Matryoshka Blues (The Average Joe Mysteries Book 1)

MATRYOSHKA

B L U E S

An Average Joe mystery

by

Shawn Harper

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, or to persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Richfield St. Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright laws. For permission requests, contact the publisher at richfieldstpress.com, using the word “permissions” as the subject line, and be sure to include all relevant contact information.

Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

Richfield St. Press

Denver, CO

www.RichfieldStPress.com

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design by Steven Novak Illustration

To Mom—

For blessing me with a thick head of hair.

To Dad—

For making sure I came with the matching skull.

Acknowledgements

It takes a village to raise a child, and nowhere is that more true than in creating a work of fiction. Especially one as ugly as this child. Were it not for a motley crew of pitchfork-bearing villagers, this sordid tale would not exist in publishable form. As such, I would like to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to the following individuals:

For their bi-monthly forays into this world, and the countless squiggles and smiley faces I received in return, I humbly thank the members of my critique group: Monica, Lisa M., Lisa McD., Craig, Cordia, and the plethora of J names—Julie, Janet, Joel, Joe, Jason, and John.

For her at-times annoying, yet always insightful attention to detail, I wish to thank my editor, Rachel, at Millar Editing. I made you laugh, and that’s a great way to start a partnership.

For his help in creating a cover far superior to the stick figures I would have come up with, as well as the logo I intend to market and merchandise the bejesus out of, many thanks to Steven Novak at Novak Illustration.

For her spectacular efforts in getting this beast formatted to a professional grade, rather than the random collection of letters and punctuation I threw together, three cheers to Mia Kleve of MRK’d Up Editing. My words have never looked so good.

Finally, for their unwavering support and willingness to let me vanish into a dark, dank room to stare at a computer screen for stretches at a time, I wish to thank my family: Roger, Linda, Greg, Brandy, and Ava. Without them, I wouldn’t be nearly as well groomed. Apparently that’s a good thing.

As is usually the case, all mistakes are mine. At least, that’s what everyone above keeps telling me. Agree to disagree, I guess.

L
ook, I’ve got roughly two-point-eight seconds to live here, so now’s really not the time to regale you with the highs and lows of my particularly woebegone existence. If you can’t hang with that, then our relationship is going to be mighty ugly. Like, a-troll-fucked-a-platypus ugly.

No, wait; platypuses are cute. Well, sort of.

Hang on—platypi?

Anyway, the troll thing. Yeah, that kind of ugly.

What were we talking about again?

Right, the gun. I hate guns. I hate having to even look at one, which is kind of where the two-point-eight seconds
comes into play.

This guy. I mean, really?  It’s the second time tonight he’s held a gun on me. You’d think by now I’d learn to focus once in a blue moon. Maybe we should have bet money on it.

“I’m waiting,” Sergeant says.

After all we’ve been through together this fine evening,
now
he wants to be an impatient prick? That’s it—I’m writing the Canadian embassy, because one of their own is off the Inuit reservation. This ain’t fucking Baghdad, pal. This is ‘Merica. Go be inconsiderate on someone else’s property.

Oh, I guess he is, isn’t he? Damn. Forget I said anything.

“Give me a minute,” I tell him. Great, now I’m wondering if they even have Indian reservations up in Canada. For all I know they’ve all got Lamborghinis with snowmobile treads parked outside McMansions the size of asteroids. I should probably look into that one day. Damn it. One more for the list.

“You don’t have a minute,” Sergeant says, cocking the hammer back for emphasis.

“We all have a minute,” I challenge. “It’s the one thing we have plenty of. That, and self-storage units.”

He smiles like a Southern woman about to bless my heart. Those perfect teeth are really getting on my nerves. Quit showing off your free healthcare, asshole.

“You’re stalling,” he says.

“Well, duh.”

Shit. I meant to think that, not say it.

“Man, I know you killed him, so tell me what you did with it,” he begs. To my mind he’s begging, at least. Maybe he’s naturally whiny. We haven’t known each other that long. “I don’t even
want
to shoot you. I just want the damn box.”

