Clean Slate (Jim Knighthorse Book 4) Read online

  “No autopsy was done, since it was ruled a natural death.”

  “Didn’t that happen somewhere in Arizona?” I asked.

  “Sedona.”

  I shook my head and made sympathetic noises. “How long were you his agent?”

  “Since his Disney days.”

  “You were with him through thick and thin.”

  “Through it all, and trust me, it was far worse than what the tabloids reported.”

  “Addiction is never pretty.”

  “I miss him,” he said after a moment.

  I nodded and made more sympathetic noises.

  “We were a good team, Knighthorse. He was my best client.”

  “Your most profitable client?”

  “Yes, by a long shot.”

  I sensed something here. “How has business been since?”

  He shrugged. “It’s been better.”

  “So, with his death, your business took a hit?”

  “I still get residuals on many of our projects. I helped make most of those deals, and I get a manager’s cut. But as the years go by...”

  I finished for him, “The residuals get smaller and smaller.”

  “Right,” he said. “I have other clients, of course. But few had Freddie’s star power. We were a good team.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You mentioned that. Do you suspect foul play?”

  Clarence looked up and there were real tears in his eyes. I didn’t doubt it. They had been close for many years. No doubt, the two of them made a lot of money together...and blew a lot of money, too.

  “No,” he said, “I’m here because I think he’s still alive.”

  Chapter Four

  Cindy and I were having dinner at Walt’s Wharf in Seal Beach. Cindy happened to be the prettiest girl in Walt’s Wharf, and I happened to be one hell of a lucky guy. I told her as much.

  “You’re biased,” she said. Cindy was a professor at UCI, where she taught cultural anthropology, and used words like “biased” on a daily basis. I used words like “foot-long sub” on a daily basis. Anyway, I never had teachers who looked like Cindy when I went to UCLA. Maybe I should write a complaint letter.

  “My biasness is based on fact.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a word.”

  “My bias is based on fact.”

  “Better. And thank you.”

  Professor Cindy Darwin was the great-great-granddaughter of one Charles Darwin, which made her a bit of a celebrity in the field of anthropology. Cindy rarely bragged about her famous ancestor, which was a good thing, since I did most of the bragging in our relationship. Perhaps enough for two or three relationships.

  The waitress brought our drinks and took our orders. I started things off with the steamed artichoke, which is something I normally don’t start things off with. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do. And when at Walt’s Wharf, you eat the artichoke, which just so happens to be delicious. I also ordered fettuccine primavera. Yes, I’m still a vegetarian. A case from a few months ago, a case that involved the brutal treatment of animals, kicked my need for meat. I had thought my weightlifting might take a hit without meat in my diet, but that turned out not to be the case, although I did slam down three or four protein shakes a day.

  Anyway, Cindy ordered the sea bass. Cindy hadn’t been as affected by my case as I had. I didn’t judge Cindy or anyone. Meat eating, I’ve come to realize, is a personal choice. When the waitress left, we toasted, and drank deeply. Actually, I drank deeply, polishing off nearly half my beer. Cindy sipped daintily. Once, when I was younger, I did something daintily. Hated it.

  When we were done toasting, drinking and acting like real adults, Cindy asked about my latest case, and I told her.

  “No shit?” she asked, sounding a little less adult.

  “No shit.”

  “But why does he think Freddie Calgary might be alive?”

  “A few reasons. The medical examiner there rather quickly proclaimed the death to be from natural causes, and no autopsy was performed.”

  “Is that common?”

  “No. An autopsy should have been performed.”

  “Why wasn’t it?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “Wasn’t there an issue with the body being cremated?”

  I looked at my distinguished girlfriend, who lectured before hundreds, and who had just come back from a conference in New York, at which she had given the keynote speech.

  “He was cremated within three days, according to his agent.”

  “Is that common, too?”

  “Each state is different, and generally, an investigation would have to be ruled complete before a body is released to the family.”

  “So, someone, somewhere ruled that the investigation was complete,” said Cindy.

  “Would be my guess.”

  The waitress appeared with the artichoke and butter sauce. The artichoke was quartered and grilled and looked smaller than I remembered. Sadly, when it came to food, most things looked smaller than I remembered. Still, it was delicious and Cindy and I lapsed into silence while we pulled and dipped and scraped and repeated. I was done with my two quarters before Cindy was done with half of her first. I might have looked at her untouched quarter a wee bit too hungrily.

  “Yes, you can have it, Jim.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, already dropping it on my plate and starting the whole pull, dip scrape process again.

  “Even if I wasn’t sure, it’s kind of too late now.”

  “What can I say?” I said. “I have good reflexes.”

  “And a bottomless stomach.”

  “I never said it was fun eating with me,” I said. “Just rolling in the hay with me.”

  She rolled her eyes. I get that a lot from her. Once, I was pretty certain she rolled her eyes while rolling her eyes. A roll within a roll.

  I grinned, mostly because the waitress had arrived with our main course. Food, in general, makes me happy. I ordered another beer, and grinned again. More beer made me happy, too.

