Murder on the Rocks

by Clara Nipper

  What was the DA up to? I could never finger him. He was pure neo-Christian, right-wing, conservative nutbag, batshit politics, and behind the family values billboard, was as slippery as waxed ice. I needed inside dope. I called my mole, Marny Marlowe, disgruntled ADA.

  “Jill! How the hell are you?”

  “Worried about that son of a bitch, Marny. How are you?”

  “Oh, baby, I’m good. Takin’ a tub. What did Jesus Jim do now?”

  I heard running water as she turned on the faucet. “He refuses to file a case.”

  Marny snorted and coughed. “Oh, don’t do that when I’m swallowing wine.”

  “Are you in a bubble bath with candles?” I demanded, blowing smoke out of my cracked car window, watching the gray ice accumulate on my windshield.

  “Of course I am. Office is closed today.”

  “And you’re drinking already?” I swigged the last of my Guinness.

  “Honey, don’t hate. Good Cabs make life worthwhile.”

  “Like hell. I can’t stand Bordeaux.”

  Marny chuckled. “You just haven’t met the right one.”

  “That’s what my mama said about men and look how that turned out.”

  Marny’s throaty laugh made my fingers twitch. I pictured her in the bath—short, wet, curly blue-black hair, heart-stopping Irish green eyes, vampire-white skin all slippery and sudsy, and legs that stretched into next week and flaming straight. Total cock-gobbling dick mitt. I decided to return to Sophie’s with my tail between my legs.

  “So you want me to look into it?” Marny asked.

  “I would never compromise your integrity by asking such a thing,” I answered.

  “Got it. How’s your love life?”

  “Shitty. Why? What do you care?”

  “Just thought I would get your mind off murder for a minute.”

  “How’s yours?”

  Marny laughed again and said, “Frederick, say hello to Jill.”

  And in the background, I heard a male voice obediently say, “Hello, Jill.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake. That’s great. That’s just great, you whore.”

  Marny clucked. “That’s your jealousy making you peevish. You need a woman.”

  “Damn right.”

  “I know someone.”

  “Aw, hell no. I’m not going on a blind date.”

  “Just think about it. She’s very sweet. Her name is Penelope. I’ll send you her photo.”

  I sighed. “Well, if she puts out, maybe it will be okay.”

  “Good. Then it’s settled. Now about this other thing.”

  “Murder made to look like a hit-and-run on Highway Seventy-five.”

  “I’ll let you know, ciao.”

  I closed my phone, rolled up the window, and carefully stood up and started scraping the ice off the windows.

  I pulled up outside Sophie’s house and rested my forehead carefully on the steering wheel. Which was worse, going home and being alone in the cold, dark or being the embarrassing third wheel in a romance? “I can’t face my house. I just can’t,” I said, my breath trickling out in hot vapor. I was leaning heavily on the hope that I could trade on the brief shared past of Sophie and me for some goodwill and hang time.

  I stood up, full of dread. Two houses down in the middle of the road, a woman, fat with coats and scarves, stood sobbing into a hankie. Because the air was so still and the city so quiet, sound carried abnormally well. I could hear her moaning, “My trees, my trees, my trees.”

  I knocked on the door that I knew so well. This time Sophie answered with a lemony twist to her mouth.

  “I’m older and wiser. May I come in?”

  “Drop dead. When I want you, I never see you again, and when I’m unavailable, I can’t shake you. I think you have a character flaw.”

  I glared at her. “Yeah, funny, isn’t it?”

  “Try not to fuck it up this time.” Sophie moved aside to let me pass.

  I heard opera in the living room, so I followed the music.

  Alistair looked up from a pallet on the floor and smiled. “Well, look who’s back!”

  “And look who’s still here,” I said.

  “Lighten up, old boy. Have a seat. What are you drinking? Do you like Puccini?”

  “Not especially.” I cringed when my knees popped as I sat on the couch.

  “Neither do I,” Alistair whispered. “It was Sophie’s idea. How about some Miles?”

  “Right on!” I smiled. Alistair changed the music.

