by J. R. Rain
Jarred shrugged. “He doesn’t want any more bad publicity for the town.”
“Bad publicity for the town, or for his campaign?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
At that moment a back door to the office opened and bright sunshine flooded the narrow room. A pretty blond girl in her mid-twenties entered through the door, shut it quietly behind her, and stood blinking, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. She wore jeans, a red cowboy shirt and boots, the Rawhide dress code. She was also holding a rifle. She didn’t know I was there, at least not until her eyes adjusted.
“Best day yet, Jarred,” she said. “I couldn’t miss. Oh, hello.”
“Howdy, ma’am.” I tipped my hat. I was getting better at that.
She grinned. “Howdy.”
“I’m sorry I can’t help you, Mr. Knighthorse,” said Jarred loudly, drawing my attention back to him. “My hands are tied.”
“Tied about what?” said the girl.
“I’ll tell you later,” said Jarred.
“I’m investigating Willie Clarke’s death,” I said. I looked at Jarred. “I prefer to tell her now.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. “Willie Clarke.”
“You must be Patricia McGovern.” I remembered her from the police report. She and Jarred had escorted Willie out into the desert together. She was the other person I wanted to talk to.
She nodded. “Yes, I’m Patricia. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
I gave her my most winning smile. “I’m Jim Knighthorse, detective extraordinaire.”
Her eyes widened. “A detective?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good day, Mr. Knighthorse,” said Jarred, standing. “We have nothing further to add to your investigation.”
I was watching Patricia. Mostly, I was observing her reaction to Jarred’s unfriendliness towards me. She didn’t like it. She seemed about to say something, but then bit her lip. Maybe she didn’t want to lose her job, either.
So I left, but first I handed them each a business card. Patricia looked at it as if I had handed her a two-dollar bill. Jarred tried to hand his back. Instead, I left his on his desk.
I tipped my ballcap toward Patricia. She smiled tightly, and I left the office.
And Rawhide altogether.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day I was sitting in Detective Hansen’s office on the third floor of the Huntington Beach Police Station. Today Hansen was wearing dark blue slacks, a powder blue Polo shirt with a shoulder holster, and loafers with no socks. I knew this because his feet were up on the desk, ankles crossed. His perfect hair was parted down the middle. Fit and tan, he was the quintessential Huntington Beach cop.
I motioned toward his clothing. “Items A amp; B, page one twenty three of the Nordstrom's men catalog?”
“Close,” he said. “Ordered from Macy’s. Wife picked them out. Thought I should set the standards for hip and cool for Huntington Beach PD.”
“Which, itself, sets the standards for hip and cool for police departments everywhere.”
“Sure.”
“So, if you follow that train of logic, you are the hippest and coolest cop this side of the Mississippi. Perhaps ever.”
“Gimme a break, Knighthorse.”
Something caught my eye. Actually two somethings. Hansen’s office overlooked a big alabaster fountain. The fountain was of mostly of a nude sea nymph. A buxomly sea nymph.
“Distracting, huh?” said Hansen.
“The sea nymph?”
“Whatever the fuck it is,” he said. “Why the hell did they have to make her tits so goddamn big?”
“Because they could.”
“So what can I do for you, Knighthorse?”
I told him about my mother, the picture, and why I was there. As I spoke, his eyes never wavered from mine. I finished the story. Hansen continued looking at me and then started shaking his head. His perfect hair never moved.
“Shit, Knighthorse, I never knew.”
“Few do.”
“The case is closed?”
I nodded. “I’m re-opening it. Unofficially.”
A corner of his lip raised in a sort of half smile. “Of course. And you have a picture of the perp, or the presumed perp?”
“Yes.”
“And the picture’s twenty years old?”
“Yes.”
He sat back in his chair, ran his fingers through his hair. His fingers, amazingly, were tan. And his hair, amazingly, never moved. Only grudgingly made some space for the fingers. Otherwise held its ground. I waited. Hansen thought some more.
“Maybe we can ID him,” he said.
“Mugshots?”
“We have them that far back, of course. Sound good?”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
Ten minutes later we took an elevator down to the basement. He left me alone in a dusty backroom and, surrounded by outdated computers and boxes of old case files, I looked at the faces of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Orange County’s most hardened criminals of yesteryear.
But not the face I was looking for. And as I took the elevator back up from the basement, I was looking forward to crossing paths with the buxomly sea nymph.
Chapter Seventeen
With Sanchez directing me, we drove slowly through a quiet residential neighborhood filled with small suburban houses. It was late evening, about 7:00 p.m. We were about nine blocks from Disneyland. Hard to believe there was going to be a royal ass kicking down the road from the happiest place on Earth.
While we drove, Jesus walked me through it. “Charlene and I were walking home through Hill Park. It’s a shortcut from school.”
“I don’t like you walking through Hill Park,” said Sanchez. “That park’s trouble.”
Jesus and I ignored Sanchez.
