by Ann Charles
“That sort of sums up everything about this whole Executioner business,” I told them.
Doc kissed my forehead and then headed for the coffee maker. “We’ll figure this out together, Killer.”
“Well, I kind of have an idea about that.” I looked over at Harvey, wincing a little in anticipation.
Doc poured some coffee into a mug. “Let’s hear it.”
“I take the mirror up to Lead and ask Prudence about it, see if she can show me how to use it.”
Harvey scowled at me. “Did you get knocked stupid with a stick yesterday after we parted ways?”
I glared back at him. “It’s not a stupid idea. Prudence has been around a long time. She’s seen some things.”
“That dead bee still has her stinger.”
“Yeah, but she’s the only one I can think of who might know how to use a mirror like this.”
“Mr. Black seemed to have some definite thoughts about it,” Doc said, stirring the creamer into his cup. I could tell by his face that he was not hot to trot about my bright idea.
“True, but you heard Aunt Zoe that day Mr. Black was in her workshop. She warned him not to touch the mirror.” I scratched at some dried milk on the edge of the table. “I have a feeling that mirror could be dangerous for him.”
“Possibly,” Doc conceded, taking a sip of coffee.
“Masterson might have an idea about it,” I said. “But I’m not sure I want him to know that I have the mirror.”
“Good point.” Doc scoffed. “And knowing that devil, he’d want to make another deadly deal with you before he’d tell you how to use it.”
“If that fancy mirror could hurt Mr. Black,” Harvey said, “I’d reckon it could hurt Masterson as well.” He pulled the tray of bacon from the oven, setting it off to the side. “Or worse, it might give him some power over you.”
“That’s another good point.” Doc set his coffee down and grabbed a stack of plates from the cupboard. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—we can’t trust Masterson. He proved that yet again last night.”
“What happened last night?” Harvey asked.
“You mean the lidérc tricking me into the Hellhole?”
He waved me off. “I heard about that adventure already this morning from Coop. I’m talking about Masterson.”
While Doc set the plates around the table, he told Harvey about Piggly Wiggly, the imp, and our little talk with Dominick before Cooper brought us back home. I got up and poured another cup of coffee.
His replay of events reminded me of something I meant to ask Doc about last night and forgot. I’d been so wiped by the time we’d returned here that as soon as I shucked my coat and boots, I fell into bed and closed my eyes. I didn’t remember anything after Doc had kissed my cheek good night.
“Hey, Doc,” I said after he’d finished his recount. “How were you able to block Dominick’s shine last night?”
“His shine?”
“You know, when he tries to brainwash you that he can give you everything good and wonderful in this world and then convinces you with just a smile to do his bidding.”
“Oh, that.” Doc carried the Betty Boop cookie jar over to the counter to get it out of the way for now. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I could feel him blowing my way like a warm summer wind. Fortunately, I’d experienced something like it before a long time ago at an old haunted asylum back east, so I wasn’t fooled into letting him inside here.” He touched his head. “In short, I just battened down the hatches.”
A haunted asylum, huh? I was going to want to hear more about that someday, preferably while lying on a sunny beach next to him somewhere in the Caribbean.
“You and Harvey are the only two I’ve seen who have been able to resist Dominick.” I looked at Harvey. “Did it feel the way Doc described it when Dominick was trying to get into your head that day in Doc’s office? You remember, right? That day when he charmed Susan.”
My sister had been there at the time to flirt with Doc, but he hadn’t been there, thankfully, only Harvey and me. When Dominick arrived, he’d wasted no time putting Susan under his spell, but Harvey hadn’t fallen for his “shine” show.
Harvey tossed the eggshells in the trash. “I didn’t feel anything. Maybe the slick talker wasn’t trying to shine me.”
Maybe not. I opened the silverware drawer and started scooping out utensils. “Anyway, I think that Prudence is my best chance at learning more about the mirror and figuring out if it will help me catch the lidérc.”
“When do you want to go see her?” Doc took part of my load and followed me to the table.
