An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 5) Paperback – September 4, 2014 (7 page)

I nodded, still worrying about what other pictures I had stored on my phone. I vaguely remembered taking a picture of Cooper’s case board of Jane’s murder in his basement last month. That would surely have made his blood boil if he’d found that one. Had I taken a picture of the crate full of bottles of mead that was stashed at Mudder Brothers?

Doc leaned his hip against the desk, rubbing his jaw. “She wasn’t saying ‘nine’ like the number, Violet.”

Wait! Those were all on my
old
phone, the one I’d dropped in the toilet at the Opera House. I sat back, relieved. Putting aside all worries about what Cooper might have seen on my phone, I absorbed Doc’s words. “She wasn’t?”

“No. She was speaking German. ‘Nein’ means ‘no.’”

“Of course!” Once he said it, everything clicked. “I’m an idiot.”

“You were distracted by everything going on today,” Doc said. “You would’ve figured it out once the dust settled.”

“So what does ‘shark trickster’ mean in German?”

“It means you don’t hear for shit.” Harvey grunted to his feet. “And knowin’ your luck, whatever she said is not gonna help you get some much needed beauty rest anytime soon.”

I stuck my tongue out at the old bugger.

“I have just the sleep aid for you, Boots.” Doc said, locking the front door and turning the sign to Closed.

He sure did. Too bad his bedroom wasn’t just down the hall from mine. “If only Ms. Wolff had been calling about a house. Now there’s a whole new mystery to figure out.”

“For Cooper or you?” Doc asked.

“This one is all Cooper’s. I’ll even wrap it up and put a bow on top.”

“Well, hunky dory, it’s agreed then.” Harvey knocked twice on Doc’s desk. “We’re leavin’ this one to Coop. You ready to go, girl? I have a cow mystery to piece together.”

I stood, pulling out my keys. “I’m worried about you staying out there alone.”

“Don’t be. I’m not stayin’, just headin’ out to take care of chores and wait for Coop’s instructions. I’ll be back in a bullwhip snap.”

“Should I make up the couch?”

“I’d appreciate it. I’ll twit ya later, Doc.”

Doc followed Harvey toward the back hallway. “Twit?”

“Don’t ask,” I said.

Doc caught my arm. “Hold on, Violet.” He looked at Harvey. “You have your spare set of keys to the Picklemobile on you?”

Harvey nodded.

“Why don’t you head out. I’ll take Violet home.”

“Works for me.” Harvey opened the back door. “Stay out of trouble, girl,” he called.

“Be careful at your ranch, old man.”

Doc locked the door behind him. Then he leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest. “This isn’t good, Violet.”

I held up the wall at the other end of the hallway. “I know. You’re standing way too far away from me. Come closer.” I tried to make light of a dark subject.

“You make it hard for me to stay focused when you wear soft shirts that I like to touch.”

“My bra is even softer.”

“So is your skin, especially under your bra.”

“I’ve been told the back of my knees are pretty smooth, too. And my inner thighs.”

“Stop distracting me, vixen. Have you thought any more about what we talked about last night?”

Yes, I had, plenty, mostly during the early morning hours when I was supposed to be getting that beauty sleep. “You really think it’s a good idea after last time?”

“We need to figure out your role in all of this.”

“I’m fine with being blissfully ignorant.”

“If that were true, Cooper wouldn’t be pissed off at you.”

“Cooper needs to get laid, take a vacation, and relax.”

“Funny, I was thinking about you naked this morning, writing myself a prescription for that very trifecta.”

“Oh, yeah? Where would we go?”

“I don’t know. I got fixated on that first part.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Ms. Wolff didn’t call you on a whim. You must realize that she sought you out for a reason.”

“Yeah.” I pulled his jacket tighter around me. As much as I wished it wasn’t so, I’d have to be naïve to think otherwise. I leaned my head against the wall. The energy drain of today’s emotional highs was taking its toll on me, making my head ache. “I don’t know what to do, Doc. I feel like I’m tiptoeing through a haunted house while blindfolded. I have to keep feeling my way along, waiting for the next monster to slime my hand.”

