Knowing by Laurel Dewey

Harlan with every ounce of cop insight she could muster. She’d stared into the eyes of murderers, rapists and con men. She’d also looked into the eyes of innocent people who had been accused of heinous crimes. There was often a thin line between the disparity of guilt and innocence and it was her job to detect which way the pendulum swung. The irony here was that after she’d exhausted all logic and weighed the facts, she listened to her heart to make the final judgment. Everything Harlan had told her so far—while a bit bizarre to the unseasoned observer in this world where the unseen often dominates the physical—came from an honest and terrified place. And her own heart told her he was neither crazy nor guilty. Jane sat on the ground across from Harlan so she could be on eye level with him. “I want to know, Harlan. I want to know why you ran.” She could feel him silently sensing her sincerity. It was as if his eyes bore holes of insight into her core. “ Tell me ,” Jane encouraged.
    “My bastard of a lawyer appeared out of nowhere. He come to see me the first day I got transferred over to Denver from Limon. At first, I thought he was just grabbin’ for a headline makin’ case and as long as he got me a fair trial, I’d take him on. But, the whole time, my heart kept pullin’ me away from him in a serious way. I mean, just a few minutes in his presence and I’d feel like I wanted to either run or kill him.”
    “You wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to kill a lawyer.”
    “No, I’m serious. It was like hardwired into me.” He stood straight up, holding an imaginary revolver in his right hand. “I wanted to creep up on the little worm and pop him right in the center of his skull! I’d leave a perfect hole in his head, with just the slightest trace of blowback from the powder around the edge of the wound.” For a moment, Harlan oddly warmed himself in the bloody plan. Then, nonchalantly, he turned to Jane, quickly divested from the gory fantasy. “And I really ain’t a violent man.” He sauntered several feet away “It was a helluva lot more than I didn’t trust him. But I could never fix a reason to it.” He looked off to the side as a cool breeze swept through the trees and washed over him. “I went along until I knew I had to get away from him and this whole mess.” He turned back to Jane, looking her straight in the eye. “Last night, one of the guards told me that my lawyer had called and he had arranged for me to go to the hospital and have my heart checked.”
    “Why?”
    “Said he wanted to know what my physical status was…whether I was well enough to stand trial…” Jane’s face showed apprehension. “Yeah, I felt the same thing, Detective. That’s why I agreed to only go to the hospital as long as I had my bag with me.”
    “What bag?”
    “The bag I’ve been fillin’ up with stuff since my operation. I don’t know what the stuff means but I’m thinkin’ it’s a like a trail of clues to who this is.” He pointed to his heart. “I don’t have any idea what some of the things mean that I collect but I put them in the bag irregardless.”
    Irregardless . Jane shuddered.
    “I got my notepad in there too,” he added. “I’ve been scratchin’ on that thing since damn near two days out of surgery. And it’s one helluva clusterfuck of scribbles, pardon my French.”
    Jane held back a smile since she spoke “French” quite fluently and with obscene abandon at times. “Did they agree to give you the bag?”
    “Yeah. My lawyer worked it out. It’s in your car.” Harlan let out a weary sigh. “When I woke up this mornin’, I could feel it wasn’t gonna be a good day. I was shackled in my orange jumpsuit and put in a van with my lawyer. The minute I got in that vehicle, I could taste it.”
    “Taste what?”
    “ Death . And I don’t have a damn clue what that means, but I’m tellin’ you, I was not comin’ back to that place except in a body bag.