Redemption (12 page)

Snake
. She touched the stone in her pocket. For a moment, she considered the idea that Weyler’s use of the word “snake” was some kind of sign. Then, catching herself, Jane couldn’t believe she had entertained such a ludicrous notion. It was just a coincidence. Very odd, but a coincidence, she decided as she erased Weyler’s message.

Jane downed her third cup of coffee and finally felt awake. She slipped her laptop into its case, wedging it securely into the duffel bag filled with pounds of coffee and sundry items, including the stack of files Kit had given her. The morning light was just starting to crest over the rooftops on Milwaukee Street when Jane slammed her Mustang into gear and headed for Boulder.

Two trips to Boulder in two consecutive days. That was some kind of record for Jane Perry. As she curved around the exit off Highway 36, Jane amused herself with what it would be like if Boulder ruled the world. Instead of Law and Order enforcement, there would be the Peace and Harmony Patrol. Cars would certainly be outlawed, and everyone would be riding bikes. Recycling would be mandatory. Tofu would be a major food group. And Ralph Nader would be president of the United States.

Just a few minutes past six, Jane slipped into a parking space in front of Kit’s apartment. She no sooner knocked on Kit’s door than the door quickly opened.

“You’re late!” Kit said, securing her knit scarf under her multicolored winter coat. A billowing pair of purple, wide-legged trousers that poked out from beneath the coat were securely tucked into a well-worn pair of Sorrel boots.

“It’s 6:05—”

“That’s five minutes we’ve lost on the road!” Kit replied, sliding three heavy suitcases and one bulging duffel bag out the door.

“You’re taking all this?” Jane asked

“We’re going to be gone for ten days. It’s winter. Winter clothes are heavier. Plus, I have my books and herbs.... I have
a lot
of herbs.” Kit struggled with the zipper on the duffel as she reopened it to squeeze another bottle of herbal pills into the pocket.

Jane caught a glimpse of what looked like pounds of herbs in bags, bottles, and teabags. There was also an equally enormous amount of books shoved tightly into the bag. “You’re reading all those books?” Jane asked, clearly overwhelmed by the sight.

“No, Jane P., I just carry them for ballast!” Kit said in a mocking tone. “Could you please take these two out to your car?”

Jane lifted the duffel and cringed at the extreme weight. “You got rocks in here?”

“Actually, yes, I do. Be careful. They do chip easily.”

“Can’t you take out a few herbs and leave them here?”

“Those herbs are what’s keeping me alive. I won’t do chemo or radiation because I won’t be able to function. And I
have
to be able to function! Come on, let’s go!”

“Wait a second. You got any grass in this duffel?”

“I have
barley
grass powder that I put in my morning ‘green’ drink—”

“You know what I’m talking about, Kit. You got marijuana in this bag?”

Kit let out a long, tired sigh. “What if I do?”

“Take it out and leave it here! This is a police investigation. I can’t have a private citizen traveling with me who’s carrying drugs! And I
don’t
want to hear that you’re smoking it for medicinal purposes!”

Kit pursed her lips and unzipped the duffel bag, exposing a mind-boggling assortment of herbs, books, empty mason jars, and rocks. She removed a plastic sandwich bag filled with pot. “This isn’t some sort of trick so you can arrest me, is it?”

“Just hide the grass!”

Kit stuffed the bag into a drawer. “And you’re bringing along your cigarettes?”

“Yes, I am. And don’t try to lay some left-wing bullshit argument on me that they’re just like pot!”

“I would
never
say that! Those packs of ‘cancer sticks’ are
far
worse than my little bag of weed. Do you have any idea how many chemicals they add to those cigarettes? You’ll be smoking those
outside
our hotel room! I can’t afford to inhale toxic fumes!”

“Right.” Jane surmised it was going to be one helluva road trip.

As Jane packed Kit’s baggage into the trunk of the Mustang, Kit took a hard look at Jane’s car. “You said
my
car was too
old
?” Kit queried Jane.

“This is a ’66 Mustang with a brand-new engine that purrs and goes so damn fast, we’ll be in California before you’re halfway through your kilo of herbs.”

