Chapter Two
The next day, I had thirty minutes to kill before my appointment with Jacky, my boxing trainer.
Sitting in my minivan in the blessed shade of a pathetic magnolia tree, I went through my emails on the iPhone and found an attachment from one Gertrude Shine. The old lady from yesterday, I was sure of it. Sighing, I opened it and found five pictures of an aged man with a thick mustache. Included with the pictures was the man’s personal information, and I was struck again by the intrusive nature of my job. The man in the photo was a complete stranger. But pretty soon he would be all too familiar, so familiar that I would be instrumental in the destruction of his marriage.
No. He was instrumental in the destruction of the marriage. I was just reporting the facts.
I closed my eyes, rubbed them. I didn’t have to take the job. I didn’t have to take any job. Except Danny had yet to pony up any child support, let alone alimony, despite making five times what I make.
Despite openly cheating on me.
I studied the son of a bitch in the photos. Two of the photos depicted him standing with a large woman with red hair—the same woman, I wasn’t too shocked to see, that I had seen in my thoughts.
I’m getting stronger, I thought. Indeed, my psychic powers now seemed to be increasing daily.
Anyway, the couple did not seem very happy, and I didn’t think that was a psychic hit. Anyone looking at the pictures could see that. They weren’t holding hands; in fact, they weren’t really standing close to each other. The man was dumpy, but looked strong. Probably in his youth he had been an athlete but had let himself go to hell. He had broad shoulders that were mostly fat now. His mustache seemed to change from picture to picture, growing thicker and longer in some. I had asked for recent pictures, but these were clearly separated by months or even years.
I was parked on the street outside the gym, on a sweltering day in southern California, where even in the shade the temperature was probably in the high eighties. I probably should have been sticky with sweat but I wasn’t. In fact, I was cold. So damn cold. Vampire cold.
Her husband’s name was CS Shine, and according to Gertrude’s email that’s all her husband went by: CS.
Seriously? What kind of pompous ass goes by initials these days? I never understood it and probably never would. Initials did not a name make.
CS Shine. He sounded like a cruise ship.
Anyway, CS Dumbass actually worked nearby—at a bakery of all places.
So I checked the time on my cell, saw that I had another twenty-five minutes before Jacky would start yelling at me to keep my boxing hands up, then started the minivan and headed east on Commonwealth.
To the only bakery in town.
And to CS Dipshit.
Chapter Three
I’d seen the bakery over the years, but had never made it inside. And since I doubted they served plasma-filled turnovers, these days I had even less reason to go inside.
For now, though, I parked across the street and took in the scene. We were still technically in downtown Fullerton, but we were pushing it. The buildings here were mostly part of newer chains, with hipster apartments above and clean sidewalks out front. Part of Fullerton’s attempt to commercialize its downtown. For the most part, the idea worked. The older stores had gotten a facelift, and now the whole area was buzzing with activity.
The bakery had a decidedly old-world feel to it, as if it had been transplanted brick by brick from the back streets of Italy or France. It was tucked between some of the newer buildings, and I could just see the owner, CS Loser, indignantly holding his ground, progress be damned. No doubt he had turned down large of sums of money to buy his bakery, thumbing his nose at the establishment.
Of course, I could be wrong, but this was a borderline psychic hit. If so, you could take it to the bank.
Anyway, the windows out front advertised cream puffs and fresh baked breads. There was a yellowed poster of an apple pie in the window. Another displayed a stack of what had once been a fresh-baked batch of cookies. Now they were so faded they could have been a pile of cow pies.
Undeterred by the shabby window dressings, customers poured in and out of the bakery. Many held pink boxes or white bags. I was willing to bet that Detective Sherbet of the Fullerton P.D. frequented the place. Stereotypical, I know, but the man had a huge sweet tooth. He also had a nice, round belly. The two were not mutually exclusive.
Through the dusty glass, I could see a man working. An older man wearing an apron. There was also a much younger woman working there, too. A cute younger woman who smiled a lot through the window, and it was obvious that she made every customer feel welcome. I hated her immediately. Home-wrecking bitch.
Easy, girl. You don’t know that.
Girls who smiled at everyone made me nervous. Married men responded to those smiles. Married men thought those smiles were directed only at them. Married men acted on those smiles in stupid ways.
Especially married bosses.
I watched the scene for the next twenty minutes, absorbing the details of the girl, of the man, the way they seemed to work effortlessly in tandem. Sometimes he appeared out front and graciously spoke to customers. Mostly he worked in the back, no doubt making his pies and cakes and all the things that I couldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
By the time I left, I was certain the two were a little too chummy, a little too comfortable. Something was up. That much was certain, and Gertrude, I think, had every right to be suspicious.
Now she just needed proof, and that was the hard part.
Chapter Four
Mary Lou and I had just finished our weekly round of drinks at Hero’s. Yes, I still frequented Hero’s. Yes, I still IM’d Fang. Yes, I knew he was a killer.
Aaron Parker, aka Fang, raised serious moral issues with me, moral issues that I often struggled with. That he was a headcase, there was no doubt. Anyone who grew up in the environment in which he had grown up, in the circumstances in which he had grown up, would have had similar issues. Or not. Perhaps it was a perfect storm of craziness and circumstance.
Either way, at age seventeen, a very delusional Aaron Parker had killed his girlfriend, sucking her dry. His story had been a sensational one. Even more sensational, was that the young man had escaped a high-security psychiatry ward, killing two more men in the process.
That had been almost two decades ago. Aaron Parker, of course, now went by an assumed name, and as far as I could tell, he had had some facial reconstruction surgery. He was still a wanted man, and he just so happened to be our bartender and my confidant.
No, I hadn’t known about his past. I didn’t know who the hell he was, truth be known, until six months ago, when we had met for the first time. Or, rather, when he had re-introduced himself. Turns out that he had stalked me and found out who I was and where I lived.