Better Off Dead in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  “And now I have another dead body on my plate.”

  That brought my chin up. “I had nothing to do with Jane’s death.”

  “I’m not so certain of that.” He stared at me for several silence heavy seconds. “Where were you Friday, August twenty-fourth?”

  That was the day after the whole funeral parlor nightmare.

  “In bed.” Hiding under the covers.

  “All day?”

  “A good portion of it.”

  “Alone?”

  I bristled at his question. Cop or not, that was too personal. “That’s none of your business.”

  One eyebrow lifted. “Alone or not? Answer the question.”

  I just sat there and glared back.

  He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his desk. “Ms. Parker, I’m simply trying to see if you have an alibi for the estimated time of Jane’s death.”

  Did Elvis, Addy’s chicken, count? “Alone.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. That was it. I waited for more, but it didn’t come.

  “What is that ‘hmmm’ supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Nothing, my ass. What’s on your mind, Detective? Spit it out.”

  “In the newspaper a week ago, Jeff Wymonds stated that you and he were busy in his bedroom right before his garage exploded.”

  Argh! I could whack Jeff upside the noggin for that comment, but he’d probably think it was some kind of mating game ploy of mine. Jeff had big plans. Brady Bunch style plans. The guy needed a maid, not a wife, and I wasn’t a good fit for either one.

  “With as many suitors as you appear to have,” Cooper continued, “I’m surprised that you didn’t have company.”

  It’s a good thing I didn’t have Cooper’s gun in my hand right then or I might have put a bullet in his toe. I had a feeling he was trying to rattle me, but after Jane’s funeral and meeting my new boss, everything had been shaken out already.

  I set my chin. “That was a cheap shot.”

  He pointed at his still swollen nose. “So was this.”

  “No, that was several self-defense classes paying off.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What kind of self-defense classes are you talking about? Karate? Jujitsu?”

  “No, I’m talking about an off-duty police officer teaching a group of women what to do if someone sneaks up behind you and gets grabby.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking.”

  “You didn’t exactly call my name before tackling me.”

  “I didn’t tackle you.”

  I counted to five. “Did you demand that I come here today to argue the semantics of our little wrestling match last week—which I won, by the way—or was it to talk about Jane?”

  He pushed away from his desk and moved around to the front, leaning against it while staring down at me. It was a pure power play on his part, but I let him have it since I was feeling like Jackie Chan Jr. after what I’d done to Cooper’s face.

  “What were you doing Friday when you weren’t in bed, Ms. Parker?”

  I shrugged. “Watching TV, hanging out with my kids after they got home from school, talking to my Aunt Zoe—I live with her.”

  “I know.”

  Of course he did. “Do you know how long I’ve lived there?”

  “Since March.”

  Ah ha! Last time we’d talked about when I’d moved to Deadwood, he’d been off by a couple of months. Someone had done his homework. Let’s see how much digging he’d been doing. “Where did I live before then?”

  “Rapid City with your parents.”

  “What’s my weight?”

  “About twenty pounds heavier than you claim on your driver’s license.”

  I sputtered.

  “Are you done testing me?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you see anyone besides your Aunt Zoe, your daughter, Adelynn, or your son, Layne?”

  Now he was just showing off. “Elvis.”

  “Your daughter’s chicken doesn’t count.”

  Figuring he’d probably already cornered Doc, I came clean. “My friend, Doc Nyce.”

  “All night?”

  “What are you insinuating?”

  “Don’t play coy. I’ve caught you sneaking in his back door before, remember?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking.” Okay, maybe a little that time, but only to see if his ex-girlfriend was in there with him. The jealousy bug had me all squirmy that day.

  “Doc left around eleven,” I told him. “And if you don’t believe me, you can ask my neighbor Mr. Stinkleskine. He was out walking his dog when Doc left.” Which was the reason the goodbye kiss had remained PG-rated.

  “Then what?”

