A Wild Fright in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 7) (15 page)

“Cooper’s here.”

He hung his coat next to Cooper’s. “I figured it was him.”

“I invited him for supper.”

That gave him pause. “Who are you and what have you done with Violet Parker?”

To be honest, I hadn’t felt like myself since … I had to search back through the day’s events. Wow. Had the whole Cornelius and Wilda episode been only this morning? That seemed like days ago.

Rather than bombard Doc with my cringe-filled day, I caught his hand and laced my fingers through his. “I’m glad you’re here. How was Hill City?”

He lifted our entwined hands and kissed the back of mine, his lips soft and warm. “Good try, Boots. Now tell me what’s going on.”

The doorbell rang.

I grimaced. “Here we go.”

I was right about who was behind Door Number Three.

Doc held the screen open for Reid while I grabbed the two pizza boxes from him so he could take off his coat and stay awhile—at least until Aunt Zoe chased him away with her shotgun.

“Does she know?” Reid said quietly to me.

“No.” In reply to Doc’s raised brows, I patted his chest. “I’ll explain after we eat.”

With a wave for both to follow me, I led them into the lion’s den. Doc brought up the rear, followed by two bouncing and cheering pizza lovers. Sheesh, my kids could at least act a little sad that I wasn’t cooking their supper tonight.

“Look who’s delivering pizza now on the side,” I joked with a big, dopey smile as I stepped into the kitchen.

Aunt Zoe was in the midst of carrying silverware to the table when her gaze hit Reid. She faltered. I waited with clenched teeth for the fireworks to start booming.

Instead, her voice was oddly calm when she eyeballed me and asked, “Did somebody call in a fire?”

Cooper snorted. “I doubt Martin would do you much good if somebody had.” He leaned his hip against the oven door, watching the show with a hint of a grin. “He can’t even put out old flames.”

Aunt Zoe’s focus shifted to Reid. “Good thing I can.”

“Kiss my ass, Coop.” Reid took the pizza boxes from me and set them on the table. “Hey, Zo.” His stare traveled down over her pink button-down shirt and torn blue jeans like she was wearing a little black dress and sexy heels. “I hear you have a big order to fill by the end of the month.”

When she looked my way again, I got busy serving up pizza to the kids, making sure they had plenty of napkins.

“Did Violet and you plan this little get together to talk about my glass business,” she asked, “or is there some other reason you’ve stopped by?”

“Some other reason.” Reid pulled out a chair for her to sit. “But first, let’s eat.”

Cooper took the seat on the other side of Reid, next to Doc. I used the kids as a buffer between Aunt Zoe and me, dodging her stink-eye as we ate. Doc kept shooting me questioning glances when the conversation turned toward mundane topics like school and a new casino coming to town. I nudged my chin toward the kids, shaking my head.

When Layne and Addy’s bellies were full, I had them thank Reid for saving them from another one of my kitchen concoctions, and then I excused them from the table to go up to their rooms and get busy on their homework.

As soon as the pounding of their footfalls overhead indicated they were safely out of earshot, I turned to Cooper. “Well?”

He finished off his crust and swallowed. “Well, what?”

“Did you check on the number?”

“Of course.”

“And?” When he looked pointedly at Doc and Aunt Zoe, and then Reid, I picked up my fork. “I swear, Cooper, after the shitty day I’ve had, if you give me that freaking ‘police business only’ baloney, I’m going to plant this in your forehead.”

“That would be aggravated assault, Parker.”

“What are you two talking about?” Aunt Zoe reached across the table and took my fork from me.

“Are you going to tell them, Detective, or am I?”

Cooper pulled his napkin from his lap and set it on the table. “Parker got a call today on her cell. The caller whispered the same words that are on the notes Wanda received.”

“Then the line went dead,” I added.

“After Parker told me about this,” Cooper stood, “I asked her to keep quiet about the call until tonight, giving me time to look into it.”

Doc’s palm warmed my thigh. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head. “It was a banner day all around.”

He kissed my temple, starting to make it all better.

“So that explains why you invited Coop to supper,” Aunt Zoe said to me, nodding as the pieces fell into place. “But not Reid,” she added, which earned her a smirk from her old flame.

“No amount of arm twisting could get Parker to come to my office, so I had to come to her.”

