Matryoshka Blues (The Average Joe Mysteries Book 1) by Shawn Harper Page A
Authors: Shawn Harper
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for nosy neighbors.
“ETA on that pick-up?” I ask Tully.
“Where are you?”
“Right now? Outside Sandecker’s house like a moron. But in about four minutes I’m going to be as far from here as my flat feet and crappy sneakers can carry me.”
“There’s a direct entrance to the country club on the north side, by the clubhouse. No guard booth; only a wall and a gate. I’ll meet you a quarter mile west of it.”
She knows way more about Sandecker’s neighborhood than I think she should, and I almost want to ask her how. Then I realize I really, really don’t want to know.
“Done,” I say.
She doesn’t bother telling me to be careful before she hangs up. Why would she? If neither of us were careful we’d have never made it this far in life. If it hadn’t been for Scotty, we wouldn’t have met at all, even in our small-ass hometown. And by now both of us would be long dead. So careful isn’t something we have to be told to be—it’s something we’ve been ever since our first breath in this shit-stain world we were brought kicking and screaming into.
I shove all the paperwork into a back pocket and return to the house. Tully gave the guards a false name, backed up with the matching identification I gave them when I arrived. But the cops will eventually figure out who I am through the car. I know for a fact the VIN doesn’t match my registration, but there are other ways to track a person down, and I can’t block all of them.
I’ve learned that if you try too hard to remain hidden, you end up looking even more suspicious. Better to have enough about you be real to make you appear legit. The rest can be explained as ghosts in the bureaucratic machine.
If I’m lucky, I have maybe three minutes of searching ahead of me before I have to get the hell out of here. If I’m not lucky…well, I have three minutes of searching ahead of me that will amount to jack shit. Any way you slice it, I have three min—
Okay, now I have two and a half minutes because I’m standing here debating how much time I have left. Fuck me. I need help.
Sandecker’s facing the wall of maple-oak-ahogany built-ins behind the desk, the chair pressed against the desk, rather than away from it. My guess is he was facing the built-ins, attacked from behind, then knocked or thrown into the chair, where it rolled into the desk. If he’d been sitting at it, working perhaps, and someone attacked him that way, he’d have rolled into the built-ins.
Is my deductive technique foolproof? Of course not. But what do you expect in two minutes and change? If you want Sherlock Holmes, go watch PBS.
Actually, you should be watching PBS anyway. That’s quality, publicly-funded programming right there.
Since it’s probably where Sandecker was facing at the time of his assault, I start with the built-ins, beginning with the top shelf and working my way down. I find nothing, followed by nothing, with abso-fucking-lutely nothing bringing up the rear.
Until I reach the next-to-last shelf.
I’m on my hands and knees, crawling around like I’m not too old for this shit. In the middle of the shelf, wedged between an encyclopedia set and a copy of Stephen King’s The Stand —the uncut edition; nice job, Jeff—is a short, thick paperback called Safe House . Never heard of the author before, but the cover highly insinuates that it’s a bodice-ripping love story with espionage underpinnings, all set in some version of Victorian England where women have big boobs to rival comic book heroines, and men have eight-pack abs and day-old scruff.
Really? A cover like that and you call it Safe House ? In what fucked-up alternate reality do those two go together?
It doesn’t strike me as something a blue-collar boy like Jeff Sandecker would ever read, much less keep in a home office in a starch-white world with lidded vases on tables, possibly to read while lounging in a hammock or in an inflatable chair in the pool on a lazy Sunday.
Looks right
“ETA on that pick-up?” I ask Tully.
“Where are you?”
“Right now? Outside Sandecker’s house like a moron. But in about four minutes I’m going to be as far from here as my flat feet and crappy sneakers can carry me.”
“There’s a direct entrance to the country club on the north side, by the clubhouse. No guard booth; only a wall and a gate. I’ll meet you a quarter mile west of it.”
She knows way more about Sandecker’s neighborhood than I think she should, and I almost want to ask her how. Then I realize I really, really don’t want to know.
“Done,” I say.
She doesn’t bother telling me to be careful before she hangs up. Why would she? If neither of us were careful we’d have never made it this far in life. If it hadn’t been for Scotty, we wouldn’t have met at all, even in our small-ass hometown. And by now both of us would be long dead. So careful isn’t something we have to be told to be—it’s something we’ve been ever since our first breath in this shit-stain world we were brought kicking and screaming into.
I shove all the paperwork into a back pocket and return to the house. Tully gave the guards a false name, backed up with the matching identification I gave them when I arrived. But the cops will eventually figure out who I am through the car. I know for a fact the VIN doesn’t match my registration, but there are other ways to track a person down, and I can’t block all of them.
I’ve learned that if you try too hard to remain hidden, you end up looking even more suspicious. Better to have enough about you be real to make you appear legit. The rest can be explained as ghosts in the bureaucratic machine.
If I’m lucky, I have maybe three minutes of searching ahead of me before I have to get the hell out of here. If I’m not lucky…well, I have three minutes of searching ahead of me that will amount to jack shit. Any way you slice it, I have three min—
Okay, now I have two and a half minutes because I’m standing here debating how much time I have left. Fuck me. I need help.
Sandecker’s facing the wall of maple-oak-ahogany built-ins behind the desk, the chair pressed against the desk, rather than away from it. My guess is he was facing the built-ins, attacked from behind, then knocked or thrown into the chair, where it rolled into the desk. If he’d been sitting at it, working perhaps, and someone attacked him that way, he’d have rolled into the built-ins.
Is my deductive technique foolproof? Of course not. But what do you expect in two minutes and change? If you want Sherlock Holmes, go watch PBS.
Actually, you should be watching PBS anyway. That’s quality, publicly-funded programming right there.
Since it’s probably where Sandecker was facing at the time of his assault, I start with the built-ins, beginning with the top shelf and working my way down. I find nothing, followed by nothing, with abso-fucking-lutely nothing bringing up the rear.
Until I reach the next-to-last shelf.
I’m on my hands and knees, crawling around like I’m not too old for this shit. In the middle of the shelf, wedged between an encyclopedia set and a copy of Stephen King’s The Stand —the uncut edition; nice job, Jeff—is a short, thick paperback called Safe House . Never heard of the author before, but the cover highly insinuates that it’s a bodice-ripping love story with espionage underpinnings, all set in some version of Victorian England where women have big boobs to rival comic book heroines, and men have eight-pack abs and day-old scruff.
Really? A cover like that and you call it Safe House ? In what fucked-up alternate reality do those two go together?
It doesn’t strike me as something a blue-collar boy like Jeff Sandecker would ever read, much less keep in a home office in a starch-white world with lidded vases on tables, possibly to read while lounging in a hammock or in an inflatable chair in the pool on a lazy Sunday.
Looks right
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