  Sophie reappeared with a glass that she handed to me. “Every time I see you, you’re thirsty.” I took the glass and tasted it. Bourbon. Just like before I left. Goddamn her. “Thank you,” I said to the fireplace as I stared at the blaze leaping and snapping in the grate.

  “We don’t have any pizza left. You want a sandwich or something?” Sophie bent over me in concern, her brow furrowed. The modesty of her turtleneck just emphasized the body underneath.

  “Come sit down with me, Sugarfoot,” Alistair reached for her. Miles’s horn wove a slow sex spell. I closed my eyes.

  “No, nothing for me.”

  I heard Sophie sit down on the floor. I opened my eyes. They were reading magazines. Sophie was reading Adbusters and Alistair was reading Glamour.

  “Listen to this rubbish: ‘for a better sex life, a woman should just relax and be herself. Tension is a mood killer.’ Who is this for?”

  “Baby women, darling. Ones who are just forming and have stripper Barbie damage,” Sophie said, petting Alistair’s head.

  “This is Sophie’s. I love reading these absurd articles!” Alistair smiled up at me.

  “Uh—” I tried to speak, but my voice was latched. I stood up and put my backside to the fire. My mind drifted to the last time I was here and it was summer. Summer so hot it was like putting out matches inside my nostrils to breathe. My body had been oily all the time; my armpits were always slick, my shorts were always funky, my hair greasy. The sun baked, fried, roasted, and burned. The light was too bright, bleaching the color out of life itself and pressing on my skin like a scorched iron. I sweated myself dehydrated and never completely cooled down, even in the shower, in air-conditioning, or at night. But how I had loved every minute of that summer. That summer when I met Sophie for the first time. The summer that Sophie bewitched me, the summer of loss and discovery.

  The summer I was on the rebound and completely burned out. I fell hard and fast for Sophie when I saw her at Whole Foods, wandering the supplements aisle with her net bag, sundress, and sandals. But it wasn’t enough to heal me. I had four murder books on my desk, all stuck in the muddy morass of hopeless dead ends, and I had just broken up by mutual agreement with a woman I had been with for five years. We had just run out of gas. Neither one of us cared anymore, but under pressure, I had promised to remain friends even though I was indifferent to that too.

  Chief St. John saw the circles under my eyes, my weight loss, my apathy to interviewing witnesses who had already given statements a dozen times, and he sent me away.

  The chief and I have a contentious but affectionate relationship, and I get away with more than I should, but when he issues a command, I have no choice. Because I was embarrassed and ashamed, I left town without a word after a three-month torrid affair with Sophie. I packed and slunk out of town, driving north to South Dakota to stay with very distant relatives on a res.

  I stayed in touch with the chief, but I couldn’t overcome my shame to contact Sophie.

  The summer of glossy golden hair and pink skin and tart raspberry nipples and stolen caresses as sweet as feather honey. Breasts as heavy as heat, triangle of curly crimson fire, hypnotizing me into syrupy stupidity. Opening her legs to find the sweet lava that melted me. I could feel my temperature rising just remembering. Hotter, hotter, and hotter still. The regret boiling in me like acid.

  “What’s that smell?” Alistair wrinkled his nose.

  “You’re on fire!” Sophie sa
id, slapping the backs of my legs. I whirled and saw my Burberry scarf—a gift from a woman—ablaze.

  “Shit!” I said with disgust, hitting the flames.

  “Bad luck,” Alistair said.

  “Come with me,” Sophie said and dragged me into the kitchen. She threw the scarf in the sink and turned on the cold water. “First, are you all right?” The scarf hissed and smoked.

  “Yeah, don’t get in a lady wad. I’m fine.” I turned off the water.

  Sophie stared at the backs of my legs. “Your jeans have singe holes in them. Are you sure you’re not burned?” She raised her gaze, full of worry, to search my face.

  “Yeah, I’m burned,” I said, holding her stare until the air started to prickle.

  “Hm, well, I’m sorry about that. We’re definitely throwing this away.” Sophie wrung out the scarf and dropped it into the trash.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I grabbed her by the shoulders.

  Sophie’s eyes darkened. “What do you mean?” she asked coolly.

