Better Off Dead in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  Had Peter killed Jane for who-knew-what reason?

  Was Cooper going to kill me for talking to Tarragon’s wife?

  Why had Cornelius had to leave so quickly?

  Where in the hell had Harvey gone?

  Why was Cooper in there talking to …

  Something tapped on the glass window next to me.

  I shrieked and scooted toward the middle of the bench seat. I looked over at Detective Cooper, who stood on the other side of the glass, his neck and face all stretched tendons, throbbing veins, and blotches of red. A groan bellowed in my chest.

  As I stared at him in horror, he held up a pair of handcuffs and tapped them against the window, making that same tapping noise again.

  Oh, hell. This probably wasn’t going to go well for me.

  “Cooper,” I said, raising my hands in defense. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

  “Open the door, Parker,” he said, his lips barely moving.

  “I really was looking for Cornelius.”

  “Don’t make me drag you out of there.”

  “I swear I wasn’t trying to find out anything about Jane.”

  “You can explain down at the station. Now open the damned door.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “That’s too bad.” He dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a set of keys. I should have known he’d have a spare set to his uncle’s truck. “Because now I’m really pissed.”

  Really? What had he been before, just mildly enraged?

  The lock popped open. Cooper yanked the door wide.

  “Come on, Cooper. You’ve made your point. You don’t need to arrest me. I’m staying out of your business, I swear.”

  He swooped in, grabbed my right hand, and snapped a handcuff on my wrist. Dragging me outside, he spun me around and latched the second cuff with my wrists in front of me.

  “You don’t need to do this, Cooper. I’m innocent.”

  He grabbed my upper arm and towed me around the front of the pickup and down several cars to where his police sedan sat.

  “Coop!” Harvey’s voice called from the back doors of the opera house. “What in the hell are you doin’, boy?”

  I held up my cuffed wrists for Harvey to see. “You were wrong,” I yelled across the street. “He meant it.”

  Cooper pulled open the back door of the sedan, scowling down his broken nose at me. “I didn’t want to do this, but you forced my hand, Parker.”

  What a load of bullshit! I wasn’t forcing anything. I’d been looking for Cornelius. But listening to reason was apparently beyond Cooper’s ability at the moment, so there was no use wasting any more breath trying.

  I glared up at him, the injustice of being hauled to jail for no good reason burning a hole in my gut. “Detective,” I said, imagining how good it would feel to head butt him right now and break his freaking nose again. “Are you really going to be this much of an asshole?”

  His nostrils flared. “Violet Parker, you have the right to remain silent.” He shoved me inside the backseat and then leaned down to glare in at me. “And I suggest you keep your big mouth shut.”

  Then he slammed the door in my face.

  * * *

  In jail by noon—an accomplishment my mother would be so proud to hear her middle child had achieved.

  I paced the jail cell, still waiting for my one freaking phone call.

  Damn Cooper! The son of a bitch took my phone with him before locking me up in this stinking cage. I had kids to pick up from school, for fuck’s sake.

  My feet ached from standing in this urine-scented shithole for the last hour. Limping over to the cot, I wrinkled my nose at the stained wool blanket covering it. I could only imagine the disgusting things crawling in the fibers. No way was I sitting there. I walked to the opposite wall and leaned against it, taking off one of my shoes and massaging the ball of my foot.

  I heard the buzz and click of the steel door to the outer holding area being opened. Expecting another one of Cooper’s police buddies had come to give “Spooky Parker” more crap, I didn’t bother looking over and kept rubbing my foot.

  “Hello, Boots,” the sound of Doc’s deep tone jolted me. I dropped my shoe.

  He grabbed the bars and peered at me through them, his dark eyes raking over me, his forehead wrinkling at what he saw. “It appears that you’ve finally managed to push Detective Cooper off the deep end.”

  “I didn’t push.” I slipped my foot back in my shoe and leaned against the wall, matching his frown with one of my own. “He jumped and took me with him.”

  Doc rubbed his chin. “Hmmm. He has a slightly different version. Something about you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong one too many times.”

  “Cooper has a nose fixation. I think it has something to do with me breaking his.” The big baby.

  Doc nodded. “Could be.”

  “Did he call you?”

  “No, Harvey did. He said to tell you he’ll pick up the kids after school.”

  “Good.” It’s the least the old man could do after taking me to the opera house and assuring me I wouldn’t end up in jail. I bit my lower lip. “You weren’t busy with a client were you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. My girlfriend needed to be bailed out of jail. That was a first for me.”

  “A first, huh? Doesn’t that just make me feel special?” While I was trying to make light of his actions, my voice sounded husky with emotion.

  “You should,” his eyes darkened. Something hungry flared behind them, luring me closer. “You are.”

  Holy cow! When Doc said things like that my heart practically launched up and out of my throat and plastered itself in the palm of his hand. I gulped the silly, bouncing organ back down into my chest and gripped the bars to ground myself.

  “Thank you. And thanks for rescuing me from the clutches of the villainous, cruel Detective Cooper.”

  He shrugged. “All in a day’s work. So now what?”

  I spread my arms wide. “You spring me.”

