For Butter or Worse Read online

  For Better or Worse

  a Jamie Bravo Mystery

  by

  Saxon Bennett & Layce Gardner

  This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Square Pegs Ink

  Text copyright 2019 © Saxon Bennett & Layce Gardner

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the authors’ written permission.

  Editor: Kate Michael Gibson

  Katemichaelgibson.com

  Cover designed by Lemon Squirrel Graphics

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  Chapter One

  “Are those lederhosen?” I ask Travis. I use the same tone of voice that I would use to ask, “Is that a dancing bear in my kitchen?”

  I’m sitting at the kitchen bar trying to choke down a cup of coffee. It tastes charred and bitter and burns my tongue. It’s horrible. That’s because I made it instead of Travis. He makes a delicious cup of coffee using his French press and freshly ground beans from exotic locations that nobody’s ever heard of except him.

  Travis is a fabulous gay man. That’s why he can brew delicious coffee. It’s in his DNA... right next to the trait that gives him superior color-coordinating powers, and the ability to make an evening gown using only a shower curtain and a few well-placed bobby pins.

  I am a lesbian. My DNA stipulates that anything I try to do in the kitchen sucks. That includes brewing coffee. But this morning Travis wasn’t around, and I was desperate for an injection of caffeine. My coffee might be making my taste buds shrivel up and die, but it is giving me the chemical I so desperately crave. If I were to brand my coffee, I would name it Rocket Fuel for both its taste and its kick.

  Travis marches his cute little lederhosen-clad butt over to the kitchen sink and pours the coffee glug glug glug down the drain. I hope it doesn’t eat through the pipes. “I don’t know how you can drink this stuff,” he says.

  “I think I burnt my tongue,” I say. “I singed my taste buds.”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he tuts. “What do you call a lesbian without a working tongue?”

  I give in. “What?”

  “Single.” He laughs. I don’t.

  Travis Tilden is my roommate and best friend. We’ve known each other since kindergarten and now we live together. Travis more or less moved into my loft one day and never left. He was between boyfriends at the time.

  Travis was always between boyfriends until he met Michael. They’ve been together six months. That’s about five years in gay boy time. Michael doesn’t live with us, though, because they always fight about decorating. It was a throw pillow that almost broke them up. That one little bitty pillow resulted in a war the size and magnitude of Armageddon.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Are those lederhosen you’re wearing?”

  “They are!” he exclaims, delighted that I know my German fashions. He does a three-quarter turn, ending with a hand on a jutting hip and duck lips.

  Our dog, Ivan, prances into the kitchen. He takes one look at Travis and yips. Ivan is a Chinese crested. He is hairless except for a little tuft on top of his head and a few straggly hairs on his chin. His teeth are crooked, and his tongue hangs out the side of his mouth, which explains why he’s always drooling. He is approximately the size of a rat and probably the ugliest dog in the world, though nobody has ever told him that. Ivan thinks he is handsome.

  Right now, he is wearing a tiny pair of doggy lederhosen. There is a cut-out hole for his tail.

  “Why is Ivan also wearing lederhosen?” I know better than to ask this question, but I ask anyway.

  “Because we have a new job and it starts today. Doesn’t it, Ivan baby?” Travis leans down with his face close to the floor. Ivan eagerly gives him doggy kisses, his tongue slurping both sides of Travis’ face. Travis thinks this is Ivan’s way of showing affection. I think Ivan just likes the taste of Jovan Musk for Men.

  I try not to make my grossed-out face because it offends Travis. It’s just that Ivan is a butt-licker. Travis says that Ivan doesn’t engage in such activities. Admittedly, I’ve never actually seen Ivan lick his butt, but if his breath smells like butt, what conclusion would you draw? I am a professional, but it doesn’t take a detective to put two and two together.

