Matryoshka Blues (The Average Joe Mysteries Book 1) by Shawn Harper Page B
Authors: Shawn Harper
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up my alley, though, so I stuff it into my other back pocket to take with me.
What? Jeff doesn’t need it anymore, and Saint Gandalf the Ultimate Bouncer is already giving me the stink eye, so why the hell not?
Sirens are almost on top of me now. Neighbors will be waking up left and right, hoping it’s not their house under siege. When they find out it’s Sandecker’s, they’ll be tripping over themselves to get a front-row seat, sushi rolls and chardonnay in hand, all so they can gossip about it later over racquetball and stock prices.
Is that what people do in country clubs? Sit around in sumptuous leather high backs, downing mint juleps and thousand-year-old Scotch by the bucketful while doing their best Pinky and the Brain try-to-take-over-the-world shtick?
No, I’m seriously asking. I have no idea here. Closest I’ve ever come to the inside of a country club is getting chased out of a parking lot by some lawyer who thought I slept with his wife. I mean, I did sleep with her, but how he happened to know that remains a mystery to me.
That dude was scary, too, let me tell you. One hell of a runner. Thankfully, I know how to hotwire a fucking car.
Side note: if you ever plan on stealing a car, I highly recommend a Mercedes Benz. Smoother than a baby’s butt on ice.
But I digress…
The book was hiding something. I knew it was out of place. I find a switch, recessed in the back of the bookcase.
Hell yeah, I flicked it.
10
I hear a click over my shoulder, soft and faint.
It comes from somewhere beside the office door. A panel in the wainscoting has popped open in time for the first wispy flash of police lights to touch the scene outside the bay window as the sirens grow louder. The cops are beyond close.
The open panel reveals a locked compartment, the keyhole larger than the key in my pocket. That’s not good. If I had time I’d beat the crap out of it, but, well, I have zero fucking time here.
That means Plan B.
Plan B means I get to grope a dead body.
Shit on a popsicle stick. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to fondle a corpse…
I’m really not happy about this. I’m already stealing the man’s book—now I have to touch his meat suit too? Who did I piss off in this life or another to ever deserve this?
Don’t answer that. Not even the condensed version. I don’t have the time, and there’s no use living in the past. Forget I said anything.
This is Sandecker’s house, so it stands to reason he has a key to everything. His killer may have taken it, not realizing what it was to. Otherwise, one would think the panel would already be open and the contents within removed. They aren’t, so the keys must still be somewhere on his ex-person.
They’re not on a chain around his neck, and they’re not in either of his shirt pockets. Which means they’re probably in his damn pants. Fuck me.
Or, hey—maybe they’re on the desk under a day planner, which is where I spot a key ring poking out as I finish patting down the dead man’s junk.
Can’t believe I touched a dead penis before I checked the desk.
Oh shut up. You didn’t know it was there either.
Sirens are now ear-splitting. Time to get crackin’.
I cycle through the keys like Goldilocks in a male whorehouse—this one’s too big, this one’s too small; this one’s for his Audi, that one’s for his pink, fuzzy handcuffs in the nightstand upstairs.
I mean, probably. How the fuck would I know? I’m making a joke here, not a lifestyle judgment or anything. All I know is they don’t fit in the lock behind the secret panel opened with a switch hiding behind a book I totally stole to read later.
Halfway through the ring, a little brass key slips inside the lock like a lubed-up virgin on prom night, and I’m so stunned I almost forget to unlock the damn thing.
Outside, three cop cars block up the street outside Sandecker’s house. Doors fly open, and six of the city’s finest get out with weapons drawn. Two of
What? Jeff doesn’t need it anymore, and Saint Gandalf the Ultimate Bouncer is already giving me the stink eye, so why the hell not?
Sirens are almost on top of me now. Neighbors will be waking up left and right, hoping it’s not their house under siege. When they find out it’s Sandecker’s, they’ll be tripping over themselves to get a front-row seat, sushi rolls and chardonnay in hand, all so they can gossip about it later over racquetball and stock prices.
Is that what people do in country clubs? Sit around in sumptuous leather high backs, downing mint juleps and thousand-year-old Scotch by the bucketful while doing their best Pinky and the Brain try-to-take-over-the-world shtick?
No, I’m seriously asking. I have no idea here. Closest I’ve ever come to the inside of a country club is getting chased out of a parking lot by some lawyer who thought I slept with his wife. I mean, I did sleep with her, but how he happened to know that remains a mystery to me.
That dude was scary, too, let me tell you. One hell of a runner. Thankfully, I know how to hotwire a fucking car.
Side note: if you ever plan on stealing a car, I highly recommend a Mercedes Benz. Smoother than a baby’s butt on ice.
But I digress…
The book was hiding something. I knew it was out of place. I find a switch, recessed in the back of the bookcase.
Hell yeah, I flicked it.
10
I hear a click over my shoulder, soft and faint.
It comes from somewhere beside the office door. A panel in the wainscoting has popped open in time for the first wispy flash of police lights to touch the scene outside the bay window as the sirens grow louder. The cops are beyond close.
The open panel reveals a locked compartment, the keyhole larger than the key in my pocket. That’s not good. If I had time I’d beat the crap out of it, but, well, I have zero fucking time here.
That means Plan B.
Plan B means I get to grope a dead body.
Shit on a popsicle stick. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to fondle a corpse…
I’m really not happy about this. I’m already stealing the man’s book—now I have to touch his meat suit too? Who did I piss off in this life or another to ever deserve this?
Don’t answer that. Not even the condensed version. I don’t have the time, and there’s no use living in the past. Forget I said anything.
This is Sandecker’s house, so it stands to reason he has a key to everything. His killer may have taken it, not realizing what it was to. Otherwise, one would think the panel would already be open and the contents within removed. They aren’t, so the keys must still be somewhere on his ex-person.
They’re not on a chain around his neck, and they’re not in either of his shirt pockets. Which means they’re probably in his damn pants. Fuck me.
Or, hey—maybe they’re on the desk under a day planner, which is where I spot a key ring poking out as I finish patting down the dead man’s junk.
Can’t believe I touched a dead penis before I checked the desk.
Oh shut up. You didn’t know it was there either.
Sirens are now ear-splitting. Time to get crackin’.
I cycle through the keys like Goldilocks in a male whorehouse—this one’s too big, this one’s too small; this one’s for his Audi, that one’s for his pink, fuzzy handcuffs in the nightstand upstairs.
I mean, probably. How the fuck would I know? I’m making a joke here, not a lifestyle judgment or anything. All I know is they don’t fit in the lock behind the secret panel opened with a switch hiding behind a book I totally stole to read later.
Halfway through the ring, a little brass key slips inside the lock like a lubed-up virgin on prom night, and I’m so stunned I almost forget to unlock the damn thing.
Outside, three cop cars block up the street outside Sandecker’s house. Doors fly open, and six of the city’s finest get out with weapons drawn. Two of
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