J.R. Murdock

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

Sam

Sam allowed the hot water to run down his head and over his body. He had a really difficult time getting out of bed despite the ringing phone. He knew it was likely Mrs. Bilkins wanting him to get to painting the sign. He felt bad about not getting it done yesterday, but with so little sleep he wasn’t going to be moving very fast to get it done today, either. He just hoped that Girlfriend wasn’t going to answer it. He had a lot of thinking to do, that was the only reason he thought about going and painting the sign. He had to think not only about what’d happened to him, but what he’d said to Girlfriend and how she’d responded. He’d always thought she’d react differently. Even though she said she wanted him to say what was on his mind, he suspected she didn’t really mean it.

He’d even given her an out. He was ready to go and just leave, but it was her that insisted that he stay. Was she just screwing with his head or something? He didn’t want to think she’d be the kind to play games.

Sam turned the water off and heard the phone ringing. “Thank you.” After toweling off and getting dressed he went to the kitchen, following the inviting smells. Girlfriend was there with a plate of pancakes, eggs and sausage. It was then Sam realized he hadn’t eaten yesterday.

“That looks awesome.”

Girlfriend beamed as she set the plates on the small table. She served herself and poured them both juice.

“What did I ever do to deserve someone like you?”

“Shut up and eat. You’ve got work to do.”

“I know, Mrs. Bilkins has been calling all morning. I’m sure she’s desperate to get that sign painted.”

Girlfriend wrinkled up her face. “That’s not what I’m talking about. You need to get into those woods and figure out what happened to Casper.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I need to do that too. And Waldorf and Statler want me cut their grass again. They said it was all messed up.”

“Sam!”

“What?” Sam looked up from his food.

“Do you even remember what we talked about last night?”

“Of course I do.”

“I don’t care what they think they need. No one is going to do anything about what happened to Casper. If you care anything about the people in this trailer park, you need to find out what happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Understand? That’s what they need. Not some sign painted or their grass cut.”

“Okay, okay. I just need to talk to Mrs. Bilkins or she’ll have a fit. You know I can’t just let work slide for long. I’ve got to do something.”

Girlfriend chewed angrily, but didn’t say anything.

“Okay, fine. I’m going to eat, talk to Pops, and …”

“Pops isn’t home. I tried calling him and I tried his cell phone, but he’s not home.”

“What? Pops is always home.” Sam felt his appetite disappear and needed to go check on him.

“Eat first,” said Girlfriend before Sam could stand up. “You need your strength.”

“But…”

“Sit and eat first.”

Sam had a hard time sitting still, but sat. They both ate in silence. He knew his stomach would thank him later. When he was done, Sam got up and grabbed his John Deere hat, but before he left he turned back to Girlfriend.

“Thank you.”

She smiled and looked down at her plate.

“Girlfriend.”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t we go out to dinner tonight?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think so. We haven’t done anything in a long time. Let’s just plan on it and see where it goes from there.”

“I think that sounds wonderful.”

“Great. In the meantime, I’ve got to find out what the hell is going on around here.”

Sam leaned down and kissed Girlfriend and headed out the door.

Blue didn’t get up when Sam entered the patio. “Don’t worry girl, you take it easy.” He left the door propped open for her to leave when she was ready. She also had a bad night and would probably sleep all day.

At least the smell from the night before was gone from the air. That was at least a pleasant surprise. The fresh air and full stomach both helped Sam think of his direction, he just didn’t have a clue as to where to start. He could ask around, but who?

He started next door at Pops’s place. He had to check and see where the old man had gotten off to. His car was in the driveway, but all the blinds had been pulled shut. Sam ascended the steps and knocked on the door and waited. He didn’t hear any stirring around or anyone say anything. He knocked again.

“Pops!”

He heard a muffled, “Fuck off!” from inside.

“I’ll come back later. If you need anything, call Girlfriend and she’ll get it for you.”

“Piss off!”

At least Sam knew that Pops was alright. In mourning, but alright. He’d, of course, check in later to see if he could do anything. For now he needed to start at the beginning. He’d need to see if Julie was in yet and see if she remembered anything out of the ordinary from the night Casper was killed. She was possibly the last person to see him alive. Hopefully she’d have something to say about that night. He didn’t know if the police, who’d questioned him at length, had even thought about talking with her.

“Sammie! Sammie!”

Sam knew Mrs. Jenkins’s voice and it made him cringe. She lived on the other side of the park, so she must be looking for him. He heard the gravel crunch under the tires of her motorized chair. Sam did his best to put on a smile, but he really didn’t want to talk to her. Not today.

“Mrs. Jenkins. How nice to see you this morning.”

“Stuff it,” she said. She was a large woman of questionable favor with the rest of the residents of the park. More than once her cats had been the source of an argument, but her girth and self-proclaimed disability would usually win her those arguments. That and her abrasive nature. “It’s not a nice morning. It’s probably going to rain and I can’t find Fonzie.”

“Who?”

“Fonzie. Oh, geez. One of my cats.”

Mrs. Jenkins had an abundance of cats and each of them she’d named after 70s sitcom characters. Fonzie, now that Sam thought about it, was the black and white tuxedo cat. She also had an orange tom she named Richie. He wondered just how many cats she had.

“I haven’t seen him lately. Maybe he just ran off into the woods or something.”

“Sammie, that’s not the answer I’m looking for. Lenny, Fonzie, Mork and Mindy are all missing. I miss Fonzie the most and he’s been gone the longest. The rest are just eating machines and I’m glad they’re out there in the woods getting a meal for themselves, but Fonzie is old. I’m not sure he can take care of himself.”

“Do you think he maybe wandered off to die? They do that sometimes…”

“Shut your mouth! He was old, but not that old.”

Actually, Fonzie was far older than that and Sam knew that the cat probably had its tail run over one too many times by her rolling chair.

“Well, I’m going to do my daily rounds soon. I’ll keep an eye out for him, Mrs. Jenkins.”

“That’s the dear Sammie I know. Now quit standing here and start looking.”

Sam resisted the urge to knock her chair over. “I will. I’ll let you know if I see Fonzie.”

“Oh, Sammie, what happened to your friend? Everyone keeps asking me if I know, but I don’t. I’d like to be able to tell them. It was Casper, wasn’t it?”

Sam didn’t know how much to divulge. The detective hadn’t told him to keep quiet, but with Pops all broken up, he didn’t feel it was his place to give out too many details.

“Yeah, it was Casper. The police are looking into it.”

“Did they ask you questions?”

“Of course they did. I mean, I found the body. They had to ask me questions.”

“Right, dear. I’m sorry.” Her evil grin said otherwise. She just wanted gossip. He’d been vague enough that she would likely start spreading rumors. He cared, but only a bit. He was going to find out what happened to Casper.

“Well, I’ve got to get at it.”

Mrs. Jenkins didn’t say anything. She didn’t even move. She just sat there and watched him leave. Sam sighed and wished she’d just roll away, preferably off a cliff. Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked to the front of the park.

“Hey, look. It’s Sam the. . .what did you call him?” Waldorf asked Statler.

“I didn’t call him anything. You’re the one who said he was a bum,” retorted Waldorf.

“I didn’t call him a bum. I just said I didn’t think he’d be cutting this grass today.”

“Bum. Guy who won’t cut the grass. What’s the difference?”

The two laughed heartily. Sam wasn’t in the mood for these two to heckle him. He could actually feel his mood darken and he wanted to snap at Waldorf and Statler, but it wasn’t their fault. They were just being themselves. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Well, gentlemen, you’re right on one account. I won’t be cutting your grass today. I’m going to find out what happened to my Casper.”

“You owe me five bucks,” Waldorf said as he hit Statler with his cane. “I told you he wasn’t going to cut the grass; now pay up.”

Sam shook his head and walked away from the two old men. He just didn’t have the energy to deal with the two of them today. If he was lucky, he only had one more person to dodge and he’d have an easier time to dodge her.

