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Prisoner in Time

Linda Griffin

    You know how this story begins. The little pink-cheeked girl snatched up, years of searching, parades, vigils, posters, a mother who never gave up hope, and then discovery, the interview, the bestselling book. Even before her memoir came out, two dudes wrote their own books about the case. They were full of crap, stuff that was assumed or made up about her years in that backyard and later refuted by her book, but the research into the other aspects of the case, the kidnapper’s priors, the search, court proceedings, etc., was solid. If you read the one by Scott, there’s something in it that wasn’t the first time I read it.
    After I watched the interview, I developed a huge crush on the beautiful, caring person she had become and became obsessed with the case. I read her book, and it was damn near unbearable. She managed to let me inside the head of a scared, lonely, homesick, heartbroken child and I couldn’t get out again. That’s why, when time travel became feasible for ordinary Joes and most people asked to witness great events of history, all I wanted was to save Jaycee.
    Okay, I know we’re not allowed to do anything to change history, but I figured it would only affect her and her family and leave hardly a ripple. Somebody else would top the bestseller charts for a few weeks, another interview would get the big ratings, and that would be that. She would no longer be famous, and I would have to seek her out in the present to learn what had become of her.
    In the interview and her book, she said she would go through it all again for the sake of her daughters—who otherwise wouldn’t have been born—so I contemplated leaving her in the hands of her kidnapper until she was seventeen and pregnant with the second one, but her description of the early days of her captivity was too intense. I had to get her out as soon as possible. She wouldn’t miss the daughters she never knew and would have other, luckier children and a normal, anonymous life.
    The idea of extending her mother’s suffering a second longer than necessary was painful too. There is no greater pain than not knowing where your child is, what is happening to her, whether she is alive or dead, and no matter how bad it is for us guys, you know it has to be worse for the woman who gave birth to her.
    I don’t know if you can get PTSD from reading a book, but one of the symptoms is going over and over the traumatic events in your mind, trying to reach a different conclusion, and I was doing that. I imagined scenarios in which a parole officer would notice the electrical wires and, suspecting a meth lab, find the secret backyard, or the kidnapper would forget to lock the door before she was too traumatized to find escape impossible. When I decided to try the time-travel trick, the question became how to set one of those scenarios in play. If the parole agents were too stupid to notice the wires or call the kidnapper on his positive drug tests, would they follow up on an anonymous tip?
    I knew I couldn’t waltz into the backyard with bolt cutters and effect a rescue myself. Everybody knows the rules, even if you haven’t been through the special training: Don’t call attention to yourself. Don’t interact with anybody. Don’t talk to anybody. Don’t do anything that might change the future. The preferred modes of transportation for time travelers were walking and public transit. You couldn’t buy or rent a car or call a taxi. If I could even get to the semi-rural, unincorporated neighborhood, I couldn’t take the little blonde girl anywhere without being noticed and questioned. Law enforcement had to do it, and law enforcement didn’t have a clue where she was.
    I read the part of Scott’s book where he talks about all the tips and sightings coming in, thousands of them, hundreds in the first week alone. The FBI and the Sheriff’s Office followed up on every single one, all to no avail. All the sightings were bogus, of course. She was taken straight to the backyard and wasn’t seen in public for eight years. Would a single tip from a time traveler even be noticed in all the traffic? If they took it seriously and followed through, how long would it take them to get to it? Would they be able to rescue her before the first sexual assault?
    For a while I considered a more daring scheme in which I would call the kidnapper directly—would his number be listed? I could tell him I knew exactly what he was doing, giving details from her book, and tell him to take her back where he found her or I would turn him in. It was deeply satisfying to imagine her running down the hill into her mother’s waiting arms, but in the end I knew it was too dangerous. One person at least would be very much aware of my existence, and it might backfire. If he wasn’t arrested and locked up for a good long time, he might try it again with another little girl at another time. It would be safer to stick with law enforcement.
    Okay, I admit I didn’t pay enough attention in the training session. I knew a lot of it wouldn’t apply to me—how to go unnoticed in crowds at big events, etc. I didn’t have to find an exact target location, any phone booth in the area would do—and yes, they still had phone booths. Cell phones were still pretty rare and text messaging unheard of. Instead of listening closely to instructions, I was perfecting the message I would give to the Secret Witness Tip Line.
