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

cord over the carpet from where I’d set it to make room for our drinks. It unplugged at the base. Holding up the end, I said, “With one swift move, the whole world disconnects.”
    “It should
be
that easy,” Joe said. He was sitting up now.
    When I plugged back in, the phone rang again. “Mama Corleone’s Pizza,” I said.
    There was a pause, then a hesitant male voice. “This is Dave Sanders. Is my dad there?”
    “Just a sec.” Handing the phone over, I mouthed, “It’s your son.” David had never called my house before.
    “Did I overstay my curfew?” Joe asked. He listened a while, then said, “Ten-thirty, eleven. Why? Is something wrong? I can be home earlier. You want to meet me at the apartment?”
    “Go,” I whispered, handing him his shirt.
    He said into the phone, “I can be home in five minutes. Okay. Later, son.” Handing me back the phone, Joe silently pulled on his shirt, shorts, jeans. Zipped, thought a moment, then said, “Now that was strange.”
    I fixed a cup of weak tea and went to say hello to Motorboat. He lay in cool moonlight, stretched long and comfy on his pine chips, eyes burning bright: the Thing That Never Sleeps.
    “Chum,” I said, “how you?” I lifted the cage lid and ran a finger and thumb along his soft log of a body. “
You
stay up all night thinking. What good’s it do? Do you have any answers for me? Hm? No answers, not one.”

ELEVEN

    W e went to the wedding that was also an excuse for a bunch of cop-types to get silly and rude. The hearse was parked outside when I arrived. It had purple lights on the back fenders and a pink-and-black JUST MARRIED sign anchored front and back. Joe was standing beside it waiting for me. I told him he looked snazzy.
    “Snazzy? You look pretty snazzy yourself.”
    It was the first time I’d worn a dress in months: dusky pink.
    We had talked earlier about what happened last night with his son, but Joe brought it up again. Joe said, “Maybe I’ve installed a hyper-conscience in my kid. Just by being around Greg he figures he’s a criminal. This is the guy who’s taking stuff off the Internet that I guess isn’t licensed to him or something.”
    “I remember,” I said. “And it certainly is illicit.”
    “Yeah, I know, but it’s not murder,” he said.
    People in the house were leaning out the front window waving and calling to us to come in. “Looks like we better,” Joe said, and bounced ahead.
    “Where’s Ray?” I asked.
    “Flirting with the sweetheart he brought.”
    “Is it the stripper?”
    “What stripper?”
    “You don’t want to know,” I said.
    Inside, the minister said we’d have a five-minute rehearsal in one of the bedrooms, and that brought a lot of catcalls from some of the wild partyers already blitzed from brews stashed in a coffinof Ray Vega’s creation, lined with a shower curtain patterned with rotund naked women. On the top he had burned the words:
Ray’s Dead-Drunk Liquor Store
.
    The poor minister kept stroking his hair off his forehead and looking around as if he hoped he’d never have a need for the protection of anyone from Orange County law enforcement. When the ceremony and dining was over Ray made sure the man of God had a brew tucked in his pocket before he saw him out the door.
    The bride’s father convinced the couple to take his Lincoln instead of the hearse. Those of us who weren’t shrieking in the hot-tub out back transferred signs and streamers while the couple stood in the kitchen with the parents, receiving sage advice.
    Now Joe and Ray and I and a county sergeant named Gary Svoboda were ferrying the hearse to the ocean, three of us grinning like pigs on sour pears. Ray and I were in the back, Joe and Gary in the front. Ray sat on the floor of the hearse with his legs drawn up, his ivory jacket gleaming like a molar. I lay on the casket, bony knees hanging over the end. When our driver took a quick turn at the last light leading to the Dana Point marina, the melted