by Laurel Dewey
Her mind turned to Hank wondering what he was doing at that moment. Jane factored he was probably wiping down the counters at The Rabbit Hole bar and grill he owned and figuring out the lunch specials. Lunch. Suddenly, hunger overtook her. But the thought of ingesting another bag of pine nuts followed by a bottle of warm water from a plastic bottle quickly quashed her craving. If Hank knew where she was right now and the predicament she was in, he’d be in his truck and headed her way. What an uncommon person for Jane Perry to invite into her private world. It was odd, she mused. Instead of focusing on what in the hell she was going to do before the sun set, here she was irrationally thinking about a man she’d known for less than a month and who had gently worked his way into her steely heart. For a whisper of a second, she found herself wishing he was there with her. She shook her head, partly in an attempt to throw off that absurd desire. “Get a hold of yourself,” Jane instructed herself out loud as she hastened her stride into nowhere.
About a mile further, the frontage road deviated from the highway, bending westward into the now amber and tawny terrain of sagebrush and dry grass that would eat fire if a spark were offered to it. To her right lay a graveyard of old trucks and burnt out cars, home now to nests of mice and birds. The road began to get steeper. Jane was just about to crest the first grade when she heard the sound of clanking metal ahead of her. Carefully, she crept closer, taking cover behind a stand of sagebrush. She knelt down and crawled twenty feet until she could see the source of the clatter.
She took in a quick breath. There was her ice blue Mustang no more than seventy-five feet away. All she could see was the left side of the vehicle. The trunk had been opened with a crowbar, which now lay across the ground. Her toolbox that she kept on the floor of the backseat, sat nearby. The perp who stole her ride was obscured behind the right front tire, seemingly tightening the lug nuts. Karma, she reckoned. Bad karma for him; good karma for Jane. But confronting him in this locale would be tricky, not knowing if he’d discovered her service weapon in the glove compartment.
She backed away from the scene to ensure a safe distance and time to think it through. The clanking of the tire iron continued in the background as she rapidly worked out various scenarios for overtaking the thief. The slamming of the Mustang’s trunk made her turn around. That was followed by the subsequent clean connection of the ignition after being hotwired.
“Shit!” Jane grumbled, quickly returning to the sagebrush. But by that time, all she could see was the whirl of dust trailing her car. Standing up, Jane eyed her Mustang speeding toward what looked like a dirt road on the right hand side. She thought, turn down that road, you son-of-a-bitch! And as if her thoughts had wings, she watched the perp do exactly as she asked.
Jane stood there, momentarily stunned, as the thief drove carefully down the side road and disappeared into a grove of aspen trees that lay about a half mile away. She picked up her speed, jogging and then running toward the dirt road. Once there, she regarded the signage with a cautious eye. It was “County Road 17.”
With the kind of single-minded purpose usually dedicated to wars or naval battles, Jane raced down the rural dirt road and kept a steady pace until she arrived at the stand of aspens. Her Mustang sat parked on the other side of the first large aspen, its engine still stuttering under the hood. Jane took cover behind the tree before carefully leaning away to check the scene. From that vantage point, she could clearly see that no one was inside the car. Scanning the area, she had to assume the perp walked away from the car and into the tight grove of trees.
Her heart raced but her pace slowed as she dropped the bag of water and pine nuts on the dirt and cautiously crept toward the passenger side of the Mustang. She halted momentarily on her haunches next to the passenger door, before gingerly lifting the door handle and inching it open. She noted the smell inside the car. It was a mix of fear and sweat. Removing the car keys from her jacket pocket, Jane watchfully opened the glove compartment and removed her badge and Glock. She slid the shield into her jacket pocket and lowered the service weapon with the business end pointed toward the earth. Before she stood up, Jane vigilantly turned around to make sure she was still alone. Satisfied, she snuck around the rear of the Mustang, this time anchoring both hands tightly around the butt of the Glock in combat mode.
