Richard stopped his return to gaze at the lonely figure that stood leaning on the fence some distance before him. The woman, quite striking, was searching the furrowed land before her yet was not really seeing anything her eyes took in. Richard caught himself looking at his watch and laughed. Casting a glance around he walked up, leaned on the fence with her and looked at the weeds that grew in the untilled areas. She didn't move but he was noticed.
"I rather like watching the weeds try and out compete the wild grasses."
She jumped a little at his voice but continued to watch the farm land.
"I hope I'm not invading your space? Because if I am, I'll leave."
The lady dropped her head and watched the ants traverse the gravel road. Her head shook lightly back and forth.
Richard saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and continued to look forward. "Good. And if I may presumed to extend my observations this has probably been on bummer of a day for you."
Peripherally he watched her. She gave away nothing except a slight hitch in her breath.
"I am going to throw out some advice. My mother told me never to give unless asked but I've never really did listen to her often.
"You've got to remember no matter what has happened, there has been a time that you have lived with out it, so you can survive. Or if it is something you have had forever, now's the time to start living anew. Most of all, you may be thinking this is the darkest time of your life. I advise you to savor it." The lady looked up sharply and tried to read Richard's face. He continued to scan the land before them. "You may never be this low again."
With that said, Richard turned and looked into the lady's eyes. "Think about it," he half whispered and returned to his walk.
The woman turned to follow him as he strode away and con¬tinued looking even after he had disappeared into a clump of trees.
"I'm not sure if I helped her, but I think she understood." Richard stood there, defrosting the refrigerator while looking for a bite to eat.
"You shouldn't be fooling around like that when you are on assignment." The old man never looked up from his law book as he spoke. The rocking chair he sat in creaked with every third rock.
Grabbing a tupperware container and a soda Richard slumped onto the couch. "Hey, I've tried to explain that it makes no difference. I had already done it, even before I left this morning. Besides, those interactions are not that important. It's the historical events we're after, not some soul soothing conversa¬tions." Richard dug into the leftovers.
"Granted." The old man removed his glasses and pointed them at Richard. "But, that doesn't give you all knowing knowledge. You conversations could turn out to be historical in context."
"OK, and if I screw up I'll just have to take myself to court." He laughed spilling food on his shirt. "Damn it."
The old man ammused himself by watching Richard rub the stain into his shirt. "Change of subject. Did you find the information?"
Richard mumbled and spilt more food.
The old man waited while Richard worked the crumbs into a large grease stain then threw him the towel that was laying on the back of the rocking chair.
"Thanks." The towel really did not help the stain much, but Richard's attempts did ammuse the old man a lot more. "He took off two weeks before I arrived. So far the police have not yet caught up with him and he is not leaving a very easy trail this time."
"Richard, do we know yet if there are really two of them?"
"No, sir. But the information seems to point that way. In fact I picked this up on my trip." Richard opened the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a newspaper clipping. He handed it to the old judge. "It's not the article that's impor¬tant but the picture. Look who's in the background." He returned to the leftovers.
The old man peered intently into the grainy photo. "It's him, that's our guy."
"Look at the date," Richard garble with his mouth full.
The date read June 14, 1983.
"Isn't that the date we've pinpointed for the Morrison killing?"
"Yup."
"So, if this picture corroberates an alibi then he couldn't of done it."
Richard swallowed first, "Yes, but we've tied him to two thirds of the other murders, and the killing fits the signiture."
"So what, its a copy cat crime. Not what we're looking for right now."
"The problem with that theory is that the police released the wrong information about the crimes. Just like the Scorpio killings in LA. The killer was reported to be right handed and just cut his victims up. Instead he canned their organs and was left handed. The Seattle police are doing the samething."
"Therefore this killing must be the work of someone who has inside information."
"Or is a partner in the murders. Well, at least some of them. Maybe he felt he had to go solo."
"That's a grotesque wat of looking at it."
"Well, we would have picked this guy up already if the in¬formation wasn't so strange. Two or three more trips will help me pan out the rest of my theory. It's not like we are going to run out of time."
The old judge laughed. "True, true. "
Richard scanned the old maps of Seattle at the kitchen table while the old man sorted the information they had collected on the couch. One of the newspaper headlines blared in bold type, GREEN RIVER KILLER TAKES 15th VICTIM. A picture of Jamie Morrison was centered below.
"Richard, its nice to know that these stop and we helped."
"Don't be too sure. He could have killed himself or been killed in an unrelated event. Maybe him and his partner did eachother in."
"I do know."
"How?" Richard looked up from his maps.
"I cheated, well not really. But I took the booth for a ride."
"OK, and...."
"Well, after visiting a few place I always wanted to see I didn't set the return date correctly and missed by a few years."
Richard laid his head in his hands.
"I didn't know of my mistake until I went to make my diary entries and discovered that the dates were off. Looking back at my entries I found the notes on our current case and...."
"Now know where we end up." Richard was shaking his head.
"Exactly!"
"Look." Richard circled the couch. "Next time don't look at your notes. I've made the mistake myself a few times but don't fall into the temptation of fiddling with even our own future. If we end up knowing what or how we do something then we may not get it done and therefore change what had/has happend."
"I don't need to be scolded by you, young man. I am fully capable of rationizing the ramifications. The situation though was novel and the discovery accidental. I will endevor to check my couriosity next time."
"Thank you." Richard returned to his maps.
"By the way, were are you going this trip?"
