Unfinished Business

By Jon Hargrove

When high school student Derrick Booker, the only black student at a posh Orange County high school, is accused of killing his white girlfriend, ex-college football hero and detective Jim Knighthorse is hired to dig a little deeper into the murder.

It doesn’t take long for Knighthorse to realize that not all is as it seems at Huntington High—a band director who preys on the innocent and a vice-principal with a secret agenda of her own.

Not to mention someone’s hired a professional killer to keep Knighthorse permanently off the case.

And will his already strained relationship to Cindy Darwin, a professor of anthropology who just happens to be related to the real Charles Darwin, survive his decision to return to football?

About the Author

Jon Hargrove

Jon Hargrove is a graduate of California State University at Fullerton, where he received his BA in anthropology. After working nine years as an insurance claims investigator, he has recently applied for his Washington state P.I. license. He currently lives in Seattle, Washington.

Excerpt

     I heard the door open, and when I looked up the Browning 9mm was pointed at my head. I hate it when that happens.

     "Can I help you?" I asked.

     "Shut up, fuck nut."

     "Fuck nut. The one nut Home Depot doesn’t carry."

     The man was probably in his fifties, gray hair sleeked back with a lot of gel. He wore a gold hoop in his left ear, pirate-like. Indeed, in his misspent youth he probably always wanted to be a pirate or a buccaneer, only I didn’t really know the difference between the two. Had it been fashionable, he would have worn a patch over his eye. His face, all in all, was hideous, heavily pock-marked, sunken and sallow.

     "What’s the difference between a pirate and a buccaneer?" I asked.

     "Shut the fuck up."

     "I don’t know either. Nothing to be ashamed of."

     His eyes, for all intents and purposes, were dead. Lifeless. Ceaseless of sympathy or compassion or caring. The eyes of a killer, rapist, suicidal bomber, genocidal dictator. His eyes made me nervous, to say the least. Eyes like that were capable of anything. Anything. They kill your family, your babies, your children, your husband and wives. I only knew one other man who had eyes like that, and he was my father.

     The Browning never wavered from my face. "You’re working on a case," the man said.

     "I’m working on a few cases. It’s what I do. See that filing cabinet behind me, it’s full of pending cases. The shelf on the bottom is full of my closed cases."

     There was a heavy silence.

     "You’re going to call me a fuck nut again aren’t you?" I said. "It feels like a fuck nut moment, doesn’t it?"

     He pulled the trigger. My ear exploded with pain. I tried not to flinch, although I might have, dammit. If he had chosen that moment to call me a fuck nut I might have missed it, due to the excessive ringing in my head.

     The bullet had punctured a picture frame behind me. I heard the glass tinkling down. I did not know yet which picture it had been, although it would have been one of the featured articles about yours truly.

     That’s when I felt something drip onto my shoulder. I touched my ear. Blood. The bullet grazed my lobe.

     "You shot me," I said.

     "We want you off the Derrick Booker case," he said. "Or the next shot won’t miss."

     "But you didn’t miss. You shot my earlobe. Get it straight."

     "I heard you would be a smart ass."

     "Sometimes I am a smart ass. Now I’m just pissed. You shot me."

     "We meet again and I kill you."

     "You shot me," I said. "We meet again and I owe you one."

     He grinned and proceeded to shoot out five or six framed pictures behind me. I didn’t move. The cacophony of tinkling glass and resounding gunshots filled my head and office.

     He pointed the gun at my forehead and said, "Bang, fuck nut."

     He backed out of my office and shut the door.

     And I went back to my playbook. My ear stung.

     The fuck nut.