Better Off Dead in Deadwood (40 page)

“You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“Yeah? Then why is your eye twitching?” I asked.

“Good try, Blondie.”

“No, seriously, your eye is twitching.” Undoubtedly because I was hitting the mark.

He touched the corner of his eye.

Pulling a small makeup mirror from my desk, I checked my lip gloss. “I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong about what I told Detective Cooper.”

“About what?”

“You and Jane.”

“What about us?” His voice sounded downright snarly.

I placed the mirror back in my drawer and shut it, and then faced him. “That she had sex with you out of desperation.”

His feet hit the floor with a
thud
. He leaned forward, his nostrils flared. “You shut your mouth now, little girl, before I shut it for you.”

Oh, plucked a raw nerve there, did I? I extended my claws and strummed it again. “Now I’m beginning to wonder if she’d caught onto George’s and your game. Maybe someone threatened to kill her if she didn’t have sex with you.” I highly doubted Jane had been blackmailed into sex, but I couldn’t resist adding more insult while injuring Ray’s big, fat ego.

His fists clenched, his face darkening to a ruddy shade.

I grabbed my stapler in case he lunged. “There were certainly plenty of empty liquor bottles in her office the next morning. For the life of me, I haven’t been able to think of a reason she would allow you anywhere near her even if she was drunk as hell,” that was the honest truth, “but blackmail makes complete sense.”

I purposely kept quiet about Jane’s admission that she was lonely, and how she’d given it up to Ray because of her momentary need to feel attractive and wanted again.

“I said shut your fucking mouth, you little cunt.”

“Ah, there’s the Ray I know and love.”

He pushed to his feet, all bristle and hate.

“What happened, Ray? Did she get caught up in your mess and wind up at the bottom of the Open Cut because of it?”

Was there an albino or two mixed up in this?

He took a step toward me. “I should wring your scrawny ne—”

The bell over the front door jingled.

“Lucky girl, Blondie,” he said through clenched teeth. “Saved by the bell.”

He turned, plastering a big schmoozing smile on his over-tanned face. “Howdy, folks. If you’re looking for your dream house, you’ve come to the right place.”

Back off, dickhead.

I waved my new clients over to the chairs opposite my desk, and then squeezed my trembling hands together in my lap. “It’s good to see you both again. Would you like some coffee or tea?”

Or a house in Central City with a brand-spanking new garage roof?

* * *

My day had started off with my hugging the toilet and ended with my spanking the chicken.

Well, I never actually made contact with Elvis’s butt, since she outran me when I chased her out of my bedroom and down the stairs. But the intention was there after finding her yet again roosting in my closet.

The doorbell rang as I hit the bottom step. “I’ll get it,” I yelled to Aunt Zoe, who was still clanging around in the kitchen long after supper was over. I figured tonight’s ringer had to be Harvey. He’d left a message with Layne before I got home saying he’d be over later this evening after his hot date.

“So, did you get to second base?” I asked as I opened the door.

Cooper stared back at me through the screen door. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business, Parker,” he answered.

My neck warmed. “I thought you were your uncle.”

“You keep up on my uncle’s sex life, do you?”

“No, your uncle won’t shut up about his sex life. I don’t have much choice without earplugs.”

“Are you going to let me inside?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Are you going to arrest me?”

“No, I’ve done that once this week. I don’t want the thrill of it to get old too fast.”

“Funny man. I’m beginning to understand why your shirts are full of bullet holes. Why have you decided to grace my front porch with your presence this evening, Detective?”

“I’m not going to talk to you through a screen door.”

“Fine.” I grabbed my sweat jacket off the coat tree next to the door and stepped outside, closing the door behind me. “So, what have I done now?”

“What were you doing at the Lead library today?”

My mouth fell open. How did he know I was there? I hadn’t even told Doc earlier on the phone about my visit to Lead’s library, which just so happened to sit conveniently next to the opera house. “Are you having me followed?”

“No, one of the guys from the station was in there visiting his wife who volunteers as an assistant librarian.”

“His wife is an assistant librarian?” Hmmmm.

Cooper gave a nod.

