Laurel Dewey's Blog - Posts Tagged "laurel-dewey"
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I'm thrilled to connect with all the readers on GoodReads. I love to interact with my fans and answer questions about the writing process and whatever else comes to mind.
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Laurel
I look forward to meeting you here and on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laurel-...
Until then, happy reading!
Laurel
The Day Jane Perry Killed Kate Lincoln
There are so many “rules” to writing a good book. One of those rules is giving your main character a great name that is memorable and fits that person to a tee.
James Bond.
Harry Potter.
Liza Doolittle.
Miss Marple.
These are names etched in fiction. The path an author takes to establish that all-important name is never the same.
Trust me, coming up with that name is not always easy. There’s a lot of pressure to create a moniker that suits the personality of the character. If you’re planning a series of books, then you REALLY want to choose the perfect name. It’s like a brand. Kleenex. Pop Tarts. Cheerios. You don’t just throw any name on the board and hope it sticks.
Which brings me back to "Protector."
I was cleaning out my file cabinet and came upon a crinkled manila folder titled “Protector.” Upon opening it, I found about 25 pages of handwritten notes detailing the various characters in the book that, at that time, were still struggling for an identity. The pages were dated 2001. (Yes, that’s right. Between four drafts of the manuscript and countless rejections, it took six years for Protector to see the light of day.)
As I read the often-faint scribbles, I kept finding references to “Kate Lincoln.” At first, I thought Kate might have been a character I’d outlined and then cut from the book. Then I realized exactly who Kate was. It was the name I’d given the main character of Protector.
Detective Kate Lincoln.
I wanted a strong name for the main character. I wanted it to be a name a reader would remember. One of my favorite actresses was Katherine Hepburn, often known as “Kate.” If anyone exemplified strength and power, it was Kate Hepburn. There was also the musical, “Kiss Me Kate” based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.” The “shrew” was named Kate. Again, a rough-and-ready, belligerent, take-no-prisoners woman. I was seeing a pattern here. Kate = resilient. Thus, I named her Kate.
Lincoln? Well, frankly, I don’t recall where that came from. I did admire President Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln had two syllables. Don’t ask me why, but I wanted the main character’s first name to be one syllable and the last name to have two syllables. To me, the cadence of that combination felt solid. And, God knows, my main character HAD to be solid.
I was days away from penning the first chapter to "Protector" when my aunt called me. For years, she’d been urging me to “Write that novel, dammit,” even though I had no novel figured out yet. I informed her that, indeed, I was about to embark on that endeavor. Briefly, I told her the story idea and a brief description of Detective Kate Lincoln.
“Kate Lincoln?” my aunt mused. “Hmmm.” She thought about it some more. “Sounds like she wears high heels.”
“No,” I informed her. “Kate wears cowboy boots. Rough-outs. And leather jackets. Kate’s tough.”
“Kate Lincoln shops at Nordstrom,” my aunt stated.
“No,” I said with determination. “Kate Lincoln doesn’t buy designer clothes. She shops at Eddie Bauer.”
My aunt was unmoved. “Kate Lincoln likes fine wine.”
“NO.” This was getting out of hand. “Kate Lincoln drinks beer and Jack Daniels. She’s a drunk and a chain smoker. She plays pool…”
“Kate Lincoln does NOT play pool.” There was a pause. “I think you need to re-consider the name.”
That’s just what a writer wants to hear when they’re days away from starting their first novel. Without the main character’s name firmly established…well…it’s like starting a road trip without the car.
That sinking feeling came over me. I could sit and brood or, since we’d just had a nice heavy spring snow, I could go cross-country skiing. The brisk, biting wind and freezing temperatures always seem to jumpstart my creative juices.
But by the time I’d skied to the mid-point of the cross-country course, I was still stumped as to a name for my hard drinking, chain smoking, tough as nails detective.
I threw down my ski poles and yelled into the air, “Aunt Jane! I can’t think of a damn name!”
Hello.
Jane.
Solid name. No nonsense. Shops at Eddie Bauer. Someone named Jane could like beer and Jack Daniels. Might even be a chain smoker…
I picked up my far-flung ski poles and proceeded up the pass, trying to figure out Jane’s last name.
I turned to the sign that gave the distance marker. It read: “Perry Pass.” I had an Uncle Perry who I never met. And I’ve got a good friend whose last name is Perry.
By the time I’d reached the summit of Perry Pass, it was official.
Detective Jane Perry was born.
James Bond.
Harry Potter.
Liza Doolittle.
Miss Marple.
These are names etched in fiction. The path an author takes to establish that all-important name is never the same.
Trust me, coming up with that name is not always easy. There’s a lot of pressure to create a moniker that suits the personality of the character. If you’re planning a series of books, then you REALLY want to choose the perfect name. It’s like a brand. Kleenex. Pop Tarts. Cheerios. You don’t just throw any name on the board and hope it sticks.
Which brings me back to "Protector."
I was cleaning out my file cabinet and came upon a crinkled manila folder titled “Protector.” Upon opening it, I found about 25 pages of handwritten notes detailing the various characters in the book that, at that time, were still struggling for an identity. The pages were dated 2001. (Yes, that’s right. Between four drafts of the manuscript and countless rejections, it took six years for Protector to see the light of day.)
As I read the often-faint scribbles, I kept finding references to “Kate Lincoln.” At first, I thought Kate might have been a character I’d outlined and then cut from the book. Then I realized exactly who Kate was. It was the name I’d given the main character of Protector.
Detective Kate Lincoln.
I wanted a strong name for the main character. I wanted it to be a name a reader would remember. One of my favorite actresses was Katherine Hepburn, often known as “Kate.” If anyone exemplified strength and power, it was Kate Hepburn. There was also the musical, “Kiss Me Kate” based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.” The “shrew” was named Kate. Again, a rough-and-ready, belligerent, take-no-prisoners woman. I was seeing a pattern here. Kate = resilient. Thus, I named her Kate.
Lincoln? Well, frankly, I don’t recall where that came from. I did admire President Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln had two syllables. Don’t ask me why, but I wanted the main character’s first name to be one syllable and the last name to have two syllables. To me, the cadence of that combination felt solid. And, God knows, my main character HAD to be solid.
I was days away from penning the first chapter to "Protector" when my aunt called me. For years, she’d been urging me to “Write that novel, dammit,” even though I had no novel figured out yet. I informed her that, indeed, I was about to embark on that endeavor. Briefly, I told her the story idea and a brief description of Detective Kate Lincoln.
“Kate Lincoln?” my aunt mused. “Hmmm.” She thought about it some more. “Sounds like she wears high heels.”
“No,” I informed her. “Kate wears cowboy boots. Rough-outs. And leather jackets. Kate’s tough.”
“Kate Lincoln shops at Nordstrom,” my aunt stated.
“No,” I said with determination. “Kate Lincoln doesn’t buy designer clothes. She shops at Eddie Bauer.”
My aunt was unmoved. “Kate Lincoln likes fine wine.”
“NO.” This was getting out of hand. “Kate Lincoln drinks beer and Jack Daniels. She’s a drunk and a chain smoker. She plays pool…”
“Kate Lincoln does NOT play pool.” There was a pause. “I think you need to re-consider the name.”
That’s just what a writer wants to hear when they’re days away from starting their first novel. Without the main character’s name firmly established…well…it’s like starting a road trip without the car.
That sinking feeling came over me. I could sit and brood or, since we’d just had a nice heavy spring snow, I could go cross-country skiing. The brisk, biting wind and freezing temperatures always seem to jumpstart my creative juices.
But by the time I’d skied to the mid-point of the cross-country course, I was still stumped as to a name for my hard drinking, chain smoking, tough as nails detective.
I threw down my ski poles and yelled into the air, “Aunt Jane! I can’t think of a damn name!”
Hello.
Jane.
Solid name. No nonsense. Shops at Eddie Bauer. Someone named Jane could like beer and Jack Daniels. Might even be a chain smoker…
I picked up my far-flung ski poles and proceeded up the pass, trying to figure out Jane’s last name.
I turned to the sign that gave the distance marker. It read: “Perry Pass.” I had an Uncle Perry who I never met. And I’ve got a good friend whose last name is Perry.
By the time I’d reached the summit of Perry Pass, it was official.
Detective Jane Perry was born.
REVELATIONS....Chapters 1 & 2
CHAPTER 1
Jordan Copeland ran like a monster through the rain-soaked woods, chased only by his demons.
The darkness fell in on him—and within him—as he fought the choking sensation in his throat. It was just like forty-one years ago. But this time...this time, it was deeper, darker and more profound.
Sweat beads bled into the fat raindrops that covered his long, oil-cloth, olive green duster. The full moon traversed between the clouds, emitting fleeting glimpses of the world around him—a stand of trees, the rushing, unforgiving river, his log cabin on stilts. Nearly out of breath, he took temporary shelter under a leafless oak.
That’s when he smelled it. Death—sudden, stark, shattering and without dignity. Death, with vacant eyes staring back, the silver cord cut between the worlds.
Jordan crouched down against the tree trunk, burying his head in his chest. The hard rain heightened the sharp, pervasive, oiled odor of his duster. Lifting his head toward the heavens, his wide-set blue eyes and elongated forehead felt the brunt of the icy pellets. His grey beard was laced with mud and rain that quickly hardened into frosty threads. The roar within was deafening. He clamped his large, calloused hands over his ears, as the syncopated beat of his racing heart pounded in his head. Not again, he thought. God... not again.
The pressure around his throat increased. Forty-one years ago, he had youth on his side. He could run harder and longer. But now, his fifty-nine-year-old body was broken by a life unraveled. If he didn’t keep running, he knew he’d black out. Jordan felt the walls of his narrow world caving in. The sound of the rushing river thirty feet away, drifted into the distance.
