The Black Knight Chronicles

by John G. Hartness

  “I might be gross, but you’re a dick,” I said, looking around for something to dry off with. I gave up on the idea of finding anything lying around the den when I remembered that, yesterday, Greg had been home alone all night, which always led to an almost neurotic level of cleaning. I went into my room and got some fresh boxers and the rest of my clothes.

  Greg was sitting up on the floor when I made it back to the den, a look of smug superiority on his face. “What?” I asked.

  “What, what?” He kept grinning at me.

  “Why are you sitting there grinning like the AV club president who bugged the girls’ dressing room?”

  “I am the AV club president who bugged the girls’ dressing room,” he reminded me without a hint of embarrassment.

  “I remember. And you had that same stupid grin on your face then.”

  “Well I think I may have found our link between the victims. Career Day.” He waved a piece of paper over his head like it was a checkered flag and he was an off-duty Daytona stripper.

  I snatched the paper from him and looked at it. There was a column of initials, a column of dates and a column of school names. The school names I recognized, and it didn’t take long to figure out that the initials and dates matched up with missing kids.

  “Greg, there are only seven names here.” I pointed to the paper.

  “Yeah?”

  “There were eleven victims, dude.”

  “Yeah, but seven of these schools had a Career Day the week before the kidnappings occurred. There’s no way that’s not statistically significant.”

  He had a point. “We need to look into it further.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I think it’s a good idea.”

  Greg looked so happy that I wasn’t dismissing his idea out of hand that you’d have thought I gave him an ice cream cone, or a puppy. Or a puppy with ice cream on it.

  “Cool. Now what? Where do we start?” Greg asked. He headed to the coat closet and started gearing up—putting on his utility belt, boots, and other combat equipment. I stopped him before he got too far along.

  “We start right here. At least until dark, bro. Remember, it’s like two in the afternoon.”

  “Oh yeah. I just got so excited at having a real lead.”

  “I know, I know,” I led him back over to the couch.

  “Wanna play Halo?” I sat down with the game

  controller in one hand and my OJ in the other.

  “Nah. If we can’t go thwart evil, I’m gonna take a nap.” My grumpy roommate then tromped off to his room for some shut-eye while I valiantly tried to save the world. Again.

  Chapter 15

  I finished off season two of Dexter on Netflix before Greg woke up. Not long after sunset, I heard the shower come on and a few minutes later, my partner emerged. He was dressed in all black, again, with his combat boots laced tight and his utility belt snug around his ballooning waist. I feel for Greg sometimes. I mean, who knew that turning into vampires wouldn’t change our bodies into perfect examples of studliness, and we’d be trapped forever as the dorks we were on the last night of our lives?

  The first thing we looked forward to when we got over the shock of being vampires was that now we could exercise all we wanted and build ourselves the buff bodies we’d never had in life. The first thing we realized after that was that no matter how much we exercised, our bodies were never going to change. This was not a welcome realization for either my pudgy best friend or me.

  “Really, man. Do you have to wear the utility belt?” I laced up my sneakers and shrugged into my shoulder holster on the way out the door. I hid the firepower under a leather jacket before as we climbed the last steps and walked out into the cemetery.

  We opened a tool shed that was really a two-car garage and hopped in Greg’s car, a 1967 GTO convertible—black, of course. I always gave Greg a load of crap about his less-than-inconspicuous ride, but he’d had a man-crush on that car since we were alive, so no amount of teasing was going to get him to drive anything else. Besides, I had a blue Camry for when we needed to blend in.

  “Where are we headed?” Greg asked as I got into the car.

  I pulled out the file folder with all his Career Day notes and started to flip through it. It had been easy to find when he went to bed, because he’d written “CAREER DAY CLUES” on the outside of the folder in purple Sharpie. Sometimes I really thought my partner was secretly an illiterate twelve-year-old girl. I wouldn’t have been too surprised to find his notes in a Trapper Keeper covered in unicorn stickers.