  At this point, Veronica stalks in and pointedly ignores the kissing convention going on in the middle of the kitchen. Veronica is a cat. She pointedly ignores everything. At least she’s not wearing lederhosen. For this I am thankful because if Travis had even tried to get them on her, we would probably be at the emergency room right now.

  Sidebar: One time when we were kids and Travis was a little wisp of a budding gay boy, he designed a whole fashion line of clothes for cats. He whipped up all kinds of cute little pants for cats...then he tried to put them on one.

  He still has the scars.

  Travis wrinkles his nose and snatches the coffee cup from my hands. “I’ll make us some real coffee. I don’t know what you’d do without me. You’d turn into a cavewoman.”

  I ignore his jab. “You still haven’t told me why you’re wearing that insane get-up.”

  “I wouldn’t say that around any Germans—it’s a cultural thing for them. They’re a very proud people.”

  “I think I’m safe. I don’t know any Germans.”

  Travis pours boiling water into the French press. The French press is ceramic and has a picture of Dorothy and Toto on the outside. I have to admit, it is much better than my sludge and I don’t have the money for fancy coffee drinks at the café, so I thank my lucky stars for Travis.

  I’m a private detective, you see, and right now I’m in between gigs. My office rent is coming due and I hate having to dodge the landlord. He’s extremely hard to avoid because he owns the Happy Lucky China Buffet restaurant next door to my office in the strip mall. The bad thing about working next door to a Chinese buffet is that my office always smells like Moo Shoo pork. The good thing is that if I go over there right before they close for the night, I get the leftover egg rolls.

  Luckily, I don’t have the same problem with my apartment rent. My uncle left me this old factory building and with some help from Travis I managed to turn part of the upper floor into a loft. That’s Travis’s name for it. He thinks “loft” sounds more like gentrification than poverty. He’s fixed it up with his flea market finds so the place looks civilized.

  “For your information, I’ve got a new job,” Travis says, handing me a fresh cup of expertly brewed, delicious coffee.

  “You quit Burt’s?” I ask.

  “Of course not. Burt’s is my bread and butter, honey.”

  Travis works as a mixologist (a fancy word for bartender) at Burt’s Burlesque. Burt’s Burlesque looks just like you’d imagine—right down to the pink interior and feathery dancing girls. Michael, Travis’ boyfriend, works there as a waiter.

  Michael used to be a featured dancer at the On Your Toes Dance Company. He had a little mishap and they parted ways... in other words, Michael got fired. We don’t talk about The Incident because Michael has a meltdown when we do. All I know about The Incident is that it involved a dance belt, jock itch, and Icy Hot.

  Now Michael works at Burt’s Burlesque, delivering the drinks that Travis mixes. And to spice things up, Michael dresses up as a man pretending to be a woman who’s pretending to be a man. It’s complicated an
d I don’t even pretend to understand it. He just looks like plain ol’ Michael to me.

  “So, this is a side job?” I venture.

  “Mmm hmm. One of Burt’s customers works at the State Fair in Human Resources. He was bemoaning his difficulties with finding good help since it’s a temporary job. When I found out that I got to wear lederhosen, I was in. I mean, you have to admit I look good. Lederhosen are very flattering on my butt.”

  He turns and shows me his butt. “Your butt is your best feature,” I say.

  “I know, right?”

  Of course, Travis looks good in anything. He’s as tall as me, blond, and handsome. He could’ve been a model but as he says, he doesn’t have the temperament for it.

  Me, I’m thirty-nine, wear a size ten, but a twelve feels so good that I wear a fourteen. I have shoulder-length dark hair that I should get trimmed more often and I wear black. A lot of black. Black T-shirt, black jeans, black Doc Martins. As a P.I. I can get away with it.

  I like the ninja look, but really it has more to do with the fact I can’t dress myself. I have absolutely no fashion sense. Occasionally, I let Travis dress me when I have a date, which I haven’t had in a while. My love life is a wreck. I lost the girl I should’ve had, slept with one I shouldn’t have, and still have an ex who refuses to acknowledge the fact that we’re no longer a couple. It’s complicated.

