J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“The magazines suggest a sexual-” Curzon finally settled on, “-intent. But there’s no other evidence to support that assumption. No pertinent body fluids. Guy had his clothes on. In fact, those clothes he was wearing? The pants don’t even have a fly.”

“How…awkward for him.”

Curzon acknowledged this with a tip of his beer. “Exactly. On the other hand, judging by the time of death, and the mud on the sides of the box, he had to have been standing out there a while. Probably standing up on the boxes for a while. Looking at pictures, maybe? We don’t know.” He shook his head.

Weirdness.

“Trying to get up his courage?” Was courage what it took to face that moment?

“Possibly,” Curzon answered vaguely. “Guy was no Boy Scout. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to tie the knot.” That thought generated a frown and shrug. “On the other hand-how many hands is that now?-there was no note.”

Another indication of autoerotic asphyxiation, according to Dr. Graham.

I shook my head. “Contradictory evidence.”

“You got it.” Curzon sounded stoical, in a pissed-off sort of way.

“Any other witnesses,” I asked as casually as I could manage, “besides the phone tip?”

“No.” He turned to face me and consider the possibilities my question suggested. “None.”

I nodded, ah.

“You’d report any pertinent information to the proper authorities, wouldn’t you, Maddy O’Hara?”

The use of my whole name-a sure sign of trouble.

“Of course I would, Sheriff Curzon.”

He smiled and the glow in those eyes understood exactly how little we really knew of each other. “I see you brought your boy along today.” He wasn’t looking at Ainsley; he was looking at me.

Ainsley was thick into the game of touch football with the underage Curzons. The females seemed to be tackling him whether he had the ball or not.

“I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Not at all,” he assured me. Eyes still trained on the game, he added, “I’m glad.”

“Gives the kids someone to play with?”

Curzon smiled as a gang of mostly girls brought Ainsley down again. The boy stood up and shook himself off when Marcus Wilt called out a hello. Ainsley ran a couple of loping steps that direction and shook hello, all charm. PK-politician’s kid-probably knew three quarters of the people in town. Beside me, Curzon tensed.

The kids called Ainsley back to the game.

“I’d say the fact you brought your escort looks good for me.”

“Don’t hold your breath, Sheriff.”

“Jack,” he said.

“What?”

“Jack Curzon. It’s my name. You’re a guest in my father’s house, eating my mother’s food. Drinking her-” he curled his lip and pointed at my glass, “-drink. You ought to be calling me Jack…”

“How about I call you jack-”

“…not to mention the fact, I’m about to get familiar with you.”

Without so much as a glance in my direction, I felt his hand shift from my elbow, to my waist, to the small of my back. The cold of the wall behind me was suddenly replaced with the heat of his palm.

Jenny squealed with laughter as she went down under a pig-pile of ballplayers.

All those painkillers on board, I should have had no trouble staying cool. Numb, even. “Uh,” was the best I could do.

Lame. Maybe lemonade beer was stronger than I thought.

That spot of warmth quickly slipped lower, tucking under the hem of my blouse. Skin to skin at the small of my back, warm became hot. All the blood left my head.

I hissed, side-stepped away from him with my bad leg, and sang a stinging little song of the profane.

Curzon grabbed my arm when I bobbled. “Whoa. What’s the problem?”

“Your town’s full of crazy-fucking drivers is what.” I backed out of his grip and boosted my butt up onto the concrete wall. Gingerly, I swung my leg up in front of me and hiked up the split cuff of my capris. The white patch of bandage sported a brown stain that I hoped was peroxide. I decided not to peel it back and check.

“How’d that happen?”

I grumbled out the short version of my brush with the SUV.

“You report it?” he asked in the work voice.

“No. Are you kidding? Not that big a deal. Besides, the emergency room ate up my free time. I had to get to this swell party.”

“Come in tomorrow and fill out a complaint.” It wasn’t an order; orders presuppose a future compliant will. This was more like old news. A done deal.

“Why bother?” I snapped. “You people couldn’t catch the guy when the victim was all the way dead.”

Oops. Where did that come from?

“And how is that conflict of interest going?” he replied smoothly.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “That came out rougher than I meant. Blame the Vicodin.”

Both his eyebrows lifted. He was working to manage no smile. God help me, if he laughed.

“Legal, totally legal,” I said. “Twelve stitches under there.”

Curzon had that cop way with his hands, momentum held in check that could suddenly turn physical. He took hold of my calf, and before I could think to stop him, he’d carefully extended the knee for closer inspection. “Hmm. Looks like what you need is somebody to kiss it better.”

His hands were a good five degrees warmer than my leg. When he leaned forward, the air around us moved and I caught a clear whiff of him, all boy and healthy sweat.

Perched on top of the wall where I was, it was obvious the rest of the Curzon clan had a good view of this exchange.

I know everybody has more than one reason for doing anything. But sometimes the best way to get along is to concentrate on one motive at a time. Maybe this little show was nothing personal. Maybe Jack Curzon was laying down a cover of suitable female interest. He might not wiggle all the way off the hook, but his nana would quit harassing him about his post-divorce solitude as long as he was busy elsewhere.

On those grounds, I could play along.

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. “In fact, why don’t you start by sucking that foot clean? I had a little trouble reaching down so far in the shower this morning.”

It was my favorite type of man-eater reply, perfectly suited to discouraging barely legal soldier boys who hadn’t even learned to appreciate the taste of vegetables.

Curzon’s leer made it obvious real quick; I’d miscalculated. He skewered me with a look that offered a peek in his bedroom window. Toe sucking was only one of the activities on his menu.

It had been a long time since I’d had to deal with a guy like this. Out of practice and out of ammo, I faked a cough to cover the blood rushing to my face.

“Another time maybe,” he replied after due consideration. One hand slid up and down the underside of my calf. “Come to the station tomorrow. File a complaint.”

“Mmm.”

He let go. I sat up, jerked my pant leg back in place and picked up my near-empty glass of lemonade beer. He took a sip of his drink. I took a sip of mine. Just a couple of calm, collected characters having a polite discussion of probabilities.

“I hope I’m not interrupting?” Marcus Wilt smiled at me. No teeth, plenty of eyebrow.

“Marc. Have you met Maddy O’Hara?”

“I haven’t. Yet.”

Wilt’s hand came out and I shook it, even though it was awkward the way I was perched on the wall. He was the kind of good-looking man who puts a lot of effort into the first two and a half seconds he meets a woman: yes or no?

He read my no, loud and clear, and shifted his attention immediately to Curzon. “Heard you had to reprimand Nicky.”

There was a long silence.

Wilt leaned against the wall beside me, hands in his pockets. He wore beautifully tailored linen slacks, a dusty-blue silk shirt and Italian woven loafers without socks. Probably had the lifetime subscription to Esquire magazine. If Curzon was the basketball gladiator, Wilt was doing his best to rank as garden-party senator.