An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 5) Paperback – September 4, 2014

by Ann Charles

  Sorry, I mouthed, wishing I weren’t standing there eavesdropping on this private conversation. I considered zipping my coat closed over my head to escape.

  He turned back to my aunt. “I want you back.”

  “No.”

  Ouch! She hadn’t even taken a moment to think about it.

  “Shut up and let me finish,” he said, undeterred. “I want you back in my life, morning, noon, and night. I was an idiot to let you go before, and I’ve regretted it every day since you kicked me out. Please stop torturing me and let me in again.”

  Holy crap! I held my breath as I waited for Aunt Zoe’s response.

  She stared down at the box in her hand, her shoulders rising and lowering several times, and then she held it out to him. “Would you hold this for a minute?”

  He took the box. “What do you say?”

  For the first time since he’d stepped out of the trees, he sounded uncertain. My heart clenched for him.

  “I say that I owe you this.” She pulled back and punched him, landing a right jab to his left cheek.

  My jaw hit the forest floor, followed by my glass of wine, which broke into pieces.

  Reid took a step backwards. His boot heel caught on a root, and he stumbled back several more steps before falling out of sight into the darkness. In the silence that followed, I heard the cracking of breaking branches, a thump, and then a yelp from somewhere below.

  “Oh, shit!” Aunt Zoe ran to where he’d disappeared. “Reid? Are you okay? I’m so sorry! Reid?”

  I picked up my jaw and ran over, shining the flashlight down over a small outcrop in the rocks. Reid lay about seven feet below on a bed of pine needles and bent over yearlings. He blinked as I willed him to move.

  Aunt Zoe latched onto my arm in a death grip. “Please be okay, Reid,” she whispered. “I wanted to hurt you back a little, not kill you.”

  “Reid?” I called down, taking stock of his limbs, making sure nothing was bent in an odd way. “Is anything broken?”

  He squinted in the bright light and sat up with a grunt. “Just my pride.” He stood slowly, wincing. “And maybe my left ass cheek.”

  A strangled garble sound came out of Aunt Zoe’s throat.

  “Can you walk?” I asked.

  “Probably with a limp.”

  “How about climbing?”

  He bent sideways, stretching his lower back. “I think so, if you don’t mind giving me a hand at the top.”

  “I could’ve killed him, Violet,” Aunt Zoe said, her voice shaking. She stalked toward the fire, her right hand clenching and unclenching. I hoped she hadn’t broken any bones. Her hands were her livelihood.

  I waited for Reid, latching onto him and tugging a few seconds later.

  He came up limping as he’d predicted, still holding the little box. He gingerly touched his face below his left eye. “Damn, Zo. Your punches get harder the older you get.”

  “I’m sorry.” Aunt Zoe was still flexing her hand, staring blindly into the fire. “But it’s your fault.”

  “You punching me was my fault?”

  “You broke my heart, you son of a bitch. It took a long, long time to heal it, and now you lure me up here to tell me you’ve regretted what you did all of this time. When I think of the years of feeling empty inside … years, Reid …” she shook her head, lifting her gaze to his. “You’re lucky I didn’t bust that wine bottle over your thick skull.”

  He limped closer to her, rubbing his lower back as he went. “I’m sorry. I was confused from the whole divorce mess back then, not thinking straight.”

  “How do I know you won’t get confused again?”

  “I won’t.” He stood across the fire from her. Wise man, I thought. “Things are different this time.”

  She stared at him, her eyes glistening in the firelight. “You’re right. They are. I’m the one who can’t do it this time.” She looked over at me. “Violet, give me the keys, please.”

  I obeyed without question, giving her the flashlight, too. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “I need a big favor.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Take him home. I don’t think he should drive tonight after that fall.”

  “I’m fine. I don’t need a nursemaid.”

  “This isn’t open for discussion.”

  “But,” I started, looking back and forth between them. “What about …” it was obvious that she still cared for him. After the way he’d just poured his heart out for her, how could she walk away from him?