“Charlene is…?” I asked.
“My girlfriend. At least one of them.”
“How many do you have?”
“Two, but I keep two or three on the side.”
“For emergencies?” I asked.
“Something like that.”
“Lord,” said Sanchez.
I was watching the kid through my rearview mirror. Jesus’ face was turned, staring blankly out the side window. He was so little. Hard to imagine the kid being so tough. But he was. Somehow.
“Okay,” I said. “So you and Charlene are walking home through the park.”
“When we are surrounded by twelve guys. Most are on bikes. Some on skateboards.”
“Did you run?”
“No. But I told Charlene to beat it, and she did. They let her go, of course. They were after me, not her.”
“Why were they after you?”
“Nothing I did, at least nothing I could help.”
“One of their girls took a liking to you.”
“That’s what I hear. Like I can keep track.”
“I know what you mean.”
Sanchez shook his head, and pointed me down a side street. I turned the steering wheel. The Mustang rolled along smoothly, the engine throbbing.
“So they surround you, what happened next?”
“I told them all to go ahead and kick my ass, but someday I was going to hunt each of them down one at a time.”
“You said that?”
“Yes.”
Tough kid.
“What happened next?”
“Four of them took off running.”
“Because they were scared of you?”
“I suppose.”
Sanchez spoke up. “They threw a rock at him, hit him in the mouth.”
I looked at Sanchez. He was staring straight ahead. His jawline was rigid. A vein pulsed in his neck.
“He who is without sin,” I said, “cast the first stone?”
Jesus said, “What does that mean?”
Sanchez shook his head. “Ignore him. Go on, son.”
“The rock hit me in the mouth, knocked out my front to
oth. Split my lips open-lips that were made for kissing.”
Sanchez shook his head. “I created a monster.”
“So I charged the one who threw it. Kid named Doyle. Jumped on top of him and started wailing on him. After that, things are just a big blur of fists and feet and blood.”
“They knocked him out,” said Sanchez. “His girl, whichever one she was, called 911. He was still unconscious when the police came. So were two of the kids.”
I looked in the rearview mirror.
“Two?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t really remember what happened.”
Jesus was sitting in the middle of the bench seat, looking out the right window. He was unconsciously poking his tongue through the gap in his incisors.
Sanchez told me to stop in front of a smallish house with no porch light on. There was a chainlink fence around the house.
“Who’s this?” I asked.
“Brian. It was his girl who started this mess.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirteen.”
“How old are you?”
“I turn twelve next month.”
“So you’re eleven?”
“I’m old for my age.”
“Boy are you ever. Need any help?”
He shook his head, but now he was looking eagerly toward the small dark house. I looked, too. Not much was going on. There was some faint light coming from the back of the house.
Sanchez said, “I cased the house last week. The kid came home alone around this time.”
“Cased?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have murderers to find?”
“Don’t start with me.”
“Brian hangs out with his friends at this time,” said Jesus. “They have a gang. Pick on kids in school, harass teachers. They get suspended all the time, smoke cigarettes, sometimes even dope.”
“Here he comes,” said Sanchez.
I looked down the street. A kid was coming towards us on a bike. Big kid. Much bigger than Jesus. And he was smoking. I could see the glowing tip of a cigarette. He passed under a streetlamp and I had a good look at his face. Wide cheekbones. Big head. The kid looked like a bully. Self-satisfied, content, mean.
He pulled up next to the chain link fence across the street.
The car door banged open behind me.
Jesus was out, running.
The boy flicked his cigarette away, stepped off the bike, and reached for the latch on the chain link fence. And turned his head just as a small dark figure tackled him hard to the ground.
Chapter Eighteen
I instinctively went for my door, but Sanchez put his hand on my shoulder. “No. Jesus wants to do this on his own.” Sanchez was frowning. He didn’t like this either.
“The other kid has him by about twenty pounds.” And since these were just kids, twenty pounds was a significant advantage.
“Jesus fights big.”
There was just enough leftover light from a nearby streetlight to see what was going on. Jesus had tackled the kid onto a grassy parkway. Now they were rolling.
Dropped over a curb and into the gutter. As this was southern California, the gutter was dry.
The other kid, the bigger kid, landed on top.
Uh oh.
But Jesus promptly reached up, grabbed a handful of the kid’s hair, and yanked him off to the side. The kid screamed.
I almost cheered.
Jesus, I discovered, did not fight fairly. And in street fighting-and when you are younger and smaller, that was the only way to go.
They were rolling again, out into the street.
There were no cars coming, luckily.
“Kid better not get dirty,” said Sanchez, shaking his head. “We’re supposed to be out getting ice cream.”
“Jesus might have other things on his mind.”
“It’s Hay-zeus, dammit.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not,” said Sanchez. “For one thing, it’s a completely different language. And considering you date a world renowned anthropologist, you show a surprising lack of cultural and religious sensitivity.”
