Swift Horses Racing

by Victoria Kazarian

  In a hipster fast-food place, he ordered a burger with Korean toppings and garlic fries. No woman in his life right now, so it didn’t matter if his breath reeked. He took a table close to the order pickup counter to wait and decided to make a call. The voice picked up after two rings.

  “What’s up, booger face?”

  “Hey, Dawn. Nice to hear your voice, too.”

  “You never call me. You must want something.”

  “I wanted to talk to you. Is that so wrong?”

  “Hold on—Em is talking to me at the same time. She’s making dinner for Sam.”

  Dawn’s partner had a six-year-old who had recently been diagnosed with autism. From what he heard from Dawn, meals were stressful times, a confrontation with Sam’s sensory issues.

  “Okay, I’m back. Apparently mac and cheese is what’s for dinner. Again. Super excited.”

  Flores laughed. “I’m waiting for my Kobe beef bulgogi burger right now.”

  “And I hate you.”

  “You want to give me some advice?”

  “Is it about a woman?”

  Flores let out a fake cough. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because it’s always a woman.”

  “In this case, it’s a witness to a crime I’m investigating. I can’t get her out of my head. She seems to think the same about me.” He told her about Reyna Ruiz, editing a few of the facts out to make himself look better.

  Dawn let out a groan. “Of course, she likes you, pretty boy. Wrap up the case, then start dating her.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Married?”

  He was silent.

  “Don’t be an ass, Ro.”

  “She’s not like anybody I know. She’s a dental hygienist. She’s beautiful and—really different than anyone I’ve been with. I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “Did you learn nothing growing up with Mom and Dad? That kind of thing messes up families. She probably has a kid.”

  Dawn’s words hit him in the chest.

  “And her husband’s a cop.”

  “You didn’t need my advice, Ro. You know what to do. Don’t do it.”

  “I guess I wanted—“

  “You wanted me to say something to make you feel better about yourself? To say I understand and it’s good to let you feel what you’re feeling?”

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded weak and small. Like he was twelve again.

  “You’re one of those guys who actually thinks about things. You’re better than this, Ro.”

  He saw his burger and fries wrapped and bagged at the pickup counter. He wanted to eat by himself, watch the Warriors game and sulk. He wondered why he’d bothered calling.

  “Still love me, Dawn?”

  “Love you, Ro. Enjoy your delicious burger.” She made exaggerated weeping sounds and then hung up.

  He walked down the avenue toward his car, bag in hand, as he thought about Reyna’s description of the passenger in the SUV. If her description was correct, this changed things. This hadn’t been a group of young gang members.

  Uncharacteristically, he didn’t give a fuck tonight whether the garlic fries stunk up his nice, clean car. He opened the bag and picked at them absently with his non-driving hand as he navigated side streets approaching the expressway. He entered the expressway on the side going against traffic.

  In a few minutes he’d approached the site of the shooting. There was the yellow streetlight, casting its sickly light on the asphalt. He pulled the Prius off to the shoulder and sat for a moment, orienting himself.

  From Ruiz and Reyna’s descriptions, he was approximately at the spot where the SUV would have been idling, waiting for Karl Schuler’s car. He pictured the SUV revving, then imagined the Camry pausing at the stop sign, about to turn onto the expressway.

  At this point, according to Reyna Ruiz, the unknown, grey-haired man was sitting in the front passenger seat.

  To his right, there was the cement retaining wall, intended to block the expressway noise from the backyards of the housing development.

  He turned off the engine and got out of the car and began walking along the retaining wall. The mud sucked at his shoes, and he regretted he’d worn good shoes to work today. Avoiding the puddles from yesterday’s rain, he walked to within about ten yards of the lamp post. Close to the view Reyna Ruiz had that night.

