Chapter Thirty-five

I was parked two rows down from Cindy's Jetta with a clear view of the walkway down from the east side of campus. Without a Staff Parking permit, I was risking a ticket.

The night was young and I was hunkered low in my seat. I am six foot four, so hunkering is difficult. On the floor between my feet was a six pack of Bud Light.

I drank the first beer.

Clouds obscured the night sky. The wind was picking up, blustering through my open windows, bringing with it the metallic scent of imminent rain. Students drifted in and out of the parking lot, using it as a sort of shortcut into campus.

Like a chain smoker, I finished beer number two, started on three. Drinking in the car...not exactly a role model for today's youth.

A light drizzle began to fall, turning the dust on my windshield into a thin film of muck. The drizzle turned into something more than a drizzle, although I wasn't sure what that might be. Heavy drizzle? In southern California we don't have many words for rain. We do, however, have nine different words for tan.

My windshield morphed into a surreal canvas as splattering raindrops fused with parking lot lights. Living art.

Which reminded me. I hadn't painted in a while. Maybe I should. Except lately I didn't feel much like painting. Instead, I felt like getting drunk every second of every day.

I opened beer number four. Two left. I considered getting more. Really considered it, but that would mean leaving the parking lot. Leaving Cindy's car unattended. Derelict in my duties as boyfriend and bodyguard. And driving with a heavy buzz probably wasn't a great idea.

Still, another six-pack sounded good. Too good.

Shit.

I needed to find my mother's killer. I needed to catch him, and I needed to serve justice, and I needed closure. No kid should find his mother dead. No kid should have to see what I saw.

It's a wonder I'm not more fucked up.

Hell, after what I've been through, I should be allowed to drink as much as I want. Maybe I would talk to Cindy about that.

Or not.

Chapter Thirty-six

An hour after my last beer, an hour in which I spent debating getting more, I saw a shape emerge from the oak trees lining the parking lot. The shape was holding something heavy.

I sat up a little in my seat, blinking through my mild buzz, trying to focus on the stumbling figure, which, I was certain, was a small woman.

She was dressed in black and wore a wool cap. She paused momentarily behind the rounded fender of a newer-style VW Bug and waited for a student at the far end of the parking lot to move on.

Once done, she crept forward again, passing in front of my Mustang, where I had a good look at her. Dark hair pulled tightly back. Straight bangs. Eyebrows in bad need of plucking. She was carrying what appeared to be a full paint can.

Her name, I knew, was Jolene Funkmeyer.

I scanned the surrounding parking lot, looking for her male accomplice but didn't see anyone suspicious. Maybe tonight she was going solo. Taking some stalking initiative.

She kept to the shadows, as any good stalker should, and moved quickly from car to car. By my best calculations, she was heading towards Cindy's sporty red Jetta, which was parked directly beneath one of the parking lot lights.

Funkmeyer hovered at the perimeter of the light, momentarily confused. Like a vampire witnessing the sun after a long night out raising hell. Finally, mustering some inner stalking courage, she stepped forward into the light and promptly tossed the contents of the paint can across the hood of Cindy's Jetta. Bright yellow splashed everywhere, even onto some of the other cars.

Then she bent over the hood and feverishly began finger-painting. Tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth. As she did so, working her way around the hood of the Jetta, I called the campus police.

I hung up and waited. The figure in black continued writing. Her face gleamed wet in the drizzling rain. Her thighs were now covered in yellow paint. Still she wrote. Perhaps she was writing her dissertation. Her face was mostly hidden, but I could see that her hair wasn't entirely black; it was also streaked with gray.

As she wrote, she looked up occasionally to scan the parking lot. Luckily, she was alone. Or thought she was alone.

She continued her magnum opus.

I watched.

Just keep writing, darling.

Movement beyond the oak trees. I looked up. Bounding along a narrow path was a three-wheeled campus security vehicle, packed with police officers. Like a scene from the Keystone Cops. Either they were here for the vandal, or someone had lost a stray golf ball.

In an explosion of grass and twigs, the vehicle burst over a curb and into the faculty parking lot, a powerful beam swept across the hoods of the car. Like a deer caught in headlights, Funkmeyer froze in mid-scrawl and looked up. Her mouth dropped open. Then she tried to go a couple different directions at once, finally decided on one, and dashed through a row of cars and into the night. As she ran, her hands flashed yellow. Like a beacon.

The campus police made a hard right and gave chase, cutting across a connecting swath of grass. I watched until everyone disappeared from view around the performing arts building.

I stepped out of my car and walked over to Cindy's Jetta. The woman had made quite a mess of things. I read her surprisingly neat writing:

Darwin was wrong. You live a lie. You will burn in hell.

I went back to my car, resuming my vigil.

One stalker down, one to go.