  “There were three companies that had a table at every event. Bank of America, Joe’s World of Tires and the Police Department. Bank of America makes sense, since their corporate headquarters is here. The owner of Joe’s World of Tires is on the school board, and I think the cops were just looking for middle-school weed. But we should check them all out regardless.”

  “Why do we need to check out the cops? They’re investigating the crimes. You don’t think a cop could have done it, do you?”

  My partner has a simple view of the world—police and firemen are good, and bad guys have twirly mustaches and bad French accents. It’s charming, really.

  “I don’t think a cop abducted the kids, but it’s possible. Cops are people, so they’re suspects. We’ve got to look at everybody, bro.”

  “All right, but I don’t think it’s the cops.”

  I didn’t either, but I could hope. A cop would be easier. I didn’t think we were going to find our kidnapper anywhere in this list of companies. I didn’t think our bad guy was still capable of “normal.” It didn’t feel right, if you know what I mean.

  “So, where to first?” Greg gingerly backed the car out of the garage. I’m always amazed that he can be incredibly careful with his car but such a spaz on two feet.

  “I think we start with the path of least resistance—Joe Arthur, owner of Joe’s World of Tires and school board member. We should be able to play the PI card and find out who was representing the World of Tires at the Career Days straight from the source.”

  I gave him the address, and we headed out to meet the Tire King. I looked out the window and watched the city roll by. A flashing sign for the Morris Costumes Haunted House had me thinking a lot more than I wanted to about ten missing children and the fact that we only had a couple of nights left to stop something from coming to town that even a fallen angel was scared of.

  It took us about half an hour to get to Joe Arthur’s house, a modest ranch in one of the newer developments out past the university. These little subdivisions popped up all over Charlotte in the late 1990s as the banking boom hit, but now there was a For Sale sign in about every fourth yard.

  I noted the bicycle lying beside the driveway. “Looks like Joe’s got a kid right in the target age range,” I whispered as we walked up to the front door.

  “Yep. How do you want to play this? Good cop/bad cop? Two bad cops? Fangs out? Subtle?” He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and shadowboxing his way up to the door. I grabbed the back of his utility belt and dragged him down the steps back to where I stood.

  “I thought we’d ask him very nicely to invite us in, then see what he knows about the disappearances.” I spoke very low and very slowly, and held one hand on Greg’s shoulder to steady him while I tried to rein in his excitement. When you pair his enthusiasm with the fact that we haven’t aged in fifteen years, it’s easy to forget that he remembers the Reagan administration.

  He deflated a little. “Oh.”

  I shouldered my way past him up the steps, and rang the bell. No one answered, so I rang again. I could hear people walking around inside, but when they didn’t respond to the second ring, I knocked on the door. After a couple more minutes, a light flipped on over my head, and the door cracked open.

  “Can I help you?” A sliver of a middle-aged woman’s face appeared between the door and the jamb, as she looked at me through the security chain. The last time a wom
an was this unhappy to see me had been my date for the senior prom.

  The woman’s face was pinched, like she’d been a beautiful girl whose life hadn’t worked out as well as she’d hoped, and her eyes darted along the street past me looking for something. I couldn’t tell if she was more annoyed at me interrupting her evening, or worried about whatever might be out on the sidewalk at night. I’d seen that look before, on the face of my own mother, and it dredged up some memories that I didn’t particularly enjoy.

  “Is Mr. Arthur home?” I asked, reaching into my coat pocket for my investigator’s license.

  “No, he’s not,” she said, and moved to close the door in my face. I put a hand on the door and held it open. I couldn’t go through without an invitation, but I could make sure she didn’t close it completely, either.

  I held my credentials where she could see them and said, “We’re investigating the disappearance of some children. Maybe you’ve heard about the situation?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard of that. Awful stuff. But I don’t see what that has to do with Joe. He’s never really hurt anybody.” She stopped, eyes round as she realized what she’d implied.

  I began to doubt her certainty that Mr. Arthur was harmless. Maybe Greg had found something after all.