  Tall eucalyptus trees, their bark looking slashed and peeled as if vandalized, leaned toward the road. As he walked over the strips of peeled off bark, he noticed a something amid the tree debris. He kicked with his foot and until he saw a piece of muddy paper rise to the surface—printer paper folded in half, then in half again. He reached for his wallet, and pulled out a receipt, which he used to carefully pick up the paper.

  He followed the retaining wall to the cross street Karl Schuler had entered from, examining the ground along the way. Footprints, a hubcap, and a few beer cans.

  After he’d reached the corner of the side street, Flores stood for a while, trying to picture in his mind Karl Schuler’s Camry waiting, then turning left onto the expressway. He pictured Ruiz and Reyna approaching the intersection in the Ford F-150, passing the SUV on the shoulder, and hearing it rev, then seeing it race past them and swerve toward the Camry so the person in the passenger seat could shoot.

  He’d been suspicious of Reyna’s sudden recollection of the event today, but the brain processed traumatic events in a way that wasn’t necessarily linear. What she’d seen in the parking lot could have been part of that process.

  The shaken, vulnerable Reyna he’d met with today could have been telling the truth. He began to think about what she’d seen—and in what direction it might take the case.

  As he followed the expressway back to Willow Glen, his phone rang. Flores saw his dad’s number displayed on his Prius Bluetooth screen.

  He wasn’t sure why he answered. Maybe it was nostalgia after his talk with Dawn. A hazy longing for family time that hadn’t ever that great, except he and Dawn’s childhood together, in which they had pledged to be allies against their parents’ dysfunction.

  Maybe he was tired and his defenses were down. In any case, Flores hit answer. It was a mistake.

  “Mario, Dad here. How’re you doing? We’ve been following your big case. The scientist who got shot on New Year’s. It’s been on the news here.”

  Flores tensed up, steeling himself.

  “On the news in LA?”

  “They showed a clip of you at the press conference. We recognized you.” Flores didn’t know if we meant he and his mother or he and whatever woman he happened to be with.

  “What was the story?”

  “It was about how people are losing faith in the police They showed people protesting that your police department is understaffed.”

  More reinforcement for his parents’ opinion of his chosen profession.

  His dad called out to someone in the background, who started laughing.

  “But I tell people my son isn’t just any policeman. He’s got an expensive education, which we paid for. He even got accepted to law school, but he decided to be a policeman instead. Isn’t that right, son?”

  His laugh sounded like he’d had a few drinks. This conversation was being broadcast for the benefit of somebody with him on the other end of the line.

  Flores’s finger hovered over the Hangup button. He watched the lights of Willow Glen pull into view, refracted through the drops of rain on his windshield.

  “Is mom there?”

  Flores heard music and mumbling in the background. Glasses clinking.

  “What? No. I’m not home right now.”

  “Say hi to her for me, when you see her.”

  He pulled onto Lincoln Avenue and felt a warm feeling, like he was approaching home. A moth heading home to its soft, comforting flame.

  Before his dad could say anything else, Flores ended the call.

  42

  As Ruiz stepped down from the truck, he saw
Flores’s Prius, black and shiny, like an eco-friendly Batmobile.

  It was parked in one of the angled spots in front of Someplace Bar & Grill.

  When Ruiz told him about the shot through his windshield, Flores said he’d meet him in twenty minutes. He’d beaten him here.

  The bar was busy tonight. He spotted cops he knew, clustered in groups in battered captain’s chairs around a couple of the low tables. A redheaded female officer from SJPD that he knew vaguely sat at the bar with friends.

  His eyes scanned the tables. Flores sat at a high table by himself, hunched over his phone, a beer in front of him. His posture and his body language told him the guy had had a hard day.

  As Ruiz approached the bar, Tara began pouring him a Modelo without him having to ask for it. Ruiz carried it over to the table and took the stool across from Flores. He turned to keep the door in sight. He was still on edge.

  “Thanks for coming.” Ruiz nodded at Flores. “You got here fast.”

  “I can’t believe this happened to you and Jacky.” Flores rubbed his eyes. He frowned at him, concerned. “He’s okay?”

