Dead Case in Deadwood (2 page)

"This guy must be part Yeti."

"I’ll be sure to make a note of that in the report,"
Cooper said.

I moved up to the corpse’s knees. They looked like a regular
set of kneecaps to me. Nothing remarkable.

I hesitated at the paper covering the man’s junk, my
determination wavering. I avoided glancing at Cooper, knowing any eye contact
at this point would make me chicken out.

Would looking at a dead man’s penis scar me for life? Would
I ever be able to look at another live version of one without recoiling? This
could seriously cripple my love life, which had barely limped along since the
twins had arrived.

But Cooper was watching, waiting for my white flag. I gulped
and pinched the corner of the little sheet.

"Wait, Violet." Cooper reached toward my hand.

The autopsy room’s double-doors opened. Old Man Harvey crashed
into the room, loud and grinning, as usual. His two gold teeth gleamed under
the florescent lights.

He stopped short of me, eyeing me up and down. "Woo-wee!
You look finer than frog hair. Did you wear that pretty dress to impress Coop,
Eddie, or the dead guy?"

I smoothed down my new coral-colored knit dress, feeling my
cheeks heat up. "You’re late," I told him, avoiding an answer.

"Sorry ‘bout that. I had trouble gettin’ out of bed."

"Your trick hip keeping you up again?" I asked.

"More like Viagra and an old flame." His grin hung
from his earlobes. "You should see the tricks that girl can still do with
her hips. The way she wiggles you’d never guess she has an AARP card."

Criminy. I’d waltzed right into that one.

Willis "Old Man" Harvey was my partner in crime
and self-appointed bodyguard, whether I liked it or not.

He also owned the ranch I was trying to sell in spite of the
dead body parts that kept showing up there—parts such as an ear still connected
to half a scalp that was found in one of Harvey’s somewhat illegal traps. And
the very corpse under my nose, which the old bugger’s lazy yellow dog had
partially dug up from the cemetery out behind his barn.

I stepped back to give Harvey room to inspect the corpse. His
arrival had saved my future sex life, and my knees wobbled with relief.

"You figure out who it is?" Harvey asked, joining
us at the table and looking from me to Cooper.

"Not yet," Cooper answered.

"Jesus H. Christ, boy." Harvey said to the
detective, who also happened to be his nephew. Pretty much everyone in Deadwood
was related by blood or marriage, which was something I’d grasped since moving
from the prairie to the Black Hills six months ago. "Do I have to do
everything around here?"

Harvey leaned over the corpse and sniffed. "Hmmm.
Smells like that homemade goop I rub on my bunions." He poked the corpse
in the ribs hard enough to slide the body over an inch or two.

"Harvey!" I said, poking him in the ribs in turn.

"What? He’s dead. He didn’t feel it." He nudged me
aside and danced toward the feet, singing along in a high voice, doing a spin
as the disco-playing organ hit the final chorus. The Bee Gees would never be
the same for me again.

"Any tattoos?" Harvey asked.

Cooper shook his head.

"His legs remind me of your Aunt Gertrude’s."

Cooper kept shaking his head, a small grin surfacing.

Harvey had reached the paper towel covering the man’s family
jewels. Without hesitation, he yanked off the towel.

"No! God!" I covered my eyes—a half-second too
late.

"Hmph. Reminds me of the last time I skinny-dipped in
Pactola Dam."

"Ahhh!" I cringed. No amount of soap was going to
scrub that image from my eyes.

Something rustled, and then Cooper said, "You can uncover
your eyes now, Violet."

I peeked out between my fingers first just to be safe.
Harvey had returned to my side, his thumbs wrapped around his suspenders.

"So, neither of you two recognize this man?"
Cooper’s eyes bounced between Harvey and me.

"No," I said.

Harvey scratched his head. "Hold up. Did he have just
one testicle?"

"Yep," Eddie confirmed.

Harvey reached for the paper towel covering the corpse’s
jewels again.

I squawked and turned toward the door. Another glimpse of
the dead guy’s package and I’d never be able to have sex again. "If we’re
done here, Detective, I need to go to work."

"You’re free to leave." He came around the corpse
and walked me to the double doors, holding one open for me. "You aren’t
planning any trips out of state, are you?"

