The Mummy Case (Jim Knighthorse #2)

The Mummy Case (Jim Knighthorse #2) Page 2

Chapter Three

I met Detective Sherbet at a sandwich shop on Amerige St. in downtown Fullerton. Sherbet was a big man with a big cop mustache. He wore an old blue suit and a bright yellow tie. He ordered coffee and a donut. I ordered a Diet Pepsi, but thought the donut idea was a pretty good one. So I had the waitress bring me three of whatever she had left, because when it comes to donuts, any flavor will do.

"What if she brings you a pink donut?" asked Detective Sherbet.

"Pink is good," I said.

"I hate pink."

"In general?"

He thought about that, then nodded. "Yeah." He paused, looked away. "My boy likes pink."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Me, too."

"How old is your boy?"

"Eight."

"Maybe he will grow out of it."

"Let's hope."

The waitress brought me three cake donuts. Chocolate, glazed, and pink.

Uh oh.

"Are you okay with me eating this?" I asked, pointing to Sherbet's arch-nemesis, the pink-frosted donut.

He nodded, shrugging. The man had serious issues. I ate the pink donut quickly, nonetheless. As I did, Sherbet watched me curiously, as if I was a monkey in a zoo exhibiting strange behavior. Funny, when I was done, I didn't feel gay.

"Any good?" he asked.

"Quite," I said. "And no gay side effects. At least not yet."

"Maybe I'll have one."

And he did. One pink donut. After the waitress set it before him, he picked it up warily with his thumb and forefinger, careful of the pink frosting. He studied it from a few angles, and then bit into it.

"Your son would be proud," I said.

"I love the kid."

"But you think he might be gay."

"Let's change the subject," he said.

"Thankfully," I said. Actually, Detective Sherbet wasn't so much homophobic as homo-terrified, as in terrified his kid might grow up to be gay. Someone needed some counseling here, and it wasn't the kid.

"So that crackpot hired you," said Sherbet. There was pink frosting in the corner of his mouth. Lord, he looked gay.

"Crackpot being Jones T. Jones."

"A shyster if I've ever met one. Anything to make a buck. Hell, I even had my suspicions that he offed the historian just to generate more press for that damn store of his. Have you been there?"

I nodded.

He said, "Place gives me the fucking creeps."

"So he's clean?"

"Sure he's clean. Everyone's clean. Kid ran out of gas, wandered around the desert until he died of heat and thirst."

"Hell of a way to go."

Sherbet shrugged, and as he did so his mustache twitched simultaneously. Perhaps the motor neurons in his shoulders were connected to his upper lip.

"I hear Willie was a smart kid," I said.

Sherbet nodded. "Smart enough to get a Masters in history from UCI."

"Probably smart enough to call for help on his cell phone."

"Sure," said Sherbet, "except he didn't have one on him."

"Who found his body?"

"San Bernardino Sheriff. They found the body and called me out, as I was working the original missing person case. We compared notes, asked around, decided this thing was nothing but an accident. We both closed our cases."

"Have you talked to anyone at Rawhide?" I asked.

"Sure, went out there with the San Bernardino Sheriff. We asked around, talked to the museum curator and his assistant, the last two to see Willie alive."

"What did they say?"

Sherbet shrugged again. His shoulders were probably hairy. Sherbet was a very manly man, which was probably why he couldn't comprehend his kid turning out gay.

"Like I said, they were the last two to see Willie alive, at least that we know of. The museum curator and his assistant - forget their names now - showed him the site where that fucking mummy was originally found. Afterward, when everyone left the site, Willie was in his own truck right behind the curator and assistant. They look again, and Willie's gone. They assumed he headed home in a different direction. Both their stories corroborate. Granted, this is an oddball way for a bright kid to die, but unless something rears its ugly head here, we have no reason to suspect any funny business."

I drank some Diet Pepsi. I'm not even really convinced that I like Diet Pepsi. I took another sip; nope, still not convinced.

"Jones seems to think there was foul play," I said. "And gave me a hefty retainer fee to prove it."

