“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.
Chapter Forty-seven
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.
She and Sanchez. And maybe even Jack. And now Junior.
I’m weird, I thought, and drank again, deeply, from the old-school bottle of Michelob.
So why should I go and put my life on the line when I knew damn well it was a set-up? The answer was easy. At least, easy for me.
This was my chance to get answers. This was my chance to finally put this forever to rest. Something was going to go down tomorrow. One way or another, answers would be given. Lives would move on...or lives would end.
Tomorrow would be closure.
Blessed closure.
The bottle was empty now, but I still occasionally tilted it back and drank the hidden drops. Only one bottle tonight. No hangovers. I needed a clear head. Clear mind. Fast reflexes.
Tomorrow.
These past two months had been hard. And hard on my relationship with Cindy, too. And hard on the little things. Like relaxing. Like thinking about something other than my slain mother. My painting and reading had gone out the window. Yes, I paint. Not very good, granted. But it was a release for me. I saw the world the way I see the world. I painted with colors that suited me, that were alive to me.
For the past two months, color was gone from my life. I had been consumed by this, even in quiet moments with Cindy, with Sanchez, or with anyone.
This was unfinished business.
Tomorrow, it would be finished.
I thought about all of this and more as I crossed my ankles over the balcony railing and half-closed my eyes. Half-closed, because when I closed them all the way, there she was. Pale and dead and drained of blood, her hand reaching under her bed, to a box of my childhood things.
Why had she been reaching for the box?
I would never know, but I knew I had been her last thought in this world. She had thought of me while an animal stole her life and hurt her so bad.
And so I sat like that, with my eyes half-closed, waiting.
Waiting for tomorrow.
Chapter Forty-eight
I was to meet Bert Tomlinson, retired LAPD homicide detective, at 7:00 p.m. Which is why I got there at 6:00 p.m.
It had been raining earlier in the day, which, in itself, was cause for celebration. I drove slowly through the park, around the curve of the lake, and, sure enough, there was no one here. The park said it would close at dusk, but I didn’t see anyone here to enforce such a closure. Besides, there was nothing to actually close. Unless, somehow, they drained the lake.
I ended up in a back parking lot. From there, I found a narrow dirt road that led deeper into the dense shrubbery. Irvine Lake is surrounded by a lot of stunted trees that did their best to look like woods. The undergrowth ranged from sparse to dense, and was populated by a lot of spiky plants that looked like a cross between cactus and something from Venus. On the lake before me, tethered to a floating dock, were some generic rowboats that visitors could rent.
I appeared to be alone, but I knew I wasn’t.
With my van mostly buried in ferns, creosote, huckleberry, gooseberries and sages, and surrounded by bent and twisted oaks, firs and pines, I studied the layout before me. I could clearly see the main road that led into this section of the park. The picnic tables were before me. I counted three of them.
I looked at my watch. Fifty more minutes.
I moved into the rear of my van and fetched three recorders. Each recorder, I knew, could record up to four continuous hours.
Perfect.
I next slid the side door open and waded through some milkweed and sugar brush, and stepped out into the picnic clearing. I crossed the sparse grass and, at the picnic tables, I did my best to hide the recorders in nooks and crossbeams along the underside of the tables, making sure the duct tape didn’t cover the mouthpieces.
I pressed ‘Play’ on each of them.
From here, I could smell the lake, which didn’t smell very clean. Then again, lakes rarely smelled clean. The light rain helped the smell. The rain smelled fresh and invigorating and seemed to fall straight from heaven. Maybe it did.
With the light rain came something else. A scent. A hint of perfume. A soft suggestion of flowers mixed with...what? Citrus? Yes, citrus.
I knew the scent well. In fact, I had smelled it not too long ago at the cemetery, too, although I pretended I hadn’t.
It was my mother’s perfume.
The hair on my neck stood on end and a strong shiver coursed through me. The skin along my forearms rippled in goosebumps. I stood there silently, feeling as if an electric current was moving gently through my body. I didn’t know what was happening, but I liked it.