  “You’re working at the state fair?” I ask incredulously. I’m glad I wasn’t taking a sip of coffee or I would’ve spewed it for sure. Travis is a snob. He swears hanging out with the plebeians gives him hives. And the state fair is plebeian central.

  “In the biergarten in an atmosphere of gemutlichkeit,” he says, using a really bad German accent.

  I have no idea what any of that means and I certainly can’t pronounce it. The only German I know is the word kindergarten. “What’s all that mean?”

  “It’s a bar. But it’s very European and has a very Eurocentric vibe,” he answers.

  “And that’s where the lederhosen come in,” I say.

  “Bingo!”

  Ivan has finished his breakfast and sits patiently waiting for Travis. I know I shouldn’t ask but I do anyway. “That explains what you’re doing in those funny pants, but what about him?” I ask pointing at Ivan. He wags his tail through the little hole Travis cut in the pants... the tail hole, not to be confused with the poop hole that is situated directly beneath the tail hole.

  “Ivan is the biergarten mascot. Can you imagine the kind of tips I’ll get with him sitting at a barstool?” Travis says.

  I readily admit that it hadn’t crossed my mind. I don’t know what it is about Ivan, I mean, no offence to Chinese crested dog lovers, but Ivan is one ugly dog. People seem to love him because of it. Maybe they feel sorry for him.

  “Don’t forget the sunscreen,” I say. And I’m not talking about Travis. Ivan is the one who needs sunscreen. He doesn’t have any hair to protect his delicate skin and sunburns are a real danger.

  “I already have it packed,” Travis says.

  Veronica has finished her breakfast of Fancy Feast liver pate. The smell gags me every time I open a can. I think that’s why she likes it. She enjoys seeing me dry heave. She rubs up against my leg, not because she likes me, but because she leaves a trail of white fur over my pant legs. She’s not even a white cat. She’s black with a few stray white hairs—go figure.

  I finish my coffee, grab a banana, then remember I don’t have a place to put a banana and I probably won’t need it today because I haven’t got any criminals to track down.

  You see, despite my hazardous occupation, I don’t like guns. I use a banana as a gun substitute. Usually, I keep it in my Burberry Brit trench coat pocket (where it looks like I’m packing a real gun,) but it’s August and hot and humid as hell in Lakeland. Hence, no coat and no place to hide a banana gun.

  I don’t really like Lakeland despite having lived here my whole life. It’s bitter cold in the winter and hot as hell in the summer. Think Chicago but smaller and without the culture. I stay because my mother would kill me if I even hinted about finding a more temperate climate. So, I dream of Florida beaches in the winter and the cool mountain air of Colorado in the summer.

  I decide to eat the banana.

  Travis glances at the kitchen clock. It’s one of those groovy clocks that has all the numbers scattered around all hodgepodge, so you can’t really tell what time it actually is. “He’s late. He knows how I hate it when he’s late.”

  I assume he means Michael who does have some punctuality issues. “Late for what? His shift doesn’t start until seven.”

  Travis rolls his eyes at me. “He’s working at the biergarten, too.”

  “Of course.” Travis and Michael are kind of like lesbians, they do everything together.

  At that moment, the late Michael sashays into the kitchen singing the Tiergarten song from Rufus Wainwright. Of course, he is substituting the word biergarten for tiergarten.

  Michael is no double threat, believe me. He can dance but he can’t sing a lick. At the moment, he is slaughtering every good vibe I ever had from that song.

  It occurs to me that Rufus wore lederhosen on the CD cover. Michael doesn’t often make sense, but on this I can at least understand the connection. He sashays over to Travis and plants a kiss on his cheek. I’m pretty sure he was aiming for Travis’s lips, but Travis is being vindictive and pouty about the late thing, so all Michael gets is cheek. I’m glad I’m not a gay man. They can be catty. I have enough trouble understanding lesbians, which is probably yet another reason I don’t have a girlfriend.

