by Ann Charles
“Oh, dear God.” I scrubbed my hand over my eyes, trying to wipe away the vision of nipple rings bouncing in my head. “Jeff, please go away. I don’t need this tonight.”
“You could bring your boyfriend if you want, get in on some of the action.”
Harvey’s shoulders quaked with laughter. He was enjoying the pre-dinner show way too much for my own good. It was going to take a long time to live this down.
I walked away without replying. I’d rather stick my head in the toilet and hit the flusher than talk about Jeff and his girlfriend’s sex-capades anymore.
“Think about it, Violet Parker. I’ll park my truck in the garage again tomorrow and leave the front door unlocked.”
I reached for the screen door handle. “Ask Harvey. I’m sure he’d be game.”
“He won’t do. My girlfriend digs blondes.”
“Goodbye, Jeff. Tell Kelly that she can spend the night on Saturday if she’d like.” Addy and I had agreed to a sleepover in exchange for her cleaning the upstairs bathroom yesterday.
I slammed the door shut behind me, not waiting for Harvey. Detouring straight upstairs, I changed into a long black cardigan sweater over one of my favorite old Elvis Presley T-shirts and yoga pants. I wasn’t sure if Doc was coming over for supper or not, but I wasn’t in the mood to dress in anything beyond the basics of comfort.
When I made it back down to the kitchen, Harvey was raiding Aunt Zoe’s Betty Boop cookie jar while she fried hamburgers on the stove. My stomach growled, happy about the meat after a day of protein bars and pretzels from the hotel casino’s bar.
I dropped into the chair next to Harvey and stole the cookie jar from his grasp.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I told him before he’d opened his mouth to speak.
He wheezed with laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Aunt Zoe asked, glancing at us over her shoulder.
“I’ll tell you some other time.”
“Was she wearing those fancy nipple rings he bought her?”
Yeah, and a bunch of tattoos. Something about that visual was stuck in my brain, and it had nothing to do with the actual act of sex. I blinked it away and crammed a chocolate chip cookie in my mouth.
“Shush it,” I muttered, spitting a few crumbs in Harvey’s direction by accident.
“Violet Lynn,” Aunt Zoe said, “What’s wrong with you?”
“I saw Wilda today.”
Harvey’s laughter fizzled out.
Aunt Zoe turned, spatula in hand. “But you can’t see ghosts.”
“I saw her when the camerawoman played back some of the filming we did.”
Wrinkles filled Aunt Zoe’s brow.
The doorbell rang.
I growled at Harvey. “If that’s Jeff again, you’re in trouble.”
“Why am I in trouble? Yer the one playin’ Nosy Parker through his kitchen window, not me.”
I wish it had been through a window, then they wouldn’t have heard me cry out in surprise. “He wasn’t supposed to be there, dammit.” I grabbed another cookie and headed for the front door, grumbling all of the way. When I opened it, Doc stood there holding a long wooden box in his arms.
His smile faded as he searched my face, turning into an all-out frown when he locked onto my eyes.
“What happened?”
“Jeff wants me to watch him and his girlfriend have sex again tomorrow because it makes their sneaky tryst more exciting, and Wilda accosted me in the elevator with a half-charred clown doll.” I wasn’t sure which was worse at the moment. Both gave me the heebie-jeebies in new and unique ways.
I held the door open for him while taking a bite of my cookie. He stepped inside, smelling fresh from outside, and paused in front of me to brush crumbs from my face. His kiss tasted better than the cookie, and I really liked Aunt Zoe’s chocolate chip cookies.
“How about I stay over tonight and help you forget about both Wymonds and Wilda?”
When I nodded, he set the box down and stole the last half of the cookie from me. “Your aunt makes the best cookies.”
“Between her treats and Harvey’s mastery in the kitchen, my hips are starting to bulge.”
“Mmmm, I love your hips.” He ran his hand down over one, palming it.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Nyce.” I pointed at the box. “Whatcha got there?”