  “But why does he think Freddie Calgary is alive?”

  “There’s been a handful of sightings of him recently.”

  “I think I might have heard about those, come to think of it.”

  I had, as well. As soon as the agent had left, I had rooted around the internet, and even turned up a video of what someone claimed was Freddie Calgary in San Antonio. The image had been blurry and shaky, but, dammit, if it didn’t look just like the actor in question.

  “Any credible sightings?” she asked.

  “Just some blurry footage shot of him in San Antonio last month.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There’s one more thing.”

  I told her what Clarence had told me. Six months ago, he had been home alone when he received a phone call from a blocked number. He didn’t pick up and let the call go to voicemail. Later, he listened to the voicemail. In fact, he let me listen to it, too. There had been a lot of static on the line, and breathing, and finally, a male voice had said, “Sorry,” and hung up. Clarence was certain the voice belonged to Freddie Calgary. I didn’t know the kid well enough to know his voice and asked him to forward me the voicemail, which he had.

  She nodded and dug into her sea bass, then forgot that she had dug into her sea bass and put the fork down. “That’s interesting,” said Cindy. “Yeah, I can see why he hired you.”

  “Because I’m the best?”

  “Because he might have something here,” she said. “And because you’re the best.”

  Cindy hated feeding my ego, but sometimes, she went along for the ride because, well, I’m a helluva fun guy to ride.

  “So, what’s your next step?” she asked.

  “Road trip.”

  “San Antonio?”

  “First to Sedona, then to San Antonio. You wanna come?”

  “I have classes all week, and a colloquium this weekend.”

  “Damn and double damn.”


  “Besides, I would just slow you down, Jim. You would worry about me and I would want to shop.”

  “True. But we could have a lot of sex.”

  “We can always have sex, Jim.”

  “But not always in Sedona and San Antonio.”

  She thought about that, which was a good sign. “Good point. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter Five

  “Sedona?” said Sanchez. “Is that where all the hippies and New Agers and UFOs go?”

  “When they’re bored,” I said.

  “Is Cindy going with you?”

  “She tried. Can’t get out of her classes. Turns out finding a substitute in Tribal Ritual and Shamanism isn’t as easy you’d think.”

  We were working out at the 24-Hour Fitness in Newport Beach. If my math was correct—and it rarely was—we could theoretically stay here forever, since it never closed. As it was, we’d been here for nearly two hours. Two hours was my limit. Any longer than that and I was bound to get too sexy.

  Sanchez adjusted his feet beneath the weighted bar. We were in the squatting rack, which isn’t as exciting as it might sound, except for meatheads. Meatheads know that squatting racks help build massive quad muscles. Quad muscles were the body’s biggest muscles. More muscle means more fat being burned, even when not exercising. When I’m not exercising, I like to eat donuts. Higher rate of fat burning equals more donuts. Now, that’s a math problem that I can sink my teeth into.

  “Cindy’s way too smart for you, broheim,” said Sanchez.

  “We make it work,” I said. “I ask a lot of questions.”

  Sanchez grinned, and squatted down, balancing the weight along his wide shoulders, which might have been the second-widest shoulders here at the gym. He did this ten times while I spotted him from behind, guiding and balancing him, and then finally, helping him return the bar.

  I positioned myself under the rack. As I did so, I said, “I’m going to need you to pull some strings for me.”

  “You mean, you need me to do real cop work for you?”

  Sanchez was a homicide investigator in Los Angeles, and had been on the force since we graduated from UCLA. Me with a degree in P.E.—and my pro football dreams crushed, along with my broken leg—and he with his criminal science degree. He rose quickly through the police ranks, while I went downhill for a few years, until I finally signed on with my father’s private investigation firm, also in Los Angeles. Once I had gotten my own license, I split the firm, since my father is a confirmed sociopath and all-around asshole, and started my own agency in Huntington Beach. That my father was world-famous, and had worked on many high-profile cases, and that I was often compared to him was an irritant for me, but I can live with irritants. I had a half-dozen such irritants in my leg now in the form of screws and bolts that held my leg together.

  Last year, my father did the right thing and helped me take down my mother’s killer. That my father had fired the killing shot, and showed no remorse after, was more of a credit to his complete lack of empathy for another human being than any love he’d had for my mother. A woman I suspected he’d never loved at all.

  I finished my set and told Sanchez what I needed. As I did so, he toweled himself off and mostly appeared to not be listening, although I knew my longtime friend had heard every word. Next to us, two scrawny clowns were eyeballing the weight Sanchez had just squatted. Now, why did I have a sudden urge to kick sand in their faces?

  When I was finished catching up on my case, he said, “Police departments cooperate with one another. They don’t have to. They may or may not cooperate with me. Plus, it’s in another state.”

  “Mention my name,” I said. “It might help.”

  “How the hell would that help?”

  “I was a college football star once.”

  Sanchez shook his head. “I’ll let that be my last resort.”

