Starke Naked Dead (Starke Dead Mysteries Book 1)

by Conda V. Douglas

  Aunt Maddie held out her free hand, palm up. “Hand the keys over, right now.”

  I stuffed the keys back into my pocket. “Lester wouldn’t do anything,” I said. Maybe. I couldn’t predict what Lester would do, not anymore.

  “I’ll call the state cops.”

  I put my hands up, palms out. “Okay, okay, I’ll just go to the store and inventory my designs and call Nance.” And sneak back in a couple of hours to steal my aunt’s station wagon. The car and me, we’d just have to tolerate the cold.

  My aunt frowned.

  “Bye.” I left her there before she decided she might have missed an argument. I walked down the dusty not-yet-paved road. The necklace banged against one leg while the gun bounced against the other, my only companions.

  SEVEN

  I turned on the magnifying circle lamp over my workbench, one of my first purchases with Aunt Maddie’s money. My heart twinged. The Buddha taught that the past didn’t exist, nor did the future. I turned my attention to the moment.

  The intense light created an oasis of calm, a mini-meditation. Beyond it, the broken bits of tourist trash still cluttered the floor. On my bench lay several attempts of my most recent design, a pin that symbolized the new Dog Face Mountain ski resort. I shook my head. Try as I would, I couldn’t get the dog’s face to stop snarling. He’d bite any tourist foolish enough to ski over his face.

  The powerful light flickered. I grimaced. Since all the construction started for the new ski resort, blackouts in Starke had become common.

  It didn’t help that all the wiring in my aunt’s store was original from 1948. Whenever a tenant complained, Henry’s grandfather and then his father had always said, “Still works.” Now Henry needed to replace all the electrical systems to bring his properties up to code. Soon. Yesterday. Tomorrow.

  With the blackouts, I couldn’t cast any of my designs in my kiln. The kiln needed to maintain a constant temperature to have a clean burn. Nance had given me her old kiln. Kilns cost thousands. I’d been awed by her generosity. Until I discovered how much it took to fix it—too much. Way too much. I couldn’t cast any of my designs. Period.

  Once I sold a few pieces of my jewelry, if I sold a few pieces…I glanced over at my wax designs, pinned in neat rows onto Styrofoam blocks, a trick Nance taught me, all waiting to be cast. Oh Buddha, wait. Now I needed to sell those designs to Nance. One catastrophe at a time.

  I pushed the wax patterns over to the side, out of the light, and scrubbed at my face. She’d still be at work. I might as well kill—I mean, call Nance.

  “The Gallery,” Nance answered after I dialed the old rotary phone and it rang once.

  “The Gallery” as if there could be only one. Never mind that Nance’s jewelry store was a remote offshoot of her family’s famous New York gallery. “Non-say speaking,” she continued, in her best snob voice.

  “Nance, forget it, it’s just me, Dora.”

  “So, Dora, are you ready to give up your attachment to your dream?”

  She meant my dream of my own jewelry store in Starke. I always hated it when Nance played wise, older Buddhist.

  “Never,” I said.

  “Never say never, Dora. Time is an illusion,” Nance said.

  Gritting my teeth, I considered hanging up, but I couldn’t do that. Not yet.

  Then Nance added, “Besides, I miss you.”

  “Aha, a desire,” I said.

  Nance laughed. “There’s nobody here to moo at the customers.”

  I sighed. I’d never live that one down. “That cow painting would’ve never sold,” I defended myself. The vast purple cow painting had hung in the gallery for months, avoided by all. Until I spotted a rancher staring at it, sidled up beside him and mooed. He’d replied, “Sold.”

  “You earned every penny of that commission,” Nance said.

  A commission Nance paid me the minute the rancher left the gallery. I sighed again. As soon as I got a good mad on for Nance, she pulled me back onto the dharma path.

  “Speaking of money…” I took a deep breath. “Want to buy my designs?”

  “Don’t you need your designs to establish your line?”

  “I need—” The money for rent, I started to say. If I told Nance about my money woes, she’d insist I return to The Gallery. “I mean, I don’t need these designs.”

