A Kiss Gone Bad (2 page)

Whit had served as justice of the peace for only six months, since the previous justice died in a car crash after several
years in office. He’d accepted the appointment from the county commissioners, all cronies of his father’s, because he needed
Direction. Over the past five years since he’d shuffled back to Port Leo, his jobs shared only their brevity: photographing
sports part-time for the paper, managing a defunct fifties-themed ice cream parlor with the ill-advised name of Shimmy Shimmy
Shakes, and running a messenger service that never delivered profits.

His father measured success by oil leases, acreage, investment income, and wifely pulchritude, and believed in Direction (especially
for English majors who had cost him fifty thousand dollars to educate at Tulane). Babe cajoled his buddies into appointing
Whit to the remainder of the dead JP’s term. Whit decided to give it a shot.
Judge
would make the most respectable addition to his crazy-quilt résumé.

Whit pored over justice court law but felt awkward and stupid every time he had to consult a book during a hearing, impatient
litigants tapping their feet. He bought some dime-store eyeglasses to smarten his appearance and cut his blondish hair short
but wore his beach-bum clothes (polos, shorts, and sandals) beneath the black sobriety of the robe. To Whit’s surprise he
liked the work: he adjudicated small claims and traffic court, which could be dishwater dull or raucously entertaining (depending
on the cases), but he also issued arrest and search warrants, magistrated the arrested into jail, signed
commitment orders for the insane, ordered autopsies, and conducted death and fire inquests.

With Encina County too small for a medical examiner of its own, Whit served as the first line of forensic defense. So far
in his six months this unpleasant duty had reared itself four times: once with a car crash at the edge of the county, twice
with drownings on St Leo Bay, and once for an elderly suicide who, his insides gnawed with pancreatic cancer, washed several
fistfuls of Valium down with a fifth of vodka while listening to Hank Williams CDs.

Another death, and the whole county would be watching. All the attention could make or break his anemic campaign.
Great. Your lover’s ex-husband is dead, and you get to rule on cause of death. Congratulations.

Whit headed past the long line of docked boats on the T-head, most shrouded in bright blue coverings. Weekend boaters from
Corpus Christi or Houston owned these craft. A few folks lived on their boats full-time, retirees or trust-fund babies. Whit
ducked under another banner of crime-scene tape taped right at the boat’s stern.

‘Hello, Honorable.’ Claudia Salazar, a Port Leo police detective, stood on the deck of
Real Shame,
watching him scale the ladder. A gust whipped her dark hair around her face, and she yanked it back over her ears. She looked
decidedly more official than he did in her black slacks, white blouse, and a PLPD windbreaker.

‘Hey,’ Whit said. ‘I heard this may be politically testy. No press yet?’

‘We have a short grace period before they swarm, once it gets out that Senator Hubble’s son is dead,’ Claudia said. ‘Get your
quotes ready.’

‘Has anyone called the senator?’

‘Delford is,’ she answered. Delford Spires was the longtime police chief in Port Leo. He had a full ruddy
face and a natty mustache that made him look like a chunky catfish.

He followed Claudia across a pristine deck down to a living area and galley filled with clutter: a thick paperback propped
open with a carton of Marlboros and an empty wineglass. On the floor a pizza box lay open with torn cheese and pepperoni glued
inside. Two empty bottles of cheap cabernet stood on the coffee table. Each label had been peeled away from the bottles; little
curls of paper dotted the floor. On one side of the den a series of windows faced the gunmetal waters of the bay. On each
end, small stairs led to sleeping cabins. Claudia went to the aft stairs.

‘Here’s where he was found.’ She stepped aside so Whit could enter the tiny stateroom.

The dead man lay naked on the bed, lying on his back, arms and legs spread, the sourness of death-released waste scenting
the close air.

‘I haven’t seen him in fifteen years,’ Whit said. ‘But that’s Pete Hubble.’ He did not add that Pete Hubble had skinny-dipped
with Whit’s older brothers and once you saw Pete naked you were unlikely to confuse him with someone else. ‘It might be best
to get a formal ID from family or friends.’

Eddie Gardner, another police department investigator, stood in the corner of the bedroom, snapping photos. An evidence-collection
kit lay open at his feet.

‘You were supposed to wait for Judge Mosley to get here,’ Claudia said.

