“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.”
