Skin Deep by Sung J. Woo

Author:Sung J. Woo [Pinter, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Polis Books

49

On the drive back from Llewellyn to Athena, I got two calls. The first one was from the Athena Police Station.

“That test tube you dropped off?” Keeler said.

That was the test tube I’d found in Christopher’s room.

“Yes, anything?” I asked.

“There wasn’t much left in there because whoever used it rinsed it out good, but not quite good enough. Male ejaculate.”

“Excuse me?”

“Spunk. Jizz. Cum.”

“I know what semen is, Keeler.”

He chortled. “Just wanted to say some of that urban lingo you street-savvy private eyes are used to.”

“Is it worth running through the database?”

“Already did. No matches.”

Then it was Craig’s turn to ring me on my cell. He asked if I liked linguine in clam sauce for dinner.

“I do,” I said.

“Would you still like it if I were to make it for you at my place?”

Hold your horses, I almost said, but then I thought there was no faster way to get to know a person than to see his home.

“Sounds lovely,” I said.

He told me his address.

“I know exactly where that is. On the corner of Geneva and Stewart, two blocks from the county library.”

“Then you’ve known where I’ve lived for the last twenty years,” he said.

I pulled up to a beige house with green shutters, a duplex with a slate gray roof. It was a well-maintained home, the lawn clear of fallen leaves, the water hose neatly looped by the bushes. I stepped out of my car and saw the front door open.

Craig was wearing an apron in the shape of Bugs Bunny’s head, with the slogan, “What’s Cookin’, Doc?” He waved, and I waved back. He watched me walk up the stone path, and my stomach tightened. Was it just nerves or something else?

“Welcome,” he said. He opened his arms and I embraced him as unreservedly as possible.

“You smell like home,” I said. He did: pasta, tomato sauce, garlic. Even though my dad was Irish and my mom Norwegian, Italian cuisine was what I grew up with.

Something beeped between us, the black timer that hung from his neck like a charm.

“That’s the garlic bread. Come with me,” he said, and took my hand and led me to the kitchen.

It was a kind of a mess. There was no can or jar of tomato sauce, Craig making his own from scratch. Ditto with the noodles, as attested by the straggler squiggles from the mouth of the pasta machine mounted on the counter. The center island was where everything was happening, and the butcher block looked like a Jackson Pollock painting, streaked with the red tomato juice, smudged with fingerprints of white flour, black dribbles of balsamic vinaigrette around the edges.

“Holy shit,” I said, overwhelmed. No man—no woman, not even my own mother—had ever gone to this kind of trouble to make dinner. “What I meant to say is: wow.”

A second buzzer, magnetically attached to the fridge, buzzed a similar tune. Craig brought out a large white bowl and picked up a handheld blender.

“I hope you like gazpacho,” he said. He plunged the silver spinners into the mash and proceeded to create a liquid tornado.

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