He pressed his hands harder against his ears. For a moment, he heard nothing—just sweet silence and peace. Then, a second later, a stabbing pain sliced across his heart. He pulled his hands from his ears and pressed them against his chest, bracing himself against the oak tree’s trunk. The relentless storm sent waves of freezing rain across the inky landscape, raising the water of the thunderous river. The pressure around his throat increased until each breath became a life or death fight. Run, he thought. Run hard and escape. Yes, it was the same detached terror from forty-one years ago. He was able to sprint like a champion then, but it didn’t do him any good. The end result was still a life of suffering and loneliness.
The storm subsided. Jordan sucked in a deep breath, the primal grip on his throat suddenly releasing. The knife-like pain in his chest mellowed to a dull throb. He could handle that, he figured, as he glanced down to his chest. The moonlight swept across his hands, revealing crimson streaks of blood. But from what? From where? Jordan regarded his oversized hands, as if they belonged to another. It made no sense. Dear God. It was happening again. But this time...this time, the terror was carving into his gut. Think, dammit, think. But as hard as he thought, he couldn’t remember how he’d arrived at this spot—under the oak tree, dying for breath, and bleeding.
The demons moved closer, their claws whipping toward him like the lines of the fly fisherman that stalked the river’s edge. Rising to his towering height, Jordan’s eyes flared into a wild gaze. His wet, tangled salt and pepper mane slapped against the soaked duster. Spinning from one side to the other, Jordan exposed a warrior’s sword that only he could see. The rage inside flared into a conflagration as he slashed and cut the demonic tentacles that coiled around him. They won’t win this time. A generous sweep of his blade slaughtered the last of the fiends and sent them back into the underworld.
Crack!
Jordan turned toward the still echoing sound. The taste of death prickled on his tongue—bitter and sour.
Roar!
They were coming for him and he was cornered. Hunted like a rabid dog, Jordan wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Taking a step backward, he misjudged the embankment and plunged down the muddy, clay-laden slope. His ravaged body absorbed every rock and fallen tree while the pain consumed him. He was back on the cement floor of the jail cell forty-one years ago, getting the shit beaten out of him by the guards. “Fucking killer!” they screamed with a brutal punch to his face. “Child killer!” they grunted with each kick to his kidneys.
A high-pitched squeal shot into the night air as Jordan’s body hurtled toward the water’s edge.
CHAPTER 2
“Jane?”
Jane Perry stood staring outside the office window. The spring rain swept across the Denver landscape as the somber grey dusk enveloped the city. It was a fitting backdrop to the jarring statement she was still attempting to grasp. Jane wrapped one arm around her chest, her fist balled. Chewing the thumbnail of her other hand, she felt the syncopated pounding of her heart. The rain fell with renewed fury as her world narrowed and darkened.
“Jane...why don’t you sit down?”
The doctor’s voice sounded as though it was filtered through a wall instead of a few feet away. Breathe, Jane thought. But breathing was dangerous. Sucking in too much life might burn it up too fast. Everything would need to be measured from now on. Jesus Christ, what a way to live.
She turned toward the doctor, still in suspended animation and noted that the woman had a look of finely tuned compassion on her face. Jane wondered how many years it had taken to hone that visage so that patients would feel safer in her presence. Even with the news, Jane’s cynicism was still alive. “So, what’s the protocol?” she asked, in the same tenor she used when entering a crime scene.
“I’d like to do another cone biopsy,” the doctor responded flatly.
“I thought you already determined it to be...“
“The pathology suggests a possible Grade II cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. It looks to be confined to the basal third of the epithelium...”
The words swam through Jane’s head like sharks during a feeding frenzy. Each multi-syllabic word gnashed into the other, creating a chaotic drone. She knew she’d get a second opinion, but this was the second opinion.
“Suggests?” Jane interrupted with an edge to her voice. “Is it or isn’t it cancer?”
“There appear to be premalignant dysplastic changes but there are also abnormalities in the biopsy that are inconclusive...”
The sharks resumed their multi-syllabic feast. It’s fucking insane, Jane thought. Life had been going along at a nice, uneventful pace for over a year. She was now Sergeant Detective Perry, sharing duties with her former boss, Sergeant Morgan Weyler. They were an odd, yet highly effective team; Jane with her gruff, penetrating approach and Weyler with his eloquent, restrained demeanor. Together, they’d solved a few high profile Denver homicide cases, washing away the tragic stain that had dogged the Department two years ago. After nearly four decades of shallow breathing, Jane had finally been able to exhale.
Now that old voice in her head started spouting the mantra again—Life is a struggle and then you die. All the books she’d read in the last fifteen months on everything from Buddhism and the mind/body connection to esoteric meditation and higher consciousness were a waste of time. Faith and trust were incomprehensible now. It was easy to have faith and trust when life was chugging along at a happy pace. Now, right now, when she needed them most, Jane’s abject fear devoured them whole.
“So, we do another cone biopsy and then what?” Jane asked.
“It all depends on what that biopsy concludes. Typically, if it confirms severe cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, there’s an eighty to eighty-five percent chance that it’s a squamous cell carcinoma...“
“English, dammit!” Jane insisted, her patience wearing thin.
“We can do a few things,” the doctor related, undaunted by Jane’s tone. “We usually perform a loop electrical excision procedure and conisation in which the inner lining of the cervix is removed and examined...“
“Electrocution?” Jane asked, shifting her weight uncomfortably in her cowboy boots. “That sounds medieval.”
“It’s basic protocol. The pathology will determine what stage we’re looking at. Early stages may involve radiation and/or a hysterectomy.”
Jane noted a cold, rather calculated delivery of her options. She was reminded of the unemotional banter standing across from medical examiners over the years, as they rattled off a perfunctory list of data that led to the death of the poor son-of-a-bitch filleted open on the metal table between them. It was one thing, Jane considered, to discuss a dead man’s outcome in a detached manner, but to use the same cadence with someone who still had a pulse felt insensate to Jane. “Isn’t a hysterectomy a bit aggressive?”
“Cervical cancer is aggressive, Jane.” The doctor glanced at Jane’s open file on her desk. “I know the idea of a hysterectomy at the age of thirty-seven can be difficult to wrap one’s mind around, but the fact that you can’t conceive a child anyway...takes a bit of the concern out of it.”
Right, Jane thought. Wasn’t using my uterus anyway, so what the hell? She slid into the single chair opposite the desk and felt the butt of her Glock bite into her side as she dug her elbow into the arm of the chair and dragged her fingers through her shoulder length brown hair. Her leather jacket issued a soft crick as she sat back and looked the doctor straight in the eye. “I don’t get it. I think I’ve made some significant changes in my life. I’m eating better...sort of...I took up running two years ago. I even completed a three month yoga course that my boss signed me up for.” Jane still had a penchant for calling Weyler her boss even though they were now on equal footing. “Good God, I’ve been sober for fifteen months and nine days. Doesn’t that count for something?” Jane instantly realized that it was both absurd and desperate to think you earned points and dodged death for choosing sobriety.
“Lifestyle changes that improve health benefits are always positive,” the doctor offered.
Jesus Christ, she thought. There must be a manual these physicians follow, filled with pithy, mollifying statements that sound good but mean nothing. She couldn’t stand it any longer. “What in the hell are you talking about?” Her voice raised several octaves as she leaned forward and slammed her fist onto the doctor’s desk. “Obviously, it made no difference, given your diagnosis!”
“You can’t put a price on sobriety, Jane.”
Fuck! Another Hallmark card contribution. Jane promised herself if the doc’s next statement was, “You have to name it and claim it,” she was going to dive across the desk and strangle her.
“You are a smoker, Jane,” the doctor gently put forth. “That’s one of the ten behaviors that put you at greater risk.”
Great. Somebody made a list. Somebody always makes a goddamn list, Jane deduced. We’ve become a nation where we respond to lists and studies. Out of studies you get lists and out of lists you get people who chat about the lists as if the list was absolute. “Yeah, of course I smoke,” Jane said nonchalantly, realizing that a cigarette would taste pretty damn good right about now. “Cigarettes are the reformed drunk’s best friend.”
“Cigarettes are also a significant risk factor for cervical cancer, not to mention...“
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Multiple partners...”
Jane regarded the doctor with an arched eyebrow. “That’s on the list?” The doctor nodded. “Define ‘multiple.’” Jane stated, pretending for a moment that she was talking to her across a dimly lit table in Denver Headquarter’s tiny interrogation room.
“That’s difficult to say. It’s more pertinent whether a partner had an STD.”
“Well, let’s see, I haven’t had a partner in the religious sense for two years. And he was pretty fucked up on drugs. Are fucked up partners with drugs on your list? Before that, I could count my partners on one hand and still have a finger or two available. So, I don’t think I fit the multiple partner profile.” The doctor flipped the page on Jane’s report. Across the table, Jane could read her name across the top line: JANE ANNE PERRY. Who in the hell was that? she thought. She was Sergeant Detective Perry. That was a name she could answer and relate to—not Jane Anne Perry. Jane Anne Perry died a long time ago. “What you else you got on that list, doc?”
“Long term use of birth control pills...“
“Since pregnancy has never been possible, the Pill was never an issue,” Jane countered.
“Multiple pregnancies.“
Jane shook her head and a disparaging half-smile crept across her face. “This is your list?”
“Genetic history of cancer...especially the mother.” The sarcastic grin quickly left Jane’s face. “That’s actually a formidable risk in comparison to the others,” the doctor stressed, sitting back in her chair and holding Jane’s gaze.
Jane swallowed hard. It had been twenty-seven years since she had witnessed her mother, Anne, take her last violent breath before collapsing in a pool of blood and vomit. The memory was as fresh as ever, as was the invasive stench of death that Jane could never shake. “She died of lung cancer and never smoked a cigarette in her life.” The randomness of life suddenly struck Jane. What was the point of changing one’s lifestyle if it all came down to an arbitrary spin of the wheel? You might as well build a meth lab in the bathtub and have anonymous sex.