  His grin reached the corners of his eyes. “What’s in it for me?”

  “Name your price.”

  This time when his gaze traveled over me, there was no frowning involved. “My bail-you-out-of-jail charge is pretty stiff.”

  “Stiff?” That made me smile. “Great pun.”

  He winked. “I was trying to come up with something about doing the jail house rock in honor of your love of Elvis, but I couldn’t make it work.”

  “Oh, you make it work very well. If you get me out of this joint, I’ll show you just how well.” I wiggled my eyebrows, making him chuckle. “Although, I hear conjugal visits are all the rage, so you may regret not leaving me in here.”

  Doc glanced at the cot. “I think I prefer my own bed.”

  I preferred a room sans a urinal with a half-chewed blue cake covering the drain.

  Reaching through the bars, I scraped my finger down his chest. “What do you say, Rocko?” I asked, doing my best impersonation of a 1940s Hollywood starlet. “You and me, we got us a deal?”

  “Definitely.” He captured my hand before it got into trouble. “But Cooper wants to talk to you before he’ll let you out of here.”

  Damn it! “You mean out of jail?”

  “No, the station. He’s waiting in his office. You think you can face him without vaulting his desk and going for his throat?”

  Probably not. “Of course. What do you take me for?”

  “A very pissed off woman with a mean left elbow.”

  I held up my hands. “My claws are not extended. Besides, I would love a chance to explain why throwing me in this cell was another grand fuckup on his part.”

  Doc grimaced. “Yeah, see, I don’t think that’s going to go over well with him. Maybe you should let me do the talking.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  He walked over to the outer steel door and rapped three times, motioning through the small square glass window.

  Ten mi
nutes later, I had my personal belongings back and had scoured my hands in the women’s bathroom. After touching up my battle makeup and applying some lip gloss, I followed Doc to Cooper’s office. I practiced deep breaths while silently chanting:

  I will not strangle the nice policeman.

  I will not strangle the nice policeman.

  I will not strangle the damned, irrational, tight-assed …

  Doc stepped back to usher me inside Cooper’s office.

  “You may as well join us, Nyce,” Cooper said. “Close the door behind you.”

  After pulling the door shut, Doc leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Cooper sat behind his desk, his fingers steepled together, his gaze flat yet ominous.

  “You wanted to talk to me,” I said, clasping my hands behind my back. I was doing my darnedest not to sound like I wanted to bare my teeth at him.

  “Sit down,” Cooper ordered, nodding at the chair across from his desk.

  I obeyed, playing nice. Doc stayed put by the door, watchful, giving us space.

  “Why were you talking to Helen Tarragon when I explicitly told you to keep your nose out of my case?”

  So much for starting with the weather. My hackles got nice and bristly, ready to begin our usual circle and lunge dance.

  “What is it with you and my nose?” I asked. “Do you have some kind of freaky nose fetish?”

  Cooper’s jaw hardened so fast I could have sworn I heard it splinter.

  Doc cleared his throat, warning me.

  Right, no fighting. I regrouped, taking another deep breath, and then explained, “I ran into her in the hallway while looking for my client, Cornelius Curion.”

  I didn’t bother with explaining which door she’d come out because it didn’t seem important.

  “So you made nice with Helen and then started drilling her about Jane?”

  “No,” you big lug head. “I asked if she was okay, since she was crying.” Again.

  Cooper’s expression remained hard and unmoving. “Then what?”

  “She told me I wasn’t supposed to be down there—”

  “She was right.”

  Let me finish!

  I squeezed the arms of the chair and continued. “She said that ‘they’ would see me, and then that ‘she’ would hurt me. When I asked who would hurt me, she said she couldn’t say because the person would know it was her. Then she pulled me into a storage room and hid me in there for several minutes, shushing me when I tried to ask why we were hiding, giving me some kooky advice about deadly things coming in small packages.”

  Cooper leaned forward, his forearms tense, his body language crackling with hostility. “Are you fucking with me, Parker? Because I will happily revoke your freedom and throw your ass back in that cell for the night.”

  I pointed at my face. “Do I look like I’m fucking with you? Trust me, I’m well aware that you’d give your left nut to lock me up for a week. I’m trying to tell you the truth if you’d stop being so goddamned, thick—”

  “Violet,” Doc interrupted, touching my shoulder. “What happened next?”

  I sat back in my chair. “Somebody walked by outside the closet. It sounded like they were dragging something. Then we waited, and when the coast was clear, we stepped outside. That’s when you came along,” I told Cooper.

  “You’re telling me that you didn’t ask her any questions about Jane’s murder.”

  “Not about Jane’s murder, no.”

  “Stop splitting hairs or I’m getting the cuffs back out.”

  I looked back at Doc. “Aren’t I supposed to be assigned a lawyer by the court at this point?”

  “Did you ask Helen about Jane?” Cooper bit out each word.

  “All I asked was how well she knew Jane. That was it, I swear.”

  “What was Helen’s answer?” Doc asked.

  “She said they’d been close friends for years.”

  Cooper stared at me hard enough to see clear through my skull to the other side. “What else?”