Fate wasn’t so kind. Mrs. Bilkins stood with her fists on her hips and an ever-present cigarette in her lips. She still wore the same house dress she’d had on the day before, but her short hair was up in curlers.

“Sam! You’re late! I need that sign painted and I need it painted today. Do you understand? I know you’re probably broken up over Pops’ boy and all, but that sign needs to be painted.”

Sam held up a hand to stop her from talking. When she finally stopped spewing instructions about the colors for the sign, Sam said, “I’m taking the day off. In fact, I’m taking the whole week off. I’ve got more important things to do and I need time to think. I’ve never asked you for time off, but today I’m telling you. I need time off.”

Her mouth fell open and the cigarette toppled to the ground. Sam had always taken her verbal abuse and followed her instructions, so he was sure this had to be a shock for her. It felt good. It felt really good. Without waiting for her to gain her wits and respond, Sam walked around her office and toward the Sandy Bar so he could talk with Julie.

The yellow Charger sat parked out front. Julie hadn’t opened yet as there were no other cars and it was far too early. Sam knew the two had been seeing each other for some time and Casper even helped her close from time to time. Someone like Mrs. Jenkins would thrive on delivering bad news, but Sam dreaded the thought of being the first to tell her.

Sam hoped nothing else strange would interrupt his investigation, but the black sedan followed by the light blue Celica pulling into the trailer park’s drive, both unfamiliar, told him otherwise.

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

Myra

“What to pack? What to pack!”

Myra Tolie didn’t freak out easily. The fact that she’d woken up twenty minutes before her alarm went off at five in the morning was a good sign that she was freaking out. She’d snapped awake and showered at record pace. She planned on wearing pants the entire time she was at the Aitkin County Police Department, so she hadn’t bothered to shave her legs. The only trouble was that she didn’t know what to bring with her. She’d been shown pictures of something that wasn’t a fossil, but also couldn’t be anything living in today’s world. Regardless, she packed her tool case with all her digging tools. Perhaps there’d be a dig site or somewhere that they’d be looking for actual fossils.

Minnesota was famously rich with hadrosaur fossils, the occasional brachiosaurus, and a few of the carnivorous dinosaurs, so maybe they’d be looking to dig something up.

“You’re an idiot.”

She wasn’t going there to dig up fossils, she was going there to look at a recent specimen. A troodon, nonetheless. Possibly one of the smartest dinosaurs ever to have walked the planet. Not just some mindless beast that wandered around using its size to get a meal, but a crafty creature much like the velociraptor, except much larger. Both were extremely smart, but neither was nearly as large as movie depictions.

The detective had mentioned finding a body, something that she’d not gone into depth with him about, and now wished she’d had. She really wanted to inspect the body and see if she could identify bite patterns or see how the little dinosaurs would have eaten. Though it was a morbid thought, this would be the first chance anyone would have at ever seeing how a living dinosaur would eat.

For the dozenth time that morning she shook her head at herself. She had to quit thinking that until she actually got her hands on the specimen. Perhaps this was all some elaborate joke being played on her. She had validated the e-mail address though. Why would a police officer, a detective, play this kind of a joke?

She sent an e-mail to her supervisor, Randy Stokes, at the Science Museum of Minnesota, so he wouldn’t worry when she didn’t show up. He usually didn’t check his e-mail until ten or later, so she might get a phone call. She turned on her cell phone, something she only did when she actually expected to get a call, and put it in her coat pocket. The laptop was powered down and packed in her backpack.

“Camera! I can’t forget that.”

Myra hated packing at the last minute. She’d packed a small bag to take some clothes just in case she had to spend more than a day there, but didn’t think she’d need that. She had more gear than anything, everything from plaster for making footprint casts to her small spade to excavate any bones. She felt as nervous as she had during her prom. She just hoped that this boy wasn’t going to stand her up.

After loading her Toyota Celica’s trunk, she made one quick sweep to make sure she had all she needed. She grabbed a Twins cap from the top of her dresser. It was, after all, August and she didn’t need to get too much sun. Her first field assignment, and it was all her. This could really make her career take off. She’d waited all her life for something like this.

Well, what kid didn’t? What kid didn’t think about finding a living dinosaur? She had dreamt about it for longer than she could remember. Even when sitting and cleaning bones she thought, “What if this were alive today?” When assembling a display of model bones, she wished she could see them walk and make their sounds.

But who was she kidding? That wasn’t likely to happen. She just had to get up there and see this head and determine if it was the real thing, or a fake. That would help Detective Schneider and she’d most likely be on her way. It was just the thought that provoked her onward.

A glance at her watch: 5:40 a.m. She had to go before traffic piled up. By 6:00 o’clock everyone would be on their way to work and she needed to avoid all that if she was going to make it to Aitkin in a couple of hours. She’d have gotten an earlier start if she wasn’t afraid of driving in the dark. She’d nearly gotten into a bad accident on a snowy day in early December her first year at St. Cloud State University. She was certain it was just another drunk college kid, but it had scared her out of her wits. Since then, for nighttime driving, she only drove in well-lit areas. Going to Aitkin, though straight up Highway 65, wasn’t exactly all well lit, but the sun would be up long before she got to the dark parts.

The drive, after a stop for gas and a drive-through breakfast, took just over two hours. She had trouble containing her excitement, but listening to a podiobook, Tee Morris’s Morevi, had kept her mind off it. When her GPS navigator guided her into the parking lot of the police department she turned off her the mp3 player on her iPhone and opened a voice recording app and stuffed it into her pocket. She grabbed her digital camera from the seat and headed to the door. A follically-challenged man, trying to disguise the fact, held the door open for her as she approached. He wore a drab-brown jacket and jeans.

“Good morning, you must be Ms. Tolie. I’m Detective Andrew Schneider.”

She was surprised that this slender man had been the one she’d talked on the phone with the night before. He looked nothing like his picture. Indeed he must’ve been tired as his voice sounded so much more pleasant.

“I am. Pleasure to meet you.” She shook his hand.

“I had thought, based on our conversation last night, that you’d be sitting in the parking lot waiting for me.”

She thought about explaining her fear of driving in the dark, but decided not to. “I had to do some research before I came. I wanted to make sure I can give you the most objective opinion I can.”

He closed the door behind her. “Well, can I get you a coffee or anything?”

“I’m good. I’d like to see it. Should I bring any tools? I brought along a kit with me.”

“I don’t see that it’d be necessary. I’d actually prefer that you didn’t do anything to it, as it is evidence.”

“Oh, ok. Well, let’s go see it.” Myra took off her jacket and followed Detective Schneider down the hall. He led her to the morgue. She winced at seeing the word. She hadn’t thought about going into a room where so many dead might have gone before her. Andrew must have noticed.

“Don’t worry, this is the first body that’s been in here for years. I really don’t know why we have a morgue, as most of the bodies go straight to the funeral home. I had been starting to think I was going to spend the rest of my years looking for stolen bikes and lost cats. This is quite a change from the cities.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” It did nothing to remove the stigma of the word morgue. She still knew that a dead person was in the room, along with the troodon head. She just had to get over her squeamishness and get it over with. Perhaps then he’d take her to where it’d been found.

Inside the room sat a bank of lockers that surely could contain bodies if needed; one of them held the head she so desperately wanted to see and another had a body. She hoped the two weren’t in any way connected.

In front of the lockers lay a stainless-steel table. Myra didn’t want to look at the head on it, but would if she must. She was glad when Andrew opened a locker and slid out a long slab covered with a sheet. He pulled back the sheet to expose the head.

The large eyes were clouded over, showing her it was quite dead, but the mouth sat slightly agape, giving her a clear view of the teeth.

“Incredible.”

“What’s that, Miss?”

She pulled back the lip to better expose the teeth. “Just as I had suspected, but dared not guess by just looking at a picture.”

“Ma’am?”

“Look closely at the teeth. See how the back are serrated and the front not so much? The teeth have a backward slant to them?”

“Yes.”

