by Eve Paludan
I sighed. Right now, I couldn’t stomach a lengthy cleanup of my place and I didn’t want to face Mack and have it out with him.
The box of Amanda’s letters on the floor of the passenger side of the front seat caught my eye.
That was then I realized, right now, it didn’t matter what I wanted to do. Right now, it mattered what I needed to do. And what I needed to do was to find a private investigator.
Chapter Twenty-one
There was a serious car accident ahead.
The CHP cops on motorcycles were running a round robin, weaving back and forth and slowing everyone down gradually. There was an art and a finesse to it and they were rocking it.
I bailed off the freeway at the first opportunity, which was what everyone else was doing. The mass traffic carried me in a direction I didn’t intend. I ended up in a Denny’s in Fullerton, of all places.
It seemed like a good place to regroup, slurp down a coffee and use their free Wi-Fi on my notebook computer. I had also slayed two pieces of pie—one apple, one lemon meringue. I still had a piece of cherry pie coming. A la mode.
This quitting-smoking thing was necessary, and I supposed that three slices of pie were better than buying a carton of cigarettes. For one night, what could pie hurt? Innocent pie. It had never hurt anyone…
In the next booth sat a pretty, dark-haired woman, and I could swear it was the same ‘good vampire’ that I had seen in Allison’s mind. I tore my eyes away because it’s not polite to stare at a woman with beautiful, crazy eyes.
This admittedly pale woman had children with her, children who unmistakably resembled her. And vampires did not have kids. That was a concept too crazy to contemplate, that a vampire could have kids. And her kids, as normal-looking as they appeared, made me discard the idea that I was sitting near Allison’s vampire friend at Denny’s. A vampire mom. Hah! That was a good one.
“Mom,” the boy was saying, “Jacky says I can go pro. I could be a champion next year.”
“No, my son is not ending up as a professional boxer.”
“Please, Mom?”
“Anthony, you may be strong and you may be quick, but you are a child. My child. And what I say goes.”
“But Mom!”
“But nothing, mister. You have your new school starting, and I want you to have a kid’s life that does not include getting in a boxing ring to beat up ex-Marines.”
“When I grow up, I am gonna kick their—”
“Anthony, watch your language. We’re at the dinner table.”
“Fine, I’ll save it for the ring. But this isn’t a dinner table. It’s a booth. And it’s only Denny’s.”
“I don’t care what words you mumble when you’re wearing a mouth guard in the boxing ring. But for now, be quiet and eat your free kid’s meal before you get too old to have them.”
The boy laughed. “Okay, Mom.”
It was the teen girl’s turn to speak. “I hate Tuesdays. We have to come here just so Anthony can eat for free. Tuesday nights are all about him.”
“You have adult food. And you seemed to like Denny’s free kid’s meals just fine when you were his age, Lady Tam-Tam.”
“Ugh, I hate it when you call me that.”
The woman laughed. “Fine, Tammy. Put your phone away at the table.”
“I just want to see who’s texting me.”
“It’s her stupid boyfriend,” Anthony teased in a singsong voice that almost cracked me up.
“Shut up, ya freak,” said the girl. “They have to have a special school for freaks like you.”
“Shut up, weirdo,” retorted the boy. “They probably have to have therapists just for weirdos like you.”
“Hey!” said the mom, more good-naturedly than I would have in her shoes. A phone rang and the mom warned, “Shhh, this is a business call.”
The children clammed up.
She answered, “This is Samantha. What’s up, Sherbet?” She listened for a long time and then said, “Another one? Geez, the fun never stops during the full moon, does it? I’m on it. See you there.”
When she hung up, once more, she focused her attention on her children. “Okay, you guys. Finish your dinner. I need to work tonight.”
“Oh, Mom. We were going to go to Ross to shop for new jeans for me!” said the girl, disappointed.
“I know, honey. We’ll do it soon, I promise. I have to work tonight. I’m sorry.”
There was silence at their booth for a few moments.
“I hate it when we’re out having fun and suddenly, I have zoom to work,” the woman said. “I love you guys so much.”
“I love you, too, Mom,” said both kids at the same time.
Gosh, how sweet was that? I sighed. I wanted what this Samantha woman had. Even the silly arguments at Denny’s with her children. They were just being so human.
Yet, her presence did prickle the back of my neck. I suddenly realized something weird. I couldn’t get a psychic read on this woman. Or on either of her children.
I realized that I was “seeing” more as a medium than I had ever seen before, now that I wasn’t drinking. And I could “see” things about the other people in the restaurant if I looked at them and concentrated. But not anything from that woman and her kids. Zilch. They were blank slates to me, as far as my medium powers went.
It was strange. Very strange.
Chapter Twenty-two
After the woman left with her kids, and the server brought me that third piece of pie with ice cream. My section of the Denny’s was quiet.
I took the opportunity to use Google to locate a private investigator—Jim Knighthorse.
He specialized in finding missing people—and he had a very cool retro-looking website. I picked him because he had a cool-sounding name and a nifty logo that looked like the chess piece that was a horse’s head—the knight.
Right there, from my booth in Denny’s, I phoned this Knighthorse guy.
