Redemption

by Laurel Dewey

  “You have to go back and check it out when she’s not there,” Weyler stressed.

  “That’s easier said than done, Boss.”

  “What if Rachel Hartly’s hiding someone?”

  “Lou?”

  “Yeah. Or Charlotte.” A chill went down Jane’s spine. “Just go back and check around so you can rule out Rachel.” Jane reluctantly agreed. That was going to be one tough assignment. “I don’t have anything for you on the DNA from that condom. The lab’s closed until January 2. But I got a good connection over there. The cousin of an ex-wife of a former desk sergeant heads the department.”

  Jane let out a soft chuckle at Weyler’s convoluted connections.”You do get around, Boss.” It felt good to talk to him. It was like home.

  “How are you doing, in spite of all this?” Weyler asked, sounding paternal.

  Jane opted to not mention the strange phone call she received with the whispered “Let me help you.” She took a drag on her cigarette. A rare swell of vulnerability washed over her. In a sudden wave, the impact of her whiskey binge forty-eight hours ago grabbed at her throat. Tears unexpectedly welled and fell down her face. Jane tried to choke back the emotion, but it was useless. “I went out, Boss.”

  Weyler took a breath. “It happens. You’re human. You keep forgetting that.”

  “I had six months,” Jane softly said, tears still flowing.

  “You’ll get another six months. Then a year. Then a decade. And then a life.”

  “I’m a failure, Boss. I’ll be thirty-six in twelve days. What do I have to show for it?”

  “There’s people alive today because of you.”

  “People are dead because of me, too.”

  “What do you want me to tell you, Jane? That you’re a good person going through a bad patch? That there’s a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train? That from this moment on you’re never going to go out again? Maybe you will go out again. And if you do, you’ll start over.”

  Jane winced at the thought. “I don’t have the energy to keep that up, Boss.”

  “Then figure it out.” Weyler’s voice was hard for the first time. He knew that suffocating Jane in a sympathetic blanket would serve no purpose.

  His tone worked. Jane drew in the rest of her resolve. She thought back on the trigger for her binge. “Boss? Do you believe that a person can be two polar opposites in the same life? A perpetrator and a victim?”

  “A sinner and a saint? Of course.”

  “Does it make a difference if they were the saint first?”

  “Yes. Because then their ending is tragic.” There was a meaningful pause.

  They ended their conversation just as the rain began to fall with greater fervor. Jane sprinted to the front office to retrieve Weyler’s fax of Lou’s receipts. One of the cable news channels played loudly in the foreground as Barry retrieved the fax. It was the same, worn-out loop of tape from Charlotte’s birthday bash. Jane had the damn thing memorized. The kid’s rainbow wig. The self-conscious giggle. The red leather jacket. The snake emblem on her tank top. Jane reached into her pocket and rubbed the snakestone totem against the single sobriety chip. Clues, Jane thought as she stared blankly at the TV screen. What was she missing? Barry handed her the fax and insisted on ten minutes of idle gossip before Jane was able to duck out of the office.

  The rain poured outside as she secured the fax under her jacket and ran back to the cabin. When she got to the door, it was slightly ajar. Jane poked her head inside and found the room empty. She turned and scanned the parking lot. Sheets of rain pelted the asphalt. Between the streetlights and shadows, Jane spotted Kit standing still near the far wall of the parking lot. She seemed to be staring intently at someone or something that Jane could not see. She yelled at Kit, but Kit remained unmoved. Jane raced across the parking lot, the deep puddles of rainwater splashing up to her knees. She yelled Kit’s name again. Still no reaction. Jane was within twenty-five feet of Kit when she yelled at her once again. This time, Kit turned to Jane with an otherworldly expression accompanied by generous tears rolling down her face.

  “What is it?” Jane asked Kit, out of breath and sopping wet.

  Kit turned back to where her attention had been focused. She bent her head, defeated. “I need to get inside,” Kit quietly replied as she walked back to the cabin.

  Jane squinted into the shadows and the relentless rain in the direction Kit had been fixated. She saw nothing. But that didn’t stop the icy shudder that raced up her spine.

