Dead Case in Deadwood (34 page)

"You pick up anything?" I asked.

"Just a hint. Let’s go."

I looked up the narrow stairwell—three flights straight up
with landings offering resting spots. The wooden-step stairway must run along
the side of the building. But why did they have to paint the walls baby-blue?
And by the smell in the corridor, they’d done it recently, too. It must have
been in preparation for selling.

The weak light from sconces at each floor did little more
than deepen the shadows. I started up the stairwell, glancing back at Doc. "Why
not take the elevator this time?"

"It’s not as scenic."

"Seriously?"

"I don’t want to take a chance on being trapped in
there with a ghost."

Pausing on the second floor landing, I waited for him to
join me. "That’s happened to you before?"

"Twice, but not here. Yet."

Nodding, I frowned up at him. "Why does Tiffany think
you’re a leg man?"

He eyed the next flight of stairs. "Do you really want
to go there right now?"

"No." I climbed a few steps and stopped, turning
around. "Yes, I do."

He still stood on the landing, sniffing. "I don’t have
a thing for legs."

"Then why did she—"

"Tiffany is insecure."

"What? No way."

"Trust me. She makes up for it by being aggressive and
competitive."

"Competitive? You mean besides her job?"

"I mean physically."

"She could be a model."

"That’s definitely one way she competes."

"What’s the other?"

He hesitated, sweat glistening on his upper lip.

"Let me guess, during sex."

He nodded just once. "Can we go up now?"

"Okay." Two steps later, I stopped again. He was
coming up on my tail.

"So, was she all athletic, doing backbends and splits
like the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team?"

His lips twitched. "No. I mean she competed constantly—without
stopping."

"You mean when it came to how long—"

"Yes!" He cut me off. Were his cheeks a little pale
or was that just the weird lighting in here?

"Is her competitiveness why you stopped seeing her?"

"It was one reason."

"Was there another?"

"Yeah." When I refused to budge, he continued, "She
wanted to get married."

"Oh." That made me take a step up in surprise. "Okay
then." I’d have to remember to never say the M word to Doc. It would probably
be best not even to think of that word in the same train of thought as him. "I’ll
just … uh … keep going up." I practically ran up the rest of the steps to
the third floor landing.

When Doc caught up to me, he was breathing hard. Sweat
trickled down from his temple.

It wasn’t
that
hot and stuffy in here, and Doc was in
much better shape than me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He leaned against the wall, resting the
back of his head on it. "But I need to tell you something," he said
in between breaths, "about Tiffany."

As much as I didn’t want to hear any more about Jessica
Rabbit, I kept my mouth closed. My gut churned as I waited to hear what he had
to say.

He sniffed a couple of times and squinted at me in the
crappy lighting. "You look different."

He didn’t say it as if
different
meant
good
. "Of
course I look different. She and I are about as different as women get."
And if he asked me to dye my hair red, I would string him up by his testicles.

“No, I mean you look different right now." He reached
toward my face. "As if your face is—"

His hand jerked back all of the sudden, his eyes widening. "It’s
here," he whispered.

"You mean a ghost?" I looked behind me, circling
like a dog chasing its tail. "Where?"

He flattened himself against the wall, his face pallid. The moon
had more color to it. "Right here."

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. "Like right
behind me?"

He shook his head. "I mean inside of you."

"You think I’m possessed?" Funny, I always thought
I’d notice if something else was controlling the mother ship.

"No, I don’t mean it’s possessing you. It’s just hiding
behind your face, wearing you like it would a mask."

Whether or not I believed in ghosts, that freaked me out. I stumbled
back across the landing, swiping at my cheeks and hair as if ghosts were made
of cobwebs.

"Oh, shit." Doc’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His face
tightened, his shoulders scrunching inward.

"What?"

"Here it comes."

"Doc." I reached for him. "What can I do?"

His gaze locked onto mine. "Stay back."

Stay back?

I did just that for a few seconds, but there was no way I
could just stand there and watch while Doc shuddered, his eyes, his face—everything—crumpling
in pain.

