Jim Knighthorse Series: First Three Books

by J. R. Rain

  “Your guys?”

  “Guys who work for us. We have a few dozen volunteers.”

  I nodded. “And he went out drinking with these volunteers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  “Boys’ night out.”

  “Are these boys night outs his idea?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t mind them. Gave us a break from each other. Sometimes you need a night or two off.”

  I nodded. She spoke the truth. “Has he ever been out all night before?”

  “Never.”

  “Did you ever suspect him of cheating?”

  She looked at me coolly. The glitter around her narrow eyes caught some of the fancy track lighting above. “Never once.”

  “Was he wearing swimming trunks when he left the house?”

  “No. Jeans.”

  “Did he own a red pair of swimming trunks?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  I next brought up the subject of our working agreement. Mitch, after all, had been found. Would she be interested in hiring me to look into his murder?

  She looked at me as if I was a little dense. “Of course.”

  I indicated her nice outfit. “You didn’t get dressed up just for me, did you?”

  “I’m meeting with some supporters. Although we’re non-profit, we still need backers to do what we do. Or, I guess, I still need backers.”

  I nodded. She went on.

  “We have a website with a PayPal donation button, but we need more than just the occasional fifty-dollar donations to do what we do.”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. The fifty-dollar donations help. Everything helps. But if we can get a sizable donation, well, we can really make progress. And we were, until the bastards...”

  Her voice trailed off. I waited an appropriate length of time, then asked. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I don’t really care about me, Mr. Knighthorse. I care about them.” She indicated the nearby shoreline. “They need to be protected from the true animals, and I’ll do whatever it takes to do so.”

  I believed it, too.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cannery Row is at the far end of Lido Park on a little peninsula within a peninsula in Newport Beach.

  I didn’t know much about commercial fishing or canneries, but I was developing a soft spot for little critters who couldn’t defend themselves.

  Go figure.

  I passed by the famous Cannery Restaurant, which had once been home to the biggest of the old-time fish processors in the 50’s. I knew this because I had eaten here a few times with Cindy, and the building itself was impressive.

  I continued on Lido, crossing over a bridge, passing hip restaurants and nice boats and condos and Mediterranean-style homes that probably cost more than I would ever make in my lifetime.

  I hung a right on Shipyard Way and took it to the end, following the address I had written on a small notepad. I don’t keep my files with me. Should someone break into my car and steal my file, well, I would be up shit creek and my clients’ anonymity would be compromised.

  I parked in a parking lot and waited. At Starbucks, Heidi Mann had gone over the key players of the illegal shark finning operation. Shark finning, a term that meant catching sharks solely for their fins, is illegal off the shores of California. Ironically, it is legal to catch and process a shark—that is, kill it for its meat and fins. What’s actually illegal is to de-fin the shark and dump the still-living creature back into the ocean.

  Bastards.

  Heidi explained some more. The majority of the finning was done just south of the border. Shark fins are big business. Too big to ignore, and too big to care about the shark themselves.

  The use of dogs and cats as bait seemed to be a relatively new phenomena, and it was practiced by poorer fishermen. Where the bigger ships used gill nets, which captured many sharks at once, the unlicensed fishermen with smaller boats would use any means they could to capture the sharks.

  I had asked Heidi why these fishermen didn’t use chum and fish as bait, and answer was appalling. The kicking of the live animals, especially when added with the blood that poured from the hooks in their paws and muzzles and necks, was just too inviting, nearly guaranteeing a shark.

  I imagined the little guys swimming in the ocean, terrified, bleeding, hurting, alone and abandoned, begging for mercy while hungry predators circled below.

  I rubbed my forehead and cracked open the passenger side window.

  According to Heidi Mann, one man was a key player in the local shark finning trade. One man who didn’t give a damn from where the fins came, be it from gill nets or the poor fishermen down south using dogs as live bait.

  A man who might know something about Mitch Golden’s death, Raul Trujillo was called a fish broker, or a fish buyer. A harmless enough title, and not one generally associated with illegal dealings. It only became illegal, of course, when one dealt with contraband or poached seafood.

  It was time to meet with Raul Trujillo.

  Chapter Twelve

  The office was small and didn’t smell like fish. Go figure.

  In fact, the office was only just a little bigger than my own, minus the dozens of newspaper and magazine articles featuring yours truly. And minus the bullet holes, of course.

  The man sitting behind the desk was shockingly good-looking. He was wearing a casual blazer that was designed, I think, to look distressed or well worn. It was covered in pockets and, dammit, he looked good in it. A shimmery dress shirt seemed to fit him perfectly as well. His hair was neatly trimmed and his face was freshly shaved. He looked like a model out of a J. Crew catalog.

  I hated him immediately, of course.

  He looked up from his open laptop. His eyes sparkled. His teeth gleamed. He seemed generally happy to be him.

  I hated him some more.

