I was in my father’s immaculate office in downtown Los Angeles.
My father was easily six inches shorter than me, but looked twice as mean. Or twice as psychotic. People talk about dead eyes. My father had them. Or they talk about glassy eyes. My father had those, too. Mostly, there was nothing behind them. They were devoid of any warmth or friendliness. Mostly, though, they were devoid of compassion. These were the eyes that looked down upon you from the chopping block or the gallows or, in his case, stared at you from behind a sniper’s telescopic lens. If someone were to tell me that my father was a serial killer, I wouldn’t blink twice.
I know, I couldn’t be prouder.
But you don’t pick your father, right? Mine just happened to be a sneeze away from a nationwide killing spree.
For now, though, he ran one of the biggest P.I. agencies in Los Angeles. The original Knighthorse Investigations. My agency, to be clear, was called Jim Knighthorse Investigations. A subtle, yet, important difference.
My father sat behind his desk, staring at me. Even when blinking, he still appeared to be staring. My father never seemed to master the social protocol of not looking too hard or too long at his subjects.
“ What can I do for you, Jim?”
“ I’m here for our weekly, father/son get-together.”
“ We don’t have a weekly father/son get-together.”
“ You think?”
“ You’re being facetious.”
“ I’m being something.”
“ What can I do for you, Jim?” he asked again.
“ I’m here about Mom’s murder.”
He nodded. No expression. Nothing. I could have said that I was here to sell him a subscription to Psychopath Today. I fought to control myself. I knew this about my dad. His lack of empathy was nothing new. One percent of the world’s population are certified psychopaths. I was looking at one of them.
“ I think I know who killed her,” I said.
Still no reaction, although he did cock his head slightly to one side. For my father, that was the equivalent of a “Holy shit!”.
“ And who do you think it is?” he asked.
I told him about the age-progression photo experiment I had done, and about how the man in the photograph greatly resembled the lead homicide investigator’s son.
“ Did you run a background check on him?”
“ Two sexual assaults that were dropped.”
“ Dropped why?”
“ No clue.”
“ I’ll look into for you,” he said. “I’ve got friends at the DA’s office.”
“ Thanks,” I said.
“ What are the dates of the assaults?”
“ Bookended around Mom’s murder.”
“ A pattern of violence.”
You should know, I thought.
Instead, I said, “My thoughts, too.”
“ Could have been a coincidence that the father got the case.”
“ Or not,” I said.
“ The father somehow knew about the crime?”
“ Maybe,” I said. “Hard to know at this point.”
“ So what’s your next step?”
“ I figure it’s time to talk to him.”