The Mummy Case (Jim Knighthorse Series #2) Read online

  THE

  MUMMY CASE

  A Jim Knighthorse Novel

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  Acclaim for J.R. Rain:

  “Be prepared to lose sleep!”

  —James Rollins, international bestselling author of The Doomsday Key on J.R. Rain’s The Lost Ark

  “I love this!”

  —Piers Anthony, bestselling author of Xanth on J.R. Rain’s Moon Dance

  “Dark Horse is the best book I’ve read in a long time!”

  —Gemma Halliday, award-winning author of Scandal Sheet

  “Moon Dance is absolutely brilliant!”

  —Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, author of Understanding the Planetary Myths

  “Powerful stuff!”

  —Aiden James, author of Deadly Night on J.R. Rain’s An Uncommon Quest

  “Moon Dance is a must read. If you like Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter, be prepared to love J.R. Rain’s Samantha Moon, vampire private investigator.”

  —Eve Paludan, author of Letters From David

  “Impossible to put down. J.R. Rain’s Moon Dance is a fabulous urban fantasy replete with multifarious and unusual characters, a perfectly synchronized plot, vibrant dialogue and sterling witticism all wrapped in a voice that is as beautiful as it is rich and vividly intense as it is relaxed.”

  —April Vine, author of The Midnight Rose

  OTHER BOOKS BY J.R. RAIN

  VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

  Moon Dance

  Vampire Moon

  American Vampire

  THE JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES

  Dark Horse

  The Mummy Case

  Hail Mary (coming soon)

  THE EXCALIBUR SERIES

  An Uncommon Quest (coming soon)

  The Merlin Game (coming soon)

  THE ELVIS SERIES

  Elvis Has Not Left the Building

  You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog (coming soon)

  THE SPINOZA SERIES

  The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo

  The Vampire Who Played Dead (coming soon)

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  The Lost Ark

  The Body Departed

  The Silent Echo (coming soon)

  WITH SCOTT NICHOLSON

  Cursed!

  Ghost College

  WITH PIERS ANTHONY

  Aladdin Relighted

  Aladdin Sins Bad (coming soon)

  WITH AIDEN JAMES

  Plague of Coins (coming soon)

  WITH H.T. NIGHT

  Bad Blood (coming soon)

  SHORT STORIES

  The Bleeder and Other Stories

  Teeth and Other Stories

  Vampire Nights and Other Stories

  SCREENPLAYS

  Judas Silver

  Lost Eden

  COLLECTIONS

  Rain Dance: Three Novels

  Rainy Nights: Three Novels

  Black Rain: Dark Tales

  Knighthorse: Two Novels

  Vampire for Hire: Two Novels

  Dark Quests: Two Screenplays

  ANTHOLOGIES

  (With Other Writers)

  Vampires

  Whodunits

  Comedy & Tragedy

  Ghost Stories

  Sin City

  Skeleton Tango

  Vampires, Zombies and Ghosts, Oh My!

  The Mummy Case

  Published by J.R. Rain at Amazon Kindle

  Copyright © 2010 by J.R. Rain

  Amazon Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  To Chuck, thanks for everything.

  Chapter One

  I was doing decline push ups when my office door opened. Decline push ups cause a lot of blood to rush to your head and a fabulous burn across the upper pectorals. They also looked pretty damn silly in a professional environment. Luckily, this wasn’t a professional environment.

  Somebody was quietly watching me, probably admiring my near-perfect form or the way my tee shirt rippled across my broad shoulders. Either way, I rattled off twenty more, completing my set of a hundred.

  In a distinctive country twang, a man’s voice said, “I could come back.”

  “And miss my near-perfect form?”

  I eased my running shoes off the desk and immediately felt a wave of light-headedness. Granted, I didn’t entirely mind the light-headedness. I am, after all, a sucker for a good buzz.

  The man who came swimmingly into view was wearing a cowboy hat and leaning against my door frame, a bemused expression on his weathered face. He was about twenty years my senior.

  “Howdy partner,” I said.

  He tipped his Stetson. “So what are those push ups supposed to do, other than cause a lot of blood rush to your head?”

  “That’s enough for me,” I said happily. “Oh, and they happen to be a hell of a chest workout.”

  “Seems like a lot of trouble,” he said.

  “It’s not easy being beautiful.”

  “Ah,” he said. “You must be Jim Knighthorse. I heard about you.”

  “Lucky you.”

  As he spoke, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a buoy in a storm. His white hat sported an excessively rolled brim—completely useless now against the sun or rain. Maybe he was a country music star.