“I don’t trust the police,” I challenged Cooper, but he shrugged me off. “There’s somebody working with you who is part of the ‘We’ in those notes.”

“What are these notes you keep mentioning?” Reid asked.

Aunt Zoe filled him in on Wanda’s death and the notes she and I had both received, while Cooper finished off his lemonade over at the sink.

“What did you find out about the phone number?” Doc asked Cooper when she’d finished.

“I tried calling it several times and kept getting a message saying the person I was trying to reach was not available.” He leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “It was a burner.”

“What’s a burner?” Aunt Zoe asked.

“A pre-paid cell phone,” Doc answered. “Whenever you’re done with it, you can throw it away.”

“They’re untraceable because there is no name or information attached to them,” Cooper added. “Once they’re ditched, there’s not much chance of finding out who was using it.”

Throughout the long, long afternoon, I’d held onto a single flame of hope—that Cooper would be able to find whoever had called me and drag them to the station for questioning. That flame blew out.

“And this phone was ditched.” I wasn’t asking, because I knew clear down in my gut where this was heading.

“Most likely they destroyed it,” Cooper confirmed.

“Which means we aren’t any closer to Wanda’s killer than before.” I shoved my empty plate away, my fists clenching at the helpless feeling of being prey with no way of telling from which direction the hunter would shoot next.

Doc squeezed my shoulder. “Did Wanda receive phone calls as well as notes?” he asked Cooper.

I looked up at the detective, wondering if he’d share what was surely police information this time or not.

“There were several untraceable calls from different phone numbers over a three-week period on her last phone bill,” he told Doc with a frown.

“Fuck,” Doc said under his breath.

I leaned forward, hiding my face in my hands.

“You should have someone keeping an eye on Sparky 24/7,” Reid said. “And her family, too.”

I peeked out between my fingers. “I don’t need any cops monitoring me.” At Aunt Zoe’s exasperated sigh, I added, “We don’t know who’s safe and who’s crooked at this point.”

“Besides Cooper,” she said.

I studied the detective for a few seconds, wondering …

“Parker, don’t even look at me like that. Trust me, I wouldn’t be messed up in this shit with you if I had a choice.”

“Violet,” Aunt Zoe started, her gaze lowering to the necklace visible at my neckline. It was a charm-like piece she’d given me to wear months ago as a form of protection, and I hadn’t taken it off since. “If we’re dealing with what I think we are here, I don’t know if I can protect you. Not with charms or anything else.”

She was referring to the various protective wards, mirrors, and other tricks of her trade that she had set up around the house to safeguard the kids and me from the “others” who might come for us. Regular old humans were a wild card in our business.

“She needs a bodyguard,” Reid said to Aunt Zoe.

“The one I have is plenty.”

“You mean Uncle Willis and his shotgun?” Cooper smirked. “He’ll end up shooting the mailman again.”

I lowered my hands. Harvey had shot the mailman before? Wasn’t that a federal offense?

“I can sleep on the couch as long as you’d like,” Doc offered, looking from Aunt Zoe to me.

This was not how I’d hoped to make the bridge from us periodically taking turns spending nights together, to his being with me and my kids on a more permanent basis. I’d rather that he wanted to shack up with us because he couldn’t live without me anymore instead of just making sure I’d keep breathing.

“I can help keep an eye on the place,” Reid’s gaze dared Aunt Zoe to buck. “And Sparky’s kids, too.”

Lowering her eyes to where her hands were fidgeting with her fork, Aunt Zoe nodded once, accepting his help.

Cooper walked over and leaned on the back of his chair, his steely eyes on me. “I’m going to have to let Detective Hawke know about the phone call. Otherwise, I’m withholding key information in this case, and I could catch a ration of shit if something more comes of this.”

“You mean
when
something more comes of this.” I sat up straight, a rush of anger suddenly stiffening my spine. I’d be damned if I was going to let a bunch of prank calling, sons-a-bitches turn me into a scared mouse. If they wanted what they believed belonged to them, they needed to come and get it, damn it. Enough of these childish games.

The detective’s squint returned as he measured me up. “We still aren’t one hundred percent sure that the notes are tied to the murderer, Parker.”

“All of us sitting here at this table have little doubt that I’m next on the hit list, Detective. There’s no need to sugar coat the truth. Besides, you and I both know it’s not my first rodeo.”

