Protector. Part 6

Jane stopped several feet from her car and turned to Weyler. "You want to know what she said? She said, 'I know they're watching us from the other side of that funny mirror.' Satisfied?!" She swung open her unlocked car door and got in.

Weyler leaned his hands on the open window. "Alright. But that doesn't explain your present behavior. What are you not telling me?"

"Boss, I swear to G.o.d, if you don't take your hands off this car . . ."

Weyler stood back. Jane shifted her car in reverse and screeched out of the parking lot, leaving a trail of blackened rubber on the cement and the lingering echo of screaming tires.

Chapter 7.

Jane slammed her Mustang into gear the second she cleared Headquarters. She looped around the Civic Center, changing lanes erratically. Angrily, she slapped her head several times trying to bury the emerging memory. A pitter-patter of fat spring raindrops dotted the windshield as Jane curved around Cheesman Park. The rain began to fall with vengeance, making it difficult to see more than a car's length in front. Jane pulled over to the side, under a "No Parking" sign as the rain beat like fists on the roof. Jane grabbed the steering wheel, stared into the oncoming storm and gave in.

"Janie!" Mike screams.

She is fourteen and back in the kitchen staring at Mike who is in a fetal position on the floor where he landed after Dale slapped him out of his chair. A steady pit-pit-pit of hail mixed with snow hits the kitchen window.

"Shut up, you weak f.u.c.k!" Dale screams as he leans over Mike.

Mike cups his hands over his ears and holds his breath. Dale punches Mike hard in the head as Mike lets out a bloodcurdling wail.

"What the f.u.c.k's wrong with you!" Dale screams, moving closer to Mike's face.

Mike holds his hand out to Jane, his eyes filled with terror. "Janie! Help me."

Jane grabs his hand and jerks him off the floor. Mike retreats behind Jane's body.

"I'm not f.u.c.kin' done with the little f.a.ggot!" Dale yells.

"Yes, you are!" Jane yells back, meeting his angry pitch.

Dale turns over the kitchen table sending the macaroni and cheese across the room. He storms toward Jane, back-handing her hard across the face, but she stands her ground. "Don't you f.u.c.kin' raise your voice to me!"

"He doesn't want to look at photos of dead people while he's eating," Jane says, her voice more controlled.

"Get outta the way!" Dale bellows. Mike stays pinned behind Jane, his head buried in the center of her back.

"Mom hated having those pictures at the table but she never told you!" Dale smacks Jane across her other cheek with the flat of his hand. "She just kept it inside but she hated it!" Dale lays another hard slap across Jane's face. "She hated those pictures, she hated this house and she hated you! That's why she died! To get away from you!"

The blood wells in Dale's face. "You f.u.c.kin' b.i.t.c.h!" he screams as he grabs Jane by the hair and punches her across the face. Blood spews from her nose and onto Mike as he takes refuge against the doorjamb. Jane starts to fall to her knees but catches herself. She looks at Mike. "Go to your room, Mike."

Dale pulls Jane upward then slams her flat against the wall. "Don't you ever say that kind of s.h.i.t to me again! You understand me?"

Jane pushes her face just inches from her father's face. "It's f.u.c.kin' true!"

Dale lets go with a punishing series of slaps to Jane's face. Mike still stands paralyzed in the doorway.

Jane falls to her knees, blood trailing from her nose and into her mouth. She screams at Mike. "Go to your room!"

Mike tears across the living room and races up the stairs to his bedroom.

Dale leans down, barking in Jane's ear. "You think you're so f.u.c.kin' smart? You don't know s.h.i.t!"

Jane pulls herself up, fists clenched. "I know more than you'll ever know!" Jane swings at her father's face but Dale grabs her arm before it makes contact.

"You wanna play hardball?" Dale uses one hand to jerk Jane's arm behind her back and the other to pull her head backward with a clump of her hair. "You wanna play hardball, b.i.t.c.h! You got it!"