  “Cut the shit. You know what I’m talking about.” I jerked my thumb at the living room. “That Brit twit.”

  “Don’t do that,” Sophie said.

  “What’s the story? You suddenly got a yen for prick?”

  “I’m telling you for the last time, be civil or get out.”

  “I’m hurt! I’m outraged!”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “Tell me why. Can you do that at least?”

  “At least?” Sophie said. “At least? Look where you are standing! Might I remind you, Jill Rogers—”

  “All right, all right,” I said, waving my hands. “I’m sorry. Would you please tell me?”

  Sophie regarded me for a moment and puffed air from her nostrils like a horse. “Sure. It’s no secret. I just follow the pleasure.” She shrugged. “And I can get pleasure from anyone, man or woman. Pleasure isn’t limited to one gender or one type of experience. Pleasure—”

  “Oh, give me a break. I am going to vomit.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I glared at her. I wanted to knock her down. I wanted to fuck her. “Why him?”

  “What difference does it make? Pleasure is pleasure.”

  “Stop saying that! It makes everyone sound so…interchangeable.”

  “And so they are,” Sophie said smoothly. “Pleasure—”

  “You say pleasure one more time and I’ll choke you.” I flexed my hands.

  Sophie stepped close to me, lifted her chin, and whispered, “Pleasure.”

  I could smell her perfume. Quick as lightning, I embraced her and slammed my mouth on hers. Her mouth received me hungrily, and we kissed like starved tigers, tearing at each other, panting, clawing, pressing hard, trying to merge our bodies like our mouths, deeper and deeper, getting lost in the spiral.

  I heard footsteps, broke the kiss, and moved away. Sophie looked wild and disheveled; I assumed I was a mirror image, so I stared outside, pretending indifference. The ice continued pecking at the windows.

  “All right then?” Alistair said, glancing at us and getting a Guinness out of the dark fridge.

  “Yes,” Sophie said. “Yes. Jill’s just,” Sophie tenderly daubed her lips, “Jill needs a new scarf.”

  “Pity,” Alistair said and grinned. “Mmm, chilly in here. Come back to the fire.”

  I faced Sophie without any sex filters. Just one hundred percent smoking desire. I rasped, “Why him?”

  Sophie smiled a hideous, sardonic grimace, “’cause he didn’t run away when he wanted me.”

  I closed my eyes. “Gotcha.” I walked out of the kitchen through the living room, and out the front door where I stood on the stoop, thunderstruck. “This can’t be,” I said. I tilted my head back and yelled so loud my feet almost left the ground.

  Sophie and Alistair came running.

  “Your car!” Sophie said.

  “A hit-and-run,” I said, my mouth full of vinegar.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Alistair clapped me on the shoulder. “Steady on.”

  “Can’t you get one of those unmarked departmental cars or something?” Sophie said.

  “I’ll try,” I said miserably. Alistair went back inside. I dialed the motor pool. A recorded voice told me they were closed indefinitely. I called the emergency number.

  “Whitman.”

  “Rogers here. My car is totaled. What can I get?”

  A laugh that turned into a long, rattling hack. “Ain’t you heard? We’re in the middle of an act a God. Ain’t no cars comin’ or goin’.”

  My throat squeezed. “Nothing at all?”

  “Jilldo, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I couldn’t get anything to you. There’s a foot of ice on everything. Plus then there’s the frozen and powerless electric fence that can’t move an inch. I only came in to do payroll for my people. I’m sittin’ in my parka in the cold dark down here. You’ll have to stay put.”

  Without a further word, I ended the call and shrugged.

  “You’ll never get a tow. Want to stay here?” Sophie asked softly.

  Chapter Nine

  My phone rang immediately. “Rogers!” I shouted into the phone, hoping whoever was on the other end would say something stupid.

  “Rogers, Perryman. I found something.”

  I grinned. “Hey, foxy. What you know good?” I noticed Sophie watching me, and I was filled with giddy satisfaction. I turned and left the room after I wolf-winked at Sophie.

