Starke Naked Dead (Starke Dead Mysteries Book 1)

by Conda V. Douglas

  Now what? If only I could be a fly on the wall while the police interviewed Godiva.

  Wait, I knew how to be a fly. Ew.

  * * * *

  A sneeze threatened my nose, making me rub the offending proboscis. My shoulders scratched across the roots that hung from the side of the four-foot-tall and one skinny person wide tunnel. It’d been years since I crawled into the tunnel entrance at my aunt’s store, long enough to forget the big yuck factor.

  I’d bet that a hundred years ago, when the tunnels were used every day, they remained clear. With the number of people who had escaped from the cellar jail cell to Chin’s opium den and then on to the Cameron Castle—a whorehouse in those days, although those Camerons would never admit it—and back to jail, the plants, bugs, and other vermin, Ohm, ugh, eek, got discouraged and moved elsewhere.

  I even caught a glimpse of a rat. Okay, the rat seemed to be rather obese and quite white and when I called out “Freddy?” I could have sworn the rat glanced over his shoulder. Maybe Freddy was visiting his not-so-domestic relatives. I hoped maybe not.

  With huge rough-hewn logs supporting the ceiling and walls, the old tunnels seemed built to last forever, despite the town council’s fears. The century old, hand-painted signs still hung from the support beams and directed me. On my way, I’d passed an interrupted poker game from long ago. The cards still lay face down on a tiny table as if the players might return at any moment. I shivered in the cold air and kept walking, half-hunched over.

  I found the hundred-year-old cracked wooden “Cameron Castle” sign, with an arrow pointing upward. I climbed. Halfway up the ladder rungs, half-buried into the side of the tunnel, I shone my flashlight at the trap door that led into the Castle. I hovered. Cobwebs draped between the trap door and the long roots of what had to be the huge fir tree outside. First, Mallard’s voice droned and then came the higher tones of Godiva, both indistinct.

  Needing to hear what they said, I climbed higher. An inch at a time, my hand barely touching the wood, I opened the trap door. Maybe Mallard and Godiva were in another room, but I couldn’t tell. It wouldn’t do to fling open the door and yell “Surprise!”

  No feet greeted me from my vantage point as I peeked through the crack. I grew bolder and opened the door wider.

  The room stood empty. It looked almost as full of cobwebs as the tunnel. Pegs ran all along one side, and bars with wooden hangers hung from the other. One hanger sported a lone, dusty duster. The room must have been a large coatroom a century ago when the Cameron Castle boomed along with Starke. It must have been quite convenient for those who visited the Castle ladies.

  A faint scent of tobacco and sweat, horses’ and men’s, lingered in the room, a ghost of good times past.

  The voices grew louder.

  “Oh, my poor, sweet, dear brother,” Godiva wailed.

  Hmmm, yesterday she’d sworn at that poor sweet dear brother, in an altogether different tone.

  “I never thought that Wild Rupert person could possibly be that wild, but I’m sure there’s an explanation for why he killed my brother, who was only up there to buy me some of that wild man’s jewelry.” Godiva gave a sniveling sob.

  Was she calling my father a killer? Why did everyone except me already condemn him?

  Rupert’s jewelry. He made more of his bottle cap pins than anything else. Where would Godiva pin them? In her hair? Why would she want jewelry she never wore?

  Mallard’s much deeper voice rumbled. I raised the trap door as far as possible and strained to hear.

  Another dramatic sob from Godiva answered.

  “Yes, so you’ve said a number of times, Miss Godiva,” Mallard’s voice came much clearer. “And as I’ve said before” —a number of times, I heard implied in his voice—“I’m most sorry for your loss. But I need to ask these questions. I need to know why your brother—”

  “Derek, oh dear Derek, how will I bury him, now that he’s returned to his natural state?”

  “Natural state? You knew he was naked?” Suspicion crawled through his words.

  “Naked? In this cold?” Godiva answered.

  Mallard must have nodded, for Godiva said, “A prejudiced person perhaps stripped my brother’s poor dead body to cast aspersions on naturists everywhere.”

  “You mean cause more suspicion of you, his closest relative?” Mallard asked.