“I don’t know. It has your initials on it.”
I knocked on the wooden lid, remembering the crates I’d found at Mudder Brothers Funeral Parlor months ago. This box reminded me of them, only smaller. On the front was a rectangular piece of tin screwed into the wood. V.P. had been etched into the tin.
“What do you think it is?” I asked, lifting it. It weighed about as much as a toddler, only it was much less wiggly and sticky. Had Jeff left me a bribe? This was too big to be another set of nipple rings.
“We’ll need something to pry it open.” Doc took it from me. “Is Zoe’s toolbox still in the laundry room?”
“I think so.”
“Mom!” Addy yelled from the top of the stairs. Elvis clucked in her arms, wearing the green sweater with yellow baby chicks decorating it that my mother had crocheted for the damned bird.
“What?”
“Is supper ready?”
“Yes,” Aunt Zoe answered from the kitchen. “Come and get it while it’s hot.”
“Put that bird in the basement, Adelynn, and then scrub your hands.” I took the box back from Doc and stuffed it in the hall closet. If it was from Jeff, I certainly didn’t want my kids to see it.
We followed Addy and Elvis into the kitchen with Layne bringing up the rear. I set the table with Layne’s help, and then we all took a seat and dug into burgers and salad, along with some tater tots for the kids. Any talk about Wilda and Jeff Wymonds was put on hold until supper was over.
Before asking to be excused from the table, Layne shot Doc a sly look. “Are we going to go exercising again soon, Doc?”
I started to interfere, not wanting Doc to feel obligated to entertain my kids, but he beat me to the punch with, “I was thinking I could pick you two up after school tomorrow if that works for you?”
Addy nodded so fast and hard I thought her head might bobble right off.
Layne grinned. “Sure.” Then he turned to me. “Mother, may I be excused so I can go upstairs and do my homework?”
“Me, too,” Addy said, collecting her empty plate.
I squinted at each of them in turn. Something smelled like phony-baloney in Deadwood tonight. Getting my kids to do homework, especially Addy, usually required a lot of yelling and a good dose of threatening. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” they jinxed each other.
I looked over at Doc. He was too busy inspecting his fork to return my stare. “Fine, but put your dishes in the sink first. Addy, don’t forget to clean Elvis’s cage tonight. We don’t want Aunt Zoe’s basement starting to stink like a chicken coop.” The bird didn’t go outside as much since the weather had cooled.
They jumped up and rushed to the sink, giggling together as they raced out of the room.
“You know that you don’t have to take them to the Rec Center if you’re busy, right?” I asked Doc.
He set down the fork that had held him entranced moments ago. “I like to take them to the Rec Center.”
“What do you guys do there?” I pressed.
Aunt Zoe cleared her throat, giving me a hard look.
Harvey leaned forward. “Yer makin’ kitten britches for tomcats.”
Doc chuckled. “I haven’t heard that saying since my grandfather was alive.”
“What does that mean?” I asked Harvey.
“It means mind yer own business, girlie.”
“You’re one to talk, you eavesdropping old man.” I stood and collected plates. “Is it so wrong for a mother to be curious about what her children are up to when they’re out of her sight?”
“Would you ask Wymonds what he was up t
o if he took them to the Rec Center?” Doc challenged.
He had me there, but that was only because I wasn’t head-over-heels for Jeff, wanting him to spend the rest of his life having supper with us every night.
“Violet,” Aunt Zoe cut in, “finish telling us about what happened today with Wilda.”
I told my tale while I collected the rest of the dirty dishes from the table and put away the leftovers, ending with that goosebump-inducing clown in the elevator. The normalcy of my task helped keep my anxiety from bubbling up and burning my throat like it had on the way home.
“What I want to know,” I directed at Doc, “is how can a ghost make a clown doll appear out of thin air?”
His frown deepened.
“I mean, earlier it was just a wispy image, like Wilda was. And then all of a sudden it was there with me in the elevator.”
“Did you touch it?” Doc asked.
