Dark Horse (A Jim Knighthorse Novel) (3 page)

“Sure,” I said. “For starters, how do I know
you’re God?”

We were mostly alone at the back of the
seating area. Behind me, kids played in the massive two-story
jungle gym. Such jungle gyms didn’t exist when I was kid. Lucky
bastards.

“You have faith, Jim. That’s how,” he said.
He always said that to me.

“How about for a lark you perform a
miracle.”

“You’re alive and breathing,” he said,
sipping his coffee. “Isn’t that miracle enough?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not, dammit.” I was used
to these kinds of double-talk answers. Jack seemed particularly
efficient at this. “Make a million dollars appear. I don’t even
have to keep it. Just make it appear.”

“And that would prove to you that I’m
God?”

“Sure.”

“Is it God you seek, or a genie?”

“Genie would be nice, too.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks.”

We were quiet. Jack silently sipped his
coffee. Not even a slurp.

“You haven’t been around for a while,” he
said.

“Have you missed me?”

“Yes.”

“You have been waiting for me?” I asked,
mildly shocked. It had been, perhaps, four months since I’d last
visited with him.

“Yes,” he said.

“How did you know I was here today?” I
asked.

He grinned.

“There’s something to be said for being
omniscient, Jim.”

“I bet,” I said. “Anyway, I haven’t worked on
a case in a while. That is, a real case.”

“You only come when you’re working on a
case?”

“Something like that,” I said. “You would
prefer I came more often?”

He looked at me from over his non-steaming
cup of coffee.

“Yes,” he said simply, and I found his answer
oddly touching. “So am I to assume you are working on a case
now?”

“You are God,” I said. “You can assume
anything you want.”

“So is that a yes?”

I sighed.

“I’m working on a case, yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Don’t you already know?” I asked. “Hell,
don’t you already know who killed the girl?”

He looked at me long and hard, unblinking,
his face impassive. There was dirt in the corner of his eyes, and
along the border of his scalp, where his roots met his forehead. He
stank of something unknown and rotten and definitely foul.

You’re insane, I told myself for the
hundredth time. Utterly insane to even remotely entertain the idea
that this might be—

“Yes,” he said. “I do know who killed the
girl.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Then tell me.”

“You already know, my son.”

We had discussed such matters before. Jack
seemed to think I knew things that I didn’t really know. He also
seemed to think that time meant nothing to me and that I could sort
of shift back and forth through it as I wished. I kindly let Jack
know that I thought it all sounded like bullshit.

For now, I said, “I can assure you, Jack,
that I most certainly do not know who killed her—and I most
certainly do not want to get into that time-is-an-illusion
horseshit, either. It makes my fucking head hurt, and you know it.
Do you want to make my fucking head hurt, Jack?”

“Are you quite done?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, sitting back, taking a swig
from my fourth or maybe fifth Coke.

He watched me quietly while I drank, then
said, “Although you do know who killed the girl, but choose to deny
the basic laws that govern your existence—in particular, time—I
will give you the answer now if you so desire.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really.”

“You know who killed Amanda Peterson?” I
wasn’t sure what my tone was: disbelief, curious, awe, maybe even a
little fear. There are no secrets with God.

“Indeed,” said Jack.

“But I haven’t even discussed the case with
you.”

“I know.”

“So why did you ask me to discuss the case
with you?”

“It’s called small talk, Jim. Try it
sometime.” And Jack winked at me.

I took in some air. These conversations were
always like this. Circular. Infuriating. Often illuminating.
Sometimes silly. But more often than not, just plain insane.

“Fine,” I said, “write it down and I’ll keep
it in my wallet.”

“Until?”

“Until the case is over. We’ll see if we came
to the same conclusions.”

“Oh, we will.”

“You’re sure?”

“Always.”

I often keep a pen above my ear, and as luck
would have it, there was one there now. Jack tore off a piece of my
tray liner, wrote something down on it, folded it up neatly and
handed pen and paper to me. I deftly slipped the pen back over my
ear, was briefly tempted to unfold the paper, but promptly shoved
it in my wallet, behind an old condom.

