J.R. Murdock

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Sam

They had giggled like school girls. Sam couldn’t believe how quickly Myra and Girlfriend started chattering and giggling, of all things. He cringed. He hated that woman. She was so rude and abrasive. Even her apology sounded half-hearted. If he had his way, he’d send her away until she had to be there, but he was just trying to be polite while Girlfriend was there.

Sam topped off the tank on the quad and pushed it out of the shed. He loved his shed and would spend more time in it if he could. It was long enough to fit all his toys, and then some.

Once the quad was outside, he went back in and pulled out the trailer. He knew the girls would want to go into the woods to do the mapping, so he hitched the trailer up and set a long, padded cushion inside. He’d drive, slowly, and they could draw out the line as it went around the trailer park. His guess was that whoever lived in the middle of the circle would be the culprit. He’d want to have words with that person.

For now, he’d have to shove that thought aside. While those two were inside, he’d have to get anything else ready and set up by the door. He went to the gun safe and opened it.

“What would bring down a dinosaur?”

He grabbed his 9 mm and the twelve-gauge shotgun. Those would do the most damage, as he packed his own bullets for the nine mil and had some hollow points. The snub-nosed .38 would be a good one for Girlfriend to hang onto just in case she needed anything to make her comfortable. And just out of comfort for himself, he got out his father’s hunting rifle. He’d taken it with him hunting anywhere he went no matter what he’d been hunting. It brought him luck. Even though he had no intention of doing any hunting that night, he wanted to keep it near just in case.

The wood of the stock was almost black with age and use. His father had gotten it as a present from his grandfather during his first hunting trip and it’d been passed down to Sam when his father had finally succumbed to cancer. Sam rubbed the stock with the same care he’d use to caress a child’s cheek.

“If I’ve never said it before, I need your help.”

He didn’t know if he was talking to his father, or The Father. He’d never been religious, much to his mother’s dismay. She’d been a devout Lutheran and had so desperately tried to get Sam and his father into church. But they had hunting to do, or fishing. Always the woods would call when the church bell rang. Church was something the women did to pray for their men. It wasn’t something men did.

Sam was glad when he found out that Girlfriend wasn’t religious and going to try to hound him into going to church. In a way, he felt as if he’d let his mother down yet again for taking the easy way out.

In fact, he felt as if he was doing as his father would want him to; spend his time being a man. Part of being a man was looking out for your friends and doing right by them. He needed to do right by Casper, and that was to know exactly what happened and do what he could to make things right. He owed that much to Casper and Pops.

“Who are you talking to?” Girlfriend asked, scaring Sam out of his wits. So much so that he nearly dropped his father’s rifle.

“Girlfriend,” Sam snapped, he saw Myra with a smile on her face and didn’t like it. “I’m not talking to anyone.”

“Good. I found the map.” She held up the cartoon map of the park and the more detailed map that showed the lake and surrounding area.

“Great. Are you two ready? Do you have pens or markers or something?”

“Yup. Ready to walk.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to make you walk.” Sam pointed to the trailer hooked up to the quad. “I figured it’ll be faster if I drive and you two can just worry about mapping.”

Girlfriend nudged Myra. “We get to ride in style.”

They put their heads together and giggled. It grated on Sam’s nerves like nails on a chalkboard. The only thing worse would be if they started baby talking. Then he’d really have to get them separated.

Sam put the rifle on a small bench next to the safe, along with the rest of the guns, and locked the safe back up. He’d get the ammunition ready when they returned. He then locked up the shed and mounted the quad. At least while he was driving he wouldn’t have to worry about listening to them talk to each other. That was one small blessing.

As the girls got into the trailer armed with maps and markers, Sam started up the quad. He waited until they were both in, even though he was tempted to lurch forward and dump Miss Prissy Pants. He refrained. The wagon trailer was more than large enough to accommodate them both, as it was designed to carry large game out of the woods.

“Hold on tight.”

Sam took off slowly. He wondered where the best spot to start would be. He decided to start up by the road since their maps would give them the best reference. As he pulled out of his driveway he looked to Pops’s trailer and saw the old man looking through a pulled back curtain. Sam nodded to Pops and drove on to the front of the park.

He drove around the park, as he didn’t want to cut across anyone’s yard. He wouldn’t like it, so he didn’t dare do it to anyone else. No one was outside. He wondered if that was because of what happened to Casper or if people had other reasons to stay inside. It was a warm enough day that it might keep them inside with the air turned on, but usually someone was out and about.

The only two people Sam saw, and they dispersed before Sam arrived, were Patty and Mrs. Jenkins. Patty grabbed her daughter Ashley’s hand and went in the direction of her trailer, but Mrs. Jenkins just sat on her scooter and watched Sam as he drove by. He couldn’t help but tip his hat as he drove by.

Sam puttered up the slope of the drive and up to the highway. He stopped and turned the quad off.

“This is where we’ll start. I’ll follow that line as best I can into the woods. There’s some overgrowth that I’ll have to go around, but see what you can do.”

They both nodded and thankfully didn’t start their snickering again. He only wanted them to take this seriously. That was all. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it? They both made lines marking their starting place on the maps. He assumed they could see the line and the way it arced across the highway.

Sam started the quad up again and slowly entered the ditch right along the path of the line. He was amazed at just how obvious it looked when he was dead on with it. Almost like seeing a trail of telephone poles going through the middle of the woods. It was creepy. He went slowly and tried to listen if one of the two asked for him to stop, which they did several times. They kept looking at the park through the trees to make sure they were still lined up with the park as they drew the line. He’d wait patiently and when they were ready, he’d start out again.

The strangest point was when the line passed directly through the middle of a tree. They were at the far end of the park and quite a distance away. Sam could only just make out the silhouettes of the trailers in the distance. The strange part was not that the line passed through a tree, (they’d seen that and Myra had made them stop so she could take a picture), but that something odd protruded from the tree. Sam had stopped and turned off the quad. Somehow he thought they might be a while.

Girlfriend asked “Why’d you stop?”

“Ms. Tolie, you’re going to want to see this. I’m pretty sure of that.”

Protruding from the tree was what looked like another plant that Sam didn’t recognize. Along the path they’d seen branches on the ground that had been there for an obviously long time, the limb severed with surgical precision. This, however, wasn’t severed. The tree had been merged with a mammoth fern. The frond was partly inside the tree, but mostly out. Sam wondered how that could have happened.

“This is amazing,” Myra said as she walked to the frond. It was taller than she was. “This is only part of the plant, but I’ve seen fossils of these leaves.” She snapped several pictures and rattled off some scientific name of the plant that Sam ignored. It only gave him more confidence in his time machine theory.

He wondered how the leaf got stuck like that. Perhaps the wind had blown it into the circle so that when the time machine was turned off, it got stuck inside the tree before it could fall to the ground.

He waited for about two minutes while Myra snapped pictures and recorded everything she said. Sam wanted to be patient, but couldn’t. He had to know as much as he could and he had to know it now.

“Let’s go. We’ve still got a long way to go. We’re not even halfway around yet.”

Fortunately she listened and walked backward toward the trailer. Sam started up the quad and she gave him a momentarily dirty look as she put the microphone in her pocket and sat back in the trailer.

Up until the circle neared the lake, the trees had been thin enough that Sam could mostly follow the trail, but near the lake, the undergrowth was such that he could go no further. Going on foot wasn’t even an option. He banged his fists on the handlebars.

“Just go around.”

“What?” Sam could barely hear over the quad’s engine. He turned it off.

“Just go around. Looking at what we have so far,” Girlfriend held up her map to show how far they’d gone, “It doesn’t look like we’ll miss much if we don’t include that part. Besides, doesn’t it get mushy down there?”

Mushy wasn’t the word for it. They’d bog down for sure, and have a difficult time getting back out. Sam started the quad, but Myra screamed. He promptly turned it back off and turned to see what was the matter. Myra had leapt from the trailer and ran into the underbrush, her shoes sinking into the mud.

“Ms. Tolie! Stop!”

She didn’t. Sam ran after her.

“Ms. Tolie, you’re going to get stuck.” Sam’s own boots sank into the muck. He was thankful he had the extra-wide tires on his quad to keep it from sinking too deeply.

Myra kept going in deeper and deeper. Sam couldn’t see what she was so up in arms about. He couldn’t see what she was running toward, but the stench reached his nose quickly enough. Whatever she’d seen, it was good and dead.

“Sam, bring a cable or something! Quickly!”

Sam, without thinking, turned and ran back to the quad. He also had a front winch, but he’d never needed to use it. He hoped he’d be able to figure it out.

Girlfriend had gotten out of the trailer and stared intently into the woods, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Do you see it Sam?”

“I didn’t see anything,” Sam said as he quickly read the instructions for the winch. Looked just like any winch, so he flipped the switch that would allow him to draw out the cable.

“It’s right there. How could you miss it?”

