Clean Slate (Jim Knighthorse Book 4) Read online

  Yes, there was a chance—a small chance—that I might have actually fallen in love with myself.

  I was sitting in the Mystery Machine, which is what Cindy had started calling my surveillance van. Unlike the colorful Mystery Machine of Scooby-Doo fame, my van was plain white with a lot of rust. The rust is there for a reason. I want it to look like a work van, and thus, be forgotten. So, to give it that well-worn look—or, as I prefer to call it, shabby-chic—I have been known to back up not very carefully, to bump into trees and poles and dumpsters. Once, I’d bumped into Sanchez’s truck. Sanchez didn’t like it, and wanted my insurance information. I told him the dent gave his new truck its own certain shabby-chic look. He told me to fuck off. I like Sanchez.

  So, while sipping on a McDonald’s iced coffee, I made another call. I waited while it rang. I was parked illegally in a handicapped zone. My leg hurt. In fact, I’ve walked with a noticeable limp for the past eleven years. I had enough nuts and bolts in my leg to give Frankenstein a run for his money. I could apply—and probably receive—a handicapped parking permit. Getting a handicapped permit would admit defeat. I didn’t admit defeat. I couldn’t.

  Of course, that didn’t stop me from parking illegally in the space. Parking illegally was more acceptable than parking legally. At least, in my skewed line of logic.

  The phone picked up on the fifth and, probably, final ring. “Who’s this?”

  “Jim Knighthorse, ace detective.”

  “Jim who?”

  “Knighthorse,” I said. “I’m an ace private investigator and I have some questions regarding your deceased friend, Freddie Calgary.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “Deceased friends are never a joke, sir.”

  “I mean, you. Are you really a private investigator?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why do you keep calling yourself an ace private investigator?”

  “It means I’m the agency’s top investigator.”

  “How many are in the agency?”

  “Just me.”

  “Fuck you,” he said, and hung up on me.

  I sighed and pressed redial.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was sitting in a public park near UCLA, my home away from home.

  It was a smallish park with a biggish bronze statue of a soldier holding an American flag. I’d often wondered how I would look immortalized as a bronze, or even a marble statue, propped up out front of, say, my apartment building complex. Or, say, in front of UCLA where I’d played football. That I’d actually seriously looked into it probably should have concerned me. It didn’t. Everyone deserved a statue in their honor. Some were more deserving than others.

  I had a good view of Wilshire Boulevard, and a good view of a lot of money driving by. This was the heart of Beverly Hills, or damn close to it. The surrounding buildings were big and shiny, the speeding cars were big and shiny, and the bouncing fake boobs were big and shiny, too.

  A car in front of me hung a suicidal left turn that made me cringe. A moment later, the same car pulled into the small parking lot behind me.

  Shortly after that, a young guy with a hitch in his own leg made his way across the gently rolling hills and found me on the park bench. He winced as he sat.

  “You’ve got a hitch in your get-along,” I said.

  He nodded and rubbed his knee. “A football injury.”

  I looked at the guy. Whip-thin, gangly, big hands. “Wide receiver?”

  “Yup.”

  “Where’d you play?”

  “USC.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He smiled, sat back, and draped an arm over the back of the bench. He was over six feet. I saw the sinewy muscle rippling along his forearms.

  “Took me a few minutes to remember who you were,” he said. “So, after we hung up, I checked you out. You were five years before me. I just started playing high school ball when I heard about this guy who played for UCLA breaking his leg into, like, a million pieces.”

  “Close,” I said.

  “And I couldn’t have been happier.”

  “Spoken like a true Trojan,” I said. “How did you hurt your knee?”

  “Making a cut. My body went one way, my foot and knee stayed where it was.”

  “End your career?”

  “That was my last play ever.”

  “Did you at least make the catch?”

  “You bet your ass.”

  “Good man,” I said.

  We reveled silently in our glory days. Then I asked, “So, how did you know Freddie Calgary?”

  “He was a fan. L.A. doesn’t have a pro football team. USC is as good as it gets.”

  “Or UCLA,” I said.

  He laughed. “Yeah, whatever. Either way, he came after one of my better games. I caught two touchdowns, and after I showered and was talking to probably the cutest reporter I’d ever seen, up comes Freddie Calgary, wanting to shake my hand and congratulate me. We partied all that night.”

  “What did your coach say about that?”

  “He didn’t like it, and liked Freddie even less. I was told not to hang out with him during the season.”

  “Did you listen?”

  “I did, yeah. But then, I got hurt.”

  “Let me guess...”

  He nodded. “Yup, we partied ever since. That is, until he partied too hard.”

  “In Sedona,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “Were you there?” I asked.