  “Well, after I fix your designs, they do sell well.”

  That made me growl deep in my throat.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. So I’ll bring them down tomorrow?”

  “How many? I’ll have the check ready.” Nance, unlike so many unbelievably wealthy people, never used float, Buddha bless her. She paid prompt and in full.

  I gulped down the bitter bile of the delay of establishing my own design line and promised all of them, except for the Dog Face pin.

  At least Nance changed each wax pattern before she cast the piece and made a mold of it, so the style became hers and not mine. She lacked the originality to create a design, but—and I shuddered to admit it, even to myself—she did possess an objective eye for balance.

  “And I’ll bring some of Rupert’s pins,” I said. Together with my designs, that should net me enough for some of the back rent, at least.

  “Oh no, Dora. I’m no longer selling outsider art.”

  “Just because he’s a recluse doesn’t mean my father is an outsider.” The mentally disturbed produced outsider art.

  “Of course not, Dora.”

  “He’s as sane as you or I,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Maybe we aren’t good examples, but—”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  I grabbed my Ohm pin tight until the words behind my teeth subsided. “I had a woman today who came into the store looking for more of Rupert’s pins,” I said. Take that and outside it, Nance.

  “Regardless, I don’t think—”

  “Please, Nance, I need the cash.” I hated the begging tone in my voice.

  “What for?”

  Why did everybody demand to have a reason? I bit back a naughty word. “Okay, just my designs then.”

  I shifted my position on my stool. The necklace clinked. Nance, an expert on Art Nouveau of world renown, would know about the necklace, if anybody did. How to ask? Ah.

  “I’ve been studying the Art Nouveau jewelry,” I said, “and I’ve found a great piece but can’t find the designer. It’s an odd mixture of rubies and platinum. With an onyx pendant.”

  The highest grade of onyx was far cheaper than the other materials. Nance might be able to identify it by that alone.

  “Onyx?” Nance said in a strangled tone at the back of her throat. “Found?”

  “Yes…” I hesitated. How much to describe the necklace so Nance would shift into her mentor mode and not her inquisitive, take-over, controlling mode? “The mixture of precious and semi-precious stones with the carved onyx pendant of a naked woman works. It shouldn’t, but it does.”

  A long silence followed. Had I said too much? Too little? Nance always hated to say those three little words, “I don’t know.”

  “The Noira,” she whispered.

  “The who?” I asked. “Is this Noara person the designer?” I’d never heard of a Noara or a Noiré or Nora. Back in the days of Art Nouveau, the 1890’s, there were few women designers. Then I remembered that great pieces of jewelry sometimes earned names. “Is that the name of the necklace?”

  “It can’t be,” Nance said.

  “You know the necklace I’m talking about?” Of course she did. Sometimes Nance did know everything.

  “No, I don’t,” she said.

  Nance admitting ignorance?

  “I realize you need my help,” she said. A classic Nance non sequitur. “You’re not ready for your own gallery.”

  “I need the money for a few last minute improvements, that’s all.” In my desperation, I still spoke the truth, just not all of the truth.

  “I’m coming up.
” Nance hung up.

  “Ah,” I screamed into the dead receiver. Nance here? Nance in the store? Nance meeting Aunt Maddie? I shuddered and called back.

  I got her answering machine and left a terse message that if she did come to Starke, a three-hour drive from Boise, she’d find Mad Maddie’s Marvels closed and she’d pass me on the highway, headed to her gallery. I hoped that discouraged her. I prayed that discouraged her.

  Almost nothing discouraged Nance. I needed to get to Rupert’s cabin and then get on the road to stop her. I started toward the door when the power died.

  I imagined stumbling across the loose planks of our bridge over Looney Jump Creek. And at best, falling into the creek. At worst, alerting Aunt Maddie, who’d call the state cops. I sat back down on my stool.