“I do. Call Cornelius.”

“But what if …” I hesitated.

There were too many what-ifs for my comfort, the most worrisome being that Cornelius would figure out Doc was the medium, not me. Then word would get out, tarnishing Doc’s reputation and potentially ruining his business.

“We can what-if this all day long, Violet. We need to know if you are the key, and the only way to do that is experiment.”

“We’re playing Dr. Frankenstein here. Next thing I know, you’ll be sending me to the graveyard to pick up a fresh brain. Grave robbing will really dress up my rap sheet.”

“Nah. Your big brain will do fine.” He closed the distance between us in a few strides, grasping the lapels of his jacket. “Violet, please call Cornelius and set up another séance for just the three of us.”

“What if he finds out your secret?”

“Trust me, it’s worth the risk.” He ran his finger down my cheek, his gaze serious. “I’ve been dealing with paranormal activity all my life. This is the first I’ve ever come across so much disturbance in one place. There’s something going on here, something much bigger than random hauntings. We can’t let fear stop us from figuring out how you fit into it all.”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“I used to feel that way, too. But if you really do possess some sixth sense ability, the best course is figuring out what it is and accepting it.”

I rested my forehead on his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning on him. “Doc,” I breathed his name, his scent calming. “Why did she call me?”

He massaged my shoulders, his hands melting away the day’s tension. “Maybe Cooper will figure it out.”

“You really believe that?”

“Not at all.”

I pulled back and frowned up at him. “You could have at least hesitated.”

“We agreed to be honest with each other about everything, remember?”

“Why don’t you believe in Cooper?”

“I think this is outside of his realm, but it doesn’t hurt to have him and his guns on our side.”

“Doesn’t hurt you maybe, since you two are poker buddies now, but he chafes my hide.”

“Really?” Doc’s eyelids lowered, his smile flirting with me. “Where are you chafed, Boots?”

“In a few spots.”

“I should probably have a look at them. Kiss them better.”

“I thought you said you weren’t a doctor.”

“I’m not.” His hands slid under my shirt, his palms warm on my skin. “But I’m good at playing one. If only you were wearing one of those gowns that opens in back.”

I eased my hands around his neck. “Here you are thinking about getting me mostly naked and you haven’t kissed me ‘hello’ yet.”

“My fantasies vary in the amount of clothing you have on.” His fingers climbed my rib cage. “Take this shirt.”

“What about it?”

“No, I meant take it off.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll discuss the situation with your bra.” He tipped my head back and kissed me, slow, teasing, tantalizing. “Hello, Boots,” he whispered when he finished.

“I missed you today,” I said.

“Good.” His thumbs brushed over me, zinging me clear to my toes. “How about you take me to a magical place that I’ll love coming home to every night?”

“That stupid billboard!” I huffed at his quiet laughter. “I’m going to hurt you for that one.”

He backed me into the wall, his hips pressing into mine. “Did you bring your spurs?”

His cell phone rang, vibrating against my thigh. “You want to get that?”

“Not really,” he said, but pulled his phone out anyway. “It’s Cooper again.”

“Damn that man.”

Doc pulled away from me. “Hello, Cooper.” As he listened, his dark eyes moved from my eyes to my lips and back again. “Okay, I’ll let her know.” He listened for another few seconds and then hung up.

“What now?”

“Your Aunt Zoe called. She wants to know when you’ll be home for supper and why Cooper is answering your phone.”

I’d have to figure out a good way of avoiding the truth about Ms. Wolff and that whole mess while trying to explain why Deadwood’s detective had my phone. But more importantly, “Are you joining us tonight?”

“What are you having?”

“I saw some pork thawing in the sink this morning. I think Aunt Zoe was going to turn it into pulled pork.”

“What can I bring?”

“Yourself.”

“Plus wine and bread?”

“I’ve never turned down either.”