  “Then I went to bed. Alone. All night.”

  He nodded. “Well, your story corroborates with Doc Nyce’s as far as the evening goes.”

  “If you already knew all of this, why bust my balls about it?”

  “Balls?” He glanced down at my black dress. “Testosterone would explain a lot about you.”

  “Did that hurt?”

  “What?”

  “Cracking that joke. I wouldn’t think a hard ass like you could suffer that kind of structural tension without at least a wince or a grunt.”

  “You have no idea how hard I can be, Ms. Parker.”

  Harvey would have been guffawing all over that double entendre, slapping his thigh, hooting at the ceiling. I let it go without even a cheek twitch. “Why did you drag me in here this afternoon, Detective Cooper? Was there an actual purpose, or was it just to ask about my bedfellows and cry about your broken nose?”

  His jaw shifted side to side like he was pulverizing granite between his molars. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”

  “Not with you.”

  He smiled all of a sudden—a real honest-to-goodness smile that curved clear up to his crows’ feet. The change almost hurt my eyes.

  “I admire that about you, Violet,” he said, and then his smile disappeared and the storm clouds returned.

  Was that a compliment? I almost fell out of my chair. What just happened? Had I crossed into another dimension?

  “I asked you here to ascertain your whereabouts the evening Jane Grimes was murdered and if you had an alibi, which it appears you do.”

  Blinking away my temporary smile blindness, I asked, “She was murdered Friday night?”

  He gave a brief nod. “According to the coroner’s report.”

  God, while I was sitting on the couch next to Doc watching John Wayne fall in love with a French whore in an Alaskan gold field, Jane was battling for her life.

  “Was she killed down in the Open Cut?”

  “That’s police business.”

  “Was she shot or stabbed?” Or something worse?

  “That’s also police business.”

  “Have you talked to her ex-husband?” I thought of Jerry and added, “All three of them?”

  “Again, police business.”

  I really, really wanted to reach out and pinch Cooper in the leg right about then, and ask him if that was police business, too. But he’d probably arrest me for aggravated assault and force me to sit in the haunted jail cell while I waited for Doc to post bail.

  “Fine.” I grabbed my purse and stood. “Since everything appears to be police business, I guess we’re done here.”

  “We’re not done, Ms. Parker.” He took my purse from me and set it back on the floor, then pointed at the chair.

  I took my sweet time sitting back down, smoothing my dress over my legs. “What else do you need, Detective?”

  “Have you noticed any suspicious behavior between either of your coworkers and Jane over the last few weeks?”

  Besides Ray having sex with Jane in her office a few days before her death? Actually, that wasn’t suspicious, just disgusting. I still cringed at the thought of his pants around his ankles. If only I hadn’t seen his man-junk while he’d lain naked on that autopsy table in M
udder Brothers basement.

  “No,” I answered, still feeling the need to shield Jane’s reputation from censure for that one slip-up. Although, now that I knew Jane had been murdered, Ray was back under suspicion and I was going to play the “what if” game when Cooper didn’t have me under the microscope.

  “Had Jane mentioned anything to you about someone following her or sending her threatening messages via email, a text, voicemail, anything?”

  “Besides the jerk she was divorcing, no.”

  “Did you actually see or hear any threats from him?”

  “No, I just heard Jane’s complaints about him. Especially over the last few weeks.”

  “Why the last few weeks?”

  “I don’t know. Her divorce was getting pretty messy, I guess.”

  “Did he ever come to the office?”

  “Not while I was there.”

  “Was Jane a heavy drinker?”

  “No.” I thought of the liquor bottles in her office, the thick smell of alcohol in the air at the end. “Well, not until lately. Her divorce really had her depressed. I think she was still in love.”

  Jane was one of the reasons my attraction to Doc had me chewing my thumbnails. Falling in love with him would mess me up and leave me sitting alone in a gutter somewhere, reeking of tequila, and having sex with some Neanderthal just because he said I looked “sorta pretty.”

