The clue: a random young man in the background of three of the twenty-four photographs. In the three photographs, he appears to be stalking her-at least that’s what my gut tells me. And I’ve learned to listen to my gut.
I drank some more beer. I prefer bottles, but cans leave less evidence-no bottles caps showing up in seat cushions, for instance-and less evidence is what I preferred, at least for now.
From the glass patio table, I picked up one of the three pictures of the young man in question; the young man who may or may not have been stalking my parents; the young man who may or may not have murdered my mother.
That’s a big leap, I thought.
True, but a big leap was all I had.
I angled the picture until it caught some of the ambient light from the street below. There he was, holding a freshly caught sandshark, standing behind my parents, themselves standing on the Huntington Beach pier. His hair was ragged and longish, bleached blond from hours in the sun and salt. He was wearing a red tank top and longish shorts, although not as long as the shorts kids wear today. His right leg was tanned and well muscled, although I could only see a fraction of it. My father obscured the rest of his body. Thanks, dad. Asshole. The young man was laughing at the rabbit ears my mother was not-so-secretly giving my father.
I set the picture down again. Inhaled deeply, looked up at the swirling mass of clouds above.
He had taken an interest in my mother, that much was evident. Probably because my mother made him laugh. Probably because she was a striking woman. Perhaps she had fascinated him. Perhaps he had always fantasized about being with an older woman. She was a striking woman. He himself was good-looking and muscular in that surfer sort of way. Whereas I was muscular in that strong-looking way.
The beer I was holding was miraculously empty. Wasn’t sure how that happened, barely even remembered drinking it. I opened another.
My mother’s case had been thoroughly investigated and was later shelved due to lack of evidence. Hell, lack of anything. I remembered the homicide detective. A good man who was deeply troubled by my mother’s murder. During his investigation, he had spoken to me often, once or twice even taking me out to get ice cream. I think he knew my father was an asshole.
But now I had these…
Pictures. Evidence.
Something.
I finished the beer, placed the empty tin carcass on the glass table and popped open another one.
I had grown up in a tough part of Inglewood. We had been poor in those days, my father was fresh out the military and not very family-oriented, if his nightly liaisons with the neighborhood whores were any indication. By the age of ten, I had witnessed a half dozen murders and more robberies than I cared to count. Growing up, I thought bullet-riddled bodies lying on street corners were sights that all school kids saw on their way home from school. Probably not the best neighborhood to raise a kid and my mother knew this. To escape, she took me to the beach any chance she had. She loved Huntington Beach, especially the pier. We would sit for hours overlooking the ocean. Sometimes I would fish, but mostly we ate ice creams and I told her about my day.
The same pier she was at in these pictures. The same pier I could see from my balcony.
Another empty can of beer. How the hell did that happen? I opened another and pondered this mystery.
Later, when the 12-pack was finally gone, I gathered up the empty cans in a trash bag and deposited the whole thing down the trash chute, and unwrapped a candy mint and lay down on my bed. My bladder was full. The ceiling spun. I awoke the next morning with the mint stuck to my forehead. Nice. My bladder was even fuller.
Between my thumb and forefinger, held in a sort of vice-like deathgrip, was the picture of the young man standing behind my mother.
Chapter Six
Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, with its extra e’s and p’s, was located just a half mile from my apartment. I could have walked there, but decided to drive, because nobody walks in Orange County, either.
The building itself was made of cinder block, painted in a red and white checkerboard pattern. White stars were painted within the red squares. It looked like a nightclub or an ice rink.
The time was noon, and the store had just opened. Inside, the curiosity shop was filled with, well, curiosities. Most of it was junk, and most of it was designed to lure away the tourist’s buck. I passed rows of shrunken heads, tribal spears, bobble heads and postcards. California license plate key chains with names like Dwayne, LaToya and Javier.
The store itself was smallish, made smaller by the overwhelming amount of junk. Inventory must have been hell. I was the only customer in the store. No surprise there, as it had just opened.
I headed to the rear of the store, side-stepping a curtain of crystal talismans, and there was the old boy. Sealed within a polyurethane case, Sylvester stood guard next to a door marked Employees Only. I wondered if he was on the clock.
I stepped up to the case.
Sylvester was not a handsome man. His skin was blackened and shriveled. His lips had disappeared in the mummification process, and so had most of his eyes. His hair was there, but short and scraggly. You would think, after all these years, someone would have thought to brush it. He was naked, although his genitalia had shriveled and disappeared. My heart went out to him. His hands were crossed under his stomach, the same position he was found in a hundred years ago.
I had aged twenty-five years since the first time I had seen Sylvester; he didn’t appear a day older. Mummification has that effect.
According to the legend at the base of the pedestal, Sylvester stood six feet one inches and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. His identity was unknown. His killer unknown. The hole was there, above his right wrist, clear as day. No bullet had been found, as it had exited out his back, shot clean through. A shot that had torn up his insides and caused him to bleed to death in the desert.
The storeroom door opened, startling me slightly. Sylvester ignored the door, and ignored me for the most part. A kid came out, smiled at me, looked casually at the dead man in the case, and then headed toward the cash registers.
“Not very talkative.” I nodded toward Sly.
“He’s a mummy,” said the employee.
“Ah, would explain it.”
The kid didn’t seem to care much that the man in the case had been murdered.
But I cared. Hell, I was being paid to care. Sort of. And the more I thought of it, the more I cared.
I reread the legend for the dozenth time. Sylvester had been found in the California desert, near Rawhide, now known as the Rawhide Ghost Town. Historians had found no evidence as to who he was or why he was killed. After his discovery, Sylvester had been passed from museum to museum, paraded around until this day. The only justification as to why he was not given a proper burial was that he was a mummy, and therefore of interest to science and history.
Now he was just of interest to Jones’s pocketbook.
I stepped up next to the case, my face just inches from Sly’s own. I stared at him, soaking in the details of his dried-out face, his half-open eyes, and his shriveled remains of a nose. I stared at him, and we played the blinking game for a half a minute. He won, although he might have flinched.
I put my hand on the case.
Well, buddy, I think you are more than a freak show curiosity. I think you were once a person, a person who died a hell of a shitty death. I care that you suffered so much. I care that you bled to death. I care that you never got that last drink of water you so desperately craved. Of course, you didn’t leave me much to go on, but that’s never stopped me before. But first I have to look into the death of a young historian, who may or may not have died accidentally. Maybe you know him. I hear he was a good kid. His name is Willie Clarke.
“There’s no touching the display,” said the voice of the employee behind me. “Now that we serve ice cream