Wow. Really? He breaks into my home, stands in my living room with a gun pointed at me, and flat-out accuses me of killing Sandecker? Dude’s an elite kind of ballsy.

In the end, it all comes down to that stupid box. Well gee willikers, if only I could remember what I did with it in the next two-point-eight…no, wait. That’s wrong. I said two-point-eight like four-point-seven seconds ago.

Hang on, I might need a calculator or some shit to figure this out.

We haven’t been properly introduced yet, have we?

1

Y
ou know that sound when a tea kettle’s fucking a squeak toy so hard they’re both howling at the moon like helium-filled Chihuahuas? Tully has one of those voices, and it’s the first thing I hear after answering the ringing phone itself—even before the waking groans of the woman wedged between my right side and the back of my couch.

I look around the living room with dry, itchy eyes, trying to find the bastard phone that dared to wake me up at…whatever time it is exactly.

Oh, kiss my ass. Do you know how early it—

Shit. It’s nearly lunch. Never mind, then. I answer the phone with a yawn.

“You wearing pants?” Tully asks. That’s her conversation opener.

She’s had that voice all her life, and despite our friendship it has always driven me nuts. Well, both of her lives, really—the true one now, and the downright shitty false one that came before it. It was the hardest of hard times for her back then, made worse by that god-awful stun-gunning-a-parakeet shrill of hers.

I move the phone an inch from my face and look down the length of couch at boxer shorts, bare knees, and ugly toes, trying to be professional for once and not fixate on the naked woman draped over me.

“Yep,” I lie. I can’t feel my entire right side, and it’s the best feeling ever.

“Yep, what?” moans the woman rubbing against me. I know what she’s
yepping
about, but it ain’t happening with Tully in my other ear. Not the kind of threesome I’m into, you know?

“Not you,” I whisper to my sleepover guest. “It’s my mother.”

Tully’s exasperated sigh crackles through the phone’s speaker. I’ve known this woman for the bigger part of both our lives, and I know she’s rolling her eyes so hard I’m kind of surprised the phone’s not twisting in my hand.

“I have someone with me,” she clarifies. “Are you wearing pants or not?”

“Yeah, and?” I tell her. “I have someone with me, too.”

“Does she know you didn’t pop your cherry until you were twenty?”

The redhead using me as a body pillow grabs the phone, shoving a mess of wild curls away from her right ear. Her left cheek is against my chest, and the vibration when she talks is all manner of funky-sexy.

“Sweetie, I don’t care
when
he popped his cherry,” she says to Tully. Her eyes of calm-ocean blue sparkle with amusement. “Trust me, he’s learned a lot since then.”

She thinks that’s going to rile Tully up—which is possible since the word
sweetie
entered the conversation. But she’s also trying to make Tully jealous, which is as likely as me rolling off this couch onto a hammerhead shark.

I take the phone back and kiss her. We taste like sweat and beer and whiskey and whatever that nacho pizza thing was we ate last night. Twelve hours ago I was dying to know her name and hobbies and sixth-grade history teacher; but in the light of a new day, with our lips pressed together and her tongue against mine, I don’t especially care.

What am I saying? I’m never going to care. But not because I’m a dick, okay? For the record this was all her idea. She never asked my name either; specifically forbade me from offering it, in fact. That, to my mind, makes us even steven.

I pull away from her intoxicating kiss and return to my caller. “Are shorts okay?”

Tully doesn’t answer over the phone; instead, she shouts through the front door for me to hurry the fuck up. Right, because our time together on this planet has somehow instilled in her the rigid belief structure that shit like me hurrying up is remotely possible.

I stand and grab enough of last night’s clothes to accom-modate unexpected guests, which turns out to just be shorts, since I can’t find my T-shirt anywhere.

Yank. Zip. Scratch. Burp. In that order.

My companion watches me with amused interest, the freckles dotting her silky-smooth landscape like a view of the night sky you can’t look away from. She’s making one hell of a case for me to forget my friend and return to stargazing, that’s for sure. She gets to her feet, her nude form now permanently etched onto the pleasure centers of my brain, and I kiss her again as I smack her ass. She pokes me in the ribs as payback, and I grunt through the kiss.

