Murder and Mayhem (32 page)

“Wow Ross! You protected my sister like one of those
dashing heroes in a Mills and Boon romance novel!” said Rosie.

“He’s my knight in shining
armor,” I said knowing full well my husband would lay down his life for me.

“I wasn’t really scared, Hon,” Ross boasted. “I was
just concerned for Bee’s safety.”

“Of course you were, Ross. So, when do you two plan on
going back to El Paso?”

“I think we’ll just get back to the story of nice
genteel folks.”

“You go right ahead, Bee while I make you girls tea. I
baked a fresh batch of cookies this morning.”

*****

“Ready for some pie?” the waitress asked as she
cleared the table and gave it a cursory wipe.

“You bet,” Danny said.

“Apple, cherry, peach, pumpkin, pecan, key lime ...”

“Cherry sounds good.”

“A la mode?”

Danny nodded. “With cream on the side.”

Fiona looked over at Nicola. “What about you, Hon? You
want some pie?”

“No. I’m fine, thanks.”

“Got a real nice Chantilly chocolate that melts in
your mouth. Folks round here come in special for it.”

Nicola shook her head. “Just coffee, thanks.”

“Coffee for me too,” Danny added.

“Comin’ right up folk!”

The small bell above the door tinkled. The waitress
looked up and smiled as a young couple walked in and looked around.

“Sit anywhere folks. I’ll be with you shortly.”

* * *

Nicola turned on the radio and caught the tail end of
a news report.

“….A tornado raging across the mid-western states has
left a trail of destruction estimated to be in the millions…” She made a stab
at the button and the radio fell silent.

“How awful, those poor people.”

A pale shaft of light filtered through the trees and
hit Danny’s eye. He flipped the visor down and nodded. “It must be frightening
being caught up in something like that,” he said.

“Have you been to the mid-west?”

“I went through the Dakotas a couple of years ago to
the town of Medora in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where bison and
wild horses roam the vast plains–and prairie dogs rule. We drove through the
Black Hills to Sturgis, and Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument just
outside the town of Custer. Have you ever seen it?”

“Only on the Discovery Channel.”

“It’s worth seeing.”

“It looked magnificent on television but I should
imagine seeing it up close would really be something.”

“It was. Then we traveled south through The Badlands
National Park to Wounded Knee in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.”

“It sounds like you had a fabulous trip. It would be
like going through the pages of a history book.”

Danny nodded. “We did. All those names and places take
you back to your childhood of cowboys and Indians.”

“And reminds you of movies like Dances With Wolves.”

*****

Ross wandered into the room, wiping his hands on the
small towel tucked into his waistband, a smudge of flour on one cheek like a
streak of war-paint.

“I thought I heard you mention the movie,
Dances
With Wolves
. Did you tell Hon about the time we drove through South Dakota
and came across a fort-like structure where they had all the props from the
movie on display?”

“No. I don’t think so. Did I, Hon?”

“No. You never told me about that. I’d remember if you
did because I think Kevin Costner is one gorgeous hunk.”

I laughed. “I’d have to agree with you there.” I
looked at Ross with his shiny bald head and truck-tire midriff and sighed as he
dropped his Pillsbury body onto the end of the bed. I felt the mattress sag as
the springs protested.

“Do you want to tell her?” I asked.

Ross shook his head. “Oh no, Bee you go right ahead.”

“Okay. Let me see now. It was back in 98-99--” I
began.

“Sorry to interrupt, love, but I think it was 1999. We
had just been to the Harley Davidson Museum in Sturgis, remember? And then I
met up with my old mate, Walter in Rapid City, and got some Harley parts…”

Rosie laughed. “As you do….”

Ross flashed her a boyish grin and said, “As you do…”
then continued the story. “I seem to recall we were heading east to Sioux City,
to meet one of the lads who’d gotten hold of some parts I needed to finish the
project I was working on at the time. You remember, Bee, it was the year I was
building that old1938 black and white,” he prompted.

I nodded. “Ross remembers where and when he’s bought
every nut and bolt for every bike he’s ever worked on. But he can’t remember
the really important stuff, like my birthday or our wedding anniversary.”

“Oh, Bee, you know that’s not fair. I remembered your
birthday last year, didn’t I?”

“Only after a lot of prompting from Little Sweetie.
You did however forget our wedding anniversary.”

Rosie reached down and patted him on the leg. “Don’t
worry, Ross, men never remember the important stuff,” she said.

“So, it was1999,” I said in an effort to get the
conversation back on track, “and we were driving across I-90 when suddenly this
enormous structure loomed up out of the plains in the middle of nowhere, at the
I-63 junction.”

“It was about forty miles east of The Badlands
National Park,” Ross added laying the demographic groundwork.

I looked at him over the top of
my glasses, gave him a measured look, and asked, “Do you want to take it from
here?”

“Heavens no–I’ll just sit quietly and listen.”

“Fine. As I was saying, Hon,
suddenly this enormous structure loomed up out of the plains surrounded by a
high wooden fence that looked like an old fort from the eighteen hundreds.”

“It was called 1880 Town,” Ross cut in.

“1880 Town?”

“The whole place had been set up like an old frontier
town…” Ross noticed my withering look, and stopped. “Whoops, sorry Bee, I’ll be
as quiet as a little mouse.” He pantomimed a zip across his mouth and threw
away an imaginary key.