“It doesn’t matter the type of cancer she had. It matters that she had cancer and died of it. Between that and smoking, you are at a much higher risk.”
“She never lived...” Jane’s voice softened as she turned toward the office window. The rain was quickly turning to snow as it pelted the glass. “She existed.”
The doctor flipped through Jane’s file. “She died at 35.”
Jane turned back to face the doctor. “Is that supposed to be significant? I’ve lasted two years longer than my mother so my clock’s ticking?”
“Genetics...our family history plays a major role for all of us.” The doctor closed the file and leaned forward. “You can’t ignore your DNA, Jane...your bloodline.”
“What are you saying? That I’m doomed to repeat my mother’s history? I don’t buy that, doc. I’m nothing like her. She was compliant...she was fragile...she had no gumption, no fight. She was always a broken woman. Cancer was a gift because it got her out of a life that she chose to crawl through.”
“So, you’re saying that strong, tough people like you don’t die of cancer?”
Jane sat back. She’d painted herself into an idiotic corner. “I’m saying...that I don’t believe blood defines my life...or my death.” She realized her hand was shaking. Suddenly, there was a strange sense in the tiny office—a heaviness that had not been there a few minutes earlier. Jane shifted with purpose in her seat, hoping she could shake off the unidentified impression that lingered around the edges of her chair. But instead, it hung even tighter.
“Did your mother take DES when she was pregnant?”
Jane felt outside of herself. “What?”
“DES. It’s a synthetic estrogen that was used between the 1940’s and 1971. Women were given it to prevent complications, especially with a history of pre-mature labor...“
Jane tried to push herself back into her body. “I’m the oldest. She wouldn’t know if she had a predisposition to premature labor so why would she take the drug?”
The doctor pursed her lips. “She could very well have taken it if there were complications during the pregnancy...“
Jane’s head was spinning. “There were no complications when she was pregnant with me.“
“How do you know?”
“I would have heard about it. Trust me,” Jane responded curtly.
The doctor took a breath. “DES-exposed daughters have an increased chance of developing dysplasia in the cervix, usually around twenty to thirty years of age.”
The strange, wraithlike heaviness sunk around Jane’s body, almost demanding to be acknowledged. “And I’m thirty-seven,” Jane stressed.
“It’s not absolute. Since you don’t fit into the profile completely, all other mitigating possibilities should be considered.”
“She didn’t take the drug.”
“She didn’t take it because you know she didn’t or because you don’t want to believe she took it?” In an unconscious, almost trance-like manner, Jane gently brushed her fingertips across her forehead, repeating the motion continuously. “Are you alright, Jane?” Jane stared into nothingness, her hand continuing its soothing rhythm across her forehead. “Do you have a headache?”
Jane suddenly noted the odd, uncharacteristic movement of her hand. She crossed her arms tightly against her jacket, a slight disconnect engulfing her. “I’m fine.” She was aware of how distant her voice sounded.
“It’s absolutely normal to feel anxious.” The doctor reached for her prescription pad. “I can write you a script. It’ll take the edge off.”
Jane let out a hard breath, struggling to ground her scattered senses. “Doc, I came out of the gate with an edge. I’ve self-medicated for years to take the edge off and the result has been an extremely sharp point that almost cut the life out of me.” She could feel that comforting, familiar grit return as she stood and faced the doctor. “I’ll take a pass on your happy pills.”
Jane stormed out of the parking garage in her ’66 ice blue Mustang and was met with a battering mixture of rain and snow pattering across the windshield. Checking the car’s clock, it was 6:30 pm. In a little over twelve hours, she’d be back at the doc’s office with her feet in the stirrups as they sliced another chunk of tissue out of her. A few years ago, her plan of action would have been simple: go home, get piss drunk, pass out, wake up, nurse the hangover and plod through her day. She may have given up the bottle, but Jane hadn’t given up her need to escape.
She gunned the Mustang onto I-70, easily passing three cars before stationing in the fast lane. Tomorrow was Friday. Next week was spring break. Perfect. She hadn’t taken any time off save for the two days when her younger brother Mike got married barefoot in Sedona. Yes, yes, she thought. The escape plan was coming together perfectly. Jane unconsciously reached for her American Spirits, deftly lifting one of the slender cylinders out of the pack with her teeth as she changed lanes to pass a truck going the speed limit. Slamming the car’s lighter into place with the heel of her hand, she continued to formulate her unplanned temporary departure. She’d wake up tomorrow, get the biopsy done, go to the market and stock up on enough food and DVDs to last a week, then return to her house and hole up like the old days—sans booze—until she got the phone call with the test results the following Thursday. She liked her plan. It was a classic Jane Perry mixture of fuck you revolt and sanctioned hooky. The car’s lighter clicked. Jane pressed the pedal to the floor, passed an 18-wheeler and slid back into the fast lane. She drew the lighter to the tip of the cigarette when the reality of the moment came into focus. “Fuck,” she whispered, and her plan quickly deflated.
It was only right that she leave a note for Weyler at DH. It also didn’t hurt that it was 7:15 pm when she squealed into police headquarters at 13th and Cherokee. Weyler was certain to be home by now, feet propped up on his ottoman, watching whatever PBS had programmed.
Getting off the elevator on the third floor, Jane quickly entered the homicide department and took a sharp right into her office. She snagged a blank sheet of paper out of the fax machine, scribbled a few sentences and signed her name. Before turning off the light, she grabbed a stack of paperwork from her cluttered, dusty desk, tucking it under her arm. Goddamned Protestant work ethic, she scolded herself.
A quick look around the Department showed no one. She walked into Weyler’s office, placing her letter in the center of his pristine, uncluttered desk. It would be a stealth departure, Jane assumed, until she spun around and smacked into the 6’4” frame of Sergeant Weyler.
“Jane,” Weyler said with ease. “Just the person I’m looking for.”
Jordan Copeland ran like a monster through the rain-soaked woods, chased only by his demons.
The darkness fell in on him—and within him—as he fought the choking sensation in his throat. It was just like forty-one years ago. But this time...this time, it was deeper, darker and more profound.
Sweat beads bled into the fat raindrops that covered his long, oil-cloth, olive green duster. The full moon traversed between the clouds, emitting fleeting glimpses of the world around him—a stand of trees, the rushing, unforgiving river, his log cabin on stilts. Nearly out of breath, he took temporary shelter under a leafless oak.
That’s when he smelled it. Death—sudden, stark, shattering and without dignity. Death, with vacant eyes staring back, the silver cord cut between the worlds.
Jordan crouched down against the tree trunk, burying his head in his chest. The hard rain heightened the sharp, pervasive, oiled odor of his duster. Lifting his head toward the heavens, his wide-set blue eyes and elongated forehead felt the brunt of the icy pellets. His grey beard was laced with mud and rain that quickly hardened into frosty threads. The roar within was deafening. He clamped his large, calloused hands over his ears, as the syncopated beat of his racing heart pounded in his head. Not again, he thought. God... not again.
The pressure around his throat increased. Forty-one years ago, he had youth on his side. He could run harder and longer. But now, his fifty-nine-year-old body was broken by a life unraveled. If he didn’t keep running, he knew he’d black out. Jordan felt the walls of his narrow world caving in. The sound of the rushing river thirty feet away, drifted into the distance.
He pressed his hands harder against his ears. For a moment, he heard nothing—just sweet silence and peace. Then, a second later, a stabbing pain sliced across his heart. He pulled his hands from his ears and pressed them against his chest, bracing himself against the oak tree’s trunk. The relentless storm sent waves of freezing rain across the inky landscape, raising the water of the thunderous river. The pressure around his throat increased until each breath became a life or death fight. Run, he thought. Run hard and escape. Yes, it was the same detached terror from forty-one years ago. He was able to sprint like a champion then, but it didn’t do him any good. The end result was still a life of suffering and loneliness.
The storm subsided. Jordan sucked in a deep breath, the primal grip on his throat suddenly releasing. The knife-like pain in his chest mellowed to a dull throb. He could handle that, he figured, as he glanced down to his chest. The moonlight swept across his hands, revealing crimson streaks of blood. But from what? From where? Jordan regarded his oversized hands, as if they belonged to another. It made no sense. Dear God. It was happening again. But this time...this time, the terror was carving into his gut. Think, dammit, think. But as hard as he thought, he couldn’t remember how he’d arrived at this spot—under the oak tree, dying for breath, and bleeding.
The demons moved closer, their claws whipping toward him like the lines of the fly fisherman that stalked the river’s edge. Rising to his towering height, Jordan’s eyes flared into a wild gaze. His wet, tangled salt and pepper mane slapped against the soaked duster. Spinning from one side to the other, Jordan exposed a warrior’s sword that only he could see. The rage inside flared into a conflagration as he slashed and cut the demonic tentacles that coiled around him. They won’t win this time. A generous sweep of his blade slaughtered the last of the fiends and sent them back into the underworld.
Crack!
Jordan turned toward the still echoing sound. The taste of death prickled on his tongue—bitter and sour.
Roar!
They were coming for him and he was cornered. Hunted like a rabid dog, Jordan wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Taking a step backward, he misjudged the embankment and plunged down the muddy, clay-laden slope. His ravaged body absorbed every rock and fallen tree while the pain consumed him. He was back on the cement floor of the jail cell forty-one years ago, getting the shit beaten out of him by the guards. “Fucking killer!” they screamed with a brutal punch to his face. “Child killer!” they grunted with each kick to his kidneys.
A high-pitched squeal shot into the night air as Jordan’s body hurtled toward the water’s edge.
CHAPTER 2
“Jane?”
