by J. R. Rain
When Kingsley was gone I punched his name into my web browser.
Dozens of online newspaper articles came up, and from these I garnered that Kingsley was a rather successful defense attorney, known for doing whatever it took to get his clients off the hook, often on seemingly inane technicalities. He was apparently worth his weight in gold.
I thought of his beefy shoulders.
A lot of weight. Muscular weight.
Down girl.
I continued scanning the headlines until I found the one I wanted. It was on a web page for a local LA TV station. I clicked on a video link. Thank God for high speed internet. A small media window appeared on my screen, and shortly thereafter I watched a clip that had first appeared on local TV news. The clip had gone national, due to its sensationally horrific visuals.
A reporter appeared first in the screen, a young Hispanic woman looking quite grave. Over her shoulder was a picture of the Fullerton Municipal Courthouse. The next shot was a grainy image from the courthouse security camera itself. In the frame were two men and two women, all dressed impeccably, all looking important. They were crossing in front of the courthouse itself. In football terms, they formed a sort of moving huddle, although I rarely think of things in football terms and understand little of the stupid sport.
I immediately recognized the tall one with the wavy black hair as Kingsley Fulcrum, looking rugged and dashing.
Down girl.
As the group approaches the courthouse steps, a smallish man steps out from behind the trunk of a white birch. Three of the four great defenders pay the man little mind. The one who does, a blond-haired woman with glasses and big hips, looks up and frowns. She probably frowns because the little man is reaching rather menacingly inside his coat pocket. His thick mane of black hair is disheveled, and somehow even his thick mustache looks disheveled, too. The woman, still frowning, turns back to the group.
And what happens next still sends shivers down my spine.
From inside his tweed jacket, the little man removes a short pistol. We now know it’s a .22. At the time, no one sees him remove the pistol. The short man, perhaps ten feet away from the group of four, takes careful aim, and fires.
Kingsley’s head snaps back. The bullet enters over his left eye.
I lean forward, staring at my computer screen, rapt, suddenly wishing I had a bowl of popcorn, or at least a bag of peanut M&Ms. That is, until I remembered that I can no longer eat either.
Anyway, Kingsley’s cohorts immediately scatter like chickens before a hawk. The shorter man even ducks and rolls dramatically as if he’s recently seen duty in the Middle East and his military instincts are kicking in.
Kingsley is shot again. This time in the neck, where a small red dot appears above his collar. Blood quickly flows down his shirt. Instead of collapsing, instead of dying after being shot point blank in the head and neck, Kingsley actually turns and looks at the man.
As if the man had simply called his name.
As if the man had not shot him twice.
What transpires next would be comical if it wasn’t so heinous. Kingsley proceeds to duck behind a nearby tree. The shooter, intent on killing Kingsley, bypasses going around a park bench and instead jumps over it. Smoothly. Landing squarely on his feet while squeezing off a few more rounds that appear to hit Kingsley in the neck and face. Meanwhile, the big attorney ducks and weaves behind the tree. This goes on for seemingly an eternity, but in reality just a few seconds. A sick game of tag, except Kingsley’s getting tagged with real bullets.
And still the attorney does not go down.
Doesn’t even collapse.
The shooter seemingly realizes he’s wasting his time and dashes away from the tree, disappearing from the screen. No one has come to Kingsley’s rescue. The other attorneys are long gone. Kingsley is left to fend for himself, his only protection the tree, which has been torn and shredded by the impacting stray bullets.
Witnesses would later report that the shooter left in a Ford pickup. No one tried to stop him, and I really didn’t blame them.
I paused the picture on Kingsley. Blood is frozen on his cheeks and forehead, even on his open, outstretched palms. His face is a picture of confusion and horror and shock. In just twenty-three seconds, his life had been utterly turned upside down. Of course, in those very same twenty-three seconds most people would have died.
But not Kingsley. I wondered why.
5.
I was at the Fullerton police station, sitting across from a homicide detective named Sherbet. It was the late evening, and most of the staff had left for the day.