“So how is Amanda?” I asked. Amanda being the
murdered girl on my case, of course.

“She is happy.”

“But she was slaughtered just a few weeks
ago.”

“Yes, but she is with me now.”

“This is fucking weird,” I said.

“It’s as weird as you want it to be,” said
the bum in front of me. I saw that his coffee was nearly gone.

“Want another coffee?”

“Heavens, no. It’ll keep me up all
night.”

“I thought God never sleeps.”

He looked up at me and grinned, showing a row
of coffee stained teeth.

“Why, whoever told you that?”

“I’ll be back,” I said. “And it won’t be four
months this time.”

And as I left, sipping from my large plastic
cup, I noticed for the first time the Monopoly guy on the side of
the cup, holding in his fist a single million dollar bill.

I looked over at Jack, but he had gotten up
and was currently talking with someone else, oblivious to me.

6.

Fresh from my conversation with God, I parked
in front of a single story home with a copper roof, copper garage
door and copper front door. I was sensing a pattern here. The front
yard was immaculate and obviously professionally maintained. Roses
were perfectly pruned under the front bay windows. Thick bushes
separated the house from its distant neighbor. The bushes were
pruned into massive green balls.

In the center of the lawn was a pile of
roses. Mixed with the roses were teddy bears and cards and a
massive poster with many signatures on it. The poster had
photographs stapled to it. It was a sort of shrine to Amanda
Peterson, marking the spot where she had been found murdered just
forty-three days ago. The flowers themselves were in different
stages of dying, and the grass around the shrine was trampled to
death.

A lot of dying going on around here.

I let my car idle and studied the crime
scene. The large round bushes could conceal anyone, an easy ambush
point. There was only one street light in this cul-de-sac, and it
was four houses down. Although upscale, the neighborhood had no
apparent security. Anyone could have been waiting for her.

Anyone.

But probably not Derrick.

Then again, I’ve been wrong before.

According to the police report, a neighbor
had been the first to discover the body. The first to call the
cops. The first questioned. The neighbor claimed to have heard
nothing, even while Amanda was being mutilated directly across the
street. I wanted to talk to that neighbor.

I yanked a u-turn and parked across the
street in front of a powder blue house. The house was huge and
sprawling. And silent.

I rang the doorbell and waited. While doing
so, I examined the distance from where Amanda was murdered to here.
My internal judge of distance told me this: it wasn’t that far.

No one answered. I utilized my backup plan
and tried the doorbell again.

Nothing.

Plan C.

I strolled around the side of the house,
reached over the side gate, unlatched the lock and walked into the
backyard. As if I owned the place. Done with enough chutzpah and
self-assurance that even the nosiest neighbor will hesitate to call
the police. I was also fairly certain there was no dog, unless it
was trained not to bark at the doorbell. Which few were.

In the backyard, pruning roses, was an older
lady. She was dressed much younger and hipper than she probably
was. She wore white Capri pants, a tank top, shades and tennis
shoes. Her arms were tanned, the skin hanging loose. In Huntington
Beach no one ages; or, rather, no one concedes to aging. Because
she was armed with shearing knives, I kept my distance.

“Mrs. Dartmouth?” I asked pleasantly.

No response. More pruning.

I said her name louder and took a step
closer. I was beginning to see how a murder could indeed happen
across the street without her knowledge.

But then she finally turned and caught me out
of the corner of her eye. She gasped and whipped the shearing
knives around, ready to shear the hell out of me. Although thirty
feet away, I stepped back, holding up my wallet and showing my
private investigator license. A hell of a picture, I might add.

“Jim Knighthorse,” I said. “Private
investigator.”

“Good Christ, you shouldn’t sneak up on
people around here, especially after what’s happened.”

“Yes, ma’am. I represent Carson and Deploma.
I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She stood. “You’re representing the boy?” she
asked, her voice rising an octave. Not representing the young man.
But the boy. She also sounded surprised, as if I were an idiot to
do so.

