The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller Read Online Free Page A

wipe milkshake off consoles and road-tar off wheel covers.
    I thought of the victim in Technology Park, of healthy size and youthful years. Who would miss him? What woman did not yet know he was gone? I thought about the endless chain of grief until I tired of thinking about it and walked over and got a drink of water and read the bulletin board.
    It was almost five when I got home and climbed the outside stairs to my condo overlooking Newport Bay. The sun was painting the bluffs gold, while the water lay black and still as an oil spill.
    My guinea pig in the laundry room whistled for attention. “Just a minute, baby,” I called. The phone was ringing too.
    Joe was on the line. “So what’d you think? He’s a hunk, wouldn’t you say?” His voice carried post-parade effects.
    “Definitely starter material,” I said.
    “Damn tootin’. Takes after his dad.”
    “You’re going to feel terrible in the morning.”
    “Hey, doll, how’d you like to meet me at The Quiet Woman?”
    “That might be good.”
    At that, he said, “I’m thinking of taking some vacation.”
    “Did I hear right? If you cashed in
all
your accumulated days you could take off permanently.”
    “Take tomorrow off with me.”
    “I’ve got half a dozen cases I should be working on,” I said. “The Doe this morning doesn’t help any.”
    “What’d you tell me about that, again?”
    “Later. I’ve got to feed my guinea pig. If you can, amidst all that fun you’ll be having, call me tomorrow.”
    “Okay. Goodnight. Tomorrow.”
    Stu had left a message on my desk to come see him first thing. We had another unidentified gunshot victim.
    “Find us something on this one, Brandon,” he said, looking up over his glasses from his desk. “Two Does, two days. Not good. And I don’t want to hear ‘I’ll do my best.’ Best isn’t good enough. Find something.”
    I didn’t mind working for Stu, but he’d been an administrator too long. At six a.m. his shirtsleeves were already rolled. His desktop was a picture of perfect geometry, papers stacked squarely, pencils parallel.
    “Homicide on this is Boyd Russell. Maybe I’ll send Sanders out. You want Joe? I’ll see if he’s free.” He reached for the phone.
    “Joe’s taking a vacation day.” Stu gave me a look as if that were impossible. Stu, about Joe’s age, pegged me as still a rookie though I’d been in the lab seven years and had logged two earlier in uniform in Oakland. “I’m thinking about a day off myself, maybe Friday?”
    “Is it necessary?”
    “Stu, I’ve had one day off in eleven.”
    “‘Can’t stand the heat’…” he said.
    “Isn’t there a policy on that, so many days in a row?”
    “For women. You want to call that in?”
    “No.”
    “Bring me something on this Doe and we’ll see.”
    “Stu, you’re all heart,” I said. He believed I meant it.
    The higher I drove, the bigger the mansions became.
    Nellie Gail is a hilly subdivision in the city of Laguna Hills, a few miles south of Irvine. Homes there run worthy of a Kennedyclan. Streets are not streets but “parkways” and “avenidas”; they intersect with rounded corners. Backyards spill in long slopes and in them are classy swimming pools and rows of fruit trees and corrals draped with bougainvillea in blazing salmon, pink, and magenta. The horses wear crisp green fly-masks as they munch from grain buckets and flick their wiry tails. Goats stand stiff-legged, chickens pose on boulders, and black sheep swing their lower jaws nonchalantly over fresh alfalfa spears. Another world here than the one in downtown Santa Ana, central county; another world entirely.
    I pulled up to Gallup Circle across from a park. It was misty, no sun out today, promoting the smell of camphor from the many eucalyptus trees. Carnival trees, Ray Vega calls them. “Carnival trees,” he says: “U-clipped-us.” Three nannies, in colored sweaters over white uniforms tending children on the playset, turned their