  “We understand that, ma’am. We’re hoping that he could answer a few questions for us about the Career Day events that he attended at several of the schools prior to the disappearances. He may have seen something that could be useful in our investigation. Could we come in and wait for him?” She looked increasingly nervous, and I suddenly became aware of another heartbeat in the house.

  “Um . . . no, I’m sorry. I’m alone here, you see, and it wouldn’t be proper. You understand? You’re welcome to come back later, when my husband is home. Maybe tomorrow afternoon?”

  I could hear the heartbeat moving closer to the door but I had no way in without an invitation. A wife-beater or a stone-cold killer could be behind that door, and I still couldn’t do anything about it if I couldn’t figure out how to get inside. I’m not sure how long I would have stood there if Greg hadn’t pulled on my sleeve.

  “Come on, James. We’ll come back and visit when Mr. Arthur is home. Thanks for your time, ma’am.” He led me down the steps by my elbow and steered me toward the car.

  “Dude!” I whispered. “What the hell was that about? Something had her wound up—her pulse was up, her skin was flushed, and there was definitely somebody else in that house. I could hear a man’s pulse, racing. He was pretty excited, too.” I put my elbows on the roof of the car and looked over at where Greg stood by the driver’s door.

  Usually he was the first one to leap into Super Hero mode. Now, he stood there quietly. I didn’t understand. “Why aren’t we doing everything we can to get her to let us in so we can help her?”

  “Because I don’t think she would appreciate our help,” he said, with what I guess he meant to be a meaningful glance.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Let’s see—skin flushed, heart racing, doesn’t want us in the house, husband not home, someone else in the house with her. Even the man with a thousand strikeouts like you should be able to put those clues together.” He smirked at me as realization dawned, and we got in the car.

  “I get it.” I closed the door. “She’s having an affair, and her boyfriend was there. But where does that leave us with the Tire King?”

  “Headed to Lucky Strike.” Greg put the car in gear and headed towards the big outlet mall north of town.

  “Why do you have a sudden urge to go bowling in the middle of an investigation?” Greg didn’t really baffle me that often, but this time he had me flummoxed. Admittedly, he often baffled me, but it was usually with his staggering ineptitude with women. I can’t understand how anyone can be immortal, live through all these years looking like he’s in his twenties, and still have no more game than the dorky kids we were when we were turned.

  “While you were trying to get the Real Housewife of Charlotte to let us interrupt date night, I was peeking through the kitchen window checking out the calendar on the fridge. Tonight is Joe Arthur’s league night, so he’ll be bowling for at least another couple of hours. All we need to do is grab him when he heads for his car, interrogate him, maybe munch on him a little, and find out what he knows.”

  “Munch? Did you, the closest thing to a vegan vampire I’ve ever met, just suggest that we actually feed from a suspect? Who are you and what did you do with Greg Knightwood?”

  “I just thought that, you know, since you were off the wagon, bro, you might want another excuse to behave like an animal.”

  Now that made more sense. Ticked me off, but made sense. He just wanted to make me feel like a monster again. Whatever. I am a monster. And monsters eat. It’s what we do.

  “No, I think we can do without snacking on the suspects for tonight at least.” I leaned back in my seat and contemplated staking my partner while he pulled into the mall’s gargantuan parking lot. I couldn’t stake him, but I could needle him. “Besides, I’m still full from yesterday.”

  “Well, if you’re sure . . .”

  “I’m sure. Park the car.”

  Lucky Strike is in Concord Mills, the gigantic mall north of town by the speedway. I’ve never gotten the hang of navigating that place. It’s over a mile to walk the entire inside of it, and the mere concept of trying to drive through the parking lot always gives me the heebie-jeebies. Greg pulled up in front of the bowling alley, and we headed in. It made sense that the Tire King would bowl there. It was the closest alley to his neighborhood, and it had a truly excellent beer selection.

  “Assuming he’s here, do you really want to grab him as he exits?” I asked.