A deep voice answered and it resonated through me, as if he was someone I should remember for the future.
“Jim Knighthorse Investigations. How can I help you?” He sounded like he was out of breath.
I used my psychic powers to figure out that he was exercising in his office, doing some sort of backward dips against his desk. I smiled to see how handsome he was, how buff he was, and at the sincere, curious look on his face as he answered my call on speakerphone so he could keep exercising as he talked.
“Hello, detective. You find people, right? Missing people?” I asked.
“That’s correct. It’s something I’m very good at.” He was still exercising while we spoke.
“And when you find a person for your clients, you don’t tell the police, is that right?”
“It depends. What’s he done?” the private eye asked me.
I heard the squeak of his office chair as he now sat in it. “She. What she did.”
“What was it?”
“Accessory after the fact,” I replied.
“Accessory to what?”
“It was a killing committed by a child, in self-defense. Many years ago. I’m looking for her mom who helped hide the body of a…child rapist.”
Mr. Knighthorse sucked in a big breath and let it out. I had a feeling that little surprised Jim Knighthorse, but he had just been thrown for a loop.
“That’s tough. Is your client alive?” he asked.
“No. She just died in the Hollywood Hills in a terrible accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
“A fall from a third-story balcony.”
“Tragic.” Knighthorse clucked his tongue sympathetically.
“It was tragic. She was much too young and good to die.”
“Aren’t they all?” he quipped.
“Yes.”
“What is the purpose of your inquiry about this person?”
“I want to return the deceased’s personal effects to her mother and give her some comfort. Seriously, that’s all I intend and when I
accomplish that, I will be on my way.”
“That sounds very compassionate of you.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I said matter-of-factly.
“What do you do for a living?” he asked and I heard the click of a ballpoint pen.
“I’m a medium.”
Knighthorse laughed and it was a handsome laugh. “You’re a psychic and you’re calling me? Do you see the irony in this?”
“I do see the irony, but I don’t have a last name for you. And if my client knew it, she didn’t disclose it. My dead client’s mother is likely living under an assumed name—or perhaps she married and has a different surname.”
“Or an alias,” Knighthorse suggested.
“No, I don’t think she’s a criminal. Per se.”
“Let’s hope not, but if you get there and things seem off or dangerous, I want you to promise to call me back and let me handle this mission for you. If necessary, I will return the personal effects of the deceased for you.”
“I promise I’ll tell you if things go south and let you handle it.”
“Her name?” he asked.
“All I have is her unusual first name and that she is—or perhaps was—a real estate broker, some years ago in Tucson.”
“That might be enough to go on. Let me check some realty databases and real estate business newsletters. What’s the first name of the mother of the deceased?” he asked.
“Bree. She previously went by Breezy.”
“Very sixties nickname.” He hummed a bit and I could hear his big fingertips tapping firmly on his computer keyboard. “Hang on. Give me a minute here.”
“Okay.” I could picture him in my mind and I knew he was dog-sitting an orange Pomeranian named Ginger that belonged to his girlfriend. The dog jumped into his lap and he petted it with his left hand as he perused the databases and clicked more keys with the other hand. I could envision the dog’s tongue hanging out in happy glee. I could also envision a big, shiny handgun in his top, middle desk drawer.
“Mr. Knighthorse?” I called out. “Don’t you want to know my name? It’s Pauline—”
“Stop! Don’t tell me.”
“Don’t tell you my full name?” I was taken aback.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I want to help you, but because of the history of your client and the capital crime she committed—accessory after the fact of a murder—I want to have plausible deniability that this conversation ever took place.”
That gave me pause. “That’s very nice of you, but I have to give you my name to pay you with my credit card for your services.”
“Hang on, please. I found something. Wait a minute. Ginger, stop licking me.”
I grinned. “Your girlfriend’s orange Pomeranian is so cute.”
He laughed deeply. “So, you are a psychic.”
“Yes. I am. Well, medium is my preferred term.”
“Oh, this gets interesting.” I heard more keys tap on his computer. “Okay, a woman named Bree Stark got an award for selling ten million bucks in real estate in a year, about fifteen years ago. North side of Tucson, on the pricier side, just north of River Road. She owned her own brokerage and was the sole sales agent. She retired shortly after that award and bought a house for cash in the foothills—there’s no mortgage and never was, according to these long-term property tax records from Pima County that I accessed.”
“I’m happy for her, that she got to retire.”
“Must be nice,” Knighthorse said. “On the other hand, there’s no rest for the wicked, so I’m a hard worker.”
I laughed. “Luckily for me, too.”
“Yeah. Okay, so I have a realty association newsletter here with her photo and from the property tax records, I have her current address. Taxes are current on her house, according to the Pima County Assessor’s office. Nice neighborhood, by the way. Actually, very nice. I’m looking at an aerial view. Super panoramic. Big saguaro cacti and mountain views. Gorgeous digs.”
“Wow, you’re good.”
“Yes, I am good,” he said in a double-entendre. “It’s my business to be good!”
His light flirting made me smile. I was curious about something, though. “I want to make sure we have the right Bree. In the photo in the old newsletter, is Bree tall, slender and blonde, with eyes the color of sky?”
