by Laurel Dewey
“Wait a second, the name Haas is important. Haas is mentioned in an ad on page 17 of an old issue of the ‘Q’ that I found. The ad referenced a hit on him. I need to know who he is and why Gabe would adopt his name.”
“All forward!” Monroe yelled in a sharp, military bark. He clicked his heels together and readied his rifle.
As much as she wanted to pursue it, there was no way he could maintain any cohesive conversation at this point.
“Please take care of yourself,” Jane quietly said to him.
“Yes, ma’am!” he replied, never making eye contact. “And may I offer you this: trust no one. Sometimes, you can’t even trust yourself which can make life quite interesting.”
She managed a weak smile and drove down the gravel road. When she reached the highway, she took one last look back. He was still standing there, like a frozen solider waiting for the sun to warm the battlefield before his next fight.
CHAPTER 21
Harlan located his anti-rejection drugs and popped his morning dose. “Well, that was different,” he deadpanned.
“It’s all different, Harlan.”
“He’s kind of a whack job, Jane.”
“I know. But you’d be surprised how many ‘whack jobs’ have turned out to be my best sources over the years.” She turned to Harlan who was already pleasantly ensconced in the back of the van. “The next time someone tells you hell doesn’t exist, remember Monroe. That son-of-a-bitch will never be free.”
Harlan thought long and hard about his time with Monroe. “What does capisci mean?
“It’s Italian for ‘do you understand’?”
“Is that so? Never heard the word until it left my lips.”
She sunk her hand into her satchel and pulled out the postcards. Pulling the first one off the pile, she laid it on the dashboard. “Next stop, O’Rian Park.”
They drove east and then north up the two-lane highway, past acres of farmland where the soil was waiting patiently for the first seeds to be sown. The spring air held the fragrance of renewal as thousands of weeds, grass, flowers and trees awakened once again and remembered their purpose. Jane turned on the radio and found only a few stations that weren’t burdened by static. Vicki Lawrence’s version of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” came on.
“Hey,” Harlan chirped from the back of van, “don’t move the dial. Would you please listen to the words of this song and tell me what the hell it’s about?”
“Not now, Harlan.”
“Can you explain it then?”
Jane listened to the words that she’d heard dozens of times over the years. After one minute, she was lost. “It’s about revenge.”
“Well, no joke, Jane. I know that ‘little sister’ gunned down her sister-in-law and ‘that’s one body that’ll never be found’ but I can’t figure out the rest. Who’s that ‘Amos boy Seth?’ And why didn’t Andy want to kill him first? I don’t get it.”
“Can we please focus on what’s in front of us? Let it go. A lot of songs don’t make any sense.” She checked the side windows. “I still don’t get why you chose ‘Just in Time’ back at that bar.”
“I didn’t chose it, Jane.”
“Yeah, he did. I want to know why?”
“You want to know why and I say, ‘why not?’”
The song ended and the top of the hour news began. “In local news, it was announced today that Colorado will be hosting three hundred very special guests from Scotland this year. But these visitors are four-legged critters and their new home will be acres of grassland in northeastern Colorado. So, don’t be surprised when you’re driving up in that part of our state and you see several hundred goats, happily chewing away to their heart’s content.”
Jane tuned out the rest of the news. It was far too much of a coincidence. That ground had to be the same grassland that was turned over to The Wöden Group and announced at the recently televised press conference. To anyone else, the news of three hundred goats meant nothing. If anything, the listeners probably smiled, relieved because three hundred goats was a better deal than another oil and gas rig eyesore. But something felt completely off to Jane. She was all too familiar with what information is released to the pubic and what is held back. It happened all the time during high profile murder cases in Denver. A rep from DH would stand at the microphone and appear to be forthcoming with details of the latest killing. But Jane would watch it and tick off the multitude of holes in the announcement. They always held information back but if the news conference was spun correctly, viewers would walk away believing they’d heard the whole story. From that, people would move into their day repeating the half-story to others and before long, it was an accepted “truth.” Only the ones whose ears were trained to know how a murder case really rolls would recognize the gaping holes in the story that trains could slide through.