‘Sorry.’ Gardner shrugged. ‘Just taking some photos. I didn’t disturb anything for the judge.’ Gardner made
judge
sound like
dog turd.
He wore his thinning hair pulled in a short ponytail, aiming for and missing the surfer dude look. He was a recent hire from
Houston and
had tried too hard to go coastal with the flowered shirts and baggy shorts.

‘Why don’t you get started on searching and cataloging the rest of the boat?’ Claudia suggested in a patient tone. Gardner
went up the stairs with his smirk.

‘Houston know-it-all,’ Claudia muttered.

‘Eddie’s got to stop those public displays of affection for me,’ Whit said. He pulled on latex gloves and switched on an overhead
light. A bit of bedsheet was wrapped awkwardly around Pete’s upper torso, a gun loosely gripped in his right hand, his mouth
a gaping hole. His eyelids stood at half-mast, rimmed with blood.

‘This just sucks,’ Whit said.

‘Did you know him well?’ Claudia asked.

‘He was friends with a couple of my older brothers. I knew his brother Corey better than him.’

Claudia cocked her head. ‘Corey. He went missing, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah. About fifteen years ago.’

A hoarse voice called down to Claudia. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said.

Whit probed – gingerly – Pete Hubble’s throat for a pulse. Nothing, obviously. He poked the paling skin: cool but not cold,
and rigor mortis had not yet begun.

The windows were shut in the cabin, but the boats at Golden Gulf were docked in neat succession. Surely someone would have
heard the fatal shot. He raised the blinds on the windows. The two berths next to
Real Shame
were empty. On the other side was the open bay and the long pall of night.

Whit opened his notebook to a blank scene-of-death form. He heard more officers boarding the boat, into the galley and living
area, Claudia greeting them, dividing responsibilities. Whit wrote:
Oct 12, 10:45 p.m. Peter James Hubble, male, age ~40, brown hair, brown eyes,
six-six, around 220 pounds, nude except for gold chain with lion’s head on it around neck, red-and-green dragon tattoo on
right forearm, lying face up on bed, sheet wrapped partially around chest, 9mm Glock in right hand, bullet wound in mouth,
blood spray on face.

Whit peered inside Pete’s broken mouth, bringing his flashlight to bear on the damage. The tongue, the back teeth, the palate,
the uvula, the smooth pink walls looked exploded. The back of the mouth was a gruesome tunnel boring to the brain. Pete had
his lips wrapped neatly around the barrel when the gun went off.

‘Ate the gun, didn’t he?’ Eddie Gardner asked conversationally. He had returned with his camera.

‘Apparently.’

‘Sheriff’s deputies are helping Claudia, so you and I can get the body done.’ He spooled film into the camera, still smirking.
‘Love the shirt. Parrots are you.’

Whit ignored the jab, leaning close to the gun. ‘Odd. The safety is on.’

‘I pulled the gun out of his mouth so I could click on the safety. Standard procedure.’ Gardner explained this in a tone usually
reserved for addressing toddlers. ‘Wouldn’t expect you to know.’

Great. A Buddy Beere supporter. ‘Did you take a picture first, with the gun in his mouth?’

‘No. Forgot. Just trying to secure the scene, Judge.’

Whit wrote in his notebook:
Gardner didn’t take requisite pictures, mention THAT in the inquest report.

‘So you knew this guy?’ Gardner asked.

‘Ages ago.’

‘There’s a whole bunch of adult movie videos in a cabinet by the television. And this guy’s picture is on some of the covers.’

Whit stared at him. ‘Please be kidding.’

Gardner grinned. ‘Not kidding at all. You could hold a
blue film festival with all the porn up there.’ He pointed at the dead man’s prodigious organ. ‘Jesus, a horse would be jealous.
Makes sense he might make some money off of that.’

The son of a prominent state senator starring in porn films. The imagined headlines took a greasy turn in Whit’s mind. He
wondered if Faith knew.

He watched Eddie Gardner snap photos of seemingly every square inch of the bed, excepting the square inches that had landed
Pete in movies.

‘Eddie,’ Whit said, ‘please photograph the gun. I’m going to need those for the inquest.’ Gardner took several shots of the
pistol from different angles. Neither man spoke for a minute until Gardner finished the roll.

‘You thinking suicide. Judge? Looks that way to me.’

‘Why?’ Whit asked.

‘Big-built guy, no signs of struggle. It’s hard to stick a gun in the mouth of a guy this big.’

At one corner of the bed stood a sleek video camera, mounted on a tripod, aimed at the bed. Gardner watched Whit examine the
camera.

