by Laurel Dewey
“Harlan?” Jane stated with a firm voice. He quickly turned to her trying to focus. “Was that one of those blackouts you mentioned?”
He shook his head. “No. The blackouts are different. This crap has only been happenin’ since my living nightmare started fourteen days ago. I suddenly remembered just now that it was Rudy I was talkin’ to at that bar.”
“What bar?”
“The Blue Heron in Limon. Yeah. We were at the bar drinkin’ a beer. Well,” he rolled his eyes, “I was drinkin’ red wine.” Harlan drifted again. “Everything’s so damn foggy. I get bits and pieces of memories that belong to me but I feel like I’m hallucinatin’ when I think about ‘em so I can’t be sure if they’re real or not.”
Jane immediately recalled that Jaycee, the black prostitute found in bed with Harlan, had been drugged with ketamine hydrochloride before she was killed. While she couldn’t be certain, the memory issues Harlan described of “bits and pieces of memories” and feeling like he was “hallucinating” when pulling up a recent event, seemed to point to the possibility that he too had been drugged with ketamine. “How much do you remember from the bar?”
Harlan strained, seemingly trying to disentangle a memory from his weary mind. “I’d been tellin’ Rudy for awhile about all these weird things I was feelin’…and seein’…I felt like I was on the verge of figurin’ it out, I told him.” Harlan suddenly remembered. “He said he wanted to help me!” The memory seemed to jar him. “Yeah. That’s exactly what he said! Then…nothing. It all goes black. The next thing I remember, is wakin’ up in that damn motel and seein’ that poor black girl…” He looked like he was about to vomit as he pointed with his left hand. “I heard footsteps comin’ down the hallway outside and I quick, grabbed a chair and hitched it under the knob.”
“Why?”
His eyes filled with terror. “They were comin’ for me.”
“They who?”
His face was desperate and grasping for elusive straws. “I don’t know! Damn, I wish I could answer that for you! But all I remember from that god-awful moment is that I felt like a ton of bricks had dropped on me right then. I yelled real loud so whoever was on the other side of the door would go away and then I grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. I read the address of the motel off the piece of paper under the glass on the table by the vase of yellow and white flowers, and then I guess I passed out on the bed. Next thing I remember, is bein’ in the hospital and havin’ some cop read me my rights. Hell, I thought I was still in the damn nightmare at that point. But I ain’t woke up since.”
Jane remembered Lilith telling her about the dozens of narcissus that made the motel room smell sweet. Who put the narcissus there, she wondered. If a man wanted to impress a woman, he would typically buy roses, not narcissus. It had to have meaning, she sensed.
“I didn’t do it,” Harlan suddenly said. “I didn’t kill that girl.”
Jane let out a hard sigh. “I know.”
He looked confused. “Huh?”
“You were set up.”
His pallor deepened. “Hang on, now,” he stammered, backing away from Jane. “Who in the hell are you?”
“Calm down. I told you. I’m a cop. My name is Jane Perry. I’m a homicide detective with Denver PD.”
“You been talkin’ to my damn lawyer?”
“No. I talked to the damn girl who set up Jaycee.”
“Who’s Jaycee?”
“The black girl you’re accused of butchering at that motel in Limon.”
Harlan crinkled his brow. “Nobody ever told me her name.” His eyes traced the ground. “Jaycee…damn…poor thing…” He grabbed his head between the thick palms of his hands. “Dammit to hell, I tell you, everything is just so jumbled up inside my head. It took me days to really wake up after I got arrested.”
“You mean, come off the drugs?”
He gazed at Jane as if he’d finally found an ally. He moved closer to her. “Yeah. Exactly. Almost like the way I felt after my transplant surgery—”
“Ketamine will do that to you.” Jane was now willing to wager a month’s salary that Harlan had been drugged with the same stuff they used to disable and kill Jaycee.
“Seriously. You been talkin’ to my no good lawyer? ‘Cause you seem to know more about this than I do.”
