The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller

by Noreen Ayres

  “And cheese,” Joe said.

  “For that, you run these others alone. I’m going to get my notes.” Before I got ten steps, I came back. “Joe, Marconi’s in Technology Park. There are no residential streets there, no houses at all. That street does not run out of the park.”

  “Three-four-five-six-seven. We been had.” Joe’s face grew thoughtful. “This is on the Doe at Turtle Rock,” he said, for confirmation.

  “Right.”

  “Your Doe on Sunday was at Technology Park.”

  “Right.”

  “It would seem we have a connection, if we strain hard enough,” he said.

  I sat back down. “Let’s do these others.”

  The computer was speedier now, for no reason we knew. Prints on the foil condom packets and coffee bag proved to be Cordillo’s also, two others unidentified. I told Joe he could call Linda Givens with the news if he liked. He said, “Ohboy, ohboy.”

  We went our separate ways for lunch. About three, Dr. Schaeffer called to say she needed tox results for the Technology Park Doe to complete her report; she couldn’t reach our chief tox guy. I said I’d see if I could send it over and mentioned our fingerprint findings. Along the way in the conversation, her voice fell, and she said, “I have to do a baby.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, and wondered why she was telling me this and why she was reacting that way; she’s an experienced pro. Then she said it was her nephew and the parents begged for her to do it if anyone had to. “Say, Smokey? I’m wondering if you have a few minutes to maybe go have a drink sometime?”

  That surprised me. We were friendly acquaintances, not friends, but I guess you have to start somewhere. I had an edgy feeling all the same. It felt like Trudy Kunitz all over again. People in pain, but their trouble, not mine. I’d heard of the concept of OPM: Other People’s Money. You invest funds, build interest that’s paid to you from other people’s money. I came to develop one of my own: OPT, for Other People’s Troubles. Usually I tried to keep their tales in a non-interest-bearing account so they wouldn’t pile onto my own and sink the whole thing at an unexpected moment. But I could afford to be generous.

  I was picturing her the way she usually was: a confident woman wearing her tasteful but definite diamonds while tending to the dead. Now here was a fragility so aching it seemed to quiver on the line, and a thought came to me from a book I read once by Nicolas Freeling saying that any woman is four or five women. “Lenore?” I said. “Say the word.”

  We met in the bar of an upscale sports bar with green ferns, glowing wood, etched glass, and guys scoping for women.

  She said, “I had a case today with a guy’s eyes blown clear out of his head. We think it was one of those Hydra-Shok bullets. Sometimes it kind of gets to you, you know?”

  I’d seen the effects of those rounds on a gallon jug of water. “Do me a favor,” I said, “don’t tell me it was a Hispanic Doe.”

  “No, a Cauc. They’ve already made an arrest. Are you guys thinking you have a serial killer?”

  “Anything’s up for grabs at this point.”

  “Well, just remember Jack the Ripper did his jobs on six people in three months and then he was never heard from again. Maybe that will happen on these.”

  I laughed and said, “Looks like we’re all getting a little desperate for answers, uh?”

  We stayed and ate and gabbed and then, when she was feeling the glow from two good scotches, I took her to a dive not far from Newport that has a small band called Dead Heroes. In a parking lot full of shadows, she asked if I was sure this was the place to be. I grinned and said of course it was. She kept bumping into my shoulder as we walked up the wooden pathway, while looking over hers. We passed 250 pounds of square meat who only said, “Good evening, ladies.”

  Inside, Lenore lit up the room with her bright pink suit, while I lay low in my dark jacket over a pale gray top. She drank a Stohle from the bottle and said, “Richard said he’d never date a woman who drank straight out of the bottle.”

  “Well, it’s sure a damn good thing Richard’s not here looking to get a date then, isn’t it?”

  “Damn right,” she said, and took a slug.

  The band was playing a not-bad rendition of “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” In a while she whispered, “Do you think it’s safe to go to the john?”

  “I think it’s safe.”

  “Where’s it at?” she said, looking around. I pointed to the alcove and she slid off the stool and managed the course across the floor. When she came back she seemed refreshed and even a little more sober. We stayed while she told me about her growing-up years and I told her some about mine. We took girl-guesses about the assistant she liked at the morgue, and we stayed until the bandleader gave his Roy Orbison mimicry of “Pretty Woman,” then Lenore began to feel queasy and I took her home.

  I said goodbye after promising to stop by in the morning so we could get her car. Then I went home to my dark house and chirping guinea pig, who scolded me harshly for leaving him again. When I bent close, he ran from the smell of Other People’s Smoke in my hair.