He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “I forgot to mention one other thing Cooper said.”

“What’s that?”

“Your Aunt Zoe invited him to dinner.”

“No!”

Chapter Four

Tuesday, October 2nd

Four score and seven years later, Abraham Lincoln called me bright and ugly in the morning. Actually, only two days had passed, and the caller who had the gall to wake me at dawn’s early light was Cornelius Curion, the Abe look-alike who claimed to be a ghost whisperer and also happened to be my single buying client at the moment. The latter fact kept me from wishing ten thousand locusts would swarm his head.

“Good morning, Cornelius,” I mumbled, my tongue still asleep.

“I NEED TO TALK TO VIOLET PARKER!” he yelled through my phone, making my ear ring and my eyeballs almost pop out of my skull. Apparently, today he was saving his whispering for ghosts only.

In addition to the odd belief Cornelius had that he could share sweet nothings with the ectoplasmic crowd, he was also under the misconception that I had a personal secretary—such as Jiminy Cricket in my freaking pocket. No matter how many times we played this game on the phone, the damned man couldn’t get it through his stove-pipe hat that if he called me on my cell phone, I was the one answering the call.

Well, at least when Cooper didn’t have my phone.

I’d received my phone back Sunday evening as promised. Fortunately, Cooper had been too busy trying to solve Ms. Wolff’s murder to join us for what I’m sure would have been a fun-filled family dinner.

“This. Is. Violet.” I growled at the end for emphasis.

A loud clanging rang in the background from his end of the line, sounding like twenty pans had all fallen to the floor at once. “GOOD!” he yelled. “IT’S YOU THEN!”

“And it’s me now, too.” A sharp
thwack
,
thwack
,
thwack
came through the phone. I sat up, shoving my hair out of my face. The smell of pancakes and coffee filtered through my bedroom doorway, making my stomach growl along with my brain.

“Where are you, Cornelius?” My volume increased to match his with all of the commotion in the background. Lurching out of bed, I shut my bedroom door. The kids didn’t need to wake up for another fifteen minutes.

His reply was drowned out by what sounded like a saw cutting through wood.

“I can’t hear you, Cornelius.”

“HOLD ON!” he yelled.

I dropped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out how I would broach the subject of the séance to Cornelius.

The racket coming through the line began to fade. I heard a door shut and then there was silence.

“There,” he said at a normal level. “Now you can quit shouting at me. Would you look at that! There are two ravens sitting on the fence by my car. I can never remember if seeing two ravens is a bad omen or good. My grandmother had a poem she’d recite to help me remember, how did it go …? I can’t remember.”

I covered my eyes. “Cornelius, where are you?”

“Goldwash.”

Was that one of the casinos on Main Street? Or was that the Golden Spur? I needed coffee to clear the spider webs leftover from my nightmare about shrunken heads. “Where?”

“Goldwash.” I heard a bird screech from his end. “It’s an old mining town in Nevada. Surely you’ve heard of the famous haunted hotel here in town.”

“Can’t say that I have.” My eyelids snapped open. “You’re not trying to buy that hotel, too, are you?” His lack of funding had held up the sale I was working on for him for The Old Prospector Hotel, Deadwood’s own haunted playground. If he was trying to get money for another hotel and was screwing up my sale because of it, I was going to go down there to this Goldwash town and sic the ravens on his bony ass.

“I wish!” he said. “But this place isn’t for sale. A friend of mine bought it years back. He’s fixing it up, hoping to make it a mecca for paranormal lovers. Buffalo was my inspiration for buying the hotel in Deadwood.”

“Buffalo?” I scratched my temple. “You mean the buffalo down in Custer State Park inspired you to want to have a place here in the Black Hills?” I thought it was The Old Prospector Hotel’s ghost stories that had inspired him to come north.

“No,
Buffalo
is the name of my friend down here, but did you know that the white buffalo is a sign of good luck? So is a desert tortoise. I think two ravens may be, too. Isn’t one raven considered a sign of impending death? Like a flying grim reaper?”