by J. R. Rain
“And you know what they say about that.”
“I guess you could say I stepped into that one.”
She giggled and drank deeply from her glass, then got up and made herself another. She seemed to be drinking something green on the rocks. Perhaps a Midori sour. She came back and sat closer to me. Our legs were touching. I was not aroused.
“How long have you been separated, Dana?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, leaning over and kissing my neck.
“Well it might should your husband use this moment to show up and make amends.”
“Oh, please. You could handle him with one hand behind your back. However, he won’t be coming home anytime soon. Does that put you at ease, sweetums?”
Sweetums?
“How long have you been separated?” I asked. “Six months? A year? Five years?”
She started unbuttoning my shirt. “Let’s not go down that road right now, sugar butt.”
As she reached for the next button, I grabbed her hand and pulled it away. “You’re not separated are you?”
A small sound escaped from her lips.
“In fact, you are divorced, and have been from Bryan Dawson, current band director at Huntington High, for the past seven years.”
“So what do you want, a fucking reward?” When she spoke, she glanced at the ornate end table. There was a small drawer within the end table. The glance was fleeting, then settled back on me. She leaned over and drank more of her Midori sour.
“Why did he divorce you?”
She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him that.”
“I will. But I want to know why he divorced you when in fact he was the one cheating on you.”
She shrugged again. “Apparently he was scared of my temper. Pussy.”
“Why didn’t you leave him?”
“It’s called love, Knighthorse. I forgave him.”
“But he was having sex with his students.”
“None of us are perfect.”
“You lived up north. How did you both end up here at Huntington High?”
She was sitting at the edge of her couch, her empty glass dangling from her hand. The ice cubes had a greenish hue to them. Her jaw was tight and rigid. There was a deadness to her eyes that might have been caused by the alcohol. Might.
“I came down first, once I realized the marriage was over. Tried to start over. I have a masters in educational administration. Never wanted to be a teacher, always wanted to someday work on the school board, where the money is. Because of sexual allegations, he lost his job up north, then couldn’t find work anywhere. Said if he came down here and if I helped him get a job that he would go straight and we could start over again. I still loved him; the idea appealed to me.”
“So you got him a job at your school?”
“Yeah. I had enough clout to push his application on through. There are some people who fear me.”
“Imagine that.”
“So he came down, hired on as a history teacher, and soon worked his way to band director. I was using my maiden name, and we kept things quiet about our divorce.”
“But you started things up again romantically?”
She smiled faintly and looked away, looking back into her past. “Yes. It was nice. I felt the love again, you know. Real love. It was nice to have him back.”
“Why do you claim to be separated, when, in fact, you are divorced?”
“Being divorced doesn’t look good in my field. Makes you look unstable and less than desirable to oversee school policy.” She got up and refreshed her drink.
“But then the allegations about Bryan started again,” I said.
“Yes. The little bitches throw themselves at him.”
“Is that what he tells you?”
“That’s what I know. Have you seen him? Christ, he’s good looking.”
“A real treat to the eye,” I said. “So you blame the girls and not him?”
She turned on me, her drink sloshing over the rim and down her hand. “Of course I blame them.”
“Amanda Peterson tried to leave Dawson, but he stalked her. Same with Donna Trigger. He stalked them relentlessly.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Amanda was seeing Derrick steadily. She considered her relationship with Dawson a mistake, but he would not let her go.”
“Fucking bullshit. She was obsessed with him.”
Her eyes darted around the room unsteadily, restlessly. She was twisting her hands in her lap. Her eyes repeatedly came to rest on the end table.
I continued, “I have a man, a certain janitor, who tells me he saw you put something in the back of Derrick Mason’s car on the night of Amanda’s murder. This janitor was later threatened by the same thug who threatened me.”
She was breathing quickly. “Fucking nigger comes to my school, bringing with him his fucking nigger attitude.”
“I assume you’re speaking of Derrick Booker?”
“The fucking nigger.”
“Yes, we’ve established that. Derrick loved Amanda.”
“Or so he says.”
“What did you put in the back of Derrick’s car?”
“Why would you believe I put something in his car?”
“Because the witness is credible.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like me.”
“Hard to believe,” I said. “Did you put something in the back of Derrick’s car?”
She looked at me, and her eyes were alight with tears and something strange. Something akin to triumph. “The knife I used to kill Amanda. Killed two birds with one stone really. Got rid of the skank-whore and the nigger in one fell swoop.”
I took in some air. I knew she had also hired the hitman, but that was a subject I was reticent to bring up, since the death of Johnny Bright was still an on-going murder investigation. The less said, the better.
“Why did you kill Amanda?”
“So she would leave my Bryan alone, the fucking skank-whore.”
“Did you kill any others?”
