by Laurel Dewey
“Hey, Chopper,” Hank said gently. “You okay?” Jane walked under the backdoor lamp. Hank could easily detect the blood on her jacket. “Holy shit. What happened?”
“Can we talk somewhere private?”
Hank nodded and led Jane back to his three-bedroom cottage behind The Rabbit Hole. The place was light and airy and fairly immaculate for a guy’s bachelor pad. The first thing Jane noticed when she walked in and the lights came on were the bookshelves. There were three, floor-to-ceiling units neatly filled with all types of books. Literature, old police manuals, poetry, modern fiction, crime and suspense and even a few of the esoteric titles she inherited from Kit Clark’s library, made up Hank’s diverse collection. Whenever she entered a homicide scene in a private home, Jane tended to check out the vibe of the house before she canvassed the dead bodies. When she spotted a large bookcase, it immediately impressed her, if only because it told her that the poor butchered stiffs on the floor covered in blood had been literate. There was a huge difference, in Jane’s opinion, between the kind of people who owned a lot of books and the kind who accumulated DVDs. The latter fell short on the intellect meter. Hank’s well-read assortment of books earned him a few points in Jane’s book of judgment.
The floor plan of Hank’s place was wide open, allowing the dining room to flow into the kitchen which then flowed into a small living room. Two bedrooms were located down a short hallway with a third room located off the living room dedicated to Hank’s office. A small bathroom sat just off the front door next to a large poster of Pavarotti wearing a costume from Puccini’s Turandot. Again, she was impressed. For a guy to plaster Pavarotti near his front door, it had to mean something to him. She had to ask.
“He’s one of my favorites,” Hank told her. “I have The Three Tenors on DVD and CD. Bought it on one of those PBS pledge drives.”
Jane smiled. Sergeant Weyler and Hank would get along just fine since Weyler was a card-carrying member of PBS and had probably purchased every single CD and DVD that they pimped during their annual begging ritual. While she wasn’t a huge opera fan, there certainly was a soft spot in her heart for “Nessun Dorma.” The evocative melody from Turandot had followed her throughout her life, becoming the emotional background melody for everything from her mother’s death to a painfully personal case she’d worked two years prior. It wasn’t the only Puccini melody that haunted her though. There was another that she could never listen to; one that ripped at her heart and drew her back to that fateful, shocking scene she would never get out of her head.
“You like Puccini?” Hank asked.
“Yeah. I do.”
“I got a compilation of his work somewhere around here.” Hank started to search his neatly organized CD holder.
“It’s okay,” Jane said, her voice full of tension. “I don’t need to hear it right now.” Jane took off her jacket and crossed to the kitchen sink.
“Here,” Hank took her jacket, “I’ll take care of it. Sit down, Chopper.” He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. Jane reluctantly took a seat. She wasn’t used to having someone else in charge. But at that moment, the shock of the events that occurred earlier was starting to coagulate in her consciousness. And to top it off, she was still feeling the peculiar perspectiveshifting effects of the sacred blue lily tea Jordan had given her. Sure, she figured, Hank could clean the blood off her jacket, but that would be the extent of it. She suddenly felt thirsty and was about to ask Hank for some water when he strangely grabbed a glass, filled it with water from the filter on the tap and handed it to her.
“Why did you do that?” Jane asked, suspicion rearing its ugly head.
Hank looked confused. “I figured you might be thirsty and I didn’t think a shot of Jack Daniels was appropriate.”
Jane took a sip. “Right.” There was definitely something otherworldly happening to her. It was as though she had a heightened understanding of her surroundings. It wasn’t a high or a buzz but a focused realization that attracted to her what she needed. Her thoughts seemed to project outward and mingled in the unseen field before becoming reality. It was disturbing to a point but Jane noted that there wasn’t any of the usual fear attached to it. Instead of blocking the effect, it was as if her body was more willing to accept the experience—devoid of all the second-guessing and scrutinizing—and allow whatever occurred to just be.
