“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.