  CHAPTER 24

  JANUARY 1

  Sleep came hard for Jane. Every forty-five minutes, she woke with a restless jerk, her mind racing. As she watched the New Year’s rising sun slip through the crack in the drapes, Jane felt old. Her lower back ached; partly from stress and partly from the cheap mattresses Barry had bought for the cabins. It had been her first sober New Year’s Eve. But if her head was any indication, she might as well have drained a bottle of Jim Beam. A dull stupor overwhelmed her senses, mixed with a rock-tired throbbing behind her eyes. Even two cups of her special gourmet coffee did little to assuage the pain. Kit had gotten up early to walk outside and greet the rising sun, an apparent New Year’s Day tradition. Fortunately, the storm clouds had abated overnight, transforming Oakhurst into a drier, yet still damp around the edges town.

  Jane tiredly dressed in her running outfit, checking Kit’s whereabouts outside every few minutes. Kit was finishing her second of five turns around the parking lot, walking backward and humming “Bobby McGee.” From what Jane could decipher, Kit was back to her old, albeit eccentric, self. Nothing was said regarding Kit’s strange journey across the parking lot the previous night. As much as Jane wanted to question her, she figured she’d already caused Kit enough grief by pulling a gun on the woman and accusing her of disreputable actions.

  Jane grabbed her pack of Marlboros and then spied the American Spirits Kit bought for her. “What the hell,” she thought as Jane tossed the Marlboros to the side and withdrew a cigarette from the all-natural tobacco pack. Outside, she lit the cigarette and sucked the smoke into her lungs. It was surprisingly strong and satisfying. After two more hard drags, Jane carefully extinguished the ember and rested the cigarette on the window ledge. She waved to Kit and pantomimed that she was setting off on her run. Two days ago, Jane would have just taken off. But now she resolved to do whatever it took to reconnect with Kit and, hopefully, regain their old sense of camaraderie and shared purpose.

  As Jane rounded the front office, she stopped to see the headline of the Fresno Bee. The reward fund for finding Charlotte Walker had jumped to $85,000. Jane knew that Clinton Fredericks was already planning how to spend the money. The night before, Kit and Jane had watched Clinton interview Leann Hamilton in front of the Walker’s house. But Leann wasn’t acting in the same manner as when she talked to Lesley Stahl. Her nerves were frayed. Dark circles lay under her eyes like ebony stains of smeared mascara. There was also a disturbing shell-shocked look that worried Jane. Leann spoke so quietly at times that Clinton had to repeatedly ask her to talk louder. She peppered too many “um’s” and “ah’s” throughout her answers. When Leann wasn’t studying the ground with her eyes, she was biting the flesh off her thumbnail. Leann looked like a trapped rabbit right before the slaughter. It was god-awful, Jane decided. Just god-awful.

  As an act of good faith to Kit, Jane tipped her off that Trace Fagin had Charlotte’s bracelet in his possession. She also let Kit know that Clinton was shadowing her. Jane capped off the information dump with the fact that Charlotte had gone missing for thirty-six hours over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and that the media planned to make it their New Year’s Eve top story. When she revealed that Sergeant Weyler was her source for the inside information, Kit exclaimed, “How did you get your Sergeant Weyler to get involved in our good cause?”

  “I promised I’d return to DH in the sergeant’s position he offered.”

  Kit was clearly taken aback. “Th
at’s quite a compromise for you to make.”

  “I needed his help. Like you said, time is ticking away. I had no choice.”

  “You made that deal for me?” Kit asked.

  “I made it for us,” Jane said with a shrug of her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” Kit said, her opinion of Jane rising quickly.

