Knowing

by Laurel Dewey

  Harlan stared at her blankly. But just when Jane was about to rip him a new one, she stopped and looked intently back at him. His eyes were different. They had steely focus and razor sharp precision. Without a single movement on his face, he turned to his left toward where the shots rang out.

  “I wouldn’t have missed the target,” he calmly stated.

  Jane felt her body begin to shake. She’d been in the presence of evil in her life. And while this wasn’t the same, it was an echo of the darkening vibration. Harlan turned back to her, expressionless. Then, she noticed a gradual fear entering him from behind his orbs, as if two spirits were occupying the same host. She slowly opened the car door and got into the Mustang. Harlan didn’t move a muscle. The parking space in front of her was empty. She could easily drive forward, turn left and leave. This whole thing had become a catastrophic mistake. She’d let herself be drawn into another victim’s drama and it was going south fast. She needed to get out of there and keep going. After all, there was a short window of time to get to New Mexico. Jane started the car. Glancing to her right, Harlan remained motionless. She rolled forward, edging out of the parking space. He could figure out his next move by himself, she told herself. Checking the rearview mirror, she saw him standing perfectly still, thoroughly committed to his own world. She rolled forward another few feet and then felt her foot move quickly to the brake. A gripping, nearly all-consuming presence filled the Mustang. A fist seemed to push against her sternum, forcing her into her seat. When she tried to lift her foot off the brake, it felt like it weighed fifty pounds.

  Jane tried to fall into the energy in order to make some kind of connection, but the current was fractured between her and whatever was occupying the car at that moment. The only thing she thought she knew for certain was that whatever it was—whomever it was—it did not want her to leave that spot alone. She looked in her mirror again. He was still completely frozen. Jane made a silent agreement and suddenly her foot was freed from the brake pedal. Creeping in reverse, she inched the Mustang back to Harlan and unlocked the passenger door. Rapping her knuckles on the window, she screamed, “Get in!”

  It took Harlan a few seconds, but he opened the door. Jane instructed him to crawl into the backseat and cover himself. He complied, the whole time remaining in a dull stupor. Jane drove the Mustang onto the main highway and then quickly detoured to the side roads that would take them far away from that strip mall. No words were spoken as Jane headed south, winding around the periphery of small neighborhoods and working her way into the mountainous clutches of south central Colorado. Ninety minutes later, and feeling secure in the fact that she’d carved enough space between them and anyone else, she pulled off the asphalt and drove for another mile on a pot-holed, dusty back road until coming to a hard stop under an enormous cottonwood. She turned off the ignition and spun around. Harlan was buried underneath the blankets. She could feel the pressure building inside her head. Jesus, a hit of nicotine would taste like heaven right now. Slamming her fist on the steering wheel, she reached between the seat and pulled out her Glock. Swinging open the door, she got out and popped the front seat forward. Jane raised the gun.

  “Pull off the blanket, Harlan.”

  Slowly, he peeled the layers off his face but when he saw the working end of the Glock looking back at him, shock took over. “What’s goin’ on?!”

  “Get out of the car! Now!”

  He looked confused as he sat up. Glancing around, he twisted his face into a question mark. “How’d we get here?”

  “I drove here, you fucking idiot! Get out of the car!”

  He scooted his fat posterior forward as Jane took two precautionary steps backward. “No, no, what I’m sayin’ is I remember fallin’ asleep in the parking lot. Jane, why you got your gun on me?”

  “Move faster!” she ordered him, taking another step back.

  “This ain’t makin’ sense, Jane!” He struggled and then finally was able to extricate himself from the car. “Now what?”

  Jane trained the gun on Harlan, moving to the right to get a better angle. “You don’t have any memory of what happened back there?”

  Harlan’s breathing was labored. “I don’t feel well,” he whispered.

  “Nothing? You recall nothing of what you did?”

  His face showed terror. “Oh, sweet baby Jesus! What did I do?”