  “I was told you could be a cocky son of a bitch.”

  “You would be, too,” I said. “If you were me.”

  He looked at me and shrugged. “Well, maybe. You’re certainly a big son of a bitch.”

  I said nothing. My size spoke for itself. He looked around my small office, perhaps noting the many pictures and trophies that cluttered the walls and bookcases, all in recognition of my considerable prowess on the football field. Actually, all but one. There was a second place spelling bee trophy in there somewhere. Lost it on zumbooruk, a camel-mounted canon used in the Middle East. Hell of a shitty word to lose it on.

  “I heard you could help me,” he said finally, almost pitifully.

  “Ah,” I said. “Have a seat.”

  He did, moseying on into my small office. As he sat, I almost expected him to flip the client chair around and straddle it backward, cowboy-like. Instead, he used the chair as it was originally designed, although it was clearly not designed for someone as tall as he. His bony knees reached up to his ears and looked sharp enough to cut through his denim jeans. I sat behind the desk in a leather brass-studded chair that was entirely too ornate for its surroundings. The leather made rude noises.

  Ever the professional detective, I kept a straight face and asked for his name.

  “Jones,” he answered. “Jones T. Jones, to be exact.”

  “That’s a lot of Joneses.”

  “Well, yes,” he said, blushing slightly. “It’s not really my name, you see. It’s sort of like a stage name. You know, a gimmick.”

  “So you’re an actor?”

  “No, I own a souvenir shop in Huntington Beach. But I’ve acted as the spokesperson in my own commercials.” Ah. It came to me then. I’d seen Jones before, late at night on the local cable circuit. Usually right before I passed out in a drunken stupor. Damn cheesy commercials, too, many involving what appeared to be a rabid monkey. Sometimes Jones and the monkey danced. I was
embarrassed for Jones. “Maybe you’ve heard of it,” he continued. “Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe.”

  “Heard of it?” I said. “Hell, I spelled old and shop with extra e’s and p’s up until the fifth grade. My teacher, Mrs. Franks, thought I was Chaucer reborn.”

  He laughed. “I wanted to change the name when I bought the store a number of years ago, but there was a big public uproar.” He cracked a smile, and I realized that he enjoyed the big public uproar. “So I gave in to pressure and kept the damn name. I regret it to this day.”

  “Why?”

  “No one can find us in the phone book...or even on the internet. They call us and ask: Are we under Y or O? Is it Ye or The?” He sighed and caught his breath, having worked himself up. “I mean, what were the original owners thinking?”

  “Maybe they were English.”

  He shrugged. We were silent. Outside, in the nearby alley, a delivery truck was backing up, beeping away. I was one of the few people who appreciated the warning beeps.

  “So what can I do for you, Mr. Jones?” I asked.

  “I’d like to hire you.”

  “Zumbooruk!” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter Two

  “You know about Sylvester the Mummy, then?” asked Jones.

  “Still dead?” I asked.

  “As a doornail.”

  Sylvester the Mummy was one of Huntington Beach’s main attractions—ranking a distant third behind waves and babes—and currently resided at the back of the Ye Olde Curiosity Gift Shoppe in a cozy polyurethane case for all the world to see. Sylvester had been found in the California deserts over a hundred years ago near a ghost town called Rawhide. Since then, he’d been passed from museum to museum, exhibit to exhibit, until finally coming to rest at Ye Olde Gift Shoppe in Huntington Beach. Wouldn’t his mother be proud? Although his identity is unknown, most historians figure Sylvester had once been a cowboy. Which, I figure, means he probably once owned a horse and a six shooter, ate beans from the can over an open campfire and sang lonesome songs about loose women. That is, of course, until someone put a bullet in his gut and left him for dead in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Experts figured the old boy had mummified within 24 hours due to a rare combination of extreme desert heat and chemicals in the sand. A true John Doe, he had been named after the very miner who discovered him, which I always found a little creepy.

  “What about him?” I asked.

  “Two months ago, as a publicity stunt, I hired a young historian fresh out of college to look into Sylvester’s background. You know, generate some interest in my little store. Of course, I didn’t really think the historian would find anything on Sylvester. But that wasn’t the point.”

  “The point being to generate interest in your little store.”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  Ah, exploiting the dead.

  “Go on,” I said.

  Jones shifted, suddenly looking uncomfortable, as if his tight jeans were giving him one hell of a wedgie. “The historian—a kid really—provided me regular reports. He did original research, digging through old records, even traveling out to Rawhide once or twice to interview the town historian.”

  He stopped talking. I waited. I sensed something ominous. I call this my sixth sense. Catchy, huh?