The more Jane thought about it, the more she realized that it went against her typical M.O. to approach a total stranger like Hank Ross to help her. But for whatever reason, she opted against her usual tough-girl approach. Even the reliable wall that she built with such precision between people wasn’t properly established. The crazy thing was that Jane didn’t care. The bricks and mortar were still available, but the need to construct the barricade wasn’t a paramount concern.
Hank dabbed at the jacket with a wet cloth and some leather cleaner he found beneath the sink. He looked perfectly content standing there in the dim light. “So, you gonna tell me what happened, or am I gonna read it tomorrow in the paper?”
“I danced with a deer on the two-laner out of town.” Hank’s eyebrows arched. “Don’t worry. The deer’s just fine.” She proceeded to tell him the abbreviated version of her accident, minus the ghostlike hand that grabbed the wheel and swerved the Mustang away from the river. “Jesus, Jane. Maybe I need to take you to the hospital…”
“No, no, no. The glass is out of my head.”
“How do you know?” Hank was obviously concerned.
Jane let out a sigh. “If I tell you, you gotta promise you’re not gonna spill it to anybody.” She was, after all, in the land of secrets.
“Who in the hell would I tell?” He took his attention off her jacket and focused on Jane. “What’s going on?”
Jane laid out the story regarding Jordan, doing her best to minimize and eliminate some of the more odd comments he made. She did not disclose the fact that Jordan was a mulatto, figuring that was actually too private to share. Jane also purposely left out Jordan’s parting comment, cloaked in a riddle, that he would reveal a “big secret” on Monday to her. Some things, she felt, needed to stay unspoken right now. Hank pulled out a kitchen chair and dragged it next to Jane. He took a seat and, after a thoughtful pause, he spoke.
“Jane, he’s a serious suspect in Jake’s case. That’s general knowledge. He’s the first one we all considered being involved when Jake went missing. What if he really is linked with Jake’s disappearance? If he tells somebody what happened between the two of you…”
“You see? This is why I like to work alone!” Jane felt her back go up…well, as up as it could travel feeling the way she did.
“Hey, come on,” Hank put a hand on her thigh. “You know I’m right,” he said quietly.
“Fuck,” Jane muttered. “Of course, you’re right. But I was unconscious at the time it happened. So, you know…”
“Wait a second.” Hank stared at Jane as if she was one of his former fraud suspects. She could feel his tentacles of understanding wrap around her unrehearsed story and forcing out the unspoken words that would tell the whole story. “Jordan Copeland is as private as they come. He doesn’t just go save somebody’s ass and willingly bring them onto his property… into his cabin…if he doesn’t have some prior relationship with them.”
“Relationship?” She shifted in her chair and turned away. “Jesus! You make it sound like Jordan and I are lovers…”
“Hey,” Hank gently reached up and touched Jane’s chin, turning it back toward him. “You can’t bullshit another drunk, Jane.”
Maybe it was the smoothing effects of the blue lily tea, but Jane couldn’t come up with her usual “Fuck you” retort. She touched Hank’s hand and pushed it away. After a careful moment, she began talking. She told him about her first outdoor, campfire visit on his property in detail. After Hank digested that confession, he got up and whipped up an impromptu chicken salad with leftovers from his refrigerator, before sitting back down and listening to J
ane recount the second visit she shared with Jordan. She included everything she could recall of Jordan’s sermons about secrets.
“Remember that comment that Jake made to me?” Hank offered. “The one where he asked me about family curses and if a family could be infected with a curse?”
Jane took another bite of the chicken salad. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the blue lily tea but she couldn’t remember when she’d had a chicken salad that tasted so damn good. “Yeah. You said it was six weeks before he went missing.”
“Right. Where do you think Jake came up with that philosophic idea? You gotta admit it, Jane. That’s a little too coincidental.”
“I know.” Jane’s mood darkened. She was actually starting to feel compassion for Jordan Copeland, especially after hearing about his fractured childhood. There was a part of her that didn’t want to believe he was guilty and another part that cried out, What are you? Crazy? He’s guilty! The fact that she was feeling sorry for a guy who shot a retarded kid and then hid his body under his bed went against the norm for Jane Perry. Up until fifteen months ago, she saw the world in black-and-white. Perps were perps and any excuses they gave for their abhorrent behavior didn’t wash in her book. She’d always been fond of telling people who cut perps slack that if one’s tortured past gave them carte blanche to destroy another’s life, then she should be doing hard time.