“Touch the clown doll?”
He nodded.
“Hell, no.”
“Then how do you know it wasn’t an illusion?”
“It looked real.”
“Didn’t you—and Harvey—say that Prudence looked real sitting there in the seat next to you last weekend?”
Harvey and I exchanged wrinkled brows. “I guess so.”
“Did either of you touch Prudence?”
We both shook our heads. “No, but she touched me.”
“Her hand went through you, though, right?” At my nod, he continued, “I would suspect what you saw in the elevator today was a very real looking manifestation.”
“Of a half-burned clown doll?”
He shrugged. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“Next time you need to touch it,” Aunt Zoe said.
“I’m not touching that doll.”
“I hate clowns,” Harvey said. “Touchin’ that thing would turn my knees to puddin’.”
I wet a clean dishrag and started wiping down the table. “What about the whisper and the bite? Are you going to tell me they weren’t real either?”
“No,” Doc lifted the bottle of hard cider I’d given him so that I could wipe under it. “I think Wilda has the ability to telepathically communicate with the living. As for the bite, she could have put that idea in your head as well and psyched you into thinking she bit you.”
“But I’m a dud.”
“You’re not a dud.”
“How come I’ve never been able to hear or see ghosts before?”
“You were a skeptic then, with your mind closed to possibilities. That’s changed in the last five months.”
“You think that’s why I could see Prudence?”
“I think it might have something to do with your ability to see certain ghosts now, but that’s really more of a theory. We don’t know the extent of your abilities yet … or hers.” He smirked. “We may never know on both counts.”
“You’re like a young flower,” Aunt Zoe said. “Your outer petals are only now beginning to open.”
“I feel more like an onion, sloughing off dead skin.”
“Ya look like an onion tonight in that ragamuffin outfit, that’s fer sure.”
I threatened to throw the dishrag at Harvey. “For that, old man, you’re coming with me and your nephew to see Prudence.”
“No I’m not. That batty dead broad is bucksnortin’ mean. She makes me all squirmy in my skivvies.”
“I need a bodyguard.”
“What do ya think Coop is?”
“Not my bodyguard. You gave me your oath.”
“To defend you against livin’ things.”
“Do I need to stop down at the senior center and find another bodyguard?”
His bushy eyebrows pulled together. “Now, ya don’t need to go stirrin’ up hell with a long spoon.”
“You’re going then?”
“Well, ya sure seem to be makin’ it somethin’ I can’t ride around.”
“Blame your nephew. He’s the one bent on meeting Prudence.”
“Why is he so set on meeting her?” Aunt Zoe asked.
I grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge for me, popping the top. “I kind of wonder if he thinks we’re telling tall tales and wants to see her for himself.”
“If she’ll talk to him,” Doc said, “Coop might find out a few answers to some of his unsolved cases.”
I tipped the neck of my bottle toward him. “Or that.”
“I think it’s a mixture of both.” Doc stood and left the room.
“Whatever the reason.” I took a swallow of beer. “You’re coming with me, Harvey.”
“Why don’t you take Doc?” Harvey asked.
“He needs to save up his energy to deal with Wilda. Besides, Prudence has proven that she can use pretty much anyone for a medium.”
Harvey was still grumbling when Doc walked back in carrying the wooden box I’d stuffed in the closet earlier. Apparently, while it had slipped my mind, it hadn’t his.
“What’s that?” Aunt Zoe stood to take a closer look.
“It was outside on your front porch when I arrived earlier. It has Violet’s initials on it.”
I glanced at Aunt Zoe. “It’s nailed shut. What do you have handy to pry it open?”
Harvey beat her to the punch, pulling a screwdriver from the side pocket in his overalls. “Ya never know—”
“When you’re going to need to screw something,” I finished for him. “You told us that once before.”
“Spoilsport,” Harvey said to me.
Doc grinned, taking the screwdriver from him. “It’s always good to come prepared.”
