Loose Lips

Loose Lips

Book 5 in the Dusty Deals Mystery
Series

By Rae Davies

Published by

Copyright Rae Davies & Lori Devoti, 2016

Smashwords Edition

File Updated April 2016

This book is set in the real city of Helena, Montana.
However, this is a work
of fiction
and all
people, places of business, and events are fictional. Any
similarity to anyone, thing or place is purely coincidence.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this
book, or a portion thereof, in any form. This book may not be
resold or uploaded for distribution to others.

If you notice any typos or
formatting issues with this book, the author would appreciate being
notified.

Email her at
[email protected]

Loose
Screw

Cut
Loose

Loosey
Goosey

Let
Loose

Lucy and the Valentine Verdict
(a Dusty Deals Novella)

Loose
Lips

They say competition is good for everything
from the soul to the economy to the human race itself – that whole
“survival of the fittest” thing and all that.

That was all fine and good, if you
were
the fittest.

But if you were me or Joe of Cuppa Joe’s
fame, it pretty much sucked.

It was a beautiful April Monday in Helena,
Montana, with an insanely warm predicted high of sixty–three
degrees.

I’d broken out shorts for the occasion and
left my brown burrito of a coat at home.

However, since the current temp was still a
good twenty below what was predicted for later that day, I’d
dropped my Alaskan malamute, Kiska, off at my antique store, Dusty
Deals, and trotted a few doors down to Cuppa Joe’s for something
warm and sweet and invigorating to get my Monday brain out of its
fog.

I’d found Joe. Alone.

“Where’s the crowd?” I asked, hoping my
cheerful tone didn’t sound too cheery, in that
Oh–my–God–are–you–dying kind of way.

He grunted and reached for a clean white
mug. “Hey, Lucy. Usual?” he asked. When he turned around, he was
smiling, but I could see that the expression was forced.

“So... uh...” I looked around.

He set my cup down and sighed. “Coffee
cart.”

“Coffee cart...?” I wasn’t following.

“New place. Opened up off Euclid, in the
shopping center.”

I had noticed the place. It was on my way
in. In fact, I’d considered stopping there myself, it was
so
convenient, but the line of trucks and cars wrapping
around the parking lot to get to the tiny kiosk had to date kept me
driving.

It had also, though, tempted me to stop just
to see why everyone else was stopping.

Dropping my gaze in guilt, I dug through my
bag for the three dollars to pay for my latte.

Joe waved off my money. “Keep it. I owe you
at least one for staying loyal.”

Feeling even more guilty, I shoved the money
into the tip jar while he turned to set a dirty cup in the rubber
bin under the back counter.

“So...” I said, feeling like I couldn’t just
walk away, free coffee in hand. “What are they doing that’s
attracting so many people?”

He wiped the wooden counter down and
shrugged. “I don’t know, but half my usual customers seem to be
going there. I haven’t seen Darrell Deere in two weeks. Ben Holden,
Randy Getts and about a half a dozen others quit showing in the
last week too.”

All men with offices downtown, and none that
I knew of who lived out that direction like I did. There was no
good reason for them to desert Joe for some upstart kiosk.

“I saw Peter there too,” Joe mumbled,
looking a little ashamed as he said it.

Peter Blake was a Helena Police Department
detective and my boyfriend.

“Really?” Peter had been staying at my house
more than usual, but still, deserting Joe? What was he
thinking?

“Yep.” Joe stared at me as if I might have
some explanation.

“Might have been police business,” I
offered. Lame, but the best I had.

“I suppose.” He sighed again and glanced out
the window.

A group of men walked by. None walked
in.

“Well...” I said, edging toward the door.
“It was good to see you.”

Sounding sadder than a malamute with an
empty food bowl, he replied, “You too.” And disappeared into the
back.

Taking full advantage of the opening, I
hustled out the front and back to Dusty Deals.

o0o

Betty Broward, my part–time employee, had
arrived at my shop while I’d been on the coffee hunt.

In a silk navy kimono, and with some kind of
silver comb sticking out of her hair, she looked even more out of
place than usual. The gigantic sketchpad propped on her knees and
craft–store’s full inventory of colored pencils, paints, and other
artsy tools laid out around her didn’t help blend the image into
the backdrop of my decidedly beige shop.