  “He was bending down to get something out of his backpack when it happened. He was scared but got over it pretty quick. Reyna and I haven’t.”

  Ruiz looked around the table for chips, out of habit, then realized he really didn’t want any. “I reported the shot. Not that it will do much good.”

  “Whoever killed Schuler would know your truck.” Flores’s eyes looked bleary. “Any idea where the shot came from?”

  “I looked around and my guess is it came from the parking lot on our right, on El Camino Real. It’s a big lot. It could have been anyone parked there. It’s the route we take back from Jacky’s school.”

  “If it’s the same person who shot Karl Schuler, you were both lucky tonight.”

  “This can’t happen again. You need to solve the damn case, Mario.”

  It came out of Ruiz’s mouth, trash talk. When it was out, he was surprised by the amount of anger behind it. He had no control over how the case was being conducted, yet his family almost took a big hit tonight.

  Flores looked up at him, and his eyes wide. He took a gulp of beer and began tearing a line of fringe along the edge of his cocktail napkin.

  “I’ve got a theory I’m working on right now. I need you to tell me one more time, Jimmy. When the SUV passed you on New Year’s, could you see anyone in the driver or passenger seat?”

  Ruiz pushed the beer away from himself. He tried to calm down and go back to that night one more time, which required some mental discipline because he was fucking tired of thinking about it. He pictured everything that happened after he first saw the SUV, as if he were going through a scene in a video step by step, pressing pause and examining it frame by frame. As it rolled by in his mind, he told Flores what he saw.

  Flores had pulled out his iPad and was making notes. When Ruiz had finished with his account, Flores set the iPad down.

  “You didn’t see the person on the passenger side?”

  Ruiz took a drink of his beer. The distance between the two of them seemed big right now. This was a very different meeting than they’d had last week.

  “I was focused on the SUV itself, making sure it didn’t hit us.”

  “You didn’t see the passenger or driver?”

  Why was he asking again? He’d given a statement that night. “I was focused on the SUV. I couldn’t have seen the driver. I saw there was someone in the passenger seat, but by the time I looked, the SUV had sped ahead of us.”

  A whoop and cheers rippled through the bar. Tara turned up the volume on the TV over the bar, just as the Warriors scored. Suddenly all heads were turned toward the screen.

  Ruiz glanced up at the screen briefly. The game was the last thing on his mind tonight. Neither he nor Flores joined in the cheers. Flores had another gulp of beer. He seemed to be downing it at a fast rate tonight.

  “I pulled off on the expressway late this afternoon. I walked the shoulder, to where you showed me the SUV was idling.”

  “Find anything?”

  “A printout for an Airbnb rental confirmation in San Jose—a house in Dry Creek. I drove past it on the way here. The email confirms two bookings—one for December 23-26, then one for New Year’s Eve.”

  Ruiz shrugged. “You have no idea if that has any bearing on the case.”

  “I called the host before you came in. She’s looking up the name. But she remembered that it was someone who flew in regularly from Florida.”

  Ruiz slapped the table and stared at Flores. “Where’s your damn phone?”

  Flores took out the phone and made the call, under Ruiz’s watchful eye.

  At 6 a.m. the next morning, Flores got responses from the airlines about his request for flight dates for Christoph Schuler.

  Christoph Schuler had flown in on American to San Jose International from Miami at 12:54 p.m. on December 23. Then he’d flown back on the December 26.

  Then another flight into San Francisco on December 31 and a return on January 2.

  Then on January 6, a flight into San Jose on Delta—via a connection through Salt Lake City. No return flight was listed. He could be in San Jose right now.

  While he’d been interviewing the grieving Rose Mulvaney, Christoph Schuler had been in San Jose—at an Airbnb a few miles away. Rose hadn’t mentioned him. She had also made a big deal about how her brother and family back east had to make preparations to fly in for the memorial.