Jane moved with skillful exactness, each step placed with purpose and taking care not to emit noise. When she reached the center of the aspen grove, she stopped, taking cover behind another large-trunked tree. The thief was kneeling in the dirt with his back toward Jane. Holding the Glock steady, she warily leaned just far enough around the tree trunk to observe the scene. Jane squinted toward the suspect, feeling bile burn into her throat. The perp had her heavy down jacket draped across his shoulders. While she shivered in her leather jacket, he was pleasantly warm.
She couldn’t understand what in the hell he was doing. The palms of his hands clasped his large thighs while he rapidly murmured some sort of chant or prayer. Jane slowly ducked back behind the tree, pressing her forehead to the trunk. What in the hell was going on? She held her forehead against the white, chalky trunk with her eyes closed momentarily to try and get her own groove moving toward resolving this bizarre series of events but she came up blank. Opening her eyes, she guardedly leaned to the right to check out the scene again.
He was gone. Vanished. “What the fuck—” Jane whispered. But that was all she could get out before she felt a heavy arm encircle her neck from behind, dragging her backward. Jane almost lost her footing but quickly maintained her stance. It seemed like minutes but it was mere seconds as she felt her throat being compressed with an expert, military grasp. She strained to stay conscious and sustain control of her Glock but it was proving nearly impossible. Just seconds away from losing consciousness, she was suddenly filled with an inexorable power that stormed inside her body. In that slice of time, she lifted her right foot and, kicking backward and up, nailed the perp squarely in the kneecap. He released his grip and fell face first onto the dirt in pain, with his back to Jane. She spun around, Glock aimed straight on the center of the huge, fleshy center of the thief’s back. Her eyes strained for several seconds to regain focus as he desperately inched away from Jane, grabbing his injured knee.
“Freeze or I’ll fucking shoot you,” Jane screamed, shaking off the dizziness.
“I’m not going back!” he yelled, never looking back and anxiously clawing away from Jane.
“I am not fucking with you! Move one more inch and I’ll shoot!”
Her threats meant nothing to him as he continued his futile escape.
Jane trained the Glock inches away from the perp’s left hip and emptied a piercing shot into the earth. The deafening sound rang against her eardrums. The thief froze, covering his ears from the numbing blast and screamed in shock.
“That was a warning shot,” Jane declared, taking a step closer to him. “You will feel the next one. Now, turn your sorry ass over.”
She could see his fat hands shaking. “Please, please,” he stammered, “I can’t go back there…” With that, he rolled onto his back.
Jane squared her Glock on his chest as a sliver of sunlight illuminated his face. Even though it was covered in dirt, she recognized him.
It was Harlan Kipple.
CHAPTER 4
“Harlan Kipple?!” Jane said, stunned. She withdrew her badge and flashed it. “I’m a cop.”
“You ain’t taking me back there!” he screamed, grabbing his knee in pain.
“Let me clarify,” Jane replied, slipping her shield back into her jacket pocket. “I’m a cop…and that,” she pointed to her Mustang, “is my car.”
Harlan’s head turned slowly toward the vehicle. Jane swore she could hear the wheels creaking in his brain as he processed the situation. “Oh, hell, no!” he shouted, slapping the dirt with his fleshy palm. “You have got to be kiddin’ me!” He shook his head, seemingly in
a world of his own. “I was fixin’ on jobbin’ that sweet little red pickup but my heart told me to take your car instead.” He looked up at Jane. “So, you ain’t one of them cops on my tail?”
Jane lowered the Glock and took a step back. “You’re a real quick study there, Harlan.”
His eyes turned suspicious. “Hang on. If you’re really not after me, how come you were pointin’ a gun at me?”
“Because you just tried to kill me, you fucking idiot!”
“You tried to kill me!” Harlan rubbed the left side of his neck. “You come up behind me and tried to stab me. What’d you expect me to do?”
“What are you, on crack? I was behind this tree the whole time. You attacked me here!”
Harlan shifted his gaze to where he had been kneeling in the stand of trees. “I’m all mixed up.” Then, as if he came back to himself, he asserted, “No,” he shook his head adamantly. “Not me. That wasn’t me who attacked you.”
Oh, shit, Jane thought. Harlan Kipple was schizo.
