The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller by Noreen Ayres Page A

ya like to come up and see me sometime?”
    “I’m supposed to meet Jennifer. To talk about David.”
    “Ah.” I started to ask about David again, but left it there. “Back to the trenches,” I said, and went off to my desk.
    I had an hour before I’d have to leave for the Turtle Rock autopsy. I stacked paper in
Now, Later
, and
Maybe Never
piles, then left the building and went to the morgue, thinking not only of my Does but of the terrible task that Lenore Schaeffer still had to face that day.
    This time I turned right on Flower, taking a different route, and didn’t see pickets outside any other county facilities. I did notice a marquee by bleachers in a small park squished between city buildings announcing a baseball game between county cops and Santa Ana’s finest.
    The autopsy took its course without notable findings, not even a captured projectile that did our Turtle Rock Juan Doe in.
    After work I went shopping for shoes for the wedding the next day, bought some sexy lingerie too, at 60 percent off. If they can sell it and still make a profit at 60 percent off, why not offer it that way to begin with?
    Joe called around seven. If I’d have him, he said, he’d be over. It was ix-nay with Jennifer that night. They’d argued over the phone. I put the shoes away, took a shower, looked twice at my fancy undies, cut the tags off. What’s new duds if not to wear?
    Propped on an elbow, Joe said, “Once upon a time…”
    (He was wearing no clothes.)
    “Yes?”
    (I was wearing no new lingerie.)
    “There was a prince. A mature man, a manly man. Rippling muscles. Steely blue eyes—”
    “This is a comedy, right?”
    Joe kissed my nose. “You want a story, or you taking a deposition?”
    “I’ll behave.”
    In another time, another house, I had a mirror hung by a chain made of large gold links with a red wooden ball on the end. Depending on the company, I’d turn the mirror horizontal, hang it that way. Today there was no mirror, just a semi-settled-down me and a good man sixteen years my senior who was going to tell me a story from his vault of good ones or suffer an unmerciful end.
    “This prince,” he said, “he loved a beautiful maiden.”
    I kissed his hairy arm. “Enough about me. Go on.”
    “End of story.”
    “What kind of story is that? Come on.”
    “The maiden dumped him. Dumped him cold, for a knight with a fancy horse.”
    “The bitch.”
    He swept his hand over the downslope of my waist. A change came into his face, distant, thoughtful. His head wagged on theplatform of his hand. Then he said, “Sorry. Preoccupied. Harold Raimey phoned today. He thinks it was the husband too. We just can’t pin him. But it’s got to be the husband.”
    “Sort of makes you double-think the concept of marriage, doesn’t it? Why’d you stay so long in yours?”
    “There was David.”
    “You’re not supposed to stay for the kids. So say the experts.”
    He kicked off a knot of pine-green sheet. “An expert is a bastard with a briefcase from Boston.”
    “That’s cute.”
    “It’s not original.”
    He grew thoughtful again. “Why’d I stay so long…? Fear and habit. Habit and fear. Not very flattering, is it?”
    “Fear of what?”
    “You name it. The big scene. How much her lawyer would stick me for. Not having anyone to go to the movies with. The in-laws—you get attached. Do you divorce them too? Of course you do. Your friends, the people you work with—you don’t want to explain. It’s embarrassing.” He stroked my hand then said, “There’s another reason I didn’t want to leave. I was afraid some hot young thing would follow me home some night.”
    “It
is
a scary thought,” I said. I studied the architecture of his face, the brow with five lines of latitude, the smile that is his secret weapon, and said, “C’mere,” and kissed him.
    As if on cue, the phone rang. “ ’Scuse me, Monkeytoes. Back in a minute.” I leaned over the bedside and dragged the phone by its