  “Nah, I thought we’d flash our badges, ask a few questions about his whereabouts, hint around that his wife is having him investigated for infidelity, and all around ruin his night.”

  “That sounds a little extreme, doesn’t it?” I asked. I liked it, but I wanted Greg to tell me that he’d seen what I saw in the wife’s eyes.

  “Were you not paying attention back there? That woman had all the classic signs of abuse to go with her affair. If the Tire King’s never used her for a punching bag, I’ll eat your hat.”

  Bingo. We were on the same page after all. I knew from the look in her eyes that the wife had been slapped around more than once. If we could get a little payback on Mr. Joe Arthur, upstanding businessman and school board member, I was down with that.

  “Fine, but we don’t talk about his wife’s boy toy unless he’s really irritating.”

  “Nah, if he’s really irritating we eat him. We ruin his marriage just for looking at me funny.”

  “You’re wearing a utility belt. Everyone looks at you funny.”

  “Point,” Greg agreed. “All right, we only ruin his marriage if we get something out of it.”

  “Deal. I’ll lead.”

  “Why do you always lead?”

  “I’m taller.”

  By now we had made it through the parking lot, down the mall and most of the way across the bowling alley, and I recognized Joe Arthur from his commercials. The Tire King was carrying a spare or two of his own, and I don’t mean the bowling kind. He was a sixty-something Italian guy with more hair coming out of his ears than he had left on his head. He was about five foot eight which gave me a serious height advantage. I’m a couple inches over six feet. Even Greg had a couple inches on the Rubber Royalty.

  He and his league buddies had the least flattering bowling shirts I’d ever seen. I’ve never met any guy over fifty (and over two-fifty) who can pull off horizontal stripes in turquoise, and these guys were no exception. I wondered if they realized they looked like turquoise Michelin Men.

  We waited until Big Joe, as was embroidered on his bowling shirt, got up to bowl. Right in the middle of his backswing, I called out in my loudest voice, “Joe Arthur?” Since I was only about four feet from him, he jumped like a st
artled, overweight cat and threw a perfect gutter ball.

  “Jesus Christ!” He stomped over to me and got as much in my face as he could from his height and bellowed, “What the holy crap do you think you’re doing? This is a league game! We’re in the running for the championship! What kind of crap was that?”

  If the garlic myth had been anything more than urban legend, Joe’s breath would have put me down for the count. While my eyes watered, I flashed my badge. “Mr. Arthur, we have a few questions to ask you about some missing children.”

  The whole trick to flashing a fake badge is to control the flash. You have to open and close the wallet before anyone can get a good look at the contents. I’d actually practiced in front of a mirror when we first opened up shop as detectives. It’s embarrassing to admit, but less embarrassing than how I learned to draw from a shoulder holster. Practice paid off, like now. His teammates were nudging each other as if to say, “Look at that. Joe’s gone and got himself in trouble.” They were focused on Joe, not questioning my ID.

  “Mr. Arthur, is there somewhere we could talk?”

  “I don’t know anything about any missing kids. And I don’t feel like talking to you. If you want to talk to me, talk to my lawyer first. And he’ll tell you I don’t know anything about any missing kids and don’t feel like talking to you. Right, Mason?” He pointed over to a scrawny, balding man drinking beer from a plastic cup at a table near their lane. The man, who I assumed was Arthur’s lawyer given Arthur’s smirk, nodded like his head was spring-loaded and started over to us.

  “Now that you’ve heard from my lawyer, get out of my face and let me finish my game.” He turned back to the ball return machine, but I grabbed his wrist and turned him back to face me.

  “I asked nicely first, Mr. Arthur. If I have to ask again, it won’t be nicely.” I spoke very slowly and kept my voice low. I didn’t need his buddies seeing me threaten him and wondering what kind of cop would do that. That wouldn’t end well for anyone, especially if anyone on the team got suspicious and grew a pair all of a sudden. Arthur looked into my eyes, and I put just enough mojo in them to show him I was not screwing around.