I had to do something.

Rushing forward, I caught him as he started to teeter toward
the stairs. I grabbed him by the shoulders, shoving him back against the wall
with enough oomph that his head snapped back with a thud.

"Sorry, Doc."

He didn’t seem to hear me.

Under my palms, his muscles were rock hard, tense. Tremors tore
through him with enough force to make my arms shake, too. I leaned against him
hard, praying his knees didn’t buckle. Or mine.

He groaned. Sweat streaked down from his temples. Heat
radiated through his shirt—way too much heat. He was burning up under his
clothes. I could feel the slickness of his skin through the thin cotton, smell
his cologne or deodorant as if he’d just put it on.

"Doc," I said, making my voice strong, hard. "Look
at me."

At first, I didn’t think he heard me. Then his eyes opened
slowly. His pupils were fully dilated. He was looking at me all right, but I
doubted he was seeing me.

"Can you hear me, Doc?"

"Yes." It came out mixed with another groan.

"Who am I?"

"Vi—" A huge tremor rocked through him. His breath
caught.

"Doc," I said "Stay with me."

His eyes started to roll back. I was losing him.

"Oh, no you don’t." I used Harvey’s trick and
pinched Doc on the bicep—really hard.

His focus snapped back, his eyes still dilated, but no
longer lost.

"Doc, who am I?" I asked again.

"Violet." His voice sounded raspy, as if he hadn’t
used it in days. His tremors slackened, reduced to just quivering now.

"Good." I still held him against the wall, waiting
to make sure he was fully back among the living before I stepped away.

"Damn." He gulped breaths, reminding me of the
last time I’d chased the ice cream truck for a few blocks. "That hurt like
hell."

I nodded. "I bet. You were shaking like crazy."

"I’m talking about your pinch."

"Oh."

He rubbed his arm where I’d worked my Harvey-inspired magic.
"Did you have to do it so hard?"

"I was saving you."

"Who taught you that life-saving technique? Nurse
Ratched?"

Nurse Ratched! I stepped back, my jaw gaping. "Of all
of the ungrateful …" I almost pinched him again. "I was trying to
keep you from keeling over so you didn’t break your neck falling down the damned
stairs, thank you very much."

"Violet," he started, but I wasn’t finished.

"Next time, buddy boy," I said, poking him in the
chest with my index finger, simmering with leftover adrenaline to burn off. A
wiser man wouldn’t have lit my flame. "I’m going to—"

He caught my finger and tugged me against him, holding me
tight. "I’m sorry," he said over my head.

"You should be." I grumbled a few more choice
words into his shirt before his calming touch doused my anger. From the ashes
came the truth. "When you do that ghost-thing, it scares the shit out of
me."

"Me, too."

"Still?"

"It’s not really something I ever get used to. I’ve
been trying to do more preparation before going into it, practicing some mental
defenses and techniques someone told me about a long time ago. But when it’s an
entity that’s new to me, like this one, I can only do so much to prime my mind.
Mostly, I just have to stand here and wait for the maelstrom to hit. Although
today, you were able to snap me out of it early, pulling me back to present
day. That was a first …" he trailed off, as if lost in his thoughts.

I leaned my forehead against the open neck of his shirt, struggling
to listen through the clamor of logic and reason. If only I could see something
of these entities of his, even a shimmer, or experience a cold chill when they
came near. Any kind of sign that would make it all more tangible and easier to
believe would be spiffy.

Hell, today the thing had somehow hidden inside of my skin
before working over Doc. He’d nearly passed out from the experience, and I hadn’t
even felt a single goosebump. Not even a hint of sensation that someone had
just walked over my grave, nothing, nada. I was a total dud.

The nightmare with Wolfgang and his demon pal had to have been
just that—a bad dream. Most likely, it was the result of not enough sleep and
an overdose of stress.

Crud. I was so tired of thinking about all of this
paranormal shit.

I changed the direction of my thoughts to something
tangible. "It was Harvey," I told Doc while staring down at our shoes.