My head filled with questions, which I kept to myself. Was she the “librarian” Prudence wanted me to bring to her? If so, why? Was she into the occult like Lila and Millie had been? And if that were the case, could her husband have sneaked her into the evidence room while I was in jail and allowed her to plant that note in my purse?

Okay, so that sounded borderline nutty, but so did a ghost ordering me to bring her a librarian as if she were ordering tiramisu for dessert. My logical brain had left the building after Doc had started being used like a karaoke microphone.

“My reason for hanging out in the library is none of your business.” I repeated his favorite line back to him.

His shoulders and jaw stiffened in one grunt. “Excuse me?”

I stood solid under the intensity of his squint. “You heard me.”

For a moment, I wondered if I should have grabbed Layne’s boxing gloves before joining Cooper on the porch, because it certainly looked like we might come to blows.

“You’re right,” he said, surprising me. He squeezed the bridge of his nose above the swollen area, grimacing. Then he dropped his hand and when he looked at me, all of the rough ridges and sharp angles on his face had softened. “But here’s the deal, Parker. Over the last few months, I’ve had citizens getting murdered and others going missing, some finding body parts hanging in trees, and some telling me bizarre stories about albinos and zombies.”

Shivering in the cool night air, I found myself wishing I’d had no part in the farce. “Did you ever figure out whose foot that was?” I asked, referring to the severed foot Layne had found back in July, hanging from a tree with a sprig of mistletoe stapled to the toe.

“Not yet, but I have a few theories.”

“What are they?”

“Not your business,” he answered. “Anyway, more often than not, you’re connected to these events, one way or another. Or—” he held up his hand when I started to object. “Or you seem to have information about things that you shouldn’t, and I don’t understand how you know what you know, but you do.”

Behind him, a black racy Jaguar with dark tinted windows pulled into Miss Geary’s drive. Her visitor honked twice and the garage door opened for the sports car to rumble inside. I tried to peek around Cooper to see who had taken Harvey’s place enjoying Miss Geary’s sweet tarts, but Cooper stepped into my line of sight, making me focus on him.

“Tonight I came here to find out why you were at the library today, because the off-duty officer who saw you said that while you pretended to be reading a magazine, you were staring at his wife and the other librarian more than seemed normal. This leads me to think you have yet again stumbled onto some piece of information. Something I need to know regarding one of the many open case files sitting on my desk that the chief of police keeps breathing down my neck to solve.”

I doubted that my “Prudence” situation would help him out. In fact, I could see it as yet another reason for him to want to throw me in jail, so I kept my mouth shut about her and said, “My reason for being in the library has nothing to do with any of your cases. I didn’t intend to make either of the librarians there uncomfortable, I was just …” I stumbled, searching for something other than the truth about trying to see any occult-like tattoos or symbolism on their bodies, “… distracted after a bad night.”

I could tell by Cooper’s pinched mouth that he wasn’t buying what I was selling. “If you have any more information on Jane’s murder, Violet, I really need you to share it with me.”

He’d used my first name. Was he trying to soften me up before he reverted to his sledgehammer approach? “A please would be nice,” I said.

“Please.” His lips barely moved to let the word through.

“Did it hurt to say that?” I couldn’t resist.

“Don’t push your luck, Parker.”

“If I come across anything, Detective, you’ll be the first one I’ll call.” At his suspicion-filled squint, I added, “I’m serious, Cooper. I’d like Jane’s killers to be caught.”

He rubbed his jaw, the beard stubble making a rasping sound. A whiff of his cologne or deodorant hovered until a cool breeze replaced it with the usual Black Hills pine scent.

“Good,” he said. “Try to stay out of trouble tonight. I need some sleep before I have to rescue you again.”

He stepped down off the porch, striding away, leaving me sputtering.

“Again?” I said to his back. “Was I drugged the first time? Because for the life of me, I can’t remember
you
ever rescuing
me
.”

At the end of the sidewalk, he looked back. “Keep your nose out of Ray Underhill’s business when it comes to the Mudder Brothers case,” he ordered, pointing in emphasis.

Ray!
That big, orange-faced tattletale!