Holy crap, this woman’s got fingers like cattle prods.

When another of Tully’s sighs escapes into the room, I put the phone to my ear. “Sorry, I’ll be with you in a second.” I watch my date expertly hook her bra. “You want some breakfast?” I ask her.

“If you don’t take care of your friend,” she says, nodding at the phone with a chuckle, “I think she’s going to burn the house down, with us inside it.”

As if to prove the point, Tully’s disembodied voice echoes softly, not-so-professionally telling the someone with her that she’s going to cut my balls off with a pair of rusty garden shears.

Between you and me, there’s a better-than-average chance she’s not lying.

While Jane Doe finishes dressing, I open the front door to greet my guests. Faster than I expected, Miss-Right-Now-and-Possibly-Again-Later moves past me gracefully, crossing the threshold and smacking my ass harder than I did hers. I flinch in shock, and feel my cheeks blush.

Um…facial cheeks, not ass cheeks. Although those are probably a decent shade of red now, too.

Any way you slice it, I’m sure I deserved it. She crosses the porch barefoot, her well-loved sandals dangling from long, thin fingers as she slips between Tully and some guy I’ve never met before. She waves a goodbye over her shoulder and disappears down the steps to her car as I take in my wake-up call.

Tully’s in a floral print sun dress of blues and greens and yellows, her oak-brown hair cut short and highlighted in a coppery bronze. She must have just gotten it done—only yesterday it was auburn, and at least two inches longer. She’s got that
I’m dying to put a heel in your ass
look that makes it hard to remember why I bothered answering the phone.

The man, by contrast, is a good decade younger than I am, tall and slender, with the kind of highlighted blond hair that comes from either a lifetime in the sun, or a fortune in chemicals. The term
all-American
immediately come to mind. He’s wearing khakis, ironed and creased; a dark blue polo; and loafers with no socks. He looks like he flipped through a Brooks Brothers catalog once upon a time and went with the first ensemble that didn’t make him gag.

Tully’s accusing gaze drops from my bare chest to my shorts. “You zipped up. So much for first impressions.”

I run a hand through my unruly mane of bed head. “Too much to live up to.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Not when you look like the community strap-on at a sorority house during pledge week.”

You imagined that with her squeak-toy voice, didn’t you?

Welcome to my world.

By way of ignoring her I say, “Good morning, Mr.—”

“Sandecker,” the man replies, smiling brightly and extending a hand. He winks at me conspiratorially, as if offering his bro-code stamp of approval on my choice of overnight houseguests.

His handshake is hard, but the skin is soft. No calluses to speak of. His nails are trimmed, but there’s a touch of dirt or something under them. He’s solid underneath the polo and slacks; muscled, but wiry. I probably looked like that once upon a time, before beer and whiskey and redheads proved healthier for my psychological well-being than bran muffins and whatever the fuck quinoa is. Sandecker strikes me as having all the benchmarks of a blue-collar upbringing morphing into a white-collar job.

I introduce myself and motion into the house. “Please, come in.”

Despite any assumptions, my home is spotless. Always is. You don’t go through a life like mine without some things sticking to you like chlamydia.

Actually, let’s go with glue. It’s cliché as hell, but that other one is more of an evening look.

I park Tully and Sandecker in the dining room before continuing to the kitchen. Food for me; coffee for everyone.

I prep the coffee and settle for a quick helping of Cocoa Pebbles in a paper bowl, eating half of it before I remember to press the
start
button on the coffee maker. Then I refill the bowl and join my guests in the dining room.

“Mr. Sandecker would like to hire us,” Tully says, meaning the company she works for. She’s in work mode, and I treat the situation as accordingly as I can while holding a bowl of kids’ cereal under my chin. “And we would like to hire you.” Tully still means the company she works for.

I eat my chocolatey goodness and nod, wiping rivulets of milk off my chin and chest. I’m not making the best of impressions here, but it’s been an off morning. Tully looks ready to slap a bib on me—that, or just slap me altogether. This guy Sandecker must think I’m some kind of eccentric wackadoo.