"Jones wants business. Twenty bucks says he turns this thing into an even bigger circus. He's the ring leader, and you're the...." He paused, thinking.

"World's Strongest Man?" I offered.

"Sure, whatever. Look, I think he's using you, Knighthorse. Especially you, since you have some name recognition."

"Did you want my autograph for your kid?" I asked.

"You kidding? Kid doesn't know a fullback from a backpack." Sherbet shook his head some more, sipped his coffee. "All this over a fucking mummy."

"Hard to believe."

Chapter Four

It was a warm Saturday afternoon and Cindy and I were jogging along the beach with, perhaps, two billion other people. We used the bike path that ran parallel to the ocean, expertly dodging dog walkers, roller bladers, baby strollers, various shapes and sizes of humans and, of course, bikes.

Cindy was dressed in black Spandex running pants and a long-sleeved shirt that said O'Neil on the back in blue script. She was the only human being within five square miles wearing a long-sleeved shirt. She had also smeared blue gunk over the bridge of her nose and along her cheekbones, which made her look like a wide receiver, minus the helmet and cup. I was dressed only in knee length shorts and running shoes. No shirt, no sunscreen, no blue gunk. No problem.

"That blue gunk is scaring the kids," I said.

"That blue gunk, as you call it, is sunscreen, and it helps to keep me looking young."

"You're thirty-one. That's young enough."

"But I want to look twenty-one."

As we jogged, we spoke easily, casually. Cindy huffed or puffed once or twice. I don't huff or puff, although I was very conscious of a dull ache in my right leg, a leg held together by stainless steel pins and will power. Superman has his kryptonite; I have my stainless steel pins.

"So if you can stay ten years ahead of the aging curve you would be happy?" I said.

"Ecstatic."

"There are women who would kill to look thirty-one."

"You think I look thirty-one?"

Oops. So what was the old formula? Add two inches, subtract four years? "You easily look twenty-seven."

"Twenty-seven? How the hell did you come up with that number?"

"It's a formula."

"Formula?"

"Never mind."

"So how old do I really look to you?" she asked.

"Definitely not thirty-one," I said. "How about early twenties?"

"Then why did you say twenty-seven?"

"Twenty-seven on a bad day."

"I have bad days?"

"Not as bad as I'm having."

She looked at me, and I think she was smiling somewhere under the blue gunk. She patted my backside. "Sorry I'm being hard on you. I'm just finding aging and wrinkles hard to deal with."

We passed a row of sunbathers who had ventured maybe five feet from the bike path out onto the sand. They were still a good fifty yards from the water. Maybe they were afraid of sharks.

"I say wear your age like a badge of honor," I said.

"I would prefer not to wear a badge of wrinkles, thank you very much. Look at all these women, Jim. They're all so young, and beautiful and smooth-skinned. And most of them are looking at you. Could you please put your shirt back on."

"I'm working on my tan."

"Work on it somewhere else. Besides, you're burning."

"Part of the process. I happen to be Caucasian."

"Women are ogling you."

"Ogling is bad?"

"Only when I'm feeling old."

I slipped my tank top back on, which had been tucked in the waistband of my shorts. Cindy looked me over, shook her head. "Somehow you look even better."

"Maybe I should quit lifting weights."

"Would you do that for me?"

"Don't push it."

We stopped at Balboa Pier. I bought two bottles of water from a street vendor and briefly eyeballed a dehydrated hot dog until Cindy pulled me away. We found an empty bench and seized it. Our knees touched, which sent a thrill of pleasure coursing through me, all over again.

"You thrill me," I said.

She looked at me from over her water bottle. "Even after eight years?"

"I've spent eight years being fascinated. Not too many people can say that."

She smiled and took hold of my sweaty hand. My sweat never bothered her, the surest sign of true love. Cindy's nails were painted red. I love red nails, and she knew it. The brighter the better, since I'm certifiably color blind.

"Explain to me again why you agreed to look into the historian's death."

I found her blue nose heavily distracting. I wanted to taste it.

"Because it's what I do," I said. "Sometimes I go days without work; hell, and sometimes even weeks. So when someone walks in through my door and hands me a check to investigate something, I would be foolish not to."