Sam pulled the cable out and looked to see where Myra had gone. Then he did see it. And dropped the cable. It was huge. It was a dinosaur. A big, dead dinosaur.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Lin

Tiger Lily had gotten frustrated after several miles of slow driving and took the driver’s seat. She had, however, continued to show Lin how to drive. They had switched seats several times and driven into town and down a few dirt roads that Lin hadn’t seen until they were almost upon them. Tiger Lily got a kick out of driving out to a dead end and watching Lin navigate what should have been a three-point turn to get back out again. They’d gone by lakes, rivers, and streams and past countless trees.

“I think I’m ready to go back now. This was fun, but I think we’ve got some work to do.”

They’d laughed, Tiger Lily had shared stories, when she didn’t think Lin would run into anything, and Lin had gotten a great taste for driving. She loved it. She would have to head into the Aitkin County DMV and apply for a license. Then maybe she could ask Tiger Lily to take her car shopping. The Lexus felt great and she was certain that this was the kind of car that she’d want, but would want to see other cars first.

“You’re right, let’s get on back,” Tiger Lily said as she unbuttoned her shirt and fanned herself with the open end. “I need to get into something more comfortable.” She smiled and winked at Lin.

Lin giggled. They’d shared a lot of little moments like that, but they no longer felt strange. She really thought she was beginning to understand the flirty nature of Tiger Lily and it was pleasant, not bizarre. She’d grown up an only child and that had afforded her the best of everything, but now she wished she’d had an older sister.

She turned the car back on to the main road. “I did turn the right way, didn’t I?”

“You did. Just go back to the flashing light and turn left and we’ll be on our way.”

Lin squinted and could just make out the flashing yellow light several miles up the straight, flat road. “Do you think we’ll catch him?”

“Who? Oh, you mean the person hacking the system? Yes, we’ll get him. The only way he could escape detection this time is with a physical break in the line. That’s not likely because he’s using the server and the dish. I’m still trying to understand what he’s doing, but being that he didn’t leave a trail, that’ll make it all that much harder to figure out. Once we know who is doing it, it’ll just be a matter of finding the person and knocking on his door.”

“I hope it’s that simple, but what do you think it has to do with Casper’s death?”

“Again we’ll have to wait until we talk to the person. Maybe with the way the woods changed it was all just an accident. Don’t you think?”

“I guess that’s possible. Oh shoot!”

“What?”

“I forgot that I promised to make a copy of those videos for Sam.”

“Maybe he’ll forget,” Tiger Lily said with a shrug.

“I hope so. I’ll bet you’re right and he’ll want to show it to the police.”

“I had a thought about that; not Sam or the police, but with the cameras. Do you have any extra ones laying around?”

“I think I’ve got a few.”

“We should set those up. Don’t forget to turn at the light.”

Lin slowed down as she had forgotten.

Tiger lily continued. “We can set those up at different angles around the park at potential trailers and see if there’s any activity. That might lead us closer to who may be behind this all.”

“So you’re thinking that whoever is behind all this, will be awake and we’ll see their lights on or something?”

“Lights, or movement. Your cameras are all equipped with night vision. We could see if there’s any movement around certain trailers.”

“But where would we start? I mean, it could be from any trailer.”

“You know these people. You know who might be able to do this, if even a slight chance. Didn’t you say that Sam’s girlfriend had a computer? And she’s from the Soviet Union. I know that’s an outside chance, but maybe she has something to do with all this.”

“Girlfriend? That’s not possible. She just uses her computer to e-mail her friends and family, and to use a GSP tracking program to see where her parents are. I had to help her get that set up. She’s not smart when it comes to computers.”

“Think about it, Lin. What better way to throw you off her trail than to make herself look like an idiot?” Tiger Lily shifted in her seat to face Lin. As she did she pulled her shirt together, as she’d exposed her chest when she twisted.

“I’ve known Girlfriend for a while. We’ve talked, but she’s never tried to find out what I do.”

“Maybe she already knows.”

Lin chewed on that one for a moment. Girlfriend had been friendly, but not intrusive. “I don’t think so. I think she knows I like my privacy. I don’t think she’s a spy.”

“Still, I think we should have a camera on Sam & Girlfriend’s place. You never know. Who else do you think we should keep an eye on?”

Lin had to think had about that one. “Well, there’s Doc Brenner. He used to be a scientist or something. He almost never leaves his house. I remember one time Girlfriend and I were talking about him. She said he would hide out in his basement whenever she’d go over to clean and that he had this big radio system setup in his trailer.”

“Where is he located?”

“He lives in a double wide at the far end of the park. The only person to own a double wide.”

“Okay, we need a camera on him. Will we have a clear shot to his trailer?”

“I guess it depends on where we put the camera. If we set it up late at night, we can place it at the end of the driveway on a tripod, and just pick it up before the sun comes up.”

“See, you know these people better than you think. I knew we’d be able to figure this all out.” Tiger Lily buttoned up her shirt as they were almost back to the Paradise Palms.

Lin slowed way down for the drive. She’d turned onto many flat roads, but the drive into the park sloped downward, making it more difficult. She stopped and looked at Tiger Lily, and smiled weakly.

“What? You’re on your own. This should be just like anything else, right?” Tiger Lily patted Lin on the leg. “Just take it slow and easy and you’ll be fine. Trust me. I know you can do this.”

She didn’t take her hand off Lin’s leg as she eased off the brake and allowed the car to roll slowly down the hill. She kept wanting to stomp on the brake, and wound up riding it down the small slope. At the bottom she laughed and wondered why she’d been so nervous. Tiger Lily gave her leg a squeeze.

“See? You’re better than you thought.”

She took her hand off Lin’s leg and took off her seat belt as they pulled back into the driveway. Looking at the trailer through the car’s windshield felt so different. Suddenly Lin knew she had the ability and the desire to be away from the trailer. Once this pesky mystery was solved, it would only be a matter of time before Tiger Lily could take her car shopping and she’d be able to go anywhere she wanted. She’d spent her childhood chasing after a dream for her parents. She just wanted to stay put and live her own life. Now that she had accomplished that dream, she wanted more than to just sit in a trailer and wait for nothing to happen. The entire world had just been opened up to her and she had Tiger Lily and her car to thank for it.

Or was it more than that? She could also have the person hacking into their system to thank, for without that person getting into the system, she’d not have ever called Tiger Lily down and they’d never have become such great friends. Lin laughed.

“What’s gotten into you?”

Lin wiped her face with her hands. “Nothing. I think I’m just tired.”

“Well, we’ve got work to do. We’ll get to take a nap when it’s all done. We want to be up and fresh when this happens again because it looks like we’ll only have a few minutes, if it’s anything like last time.”

“I know. I’ll be ready. We’ll both be ready.”

“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we take a shower and wash off the road dust, and then get a bite to eat before we dig in?”

For a second Lin thought she meant take a shower together, which her shower was more than big enough to allow, but no matter how much she thought of Tiger Lily as a sister, she wasn’t ready for anything like that. She wondered if that was indeed what she meant, but dismissed it.

“Okay, you take one first and I’ll find something for us to eat. Then when I get out we’ll eat and get to work.”

Tiger Lily, for only a brief second, looked as if she was disappointed. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s do it.”

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Girlfriend

Girlfriend set the basket of laundry by the door and set the soap, dryer sheets, and bag of quarters on top of it. She’d tied up her hair and put on her slippers and was ready to go. All she needed to do was to call Mr. Lopez and Doc Brenner to let them know she wouldn’t be there to clean today. She had too much on her mind to clean their trailers and listen to them babble about their aches and pains and retirement woes. The two of them rarely, if ever, left their trailers. At least Doc Brenner had a ham radio inside his house to keep him occupied all day. All Old Man Lopez, as Sam liked to call him, had was his TV and a subscription to the Playboy channel.

She put the phone to her ear, but before she could dial, a loud bang came from the back yard. She slammed the phone down and ran to the door. Blue had left the patio and hadn’t barked. That was a good sign that she must at least know who was making all the noise. It was Sam.

He’d opened up the shed and had gone inside. Girlfriend came out of the house and went to see what he was up to. His keys still hung from the shed’s lock, so he must’ve been in a hurry. He never just left his keys hanging like that, as he always feared he’d forget them. She pulled the keys from the lock and held them in her hand.

“Sam?”

“Oh, hey.”

“What are you doing?”

“I need to get the quad out. Do we have a map of the park in the house? I forgot. I know I used to have one. You know, that cartoony kind of map. It’s old and all wrinkled up, but pretty much shows the whole park with the lots numbered.”

“I think so. I don’t think I threw that one away. We also have one that shows the park and the lake. One of your old hunting maps that shows the hunting areas around this part. Do you want that one too?”

Sam had bent over the quad and was pulling up the choke to start it. “Yes, great. Both. Oh, and I need a marker.”

“Sam, what’s going on?”

“I’m doing just like you said I should do. I’m going to find out what happened to Casper and who’s responsible.”

“On your quad?”

Sam stood up and smiled. Not the warm smile he usually had, or the smile he got when he really didn’t understand what Girlfriend was saying to him. This smile was different. It was an ‘I’ve got a secret’ smile.