Jane Perry stood staring outside the office window. The spring rain swept across the Denver landscape as the somber grey dusk enveloped the city. It was a fitting backdrop to the jarring statement she was still attempting to grasp. Jane wrapped one arm around her chest, her fist balled. Chewing the thumbnail of her other hand, she felt the syncopated pounding of her heart. The rain fell with renewed fury as her world narrowed and darkened.
“Jane...why don’t you sit down?”
The doctor’s voice sounded as though it was filtered through a wall instead of a few feet away. Breathe, Jane thought. But breathing was dangerous. Sucking in too much life might burn it up too fast. Everything would need to be measured from now on. Jesus Christ, what a way to live.
She turned toward the doctor, still in suspended animation and noted that the woman had a look of finely tuned compassion on her face. Jane wondered how many years it had taken to hone that visage so that patients would feel safer in her presence. Even with the news, Jane’s cynicism was still alive. “So, what’s the protocol?” she asked, in the same tenor she used when entering a crime scene.
“I’d like to do another cone biopsy,” the doctor responded flatly.
“I thought you already determined it to be...“
“The pathology suggests a possible Grade II cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. It looks to be confined to the basal third of the epithelium...”
The words swam through Jane’s head like sharks during a feeding frenzy. Each multi-syllabic word gnashed into the other, creating a chaotic drone. She knew she’d get a second opinion, but this was the second opinion.
“Suggests?” Jane interrupted with an edge to her voice. “Is it or isn’t it cancer?”
“There appear to be premalignant dysplastic changes but there are also abnormalities in the biopsy that are inconclusive...”
The sharks resumed their multi-syllabic feast. It’s fucking insane, Jane thought. Life had been going along at a nice, uneventful pace for over a year. She was now Sergeant Detective Perry, sharing duties with her former boss, Sergeant Morgan Weyler. They were an odd, yet highly effective team; Jane with her gruff, penetrating approach and Weyler with his eloquent, restrained demeanor. Together, they’d solved a few high profile Denver homicide cases, washing away the tragic stain that had dogged the Department two years ago. After nearly four decades of shallow breathing, Jane had finally been able to exhale.
Now that old voice in her head started spouting the mantra again—Life is a struggle and then you die. All the books she’d read in the last fifteen months on everything from Buddhism and the mind/body connection to esoteric meditation and higher consciousness were a waste of time. Faith and trust were incomprehensible now. It was easy to have faith and trust when life was chugging along at a happy pace. Now, right now, when she needed them most, Jane’s abject fear devoured them whole.
“So, we do another cone biopsy and then what?” Jane asked.
“It all depends on what that biopsy concludes. Typically, if it confirms severe cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, there’s an eighty to eighty-five percent chance that it’s a squamous cell carcinoma...“
“English, dammit!” Jane insisted, her patience wearing thin.
“We can do a few things,” the doctor related, undaunted by Jane’s tone. “We usually perform a loop electrical excision procedure and conisation in which the inner lining of the cervix is removed and examined...“
“Electrocution?” Jane asked, shifting her weight uncomfortably in her cowboy boots. “That sounds medieval.”
“It’s basic protocol. The pathology will determine what stage we’re looking at. Early stages may involve radiation and/or a hysterectomy.”
Jane noted a cold, rather calculated delivery of her options. She was reminded of the unemotional banter standing across from medical examiners over the years, as they rattled off a perfunctory list of data that led to the death of the poor son-of-a-bitch filleted open on the metal table between them. It was one thing, Jane considered, to discuss a dead man’s outcome in a detached manner, but to use the same cadence with someone who still had a pulse felt insensate to Jane. “Isn’t a hysterectomy a bit aggressive?”
“Cervical cancer is aggressive, Jane.” The doctor glanced at Jane’s open file on her desk. “I know the idea of a hysterectomy at the age of thirty-seven can be difficult to wrap one’s mind around, but the fact that you can’t conceive a child anyway...takes a bit of the concern out of it.”
Right, Jane thought. Wasn’t using my uterus anyway, so what the hell? She slid into the single chair opposite the desk and felt the butt of her Glock bite into her side as she dug her elbow into the arm of the chair and dragged her fingers through her shoulder length brown hair. Her leather jacket issued a soft crick as she sat back and looked the doctor straight in the eye. “I don’t get it. I think I’ve made some significant changes in my life. I’m eating better...sort of...I took up running two years ago. I even completed a three month yoga course that my boss signed me up for.” Jane still had a penchant for calling Weyler her boss even though they were now on equal footing. “Good God, I’ve been sober for fifteen months and nine days. Doesn’t that count for something?” Jane instantly realized that it was both absurd and desperate to think you earned points and dodged death for choosing sobriety.
“Lifestyle changes that improve health benefits are always positive,” the doctor offered.
Jesus Christ, she thought. There must be a manual these physicians follow, filled with pithy, mollifying statements that sound good but mean nothing. She couldn’t stand it any longer. “What in the hell are you talking about?” Her voice raised several octaves as she leaned forward and slammed her fist onto the doctor’s desk. “Obviously, it made no difference, given your diagnosis!”
“You can’t put a price on sobriety, Jane.”
Fuck! Another Hallmark card contribution. Jane promised herself if the doc’s next statement was, “You have to name it and claim it,” she was going to dive across the desk and strangle her.
“You are a smoker, Jane,” the doctor gently put forth. “That’s one of the ten behaviors that put you at greater risk.”
Great. Somebody made a list. Somebody always makes a goddamn list, Jane deduced. We’ve become a nation where we respond to lists and studies. Out of studies you get lists and out of lists you get people who chat about the lists as if the list was absolute. “Yeah, of course I smoke,” Jane said nonchalantly, realizing that a cigarette would taste pretty damn good right about now. “Cigarettes are the reformed drunk’s best friend.”
“Cigarettes are also a significant risk factor for cervical cancer, not to mention...“
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Multiple partners...”
Jane regarded the doctor with an arched eyebrow. “That’s on the list?” The doctor nodded. “Define ‘multiple.’” Jane stated, pretending for a moment that she was talking to her across a dimly lit table in Denver Headquarter’s tiny interrogation room.
“That’s difficult to say. It’s more pertinent whether a partner had an STD.”
“Well, let’s see, I haven’t had a partner in the religious sense for two years. And he was pretty fucked up on drugs. Are fucked up partners with drugs on your list? Before that, I could count my partners on one hand and still have a finger or two available. So, I don’t think I fit the multiple partner profile.” The doctor flipped the page on Jane’s report. Across the table, Jane could read her name across the top line: JANE ANNE PERRY. Who in the hell was that? she thought. She was Sergeant Detective Perry. That was a name she could answer and relate to—not Jane Anne Perry. Jane Anne Perry died a long time ago. “What you else you got on that list, doc?”
“Long term use of birth control pills...“
“Since pregnancy has never been possible, the Pill was never an issue,” Jane countered.
“Multiple pregnancies.“
Jane shook her head and a disparaging half-smile crept across her face. “This is your list?”
“Genetic history of cancer...especially the mother.” The sarcastic grin quickly left Jane’s face. “That’s actually a formidable risk in comparison to the others,” the doctor stressed, sitting back in her chair and holding Jane’s gaze.
Jane swallowed hard. It had been twenty-seven years since she had witnessed her mother, Anne, take her last violent breath before collapsing in a pool of blood and vomit. The memory was as fresh as ever, as was the invasive stench of death that Jane could never shake. “She died of lung cancer and never smoked a cigarette in her life.” The randomness of life suddenly struck Jane. What was the point of changing one’s lifestyle if it all came down to an arbitrary spin of the wheel? You might as well build a meth lab in the bathtub and have anonymous sex.
“It doesn’t matter the type of cancer she had. It matters that she had cancer and died of it. Between that and smoking, you are at a much higher risk.”
“She never lived...” Jane’s voice softened as she turned toward the office window. The rain was quickly turning to snow as it pelted the glass. “She existed.”
The doctor flipped through Jane’s file. “She died at 35.”
Jane turned back to face the doctor. “Is that supposed to be significant? I’ve lasted two years longer than my mother so my clock’s ticking?”
“Genetics...our family history plays a major role for all of us.” The doctor closed the file and leaned forward. “You can’t ignore your DNA, Jane...your bloodline.”
“What are you saying? That I’m doomed to repeat my mother’s history? I don’t buy that, doc. I’m nothing like her. She was compliant...she was fragile...she had no gumption, no fight. She was always a broken woman. Cancer was a gift because it got her out of a life that she chose to crawl through.”
“So, you’re saying that strong, tough people like you don’t die of cancer?”
Jane sat back. She’d painted herself into an idiotic corner. “I’m saying...that I don’t believe blood defines my life...or my death.” She realized her hand was shaking. Suddenly, there was a strange sense in the tiny office—a heaviness that had not been there a few minutes earlier. Jane shifted with purpose in her seat, hoping she could shake off the unidentified impression that lingered around the edges of her chair. But instead, it hung even tighter.
“Did your mother take DES when she was pregnant?”
Jane felt outside of herself. “What?”
“DES. It’s a synthetic estrogen that was used between the 1940’s and 1971. Women were given it to prevent complications, especially with a history of pre-mature labor...“
Jane tried to push herself back into her body. “I’m the oldest. She wouldn’t know if she had a predisposition to premature labor so why would she take the drug?”
The doctor pursed her lips. “She could very well have taken it if there were complications during the pregnancy...“
Jane’s head was spinning. “There were no complications when she was pregnant with me.“
“How do you know?”
“I would have heard about it. Trust me,” Jane responded curtly.
The doctor took a breath. “DES-exposed daughters have an increased chance of developing dysplasia in the cervix, usually around twenty to thirty years of age.”
The strange, wraithlike heaviness sunk around Jane’s body, almost demanding to be acknowledged. “And I’m thirty-seven,” Jane stressed.
