by J. R. Rain
“You don’t want another beer?”
“Duty calls.”
She looked sad. The bar was empty. I was her only entertainment. “So where you headed now?”
“Figure I might as well talk to Jarred before he goes making a name for himself and thinks he’s too important to talk to me.”
She grinned. “He’s four stores down. The adobe building.”
I tipped my hat. “Ma’am.”
Luckily, the swinging doors were just as much fun going as coming.
Chapter Fifteen
I stepped out of the saloon and onto the surface of Venus. Or close to it. Hell, I felt myself mummifying on the spot, and almost turned around for more beer.
I passed a leather shop, general store, and glass blowing shop, and soon came upon a smallish adobe building set back from the boardwalk. The sign out front read: Rawhide Museum, Free Admission.
Now we’re talking.
I paused, listening. From somewhere nearby I heard the sharp report of rifle shots. From my research, I knew there was a shooting range just outside of town.
Praying for air conditioning, I entered the museum.
* * *
My prayers were answered. Maybe I should be a priest.
Cool air blasted my face the moment I stepped into the small museum, itself nothing more than a converted frontier house, filled to overflowing with antique mining equipment. Hardhats, lanterns, pick axes, carts, stuff I didn’t recognize, stuff I did but didn’t know the names of. I had the general sense that mining in the days of yore took a lot of muscle, and probably a lot of nerve. Not to mention light. In one corner, a display let children pan for fool’s gold. Along the walls, dozens of black and white photographs showed the town in various stages of growth and decline. Many featured hardened men sporting thick handlebar mustaches.
A door was open to my right, leading into what might have once been a bedroom, but now was an office. Inside, a smallish young man with wire rim glasses and a goatee was working furiously on a computer, pounding the keyboard with a vengeance, oblivious to me. I studied him briefly, and concluded he would have looked better with a handlebar mustache.
I knocked on the door frame, and he jumped about six inches out of his seat, gasping, clutching his heart. He snapped his head around, his eyes wide behind his thick glasses.
Jumpy little fellow.
“Oops,” I said. “Of course, I could say I should have knocked, but that’s just what I did.”
“Oh, it’s not you,” he said, settling back in his chair, letting out a long stream of air. The brass nameplate on his desk read: Jarred Booker, Town Historian. “Just lost in my writing, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Oh, do you write?”
“No, I was just trying to be agreeable.”
“I see,” he said, frowning. “Anyway, I haven’t had anyone step in here for...oh, a few days.”
“Maybe the price scares them away,” I said.
“Any freer, and I would have to pay them.”
“It’s an idea.”
“Are you here for a tour?” he asked.
“Not exactly.”
I opened my wallet and showed him my license to detect, complete with my happy mug. A small grin, no teeth. Eyes bright, but hard. The picture was worth a thousand words, and one of them was roguish.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Knighthorse?”
I told him I was hired to investigate the death of Willie Clarke and that I was here to ask a few questions. Jarred stared at me for a moment, then got up and crossed the room and closed the door and went back and sat behind his desk again.
He said, “I was told not to talk to anyone about Willie Clarke.”
“Told by who?”
Jarred leaned back in his chair and studied me. The glow from his monitor reflected off his glasses. So nice it reflected twice.
“Tafford Barron?” I asked. Shot in the dark.
He looked a little surprised. “Yes.”
“Any idea why he doesn’t want you talking to me?”
“None that I can speculate on. Besides, I’ve already told the police everything I know.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’d like to hire you to take me to the same place you took Willie Clarke.”
“In the desert?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Part of the investigation. Scene of the crime.”
“According to the police, there’s been no crime. It was an accident.”
“Sure,” I said. “Which is why Tafford wants to keep you from talking to me.”
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 & 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 fou
ntain. 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 tooth. 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 t
he 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.