She tilted her head and smiled. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Boy, can I.”
“There was one up north.”
“What was her name?”
“Tabitha something-or-other.”
“You disposed of the body in the San Francisco Bay?”
“My my my, you are a good detective aren’t you?”
“That’s why I make the big bucks.”
“Do you really?”
“No. Not really.”
“So you just lied to me.”
“It was meant to be witty repartee.”
“I hate liars.”
She spun away rapidly, reached for the end table drawer, yanked it open. I was at her side in three long strides. I lifted my foot and kicked the drawer closed just as her fingers curled around a revolver. She screamed in pain and frustration, turned and lashed out at me. I avoided the swipe, managed to keep my foot on the drawer, trapping her.
She clawed at my leg, but jeans are a wonderful thing: snug, tight and protective. Finally, she pounded on my poor injured leg until she sagged to the ground, whimpering.
We stayed like that until Detective Hanson, listening in on the wire strapped to my chest, burst in through the front door.
63.
The black and white kitten was stalking my pencil eraser. It had white paws and a patch of white fur on its chest. It was slowly picking its way across my cluttered desk, around a Vicks Chloraseptic, over the latest James Rollins novel, and finally peering around my water bottle. From there it had a good view of the pencil eraser, which, coincidentally was twitching invitingly in my fingers. Now within perfect pouncing range, the kitten dug its hind paws into the grain of my pine desk, wound itself tight as a drum, then sprang forward, pouncing like a true champion. The eraser didn’t stand a chance. The kitten and pencil rolled together across my desk in a furry ball of black and white.
My door opened, and in came defense attorney Charlie Brown and his
faithful assistant Mary Cho. Charlie was bald as ever and Mary Cho’s skirt still hung just above her knees. Nice knees. I looked up at her; she was frowning.
Caught again.
Charlie walked over and dropped an envelope on my desktop. The kitten pounced on the envelope. Charlie jumped back, surprised as hell that something on my desk actually moved. He straightened his tie and cleared his throat, tried his best to look venerable. When he spoke, he kept his eye on the feline just in case it should make an attempt on his jugular.
“A bonus,” he said to me. “For catching the bad guy.”
I looked at the envelope, which at the moment was feeling the unholy wrath of the furry critter. “You don’t give a shit about the bad guy. Your client’s free, and that’s all that matters to you.”
“I do give a shit, and I resent you saying that. That’s slander.”
“So sue me. Know any good attorneys?”
“Fuck you, Knighthorse. If you quit being such a hardass, I might throw you some more cases, seeing as you performed above expectations on this one.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Charlie,” I said.
He sighed. “Charles.”
I picked up the kitten and thrust it toward the attorney; he jumped back, stepping on his assistant’s toes, who stifled a scream.
I said, “Would you like to hold him, Charlie?”
“No, godammit. And it’s Charlie. I mean Charles. Fuck.” He turned and left.
“Assistant Cho, how about you: would you like to pet my kitty?”
“You’re a pig.”
When they were gone, I brought the kitten to my face and kissed his little wet nose. “What did I say?”
***
Cat Peterson left her abusive husband and she and her daughter moved in with her sister in a modest Spanish-style home in a city called Temecula, in a neighboring county called Riverside, a county made popular in many a Perry Mason novel. I pulled up in front of the house and, kitten in hand, walked up to the front door and rang the bell. As I waited, the kitten made every effort to kill my nose.
“It’s been fun having you around,” I said to him. “But you’re going to grow up with a little girl now. You take good care of her, okay?”
He gnawed on my thumb, purring.
The door opened and once again I found myself staring down at little Alyssa.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
“Tinker Bell ran away.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
I bent down and handed her the kitten. She gasped, then ripped the little booger from my fingers and hugged it with everything she had. The kitten, perhaps realizing that it had met its energetic match, submitted to the unabashed love. She twirled him around and around and dashed inside the house screaming for her mother to look at Tinker Bell Jr.
If ever a kitten was destined to be gay, it was Tinker Bell Jr. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Footsteps echoed along the tiled entryway, and Cat Peterson appeared in the doorway. She was smiling, shaking her head.
“How did you know her cat ran away?” she asked me, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. There was a hint of a smile on her face.
“Might be better if you didn’t know.”
She nodded, suddenly somber. “I see.”
I was motionless; she wasn’t looking at me. Suddenly, and with surprising speed, she threw herself into my arms and thanked me over and over again for finding her daughter’s killer. She didn’t let go and I let her hold me and cry on me, and we stood like that for a long, long time.
64.
It was a rare spring storm.
Cindy and I were sitting together on my sofa, my arm around her shoulders, looking out through my open patio doors. The rain was coming down steadily and hard, drumming on my glass patio table. In the distance, above the rooftop of the restaurants, the sky was slate gray, low and ominous.
