Knowing (21 page)

While it seems the psychopath has everything going for him, he does lack a few important traits. The first thing he lacks is a conscience. Jane had seen it too many times on the job that a true psychopath understands absolutely nothing that the human heart is normally wired to perceive. Somewhere down the line, the internal connection that links their heart with their mind was severed. And from that, the psychopath moves through life without fear of reprisal. But their built-in need to control others and outcomes carries its own problems. And from that, Jane discovered the one thing that psychopaths despise.

They hate spontaneity.

Whether it is a sudden “act of God” or a random interloper who comes out of nowhere, spontaneous events put a cog in their wheel. Their well-crafted scenarios are always planned to the last breath. While they allow for the occasional unexpected blips, they are usually not able to navigate their ships when they encounter waves of unplanned rebellion. Artificial rebellion is one thing because the true psychopath recognizes it for what it is and knows it will never result in any groundbreaking change. But honest mutiny that happens naturally is what the psychopath fears. They would never admit it, of course. And they will call out their attack dogs to suppress it in all ways possible. This is when their cool confidence often slips; this is when they grit their teeth and sometimes make mistakes.

More than anything, the psychopath needs to always be in control of others and he holds onto that control as if it were his own breath. The psychopath does not want his minions to wake up. Their slumber is necessary in order for him to enact his crooked schemes. An unchecked uprising could create the opening for other minions to wake up to the psychopath’s ruse and that could never be tolerated. If themes such as love, compassion, forgiveness, integrity and honor are promoted too much, there wouldn’t be enough energy left to hate, destroy, and create chaos. It is a requirement that the human spirit be squashed in order for the psychopath to continue his terror unabated. It is necessary for people to believe that the only power they have comes from whatever the psychopath allows them to believe they earned.

“Gingers,” Jane said out loud.

“What’s that?” Harlan replied, turning the TV on Mute.

“Gabriel told Nanette to watch out for them. It was an odd comment from a guy who seemed pretty free-thinking. But he wasn’t talking about red heads in general. He meant these guys,” she motioned to the TV news conference that was about to end.

Harlan continued to rub the back of his neck.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked.

“You sure I don’t have somethin’ stuck back there?” he asked, turning his back to Jane.

She looked again. “You’ve rubbed it so hard, you’ve got a blister forming.”

He growled. “I just want to get a knife and dig at it.”

“Jesus, Harlan. Get a hold of yourself.”

He stopped rubbing his neck and stared at the television. The news conference was wrapping up and Rudy put his hand on Steve Crandall’s back as if to guide him out of the room. But the gesture imparted a lot more than guidance to Jane. It looked more like a man putting his hand up the back of a puppet.

She shook her head. “You really couldn’t see through him, Harlan?”

“I was raised not to judge people.”

“Oh, fuck. It’s not judgment, Harlan. There’s a huge difference between judging someone’s lifestyle and looking into their eyes and seeing their truth.” She turned to Harlan. “Or their lies. Or their sickness. Or their intentions to hurt you.

“How do you figure out people, Jane?”

“I observe them. Every single day I watch them and I keep little notes in my head about things I see and then I sort the little notes into some little files. Generally, everybody who is in the same little file usually has the same big issues. Finally, I filter my observations even more and break the files down until I’m able to see between their lines.”

“You mean
read
between their lines?”

“No. I mean
see
. It’s hard to explain. I’ve read all the psych books but there are things you can’t really put into words and if you did, it would sound bizarre. You have to see it and when you do, you understand it because you’ve seen the same colors and shapes before in someone else.”

“Like what?” Harlan asked, truly interested.

“I know what abuse looks like. That’s an easy one. I know what being told you’re no fucking good looks like.” She hesitated, drawing up a dark memory from her past.

“How?”

“It’s in the way they walk. They’re really tentative, not wanting to invest themselves in the next step because they’ve been told so many times they’re a fucking failure.”

“How do you help them, Jane?”

“You can’t help most of them.”

“How come?”