  She delved into his psyche as best she could. It was the same thing she did when she was knee-to-knee with a suspect back at Denver Homicide. Most perps are guilty as hell and it is easy to see through their sloppy veneer. And then there are the few who appear guilty, have no solid alibis and maybe have wracked up a few minor past arrests but they didn’t do the crime. They aren’t easy to identify but Jane had trained herself over the years to read the small stuff. A perp’s face is a roadmap of clues—everything from the way he or she looks down to the way he touches his mouth or lips when answering questions. And although it isn’t written in any police procedurals, she’d created her own method for judging innocence or guilt. She couldn’t teach it or explain it because it was akin to crawling inside someone’s head and roaming around. For Jane, it was like diving into a shared subconscious where truth resides and lies cannot take root. The truly innocent ones are few and far between by the time they get into the interrogation room, but when Jane recognized that innocence, her instincts were always right. Right then, staring at Harlan down the short barrel of her Glock, she saw innocence. She also saw terror, confusion and desperation.

  “Jane? Please tell me what I did.”

  She lowered the gun but gripped it tightly in her right hand. “When were you in the military?”

  “I was never in the military.”

  This was dicey territory and Jane knew it but she continued. “Think, Harlan.”

  “I can think all day long and I’m tellin’ you I’ve never set foot on a military base.”

  None of this made sense. If he was who Jane thought he was, they had certainly chosen one of the most obtuse individuals for their job. “You have triggers, Harlan. I don’t know the trigger that flipped the switch back there but I know it when I see it.”

  “Know what?”

  Jane knew she had to tread carefully. “You are Harlan Kipple but you also have another personality buried in you.”

  He threw his hands in the air. “Oh, hell, Jane. I’ve been tryin’ to get through to you about that.”

  “I’m not talking about your heart, Harlan! I’m talking about when a person experiences deep trauma, their personality can split into one, two or even a dozen alter personalities. I saw it in the parking lot back there. After the shooting you can’t remember? Something took you over. It even stole your eyes.”

  “Wait, wait, wait! Back the hell up! Shooting? Somebody tried to shoot me?”

  “Somebody took a shot at Dora Weller. The congresswoman? And you seemed to know exactly where that shooter was located because you turned toward him seconds before he hit the trigger.”

  Harlan sunk down onto the moist dirt and propped his frame against Jane’s car. Heavy gloom descended over him. “I don’t remember any of that, Jane. Damn, woman, I beg of you. Please believe me. I don’t know why this is happenin’ to me. But it’s gettin’ worse. I’m afraid I’m gonna wake up and I’m gonna be back in another strange room, with blood all over me and a dead person laying there.” He rubbed the back of his neck hard. “Dammit! As sick as I was before my operation, I never experienced none of this stuff. I shouldn’t have never agreed to let my brother-in-law push me to the front of the line! I should have waited for my heart like everybody else and dropped dead! Dear God, I wish you’d believe me when I tell you that this heart of mine…” He wavered, gathered his strength and spoke with conviction. “This heart of mine is leadin’ me around. It’s as real as being plugged into another person’s body and mind.” He worked his lumbering body off the ground and stood up. “Back there at the tattoo parlor, you as much as s
aid that I was innocent. And you told me you talked to a girl who also said I didn’t kill that prostitute! I don’t know how else to say it and I don’t know what else to do. So, why don’t you take your gun and kill me right now.” He moved toward her a couple steps. “I mean it! Kill me! Put me outta my damn misery! You got it in you to do it. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve killed a man before. Once you do it, it’s easier the next time.”

  Jane stood there speechless. How in the hell could he know this? It had to be a guess or assumption. Just like every soldier who goes to war is assumed to have killed another person. She considered lying to him, telling him that he was wrong. But she also knew that was pointless.