“This morning.”
He did a double take. “Have you talked to Zelda yet to see if she and Prudence are available?”
“Yep.” That was who I’d called on my cell phone while getting dressed. “I also left a message with Jerry, letting him know I’m going to be in this afternoon instead of this morning.” I smiled over at Harvey, fluttering my eyelashes a few extra times. “I was hoping for some company.”
“Good,” Doc said. “Because I’m coming with you.”
I paused in the midst of laying down a spoon. “Not you. I’m talking about Harvey.”
“Why me?” Harvey asked, looking like I’d offered him a fresh road apple for breakfast.
“Because you’re my bodyguard, remember?”
Grumbling under his breath, he returned to his eggs.
“I’m going with you, Violet,” Doc said, taking on one of Cooper’s favorite crossed-arm stances.
“Doc, you don’t need to go.”
“I know I don’t need to. I want to.”
As much as I would like to have him there … “I think it’s a bad idea.”
“I don’t,” Harvey piped up. “Take yer stallion instead of me. I’ll stay home and watch the kids.”
“No, you need to be there with me.”
“So do I,” Doc insisted.
I shook my head. “No, Doc. It’s too dangerous.”
“Violet, things are different now than they were the last time I went in that house. Prudence has Zelda to channel for her. She doesn’t need me.”
“Yeah, but what if she likes your channel better than Zelda’s? I can’t handle you looking at me through the whites of your eyes.” I glanced in Harvey’s direction, pulling a frown. “It might put a damper on other areas of our life.”
“She’s talkin’ about sex,” Harvey said.
“Thank you, Harvey. I’m sure Doc understood what I meant.”
“Then just shoot straight. I don’t know why you women like to play coy when it comes to Cupid’s cramps. All it does is tie us fellas into double knots.”
I focused back on Doc, who hadn’t moved from his wide-legged stance. “I don’t think I can handle her voice coming from your mouth. Not if you and I are sharing a bed.”
Harvey guffawed. “But you’re okay with me lookin’ like a droolin’ ghoul?”
“I’m not okay with it, but …”
“I’m going, Violet,” Doc cut in, his voice offering no room for rebuttals. “I need to know about this mirror if I’m going to help you catch the lidérc.” I started to object and he grabbed my wrist, pulling me closer. “We are a team, remember? You said so last night in this very room.”
I stared up at him. “But Prudence is different.”
“Trust me, Killer. I’ll be okay around your coworker.”
“Fine. But I cannot give you a pinch-free guarantee if you’re there with her and me.”
He laughed and let me go.
“If Doc goes, then I get to stay home, right?” Harvey asked.
“No, you big chicken.” I scowled, grabbing my coffee from the counter. It reminded me of Prudence—bitter. I poured in more cream. A lot more. “You’re still coming with us.”
“What do ya need me for?”
“Because Prudence requested your presence.”
“Hogwash.”
I shook my head. “Whe
n I spoke to Zelda about coming up there, she asked Prudence if it was okay while I was listening. Prudence agreed, but clarified that I needed to bring you along.”
“Why would she want me there?”
“Sounds to me like she’s soft on you,” Doc joked.
“That ain’t funny.” Harvey scowled at him and then me. “I don’t trust that kooky spook. She’s going to set me on her knee and make me talk for her again, just like that time in Sparky’s back seat.”
Oh boy, was that ever a spine-tingling moment. Better Harvey be her ventriloquist doll than Doc, though. I wasn’t sure I could kiss Doc for a while if Prudence used him as a puppet today.
“I don’t think she’ll do that to you,” I said to Harvey.
“How do you know?”
“Because I made Prudence tell me why she wants you there.”
Harvey’s brows scrunched up. “Well? Are you gonna suck on every single bean before you spill ’em or what?”
“She said that she’d been thinking about my lidérc dilemma, and my chances of catching the Hungarian devil could depend partly on you.”