  “Is there anything you know about Jane that would help me to find whoever is responsible for her death?”

  I sat on that for several heartbeats, giving it serious thought. I wished I’d made more effort to get to know her on a personal level, but she’d been my boss first, friend second. I’d respected the boundaries set at the start. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I will assume if you stumble across anything—as you so often tend to—that you will contact me immediately.”

  “Of course,” I said, and I meant it. Whoever killed Jane ought to be brought to justice. She was good to me during a tough time, and I owed it to her to help Cooper find her murderer however I could.

  “You’re going to keep your nose out of this case, right, Violet?”

  His use of my first name didn’t go unnoticed. He’d shifted out of his hard-assed detective role, which meant he must be about finished chewing on me yet again.

  “Yes.” I had an albino to worry about. I didn’t have time to figure out who killed Jane and why.

  “You promise?”

  “Do you want me to pinky swear with you?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  Instead, I held up my left hand and placed my right over my heart. “I promise to let you solve the case, Detective Cooper.” I couldn’t resist throwing in, “for once.”

  He shook his head. “I should have just arrested you the first time I met you.”

  I stood, grabbing my purse again.

  He walked toward the door. “What time are you coming over tomorrow?”

  “You still want to have the open house then?” I’d already rescheduled it once due to Jane’s death.

  He nodded, grabbing the doorknob.

  “Then I’ll be there around one-thirty to set up.” The showing started at two.

  “Great, I’ll let you in and then disappear awhile.”

  “You’re not going to stay and help me bake some cookies? Wear an apron?”

  “I’m leaving that to my uncle.” He opened the door.

  Warm air walloped me in the face. “Harvey’s coming?”

  “He told me you insisted he be there.”

  The big, fat fibber. I hooked my purse over my shoulder. Oh, well, some company might be nice if it was slow. “He does make a mean molasses cookie.”

  “Have you talked to Natalie Beals lately?”

  Nat? That stopped me on the threshold. “No, why?”

  Cooper shrugged. “Just curious. She seemed pretty upset that night at the funeral parlor.”

  My neck warmed. Of course she had. She’d caught me kissing the man she’d been daydreaming about in happily-ever-after land.

  “She was still acting odd when I stopped in to ask her about the whole ordeal the day after the incident.”

  Odd? That must mean emotional in Cooper-speak. “I’m sure sharing a walk-in freezer with a decapitated body wasn’t something she could sleep off in one night.”

  He nodded, but I could see something unsettling in his eyes.

  My stomach tightened. “What? Why are you asking me about Natalie?”

  “There was something else she said that I can’t make sense of.”

  “What?”

  “She warned me to be careful if I went back to Mudder Brothers because of the albinos—as in more than one.”

  Had Natalie seen the other albino there that night? If so, where had he gone when the shit hit the fan? Had she seen him lurking around since?

  Cooper leaned closer, his gaze piercing.

  My spine broke out in a sweat. I couldn’t tell if it was from the warmer air outside Cooper’s office or standing too close to a man who wanted to handcuff me and force me to wear an orange jumpsuit.

  “Ms. Parker, is there something about that night at Mudder Brothers that you’re not telling me?”

  Hell, yes. There were several cards I was holding close to the vest on that one. Most of them were way too weird to talk about aloud, especially in front of a detective who only saw in black and white, no color.

  Hiding behind a smile that I could feel quivering on my cheeks, I shook my head. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Detective.”

  I forced my feet to walk not run all the way out the front doors.

  * * *

  My Aunt Zoe’s house had been sitting down the hill from Mount Moriah Cemetery for over a century. She’d spruced up the no-fuss Victorian decades ago, way before she’d invited me and my kids to share it with her for as long as needed while I tried my hand at this realty gig.