  “I’m sorry, sweet cheeks, I had a little trouble getting dressed,” Michael says. He throws his leg up on the counter and stretches his hamstrings by touching his chin to his kneecap. That’s another thing about Michael—he is a compulsive stretcher. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, when the need to stretch comes over him, he goes for it. I can’t tell you how many times I have been embarrassed by this. Usually, if we’re out in public I go to the ladies’ room, so I won’t be seen with him until he’s finished. He thinks I have a tiny bladder and I don’t tell him any different.

  “What’s so hard about getting dressed?” Travis says, glaring at Michael.

  “I couldn’t get my family jewels arranged properly,” he says. “Those Germans must dress to the left, and as you know, I dress to the right.”

  That’s my cue to leave. I don’t do conversations about male genitals. “Well, have fun at the fair, you two,” I say. I stuff an extra banana in my front pocket in case I run into a criminal on the way to the office. Or I get hungry. “And take good care of Ivan.”

  “Always do,” Travis says, flicking his fingers in my direction in an imitation of a goodbye wave.

  He does always take good care of Ivan. We got Ivan at the shelter for an assignment I was working on and he stayed on because neither one of us could bear to part with him. Most days he comes to work with me. I even have a special basket car seat for him. I clip him to the seat belt. That way if there’s an accident he doesn’t fly through the window.

  I get in my silver Volvo 1800e. I named her Silver just like The Lone Ranger’s horse. She was another gift from my uncle. He loved this car and knew I’d take care of her. It’s very nice to have a car because riding the bus is inconvenient for chasing criminals.

  I have no real plans for the day, but I head for my office in case someone walks in or calls with a case. Driving across town, I pass the 509 building. I try to avoid looking at it because my ex-girlfriend lives there. Instead, I focus on the couples sipping lattes at the curbside cafes and people walking their dogs—that always brings a smile to my face. My first big case involved multiple dognappings. That’s where Ivan came in. I look over at his empty basket. I miss him already. Especially on a day where I’ll be alone in my lonely office.

  I’ve got to stop this self-pity train. What would Ruth Bader Ginsburg do in this situation? She wouldn’t go bemoaning the
fact that he doesn’t have any work. She’d go out and find work.

  I pull up in front of my office, park, and get out of my car. I go to put my car keys in my pocket and remember about the banana. I pull it out. It’s squished, and banana goo spurts out of its ripped seams. I trudge to my office holding the squished banana innards. Looks like today is going to be one of those days.

  When I get to my office, I find my door is ajar. All I have on me is my squished banana and my car keys. I clench my keys in my fist with a key between each finger like they taught us in high school—kind of a poor woman’s brass knuckles.

  I edge up against the door frame and listen. I don’t hear anyone ransacking the place. I can’t imagine what they’d be looking for—old files, my Rolodex, pens, a nearly dead houseplant? I can’t think of anything else. Then I hear the office chair squeak. I whip around the door frame and yell, “Stop right there, you’re under arrest!”

  Technically, I can’t arrest anyone, but I can take them into custody and call my friend and sometimes lover, London Wells. She’s a detective. She works for the police department and has the badge to prove it.

  “Oh, yes. I like the sound of that. I’ll be the naughty criminal and you can be the tough cop.”

  My day just got a whole lot worse. It’s my ex-girlfriend, Veronica. The one who lives in the 509 building that I try to avoid looking at every day because she is a giant pain in the ass and just looking up at her posh 12th story condo serves to remind me that I’m not the success I’d like to be.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Is that a banana in your hand or are you just happy to see me?” Veronica replies in a pretty good imitation of Mae West.

  Veronica is a lawyer. Not the kind who advertises on bus benches. She’s the high-priced kind. She has people beating down her door, begging her to let them give her money. Veronica is gorgeous, sexy, smart as hell, and gave up being a Victoria Secret model to get criminals off the hook.