“These teeth are for gripping prey. For holding on while it swallows or for tearing off chunks. This animal is a meat eater that swallows its food whole, much like a snake would, only with a lot more force. And of course this would be bigger than a normal snake.”

“How big would you say?”

“Oh, it would stand about three or three-and-a-half feet tall and be maybe six or seven feet long. See, this animal would run with its head extended and a very long tail out for support and balance while it ran. This one, it’s been assumed, would get up to speeds of fifty to sixty miles per hour.”

“To hunt?”

“Yes.”

“So, Ms. Tolie, are you telling me you know what this is?”

Myra looked at the head from every possible angle. “I do. I most certainly do. The large brain case. The big eyes. The teeth. All exactly as I had always imagined they would look.”

“So, what is this?”

“It’s a troodon.”

“A what? I never heard of anything around here called a, what did you call it?”

“A troodon, and Detective Schneider, the question isn’t ‘have you heard of one’, but ‘where did this one come from?'”

“I don’t understand. Why would I ask that?”

“Look at it. Think really hard. This isn’t anything that’s lived in the Minnesota woods for a very long time.”

“Are you saying it’s a throwback of some kind?”

“This isn’t a throwback. This is bigger than finding a coelacanth.”

“You mean that prehistoric fish?”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying this is a dinosaur?”

“Yes. Not just any dinosaur. This is a troodon. You remember Jurassic Park? Well, the raptors in that film are actually very small when we look at the fossil record. The troodon is a relative of the velociraptor, only larger and very likely smarter. A faster, more dangerous beast. But regardless, it would still only be eating small animals.”

Detective Schneider opened another case and pulled back the sheet to expose the lower portion. Myra let out a shrill scream.

“I’m sorry, but I need to know, could that do this?” The detective pointed from the head to the body.

It took a moment for Myra to regain her composure. She’d spent so many years around bones, that seeing an actual dead body took her by surprise. Taking several shallow breaths she approached the body of the man, a strong man by the look of it. He’d been severed just below his waist, but upon closer inspection she could find no indication of teeth marks or tearing of any kind.

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“Well, this cut clearly severed him in one clean blow. Nothing bit him, at least not above his waist. It’s possible that the troodon bit him below the waist, but whatever killed this man cut him cleanly and quickly.”

Myra put her hand over her mouth at the thought of being so close to the dead man.

“Could anything, in your opinion, have killed him? I mean an animal of any kind?”

She moved her hand aside. “Like I said, there’s no bite marks. This man, as best as I can tell, hasn’t been bitten. He was cut.”

“That’s very frustrating. I thought we had the culprit. So tell me more about this troodon. What’s it doing here?”

“I was actually hoping you could tell me.”

“Well, you said it’s what, a dinosaur? Aren’t they all pretty much extinct?”

“I think we need to visit the site. These were normally found in packs when discovered. Egg clutches, groups of nests. Much like modern birds. Protection in numbers. If this one was there, it’s possible that wherever it was found, those people could be in danger.”

“Let me grab a radio and I’ll have a sheriff meet us out there. I hope you had planned on staying the day here in Aitkin.”

“I did.”

Myra was happy when Detective Schneider covered the dead body, but she wanted to spend more time looking at the head; taking notes and pictures. She could spend weeks looking at the brain alone. That would have to wait. At least it was in a cool area where it wouldn’t decompose too quickly. She looked at the camera in her hand as the head was covered and thought about asking if she could take one quick picture, but refrained. There would be time for that later.

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

Girlfriend

Lying and sleeping didn’t feel right, so Girlfriend got up. She’d drifted off, but for how long? The clock was blinking 12:00 as if it’d been reset. That was getting annoying. She’d told Sam to get a new clock because something had to be wrong with this one. She looked at his watch on the nightstand and it read 4:00, but where was Sam? He’d only gone for a walk. She shouldn’t worry about him. He was a grown man, after all, but she couldn’t help it. She loved him. After all he’d been through with going to the police station and everything, she wanted to talk to him, or at the very least just hold him to know he was alright.

She got out of bed and an odd chill shook her body. Not cold, but a feeling something was horribly wrong. Her mother had told her about such feelings that women would get and men would ignore. She’d always said that men were just too stupid to believe that their feelings had any meaning and wouldn’t follow them, but a woman should always follow her feelings and they will lead her to where she should be. Right now Girlfriend’s feelings said to find Sam, and find him now.

She padded softly through the trailer’s one bedroom and into the kitchen.

“Sam?”

No answer. It was quieter than normal. She couldn’t even hear crickets chirping outside, and they usually kept going all night long this time of the year.

She stepped into the living room and looked at the couch. In the darkness she thought maybe she just hadn’t seen him sleeping there, but it was just a shadow. He wasn’t there either. He must still be outside. After what had happened to Casper, she began to worry.

“No, better not to think like that,” she told herself, but her mother’s words got the better of her and she rushed for the door. She opened it quickly. “Sam!”

He sat on the bench, Blue sitting next to him with her head in his lap. Blue looked up when the door had opened, but Sam’s head stayed on his chest.

“Sam!”

He groggily shook his head and looked up. “Oh, hey. Guess I fell asleep out here.”

“Did you even go for a walk?”

“Oh, I went for a walk alright. That’s the last late night walk I take.”

“What do you mean?” Girlfriend scooted Blue off the bench and sat next to Sam and put her head on his chest. He put his arm around her and took a deep breath.

“I’d tell you, but you’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Sam, I’d never think that.” And she wouldn’t. She’d been accused of being gullible, but she took it as being over-trustworthy at times. She knew that Sam had never lied to her about anything important and this seemed like something that was very important to him. “Tell me, please.”

“My dad used to walk a lot at night. All the time, in fact. Mostly before the opening of deer hunting season. Said it was to get his eyes ready for night hunting and to get the deer to know he was around. He loved the night and I swear that if he didn’t have to work, he’d have spent more time up at night taking those late night walks. Sometimes he’d go to bed around eight just to get up at two in the morning and walk for a couple hours.

“A few times he took me with him. We’d spot a lot of small animals like porcupine and skunks and things like that. Sometimes we’d startle a pheasant and that’d scare us into laughing fits. Of everything my father gave me, I remember those walks the most.

“The best time we had was getting treed by a bear. I swear when my dad saw that momma bear he threw me ten feet into a big, old oak and yelled ‘Climb, boy, climb!’, and he was right behind me. That bear kept us up there for hours. Nearly until the sun came up. We just sat there and talked about food, and what kind of vegetables we could put into stew made from that bear if we’d had brought our guns along.”

“Sam, what does that have to do about tonight?”

“I miss my dad, Girlfriend. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I wanted him with me. To tell me what I saw wasn’t real. That I was dreaming. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in all my life. Not even when that bear treed my dad and me. It shook that tree. I couldn’t believe it. It even tried to climb up and get us, but my dad broke off a branch and beat it down.”

Sam got really quiet and stared off into the distance. Girlfriend sat up and rubbed his stubbly chin. He’d never opened up like this before. He’d talked about his mom and dad, but never like this. She didn’t want to say anything that might make him stop talking, but she wanted to hear more. What could have frightened him? He grew up in these woods, almost literally.

“I think I want to go to bed now,” he said.

“But Sam, what did you see? What happened tonight? I was really worried and now I’m even more worried.”

Sam looked at her, his brown eyes full of pain. She wanted to cry for him, knowing that he would never cry for himself. He held his tough man image so well that she feared that everything he kept inside would cause him to explode. Just once she wanted to have him speak what was truly on his mind, and he was doing just that, if only she could keep him talking.

“I don’t know that I can describe it fully. I mean, do you smell that? In the air?”

She hadn’t really thought of it, but something about the morning air didn’t smell right. She’d smelled skunks before and those were bad, but this was different. Suddenly she felt nervous about what Sam might say.

“I smelled it this morning, well, yesterday I mean. You know, before I found Casper. The detective asked me how part of Casper could be missing and there’s no blood trail. I thought about that a lot. I mean, Girlfriend, his lower body was missing. Just gone. Like something had bit him in half. I thought that was ridiculous. I mean, there’s nothing in the woods of Minnesota that could bite a man in half. Casper and I know these woods. Everything about them.