  TEN

  Mist hung in the valley as I took Jamboree down to I-5, getting my speed up on a long stretch between fields where beans, cabbage, and every kind of pepper grow. Deep in the fields, white-shirted pickers—rasperos—were already bent low in the rows.

  Had one of the Does labored there? What about Little Crane? Had she worked the fields before going to the garment factory? Had she looked at the profiles of massive, Spanish-style homes everywhere in this valley and wondered how so many, so very many people, could own them?

  In the distance loomed the two largest free-standing wooden structures in the world, hangars built in the Second World War and covered in tin when steel was in short supply. They used to hold as many as six blimps in their bellies. Through their huge open doors clouds sneak in and drop rain inside.

  Lenore was with me. We were headed to pick up her car. She asked me if I intended to stay in this work a long time.

  “I have to hang around,” I said, “just to piss off my boss.”

  She smiled and said, “Well, I guess you could always take up a sideline selling Rubbermaid products.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You know what they’re calling you, don’t you? The Rubber-maid, darling. They’re calling you The Rubbermaid, because of the condoms you found.”

  “I’ll kill ’em!” I said, narrowly missing a car that cut into my lane. I flanked to the third lane and pinned the horn, while the guy stared stonily ahead.

  Lenore rolled down her window and shot him the finger, then looked at me with wicked triumph in her eyes.

  “Why, Doctor,” I said.

  “The jerk,” she said.

  I let her off at her car and went on to the lab, passing by a handful of pickets outside sheriff’s headquarters. I couldn’t read the signs because the traffic lights were in my favor.

  Joe saw me bustling in as he was coming out of the coffee room and said, “Banker’s hours.”

  “What are you, my spy?”

  He tried to sip his hot coffee. “I’ve got meetings all morning.”

  “What do you think would happen if we called a moratorium on them?” I said. “Just say No More Meetings, and never go?”

  “The world would implode,” he said.

  “I saw pickets down the street. Know what that’s about?”

  “No idea,” he said.

  I looked at him there, handsome in his blue shirt and said, “Hey, big fella, how’d 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 the platform 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 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

  We 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 coffin of 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 ice in the liquor store beneath me sloshed.

  “Whoa, little dogie,” Ray cried, and looked about to retch.

  “I oughta dump the whole lot o’ ya in the ocean,” Gary said, his beefy hands clamped on the steering wheel, gunfighter mustache twitching.

  In a convertible next to us, two guys wearing ball caps were looking our way. One of them said, “What the hell is that?” Ra
y put his face to the window and gave them a dead man’s stare.

  Gary stopped the bus at the top of the bluff for a breathtaking view of the 2,500-slip harbor, then drove a few blocks over to a three-tiered, tailored park with a winding path and a gazebo looking over the Pacific.

  We piled out, walked to the gazebo, and gazed down on the mile-long breakwater and a replica of the Pilgrim, the stately, two-masted square rigger used by hide-harvester Richard Henry Dana.

  The ocean was shearing its first slice from the bottom of the sun. The world looked more beautiful than any of us deserved.

  Ray said, “Why didn’t we get married here?”

  “You didn’t get married,” I said.

  “Oh thank God!” He looked at his white jacket, the front, the sleeves, and grinned. “Saved again!”

  Then, for some reason inexplicable except to drunks, we all grew quiet. A para-sailor came floating in, slitting the skin of water. The red chute eased down above him, while farther out, a handful of white sails saw-toothed the horizon.

  The hush of the sea, the gliding gulls, the mansions inland with their windows beginning to light from within, all this was too good to leave just yet. We went to sit on the grass among the tiny grass-daisies as the evening drew on and the colors palled and the diminishing scent of Gary’s shaving lotion roped us together. Gary, solemn Gary, gave in and told a joke that didn’t go over, but we laughed anyway. After a while, Joe took his jacket off and wrapped it on my shoulders. In another moment, he said to Ray and Gary, “A couple of blocks over, a man killed his wife while walking on one of these bluffs.”

  “Always on the job, that Joe,” I said softly, and took his hand and bit his palm a little.

  “Hey, you buttheads, we don’t want to talk about work, do we?” Ray said.

  I shoved a bare foot at him. He fended it off, leaned back, closed his eyes, and sang a pensive Willie Nelson about when the evenin’ sun goes down, it’s the night life, not the right life, but it’s his life. Joe hummed too, and Gary, his eyes focused on the green-gray sea, nodded along to the tune.