  “Well, she sort of mentioned that Jane had … uh …” I hated to tarnish Jane’s reputation, but I also hated the idea of spending the night on that nasty cot. “She’d slept with Helen’s husband.”

  Cooper’s mouth wrinkled in disgust. “That’s unfortunate.”

  “She’d had worse,” I muttered, thinking of Ray.

  “Who’s worse than Tarragon?” Cooper asked.

  Crudmongers. I probably shouldn’t have started down that path. “That’s not important. The point is that these pieces of information are all that Helen had told me before you showed up and scared her away.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Parker, was Jane sleeping with someone besides Tarragon prior to her death?”

  I should have known he wouldn’t let it go. I took his question literally on purpose. “No.”

  He watched me for a moment. I picked at a loose piece of vinyl on the chair arm while trying to maintain eye contact.

  “Let’s try this again,” Cooper said, straight on, no blinking. “To your knowledge, was Jane having sex with someone other than Tarragon before she was murdered?”

  I sat there, weighing the consequences of telling Cooper about Ray and Jane versus the results of keeping my mouth shut and having Cooper find out later and then throwing me back in jail for some other cockamamie reason.

  “Damn it, Parker. I don’t need this bullshit. Just answer the fucking question.”

  And yet another pun, I thought. “Yes. She was, but it was just a one night stand.”

  “Who?”

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see his anger when I came clean. “Ray Underhill.”

  “And how long have you known about this?”

  “Since Jane told me the morning after—two days before she was murdered.”

  A flurry of cursing blew my hair back. I risked opening my eyes when he quieted.

  “Is there anything else you would like to tell me about my case involving the murder of Jane Grimes?”

  I glanced at Doc. He stared back, his expression hooded, unreadable.

  “Yeah,” I said, focusing on Cooper. “I’m pretty sure she was killed by zombies.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cooper sat so still I didn’t think he’d heard me. The only sign of life was the slight pulse at the base of his neck where he’d loosened his tie.

  Something about that pulse made my upper lip sweat. I shifted in my seat. “Two zombies, probably,” I said, thinking of my earlier conversation with Prudence via Wanda.

  His squint settled even deeper into the corners of his eyes.

  “Could have been three, I guess,” I said rubbing my chin, “with one waiting in the getaway car.”

  Cooper looked over my shoulder at Doc. “Get her out of here before I do something I’ll regret later.”

  Glad to make my escape, I grabbed my purse from the floor next to my chair. “Alrighty then. You have what you need from me, so I’ll head back to work.”

  I made it as far as the open door.

  “Parker.”

  My shoulders seized up at the tension strangling his vocal cords. I grabbed Doc’s arm in case Cooper had changed his mind and tried to drag me back to that stinking cell.

  I slowly turned around.

  His eyes were hard and cold, like little steel ball bearings rolling around behind his lids. “What else are you withholding from me?”

  Besides the fact that I got my inside information from a ghost who also told me something in the bottom of the Open Cut was supposed to have dragged Jane’s body away but didn’t?

  “Nothing that I can think of at the moment.”

  “Are you sure there isn’t something more about Ray you’d like to share?”

  Ray? I doubted the detective would buy into my various conspiracy theories involving that horse’s ass. Besides, I could tell by Cooper’s hardpan glare that anything I said was going to ricochet off him and slam me in the face.
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br />   I shrugged. “For a man who thinks he’s cock of the walk, Ray has a rather unimpressive penis.”

  Doc had a short coughing fit behind me.

  Cooper’s right cheek twitched. “I was referring to my case with Jane Grimes.”

  I pursed my lips.

  “Or your involvement with the Mudder brothers.”

  MY involvement with … The furnace in my gut flared. “Contrary to what you think, Detective, I know very little about that whole Mudder brothers’ deal.” Something I was trying to rectify now that I had disappearing albino issues. “I was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The tilt of his head cried bullshit, which made me want to snarl and paw the ground, considering the lives—including my own—that had been at risk due to his damned police-business-only mantra.

  “Listen,” I said, stepping toward Cooper, my finger out and pointing. “You were the one keeping secrets about Ray’s involvement in that whole fucked up mess, putting us all at risk. If anything had happened to Natalie or Doc …” I paused, trying to control my rage before I swelled into a big, green monster and started breaking things.

  Cooper stood so fast his chair slammed into the wall behind him. He planted his palms on his desk, challenging me. “Be careful where you point that blame, Parker. I’m not the only one holding cards close to the vest. You’re still hiding shit from me. I can smell it on you.”

  I closed the distance between us in three strides, leaning across his desk, accepting his challenge. “Watch where you stick that nose, Detective. It might end up broken again.”

  “Okay,” Doc interrupted. “I think we’re done here.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, lifting me clear off the floor, and carried me toward the door like I was a big doll. “We’ll be in touch if we hear anything more about either case, Detective,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Parker, you’d better stay the hell away from the opera house!” Cooper hollered after us.

  Outside Cooper’s office door, Doc set me on my feet, his body blocking me from returning to chew on Cooper some more, damn it.

  Pulling the door closed behind him, Doc frowned down at me. “Well, tiger, that could have gone better. You hungry?”