Jane tries to break free as Dale shoves her forward to the kitchen door that leads outside. "Get your hands off me!" Jane screams.

Dale kicks the screen door open wide. "Shut up! You understand me?" He pushes his body against Jane's, forcing her outside in the fast-falling snow. The snow flies against her face, the icy cold stinging her flushed cheeks and cut lip. Jane digs her heels into a patch of snow as Dale tries to push her closer to the workshop door that stands ajar. He swings open the wooden workshop barn door with his foot.

"Move!" Dale yells.

"No!" Jane shouts before shooting a thick wad of spit mixed with blood at her father's face. Dale rears back, his rage at the boiling point. With all his strength, he pushes Jane forward into the workshop. She skids across the soft dirt floor on her shoulder. Dale closes the door behind him, whipping off his thick black belt. He lunges toward Jane and . . .

"Hey, you can't park here!"

Jane snapped out of her daze and turned. A Denver patrol officer pounded on her window trying to get her attention. The heavy rain continued to fall relentlessly.

"This is a tow-away zone, ma'am! You have to move your vehicle!"

Jane, still in a daze, reached over and grabbed her badge. She slammed it hard against the driver's window.

The patrol officer backed off. "Oh, sorry! I didn't know!"

As the officer got back into his patrol car, the rain let up. Jane popped the Mustang in gear, Dale's voice still screaming in the distance.

It was noon when Jane pulled in front of her house on Milwaukee. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her neighbor Hazel watering her lawn. Jane braced herself for the inevitable questions as she made her way to the front door.

"Home again so soon?" Hazel said, looking surprised. "Are you sick?"

"Not now, Hazel," Jane said, unlocking her door and walking inside. Jane slammed the door behind her. She scooped the near empty fifth of Jack off the dining room table and took a swig as she made her way to the kitchen. Poking through the freezer, she pulled out a frozen macaroni and cheese dinner. It was covered in ice. Jane slammed it hard against the counter top, sending the chunks of ice flying across the kitchen. She shoved the frozen entree into the microwave, set the timer and headed down the hallway to her bedroom.

After shuffling through an eclectic tangle of CDs that ranged from country rock to cla.s.sical selections including Pavarotti singing selections from Turandot and La Boheme , Jane selected Grieg's Peer Gynt and placed it into her CD player. As the haunting melody lay heavy in the bedroom, she set the bottle of whiskey on her dresser and kicked off her boots. Jane sat on the edge of her bed, staring into the void. She was a prisoner of her own head and she was the jailer. Unlocking the demons that raged inside her would be akin to lighting the fuse to a powder keg. Jane was sure of it. But the unholy trap of holding on to the discordant memories and sounds was proving equally dangerous. And now there was this new twist to the ongoing madness-this disorganized flash of images that hung just beneath her conscious mind. Jane flexed her right hand, recalling the tight, desperate grip of Emily Lawrence in the interrogation room. It was exactly the same wraithlike sensation she felt brush her hand as she stood in the stairwell at Headquarters. Jane, still blanketed in a slight daze, considered the most insane inference: the idea that she was sensing and seeing things that had yet to occur. She caught herself, almost embarra.s.sed by her absurd reasoning. It was the booze. It had to be. No cop worth her salt would entertain such an insane notion unless said cop was going insane.

After a lunch of macaroni and cheese interspersed with hearty swigs of whiskey, Jane sorted through her notes on the Stover homicide. The hours pa.s.sed quickly as she read and reread notations she'd all but committed to memory. However, after turning the last page on one of the yellow pads, a black pen fell from the center of the pad. A shock of emotion caught in Jane's throat. The words: WOLF FACE were written in large capital letters over a crude drawing of a wolf's face. At first, Jane feared that someone else had written the words and drawn the picture. But she quickly realized that it was indeed her own handwriting and novice attempt at artwork. Touching the drawing, Jane noted that the ink was still wet in spots where the pen had leaked. It was the same pen she had been using the night before when she pa.s.sed out at the dining room table. But she had no memory of either drawing the picture or what prompted her to it.