  Chapter Six

  I was at the McDonald’s off Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach, not far from my work, contemplating God, the Universe, and whether or not I wanted another apple pie. My answers were decidedly succinct: God was mysterious, the Universe was big, and why not have two apple pies?

  Now back in line, I saw, through the big glass window, the familiar figure turn into the McDonald’s parking lot, hands behind his back, not a care in the world. Or the Universe. Or the Multiverse.

  Which was discerning at best. I wanted God to care about the Universe. I wanted him to care very much about every living thing.

  Of course, the man who was now cutting across the parking lot, smiling at cars as they drove around him, was probably not God.

  Probably.

  Who he was, though, defied explanation. How he knew what he knew challenged my sanity. That I could be dreaming was never very far from my thoughts. That I thought he might be God could very well land me in a straitjacket.

  As usual, his timing was impeccable. As the teen cashier handed me two apple pies and one cherry pie—I am weak, what can I say—Jack stepped into the McDonald’s lobby and gave me a very bright smile.

  A smile like that is infectious and soon I was smiling, too, and not just because I was now sporting a bag full of pies, although those certainly helped. Once seated in our spot at the back of McDonald’s, a little boy came skipping over. He stopped in front of my friend, Jack, and smiled at him shyly, his little body swinging to music that I couldn’t hear.

  Jack gave the boy a wink. The boy winked back and then skipped off.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Remember, Jim,” said Jack, his voice always quiet but strong, “angels come in many sizes.”

  “The boy is an angel?”

  “In his way, yes.”

  “What do you mean ‘in his way’?”

  Jack smiled and relaxed into the plastic booth. He rested both hands in his lap. Today, he was wearing something that might have once been jeans, but they were too dirty for me to know for sure. He was also wearing an oversized jacket that might have been even too big for me. Beneath the unzipped jacket, Jack was also sporting an old sweatshirt that said, yes, “UCLA” across the chest.

  And that was all the proof I needed that God was a fan of UCLA. Down with USC.

  Jack looked like he was in his late fifties. Most days. Other days, he looked far older, and sometimes even younger. When he smiled, he seemed ageless.

  Jack said, “The boy will pass within the year.”

  I had just opened the bag and was reaching inside, perhaps a little too eagerly, when I looked up at Jack. “What do you mean, pass?”

  Jack held my gaze. “He will contract a not-so-rare disease and die, Jim.”

  I looked over at the boy, my hand still in the bag. The kid was no more than six. At the moment, he was standing next to his seated mother with his head on her shoulder. He looked back at us and smiled again, except I didn’t feel like smiling.

  I also didn’t feel like eating. I removed my hand, rolled up the bag, and set it aside.

  “Not hungry, Jim?”

  “Not at the moment, but give me a few minutes. So, does this boy know he’s going to die?”

  “His higher self does.”

  “Higher self?”

  “His soul, Jim.”

  “Ah,” I said. “New Age mumbo-jumbo.”

  “Says the man who knows what a corner blitz is.”

  “Touché,” I said. “Tell me more about the boy.”

  Jack nodded once. “He’s a very old soul. Do you see him comforting his mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “His mother is a new soul.”

  “Even though she is older?”

  “Older only in this physical reality.”

  “But aren’t we all from, you know, the same place?”

  “You’re all from God, yes.”

  “From you,” I said.

  Jack only smiled. “If you wish to believe that,” he said, “I won’t stop you.”

  “Explain more about old s
ouls and new souls.” I was now officially hungry. I unrolled the bag and started on the apple pie.

  “A discussion of old and new souls invariably circles back to the concept of re-incarnation.”

  “Being re-born again and again,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “I was taught that we are given one life, and one life only.”

  “To be fair,” said Jack, “your teachers did the best they could with the information they were given.”

  “You’re saying I was taught wrong?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “That’s going to make a whole lot of people angry and confused.”

  “Not as angry as you might think, Jim.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because life is filled with far more mysteries than any one religion can explain. Because no one religion has all the answers to all the questions that people ask.”

  “Who has all the answers?”

  “The answers are there for the seekers, Jim. Many have called the answers into existence. But there is always one surefire way to find the answers you seek.”

  “Google?”

  “What is this Google of which you speak?”

  “It’s a search—”

  “I’m messing with you, Jim. Sure, Google is one place to find answers, but there is another place.”

  “You’re going to say in my heart. To trust my heart.”

  “In your heart, Jim. Trust your heart.”

  I laughed as he sat forward and clasped his hands together on the table. He said, “I’ll take it a step further. Trust how you feel. Emotions are the language of the soul. Don’t just hear and obey the words of those who tell you what to think. Ask yourself questions and feel your way through to the answer. When you hit upon a truth, you will know it.”

  “How will I know it?”

  “By the way you feel, by the way your body will physically react.”

  “A tingling?” I asked.

  “It can be, yes.”

  “Often when I speak to you, Jack, I feel something akin to a tingling between my shoulder blades.”

  “Akin?”

  “It’s a word,” I said.

  “I’m just messing with you, Jim. Yes, such a tingling is your body’s way of getting your attention. More accurately, it is your higher self—”