  Down a long, dark hallway and out of earshot, I leaned wearily against the wall, my whole body sagging. I put a hand over my eyes and my voice changed. “Okay, Sheriff. What have you found?”

  “Can you come to the evidence room?”

  My throat was powdery with bitterness, but I laughed. “Nope. I’m stuck. My car is totaled.”

  “Hm. That presents a problem.”

  “Little bit.”

  “Well, can I come there?”

  “Not a good idea. I’m not at home.”

  “What then?”

  “Sheriff, I really can’t worry about this now. I will contact you as soon as I have wheels.”

  “Borrow my car.” The voice was liquid satin floating out of the darkness and wrapping me in snaps of electricity. Barely visible was a shadow darker than the dark: Sophie.

  “What?” I said.

  “With me in it,” she continued, all ripply ripe.

  “I’ll see you in ten.” I told Perryman and hung up. “Soapytoes, just what do you think you’re doing?”

  She took a step closer. “I’m stir crazy and want to get out.”

  “So take a walk around the block.”

  She stepped closer. I could see her face a little now. “I’ve done that. I want to get…” Sophie stepped closer, “farther,” and closer, “out.” When she stopped, our feet were touching.

  I cupped her jean-clad cunt and whispered, “There will be none of this.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Or this.” I rolled my thumbs over her sweater. I felt two BBs rise to the surface.

  “I know.”

  “Or this.” I knocked her head back and bit her throat.

  “Definitely not,” Sophie moaned.

  My mouth, pulsing with heat, hovered above her ear that was covered in loose vanilla curls. “No foolishness,” I breathed, running my hands slowly down her sides and finally taking possession of her round ass. I clutched and squeezed it like a crash victim with an airline seat. Sophie closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, raising her pelvis to me.

  “Absolutely,” Sophie whispered, her mouth swollen and succulent.

  I stood erect, put my hands in my pockets, shaking the spell. Curiously, Sophie’s desire helped me have strength to set mine aside.

  “But, Jill, what about this?” Sophie pulled my mouth back to hers. I sank into that sensual madness and devoured her for all the years of denial, for all the fantasies, for the unknown future when I probably would never get it again. Her arms locked me clos
e, and her leg curled around to hold me. Sophie’s moans made my entire body ache with desire. My wrists, my vertebrae, my feet, my hips throbbed with pain, needing this woman. Her panting told me she had wanted me for a very long time too.

  I was an expert at women’s voices, and this desire wasn’t fresh. Sophie’s desire for me was aged and bittersweet with unrequited misery. I imagined her, after I left for South Dakota, injured and unfulfilled, replaying our few moments together with an intensity that would keep her wanting. I pictured her, night after night, falling back into bed, panties off, eyes closed, legs wide, gasping for relief, wishing me there, her whole body twitching in agony for me. For my brown hands to stroke and soothe her, for my tongue to tenderly caress satisfaction into her cunt, for her to scream my name, claw my flesh to bloody ribbons as her passion is finally sated. For me to fill her up, expanding, side to side, up and down, front and back until her distress melted into contentment.

  But I hadn’t been there to do that. Sophie had simmered and seethed, restless with torment, month after month, until now with my mouth on hers, these moans rising up from the basal core of her, confessing everything.

  I pulled on her braid, jerking her head back. I stared at her, her eyes famished for me, her mouth carnivorous and wet. I knew she wanted me to make a scene. To demand she break up with Alistair, to beg for status, to plead with her for another chance, to tell her all I would do for her. To make forever promises. But I didn’t. I simply met her stare. My hands were shaking so I folded my arms across my chest, separating us. “No, there will be none of that either,” I said softly, then called, “Alistair!” Sophie’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Wanna go for a ride?” I yelled. Sophie hissed at me and stormed into the kitchen, smoke trailing after. I heard glass breaking. I figured Sophie threw the empty soldiers too hard into the recycling.

  “I ain’t playin’ that,” I said, walking to the living room. Sophie was already there, facing the fire, staring at the flames. Alistair was sipping his Guinness.

  “Count me out. I’m just ducky right here. This weather is not my cuppa. But maybe Sophie? Sugar, you want to go?”