  “I was.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  He looked at me, squinting, then nodded and looked away. It was late afternoon and the sun was strong behind me and the wind was brisk, too. My t-shirt flapped around my midsection. Being thinner, and far scrawnier, Jordan McAlpine’s shirt flapped a lot more. The wind was warm and tainted with car exhaust.

  “Yeah, it was hard watching him die.”

  “If you don’t mind, could you walk me through what happened that night?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, man. A lot of that’s a blur.”

  The word “blur,” of course, was always of interest to investigators. I made a mental note in the Knighthorse Rolodex of Clues and Strangeness. Most things aren’t a blur. Most things are seared into memory, especially if it involved the death of someone close, even if drugs and alcohol were involved.

  “I was kind of wasted, you know?”

  “I see,” I said. “Did you see Freddie doing drugs?”

  “We were all doing drugs that night. Then, suddenly, one of our friends starts shouting that Freddie was, you know, foaming at the mouth and shit. She started screaming.”

  “Anyone have any Narcan?” I asked.

  Like a true partier, Jordan nodded. Few people would know what the drug Narcan was, other than those who kept it in on hand in case of an overdose.

  “We applied it...but Freddie hadn’t been taking any opiates, you know?”

  I nodded. His story was holding up. Narcan was useless unless opiates were in the blood system.

  “The best we could do was call 9-1-1. But, by the time they came...” His voice faded and he looked away.

  “Again, I’m sorry.”

  “Look, no offense, Knighthorse, but I’ve gone over this a hundred times with the cops, reporters, family, friends, you name it. I just can’t talk about it again.”

  I nodded. “I understand. Except I’m not here to talk about his death. I’m here to talk about the possibility that he faked his death.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. Long enough for his hair to rise and fall a few times. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I wish I was.”

  “I saw him dead.”

  “Have you seen a dead body before?”

  “No, but he was dead, trust me.”

  “How do you know?”

  He didn’t want to be here. He probably wanted to smack me, too. Except I was bigger than him and I looked like I could take a punch.
Truth was, I could take a lot of punches. The problem was, you punch me, I tend to punch back. The question was: could you take a punch?

  “The doctor came.”

  “Doctor or ambulance?”

  “There was a doctor down the hallway. He heard us shouting.”

  “You were in a hotel?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I knew that, of course. I always liked to see if people can corroborate stories. I had read all I could on Freddie Calgary’s death. There had been a ton of recycled articles, and a few conspiracy theory websites, too. I said, “Do you know the doctor’s name?”

  “No.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Older. That’s all I remember.”

  “Did he say he was a doctor?”

  “I don’t know. I was kind of freaking out.”

  “Tell me more about Freddie that night.”

  “He’d just gotten out of rehab. The problem, of course, is that you can’t take the same amount of drugs you did before rehab. You have to work yourself back into it slowly.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Well, he went right back to his old ways. Partying hard.”

  “What happened after the doctor came?”

  Jordan ran his hands through his longish hair. He looked like he wished he was anywhere but here. But...I sensed there was something he was struggling with internally. He said, “He checked for a pulse.”

  “Checked how?”

  “Put his head on his chest. Checked his neck. That kind of stuff. Said Freddie was dead.”

  “What happened next?”

  “They kicked us all out of the room for a few minutes.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The doctor and Freddie’s new friend.” Jordan sounded slightly resentful.

  “What new friend?”

  “Creepy guy who runs the official Freddie Calgary fan site.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Rugger, something like that.”

  I made a mental note. “How long was the new friend hanging out with you guys?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “You like him?”

  “Hell, no. Creepy as hell, if you ask me. Don’t know why Freddie even bothered with him. In fact, I think he’s here in town now. There’s a big nerd convention going on, and he’s, like, the king nerd.”

  “What kind of convention?”

  “Beverly Hills, Eh? convention.”

  “The Disney show Freddie was on?”

  “Right. It was horrible.”

  “Fine. Let’s go back to Freddie’s death, back to the hotel room. What happened after they kicked everyone out of the room?”

  Jordan rubbed his eyes, paused, then said, “The paramedics came next, and they let them in.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then they wheeled Freddie out.”

  “Was he covered?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you didn’t actually see them wheel him out?”

  “No.”

  But there was something in Jordan’s eyes. A confusion. Something that has been haunting him since that moment.

  “Except what?” I said.

  “I didn’t say ‘except.’”

  “You were thinking it.”

  “You’re crazy, Knighthorse.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Someone really hired you to look into Freddie faking his death?”

  “Someone really did.”

  “That’s crazy, too,” he said.

  “Loony,” I added. “So, what aren’t you telling me?”

  He looked at me for a long, long time, and I could literally see him thinking this through. “No, it’s crazy.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Someone called me a few months ago.”

  “From an unknown number,” I said.

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “Freddie’s mother, agent and sister got the same call. Let me guess, the caller didn’t say anything.”

  Jordan nodded, looked away. “Nothing, but I could hear him breathing.”