“Because they don’t want help. They’re too fucked up by the time I meet them. I know that when I deal with a woman who has been repeatedly physically abused by a long line of partners, she keeps attracting the same assholes because she believes she deserves the abuse. She likes the drama that comes out of it. Hell, she feeds off of it. She loves playing the victim and she’ll never change. Because the dirty little secret is that on some level, she actually craves abuse. It’s the only time she feels alive and loved. She never got the memo that in all relationships, the woman is
always
in charge. Even the ones who are on the floor getting the shit kicked out of them, even
those
women are still in charge of the relationship.”

“You mean that?”

“Harlan, I’ve seen it a million times. Women rule every single relationship, even the ones that are toxic. The abused woman has the power to leave but, because she thinks she’s a piece of shit, she chooses to stay with the bad guy because a good man is weak in her eyes. A good man hates the drama. A bad man requires it.”

“Humph,” he said. “Never thought of it that way.” He paused for a second. “Can you walk into someone’s house and figure them out if they ain’t there?”

“Sure. I do that all the time. You can tell a lot about a person from being in their house. Somebody once said that a person is only as good as what he or she does when nobody else is watching. That’s true. But since that’s unseen, it’s my job to perceive what other people either can’t see or refuse to look at.”

He leaned on his thighs. “Like what?”

“You can determine a lot about a man or woman by how they treat their animals and their houseplants. If the dogs are cowering and the plants are dead or need water, that’s a ‘tell.’”

“Ha! That makes sense.”

“I don’t trust people who are happy all the time. And the ones who are deliriously happy 24/7? Those are the ones who are hiding the biggest secrets. I don’t have a lot of confidence in a man who always has a clean desk. They’re usually very sterile individuals. A cluttered desk shows me a mind that is engaged in more than one pursuit and interested in many. I prefer people who drink their coffee black. They aren’t afraid of tasting something bitter. When I meet someone who insists on dumping sugar into their brew, I know they need to sweeten the bitterness of their life. And those who pour cream into their coffee need to dilute the bitterness of life. Those are the ones who don’t want to believe that life can be acrid and unpleasant. If you want a no nonsense person who can deal with a problem head on, find a coffee drinker who takes it black.”

“You drink it black, Jane?”

She smiled. “I drink it black.”

“What if they prefer tea?”

“What kind of tea?”

“Sweet tea?”

“That a cultural thing. But a man who opts for chamomile tea at night over decaf leans toward being a pacifist. Those are the people pleasers—the ones who have a difficult time making a decision because they’re afraid of offending others. Lots of Libras, Pisces and Cancers love chamomile tea at night.”

“What about the folks who don’t drink tea or anything else?”

“You mean the purists?”

“Yeah. The teetotalers.”

“The ones who brag about how liquor or drugs have never touched their lips? I don’t like them. They see themselves with a false superiority. They like to believe that if they don’t dip into the coal, they’ll be removed from the soot. But they don’t realize that it’s the soot that creates the character and the compassion and fills all those nooks and crannies with hard-earned mistakes and lessons. The purists are so afraid of soiling themselves that they don’t see the payoff from the redemption. I like people who have allowed alcohol and drugs to pass their lips and gone into the bowels of hell and then come out the other side. I like them when they stop the drink and drugs and find their souls. Because unlike the purists, the ones who have seen hell and survived it will never judge those who continue to struggle. The purist will judge from sheer ignorance because he’s allowed himself to believe that there is some sort of prize gained from abstention. But he limits himself to a rose colored world that isn’t real and holds no fire. A man or woman with no fire is easily manipulated Harlan, and they’ll believe whatever supports their narrow-minded agenda. But you want to know the ones I really stay clear of?”

He leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “Who?”

“The ones who like to tell you that there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ I’m aware of that fact and, in my opinion, therein lies the problem with that word.” She smiled.

He laughed. “Hell, Jane. I’ve never met nobody like you before.”

“Well, Harlan, ditto. Right back at you.” She glanced at the TV screen. A graphic showing the
Anubus
crash flashed on the screen. Jane quickly turned on the sound.

“Police tell us there will be an update in the next few hours regarding the bus explosion that occurred south of Denver several days ago. The horrific accident that claimed all passengers on board is still thought to be caused a faulty fuel line.”