And that’s exactly where Jane was at that moment—staring at the holes in the story about the happy goats eating grass in northeastern Colorado. Clearly aware of the power players who were involved in this acquisition, Jane found the story seriously troubling. But with nothing to link it to, all she could do now was file it away and hopefully bring it back up when the pieces fell together.
Within less than half an hour and just shy of 9:30, Jane entered Helios, Colorado, a quaint town with a village ambiance. In the center of the main street was a beautifully designed roundabout with a manicured grassy center and a playful statue of children playing with a kite. Realizing that O’Rian Park shouldn’t be hard to find, Jane swung the van down a street that paralleled Main Street and easily saw the park at the end of the road. It was a fairly large area for such a small town, and its mature landscaping and rolling grassy hills made it a desirable destination for families and others who wanted to bask in an architect’s adaptation of nature. A ring of parking spaces, allowing easy entrance from any angle, encircled the park. In the far right hand corner was a baseball field that doubled as a T-ball field for youngsters. About twenty mothers congregated in the center of the park doing yoga while a group of toddlers and preschoolers played off to the side with a caregiver watching over them.
Harlan edged closer to the front of the van, supporting himself against the back of the passenger seat. “Drive around the park, would you?”
His voice sounded different to Jane. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he said, in reverie. He flattened his palm against his heart. “My heart…”
“What about your heart?” Jane asked with concern as she continued to troll the parking lot.
“It’s bursting, Jane.” He moved closer to the front.
“Hey, hey, hey! You can’t do that. Come on!” She looked at him and all she saw was a man with a purpose. “Talk to me, Harlan. What is it?”
He waited, his eyes constantly focused on the women in the center of the park. “This is real, Jane. This is too real.” He slumped behind the passenger seat.
Jane braked quickly and put the van in park. She spun around. “You okay?”
He held his heart with his huge palm. “I can’t explain it, Jane. I’ve never felt this kind of…”
“This kind of what?”
“Love…” He seemed unable to rectify his emotions. Lifting his large frame up, he looked outside the window. “Keep drivin’ around, would ya?”
Jane obliged. As they moved closer to where the women could be seen better, Harlan told her to stop the van and park it. She agreed and stared at the yoga group, scanning them for anything that stood out to her. Seven of the women were pregnant, six were over the age of seventy and four were in their teens. “Seventeen,” Jane said. She was so focused on dissecting the scene that she didn’t hear Harlan open the side door of the van. It wasn’t until his feet were planted on the ground that she turned. “Oh, shit! Harlan!” she yelled with an urgent stage whisper. “No, no, no!” She struggled with her seatbelt and that gave Harlan just enou
gh time to move onto the grass and start toward a large stand of towering aspen trees that formed a small grove.
Freeing herself from the seatbelt, she rushed out of the van and stopped quickly, not wanting to attract attention. She could vaguely see Harlan in the grove, which gave her momentary solace that he wasn’t standing out like a sore thumb. Moving toward the trees in a pseudo casual manner, Jane stood near him. She looked at him and saw a visage that didn’t belong to Harlan. Within that short walk, he’d been transformed. And although she couldn’t be certain, she felt as if she was standing next to someone else.
“We can’t be out like this,” Jane whispered to him. “Come on.”
He didn’t budge. “We came here for a reason, Jane.”
“I know, but I can’t risk anyone—” she saw the yoga group break up and collectively roll up their mats.
Harlan drew in his breath quickly and grabbed his chest.
“What?” Jane tensely asked. “You having a heart attack?”
He was unable to speak and simply replied to her with a shake of his head.
Jane turned back to the yoga class. A brown-haired woman in her late thirties broke away from the group, carrying a mat under her arm. She appeared to be about eight months pregnant. She waved at a pickup truck that was just pulling into the park and carried an eager Australian Shepherd in the bed. A man who looked about forty got out of the pickup with a frisbee and let the dog out of the bed. The dog happily ran toward the woman who greeted it with a warm welcome. As the man sauntered toward her, she smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the lips before motioning that she would be right back. She headed in their direction, walking up the slight incline and past the grove, retrieving her car keys from a side pocket in her yoga pants. Harlan watched every second of every motion she made. The woman opened her car door, a modest Toyota Corolla, tossed in the yoga mat and locked the door. Walking back into the park, she stood just outside the aspen grove and searched for her partner and their dog.
