Knowing (14 page)

“I could see right, no wrong. I could see good, no bad. I could see all the good things in life I’ve never had. If I could see the world through the eyes of a child, what a wonderful world this would be.”

The song continued and Jane listened but she wondered what in the hell any of it meant. Maybe she was giving the song too much credit, she reasoned. Sure, it was highlighted but so what? But she kept listening and waiting for something to stand out and mean something. When it was over, she returned to her computer. She searched on the local news station’s video feed for their interview of the helmeted motorcyclist who said he witnessed Harlan’s escape in Jane’s Mustang. Once she found it, she played it back repeatedly. After about the sixth re-run, she stopped focusing on the motorcyclist and began examining the background scenery.

“What the fuck—” Jane mumbled as she paused the video. Whatever gas station was used for this interview, it was
not
the same one where the crime took place. There were no roped off fuel pumps. In fact, from what Jane could tell,
this
gas station had only four islands, instead of seven. Eyeing the video even closer, the location of the Quik Mart building in the background didn’t jibe with the proximity of where it was located at the actual scene. Jane sat back in her seat and shook her head in shock. It was clear to her that the “interview” with this motorcyclist was completely staged. But why? She repeated the video several more times, listening intently to every word he said. The interviewer, who was never seen, prompted the motorcyclist, asking about Harlan’s demeanor. The descriptive terms of “madman,” “monster” and “the devil incarnate” certainly painted a precise picture of what “they” needed to put forth into the public mindset. But just exactly who “they” were still baffled Jane.

She selected her home page. Dora Weller’s shooting was at the top of both the national and Colorado news feed. Clicking on the link, she scanned the article. Weller was in critical condition but expected to live. To Jane, choosing Dora Weller as a hit made no sense whatsoever. Jane always considered her bland, white toast; a cheerful woman who wasn’t too savvy but made up for it with a willing smile and a seemingly altruistic outlook on life. The only controversy that Weller was involved in was her denial of a Biotech firm’s request to buy a thousand acres of rich grassland in Colorado. After a lot of controversies and headlines on the Denver news programs nearly every evening, Weller chose to uphold the loud and often subversive desires of the “Eco-friendly” activists who wished that the land be protected from “capitalistic development.”

But that political issue certainly was not worth killing somebody over, Jane mused. Then again, there was that undeniable advertisement on page seventeen of
The
Q
magazine with that ominous line: “It’s Time For A Change, Dorothy.” The ad did seem to have an “in your face” quality to it—something many of the anarchist, left wing groups enjoyed. Jane recalled the violent actions of “Eco-terrorists” over the years. One group firebombed a Vail ski lodge in 1998, causing twelve million dollars in damages. Jane checked into that story and discovered that the convicted group was indicted in connection with “seventeen acts of domestic terrorism.” Jane read it again.
Seventeen
.
This was getting stranger and stranger. Why would the Eco-Terrorists have anything to do with the shooting? Weller gave them what they wanted. And anyway, Jane figured, if she was going to play this scenario out, why would an Eco-Terrorist group be connected to the death of Mitchell Cloud, the unconventional microbiologist who spent over a decade of his professional life studying goats.

She returned to the home page and saw that there was a “Breaking News” update on the Weller event. Clicking on the link, she was greeted with a cell phone photo taken by somebody in the crowd during the mêlée after the shooting. There, standing in full view, was Harlan Kipple’s image.

“Holy shit!” Jane yelled. She read the article quickly. They were tying him to the shooting, claiming he had gone “on a crazed killing spree.” None of it made any sense to Jane. She desperately did more searches, looking for other photos from the scene that anyone might have uploaded to the Internet. From what she could find, she wasn’t in any of the shots. But Harlan was easy to spot, especially now that he had the weed whacker haircut and no facial hair. “Fuck,” Jane mumbled. Dying his hair at this point was futile. She was just about to start another search when she heard Harlan scream.

Ditching everything on her car seat, she raced inside the house. Harlan was on his knees, rocking back and forth and murmuring what sounded like a prayer. Jane leaned closer and heard every word.

“I will face the darkness, but I will not let it become me. Fear may be present but it will not possess me. I will face the darkness, as the knowing light within my heart and mind leads me home. And once again, I will be free.”