I stopped on the threshold and frowned up at him. "Are
you asking me that as my client?"

Cooper had hired me to sell his house a couple of weeks ago.
The plan was to put it on the market this week.

"No, I’m asking on behalf of the Lawrence County
Sheriff’s Department."

"Are you working for the Sheriff on this?" I
pointed in the general direction of the body. Detective Cooper worked for the
City of Deadwood and was hired out to Lead, but last I’d heard he only played
poker with the local sheriff, not cops and robbers.

"Not officially. But until we figure out who this guy
is and how he lost his head, you and Uncle Willis both need to stay close."

The sound of that made the hairs on my neck bristle, just as
I’d forecasted. "Are you saying we’re suspects in his murder?"

"Not suspects, just persons of interest. So stick
around." His gunslinger squint returned. "And keep your big nose out
of this case.
"

The town of Deadwood was
suffering from a hangover. A week had passed since the Sturgis Biker Rally
officially ended, and while many of the thousands of motorcyclists had headed
home, numerous Harley Davidsons still stacked up domino-style in parking lots
around town—chromed-out horses lined up along an invisible hitching post.

Thanks to the Kool Deadwood
Nites party revving up, the Black Hills continued to rumble like an empty belly
throughout the day as strings of souped-up classic cars began to roll into town,
mufflers growling.

Harvey’s ancient green Ford pickup, which I was currently borrowing,
growled back. Fondly named the Picklemobile by its grizzled owner, the old gal
spat and sputtered along. It also backfired every time I shut the damned thing
off.

If only that red-taloned bitch hadn’t torched my Bronco last
week. That’s what I got for mixing it up with a sadistic, demented, demon lover.
The next time I agreed to sell a house, I was going to include a
No Demons
clause in the contract. Seriously.

I chitty-chitty bang-banged through the parking lot behind
Calamity Jane Realty, searching for one classic car in particular—a late ‘60s black
Camaro SS with white rally stripes belonging to the only guy around who could
make my lingerie melt with a single glance: Doc Nyce.

The sight of Doc’s slick car parked two stalls down from my
usual spot spurred invisible bluebirds to tweet and flap around my head,
whistling Disney style. If there was one thing I needed this morning to calm my
nerves after sniffing around that decapitated body, it was a touch of Doc. Or
ten touches. Maybe a squeeze or two, as well.

I parked in my spot and then lifted my sunglasses to look in
the rearview mirror for a makeup check. My insomnia-induced red-rimmed eyes
stared back at me. Ugh.

Shutting off the engine, I counted under my breath, "One,
two, three," and then winced as a loud boom reverberated from the
Picklemobile’s tail pipe.

Lowering my sunglasses as a shield from the way-too-bright
sun, I shouldered my tote and grabbed the drink holder full of lattes from the
floor of the passenger side. With a solid butt bump, I shoved the heavy door
closed and weaved through the parking lot to Calamity Jane’s back door.

Jane Grimes, the owner and my boss, wasn’t in yet; her
office was dark. I placed her latte on the desk, anyway.

Our usual Friday morning staff meeting at Bighorn Billy’s diner
had been cancelled this week due to Jane’s messy divorce currently screwing up
her life and all of her left-brained, ultra-anal routines.

I could smell the sweet jasmine perfume of my favorite
coworker and mentor, Mona Hollister, several steps before I found her sitting
at her desk, her long pink fingernails clacking away on her laptop keyboard as
she talked on the phone.

She smiled at the latte I set in front of her and blew me a
silent kiss.

Ray Underhill, the jackass who brayed and kicked at me
hourly from the desk next to mine, wasn’t in yet, thank God. We’d have to save
our daily glare-down for later.

I dropped my tote on my desk after digging out my cell phone,
left my sunglasses in place, and carried the remaining two lattes out through
the front glass door.

Doc’s office shared a wall with Calamity Jane Realty, a wall
that I had pressed my ear to more times than I’d like to admit. Jealousy wasn’t
a pretty sight, and on me it looked like Medusa with bed head.

After a glance up and down the street, making sure my best
friend, Natalie Beals, wasn’t around to see me, I pushed through the door into
Doc’s office. The subtle scent of his woodsy cologne reached in through my
sinuses and tickled my libido.