    “Remember, you can’t talk to anyone,” was reiterated again and again. Avoiding interaction was much preferred, and one counselor suggested pretending to be mute. Yeah, yeah, I thought. Making a phone call was a breach of the rules, but it was a tiny one, observable by no one, and for a very good cause. The police would probably record the number the call came from, but they would have no way to connect it to me. I would be gone as if I had never been there, and I would be careful not to leave even a fingerprint behind.
    So there I was, close enough for a sighting to seem credible, and I found the nearest phone booth, put on my gloves, and called the Secret Witness Tip Line. I had found the phone number in an old newspaper article online. A pleasant, drawling, female voice answered, and I told her exactly where the missing girl was—the address and the names of the couple who took her—and stressed emphatically that she was in a secret, second backyard, behind the fence with the tarp. Then I hung up before she could ask any questions.
    I can’t tell you how satisfying it was. I was over the moon when I came back. I thought the joy and relief I felt must be similar, on a smaller scale, to what Jaycee and her mother would have experienced when they were reunited, all those years ago. They would never have to know the greater anguish they had originally been fated to endure.
    The first thing I did when I got home was to go into my small study to gloat over the bookshelves. I didn’t expect a gap where the books had been—because of course now they would never have been there at all. Perhaps a few books would have been added, because if I hadn’t been obsessed with the story for months, I might have taken an interest in a different subject.
    I spotted her book immediately—the distinctive white cover stood out. I was stunned. Could she have written a long book, compelling enough to catch my interest, about a few days of captivity as a child? I pulled it out. The title and the cover picture were the same. I thumbed feverishly through it and found nothing obviously changed. She had endured the whole eighteen years. Could those stupid cops have actually ignored my tip?
    The other two books were still there too. Apparently nothing had changed. It was as if my time travel adventure was only a dream. When John Walsh’s son Adam was kidnapped, the police had dropped the ball in a dozen ways, taking down tips on random scraps of paper, losing evidence, etc., but his case was supposed to have led to changes. Hadn’t Scott said every tip was followed up? I read through that part again to be sure, and it sounded as if the FBI had been diligent, although entirely ineffective. Some tips went unread for days in the beginning, because all the officers were out in the field searching for her, but they were followed up eventually.
    I didn’t see it right away, but after a while I noticed a line that I didn’t remember reading before. I could have overlooked or forgotten it, but I had perused the book pretty carefully and more than once. Sheriff McDonald “added that detectives wanted one tipster in particular to call them back. This man had spoken so rapidly on the phone that he couldn’t be understood. Why this particular man might have useful information was not divulged.”*
    I hadn’t spoken too quickly, had I? I had certainly been very eager to impart my information. The woman who had taken the call had had a pronounced drawl—maybe to her my perfectly normal speech had seemed fast. The more I puzzled over it, the more certain I became that I was the tipster they had wanted to hear from again. I saw only one possibility—I had to go back.
    I don’t have to tell you that time travel isn’t cheap. Yes, it is a lot more affordable than it was in the early days when only millionaires and the government could take advantage of it, but it was an expense I had not expected to face twice. Still, remembering how euphoric I had been when I assumed I had succeeded, I couldn’t abandon my quest.
    The second time I was allowed to skip much of the training, qualifying as a repeat traveler. The basic rules were reiterated and again it was especially stressed that “You can’t talk to anybody.” You can’t take anything with you either, and yes, they do search you. You can’t even wear your own clothes—they provide you with era-appropriate clothing. Fortunately, they encourage the wearing of gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints, so those were provided too.
    I went back to two days later than the first time. If you haven’t done it, you may not know there are precise times and places you can and can’t travel to—the scientific reasons are way above my pay grade—so the day before, close enough to the target area, wasn’t available. I practiced giving my information slowly and clearly, taking deep breaths to keep myself calm and relaxed. It is going to work this time, I promised myself.