Harlan moved toward the edge of the grove, his eyes focused so intently on the woman that Jane thought he would never emerge from it. Jane gingerly crept behind a trio of aspens and observed the scene. There was nothing else to do now except wait and watch it play out. She watched the woman cautiously. Now that she was closer, Jane could see her much better. She wore a simply wedding band and no other jewelry. There was a calm and kind light around her that was intoxicating. When she moved, she walked with gentle steps and a tender spirit. And somehow, she was familiar to Jane. With that realization, a pungent perfume of roses enveloped her senses. She was catapulted briefly back into the vision she had when she held Harlan’s hand back at the tiny cabin. Jane recalled inhaling the same fragrance as she stood inside a small house with lots of windows that allowed the breeze to waft through. She remembered the sound of a man and woman whispering and kissing in another room and the sense that the love they were making was of the highest expression. Turning back to the woman on the periphery of the aspen grove, she somehow knew in her heart this was the woman on the other side of the wall in that house. She was Marion.
As if Jane’s mind sent that sudden recognition out into the park, Marion turned and peered into the grove. Without one bit of fear, she seemed to know and she took several steps toward the trees. Jane swallowed hard and waited. Harlan never moved a muscle but kept his eyes lovingly focused on her. With one hand cupped on her protruding belly, she took several steps closer and met Harlan’s eyes.
Harlan began to hum so quietly at first that it was nearly imperceptible. But as he continued, Jane recognized the tune. “Just in Time.” She thought he was singing it to her back at the karaoke bar. How foolish could she be? she told herself. Marion walked into the grove, shaded by the towering branches and catkins that hung from the buds. Her eyes filled with tears as she stood there fixated. She turned briefly to Jane, her hazel eyes acknowledging her, and then returned her heart’s focus to Harlan. Still holding her belly with one hand, the tears rolled down her cheeks as she reached out to Harlan, brushing her fingers against his cheek. Her hand drifted to his heart where she rested her hand, pressing it lightly into his body. She closed her eyes and smiled as tears continued to fall and drift down her face. Opening her eyes, she took a deep breath.
“I’ve been waiting for this day,” she whispered to him, her hand never moving from his heart. “I still have the note you gave me. It’s tucked away where only I can find it. ‘Til our hearts meet again, you’ll know me in the strangest of faces.’” Marion managed a sad smile.
Harlan’s eyes swelled with tears as he placed his hand over hers. “Thank you.”
“Marion?” the voice called out from the park.
She didn’t seem to hear it. Jane stepped forward.
“You have to go,” Jane whispered.
Marion didn’t move.
“Marion?” Jane said, seeing her husband and their dog start up the incline toward the aspen grove. “You have to leave now. Please!”
Marion stepped back, never taking her eyes off Harlan. She touched her heart as if to say “goodbye” and walked down into the park to meet her husband.
Harlan immediately collapsed on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Jane quickly walked behind him, crouching down and wrapping her arm around his shoulder.
“I’ve never felt anything like that in my whole life,” Harlan cried. “Never. That’s more than love. I can’t even put it into words. It’s like seein’ yourself in another person’s eyes and knowin’ you’ve found the missin’ piece.” He got hold of himself. “Have you ever felt that, Jane?”
She wiped away a tear that appeared out of nowhere. “I don’t know.”
He turned to her. “You’d know it if you did.”
They waited until no one was around before returning to the van. They drove in silence for several miles, heading southwest toward the next destination. As her mind began to move back onto the case at hand, she chided herself for not bringing up the mysterious Werner Haas name to Monroe when he was somewhat able to respond in an intelligent manner. She pulled the van over to the side of the road and announced to Harlan that she was returning to Monroe’s house with the idea of getting to the bottom of his “Haas” comment. Just as she started to pull the van away from the shoulder, she saw a police car in the far distance zooming up behind her with lights flashing.