Sam motioned for Girlfriend to sit on the snowmobile next to him. What he told her, she had difficulty following, let alone believing. He talked about how the woods had changed again. That much she remembered, but he mentioned severed leaves and branches leaving a trail in the woods and how Casper’s body was on the line and about dinosaurs and time machines and how he was going to prove it tonight, he just needed to be ready. He talked fast and with a passion Girlfriend had never seen. She was swept up in his speech and had to do something to help.

“What can I do?”

Sam blinked in confusion. “Nothing.”

“Oh, come on Sam. You’re not the only one involved here. There must be something I can do. I’m not going to let you run off into those woods by yourself. What if you end up like Casper? Then what’ll I do?”

“I’m not going to end up like Casper. I know what I’m getting myself into. Besides, the detective and some lady from a museum will be there. If they believe me that is. This is something I have to do, and if I’m right, I’m not going to put you at risk. Do you understand? I just can’t do that. You have to stay here.”

She’d heard him concerned about things before, but never like this. His aggressive tone bordering on anger made her leery of how to proceed.

“Casper went out there, not knowing what was out there…”

“Casper didn’t go out there of his own will. He was dragged by something. According to Myra, that woman from the museum, it was a dinosaur, a troodon or something like that. I saw the head of one. It’s the biggest lizard I’ve ever seen. If one or more of those dragged Casper out into the woods, they’d have no trouble with you.”

“But you’d be there to protect me, won’t you?”

Sam worked his way out of the shed and held Girlfriend’s arms. “I’m not taking a chance. I’ll have a couple of guns with me, but I don’t know how many of them there are. Myra said something about a possible nest. If she’s right, there could be a lot of them.”

“So why haven’t we seen any inside the trailer park?”

“I don’t know.”

“So how do you know it won’t be safer with you than it will be in the trailer?”

“I don’t, but at least you’ll be hidden away.”

“Is that really what you think of me? Someone delicate to hide away from any possible danger?” She pulled her arms free of Sam. Tears started to well up in her eyes. “I’m not a little porcelain doll that needs to be put away so it doesn’t get broken. I’m fully capable of dealing with anything you are.”

Sam took a deep breath and looked up into the sky. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean? This trailer is part of our life and Casper was my friend too. I know you need to find out what happened, but I’m not letting you sit out there without me and wait for some monster to come by and eat you.”

Sam laughed. “No monster is…”

“How do you know that? You don’t. You’ve taught me how to shoot a gun. I can be there to help too.”

Girlfriend’s heart pounded as Sam stood silently and thought. She couldn’t bear the thought of him putting himself in danger and her sitting by and waiting for him to return. She didn’t mind him out during the day looking for clues to what happened to Casper, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him being in the same danger Casper had been in, and her not knowing what was happening. She had to make him see that.

When Sam finally spoke, his words were slow and deliberate. “You can come, but you’re to listen to me and do exactly as I tell you. If something happens to me, you’re to get back to the trailer as quickly as you can with no questions. Understood?”

He didn’t speak with malice, or condescendingly. She knew he wanted to protect her as much as she wanted to protect him, possibly more.

“Yes.”

“Good. If you’re coming with me, you’re going to help me get ready.”

“Fine. I just need to make two phone calls first. If I’m helping you, I can’t be cleaning houses.”

This made Sam laugh, and relieved the tension. “Fine, just hurry up. We’ve got a lot to do and then we need to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long night and I don’t want to be tired.”

Girlfriend turned around and was startled when two people came up the drive. A tall, thin man and a plain-looking woman.

“May I help you?” Girlfriend asked.

“We have some business with Sam.”

“Yeah, I’m here. What do you want, Detective?”

The man stepped forward and handed a map to Sam. “I’ve got a detailed map of the area. I always keep one in my car. Shows topography and streets. This may help you in plotting out the circular area that’s encompassed. Myra is willing to help you.” He looked back at the woman, then back to Sam, who nodded. “I’m going to be getting a generator here. It won’t be easy, but we’ll have light and lots of it.”

“I don’t want light until we know what we’re looking for. We just need to have it standing by and ready.”

“That’s fine. I’ll also have munitions and netting brought in, and a couple extra officers.”

“No. I don’t want any more people put in danger than is necessary.”

“That may be what you want, but we’ll need people.”

“Fine, but they stay in the park and away from us. If we need them you can call them over.”

“Very well,” the detective conceded. “Is there anything else you’ll need?”

“I’ve got everything else I need inside this shed or in my house,” Sam said, looking over the map he’d been handed. “I think I’ve got a better map of the park in the house, but I’ll hang on to this one just in case we need it for later.”

“Very well. I’m going to head back into the office. I’ll leave Myra here with you for now. What time should I return?”

“Well, it happened last night around three in the morning, so come back before midnight. It’s best that we don’t tell anyone what’s going on. That’ll just get everyone all freaked out.”

The detective nodded. “I agree. I’ll be back, then, around midnight, with two officers and all the gear. That should give us ample time to set up and get prepared.”

Sam shook the man’s hand and he left. The woman, who’d been quiet up to that point, stepped forward.

“Sam, I want to apologize for my reactions earlier. This situation isn’t easy to deal with, and I think that what you’re proposing is a sound idea. Let’s get set up and see it actually happen.”

Sam nodded.

“I’m Girlfriend,” Girlfriend said and extended her hand to Myra.

“Myra. Pleased to meet you.” Myra shook Girlfriend’s hand. “So, where do we start?”

“What can you do?” Sam asked snootily.

“Shut up!” Girlfriend slapped Sam on the arm. He feigned pain and went back into his shed. “Let’s go inside. I need to find a map. You and I can do the mapping while Sam does the manly stuff like getting guns and other things ready.”

Myra’s eyes widened. “Oh, okay.”

Girlfriend smiled. There was something about Myra that she liked, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She led Myra into the trailer so they could search for the maps of the trailer park that Sam needed. She and Myra could walk and map out the circle for Sam; he obviously had something against Myra and they didn’t need to be in close proximity to each other.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Myra

“Can you believe him? I mean, teleported back in time? I think he’s seen one too many movies.” Myra laughed at herself. She’d heard a lot of stories: Bigfoot, Loch Ness, Ogopogo. The stories were numerous regarding strange monsters that weren’t supposed to exist. Only in movies did dinosaurs walk on undiscovered islands and swim in the seas. They didn’t exist. It’d been proven again and again that their environment couldn’t support them. It just wasn’t possible.

But a small nest of troodons was possible. They could have adapted to live in the cold of Minnesota, and so much of the woods was undiscovered that a small number of them could go completely unnoticed. Maybe they recently moved nearer civilization as their food source diminished.

“Actually, it does sounds plausible,” the detective said.

“What?”

“Well, both your theories have some merit, but it’s hard to say which is right. There’s very limited evidence. Yours is based on the disbelief in science’s ability to move through time and his is based on first hand experience. It’s hard to say which of you is correct and which is wrong. How does your theory handle this line in the dirt, and the severed body and dinosaur head? His seems to sum all that up pretty neatly.”

That caused Myra to pause. She had been rather quick to dismiss Sam’s theory, but time travel was an unproven theory. “A force field could fill in the gap. Perhaps he got caught under it.”

“A force field? Isn’t that as far fetched as time travel?”

“It’s a lot more possible. I mean, time travel would require technology that doesn’t exist.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well,” she started, but had to think on that one. She didn’t. She honestly couldn’t say for a fact that it didn’t. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that we cross the street, go into that café there and get something to eat. If Sam is there, we buy him lunch and get him to talk to us some more and see if there’s anything else he wants to tell us. There’re still a lot of unknowns in this, and we need to fill in those holes.”

“You may be right. Okay, but I want to record our conversation with him. Can I do that?”

“Sure. I’ll need a copy of that recording though, for police records. As well as everything else you recorded about the crime scene. Either a recording or a transcript, either one that I can file away.”

“I can burn it to a CD for you when I get back home or I can e-mail it to you. Take your pick.”

“Either. Let’s catch up with Sam. I want to ask him a few more questions.”

Detective Schneider looked up and down the road as he walked across. Myra took a bit longer to start walking. She’d finally caught her breath after chasing Sam through the woods. She pulled her iPhone out of her pocket and checked the space remaining. She had enough left over for at least two hours of recording, and more than enough battery life as well.

Looking up, she saw Andrew waving down Sam, who’d turned around. Andrew motioned to the café. Sam took off his hat and ran a hand across his head and shook his head no, but followed him into the café. Myra smiled. She’d have to be a little more open-minded if they were to get anything out of this man.

Andrew looked back to Myra and motioned for her to follow them. She looked both ways and walked across the street. She hadn’t dressed properly for stamping through the woods and now that the sun was coming up, it’d gotten far too hot to be wearing a coat. She removed it and dropped it off in her car’s trunk before going into the café.

Sam and Andrew were seated in a booth and motioned for her to sit with them. Two older men, a black man and a shorter white man, sat at the bar drinking coffee.

“Getcha anything honey?” a woman with a pink uniform and a white apron asked.

“Oh, tomato juice please. With lemon.”

“We don’t have no lemons. That alright?”

“Oh, sure. That’ll be fine.”