Doc looked up from the book he was reading, his dark
chocolate eyes unreadable as I placed a coffee on the desk in front of him.

I pretty much fell into the seat opposite him. Spending the
morning disco-ing with Cooper’s dead guy in the Mudder boys’ basement had taken
a toll on me, making everything south of my neck a little wobbly.

Being around Doc had a similar unsteadying effect on my
limbs. The guy had my number. Hell, he had my whole roll of numbers, including
the queue-generating machine that spat them out. It was no wonder that Natalie
had it in her head that Doc had her number, too—and that she stood at the front
of the line.

"I have a problem," I said, jumping right into the
fire.

Doc’s eyelids narrowed. "You hung up on me last night."

"Sorry about that."

"Right in the middle of detailing the slinky satin
nightgown you were barely wearing."

Which had really been an old pair of boxer shorts and an
Elvis T-shirt, but Doc didn’t need to know the finer details of my nightly
ensembles. "Right."

"And you never called back."

"There’s an explanation for that."

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "I’m
all ears."

"You mean about last night?"

"To start with."

"Natalie needed to use the bathroom."

"You were in the bathroom?" At my nod, he asked, "In
the tub?"

More like on the floor next to it. "Sure."

"Why do you lie to me when I can clearly see your nose
twitching?"

Damned tell-tale appendage. I frowned and covered it.

"What’s with the sunglasses, Marilyn Monroe?"

"It’s bright in here," I lied from behind my hand.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk, his
gaze traveling down the v-neck of my dress and settling on the big twisted knot
at my sternum.

"Great dress." He stared as if I were lying naked
on a bear skin rug. "You didn’t answer my question last night."

Lowering my hand, I frowned at him. "I did—you asked if
I was wearing any underwear."

"Not that question. The one about when I could see you
next."

Oh, that one. That was part of my bigger problem, the one
that had brought me here. I tried to ease into my answer. "You’re seeing
me now."

"I want to see more of you." The heat sizzling in
his gaze when it crawled back up to mine made my upper lip sweat. "Preferably
in my bed, but I’ll settle for wherever I can get you alone."

I had to change the subject before I hurdled his desk,
tackled him, and tore off his navy blue dress shirt with my teeth. "Detective
Cooper told me this morning that I’m a person of interest in the headless
corpse murder case."

To Doc’s credit, he adjusted to this conversation shift with
merely a tightening of his lips. "You were at the police station already
today? That must be a record for you."

"No, Cooper had me meet him at Mudder Brothers."

His forehead furrowed. "Why there?"

"To try to identify the victim."

"You were looking at a decapitated body this morning?"

I nodded. And dead guy’s family jewels, minus one precious
stone, according to Harvey.

Doc’s jaw grew rigid. "Why in the hell did Cooper make
you do that?"

"Because the victim had my business card in his hand."

"I know. I was there when you got the call, remember?"

I grinned. Of course I remembered. We’d been half- naked at
the time.

Doc continued, "I’m referring to your current mental
state."

"There is nothing wrong with my current mental state."

"Still having those nightmares every night?"

Yes, in spite of Natalie playing slumber party with me ever
since the Carhart mess almost a week ago when my client and her Bronco-burning girlfriend
tried to subject me to demon copulation. When that plan failed, they’d settled
with trying to gut me like a pumpkin. Such experiences tended to have a lasting
effect on one’s nerves.

I opened my mouth to deny the nightmares, but Doc cut me
off. "The truth, Violet. You promised me."

Oh, fahrvergnügen! That was right. While we hadn’t locked
pinkies over it, if I wanted Doc to come clean with me about everything under the
sun on a regular basis, I needed to do the same.

"Okay, so I’m having a few not-so-good dreams at night."
When I actually slept, anyway.

"Admitting that was like pulling teeth for you, wasn’t
it?"

Speaking of choppers, "Cooper also took the teeth."

"You mean that box you found in the Carhart attic?"

At my request for some ancient history on the house for a ghost-loving
potential buyer, I’d been allowed to take a box from the Carhart’s supposedly
haunted attic that contained several historical artifacts, including a box of 187
human canine teeth. Who would have collected all of those teeth and why they
stockpiled them was still a mystery, but now it was Cooper’s problem to solve,
not mine.