‘Shit, maybe he was shooting a home movie with that little gal out there and things got rough,’ Gardner said.

‘Little gal?’

‘Girl that found him. Looks like she’s spent her last dime and got no place to go. Dirty, strung out.’ Gardner laughed. ‘She
might have screamed bloody murder if she saw that dick coming at her.’

‘Maybe,’ Whit said. Gardner had all the appeal of head lice, but he had a point. Whit remembered a tidbit he’d read in a forensics
book about bodily fluid residue. He carefully inspected the dead man’s genitals with his latexed fingers; the massive penis
appeared dry. There hadn’t been immediate predeath sex, he bet, but them
medical examiner in Corpus Christi could properly make that determination.

Gardner watched him probe the organ. ‘If it gets hard, yell.’

‘Don’t worry. I will.’ Whit felt uneasy embarrassment again. No doubt Gardner would gossip back in the police station:
Jesus, Mosley felt up the dead guy’s dick, can you believe it?

Whit noticed a frame turned down on the bedside dresser, and he righted it. It was a photo of a young boy, on the verge of
the teenage years, with a scattering of freckles and mischievous brown eyes. Hints of Pete Hubble lay in his face: the square
jaw, the crinkled smile, the brown hair. Signs of Faith Hubble were the small ears, the slink of the raised eyebrow. It was
an old photo of Sam Hubble, Pete and Faith’s son. Sam was now fifteen, a bright kid Whit had always liked. He wondered how
on earth the boy would take this news.

‘The only suicide I’ve worked,’ Whit said, ‘the fellow turned every family picture to the wall before taking the big gulp.’

‘Another vote for suicide.’ Gardner loaded another roll of film. More flashes filled the room.

Still wearing his gloves, Whit flipped open the video camera’s housing. No tape inside.

‘Was there a videotape in here Claudia took?’ he asked.

‘Don’t believe so.’

‘Did you take it?’

Gardner frowned. ‘Nope.’

Whit shut the case. Discarded clothing lay piled in the corner of the room. Still wearing the gloves, Whit picked through
the mound. In the pile were faded men’s jeans, a cowboy belt still threaded through the loops; a white T-shirt; and men’s
black briefs that must have clinched the family jewels in a vise grip. Nestled with the shirt
were a pair of cotton women’s panties, decorated with little intertwining violets. Whit hooked the panties with one gloved
finger and raised them toward Gardner.

‘Looky, looky, there must’ve been nookie.’ Gardner glanced behind him to make sure Claudia Salazar hadn’t returned to the
room. ‘Ought to check to see if the girl’s got her delicates. I’ll volunteer.’

‘A hero in her darkest hour,’ Whit said. ‘What has the witness told you?’

‘Her name’s Heather Farrell. Got that scared-goat look of a runaway. We’re running a check on her to see if she’s got a record.
She said she met Hubble on the beach over the course of the last week, and he asked her to come over tonight.’

Whit studied Pete Hubble’s face. Little of the boy he had known remained in the dead man’s looks. A memory bubbled up: Whit,
barely twelve, hanging at the edges of one of Whit’s brothers’ birthday parties, full of raucous teenagers, and Pete sneaking
Whit – youngest of the six Mosley boys – slugs of prime bourbon. He’d thrown up at the party’s end, on the shoes of his oldest
brother’s date, and gotten the last whipping he’d ever received from his father. Pete. Mr Fun. At least before his brother
vanished.

‘I wonder how many fuck films he made,’ Gardner said.

‘Don’t go broadcasting details of that career around town just yet.’

‘Not a chance in hell that’s gonna be kept quiet,’ Gardner said. ‘I guess all the pussy in the world can’t make a boy happy.
Think of all the women he must’ve had doing the movies.’

‘Think of all the venereal disease.’

Gardner pondered this. ‘Might suck the wind out of your sails.’

Whit opened the small closet that faced the bed. A small collection of men’s clothes hung loosely on hangers: pants, sweatshirts,
a stacked collection of baseball caps, captioned with
ADULT ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS
and
HOT AND BOTHERED PRODUCTIONS
and, oddly,
UCLA FILM SCHOOL.
On the opposite side of the closet blouses, women’s T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans were neatly folded across hangers. Below
was a box of loosely stuffed papers. On the floor a leather bustier, designed to rein in a majestic-size bosom, and a collection
of hot-pink thong underwear lay in an untidy heap.