“It’s not absolute. Since you don’t fit into the profile completely, all other mitigating possibilities should be considered.”
“She didn’t take the drug.”
“She didn’t take it because you know she didn’t or because you don’t want to believe she took it?” In an unconscious, almost trance-like manner, Jane gently brushed her fingertips across her forehead, repeating the motion continuously. “Are you alright, Jane?” Jane stared into nothingness, her hand continuing its soothing rhythm across her forehead. “Do you have a headache?”
Jane suddenly noted the odd, uncharacteristic movement of her hand. She crossed her arms tightly against her jacket, a slight disconnect engulfing her. “I’m fine.” She was aware of how distant her voice sounded.
“It’s absolutely normal to feel anxious.” The doctor reached for her prescription pad. “I can write you a script. It’ll take the edge off.”
Jane let out a hard breath, struggling to ground her scattered senses. “Doc, I came out of the gate with an edge. I’ve self-medicated for years to take the edge off and the result has been an extremely sharp point that almost cut the life out of me.” She could feel that comforting, familiar grit return as she stood and faced the doctor. “I’ll take a pass on your happy pills.”
Jane stormed out of the parking garage in her ’66 ice blue Mustang and was met with a battering mixture of rain and snow pattering across the windshield. Checking the car’s clock, it was 6:30 pm. In a little over twelve hours, she’d be back at the doc’s office with her feet in the stirrups as they sliced another chunk of tissue out of her. A few years ago, her plan of action would have been simple: go home, get piss drunk, pass out, wake up, nurse the hangover and plod through her day. She may have given up the bottle, but Jane hadn’t given up her need to escape.
She gunned the Mustang onto I-70, easily passing three cars before stationing in the fast lane. Tomorrow was Friday. Next week was spring break. Perfect. She hadn’t taken any time off save for the two days when her younger brother Mike got married barefoot in Sedona. Yes, yes, she thought. The escape plan was coming together perfectly. Jane unconsciously reached for her American Spirits, deftly lifting one of the slender cylinders out of the pack with her teeth as she changed lanes to pass a truck going the speed limit. Slamming the car’s lighter into place with the heel of her hand, she continued to formulate her unplanned temporary departure. She’d wake up tomorrow, get the biopsy done, go to the market and stock up on enough food and DVDs to last a week, then return to her house and hole up like the old days—sans booze—until she got the phone call with the test results the following Thursday. She liked her plan. It was a classic Jane Perry mixture of fuck you revolt and sanctioned hooky. The car’s lighter clicked. Jane pressed the pedal to the floor, passed an 18-wheeler and slid back into the fast lane. She drew the lighter to the tip of the cigarette when the reality of the moment came into focus. “Fuck,” she whispered, and her plan quickly deflated.
It was only right that she leave a note for Weyler at DH. It also didn’t hurt that it was 7:15 pm when she squealed into police headquarters at 13th and Cherokee. Weyler was certain to be home by now, feet propped up on his ottoman, watching whatever PBS had programmed.
Getting off the elevator on the third floor, Jane quickly entered the homicide department and took a sharp right into her office. She snagged a blank sheet of paper out of the fax machine, scribbled a few sentences and signed her name. Before turning off the light, she grabbed a stack of paperwork from her cluttered, dusty desk, tucking it under her arm. Goddamned Protestant work ethic, she scolded herself.
A quick look around the Department showed no one. She walked into Weyler’s office, placing her letter in the center of his pristine, uncluttered desk. It would be a stealth departure, Jane assumed, until she spun around and smacked into the 6’4” frame of Sergeant Weyler.
“Jane,” Weyler said with ease. “Just the person I’m looking for.”
Chapter 1 — "Betty's (Little Basement) Garden"
People only see what they are shown and believe the tale they are sold.
CHAPTER 1
Everything was perfect.
Well, okay, as close to perfect as Betty Craven could conceive. And that was always above and beyond what the average person ever achieved. But as Betty so often lectured herself, perfection was an elusive bitch; just when she thought she’d manipulated all the pieces into place, some goddamned force of nature with a chaotic agenda took control, vanquishing her precise plans. Perfection wasn’t easy, but it was what kept Betty motivated. Sure, it also kept her jaw unusually tight and even popping at times from the extreme tension. And that neck pain that often paralyzed her range of motion? Yes, that was also a health casualty in her quest for excellence. Oh, and the syncopated flutter that occasionally rose up in her right inner ear that not a single doctor could diagnose, except for citing “stress” as a factor? Yes, that too was just another consequence of what it took to be Betty Craven.
But no one saw the struggle under the polished veneer. People only see what they are shown and believe the tale they are sold. Her dearest, closest friends admired her strength and willpower. She was solid and dependable, but she was also beautiful. A former beauty queen with classic features, Betty’s curvaceous, five-foot-ten-inch frame was envied by other women, who suffered silently as they stood within her stunning orbit. Her hips, sculpted by gourmet cuisine and decadent desserts, were in suitable proportion to her voluptuous breasts that she reined in with custom brassieres. To Betty, exercise was not about cavorting on gym equipment; rather, exercise was a rousing few hours of weeding and digging in her prize-winning garden.
At the age of fifty-eight, she carried herself well. Her blond hair—touched up every twenty-eight days like clockwork—was the same shade as on the day she stood on the stage in the middle of the football field and was crowned Homecoming Queen of Spring Woods High School in Houston, Texas. The same, suitable coif adorned her smiling face on that perfect June day in 1974 when she married Frank Craven, her military beau, at the age of twenty-three in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And nary a hair was out of place in the photos six years later, as she held Frank Jr. in her arms and gazed at the camera in an appropriate manner.
And now, at this moment, her wavy, blond locks were still flawless as they skimmed just below her porcelain ears with the pearl stud earrings. Except for the infuriating fifteen pounds she couldn’t lose around her waist and stomach, Betty Craven still had that indefinable “it” factor. To anyone who knew her longer than five minutes, Betty was the personification of perfection. She was the woman every other woman wanted to be.
And if she could just hold it together for three more hours—just three more goddamn hours—another day would finally expire and she could retreat into the claws of regret and her beleaguered memories. Simmering discontent best described Betty Craven lately. The undercurrent of grief had never abated since the day he died. After a few strong drinks at night, she’d often see him in her dreams. But then she wondered if they were really dreams, or if he was stuck between the worlds and destined to spend eternity navigating the tortuous maze of purgatory. From the moment he passed from this world, her body felt weighted by lead. Betty could keep up a good front, because she’d done it for so damn long. She’d trained her body to move and react with such precision, that nobody would ever know the acute disconnect beneath the facade. “The Feet, mechanical, go round,” wrote Emily Dickinson, a favorite of Betty’s. “Of Ground, or Air, or Ought, a wooden way, regardless grown, a quartz contentment, like a stone. This is the Hour of Lead.” Yes, that was an ode to Betty Craven. She closed her eyes and took another anxious breath.
The doorbell rang. Smoothing her freshly ironed, creamy yellow dress across her hips, she re-adjusted the elbow-length sleeves. If Betty ran the world, no one over the age of forty would be caught dead in a sleeveless dress or shirt. There are things you do and there are things you never do, and dammit, sleeveless numbers are verboten. Betty quickly swept the living room with her steely blue eyes, programmed to root out any un-fluffed pillow, a chocolate candy or delicate cucumber sandwich askew on the hand painted platters, or an errant carpet fiber that had resisted the domination of the vacuum. She adjusted one of the large featured flowers in the vase she’d grown from heirloom seeds in her immaculate garden. It was a magnificent bloom with bold orange and crimson striations. But was it too bold? Betty’s jaw clenched. Did it overpower the presentation?
The doorbell rang again, this time with more urgency. They’d all arrived nearly simultaneously, parking their cars in her circular driveway and issuing a penetrating, humming natter outside her spotless cherry-red front door with the spring wreath on it. A wave of apprehension overwhelmed her. Would their expectations be met? Would the food be as impressive as the last get-together she hosted? But far worse, would she fail? Failure wasn’t an unknown visitor in Betty Craven’s house. In fact, failure was sitting thirty-five feet outside the kitchen door, down a short, brick path and slowly decaying in the empty, 600-square-foot, sunny space above her garage.
And there was always Frankie, her greatest failure.
Enough! She shook off the chatter in her head, let out a deep, authoritative breath and cheerfully opened the door.
Betty's (Little Basement) Garden
CHAPTER 1
Everything was perfect.
Well, okay, as close to perfect as Betty Craven could conceive. And that was always above and beyond what the average person ever achieved. But as Betty so often lectured herself, perfection was an elusive bitch; just when she thought she’d manipulated all the pieces into place, some goddamned force of nature with a chaotic agenda took control, vanquishing her precise plans. Perfection wasn’t easy, but it was what kept Betty motivated. Sure, it also kept her jaw unusually tight and even popping at times from the extreme tension. And that neck pain that often paralyzed her range of motion? Yes, that was also a health casualty in her quest for excellence. Oh, and the syncopated flutter that occasionally rose up in her right inner ear that not a single doctor could diagnose, except for citing “stress” as a factor? Yes, that too was just another consequence of what it took to be Betty Craven.
But no one saw the struggle under the polished veneer. People only see what they are shown and believe the tale they are sold. Her dearest, closest friends admired her strength and willpower. She was solid and dependable, but she was also beautiful. A former beauty queen with classic features, Betty’s curvaceous, five-foot-ten-inch frame was envied by other women, who suffered silently as they stood within her stunning orbit. Her hips, sculpted by gourmet cuisine and decadent desserts, were in suitable proportion to her voluptuous breasts that she reined in with custom brassieres. To Betty, exercise was not about cavorting on gym equipment; rather, exercise was a rousing few hours of weeding and digging in her prize-winning garden.