“You want to see a menu or do you know what you want to eat?”

Myra’s stomach grumbled at the prospect of food. She’d only eaten a small amount on her way up from the cities. She noticed that Andrew was looking over a menu and Sam had only a cup of coffee. They were sitting across from each other.

“Let me have a menu please.”

The waitress handed her a menu.

She sat next to Andrew in the narrow booth — they would be bumping elbows the entire meal — as she wanted to be able to see Sam and his reactions to questions, and how he spoke. She wasn’t a police officer, but she was pretty sure she’d be able to tell if he was lying. She set the iPhone on the table.

“Do you mind if I record this?”

Sam grimaced. “I really don’t care. I mean, you already rejected the concept of what I’ve got to say. What difference will recording it make? I thought I was finally onto something and you shoot it down.”

Sam sat up and placed his elbows on the table and starting using his hands while he spoke. Myra pressed the record button.

“I mean, I was outside last night when it happened. I can only imagine what Casper was thinking. If one of those things dragged him into the woods.”

“Oh, I don’t think…” Myra paused and chose her words better. “It’s more likely that more than one dragged him as they would only be about a hundred and fifty pounds.”

Sam shook his head and kept on talking. “If more than one of those things dragged him into the woods. I mean, they had to take him by the legs, right? He didn’t have any teeth marks on him. They didn’t try to eat him. So what were they doing? He would have just been heading home after the bar closed down.”

“Perhaps we need to speak with Julie Branford. She’s on my list to speak with as she was the last one to see him, and you were the first to see him after that,” Andrew said.

“She couldn’t do anything like that,” Sam defended.

“I’m not saying she did, just like I didn’t say you had anything to do with it. Just procedure. I need to know if there’s any more information she can give us regarding the last moments of his life that might help us find out what really happened.”

“Well, I told you what I think happened. I’ve been in those woods a lot during my life and I’ve never seen a line like that.”

The waitress showed up and set the glass of tomato juice on the table. Her name tag read “Mrs. Kowalski.” It seemed odd a waitress would be addressed so formally in such a casual place.

“Thank you.” Myra held up her hand to Sam so she could ask a question. “How long have you lived here?”

“All my life. I grew up near here on the other side of the lake. I never went very far from home.”

“So you’ve been in these woods a lot?”

“Yeah. Played in them as a kid, building tree forts and stuff. Swam in the lake and the other two lakes near by. Hunted with my dad. I’ve been on nearly every square inch of these woods, be it on my quad or dirt bike or snowmobile or on foot. That’s why I find your statement about a hidden nest dumb. If they lived in these woods all these years, I’d have seen them.”

“You must see my perspective though. I mean, time travel. It just sounds too far fetched.”

“Then how do you explain the woods changing? The sounds I heard and all of that.” Sam’s tone bordered on anger.

She wasn’t doing a good job with this. She had to give his story more credit. Perhaps there was something to what he was saying. As Detective Schneider had pointed out, his story did fill in a lot of holes. But it was just too extreme.

“Hey Sam. Who are your friends?” one of the men at the bar asked.

“I’ll tell you later, Leroy. I’m a little busy.”

The man shrugged and turned back to his friend and they continued talking.

“So Sam, you say that things changed. Can you explain in more detail what exactly happened?”

Sam repeated the story as he had before. “I also noticed that smell the morning I found Casper. That’s why I think, since we followed that line from his body and across the road, that somehow he must’ve been lying across that line and was cut in half.”

“But time travel.”

“Look, call it what you want, but it explains how a dinosaur would be there. Like I said, I’ve lived in these woods all my life. I’ve seen and heard pretty much everything that could make sound in these woods. What I heard last night defied anything natural that should be able to make a noise. Knowing that the head that was found is a dinosaur, it makes more sense to me that what I was seeing was some prehistoric jungle or something, and the weird howls and growls were dinosaurs.”

The two men from the bar got up, put their hats on, and left. The waitress returned.

“You two know what you want? Sammie, you want anything, it’s on me.”

“I’m good, thanks. Just the coffee.”

“So what can I get for the two of you?”

Myra finally looked at the menu. “Um, I’ll just have eggs and hash with whole wheat toast. Over easy.”

“And you?”

“Waffles. Thank you.”

Mrs. Kowalski took the menus and hung the ticket for the cook. This little community was so strange. Myra couldn’t imagine living in a place where everyone knew everyone and interacted with each other every day. It was so odd to her. She barely talked to her boss on a daily basis, she couldn’t imagine talking with her neighbors every day.

“Sam,” Andrew said. “I’ll need to interview your girlfriend. What’s her name?”

“Girlfriend Sokolov.”

“Right, what’s her name?”

“Girlfriend is her name. Her parents were from Russia. They didn’t know exactly what they named her.”

“And how do you know Julie Branford?”

“She’s worked there at the Sandy Bar for years now. I know she didn’t have anything to do with Casper.”

“Is there anyone who might have?”

“You know, I’m tired of this.” Sam started to get up, then turned back to them both. “I’m telling you, this isn’t some weird murder mystery, no matter how much you want it to be, and I’m going to have to prove that. This was an accident and nothing more. I’m going to find who caused this accident and make sure it doesn’t happen again. If you’re convinced that I’m innocent, come back here tonight with floodlights, flashlights, guns, and nets. We’ll find out what happened. If you think I’m some weirded-out whack job, then leave me alone and I’ll find the answer on my own. Now, I’ve got a long day ahead of me that’ll turn into a late night. I’m going to get ready getting some sleep. If you’re smart, you’d do the same thing.”

With that, Sam got up and slapped money on the bar and left. The bell on the door dinged his departure.

Myra looked nervously at Andrew, then realized that the seat across was empty, and moved. They sat in silence for several long moments before she realized that she could turn off the voice recording app. Once it was off, Andrew spoke up.

“What do you think?”

“About?”

“Do you think he’s a weirded-out whack job, or do you think we should get a map of this location and trace out the remainder of that circle?”

That gave Myra pause. Sam seemed very committed to what he said, but didn’t crazy people always believe what they were saying was true? Maybe he was on drugs, but he didn’t look like a drug addict. In fact, quite the opposite. He looked very sane. He also spoke with such passion about finding out what had happened to his friend. Myra felt like a horse’s ass.

“What else did he say we should get?” Andrew pulled out his little notebook and starting writing.

They ate their food in silence. Myra had to contend with the possibility that Sam was right and that night she’d be looking into the woods of a past that no longer existed except in a fossil record. It excited her and terrified her. No, it excited her – unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Lin

The leather bucket seat hugged Lin’s body perfectly. She had a slightly smaller build than Tiger Lily, but the seat molded to her body with warm comfort. The leather-bound steering wheel, being that Tiger Lily was taller, had to be adjusted down and the seat forward. Other than that, Lin was in heaven.

“Here’s the key.”

Tiger Lily handed the key to Lin, which she placed in the ignition and took a small breath. She’d ridden in a car before, but she’d not left her house in over a year. She didn’t really have any reason to. Her stomach danced as she turned the key. A ding went off and repeated.

“Buckle up. It won’t stop until you do.”

Lin giggled and put the seat belt on. She gripped the wheel and looked out the windshield, overtaken by excitement. She felt like a ten-year-old about to go on her first roller coaster, except she was the one in control, not gravity.

“What next?”

“Grab this in the middle, press the button on top, and move it to R. That’s for reverse. Then look out the back window and take your foot off the brake.”

Lin gulped and moved the shifter to reverse and let her foot off the brake. The car started to slowly roll backward. She gasped and swung her arm around to look out the back window. She smacked Tiger Lily in the arm.

“Oh! I’m sorry.” She reached over with both hands to make sure she was alright.

“I’m fine, just grab the wheel before we hit something!”

Lin smashed her foot down on the brake and the car lurched to a stop, pushing them both back into the seats, then forward.

Tiger Lily laughed. “I’m glad we were only going a couple miles per hour.”

Lin giggle nervously. “What do I do next?”

“Well, you still need to back out so we can head up to the road.”

Tiger Lily kept on giving Lin basic instructions on driving and after a trip around the trailer park, they finally made it up toward the road. Lin was fascinated by the orange on black of the control panel and how everything seemed to have its own inner light to brighten up the dashboard. Tiger Lily put on some Ministry, a CD she had in the deck, and turned the volume down so they could still talk.

Once Lin had a good grasp of turning, brakes, and acceleration, they headed toward the road.

“I’m glad this is an automatic. I don’t think I could drive a stick shift.”

“Oh, it’s really not that tough. I prefer automatic, but manual transmission isn’t any big deal to learn. Just one extra pedal to worry about. Go ahead and nudge your way up to the road here and let’s make sure no one is coming.”

There was a little trouble with getting up the small hill to the road, as Lin kept taking her foot off the gas and the car would stop itself on the hill. She’d step on the gas, but that’d spray rocks and she’d get nervous and hit the brakes again.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just ease down on the gas so the tires don’t slip. If you stomp on the gas too hard you’ll spin the tires and go nowhere. There you go, easy now. See? You’re getting the hang of this. It’s easy as can be.”

