by Ann Charles
I still couldn’t believe I had to help Rex the Rat find somewhere to live on the same continent. The Universe had a really warped sense of humor. Maybe he’d be interested in a recently vacated apartment with walls full of cuckoo clocks.
Oh, Ms. Wolff. Why did she have to drag me into her troubles? I had plenty of my own keeping me busy without all of the questions she’d spawned. True to my word, I’d sat on my big theory about her and her white hair after returning to civilization last night, keeping it all to myself.
When Harvey had picked me up from Reid’s, he’d been full of questions about the two fighting lovebirds. It’d been easy enough to keep his focus on their sad state of “no affair” rather than what had me jumping at shadows.
I knew Doc had planned on reading Ms. Wolff’s book, so I’d texted him a brief Sleep tight message, not wanting to interrupt him. I sure hoped he’d find some answers for me in that book.
Aunt Zoe had been in her glass shop until the wee hours of the night. I’d seen her moving around in there with her thick, heat-resistant gloves on when I peeked out the back door before heading up to bed.
That left Cooper. I wasn’t going to give Detective Hawke the time of day after learning what I had about him from Reid. One prickly detective in my life was plenty. In spite of how much Cooper made me curse and swear, Doc had convinced me that Cooper’s actions were out of concern for my health and welfare. I had a feeling Detective Hawke’s agenda was all about Stone Hawke.
As I lay there on my bed listening to the sound of Miss Geary’s garage door opening, I pondered different ways Cooper might react to my theory. The best being he’d shower me with praise and hand me my own Citizen Detective badge to wear. The worst involved him putting a bullet in my foot to slow me down before chasing after me with an orange jumpsuit in my size.
The sound of a banshee scream stopped all of my thoughts in their tracks.
“What in the hell was that?” I asked the ceiling.
The crash of breaking glass resonated from the street below my window.
I sat up, threw off the covers, and rushed to the window in time to see Miss Geary swing a fire poker at a headlight of the familiar black Jaguar that was idling in her drive. Broken glass and plastic pieces littered the concrete around her red feather high-heeled slippers, sparkling in the sunlight. While I gaped out my window, she pulled back to swing again.
The driver’s side door opened. A pair of legs came into view covered in black trousers, then a brown leather bomber jacket. I didn’t catch a look at his face, but his blonde hair was slicked back like he’d recently gotten out of the shower.
I heard the driver yell, “Stop it, Beatrice!”
She ignored him and swung the poker at the grill. More pieces of car scattered across her drive. She tried to pull the poker free as the driver closed the distance, but it was snared.
The driver grabbed Miss Geary and hauled her away from the car while she waved her arms around like an angry orangutan. Then he stalked back and yanked the fire poker free of his grill, throwing it into the flower bed. He glared down at the damage.
A bolt of recognition zapped me, making me almost keel over. My hand flew to my mouth and I took a step backward.
Rex!
What in the hell was he doing over at Miss Geary’s? Had he found out where I lived and come looking for me? For my kids?
I turned back to the scene below. Miss Geary was shaking her fist at Rex, shouting for him to get off her property before she called the cops.
Rex pointed at her and said something back that I couldn’t hear, partly due to the window, mostly due to my panic. Then he slid behind the steering wheel and slammed his door, tires screeching in his wake.
The birds and I were too shocked to make a peep.
The garage door closed, shutting Miss Geary and her feather slippers inside.
A few seconds of silence passed.
The birds started chatting away again.
I still had the wind knocked out of me, so I walked back until my hamstrings hit the mattress and sat down.
Why was Rex … the black Jaguar … Miss Geary’s younger stallion … holy shit!
I raced over to the window again, remembering how many times Aunt Zoe and I had seen that damned car parked in Miss Geary’s drive. It was the same car, right? What were the chances of Miss Geary finding two younger stallions with black Jaguars to keep in her stable? No, it was the same.
It’d been Rex over there all of this time.
I had a feeling his presence in Miss Geary’s bed had more to do with spying on me and my kids than enjoying her tarts.
The kids! My heart raced.
He’d seen my kids, I was sure of it. Oh, fuck!
I fell back against the wall, my gaze darting in panic. Had they seen him? Talked to him? Did they have a clue who he really was?
That no good son of a bitch! What should I do? What could I do?
I ran to the bedroom door.
Wait. Neither Addy nor Layne had said a thing to me about a “man” over at Miss Geary’s.
I pulled my hand away from the doorknob. I had to calm down, act normal, and pretend I hadn’t learned the bogeyman had been sleeping across the street for the last month.
Okay, I could do this. I returned to my bed and sank onto it, burying my face in my shaking hands. Why was he back? He was supposed to be gone for good.
I took stock of my situation. So Rex had been watching us from across the street all of this time. Now what?
The solution was simple—I was going to have to kill him.
I’d just have to figure out how to do it without Detective Cooper figuring out I was the murderer. Maybe I should wear a white wig while I did it.
My phone rang. I looked over. Speak of the devil.
I took a calming breath, then another since the first didn’t seem to take before picking it up. “It’s a little early, Cooper.”