Kit sat in the passenger seat. “I see I’m going to have to put up with your sarcasm for the duration of this trip.” She removed a sausagelike pillow from her satchel that made an unusual hissing sound and placed it behind her neck.

“Your pillow hissed.”

“It’s filled with buckwheat. It conforms to the neck.”

“Buckwheat? Like the grain?” Jane said, getting into the car and closing the door.

“Go on. Get it out of your system. Say your sardonic response and let’s go.”

“What?” Jane replied, jamming the key in the ignition. “I’m glad you’ve got that pillow. If we get hungry, we can always take a knife to it and cook up some pancakes.”

Kit sniffed the air inside the car. “Do I smell
ground coffee
?”

Jane opted to remain taciturn as she peeled away from the curb and headed west. “There’s a lot of good information in those files you gave me,” Jane told Kit as she banked the Mustang onto Interstate 70.

“Keeping those notes and records occupied a great deal of my life over the last fourteen years,” Kit said, staring out the window at the lifeless winter landscape.

“There’s a few people who intrigue me. Detective Sawyer is one of them.”

“Chuck! He was a compassionate ally. Lovely aura, too. It was yellow with beautiful violet striations. Magnificent!”

“You’ve lost me.”

“He’s
evolved
, Jane. He’s very much in touch with his Higher Self.”

“What do you mean?”

“We all have a Higher Self and a Lower Self. The God Force wants us to always work within the realms of the Higher Self—the Self that is pure and motivated solely by love.”

“And the Lower Self?”

“The Lower Self is where the devils play. It’s the dark essence that dwells within each of us. It’s the unenlightened, vulgar place that pulls us down and prevents us from seeking our greater Truth. Everyone has a Higher Self and Lower Self. We have to choose which one we want to activate for our greatest good.”

Jane gave the idea serious thought. “So, these Higher Selves and Lower Selves can operate at the same time?”

“Of course!” Kit replied. “For example, when you drank, you dwelt in your Lower Self. You were sucked in and succumbed to its persuasive tongue—”

“
Persuasive tongue?
Sounds like you’ve been reading cheap porn.”

“Porn! That’s an
excellent
example of indulging in the Lower Self. But when you choose to allow compassion and love to chart your course in solving a crime...like with that little girl, Emily Lawrence, this past summer, well, you evolve to a greater plane of awareness.”

“Getting back to Detective Sawyer, what else do you know about him?”

“I just had a few interactions with him and they were fourteen years ago. He was in his mid-fifties back then, so he’s probably retired by now.”

“Oh,” Jane said, crossing Detective Sawyer off her mental list of people who could lend a hand.

“Why the interest in him?”

Jane felt the need to keep certain things to herself. She wasn’t going to debate or discuss matters that she felt weren’t of any consequence to Kit. And besides, one of her reasons for speaking to Detective Sawyer was to get his bead on Kit. “Just curious,” Jane said offhandedly. “By the way, why did you ask Sawyer about Lou’s mother and to look into the possible rapes Lou committed when he was underage? Weren’t those two requests at cross purposes?”

“No, not at all. Lou spent hours telling me about his mother and what she did to him when he was a child. Some of it was so disturbing, I...well, I wondered if it was truly possible. But it did indeed happen.”

“Well, say Stacey hadn’t killed herself. Say Detective Sawyer was able to contact her and she agreed to testify in court. Who was that supposed to help? Lou?”

“The truth is the truth, Jane. P.”

“What?”

“The truth is Lou was raped by his mother. It happened many times and it played a critical role in his development and his subsequent psychosis.”

“But, Kit, don’t you see? Bringing that kind of information to a jury could have easily turned
Lou
into the victim, instead of Ashlee.”

“They were
both
victims. And I’m sure Stacey Peters was a victim of some sort of psychological torture or she wouldn’t have perpetuated the evil! Don’t you see? It’s the
perpetuation
of the darkness that has to be stopped! If we just keep attacking these people with hatred instead of love, the cycle will continue! I’ve learned the hard way, Jane P., that the only way to stop that cycle is through
forgiveness
. And there is
no
room for forgiveness in your heart if it is filled with anger and retribution!”