  “Can I help you?” he asked. His eyes were warm and friendly. He barely looked me over. He seemed at once busy and perfectly willing to give me his time.

  “I’m thinking of hunting shark,” I said. I had gone over this spiel with Heidi, who seemed to think it might work. “I’ve heard you’re a buyer.”

  He motioned to a chair near the desk. I sat. He said, “Are you a fisherman?”

  “I’m looking to get into it.”

  “Do you have a boat?”

  “My grandfather left me his.”

  He nodded. “You’ll need to get licensed.”

  “I’ve already applied.”

  “Good. Have you fished for shark before?”

  “On and off. I watched my grandfather do it. Been on a few trips. But I’m looking to get into the business. To make some money, you know. Hey, I’ve got a boat. Might as well use it, right?”

  “Right. How did you hear about me?”

  “Been asking around in the ports around San Diego and Dana Point. Don’t know much about the industry. Asked who bought sharks and for how much, and your name came up a few times.”

  “I see.” His smile faltered. Smiles only falter when someone has something to hide.

  I pushed forward. “Do you work with smaller fishermen?”

  “I work with everyone. A shark is a shark, right?”

  “That’s what I always say,” I said. “I just need to know how all this works.”

  “You must have a license to commercially harvest and sell saltwater products, and you may sell only to a licensed California wholesale dealer.”

  “And you’re a wholesale dealer?”

  “In good standing.”

  “Of course. And you, in turn sell to?”

  “Retailers around the state. You will need to learn which species you can hunt, and you will need permits on various equipment, as well, like gill nets.”

  I nodded and lowered my voice. “I’ve heard shark fins are big business.”

  He sat back and his handsome features darkened. I suspected that he was waiting for this. I suspe
cted that a part of him was on guard from the moment I had walked in.

  “Finning is now illegal in California,” he said.

  “That is, catching the sharks just for their fins?”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do anything illegal,” I said. “I just want to make a buck. And what are a few sharks anyway, right? Nasty creatures. So what’s the next step?”

  “Once you have your licenses, we can set you up with an account.”

  I nodded. I needed to push this. It was too much by the book. “And what if I came back with just shark fins?”

  “Just the fins?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I would call the Department of Fish and Game and you would lose your license and be heavily fined. There’s a chance your boat might even be confiscated, as well.” He stopped and looked at me long and hard. “Look, Mr...?”

  “Anderson,” I said.

  “Look, Mr. Anderson, I run a very up and up wholesale business. I work with well-known and respected fishermen. I respect the laws of California and elsewhere. If you are considering anything less than legal, then I think our business here is done.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “Do you know anything about the murder of Mitch Golden?”

  He didn’t blink. He didn’t react. His not reacting was, in effect, a reaction. “Excuse me?” he asked after a moment.

  “Mitch Golden was a conservationist for Sharks Now. They found his body yesterday. Apparently he’d been shot and dumped overboard. Chained and everything. I saw the body. Not pretty.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you a fisherman?”

  “I’m told that one of your shark hunters might have threatened him,” I said. “I’m also told that you buy illegal shark fins.”

  “Get out.”

  But I didn’t get out, even when he opened the drawer and removed a handgun. It wasn’t the first time a gun has been shoved in my face.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  I reached carefully into my back pocket and withdrew my wallet. From it, I extracted my business card and handed it to him. I had nothing to hide. From anyone.

  He took the card, looked at it, still holding the gun on me. “You’re a fucking private investigator?”

  “I’m also a righter of wrongs,” I said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that if you are who I think you are, you’ll be seeing me again.”

  I got up and left, all too aware that the gun was pointed at my back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sanchez and I were working out at the 24-Hour Fitness in Newport Beach.

  Today was our “pull” day. That meant biceps, lats, abdominals and hamstrings. Like anyone who’s serious about getting bigger and stronger, we never work the same muscles two days in a row. Amateurish. Muscles need time to rebuild, especially when you hit them as hard as we hit them. Tomorrow would be our “push” day...any exercises that consist of a pushing motion, with bench presses being the obvious one.

  Right now we were doing sets of old-school pull-ups on the horizontal bar. I was on pull-up number fourteen when Sanchez said, “Taking you long enough to do twenty pull-ups.”

  I cranked out three more, then paused while hanging from my hands. “It’s my third set, asshole.”

  “And your skin’s all red and blotchy.”

  “Latinos sweat,” I said, resuming my pull-ups, grunting as I spoke. “Gringos blotch.”

  Sanchez shook his head. “You gringos are weird.”

  I finished my third set, and now Sanchez cranked out his own final set of pull-ups. I mentioned how he looked like a girl, with his legs curled up the way they were. He paused and said something about the unappealing lack of pigmentation in my skin, then finished his own third set.

  Next, we hit the row machine hard, and by our second set, I had gotten him caught up on my current case. Sanchez, a homicide investigator with the LAPD and an ex-teammate at UCLA, was a good person to bounce cases off of, although I would never let him know that.