But after discovering the mind-shifting secret of her own violent father’s upbringing, she had to step back and reevaluate her beliefs. She learned that there was a lot of covert, shapeshifting between generations and that, as far as her father was concerned, his abusive actions toward Jane and her brother coalesced because of what had happened to him as a child. As much as she wanted to continue to despise him and carry the hatred to her grave, she had to let it go. It was one of the hardest things she ever did. All Jane had ever known was unrelenting odium toward her father. To regard him like she would another victim took a lot of time and solitary thought. But it was because of that deeply personal experience that Jane began to accept the world with more hazy tones of grey. And now, with Jordan Copeland, the grey was starting to lean toward black—even though there was a part of her that simply did not want to believe he had anything to do with Jake’s disappearance.
“That was the only time that Jake mentioned anything about curses in families to me,” Hank added. “But it came out of nowhere…”
“You said he read a lot.” Hank nodded. “Maybe he read it somewhere?”
“Okay. Where’d he get the book?”
Jane looked at the bookcases across the room. “You got a lot of books. Maybe he got it from you.”
“Well, I know it’s only my word, but Jake’s never been in here and I’ve never given him a book.”
Jane studied Hank’s face. If he was lying, he was a great liar. And there were those two walls of bookcases in Jordan’s cabin, crammed with books, along with the stacks of literature that cluttered his tiny cabin. “Jordan Copeland is not stupid. He knows that if somebody drove by and saw Jake on his property, he’d be reported. He’s not allowed within one hundred feet of a child or school. You know the drill.”
“So, he stays a hundred and one feet away.”
“Oh, come on! What? He’s yelling a hundred and one feet away to have a conversation? And toss Jake a book or two? That’s stretching it, don’t you think?”
“Hey, the smart ones always figure out a loophole. Some of the fraud criminals I dealt with were ingenious! I used to say that if they used half their brains and energy for legitimate purposes, they’d be millionaires!”
Jane finished the chicken salad and pushed the plate away. She rubbed her head and, forgetting for a moment that it was still tender, winced.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I just gotta get to bed.” The minute Jane said that, she wished she could take it back. It was an obvious entrée for an invite from Hank; something she wasn’t interested in.
“I’ll take care of your car for you. I know the guy who owns the automotive place in town. He owes me some favors. We’ll get the window fixed by tomorrow afternoon.” Wow, Jane thought. Not only was there no invitation to the sack, Hank was going to call in a favor for a guy to work on her car on a Sunday. “If you need a vehicle tomorrow, you can use my truck,” he added.
This was getting to be too much. First it was free hot dogs at The Rabbit Hole, then it was voluntary information on the 1401 Imperial address. After that, he gave her a good tip on Chesterfield cigarettes, which was followed by a clean leather jacket and outrageous chicken salad. What was this guy’s motive? There had to be a motive, Jane pondered, and it had to be less than noble. That’s all she ever experienced with men…well, except from the first one.
She stood up and retrieved her exceptionally clean jacket. “Thanks.”
“No big deal,” Hank said, shrugging his shoulders.
Jane noticed that his eyes lingered a little longer on her than before. There was a softness there too. It was not the same softness she noted when he looked in Annie Mack’s eyes; this was more like a calm, familiarity with a hint of sexuality underneath. Like meeting an old friend for the first time. Yes, that was exactly it…Like meeting an old friend for the first time. Jane suddenly felt a similar connection with Hank, but she couldn’t attach any logic behind it. The blue lily was really doing a job on her mind, she deduced. She started to turn toward the door when she reconsidered. “Hey, you up for some more detective work?”
Hank smiled broadly. “Hell, yeah.”
She dug her hand into her pocket and retrieved the Patois sentence she’d copied from Maureen’s diary. “If you could translate that for me, I’d appreciate it.” She handed it to Hank. “It’s in Patois…”
“Oh, French Creole,” Hank replied offhandedly.
Jane took a step back. “Don’t tell me you speak French Creole.”
