling him halfway across the table.
“Phil,” Michael urged his partner to relax.
Very calmly, given his threatened position, “Not me. Jason. You don’t have much time.”
Phil just stared at the surprisingly relaxed man in his grasp before releasing his grip, sending Derek crashing back into his chair. “Lock him up,” he turned.
“Where are you going?” Michael asked.
“To have a word with my daughter,” he grumbled as he yanked the door open and stormed out of the room.
FORTY-FIVE
“Sarah! Sarah, are you here!? We need to talk!”
Emerging from her room, Katie made her way to the top of the stairs where she saw her father standing just inside the front door, staring up at her.
“Where’s your sister?”
“I thought she was with you.”
“Why would she be with me?” Phil asked confused.
“She grabbed her keys and left right after you took what’s his name away this morning. I thought she’d followed you to the station.”
“Well she didn’t,” Phil sighed. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“No,” Katie shrugged.
“Great.”
*****
“Sarah. What are you doing here?” Officer Lucern addressed his partner’s daughter with surprise.
“I need to see him Mike,” Sarah skipped the pleasantries and got right to the point.
“Your father’s not here. He went home to speak with you.”
“Not my father,” she glanced at the doorway leading to the holding cells in the basement.
“I can’t let you do that,” he held his hand up as Sarah took a step toward the door.”
“And why not?”
“I don’t think your father wants you talking to the suspect right now.”
“He’s not a suspect, Mike.”
“Well I beg to differ. Right now he’s being held on the suspicion of murder, with video evidence to back it up. I think that more than qualifies him as a suspect.”
“I don’t care what evidence you think you have against him. Your evidence is wrong,” Sarah continued to stare him down. “Now you’re going to let me in there or I’m going to tell my father about our little…you know…thing from a few years back.”
Michael’s face instantly turned ghost white at the threat.
She would never risk his career with such news but he didn’t need to know that. Besides, nothing illegal had been done, but she was pretty sure that her father would explode at the news that his then eighteen year old daughter had been part of a three month affair with his long time partner and closest friend shortly before she’d gone off to college. It had ended on mutual terms, both realizing the eventual outcome of such a forbidden relationship. She’d gone off to school and he’d continued by her father’s side as if nothing had ever happened. Occasionally, they’d exchanged awkward glances whenever she’d come home for a long weekend or holidays, some of which her father had noticed, but she’d managed to play those off with uncomfortable jokes about how hot his partner was, and had managed to keep him in the dark.
“You wouldn’t. I thought we agreed that—“
“—Mike, I just need five minutes. The dispatcher buzzed me in and the other guys are in the back office. No one needs to know that I’m down there. My father won’t find out,” she assured him.
Nervously, he stared into her eyes. He could keep her presence in the basement from the others and he believed that she wouldn’t tell her father. Hell, for over three years she’d kept the much bigger secret, but she also seemed a bit nervous and uneasy, which told him that, if denied, she might just go ahead and break her long time silence. It was a risk not worth taking.
“You have five minutes.”
“Thanks Mike,” she smiled as she again went to take a step toward the door, stopped once again by the officer’s halting hand.
“But if you get caught down there, I’m going to claim to have never seen you and that you snuck in on your own. Alright?”
“Got it,” she smiled. “You’re looking good. You been working out?”
“Go,” Mike grinned as she hurried through the door.
*****
“What are you doing here?” Derek leapt from the holding cell bench to meet Sarah at the bars.
“I had to make sure you were alright,” Sarah nervously looked back over her shoulder, down the hall from which she’d just come.
“Did you break in?” Derek followed her nervous gaze.
“No,” she laughed.
“Well I’m assuming that your father doesn’t know. So, how’d you get down here?”
“It’s not important. Listen, I went back to speak with Mr. Fook after you were arrested.”
“And?”
“You were right about Oliver...I mean, Jason and the adoption.”
“Sarah.”
“They are planning on kidnapping him; his grandmother and father I mean. Mr. Fook never really came right out and said it, but I understood what he meant. I didn't get much else before he forgot what he was saying and offered me another pie. The man must really like pie...”
“Sarah.”
"But anyway, it gave me an idea. What if we contact the Nesbits and let them know what's going on."
"Sarah."
"Maybe we can stop this—"
“—Listen to me!” Derek finally managed to interject.
She fell silent.
“I know all about it. I went to Tampa la
st night. I went to the Nesbits.”
"You did?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Looking around the room at his current situation.
“Right, but why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”
“Because I didn’t want you to be involved anymore than you already are.”
“Involved. How could I be any more involved? I’m probably going to end up right beside you in that cell if we get linked to the Tillmore’s.”
“I told your dad about the Tillmore’s. He knows everything.”
“Everything?”
“Well not everything. I told him about Jason but I didn’t mention you or the part about the future. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You need to get home and get your sister out of here. Run as far away as possible.”
“I thought you said running wouldn’t do anything.”
“It probably won’t but it might buy you a little bit of time to figure something else out."
"What about the Nesbits?"
"What?"
"You said you went to the Nesbits. What happened?"
"They aren't going to be of any help."
"But you told them right? Did you tell them about Jason's grandmother and father? Did you tell them about Jason?"
"I...," Derek hesitated as he contemplated whether or not to share details about the previous night's events and his unspeakable part in it.
"What am I thinking?" Sarah interrupted. "Of course they didn't believe it. Hell, I would still think you were nuts if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."
Satisfied with letting Sarah jump to her own conclusions...for now at least, he redirected the conversation back to her sister. "Your sister can’t go to that dance, alright?”
Sarah smiled.
“What?”
“My sister was in the hospital yesterday.”
Derek wasn’t sure how that news constituted a smile.
“She’s alright,” Sarah realized the contradictory quality of her expression to the news. “She’s not going to the dance. One thing you have to know about my father is that he’s very protective.
Fook Page 32