  I tried to help Reid out. “I don’t even know where the hell I am.”

  “Reid will get you back to town. Harvey can come and pick you up when you get Reid home.” She kissed me on the forehead. “Sorry to leave this on you, kiddo.”

  “I … uh, okay.” I frowned my apology to Reid.

  “I’ll take that,” she said and retrieved the little box from Reid, pocketing it. Then she headed for the trees.

  I called out, “Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere to think.” She held her right hand up, flexing her fingers. “And to ice my hand. Your face is getting harder the older you get, Reid. Sorry I almost killed you.”

  I watched her disappear into the trees and then turned to Reid. The night had gone from awkward to downright squirmy.

  “I’m sorry, too.” I didn’t know what else to say to him.

  “Aren’t we all, Sparky. But I had to give it one last shot before throwing in the towel.” He held up the bottle of wine. “Come share a drink with me under the stars.”

  How could I turn him down after he and his heart had been belted off a cliff by my aunt? I joined him in front of the fire, sipping from the other glass since mine was in pieces at my feet. “It’s a nice night, not too breezy.”

  “Yep,” he took a drink from the bottle.

  I heard some coyotes yipping in the distance and took a step closer to Reid, shooting him a quick smile. “A bit spooky, though.”

  He nodded. “Especially after some of the bogeymen you’ve faced.”

  “And bogey-women,” I said, thinking of a certain raven-haired bitch and her demon book.

  “Are you talking about Ms. Wolff?” he asked.

  I shot a cautious glance his way. That was supposed to be top secret. I hadn’t said a thing to anyone about Ms. Wolff’s death, and I’d bet my pathetic savings that Doc had not let out a peep either. Was Cooper sharing secrets? Or had Harvey leaked? “What do you know about Ms. Wolff?”

  “She’s dead.” He didn’t mince words. Hell, after the night he was having, he probably wasn’t in the mood for niceties.

  “Did Cooper talk to you about it?”

  He shook his head. “I ran into Coop’s ex-partner at the store last night.”

  “Detective Hawke?”

  Reid scowled. “Yep, that asshole.”

  “And he spilled his guts about the whole case?”

  “I would call it showing off rather than spilling.” Reid drained the bottle. “He was trying to impress me.”

  “How long have you known him?” I dumped the remains of my wine behind me on the ground when he wasn’t looking. If I was going to be driving, I didn’t need any more wine.

  “Too long. It’s a small world here in western South Dakota. I first met him working on an arson case a few years before Cooper came back to Deadwood. He was full of bluster, no substance, and not much has changed over the years except his title.”

  “What’s the story behind Cooper and him?” I pressed as much out of curiosity as the desire to keep from returning to the subject of my aunt’s rejection.

  “They were partners for a few years down in Rapid, working their way up through the ranks together. Then shit started to go sour.” He kicked some dirt on the fire, smothering the flames, leaving only glowing embers. “A girl died, leaving behind a mess involving a local politician, some drugs, and a lack of solid evidence. During the investigation, Coop got screwed.”

  I remembere
d Hawke’s question about Cooper sleeping with another witness. “You mean screwed as in jerked around or screwed as in having sex with a witness?”

  Reid stared at me in the faint light of the dying embers for a few coyote howls. “Who told you about that?”

  “Hawke mentioned it.”

  “The stupid buffoon needs to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Did Cooper getting involved with the witness muck up the case?” That would explain why Hawke was higher up the chain.

  Squatting, he picked up the broken glass and put the shards in the picnic basket. I joined him, careful not to get cut.

  “Coop didn’t screw any witness on that particular case,” he said. “Hawke was referring to another one, and the female in question happened to have been a local girl who was dating Coop for several weeks before the shit hit the fan. Technically, he wasn’t screwing a ‘witness’ at the start. It turned out that his girlfriend was a liar who used her body to get what she wanted. In this case, it was her hands on some evidence that would keep her off the suspect list, where she belonged right next to her fellow conspirator and other boyfriend.”

  “Oh, jeez, that had to sting.”