“Shit,” Jane whispered.
As the patrol car moved closer, she could hear the siren piercing the air. Scanning the area, she tried to come up with a suitable escape but fell short each time. The siren screamed with a harsh tenor. She looked into her side mirror and watched the black and white, powering toward her van. “Please, God, no,” she whispered. Jane closed her eyes as if to block it out and felt the air shift as he burned rubber past the van and continued at breakneck speed down the highway. Letting out a sigh of relief, she stuck the key back into the ignition and then stopped again when she spied a fire truck barreling down the highway, with lights flashing and sirens blaring. That truck was joined by two more. As they passed her van, she started feeling ill and lightheaded. She turned the key and tore onto the highway, shadowing the fire trucks on their ten-mile rescue. When she crested the farthest hill, thick black smoke billowed into the bluebird sky. Two miles later, she slowed down. The patrol car, followed by the trio of fire trucks, turned onto Monroe’s road and set up a perimeter around his burning house. Harlan crawled to the front of the van and took in the scene.
“Damn, Jane. You think he set it?”
She nervously checked out the surrounding area, recalling the ominous sight of Rudy calmly standing by his sedan as the Anubus blew up and watching the aftermath. “No, I don’t.” She checked her side mirror and spun the van around, blazing down the highway in the opposite direction.
“What does this mean, Jane?” Harlan asked nervously.
She stared straight ahead, silent.
“Jane! What’s going on?” he said again with
more firmness.
“I think they might be onto us.”
“The cops?”
“No! Romulus!”
She drove like a demon, heading southwest. Harlan hung on for dear life.
“Jane! Slow it down, would you? We don’t to attract unwanted attention.”
Jane let up on the gas and slowed down to the speed limit. “He knew it was going to happen, Harlan. Remember? He kept saying he was so hot? He even said he felt like he was on fire.” What in the hell was that, she thought. Precognitive sensations? Feeling the future before it happens? As much as Monroe did in his short life, he didn’t deserve this kind of death. The poor guy probably only had nineteen or twenty years of somewhat normalcy before he got sucked into Romulus and destroyed forever. He’d been discarded because he was another liability. He was taken out in the same measured manner as when you set a mousetrap and then dispose of the dead mouse while you’re chatting on the phone. It’s a great approach unless you are the mouse and you trip that trap. Jane said a quiet prayer, asking God to watch over him. She drove for another two hours, staying off the main road.
Arriving back in the heart of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, Jane turned onto none other than Highway 17 and headed north. Twenty miles later, she found a vacant rest area that had access to free Wi-Fi. Since they had the parking lot to themselves, Harlan got out of the van to stretch his legs and use the public restroom. Jane paced around the grassy islands, still shaking internally from the events of the past few hours. Instead of cogitating on the breathtaking experience between Harlan and Marion, Jane had to put that aside as thoughts of their safety moved to the forefront. Harlan came out of the bathroom and headed back into the van, keeping the side door open. He lay back, flipping through one of the Q magazines before drifting off to sleep.
As his snoring hit levels that could shatter glass, Jane scooped up her laptop and leather satchel, grabbed some lunchmeat and cheese and crossed to one of the nearby grassy islands. Seated under a tree, she typed “Ajna” into the search field. Choosing the first link, she read that, “According to the Hindu tradition, the Ajna is the sixth chakra. It is positioned in the brain, directly behind the eyebrow center and known as ‘the mind’s eye.’ Its activation site is at the eyebrow region, in the position of the ‘third eye’.” Scrolling down, Jane continued to read. “Ajna is also known as the ‘eye of intuition.’ But it is much more than that. It is considered the bridge between the various spiritual worlds as well as the point that, when activated, can link two people and allow them to communicate, no matter the distance.” A quote at the bottom of the page read: “He who masters the power of the Ajna, masters his life through clarity of sight. He who masters clarity of sight, holds more power than all the riches of the world combined.”