“You’re keeping me from my kid,” he said. Sherbet was wearing a long sleeved shirt folded up at the elbows, revealing heavily muscled forearms covered in dark hair. The dark hair was mixed with a smattering of gray. I thought it looked sexy as hell. His tie was loosened, and he looked irritable, to say the least.
“I apologize,” I said. “This was the only time I could make it today.”
“I’m glad I can work around your busy schedule, Mrs. Moon. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you in any way.”
His office was simple and uncluttered. No pictures on the wall. Just a desk, a computer, a filing cabinet and some visitor’s chairs. His desk had a few picture frames, but they were turned toward him. From my angle, I could only see the price tags.
I gave him my most winning smile. “I certainly appreciate your time, detective.” I had on plenty of blush, so that my cheeks appeared human.
The smile worked. He blushed himself. “Yeah, well, let’s make this quick. My kid’s playing a basketball game tonight, and I wouldn’t want to miss him running up and down the court with no clue what the hell is going on around him.”
“Sounds like a natural.”
“A natural dolt. Wife says I should just leave him alone. The trouble is, if I leave him alone, he tends to want to play Barbies with the neighborhood girls.”
“That worries you?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You think he could turn out gay?”
He shrugged uncomfortably, and said nothing. It was a touchy subject for him, obviously.
“How old is your son?” I asked.
“Eight.”
“Perhaps he’s a little Casanova. Perhaps he sees the benefits of playing with girls, rather than boys.”
“Perhaps,” said Sherbet. “For now, he plays basketball.”
“Even though he’s clueless.”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way.”
“Even if it’s your will and your way?” I asked.
“For now, it’s the only way.” He paused, then looked a little confused. He shook his head like a man realizing he had been mumbling out loud. “How the hell did we get on the subject of my kid’s sexuality?”
“I forget,” I said, shrugging.
He reached over and straightened the folder in front of him. The folder hadn’t been crooked, now it was less uncrooked. “Yeah, well, let’s get down to business. Here’s the file. I made a copy of it for you. It’s against procedures to give you a copy, but you check out okay. Hell, you worked for the federal government. And why the hell you’ve gone private is your own damn business.”
I reached for the file, but he placed a big hand on it. “This is just between you and me. I don’t normally give police files to private dicks.”
“Luckily I’m not your average private dick.”
“A dick with no dick,” he said.
“Clever, detective,” I said.
“Not really.”
“No, not really,” I admitted. “I just really want the file.”
He nodded and lifted his palm, and I promptly stuffed the file into my handbag. “Is there anything you can tell me that’s perhaps not in the file?”
He shook his head, but it was just a knee-jerk reaction. In the process of shaking his head, he was actually deep in thought. “It should all be in there.” He rubbed the dark stubble at his chin. Th
e dark stubble was also mixed with some gray. “You know I always suspected the guy doing the shooting was a client of his. I dunno, call it a hunch. But this attorney’s been around a while, and he’s pissed off a lot of people. Trouble is: who’s got the time to go through all of his past files?”
“Not a busy homicide detective,” I said, playing along.
“Damn straight,” he said.
“Any chance it was just a random shooting?” I asked.
“Sure. Of course. Those happen all the time.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
The detective was used to this kind of exchange. He worked in a business where if you didn’t ask questions, you didn’t find answers. If my questions bothered him, he didn’t show it, other than he seemed to be impatient to get this show on the road.
“Seemed premeditative. And no robbery attempt. Also seemed to be making a statement, as well.”
“By shooting him in the face?”
“And by shooting him outside the courthouse. His place of work. Makes you think it was business related.”
I nodded. Good point. I decided not to tell the detective he had a good point. Men tend to think all of their points were good, and they sure as hell didn’t need me to boost their already inflated egos.
I’m cynical that way.
He stood from his desk and retrieved a sport jacket from a coat rack. He was a fit man with a cop’s build. He also had a cop’s mustache. He would have looked better without the mustache, but it wasn’t was my place to suggest so. Besides, who better to wear a cop mustache than a cop?
