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5

JONESY

We didn’t talk much afterward. I held him tightly until I heard his steady breathing and knew he had fallen asleep. As I lay there, covered in his dried cum, my mind drifted. Why was it so easy to tell him I loved him only when we were alone? What was I afraid of? Would it make me any less of a man to show him affection in front of others? Had my life in the homophobic world of football and my secret world of drag kept me from openly showing what he meant to me?

It had been a long day, but ending it in his arms made up for it. I wasn’t sure why Craig looked like he’d been crying, and when I asked him what was wrong, he only shook his head, kissed me, and snuggled closer. I figured if he wanted to tell me, he would, so I didn’t press the matter.

I woke up early, took a quick shower, and changed into fresh clothes I always kept at his place. Before leaving, I kissed him goodbye as he slept and texted him that I’d call him later. Was it wrong that I didn’t stay and cuddle? My mind was too busy thinking about the murder case, and if I couldn’t push it away and started talking about it, it would set a mood for both our mornings.

Before I headed to the precinct, I stopped at Starbucks and picked up two large coffees—one for me and one for Sean, making sure to ask for three sugars, vanilla syrup, and half-and-half for his morning elixir. I never understood how someone could drink a candy bar in the morning. I always took mine black.

It wasn’t quite seven a.m. when I arrived at my desk. I knew Sean wouldn’t come until seven-thirty as normal, so I placed it on his desk across from mine. I figured if it cooled down too much, he could warm it up in the breakroom’s microwave.

An email had come through late last night from the crime lab, and they’d identified our deceased woman. She was in the Nevada database since she held a concealed weapons permit. She had registered it in Boulder City, in southern Nevada. I was thankful at how quickly we found out and for having a starting point.

After responding to my emails, I needed to email Dr. Fleming to have her update the autopsy report. Just as I was about to hit send, I heard Sean.

“Good morning,” he said matter-of-factly, draping his sports coat over the back of his chair. He didn’t look particularly well-rested.

“Morning,” I replied. “I picked you up a coffee, and yes, it has your sugary syrup as well as the sugars I threw down next to it.”

“Ah, thanks. This must be because you spent the night with Craig, and getting laid always puts you in a good mood?”

“Oh, fuck you!” I snapped, mostly because he was right.

Sean laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.” I watched him take the lid off his coffee. “Oh, and you had them add cream as well.”

“After four years, I know your coffee order. I still can’t comprehend how you can drink a perfectly good cup of coffee with all that shit in it.”

He stirred in his sugar with the wooden swizzle stick. “It’s better than that black, bitter motor oil you enjoy,” he replied before taking a sip. “Mmmm…perfect. Seriously, though, thanks. I slept like shit, even after I’d called Megan. Telling your adult daughter, age twenty-two, to be safe and mindful of things around her makes me seem like an overprotective helicopter parent.”

I snickered. “You’re just being a caring dad. After what we saw yesterday, it’s understandable. By the way, we got an ID on that young woman. Her name was Gretchen Swenson. Her prints matched a Nevada concealed carry permit record. I’ll contact the authorities in Boulder City, Nevada, and see if her address is still the same.”

“Interesting that a young woman like that would have a weapons permit. Then again, in Nevada, she might come from a family that shoots firearms. I wonder if she’d had it on her before she was murdered. And why and where was she murdered?” Sean said, holding his coffee cup in front of his mouth, his elbows braced on the armrests of his desk chair. “Let me call Boulder City, and I’ll find out more.”

“If you don’t have the email from the crime lab with her information, I’ll forward it to you,” I replied happily, glad he was taking on that task. I needed to get a jump on the case file.

By mid-afternoon, we’d been able to zero in on Gretchen Elizabeth Swenson. We discovered she had lived in Boulder City, had been the reigning Miss Boulder City, and was last seen in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where the Miss Nevada beauty pageant was taking place.

Thirty-three women from all over the state of Nevada, many of whom came from the Las Vegas area, had converged on Lake Tahoe, where the pageant had been held for several years. I called the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to speak to whoever had been in charge of the missing woman’s case. I found out Gretchen had disappeared only one day into the week-long pageant. The last time someone saw her was at the hotel’s café around lunchtime, after her private panel interview.

Not long into the conversation with Sheriff Detective Chet Landon, I had to tell him we had Gretchen’s body in our city morgue. He was surprised that she’d been brought to San Francisco. He now faced the tough task of informing the woman’s family. He told me Gretchen’s mother had traveled up to Lake Tahoe to be her chaperone and was overwhelmed with worry. I told the detective to have her call me once she’d received the news and was ready to talk.

Six hours later, I received a phone call from Lucinda Swenson.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Swenson,” I said sincerely. It was always hard to get information from a grieving parent about their recently deceased child, so I showed as much empathy as I could to help her open up.

“Please call me Lucy. And thank you. This is such a… a shock,” she replied, her voice cracking.

“I completely understand, and again, I’m very sorry. Can you tell me the last time you saw your daughter? I know you’ve probably been asked these questions already, but I’d like to hear the answers from you.”

I heard her take a shuddering breath. “Gretchen and I got to Lake Tahoe on Sunday. Things were going great, and she had her main panel interview with the judges on Monday morning. She… she…” Lucy began to cry, and I waited for her to compose herself. “Gretchen was so excited and thought her interview went extremely well. We had lunch, and then she said she wanted to go to our room, look over her wardrobe, and rest before the evening’s choreography rehearsal.”

“Was that the last time you talked to her?” I asked.

“We were still at the resort hotel when we had lunch, and she said she had her room key on her. I-I told her I wanted to spend the afternoon shopping in the hotel stores, and how proud I was of her, and…” She broke down again.

“And then you parted ways?” I said once I heard her calm herself.