  “Hell, I’m a dead man already,” Harlan yelled, waving his arms. “If the cops don’t find me, my lawyer, Ramos, or whoever the hell he is, will track me down. That rat bastard already tried to have me killed twice! I’ve never met so many people in so little time who wanted to see me dead!” He took another menacing step toward her. “So, just pull the trigger. That way, you can get all the glory. Get your picture in the paper. Be the hero. And you can move on your way to wherever it was you were goin’ before I stopped your progress. Go on, Jane. Kill me!”

  Jane raised the Glock, aiming it at Harlan’s heart. He didn’t flinch. “I don’t want my picture in the paper,” she glared.

  “Do it, Jane! Pull the damn trigger!”

  They stared at each other for what seemed an eternity. She still kept the gun fixed on his chest. “How about this? We spend a few more days together. I’ll do some digging for you. Maybe all that chicken scratch in your notebook will start to mean something. Maybe your heart…” she hesitated before continuing, “maybe it’ll lead us somewhere.” She lowered the gun.

  Harlan’s eyes filled with tears. “You believe me?” He jabbed on his chest. “About him?”

  Jane let out a long sigh. “Please don’t confuse my willingness to entertain any of this with the illusion of sanity.”

  “Huh?”

  “I may consider it possible but that doesn’t mean that we’re not two people sharing a delusion!”

  He tried to work it out in his head. “So…I’m lost. You believe me or don’t you?”

  Jane holstered her weapon. “You haven’t sold me the goods yet but I’m leaning toward the purchase.”

  Harlan smiled broadly and, quite unexpectedly, he wrapped his big arms around her. “I’m still a dead man walkin’, Jane,” he said pulling back. “But maybe…maybe somehow I can come out the other side and see the light.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “Think of me like your balloon, Harlan. And then ask yourself, are you the tether or are you the pin?”

  He smiled again. “I ain’t the pin.”

  “Then you have to do what I tell you to do. You can’t be wandering off. You can’t put yourself in a situation again where everything could implode.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Did that lady die back there?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure it’s all over the news.”

  Jane opened the trunk and removed two packages of lunchmeat, cheese and water from the cooler. She tossed a pack of lunchmeat to Harlan, along with a bottle of water.

  “It’s cooked,” he said quietly.

  Jane rolled her eyes. “Right.” She returned to the trunk, pulled the eggs out of the cooler and handed them to Harlan. “Is that raw enough for you?”

  He grinned, handing the lunchmeat back to her. “Perfect!”

  Resting her backside on the hood of the car, she peeled off a piece of roast beef. Within seconds, she’d inhaled the whole package but her mind never stopped working. A cascade of ideas bounced in her brain, all needing the use of a phone and a computer to clarify.

  “You know,” Harlan offered, cracking an egg against his teeth and swallowing the yolk and egg whites, “I think he’s tryin’ to talk to you too.”

  “Please, Harlan. Don’t push the cart too far down crazy road.”

  “You had pine nuts in your bag. And The Q magazine? What are the odds, huh?”

  “The heart of a dead guy is telling me to buy pine nuts and a magazine?”

  “Uh-huh. I think you can feel him too but you don’t want to admit it. And he’s obviously tryin’ to tell me somethin’ but I can’t hear it.” He knocked a couple more eggs into his mouth.

  Jane glanced inside the car and saw The Q magazine splayed across the back seat. “You asked me for something to read in the car. Remember that?”

  He nodded.

  “You read The Q magazine. And then you got out of the car.”