“Nah. But I speak a little French. That should help. Patois is mainly spoken in Martinique, Trinidad and some other Caribbean islands, right?”
“And some others…right,” Jane said. “You gonna ask me where I got it and who wrote it?”
“No. I figure if you want me to know, you’ll tell me.”
Well, when in the hell did Jane lose control of this conversation? Now, Jane wanted to tell Hank where it came from just to show him that he wasn’t so smart, thinking he knew her so well. Then again, maybe that was the whole point of his remark—to manipulate the information out of her. She kept batting the possibilities back and forth as he led Jane to the front door and walked outside with her.
“You want me to walk you to the B&B?” Hank asked with a concerned look on his face.
Do I look that confused? Jane wondered. People weren’t usually this invested in her welfare and she wasn’t sure how to take it. There had to be a motive. “I’m fine.” Jane said. But she wasn’t fine. She didn’t want to go back to the B&B and lay alone in her room waiting for sleep to overtake her. What in the hell was happening? She felt so bloody vulnerable at that moment, standing there in the yellow neon of The Rabbit Hole’s roof sign. It wasn’t the same vulnerability that hit when she stared at her single cigarette in the American Spirit packet. It wasn’t the same vulnerable sensation she felt when Jordan got into her car and told her to drive over the bridge to his house. Both of those had an element of fear attached. This vulnerability felt more like an ancient part of her psyche melting and revealing the skin of who she really was under all the bravado and crustiness. For some strange reason, she heard Jordan’s voice and the cutting words he said to her the first time she met him. “Vulnerability for you equals weakness,” he said. “You’re hard. Your palette hasn’t been softened by the brush of the right guy. Your steel cannot bend to the forge of a man because to melt your fear you have to become vulnerable.” Jane winced, recalling what Jordan told her after that. “Once you go there, there’s no turning back…”
Jane looked at Hank. She moved a step closer to him but fear gripp
ed at her heels and she pulled back.
The B&B was less than a block away but it was the longest damn walk of her life.
It was well past 10:00 pm when she crossed the threshold of the B&B. Thankfully, the lights were dim and everyone, including Weyler, had retired to their rooms. She had started up the stairs when she spied a pink note attached to the banister. It was written by Sara and simply said: Fresh cookies on the kitchen table. Help yourself ! A smiley face followed. The first thing Jane thought was that some people in this world were actually quite sappy. The second thing she thought was, cookies.
Jane tiptoed into the kitchen and found the large plate, brimming with an assortment of oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies. She slid one off the plate and took a bite. Turning around, she noticed a collection of framed sepia-toned photos on the kitchen wall. Many had the same theme as the ones that lined the stairway and upstairs hallway, in that they depicted Midas and the surrounding area as it looked throughout the Twentieth Century. In the center of the collection was a photo of five women taken in front of the B&B. The date handwritten on the photo was 1919. The sign behind the women read: The Garden—A Boarding House for Ladies. Jane took another bite of the cookie and peered closer at the women in the photo. Instead of the refinement one might expect from the group, there was an uncharacteristic loutish flavor that permeated the gals. Jane could almost hear their uninhibited irreverence and frivolity seep from the aging film. One of the women in the photo had the audacity to turn her heel in what looked like a coquettish stance.
Jane grabbed another cookie and turned her attention to the glass cabinet where she had seen Sara protectively hiding the mysterious red photo album. She inched closer to the cabinet, knowing full well where the key was hidden. After considering the action, she started to open the bottom cabinet when she heard Mollie’s bedroom door creak open. Quickly, Jane stood up and grabbed another few cookies just as Mollie appeared in the archway. The kid observed her with an appalled look. Jane stood there, her leather jacket draped over her arm, exposing the encrusted dirt on her last clean shirt. Jane caught her reflection in the glass of one of the picture frames. Her hair had seen better days and she was sure her face looked pretty haggard. To cap it off, she clutched four cookies in her hand and was in the process of chewing and swallowing another. Jane had to admit there was a definite slovenly slant to her nocturnal pit stop. “Hey,” Jane muttered, as a piece of oatmeal spewed unexpectedly from her lips.
