Candice couldn’t wait to pour herself a damned drink. A real one.

She pulled to a stop in the circular drive of the Parkdale home she shared with her husband, opened the door of the Mercedes and lifted a grocery bag from the back.

It had been a brutal morning, dealing with the morons that wandered into her office expecting her to just hand out social assistance checks, no questions asked. And then got quite snotty when told they’d have to wait to be interviewed. Well fuck them. They could all fuckin’ starve. More cream for her to skim off the top.

But if that hadn’t been enough, she’d been forced to put up with that insulting kid at the grocery shop. She would have complained to the manager if not for the fact the kid would have squealed like a pig— about the first time— when she’d asked him to deliver the milk and eggs with his dick hanging out the front of his jeans.

Candy smiled to herself. At least that little episode had been kinda fun, him standing in her doorway, a grocery bag in each arm and she holding his penis in her right hand and burnishing the foreskin with the side of her thumb.

He’d been all shy in the beginning— even had to be dragged across foyer by his cock after he found her in the doorway wearing nothing but a hip-length, roomy sweater. He had eyed the moist groove like there was a cobra inside her basket, but she tipped well and he soon got used to being lead about by his dick. So now the little turd was taking her generosity for granted? And had started demanding favors? Christ!

“How about it?” he had asked in the parking lot while rubbing his erection against the side of her leg.

She had thought about making a fuss, but could she afford a divorce? Without James, the house and Mercedes would be gone, not to mention her self-respect and her job when she was hauled up before those prissy assholes on the Review Board. So with a quick glance about the parking lot, Candy ordered the bag-boy into the passenger seat.

He already had his jeans open by the time she slipped behind the wheel. “You’ll have to settle for a hand-job,” she informed him, eyes centered on the drooling pee-hole. “I just did my lipstick.”

“Fine.” He sounded abrasive. “You can use your tongue after, to clean up.”

“Oh Christ,” she muttered, stretching to reach the tub of vaseline she kept in the glove-box. The little pecker had just turned sixteen and was loaded to the gills with jolly-juice. He would spurt allover everything and she would have to lick up the god-damned mess.

“Fine,” she conceded. “Just keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell your mother, your buddies at school, or that slut you call a girlfriend. Got it?”

He smirked. “I like sluts. You got it?”

Candy shrugged and smeared vaseline along the length of his penis. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure you out.” She encircled the foreskin and pressed, squeezing her fingers down over the head and along the length.

He seethed.

“Please ... shut ... up ... Don’t attract attention to yourself,” Candy warned. “We’re in the middle of the Whole Foods parking lot.”

The kid was leaned back into the headrest with his mouth open, breathing noisily, like he was about to start snoring— but instead, he exhaled with a heavy moan. “Work it for me.”

Candy took him in two hands and kept up the rhythm until he lurched up cum allover himself, and allover her hands. “Shit,” she swore, wringing her fingers. “Watch the fucking upholstery.”

Candy, holding her grocery bag, used her ass to swing open the front door. “Need a hand?” James asked, standing from the sofa.

“What the hell are you doing home?” Candace snapped. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. And whad’re yah drinking?”

“Scotch. And I took the afternoon to be with my lovely wife.” He leaned in for a kiss.

“Fuck you. And pour me vodka.”

“Mmm. I think you could use one. You smell like you just sucked off the Turkish Navy.”

“Yeah?” Candace pushed the grocery bag into his arms. “It’s the only cum I’ll ever get around here.”

“From what I hear, you do okay.” James shrugged and backed off. No use fighting on their last afternoon together. He went to the stereo console and checked the position of his Sony recorder.

He turned abruptly and knocked sharply on the wall. Candace’s face came up. “What the...”

James didn’t say a word but pounded on the wall a second time.

“Jesus Christ,” Candace spun on James. “Are you fuckin’ crazy? That was...” But the rest of her cry was lost in the sharp sounds of smashing glass.

“What are you doing?” Candace screamed as the liquor cabinet tumbled, throwing broken bottles and spreading amber-colored liquid across the carpet.

Detective Jill Anderson eyed her desk phone. It chirped a second time and she picked up. “Yes Sharon?”

Sharon Secco exhaled heavily. “We got a homicide. High profile. You better come to my office.”

“It’s James Kent’s wife,” Sharon said, even before Jilly could sit.

“The guy who writes the crime column?”

“That’s him. Investigative Reporter for the Times.” Sharon’s lacquered fingernails shot across the keyboard of Miss Gates, the crime computer she had built from scratch. “The 911 came in a few minutes ago. Officers and EMT’s are already on the scene. The housekeeper found Mrs Kent hanging by the neck from the stairs.”