“This is Detective Hawke.” The voice matched the name.
“Why are you calling me from Cooper’s phone?”
“That’s not important. I need to talk to you about the Mudder Brothers’ investigation.”
“Does Cooper know you called me from his phone?”
“I left multiple messages for you yesterday. Why didn’t you call me back?”
I didn’t like the tone he was using. It felt a bit too much like I was being scolded. “I was busy.”
“I need you to come down to the station, Violet.”
I didn’t like his casual use of my name either. We weren’t chummy enough to be on a first name basis. I dug my heels in. “Do you have a warrant for my arrest, Detective Hawke?”
“A warrant?” I could hear the surprise in his question. “I … uh … no, of course not. I just need to ask you some questions about the events that took place on the night of August twenty-third.”
“Ask Detective Cooper about it when you give him his phone back. He knows the story well.” Without further ado, I hung up.
The phone rang again, showing Cooper’s name. I sent it to voicemail.
I didn’t have time to deal with Detective Hawke and the Mudder Brothers mess today. I had to torture and then slay the man who had fathered my children. The question was how to pull it off with Sonny and Cher along for the ride?
* * *
I managed to get dressed, feed the kids, and drop them off at school without biting anyone. That seemed like quite an accomplishment since my teeth hadn’t stopped gnashing since Rex had peeled off down the road. As I pulled out of Aunt Zoe’s drive, I wondered if Miss Geary’s teeth were still gnashing, too.
Detective Hawke was waiting for me in the parking lot behind Calamity Jane’s. Damn, he was as persistent as a honey badger.
“Violet, I need to talk to you.” He didn’t even wait for me to step out of the Picklemobile.
“Where’s Detective Cooper?” I had to push him backward to get out.
“Over at Ms. Wolff’s apartment.”
Had Reid talked to Cooper? Maybe he had mentioned my fascination with Ms. Wolff’s wigs. “What’s he doing there?”
“Police business.”
Oh, so it was going to be like that. I slammed the door and detoured around Detective Hawke.
He tried to attach himself to my side as I strode across the lot toward the back door. By that I meant he kept bumping into me with his shoulder as if we were joined by a rubber band.
“What were you doing at Mudder Brothers Funeral Parlor the night George Mudder was killed?”
“Have I made it back into the top ten suspects’ list for George again?”
“No.” Bump.
“Then what does it matter?”
“I find it curious that you happened to be there the night everything went down.” Bump, bump.
Did he not realize his shoulder was trying to hockey check me? “Curious? I find it unlucky.”
“You seem to wind up in a lot of unlucky places. I’ve read your file. It’s extensive.”
“Do you mean extensive in a good way or bad way?” I had a feeling that if it was full of Cooper’s handwriting, it was the latter.
“Let’s not get distracted with unnecessary details here.” Bump.
He pulled a notepad out of his jacket. I’d seen Cooper with a similar notepad too many times to count. They must hand them out with their badges.
I stopped outside Calamity Jane’s door. I didn’t want to walk in with a detective badgering me and give Jerry a coronary on the day his precious television crew would be following me around.
Hawke clicked his pen, then gave me the stink eye. “You’re not going to assault my pen again, are you?”
Maybe. “Just ask me your damned questions.”
“What do you know about the contents of the crate in the storage room that night?” Detective Hawke was standing way too close, especially considering the saccharine sweet, minty brand of cologne he’d flea-dipped in this morning.
I frowned up at him, backing against the door to try to get him out of my personal space. “What do you mean?”
“I was reading through the reports for the case and your coworker, Ray Underhill, mentioned in his that you had been harassing him lately about his activities with George Mudder.”
“Ray said that?” What a stinking turd. I feigned surprise. “I wonder what he was referring to by that. We have a friendly competition going on here at work with a little bit of taunting here and there. Maybe I struck a nerve and didn’t realize it. He is the type to bottle up his feelings.” A voice snickered in my head at that doozy of a lie.
“I haven’t met with Mr. Underhill, but I plan to set up a meeting with him soon.”
Great. Without a doubt, Ray would do whatever he could to get me even more under Hawke’s microscope. I needed to move my queen before that horse’s ass tried to pull a checkmate on me. The problem was I was running a tad short of patience and tact at the moment.
“Here are a couple of things to write on your handy notepad there. First, I was visiting George Mudder with my friend that night in order to find the name of a woman who’d died in the late 1800s. Mudder Brothers’ books on deaths are more complete than the library’s records.”
He made a few chicken scratches on his paper.
“Did you find out the name?”
“No.”
“Why were you looking for information on this dead woman?”
“There’s a rumor that the hotel my client is buying is haunted and she’s one of the ghosts.”
“You mean one of the guests.”
“No, I mean ghosts. I wanted to find out more about her for my client. He enjoys the ghost stories.” Especially the ones he conjures up.
Hawke wrote a few more things down and then looked up at me. “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me regarding that night?”
“I saw Ray’s penis.”
Detective Hawke wrote the letter P and then his gaze shot back to mine. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me. It was cold and Ray was naked and terrified. You can imagine the state of his penis in those circumstances.”