At the age of fifty-eight, she carried herself well. Her blond hair—touched up every twenty-eight days like clockwork—was the same shade as on the day she stood on the stage in the middle of the football field and was crowned Homecoming Queen of Spring Woods High School in Houston, Texas. The same, suitable coif adorned her smiling face on that perfect June day in 1974 when she married Frank Craven, her military beau, at the age of twenty-three in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And nary a hair was out of place in the photos six years later, as she held Frank Jr. in her arms and gazed at the camera in an appropriate manner.
And now, at this moment, her wavy, blond locks were still flawless as they skimmed just below her porcelain ears with the pearl stud earrings. Except for the infuriating fifteen pounds she couldn’t lose around her waist and stomach, Betty Craven still had that indefinable “it” factor. To anyone who knew her longer than five minutes, Betty was the personification of perfection. She was the woman every other woman wanted to be.
And if she could just hold it together for three more hours—just three more goddamn hours—another day would finally expire and she could retreat into the claws of regret and her beleaguered memories. Simmering discontent best described Betty Craven lately. The undercurrent of grief had never abated since the day he died. After a few strong drinks at night, she’d often see him in her dreams. But then she wondered if they were really dreams, or if he was stuck between the worlds and destined to spend eternity navigating the tortuous maze of purgatory. From the moment he passed from this world, her body felt weighted by lead. Betty could keep up a good front, because she’d done it for so damn long. She’d trained her body to move and react with such precision, that nobody would ever know the acute disconnect beneath the facade. “The Feet, mechanical, go round,” wrote Emily Dickinson, a favorite of Betty’s. “Of Ground, or Air, or Ought, a wooden way, regardless grown, a quartz contentment, like a stone. This is the Hour of Lead.” Yes, that was an ode to Betty Craven. She closed her eyes and took another anxious breath.
The doorbell rang. Smoothing her freshly ironed, creamy yellow dress across her hips, she re-adjusted the elbow-length sleeves. If Betty ran the world, no one over the age of forty would be caught dead in a sleeveless dress or shirt. There are things you do and there are things you never do, and dammit, sleeveless numbers are verboten. Betty quickly swept the living room with her steely blue eyes, programmed to root out any un-fluffed pillow, a chocolate candy or delicate cucumber sandwich askew on the hand painted platters, or an errant carpet fiber that had resisted the domination of the vacuum. She adjusted one of the large featured flowers in the vase she’d grown from heirloom seeds in her immaculate garden. It was a magnificent bloom with bold orange and crimson striations. But was it too bold? Betty’s jaw clenched. Did it overpower the presentation?
The doorbell rang again, this time with more urgency. They’d all arrived nearly simultaneously, parking their cars in her circular driveway and issuing a penetrating, humming natter outside her spotless cherry-red front door with the spring wreath on it. A wave of apprehension overwhelmed her. Would their expectations be met? Would the food be as impressive as the last get-together she hosted? But far worse, would she fail? Failure wasn’t an unknown visitor in Betty Craven’s house. In fact, failure was sitting thirty-five feet outside the kitchen door, down a short, brick path and slowly decaying in the empty, 600-square-foot, sunny space above her garage.
And there was always Frankie, her greatest failure.
Enough! She shook off the chatter in her head, let out a deep, authoritative breath and cheerfully opened the door.
Betty's (Little Basement) Garden
KNOWING [Jane Perry #4] — Chapter 1
Sergeant Detective Jane Perry rolled to an abrupt stop in front of the gas pumps and checked the time. 7:17. It had been exactly seventeen minutes since she left her house on Milwaukee Street in Denver and headed south on I-25 but it felt like hours. Lately, reality had revolved in a surreal sphere, and Jane was looking forward to jumping off the mind-bending roller coaster and getting some heartfelt perspective on her life. But all that would have to wait now.
If Jane were still a smoker, she would have extinguished four cigarettes since she left her house. Even though it had been over eleven days since she was sucker punched by the news, the rawness of that first moment when she saw the truth in black and white was still fresh and stung like venom, hot and unforgiving. Nicotine would soften the edges but she’d made a promise to herself to quit, so she’d have to figure out how to steer through this oozing emotional wound without the comfortable dulling of pain.
That was proving more difficult as the days progressed. In one moment, Jane’s world not only blew apart, but her entire identity split with it. She’d spent the past days dredging up her turbulent young life yet again—propelling her heart back into the chaos—searching for clues in the multitude of unspoken words and wondering how she missed the torturous secret her mother chose to keep. Unfortunately, her memories had been fogged by time and over twenty years of abusing the bottle. If there was any sign of what was hidden long ago, it was now buried in layers of regret and omission.
Jane rolled down her window and adjusted the side mirror on her ’66 ice blue Mustang. She took in a deep breath, hoping it would abate her temptation for tobacco. The cool, mid-April breeze belied the promise of spring, even though March and April were known in Colorado as the wettest and snowiest months of the year. As Jane canvassed the flattened landscape so common for this section of the state, there was still no sign of the Isis of rebirth—no lush green panoramas to sink her teeth into and inhale the beauty. All that lay in eyesight were varying shades of taupe, edged by the blacktop of the frontage road. How was it possible for anything verdant to emerge from this lifeless topography? The sheer energy it took for Colorado to rise from the frozen ashes of winter never ceased to amaze and confound Jane. While the rains had abated over the last twenty-four hours, an uncommon moisture still clung in the normally dry morning atmosphere that lent a dampened spirit to her journey.
Jane leaned outside and caught her reflection in the side mirror. No, it couldn’t be, she thought. Moving closer to the mirror, she parted her shoulder length brown hair and found a cluster of grey. When did this happen? Had she been so preoccupied with the events of her last case that she failed to notice the preamble to death painted on her crown? She studied her brown eyes in the mirror and noted the bags underneath—badges of a hard fought life where sacrifice trumped freedom. Crinkling her nose, Jane forced the lines around the corner of her eyes to deepen. She could chalk it up to too much smiling but anyone who knew her would disagree since Jane Perry’s personality was not synonymous with grinning. She let out a hard sigh of resignation. How in the hell did she get so goddamned old in just thirty-seven years?
She leaned over and locked her Glock in the glove compartment on top of her badge. Even though her anticipated seven-day trip was purely personal, she never traveled without her service weapon. It was an anchor and a steel security blanket. Swiping her credit card, she selected the highest-grade gasoline for her cherished classic ride and filled the tank. A gust of wind blew across the service station, forcing Jane to button the collar of her leather jacket. She turned and surveyed the smattering of vehicles filling up at this early hour. Jane had always been a student of observation; always keenly taking in the minute details in front of her. That ability ran on autopilot and served her well as a cop when she had to recreate a homicide scene.
But lately, she’d taken to counting objects that were grouped together. It had almost become an obsession; something to indulge her addictive mind. At that moment, there were three cars, including hers, at the islands. There were seven islands, each with three options for fuel. But four of those fuel pumps were covered with yellow tape, marking them out of order. So, readjusting it, there were seventeen fuel handles available. Ironic, she mused. When she rolled into the gas station and looked at the clock, it was 7:17, which was seventeen minutes after she left her house. Odd.
She’d come to know these as syncs, clusters of seemingly disparate words, digital times on a clock, names, symbols or numbers that kept cropping up in such a way to herald a hidden message. While some of the syncs had been easy to decipher, most proved mystifying, leaving Jane to feel she either wasn’t smart enough to understand the significance or that the message itself wasn’t ready to be heard. This concept may have occupied illogical territory, but even the most logical human being has been guilty of latching onto a sign from above or below in an attempt to give meaning to an experience.
As much as Jane Perry primarily used her logic, these last few years had introduced her to phenomena that defied rational sense. The more she fought it, the more the strangeness attacked like a serpent, demanding to be acknowledged. More than anything, she couldn’t escape the weird coincidences and syncs that plagued her daily life and infested nearly every homicide she worked. The constant dovetailing of events was so common now that she no longer questioned the mystical belief of entanglement with other humans, both dead and alive.
The fuel pump clicked but Jane kept squeezing the handle in an attempt to force every last drop of gas into her tank. She noted the signage on the pump warning against “topping off” your tank and some reference to “creating a cleaner, greener planet.” Fuck that shit, she thought. She had a long drive in front of her and her hungry Mustang needed to be fed as much liquid “grass” as possible. When she finally filled it to overflowing, Jane removed the nozzle and hooked it back on the pump. Just as she did, she sensed the presence of the attendant behind her, ready to make a smartass comment. She turned, ready to verbally tackle him with her well-worn bravado. Yet to her astonishment, there was no one there. Jane spun around and scanned the immediate area, looking for any sign of an attendant in the vicinity but she came up empty. She chalked it up to a lack of sufficient caffeine, even though she’d already knocked back three cups of coffee in the last two hours. While gas station java swill wasn’t her first choice, it would have to do.
Inside the small Quik Mart convenience store, Jane found four aisles stuffed to the gills with every known junk food. Besides the corpulent woman behind the cash register who crunched on a greasy pork rind, the only other occupants were a beefy biker and a scrawny teenage boy who was loading up on enough “crack in a can” energy drinks to keep him awake until he stroked out. A small television, located above the cash register, was turned on with the sound muted. Jane briefly glanced up as a booking photograph of a heavyset man filled the screen. His wavy brown, scraggly hair matched his unkempt beard and mustache. His name flashed underneath the photo: Harlan Kipple, age forty-two.
Jane knew all about Kipple, although she’d never met him. For almost fourteen days, he had been enjoying “three hots and a cot,” courtesy of the Denver penal system. She would have caught the case but Kipple committed his crime southeast of Denver in Limon, Colorado and was only kicked to Denver because of his heinous, high profile crime and to insure he was secured prior to trial.