  “Perhaps his naturist beliefs were why he was killed,” Godiva continued as if Mallard hadn’t spoken of suspicion of murder. “We are a persecuted people.” Her voice rang with piety.

  “Um, maybe, but, to get back to a simpler question, why did your brother bother to go all the way up to Wild Rupert’s cabin? Why not buy Rupert’s pins from Dora?”

  Good questions. I leaned forward. A long rope of something alive and wriggling dropped down in front of me. I gave a tiny yelp.

  “Did you hear something?” Mallard said.

  I froze. The earthworm dangled in front of my nose. A sneeze snuffled at the back of my nose, trying to express itself.

  “What?” Godiva said.

  “It sounded like a squeal.”

  I don’t squeal. That was a yelp, Mallard.

  “Huh,” Mallard said after a moment. “I don’t hear anything now.”

  I let out my breath a whisper at a time.

  “And I didn’t even know until I’d been here for months where Rupert resided,” Mallard continued, “and you’ve been here…”

  I crawled out of the tunnel.

  “A couple of days, wonderful days, until now,” Godiva said.

  “So,” through the cloakroom door I heard the strained patience in Mallard’s voice, “how did your brother even know where Rupert lived?”

  I paused, the trap door in my hands as I realized I knew the answer to that question. Derek must have followed my father up to his cabin. Did Derek pursue my father only for a few bits of tin and wire?

  “Who can say? And we can’t ask my dear, beloved brother.” A new wail erupted from Godiva.

  “Please, ma’am, this is as hard for me as it is for you.” Embarrassment tinged Mallard’s every word.

  I’d bet he sweated now.

  “But, why would your brother go to Rupert’s cabin?” Mallard persisted. Good for him. “You’ve already bought Rupert’s jewelry somewhere else. Why not go back there? Why pursue a recluse?”

  Excellent questions. Mallard, for all his reluctance to be anything but a computer cop, knew what to ask. Why had Godiva been so relentless in finding Rupert? Why had Derek followed my father all the way to his cabin?

  Something tickled on the back of my right hand. I glanced down and saw a spider the size of a chipmunk picking his way across. I squealed, yes, squealed and dropped the trap door.

  In the reverberating slam, the cloakroom door opened.

  “Dora?” Mallard said. A blast of heat followed his words.

  I turned to where Mallard and Godiva stood in the doorway, almost shoulder to shoulder.

  FIFTEEN

  From behind Mallard and Godiva hot air roiled.

  “What the hay, Dora?” Mallard demanded, his hand drifting toward his gun holster. Rivulets of sweat ran down his red face. He held his uniform hat clutched in his moist hands.

  Godiva pressed her hand on her brilliant pink summer dress. Could be worse, she could be naked. “How did you get inside?”

  “Did you break in?” The sweating sheriff's deputy asked, or rather accused.

  “That’s trespassing,” Godiva growled. She turned to Mallard. “Arrest her.”

  “You can’t arrest me, because …” Searching for inspiration, I looked past Mallard and Godiva.

  The cloakroom opened onto the old reception room. Enormous dead animal heads, most of the glassy-eyed beasts were elk, hung around an immense stone fireplace. The mahogany reception desk that stood against the far wall looked cobweb-covered and the floor deep with dust. The air reeked of old dead things. And smoke.

  On the far side of the lobby a giga
ntic blazing fire roared in the immense stone fireplace and created the summer-like heat.

  A log sparked and sent flashes up the chimney. I wondered how long it had been since the chimney had been swept. And how close the sparks flew to the fir tree, an old tree, full of pine oil, an excellent flammable fuel.

  The taste of my past repast of vegan burger roiled in my mouth. The necklace rested in the ashes of my father’s fireplace trap. It called to me from its cold stone bed. What if someone, Mallard or Lester maybe, decided to heat up Rupert’s freezing cabin with a fire in the fireplace? I needed to get the necklace back in my apron pocket. Soon.

  Ah, Lester—a diversion or at least a possible distraction from Godiva's insistence on my jail time for trespass. “Where’s Lester?” I said.

  Mallard sweated. “He had something at the office. You know there’s been a murder.”