“I told you, Harlan. I had a conversation with the girl who admitted she was hired to bring Jaycee to that motel room. And when she dropped her off, they both witnessed you in the bed, naked and unconscious.”
“Well, hell! What are we waitin’ for? Get her in front of a judge!”
“She’s dead.”
He winced. “You sure?”
She nodded. Jane was not about to go into the grisly details of the bus explosion or the red-haired nut job in a dark suit with the strange crimson mark on his hand. And as far as mentioning the fact that Jane had wiped herself off the radar…well, she’d hold off on that little gem for a while too. “What about your buddy, Rudy? Have you heard from him since you were arrested?”
“No. He just fell off the face of the earth after that night.” Harlan looked at Jane with grave fear. “He’s probably dead too.”
“Why?”
“It just feels like people who know me get dead real fast.”
“Feels?”
“Yeah. Feels. My head don’t tell me much anymore. I think with my heart more now. So, I don’t think as much as I feel. And so far, when I do that, it never fails me.” He moved closer to Jane. “Hey! Listening to my heart got me out of that goddamned hospital and away from my bastard of a lawyer!”
Jane was finally able to ask one of the questions that had been weighing on her. “If you’re innocent, why run from your lawyer?”
“Aw, hell,” he replied, sinking down to the ground and resting his back against a tree trunk. “If you don’t already think I’m crazy, you will if I answer that.”
Jane regarded Harlan with every ounce of cop insight she could muster. She’d stared into the eyes of murderers, rapists and con men. She’d also looked into the eyes of innocent people who had been accused of heinous crimes. There was often a thin line between the disparity of guilt and innocence and it was her job to detect which way the pendulum swung. The irony here was that after she’d exhausted all logic and weighed the facts, she listened to her heart to make the final judgment. Everything Harlan had told her so far—while a bit bizarre to the unseasoned observer in this world where the unseen often dominates the physical—came from an honest and terrified place. And her own heart told her he was neither crazy nor guilty. Jane sat on the ground across from Harlan so she could be on eye level with him. “I want to know, Harlan. I want to know why you ran.” She could feel him silently sensing her sincerity. It was as if his eyes bore holes of insight into her core. “Tell me,” Jane encouraged.
“My bastard of a lawyer appeared out of nowhere. He come to see me the first day I got transferred over to Denver from Limon. At first, I thought he was just grabbin’ for a headline makin’ case and as long as he got me a fair trial, I’d take him on. But, the whole time, my heart kept pullin’ me away from him in a serious way. I mean, just a few minutes in his presence and I’d feel like I wanted to either run or kill him.”
“You wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to kill a lawyer.”
“No, I’m serious. It was like hardwired into me.” He stood straight up, holding an imaginary revolver in his right hand. “I wanted to creep up on the little worm and pop him right in the center of his skull! I’d leave a perfect hole in his head, with just the slightest trace of blowback from the powder around the edge of the wound.” For a moment, Harlan oddly warmed himself in the bloody plan. Then, nonchalantly, he turned to Jane, quickly divested from the gory fantasy. “And I really ain’t a violent man.” He sauntered several feet away “It was a helluva lot more than I didn’t trust him. But I c
ould never fix a reason to it.” He looked off to the side as a cool breeze swept through the trees and washed over him. “I went along until I knew I had to get away from him and this whole mess.” He turned back to Jane, looking her straight in the eye. “Last night, one of the guards told me that my lawyer had called and he had arranged for me to go to the hospital and have my heart checked.”
“Why?”
“Said he wanted to know what my physical status was…whether I was well enough to stand trial…” Jane’s face showed apprehension. “Yeah, I felt the same thing, Detective. That’s why I agreed to only go to the hospital as long as I had my bag with me.”
“What bag?”
“The bag I’ve been fillin’ up with stuff since my operation. I don’t know what the stuff means but I’m thinkin’ it’s a like a trail of clues to who this is.” He pointed to his heart. “I don’t have any idea what some of the things mean that I collect but I put them in the bag irregardless.”
Irregardless. Jane shuddered.