  Jane let out a long sigh, tracing the carpet with her eyes. “I watch over people, Kit. I protect them. I rescue them. That’s my job.” Jane’s voice was detached. “That’s always been my job. My mother died of cancer when I was ten. I was the only one with her when it happened. Right before she died, she told me to watch over Mike. I hated her for giving up on us. And I blamed her for making me responsible for Mike’s safety. But after a while, I didn’t do it because she asked me to. I did it because it’s who I became.” Jane looked Kit in the eye. “I may be a drunk. I may have a ‘fuck you’ attitude. I may jump to wild conclusions when I shouldn’t. But no one can ever say I’m not responsible. When people ask me to help them, I do it. I knew you couldn’t find Lou all alone. And I knew that if I didn’t go with you and I found out later that something awful had happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

  Kit looked at Jane with deep compassion. “Jane, when you spend your life taking care of other people, you never get a chance to know yourself. The other people become convenient distractions because, deep down, examining who you are is too frightening.”

  “Knowing oneself is a luxury.”

  “Knowing oneself is freedom. Do you think we all need to be rescued by you, Jane?”

  “Charlotte needs to be rescued.”

  “Yes, she does. But I don’t. When you’re told as a child that you must rescue others, you believe that everyone you come in contact with wants or needs you to liberate them. That’s not always true. Some people just need to do what they have to do in order to make their lives right.”

  Jane was perplexed. The idea of allowing someone else to go about their life without her stellar judgment seemed patently careless. And what did Kit mean by “in order to make their lives right”? Jane stiffened. “What if something happens?”

  “Something always happens, Jane.”

  “I’m talking something bad.”

  “What’s considered bad to you, may not be bad to someone else. Bad is objective.”

  “I’m talking death. Death is not objective.”

  “In the end, Jane, it’s all objective. My intention was never to be rescued by you. You’re my ally. And besides, did you ever consider that, perhaps, our partnership exists so that I can rescue you?”

  Jane jogged down the quiet back road behind the Cabins. “Rescue me?” she thought, her feet beating out a syncopated rhythm on the wet pavement. What an odd thing to say. She crested the far hill and passed the line of trees where Shane Golden had posted Charlotte’s missing child flyers. The heavy rain had warped the posters, turning Charlotte’s smiling face into a distorted visage. Jane stopped in front of one of the posters to catch her breath. She found herself fixating on the kid’s face. She recalled a psychic DH had brought in years before to help locate a missing boy. The woman’s eyes glazed over as she disappeared into the black-and-white photo of the child. She told everyone present that a part of her left the room and melted into the soul of the little boy. The tears that rolled down the psychic’s cheeks signaled to Jane that she felt the boy was dead. Two days later, they found the torso of the boy buried in a sewage pond.

  Jane stared into the weather-warped photograph of Charlotte in an attempt to feel into the girl’s soul. “Where are you, Charlotte?” Jane whispered. Her meditative moment was interrupted by the approaching sound of an SUV. Jane quickly resumed her run. However, the SUV slowed to a crawl as it came within spitting distance. Jane glanced over and saw Clinton at the wheel, rolling down the electric window on the passenger side. He looked as if he’d spent the night in his clothes and partied until the wee hours of the morning.

  “Damn, Jane! I never took you for being an exercise freak!” Jane continued to jog as Clinton rolled next to her. She hoped her silence would speak volumes, but the guy was as dense as the overgelled lumps of uncombed hair that lay against his thick skull. “I did a little investigative research on you,” Clinton said, his voice sounding like he swallowed a box of nails. “You’re not working at Denver Headquarters anymore! J.P.I.? Isn’t that what you call your new business?” Jane maintained her steady jog and silent loathing. “So, why are you involved in finding our little Miss Charlotte?”

  Jane gathered her best acting skills. “I told you, I have no interest in her.”

  “Then how come you slowed down yesterday near the mile-marker where they picked up Fagin?”

  Jane’s ire boiled inside. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. All I know is what I heard on the news last night. They said the kid went missing over the Thanksgiving holiday. So she’s obviously a freakin’ runaway who happens to chose holidays for her spontaneous getaways. No mystery there!”

  “Don’t you think there’s a helluva difference between thirty-six hours and,” Clinton checked his commando-style wristwatch, “going on 140 hours?” Jane shook her head with a blasé attitude. “Happy New Year to Jane Perry!” With that, Clinton purposely burned rubber, spitting gravel toward Jane, and sped down the lonely back road.

