Byron Starr - Doppelgänger

Jack reached in his ear to adjust his hearing aid, and found it wasn’t there. He must have left it in the dispatcher’s office. He put his finger to his lips, trying to tell the boy in the cell to be quiet, but this only seemed to make the kid angry; he started hammering the glass with his fists.

“I’ll be right back,” Jack said, then started back up front to get his hearing aid. When he got back through the security door and into the dispatcher’s office Clara was frantically dialing the phone. She seemed panicked and had tears in her eyes.

Jack fumbled around the room until he finally realized that his hearing aid was in his shirt pocket. By the time his hearing aid was in his ear, Clara had finished her phone call and was on the radio. “We’ve got a 10–50 major on the corner of Eighty-seven and Farm Road Fourteen-fourteen.” Then she forgot all about protocol. “It’s one of our cars. I think it’s Greg.”

Bill stood in the middle of the road watching the organized yet chaotic drama as it unfolded around the mangled patrol car. Three paramedics were fighting to keep Greg alive while the Newton Volunteer Fire Department tried their best to free him from the knot of twisted metal using the Jaws of Life. Bill hated sitting still when there was work to be done, and he hated he couldn’t do anything to help Greg, but he knew he’d just be in the way. So he stood back and watched.

Behind him Chad Hudspeth was taking a statement from the driver of the truck, who seemed to be uninjured, but was rather shook up. Every now and then Bill would catch part of their conversation.

“… just pulled out in front of me … ”

“… too sudden to react …”

“… God, I hope he’s okay …”

Then he heard something that struck him cold, “… sounds crazy, but there was some sorta bear standing by his car when… ”

Bill turned around and walked over to Chad and the truck driver. “What’d you say?”

The truck driver was leaning up against Chad’s patrol car, but when Bill walked up he straightened up like a steel rod had been shoved up his ass and into his spine. “I was tellin’ deputy, uh, Husseth that I thought I saw a bear or an ape or a big hairy man or somethin’ walkin’ up to that fellow’s car. Officer, know it sounds silly r… ”

Bill interrupted. “Was this… bear walking on two legs?”

“Yeah,” the truck driver replied.

Chad was standing with his mouth open. He dropped his pen. Bill’s eyes drifted toward the dark woods and remained there. He stood in silence, thinking. The driver glanced nervously from Bill to Chad and then back to Bill. Bill finally spoke to Chad who was now palming the dark pavement in search of his pen. “Call Clara and tell her to get a hold of Emilio Rodriguez and tell him to get out here, pronto.” Then Bill turned to the truck driver. “Show me where you think you saw this thing.”

The truck driver led the way over to the corner. The whole way he was retelling his story of the accident, about how he did everything he could to avoid the collision, there was no time to react, the car just jumped out in front of him, but Bill wasn’t hearing a word he was saying. The truck driver got to the corner and pointed at a spot on the ground and said, “It would’ve been about right here.”

Bill nodded, then said, “Thanks. Go finish givin’ your statement to Chad.”

Bill pulled his flashlight from his belt and kneeled down to have a closer look at the ground. The ground was hard here, very little chance of good prints. At first Bill didn’t find anything, but after moving around some he saw the outline of what might have been a print. He got up and walked further into the ditch hoping the softer ground would yield better prints, but was having little luck. He had just about given up when he looked right on the edge of the standing water in the ditch. There it was: a big human-looking print in the mud. He stepped further into the ditch and found another.

“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Bill murmured.

“There you are, sheriff,” a voice said. Bill looked over his shoulder and saw Dave Elender, one of the paramedics from Jasper, standing near the edge of the road, his orange and white jumpsuit marred with crimson bloodstains and his expression long and worn. “I’m sorry Sheriff. We did everything we could, but we couldn’t save him.”

Bill nodded and stood up. He walked back to his patrol car without saying another word to anybody. The investigation of the new prints would have to be put on hold for an hour or two. Now it was time for the part of his job Bill hated more than anything else — he had to inform Sandy O’Brien of her husband’s death.

Deputy Darren Woolford came and got James early the next morning. They walked down the hall in silence, their moods darkened by the events of the night before. Darren led James through the second security door, then past the booking room, past the dispatcher’s room, and on past the first security door. In fact, it looked as if they were heading outside when Darren stopped at a door with a simple piece of polished wood nailed to it. The piece of oak had the word OFFICE burned into its surface. Darren opened the door and James stepped into Bill’s office.

Bill sat behind the desk, with his hat off. He looks different with his hat off, James thought. He looks older. A tall Hispanic game warden was sitting against the wall to the right in one of the folding metal chairs.

Bill briefly introduced the two. “Emilio Rodriguez, James Taylor. James Taylor, Emilio Rodriguez.”

Emilio stood, smiled, and offered his hand, James found he couldn’t return the smile, but took the hand nonetheless.

“James, I’ve briefed Emilio here on the little conversation we had yesterday, so you can feel free to speak freely about your, uh… ”

“Dreams,” James helped out.

“Yeah, dreams,” Bill said, mumbling as if he was ashamed to have the word come from his own lips.

“Do you believe me now?”

“If that were the case, son, I’d be releasin’ you, but I’m not. Let’s just say we’re willing to look at every angle on this thing.”

I’m not your damn son, James wanted to say, but held his tongue. Instead he sat there waiting for Bill to make the next move, and Bill finally did. “Clara said you were raising quite a stink right before the call came in about Greg. What was that all about?”

“What the hell do you think it was all about?” James shot back.

Amazingly, this caused no visible reaction from Bill. He calmly said, “We need to work together on this, James.”

“Then drop the charges! You know damn good and well I saw Greg’s death! You know I didn’t do it!” James shouted, making Emilio jump, but causing no change in Bill’s stern face.

“James,” Bill said, his voice calm, but not cold like it had been during their last meeting. “If you could just tell me what you saw last night.”

This was James’ chance to prove that his dreams were real. The main purpose of his and Greg’s conversation with Bill yesterday was that if something happened and James saw it in his visions, he could relay it to the sheriff, and prove he wasn’t lying. But James had just lost his wife, his son, and he had actually witnessed the death of his best friend. He had actually seen the terrible collision through the beast’s eyes. Right now James wasn’t thinking clearly. All he felt was anger. He looked straight into Bill’s eyes and said, “Go to hell.”

Bill and James sat staring at each other for quite some time without either turning away or saying a word. Then Bill broke the silence. “Darren,” he said in a slightly raised voice, without turning his eyes from James. Darren poked his head in through the door. “Take Mr. Taylor back to his cell.” This caused a look of confusion to cross Emilio’s face.