Kipple, an Interstate truck driver with only one past infraction of transporting illegal prescription drugs in his rig for his brother-in-law, had been accused of the macabre butchering of an unidentified black prostitute. It was your classic open and shut case since Kipple had been found in a dingy Limon motel, passed out in bed with the working girl, clutching a bloody hunting knife and covered in her blood. To make the case even more depraved, the poor girl had been gutted like a deer and her head cracked open, leaving her brain draped outside of her skull. As expected, drugs were involved and that part of the murder made Harlan Kipple nefariously notorious. Lab reports showed he injected the girl with ketamine hydrochloride—a PCP analogue used as an anesthetic in veterinary medicine but gaining popularity on the street as a date rape drug. Known on the club scene as “Special K,” “Super K,” “KO” and “Make Her Mine”, ketamine was distinguished from other date rape drugs in that it produced a dissociative anesthesia, rendering the victim detached from all bodily sensations but often aware of what was being done to them and yet paralyzed and unable to respond. Picture being encased in a glass ball, while watching the unthinkable happen to you and having no way to fight back. It was the ultimate torture because if the victim survived the attack, they usually suffered from amnesia but were prone to subsequent, suddenly triggered vivid hallucinations that replayed the rape or attack, forcing the victim to question their reality. To Jane, ketamine was the epitome of a true mind-fucking drug that left its twisted mark on survivors for many years. As for the unsuspecting prostitute that Kipple mutilated, her last minutes were likely spent watching herself being raped and then filleted open until the grace of God separated her body from her soul.
But the incongruity of Kipple’s case didn’t end there. About two years prior to the grisly murder, he had been given a life-saving heart transplant—a surgery that nearly insured him another healthy two decades of life. The fact that those years would now be spent confined to a cell and probably end in execution was God’s little irony, Jane deduced. What a waste of a good heart, she recalled thinking when the story broke.
Kipple’s face lingered on the television inside the Quik Mart. The press named him “Kipple, the Heartless Killer.” Nothing works like an obvious alliteration when you’re selling freaks to the public. Jane stared at his photo, searching out the darkness that always lingered behind the eyes of all psychos. But Kipple was a tough nut to crack. Instead of the penetrating evil, there was a strange softness and quiet sweetness that projected from his photo. Good God, was she losing her touch?
“Can I help you?”
Jane turned away from the screen to find the cashier staring at her, a speck of pork rind dotting her upper lip. “I need strong coffee.”
The woman pointed her fat finger toward the back of the store, in the corner next to the bank of refrigerated shelves. Jane glanced outside to her Mustang and then quickly walked to the rear of the store. She selected the strongest brew available and the largest cup, filling it to the rim. Searching for the sugar, she tipped over the plastic bowl that held the packets. She counted them as she put them back in the bowl. Seventeen. She snapped the lid on the cup and carried it around the corner of the aisle, staring momentarily at the array of artery-clogging snack foods that lined the shelves. She looked up briefly to glance at her waiting Mustang before searching the selections for anything remotely healthy. It was another promise Jane made to herself after recently escaping what she assumed was a death sentence. She found herself drawn to the pine nuts, even though she never would have made that choice a few weeks ago. She squinted to read what was written across the front of the bag in green lettering: ENJOY THESE NUGGETS OF NATURE FROM THE PINECONE! The price was right for the small bag, a buck seventy.
Jane grabbed all eight bags on the shelf as she felt the burly biker walk behind her. For some strange reason, he hovered awfully close. She allowed the intrusion to continue for another few seconds before spinning around. But there was no one standing there. The biker was, in fact, on the opposite side of the store. Jane stood still, sensing a muscular thickness around her; a phantasm imprint that lacked clarity. A few years ago, she would have ignored this curious feeling but she’d learned the hard way that the more she pretended it away or chalked it up to booze, flashbacks, PTSD or lack of sleep, the more dynamic it became.
Jane waited, looking into nothingness yet still clearly aware of the unassailable presence around her. She started to turn right but was drawn to the left. Moving around the aisle, Jane stood at the long magazine rack that framed the front windows. Cradling the eight bags of pine nuts, she made her way toward the cashier when she heard the soft brush of a magazine fall to the vinyl floor behind her. Jane turned to find a copy of “The Q”—a glossy, men’s sports and outdoor magazine—splayed open, cover side up. She leaned down, picked up the magazine and replaced it on the shelf. Turning toward the cashier, Jane took a step and heard the magazine fall behind her again. She stopped. The phantasmal stickiness gripped her like a defiant child demanding her attention. Jane carefully turned toward the magazine, finding it sprawled in the same position as before. She leaned down, turned it over and stared at the advertising found on page seventeen. Against an indigo background lay a mountainous landscape with snowcapped peaks. Featured in the foreground was a woman’s modest wristwatch placed upon what looked like a red satin cloth that stretched from one side of the page to the other. The hands on the watch pointed to 11:17. In the bottom left hand corner, there was an illustration of the “great and powerful” Oz from The Wizard of Oz peeking out from his purple curtained area. In bold, red block letters next to the image, it read:
IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE, DOROTHY.
Jane searched on the page for the product or service being advertised and came up empty. She figured “time” related to the woman’s wristwatch and Dorothy correlated to The Wizard of Oz but the rest of the ad was nonsensical. There were no website links or phone numbers that related to whatever they were selling. Avant-garde garbage. That’s what Jane deduced as she inexplicably tucked the magazine under her arm and walked to the cashier. Suddenly, the presence that had hung so closely to her disappeared.
“That all?” the chunky woman asked.
“That’ll do it.”
The woman tapped her greasy finger on a greeting card stand to the left of the checkout. “We got Easter cards on closeout.”
Jane regarded the woman with an incredulous stare. Did she actually believe Jane looked like a woman who would send someone an Easter card? Jane glanced at the nearly empty card stand and saw a glittery greeting with the Archangel Gabriel blowing his trumpet. Who in the hell sends Easter cards? Jane peered around the card stand and saw liters of spring water. She grabbed four bottles and added them to her pile. “Okay. That’ll do it.”
“Thirty-three even.” Jane handed the woman a fifty. The woman opened the register and handed Jane’s change back to her. “Seventeen’s your change.”
“What in the fuck is going on?“ Jane muttered.
“Excuse me?” the woman asked, offended.
“Not you.” Jane’s mind was elsewhere.
The woman dumped the purchases into a plastic bag. “Uh-huh,” she replied, still affronted. “Hey…” Jane was still lost in thought as she tucked the seventeen dollars into her wallet. “Hey,” the woman stressed, leaning forward.
Jane awoke from her slumber. “What?”
The woman pointed out the front window. “Isn’t that your car driving away?”
Jane turned around just in time to see the back wheels of her ice blue Mustang squeal out of the parking lot. She raced outside, instinctively grabbing for her Glock and coming up empty. The only detail she could make out was the back of a man’s head and his thick neck.
If Jane were still a smoker, she would have extinguished four cigarettes since she left her house. Even though it had been over eleven days since she was sucker punched by the news, the rawness of that first moment when she saw the truth in black and white was still fresh and stung like venom, hot and unforgiving. Nicotine would soften the edges but she’d made a promise to herself to quit, so she’d have to figure out how to steer through this oozing emotional wound without the comfortable dulling of pain.
That was proving more difficult as the days progressed. In one moment, Jane’s world not only blew apart, but her entire identity split with it. She’d spent the past days dredging up her turbulent young life yet again—propelling her heart back into the chaos—searching for clues in the multitude of unspoken words and wondering how she missed the torturous secret her mother chose to keep. Unfortunately, her memories had been fogged by time and over twenty years of abusing the bottle. If there was any sign of what was hidden long ago, it was now buried in layers of regret and omission.
Jane rolled down her window and adjusted the side mirror on her ’66 ice blue Mustang. She took in a deep breath, hoping it would abate her temptation for tobacco. The cool, mid-April breeze belied the promise of spring, even though March and April were known in Colorado as the wettest and snowiest months of the year. As Jane canvassed the flattened landscape so common for this section of the state, there was still no sign of the Isis of rebirth—no lush green panoramas to sink her teeth into and inhale the beauty. All that lay in eyesight were varying shades of taupe, edged by the blacktop of the frontage road. How was it possible for anything verdant to emerge from this lifeless topography? The sheer energy it took for Colorado to rise from the frozen ashes of winter never ceased to amaze and confound Jane. While the rains had abated over the last twenty-four hours, an uncommon moisture still clung in the normally dry morning atmosphere that lent a dampened spirit to her journey.
Jane leaned outside and caught her reflection in the side mirror. No, it couldn’t be, she thought. Moving closer to the mirror, she parted her shoulder length brown hair and found a cluster of grey. When did this happen? Had she been so preoccupied with the events of her last case that she failed to notice the preamble to death painted on her crown? She studied her brown eyes in the mirror and noted the bags underneath—badges of a hard fought life where sacrifice trumped freedom. Crinkling her nose, Jane forced the lines around the corner of her eyes to deepen. She could chalk it up to too much smiling but anyone who knew her would disagree since Jane Perry’s personality was not synonymous with grinning. She let out a hard sigh of resignation. How in the hell did she get so goddamned old in just thirty-seven years?
She leaned over and locked her Glock in the glove compartment on top of her badge. Even though her anticipated seven-day trip was purely personal, she never traveled without her service weapon. It was an anchor and a steel security blanket. Swiping her credit card, she selected the highest-grade gasoline for her cherished classic ride and filled the tank. A gust of wind blew across the service station, forcing Jane to button the collar of her leather jacket. She turned and surveyed the smattering of vehicles filling up at this early hour. Jane had always been a student of observation; always keenly taking in the minute details in front of her. That ability ran on autopilot and served her well as a cop when she had to recreate a homicide scene.