“Originally the owner had acquired a town from a movie
set and shipped it to the site. Then he traveled all over the countryside
buying authentic buildings and furniture and anything else he could find
relating to that era, shipped them to South Dakota and built this incredible
town.”

“And, when the movie,
Dances With Wolves
was
completed, he bought everything, including Buck, the horse Kevin Costner rode
in the movie.” Ross’s eyes were bright with amusement.

“Wow. That’s incredible!” Rosie said.

“They even had an authentic Wells Fargo Office with a
stagecoach outside, a telegraph office, a bank, a couple of stores, a saloon, a
doctor’s office, a dentist, a school house and a couple of churches. There was
a railway station with a train from the same era, sitting on the tracks,” he
added with boyish exuberance. “I think, from memory, there were around thirty
building, including a two-story fourteen-sided barn where props from the movie,
Dances With Wolves.
Inside another building, saddles, saddlebags,
cavalry helmets, arrowheads and old photographs were on display. And an old
hotel that had original spur marks from cowboy boots on the wooden stairs.”

“Wow. That sounds incredible!”

“It was unbelievable what that guy had done.”

We were silent for a moment then Ross glanced at his
watch and stood up. He hitched his jeans over his ever expanding waistline, and
said, “Would you girls like me to make you a nice cup of tea?”

“That would be lovely, Ross,” I said.

*****

“Then we went to the town of Deadwood and visited Boot
Hill,” Danny added.

“I’ve never heard of Boot Hill. What is it?”

“Boot Hill is the cemetery where famous outlaws and
cowboys are buried. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried there. Above
Calamity Jane’s grave there’s a plaque inscribed with her dying wish: ‘Bury me
beside Wild Bill’. It’s incredible to think these people actually existed and
weren’t just celluloid heroes on silver screen, or someone you read about in
book. They were once real flesh and blood people.

“I remember it was a really cold day and there was an
icy wind blowing through the town that chilled you right through to the bone.
So we ducked into a casino and had an all day breakfast…”

*****

“Did you know you get the best breakfasts in casinos…,
really cheap?” Ross said.

“That’s because they want to get you through the
door,” Rosie told him. “They know that if they can get you in with the ‘all you
can eat’, cheap food, there’s every chance you’ll stay and play. Especially in
cold weather when there’s not much to do.”

“Pity most of the poor suckers haven’t worked that
out,” Ross said, but when he added, “never made a cent off me…” I shot him a
look that said, think again, buster.

“No, I take that back. I lost twenty-five cents on a
slot machine in Vegas one time trying to win a new whizz-bang tricked up
Harley. Suckered me right in.”

“Luckily I saw the writing on the wall and put pay to
that,” I reminded him.

“If everyone who stepped through their doors lost
twenty-five cents, the casinos would be rich today,” Rosie mused,
prophetically.

“Hon, casinos
are
rich, today,” I said–and kept
typing.

*****

“The Dakotas conjure up so many wonderful images of
the old west. What incredible places they must have been back then,” said
Nicola.

“And still are to a certain extent. Many of these old
towns have been preserved so that when you go there it’s like stepping into the
past.”

“Where did you go after you left Deadwood?”

“Kansas. Now there’s a state with a particularly
bloody history. The Dalton Gang, Frank and Jessie James, Ma Baker and her four
violent sons terrorized the local population at one time or another–along with
that grubby little hooligan, Pretty Boy Floyd.”

“And, let’s not forget those blood thirsty killers,
Dick Hickock and Perry Smith who murdered the Clutter family in ‘59,”Nicola
added.

“The worst one of all was that cold blooded internet
serial killer, John Robinson who went on a murderous killing spree during the
eighties and nineties storing the bodies of his victims in barrels on his
properties in Kansas and across the border in Missouri till the long arm of the
law finally caught up with him. Did you know he was the first recorded internet
killer?”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“And, sadly–he won’t be the last.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Rosie took one look at Daphne… and feared the worst.
“Is everything all right, Susannah?”

Susannah looked up from the magazine she was reading,
glared at her sister, and said, “Oh for crying out loud, Daphne, will you put a
sock in it!”

 Daphne sniffed and blew her nose… loudly. “Sorry,”
she slobbered, and blew her nose… wetly.

Susannah shook her head and turned to my sister. “Take
no notice of her, Hon. She’s just going through a bad patch at the moment.”

Daphne hiccupped a sob and gave her sister a pathetic
hang-dog look.

“Oh, for heaven sake, Daphne–just give it a rest!”

Daphne wailed, and took off down the room.

“What’s the matter with her?” I asked as the restroom
door shut behind her with a resounding bang.

Susannah closed the pages of
Cosmopolitan magazine she’d been reading, and stared at the anorexic blond on
the front cover while she picked at a tooth with the talon-like nail on her
right index finger. She inspected the newly applied acrylic for any tell-tale
signs of damage, or left-over lunch, and then said, “Husband number four just
threw her over for an older woman.” She shrugged, and moved on to the next
tooth.

 I was shocked–rendered speechless–well almost, but
not quite. “Imagine that!” I said as a muffled sob drifted up from the
restroom. “But I thought she was going to dump him anyway?”

“She was. But he got the jump on her. This is the
first time the boots been on the other foot and Daphne does not like it one
bit.” Susannah, inspecting a nail, added, “A young chick is one thing, but an
older broad–man, that really smarts.” Suddenly there was a loud wail and the
thud of a door being kicked. Several people looked our way–while others
pretended not to notice.