Dead Case in Deadwood (23 page)

"Maybe you could have that hot little brunette over at
the Saddle-Up Salon teach you how to do something sexy with that mop of yours.
The wet poodle look isn’t going to win you any beauty pageants."

I didn’t bite. I wanted to, starting with his head,
praying-mantis style, but I gritted my teeth and kept to task.

"Tiffany Sugarbell could teach you a thing or two about
dressing for success," Ray said, striking a little too close to the mark. "Want
me to send her your way after we finish the deal on the Old Prospector Hotel?"

I opened an Internet search window and typed
human
castration methods
. Results with mentions of elastrator and emasculator
tools made me smile as I returned to Cornelius’s offer document.

"You know all of this realty business is just a waste
of your time, sweetheart," Ray continued his taunts. "I don’t know
why you keep coming in here every morning. You’re like a bird with a broken
wing. You keep trying to fly when there is no hope."

I rolled my eyes and scrolled through the document, scanning
to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

Kicking his Tony Lamas up on his desk, he leaned back in his
chair and locked his fingers behind his head. "I’m going to have that
hotel in my pocket by nightfall, you know."

Not if I beat you to it.

I shot him what I hoped was a look of disbelief. "Right.
Isn’t there road kill somewhere waiting for you to dine on it?"

"You don’t believe me? I have the offer right here on
my desk."

"Sure you do." As much as I wanted to see for
myself, I kept my gaze locked on the computer screen.

His chair creaked. His boots hit the floor with a thud. "See
for yourself, Blondie." He strolled over and held the offer in front of my
face.

With a key-click, I hid Cornelius’s offer behind my email
inbox so Ray wouldn’t see it.

Focusing on the paper shoved in my face, I noticed that the
offer price was for several thousand dollars more than the asking price. I also
noticed there was no signature on it.

Then I saw the name of buyer: George Mudder.

What?!

I read it again.

Why would George want a hotel? Did he plan on moving the
funeral parlor to Main Street? There was no way the town would approve that, would
it?

Maybe he was planning on getting out of the funeral business.
Where had he gotten that kind of money? From selling body parts? Drugs?
Something worse?

What could be worse than selling drugs and body parts?

Ray’s desk phone rang. He returned to his desk, taking George’s
offer with him. "Ray Underhill," he said into the receiver.

I stared at my screen, my fingers paused on the keys as my
brain churned on the fact that George Mudder was Ray’s buyer and what that meant
in the theft scheme I had imagined for the Mudder brothers.

"Sure, I’d be happy to take the mayor of Deadwood’s
call," Ray said extra loud, obviously for my benefit.

Looking away from his big, stupid I-win-you-lose grin, I
stared at my screen without really seeing it. What was I doing before I found
out about George and the hotel? Oh, yeah—Cornelius.

I returned to my own offer letter and clacked away as fast
as my fingers would go. Until Ray had a signature on that offer, I still had a
chance on taking the lead in this race.

Twenty minutes later, Ray had finished his schmoozing,
grabbed today’s paper from outside the front door, and headed for the bathroom.
As soon as he closed the door, I printed out the offer paperwork.

I knocked twice on the bathroom door on my way out, yelling,
"Tell Jane I’ll be back after lunch," and then raced out the back
door.

I called Cornelius on my way over. "I’ll be there in
five minutes with the offer for the hotel."

"Yes." He sounded all deep and creepy, giving the "s"
an extra long hiss at the end.

Yes?
I didn’t realize I’d asked a question.

"Who is this?" he asked.

I laughed. Then realized he was serious. "Cornelius,
it’s Violet. Your Realtor."

"Oh, good. For a moment I thought you could be one of
the ghosts we reached out to last night."

"A ghost? Calling your cell phone?"
Seriously?
Must I be a human beacon for the nearly deranged?

"I did mention that I am a ghost whisperer, didn’t I?"

I pulled the phone away from my ear and shook it. Then after
a deep breath, I said into it, "You mentioned it in passing."

"Excellent. I’m going to need you to bring me a protein
shake."

"Right now?"

"I can’t focus without protein."