Tiger Lily patted Lin on the thigh. This touching didn’t bother Lin as it might have before she’d told Tiger Lily how she felt. It was so strange being so near her. They’d had so many conversations and shared so many thoughts, but actually being in a car with her in such close proximity felt comfortable. This must be what it’s like to have a sister who’s there to help you along and teach you things. Lin smiled as she gently pushed down on the gas pedal and approached the top of the hill. Once again she had to stomp on the brake as she looked up and saw Sam in the middle of the road. He’d obviously seen them and was walking up alongside the car. He cocked his head to the side with a look of curiosity, and motioned for her to roll the window down.

“Can we trust him?” Tiger Lily’s tone had gone flat and dead.

“Oh, this is just Sam. He’s a good guy. He helped me with my trailer and stuff. We can trust him.”

Lin fumbled around the console trying to figure out how to put the window down. Tiger Lily reached across and put the window down, then turned down the stereo.

“Hi Lin. Nice car. I didn’t know you could drive.”

“Hi Sam. I can’t. This is Tiger Lily. She’s teaching me.”

Sam looked inside at Tiger Lily. “I don’t know you.”

“Lin and I work together.”

“Work? Lin, I thought you said you were retired or something like that.”

Lin flushed, caught in her little lie she’d told Sam. She was officially retired, but still worked for the government. “Well, you see, I’ve got a contract and I don’t really work as much as just monitor from time to time. That’s all.”

Sam looked dubious. He was such a nice guy; she hated to lie to him.

“Well, if you say so. Maybe later I can talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Well, I’d rather not say,” Sam said and motioned with his head to Tiger Lily.

Lin looked at her and back at Sam. “Oh! Anything you want to ask me you can ask in front of her. I trust her completely.”

Again Sam didn’t look as if he fully believed her. Still, he said, “Well, I know you’ve got cameras. I mean, I’ve seen them, and I don’t know anyone else here in the park that would have the knowledge or desire to use them. I’m guessing whatever you put in your basement is worth protecting. So I was curious if you keep records.”

Tiger Lily put her hand on Lin’s arm, as if to restrain her from talking. It worked.

“Why, Sam?” Tiger Lily asked.

“Something strange happened last night, when I went for a walk. I saw the light on at Lin’s place and I’m guessing you two were up and might have thought to check the cameras to see what had happened.”

“You were outside?” Lin asked incredulously. She couldn’t imagine someone being out of their trailer when that change happened. “What was it like?”

“I can tell you later, I just need to know if you got it on tape. That detective and museum lady don’t believe me. I feel like I need some kind of proof to show them. So?”

Lin looked at the steering wheel. Sam was far more perceptive than she’d ever given him credit for. That changed a lot. How much did he know that he wasn’t letting on?

She looked across the road. A tall, thin, balding man stood with a mousy looking woman with a coat and a microphone. It looked like a bad news report in the middle of nowhere.

“Lin?”

“What? Oh, the video files. Well, we’re about to go out for a little while. I guess I can show them to you when we get back.”

Sam frowned.

“Sam, I’ll tell you now, I’ve got a video of it.”

He looked hopeful.

“Everything, that is, regarding the change, and it’s not just last night it happened. I’ve got that, but I don’t have what happened to Casper.”

Tiger Lily squeezed Lin’s arm. She turned and looked hard at her. She eased her grip, but shook her head slightly.

“I’ve got to show him.”

“Lin, you can’t. You can’t allow him into your house.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a place for,” Tiger Lily leaned in. “civilians.”

“This is Sam. This is different.”

“No!” Tiger Lily snapped at Sam who looked as if he’d been slapped.

“Tiger Lily! You can’t say that.”

“This isn’t a place he should be allowed to go.”

“And why not?”

Again Tiger Lily leaned in. “It’s a government installation.”

“It’s my home and Sam helped me setting it up.”

Tiger Lily sighed.

“He might be able to help us.” Lin turned back to Sam. “Should I call you when we get back?”

“Thanks Lin. You’re a good person.” Sam smiled weakly and then frowned at Tiger Lily. He straightened up and walked off.

Lin put the car window back up. “That wasn’t very nice. Sam is one of the few people in this park who’ve been nice to me.”

“Well, I didn’t know that and I still don’t care if he’s nice or not, he doesn’t belong in your house.”

“Why not?”

Tiger Lily looked out the window for a moment, then back at Lin. “He just doesn’t.”

“Well, we’re going to help him and hopefully he’ll be able to help us. He found the body and everything. Maybe there’s something else we’re missing that he can help us fill in the details with. Obviously we don’t have the full picture and need help.”

“But after tonight we’ll have a lot more information and we may not need him.”

“That doesn’t mean I need to be rude to him. I can easily burn him a DVD of the woods changing and that’ll be that.”

“And what happens when he shows that DVD to the police and they come to you with a subpoena for everything else? They’re not going to be content with a DVD you burned. They’re going to want everything. They’re going to want to search all the files and will even want to know what we know, and who knows how deep they’ll try to dig. Lin, didn’t you even think this through?”

“I did,” Lin lied.

“Then how do you plan to get out of this one? Aw, crap. We’re going to have to pull rank on these yokel cops and keep them out of our hair, or you’re going to have to deny Sam that DVD. Maybe you can get some information from him, but we can’t give him anything, do you understand? We can’t have the police involved.”

Lin felt so stupid that she almost started to cry. Everything in the past few days had started falling apart. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. Tiger Lily went from being a big sister to being a big pain in the ass. Lin wanted to yell, to scream, to tell Tiger Lily she was wrong.

But she wasn’t wrong. Lin hadn’t thought things through as much as she should have. She lowered her head, feeling quite dejected. “I’m sorry.” She wanted to cry.

“Lin,” Tiger Lily put the car in park and leaned over and hugged Lin. This time Lin returned the hug and it felt good. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to scold you. I’m just trying to protect you. I know you’ve been on your own for a long time and you can take care of yourself, but this is a situation.” Tiger Lily let go of the hug and settled into her seat. “It’s a situation we’ll deal with once you know how to drive this car.” She squeezed Lin’s leg. Lin smiled and patted Tiger Lily’s hand.

“Let’s go.”

Lin looked both ways on the highway and, since there were no cars in sight, slowly pulled out. The two people across the street watched as they left. The man wrote something down on the notepad.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Sam

The line did look suspicious. Sam followed Myra’s finger as she pointed through the woods. The crease in the dirt looked more like someone had trenched with a small shovel, and unless you were really looking for it, would completely miss it. She kept rambling every excruciating detail into her little recorder to document the entire scene.

She’d said she was from some museum, but Sam had forgotten the name already. It didn’t make sense that a person from a museum would be here in northern Minnesota investigating a crime scene. Sam fell back and spoke quietly with Detective Schneider.

“So, what’s she here for?”

“Sam, I’m only allowing you to be included in this because you live here and know the area. That, plus you discovered the body. I want you to understand that I in no way consider you a suspect. No disrespect, but I don’t think you have it in you to do something this obscene, let alone to cover it up so neatly.”

“None taken. But what’s her role in all this? I mean, this is a crime scene, isn’t it?”

They both had to stop as Myra knelt down to the ground and moved some more of the severed leaves.

“It has to do with that head I showed you. I didn’t know what it was, so I started looking for an expert in lizards and reptiles. Turns out, she’s the best in Minnesota, so I called her. She insisted on seeing the area and the head after I sent her the pictures. She drove up from the cities.”

“I know that, but I mean, this is a crime scene. Why did she come out here if the head is back in your morgue?”

“Well, she thinks there might be, how do I say this, a nest of these dinosaurs. Now you can’t say anything to anyone. This is a police matter and an open investigation.”

“What?”

Myra stood up and turned around and glared at them. “Something I should know gentlemen?”

Sam strode up to her. “You’ve got us out here in the woods looking for a nest of these things?”

Myra cast a hot glare at Detective Schneider. “Yes. I don’t want to see anyone else getting hurt.”

“You’re not only a scientist, but you’re a city slicker. You’ll have to pardon me if I don’t believe you. What are we doing out here in the woods, following some line in the dirt?”

Myra’s glare faltered and she looked up into Sam’s eyes. “Well, the troodon was known to live in hives or communities and hunt in packs. That’s the most common theory. I had to assume that by finding one head, there’d be more.”

“So you’re putting my life and his life in danger by having us stomp around the woods looking for these things? We should have a bunch of armed men out here.”

“I don’t think we’re in any danger. The troodon’s teeth are set to catch and swallow live food. Kind of like a snake would. It wouldn’t see you or me as prey.”

“But they might see us as competition, and it’s survival of the fittest and from what I saw, their teeth are far better weapons than ours.” Sam held up his hands.

“I highly doubt that.”

“All you have are theories to go on. When was the last time you actually saw a dinosaur? These things were supposed to have died out millions of years ago. That head shouldn’t be there and my friend’s legs should. What we need to find out is how did my friend die and what does that head have to do with his death?”

