Class of '59 (American Journey Book 4) (2 page)

Los Angeles, California – Saturday, May 27, 2017

Mary Beth stopped when she saw the gun. She didn't need to see more to know that her carefree Saturday evening had taken a serious turn. Men in nylon masks didn't point pistols at convenience store clerks unless they meant business.

"Put the cash in the bag," the masked man said.

The clerk, a balding man of fifty, didn't argue. He pulled bills from the open register, put them in a stack, and slowly placed them in a small paper bag.

"Speed it up," the robber said.

Mary Beth watched with horrified fascination. She had never seen a robbery in progress. She had never seen an angry man hold a gun.

Standing fifteen feet to the left of the robber, Mary Beth tightened her hold on her fiancé's hand and silently prayed that the confrontation would end quickly and peacefully. She didn't get her wish. The moment another man, a policeman in uniform, pushed open the store's front door and walked into the establishment, all hell broke loose.

"What the—?" the cop asked.

The masked man answered the question quickly. He fired a slug into the officer's chest from a distance of twelve feet and then turned back to the clerk, who had used the disruption to reach for something, presumably a weapon, in a compartment below the register. The gunman didn't waste time on him either. He dispatched him with a bullet to the head.

Mary Beth froze as Jordan Taylor, her boyfriend of five years, released her hand and rushed the assailant when he turned his back. She screamed when the gunman reacted to the new threat by shooting Jordan in the stomach, dropping the former defensive end to the ground.

"No!" Mary Beth screamed again.

She ran toward Jordan as the robber grabbed the bag and bolted out the door. She reached him seconds later, dropped to the floor, and rolled him over.

Jordan stared at Mary Beth, winced, and lifted his head a few inches off the floor. He tried to speak but failed. He winced again, closed his eyes, and lowered his head.

Mary Beth grabbed his wrist, felt a weak pulse, and quickly scanned the store for help. When she saw an elderly man cowering behind an energy-drink display, she snapped at him.

"Get help! Please call someone!"

When Mary Beth saw the man pull a phone from his pocket and punch some numbers, she returned her attention to the only boy she had ever loved. She tore open his button-down shirt and gasped when she saw blood pulse out of a pea-sized hole near Jordan's navel.

"Please hurry!" Mary Beth barked at the man.

She quickly removed her sweater, wadded it into a ball, and pressed it against the wound. She pressed until her hand and arm began to hurt, but she pressed in vain. Blood seeped through the sweater and began to flow onto the tile floor.

"Don't leave me, Jordan," Mary Beth said. "Help is coming. Just hang in there."

Jordan groaned when Mary Beth applied pressure to the wound, but he didn't speak. He took a few quick breaths, turned his head slightly toward the woman trying to save him, and expired. Just that quickly, the gentle giant was gone.

Mary Beth shuddered. She shuddered again when a familiar voice snapped her out of a daze.

"Mary Beth?"

Colleen McIntire repeated her daughter's name.

"Mary Beth?"

"Huh?"

"Professor Bell asked you a question."

Mary Beth took a breath and pulled herself together. She had done that often since watching a common criminal murder her best friend nearly eight months earlier. She looked at the man seated at the head of the long dining table, forced a smile, and rejoined the living.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I had my mind on other things. What did you ask?"

Geoffrey Bell smiled.

"I asked, 'When do you start medical school?'"

Mary Beth fixed her gaze.

"I start this summer. Classes at UAB begin July 25."

"Do you still plan to become a surgeon?" Bell asked.

"I do," Mary Beth said. "I may consider other options later on, but right now I want to specialize in critical-care surgery."

"I can't imagine a more noble pursuit," Jeanette Bell said cheerfully. "You'll be saving lives every day. I admire that."

"Thank you."

Mary Beth placed a cloth napkin on her lap and paused before digging into her baked salmon dinner, which Jeanette had prepared in the kitchen of her turn-of-the-century mansion. She took a moment to study the people at the table and noted their differing expressions.