    The man who answered the Tip Line this time spoke clearly, not rushing at all, but he had the accent of a California native, and I didn’t think he would have any difficulty understanding me. I said what I had to say as slowly and calmly as I could. He didn’t say anything for a second, and then he said, “Sir? Could I have your name, please?” I hung up. He hadn’t asked how I knew what I knew or seemed at all skeptical. Presumably, the tip would be followed up in due course.
    Because of the first failure, I was only cautiously optimistic when I came back. Again, I went directly to the study and searched the bookshelves. Her book was there. The other two books were there. I picked up Scott’s book and turned to page 38 to read again about the tipster who spoke too rapidly. This time another line had been added: “The man had even called a second time, but his speech was just as rushed and incoherent.”*
    I was not rushed. I was not incoherent. What was the matter with these people? How I wished I could have e-mailed the tip instead. Nowadays there would probably be a website or an e-mail address I could use, if I could access a public library computer without interacting with anyone, but nothing like that was available back then.
    It would have to be an actual pen and paper letter. I thought about it for a while—I couldn’t take a pen or paper with me, but I could for instance walk into a bank and use one of their attached pens and the back of a deposit slip. How would I mail it or deliver it to the police station? Could I risk stealing an envelope? How about a stamp? Could I walk into a police station and leave a note on the counter without being noticed? The question was moot at this point, because I couldn’t afford a third try any time soon.
    I was devastated by my failure, but mostly I was completely puzzled. I couldn’t ask anybody, of course, because I had broken the law, a violation punishable by a huge fine and imprisonment. I had set out to free a prisoner, not become one. Technically I had changed the future, even if it was only a few lines in a paperback book and a footnote in a huge case file.
    So I did what any intelligent citizen of this millennium would do—I researched it on the internet. There was a ton of information I already knew of course, including the constant reiteration of the basic rules of time travel. I don’t know exactly when it finally dawned on me that there was something odd about the way they were worded. Most of them either began “You must not” or ended “is strictly prohibited.” And then there was “You can’t talk to anybody.” Not must not—can’t. As in physically impossible? How could it be?
    I waded through a lot of other garbage before I came across an article that attempted to explain the intricacies of the scientific theory in layman’s language. A lot of it went over my head, but the crucial part was clear enough: You can’t talk to anyone.
    Remember, the author said, time travel involves the warping of time. Even though you are in a particular time, you are not in sync with the time. Think of it as a spinning top. The instant of time in which you are temporarily present is the tip on which you are precisely balanced. But you are not the tip; you are the body of the top and the gyroscopic effect almost immediately lessens so you wobble. It’s not a perfect metaphor, but I got the gist.
    If this means you will seem to speak too quickly for anyone in that time to understand you, wouldn’t it also mean you would look like you were running around, gesticulating wildly? Well, yes. In something as precise as spoken language, though, it is a much greater problem. With physical actions, the effect is not pronounced enough to be conspicuous in a world of rushing, over-excited people, especially if you minimize any interaction with others. They had in fact told us in training to walk slowly, be as calm as possible, etc. If they gave us the scientific explanation in any form, I missed it.
    I won’t try to draw a moral here. I’m sure the lessons I should have learned are obvious. I still haven’t learned that you can’t change the past, though, because I’m still daydreaming about it. One of these days, when I’ve saved up enough, I will try again. I like the note on the back of the deposit slip scheme. If I could take my ID with me, I could withdraw enough cash from a local branch of my bank that they would need to give it to me in an envelope, but of course I can’t. It would also leave a paper and electronic trail. I would have to buy stamps too, and both transactions would have to be without dialogue. I researched the locations of banks and police stations in the area, so I know I could walk from the bank to the station to hand deliver the note. That still looks like my best option.
    Will I succeed? You’ll never know, will you? If I do, there will be no mention of me on page 38 of Scott’s book. Maybe in an article about a child recovered through an anonymous tip—in an old newspaper you will never see. There will probably be no books on the case. You won’t know how this story begins after all. I will probably never have been motivated enough to try time travel.
    And you won’t be reading this.

 

    *Robert Scott, Shattered Innocence: The Abduction of Jaycee Dugard—The Untold Story, p. 38. © 2011 Robert Scott and Kensington Books.

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