  I remembered Natalie telling me how Cooper had given her the brush off one night after they’d done some heavy flirting in the Purple Door Saloon. When she asked him back to her place, he’d told her he didn’t get involved with locals and that was the end of that. After hearing about this, his distance made more sense.

  “Hawke made it sound more basic,” I told Reid. “Like Cooper was a fool who couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

  “I’m not surprised. Unfortunately, Coop’s superior took Hawke’s view of the whole thing. He believed Hawke’s version of the story about who solved the case—as in Hawke himself—and promoted that shitbird over Coop.” He stood, brushing his hands off on his jeans.

  I did the same. “Talk about getting screwed.”

  “Yeah. That was the final straw for Coop. After that, he came back home, returned to his roots.” Reid grabbed the bottle and my empty glass, tucking everything away in the picnic basket. “Coop told me most of this one night years ago when he was pretty wasted. Said he’d been afraid he might shoot Hawke if he didn’t leave Rapid.”

  “But now Hawke’s back.” Was Cooper’s trigger finger twitching lately?

  “He’s not just back, he’s been pulled in to supervise and advise Cooper.”

  Damn. Talk about salt in the wound. And here I was pissing and moaning about Rex and Tiffany. At least I didn’t have to report to either of them.

  Reid kicked more dirt on the fire, grabbed the basket, and then flicked on a flashlight. “You ready?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go home.” He led the way.

  While we crunched through the trees, my thoughts replayed the angry glares and terse comments Cooper had given Hawke while we were in Ms. Wolff’s apartment. It was no wonder he’d been so tense, stuck dealing with Hawke and me—two of his least favorite people in the world. Maybe I should try to be a little nicer to Cooper while his ex-partner was in town. If he was fighting the urge to shoot someone, let it be Hawke instead of me.

  “Sparky, you understand that what I told you tonight isn’t public knowledge.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  I saw his pickup ahead in the clearing. He held his keys out to me when we reached it.

  “You okay to drive?” he asked. “Not tipsy or anything?”

  “Not even a little.” Between the cool, fresh air and the eye openers flying at me tonight, I felt stone cold sober.

  I took his keys and climbed behind the wheel of his big rig. It smelled like the pine tree air freshener hanging from the mirror. Fake pine scent, really? In the Black Hills where all I had to do was take a sniff out the window?

  I settled behind the wheel, getting acquainted with his rig, the lights, gear shift, and emergency brake. I preferred not to drive tanks through the woods at night, but I knew the road conditions from the drive up and was only worrying my lower lip about deer or other critters jumping out in front of me. And maybe a ghost … or a one-armed, spikey-haired pixie freak bent on revenge.

  Reid grunted as he climbed up, moving slowly as he placed the picnic basket in the back seat and shut his door. “You know which way to go?”

  “Not really. You’ll have to direct me most of the way back down to the main road.”

  “Will do.” He shifted, taking the weight off his left side.

  I backed up slowly, the size of the truck making me more cautious. We rode along in silence, interrupted only by his directions.

  I thought about what I had to face tomorrow with Rex and swallowed my groan.

  “What do you think happened to Ms. Wolff?” Reid asked out of the blue.

  “Me?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t see anyone else in here with us.”

  Why would he care what I thought? He was the Fire Captain, I was just a Realtor. I shrugged. “I think someone murdered her.”

  “Yeah, but why? She was such a sweet little thing.’

  “You knew her?”

  “Sure. There’d been some false alarms at the Galena House apartments over the last few years. Plus we went in once a year and checked out the fire extinguishers and tested the alarms. She always made sure we had a handful of those German cookies of hers when we left.”

  Freesia had mentioned those cookies, which reminded me that I needed to take Freesia a listing agreement and discuss her options. “I never actually met Ms. Wolff,” I told him. “Only talked to her that once on the phone.”

  “Slow down a little,” he said, “we’re turning right just around this curve.”

  After we made the turn, I asked, “What do you think of all of those cuckoo clocks?”