He said it repeatedly and spoke each word with rapid inflections as if he’d been speaking those words his entire life. Each time he repeated it, his tension lessened and his body relaxed. By the twentieth repetition, Jane had the verse committed to memory and Harlan was calmer as he slumped forward onto the wooden floor. But when she lightly touched his back, he jumped up and onto his feet as if he had springs on his heels. The large flashlight rolled across the floor, casting an eerie shadow across the small room.

“What happened?” he yelled, struggling to breathe.

“You blacked out again. But you’re back and you’re okay.”

He clutched his chest. “I don’t think my heart can take this much longer, Jane.”

“Sure it can. They loaded a superior specimen in there, remember?”

Harlan fell strangely silent and contemplative.

“Harlan?” Jane asked gingerly.

He walked to the leather recliner and sat down, cloistered by the darkness. After several minutes, he bowed his head. “I can’t do this no more, Jane. It’s killin’ me.”

Jane heard Harlan grab for a water bottle, followed by a rattling sound. She walked over to the overturned flashlight and shone it toward Harlan. He had a fistful of pills in his hand from one of the prescription bottles and he was just about to slap them into his mouth.

Jane lunged toward him. “Are you fucking out of your mind?!” she screamed at him, wrestling the pills from his palm.

“Let me do it, Jane!”

“Not on my watch!

Even though he had her by over one hundred and fifty pounds, Jane’s blistering attack cowed him and he released the pills onto the floor.

She hovered over his corpulent frame. “Don’t you
ever
do that again! You hear me?” Every fiber of her body shook as she stared at him.

He looked at her and his eyes softened. It was as if he bored inside her head and drew her terrified thoughts to the surface. “Okay, Jane,” he softly said. But something in his voice sounded different.

She stepped back and observed him, shining the light on him like a back alley suspect. For a moment, she felt as if two people were staring back at her. Gradually, one of them drifted behind the other and Harlan’s terrified eyes took over.

“What am I gonna do, Jane?”

She had an idea. A ridiculous idea. “Sit back and relax.” She lifted up the cooler from between the two leather recliners and shoved Millie’s chair closer to Harlan. Returning back to her car with the cooler, she put away her computer. The air was turning nippy, signaling another spring snowstorm on the horizon. Figuring the cooler would retain a bit more of the outdoor chill and preserve what food they had left, Jane propped it up on the hood of her Mustang. Grabbing a few blankets from the trunk, she locked the car and walked back into the house.

Harlan was still in Larry’s chair, feet propped up, with a worried expression. “What are you plannin’, Jane?”

After handing a blanket to Harlan, she slid into Millie’s recliner and lifted the footrest. After a moment of thought, she spoke up. “Maybe I can help you.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

She told him about the electrical shock she got when she touched his leg the night before and the strange disjointed images that pulsated simultaneously. “I can’t promise anything,” Jane explained, “but maybe I can…I don’t know…”

“See what I’m seein’?” he asked, screwing his face into a curious twist.

The minute he said that, Jane grimaced. This was the kind of stuff people only do in Boulder or Crestone and even then, there are usually candles, incense, some sort of metal chime and monotonous, three tone music playing to accompany the event. “You want to just give it a shot?” She draped the blanket over her body.

“What makes you think you’re even capable of doing this?” His tone leaned toward insulting. “You’re a cop, for God’s sake!”

“I’ve experience some pretty weird shit over the past couple years, Harlan. I can’t explain it, except that…” She tried valiantly to come up with a suitable explanation. “I can’t explain it. Maybe…I can be your eyes.”

“What do I got to do?” he asked guardedly.

“Just lay back. Relax. Go to sleep.”

He waited. “Yeah…Then what?”

“I’ll just put my hand over your hand and close my eyes.”

He stared at her with those obtuse orbs. “You ain’t comin’ on to me, are you?”

“No, Harlan. I’m not coming onto you. You want to give this a try or not?”

He let out a puff of air and settled back in the recliner. “Okay. Let ‘er rip.”

