JIMBOB GEMSTONE HAD always treated himself to the best of everything. And why not--he could have bought absolutely anything Tucson had to offer, including the city's politicians, a thousand times over.
Could have....
The multi-millionaire distilled-water magnate now lay dead; grotesquely so.
His puffy nude body was sprawled in the middle of the Broadway-Alvernon intersection, not far from his big, black Mercedes. The car's driver-side door was wide open, but the vehicle was apparently otherwise undisturbed.
Gemstone's lumpen, only recently sheeted figure was eerily illuminated at this early morning hour by the sickly orange glow of the sodium-vapor street lamps. Oddly, the grim sight was festively accentuated at precise intervals by flashes of red, yellow and green from a nearby traffic signal.
About the worst place imaginable to bite the Big Burrito in your birthday suit, Sweet thought, casually toothpicking the last of a late-night meal from his rear molars. He was wondering where the dead man's clothes were.
A couple of newcomers--the Hickmanns, Laverne and Delbert--who'd just driven in from Iowa, had come upon the corpse as they were looking for a cheap motel from which to base their search for a starter home.
After almost running over Gemstone's corpse in their 1983 Honda Civic, and then frantically calling 911, the exhausted couple confessed to Sweet, whom they'd naturally mistaken for a cop, that they were seriously thinking about moving to Albuquerque instead. At least there the scenery wasn't likely to make you barf, Laverne Hickmann had observed, somewhat crankily.
Of course Sweet had advised them Albuquerque was a smart bet. Too many people here in Tucson already, he'd said. And he'd meant it, too. In Sweet's admittedly cynical opinion, the Naked Pueblo was losing its charm faster than a high-school coed at a UA fraternity pig night.
"Looks like the world's ugliest speedbump, doesn't it?"
Becky "Toots" Duckrump, the big-haired TV reporter, came up from behind Sweet without warning. Fresh from badgering the Pima County Medical Examiner, she was angling for another quickie soundbite before packing it in and returning to the station. In an hour or so, she'd gleefully break the grim news to an apathetic, still-yawning metropolis.
Sweet's muscular body stiffened at the sound of Duckrump's sultry voice. He didn't bother looking her way. "No comment," he muttered, ambling off toward the meat wagon, which was just pulling up to the scene.
Undeterred, Duckrump jumped in front of him and shoved a microphone where only moments before Sweet's toothpick had been.
"Who, or what, killed Mr. Gemstone?" she demanded.
"Mgmwwwmpha!" Sweet explained.
Realizing she'd invaded the handsome detective's deeply personal space, Duckrump apologetically yanked the device out of his mouth.
"Ow!" Gingerly nursing his jaw, Sweet glared at her for a long moment. "Since my recent retirement, I'm no longer an official spokesman for the Police Department," Sweet reminded her. "But if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say some nosy TV broad must've stuck Mr. Microphone somewhere the Good Lord never intended, precipitating the victim's untimely demise. Now beat it."
"So you are still upset about your retirement party." Her accusation hung like a pair of stale sweatsocks in the still, hot air between them.
Sweet turned and continued on his way.
"I was only joking about your socks!" she yelled after him. "They smelled fine! Really!"
By now, Ditts was standing near the meat wagon, cheerfully supervising the first catch of the day. Sweet sidled next to him and held up a plastic baggie, taking care to keep the item it contained well out of sight of the ever-prowling video cameras.
"Whaddya make of this, Jake?"
"Plastic bag."
Sweet sighed heavily. "No, you moron. What's in the bag."
"Yeah, so?
"Found it in the victim's right hand," Sweet said. "Yanked it before the jackals arrived." He nodded at the knot of reporters and photographers the uniformed guys were now herding beyond the yellow-ribboned boundary, 100 feet away.
The police captain's eyes shot open; he grabbed at the baggie. "Geeze! Tampering with evidence? You bozo, you're not a real cop any more. Gimme that!"
"Once a cop, always a cop," Sweet muttered, handing over the baggie. "Besides, the stiff was my client. My first paying client."
"Yeah, tough." But Ditts wasn't really listening. He held the baggie at eye-level. "Typical prescription bottle. It's in Spanish, though. What's with this 'Macho Hombre' bullshit?"
Sweet was about to yell at him for openly displaying what could possibly be a key piece of evidence, but he didn't have to bother.
Just then the two attendants maneuvering Gemstone's more than ample mortal remains into the meat wagon lost control. The legendary water baron's hefty corpse hit the warm asphalt with a soft, but audible thud. Suddenly photo flashes were going off and videographers were cursing and wrenching their backs scrambling to capture this juicy actuality on tape.
"Oh, cripes!" Ditts shouted.
But no one heard him--the startled members of the press, even the jaded ones, were too busy oogling the sickeningly mesmerizing sight before them.
Jimbob Gemstone's face--and everything else, for that matter--was suddenly plainly visible to the assembled media jackals.
And the dead man was grinning--hideously--from ear to ear.
Probably just pleased as punch to have escaped paying my fee, Sweet thought. The cheap bastard.
"My, my. What a cute little fellow! And still at attention," Becky Duckrump trilled as the harried attendants rushed to cover Gemstone's corpse once again. "Who could've guessed a man of such great importance to the community would have such a teensy, tiny...."
Mercifully, her cell phone rang.