“You like this kind of weather,” said Cindy.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s different. Don’t you ever get tired of the never-ending sunny days?”
“No.”
“Don’t you ever think that it’s nice for the land to replenish itself?”
“Only when you bring it up.”
“Wanna walk in the rain?” I asked.
“I thought your leg hurt in this kind of weather.”
“It does.”
“But it’s nothing like the hurt you’ve been putting it through these past few weeks,” she said.
“I was blinded to the pain,” I said, “pursuing an old dream.”
“You’re not blinded now?”
“No,” I said. “The blinders are off. And now my leg just hurts like hell.”
“What about your dream?”
“The dream was there for the taking. I didn’t take it.”
“Why?”
“People change. Dreams change. Life goes on. If I really wanted it, I would pursue it.”
“So you don’t really want it? Is that because of me? God, I feel horrible.”
“Not because of you. When I was twenty-two, I wanted to prove I could play in the NFL. I wanted to prove I was tough enough. I had no other goals in life, no other conceivable ambition. Then, suddenly, I was forced to rethink and refocus my life, and I discovered that I could live without playing football.”
“But you’ve always been…bitter towards being a detective. Because it was something your father did. It was something that caused him not to be in your life when you were growing up.”
“Father runs a big agency. I am determined never to be that big. But you’re right, I was bitter towards my job. It was not my first choice. But then something happened.”
“You discovered you were good at detecting,” she said. “Damn good.”
“Yes.”
“What about proving yourself in the NFL?”
“Maybe some things are better left unproven.”
“But you think you could have made it?”
“In a heartbeat.” I said. “Wanna go for that walk?”
“Okay.”
I knew she didn’t want to get wet, but she did it for me. We got our coats on. I grabbed an umbrella for her. I didn’t mind getting wet.
Outside, in the rain, we moved slowly along Main Street. The shops and stores were all open, and a trickle of tourists, looking confused at this unprecedented Southern California weather, moved past us. I heard one of them say: “We can get rain at home.”
“Can’t please everyone,” I said to Cindy.
“No.”
“Want some chocolate?” I asked.
“Mmm, sounds yummy.”
We ducked into The Chocolatiers. A massive peanut butter cup for me and a sugar-free almond rocca for Cindy.
“Sugar-free?” I asked, when we stepped outside again.
“You can’t taste the difference.”
“Sure.”
“Plus it’s half the calories.”
We sat down on a bench under an awning and ate our chocolate and watched the rain.
“How’s Derrick doing?” asked Cindy.
“His family is moving east. Hard to have a normal life after being accused of murder. Kid will be looked at differently, no matter how innocent he is. UCLA is interested in giving him a scholarship.”
“Did you have anything to do with that?”
“I happen to know a few people there.”
“So your work here is done?”
I looked away, inhaling deeply.
She reached out and placed her hand on top of mine. It was warm and comforting.
“You’re thinking of your mother,” she said.
I kept looking away. “Her killer is still out there.”
The rain continued to fall. She continued holding my hand. She squeezed it.
“You’re going to find him,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know what I w
ill do to him when I find him.”
“Does that worry you?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then it doesn’t worry me.”
65.
Jack was drinking a non-steaming cup of coffee. I was drinking a bubbling Coke. The dining room was empty. A very large teenage boy was filling some straw containers behind the counter. Minutes before closing.
I was toying with the scrap of folded paper.
“One thing I don’t get,” I said, turning the paper over in my fingers, “is why you always blow on your coffee. I mean, couldn’t you just snap your fingers and it would be instantly cool? Or, a better question: how is it even possible that God could burn his lips?”
“That’s more than one thing,” said Jack.
“You’re not going to answer, are you?”
He drank more of his coffee. His eyes were brownish, maybe with a touch of green. Maybe. What the hell did I know? I was colorblind.
“Could you heal me of my colorblindness?” I asked.
“Heal yourself.”
“Heal myself?”
“Sure. I gave you a big brain for a reason.”
“They say we’re only using ninety percent,” I said.
“If that much.”
We were silent some more. I was thinking about my big brain…surely mine was bigger than most, since I was always being told I had a big head. Or were they referring to something else? I held up the folded piece of paper.
“I’m going to open this now,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve wanted to for quite sometime.”
“I’m sure you did, but you didn’t.”
“No,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to find the answer myself.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
The kid behind the counter walked over to us and told us we had five minutes. I said sure. Jack didn’t say anything. And when the kid was gone, I unfolded the paper and looked down at the single word: Dana.
“Lucky guess,” I said.
Jack laughed.
“So why did you come to me,” I said. “Why are you here now?”
“You asked me here.”
“Fine. Now what do I do with you?”