  “Okay…”

  Jane retrieved the magazine and turned it over. It was page seventeen and that odd, nonsensical advertisement. But suddenly, Jane noticed things on the page that stood out. The mountainous landscape with snowcapped peaks looked almost identical to the horizon that lay in the distance from the shopping mall that day. The woman’s wristwatch featured in the foreground and placed upon a red satin cloth that stretched across the page showed 11:17. The bottom left hand corner illustration of the “great and powerful” Oz peeking out from his purple curtained area—the seeming orchestrator of the advertisement’s focus—and the red block letters next to his image, “It’s Time For A Change, Dorothy,” started making eerie sense to Jane. She thought back to the approximate time the shooting took place. Jane recalled looking at the clock when she was in the market and it was 11:00. It was conceivable that between the time it took her to go through the checkout line, walk to her car, put the groceries into the cooler, discover Harlan was missing and then walk across the parking lot to the Congresswoman’s event, that the exact moment of the shot fired could have been 11:17. Then it hit her. The name Dorothy had a lot of nicknames, one of which was Dora.

  What kind of magazine was this? Was it a primer for sleeper cell assassins who recognize the codes and are then triggered by the strange advertisements to follow through with the plans? Jane had to double-check herself once again. But the more she scanned that bizarre page, the more it felt like she had insight into a covert operation. As much as she wanted to dismiss her twisted theory, it was beginning to make strange sense. She’d heard of splinter groups clandestinely communicating with each other through classified advertisements, using phone numbers and code words so that only the criminals would understand the objective. It was the ultimate “hiding in plain sight” plan.

  But The Q magazine was taking it to an entirely new, highly complex level. Some group—an underground, radical group perhaps—was using The Q magazine to communicate their objectives with their “sleepers.” For that matter, it seemed that the dark deed was even being publicized ahead of time. But one had to understand the symbols, the play on words, the characters, maybe even the colors to comprehend what event would take place. Jane knew it wasn’t just another far fetched, conspiracy theory because she’d seen taped interviews with high functioning suspects over the years who had a military background and were accused of a murder they couldn’t recall committing. Every single one of them mentioned the word “triggers.” One guy claimed a certain song set him off; another guy swore that a specific scent served as his alarm clock. But they all shared the experience of missing periods of time. It could explain why Harlan had no memory after he read the page and left the car. Something inside of him recognized the ad for what it was and that’s why he knew when to turn his head in the exact direction, seconds before the shot was fired. But even though Jane had only encountered him twenty-four hours ago, she knew there was no way in hell he’d have the knowledge and competence to play for whatever nefarious team was involved in this. That left Jane with a preposterous possibility. But even suggesting it felt insane to her at that moment.

  “Get me The Q magazine you kept in your bag,” she asked Harlan.

  He complied, not sure of her actions. “You find somethin’?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She checked the date of his issue. It
was March of the previous year. Turning to page seventeen, she laid the magazine flat on the hood of her car. The page was filled with puffy clouds and a brilliant sun shining through them. One of the sun’s rays connected to a small, private jet. In the bottom left hand corner was the same Oz character, pointing up to the plane. In red, block lettering, the “advertisement” read:

  “It’s Cloud’s Illusions I Recall…” Mitchell.

  Jane immediately noted that it was odd to not use the full name of the artist, Joni Mitchell. And while she wasn’t a Joni Mitchell fan, she was almost positive that the correct line in the song was, “It’s cloud illusions I recall…” Surely, the proofreader would have found that mistake. Unless, it wasn’t a mistake. Jane stared at the page again. A private plane. “Cloud’s illusions…” Mitchell. “Holy shit,” she whispered under her breath.

  “What?” he asked, cracking three more eggs into his mouth.

  “You remember that private plane crash about a year ago? The one in Nebraska? Eight people were killed. One of them was Mitchell Cloud.” Jane realized Harlan was clueless. “Mitchell Cloud? They called him ‘The eccentric microbiologist who was obsessed with goats?’”

  “If you say so—”

  She looked back at the magazine. “Good God…Is this even possible?”

  “Is what possible?”

  “Who is this group? They covertly advertise hits on people…why?” She attempted to explain what she could to Harlan and while he listened intently, she saw he wasn’t grasping the full impact.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “If I’ve never been in the military, how could that magazine trip me up—”

  “He was in the military.” Jane wasn’t sure where that gem came from. But the statement felt honest and true.