Maybe that explained why this train of conversation had jumped
off the tracks. But where was I going to find a protein shake in Deadwood?

"I prefer vanilla-flavored," Cornelius said, "but
strawberry will work, too. Don’t you just love the smell of strawberries? It
reminds me of my investigation of the Strawberry Hill Mansion Museum in Kansas
City and the Lady in Red apparition there who is quite chatty with guests,
especially those of us who can converse on her plane of existence. Although,
she seems very depressed about being dead."

"Uhhh, okay then. I’ll find a shake and bring it with
me."

I’d have agreed to bring him a chunk of the moon if it meant
I’d get to cram a
signed
offer down Ray’s throat before the day was out.

I hung up. Now where was I going to find a vanilla protein
drink?

Doc.

I knew from hands-on experience that he was in tip-top
muscle shape. He’d surely have some protein drink.

When I called him, he didn’t answer. Damn, that would have
been a great excuse to break the ice between us.

Who else would have protein drink mix? Cooper? Or did he
drink eggs like Rocky Balboa for protein? No, he probably just ate a live hen
full of un-hatched eggs every morning.

I gave up, did a u-turn, and headed up to the Piggly Wiggly
in Lead.

An hour later, I knocked on Cornelius’s hotel room door,
vanilla protein shake in hand.

Safari Skipper opened the door. Déjà vu.

"Hi, Miss Parker," she held the door wide as I
slipped by, and then followed on my heels. "Did you have any more wicked nightmares
last night?"

"No," I lied.

"That’s a bummer."

How nice that someone appreciated my terror-filled dreams.

Cornelius sat at the round table, the vanilla-scented candle
snuffed out. A pair of over-the-head earphones took the place of his one-horned
Viking helmet today; dark sunglasses hid his eyes.

I dropped into the chair next to him and put the protein
shake and offer paperwork on the table.

He looked at me and lowered his sunglasses. "Hi,
Violet!" he yelled.

I jerked back.

Slipping off the earphones, he said, "Sorry about that.
I forgot I had them on."

"Were you listening to the recording from last night?"

"No. I like to start my day with polka music."

"Polka?"

"Yes, the beat really revs me up and opens my psychic
ears. It’s a trick I learned from my grandmother, who was the famous ghost
whisperer from New Orleans."

I just smiled, because laughing hysterically in his face
might have seemed rude. "I’ve brought the offer paperwork. We just need to
come up with an amount and have you sign this, then I’ll take it back to the
office and send it to Tiffany to show to her client."

"Perfect. How much should I offer?"

More than George Mudder.

"Do I come in with a full price offer," he
continued, "or should I lowball it?"

Neither would be enough.

I hesitated, chewing on my lip.

Ethically, I was at a fork in the road. Because I knew what
Ray’s client was going to offer, I needed Cornelius to come in higher in order
to be considered. However, telling Cornelius a certain amount that would
guarantee we’d win over Ray and George was kind of like cheating, even though
Ray had showed the offer letter to me of his own free will.

If Jane found out that I knew Ray’s offer price ahead of time,
would she figure out that I purposely had pushed Cornelius to place a higher
offer? Would that be grounds to consider replacing me with someone more honest?
More moral? Less apt to get involved personally with clients?

But, if I didn’t push Cornelius higher, George would end up
buying the hotel and I’d most likely end up out on my ass.

Either way, my job was at risk.

I cleared my throat. "Well, I’m not supposed to give
you advice, but I’m under the suspicion that there might be another party
interested in this property. So, I think we need to make your offer as strong
as it can be."
Hint, hint, hint.

His eyebrows flat-lined under the weight of his frown. "Why
didn’t you tell me someone else wants this place before now?"

"I just recently learned about it."

He stroked his pointy goatee. "What if I come at ten
thousand over? You think that’s enough?"

Yes!
"Most likely."

I grabbed a pen from my purse, wrote his offer amount down
and handed him the pen. "You just need to sign here and then initial here
and here."

Taking the pen, he stared down at the document for a bit too
long.

"What’s wrong?" I asked, my heart picking up
speed. "Did I spell your name wrong?"

