Fat Free And Fatal. G. A. McKevett

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      “You met on Monday,” Savannah repeated in an ominously monotone voice that she usually reserved for questioning perps she suspected of child molesting or puppy drowning. “Monday, you say. And it’s only…Friday. Now, if that don’t just beat all. And you got married when?”

      “Yesterday,” Jesup announced proudly. “We wanted to on Tuesday, after spending the night together Monday night, but we decided to wait and think about it some more, you know.”

      “Oh, yes, wait, think about it, mull it over, weigh the pros and cons. Lord knows you wouldn’t want to just jump into something as all-fired serious as marriage with both feet on a moment’s notice like that. That would just be plain ol’ loco.”

      “Exactly. It’s a real commitment, marriage is, and—”

      “No, Jessie,” Savannah said, “bringing home a kitten from the city dump, that’s a commitment. Marriage is a life sentence. At least, it’s supposed to be.”

      Jesup looked at Savannah as though she had lost her mind, then rolled her eyes. “Well, duh, Van. Of course it’s for life. Once you meet your soul mate who completes you, you’ll never want to be without them. Not even for a moment.”

      “Soul mate?” Savannah shook her head. “What constitutes a soul mate? Somebody who shares the same tube of lipstick with you? The same bottle of black nail polish? Does that constitute a ‘mate’ who was ordained to be with you since the creation of the universe or some such hooey?”

      Jesup reached over and grasped Bleak’s hand in hers. Yes, their red-black nail polish was the same shade, although hers were extremely long dragon claws, and his were bitten to the quick. “Yes, we are soul mates and the very fact that you have to ask what a soul mate is means that you haven’t met yours yet. So there!”

      Jesup turned goo-goo eyes on Bleak and blinked at him with what must have been pure soul-mate adoration.

      Savannah wasn’t sure because, as Jesup had so tactlessly reminded her, she hadn’t met hers yet. Or if she had, he hadn’t announced himself as such, and she hadn’t recognized him.

      Although, watching her sister ogle her new hubby, Savannah was reminded of a few milk cows she’d known on neighboring farms in Georgia. The same shining eyes, the same gentle spirit, the same quiet acceptance, generosity, and quiet resignation—all the result of having a single-digit IQ.

      Jesup had always been a bit ditzy, a little melancholy of disposition, a tad shy of the good sense possessed by most tennis balls. But this was a new low, even for her.

      “Did the two of you meet in Vegas?” Tammy asked, sprightly, feigning fascination.

      “Yes! At the Blood Fest,” Jesup replied. “It was wonderful! Four full, beautiful days.” She looked up at Bleak and batted her spiky eyelashes that were caked with clumpy, red mascara. “And four wonderful nights, as well,” she added.

      “So, Bleak…” Savannah said, helping herself to another brownie. It was going to take a lot of carbs to get her serotonin level up after this shock. She walked over to her comfy chair and lowered herself into it with a weary sigh. “…tell us about yourself.”

      Bleak fingered the stud sticking out of the right side of his nose and said, “Sure. Whatcha wanna know?”

      “How old are you?”

      “Thirty-three.”

      “When is your birthday?”

      “January thirteenth. Why? Are you going to send me a birthday card?”

      Oh yeah, Savannah thought. Right after I run a check on you and see what sort of a record you’ve got, you jackass. Then she reminded herself that, other than his bizarre personal grooming, she hadn’t really seen anything too objectionable in ol’ Bleak. Keep an open mind, Savannah, she told herself. At least until you get that report back with his arm-long rap sheet and find out that he’s a serial killer.

      “Do you have a last name, Bleak? Or is it just Bleak, like Cher and Madonna and—”

      “Yeah. Manifest.”

      “Manifest.” Savannah stared at him for a long time. In her peripheral vision she could see Tammy squirm and shoot her a warning look to “be nice.” She could also hear Granny Reid’s voice deep in her heart telling her to assume the best about people until they showed you the worst. Although, she was pretty sure that the minute Gran saw this guy, she’d call the elders of her church over to lay hands on him and cast out the devils out of him.

      “So…” she said, “…about thirty-three years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Manifest had a beautiful, bouncing baby boy, and they looked down at him in his bassinet and said, ‘Now, ain’t he just the cutest thing you ever did see? Let’s name this precious little bundle of joy “Bleak.”’ Is that what you’re telling us?”

      Bleak returned her level stare. “Nope. Bleak Manifest is a name of my own choosing. It better describes my view of this prison sentence we call life.”

      “It describes it better than…?”

      He hesitated. And Jesup filled in the blank. “Better than Milton Pillsbury.”

      Savannah checked him out again, the makeup, tattoos, piercings, the rattlesnake boots. Yes, Bleak Manifest did suit him a lot better than Milton Pillsbury. She had to agree with him there.

      She wondered what he looked like under all that makeup. Oh, well, she thought, I’ll find out when I see his mug shot.

      “And are you from Las Vegas originally?”

      He laughed. “Nobody’s from Vegas originally. My family is in Barstow. They own the biggest mortuary there.”

      “I’ll bet they do. And is that the line of work you’re in?”

      “No. I’m in school.”

      “To be…?”

      “I want to run a body farm.”

      “A body farm.” She glanced over at Tammy, who nearly choked on her mineral water. “Do you mean a body farm, as in, forensic research?”

      His eyes blazed with interest. And to her dismay, so did Jesup’s. Suddenly, they both came alive with passion.

      Bleak scooted forward to the edge of the sofa. “Yeah! Me and Jess are going to have our own body farm, there in the desert outside Vegas. I’ve already got the property picked out. It’ll be perfect. Lots of wildlife to scavenge the corpses and hot enough that the decomposition rate will be—”

      Savannah held up her traffic-cop palm. “Okay, Okay. Gotcha. I’ve been to body farms before…far more frequently than I’ve wanted to.”

      “Really? Wow!” Bleak was practically dancing in his black leather pants. “Oh man! That’s so cool. When Jess told me about you, that you’re a homicide investigator, I told her, ‘Hey, I gotta meet this sister of yours.’ And that’s when we decided we’d spend our honeymoon here with you. Do you have any cool pictures of murder scenes? Stuff like that? Could we, like, go with you on some of СКАЧАТЬ