“I got my notepad in there too,” he added. “I’ve been scratchin’ on that thing since damn near two days out of surgery. And it’s one helluva clusterfuck of scribbles, pardon my French.”
Jane held back a smile since she spoke “French” quite fluently and with obscene abandon at times. “Did they agree to give you the bag?”
“Yeah. My lawyer worked it out. It’s in your car.” Harlan let out a weary sigh. “When I woke up this mornin’, I could feel it wasn’t gonna be a good day. I was shackled in my orange jumpsuit and put in a van with my lawyer. The minute I got in that vehicle, I could taste it.”
“Taste what?”
“Death. And I don’t have a damn clue what that means, but I’m tellin’ you, I was not comin’ back to that place except in a body bag. I was so damn scared but ever since my operation, whenever I feel fear, it’s as if this powerful understanding jumps into my bloodstream and I ain’t afraid no more.” He worked hard to make sure he explained it correctly. “And all I got to do is just let it take me where I need to go and I know I’ll be okay. It’s like…a knowing…so deep that to ignore it is to ignore the air or the sky or the ground beneath you.”
Jane recalled Lilith’s comment in the bus. “I should have had a knowing…” Odd, that sync, Jane thought. “What happened?”
“When they got me to the hospital, my lawyer said he was gonna check on somethin’ and that he’d be back soon. They put me in a windowless room with a bed and cupboards full of drugs and needles. An orderly took off my wrist and ankle cuffs and told me to strip and put on a gown. He left me alone but outside my door, was a cop standin’ guard. That’s when I tasted death again. But this time, it was a lot stronger. I was trapped. But somehow…somehow I just knew what to do. I blacked out and when I come back inside myself, I was holdin’ three syringes that somehow I’d filled up with this clear liquid. I don’t remember doin’ it and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with them. But then I must have blacked out again because the next thing I remember is sittin’ back on the bed and holdin’ my bag on my lap. It felt heavier and when I looked inside, there were boxes of the anti-rejection drugs I take every day.” He shook his head in amazement. “Somehow, I just knew they were in the cupboard.” Harlan rubbed his head, the day suddenly catching up with him.
“How in the hell did you get out of there without anybody seeing you?”
“The doctor come in and brought the cop with him. That made no sense. My heart was beatin’ like a bongo drum jacked up on steroids. I looked at the cop and I realized he weren’t no cop. But he had a big ass gun and he brought it out of his holster and pointed it at my head—”
“Wait a second!” Jane interrupted. “What’s the doctor doing during all this?”
“Absolutely nothin’! Standin’ there calm as a cucumber, like he wasn’t surprised.”
“This guy’s got a gun to your head and the doctor’s not making a move?”
“Yes, ma’am! I ain’t makin’ this up! Like I said, I’ve had a bad mornin’!”
Jane settled back down. “Then what?” she calmly asked.
“I went all Kung Fu on them. I nailed the guy with the gun in the neck with one of the syringes. Then I did the same thing to the doc before he ever saw me comin’. They both went down but the fake cop with the gun kept stirrin’. I still had one needle left so it must have been meant for him. I nailed him in the neck again and he was out like midnight. I grabbed his gun and an extra clip I found on his belt, threw it into my bag, grabbed my shoes and ran out into the hallway. ‘Course, I’m wearin’ a hospital gown with my fat ass hangin’ out the back. So, I ducked into the first room I could find and it was full of lockers. I found an open locker and grabbed this sweatshirt, jacket and these drab drawstring pants. Couldn’t find underwear so I’m goin’ commando.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” Jane offered. “I still don’t understand how you got out of there without anyone seeing you or any alarms going off.”
Harlan stared off to the side. “It happens sometimes. Ever since—”
“Your operation,” Jane interjected.
“Exactly. From the moment I woke up from the anesthesia, I could feel this…this…” He struggled, trying to find the words. “Aw, hell. My words ain’t gonna make any sense.”
“Just say whatever comes to mind.”
“Thickness.”
“Thickness?” Jane felt a shudder down her spine.