"My name is correct." He removed his sunglasses
and set them on the table. "Tell me something, Violet. Last night during
the séance, you said you saw an entity in your nightmare?"

I leaned back, crossing my arms over my chest, not sure
where this was going, but not liking it, anyway. "Well, I don’t know that
it was what you’d call an entity."

That thing, whatever it was, was not some ghost. Not that it
was real or anything. It was just another one of my nightmares, only in IMAX 3-D
format.

Cornelius raised one black eyebrow. "Was this entity once
a man who went by the name of Wolfgang?"

I choked on my own spit—and Cornelius’s question about
Wolfgang.

After a minute of coughing, and then a couple of slurps of stale
black coffee from a mug offered by Safari Skipper, I found enough breath to
answer him.

"No, there was no man named Wolfgang," I lied
straight-faced, eye-to-eye.

There was no way I was going to feed Cornelius’s idiosyncrasy.
Plus, admitting I saw Wolfgang would only make him start poking and prodding me
more, distracting him from the task at hand, which was buying this damned hotel
and helping me keep my job.

"Hmm, that’s odd," was all Cornelius said. "When
I listened to the recording of the séance, you mentioned his name."

Then he signed the offer letter, and I did my best not to
skip out of there like I was off to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Ray’s SUV wasn’t in the parking lot behind Calamity Jane’s. Whew!
The tightness in my chest eased, making me realize that as much as I looked
forward to beating him at this game, avoiding confrontation was fine and dandy
with me this afternoon.

Jane sat behind her desk, cursing into her phone as I walked
by. I dropped my purse onto my desk and grabbed Mona, whose smile widened to
match mine when I showed her the offer. The two of us hovered outside of Jane’s
open doorway until she ended her call with a slam of her phone.

She stood and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that was
on her filing cabinet, then noticed us standing there. Her focus bounced to the
bottle in her hand, and then back to us.

She shrugged and put the Jack back on the cabinet. "It’s
either drink heavily or kill the bastard, and my skin tone is too fair to pull
off an orange jumpsuit."

Unsure of whether to open that can of worms further and let
her vent or change the subject to something less drink-inducing, I opted for
the positive and held up the signed letter.

She waved us inside her office, where I noticed the
underlying smell of alcohol not fully masked by her flowery perfume. She hadn’t
been joking about the drinking. The dark circles under her eyes reinforced my
suspicion. I kept the smile on my lips to hide my concern.

Her eyes narrowed as she tried to see what the paper said. "Is
that what I think it is?"

I looked at Mona, and she nudged me. "It’s your party,
Violet; you get to do the crowing."

"Cornelius Curion has made an offer on the Old
Prospector Hotel." I placed the paper on the desk in front of her.

The corners of her lips creased slightly—her attempt at a
smile, I guessed. "This is wonderful, Violet. Are you confident in his
financial abilities to follow through on this?"

Absolutely not. "Definitely."

"Have you contacted the seller’s Realtor?"

Tiffany. Ugh. Why couldn’t Doc’s ex-girlfriend have gray
skin and scales and reside on another planet? "Not yet, but I will as soon
as I fax this over to her."

"Have Mona take one last look through the offer first
to make sure you have all of your ‘i’s’ crossed and ‘t’s’ dotted."

Did she just say … ? I glanced at Mona, who shook her head
slightly.

"Then fax it," Jane continued, "and go out to
lunch on me."

"You should join us," Mona said.

"Not today. I’m not very good company. I wouldn’t want
to bring you down."

We turned toward the door.

"Oh, and Violet?" When I turned, she added, "I
need you to fill in for me this afternoon down in Rapid."

"What do you mean?"

"I signed up for a workshop given by the South Dakota
Real Estate Commission about proposed rule changes for brokers, but I need to
run out to Gillette."

"Wyoming?"

She nodded and handed me a Post-it note with an address and
time. "Just go listen and take notes for me."

Damn it. I had planned to attend another viewing tonight to try
sneaking a peek into the windows of the Mudder brothers’ garage-crematorium.
This day job was seriously cramping my funeral parlor spying efforts.