  Jane turned and headed back to the Cabins. As she padded down the road, she reflected on her improvisational accounting of Charlotte’s whereabouts to Clinton. The connection she quickly made up about Charlotte going missing on a holiday weekend and now during the Christmas break sparked her interest. Perhaps, she mused, this unexpected declaration was a plausible angle to follow.

  Once back at the cabin, Jane discussed the idea with Kit. But it was clear that Kit did not care so much as to how or where Charlotte disappeared. Rather, Kit maintained that Lou had her and that Jane should focus on finding him. Period. It went against the way Jane worked. You started your quest for the suspect in an ocean, not a fishbowl. If you focused on one man, you might ignore the true predator or the accomplices. However, to draw in Kit and tackle the Lou Peters angle, Jane explained what occurred at Rachel Hartly’s house the day before. Kit’s reaction mirrored Sergeant Weyler’s: Rachel was covering for Lou or helping hide Charlotte on the premises. In her typical reactive mode, Kit insisted they journey to Hartly’s house to investigate. It took Jane a few minutes to explain that any such exploratory trip to Hartly’s house would need to be well thought out to avoid being discovered.

  Jane showered and changed into a pair of black jeans and a tawny turtleneck. While Kit got ready in the bathroom, Jane fell back on her bed and stretched in an attempt to reduce the pain in her lower back. She thought back on the string of phone calls to her cell and the whispered “Let me help you” before the setup at the Stop ’n’ Save. The calls had stopped, which signaled to Jane that the caller had gotten whatever she wanted out of the ruse. But that begged the question, what did the caller want? Was it a bait and switch? Occupy Jane’s attention long enough to momentarily take her focus away from where the real action was? Jane considered all the options, but she kept coming up with more unanswered questions.

  Her restless spirit sent her mind traveling in vicious circles, making it impossible to ease the tension in her lower back. Frustrated, she rolled over and stared briefly at the photo of Lou and the campers at Pico Blanco. Her eye was always first drawn to the two somber girls in the front row before meandering to the left side of the photo and fixating on Mary Bartosh. Unfortunately, this band of kids could no more talk to Jane than the weather-beaten, back-road poster of Charlotte Walker.

  Jane glanced at the stack of metaphysical books Kit had scattered on the floor between their beds. Jane spotted several books on the power of gemstones, the tarot, numerology, and astrology. One book titled, “The Beginner’s Guide to Astrology” attracted her attention. She found her January 11 birth date and read all about the highs and lows of Capricorns.
Jane skimmed until she found a paragraph on the struggles all Capricorns must endure. As she read the descriptive text, she couldn’t believe its amazing accuracy. Kit opened the bathroom door with a hurried flourish. Jane thought she had tossed the book down fast enough to avoid being discovered, but the action only drew more attention to her.

  “What’s this?” Kit said with a twinkle in her eye. “Did I catch you reading one of my books?”

  Jane sat on the edge of the bed, wincing in slight discomfort from her back pain. “I was bored. It was there. No big deal. Ready?” She got up and grabbed her jacket.

  “Does your back hurt?”

  “It’s felt better.” Jane collected the stack of newspapers she’d stolen from Rachel’s recycling box.

  “You know, you should really try walking backward in circles. I can’t tell how it relieves low back pain.”

  Jane shook her head in bemusement as she secured her Glock in her shoulder holster, snapping it across her turtleneck.

  After a quick breakfast at The Circle 9 Diner, Jane drove by The Sierra Star newspaper offices. The New Year’s holiday and closed offices afforded her the opportunity to fly under the radar with her plan. Luckily, Clinton and his big black SUV were nowhere to be seen. Driving around the back of the newspaper’s offices, Jane located a large trash bin that read, NEWSPAPERS ONLY. She withdrew the stack of ten newspapers she had stolen from Rachel’s house and instructed Kit to get out of the car.

  “I’m going in the bin. You rattle off the various dates on these papers and I’ll see if I can find them.”