Dead Case in Deadwood (17 page)

"Can’t you just give me an answer now? On the phone?
Then I can bring some paperwork over tonight for you to sign."

He chuckled. "You’re going to be a fun nut to crack."

Between his feet dragging and Ray’s property stealing, I was
going to start having my own fun cracking nuts.

"Mr. Curion, if you could just let me know if you’re
still interested in the property, I could bring the appropriate documents over
in the morning for your signature and we could get this rolling."

"What’s the rush? This property has been for sale for
over a year."

Cornelius had done his homework. As much as I wanted to tell
him that someone else may snatch it out from under him, I didn’t. Until I found
out if Ray had a definite offer, I had to be careful. If I used another buyer
to push Cornelius into making an offer, and then it turned out there was no
other offer, I’d look like I lied to get him to speed up the sale.

"I just thought you were really interested and might be
ready to put an offer on the place."

"Oh, I’m definitely interested. But I want you to come
see something in my room first."

Images of his long, bony, pale, skinny, naked body flitted
through my mind, making me wince. Nope, not gonna happen. "Why don’t you just
meet me at the office?"

I slowed to let a group of tourists cross the street in
front of me.

"I don’t like the voices in your office."

My arm’s prickled. What did he mean? What voices? Doc didn’t
like the smell in Calamity Jane’s, either. Most of the time he wouldn’t even
cross the threshold.

"I heard you had an accident over there," I said,
switching subjects, tiptoeing around the truth. "Something about a window
accidentally getting broken."

He laughed. "You should have seen it, Violet."

"What?"

"I’ll show you tomorrow night. Come over around
sundown."

"Mr. Curion, I really can—"

"Bring the paperwork with you and we’ll talk."

Paperwork? I blew out a breath. "Fine. Okay." But
I’d be wearing a snowmobile suit this time. There’d be no touching, no ogling,
just signatures and smiles.

"Sundown," he reiterated.

"Got it."

"See you then." He hung up as I drove past the
front of his hotel and just kept on rolling.

On the way back to my office, a plan sparked and caught
flame in my head.

I weaved my way to my parking spot behind Calamity Jane
Realty and cut the engine, waiting with one eye closed until the backfire
boomed.

Ray’s SUV was MIA. Damn, I’d have to wait until next time to
bust the dickhead in the chops.

Doc’s Camaro was missing, too. Double damn. He was an
essential part of my new plan. My idea of seducing him in person into playing
along went up in smoke.

Oh, well, I was getting good at whispering sweet nothings to
him via the phone. It was time to see how good. I pulled up his number on my
cell phone.

He answered the phone on the first ring. "Hey, Trouble.
Did Harvey tell you about your client?"

"Yep." I wanted to ask what else Tiffany shared
with Doc in his office, but I clubbed my green-eyed ogre into submission and
stuck to the plan.

I cleared my throat and slipped into my sex-kitten voice, "Doc,
I’ve been thinking about you. A lot."

"Are you okay? You sound like you’re catching a cold."

I cleared my throat and stuck with my usual tone. "I’m
fine. But I need a favor."

"You need to borrow my car again?"

"Nope. Bigger."

He was quiet for a couple of seconds. "What do you need,
Violet?"

The list went on and on, but I started at the top. "You."

"I like the sound of that."

"And your nose."

"That, not so much."

"I swear, it will only take a few minutes."

Just enough time for Doc to catch a good whiff of the hotel
and for Cornelius to meet Doc—aka my boyfriend—in case he was thinking I’d
trade sex for a sale. Although how I’d make it clear that Doc and I were an
item while at the same time not being too obvious about our item-hood might
take some clever smoke-and-mirrors work to pull off.

"Violet, you don’t believe in ghosts, remember?"

I remembered that I couldn’t make up my mind these days
about the dead. Or were ghosts considered undead? No, that was vampires. "That’s
merely a technicality at this point."

"I’ll be the judge of that."

"Does that mean you’re in?"

"That depends on the details of the favor."

Wincing in anticipation, I whispered, "I need you to
come with me to the Old Prospector Hotel."

Silence.