  Her reputation for generosity in our family was exceeded only by her perfectly sweetened homemade lemonade, which was exactly what had my mouth watering when I parked Harvey’s Picklemobile in the drive.

  The old girl hiccupped when I cut the engine. Then she belched a cloud of black smoke from her tailpipe and wrapped up her gastrointestinal blues with a backfire finale in the still evening air. A dog up the street howled an encore—probably Mr. Stinkleskine’s interfering mutt.

  “Honey, I’m home,” I said under my breath and shoved open the pickup door.

  The scent of wood smoke tainted the evening air. The warmth of summer in the Black Hills was ebbing away. Fall’s crisp breath required thick sweaters or lined jackets, especially after the sun dipped behind the hills and cast the gulches and valleys into darkness.

  I found Aunt Zoe in the kitchen. Instead of her usual attire of faded jeans and a soft cotton blouse, she wore a silver silk tunic, black slacks with a fancy twirl at the bottom, and patent leather mules. Her long salt-and-pepper braid was twisted up into a snazzy knot on her head with elaborately designed chopsticks securing it. Her own custom glass bead earrings and matching necklace added a final pizazz to her ensemble.

  Within the walls of her comfortable, pale yellow kitchen with Betty Boop accents, including the cookie jar she always kept filled for my kids, she stood out like Kathryn Hepburn in Dogpatch, Kentucky.

  “Wow! You look gorgeous,” I said, leaning my hip against the counter. “Do you have a hot date tonight?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact. I’ll probably be home around midnight.”

  “Are you going out with a certain captain of the Deadwood Fire Department?”

  “Absolutely not. One heartbreak a lifetime courtesy of Reid Martin is plenty for me, thank you very much.”

  That was the first time she’d mentioned anything about being heartbroken over the fire captain.

  Reid might put out fires for a living, but he’d certainly lit one under Aunt Zoe at some period in the past and smoke still poured out of her ears whenever he came around. The last t
ime he’d graced her kitchen, she’d gone down to the basement to find her shotgun shells. But dragging the truth out of her about what had happened between the two of them was about as easy as giving a kangaroo a French pedicure.

  “Then who’s the lucky guy?”

  “The owner of a glass gallery from over in Jackson Hole is in town for a few days and wants to talk about commissioning some designs for delivery by next summer.”

  Aunt Zoe owned a gallery in town that specialized in glass art pieces—mostly her own designs. As a kid, I’d spent summers helping out in her workshop behind the house and running the register at the gallery.

  “So, is this business or pleasure?” I asked.

  “Well, if he places the order, it would be enough money to cover my gallery costs for six months.”

  “That would be wonderful.” Especially since she had the added burden of me and my kids running up her utility bills here at home. Since we’d moved in, the only money she would take from me was for groceries. “So we’re talking business only then.”

  “Not only. He looks like a slightly older version of George Clooney.”

  “Yum.”

  “He could also charm the crown off the Queen of England.”

  “Good looks and charm, that’s a heady cocktail.” He sounded a lot like Reid, only the fire captain looked more like Sam Elliott.

  “Very heady. And my crown slips off much easier than hers.”

  I grinned at the wink she gave me as she slid the strap of her little black purse over her shoulder.

  “So, should I wait up to count your hickeys?”

  “Violet Lynn,” she said, shooting me a coy smile, “you’re too much.”

  “You don’t fool me, Aunt Zoe. I’ve seen some of the men you’ve dated. You’re not out there playing patty-cake with them.”

  “Well, that depends on your version of patty-cake.”

  She gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I could smell the exotic fruity scent of her favorite perfume that I hadn’t ever been able to pronounce correctly.

  “How are you now that the funeral is over?” she asked.

  Aunt Zoe had been at the service today, too, but she’d sat closer to the front with some mutual friends of Jane’s. Her friendship with Jane had been what had landed me the job. Months ago, she’d called in a favor and gotten me hired. Who’d have guessed we’d be attending Jane’s funeral such a short time later.