  Jones’ expression turned pained. The mother of all wedgies? “Then the reports stopped, and I didn’t hear from him for a while. Shortly thereafter, his mother reported him missing. Soon after that, the sheriff’s department found him dead.”

  “Found him where?”

  “In the desert. Near Rawhide.” He took a deep breath. “And just this morning I received word from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department that his death was being officially ruled an accident. They figure he got lost in the desert, ran out of gas and died of thirst.”

  I sat back in my chair and rested my chin on my fingertips. Sweat had appeared on Jones’s forehead. His flashy showmanship was out the window.

  “I assume you disagree with their findings,” I said.

  He thought about it.

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “Why?”

  He reached up and unconsciously rolled the brim of his Stetson, a nervous habit, which now explained why the thing looked like a Del Taco Macho Burrito.

  My stomach growled. Lord help me.

  “It’s hard to say, Knighthorse. It’s just a gut feeling I have. The kid...the kid was smart, you know. A recent college graduate. I was impressed by him, and not just by his book smarts. He seemed to have a sensible head on his shoulder; street smarts, too.”

  “Too sensible to get lost in the desert.”

  “Yes. Precisely. That’s exactly why I’m here.”

  “That,” I said, “and you feel guilty as hell for sending a kid out to his death.”

  He looked away, inhaled deeply. “Jesus, Knighthorse. Put it that way, and you make it seem like I killed him.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to look into his death. Make sure it was an accident.”

  “And if it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I want you to find the killer.”

  “Finding the killer is extra.”

  “Price is no object.”

  “Zumbooruk!”

  “Why do you keep saying that? What does it mean?”

  “It’s a camel-mounted canon used in the Middle East.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Chapter Three

  I met Detective Sherbet at a sandwich shop on Amerige St. in downtown Fullerton. Sherbet was a big man with a big cop mustache. He wore an old blue suit and a bright yellow tie. He ordered coffee and a donut. I ordered a Diet Pepsi, but thought the donut idea was a pretty good one. So I had the waitress bring me three of whatever she had left, because when it comes to donuts, any flavor will do.

  “What if she brings you a pink donut?” asked Detective Sherbet.

  “Pink is good,” I said.

  “I hate pink.”

  “In general?”

  He thought about that, then nodded. “Yeah.” He paused, looked away. “My boy likes pink.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Me, too.”

  “How old is your boy?”

  “Eight.”

  “Maybe he will grow out of it.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  The waitress brought me three cake donuts. Chocolate, glazed, and pink.

  Uh oh.

  “Are you okay with me eating this?” I asked, pointing to Sherbet’s arch-nemesis, the pink-frosted donut.

  He nodded, shrugging. The man had serious issues. I ate the pink donut quickly, nonetheless. As I did, Sherbet watched me curiously, as if I was a monkey in a zoo exhibiting strange behavior. Funny, when I was done, I didn’t feel gay.

  “Any good?” he asked.

  “Quite,” I said. “And no gay side effects. At least not yet.”

  “Maybe I’ll have one.”

  And he did. One pink donut. After the waitress set it before him, he picked it up warily with his thumb and forefinger, careful of the pink frosting. He studied it from a few angles, and then bit into it.

  “Your son would be proud,” I said.

  “I love the kid.”

  “But you think he might be gay.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” he said.

  “Thankfully,” I said. Actually, Detective Sherbet wasn’t so much homophobic as homo-terrified, as in terrified his kid might grow up to be gay. Someone needed some counseling here, and it wasn’t the kid.

  “So that crackpot hired you,” said Sherbet. There was pink frosting in the corner of his mouth. Lord, he looked gay.

  “Crackpot being Jones T. Jones.”

  “A shyster if I’ve ever met one. Anything to make a buck. Hell, I even had my suspicions that he offed the historian just to generate more press for that damn store of his. Have y
ou been there?”

  I nodded.

  He said, “Place gives me the fucking creeps.”

  “So he’s clean?”

  “Sure he’s clean. Everyone’s clean. Kid ran out of gas, wandered around the desert until he died of heat and thirst.”

  “Hell of a way to go.”

  Sherbet shrugged, and as he did so his mustache twitched simultaneously. Perhaps the motor neurons in his shoulders were connected to his upper lip.

  “I hear Willie was a smart kid,” I said.

  Sherbet nodded. “Smart enough to get a Masters in history from UCI.”

  “Probably smart enough to call for help on his cell phone.”

  “Sure,” said Sherbet, “except he didn’t have one on him.”

  “Who found his body?”

  “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.”