Who was he? Who was he really?
How did he know I was going to be here today? I had only made the decision to come here, what, two minutes ago? I happened to be in the area and decided I needed to talk.
And there he sat.
Waiting.
Maybe he really is God.
Despite myself I laughed…and headed into the restaurant.
“ You knew I was coming,” I said after ordering myself a drink.
“ You knew you were coming here long before that, James.”
“ Not consciously.”
He shrugged one shoulder, almost playfully. “Perhaps not.”
“ Whether or not I knew I was coming here hours ago, or just a few minutes ago, still doesn’t account for how you knew I would be here today.”
“ Maybe it was a lucky guess.”
“ Or maybe you’re God.”
“ Maybe I am.”
“ You’re very frustrating,” I said.
“ You could choose to see me that way. Or you could choose another way.”
“ What way?”
He set his coffee cup down. Jack needed to shave. The hair on his face was peppered with gray. There was a dimple in his cheek I hadn’t noticed before. His eyes twinkled. Eternally twinkled.
“ Playful,” he said.
“ I think I would rather have God be serious.”
“ Because life is serious?”
“ Yes,” I said. “Life is damn serious.”
He nodded and looked down at his coffee cup, which he held in both hands. “Life can be serious, Jim. That I will not deny. But life can also be full of joy.”
“ For some,” I said. “Not for everyone. And certainly not for everything. There is much suffering in this world. Too much.”
“ I agree.”
“ Then why don’t you do something about it?”
“ Sometimes you need to see the acts of violence, Jim, to appreciate the acts of kindness.”
“ But that does nothing for those suffering,” I said.
“ Then don’t let their suffering be in vain. Hear their cry and take action.”
“ I’m just one man.”
“ So am I,” he said.
“ You’re more than just a man,” I said.
He tilted his head toward me. “And so are you, Jim.”
Chapter Twenty
I parked my van a few houses down from the address in question. It was late, just past midnight, and this was my first time here.
Oddly, I felt nervous. Apprehensive.
It had been nearly a month since my discovery. My discovery being, of course, that the son of the very man who had investigated my mother’s murder-the same investigator who had turned up zero evidence-looked exactly like the image in the age-progression photograph.
I sat in my van and studied the single-story home. A home that wasn’t even four miles from mine. There was a white truck parked out front. The garage was wide enough to fit two cars. The lawn was manicured with a curved walk that led up to the front door. The home was fenced on both sides of the property. The fences were lined with hedges and roses. For all intents and purposes, a very normal-looking Orange County home.
That just so happened to be four miles from my own.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. My stomach was roiling. Nerves. I had been sitting on this information for nearly a month. But since my mother had been dead now for twenty-one years, I figured I could wait a few more weeks to decide my next step. Besides, the bastard wasn’t going anywhere.
Almost a month ago.
A month to stew. A month to brood. A month to come to terms with this improbable piece of information.
My mother’s murder was still technically open, although it might as well have been closed. Nothing had been done on it for nearly two decades. And to top it off, the key piece of evidence had been languishing in my father’s moving boxes for years.
The pictures.
My mother deserved better than this. She was a good person. A good mother. She had no family, just me. She had no friends, just me. I was a mama’s boy, admittedly. It’s hard not to be a mama’s boy when your father is ice cold.
I watched the home for another ten minutes from the driver’s side, then slipped through the little doorway that led to the rear of the van. There, I got comfortable in one of the swivel recliner chairs, and through a heavily-tinted window, I watched the home all night long.
Chapter Twenty-one
I was certain I hadn’t fallen asleep.
Then again, when you stare at something long enough, in a comfortable-enough chair, on a quiet-enough street not too far from the beach, well, you’re bound to slip in and out of consciousness.
Except I was pretty sure I hadn’t slipped in and out of consciousness. I was pretty sure I had stared at that fucking house with its white Ford F-150 parked in the driveway, its seven bottlebrush plants following the curve of the driveway, its mostly green grass except for the dry spot in the middle, and its bright porch light that seemed to somehow reach through the heavily-tinted glass and straight to the back of my head.
After what seemed like an eternity, the porch light finally turned off and a thirty-something woman with a nice-enough body appeared in the doorway. She wore workout clothes. She did a few stretches, appeared to crack her neck, then headed down the driveway, hung a right, jogged past my van on the opposite side of the street, then continued on.
I watched her through the tinted rear window until she hung a right at the far corner and disappeared.
There was barely enough light out to call this morning. The sun was still forty or fifty minutes away. I briefly marveled at morning people. I was fairly certain the woman had been smiling to herself as she passed me by.
I checked my cell phone. A smile on her face at 5:43 in the morning?
Who smiled at 5:43 in the morning?
I marveled at this, and then let it go.
The morning continued to brighten. Birds twittered with a little more energy. Somewhere an early worm was getting devoured. Somewhere in that house across the street, a killer was either sleeping or watching his kids. And somewhere not too far from here, my mother’s bones were rotting away.
I rubbed my forehead, my eyes, my face, the stubble along my jaw. It was all I could do to not burst in there, guns blazing.
Time and place, I thought.
Besides, I still don’t know if he was the killer. His only crime to date was circumstance.
Cars started appearing on the street. No one paid a roofing truck any mind. No one knew I was staring out the heavily-tinted window.
The woman came back. His wife, I assumed. Looked pretty good for having three kids. Not perfect. But good.
As my mechanic friend Charles liked to say: Good enough.
I should have felt bad for her. I should have felt bad for her kids. I should have felt bad for them because one way or another-unless I was dead wrong about Gary Tomlinson-they were going to be without a husband and a father.
I should have felt bad.
But I didn’t.
I spent the day following Gary.
He was a medium-sized man with a great tan. I wasn’t sure if he even worked. Maybe I had caught him on his day off. I followed him to his kids’ school, where he dropped off the twin girls and their brother. I followed him to Gold’s Gym in Newport. Then to Whole Foods in Huntington Beach. I followed him to the cleaners and then back home.
At four in the afternoon, after Gary had picked up his kids, I peeled off and went home and went to bed, and willed myself to not dream of finding my mother’s body in a pool of her own blood, to not dream of her lifeless eyes and her cold flesh. To not dream of the deep wound in her neck.