“Now it’s time to go watch my son screw up the game of basketball,” he said.
“Maybe basketball’s not his game.”
“And playing with girls is?”
“It’s not a bad alternative,” I said, then added. “You think there’s a chance you’re reading a little too much into all of this with your son?”
“I’m a cop. I read too much into everything.” He paused and locked his office door, which I found oddly amusing and ironic since his office was located in the heart of a police station. “Take you, for instance.”
I didn’t want to take me for instance. I changed the subject. “I’m sure you’re a very good officer. How long have you been on the force?”
He ignored my question. “I wondered why you insisted on meeting me in the evening.” As he spoke, he placed his hand lightly at the small of my back and steered me through the row of cluttered desks. His hand was unwavering and firm. “When I asked you on the phone the reason behind the late meeting you had mentioned something about being busy with other clients. But when I called your office later that day to tell you that I was going to be delayed, you picked up the phone immediately.” He paused and opened a clear glass door. On the door was etched FPD. “Perhaps you were meeting your clients in the office. Or perhaps you were in-between clients. But when I asked if you had a few minutes you sounded unharried and pleasant. Sure, you said, how can I help you?”
“Well, I pride myself on customer service,” I said.
He was behind me, and I didn’t see him smile. But I sensed that he had done so. In fact, I knew he had smiled. Call it a side effect.
He said, “Now that I see you, I see you have a skin disorder of some type.”
“Why, lieutenant, you certainly know how to make a girl feel warm and fuzzy.”
“And that’s the other thing. When I shook your hand, it felt anything but warm and fuzzy,” he said.
“So what are you getting at?” I asked. We had reached the front offices. We were standing behind the main reception desk. The room was quiet for the time being. Outside the smoky gray doors, I could see Commonwealth Avenue, and across that, Amerige City Park, which sported a nice little league field.
He shrugged and smirked at me. “If I had two guesses, I would say that you were either a vampire, or, like I said, you had a skin condition.”
“What does your heart tell you?” I asked.
He studied me closely. Outside, commuters were working their way through downtown Fullerton. Red taillights burned through the smoky glass. Something passed across his gaze. An understanding of some sort. Or perhaps wonder. Something. But then he grinned and his cop mustache rose like a referee signaling a touchdown.
“A skin disease, of course,” he said. “You need to stay out of the sun.”
“Bingo,” I said. “You’re a hell of a detective.”
And with that I left. Outside, I saw that my hands were shaking. The son-of-a-bitch had me rattled. He was one hell of an intuitive cop.
I hate that.
And the adventures of Jim Knighthorse continue with:
The Mummy Case
Jim Knighthorse #2
by
J.R. Rain
(read on for a sample)
Chapter One
I was doing decline push ups when my office door opened. Decline push ups cause a lot of blood to rush to your head and a fabulous burn across the upper pectorals. They also looked pretty damn silly in a professional environment. Luckily, this wasn’t a professional environment.
Somebody was quietly watching me, probably admiring my near-perfect form or the way my tee shirt rippled across my broad shoulders. Either way, I rattled off twenty more, completing my set of a hundred.
In a distinctive country twang, a man’s voice said, “I could come back.”
“And miss my near-perfect form?”
I eased my running shoes off the desk and immediately felt a wave of light-headedness. Granted, I didn’t entirely mind the light-headedness. I am, after all, a sucker for a good buzz.
The man who came swimmingly into view was wearing a cowboy hat and leaning against my door frame, a bemused expression on his weathered face. He was about twenty years my senior.
“Howdy partner,” I said.
He tipped his Stetson. “So what do those push ups supposed to do, other than cause a lot of blood rush to your head?”
“That’s enough for me,” I said happily. “Oh, and they happen to be a hell of a chest workout.”
“Seems like a lot trouble,” he said.
“It’s not easy being beautiful.”
“Ah,” he said. “You must be Jim Knighthorse. I heard about you.”
“Lucky you.”