Jane turned off the flashlight, leaving them in total darkness, save for the subtle moonlight that crept across the wooden floor. It took Harlan about five minutes to relax and fall asleep. She waited until his breathing changed before gently cupping her right hand over his left hand as it rested on the arm of the chair. She closed her eyes and waited but nothing happened. Thirty minutes passed and she was still waiting while Harlan snored like a stuck foghorn. She finally opened her eyes and shook her head, silently belittling herself for entertaining such a bizarre plan. The day’s events quickly caught up with her and exhaustion set in fast. Maneuvering her body into a more comfortable position, Jane let out a breath and, with her hand still cupped over his hand, allowed Morpheus—the god of sleep and dreams—to embrace her.

She felt herself floating as if on a cloud. Sinking deeper, she fell into a paralyzing slumber. And then it happened. First, Jane felt pinpricks of electrical energy sparking off the knuckles on her right hand. While she was conscious and aware of it on one level, another part of her was an observer. With her eyes still shut, a curious pinpoint of blue light appeared in the center of her vision. Yes, this is what Jane remembered Harlan calling the “blue light special.” Seemingly powered by the electric connection between she and Harlan, the light expanded. Jane opened her eyes, expecting to see a blue light beaming into the house from an outside source. But there was only darkness and that cushion of moonlight in front of her. With her hand still on top of Harlan’s, she closed her eyes again and let out a hard breath.

Within seconds, the electrical charge between them increased. She could hear Harlan’s breathing become labored, signaling the onset of another chaotic nightmare. The blue light appeared once again and grew quickly until all Jane saw was a pulsating spectrum of intense sapphire luminosity. Just when she thought she couldn’t take the intense glare, a high-pitched tone rang in her left ear and continued, as it moved through the center of her head and triggered the same tonal frequency in her right ear. A cyclone of energy felt like it was spiraling in the center of her brain. Jane likened the experience to being plugged into a jet that was about to take flight. Just like the rumbling of the jet’s powerful engines as it speeds down the runway, the sharp tone lingered and intensified until when it reached a crescendo, she could swear something ignited inside her head. At the exact moment of ignition, the penetrating tone suddenly stopped and she was slammed forward into the sapphire light.

Strangely, Jane felt no fear as she looked down at the cool, wet dirt beneath her. Looking around, she saw an expansive farmland, cradled in a valley between two mountain ranges. The aroma of freshly harvested potatoes still hugging the dark earth enveloped her. Hearing footsteps through the tall grass, Jane turned. There was a dark-haired boy about ten or eleven years old with a round face and piercing blue eyes, carrying a small rifle. She watched him closely as he methodically hunkered down between the blades of green grass and, resting the rifle on his knee, took aim and shot. Following him through the grass that bent with the wind, they walked about one hundred yards until he stopped and picked up the body of a rabbit. She found herself wanting to say something but she couldn’t speak. Somehow she understood that words were useless in this place and communication was only possible through the mind’s eye. With that realization, she attempted to send the boy a message that she was there and watching him. To her utter amazement, he turned around and looked at her. Without moving his lips, she heard his young voice.

“Be brave, Jane.”

In an instant, she was sucked out of that scene and catapulted through a veil of electric colors, each one holding a different scene. She chose one of them randomly and dove into it. A kaleidoscope of images flashed in front of her, none of them allowing her to focus long enough to interpret anything. In her mind’s eye, she
thought,
“Slow it down!” and everything came to a halt. She was standing on a cheerful suburban street, filled with homes that sported clean picket fences and manicured lawns. Turning to her right, she saw a house with a blue picket fence. There was a mailbox with a last name on it. But she could only see the last three letters of the name: “SON.” The smell of fermented hops mingling with evergreens overwhelmed her. The second she thought she couldn’t stand the scent any longer, Jane was tossed into another rupture of light and color until she felt herself spit into another setting.

A perfume of roses replaced the nauseating odor as a sparkling setting spun around her. She was inside a house with lots of windows that allowed the warm breeze to freely move and mingle. In a far room, she could hear a man and woman whispering to each other and kissing. Everything around her ebbed and flowed with beauty and the spark of a new life being conceived. Jane wanted to stay in that exquisite spiral forever but as soon as she wished that, she was propelled out of the peacefulness and into a dark hallway.