  “You think it was Freddie?”

  “The thought crossed my mind, especially with all this bullshit that he might still be alive.”

  “Do you think it’s bullshit?”

  He sighed, stood, and looked down at me. “They’re idiots. Tabloids who want to sell papers. Assholes who want to drag a good guy’s name through the mud to make a few bucks, or to get a few hits on YouTube. Especially now.”

  “What do you mean, ‘especially now’?”

  “You haven’t seen the news today?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “That douchebag of an agent of his, Clarence Atkins, just released a statement to the press that he’d hired you to look into Freddie’s death. I heard about it on the drive over here, to meet with you.”

  “Did he now?”

  And just as I asked that question, my phone exploded. Call after call, from unknown numbers. They were, of course, reporters.

  I hate when that happens.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cindy and I were jogging on the beach.

  We did this often, and we did it well. Or, rather, she did it well. I did it with a burning pain in my leg that probably elicited a wince or two. Cindy, on the other hand, who didn’t suffer from an old football injury, bounced easily. Yes, that’s how I categorized her jogging style. Bouncy. Her hair bounced, her butt bounced, her boobs bounced. Although bouncy, she was still very much in control of her body. Elbows tucked in, face forward, breathing evenly, in through her nose, out through her mouth.

  It was the late evening and I had just gotten back from my jaunt into Los Angeles. I had learned much. I had also sat in much traffic. The key to sitting in traffic is to curse the stupid drivers around you and sometimes pound your steering wheel...and sometimes, do both at once. I call it the double whammy. The occasional honk or two helps, too. I’ve never attempted the elusive triple whammy: curse, slam, honk. Maybe someday. Maybe someday...

  Mostly, I had dealt with reporters. I gave a lot of “No comments” answers. And I ignored a lot of calls, too. In fact, my phone was on silent now.

  I said, “Are we going to bounce back to my place?”

  “Bounce?” she said.

  “That’s street slang,” I said.

  “No, it’s not. You’re making fun of my jogging again.”

  “I would never do that.”

  “You would, and you did it maybe twenty minutes ago.”

  “I was a different person twenty minutes ago.”

  She shook her head and shot me a glance. I love being the focus of her considerable glances. We continued along the boardwalk. The crashing surf was to our left. Huntington Beach was to our right, with its many apartments, hotels, restaurants and surfer dudes. Twenty-one years ago, one such surfer dude had followed my mother home and raped her and killed her. The dude’s father, a local homicide detective, had done a fine job of covering it all up. Both were now dead.

  “I think my jogging style is cute,” she said.

  “Perhaps the cutest ever,” I said.

  “And not because I bounce.”

  “Precisely because you bounce,” I said. “And because you’re you.”

  She wanted to be mad. She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Fine. I bounce. I can feel my whole body bounce, okay? But doesn’t everybody bounce?”

  “Not quite like you. You’re special.”

  “Can we change the subject?”

  “Only if we have to.”

  “We have to,” she said, breathing easily, even with all the bouncing. “What’s going on with Freddie Calgary? Still dead?”

  “Getting less dead,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “His mother, sister, agent and best friend all received the same prank call six months ago. All from a blocked number, and all believed they were from Freddie. Or, rather, could have been from Freddie.”

  “D
id the caller say anything?”

  “Only to his agent. He said, ‘Sorry’.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Has he called anyone else?”

  “My guess is, yes. But I still have a few of his ex-girlfriends to work through.”

  Before us, the sun slipped behind the distant horizon, down, seemingly, into the ocean itself. Above, the sky had begun to explode into a handful of colors. Perhaps many handfuls of colors. Who knows? I am, after all, clinically colorblind.

  Cindy looked at me, her jowls literally bouncing. “But how does someone fake his death?”

  “With his notoriety? Very carefully.”

  “You think he paid people off?”

  I nodded even as a particularly painful jolt shot up through my mended leg. “Yeah,” I gasped a little. “I’m almost sure of it. That is, of course, if he faked his death.”

  “A big if.”

  “Maybe the biggest.”

  We continued on, running and bouncing all the way into the setting sun. Or, rather, back to my apartment. And that’s when I got the phone call from Sanchez.

  Bad news for my client.

  Really bad news.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The house was epic.

  It was, officially, twenty times bigger than my apartment. Why a single man needed so much space was beyond me. I said as much to Sanchez.

  “Swinger,” said my friend.

  I nodded as if that explained everything. “The bigger the house, the more naked bodies?”

  “Something like that.”

  We were in Clarence Atkins’s living room, standing off to the side, well away from where the crime scene investigators were photographing the last of the evidence. As the guy with the camera turned in our direction, snapping a series of pictures, I almost did it.

  “Don’t do it,” said Sanchez under his breath.

  “Do what?”

  “Photobomb the crime scene photo.”