“Until I went for my walk, I thought I’d seen everything, heard everything, that these woods could stir up. But when the lights flickered, I thought I was dreaming; wished I was dreaming. The world changed, Girlfriend. I mean everything changed. The woods, the sounds, the smells, the moon, everything. I know I wasn’t in Minnesota anymore, at least not the Minnesota I know. Blue knew it too. She started barking and I thought we were going to go like Casper did. In fact, when I heard something in the woods, something huge, moving around, I was certain that I knew what had killed Casper. I should have been able to walk into my woods and killed what killed Casper. An eye for an eye, you know. I froze up, Girlfriend. I froze up in fear. I backed up to a trailer and hid like a child. I wanted to cry for my daddy.”

Sam put his hands in his face, but he didn’t cry. Girlfriend thought she heard him growl in anger. It was her turn to put her arms around him, but he shrugged off her attempts. On her fourth attempt he stood up.

“Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? It wasn’t just the woods of Minnesota that changed tonight. That change burned deep down inside of me and took away what I was. How can I ever go back into those woods knowing what I heard? I know it’s not the same woods, but it’s the woods my best friend was found in, torn in half. It’s over for me. All over. Game over, time to pack it in, call it a night, and hit the road.”

“Sam, that’s not true.” She tried furiously to think of what to tell him. “Sit back down.”

Sam stared at her and reluctantly sat down. He had that defeated look he got when she got mad at him and she didn’t want to sound like she was scolding him. She had to be careful. He was in a vulnerable state, a state she’d never seen him in. He wasn’t only opening up to her for the first time, he was truly scared of what he’d seen.

“Now you know that whatever happened to Casper isn’t your fault. Right? So if something bad did happen to him, he’d want you to find out what. Scared or not, he’d do the same for you.”

Sam laughed.

“I’m serious. Now not many people liked him as much as they like you. You’re responsible and you kept Casper in check. You were his stability. So if anything happened to you, he wouldn’t rest until he’d found out what happened and who did it. That much I know about him. You owe him the same. I know the police are going to be looking into it and everything, but you’re here. You know this place better than anyone. You’ve been over every square inch of this park a thousand times and then some. You’ve been in the woods, down to the lake, and everything. Nothing has happened here that you didn’t know about. So why should this be any different? Because it’s your friend you should be doubly concerned over what happened.”

She stopped and took a slow breath. She didn’t want to get overly worked up. Sam just sat nodding his head and scratching Blue behind the ears.

“Sam, I love you, and I’ve wanted you to talk to me like this ever since we met. Whatever happened tonight, sure it may have scared you to the core and you’re worried about that, but it won’t change who you are. If anything, you need to take what you’ve seen, file it away, and think about what it means regarding what happened to Casper. And you need to figure out what is going on around here before anything happens to anyone else. You are probably the only person in this entire park who can do that. I think it’s your responsibility to the people in this park.”

Sam sat for several minutes without moving, just stroking Blue’s fur. He’d barely even acknowledged that Girlfriend had said anything. Once Blue laid down, he looked up at Girlfriend, his eyes sad and full of worry. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to tell him that what he’d told her about the woods changing hadn’t scared her, but it had terrified her. That didn’t matter. Right now he needed a rock in the storm to hold onto and she needed to be that rock. His rock.

Slowly, gently, he wrapped his arms around her. He held her tight for longer than he ever had before. She let her tears flow. She couldn’t hold everything in like he could. He was her rock. He wasn’t cold-hearted; he just didn’t let everything show. That didn’t mean his feelings weren’t there.

“Girlfriend,” he said quietly, almost a whisper. “You’re right. For you and for Casper and for Pops and for everyone in this park, I need to find out what’s going on. Unfortunately, I can’t start right now. I’m tired, and I need to sleep. Tomorrow, well, today actually, is another day. I’ll be better for everyone if I get some rest and look into things my own way, in my own time. I will look, though.

Sam stood up and walked into the trailer, leaving Girlfriend sitting alone on the enclosed patio. The peculiar smell had diminished slightly, wafting away with the morning breeze, but its memory chilled her to the bone. What had Sam seen? What had happened to him during his walk? Would it happen again? He had just experienced some strange, life-changing event, but it hadn’t been a willing change. She wanted him to open up to her, but not to the detriment of his very being. Not if it meant that he had been somehow defeated. She wanted him to open of his own accord. Something out there had forced his change and she didn’t like that. Whatever she could do to help, she was going to do it. For Sam.

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

Lin

“I think we should turn this up to eleven,” Tiger Lily said with a laugh.

Lin didn’t get the reference. “What?”

“Oh come off it. Don’t tell me you never heard of Spinal Tap.”

They had been working late setting up traces and traps and Lin was certain that it’d gone to Tiger Lily’s head at this point. During the time they’d exchanged a great deal of music; everything from Metallica to Ministry to Skinny Puppy. Now they were listening to something off of Tiger Lily’s iPod called Big Bottom.

“I think I’ve got the video on the server. I can download it and we can watch it. That’ll be a good break. It’s so funny. You know about bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and all those 80s heavy metal bands, right?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, all that’s before my time, but I’ve really gotten into more of the heavier stuff and the industrial. I even listened to GWAR for a while. I think they’re funny.”

“You should see their videos. They’re a gas.”

They laughed, Lin more because she didn’t really understand what Tiger Lily meant by ‘gas’ than anything else. She must’ve been tired, because the laugh was infectious.

Tiger Lily clicked several times into folders. “Here it is. Any time you’re looking for a movie or anything and don’t want to wait for NetFlix, just come in here. I think I’ve got just about anything you could want to watch. Just be careful, you could lose days just browsing in here.”

She wasn’t kidding. Lin watched as the titles scrolled by. She knew they had a lot of vacant disk space, but didn’t realize just how much of it could be used for personal use. She’d only taken up a small portion of it with the ten deuce web site, and the traffic wasn’t significant with only twenty-five thousand users. The firewalls would prevent anyone from every getting in and browsing the server for anything sensitive.

Tiger Lily began the file transfer. “Okay, that’ll download in a few minutes. We’ve each got a T3 line coming in, so we should be good.” She stretched and looked at the ceiling. Her t-shirt hugged against her breasts and Lin felt a tinge of jealousy. They were a lot bigger than they looked beneath her suit or inside the shirt, but when she stretched and her nipples pushed outward…

Lin looked away, embarrassed to be staring again. Tiger Lily moaned slightly as she brought her arms down and shivered.

“It must be getting late. What time is it?”

The clock on the computer read 3:22 am. It was then Lin realized they’d left all the lights on in the trailer.

“I should go turn some lights off. It is late. Been a really long time since I’ve pulled an all-nighter.”

“Same here, but if anything is going to happen, it’s going to be late at night. That’s when all the logs show activity, right? Is it always this hot around here? I feel like I should be working naked or something. Maybe I just need to take a shower to cool off.”

“You could. Take a shower I mean,” Lin said and felt her cheeks flush at the thought of working next to a naked woman. “I can let you know if anything happens. There’re towels in the bathroom.” Lin stood up and stretched herself, more to hide her embarrassment. Her body trembled. When she brought her arms back down she saw Tiger Lily looking at her with a tired smile. “I’m going to get something to drink. You want anything?”

“Sure.”

Tiger Lily had barely finished responding when the lights dimmed considerably and an alarm went off on the computer. Tiger Lily’s eyes popped open wide, as did Lin’s. Lin sat back at the chair and pressed up to Tiger Lily’s side as the woman began searching through the open screens. The screen had flickered and the generator kicked on and power instantly brought everything back up.

“What’s happening?” Lin asked.

“I’m looking, but we just lost power.”

“Is that all we lost?” Lin pointed to the network icon in the system tray. “Looks like we lost the network.”

“Let me try to run a trace through the satellite. The power outage may have affected the land line.” Tiger Lily brought up a re-routing program, but Lin knew that it should have automatically switched over if the phone line had been cut for any reason.