“You keep your nose out of my life, Cooper!”

I swore to God, if I had to put up with one more over-the-top, domineering, testosterone-filled alpha male, I was going to start conversations with my freaking foot.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Monday, September 10th

Here it was only two o’clock in the afternoon and I’d already been to hell and back again.

It had all started this morning when Addy had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. By that, I meant she had somehow managed to sink down into the space between her bed and the wall, trapped in a cocoon of blankets. Her screams for help had me doing the broad jump from my pillow, pulling my groin muscle in the process. With all of my worries and nightmares about someone coming to hurt my family, I didn’t need much help in fearing the worst upon a shriek-filled wakeup.

Tripping over Elvis in the hall and banging my knee on the floor hard enough to leave a big, shiny bruise hadn’t helped smooth my ruffled feathers. I’d pulled Addy out of her tomb just in time to hear Layne hollering downstairs, “Fire! Fire!”

Addy and Harvey followed me to the scene, all of us arriving in time to see Layne douse the flames coming out of the microwave with Aunt Zoe’s full, gallon-sized tub of flour. In the aftermath, the kitchen looked like a fresh coat of snow had fallen. It was going to take hours of scouring to return everything to its normal finger-smudged sparkle.

I’d managed to refrain from biting Layne’s head off by stuffing four chocolate chip cookies in my mouth at once. Only a male would choose to have bacon and cheese flavored popcorn for breakfast. For a smart kid, Layne needed to pay more attention to the damned suggested cooking time.

All of the good times at home had made me five minutes late getting to work and left me smelling like burned bacon popcorn, which oddly enough soothed my boss and had Benjamin licking his lips. There just might be a marketing angle there—rubbing cheddar and bacon on my wrists and neck before taking a male client to see a house.

My good times were short lived, though. The photo shoot had been right up there with being put to the rack. Bright lights, multiple coats of makeup and hairspray, lots of loud coaching from the sidelines by Jerry: “Make your lips more pouty,” and “Fluff your hair more,” and “Pull your shoulders back further; you need more lift.”

Jerry just didn’t get that my lift had left town after nursing two babies at the same time. It would take helium-filled implants to make them as perky as Tiffany’s.

The final straw from my boneheaded boss was, “Think like Marilyn Monroe. Act like Monroe. BE Monroe.” At which point I was so frustrated with the man that I lay down and played dead until I noticed the photographer was taking pictures of me even then. Where had Jerry found the camera-happy monkey? The necrophilia wing of Satan’s lair?

Ben had acted suave and cool through it all, charming the photographer, all the while playing 007 to my Mary Goodnight. Even now, here at Calamity Jane’s, he and Ray leaned back in their chairs, smirking it up as Jerry showed me how to sway my hips while I walked. He was prepping me for the “Runway for Run-aways” charity event he’d signed me up for as the representative for the office.

Jerry’s marketing schemes seemed to have no boundaries. Just my luck, he’d picked me to be his Girl Friday, like one of my favorite films from the 1940s. Only Jerry was no Cary Grant and I didn’t have the “lift” or the hips to pull off Rosalind Russell.

“Lead with your right foot, Violet,” Jerry said. “Like this.”

I tried not to scowl at him. I’d lead with a foot, damn it, right up his yin-yang.

“You see how I shift my hips with each step?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “You’re really good at this. Maybe you should wear the little red dress and three-inch heels and make your lips pouty.”

Ray sucked air between his teeth.

Ben chuckled.

“Now, Violet,” Jerry said, walking over to pat me on the shoulder. “I told you on the way back up to Deadwood that I was sorry for stepping out of bounds during the photo shoot.”

I fought the urge to smack his hand away. “Yes, you did.” I shot a sideways glance at Ben, who winked at me.

007 had come to my rescue on the way back up the mountain by pointing out to Jerry that I needed to be treated like a star player on the team, not a cheerleader put out there to make high kicks in a short skirt.

Ben spoke Jerry-speak fluently. I needed to take a few lessons from him because my cursing and growling and rude gestures prior to Ben stepping in and calling a timeout had earned me only frowns in the rearview mirror from my boss.