“Nah. You…You’re the one who’s nuts.” It was as if he read her mind just then. “Risin’ up and nailin’ me like you did in my knee.” He started gently petting his kneecap repeatedly as if it could brush away the pain.
Looking down at Harlan, the first image that came to Jane’s mind was the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. All crouched on the dirt, nursing his knee, with his corpulent physique, unkempt hair and tangled beard that sported debris from the ground. Her second realization was that she had no idea how she extricated herself from his death grip except that she recalled feeling that unstoppable muscle slide into her nearly cataleptic body before she assaulted Harlan. Sure, Jane studied self-defense and had used it enough times in her career, but she was never seconds away from unconsciousness when she employed the techniques.
Harlan glanced over to Jane’s Mustang. “Your car’s got a lot of juice.” He turned back to Jane. “The tires are crap, though. They’d never put me in a rig with tires that wore out. I can’t believe you set out on a trip with them on. Hell, I had to pull over just to tighten the lug nuts when I heard them rattlin’ around. What were you thinkin’?”
What the fuck, Jane thought. “If I’d known you were going to jack my car, I’d have bought four new radials and had a cooler of cold beers and a case of Slim Jims waiting for you in the backseat,” she sarcastically replied, securing her Glock inside the side of her jeans and lowering herself to the soft ground. Supporting her tired back against one of the budding aspens, Jane suddenly felt damn old and exhausted. But then, an out of control, cascading fountain of awareness washed over her, along with all the chaotic and dire possibilities that careened with it. “Holy shit,” she murmured. “Harlan Kipple!” she yelled. “Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse—”
“Hey!” Harlan interrupted. “You think you’re havin’ a bad day, officer? I’ve had a shitty day so far! Fact is, I’ve had fourteen shitty days in a row! And before that? Well, let’s just say I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d gone absolutely bat shit crazy!”
Jane felt a need to keep sufficient distance from Harlan but she was also feeling a chill descend around the grove of trees. She pointed to her down jacket that had fallen off Harlan’s back when he attacked her. “Toss that jacket over here. Slowly.”
Harlan looked crestfallen. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.” He carefully tossed the jacket toward Jane. “I’m not like that.”
“Yeah, well. You tried to kill to me, so…” She slid on the jacket, never once taking her eyes off Harlan.
“I told you. That wasn’t me.”
“Is this that bat shit crazy part you mentioned?”
Harlan lowered his head. He shifted his huge frame on the dirt, jockeying for a more comfortable position. “Ever since my heart transplant almost nineteen months ago, I’ve never been the same. From the minute I woke up in the hospital…even when I was still cloudy on the drugs and anesthesia…even then…I felt weird.”
“What?” Jane adjusted the collar on the jacket to cover her throat. “Sick?”
He looked up. “No! Strong! Unstoppable! Fearless!”
“Okay. So, why does that translate into bat shit crazy?” Jane watched as Harlan struggled with how to respond. “Just say it, Harlan.”
“I don’t like the same foods anymore. I used to love beer. And I mean love beer. I can’t even be around the smell of it no more.” He shook his head in embarrassment. “I was raised a Baptist but I don’t relate to that no more. I’m drawn to Eastern religion, which I was brought up to believe was the Devil talkin’. I even bought a book on meditation! I say phrases and words that I’ve never said before. Like, ‘be that as it may,’ ‘hazard a guess,’ or ‘it appears we have a situation.’ I mean, who in the hell talks like that? Oh, and I black out a lot and wake up whispering these words and I can feel my whole body pulsating when that happens. It’s like lyin’ on one of them vibrating beds that cost four quarters that you can still find in some of the cheap motels on the truck route.” He leaned forward toward Jane. “Sometimes…sometimes I know what people are thinkin’ or what they’re gonna say before they say it. I have a pretty good photographic memory and I have this ability to take a picture in my head of a room or area and know any detail you want to know.” He stood up, still nursing his injured knee. “I’ll give you an example. There are forty-eight aspens in this stand we’re in. Of those forty-eight, thirty-five have large trunks. Two of the trees that have smaller trunks have a fungus on their bark. Not sure what that is but it’s gonna kill ‘em in short order.” Harlan turned to Jane’s Mustang. “It’s exactly fifty-two steps from the driver’s side of your Mustang to the spot in the center of the stand of trees where I knelt down.” He eyed Jane, waiting for a reaction. “You want me to go on?”