  Godiva gave a sob that sounded forced. She teared up, big globs of water forming in her eyes.

  Mallard looked skyward. A fresh drop of sweat formed on the tip of his nose. He looked frantic that she might erupt into waterworks again.

  He turned to me and adopted an arms-across-the-chest cop stance. “How did you break in?”

  Oops, my rather lame tactic didn't work. I took a step away from the closed tunnel door, again flush to the floor. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the door. If I broke the tradition of the police not knowing about the tunnels, suspecting, yes, but knowing, no, then I’d have more upset Starkers on my overfull hands. Plus my access to the Castle would be destroyed.

  “I didn’t break in,” I said. “I don’t break in. That would be so not Right Action.”

  “Right action?” Mallard asked.

  I figured now wasn’t the time for a lecture in Buddhist principles. Don’t look down, I wanted to say to Mallard. “I came in the back way,” I said instead. “It was unlocked.” There, I spoke the truth. Then I peeked at the cloakroom back door. A bar ran across it. Cobwebs strung from the bar to the door. Uh-oh.

  Godiva followed my glance. And before Mallard did too, she threw her arms around me and hugged me to her bosom. “Oh, you poor, poor dear.”

  “Thanks,” I said to her because she’d distracted Mallard. “It’s okay,” I said around a mouthful of blonde hair. Something scratched at my face.

  “It must be as awful for you as it is for me,” she continued. “Him being your father and all.”

  “How did you know Rupert was—” Mallard started to ask.

  “No really, I’m fine.” Now that she’d diverted Mallard, I wanted nothing more than to disentangle myself from her hairy bosomy embrace. Otherwise, I might suffer a hairy bosomy death of suffocation.

  I pulled away from her iron grasp. I scratched my cheek again. Godiva wore a different pin on top of one generous breast, a tiny one difficult to see under all that hair.

  “You,” Godiva said to Mallard, “you awful man, how could you?”

  “Could I what?” Mallard asked.

  “Torturing two grieving, vulnerable women.”

  Torturing? Grieving? Vulnerable? I gave Godiva a wide-eyed look. She gave a tiny shake of her head in warning. Then she shook her finger at Mallard. “You should be out finding out who killed my brother.”

  Mallard took several steps back.

  “What kind of a policeman are you?” Godiva demanded.

  Mallard glanced behind as if checking an escape route.

  “I’ll tell you what kind of policeman you are.” Godiva took a step toward him.

  He stumbled back, away from the irate nudist.

  “You’re a policeman trespassing on private property.”

  Mallard blinked at her. “I came here at your request instead of you coming to the Sheriff's—”

  Godiva pointed at the main doors. “Get out.”

  “But ma’am—”

  “I’m too young to be a ma’am.” Godiva stamped her foot. Decades of dust jumped. “Out. Now.”

  Mallard strode across the wide, hot expanse of the reception room and flung open one of the double main doors. It squealed, much louder than me, and then slammed shut behind him.

  I didn’t blame him. I wanted to flee, too, but Godiva blocked the cloakroom door. And I hadn’t gotten any of the answers I’d come for, either. Not yet.

  “Now we can talk.” Godiva grabbed my arm and tugged me into the main room.

  Yay, I almost said. At long last, someone wanted to talk to me and give me some answers. Myriad questions tumbled through my mind, each fighting for expression. As I opened my mouth to ask—something, anything—Godiva grabbed my arm and demanded, “Where’s your dad?”

  The force of her grab made me stagger into the fireplace. A poster-sized photo of Godiva and Derek tumbled from its perch on the mantelpiece. The two peered from behind a white pillar, Derek above Godiva, both showing only skin. The pillar covered most of Godiva’s and all of Derek’s naughty bits.

  Godiva must have realized attacking me wasn’t the way to get answers. She released me and gave a wistful, half-smile. “Us sibs in better times.” Sorrow resonated in those five words.

  This time, I believed her grief. If she had killed her brother, for whatever reason, she hadn’t meant to.

  “That seems so long ago,” Godiva continued, “back when I was only plain Mary Jane.”

  “Mary Jane?” I couldn’t imagine the woman before me being called a normal, regular, boring name.