  The Airbnb printout had been his. And he’d found it right where the SUV had been idling.

  Then there was Reyna’s testimony—which he was beginning to believe, with the discovery of the Airbnb confirmation. An older, grey-haired man had been in the SUV’s passenger seat.

  Christoph Schuler was now a suspect in the murder of his own father.

  43

  Karl Schuler’s Journal

  After our conversation about Agnieszka and the camps, my interactions with Hermann changed.

  Hermann was a teacher and couldn’t help himself; so that part of our relationship remained. With a new distance and sternness, he continued to teach me what he knew and what I loved: the science of flight.

  One morning he announced that he was taking me with him to Mittelwerk today. Dr. Von Braun had told Hermann that he had been impressed with me.

  The brilliant Werner Von Braun had thought I was smart, and he had mentioned to my uncle. I craved that validation, from both Hermann and Dr. Von Braun.

  But from the moment Hermann and I arrived, the atmosphere at Mittelwerk seemed different. The cavernous facility still bustled with the energy of production, the clank of steel and the drone of machinery. But there was a smell, that strong smell of something rotten, hanging thickly in the air. When I asked Hermann, he said it was the workers. There were so many workers here—unwashed, unclean Poles, Italians and French. The stench of the workers was the cost of such an operation.

  Today I turned my eyes from the manufacturing of the huge rocket forms to the line leader who oversaw the operation. Quiet voices, supervisors looking at each other, expressions of grim concern. A supervisor took Hermann aside and talked anxiously. A supervisor ran up to the office and went inside, his face lined and pale. Something was not right. Pressure from Der Fuhrer to increase production, perhaps.There was nothing official in the news about the war, other than the push to give more. Nearly everyone whispered it: the allies were winning. But the message to all Germans was the same as I’d received in Hitler-Jugend: more is required. We need more of you. More sacrifice.

  Late in the afternoon, the voices and looks changed. A decision had been made. Supervisors looked relieved. The young supervisor who always tried to act as if he was much older than me walked out of the office and approached my uncle. They talked, and my uncle nodded. And in that moment something lifted. Soon my uncle was laughing at something one of the scientists said to him. A group of supervisors gathered together and began talking, nodding
and smiling. A couple of the men walked out the entrance, one of them holding a pack of hard-to-find cigarettes.

  When the young supervisor passed by, I asked if he could tell me what happened. I addressed him as Herr and tried to act naive and in awe of him. He looked around quickly.

  “The workers. They demanded changes in their conditions. They revolted. We had to take action to stop it. But don’t worry. Everything is fine now, mein Junge.”

  At the end of the day, Hermann had finished his meetings and waved me over. A strange silence hung over the factory. As we prepared to leave, I turned to look out over the operation, and I saw that a crane had been wheeled into place in the center of the cavern. It stood with its top extended, centered in the work area as if it was meant to be seen. Yet no one seemed to be looking at it. I squinted, trying to figure out why it looked so odd.

  Hung upon the crane, swinging in the dim light, were the bodies of eight workers, their heads tilted unnaturally, like children’s rag dolls hung on a clothesline.

  Duke rubbed his eyes and closed the journal.

  Karl’s descriptions of the conditions at the Mittelwerk plant were painful to read, and Duke’s endurance was wearing thin. It was time to take a break.

  Last year, he’d started a garden on his small back patio. He’d never had much luck growing things. That had always been Joanne’s specialty. But after years of caring for her, he was in the habit and felt the need to tend something. He bought a lemon tree and replanted it to a large pot. He bought some pink impatiens because Joanne had loved them. And lots of succulents, because a lady at the senior center had said they were hard to kill.

  The skies were darkening as he stepped out of the sliding glass door and poked around the garden. The succulents were doing well, and he topped them off with a little water, careful not to give them too much, in case the predicted rain came. Two small lemons hung on the tree, not a huge crop, but with his level of gardening expertise, he was proud.