"Even if this someone is using you for his own self-promotion?"

I shook my head. "Jones and I have an agreement: no self-promotion while I'm on the case. Besides, if I were to disapprove of the motives of every client prior to taking a case, I would be homeless and hungry."

"But the police have ruled the historian's death an accident."

"The police are often overworked."

"And you are not?"

"Not often enough," I said. "A private investigator can spend more time on a case, work it more thoroughly, perhaps bend a few laws here and there to find answers in places the police are not willing or able to look. Not a bad way to go if you are unsatisfied with the answers you are given."

"And Jones is unsatisfied."

"Yes."

"I think he's feeling guilty," she said.

"I agree."

"But you don't care about his motives."

"Not enough to turn down honest work."

"Honest?"

"Honest enough."

"You think there might be something to this case?" she asked.

"Jones seems to think so, and that's enough for me."

"You'll take the money and job, of course, because that's what you do," she said, looking at me. "But on another level you can't wait to dig into this case, see what you turn up."

"One never knows."

"So what's your first step?"

"Cash Jones's check and pay my rent."

"And then what?"

"Buy some food, maybe even a foot massager for you. Wink, wink."

She slapped my hand. "Focus."

"I'll probably give the mummy a visit. You know, immerse myself in the case and all that. Want to come?"

She shuddered. "I've always hated that thing."

"That 'thing' is a murdered man," I said.

She suddenly turned to me.

"I knew it!" she said excitedly.

"Knew what?"

"This isn't just about the historian."

I crossed my arms and grinned. "It's not?"

"No."

"So tell me what it's about."

She was facing me, excited. "You're going to figure out who this mummy was."

"Go on."

"Even more, you're going to find his killer, or die trying, because that's the way you are. You help those in need, even if they're hundred-year-old mummies."

"Mummies need justice too," I said.

She looked at me for perhaps twenty seconds, and, although I could have been wrong, there seemed to be real love in her eyes. Who could blame her.

"Yes," she said finally, laying her head on my shoulder. "They certainly do."

We sat like that for ten minutes, enjoying each other's silence, enjoying the parade of humanity, enjoying the sights and sounds and smells of the ocean. I noticed men looking at Cindy's pretty face, somehow seeing beyond the blue gunk to the real beauty beneath. But then they got a look at me and moved on.

We were walking back to my place along the boardwalk, hand-in-hand. The sun was hot on my neck and a nearby seagull, balancing precariously on a low brick wall, was working on a tightly crumpled Subway wrapper. Maybe it was on the Jared diet.

"Someone vandalized my office," Cindy suddenly said.

The words had the same effect as a punch to the solar plexus. I stopped walking and faced her.

"Vandalized how?"

"Trashed my lecture hall. Turned over anything they could get their hands on. Graffitied everything."

"Are the campus police on it?"

"Yeah."

"Any leads?"

"Creationists."

"Creationists?"

"Or anti-Darwinists," she said. To her students, Cindy was known as Professor Darwin. And, yes, she was the great great granddaughter of the infamous Charles, his bloodline living to this day, which says a little something about surviving and fitness and all that. She continued, "They spray-painted crosses and fishes on the walls and chalk boards. Even left me a message on my computer screen."

"What Would Jesus Do?"

"No," she said. "'Darwin is burning in hell, and so will you.'"

"Not if he has his great great granddaughter's penchant for sunscreen."

"Not funny. I'm scared. This wasn't your typical prank. I've dealt with those my entire life." She took in some air, looked down at her half-filled water bottle. "There was a lot of anger involved in this attack. A lot. You could see it, feel it."

"You want me to look into it?"

We started walking again. She slipped her hands around my right bicep, her fingertips not quite able to touch. She was beautiful and petite and I wanted to hug her but I was afraid of getting blue stuff on my white tank top.

"Yeah," she said. "They scared me."

They scared her. I involuntarily tightened my hand into a fist. My bicep swelled before her thunderstruck eyes. I could feel the hair on my neck standing up. Hackles.

"Yeah," I said, "I'll look into it."