As he spoke, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a buoy in a storm. His white hat sported an excessively rolled brim—completely useless now against the sun or rain. Maybe he was a country music star.
“I was told you could be a cocky son of a bitch.”
“You would be, too,” I said. “If you were me.”
He looked at me and shrugged. “Well, maybe. You’re certainly a big son of a bitch.”
I said nothing. My size spoke for itself. He looked around my small office, perhaps noting the many pictures and trophies that cluttered the walls and bookcases, all in recognition of my considerable prowess on the football field. Actually, all but one. There was a second place spelling bee trophy in there somewhere. Lost it on zumbooruk, a camel-mounted canon used in the Middle East. Hell of a shitty word to lose it on.
“I heard you could help me,” he said finally, almost pitifully.
“Ah,” I said. “Have a seat.”
He did, moseying on into my small office. As he sat, I almost expected him to flip the client chair around and straddle it backward, cowboy-like. Instead, he used the chair as it was originally designed, although it was clearly not designed for someone as tall as he. His bony knees reached up to his ears and looked sharp enough to cut through his denim jeans. I sat behind the desk in a leather brass studded chair that was entirely too ornate for its surroundings. The leather made rude noises.
Ever the professional detective, I kept a straight face and asked for his name.
“Jones,” he answered. “Jones T. Jones, to be exact.”
“That’s a lot of Joneses.”
>
“Well, yes,” he said, blushing slightly. “It’s not really my name, you see. It’s sort of like a stage name. You know, a gimmick.”
“So you’re an actor?”
“No, I own a souvenir shop in Huntington Beach. But I’ve acted as the spokesperson in my own commercials.” Ah. It came to me then. I’d seen Jones before, late at night on the local cable circuit. Usually right before I passed out in a drunken stupor. Damn cheesy commercials, too, many in-volving what appeared to be a rabid monkey. Sometimes Jones and the monkey danced. I was embarrassed for Jones. “Maybe you’ve heard of it,” he continued. “Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe.”
“Heard of it?” I said. “Hell, I spelled old and shop with extra e’s and p’s up until the fifth grade. My teacher, Mrs. Franks, thought I was Chaucer reborn.”
He laughed. “I wanted to change the name when I bought the store a number of years ago, but there was a big public uproar.” He cracked a smile, and I realized that he enjoyed the big public uproar. “So I gave in to pressure and kept the damn name. I regret it to this day.”
“Why?”
“No one can find us in the phone book...or even on the internet. They call us and ask: Are we under Y or O? Is it Ye or The?” He sighed and caught his breath, having worked himself up. “I mean, what were the original owners thinking?”
“Maybe they were English.”
He shrugged. We were silent. Outside, in the nearby alley, a delivery truck was backing up, beeping away. I was one of the few people who appreciated the warning beeps.
“So what can I do for you, Mr. Jones?” I asked.
“I’d like to hire you.”
“Zumbooruk!” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Exactly.”
Chapter Two
“You know about Sylvester the Mummy, then?” asked Jones.
“Still dead?” I asked.
“As a doornail.”
Sylvester the Mummy was one of Huntington Beach’s main attractions—ranking a distant third behind waves and babes—and currently resided at the back of the Ye Olde Curiosity Gift Shoppe in a cozy polyurethane case for all the world to see. Sylvester had been found in the California deserts over a hundred years ago near a ghost town called Rawhide. Since then, he’d been passed from museum to museum, exhibit to exhibit, until finally coming to rest at Ye Olde Gift Shoppe in Huntington Beach. Wouldn’t his mother be proud? Although his identity is unknown, most historians figure Sylvester had once been a cowboy. Which, I figure, means he probably once owned a horse and a six shooter, ate beans from the can over an open campfire and sang lonesome songs about loose women. That is, of course, until someone put a bullet in his gut and left him for dead in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Experts figured the old boy had mummified within 24 hours due to a rare combination of extreme desert heat and chemicals in the sand. A true John Doe, he had been named after the very miner who discovered him, which I always found a little creepy.