mentioned it, it was usually in connection with some new idea he wanted to try, like these custom parking signs. The lot had twenty-three spaces, thirteen of which belonged to the Pantry and ten to Desert Bowling Arcade. The custom signs were meant to clear up any ambiguity about space, but obviously that hadn’t worked. I turned to Coleman. “What my mom is trying to say is, this is premeditated.”
“I understand what she’s saying,” Coleman said levelly. She opened the manila file folder on the table. “In his affidavit, Mr. Baker states that it was very dark out that night and there is no signal light at the intersection of Highway 62 and Chemehuevi Way. He said he didn’t know it was your father he’d hit until he read about it in the newspaper.”
“Who did he think he hit?”
“A coyote.”
“So he left my father out to die?” I asked. “If it was just an accident,” I said, my voice rising, “then why didn’t he turn himself in right away? Why did he wait until you found him?”
“He said he was worried about losing his license. He lives all the way out in Landers and he needs his car to get to his place of business.”
“That’s a load of bullshit.” I couldn’t tell if Coleman believed Baker’s lies; she gave no verbal hint of her views, and her face retained the careful composure of an experienced investigator. After a moment, I asked, “What are you charging him with?”
“The D.A. makes that decision.”
“Okay. But what are the charges?”
“Felony hit-and-run.”
“That’s it? He killed my dad.” The words came out in a helpless croak. It seemed to me as if the past I had left behind years ago had suddenly come crowding up against me and might choke me if I wasn’t careful. “Do you know,” I said, “I went to high school with Baker’s son, Anderson Junior. A.J., everyone called him. Nasty kid. One time he wrote raghead on my locker.”
My mother turned to me. “When?”
“Sophomore year.”
“You never told me.”
“What would you have done if I had told you?”
Across the table Coleman shifted in her seat. With her thumbnail, she scratched at the scar on her eyebrow. It was an old wound, but the skin still looked pink in places. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice completely different now, “but what happened to you in high school is probably not relevant to this hit-and-run case.”
“What is relevant? The fact that Baker was fighting with my dad?”
“How long has this dispute been going on?” Coleman asked.
I waited for my mother to answer. The truth was, there hadn’t always been a dispute, or whatever it was Coleman wanted to call it. There was a time when we got along. In 2002, when my father had just bought the Pantry, I had gone into the bowling alley with him to meet Anderson Baker. It was just a little after dusk, but already half of the lanes were taken and it seemed they were getting ready for a busy night. Baker was talking to the cash-register clerk, but he turned around when we came in and smiled and shook hands with my father. He had been cordial, then. Distant, but cordial. There had been some talk early on about having food orders delivered to the arcade, but that had never led anywhere and the two businesses kept to themselves. All that changed a few years later.
“Since we expanded the restaurant,” my mother said quietly.
“What happened was,” I said, “a writer for Los Angeles Magazine came out here to do a feature about Joshua Tree, and she included the Pantry in her write-up. The article had a picture of my dad pouring coffee for a customer, and the restaurant quickly got popular with tourists. My dad ended up buying the little dry cleaner’s shop next door, and he got the three parking spaces that came with it, too. I guess that’s when the trouble with Baker started. Right, Mom? When he expanded.”
“All right,” Coleman said, “I will look into it. But I should also mention that Mr.