J. Rain: Hail Mary

“ I’m sorry to hear about your mom,” he said, and now he really did smirk. “I’m surprised you’re still looking into it. It happened, what, twenty years ago?”

“ Good memory, asshole.”

“ Well, my dad and I talked about it after you left. I even remember the case. It troubled him deeply.”

“ I’m sure it did.”

His eyes were sky blue. So clear you could almost see his twisted thoughts. His eyes regarded me calmly, blankly, curiously. He looked at me the way a scientist might his lab rat. A scientist about to perform unspeakably horrific experiments on his subject. He continued to smile. A cold smile. An empty smile. A guilty smile.

“ You killed her,” I said.

“ Now that’s not a nice thing to say.”

He didn’t act like a man who was innocent. He didn’t even act like a man who was sane, truth be known. Anyone else would have been flabbergasted, shocked, confused and horrified to be accused of such a thing.

My left hand snaked out, hooked behind his head. In a blink, I slammed his face hard into the table. One moment he had been sitting there, smirking-the next, his head was bouncing off the table. In fact, the action was so fast that I’m pretty sure no one saw it.

“ Holy fuck,” he said, holding his nose.

All it had taken was a little pain to wipe that smirk off his face. The vision I had of me slamming his head into the table had become a reality. Except it wasn’t his head. It was his face. And it wasn’t his skull that broke open, it was his nose. Clearly the Law of Attraction at work.

He held his nose, which bled between his fingers. The hate in his eyes was pure. That he would act on his hate, I had no doubt. In fact, I was counting on it.

“ Burn in hell,” I said, and got up and left.

I was sitting with Sanchez in the visitors’ parking lot at UCI.

We were in the northeast lot, which abutted the faculty parking, which also happened to give me a great view of the social science building where Cindy Darwin not only taught but also had an office.

A heck of a strategic spot.

“ And you really bounced his head off the table?” said Sanchez.

“ It seemed like the thing to do,” I said. “An impromptu head slamming.”

“ So much for subtly,” he said. “Ever consider calling Detective Hansen?”

The day was bright and warm. The students that strolled along the cement paths that connected the many buildings were all wearing shorts and tee shirts.

“ And tell him what?” I said. “That I have a twenty-year-old picture of someone who had shown an interest in my mother on the day she was murdered?”

“ Someone who happens to resemble the detective’s son. A son who has a history of violent crime.”

“ And what would Hansen do with that information?” I asked.

Sanchez thought about it and sipped from his Coke. The windows were down in my Mustang, but it was still warm enough for both of us to sweat. “Probably file it away. Get to it when he has some free time. When less pressing matters have been taken care of.”

“ And when are a homicide detective’s less pressing matters ever taken care of?”

“ Almost never. But he’s a friend. He would get to it when he could.”

“ I can’t wait that long,” I said.

“ You’ve waited twenty-two years.”

“ That’s when I didn’t know who the killer was.”

“ And you do now?”

I nodded and felt the sweat trickle down through my hairline. “As sure as I can be.”

“ Sure enough to bounce someone’s head off of a table.”

“ Sometimes you gotta kick the hornet’s nest,” I said.

“ Or break its nose,” said Sanchez. “He’s got to be nervous.”

I nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

“ You think he’ll make a move?”

“ We’ll see.”

“ And you think his move might be directed towards Cindy?”

“ He’s a monster,” I said. “Monsters can do anything.”

“ So what’s next?” asked Sanchez.

“ We wait.”

“ For what?”

“ The monster to reveal himself.”

“ And until then we watch Cindy?”

“ Yup. One of us. At all times. And if we’re both busy, I’ll hire someone.”

Sanchez pointed toward Cindy’s building. “Does she know we’re watching her?”

“ She knows. She doesn’t like it. But she knows.”

Sanchez shrugged. “And what if he never rears his ugly head?”

“ He will,” I said.

“ And if he doesn’t?”

“ Then I’ll keep kicking,” I said. “And keep breaking. And did you just say ‘rears his ugly head’?”

“ Me talk pretty.”

It was two weeks before I received the phone call I was waiting for.

I was been in my office making a list of my favorite European beers. I had just decided that tops on my list was Guinness Dry Stout when my phone rang. I set my pen aside, pleased with my list.

“ Knighthorse Investigations.”

“ Mr. Knighthorse, it’s Bert Tomlinson.”

I took in some air, collected my thoughts. “The same Bert Tomlinson whose son raped and murdered my mother?”

“ We need to talk.”

“ Boy do we.”

“ Not here. Not over the phone.”

“ At the police station, perhaps?”

“ No. Neutral ground. There’s some…information I need to tell you about your mother.”

“ Sure,” I said, knowing he was full of shit. “When and where?”

“ Tomorrow. Do you know where Irvine Lake is?”

“ Yup.”

“ There are some park benches along the east side. This time of year, it should be quiet.”

“ Sounds like a great place for an ambush.”

“ I’ll be there alone. You have my word.”

“ Is that the same word you used to uphold the law?”

“ I’ll be there alone, Knighthorse. Please be the same. We need to talk.”

“ We need to do something,” I said. “What time?”

“ Seven p.m. Dusk.”

“ Sounds spooky.”

“ See you there, Knighthorse.”

And he clicked off.

I sat quietly at my desk, digesting everything, listening to the sounds of the traffic outside, to my own beating heart, to the small hum of the mini-refrigerator cycling on.

I then reached for my cell and dialed the only number I could think of dialing.

Cindy was asleep and I was alone on her balcony, drinking.

It was coming on midnight and I’d had a few hours to think about my rendezvous with Bert Tomlinson tomorrow at the east end of Irvine Lake.

It was a set-up, certainly. I knew that. And he knew that I knew that. Hell, Ginger and Junior knew that.

So, why would I go?

Good question.

I was drinking an old-school Michelob, which is what my poor Mexican neighbors drank in Inglewood. Whenever I saw a bottle of Michelob, with its tinfoil top, I thought of old Mexican men sitting around on plastic chairs outside their houses, drinking and laughing and having a damn good time. They didn’t act poor. They acted…content. Happy. Not to mention that they always seemed to have strong familial bonds that I never understood. I would play catch with myself, tossing a football or baseball or golf ball, and sometimes watch the Mexican men drinking in a circle, laughing or talking seriously, and I could feel their bond from across the street.

The only bond I had ever had like that was with my mother. My father didn’t know how to bond. He knew how to intimidate and kill, but not bond.

I had been starved for such connections…and then I met Cindy. With Cindy, I finally felt at ease. I finally felt at home. I never told her that, granted. You can’t tell someone something like that. It puts too much pressure on them. But I knew it in my heart. She was my rock. She was my family.