Knowing (5 page)

“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 could 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 kno
w
ing
…” 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.

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 putting the
k
i
bosh
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.”

He considered her words. “Well, I don’t know shit, I’m not a thief and if I saw somethin’, I sure as hell don’t remember it.”

“That’s helpful,” she deadpanned. “It doesn’t make sense but you must be one helluva HVT.”

“HVT?”

“High Value Target.”

Harlan took in a quick breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve heard that before but I can’t remember where.”

“Somebody called you that?”

“No. Not me.” He buried his head in his hands. “Oh, shit. I’m gettin’ all jumbled up again in my head. It’s gettin’ worse than ever now. I don’t know who I am anymore! I don’t know what belongs to me. I can’t be sure what
my
memories are because they keep tanglin’ up with his.”

“His?”

Harlan pointed to his heart. “
His
!

“How do you know your heart came from a man?”

“I ain’t sure how I know,
but I know
. You remember them dreams I told you about? Sometimes in them I pass a mirror or a real still pool of water and I almost catch my reflection. And while I can’t see it exactly, it ain’t Harlan Kipple lookin’ back. It’s like when I’m runnin’ in that field when I’m…
he
…when he’s a kid…with that .22? I’m so free. So alive.” Harlan shook his head. “Goddamnit, I sound plug crazy, don’t I?”

Jane would have agreed with Harlan a few years ago. But her own bizarre journey dancing between that thin veil of reality made her a believer. She still used logic as her first approach but the understanding and appreciation of what lurks on the other side was not far behind. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Harlan.”

He looked relieved and let out a grateful exhale. “Thank you. It’s hard to explain. You know when you got a guest in your house that you’ve never met before? Ever notice how it’s like the edges around them are real sharp and unfamiliar so they stand out in your house? But if you feel a kind of harmony around them, the sharp edges melt and they begin to blend into the house as if they’re part of it. That’s the way I feel with him inside me. No sharp edges. He’s not a guest anymore. He’s part of my house now.”

She considered his words, impressed by his explanation. “Maybe…I don’t know…whoever’s heart you have inside you is helping you sort out the chaos.” Jane couldn’t believe she said that. It was done to placate Harlan but then it sounded oddly rational.

He nodded. “Yes! That’s what I’ve been thinkin’ too.” He approached Jane with urgency. “But I think he plays an even bigger role in all this.”

“What kind of bigger role?”

“Like maybe there’s a connection between
him
and everything else that can’t be explained?”

“That’s a stretch, Harlan.”

“Why? My whole world has been upside down and inside out since I woke up from my surgery. Every day I feel like I’m walkin’ a tightrope between different worlds!”

“I’m sure other heart transplant patients feel the same way—”

“No, no, no. Don’t patronize me. This is deeper. There
are
connections and I aim to find them.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Harlan measured his words carefully. “There are times he takes me over. It’s happenin’ a lot more now. And when it happens, I keep gettin’ drawn to places and people and things that must mean somethin’ to him,” Harlan pointed to his heart.

Jane needed to tread lightly. “Okay. But maybe it’s just left over memories that transferred over somehow when his heart was put into your body.” Jane was open to new ideas but even she was wondering what in the hell she was talking about. “Why do you think it has to be bigger than that?”

“Because before I got my new heart, my life was as predictable as day followin’ night. For nearly forty years,
absolutely nothin’
of any import happened to Harlan Kipple. Then, slap-bam, I get me a new ticker and I start to go nuts as my world gets crazier by the day. I mean, hello there, I
am
on the run for a murder I didn’t commit! Have we forgotten that?! I ain’t a smart man but I can put two and two together and it adds up that all this strangeness is connected to
this
heart.” He wiped a few more errant leaves from his tangled beard. “Them dreams I’ve been havin’? They’re tryin’ to lead me someplace. When I was at The Blue Heron bar that night talkin’ to Rudy and I told him how I felt I was on the verge of figurin’ it all out, I was plannin’ to take a road trip. I was hopin’ he’d go with me cause he was the only one who believed me. But then, shit happened.”

Road trip.
Jane quickly recalled that that was how her day started out as well. And then, shit happened. “What kind of road trip?”

“If I’m gonna find any kind of peace in my life, I need to find out who this is inside me. How do I set myself free if I don’t know who I am? Who he is? Who he was? I feel like if I put the puzzle pieces together, everything else will make sense.”

“I don’t understand. What pieces?”

“The pieces of his life,” Harlan said, pointing to his heart.

Jane needed to inject a modicum of reality. “You’re on the run for murder, Harlan. A brutal, stem to stern
,
braining-bashing, death penalty
, murder.
Now, I know you didn’t do it, but that’s going to be a tough sell now since you escaped custody. Your face will be plastered on every local TV news program. Your mug will be on the Internet and on posters throughout the state. Everybody from your next door neighbor to your first grade teacher is going to whore themselves out on national TV to talk about
you.
What you were like, who you hung out with, on and on. I don’t think a road trip is prudent right now.”

“I beg to differ.” He looked surprised at himself. “There!
Right there
! Who in the hell says, ‘I beg to differ’? Not Harlan Kipple! That’s
him
talkin’ right there.”