The Bells, seated at the ends, looked interested. They had not seen Mary Beth in ten years and no doubt wanted to know what the studious former sixth-grader was going to do now that she was all grown up and ready to conquer the world.

Mary Beth's parents, seated opposite her, looked concerned. Brody McIntire, a retired Army colonel, often worried about his oldest daughter in the months that followed the shooting. Colleen Finley McIntire, his perceptive wife of twenty-five years, did so seven days a week.

Piper McIntire, a recent high school graduate, sat at her sister's left. She glanced at Mary Beth with eyes that reflected both optimism and sympathy. She knew more than anyone how much Mary Beth hated talking about her college life or even the future.

After an awkward silence, Professor Bell, a noted physics instructor who had gained a national following touting the possibilities of time travel, changed the subject from career plans to vacation plans. He looked at both girls.

"Have you two decided how you're going to spend next week?" Bell asked. "If you haven't, I can offer a few suggestions. There is more to L.A. than Disneyland and Universal Studios."

Mary Beth exchanged glances with Piper and then returned to her host.

"We talked about going to the beach until we saw a weather report. It looks like we brought Alabama's rain with us."

The professor chuckled.

"I apologize for that. I spoke to the weather gods just last night and requested sunshine for your entire visit," Bell said. "I confess I don't have the clout I used to."

Brody and Colleen laughed.

"That's all right," Mary Beth said. "We'll find something to do, even if we do nothing more than enjoy this wonderful house. Did you say your great-grandfather built it?"

"I did," Bell said. "He built it in 1899."

"Has the house been in your family all this time?"

Bell took a breath.

"No. In fact, it has belonged to others most of the time."

"Oh," Mary Beth said in puzzled voice.

"Let me explain," Bell said. "Percival Bell, my great-grandfather, died of a stroke only a few months after moving in. Though he had provided my great-grandmother with the means to hold the house, she decided to sell it. She returned to her native Boston with her young children after the funeral and never returned. Five other families occupied this place in the years that followed. Jeanette and I didn't take possession of the mansion until the summer of 2000."

Mary Beth looked at Bell thoughtfully.

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you bought it
and
restored it. This is a beautiful house, Professor. I would much rather stay a week in a place like this than some noisy hotel."

"I'll second that," Brody said.

"I'll third it," Piper added.

Mary Beth laughed to herself. Though she knew Piper loved historic homes, like this Painted Lady in central Los Angeles, she also knew her sister preferred modern hotels on warm sandy beaches. She wondered how long it would be before Piper complained about the house's location. The nearest beach – in Santa Monica – was twelve traffic-filled miles away.

Bell had offered the mansion to Brody, a good friend, after hearing that he intended to bring his family to Los Angeles in late May. The professor had already made plans to entertain other guests at his second home in Santa Barbara and welcomed the opportunity to help out the colonel, whom he had met at a physics conference in 2005.

"We haven't heard much from you, Piper," Bell said. He zeroed in on the teenager plowing into a chef's salad. "What do you plan to do this summer and fall?"

Piper smiled.

"I intend to work on my tan."

The Bells laughed. The colonel frowned. Colleen shook her head.

Mary Beth looked at her host.

"What my sister meant to say, Professor, is that she will work as a lifeguard at a pool in Huntsville this summer and then study art history and dance in Knoxville."

Bell chuckled.

"Thank you for the translation, Mary Beth. I thought that's what she meant."

This time everyone laughed.

Jeanette looked at Piper.

"I commend you on your choice of subjects, Piper. I majored in art history in college and took a few dance classes. I also commend you for bravery."

"Bravery?" Piper asked.

"Yes," Jeanette said. "I'm sure it took guts to commit to Tennessee."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your father, mother, and sister are graduates of the University of Alabama. Isn't Tennessee one of Alabama's sports rivals?"

"It is."

Jeanette cocked her head.

"Didn't your family take issue with your choice of colleges?"

"They did at first," Piper said. "But I quickly gained their blessing."

"How did you manage that?"

Mary Beth smiled. She knew where this was going.

"It was simple, Mrs. Bell."

"Oh?" Jeanette asked. "How so?"

