Author : J. S. Kachelries

It was a bright sunny morning when Angela Lansfield headed toward the Town library in Mendocino Cove. She was researching time travel for a new mystery novel she was writing. However, prior to diving into Hawking’s time travel theories, she decided to relax, by browsing the old newspapers in the historical files in the library’s basement. While there, she stumbled onto an article concerning one of the town’s most prominent families. Apparently, 40 years ago, Bill Windom had been kidnapped. There were no ransom demands, and he was released unharmed five weeks later. The kidnappers were never found.

Angela knew the Windom family. Bill and his wife had both died years ago, but Angela was still close friends with their only child, Mileva, who had served with Angela on the steering committee for the town’s Historical Society. Angela decided to visit Mileva to find out what she knew about the kidnapping.

“Oh, I’m sorry Angela,” Mileva explained, “I was only three years old at the time. I don’t remember anything about it. It must have been so horrible for mother. Why are you interested, anyway?”

“Well, Mileva, I was writing a story where my main character wanted to murder his older brother so he could inherit their parent’s entire estate. But he knew if his brother was obviously murdered, he would be the primary suspect, if not by the police, certainly by the press. His solution was to travel backward in time and murder his brother in the nursery. He could never be a suspect, since he wasn’t born yet.”

“That’s an interesting storyline, Angela, but what does it have to do with my father?”

“Well, it dawned on me that someone could accomplish the same thing by preventing the parents from conceiving the child in the first place. It’s much less messy too, wouldn’t you agree? That’s when I thought about your family. Your mother was already forty when you were born. If your parents were going to have a second child, they needed to do it soon. And then your father was kidnapped. Why? What was the motive? It certainly wasn’t ransom money. Then I put two and two together. You occasionally mention having a younger brother, although there is no record of his birth. Perhaps you have retained memories from that timeline. To be perfectly frank, Mileva, I think you traveled back into time and kidnapped your father to prevent him from conceiving your younger brother. Was it for the money, Mileva, or was it because your parents loved your brother more than you? I’m sorry, Mileva, but I have to ask the sheriff to reopen the case.”

“My goodness Angela, what an unbelievable hypothesis. You writers do have such active imaginations. Yes, by all means, feel free to talk to the sheriff. I don’t mind.”

A few minutes after Angela left, Mileva made a phone call. “Tom, I have a problem…”

…It was a bright sunny morning when Angela Lansfield headed toward the Town library in Mendocino Cove. She was researching time travel for a new mystery novel she was writing. When she turned the corner, she saw the town’s fire department in front of the library. She walked up to the fire chief. “My heavens, Chief, what happened? Nobody was hurt, I hope?”

“No one hurt, Mrs. L. The fire was confined to the basement. It completely destroyed the historic reference section. The rest of the library is okay though. If you want to wait in the Coffee Shop, we’ll open the library to the public in about an hour.”

“Thanks, Chief, that’ll be fine. Although I will miss reading those old newspaper articles.”