“But should we already be on satellite?”

“Yes, and I’m not seeing any of the six. I wonder if the power has caused us to lose power to the dish.”

Lin looked at the icon. “Nope, we’ve got power to the dish. We didn’t lose that. It must be something else.”

“Look, the download from the Canadian server has stopped.” Tiger Lily pointed to the Spinal Tap download. “We’re not connected to Canada anymore. I’m sure it must be picking up any load we had.”

“I’ve got cameras. Let’s do a quick check outside. Remember the video I showed you?”

“Sure, let’s see what’s on camera. Based on what you showed me, I don’t think I’d want to go out and look for myself.”

Outside, a dog started barking. There weren’t a lot of dogs in the park and Lin knew that one. It was Sam’s dog Blue, but why was she outside?

“Is someone out there?”

“I think so. Last night someone was out there. Casper Jasper. As best as I can tell, he got killed.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t show you that video. You want to see it?”

“Not right now. You said this only lasts for a few minutes. We need to see what we can and track any data we can. Is there a network inside this park?”

“Are you kidding? Almost everyone here is retired and wouldn’t know their way around a DVD player, let alone a computer. They’re all content to get calls from their kids once in a while. All nice people, just not up on technology.”

“Are you sure that’s true of everyone?”

“Well, there might be someone who’s up on technology, but why? I think Girlfriend uses a GPS program to keep track of her parents who are somewhere in South America on an RV tour.”

“I’m seeing a tap on the main trunk to the servers. The phone lines are all dead so this has to be a direct tap and someone local because as best as I can tell we’ve been cut off completely from the outside world.”

Lin’s jaw dropped. Sure enough someone had tapped her network and was re-pointing the satellite dish. Tiger Lily scribbled the coordinates down on the pad of paper.

“There’s no IP address here so it has to be someone inside the park. I’m going to see if I can stick them on the system so I can trace back to them. If this doesn’t work, maybe we can at least scare them so they don’t come back.”

Lin watched as Tiger Lily brought up a trapping program that would not allow the remote computer to disconnect cleanly. Lines of code scrolled, but before it finished the lights dimmed again and the connection was lost.

“Damn,” Tiger Lily cursed. “Whoever that was is inside this park. I vote for going door to door and seeing who looks like they’re awake and get some answers.”

Lin laughed. “At four in the morning? You’re not really out to make friends, are you?”

“Lin, this is serious. We’ve just seen a breech here by someone who was able to get in and not leave a footprint, a fingerprint, or any trace they were ever inside the system, and possibly cut off this trailer park from the outside world somehow. That kind of spoofing, although highly illegal, means there’s someone who not only knows you’re here, but they’re likely responsible for someone’s death and what’s happening at this park. They disconnected everything. This is serious.”

Lin couldn’t help but laugh at Tiger Lily’s sudden seriousness. “I’m sorry.” Lin held up her hand and tried to stop laughing.

“Lin!” Tiger Lily gripped Lin’s arm tightly and gave her a shake accompanied with a stern look. “We’ve got a job to do here.”

“I know, but you’re talking about going around this park and waking up a bunch of old people who wouldn’t have the slightest clue as to what you’re talking about. I find that really funny.”

“I don’t.”

That stopped Lin’s laughter.

“I’m sorry.” Lin took a deep breath. “I must be more tired than I thought. Let’s see what we can find.”

“That’s better. Now I saw the tap come in and from what I can glean, it wasn’t established until after the generators came on. At that time, the dish was repositioned and pointed to these coordinates.” Tiger Lily handed the paper to Lin. “The dish is already moving back to the correct position. I’m not sure, but it looks like it’s running a local program to do that.” Tiger Lily clicked on a running DOS window. “There it is! This little program is erasing this person’s tracks. I’m going to try and capture it.”

Before she could, the window blinked out.

“Shit.”

“Well, at least we know what to look for.”

“I should have been prepared. I wasn’t expecting an attack.”

“We don’t know that was an attack.”

“Lin, they were on this system. We need to treat that as a hostile attack. They subverted the system and used it for their own needs. We can’t track how long they’ve been doing that, but we must assume that whatever they are doing is hostile.”

“How could they have gotten past the firewalls? I mean, this system is only accessible to anyone we allow in. You and me. I know I haven’t allowed anyone access in.”

“You think someone got in from ten deuce?”

Lin didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t told Tiger Lily about that. “You know?”

“Please, Lin. I’m on that system day and night. You don’t think I noticed the increase in traffic from around the world? I almost shut it down until I tracked it back to you. Though I must say, you did a nice job of hiding it for like three months from me. And if this person, who somehow got in, is doing something similar, or is at least as smart as you are, it’s possible he could have been hiding his activity for even longer. It’s only the power logs, something I wouldn’t have thought to check, that put us on his trail.”

Lin, glad Tiger Lily had changed the topic, said, “Well, it just made sense. So where do we go from here? If he erased his steps, how do we get to him? I mean, I’m sure he was thorough, but maybe he left something behind.”

“We can see what was deleted off the disks, if this Spinal Tap download didn’t overwrite those tracks that is. As soon as the lights dipped the second time, the download started again, as if we’d never been disconnected.”

“Wait, if they know about this site, you think maybe they know about the site in Canada? I mean, there’s a constant tie and activity between the two as well as the satellite linkups. Maybe they’re doing something with that server as well.”

“Good thinking. I’ll check those logs from my laptop. You get into the video and let’s see what we can see. If someone got into one system, it’s safe to assume they got into both. Maybe they’re erasing their tracks from here and not from there.”

Lin yawned and stretched. Tiger Lily did the same and her body went slack.

“You know what, I changed my mind. Obviously they’re only in here at night, or I’m guessing they are. Let’s get a little sleep and we’ll dig into this in the morning.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Lin hadn’t thought about it, but obviously Tiger Lily was going to sleep in the trailer. But the two other bedrooms had been converted into a bathroom and a closet. There was only one bed. She hadn’t even gotten a hide-a-bed couch for the living room.

“Well, I’ve got a big enough bed, I guess we can both sleep in it.”

“Don’t worry,” Tiger Lily said with a sly smile, all seriousness from earlier gone. “I don’t bite. Much.”

They both laughed. Still, Lin hadn’t slept in a bed with another person. Ever. Her parents had been distant and cold people, and even when she’d had nightmares as a child they’d put her back in her own bed. She’d never had a sleepover with friends, the two she had growing up, and had never had a boyfriend. Getting into a bed with a woman felt strange, despite their camaraderie.

Tiger Lily turned off the lights and crawled across the bed. “I can tell I’m going to crash as soon as my head hits this pillow.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lin lied. Her nervousness wouldn’t allow her to sleep. At least not until she was certain that Tiger Lily was sleeping. But true to her word, Tiger Lily pushed back the blankets and cuddled up with the pillow and was breathing deeply in seconds. Lin allowed herself to relax, but still slept with her back to Tiger Lily and as close to the edge of the bed as she could. She thought about putting something between them, a pillow or the blankets bunched up, but her arms didn’t respond and before she knew it, sleep overtook her.

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

Sam

Sam blinked. The ceiling hadn’t changed in the past thirty minutes. Girlfriend, tucked in his arms, slept restlessly. She’d been tossing and turning, but at least she’d managed to get to sleep. He tried breathing deeply, counting sheep, but nothing helped. He unwound himself from Girlfriend and sat up. He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute and tried to clear the images of Casper from his head. He couldn’t.

And Pops. Sam had waited for a long time, but Pops hadn’t come home. Girlfriend had eventually called his cell phone — Sam hadn’t thought of that — and found out he was at the VFW with some of his old war buddies and they were taking care of him. At least he had someone to help him keep his mind off things.

Sam had tried talking about it with Girlfriend, but he didn’t want to explain, neither the gory details nor how it made him feel. Better just to keep it bottled up and deal with it on his own.