“The word you want is ethnocentric.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Thinking one’s culture is superior to others,” I said. “Most people in most cultures suffer from it. I, however, do not suffer from it.”
“And I happen to disagree,” said Sanchez. “You are one hell of an ethnocentric motherfucker.”
Shouts and the sound of smacking flesh reached our open windows. It was hard to tell who was doing the smacking.
“Your kid winning?” I asked.
“I can’t tell, but it’s a good bet. I told him not to kick his ass too bad. I didn’t want his knuckles scuffed. His mother would have my head if she knew what we were doing. We’re supposed to be getting ice cream.”
One kid staggered to his feet, while the other lay in the middle of the street in the fetal position. Luckily, no cars were coming.
The kid on his feet was smallish. Dark hair. Good looking.
Son of a bitch, I thought. He did it.
Jesus surveyed the street, ignoring the moaning kid, spotted the bike. He staggered over to it, then dragged it over to a trash can by its front tire, sparks flying from where one of the peddles contacted the asphalt. He picked the bike up, and deposited it inside the trashcan, and closed the lid.
“Very thorough,” I said.
Jesus staggered over, pulled open the door and collapsed inside. I could smell his sweat and something else. Maybe blood, maybe bike grease. Outside, a couple of porchlights turned on, including the one we were parked in front of.
“Let’s go,” said Sanchez.
“Anyone feel like ice cream?” I asked.
Chapter Nineteen
Cindy and I were in her condo on a perfect Sunday afternoon watching football. During the fall, I don’t work weekends or Monday nights. Cindy knows this about me and mostly puts up with it.
Outside, through the blinds, the sun was shining. We were wasting another perfect day. Big deal. Most days in Orange County were perfect. Besides, football is worth wasting a few perfect days over.
“So explain what that yellow line means again? Do the players see it?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t mind explaining football to Cindy. I took pride in the fact that football seemed an overly complex game for the uninitiated. “The players can’t see it. The yellow line is for the benefit of the fans.”
“And you are quite a fan.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Probably because I played the game. I know how difficult football is.”
“I thought you said it was easy.”
“No. I said football came easy to me. Playing my position, fullback, came naturally to me. However, everything else was hard. The grueling practices in one hundred-degree heat with twenty pounds of pads. Playing when hurt. Picking yourself up off the ground after you’ve had your bell rung.”
“And pretending it didn’t hurt,” said Cindy.
“Yep.”
“You rung a few bells in your time.”
“That’s how I made my living.”
“Except you weren’t paid.”
“Alas, no.”
“So why is there a yellow line?”
“It denotes the first down.”
She snapped her fingers. I could almost see the light on behind her eyes. “You’ve told me that before.”
“Yes.”
“But you never sound impatient.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I happen to like you.”
Cindy’s condo was cozy and immaculate. She had painted her north kitchen wall red. It looked orange to me, but I have it on good authority-Cindy’s-that it was indeed red. The small kitchen had a ceramic red rooster on the fridge, and lots of country knickknacks. The rest of the house was laced with curtains.
Cindy loved curtains. She even had curtains behind curtains. The walls were adorned with many of my own abstract paintings. She was my #1 fan.
Cindy’s Pomeranian, Ginger, was sleeping on the couch between us, and looked like a little red throw pillow. I was working on a can of Diet Pepsi. Cindy was drinking herbal tea. Earlier, she had asked if I wanted some herbal tea, and I politely suggested herbal tea sucked ass. Now we were watching the Rams game, and eating one of her few original dishes, a 7-layer bean dip. Today, I counted only five layers.
“No guacamole or sour cream,” she admitted. “So I added more beans.”
“Did you say more beans?”
She thought about that, and groaned. “Oh, God, what have I done?”
I grinned and dug into the dip.
At halftime, Cindy said, “The vandals struck again.”
I picked up the remote control and clicked off the TV and set the chips on the coffee table, and turned and looked at her.
“When?”
“Friday. Broke into my office, destroyed the place, ruined everything I owned. Pissed in the corners, defecated on my books.”
“What did the campus police say?”
“They’re looking into it. Appears to be a guy and a gal, according to the video footage they have. But both are masked.”
“Any more messages?”
“I think the pile of crap on the title page of my latest textbook on world religions was message enough.”
I inhaled. I was shaking. Adrenaline surged through my veins.
Cindy stroked my arm with her palm. “I’m not scared, okay? I’m used to this. I’ve lived with this my entire life. Many people hate my name and me. Remember, I have a permit to pack heat.” She did, too. She carried a small. 22 in her purse. “I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t want you to ever need to use your heat.”
“Which is why I have a big, strong boyfriend. Besides, you have been watching over me, right?”
“Every night you teach.”
“But I don’t see you.”
“No,” I said.
“Which means they don’t either.”
“Exactly.”
“You are good.”
“Exactly.”
“Hey, we’re missing the game. Looks like someone crossed over that yellow line thingy. That’s a good thing, right?”