The news shifted to another story and Jane muted the sound. So, they were sticking with the faulty fuel line ruse. Who paid off the investigators, Jane wondered. Or were the investigators specifically chosen because they were already bought and paid for? She could easily see how all-consuming this deception could become. In order for it to work, you’d have to have people in place who were from all walks of life and in all kinds of employment. It must be like a giant Rolodex, Jane determined. Each time a fire had to be put out or started, the man at the top spun that Rolodex and like Russian roulette, pulled the trigger on the next asset in the complicated chain.

“Hey,” Harlan said. “You hear that? No more hubba-hubba comin’ from the second floor.”

Jane nodded. “Don’t get too excited. They’re probably just resting before the bell rings on round two.”

Harlan found the rest of his chocolate milkshake from the drive-thru and finished it. He enthusiastically knocked back six raw eggs after that, along with half of the yogurt from the dairy farm. He capped off his odd meal with a bottle of the pine needle beer, smacking his lips like a satisfied glutton. By the time Harlan was through, he rubbed his bloated belly and lay back down on his bed. Seconds later, he was snoring like a seasoned pro.

Jane brought out the two ball caps, along with the LED lights, wires, electrical tape, switches and batteries she purchased. Using a knife to poke ten holes in the seam right above the visor, Jane then wrapped the wires onto the LED lights with the proper positive and negative connections confirmed before poking them through the various holes on the cap. She then taped the loose wires together, affixing them to the nine-volt battery, which she secured in the back open seam of the hat. She repeated the same thing with the second hat. In fewer than thirty minutes, she had the perfect foil for the standard security camera. Her creation wouldn’t be effective for blowing through the NSA, CIA, FBI or any other alphabet organization. But for the typical, run-of-the-mill security camera at gas stations, supermarkets, etc., this would do the job very well. Jane had to give all the credit to a smarmy little two-bit hack she’d met on the job during one of DH’s investigations. When she noticed his ball cap was lit up, she asked him about it. He informed her that the LED lights blind cameras, creating a ball of light around a person’s face when they are on camera, thereby making it impossible to clearly identify them. With the advanced facial recognition software that Jane knew was out there, this low-tech answer to becoming invisible seemed like the perfect plan.

She ate the last hamburger, even though it was cold, and drained the last of her chocolate shake. Looking over at Harlan, he was sound asleep. Jane wished she could do the same but her head raced too much for sleep to overtake her. She eyed the case of beer that sat next to Harlan’s bed. That always helped her sleep. Sure, it took at least six of them, followed by several generous shots of Jack Daniels to guarantee the results. But it slowed her head down and that was worth its weight in gold. She glanced at Harlan again and then carefully reached down to the case. Opening the flap, Jane slid one of the tartan labeled bottles out of the box. Cradling it between her palms, she felt the sensuous slender neck of the bottle between her fingers. That’s where she’d always hold the bottle between her first and second fingers. It was comforting right then. Almost too comforting.

She turned to Harlan and saw the bottle opener that had fallen into the folds of the comforter. A strange, high-pitched whistle began to ring in her right ear. She quickly shut off the television, thinking it was coming from there but the whistle continued unabated.
One is too many
, she heard in her head,
and a thousand is never enough
. Why that old AA saying suddenly crept into her consciousness was anybody’s guess. But there it was and it kept repeating in her head like a broken record. Finally, she put the bottle back into the case and held her ear. The whistle stopped and the pain disappeared. Jane turned back to the case and leaned toward it again. The whistle commenced again and she sat back on the bed. The whistle stopped, this time with a defined finish.

Jane glanced around the room. The air felt curiously thick and probing. Harlan continued to snore, happily lost in deep sleep. She pushed the pillow into her low back and sat up, still canvassing the room. It looked as if the light was dimming slightly. She waited and watched and then waited a few minutes more before she spoke. “Gabriel?” she whispered, feeling somewhat insane at that moment. The light in the room appeared to gradually return to normal. She donned her refurbished ball cap and pulled it low over her forehead. Flicking the switch that was attached to the nine-volt battery, the pinprick LED lights glowed softly against the fabric. She sunk down against the headboard, squashing her body against the pillow and imagined herself invisible.