“That’s all well and good,” Myra said. “But we also need to make sure there aren’t any more out here in the woods that could prove a danger to the people in the area. Now it’s my assumption that they must’ve adapted from their original environment to live in the Minnesota environment. The area they lived didn’t have snow, so they wouldn’t have been able to survive the winter. As best as we can tell, they were cold blooded just like modern-day lizards.”

“Wait a minute.” Sam thought about how everything had changed the night before. It’d gotten warmer and the air smelled different. He wondered if that, and the sounds he’d heard the night before, had anything to do with it.

“What?” Myra asked. Andrew stood next to Myra with his pen and notepad ready.

“Would it have been hotter?”

“Yes.”

“Would the air have been different?”

“Absolutely. In fact…”

Sam cut her off. “Would the trees and everything be different?”

“Most certainly. Millions of years of evolution.”

Again Sam cut her off. “I think we’re looking in the wrong place for your nest.”

“What makes you say that?”

Sam didn’t answer her question, instead he followed the line in the opposite direction, toward the highway. He’d seen the woods change into thicker, jungle-like trees. It had changed and he could still see the highway. The park hadn’t changed, but everything around it had. He started to trot through the woods along the line. Now the path looked clear to him. It was a lane he could almost run through. He ran faster with the two in tow.

He stopped when he came up to the highway. There was the line. It ran right across the highway. A small, almost insignificant line, but a line all the same. A line that arced across the road and to the other side. Sam looked both ways and ran across the road.

“Where are you going?” Myra called out, almost out of breath.

Sam didn’t answer, he followed the curved line as it crossed the road and into the opposite ditch. It curved around for thirty feet or more and then back to the road. Sam stood at peak of the curve and looked back into the park. He had to assume that whatever had created this line had to be somewhere in the middle of the park if it were to encompass the entire park, as if they’d circled the entire park with a giant compass. He stood on his toes as he looked to see who might be in the center.

Mr. Graves and Mr. Bell both lived in the middle of the park, but this line extended further, outside the park. Perhaps it’d be someone further back. He’d have to walk the entire line and map it out and find out who lived in the center of the circle.

“Detective, do you have a map of this area?”

“Why?” Andrew searched his pockets.

“Mr. Jeffrey, what is this all about?”

Sam continued to stare at the park and tried to imagine how it’d look from overhead. How large was this circle? What could be in the center? Who would have created this large line and why? To what end?

“Mr. Jeffrey, what are you thinking? This is all quite bizarre.”

“I agree.” He looked at Myra. “You may think me insane, but I think I have an idea as to what might be going on.”

“Really?” asked Andrew. “And what, pray tell, would that be?”

“Well, last night, I went for a walk. Ms. Tolie, you talked about dinosaurs and now what I saw last night seems to make sense. We’re not going to find a nest, because it’s not here. Well, not now. But I think it’ll be here tonight, very late at night.”

“Why? What are you talking about?” asked Myra.

“As I said last night, I went for a walk. It was really late. I’m not even sure what time it was, but it was late, or early in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about Casper.”

Myra looked puzzled. “Casper?”

“The victim,” responded Andrew.

Sam continued. “When I was walking around through the park, I saw the woods change. The sky changed. The stars moved. The moon grew. The sounds, the smells, the feel of the woods changed.”

“I don’t understand,” Myra said.

“Something had to have caused that change. This line moves in a huge circle. I saw the woods all around change across the road here. Everything changed. It was all different. Like a thick jungle, with sounds I’d never heard before and trees I’d never seen before. It was all different, except the park wasn’t. Everything in the park was the same.”

“Are you suggesting that the park was somehow moved in time?” Detective Schneider asked.

“Or teleported?” Myra asked with a snort of laughter.

“Doesn’t it make sense? I mean, this line, the dinosaur head, my friend cut in half on the line. I think someone teleported this park back in time. Millions of years ago. When a dinosaur could have lived.”

Myra burst into laughter. “I think you’ve seen one too many movies. Honestly, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Then how do you explain the dinosaur head you found?”

“And I supposed you think that the Loch Ness Monster is a dinosaur as well? Really, Mr. Jeffrey – “

“Sam, please.”

“Sam, this troodon could very well be something we just had missed.”

“In the woods of Minnesota? How many hunters have gone into these woods and never seen one?”

“And how many have never seen an albino buck? Those exist.”

“This is different.”

“Sam, we could be dealing with a very small population and people here in Aitkin county are spread out. I find it much more likely that there’s a small nest of troodons living in these woods than someone is teleporting a trailer park into the past.”

“How do you explain what I saw last night then? And this line?”

“I think you’re tired and it’s likely hallucination from mental exhaustion.”

If she’d been a man Sam would have laid her out with one solid punch. How dare she dispute what he’d seen? What had nearly scared him to death. What Blue had seen and barked at. Sam relaxed.

“I can prove it.”

Myra looked skeptical, but Andrew stepped in. “How? How can you prove what you’re saying?”

“Well, Casper died at night, after the Sandy Bar closed, and I saw everything change and become weird the next night. Wouldn’t it be safe to assume that it’d change again tonight?”

Andrew rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes in thought. “You may be onto something. As strange as what you’re saying sounds, I think this is worth looking into.”

“Wait a minute,” Myra said. “You’re suggesting that this line is the demarcation point of where the park was cut off from the outside world, right?”

“Yes,” said Sam.

“Then explain to me how the power lines and phone lines are still intact. Anything running under the ground would be cut, wouldn’t it? How could this park be swept away into another land and dropped right back here without anyone knowing about it?”

Sam struggled for an answer, but none came. “I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

Without another word, Sam turned away from the rude woman and the detective and walked back across the road to the park.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Girlfriend

The Sokolovs, according to Girlfriend’s GPS tracking software, were crossing the border from Bolivia into Chile. All she could do was hope they would make it safely along the mountain passes there. Though the map showed flat roads and no topography, she knew that the majority of the country was mountains created by the Mariana Trench, where the two plates smashed together. She tried to get her mind off of smashing and mountains and closed the GPS program and opened her e-mail.

She started a new e-mail, but could only stare blankly at the message window. What could she say? She couldn’t tell her parents that Sam’s best friend had been found dead or that Sam had been questioned by the police. That would only cause her parents to worry, but she felt the need to talk with someone about Sam and what was happening. She had to be strong for him, and didn’t want to bring up her worries that there might be some madman out there cutting people up and killing them, and that without him inside the house she was scared out of her wits. With what he was dealing with, he didn’t need that.

Surfing the web didn’t sound like any fun, and she didn’t have any new podcasts to listen to, so, looking around the clutter of the bedroom, Girlfriend decided to pick up the place. At least doing laundry and cleaning up would keep her mind off of Sam, while he went out to figure out just what did happen to Casper.

She picked up the bedroom and bathroom, putting all the dirty clothes in the hamper, and started in on the kitchen. The breakfast dishes weren’t going to clean themselves. As she started filling the sink with warm, soapy water, Blue started barking. Not an angry bark, but a familiar ‘come pet me’ bark. Girlfriend turned off the water and dried her hands on a kitchen towel and went to the door. She opened it before Patty could knock.

“Well good morning, stranger. I’m glad to see you. I could really use someone to talk to right now.”

Patty didn’t say anything at first, but instead gave Girlfriend a hug. She let a small cry out and Patty patted her on the back.

“I’m sorry, Patty,” Girlfriend said as she released from the hug. “Things are just so strange right now. I don’t know what to think. I also didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“You were able to sleep at all? I’m surprised. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep a wink if my man was mixed up in something like that.”

“You?”

“Well, okay, if I had a man.”

They both laughed.

“Ok, good. I got you to relax a bit. You don’t happen to have any coffee, do you?”

“I’m afraid I just poured the rest of it out. I was about to do the dishes, in fact.”

Patty pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Well leave them for the time being. Let’s go sit outside and talk.”

Girlfriend followed Patty back to the patio. Blue tried to hop up on Patty, but with a scratch behind the ears, she went to lay back down. Patty sat down and removed the plate from under the small plant on the side table. She set her cigarettes next to it and lit one up.

“What’s going on?” She asked.

“I wish I knew. Sam is really broken up about this whole mess. He’s off trying to figure out what happened.”

“Well, he has a little help. I was just at the café and he went into the woods with one of the detectives from yesterday and some lady. She looked sort of frumpy. I don’t think she was a detective, though. She was wearing the ugliest jacket.”

“Wait, what do you mean they went into the woods?”

“I mean over behind the Sandy Bar. You know, where the police found Casper.”

“So he’s got some help, then. He’s not alone. Oh thank goodness.”

Patty tapped the ashes off her cigarette. “Wait, you mean he was already heading over there? On his own?”

“Well, he wanted to see if he could figure out what happened. You know, Casper was his friend. Plus this whole thing is just weird. They only found half of his body.”

“Half? What do you mean? Like he was eaten or something?”

“I don’t know. Sam wouldn’t talk much about it. It was really bugging him though. He went for a walk last night and got really creeped out by something.”

“Well if Sam got scared, then something must be going really wrong out there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him scared. Casper was never scared either. Those boys are, well, were, pretty much fearless. Did Sam not want to go into the woods or something?”

