If I had to guess, I would say he was stalking them.
26.
The sun had set and the ocean was black and eternal. We were running along the hard-packed sand, passing cuddling lovers who really ought to have gotten a room. There was a dog loose on the beach and I called it over. It followed us briefly, then veered off to chase a hot dog wrapper skimming over the sand. It was humbling to know that we were less interesting than trash.
“So how are you holding up?” Cindy asked. Her breathing was easy and smooth. She kept pace with me stride for stride.
“My leg?” I asked.
“That and the news about your mother.”
“Well, running on sand is a good thing, easy on the leg. As far as my mother,” I paused, shrugging. Because I was wearing a nylon coach’s jacket, I doubted Cindy could see me shrug, especially in the dark. “I don’t know. All I have are a series of pictures featuring a young man who seemed to have taken an inordinate amount of interest in my parents.”
“On the day she was murdered.”
“Yes.”
We were running along an empty stretch of sand now, no lovers or wandering dogs. We were alone with the crashing waves and the black sky. The moon was nowhere to be found; then again, I wasn’t looking very hard for it.
“Why did your father give you the pictures now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he keeping them from you for any reason?”
“I don’t know.”
I was favoring my bad leg, but that was nothing new. Based on the angle and depth of my shoeprints in the sand, a good detective could probably deduce that I had once broken my right leg.
“So what are you going to?”
“There’s only one thing to do.”
“You’re going to look into your mother’s murder.”
I nodded. “It’s something I have always known I would do.”
“But you weren’t ready yet.”
“No.”
“Are you ready now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has your father looked into her murder?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We have never discussed it.”
“I think, maybe, it’s time that you do.”
27.
I was alone in my car overlooking the ocean. I was in a turn-off above the Pacific Coast Highway. Below me was a straight drop of about five hundred feet. My engine was running.
With no leads, my mother’s case had been closed. It seemed like another random killing. There had been no sign of sexual trauma, and there were no fingerprints, or blood, other than my mother’s. My mother had no known enemies. The only person on the face of the earth that even remotely resented her was my own father. The source of his resentment was me, of course, but we had been together at the time of her murder.
My mother had no family. No brothers or sisters, and both parents were dead. She had only a handful of acquaintances in our neighborhood. In all reality, I was her only family, her only friend, her one true love.
She used to call me her little angel.
I gripped the steering wheel. The leather groaned in my hands. I could hear the blood pounding in my skull. I fought to control my breathing.
After her funeral, she had been all but forgotten. By the police, by her friends, the media, and even her own lackluster husband. She had been forgotten by everyone accept me.
I care that you were killed. I care that someone stole your life and cut your throat and hurt you so very badly. I care that you were taken from this earth before your time. I care that you felt the fear of death, the pain of the knife, the hot breath of your killer on your neck. You have not been forgotten, and your little angel is not so little any more.
This was going to take time, I knew. The case was cold. I would investigate it on the side, around my paying work. There was no reason to rush. It’s been twenty years, and no one was going anywhere.
28.
The next morning, Sanchez and I were at Cal State Fullerton’s defunct football field. The school had spent millions on a fashionable new stadium, hoping to lure big name schools to compete against their smaller program, and then mysteriously decided to pull the plug on football altogether a year later. I sensed a conspiracy.
Still, the bleachers were massive and made for an invigorating stadium workout. It was also hell on my leg. The pain was relentless and disheartening. I was accustomed to my body working through kinks of pain. But this was no kink. This was a pain that encompassed the entire leg. It was a pain that registered in my brain as something very wrong, and that perhaps I should stop doing stadiums.
I didn’t stop.
I was determined.
Football is all about learning how to live and deal with the pain. Football was in my blood. My father played in college, but he was too small for the pros. I am not too small. I am just right.
Sanchez followed me as we wended our way up and down the narrow concrete stairways between the bleachers. We had been doing this steadily now for thirty-two minutes. I was soaked to the bone. Sanchez had a minor sweat ring around his shirt collar.
The man was a camel.
At thirty-five minutes, my target time, I stopped at the top of the bleachers, gasping for air. Sanchez pulled up next to me, gasping, I was pleased to hear, even louder.
“You need a respirator?” I asked.
“You need a towel?”
We both had our hands on our hips, both wheezing. I had done perhaps ten minutes more than my leg could handle. It was throbbing alarmingly. I tried to ignore it.
We had a great view of Cal State Fullerton’s sports complex. I could see the baseball field, built by Kevin Costner, an alumnus of Cal State Fullerton and a hell of a fan and athlete in his own right. Baseball was this little-known university’s pride and joy, having won three national championships.
Baseball wasn’t a bad sport.
It just wasn’t football.
I told Sanchez about Dick Peterson and his daughters. For now, I left news about my mother to myself.
“So you want me to bust this guy?” asked Sanchez when he finally found his wind. “Dick who’s-this.”
“That would make it worse,” I said. “He’ll just come back more angry than ever.”
“You think he could have killed his own daughter?”
I shrugged. “Anyone who terrifies the youngest one to the point she loses control of her bladder might be capable of doing anything. But he didn’t kill her. He was with his wife; they were eating dinner together at the time of the murder.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Talk with the older daughter. Confirm my suspicions.”
“And then what?”
The pain in my leg did not subside. It was a constant force. A reminder of what I had lost. But I decided to view it as my one and only obstacle to achieving my goal. It was the only thing standing in my way to becoming what I most wanted. At least, I thought it was what I most wanted. Sometimes the pain made me waver. I hated wavering.
“I will convince him to stop his nefarious ways,” I said.
“Nefarious,” said Sanchez. “Shit. You’ve been reading too much.”
We walked down the bleachers. I could have used a handrail, to be honest.
Sanchez said, “You sure this is all worth it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in pain.”
“I thought I could hide the pain.”