  He snorted. “Those are bizarre. I figured she collected them like how some people fill a glass case with thimbles or silver spoons they’d picked up in different states.”

  “They creep me out a little,” I admitted, thinking about the one with the wolves on the hunt.

  “You know what really gave me the willies?” he asked.

  I had trouble imagining much of anything giving Reid a scare after the things he’d probably encountered in his job over the years. “What’s that?”

  “All of those wigs.” He made a shuddering sound. “She told me once they were made of real hair. I’d take a wall of clocks any day to those wigs.”

  Was he thinking of the hat boxes? “What wigs? You mean the hats?”

  “No, I mean the wigs on those styrofoam heads in her closet. She’d have me go in there and test one of her smoke alarms every time I made my annual …”

  My brain blocked out his voice, needing to focus for a moment. What did he mean there were wigs in her closet? “When were you there last?” I interrupted.

  “Let me see, we had inspections in that area of town a couple of months ago.”

  “And you saw wigs in her closet then?”

  “Sure. Same as always.”

  “How many wigs?”

  “Too many. Maybe twenty or more, and none were the same or even close.”

  Where had the wigs gone? Had she sent them all off for cleaning? Is there such a thing as a wig cleaner? Or had someone taken them after they killed her?

  “Sometimes when I was in there,” Reid continued, “I’d imagine her talking to the heads, maybe when she felt lonely. I figured if I ever went in there and she’d drawn faces on those styrofoam heads, I was going to talk to Coop about calling in the men with the straitjackets to haul her away.”

  “Did you ever see her without a wig?”

  “I’m not sure, maybe. I remember once someone had pulled the fire alarm in the middle of the night, thinking they’d smelled smoke. When we arrived, all of the occupants were standing outside in their robes and slippers. Ms. Wolff looked more frail than usual that night, which I’d attributed to her being shocked by the fire alarm. But maybe her seeming feeble to me was more b
ecause of her hair.”

  “What about it?”

  “It was the first time I’d ever seen her with white hair.”

  I hit the brakes, making Reid reach for the dashboard. Dirt billowed around us, floating through the headlight’s beams.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Did you see a deer?”

  “She had white hair?”

  He did a doubletake. “Uh, yes.”

  “Like old lady white hair—thinner, curly maybe?” I was thinking of the women I’d often see in the hair salon I used to go to in Rapid that had been located a block away from a retirement community.

  “No it was plenty thick and straight as a board. It hung down to the middle of her back.” He let go of the dashboard. “It seemed to almost glow in the moonlight.”

  Thick white hair. Could it be … ? Panic pulsed through my legs. The urge to take flight made my feet tingle.

  “Sparky,” Reid grabbed my arm, squeezing. “Are you okay?”

  Hell, no. If I was right, there was a distinct possibility I was going to need CPR soon. Good thing I had a firefighter sitting next to me.

  “What is it?” he asked again.

  “It’s nothing.” I followed his earlier prompt. “I thought I saw a deer.” I hit the gas again, bumping along.

  Holy grim reaper! What if Ms. Wolff was another one of those albino-looking beings? Had she known Caly and the creepy tall Donald Duck-looking twins from the Mudder Brothers? Did they have something to do with why she’d contacted me? Was that why she’d called me an executioner, because of what I’d done to the creep in the Mudder Brothers’ basement? What had she heard about me? Did she have Layne’s picture because she planned to hurt him? Or use him to get to me?

  The trip back to the main road passed in a blur of dirt and trees and frets. My brain whirled with more questions, the final one being did I dare to tell Cooper my theory about Ms. Wolff and her white hair and take a chance of him shooting me for even mentioning the word albino? Or did I keep this to myself and dig deeper at the risk of winding up with another shriveled skull—this time my own?

  Chapter Twelve

  Friday, October 5th

  Morning showed up swinging a basket full of bright sunshine. I could hear the birds crowing about it through my closed window, but I remained under the covers unconvinced it was worth getting up to see. The way my luck had been going, today would end with yet another ex-someone showing up to stir a little more craziness into my world.