“See? I told you my words wouldn’t—”
“A muscular thickness,” Jane quickly injected.
Harlan stared at her, stunned. “Yeah,” he whispered.
Jane felt the same sentient presence at the Quik Mart, on the bus prior to exiting it, and again, diving within her when Harlan attacked her by the tree. “Go on.”
“I think it’s protecting me,” Harlan said. “And sometimes…sometimes it helps me become invisible.” Jane scowled. “See! I told you it would sound weird! I don’t mean like invisible on radar or security cameras,” he quickly clarified. “I mean invisible in that moment. Invisible to those who might want to hurt me or stop my progress.” Harlan looked Jane in the eye. “That’s how I escaped from the hospital. I just walked out and nobody come up to me. I climbed in the back of a delivery truck and hid out under a pile of towels. And after a long bit when the driver stopped at a restaurant, I got out and started walkin’. I walked until I got to that gas station. God as my witness, I was gonna steal that sweet little red pickup but my heart told me to take your car instead.” He let out a tired breath. “And here I am. I guess it don’t get any freakier than this.”
“Doesn’t.”
“Huh?”
“It doesn’t get any weirder than this.”
“Lucky me. I got an educated cop. Just like I had an educated lawyer. I hope you aren’t as smarmy as he was.” Harlan shook his head in disgust. “The day Mr. Ramos walked in was the day my doorstep darkened.”
“Mr. Ramos?” Jane whispered. Harlan was wrong. It did get weirder.
CHAPTER 5
The gravity of Jane’s situation took a hard turn south.
Given what she’d personally experienced that day and what she now knew after listening to Harlan, it was starting to look as if her demise was guaranteed. Death, it seemed, did appear to follow Harlan Kipple.
Death and Mr. Ramos, to be exact.
The problem was that Jane wasn’t ready to die. After recently escaping a close call with the Grim Reaper, she’d actually begun to allow herself to live and even love. Since she was a child, she’d been holding her breath and lingering in the dark corners of her psyche. But now, she finally felt safe to exhale and breathe in life. No, death was not an option. Especially not now, right now, when she had a short timetable to connect with the person she needed to see.
But Harlan Kipple and his terminal trail of bodies were putt
ing the kibosh on her plans. Why is it, she wondered, that every time you think your life is finally on track, a boulder slams onto the path and forces yet another diversion? Fuck death, she told herself. But then again, hadn’t she already symbolically killed herself when she tossed her driver’s license into the wreckage at the bus explosion? Wasn’t that meant to create the illusion of her violent demise so the red-haired fellow would believe she was dead? Just in case. But then, she wondered, just in case what?
Jane walked into the center of the aspen stand, her mind spinning. She needed to get into her Mustang and floor it until she hit northern New Mexico. She wished she could pretend away everything that had happened over the last six hours. She begged to forget every numinous nudge she’d felt that day. But above all, she wished she’d never met Harlan Kipple because the longer she spent with him, the more empathy she had for his terrifying situation. When all was said and done, Jane Perry’s job was to protect and defend the indefensible. It was simultaneously a ball and chain and her saving grace.
The irritation continued to chafe as Jane’s mind returned to the ostensibly evil individual known as “Mr. Ramos.” Harlan wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box but he could easily see that Ramos’ name kindled an edgy ire from Jane.
“What is it?” Harlan asked, his bushy brown eyebrows narrowing. Jane hesitated. Harlan reached out and grabbed Jane’s shoulder with his thick, calloused hand. “What’s goin’ on?”
She looked at him with a gut full of compassion. “You did the right thing, Harlan. Ramos is the one who set you up for Jaycee’s murder. If he didn’t kill her, then he’s the one who arranged the hit.” Harlan released his grip on Jane’s shoulder as her words sunk in. She glanced to the side. “And then Ramos conveniently became your lawyer with the intention…I would have to assume…of arranging a hit on you when the time was right.”
“Are you shittin’ me?”
“Look, Harlan. I don’t know what kind of mess you’re in. But in my business, people are only after you if you know something, stole something or saw something.”