“Suicide?”

“Uh-uh. No note and she was naked. Looks like murder, possible sexual assault.”

Jilly shuffled a pencil across a yellow pad. “Has James Kent been notified?”

“He’s the one who called it in. He was on the phone to his wife when she opened the front door. James heard the scuffle on his office phone and when his wife screamed, he realized what was happening. He panicked and called his housekeeper. Then 911. The EMT’s arrived but couldn’t revive Candace. It was a done deal.”

“Wait a minute ... Kent called the housekeeper first?”

“Mmm. That struck me as strange as well. But you’ll have to ask him. Could be he just freaked. Anyway hustle on over to Parkdale and take the Tonka Toy with you, unless she’s at the gym. The techies are on the scene and Frank Reid has been notified. Call as soon as you learn something.”

Tommy held the yellow crime-scene tape for Jilly to duck under and they passed their ID wallets to the uniformed officer standing just inside the door. “I’ll take the housekeeper,” Tommy offered, then pointed. “There’s Frank.”

Jilly moved to where Dr Frank Reid, the Medical Examiner, sat hunched over his notes. He had parked himself on the bottom step of a curved staircase that rose to a landing on the second floor, below which, Candace Kent’s body lay, covered with a sheet.

“Hiya, Frank,” Jilly slipped in beside him. “Anything so far?”

“Enough,” he replied pulling off his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Candice Kent was dropped from the upper landing with a length of three-eighth rope tied about her neck. She was still warm when I arrived.”

“She was hanged?”

“No. By the bruising, I don’t think so. She was strangled from behind with a short piece of rope, then a longer piece was knotted to the first and used to hang her from the stair railing.”

Jilly pulled out her notebook. “You mean hung up, sort of like a trophy? Like deer hunters do, with a prized buck. For photos.”

Frank massaged his eyeballs. “It’s early yet. I’ll confirm my findings after the autopsy. But, yes, that’s my take. Also, I see bite marks about her breasts and there’s vaginal bruising, consistent with a sexual assault. I’ll have to take swabs to be sure.”

“Okay. I’ll wait for your report. But I find it interesting that she was strung up ... after the fact. Like maybe as a warning?”

“A warning. Huh ... I read somewhere that natives in New Guinea hang the bodies of their enemies around the boarders of their encampments to ward off intruders.”

“That’d work.” Jilly smirked. “I wonder what James Kent’s been working on recently. I don’t read his column.”

“He’s been documenting the life of Tomas Bonanno. I read a couple of installments but it didn’t interest me much.”

“Of the Bonanno crime family? The crime boss?”

“Mmm. The series is titled Anatomy of a Monster and it’s got ’book’ written all over it. Maybe even a TV documentary.”

“Sounds like we might have a motive. I better call the paper and get copies of Kent’s article.”

“That’s where I’d start, yes.”

Jilly stood and smoothed down the front of her skirt. “I’ll just take a look at the body and make sure the techies have covered everything. Then have a chat with James Kent.”

There was a sudden explosive sound as the front door was thrown open. James Kent stormed into the room. “Where is she?” he demanded but before anyone could answer, he spotted the humpled sheet laying below the stairs.

“Christ. Oh Jesus Christ,” he swore, standing over his wife’s remains. He turned then, slumped to the sofa and rolled his head in his hands. “No ... no ... no...”

Jilly went to him. “You shouldn’t be here sir. Please...” And she looked about, her eyes landing on a pretty, uniformed officer.

The young woman stepped forward and nodded.

Jilly placed a hand on Kent’s shoulder. “Please, take him out of here.” James rose to his feet and with an arm around the girl, allowed himself to be led away.

Jilly wrapped up her preliminary investigation and was walking toward her car when the guy raking leaves next door looked up. “Heard there was some trouble...” he said.

“The worst kind,” Jilly replied. “Did you know Candace?”

“Well everyone knew Candy. To be sure. But you won’t find many who’d admit to it.”

Jilly frowned. “Care to fill me in?”

The guy checked over a shoulder. “Candy had a bit of a reputation, you see ... for stepping out when an opportunity presented itself. Guess she wasn’t getting enough at home. And a woman like that demanded a lot of maintenance, if you get my meaning.”

“She was stepping out on her husband, James?”

“James? Is that his name? Poor sap. Well he’ll be better off without her. Everyone’s been snickering ... behind his back ... for as long as I can remember. There isn’t a delivery guy in the city who doesn’t love this address.”