Jane checked the time. 5:10 p.m. She needed to escape. RooBar was finally open. If she walked down there-just over a mile-she could be playing pool at her favorite table by 5:30. She strapped on her Glock, grabbed her beat-up leather jacket and headed down Milwaukee Street. When Jane arrived at RooBar, the place was empty, save for two guys at the bar and a young couple playing pool. Supertramp's "Dreamer" played loudly on the CD jukebox. RooBar reminded Jane of a cave, albeit a cave with dim lighting, red vinyl booths, purple pool tabletops, dark walls and flooring and television sets perched in every corner. It was a coc.o.o.n of security-something she needed right now. Once ensconced in a game of pool at her favorite table on the landing away from everyone else, Jane felt safe and able to zone out the madness. For Jane, pool was like meditation-a Zen-like endeavor, a game of chess with a stick and fifteen b.a.l.l.s. She set down a row of twelve quarters on the edge of the table; a universal signal that she "owned" that table for at least twelve games. She played eight ball and she always played alone unless Mike was with her. The waitresses didn't know her name but they knew her pattern. They'd bring her a basket of hot wings and a slice of pizza along with two shots of whiskey. Jane lit a cigarette, racked them up and was just about ready to break when a largeboned, flannel-shirted fellow lumbered up the steps and set his beer down on the pool table. Jane looked up at the guy, sizing him up.

"How 'bout a game?" he said with a c.o.c.keyed grin.

"No, thanks," Jane said, irritated.

"Would a hundred bucks change your mind?" he asked, licking his lips.

Jane stood up and a.s.sessed the guy as if he were a suspect down at DH. "You got a hundred?" she asked.

"Right here," he said, patting his shirt pocket and then covering his mouth with his hand. "It's all yours if you win two out of three."

Jane knew the guy didn't have a hundred dollars in his pocket. His body language gave him away. He covered his mouth when he spoke and licked his lips, two signs of deception. "Well, I say you don't have a hundred bucks in that pocket or any other pocket."

"Hey, sweetheart," he said, tapping his shirt pocket, "I'm tellin' the truth."

Jane pulled back her leather jacket to reveal her Glock pistol in the shoulder holster. "And I'm telling you that you're lying."

The blood quickly drained out of the guy's face. He put up his hands as if surrendering. "Oh, s.h.i.t. Sorry to bother you," he said, walking quickly away from the table.

Jane turned her attention back to the table and smacked the cue ball hard, sending the five, ten and twelve b.a.l.l.s scattering into the side and corner pockets. By 6:00, Jane had played two games and was starting her third when the waitress came by to drop off a new basket of wings and two more shots of whiskey. As she gathered up the empty shot gla.s.ses, she looked up at the muted corner television set directly above the pool table. It was the start of the local Denver newscast. The words "TOP STORY" were splashed across the screen, followed by "DEATH AND INNOCENCE."

"Hey, Billy!" the waitress called out to the bartender. "Turn up the sound! Maybe they found the killers!" Jane finished racking the b.a.l.l.s and tried to ignore the waitress. "That poor little girl," the waitress said quietly as she watched the TV. "I guess they're not showing her face to protect her. What she must be going through."

Jane chalked up her stick as she felt her jaw tightening. Keeping her back to the TV, she knocked back a shot of whiskey and slammed the gla.s.s on the felt.

"It is still not known how much the nine-and-a-half year-old girl witnessed in the horrific Washington Park murder that occurred two nights ago," the newscaster reported with a dour look on her face. "The girl's parents were stabbed to death in a downstairs living room while the child slept upstairs."

Jane turned to the TV and said under her breath, "While she slept?"

"Oh, my G.o.d," the waitress said, shaking her head. "I can't even imagine going through something like that. She's ruined for life!" She turned to Jane. "Another shot?"