Chapter Eighteen
We ate breakfast with the kids before hitting the road for Prudence’s place. Natalie had shown up midway through breakfast, grabbed a plate, and joined us. She’d agreed to hang out with the kids until we returned since Aunt Zoe was busy working in her glass shop. When I’d given her a hug before heading out the door, she’d threatened to fill the kids with chocolate and jelly beans if I didn’t rush back after we were finished and fill her in on what happened with Prudence and the mirror.
Outside on the front porch, I gave Doc the keys to my Honda, letting him drive while Harvey sat in the passenger seat. I settled into the back seat, carefully laying the mirror on the seat beside me. Aunt Zoe hadn’t been a fan of my idea, but her curiosity outweighed her hesitation, so she’d helped me wrap the mirror in newspaper and sent me on my way with several words of warning and a kiss on the forehead.
Doc, Harvey, and I rode up to Lead in silence. I didn’t know what the two in the front were pondering, but I was busy worrying my thumbnail about what might happen inside that beautiful old house now that Doc was with me.
My last visit there with Doc in tow had not gone well. Prudence and Doc had switched places, him reliving her death and the moments prior to it while she turned my boyfriend into her ventriloquist doll. He’d struggled to return, trying to break free of her hold, but she’d been so strong, keeping him under until she was done giving me her message about wanting me to bring her Zelda. I’d shied away from Doc for a while after that visit, nervous about him switching back into wooden puppet mode with the whites of his eyes showing.
Now, here we were going back again. With Doc sharing my bed, I worried about waking up in the middle of the night to find him staring down at me with those creepy white eyes, yelling at me in Prudence’s voice.
I shivered at the thought alone, rubbing my arms.
“You cold back there?” Doc asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“A little,” I lied, looking out the windshield to avoid his eagle eyes. He was too good at reading my thoughts for me to hold his gaze.
Harvey shifted in his seat, scratching at his beard. His shoulder twitched, and then he shifted again and cleared his throat.
“You okay, Harvey?” I asked, picking up the tension rolling off of him in waves.
“No, I’m not okay.” He grunted loud and clear, sounding like his nephew. “Why would I be okay? Crazy Prudy is mean enough to spit poison. She has the conscience of an assassin. And now she wants me to come up and have tea and biscuits with her for some reason.” He shifted again, tugging on his ear. “I’m feelin’ like a pig in a packin’ plant right about now.”
“I don’t think she’s going to hurt you,” I told him, frowning out the window at the empty streets.
There were no police cars blocking off the street this morning. No barking law dogs in my ear either because of that dang imp. Where had the little sucker gone to sleep off the mead? How long of a break did I have until its next bender? How in the hell was I going to catch it?
“What you don’t know about Prudence could fill the Open Cut,” Harvey grumbled.
“Harvey’s right,” Doc said, turning off of the main drag and heading up the hill toward Zelda’s place. “Do you think Prudence’s family kept a written history like yours did?”
“I never thought to ask her. Usually when I’m there, I’m too busy being slapped around and told how lousy I am at my job to ask about her life pre-death.” She’d probably just rub my nose in how superior her line was compared to mine at documenting history if I did ask, which made me grit my teeth just thinking about it.
“I think her family is from France,” Doc said, making another right.
I looked at him. “How do you know that?”
“When I switched places with her the last time we were here, she whispered something that made me suspect it.”
“You mean when she was dying?”
He shrugged. “A little before that.”
“What did she say?” Harvey asked.
“At the time, I didn’t understand it because I don’t know French that well, but later I looked it up.” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Among other things, she called her attackers villainous scoundrels and gluttons.”
I smirked. Those sounded like typical Prudence insults. “Well, that’s not too foul, considering what was about to happen to her.” I might have dropped an F-bomb or three.
Harvey snorted. “Said the sailor in the back seat.”
“You have to understand the context,” Doc continued, “and take into account that Prudence is from the nineteenth century when ladies didn’t say those words usually. At least not aloud.” He turned onto the road that led to Zelda’s place.