A late-60s black Mustang Fastback rumbled past my back
bumper, Three Dog Night’s version of
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
a-weema weh’d
through the open windows.

Still, silence from Doc’s end of the line.

Maybe he hadn’t heard me. I cleared my throat again.

"Why?" Doc asked, finally.

"It’s supposed to be haunted."

"I know. What do you want from
me
?"

Boy, was that a loaded question. What did I want? More
sex—but that was a given. Some help setting up college funds for the kids would
be wonderful. A guarantee that he wouldn’t kick me to the curb and break my
heart someday would make it much easier to come clean with Nat about stealing
the man she thought she loved.

I clarified before answering, "We’re still talking
about the hotel, right?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, let’s keep it simple for now."

What did that mean? Keep this relationship-thing we were
doing simple? I shook my head. I hated this uncertainty crap when it came to
having the man I wanted in my life.

"Maybe you can tell me if the rumors are true," I
said.

"Are you saying that if I go to the hotel and tell you
there are ghosts there, you’ll believe me?"

"I’d certainly give a lot of thought to your answer."

"Well, if you don’t believe me, then it’s a waste of my
time."

"I want to believe you, Doc, but try to look at this
from my perspective. I can’t see ghosts. I can’t smell them, feel them, taste
them, nothing. I’m a total dud. Yet I’m supposed to believe ghosts exist and
you can interact with them."

I paused to give him a chance to refute what I’d said.

He didn’t, so I continued. "You have to admit that’s
one hell of a big pill to swallow. You’re going to need to give me more time."

And more proof.

He sighed. "I have an appointment with a client tomorrow
evening. How long will this take?"

What client? A certain curvy redhead?

Oh, for crissake, get a grip, you big jealous dufus!

"Long enough for you to tell me if Cornelius is for
real." I tugged the keys from the ignition and frowned at the smiley face
keychain. "Or if he’s just full of shit."

Sunday, August 19th

As open houses go, my first one started out slow, and then
ended with a bang—as in an explosion.

In one big
kaboom
, Jeff’s garage lost half of its
roof, and my hopes of making a quick sale shattered along with several of the
building’s windows. At least the house and all of its accoutrements were still
intact.

I wondered if I could get away with describing the garage as
an "open-air" building on the listing sheet now. Or an inverse
carport. I’d have to see how much of the roof was left after Captain Reid and
his volunteer fire crew finished making sure all of the cinders were fully
doused.

Speaking of the devil in yellow, flame-retardant pants … .

Reid sidled up next to me as I stood at the end of the drive
watching my career smolder. He smelled good and smoky. Several feet to my
right, a crowd of Jeff’s neighbors milled, murmuring among themselves, suddenly
interested in our open house proceedings.

Marketing lesson of the day—to stage a successful open house
and draw a lot of traffic, blow something up. The bigger the explosion, the
bigger the crowd.

"You okay, Sparky?" Reid asked, his baritone voice
rippling with undercurrents of laughter.

The back of my throat burned from holding in my fuming
frustration and kept trying to leak out through my eyes in the form of tears. "Do
I look okay?"

"You look slightly singed, especially your eyebrows."

"They aren’t singed. They’re still growing in from the
Hessler fire," I said, referring to the house fire where I first met
Captain Reid and his merry crew of firefighters after almost being barbecued to
a crisp.

"Well, in that case, they’re growing back in nicely."
He grinned. "The boys down at the station have come up with a new name for
you."

Oh, this couldn’t be good. I braced myself. "What’s
that?"

"Four-Alarm Parker."

I groaned. "Splendid."

"You’re lucky they like you. I’ve heard worse."

"Right, lucky me."

Reid patted me on the back. "Cheer up, Sparky. Wymonds
says this was probably his fault. At least you won’t have Coop breathing down
your neck about this one."

"Do you know what started it yet?"

"Maybe. I need to wait until it’s safe to go in there
and see for certain. I’ll write up the report this afternoon so Wymonds can get
his insurance company involved ASAP."

"So, it definitely wasn’t arson?"