Piper grinned.

"I threatened to go to Auburn."

CHAPTER 2: MARK

Saturday, March 21, 1959

Mark Ryan yanked on the handle and swore when he could not get the drawer to budge. He had tried to open the drawer of the antique desk five times in five minutes and had failed miserably each time. He knew there were better things to do at six fifteen on a Saturday morning – like sleep or reread the newspaper he had pulled from the porch and left on the kitchen table – but he did not want to do any of them. He wanted to see what was inside this desk.

The college senior retreated to a double bed, the only other furniture in what was now his bedroom, and plopped on the mattress. He decided he needed to think things over before tackling the drawer again. No challenge was worth a broken wrist.

Mark laughed to himself when he thought about his circumstances. He was spending every weekend in his new home because his mother had asked him to and not because he wanted to live in a creaky mansion or sleep on a lumpy mattress. He had vowed at his father's funeral in October that he would do anything to make Donna Ryan happy.

Mark took a moment to assess his surroundings. This wasn't a bad room, he thought. It was just a little bland. It needed more furniture, a few wall hangings, and perhaps a plant or two. He made a mental note to spruce up his quarters as soon as possible.

The twenty-two-year-old had moved into the mansion, a Painted Lady in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, over Christmas break. With the help of his mother, brother, and several friends, he had managed to move most of his family's belongings from their rambler in South Pasadena to the stately manor in only two days.

Mark still considered Zeta Alpha Rho, a fraternity four miles away, to be his primary residence, but he knew he wouldn't call it home for much longer. In less than two months, the engineering major would graduate from the university, move out of the fraternity, and reside full-time in the Painted Lady as he looked for employment in Southern California.

In the meantime, Mark planned to support his widowed mother as best he could, spend more time with his obnoxious sibling, and perhaps decipher the mysteries of his new digs. He looked again at the desk, a mahogany monolith that was built into the wall, and decided he would start with its stubborn keyless upper drawer.

Mark pondered the possibilities for a moment and then smiled when he remembered something a roommate had told him their freshman year. Some old desks had hidden locks and latches – locks and latches that could not be accessed without patience and effort.

He got off the bed, walked to the desk, and pulled on the drawer's handle one more time just for the hell of it. Then he dropped to his knees, crawled into the kneehole under the desk, and ran his hands in and around the desk's nooks and crannies. He needed only thirty seconds to discover a small metal latch on the backside of the keyless drawer.

Mark lifted the latch, which he could feel but not see, and pulled the drawer handle until he heard a click. He scampered out of the kneehole, tugged on the handle again, and this time encountered no resistance. He opened the locked compartment with one easy pull.

His heart raced when he looked inside the drawer and saw two colorless stones that resembled gypsum crystals he had once seen in a rock shop. He took them out of the drawer, placed them on top of the desk, and gave each a thorough inspection.

Mark did not know if the gems were valuable, so he conducted a test. He grabbed one of the stones, walked to the window, and pressed the rock against the glass. He tried to cut a groove but did not succeed in creating even a scratch. Whatever he held in his hand, it was not a diamond.

Mark returned to the desk, placed the rock next to its twin, and stuck his hand into the deep drawer. He quickly found two more objects: a large skeleton key and a piece of paper.

He retrieved the items, put them on the desk, and gave them a look. The key was ornate and shiny but otherwise unremarkable. The paper was something else.

Mark examined the slip and saw it was a sheet of academic stationery. He noted a name at the top of the page and a date in a corner and began reading a detailed personal letter that Percival Bell, a professor of geology and physics, had written on March 22, 1900.

Mark needed only a minute to realize he had discovered something potentially far more valuable than precious gems. He had found the musings of a man who had apparently traveled backward in time on three occasions and planned to travel
forward
in time the very next day.

He paid close attention to the back page. In the first five paragraphs, the professor, the original owner of the Painted Lady, had stated his intentions. Bell planned to test the limits of a time tunnel under his house by traveling to June 2, 2017, a date he had picked at random. He apparently intended to leave the letter for his wife in case he never came back.