“What are you talking about?” Reid asked. “Do you mean what you went through that night up at the Carhart house?”

Reid didn’t know about my other job as an executioner. He knew that Zoe dabbled in the paranormal, but he hadn’t been privy to what Doc and I had experienced via séances and more, nor anything close to what Cooper had experienced with us earlier this month.

“Something like that,” Cooper told Reid.

“So, what’s the plan?” Doc asked.

“For starters,” the detective pointed at me, “you keep her under control.” When I started to object, he interrupted, “Come on, Parker, do you think I met you yesterday? I see that look in your eyes. You’re mad now, and you’re going to fight back, which is the worst idea there is at the moment. You need to let me do my job.”

“But I—”

“No buts, damn it. I can’t put my energy into finding the killer if I’m too busy chasing you around and cleaning up your messes.”

I bristled, rising out of my chair, but Doc’s grip on my arm held me in check. He shook his head slightly, which I grudgingly heeded and sat back down.

“You’ll let us know tomorrow how this goes over at the station?” Doc asked Cooper.

“I’ll be in touch,” he frowned at me, “undoubtedly more than Parker would like.”

Done barking his orders at us, Detective Cooper thanked Reid for the pizza and the rest of us for the company. He said his goodbyes and let himself out.

“Damn,” Reid said when the ripples smoothed out after Cooper’s wake. “You Parker girls sure know how to get a guy all steamed up.”

Doc chuckled, pushing out of his chair, collecting forks and paper plates. “They’re real pros.”

“Thanks,” Aunt Zoe said as she handed Doc her plate, and then turned to Reid. “What are you doing here tonight, Reid?”

The sparkle in Reid’s eyes dimmed. “It’s about the Sugarloaf Building.”

My ears perked up. This was the second time I’d heard Reid mention that place.

Months ago, my ghostly former boss, Jane, had asked me to gather historical information for her on the Sugarloaf Building. That was back before she’d ended up dead at the bottom of the Open Cut in Lead. While I’d done as she’d asked, I really hadn’t paid attention to what I’d found, just handed over the copies I’d made. I’d been a little busy at the time trying to figure out who was kidnapping little blonde girls around Deadwood, if memory served me right.

“I thought I warned you to stay out of there,” Aunt Zoe said.

“You did, but it was too late by that point.”

She shoved her chair back from the table. “Damn it, Reid. You’re dabbling with something that could permanently scar you inside and out. Or worse.”

“Ah ha!” He grinned. “I knew that you still cared about me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just because I don’t want you back in my bed doesn’t mean that I want you dead.”

“What’s wrong with the Sugarloaf Building?” I asked, eager to focus on something besides my own troubles for a while. “Let me guess—it’s haunted.” I spoke in jest, being that every other building and house in Deadwood and Lead were rumored to have ghosts.

She stood and moved to the sink, pouring herself a glass of water from the faucet, staring out the window into the darkness beyond. “It’s not the building so much as the man who had it built back in the late 1800s.”

Doc returned to the table. “I haven’t read much about the Sugarloaf Building,” he told me, settling back into the chair next to mine.

That was surprising having perused the books in Doc’s bookcases, as well as knowing that the South Dakota history room at the library was his home away from home.

“His last name was Cukorsüveg, which from what I understand translates into Sugarloaf. If I remember the story correctly, it was believed that he came to Lead with the wave of Central European miners in the early 1890s. He was Hungarian and claimed to be a … what’s the word?” She looked up at the ceiling. “
Táltos
, which is another name for a wise man.” Her eyes returned to the window and the darkness. “Like a shaman. But he was also a doctor of general medicine, except the Slavs avoided going to him, which should have been the first clue about good old Dr. Ottó Sugarloaf being not-so-good.”

She turned around and focused on Reid, leaning back against the sink as she sipped from her glass of water. “Ottó had a problem, according to rumors among the Slavs. Back in Hungary, he’d removed a curse from a young girl, but things hadn’t gone so smoothly and it turned out it wasn’t really a curse, more of a malicious, otherworldly creature that had latched onto the girl. Ottó hadn’t protected himself properly during the removal procedure and ended up as the new host. Within a short time, the creature had caused enough problems for Ottó that he was driven from his home country and hitched a ride with the miners over here to Lead. Now Ottó is gone, but his building is still here, and so is the
lidérc
he left behind.”