“I get that cursing was unladylike.” That was something my mother had preached often over the years. “But what do you mean by context?”
He shot me another quick look in the mirror. “Take the word glutton. Gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins, so when this word was used, it was a much stronger verbal attack than it is today. From what I read, it can even refer to a devil in a man’s body.”
Had Prudence meant it literally the night she was murdered? I toyed with the hem of my coat. I’d seen a lot of devilry lately—way too much of it with more to come, I feared, with the lidérc now hunting me. Devil days were here in Deadwood. Only time would tell if I made it through to the other side of this clusterfuck without burning from the inside out or tearing off my own flesh. I crossed my fingers that the mirror on the seat next to me would help somehow.
Blinking away my worries, I asked Doc, “Why didn’t you tell me this about Prudence before?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think about it much until you started teasing me in French, Tish. Then I tried to decipher what I’d heard Prudence say the night of her death—at least what I could remember her saying. In the grand scheme of all the other excitement going on in your life, the idea of Prudence being from France slipped my mind most days.”
I looked down at my gloved hands. Prudence being French made sense with the way she looked down her nose at my German ancestors. If memory served me right from my world history class in college, there were several disputes between France and Germany in the 1800s. Maybe when this lidérc mess was over, if I was still breathing, I could find a history book that would help me understand Prudence’s resentment better. Not that I had any grand hopes of becoming best buddies with her, but it would certainly be nice if we could interact regularly without someone getting hurt—namely me, since she was a ghost who didn’t bruise.
Doc slowed as we reached Zelda’s place, shooting a frown at me in the rearview mirror. “What’s Coop doing here? Did you tell Natalie to call him?”
I shook my head. “All she said was that he’d called her before she came over this morning to make sure she’d made it home okay after he’d
left her to pick us up last night.”
I could tell by Natalie’s quick smile that Cooper making the effort to call had been a smart move on his part, since his job had come between them in the past. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. It was more like he’d wedged his job between them in the past in an effort to control his feelings for her. Apparently, he was working to keep that from happening again, which was good for him, because I’d hate to have to take a baseball bat to his kneecaps for making my best friend cry.
“Did you know he was coming?” Doc asked Harvey.
“Huh-uh. I didn’t call or twit him.”
“You mean ‘text’ him,” I corrected.
“I meant what I said, girlie. Don’t you know it’s rude to correct your elders?” He crossed his arms. “If Sparky is going to spend all damned day fixin’ my words, maybe you should just take me back home.”
I guffawed. “Good try, old man, but you’re stuck here with me. Unless you want to give up your job as my bodyguard? I could see if Bill the security guard at Piggly Wiggly wants a side job.”
Harvey turned and pointed at me. “You stay away from Bill. He has a reputation for wooing younger heifers.”
No shit? Bill had seemed nice enough, but he was no Don Juan. More like a Don Quixote. I batted Harvey’s finger away. “I told you to stop calling me a heifer. Now are you going to come guard my body, or are your feet too cold?”
His blue eyes narrowed. “Teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” He turned forward as we pulled into the driveway. “Prudence just makes my skin jump up and crawl all over me,” he told Doc.
“Same here,” I said, staring out the windshield at the beautiful, haunted house.
We slowed to a stop behind the unmarked SUV Cooper often used. No sooner had Doc parked and killed the engine, the detective opened his driver’s side door and stepped outside.
“He must have talked to Natalie,” I told the two in the front seat. She probably called as we were walking out the door.
The three of us exited my rig, Doc carrying the mirror for me. The wind whipped my curls into my eyes. For some reason, the weather up at Zelda’s always seemed colder, the frigid air blasting. Then I remembered the huge open pit mine on the other side of the chain link fence bordering the property. Oh, duh. The freezing gusts had nothing to do with the cold-hearted ghost inside of the house. It was simply that there were no trees on that side of the house to block the wind. The same was true of the Sugarloaf Building that sat on the other side of the Open Cut.