Getting up slowly so as not to disturb Girlfriend, Sam made his way to the front of the trailer and the kitchen. Perhaps if he ate something. He hadn’t eaten all day, but just the thought of Casper, half of Casper, laid out in the morgue turned his stomach. If he had to, Sam was going to force himself to eat something. Even if he just drank a glass of milk, maybe that would help him get to sleep. That was it, just a glass of milk.

The fridge didn’t contain anything that looked appetizing, so Sam stuck with his first plan of milk. He grabbed the gallon jug and Tupperware cup from the cabinet and poured himself a glass. But when he raised the glass to his lips, all he could think about was Casper, cut in half, and the bottom half missing. He choked, nearly spitting out the milk, and set down the glass.

“Damn it, Casper. What happened to you?”

Tears welled up in Sam’s eyes. He hadn’t cried since he was a boy; he wasn’t about to start now. Girlfriend had cried. Patty had cried. Julie closed the Sandy Bar for the day and went home crying, blaming herself. She said “If only I’d gone home with him, none of this would have happened.” Sam couldn’t blame her for blaming herself, but in the end, Casper was due to come to a bad end. He’d starting hanging out with a bad bunch of guys from out of town and he’d gotten into a spot of trouble from time to time. Sam had gotten them some work with Lin and even with that Doctor fellow, Sam forgot his name, that lived in the double-wide at the far end of the park. They had it good. So what went wrong?

Sam picked up the glass of milk and forced himself to drink it all, each swallow painful. His stomach burned once he’d gotten it all down, but he needed something in his body to keep it going. Casper wouldn’t want him to stop his life just because something tragic happened, so Sam wasn’t going to. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Sam?”

Sam grabbed a paper towel and blew his nose. He didn’t want Girlfriend to see him like this. Not at all. He turned toward the fridge, then turned toward the kitchen window. Girlfriend hugged him from behind, sliding her hands up from his waist to his chest. He tossed the paper towel into the sink and held her hands.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You miss him already, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Sam felt something catch in his throat.

Girlfriend worked her way in front of him. “Sam, it’s alright to cry about losing someone close to you. It’s alright to tell me how you really feel about this. I know it’s tearing you up inside. You can talk to me. This is what a relationship is all about. Sharing everything. Isn’t it?”

Sam tried to smile. Tried to say something. Tried to talk. No words came. Instead of saying anything, he just hugged Girlfriend. Just knowing she was there helped. He couldn’t find his voice to tell her, or he would have. He wanted to cry, but knew he wasn’t going to do it in front of anyone. His father had beaten it into him that big men don’t cry and whenever Sam would cry, he’d get a beating. Starting to cry now wasn’t going to happen. He could almost hear his father say, “What are you? A sissy boy? Suck it up! I’m not going to have any sissy boy living in this house.” Always those words were followed by a slap or a punch. Sam’s father was the one that forced him to take up football in order to ‘toughen’ him up and learn how to take a hit.

“Sam?”

She’d heard him sniffle. “I’m okay. I just can’t sleep.”

“I understand. Do you want me to stay up with you? We can just sit and watch TV or something.”

“No, that’s not going to help. I just need to think. Maybe I’ll put on some pants and go for a walk or something.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Some fresh air will help clear my head.”

“I’ll get your pants and your shoes. You just stay here.”

As always Girlfriend took care of what Sam needed. Though he didn’t say it often enough, he loved her and appreciated her. They’d taken a long, hot shower together and for the first time it wasn’t something sexual. It had actually been the most relaxing thing he’d ever done, allowing her to wash him.

“Here you go. Should I wait up for you?”

“No, Girlfriend. I’ll be okay. I just need to get some of this tension out. Thank you.”

“Okay, then. I’m going to go back to bed.” She turned to return to the bedroom.

“Girlfriend.”

She turned around. She looked so beautiful in the partial lighting coming from the street. She smiled at him. He wanted to say it, he really did. She came back to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“I love you too,” she whispered in his ear.

She let her hand lightly slide across his face and she returned to the bedroom. Sam put on his pants and pulled on his shoes, not bothering to tie them, and walked out the front door. Blue laid on the floor and immediately jumped up when Sam came outside.

“Let’s go for a walk, girl.”

Sam opened the patio door and let Blue run outside. As always, she stopped in the middle of the small yard and did her business before catching up to Sam and walking by his side.

A warm breeze blew in Sam’s face. It’d been a long time since Sam had been awake so late. He looked at his watch which read 3:22. A real long time.

The gravel crunched under his feet as he walked. He looked from trailer to trailer, each dark as death this late at night. Each that was, except for Lin Pza Pza’s trailer. There was a car Sam didn’t recognize, but he’d seen it pull up earlier in the evening. Lin never had visitors, but he’d seen her let the lady in, so she must know her. What could they be doing up so late, though? Sam thought about knocking on the door to see, but that would be rude even during the day. If they were up, they likely didn’t want to be disturbed.

The street lights dimmed considerably and a generator turned on somewhere. Sam heard the motor, but as he listened, he thought he heard a second generator running. Blue growled.

“What is it girl?”

Sam looked around. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something wasn’t right. Something was different. The buzzing of the crickets and flies and other bugs became louder than usual, as if something had stirred a huge pot of bugs and dumped it into the woods. Looking up, Sam could see the moon, but it was so much larger. It was huge, in fact. Almost like looking at a harvest moon in late September, but this was directly overhead.

A painful howl came from the woods. Sam’s head snapped at the cry. The woods didn’t look right. Not at all. Though the street lights still cast the same glow, the trees no longer looked like oak and birch and pine. They had huge leaves and long vines that hung low, like in a jungle. Those weren’t the woods of his childhood, of that he was certain.

Again the cry came and Blue started barking.

“Quiet, girl. Shush.”

Sam knelt down at Blue’s side and stroked her fur. She stopped barking, but still she growled a deep low rumble. Sam looked in all directions. He felt suddenly in danger sitting in the open road and in the light. He didn’t know why, but he felt as if he was being watched by something, or someone. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and a shiver ran through his entire body. He wanted to run, but found his feet firmly stuck on the ground, just like in a dream.

Was he really sleeping? Could he be just dreaming all this? Blue’s growls felt and sounded real enough. He wanted someone to pinch him to assure him he was really awake and not sleeping soundly by Girlfriend’s side.

Taking Blue’s collar, he led her into the shadow of one of the trailers. He moved slowly as if any noise he made would attract whatever it was that watched him. His mouth had gone dry, making it difficult to swallow. He’d never felt this scared in his life. Not even when he played in his first big game against Wright. This was terrible. He even found himself shaking.

Stop that, Sam. It’s nothing. It’s just your imagination. You’re tired. That’s it. Just calm down. Everything will be alright.

The ground shook as something in the trees moved and bellowed a deep, mournful howl. Sam allowed his body to crumble to the ground in a sitting position. Something tight gripped his chest. Something Sam had never felt before. Again the ground shook and more violently the bushes around the trees shook. Sam was certain that this, something he’d never had to experience before, was the grip of fear. He couldn’t move. Didn’t dare move lest he attract the unwanted attention of something big enough and heavy enough to make the ground move with its very steps. The sounds coming from those woods were from something big. Something very big. All he could do was sit as, thankfully, the sound moved away, replaced by the bugs and smaller animals.

He didn’t know how long he sat there and listened to the drone and the screeching howls from the woods, but stay still he did. The lights dimmed once more and Sam watched in amazement as the woods from his childhood returned and the moon snapped back to its normal size. Sam’s shaking didn’t stop, however. Blue’s growls slowed to whimpers and she laid down by his side.

“What was that?”

Blue whimpered a response.

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

Myra

Myra Tolie swatted at the alarm clock, but the beeping sound didn’t stop. She tried tucking her head under her pillow, but that didn’t help. Pulling herself out from under the padded protection she looked at the red, digital numbers of the clock: 12:54 AM.

“What? That’s not my alarm.”

