minutes later with a half dozen bars and cakes and crullers, two-thirds of which were chocolate. To wash them down, I got some chocolate milk. Chocolate may or may not be an aphrodisiac, but it sure as hell was a Jim Knighthorse picker-upper. I was giddy with anticipation.
I paid two bucks and parked in the public parking near the pier. I could have easily parked in my parking space under my apartment building and walked across the street and saved myself a fistful of dollars. But what the hell, I was feeling wasteful. I ate my first donut.
The beach was mostly quiet, although the faithful surfers were out here in droves. The waves were choppy, but that didn’t discourage the diehards. And in Huntington Beach, they were all diehards. I ate donut number two.
If I turned my head a little, I could see my apartment building across the street. My apartment was there on the fifth floor, overlooking Main Street. And next to my apartment, through an open sliding glass door, I could see my Indian neighbor dancing in his living room. Jaboor was wearing only cotton briefs and was singing into a microphone, although it could have been a TV remote control. He paused in front of the glass door and shook his ass for all of Huntington Beach to see. I ate donut number three. When the ass-shaking was done, he boogied away from view.
A cool breeze blew through my cracked open windows.
I contemplated the breeze. Donut four.
Outside, I gave the last two donuts, both maple bars, to the first bum I found. He seemed genuinely pleased and started on them immediately, despite the fact that they were not chocolate. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.
I crossed over to the pier, where a handful of fishermen were fishing. Not a single woman in the bunch. Behind my Oakley wraparounds, I scanned the fishermen carefully, wondering what the blond punk would look like now.
He would be near forty. At twenty, he had looked like hundreds of other surfers. Blond, tanned, healthy, good-looking. What did he look like now? Most lifelong surfers didn’t allow their bodies to go to pot. No, if he were still surfing, he would still be fit and trim. I had to assume he was still surfing. It was all I had to go on.
If so, he would still have his tan. Still have his blond hair.
And if he was a lifelong surfer, he would still live in the area, or not far from here. Hard to give this weather up, unless he moved to Mexico, like some die-hards do.
But at the time he hadn’t been surfing, right? He had been fishing. But he looked like a surfer. His hair was stained blond by salt and sun. I knew he was a surfer. But that didn’t mean he was still surfing. Maybe he got married and moved to Riverside to start a family.
Still, if he were a surfer at heart, even with a job and family and a long commute, he would find a way to the waves. It’s in the surfer’s blood. They can’t escape the siren call of the waves. It’s a lifelong passion.
Well, I had 40 or 50 years left on this planet. That should be enough time to cover all the beaches.
I spent the afternoon there at the pier, searching faces behind my shades. The sun did eventually burn through the low cloud layer, and when it did, and when most of the fisherman went home, I did too. Just a hop, skip and jump away.
Chapter Thirty-five
I was parked two rows down from Cindy’s Jetta with a clear view of the walkway down from the east side of campus. Without a Staff Parking permit, I was risking a ticket.
The night was young and I was hunkered low in my seat. I am six foot four, so hunkering is difficult. On the floor between my feet was a six pack of Bud Light.
I drank the first beer.
Clouds obscured the night sky. The wind was picking up, blustering through my open windows, bringing with it the metallic scent of imminent rain. Students drifted in and out of the parking lot, using it as a sort of shortcut into campus.
Like a chain smoker, I finished beer number two, started on three. Drinking in the car…not exactly a role model for today’s youth.
A light drizzle began to fall, turning the dust on my windshield into a thin film of muck. The drizzle turned into something more than a drizzle, although I wasn’t sure what that might be. Heavy drizzle? In southern California we don’t have many words for rain. We do, however, have nine different words for tan.
My windshield morphed into a surreal canvas as splattering raindrops fused with parking lot lights. Living art.
Which reminded me. I hadn’t painted in a while. Maybe I should. Except lately I didn’t feel much like painting. Instead, I felt like getting drunk every second of every day.
I opened beer number four. Two left. I considered getting more. Really considered it, but that would mean leaving the parking lot. Leaving Cindy’s car unattended. Derelict in my duties as boyfriend and bodyguard. And driving with a heavy buzz probably wasn’t a great idea.
Still, another six-pack sounded good. Too good.
Shit.
I needed to find my mother’s killer. I needed to catch him, and I needed to serve justice, and I needed closure. No kid should find his mother dead. No kid should have to see what I saw.
It’s a wonder I’m not more fucked up.
Hell, after what I’ve been through, I should be allowed to drink as much as I want. Maybe I would talk to Cindy about that.
Or not.
Chapter Thirty-six
An hour after my last beer, an hour in which I spent debating getting more, I saw a shape emerge from the oak trees lining the parking lot. The shape was holding something heavy.
I sat up a little in my seat, blinking through my mild buzz, trying to focus on the stumbling figure, which, I was certain, was a small woman.
She was dressed in black and wore a wool cap. She paused momentarily behind the rounded fender of a newer-style VW Bug and waited for a student at the far end of the parking lot to move on.
Once done, she crept forward again, passing in front of my Mustang, where I had a good look at her. Dark hair pulled tightly back. Straight bangs. Eyebrows in bad need of plucking. She was carrying what appeared to be a full paint can.
Her name, I knew, was Jolene Funkmeyer.
I scanned the surrounding parking lot, looking for her male accomplice but didn’t see anyone suspicious. Maybe tonight she was going solo. Taking some stalking initiative.
She kept to the shadows, as any good stalker should, and moved quickly from car to car. By my best calculations, she was heading towards Cindy’s sporty red Jetta, which was parked directly beneath one of the parking lot lights.
Funkmeyer hovered at the perimeter of the light, momentarily confused. Like a vampire witnessing the sun after a long night out raising hell. Finally, mustering some inner stalking courage, she stepped forward into the light and promptly tossed the contents of the paint can across the hood of Cindy’s Jetta. Bright yellow splashed everywhere, even onto some of the other cars.
Then she bent over the hood and feverishly began finger-painting. Tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth. As she did so, working her way around the hood of the Jetta, I called the campus police.
I hung up and waited. The figure in black continued writing. Her face gleamed wet in the drizzling rain. Her thighs were now covered in yellow paint. Still she wrote. Perhaps she was writing her dissertation. Her face was