“Oh, God!” Jane’s ire forced her to shift in her seat and push down on the accelerator momentarily. “You honestly believe that left-wing drivel?”

“That forgiveness and love are the keys to moving forward? You’re damn right I do! And there’s no left or right wing to it! There’s nothing
political
about forgiveness!”

“If we’re gonna start talking about sympathy for the violator—”

“Not sympathy.
Forgiveness
!”

“Why do I hear a sympathetic tone to your voice?”

“It’s
compassion
. The
same
compassion one can only hope the criminal will attain in his or her lifetime. That’s one reason I don’t believe in the death penalty.”

“Oh, God,” Jane said, shaking her head. “Some people need to die, Kit.”

“Have you ever taken a life?” Kit studied Jane’s face.

Jane didn’t want to answer the question. The memory was still too raw. “Yes,” she replied quietly. “I didn’t like it. But I would do it again if I had to.”

“I sense a hint of compassion for the poor soul you killed.”

“I
don’t
have compassion.”

“Yes, you do. If you didn’t, you’d talk about it with no emotion.”

“You have compassion for Lou Peters?”

“Yes,” Kit responded without missing a beat.

“After what he did to Ashlee? You sat in the courtroom and heard what he did to her in graphic detail. How do you walk away from that with compassion?”

“Back then I didn’t have compassion for him. I had hatred. The kind of hatred that boils inside and eats away at your spirit and perspective until it eats away at your body. And then there was the inevitable deep depression. But isn’t depression really just anger without enthusiasm? All the hatred I held inside didn’t affect Lou one bit. But it sure as hell affected me! I gave myself cancer. I take full responsibility. I gave myself cancer because I couldn’t let go of the hate or the anger. You can’t live like that and expect it not to affect you in some way.” Kit stared out the window. “When you’re dying like I am, if you’re smart, you look at life differently. Pettiness and retribution take too much energy. You want answers. You allow yourself to look beyond the polarized righteous indignation that prevents you from seeing other possibilities. There’s a reason why Lou turned out the way he did. I had to understand it and that’s why I asked Detective Sawyer to locate his mother.”

“If you’re gonna tell me that Lou’s past absolves him from punishment—”

“I wouldn’t be going to California to save another young girl if I believed that! I strongly sense that Lou’s past is dictating his present actions and he must be stopped!”

“I hear something else in your voice. You want to save that girl but...there’s more.” Jane turned to Kit to see if she could gauge any reaction to her statement.

Kit sat expressionless. “You know what I hear in
your
voice?”

“What?” Jane replied, realizing that Kit wasn’t taking the bait.

“I hear someone who is still living in her past. A past filled with violations and deceit that you can’t let go of. You identity with the victim too well, Jane P.”

Jane kept her eyes on the road. “My past is my past.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s alive and well and written all over you. It’s the jerk in your hand when you pull a cigarette out of your pack and light it. It’s the way your eyes drift off to the side when a memory slips through and reminds you of the reason you rage. I don’t know what happened. But I know it still owns you. If you could forgive whoever—”

“You ever had the shit kicked out of you, Kit?” Jane’s voice was icy. “I mean it literally!
Kicked
out of you!”

“No.”

“Well, I did! And it didn’t just leave scars like this one,” Jane said, pointing to the old scar on her right temple, “it left permanent scars inside that prevent me from being like other women.”

“You can’t have children?”

“Correct,” Jane replied in a curt tone.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just know that there are a lot of us walking around who don’t have any compassion for the violator because we can still feel their footprints on our flesh.”

“When you hold on to that anger, Jane, you think you’re punishing the violator. But you’re killing yourself. You have this backward notion that forgiveness is a favor you offer to the violator. But in reality, forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself.”

“Sounds like a bumper sticker.”

“Think about it, Jane P. Just think about it.”

They drove in silence for almost ten miles before Kit started to shift uncomfortably in the passenger seat.

“What’s wrong?” Jane asked.