Aunt Zoe brought him a hammer. It took a minute, but he managed to loosen the lid. He turned to me. “It has your initials on it. You open it.”
I chewed on my lower lip. “What if there’s a half-burned clown doll inside?”
“Move aside, yellow belly.” Harvey said, grabbing the lid and tugging it the rest of the way free.
Straw filled the interior.
I looked at Harvey. “Keep going, tough talker.”
He stuck his hand into the straw, feeling around. Then he paused, his eyebrows turning into one long crinkly caterpillar. “What in tarnation?”
“What is it, Willis?” Aunt Zoe asked.
He pulled out what appeared at first to be a short handled ax. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was more a hammer of sorts, not an ax, and quite a bit more elaborate than a regular old hammer, having a spike on the opposite side of the face rather than a claw. A metal ram’s skull decorated the center of the head while a dark leather strap wrapped down the handle, acting as a grip. The leather was darker at the far end, like it had been handled plenty. The metal head had several scars.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a war hammer,” Doc said, taking it from Harvey to admire under the kitchen light. “I’ve only seen them in books and museums. Often they have longer handles so they can be used when on horseback.”
“There’s a note.” Aunt Zoe plucked a piece of folded paper from the straw. She held it out to me.
The outside was blank. I unfolded it and read the words inside, a sinking anchor of dread hit bottom in my gut as I stared at the paper.
“What’s it say?” Doc glanced up from the war hammer.
I held up the paper for him to see the words scrawled in a script that reminded me of something I’d see on a medieval scroll:
You will need this soon.
“Why am I going to need a war hammer?” I dropped into one of the chairs, resting my chin on my hand.
Doc touched his index finger to the tip of the spike. “Let’s hope it’s not to penetrate something coated with extra tough armor.”
“Who left it for me? The war hammer fairy?” I inspected the paper again to no avail.
“I’m more worried about why it was left.” Doc handed the war hammer back to Harvey.
“Whoever left it must know you’re an executioner,” Aunt Zoe said.
“W
hy’s that?”
She pointed at a word branded in the wood on the inside of the lid. “Carnifex.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s the Latin word for executioner.”
* * *
Friday, November 16th
Morning came no matter how much I tried to hide under the covers and make it go away.
Doc was putting on his coat as I came down the stairs, his jaw dark with stubble, his duffel bag zipped and waiting by the front door. His gaze traveled up from my bare feet and legs to my puffy eyes. “You look soft and sleepy.”
“I feel like something Layne dug up in the backyard.” I paused on the bottom step, almost eye level with him. “Are you heading to the Rec Center?”
He nodded. “How’d you sleep? Any nightmares?”
“Only the usual sweet dreams. You know, killer clown dolls, angry one-armed albinos, and a bone cruncher or two.” I shrugged. Such were my nights when I was left to my own devices for entertainment during pillow time. “How was the couch?”
Harvey had taken Aunt Zoe’s bed since she’d planned to spend the night in her workshop, crashing on the sofa in her back room. That left the couch for Doc instead of my bed.
“I don’t remember much after you went upstairs for the night.”
“Any more wooden boxes left on the front porch?”
He peeked out the front window. “No. I guess one war hammer is all you’re going to need.”
“Lucky me.” I ran my fingers through my hair, patting down a poof I’d acquired from my pillow. My first attempt in front of the bathroom mirror had barely made a dent in the tangled mess. “I should hop in the shower. Jerry wants to debrief me first thing this morning before the TV crew shows up.”
He leaned back against the door, a smile on his lips. “I can’t blame Jerry. I’d like to debrief you, too. Especially with your hair all crazy sexy like that.”
I squinted at him. “You had your chance last night, but you passed.”
“Your kids are right down the hall.”
And they would be for another nine or ten years, maybe longer. We’d hit a stalemate on this one, since I wasn’t going to ask him to make any kind of long term commitment and risk scaring him off, and he wasn’t going to take a chance of my kids catching him under the covers with me.
“My door has a lock, you know.”