  In the dark, I lit a few candles. I rummaged in my pockets for my emergency breakfast bar. My hand touched the bag. I pulled it out, unwrapped the necklace, and grimaced at the dirty piece. The ash that dusted the necklace had worked its way into the crevices around the beveled settings of the cabochon rubies, the inlaid features of the naked lady pendant herself. The woman’s tiny onyx face, her beauty enhanced by the thin slivers of inlaid platinum for her wide eyes and full bowed lips, looked back. She caught me in her gaze.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  Where did all the ash come from? Where had my father found the necklace? Or did he bury it in ash? If so, why?

  The ash floated off as I cleaned the necklace with my softest wolf’s hairbrush. I promised myself not to study the piece until ash-free. With every stroke of the brush, I broke my promise.

  The polished platinum of the links shone with the depth only platinum owned. The rubies flashed dark red beneath the light. I rummaged in an apron pocket for my loupe, pulled it out, and peered at one of the heart-shaped cabochon rubies.

  “Oh my Buddha,” I breathed. I’d never seen such a large ruby with such depth of color and clarity and so beautifully cut and polished. I scanned the rest of the twelve gems. All true blood rubies, all perfect.

  The onyx of the central figure gleamed with the refraction of intricate carving. I removed the solder from the woman’s toe. What had hung there?

  In the candlelight, the necklace glimmered, almost alive. It was meant to be seen in the soft glow of candles. The colors of the rubies and the onyx, offset by the platinum, flowed beneath the candle flame as it flickered.

  With one fingertip, I traced the lines of the heart links. A dream of keeping the piece insinuated into my mind. No one except my father knew I had the necklace. I could spend years studying the technique and style of a masterpiece.

  I picked up the necklace and placed it across the front of my apron. My fingers itched to clasp it behind my neck, to wear it now, alone, late at night with no one to see me.

  After I clasped it, I drew in my breath at the blazing beauty displayed across my chest. People killed for such jewelry. Such beauty. Such glory. Now I understood why.

  I’d wear it for a little while, until the lights came back on.

  With my wire loop, I carved into a piece of wax. More designs for Nance to buy and then change, that’s the ticket, or rather, the rent.

  EIGHT

  Something itched on my cheek. I brushed at it, and a gob of wax fell into my hand, jerking me upright, awake.

  I’d fallen asleep at my workbench, with my head on my Dog Face Mountain design. The icy cold of the store made me shiver. If only I could fire a few patterns in my kiln, for the heat.

  A heavy weight lay on my chest. I looked down at the necklace splayed there. Early morning gloom showed the rubies dark as old blood.

  “Sell it or I’m a dead man.”

  I unclasped the necklace. It tumbled to my lap and rested there, dead and cold. With another shudder, I wrapped the necklace and stuffed it back into my apron pocket.

  A stench wafted to my nose. Flux. Rouge. Investment powder. All seasoned with a tincture of day-old sweat. Ooh, I needed a shower and a change of clothes. The tiny restroom at the back of the store had a stall shower where a clean pair of black jeans and black sweatshirt waited. I always wore black under my apron, so I could whip it off and display my designs on a black background. So far, nobody had ever asked me to do so. That didn't dim my hope.

  I started to take off my apron, and the necklace shifted in the pocket. No time.

  Outside, fog crawled along the street. No. Not fog. Smoke. I coughed. This morning, the haze from the forest fire seemed worse. Had it moved closer to Starke? Closer to my father’s cabin? No time.

  I raced home.

  Aunt Maddie enjoyed her morning coffee in her usual spot—on the roof. I hoped the smoke might provide a little cover, but no such luck. She hollered as I thundered across Looney Jump Creek Bridge. No time.

  I jumped into the station wagon and took off for Rupert’s cabin. My last view of my aunt in the rearview mirror was of her standing near the peak, shaking her fist at me. I drove faster.

  * * * *

  In the early morning light, Rupert’s station wagon crouched next to the pink Cadillac. The huge car radiated neon pink and trouble. Before I reached Rupert’s place, I’d parked on an offshoot of the dirt logging road that led to my father’s cabin. I didn’t want him to have a chance to run, to disappear into the forest, when he heard me coming.

  Or would he escape into the forest? I wondered as I walked. Where a fire still burned? Smoke lay thicker here than in Starke. Thick tendrils wove through the pine trees, long fingers presaging destruction.