Hawke wasn’t writing any of it down. I tapped his pad. “You need to make note of that.”
“Why in the world would I need to note that, Violet?”
“Because it’s half of the reason Ray is going to lie to you and try to set me up as the number one suspect in the Mudder case.”
“What’s the other half?”
“He’s afraid of me.”
Detective Hawke’s head cocked to the side. “Afraid of your temper, you mean?”
“You think I have a temper?”
“Well, you did stomp on my pen, threaten to do the same to my testicles, and then later clomped on my foot. I think you have a tendency toward violence, Violet.”
Violent Violet—a new nickname. That would make Cooper smile. Me, not so much. “I disagree. I think that I have a tendency toward standing up for myself in the face of egotistical assholes and dangerous killers.” I tapped his pad once more. “Shrunken penis. Remember that.”
With a wave goodbye, I stepped inside Calamity Jane Realty and closed the door on Detective Hawke’s frown.
Jerry called out to me as I walked by his office.
I backed up. “Yes?”
He eyed my black slacks and silver sweater. “Nice. Very classy. I like your hair pulled back and twisted like that.”
“Thank you.” I’d dressed the way Jerry had specifically requested yesterday, so I wasn’t sure why he was making a big deal of it.
“After you put your stuff down, please come back here. I’ve made up a game plan for your route today.”
“You mean you’ve picked out what places I should show Mr. Conner?” Besides the bottom of a mine shaft?
He nodded. “I want to make sure our guests get a good taste of Deadwood today.” He pulled some notecards out of his briefcase. “I’ve written a few scripts here, too.”
He had to be freaking kidding me. “Jerry, why don’t you take Mr. Conner and the other two out today instead of me?”
“No way. This is going to be your day to glow, Violet.”
Glow? With Rex sitting within slapping distance while I had to keep my hands to myself, it might turn out to be my day to actually combust.
Unclenching my jaw, I focused on Jerry’s efforts at growing my career. “Okay, let me put my stuff down and we’ll go over everything.”
“Thanks, Violet.” His tone was genuine. In return for that, I’d give today my best shot, but I made no guarantees.
By the time Dickie and Honey strolled into the office after lunch dressed in black, same as yesterday, I had my route memorized and knew my lines by heart. At Jerry’s request, I’d added a dab more mascara and powdered my nose. He’d given me a thumbs up and a “go work your magic.” I was considering some voodoo, starting with a doll that resembled Rex. I just needed to borrow Mona’s brooch with its sharp pin.
Jerry welcomed our special guests with a smile that bridged his earlobes. He nudged me forward. “Violet’s ready to go. We’re waiting for her client to arrive.”
Honey unzipped the black backpack she was carrying and pulled out a hand-held video camera. “Do you mind if we film today, Violet?”
“Film?” I looked at Jerry, my eyes wide. I did not want to be on film with Rex. The camera would see everything, including the murder in my eyes, giving Cooper the evidence he’d need to lock me up for good when Rex went missing. On top of that, if any of today’s events made it to the television screen, my kids might see it. “I’m not sure today is a good day for me to be recorded.”
Honey’s forehead made a deep V.
Jerry stepped forward. “What Violet means is that she isn’t prepared to be taped.”
“Oh,” Honey’s face smoothed. “It’s not for the show. This is just me getting some stuff on film so I can start putting the script together. I’ll use it for my own work. I won’t let anyone else see it.”
I didn’t like this recording business still, but to buck her now would seem childish. “Okay, but I don’t think you should record my client. He hasn’t signed off on anything. I wouldn’t want to make him uncomfortable.”
That was a big honking lie. I wanted to do all kinds of things to make him miserable and then some.
“No problem. I’ll keep the camera focused on the scenery so neither of you end up on film.”
“Thank you.” Now we needed Rex to show up and we could get this disaster … I meant day … started.
I excused myself, slipping into the restroom. My pep talk in the mirror was short and sweet. “You can do this. Don’t kill Rex in front of the camera.”
When I stepped back into the front room, Jerry was introducing Rex to Honey and Dickie, explaining the situation. Still wearing his brown leather bomber jacket over a white collared shirt, black trousers, and dark leather shoes, Rex looked like he’d come from the set of Top Gun. Even his blonde hair had that windblown look.
As I listened to Jerry, I crossed my fingers behind my back, willing Rex to opt out of having company while we were checking out places.
The sleazy voyeur looked at me with a leer that made me want to smash a cream pie all over his face. “I’m sure the four of us will have an interesting day together.”
I collected my purse from my drawer. Pulling out my cell phone, I pretended to check my messages. I sent Doc a quick text: Be out by your car in one minute.
I didn’t wait to see if he replied because Jerry stepped closer. “Make this opening kickoff count, Violet,” he said for my ears only.
I nodded.
He patted me on the shoulder and gave me an “atta girl.”
I wondered what he’d do if I slapped him on the ass and said, “Yes, coach!”
After a few more pleasantries, we all headed out the back door. Ben’s Subaru sparkled in the sunshine. I knew from an earlier conversation with Ben that yesterday Jerry had given him cash to get it detailed for today’s show and tell.