Myra fumbled around for the light switch, her brain still not fully awake. The light hurt for an instant, but the beeping still hurt her ears worse and she had to find its source. Her pager! As archaic as it was, she’d been given a pager by the Science Museum of Minnesota in case of late night deliveries or emergencies. It’d only gone off once in the past five years and that was for a mummy that was delivered on a particularly rainy night. It was August and the forecast called for clear skies. If nothing else it was a perfect night.

She found the pager tucked in the nightstand drawer and pressed the button to stop it. She laid back on her bed with the pager on her chest and waited for her mind to wake up. Her first mistake was closing her eyes. She startled herself when she woke three minutes later and saw the light on. It hadn’t been a dream. Her pager had really gone off. Myra sat up on the edge of the bed and held the pager under the light and looked at the message. It was only a number. It wasn’t local either. She looked closer at the area code. It was from northern Minnesota. Why would someone page her at this time of the night from up north? That didn’t make any sense.

They would have to wait a few minutes. She wasn’t going to call anyone until she’d woken up. She took her time going to the bathroom and splashing some water on her face and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She even took a few minutes to turn on her computer and check her e-mail. As her Macbook booted up, her pager went off again.

“Leave me alone.”

She looked at the page under the glow of the Mac’s screen. It had the same number followed by three asterisks and “911”. Someone wanted to talk with her and now. It had to be some idiot with the wrong pager number. They couldn’t want to talk with her.

Myra checked her e-mail. Fifteen pieces of spam, three responses to forums she frequented — did those people ever sleep? — and something from her mother.

“Geez, Mom. Go to bed.”

She looked at the pager again. Even if it was a wrong number, she may as well call them and let them know they had the wrong person, so she could go back to bed. She had a lot of work to do tomorrow. They’d just gotten in a shipment of hadrosaur bones that were supposed to be some fine specimens. She looked forward to cracking open the casings and seeing what they contained. There was supposed to be a fully intact skull in this batch. That alone would make the weeks of cleaning worthwhile.

She dialed the number and took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to take long. The phone only rang once before someone picked up.

“Hello,” the man said.

“Hello?” Myra said, trying her best to sound annoyed.

“Is this Myra Tolie?” he asked.

“Yes.” So the call really was for her. She self-consciously groomed her hair and then shook her head. The person couldn’t see her. She should have waited a few more minutes before calling.

“Ms. Tolie, I apologize for calling you so late. Before I left the office, I wanted to see if I could get in contact with you. I tried calling you at the museum today, but no one was able to get a hold of you.”

“I was busy today out of the office.”

“I tried to page you as well. Don’t you have a cell phone?”

Myra laughed. “I don’t like cell phones and I left the pager at home.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Detective Andrew Schneider. I’m calling from the Aitkin County Police Department.”

“Police?” Myra had never gotten a call from the police before. Her mind raced through a thousand different things the police could be calling her for. A death in the family? Something she’d done wrong? Identity theft?

“Yes, Ma’am. I have called all over the state looking for an expert in animals. Specifically, lizards. That search led me to you. I paged you several times today.”

Myra scrolled through the pages. Sure enough he’d paged her five times already. “I guess I’ve never really gotten a page I needed to return when I wasn’t home. Why do you need an expert on lizards?”

“Well, there’s been a death up here in the woods that I’m having trouble explaining to my superiors and to the community. In fact, I’m having trouble making sense of it myself. Do you have a fax? I’d like to send you something.”

“A fax? What do you want to fax me?”

“A picture.”

“You know pictures don’t fax well, don’t you? I’d just get a black page. Can’t you e-mail it to me?”

“Oh, I must be tired. I hadn’t thought of that. Certainly. Why don’t you give me your e-mail address? I’ll have to pull up the digital photos.”

She gave him her e-mail address. There was a lot of clicking and cursing from his end. Finally he said, “Okay, I’ve sent you a picture. Don’t worry, this isn’t the body of the man who was killed. Please, if you can, give me your opinion when you see the photo.”

“I’m not sure what much I can do just from looking at a picture.”

Myra opened her e-mail and checked. Nothing. It took several tries before she finally pulled down the e-mail with the large attachment. She verified the address it was sent from. Sure enough it was from the Police Department. She thought about scanning the file, but no one would pull off such an elaborate stunt just to get a virus on her computer. The program opened the image. Myra leaned in closer to look at the head in the picture, severed just at the base of the long neck. The color of the skin was magnificent, but odd.

“What is that?”

“That, Ms. Tolie, is why I’m calling you.”

“I can’t tell how big this is because it’s a close up of the head. It’s interesting, but how large is it?”

“I sent you a second picture of me holding the head.”

Myra traced the lines of the head and mouthed words to a song from her childhood. The head looked strange, and unlike any living lizard she knew about. Perhaps it was some small lizard from the Amazon that someone had bought and set free in the woods. Probably some hunter with his big knife cut off the head and was proud of himself.

Myra opened the second attachment. She had to look twice to make sure she understood.

“Did you see?”

She didn’t answer right away. She was shocked at what she was looking at. It didn’t make sense to her brain. How could he be holding the head like that, with both arms?

“Ms. Tolie, did you get the picture?”

She had to see it. Pictures weren’t going to do it. “What’s your address?”

“Excuse me?”

“I need a closer look at that. There’s no way you’re holding that. It’s just not possible.”

Andrew gave her the address.

“How long will you be there?”

“I’m about to go home. Why?”

“What time will you be there in the morning?”

“I’ll be in at seven. Miss?”

“I need to see it. I’ll be there in the morning. I’ll try to get there by seven, but I’ll be there in the morning.”

“Ma’am, what is this? That’s all I really need to know.”

“Is it being preserved? You know, like you guys do with bodies and things?”

“Yes. It’s in the morgue.”

“I’ll be there in the morning. I’m going to bring some books with me. I think I know what it is, but I need to see it, to actually touch it, first.”

Andrew sighed. “Alright. I guess I’ll have to wait for my answer in the morning. Thank you for your time, Ms. Tolie.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, Detective Schneider.”

Myra hung up the phone, but couldn’t pull her eyes away from the picture.

“How did you get here?”

She would find out as much as she could in the morning. Something just wasn’t right. That picture had to be a fake, but why go through all the trouble? Several times her hand reached for the mouse, and each time she pulled it back. All her life she’d wanted to see one for real. Detective Schneider, in the picture, was holding one. Tomorrow morning, she was going to touch one. Absolutely amazing.

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

Lin

The sun had started to go down when Lin saw Patty’s car pull up next to Sam’s trailer. She’d called Mrs. Bilkins and knew that Sam had been taken in for questioning, and that Casper Jasper had died, but none of that was of a major concern to her. She had more pressing matters. Mainly, what had been going on with the drop in power and connectivity to the servers? Sure the backups in Canada had taken the load for those few minutes, but why had she been dropped?

Tracking the log history hadn’t taken long at all and now she had installed a system alarm that would notify her if power dropped. Thirty-five times in the past two months, and nothing prior to that. Strange.

She stood in her walk-in closet. The trailer had three bedrooms and with that she’d converted into a large master bathroom that led off of the main bedroom. This, of course, was done with Casper and Sam’s help. They’d also installed the closet system into the final bedroom for her as well. She may live in a trailer park, but she wasn’t going to live like a peasant.

The closet was filled with a large array of clothing all hung by color and size, including the shoe rack. She’d ordered everything online and kept up with the latest of fashions. The only problem was that she rarely left the house and she was always wearing jeans and t-shirts. Sure, she could get dressed up and do her make-up and all that, but why bother? No one ever saw her. The only time she ever dressed up was when she had a scheduled video conference. Those had trickled off to once per year. She wondered why she even bothered with so many clothes at this point.

With a sigh, she picked out a simple black dress. At least with black she wouldn’t have to worry too much about her makeup. To match, she picked out a pair of black sandals with a small bow that went over the big toe. She hated shoes. Why she had over a hundred pair was beyond her. When she got online, things seemed to purchase themselves. With nearly unlimited funds and nothing to spend them on, shopping was almost like a drug for her.