“Well, he said that they changed last night. He couldn’t explain it. It scared me too. I don’t know if it had anything to do with it, but my clock was reset this morning. Was yours?”

“Oh, mine runs on batteries. But we shouldn’t have had a power surge. Don’t we have a generator that backs up the power here? I mean, just so we don’t lose power.”

Girlfriend shrugged. “I don’t know. If we do, Sam would know. He’s probably the one that needs to keep it in working order.”

“So who could have done this?” Patty asked as she smashed out one cigarette and lit up another. “I mean, nothing like this ever happens around here. I’ve lived here all my life. I grew up here. I’m worried if this is some weird serial killer or something.”

“I don’t think it’s anything like that, Patty. Those things usually happen in big cities, don’t they? Not way back in the woods.”

“But I thought they pulled two bodies out of the woods. I mean, I saw two body bags, but neither looked big enough have a full body in it.” Patty gasped. “Did Casper get cut in half or something? Oh gross!”

Girlfriend didn’t know how much she should tell Patty about what Sam knew. If anything, one little rumor would spread around the park like crazy. The last thing they needed was rumors and panic.

“Patty, I can’t really talk about it. Sam didn’t tell me much, but they found something else with Casper. It wasn’t just Casper they pulled out of the woods. When I know more, I’ll let you know, but don’t go running all over the park telling everyone. We don’t need to get everyone all worked up, understand?”

Patty put out her cigarette and pulled out another one. She didn’t light it, though. “Girlfriend, you take care of that man of yours. He’s something special. I mean, if he can go back into those woods with what he knows…”

They hugged and Patty let herself out. Blue rubbed up against Girlfriend’s leg. After a few minutes of petting, Girlfriend went back into the trailer to do the dishes. She did so in a daze, her mind constantly drifting to what Sam could be doing in the woods. She even found herself at the door twice, but didn’t go outside. He was dealing with it. The last thing he needed right now was her getting in the way. He had two people with him helping already.

She needed to stay put. Just stay right were she was and wait. No matter how hard it was to do so, she was going to stay in the trailer. Sam was strong enough to take care of himself. He knew the woods better than anyone.

“Please come home safely,” she said to the closed door as she placed her hand on it.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Myra

Myra had heard about trailer parks, but had never actually been in one. She’d driven past many, but they all had trees that protected them from prying eyes of passers-by. She’d also heard lots of horror stories about the trash that lived in them. Hicks and drug dealers and retired people. That was all that lived in them, right? At least that’s what people said. As she pulled into the parking lot of the Paradise Palms — an ironic name at best as this wasn’t paradise and the only palm trees were painted on the sign — she couldn’t so easily erase those thoughts from her head when she saw the man standing and staring at them as they pulled up.

He was probably six foot or a little more and had a great build. He wore a button-up work shirt, but it wasn’t buttoned, and a white t-shirt underneath. He had the boots and the greasy, green hat to complete his hillbilly look. If he didn’t fit the stereotype of trailer trash, no one in this park would.

For now she would have to put aside her preconceived notions and deal with the situation. She just had to hope that he’d at least understand what she was talking about.

Stop that Myra. He’s a human being and deserves as much respect as you do.

They parked in front of a bar. Typical. It even had a witty, backwoods name: The Sandy Bar. She wondered if it was owned by a Sandy or if they were just being clever with the name, since sand bars were common in the lakes.

Before she got out of the car, she got out an external mic for the iPhone so she could be ready in case someone had anything important to say. She put this in the pocket of her coat, grabbed her digital camera and got out of the car. She closed the door, and not a second later her cell phone rang. She closed her eyes and wished she was out of range, but it rang a second time.

“I’ll be right there,” She told Detective Schneider as she answered.

“Myra? Where the hell are you? I got your message.” Randy sounded quite upset. She’d been vague in her message, just saying she had an emergency field assignment.

“I’m in Aitkin. Something came up and I had to drive up here.”

“What came up, Myra, that couldn’t wait until you cleared this with me? This had better be a good one.”

“Randy, you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

“Then you’d better get your ass back here or start explaining.”

Myra reflexively pulled her coat tighter around herself, not for warmth, but to feel safer when she told him. She turned away from the man and Detective Schneider.

“I think I’ve found a troodon head.”

“So what, we’ve got several of those. That’s no emergency. Skulls of troodons have been found all over here.”

“No, Randy, listen to me. I mean a fully intact head. Not a skull, but a head.”

There was a long pause. “You’re right. I don’t understand. How could you have found a head?”

“I’m here at the site it was located. The local authorities have it in a freezer with the body of a man they think was killed by it. I’m going to see if I can find anything else.”

“Wait, a head? You mean with skin and eyes and all that?”

“Yes.”

“And you just took off to go up there and have a look?”

“I’m going to try to secure it for the museum. It’s police evidence right now, but they’ll have to do something with it when they’re done.”

“Was it frozen in something like that mammoth in Russia they found?”

“The Soviet Union, and no. From what I was told it was found next to the severed body of a man.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know, that’s why I’m here. Do you understand now?”

“A head.”

“Look, Randy, I’ve got to go. They’re waiting for me. I’ll call you later.”

Myra hung up the phone before Randy could ask any more inane questions. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach, just thinking about going to see where the head had been found.

“I’m ready.”

Detective Schneider was talking with the local man. Looking at him closer, Myra was surprised at how good looking he was. She giggled to herself and then felt stupid and pulled her coat about herself tighter. She could never be interested in a man like him and he would certainly never be interested in someone as plain as her.

“Myra Tolie, this is Sam Jeffrey. He’s the one who found the body.”

“So you saw where the head was originally?”

“Head?” Sam asked. “No Ma’am. I found my friend, Casper, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He sounded a little upset and shaken. Perhaps he wasn’t expecting to be asked questions so early in the morning. If the person back in the morgue was indeed his friend, then he’d likely be very shaken up.

“I’m sorry, how insensitive of me. I didn’t mean any offense. My condolences.”

Sam nodded and narrowed his eyes as if he were sizing her up.

“Can you show us where you found the body? Ms. Tolie would like to search the area where it was discovered.”

Sam looked at the detective. “I thought your men scoured that area already?”

Andrew nodded. “We did, but she’s not looking for what we were looking for.”

Sam looked back to Myra. “And what are you looking for?”

“Did he see the head?” Myra asked Andrew.

“Yes.”

“Well… Sam, was it?” She reached out and shook his hand. No sense in disregarding all of her manners. “I’m from the Science Museum of Minnesota, and I have reason to believe that the head I saw back in the morgue, that was recovered with the body of your friend, is from a dinosaur.”

Sam stood up straight. A look of anger mixed with confusion crossed his face. “A what? I mean, are you serious?”

“No, I’m not kidding. I work with fossils all day, but that head is from a troodon, I’m certain of it. If any of our theories are correct, there could be more. I need to search the surrounding woods and see if I can track down a potential nest.”

“You mean more of those things might be living in the woods?” Sam’s gaze shifted from her, to Andrew, to the woods. “I don’t think that’s possible. Wouldn’t we have seen these things before now? I mean, didn’t dinosaurs go extinct?”

Myra suppressed a laugh. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out. That head back in the morgue shouldn’t be there. Not severed, not whole, not with flesh and skin on it. It should be nothing more than a skull and most likely fragmented at that. These things died out millions of years ago, so I’m here to find out why the head of one was found on the ground next to half a man, both clearly severed.”

“By what?”

Myra suppressed the need to roll her eyes and sigh in exasperation. “Can you just please lead us to where you found the body?”

Sam looked at the door to the Sandy Bar — probably needed to get drunk or something — and then to the café across the street. Myra knew she wasn’t going to be eating in that place any time soon. His look went from sad to angry to passive all in a matter of moments.

“Fine. Let’s go. I’ve got things to do.”

Myra got out her iPhone and activated the microphone. “We’re going into the woods now.”

“What are you doing?” Both Andrew and Sam asked together.

“I’m going to record my findings. If I’m going to help with an investigation, I need a record of what we find. Plus I’ll need these for my own research.”

Neither of them responded, but Sam led them deeper into the woods.

“There are drag marks along the ground behind the bar that lead off into the woods. I can see footprints on either side of the drag lines, but they’re blurred and mostly rubbed out. Hard to tell what could have made them. There appear to be claw marks which could be indicative of a troodon claw.”

“Are you going to talk the entire time?” Sam asked, obviously annoyed.

Myra ignored him and continued. “There are many broken branches, but there is no sign of blood, however it does look like more than just a person came through here.”

“That’s where he was,” Sam said coldly, pointing to a spot where the drag marks stopped.

“Thank you. Again, I’m sorry about your friend.”

Sam shrugged and crossed his arms.

“I’m looking at the spot where the body was found. There’s a lot of blood still on the ground.”

Myra knelt down near the pooling of blood and felt around where the body had been, being careful not to touch anything that had blood on it.

“The ground feels cool, I don’t think that’s important. But there’s an uneven part on the ground here.” Myra shifted her body and looked at the uneven portion. “It looks to go off into the woods. Almost like a minor earthquake could have shifted the soil in this part.”