  “This guy, Trujillo...”

  “Is Latino,” I said.

  “What does being Latino have to do with anything?”

  “I thought we were finishing each others’ sentences.”

  “We ain’t fucking finishing each others’ sentences.”

  “See,” I said. “I could have finished that one for you.”

  Sanchez shook his head and finished his third set of rows. He was wearing a tank top and his muscles bulged and rippled and I caught more than one woman admiring him. I didn’t need to tell him the women were admiring him. Sanchez noticed everything. Besides, his wife, Danielle, would have my head on a platter if she knew I had pointed out any women.

  Sanchez said, “So why do we think this guy Trujillo plugs our golden boy and dumps him in the Long Beach Harbor?”

  I was on the machine now, pulling the chromed bar back slowly and with near-perfect form. “Because Mitch Golden was giving him grief. Hurting business.”

  “Hurting business how?”

  “Exposing the shark finners for the shitbags they are. Helping the game wardens arrest his suppliers.”

  “So Trujillo is like, what, a shark fin kingpin? And his fishermen provide him the fins?”

  “Way to make it sound street,” I said. “But yeah.”

  “Street makes sense to me,” said Sanchez. “Shark fins don’t. There any money in fins?”

  “Enough to kill,” I said.

  Sanchez stood and stretched and generally looked like a peacock parading around. He showed me his tan bicep. “See, no blotching. It’s brown and beautiful.”

  “And sweaty,” I said.

  Sanchez shook his head, careful not to look at the women looking at him. He was afraid of his wife, too. As we all should be.

  He said, “And they really use dogs?”

  “Some do. Not all of them.”

  “Ain’t right.”

  “Nope.”

  We were silent as we caught our breaths. The gym wasn’t so silent. Music pumped. Machines clattered. People grunted.

  Sanchez looked around. “Lots of splotchy people here.”

  “It’s Newport,” I said.

  He looked at me. “You can’t save all the dogs, Knighthorse.”

  “I know.”

  “Or the damn sharks.”

  “I know that, too,” I said.

  “But you’re going to try, aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to do something.”

  “What about finding Mitch Golden’s murderer?”

  “That too,” I said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I was driving south along Seal Beach Boulevard, and when I made a right turn, I literally left behind Orange County and entered a whole new world.

  Leisure World.

  Before me was a massive, revolving globe, which was kind of fitting. I waited in line behind some shuttle buses, and when my turn came to approach the security gate, the world’s oldest security guard came out sporting a clipboard and a frown.

  “Who’re you here to see?” he asked.

  “Poppie,” I said.

  “Poppie who?”

  “Just Poppie.”

  “You don’t have a last name?”

  “That’s all she gave me.”

  “What’s your business here?”

  “I’m going to apprehend a flasher.”

  “A what?”

  “A flasher. A man who reveals his genitalia to women. Or a woman who reveals herself to men, although I’ve never been so lucky.”

  He looked down at his list, looked at me, and then asked me to pull around and park. I did as I was told. A minute or two later, I found myself sitting in an old office that could have doubled as an interrogation room.

  Shortly, another man appeared. He was wearing the same security outfit, but this one had bars on the sleeves. A captain security guard. I nearly saluted. He asked to see m
y private investigator license and I gave it to him. He studied it closely and left the office. I heard a copy machine whir on. I next heard him typing on a computer, and about five minutes later, he came back in. He handed back my license, sat in a squeaky chair behind the simple wooden desk. He introduced himself as Tony Hill. He smelled like Old Spice and sweat.

  “You check out,” said Tony Hill.

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Your license is in good standing with the state, and there are currently no complaints against you.”

  “Today must be my lucky day.”

  “I Googled your name. Are you the same Jim Knighthorse who played for UCLA?”

  “One and the same.”

  “I hate UCLA.”

  “Those are fighting words.”

  He sat back and studied me. I often wondered what people thought about when they studied me. Impressed? Terrified? Envious? All of the above?

  “I don’t like you,” he finally said.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Most guys don’t like me. They tend to feel inferior. Less than a man. Especially if their ladies are around. It’s hard to measure up.”

  He didn’t move a muscle. His stomach was mostly flat and he had some muscle around his shoulders. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his sixties. Finally, he said, “You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?”

  “Compared to a charging rhino? Not so much. Compared to you, I think the answer is obvious. But if you want, we can duke it out old-school style. Throw on some gloves. Or better yet, dueling pistols.”

  He shook his head and a grin might have appeared on his lips. “You’re a cocky son-of-a-bitch.”

  “I might have heard that once or twice. The thing is, I can back it up.”

  He rubbed his smooth jaw. “I don’t have to let you in, Mr. Knighthorse. I have guys working on this case now. Except...”

  “Except the flasher is still out there.”

  “Fucking pervert. Got all the women here up in arms. The park president is breathing down my neck.”