Initially, as the flames had raged, I had wondered if Ray had
found another way to knock my knees out from under me. Blowing up Jeff’s garage
was an excellent idea. Now we’d have to reduce the price on the place for
tomorrow’s Hot Sheet listing.
Hot Sheet
—oh, how Lady Irony loved to toy
with me.

Jane wasn’t going to be happy about the loss of income, and
while I had nothing to do with this fire, the soot mark would go on my not-so-spotless
track record.

Maybe Jane should add a column on her Sales Pending white
board for Fire Sales. At least I’d finally get some Xs on the board.

"Arson?" Reid nailed me with a narrow-eyed squint.
"Have you pissed off someone this week? Someone besides Coop?"

There was Ray, of course. Possibly George Mudder, if Ray had
told him about my snooping. And Tiffany, if she’d found out about Doc and me.
Plus my sister was in the area—who knew how competitive for attention she was
feeling these days. Who else?

I shrugged. "No. I was just throwing that out."

Reid squeezed my shoulder. "I’m thinking more along the
line of an accident. But I’ve learned not to speculate until I get a chance to
sift through the ashes."

An accident. I gulped. That’s exactly what had the back of
my knees sweating. Layne had a track record of blowing up dog houses. Sure,
they were innocent chemistry experiments, but he’d been in Jeff’s backyard
unsupervised part of the time yesterday as we prepped for the open house. What
if Layne had been playing Dr. Oppenheimer with some of the chemicals in Jeff’s
garage, coming up with his own version of the atomic bomb? He’d made it clear
verbally how much he disliked Addy’s not-so-brilliant idea of having Jeff as their
new stepdaddy; maybe this was his way of acting out his feelings.

If Layne was at fault, how did I tell my client that my kid
may have kind of sort of accidentally blown up his garage? How did I convince
my boss that she shouldn’t fire me over this?

"I’ll get hold of you later and tell you more,"
Reid said and nodded at one of his crew members who was waving him over. "I
gotta go."

"Thanks, Reid."

"You’re welcome, Sparky. Do me a favor, would ya?"

I could guess where this was going, something about me not
playing with lighters or taking out more fire insurance. "What’s that?"

"Hide your Aunt’s shotgun shells." He winked, flashed
me another one of his charming grins, and walked away.

I stared after him, wondering what that meant for Aunt Zoe.
She’d obviously been hurt in the past by Reid. It didn’t take a doctorate in
psychology to figure that out based on her urge to fill him full of holes. I
hated to see Aunt Zoe hurt again, but Reid was a hot catch, and it had nothing
to do with all of the time he spent around flames.

What if Aunt Zoe and he patched things up? Would he want to
move in? Where did that leave me and my kids?

Shaking off worries about "what ifs" that Aunt Zoe
would tell me were "never happens," I headed into the house to wrap
up this disaster before returning to the office with my tail between my legs.

An hour later, when I pulled into the parking lot behind
Calamity Jane Realty, Jane’s SUV was nowhere to be seen. Mona and Ray were there,
though. The Picklemobile announced my arrival with its usual calling card
BOOM
.

I slammed the pickup door closed, taking a calming breath
before I faced the ridicule sure to be dished out in large helpings by a
certain dickhead I loved to hate.

The pungent odor of burned garage still coated the back of
my throat. I breathed in the pine-scented air, focusing on the warm afternoon
breeze and how good it felt on my skin. A glass of cold, refreshing water would
taste like nectar from heaven.

A flurry of movement by Calamity Jane’s back door snared my
attention. The site of George Mudder gesturing wildly as he talked to Ray made
me forget about Mother Nature’s pacifiers.

What was going on? What had George so animated?

There was only one way to find out. I weaved through a row
of highly-polished classic Detroit muscle and steel of all types, trying to
hear what George was saying above the V-8 engines rumbling in the parking lot
and out on the street.

Ray shushed him as I approached. I heard that clear as day.
Could he be any more suspicious? Hadn’t he ever heard of changing the subject?

"Hi, George," I said, breaking the silence. I
smiled wide, well as wide as I could after the day I’d had. Even my teeth felt scorched,
singed, and brittle. "What brings you to Calamity Jane’s?"