Jane looked at the TV. An exterior shot of the Lawrence house surrounded in yellow police tape flashed on the screen, followed by Chris addressing the media's questions. He looked even more bedraggled than earlier in the day. "We're doing everything possible to find the perpetrators of this crime," he said, stopping to clear his throat and then continued. "The child has been talking extensively to several detectives and has revealed certain information that could lead to arresting a suspect or suspects fairly soon. However, I can't go into any more detail at this time," Chris concluded, shifting his eyes from side to side and licking his lips.

"You lying son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h!" Jane said, her voice more audible.

The waitress turned to Jane with an uncertain look. "Just give me a holler when you need a refill," the waitress said before she turned and left.

The bartender muted the sound on the TV. Jane kept her eyes focused on the screen as images of the crime scene with its yellow tape blowing in the breeze flashed across the television. "Talking to several detectives, my a.s.s," she said softly. "You wish!"

In the background, the voice of Nancy Sinatra singing "These Boots Are Made For Walkin' " played on the jukebox. Jane turned her attention away from the television and toward the sound of the music. "What the f.u.c.k-?" Jane glanced around the bar. She leaned her pool stick against the wall and walked down into the bar. Turning to the left, she saw the same boorish, flannel-shirted guy with the fake hundred in his pocket leaning against the machine, punching in different selections. "Hey, smart-a.s.s!" Jane yelled out at the guy. The guy turned around and backed up a step when he saw Jane. "Did you punch this f.u.c.king song into that machine?"

The guy looked around helplessly. "Yeah. Is there a problem, officer?"

Jane moved closer to the guy in a threatening position. "Yeah, there's a problem! This song sucks! Anyone with half a f.u.c.king brain knows that!"

"Look, officer, I don't want any trouble, okay? I'm sorry."

"f.u.c.k you!" Jane was almost two inches from the fellow's face when she looked over to the side. Mike was standing several feet away, obviously distraught. As quickly as Jane turned on the intimidation with the flannel-shirted guy, she turned it off and quickly walked toward her brother. "Mike! What's wrong?"

"I figured I'd find you here," Mike said, holding back tears. Jane threw thirty bucks on the tray of a pa.s.sing waitress, grabbed Mike gently by the arm and left the bar. The second they walked outside, he turned to the wall and buried his head against the brick. "I f.u.c.ked up bad, Janie!" Mike said, tears streaming down his face.

"For G.o.d's sake," Jane said, trying to turn Mike toward her, "what happened?!"

"I asked her, just like I told you I would . . ."

"Asked who? What are you talking about?"

"Lisa!" Mike said, turning to face Jane. "I asked her to move in with me!"

"Oh, s.h.i.t. Mike, what did I tell you? I said you were going to get hurt!"

"No, it's not what you think!" Mike whined as he slid down the wall and sat on the pavement.

"Mike," Jane said, not sure what to make of her brother's behavior, "what happened?" Jane knelt down, resting her hands on Mike's shoulders.

"We went to dinner and I had a few beers to get a buzz on and get the nerve up. I told Lisa that I wanted her and I to move in together..."

"And she said 'no'," Jane said matter-of-factly.

"Actually, she said she was gonna ask me the same question."

"I'm lost, Mike."

"She has some reservations about . . . me . . . and certain things I do."

"Everybody's got reservations about everybody else. So what?"

"That's not the biggest part, Janie," Mike said, burying his face in his hands and crying. "Oh, G.o.d, I'm so f.u.c.ked up!"

"Mike! What's the biggest part?"

"We talked about stuff. About our future, you know? Her and me together and what she wanted in life . . . She wants kids, Janie!" Mike blurted out.

"So?"

"Kids. I'd be a father. The more she talked about it, the more scared I got."

"I don't understand."

"If heart problems and strokes can be pa.s.sed from one family member to another, maybe mental s.h.i.t can too."

Jane tried to process it all. "I don't know-"

"What if it turns out I'm just like him?" Mike started to bang on his head with the flat of his hands. "I've got to get him out of my head!"