She moved some of the leaves on the ground and something didn’t appear right. She looked up into the trees over her head. Some of the branches also appeared to have been cut. She made a note of this, and Sam and Andrew looked up into the trees as well. She picked up a handful of leaves and sprinkled them to the ground; as she did something odd stuck out. She stopped dropping the leaves. She put the mic in her pocket and held up two leaves that were cleanly cut in half.

“What do you make of this?” she asked rhetorically.

She scanned along the line in the ground and followed it through the trees. The line made a wide, sloping arc through the trees. Something had deliberately cut through the woods and it looked as if the man and the troodon got caught by it. But how was it possible for a man and a dinosaur to be caught in the same location? It wasn’t. It just didn’t make any sense.

“I want to follow this line through the woods to see where it comes out.”

Myra dropped the leaves and started walking along the line on the ground, keeping a close watch for anything, other than the line itself, that appeared out of the ordinary.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park. Kindle|CreateSpace

Lin

The sun peeked through a slit in the blinds and gently caressed Lin’s face.

“Wake up, sleepy head.”

Lin sat bolt upright and bumped heads with Tiger Lily.

“Ow!” they both said and started laughing.

“I’m sorry,” Lin apologized. “I’m not used to anyone being in my house. I forgot you slept here.”

Tiger Lily rubbed her head. “It’s alright. I shouldn’t have been so close to you like that. You sure do have a hard head.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Lin said with a laugh, as she rubbed her own head.

“Say, I know we need to get started setting up traps for tonight and everything, but I really need a shower. Do you mind?”

“No, not at all. It’ll give me a chance to review the video logs from the other cameras. There are towels in the cabinet. Just grab one.”

“Great. I should have taken one last night, but we had too much to do and I was so tired.”

Tiger Lily got up off the bed and stripped off her shirt before she was out of the room, giving Lin a side glance of her smooth, perfect profile. Lin looked down, but Tiger Lily turned around — causing Lin to look up — with her arm covering her breasts.

“I forgot, is everything in the shower? I mean shampoo and all that?”

“Oh, yes.” Lin could feel her cheeks burning. She’d never felt this way, but she’d also spent so long sheltering herself that it was bound to happen. She just wished it hadn’t been with Tiger Lily that she had these embarrassing feelings. How could she tell her? Sure, they had a lot in common, but how do you tell a friend that you find her attractive?

Was that it? Was Lin attracted to this woman? Was that what caused these confused feelings? No, it couldn’t be. Lin wasn’t gay. She’d never had a lesbian thought, so why should she have one now? Just because she’d never thought about boys didn’t make her gay, did it? She was just sheltered, that was all. Nothing more. She needed a vacation to get away. That’s what she needed.

Lin got up and stretched and ran her hands down her body. She bent down and touched her toes and rotated her neck several times before she went to the computer chair and took a seat. She was comfortable with computers and phone calls. Those she could handle.

She pulled up the video log file and started watching. Each camera showed the same thing they’d seen when it’d happened. The woods just changed into some strange jungle. The stars shifted, the clouds cleared, the moon grew. She manually reversed the clip and watched intently as the change happened. It was so quick, almost instantaneous. She slowed the video down to frame-by-frame and watched intently as the transformation happened, baffled. She leaned in closer to the screen, even though the video was full screen, trying to ascertain anything that might give her a clue at to what was happening.

“What’s that?”

Lin nearly jumped out of her skin. Tiger Lily stood wearing nothing more than a towel wrapped around her body and brushed her black hair. At least the towel covered up her body and gave her less of a distracting shape.

“This is the video from the Sandy Bar. It shows the change the best I think. This view looks across the highway.”

Tiger Lily stopped brushing her hair and leaned down. She smelled of chamomile and kiwi and her breath smelled minty fresh. Whose toothbrush had she used? Lin tried to clear those thoughts from her head.

“See this frame? This is before everything happened. One second before. When I step forward, you can see that everything blurs to the point it almost looks like it faded out. Then in the third frame it’s all changed, but shimmery like.”

“Why is the moon so big? It almost looks like it grew. Is that an effect of the atmosphere?”

“This video is too grainy for me to get better detail, but I’m not sure that the atmosphere has anything to do with it. It doesn’t even look like the same place. Kind of like it’s not the Earth. Like we got moved to another planet or something.”

“Another planet? How could that be possible?”

“You’re looking at the video just like I am. Do you have any explanation?”

Tiger Lily sat on her feet on the floor and tapped the brush against her pouty lips. She did this several times before she said anything.

“You know, this may sound crazy, but I’ll bet whoever connected to the system last night is the person responsible for the shift.”

“Well, duh! I had already figured that one out.” Lin bit her lip after saying that. She didn’t want to sound like such a bitch.

“Well duh! I’m not as quick as you are, I guess. But regardless, we’ll have to assume that this person will try again and when they do, we’ll have their info and know where they’re from. It has to be someone in the park because all the camera angles we looked at show that all the trailers are still around when the woods change.”

“What if it is something like that? I mean do you think it’s some transporter thing or something like that?”

“I’ve seen a lot of strange things, Lin, but nothing like this.” Tiger Lily stood up. “I don’t want to go guessing at anything just yet. What I figure, and we’ll have to go through the logs more thoroughly and check the logs from the Canadian servers, but if we can track this person down, he can tell us.”

“He?”

“Oh, I’m just guessing it’s a man, is all. For all I know it’s a kid like you doing all this.”

“Kid like me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Lin didn’t know if she should feel offended, but she was.

Tiger Lily swallowed hard. “I… you know… I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m just saying that I said ‘he’ generically and that I was thinking it could be some old guy doing this but it could as easily be you doing this, but not that I’m saying it’s you that’s doing this. Oh crap.”

Tiger Lily wrapped her arms around Lin’s neck and hugged. “I’m sorry, Lin. I love you. I didn’t mean anything by that. Please. I don’t mean you’re a kid. I just, I just… I should just shut up, shouldn’t I?”

Lin had forgotten all about the ‘kid’ comment and was trying to grapple with not only the tight hug but the comment of ‘I love you.’ Where had that come from? She didn’t know if she should hug Tiger Lily back or get away from her.

“Um, I – I need to take a shower too. You smell so nice and I’m all stinky.”

Tiger Lily released Lin and stood up, adjusting her towel tighter. Nothing had been going as Lin thought it would go. She quickly exited the room and locked herself in the bathroom and sat on the toilet and started to quietly sob.

Perhaps Tiger Lily had spent too much time alone too? They both seemed to be really good at working on the server and pulling up and analyzing data, but when it came to associating with each other, it was strange. But what was she going to do? Hide in the bathroom all day? One of them had to be the stronger person and get everything out in the open, didn’t they?

Lin wiped her tears away with a piece of toilet paper and went back to the door. When she opened it, Tiger Lily was standing there looking as if she were ready to knock on the door.

“Lin. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Please. I feel like I made you freak out and that wasn’t my intention. I just meant that we’ve worked together so much that I feel like you’re my sister or something and that’s what I meant when I said ‘I love you’. I didn’t mean that to be anything weird or like that. I didn’t want you to take that the wrong way. Please forgive me. I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Lin laughed. “Yeah. You’re rambling and yeah, you pretty much freaked me out. I mean, I’m sure it’s not you, it’s me. I don’t get out a lot and I’ve never had anyone in my house, let alone my bed and it’s all just really strange.”

“Oh, I totally understand.” Tiger Lily’s eyes widened. “I remember when I was sixteen and went to my junior prom and my date wanted to take me to a hotel. I was so nervous I couldn’t go through with it. I felt sick for like three days afterwards and half my friends all had gone with their dates and we all shared stories about what happened.”

“What? What happened?”

Tiger Lily cocked her head to the side and wrinkled up her face. “You really don’t know?”

“I mean, did they have sex?”

Tiger Lily laughed. “I guess you’ve lived a more sheltered life than I thought. Prom night, for a lot of girls, is when they lose their virginity. It’s supposed to be a big deal, but some of us thought everyone had done it, but it turned out that most of us couldn’t go through with it and those that did said it was totally overrated.”

It was Lin’s turn to laugh, but she really didn’t understand what Tiger Lily was saying.

“Oh, Lin. You’re so smart and I know you did a great job with your education, but you missed out on a lot of experiences. I went through school and college with kids my own age, something you didn’t get to do. That in no way makes me better than you, I just have a different set of experiences. That’s all. You’ve got so much life ahead of you. I hope that I haven’t made you uncomfortable in your own home.”

“No. Don’t worry about it. I should really get out more.”

“Tell you what, we know that nothing is going to happen until later tonight. Why don’t you get showered up and we’ll go somewhere around here and get you out of this place. You can show me around. I can even let you drive if you want. My Lexus is an automatic. It’ll be fun. Something different, and help us get back on a level playing field.”

“But what about the files and the video and all that?”

“It’ll still be here when we get back, right? We can take a little nap when we get back and then get to work and catch this guy… or this kid.”

They both laughed.