“Would be a shame to waste all those muscles.”
Outside, I draped my free arm over her small shoulders. Because I was a foot taller than she was, holding hands was difficult. She was, however, the perfect height for hugging, and so we worked with nature rather than against it.
“Have you ever noticed that you were naturally selected to be the perfect height for me to hug?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m nearly certain that’s what nature intended when I grew to be five foot five, on the off chance of meeting you someday.”
“Nature works in mysterious ways.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
“A Darwin quoting the Bible.” I said. “What is the world coming to?”
We were walking through a verdant, tree-filled section of the campus the students called Middle Earth, although I had yet to see a hobbit. Beyond, the sun had set, although the sky was still alight with its passing. Our smog-enhanced sunsets, with their pinks and oranges and purples, are out of this world.
Along the way to my car, I described my encounter with the bushy-browed woman. Cindy, amazingly, knew of her, flunking her last semester.
“You think she could be one of the vandals?”
I shrugged. “No way to know. Tell me more about her.”
Cindy frowned. “Well, she was an older student, very opinionated. Outspoken Christian. Seemed to take it as a personal affront that my great grandfather was the evil Charles Darwin.”
“For some, akin to Hitler.”
“I’ll buy that, at least on the hate-o-meter.”
Now we were driving west along University Way, wending our way between stately trees, behind which were dormitories. The Mustang’s windows were down. The evening air was laced with a 50/50 mixture of nature and exhaust, which, out here, is a pretty healthy percentage. Cindy looked good in my car. Her brown eyes were watching me drive. She often watched me while driving. I think she might have thought I was cute. With her ponytail, and in the old Mustang, we could have been two teens back in the sixties out getting milkshakes.
“She ever threaten you?” I asked.
“Never.”
“Why did she flunk?”
“Failed every test.”
“On purpose?”
“Hard to say,” said Cindy.
“If so, maybe by failing the tests, she was refusing to allow a Darwin to influence her thinking. Thus keeping her spirit pure.”
“I think you might be right.”
There was something in her voice. I glanced at Cindy. There were tears in her eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
“You don’t think I’m the devil do you?” she asked.
Cindy was a rational person. Intelligent, maybe even brilliant. Athletic and beautiful. And she was a Darwin. But she was a person with feelings, and she was hurting.
“Only in the bedroom,” I said.
She laughed and I pulled her over on the bench seat, stretching the seatbelt to the max. She put her head on my shoulder, and I took my little Darwin to dinner.
Chapter Thirty-three
On a chilly Tuesday morning, with the sun hidden behind patchy fog, I parked in front of a single story house in Buena Park, near Knott’s Berry Farm. It was seven in the morning, earlier than I am accustomed to working, but sometimes I don’t make the hours. On the seat next to me were two ventis, which, when translated from Starbucks to English, means two large coffees. Lots of cream and sugar for me, of course.
Retired Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Bert Tomlinson was waiting on the cement porch, sitting in a wicker chair. Twenty years ago, he had been the original homicide detective assigned to my mother’s murder.
As I approached, he smiled warmly, stood and shook my hand.
“Right on time, kid,” he said. He checked his watch. “I head out to yoga in thirty minutes, and after that my day’s booked with grandkids. And yes, I am the oldest one in yoga.”
“You look younger than me,” I said.
He laughed. “I’ll accept fifty, but certainly not thirty-ish.”
I wasn’t too sure about that. The man seemed to defy the aging process, and should probably write a book on how he did it. Bert’s face was line free, despite the fact that I knew he was over sixty. He weighed maybe a buck fifty, but looked strong enough to pull a people-powered rickshaw.
I handed him the coffee. “Almond mocha easy on the cream, large. As requested.”
He sniffed the container. “My one and only guilty pleasure.”
“I have too many to count. Oreos being high on my list.”
“I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Oreos. It’s easier for me that way. As far as I’m concerned, Oreos and Nabisco went belly up.”
“What about the Oreos you see in stores?”
“As far as I’m concerned the bags are empty.”
“You have a vivid imagination,” I said.
“Comes from being a homicide investigator. You think like the killer. Some you even think like the victim. Both of which can steadily drive a man crazy.”
“I do the same thing,” I said, sipping from my coffee. “When I look for a missing cat, I try to think like a missing cat.”
He chuckled. “You live in Huntington Beach?”
“Yes.”
“My boy lives there with his family. Owns and operates the Huntington Beach Surf Museum. He’ll be here any minute with his three kids. We get them every Tuesday and Thursday.”
I heard noises from within the house, the creaking of floorboards, the bang of pots and pans. The neighborhood was nice, but not great. Above the rooftops, rising up like the mother of all phallic symbols, was the Knott’s Parachute Ride. At the moment there was no one parachuting. The park opened later.
“I remember you,” said Bert. He spoke softly. I had the impression he had once shouted a lot in his life, and now he was making up for it. “You were just a kid. Although granted you were the size of most adults. Anyway, I would never forget your mother. I followed your career here and there in the papers. You did well in high school and even better in college. You were one of the best.”
That meant a lot to me, coming from a man who had left a lasting impression on me. We shared one experience: we both had seen my mother’s body that night. And after his investigation, Bert knew more about my mother than any other living soul on this earth. Probably even more than my father, who was a grade-A asshole.
We were silent. Bert sipped his coffee. A car drove slowly by. In the car, a woman was talking animatedly on a cell phone, and, I think, putting on make-up. Yikes.
The screen door opened behind us, and a slender older woman came out, carrying a tray of homemade cinnamon rolls. She left the tray on a potholder and smiled kindly down at me. She patted me on the face and went back into the house.
“Even Gerda remembers you, kid. Anyway, she made these for you. They’re lowfat, made with applesauce instead of oil, and Splenda, instead of sugar.”
“Um, sounds good,” I said.