After a shower and getting dressed, Lin Pza Pza sat in her living and waited. She’d called Tiger Lily Smith nearly eight hours ago, and she should be there at any time. Tiger Lily had been hired by the government and maintained watch over the servers in Canada. They’d checked many things remotely, but Lin didn’t want to chance a phone tap and have their conversations monitored. Working for the government had made her excessively paranoid. She just wanted Tiger Lily, someone she’d never met in person, to show up so they could talk.

From the window of her living room she could see that Patty, Girlfriend, and Sam still stood in the driveway talking. Sam must’ve been really shaken up after finding the body. Sam was a good man and didn’t need something like that in his life. Lin wondered if she should get a vacation for him and Girlfriend. It wouldn’t be difficult as they were such simple people. They’d be happy with a nice hotel in Duluth probably. She started to get up, but stopped when a black, four-door Lexus pulled into her driveway, its windows tinted so dark she couldn’t see inside.

The woman who got out stood nearly six feet tall with the high heels. Lin, standing only five foot one with her flats, felt intimidated immediately and thought about running to put on a pair of heels herself. She felt her eye twitch. She wasn’t going to let a tall woman carrying an alligator skin briefcase — possibly a Gucci — push her around.

Why was she suddenly so defensive? This had to be Tiger Lily. Even though they’d never met in person Lin knew this woman. The tight, dark-gray business suit, the fiercely pulled back hair, the stark white face with large, brown eyes. Tiger Lily had spent years in the service of the government and it showed. Lin felt inadequate just seeing the woman’s distinctive aura.

Tiger Lily Smith had quite an impressive résumé, that included ten years of service dedicated to computer intelligence for the government. Lin had read it over twice before and had just re-read it before the woman arrived. Tracking terrorists through the swarm of e-mail in and out of the country, Tiger Lily hacked servers of major countries that posed a threat and determining their level of potential success and if the United States should step in. She had residences in fifteen different countries and clearances for anything she could ever need to see.

Even so, they’d hit it off almost instantly. Tiger Lily, despite all her background, was well grounded in reality. Lin found her an easy person to talk to over the phone, but meeting her in person, that was something completely different.

Lin answered the door before Tiger Lily knocked. “Tiger Lily Smith?”

“Lin Pza Pza, I presume.” Tiger Lily sounded much different in person, her voice deeper and more resonant.

“Come on in.”

“Don’t give me that,” Tiger Lily said, sounding annoyed. Lin swallowed hard. Tiger Lily set down her brief case and lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Lin. Lin sucked in air and held her breath. She hadn’t hugged anyone since she was twelve. That was just before she filed for emancipation from her parents. Her whole body tensed with the enthusiastic effort Tiger Lily put into the hug. She did her best to bring up her arms, encased by Tiger Lily’s, and pat the woman on the back.

“It’s so great to see you,” Tiger Lily said, thankfully releasing Lin.

“Um, yes. I didn’t know what to expect. I’m glad you came. Can I get you something to drink?” Lin asked as she stepped aside and motioned for Tiger Lily to enter.

“Oh, what do you have? I’m not very picky. Anything you’ve got that’s cold. You don’t happen to have beer do you? No, of course. I’m sorry I asked that. Just anything you’ve got that’s cold will be just fine. I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Lin looked at Tiger Lily, puzzled. “Yes.” She’d never done that on any of their calls. She always came across as so professional. The woman looked the same, but this bubbly personality had Lin confused.

“I’m sorry. You see, I know that all our calls are recorded. I doubt anyone ever looks at them, but I just want to make sure if they ever do, they see the person I want them to. I’m so glad you asked me to come down. I’ve been cramped up there in Canada for too long. I mean, I know someone has to be there, but I’m really more of a people person and prefer to be out in the field. You probably guessed that. So when I don’t talk to anyone for a long time, I ramble. I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Lin nodded as she led Tiger Lily to the kitchen and got them each a bubble tea.

“Oh well. We’ve got a lot to talk about.” Tiger Lily took the offered drink and downed half of it before coming up for breath. “I tell you, the police in the States are much easier to detect than they are in Canada. I mean, seriously, do they ever turn their radar off? I was able to do nearly a hundred the entire way here.”

Lin wanted to pout, but she had to come up with something. “Julie, from the Sandy Bar you passed coming in, and I go out for rides in her Charger sometimes. It’s great going fast, isn’t it?” That was a lie, Lin barely knew Julie. Why did she feel the need to be defensive to Tiger Lily? They were friends.

“Hey, are you tense or something? Do you have somewhere I can change? I brought my normal work clothes with me. When I’m at the house and just watching over the servers, I like to just kick off my shoes and relax. You know, just put on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. I always feel so stiff when I’m wearing this suit.”

“You mean, you don’t always dress like that?”

“Lin, seriously? I mean, you always look good when we have a video call. Do you always look like that? Like this? I know you don’t leave you home much, so I doubt you get all dressed up just for yourself. Come on, a girl has to let her hair down once in a while, doesn’t she?”

“Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were going to be all stiff and professional and stuff.” Lin finally let out a sigh of relief. So Tiger Lily was a normal person. Smart, but normal. That was something Lin could relate to.

Tiger Lily kicked off her shoes and picked them up. “Lead the way. Why don’t we get changed and do some work? I think you’ve got quite a conundrum and we need to get this resolved.”

“Come on. Let me show you this place. I’ve only got one bedroom, but it’s still a cozy place.”

Lin showed Tiger Lily the rest of the trailer. She nodded her approval with everything she saw and asked few questions. Lin let her use the bathroom to change. While Tiger Lily was in there, Lin went into the closet and changed into a Misfits t-shirt and cotton mini-skirt. When she was putting back on her flip-flops, Tiger Lily showed up in the doorway with her hair down about her shoulders and wearing a too-small Cramps shirt that showed her flat belly — she had a pierced belly button with a bright-blue stone in it — and a pair of very tight white shorts that left nothing to the imagination as it hugged all her curves. Lin blushed slightly. She wasn’t sure why, but seeing a woman wearing shorts like that, she just felt uncomfortable. Like she shouldn’t be looking, but couldn’t help but look. Had she really kept herself so isolated? She never did have the experience of going to gym class and showering with all the other girls. She never had a boyfriend. Suddenly seeing someone, even if it was a woman, nearly exposed caused her to freeze up. Slowly she looked up into Tiger Lily’s smiling face. Did she even notice that Lin had stared?

“That is so much better. I have to get all dressed up when I’m driving in case I get pulled over. The police look at you with a lot more respect if you flash ID and look the part. Hopefully, if you stick with the job long enough, you’ll get the rush of overriding police authority. They hate it, but it’s so cool to tell them when you’re taking over a case. I remember one time I was on to a terrorist and the police had arrested the man and seized all his computer equipment. Before they could haul him and the gear away, I stepped in and took all the equipment. Someone else came and took the guy away, but I was the one in charge. Oh, that was so cool to do. The cop was all ‘This is my jurisdiction’ and I told him, ‘This is a government case and I supersede your jurisdiction.’ He didn’t like that at all.”

Lin smiled and laughed a nervous laugh. She hadn’t even heard half of what Tiger Lily said. She was just glad that the conversation hadn’t shifted to the stare. “Yeah, one day. Maybe you can even teach me to drive. I’ve never even driven a car.”

“Really? I was wondering why there wasn’t a car in the driveway. You know there are programs where they can send someone to teach you to drive or you can fly there and learn. Probably better if someone came here. If you want, later we can drive around the neighborhood. I don’t think you can get going fast enough to hit anything. That’d be fun, driving around here after everyone goes to sleep.”

“That would be fun. Perhaps after we go analyze the data and talk about what’s happening. I know the servers in Canada can handle the load if we need to disconnect or if it happens by itself.”

“Well then. Let’s get to work. I hope you have an extra chair. I’m not sitting in your lap.”

They laughed. Lin really liked Tiger Lily and was thankful she was here, as if the older sister she wished she’d had had just shown up and taken her in. Lin allowed herself to relax.