by J. R. Rain
“You could make our team, Knighthorse.”
“I know.”
“Don’t do this.”
“I have a killer to catch. Hell, two killers to catch. But for now, I will take one.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means I have a job to do, and I’m good at it.”
“This is the last time I’m asking, Jim. You walk away from this now and no one, and I mean no one, will give you another opportunity.”
“Good luck with the coming season. Go Chargers.” I hung up, then called Detective Hanson of Huntington Beach Homicide.
62.
I arrived at Huntington High later that same day just as Mrs. Williams, the vice principal of discipline, was climbing into her Ford Excursion. The Excursion was raised an extra foot or two, and she looked miniscule sitting there in the driver’s seat, adjusting her skirt. Her skirt rested just above the knees, exactly where most skirts should be.
I patted the fender of the Excursion. “You could conquer a small Baltic country with this thing.”
“But could you take over a small Baltic country with your thing?” She glanced down at my crotch just in case I hadn’t picked up on the innuendo.
I said, “Only if they were susceptible to fits of hysterical laughter.”
She reached out and touched my arm. Her eyes were extraordinarily large at the moment. Green as hell. Or maybe blue. Hell, I didn’t know. Her pupils were pinpricks. I could see the fine lines around her eyes and lips. She didn’t blink.
“A big guy like you. I’m sure you’re being modest.”
“Mrs. Williams, are you flirting with me?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Just as long as we’re clear on that point.”
“Oh, we’re clear.”
Her thigh was about face high. It was muscular, smooth and tan. She moved it toward me, and when she did her skirt rode up, showing more skin.
“You and I need to talk.”
“Oh, we’re going to do more than talk, sugar butt,” she said. “Follow me home.”
And so I followed her.
Sugar butt?
* * *
We drove south along PCH, through Newport Beach and into Laguna. She drove quickly, darting in and out of traffic, her need to see me without my shirt on pushing her to drive recklessly. Or perhaps she had to pee. Luckily the Excursion was big enough to follow from outer space.
She turned into a gated community, then waited for me to catch up. When I had done so, a pair of wrought iron doors swung open, and I followed her in, passing beautiful Mediterranean homes, each more elaborate than the next.
A garage door opened on my right and she pulled the Excursion all the way into what must have been a hell of a deep garage. I parked in the driveway and got out.
The sun was hot on my neck. I was wearing a loose Hawaiian shirt, jeans and black hiking boots, although I wasn’t planning on going for a hike any time soon.
She stepped expertly down from the monster truck and beckoned me to follow her through a doorway that led into her kitchen. Once inside she tossed her keys on a counter near the phone and dropped her purse onto the seat of a dining chair. I felt the need to toss something of my own, but decided to hold on to my wallet and keys. The kitchen was paved with tan Spanish tile, and the cabinets were immaculate.
“Vice principals in charge of discipline do well,” I said.
“Oh, they do. Especially for those who do their job well.”
“I imagine you are one of those.”
“Discipline is not something I take lightly, Mr. Knighthorse.”
“I see. Does anyone oversee you, Mrs. Williams?”
“Dana, please.” She took hold of my hand and led me out of the kitchen and into a much larger room. She hit the lights. “The answer is no one oversees me. Not really. If I failed to do my duties the school board would consider a demotion, but in actuality I am judge, jury and executioner at Huntington High.”
“An interesting choice of words.”
“Oh, I don’t lay a hand on them,” she said.
“But do you want to?”
“Always,” she said without hesitation. “Some of them need to be beaten into submission.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She laughed. “What would you like to drink?”
“Soda water is fine.”
The room was very adult. There was a zinc-topped bar in one corner, filled with all sorts of alcoholic delights. Dana was there fixing us a couple of drinks. Off to the right was a large cigar box sitting on a delicate end table. Original artwork from local painters adorned the wall. I walked over to one and studied it. It was a stylized surfer hanging ten.
She walked over with my drink, took hold of my hand again and led me to a leather couch in the middle of the room. I sipped the soda water. She had spiked it with scotch. I didn’t say anything, just set it down on a coaster on the glass coffee table. She was watching me closely.
“Do you like your drink?” she asked.
“It’s very nice.”
“I have never held the hand of someone so goddamn big before. Look at your hand, it dwarfs mine.”
“You should see my feet.”
“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 ene
rgetic 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?”