For the record, I’m not a private investigator or anything along those lines. They’re usually licensed, trained, and capable, and I just don’t have that kind of time or commitment. I’m more of a walking fuck-up with stellar luck, a few random skills of not-entirely-legal origins, and exceptional taste in comebacks. I’m also cheap and generally available. Discreet, too, if only because no one really likes talking to me. Feeling’s mutual, by the by.

Sandecker sits up straighter and clears his throat. “Miss Tullinger assures me we can come to a, ah, mutually…
beneficial
arrangement, given the—” he gestures frantically, trying to find the words, “—given the unlikely nature of the offering.”

It’s clear he’s uncomfortable with large words, wearing them like a kid in his father’s suit: everything’s technically where it’s supposed to be, but nothing fits right. I’ve dealt with the type all my life. Hell, I
am
the type. His questionable taste in fashion notwithstanding, I decide I like the guy, with provisions. Things change, you know?

“Mr. Sandecker—” I start.

“Please, call me Jeff.”

The coffee maker beeps. I excuse myself and return to the kitchen, tossing the paper bowl in the sink out of habit. Three cups, coming up.

Tully comes in to help, grabbing sugar and powdered creamer from the pantry and spoons from the silverware drawer.

“Who was she?” she asks. There’s no accusation in her tone, only a lifelong friend’s playful ribbing.

“To ask would’ve been an invasion of her privacy.” Tully shoots me an
I’m calling bullshit
look, and I shrug. “What? I just went out for a beer or five. She picked me up. It’s not like she introduced herself, either.”

“Did you at least offer her breakfast?”

“I slipped her some sausage. Not sure that counts, though.” Tully groans and rolls her eyes, which is exactly the reaction I wanted. We return to the dining room, and I hand Sandecker a mug. “Jeff, If Tully vouches for you, then trust me, we’re as golden as Gert Fröbe.”

He doesn’t get my
Goldfinger
reference. Unappreciated in my own time, I tell you. Perhaps I should have gone with Austin Powers. Tully dumps sugar and creamer into her coffee. Jeff—that’s Sandecker to you dirty heathens—takes his black.

“Tell me what I can do for you, Jeff,” I say after we’ve all taken our first sips.

He eyes my dining room nervously, like he’s walked into a CIA interrogation unit, but then he sighs and his shoulders slump. It’s a good act, but it feels rehearsed.

“I need you to retrieve a box.”

He stops there and looks around like we’re in a live version of
Three Days of the Condor
or something. That would make me Cliff Robertson or Max von Sydow, depending on your preference. I mean, that’s as it may be, but there’s no way Sandecker is Robert Redford. And the idea that Tully is Faye Dunaway almost makes me bark a laugh in front of my guests. Wouldn’t that be a fun way to start things off?

The point is, Sandecker’s not acting nervous, per se, but something outside this room has got his attention, and he’s not willing to share it with the class just yet. Whether that’s going to affect me down the road remains unclear.

Ah, who am I kidding? When does shit like this
not
affect people like me?

“Mr. Red—” I clear my throat to cover the gaffe as Tully shoots me the dirtiest of dirty looks. Fuck me, that was close. “I’m sorry, Jeff. If this is a secrecy thing, I get it. But if you want me to help you, cut the crap and tell me what you need.”

The table jerks and Tully swears under her breath. She tried to kick me, but hit table leg instead. I shoot her a shit-eating grin while Sandecker resigns himself to the tried-and-true
Sesame Street
concept of cooperation.

“It’s a puzzle box,” he says. “Roughly the size of a hardcover book. Maybe a little smaller. I’m not worried about the box itself, only the contents.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. “How heavy is it?” I prod.

“No more than eight or nine pounds, including contents.”

“Anything dangerous—explosive, corrosive,
et cetera, et cetera
?”

He looks like I challenged him to a duel. “No, nothing like that. It’s just a—”

I raise a hand to shut him up. “I don’t need to know. Really, I don’t. If you’re not paying me to look inside, then I’m not looking inside.” Sandecker nods, and I continue. “How many people are aware of it?”