  No, Rupert would never go toward fire. Never.

  Now I wondered what the Cadillac was doing, parked outside my father’s cabin? How did a stranger find Rupert’s cabin tucked away in the woods outside Starke? And why?

  I ran for the front and only door.

  “Rupert, it’s me, Dora,” I called, not loud enough to startle him.

  The ice cold wind soughed through the trees as my only answer. I trembled in my heavy cotton apron and thrust my hands into its full pockets of problems.

  “Father?”

  The dishtowel curtains hung limp at the cabin’s sole tiny window.

  “Hello?” I raised my hand to bang on the warped pine door. It sprung from the frame. A scuff mark showed where someone had kicked the door open.

  “…sell it today.” I took a deep breath. Didn’t help. “…a dead man.” I let it out. Didn’t help. “…don’t run.” Help.

  Great Grandpa’s gun still resided in my left apron pocket. It filled my hand with a heavy reassurance. I knew that loading the gun constituted bad karma, but still loaded it.

  Bringing the revolver up in a two-handed grip, I pushed the door open with my shoulder and stepped inside. I peered into the deep gloom just past the light cast by the window and open door.

  Across the one room cabin, at my father’s workbench, someone sat in the lone upholstered swivel desk chair. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a distinctive bald pate. My held breath whooshed out. I smelled a faint stench of an odd mix, something smoky, metallic, and sour. I brought the gun down to point at the pine wood floor.

  “Hey.” I used Derek’s favorite word to catch his attention.

  Nothing.

  “Where’s Rupert? What are you doing here? Where’s my father?” I demanded in quick succession.

  The hairless dome didn’t move.

  “Derek?”

  Derek didn’t twitch at the sound of his name. He sat in the chair as if glued there.

  A cold knot in my chest, I crept across the battered pine floor. “Derek?” I whispered and touched the chair back with one finger tip.

  The chair swung around.

  Derek sat there. Stark naked dead.

  I screamed.

  NINE

  The naked man’s mouth gaped in silent mimicry of my scream.

  I jerked back and bumped against the workbench. Rupert’s empty alcohol lamp turned over, rolled, fell to the floor, and shattered. I yelped and froze.

 
For several long minutes, my ragged breathing remained the only sound in the tiny cabin. My breath puffed little clouds into the ice-cold air. The strange stink resolved into a mixture of smoke, gunpowder, and urine. I swallowed back bile and shot tiny peeks at the figure in the chair.

  “Derek?” I whispered. Maybe this time he’d answer. No such luck.

  I’d never seen a dead Derek before. I’d never seen a dead body before. I’d never seen a naked dead body before. And I didn’t want to now. No choice.

  Was I too late? Was Rupert dead too? Where was my father?

  Blinking back tears I stared around the minuscule cabin. The smoke must have been bothering my eyes.

  Rupert’s old army cot rested upside-down, two of its four legs broken. Several of his jewelry pins lay scattered and crushed on the floor next to the workbench. The stone fireplace stood filled with logs covered with cobwebs, never to be used. I always wondered how my fire-phobic father survived the winters. Right now, that was the least of my questions.

  None of the clothing pegs next to the workbench held Rupert’s old leather duster. I gave a single sob of relief. Perhaps my father had run. But where to? He hadn’t come back to the store. Why not? Why he hadn’t taken his car, I didn’t know. Wait, yes, I did. Anyone would recognize his old beater. Perhaps I still had time to save him.

  Derek’s battered, bloody face looked my way with an open-eyed accusatory stare. Did Rupert beat this man to death? My always-frightened father? Could he have done this, even in self-defense? Never.

  Would I have prevented all this if I hadn’t fallen asleep at my workbench?

  The smoky frigid air of the cabin cut into my lungs. I stared at Derek as if I might force a dead man to speak and give me some answers, making certain my study remained above Derek’s waist.

  He provided only more questions. His clothing lay stacked in a neat pile next to his body, with his shoes on top. I imagined the dead man stripping, folding his clothes, and stacking them. I giggled and slapped my hand across my mouth, the sound as loud as a gunshot.