“Yes.”

She thought about that. She seemed to be
struggling with something internally. Finally she shrugged.

“Would you like some iced tea?” she
asked.

“Oh, would I.”

At her patio table, she served it up with a
mint sprig and a lemon wedge, and I suspected a dash or two of
sugar. We were shaded by a green umbrella, and as Mrs. Dartmouth
sat opposite me, I noticed the shears didn’t stray far from her
hand. Didn’t blame her.

“Great tea.”

“Should be. I put enough sugar in it.”

She wore a lot of lipstick and smelled of
good perfume. Her hair was in a tight bun, and she watched me
coolly and maybe a little warily. Again, I didn’t blame her. I was
a big man. A big handsome, athletic and sensitive man.

“Have you talked to many people about
Amanda’s murder?” I asked.

She brightened. “Lordy, yes. Reporters,
police, attorneys, everyone. I’ve been over it a hundred
times.”

She sounded as if she’d enjoy going over it a
hundred more times, to anyone who would listen. Probably served a
lot of this iced tea in the process. And the sugar kept them coming
back for more.

“Well, I won’t ask you anything that’s not
already on the police report.”

“Fine.”

“You knew Amanda personally?”

She nodded. “That poor dear. Such a sweet
child.”

“Did you know Derrick Booker?”

“No,” she said. “He never dared show his face
here. I understand that Mr. Peterson didn’t take a liking to
him.”

“Were you aware of Amanda having any other
boyfriends?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a nosy person.”

I smiled at the lie. “Of course not. How well
do you know the family?”

“I babysat Amanda when she was younger. But
as she got older I saw less and less of her. They always forget
about us old fogies.”

“When was your last conversation with
Amanda?”

She took a sip from her tea and watched me
carefully. “Two years ago, when she was a freshman in high school,
after she had quit the school marching band. She played an
instrument. The flute, I think. She loved music.”

“Why did she quit?”

“I hardly think this is relevant to her
murder of a month and a half ago.”

“Just fishing, ma’am. After all, like my dad
says: you never know what you’ll catch.”

“Well, I do. They caught that boy. And that’s
good enough for me.”

“It’s good enough for a lot of people,” I
said. “Mrs. Dartmouth, what would you do if your daughter dated a
black man?”

“What a silly question to ask.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have a daughter.”

“I see,” I said. “You were the first to come
across the body.”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

I waited a moment. “At one a.m.”

“Yes. I was walking. I do that sometimes when
I can’t sleep.”

“And at the time of the murder, you saw and
heard no one?”

She raised her finger and waggled it in my
face. “Nuh uh uh, Mr. Knighthorse. That’s all on the police
report.”

I produced one of my business cards and
placed it on the glass table. In the background on the card was a
photo of the sun sinking below the blue horizon of the Pacific
Ocean. The word keen always comes to mind. In one corner, was my
smiling mug.

“Should you remember anything, please don’t
hesitate to call.”

I set my card on the glass table; she somehow
managed to not lunge for it. I finished the tea in one swallow and,
leaving the way I had come, picked the mint sprig from my
teeth.

Ah, dignity.

7.

The field was wet with dew, and a low wispy
mist hung over the grass. The mist made the morning look colder
than it really was. Sanchez and I had been doing sprints along the
width of Long Beach State’s football field for the past twenty
minutes. Sweat streamed down my face, and I probably had a healthy,
athletic glow about me. I tried desperately to ignore the pain in
my right leg. But the pain was there. Persistent, throbbing and
threatening to become something more serious. But I pushed on.

“You’re pretty fast,” I said to Sanchez. “For
a cop.”

“I’ve got to work off the donuts.”

We finished another set of sprints and were
now standing around, sucking wind like we had done at UCLA years
earlier, when we had both been young and not so innocent. When the
world had been my oyster. Before I had shattered my leg, and before
Sanchez had become an LAPD homicide detective.