Baby Blues by Jack Powers

Cass had been on the Cold Case Time Travel squad eight years when I replaced her partner, Hoss. We’d done things differently in Present-Day Homicide so I shut up and listened. Cass was a pro, by the book mostly–she could even fix the damn machine! And since no other towns could afford the traveler fees, we’d be in ’60s Harlem one day and ’30s Greenwich the next. I’m guessing they brought me in for the Harlem cases. Brothers don’t tend to open up to two pale folks from the future. Of course, they weren’t supposed to know we were from the future, but occasionally our Era Lingo implants malfunctioned.

I played the good cop, because Cass was so good at being the bad and got such a kick out of messing with chauvinists of every decade. We’d usually have a few leads when we walked out of the time travel elevator in the 15^th Precinct into whatever year the crime was committed, but the easiest thing to do was go to the scene when it happened, take a video, collect DNA and elevator home. Sometimes though, bodies were moved, crimes reported late or scenes inaccessible. That’s when Cass was at her creative best. Intelligence always turned me on and Cass–ivory skin, baby blues, red hair–had a few more superficial assets as well.

“Feels electric, doesn’t it?” she said about the thrill of stepping into the past, playing God and zipping back to the present. Her only slide was taking a little something back: a ’70s cassette, a ’50s barrette, a ’30s tin of cherry Sucrets. Each trip she’d slip something small into her purse–just for the extra adrenaline kick.

I’d heard rumors about her and Hoss, but by the time we met she didn’t seem interested in men. Until we had a case in Chappaqua, 1972: suffocated wife, husband suspect. He’d made it look like the Scarsdale Strangler. At the morgue, Cass posed as the sister, distraught but determined to identify the body. It was clean: pristine clothes, no fingerprints, no DNA. Too clean. So we pretended to be newlyweds interested in buying the house. A long shot, but Cass couldn’t resist the chance to tweak a suburban liberal uncomfortable with interracial couples. And I figured if he didn’t shoot us, it could be funny.

Cass was all Method. She’d been a dual drama/criminology major at Syracuse. We held hands, snuck kisses. She moaned when I nuzzled her neck. And it worked! The husband was so rattled he showed us the freshly dug garden where a scan picked up her buried clothes. And he practically confessed to staging the break-in to assure us the house was safe!

In the elevator, I turned to Cass, said, “You were brilliant!” She grabbed me and kissed me open-mouthed, full tongue, leg wrapped around mine. For a split second I thought she was still acting, but figured what the hell? and started kissing her back. Before the doors opened, she stopped, wiped her mouth, smoothed her clothes and stepped out. I staggered out behind her, went straight to the bathroom, threw cold water on my face.

For a year it was just like that. All business in the past and present. Crazy passion in the elevator ride. You can do a lot in fifteen minutes.

Seemed to be all Cass needed, but it was making me crazy. Couldn’t sleep. Lost weight. Finally, I confronted her as we stepped into the elevator. “Love you, Cass,” I said, “but I need more than 15 minutes a day.”

“Some men,” she said, “would kill for fifteen minutes like this every day.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself!” I tried to laugh, but it came out a groan. “But Cass, I want a family. A life outside this job–this elevator. Can’t even look at another woman because you’re so…so…”

“Good?” Cass said. “Great? I am pretty good, aren’t I?” She took both my hands. “You’re pretty good yourself.” She leaned in. I managed the strength to pull back. “I love you,” she said. “But I need the ride.”

“I need all of you, Cass,” I said. “Can’t do this anymore.”

When the doors opened, I marched out.

Six months later, we were married. A year after that Little Cass was born–Cassette, as Cass called her. Ivory-skinned, baby blued and red-haired like her mom. Cass was all smiles that day, but when we got home, the baby wouldn’t nurse and cried all night. I had to rock her to sleep or to drink her formula. Cass became convinced it was her fault–she was a bad mother. Plus, Cass couldn’t sit still. Two weeks before her leave was up, she was back on the job time-traveling. At first, she brought back trinkets for Cassette, then just stories, then nothing. Cassette and I grew closer; Cass more distant. One day Cass didn’t return.

Department thought it was a malfunction. The elevator overdue for maintenance. The team they sent to investigate couldn’t get out of the present. I never told them Cass left a note: “Sorry. Love you and little C. Bring her up not to take any shit.”

Why didn’t I look for her? Where? And when? Plus what she did was cold. Good cops don’t leave partners behind. I transferred back to Present Day. Decided to stick to warm bodies. Plus the past is a dangerous place for a man like me. Each night, I rocked Cassette. “It’s okay, baby,” I’d say until her wailing ceased, until she fell asleep.

By the time Cassette was twelve, she was Ette, her mom just a figure in photographs. Nerves shot, I retired. And it was Ette who calmed me in small rooms, transports, store elevators–the electricity of travel frayed by time and parenthood into panic.

 “It’s okay, Daddy,” she’d say, her small hand squeezing mine until the doors opened and we stepped out, quickly or slowly, but always forward, into the future.

Jack Powers

Image: Baby clothes in a nursery with a cot in the background. Pink striped onesie and vests. From Pixabay.com