  “Before I took my true name in honor of a woman of courage,” she finished. She brushed at the corner of one eyelid. “Uncle never understood what we naturists are all about.”

  Huh? “Uncle?” I asked.

  Godiva didn’t answer. She walked over to the fireplace on a little trail, Godiva foot-size, through the dust. How could she stay here? Why would she want to?

  She stopped right before I believed she would step into the flames. Godiva stared into the fire. “He always thought being as God made us, in our true state, meant only lewd and lascivious behavior.” Her mouth twisted. “Especially women, or ‘little bit of nothing’ as he called me. In fact, it’s clothing that provides the cover for such behavior.”

  “Well, clothing does sometimes get in the way of lewd and lascivious,” I said, remembering prom night.

  She clutched her hands to her breast in a classic victim pose. The firelight glinted off the small pin on her sweatshirt. “Now, poor dear Derek has been martyred to such wrong thinking.”

  That seemed a little extreme until I remembered Derek’s naked murdered body. “Not martyred by my father,” I said.

  “That’s why I need to know where Bertie is,” Godiva said to the fire.

  The dam of my questions broke. “How do you know my father? Why do you keep calling him Bertie? Why didn’t you tell Mallard you knew him?” I fired off.

  Godiva flipped a hand in my direction. “I confess.”

  “Confess?” My heart raced.

  “Yes, dear Dora.” She giggled. “I confess to reading that delightful article about the new Starke ski resort that dear, sweet Henry wrote.”

  Curse Henry. He’d written a national magazine article which featured the “zany” characters of Starke, foremost amongst them, my father, “Wild Rupert” the reclusive artist.

  “I decided it was time to return to Starke to open my naturist center in the wondrous, untamed, unsullied wilderness of Idaho,” Godiva said. “No doubt attitudes have now changed.”

  The Widows Brigade’s attitude sure hadn’t, but I figured Godiva would find that out for herself, soon enough.

  “That doesn’t explain how you knew to come to me to ask about Rupert,” I continued, determined this time to get an answer, “or even how you knew my name.”

  Godiva giggled. The pin glinted as it rose and fell in the folds of fabric and cleavage. “The deputy that was here said your name.” She smiled at me as if she expected an A for the explanation.

  Do you even know his? I wanted to ask. “No. Before, at Maddie’s Marvels.”

 
; Godiva turned back to the fire. “Oh, then, that Boise woman at that jewelry place told me your name.”

  Nance wouldn’t tell a customer where else to buy what the customer was already purchasing at her gallery. Why would Nance undercut her own sales?

  “I’m cold,” Godiva said. “It’s so cold.”

  Huh?

  She held out a hand that hovered only inches away from the flames.

  “Careful, you’ll get burned,” I said.

  “Oh, I never get burned. Where’s Bert—Rupert?” she asked, still staring into the fire.

  “Why should I tell you? You haven’t answered any of my questions. You said you think he’s guilty just like everybody else. He didn’t kill your brother.”

  “Of course not,” Godiva agreed. “Sweet Bertie boy could never kill anyone.”

  “Huh?” This time I said it out loud. “Why did you tell Mallard otherwise? Did you kill Derek?” Say yes, and solve that catastrophe.

  Now she did turn and look at me wide-eyed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “They do say it’s usually a relative,” I said.

  “I’m a devout naturist.”

  Huh, again. Was Godiva speaking in some sort of naked code?

  “We embrace life, not destroy it.”

  Ah.

  “I can answer your questions as soon as I talk to your father,” she said and smiled. The firelight played over her face and reflected off her bright, perfect teeth. The brilliant gleam of all that white terrified me.

  Nance never told anyone that Rupert was my father. “You’re lying,” I said.

  Godiva’s hand flew to her pin. “What?”

  I took a close look at it for the first time and gasped.

  A starburst pattern—sterling silver rays inset with garnets, radiated out from a central star garnet. The rays curved and the tiny pin represented a star being born. I knew this because the pin was one of my father’s signature pieces, from when he designed jewelry for an exhibition.

  “What?” Godiva asked again.

  I pointed at her chest.

  She looked down at the tiny new star riding on her bosom.