“Bingo. Got a pen to write all this info down?”
“Yes.”
After he gave me the information, I said, “I really want to pay you for this, Jim.”
“Pauline, you know what? That took me less than two minutes. Just pay it forward, okay?”
“Wow, thanks. I will, Jim. For sure, I will.”
Chapter Twenty-three
I parked my car in long-term parking at The Parking Spot on Sepulveda Boulevard and took their free shuttle to LAX.
Two hundred dollars and a plane ride later, I got off the plane at Tucson International Airport and rented a car.
Hungry, I grabbed some delicious Mexican food at the Sunday buffet at an old restaurant by the name of Casa Molina. I only wished that I could share this bounty with someone. With Mack. If only.
After lunch, I drove a long way across town, to the north side, and up into the base of the Santa Catalina Mountain foothills. Tucson was really spread out. Miles and miles wide. Not nearly as big as Los Angeles, but in that vein where you could drive all day on surface streets to get from south by the airport, to the north side where the chi-chi homes were.
The further north I drove, the farther apart the houses got, and the bigger and fancier, too. Pretty soon, I was in a neighborhood laden with multimillion-dollar homes and stunning views of the Tucson Valley. Statuesque saguaros lined up like soldiers holding up their curved arms to the cerulean-blue sky in welcome. I was blown away by the scenery.
On Skyline Drive, my Google Maps app voice told me to turn on Moonridge Drive and I did so. I easily found the address and slowly drove my rental car up a very steep gravel driveway, scraping the bottom of the car in a few places and wondering how freaking scary it was going to be coming down. At least, I had gotten the full-coverage insurance package with the rental car.
When I got to the top of the driveway, I parked next to an old red Jeep with a winch on the front.
As I got out of the car and popped the trunk, a woman who was the spitting older image of Amanda came out of the house’s front door. She was wearing a filmy white caftan with a bikini underneath and a sunhat.
She watched me as I got the suitcases containing Amanda’s possessions out of the trunk and walked toward her with a gentle smile on my face.
“Hi, there. Are you lost?” she asked. “Perhaps you’re looking for the bed and breakfast next door?”
“No, I’m here to see Bree Stark.”
“That’s me. And you are?”
“Pauline Ocean. I’m a friend of Amanda’s.”
She shook her head. “Amanda. Amanda. Sorry, that name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Amanda Jordan. Your daughter?”
“I don’t have a daughter.”
“It’s okay, Bree. Breezy. I know all about her and you and what happened that terrible day that changed your lives.”
Shock registered on her face. “I think you should leave.” She appeared scared and sad. “I’m going to go inside and call the police.”
“Wait! Please!” I pulled out a movie poster from my purse where Amanda had played the lead in her own vampire film. “Bree, isn’t this her? Look carefully. Isn’t this your daughter, Amanda?”
She bit her lip. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It’s him.” Bree looked at me with tears in her eyes. “I mean…her.”
“Him?” I said. “Did you say ‘him’?”
“My only child was born a boy.”
“Oh, my goodness.” I had been in Amanda’s body and had never even guessed that she had been transgendered. Such was the excellent work that had been done. “Bree, I think I need to sit down.”
> She nodded. “Me, too. It’s quite a shock. Please come in. Isn’t…Isn’t Mandy with you?” She looked toward my rental car with its heavily tinted windows.
“No, I’m so sorry to tell you this, Bree…she’s not with me. She’s no longer with…us.”
Bree looked at the suitcases and her voice went up an octave. “Mandy’s dead? And you’re bringing me his—her things?”
“Yes, Bree. I am.” I said it as gently as I could.
“No!” she cried out. “My child cannot be dead!”
“I’m so sorry. She passed away a couple of days ago. But I swear to you, I saw her spirit go into the light. I saw it with my own eyes. I’m very sorry to tell you this terrible news so suddenly. There is no way to break this news to such a loving mother.”
Bree broke down in sobs.
I set down the suitcases and gave her the most compassionate hug I could muster up. Using my medium powers, I sent her waves of empathy and sympathy.
After about a minute, she said between sobs, “Come on inside where it’s cooler.”
We let go of each other and I followed the sobbing woman into the house. I set the suitcases down in the living room while she went to the bathroom and had a cry. I did, too, in her living room.
When Bree came out, she said, “I haven’t seen my son for quite some years and I guess I know why now. He became a woman. Mandy should have told me. I would have understood. I would have loved him…her…just as much.”
I was astounded that she didn’t know about Amanda’s transgender journey. I mean, I had been in that body, and then it began to click just who the male junkie was in Amanda’s body. It was her male self. Her young male self.
“Tell me about Mandy,” I said gently. “The lovely things. The happy things.”
“Well, I once had a son named Amando. Amando, not Amanda. A boy everyone called Mandy. He was a beautiful, creative loving boy who, at times, lived in his own fictional world of playacting and writing stories and crafting things from natural materials. He was a happy gay boy, which I knew early on. That is, he was happy until he was hurt by someone horrific at a young age. And something terrible happened afterward. A death.”