But lately, she’d taken to counting objects that were grouped together. It had almost become an obsession; something to indulge her addictive mind. At that moment, there were three cars, including hers, at the islands. There were seven islands, each with three options for fuel. But four of those fuel pumps were covered with yellow tape, marking them out of order. So, readjusting it, there were seventeen fuel handles available. Ironic, she mused. When she rolled into the gas station and looked at the clock, it was 7:17, which was seventeen minutes after she left her house. Odd.
She’d come to know these as syncs, clusters of seemingly disparate words, digital times on a clock, names, symbols or numbers that kept cropping up in such a way to herald a hidden message. While some of the syncs had been easy to decipher, most proved mystifying, leaving Jane to feel she either wasn’t smart enough to understand the significance or that the message itself wasn’t ready to be heard. This concept may have occupied illogical territory, but even the most logical human being has been guilty of latching onto a sign from above or below in an attempt to give meaning to an experience.
As much as Jane Perry primarily used her logic, these last few years had introduced her to phenomena that defied rational sense. The more she fought it, the more the strangeness attacked like a serpent, demanding to be acknowledged. More than anything, she couldn’t escape the weird coincidences and syncs that plagued her daily life and infested nearly every homicide she worked. The constant dovetailing of events was so common now that she no longer questioned the mystical belief of entanglement with other humans, both dead and alive.
The fuel pump clicked but Jane kept squeezing the handle in an attempt to force every last drop of gas into her tank. She noted the signage on the pump warning against “topping off” your tank and some reference to “creating a cleaner, greener planet.” Fuck that shit, she thought. She had a long drive in front of her and her hungry Mustang needed to be fed as much liquid “grass” as possible. When she finally filled it to overflowing, Jane removed the nozzle and hooked it back on the pump. Just as she did, she sensed the presence of the attendant behind her, ready to make a smartass comment. She turned, ready to verbally tackle him with her well-worn bravado. Yet to her astonishment, there was no one there. Jane spun around and scanned the immediate area, looking for any sign of an attendant in the vicinity but she came up empty. She chalked it up to a lack of sufficient caffeine, even though she’d already knocked back three cups of coffee in the last two hours. While gas station java swill wasn’t her first choice, it would have to do.
Inside the small Quik Mart convenience store, Jane found four aisles stuffed to the gills with every known junk food. Besides the corpulent woman behind the cash register who crunched on a greasy pork rind, the only other occupants were a beefy biker and a scrawny teenage boy who was loading up on enough “crack in a can” energy drinks to keep him awake until he stroked out. A small television, located above the cash register, was turned on with the sound muted. Jane briefly glanced up as a booking photograph of a heavyset man filled the screen. His wavy brown, scraggly hair matched his unkempt beard and mustache. His name flashed underneath the photo: Harlan Kipple, age forty-two.
Jane knew all about Kipple, although she’d never met him. For almost fourteen days, he had been enjoying “three hots and a cot,” courtesy of the Denver penal system. She would have caught the case but Kipple committed his crime southeast of Denver in Limon, Colorado and was only kicked to Denver because of his heinous, high profile crime and to insure he was secured prior to trial.
Kipple, an Interstate truck driver with only one past infraction of transporting illegal prescription drugs in his rig for his brother-in-law, had been accused of the macabre butchering of an unidentified black prostitute. It was your classic open and shut case since Kipple had been found in a dingy Limon motel, passed out in bed with the working girl, clutching a bloody hunting knife and covered in her blood. To make the case even more depraved, the poor girl had been gutted like a deer and her head cracked open, leaving her brain draped outside of her skull. As expected, drugs were involved and that part of the murder made Harlan Kipple nefariously notorious. Lab reports showed he injected the girl with ketamine hydrochloride—a PCP analogue used as an anesthetic in veterinary medicine but gaining popularity on the street as a date rape drug. Known on the club scene as “Special K,” “Super K,” “KO” and “Make Her Mine”, ketamine was distinguished from other date rape drugs in that it produced a dissociative anesthesia, rendering the victim detached from all bodily sensations but often aware of what was being done to them and yet paralyzed and unable to respond. Picture being encased in a glass ball, while watching the unthinkable happen to you and having no way to fight back. It was the ultimate torture because if the victim survived the attack, they usually suffered from amnesia but were prone to subsequent, suddenly triggered vivid hallucinations that replayed the rape or attack, forcing the victim to question their reality. To Jane, ketamine was the epitome of a true mind-fucking drug that left its twisted mark on survivors for many years. As for the unsuspecting prostitute that Kipple mutilated, her last minutes were likely spent watching herself being raped and then filleted open until the grace of God separated her body from her soul.
But the incongruity of Kipple’s case didn’t end there. About two years prior to the grisly murder, he had been given a life-saving heart transplant—a surgery that nearly insured him another healthy two decades of life. The fact that those years would now be spent confined to a cell and probably end in execution was God’s little irony, Jane deduced. What a waste of a good heart, she recalled thinking when the story broke.
Kipple’s face lingered on the television inside the Quik Mart. The press named him “Kipple, the Heartless Killer.” Nothing works like an obvious alliteration when you’re selling freaks to the public. Jane stared at his photo, searching out the darkness that always lingered behind the eyes of all psychos. But Kipple was a tough nut to crack. Instead of the penetrating evil, there was a strange softness and quiet sweetness that projected from his photo. Good God, was she losing her touch?
“Can I help you?”
Jane turned away from the screen to find the cashier staring at her, a speck of pork rind dotting her upper lip. “I need strong coffee.”
The woman pointed her fat finger toward the back of the store, in the corner next to the bank of refrigerated shelves. Jane glanced outside to her Mustang and then quickly walked to the rear of the store. She selected the strongest brew available and the largest cup, filling it to the rim. Searching for the sugar, she tipped over the plastic bowl that held the packets. She counted them as she put them back in the bowl. Seventeen. She snapped the lid on the cup and carried it around the corner of the aisle, staring momentarily at the array of artery-clogging snack foods that lined the shelves. She looked up briefly to glance at her waiting Mustang before searching the selections for anything remotely healthy. It was another promise Jane made to herself after recently escaping what she assumed was a death sentence. She found herself drawn to the pine nuts, even though she never would have made that choice a few weeks ago. She squinted to read what was written across the front of the bag in green lettering: ENJOY THESE NUGGETS OF NATURE FROM THE PINECONE! The price was right for the small bag, a buck seventy.
Jane grabbed all eight bags on the shelf as she felt the burly biker walk behind her. For some strange reason, he hovered awfully close. She allowed the intrusion to continue for another few seconds before spinning around. But there was no one standing there. The biker was, in fact, on the opposite side of the store. Jane stood still, sensing a muscular thickness around her; a phantasm imprint that lacked clarity. A few years ago, she would have ignored this curious feeling but she’d learned the hard way that the more she pretended it away or chalked it up to booze, flashbacks, PTSD or lack of sleep, the more dynamic it became.
Jane waited, looking into nothingness yet still clearly aware of the unassailable presence around her. She started to turn right but was drawn to the left. Moving around the aisle, Jane stood at the long magazine rack that framed the front windows. Cradling the eight bags of pine nuts, she made her way toward the cashier when she heard the soft brush of a magazine fall to the vinyl floor behind her. Jane turned to find a copy of “The Q”—a glossy, men’s sports and outdoor magazine—splayed open, cover side up. She leaned down, picked up the magazine and replaced it on the shelf. Turning toward the cashier, Jane took a step and heard the magazine fall behind her again. She stopped. The phantasmal stickiness gripped her like a defiant child demanding her attention. Jane carefully turned toward the magazine, finding it sprawled in the same position as before. She leaned down, turned it over and stared at the advertising found on page seventeen. Against an indigo background lay a mountainous landscape with snowcapped peaks. Featured in the foreground was a woman’s modest wristwatch placed upon what looked like a red satin cloth that stretched from one side of the page to the other. The hands on the watch pointed to 11:17. In the bottom left hand corner, there was an illustration of the “great and powerful” Oz from The Wizard of Oz peeking out from his purple curtained area. In bold, red block letters next to the image, it read:
IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE, DOROTHY.
Jane searched on the page for the product or service being advertised and came up empty. She figured “time” related to the woman’s wristwatch and Dorothy correlated to The Wizard of Oz but the rest of the ad was nonsensical. There were no website links or phone numbers that related to whatever they were selling. Avant-garde garbage. That’s what Jane deduced as she inexplicably tucked the magazine under her arm and walked to the cashier. Suddenly, the presence that had hung so closely to her disappeared.
“That all?” the chunky woman asked.
“That’ll do it.”
The woman tapped her greasy finger on a greeting card stand to the left of the checkout. “We got Easter cards on closeout.”
Jane regarded the woman with an incredulous stare. Did she actually believe Jane looked like a woman who would send someone an Easter card? Jane glanced at the nearly empty card stand and saw a glittery greeting with the Archangel Gabriel blowing his trumpet. Who in the hell sends Easter cards? Jane peered around the card stand and saw liters of spring water. She grabbed four bottles and added them to her pile. “Okay. That’ll do it.”
“Thirty-three even.” Jane handed the woman a fifty. The woman opened the register and handed Jane’s change back to her. “Seventeen’s your change.”
“What in the fuck is going on?“ Jane muttered.
“Excuse me?” the woman asked, offended.
“Not you.” Jane’s mind was elsewhere.
The woman dumped the purchases into a plastic bag. “Uh-huh,” she replied, still affronted. “Hey…” Jane was still lost in thought as she tucked the seventeen dollars into her wallet. “Hey,” the woman stressed, leaning forward.
Jane awoke from her slumber. “What?”
The woman pointed out the front window. “Isn’t that your car driving away?”
Jane turned around just in time to see the back wheels of her ice blue Mustang squeal out of the parking lot. She raced outside, instinctively grabbing for her Glock and coming up empty. The only detail she could make out was the back of a man’s head and his thick neck.