Jane inched herself up to her feet. This guy was for real, she figured—real messed up and in real trouble. “Sure.”
“I warn you, it gets weirder.” Harlan leaned against an aspen, picking a few dead leaves from his scraggly beard. “I have dreams about a childhood but it ain’t my own. In the dream, I look down and I’m about ten or eleven years old. I’m always runnin’ through tall green grass that seems to go on forever. I hunker down, and I wait and I listen. Then suddenly, I realize I have a .22, single shot rifle in my hand and I lift up out of the grass and I nail a rabbit at one hundred yards!” He shook his head. “I’m a good shot but I ain’t ever been that good.”
Jane moved closer to Harlan.
“I have other dreams too. And I ain’t no kid in them,” he stated slightly bashfully. “I dream all the time about having sex with this woman whom I’ve never met before in my own life. She’s got long, black wavy hair and boobs that just smother you.” He seemed temporarily lost in that seductive vision. “And there’s another woman in some of the dreams. She’s beautiful and when I see her, I feel so much love I can’t even explain it. I don’t know her name but somehow I think it starts with an ‘M.’ But I don’t have a clue why I know that.” He drifted. “And yeah…there’s one more woman after that. I…I’ve never seen her face but there’s a weird scent that lingers around her.” His mien grew grim. “But I also have nightmares. God-awful nightmares that I wake up from in a cold sweat and make me piss myself because I’m scared shitless.” He began to shake. “I’m not sure what I’m scared about though because somehow I always block it out. But after it happens, my head hurts for hours, like it’s fixin’ to explode.”
God, a cigarette would taste good right now, Jane mused. She kicked the dirt beneath her feet. “What does your doctor say about all this?”
He looked at her with his mouth agape. “Are you kiddin’ me? Seriously? You think I would tell a doctor all this? Why don’t I just check myself into the Pueblo hospital for loony tunes and tell ‘em to strap me to a bed so they can put me on permanent lock down!” Harlan wandered into the center of the stand of tre
es.
Jane followed him, watching him with guarded curiosity. She felt a modicum of relief, partly because crazy people don’t usually acknowledge that they’re nuts and Harlan’s use of ironic humor, even if it wasn’t done on purpose, appealed to her. “How about the surgeon who did your heart transplant? Maybe everything you’re experiencing is more common than you think with transplant patients—”
“He’s dead,” Harlan succinctly said turning to Jane briefly. “He and his wife were killed in a car wreck less than a month after my operation. The only person I’ve told any of this to is my buddy, Rudy. Well, he likes to be called Rudolph but I call him Rudy. I keep fixin’ on a red nosed reindeer every time I say Rudolph.”
“How about talking to one of your trucker buddies?”
Harlan looked at Jane, curling his lip irreverently. “Yeah. Right.”
“Where’d you meet Rudy?”
“He was a volunteer in the cardio rehab unit after my surgery. I couldn’t have got through it all without his help.” Jane silently cringed at Harlan’s poor use of the English language. “And when I got out of the hospital, he volunteered to help me with whatever I needed. You know, food shoppin’, doctor visits…and he never asked me for a penny. He said he did it ‘cause he wanted to give back.”
Do-gooders. Jane never trusted them. Everybody had a motive. Everybody. Even if that motive was to earn a seat in heaven, it was still a motive. “So, did Rudy tell you what you were experiencing was normal?”
“No. But he never laughed at me when I told him about stuff that happened. He seemed interested but he told me not to say anything ‘cause nobody would believe me anyways. I told him not to worry ‘cause I sure as hell wasn’t gonna tell anyone!” Harlan’s eyes drifted off to the side as a memory slipped into focus. “Hey…yeah…” he mumbled, seemingly floating away.