Jane looked at Harlan askance. “Oh, fuck. You can’t go on the run, Harlan! Look, somehow you need to get back to Denver and talk to someone who can sort this out—”

“No and
hell no
! That’s
me
talkin’! Mr. Ramos or whoever he works for set me up for a murder I did not commit. And then he tried to off me with the help of a doctor and a fake cop this mornin’! I don’t stand a chance in hell of goin’ back to Denver and sortin’ this out. It ain’t the cops I’m mainly worried about. The cops ain’t got
nothin
’ on the psycho, sons-of-bitches who want me dead! Hey, if they can get a damn
doctor
to sign on to their plan, they obviously have friends in high places! How high up does that go? Lawyers? Judges? Maybe higher?”

“You sound a little paranoid there, Harlan.”

“Ya think I might got a right to be?! I’m screwed six ways to Sunday, lady! If I went back to Denver, I bet you biscuits to a bankroll I’d be dead in less than twenty-four hours!”

Jane silently agreed, given the explosive footprint of the
Anubus
coach earlier that day. Yes, someone needed to kill Harlan Kipple and anyone close to him who knew a thing about his faux murder indictment. But why? No, no. She wasn’t going to go there. This was not her problem. She had plans, dammit. Personal plans that had a deadline she intended on meeting. “Well, I don’t know how you expect to work this out now, given the circumstances—”

“Ain’t it obvious? I got your car and I got you…
a homicide cop
, no less! I understand now why my heart led me to jack your ride and not that crappy pickup.” Jane stared at him in stunned silence. “We’ll lay low tonight and then start out tomorrow…lettin’ my heart lead the way. And little by little, I
will
figure out what’s goin’ on.”

“Harlan, you really are delusional,” Jane retorted, “if you think you’re kidnapping me and my car so you can…find yourself! For God’s sake, I’ve got a gun,” she pointed to the Glock secured in the front of her jeans. “I could shoot you and end this right now.”

“Aw, hell,” Harland said softly, “I got me a gun too
and
an extra clip that I stole off that fake cop. I could shoot you too. But I ain’t gonna and you ain’t gonna shoot me neither.” Harlan’s insistence on gunning down the English language was like fingernails on a chalkboard to Jane. But no matter how guilty he was of grammatical dysfunction, his message was accurate. Jane wasn’t going to plug him. She just wanted out of that damn aspen grove and away from the growing realization that she was between a rock and a very hard place. “Harlan, I’ve got personal business in northern New Mexico and I’ve got a short window of time to take care of that business—”

“That works out fine, actually. See, my heart is pushing me south of here. Well, kinda south and then southwest and then east again and then—”

“Harlan! If I take you with me, I’m harboring a fugitive! I’ve worked my ass off to get where I’ve gotten. I’ve waded through shit and hell to make it to this point. I’m not throwing away everything I’ve worked for on you!”

He was heartbroken. To Jane, he looked like a puppy—an obese puppy—you want to rescue but you know you’d end up regretting it later on. But then, his expression changed. It wasn’t aggressive but it felt very focused and almost otherworldly. It was if he was boring into Jane’s mind and rifling through the intricate web of her surging thoughts. “You don’t have a choice,” Harlan quietly stated, his eyes glazing over as he spoke with a different modulation. “You made your bed this morning. You threw away a part of yourself because you saw something that made you a believer. You’re as much on the run as I am.” His words appeared to shock him back into his body.

Jane looked at him with guarded courtesy. “How in the hell did you just do that?”

“I have no damn idea. But it looks like you and I are two peas in a dangerous pod.”

Oh, shit
, Jane thought, as she ran her fingers through her hair. The dye was cast and there was no looking back. Letting out a sigh, Jane resumed her all-business tenor. “You said you’ve been collecting stuff in a bag and writing down your thoughts? Well, let’s see it.”

Jane slid into the driver’s seat of the Mustang while Harlan wedged his thick frame into the passenger side. He lifted a dirty burlap sack the size of a small gym bag off the floor of the passenger seat and removed a five-inch black spiral notebook with a faux snakeskin cover. Turning to the first page, he held it out to Jane. On the top of the page Harlan had drawn the letter “R” surrounded by what looked like a diamond. Beneath that was the rough drawing of an animal that looked like a vicious dog.

“What’s that?” Jane asked, pointing to the animal.

“A wolf,” Harlan said as if it was obvious.

“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What does the ‘R’ stand for?”

“Hell if I know.”

She examined the letter and surrounding diamond closer. “It kind of looks like a shield or maybe a family crest?”

Harlan regarded her with a blank expression. “Okay.”

“What prompts you to scribble this stuff?” She glanced through the book.

“Prompts?” he asked with a quizzical expression.

Jane looked at him. “Yeah. You know? What triggers you to write all this?”

“Oh. I don’t know. I don’t remember drawin’ or writin’ any of it. But I can tell you that right before it comes through me, my head gets real quiet. I feel this pressure building between my ears and at the base of my head and then as quickly as that starts, it just stops. That’s when I see the blue light special and hear the noon day whistle.”