"What was Harvey?"

"He taught me that wicked pinch move."

His chuckle rumbled in his chest. "How many times has
he used it on you?"

"Too many times to count. Now he has his nephew pinching
me, too."

I felt Doc tighten under his shirt. He pushed me back, his
eyes narrowed, questioning. "Why did Detective Cooper pinch you?"

Rex Conner.

Crappity crap. I should have thought before mentioning Cooper.

"Because he suspects I was sneaking around at Mudder
Brothers with Harvey the other night." That was kind of true, at least
about Cooper thinking I was up to no good. I was sure he would’ve loved to
pinch me just out of suspicion alone.

"But you
were
sneaking around Mudder Brothers."

"I know that, but I’m not going to fess up to Cooper about
it."

Doc snorted. "I should have started a bail bonds
company." He turned me toward the stairs. "Let’s get out of here. I
have plenty to think about now. I’m not anxious for her to return."

Her?
I led the way down, glancing back up at him as I
stepped. "So, you a … saw something while you were experiencing those
shudders up there?"

"Yes," he answered when we reached the first floor.
He pushed open the stairwell door for me.

I waited until we stood out under the front awning, rain
pouring down hard enough to bounce off the pavement all around us, before
asking, "What did you see? Was it the four ladies who …" I mimicked
slitting my wrists.

"No. It was something akin to Prudence’s experience."

"You mean Prudence-Prudence? The ghost from the Carhart
house in Lead was up there?"

He glanced around us, nudging his head at a smoker standing further
down under the awning, and shushed me with a mimicked zip of his lips.

Oops
, I spoke soundlessly.

He grabbed my hand, tugging me out from under the awning’s
protection. We dashed through the cool, clothes-penetrating rain and scrambled
into the Picklemobile.

I slammed my door shut, shivering in my damp dress. I
checked my mascara in the rearview mirror—no raccoon eyes yet, but my lip gloss
was long gone. The fragrance of my peach-scented shampoo masked the odor of old
grease that usually filled the cab.

Doc caught my hands and rubbed them between his, warming
them. "You smell good enough to eat." He tugged on my hands and
leaned toward me like he was going to take a bite.

I leaned away from him. "Quit trying to distract me. Do
you mean to tell me you saw Prudence up there?"

"No, not Prudence." He returned to warming my
hands. "It was some girl—a prostitute."

"How could you tell? Did she have a certain smell?"

"I told you before, it’s not a smell. It’s more like
some kind of imprint left behind that I can sense. The scent isn’t real."

"And I told you that until you come up with a better
word, I’m using the word
smell
. Now, how could you tell it was a
prostitute?"

"Her lingerie and stockings." His hands stilled,
but kept ahold of mine. "And the paraphernalia in her room while they were
doing it. Stuff I’ve seen repeatedly in historic photos of brothels."

"They? You mean she was murdered by one of her customers
while she was working?"

How many prostitutes died at the hands of the men they were
servicing back then? I imagined most murders were just shrugged off by the
local authorities due to the line of work and lack of the prostitute’s family
around to raise a fuss.

"No, she wasn’t working at the time," Doc
clarified. "I meant there were two men who were on the scene during her
murder."

I winced, not liking the sound of this already. "What
did they do?"

"You don’t want to know the details, trust me. Most
people don’t treat prostitutes kindly in life. When it comes to death, it’s even
worse."

"So, what does Prudence have to do with any of this?"

Had she been nearby when the prostitute was killed? That
seemed like a pretty far-fetched coincidence, since no upstanding lady dared to
step foot in Deadwood’s Badlands and risk her reputation. Yet, unfortunate
coincidences happened every day. Take our run-in with Tiffany, earlier. Very
unfortunate. But now I knew all about Doc and his reaction to marriage, which
left me with a problem I didn’t feel like facing while sitting next to him in
the Picklemobile.

"I said it was akin to Prudence’s experience."

I pulled my focus back to the present—or rather the past. "What
does that mean?"

"They were the same men who murdered Prudence."