The kimono, while new, wasn’t surprising
enough for a comment. “Another poster competition?” I asked.

A few months earlier, Betty had won the
annual poster competition for the local sled dog race. Her posters
were everywhere for most of the winter.

I personally still had about a hundred
stowed in one corner of my office.

Which reminded me... “I was thinking…

Her brows peaked. “Really?”

I made a face at her surprised tone.
Honestly, weren’t we more mature than that?

Putting on my most prim expression, I
continued. “It is spring, and you know what that brings...”

“Showers? Flowers? Bunnies bopping?”

“No...”

“Baby bunnies
after
the
bopping?”

Okay, so maybe. I tilted my head. But not
what I’d had in mind.

“Cleaning!” I announced.

She lowered the pencil she’d been holding.
“Seriously?”

My prim look quota was about used up, but I
did my best. “Yes, seriously.”

Looking less than believing, she tapped one
lone red nail against the sketchpad.

“I know it’s been a while, but summer is
coming, and there will be auctions and tourists and—”

“Oh.” She smiled. “I get it.”

I was immediately defensive. “Get what?”

“Your family. They’re still coming this
summer, aren’t they? Do you know when yet? Where were you planning
on them staying anyway? They know you... they won’t expect this
place to be too clean, will they?”

There were a lot of questions loaded into
that two seconds of breath, and I didn’t really feel like answering
any of them. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Some sudden thought
apparently occurring to her, Betty waved her hands in the air,
hopped off the stool, and, silk fluttering behind her, hurried into
my office.

A few seconds later, she was back with a
flyer pinched between thumb and index finger. “This!” she cried
triumphantly.

Wary, I stepped forward and took the
paper.

Help the Downtown Celebrate Helena’s
150th Birthday!

Below the headline was a list of events that
the Downtown Merchants’ Association had planned for the coming
year, all of them to mark 150 years since the four Georgians
wandered past a creek and stopped to pan for gold. It was, they had
claimed, their “last chance” before they were giving up on their
dream of hitting it rich.

The creek was gone, but the street where my
store stood was named after that last chance and ran along where
the creek had been too.

I scanned the list: a stone monument, a
mural, a brew fest... the list went on and on.

Apparently losing patience with me, Betty
stabbed at the paper with one nail. “Here!”

“Window display contest,” I read. “Downtown
business to develop the best window display featuring some historic
event or theme of Helena’s past 150 years will win a featured spot
in the Downtown Merchants’ Association’s full page ad in the
Helena Daily News
, one year free membership in the
Downtown Merchants’ Association, and a one–week stay at Chambers
Bed & Breakfast.”

I looked up into Betty’s beaming smile.

“Well?”

Well was right. The Chambers was a little
close to my shop for my taste, walking distance actually, but close
to my shop was a whole lot better than
in
my house, which
is where my parentals had been planning to stay. My mom because in
her mind being packed like sardines was, when it came to family, a
good thing, and my dad because he’d rather live like a sardine than
pay for one. And sardines were cheap.

My dad was cheaper.

“Well...” I repeated. The contest wasn’t
going to get rid of my need to clean. In fact, with my mother
within strolling distance of the shop, it might intensify that
need, but the chance to win a week of semi–privacy when I
undoubtedly would need it most?

“What do we need to do?” I asked.

o0o

Two hours later, after a trip to the library
by me and an intense session of Googling by Betty, we were sitting
in the front part of my shop going over possible themes for our
window display.

“It should match the store,” I said,
reaching down to stroke the top of Kiska’s head.

Done with his morning nap, he’d decided to
join us on the loveseat.

“You run an antique store. Anything you do
will match.”

True enough.

Of course that also made my mission harder.
Anything I did would have to be historically accurate.

I said as much to Betty.

She nodded. “Not like what The Castle is
doing.”

The Castle was a downtown casino, named
after a long–gone Helena brothel.

“Not prostitution?” I guessed.

Betty shook her head. “A friend of mine who
works there said the owner was worried about offending people.”

“They’re a casino, and they’re named after a
brothel,” I replied, more than a little dumbfounded.

Betty shrugged. “But most people don’t know
that last part, and people here aren’t as uptight about the first
part as they are in other parts of the country.” She raised a brow
as if was from one of those parts, and maybe I was. Missouri didn’t
have casinos like Montana did. They had some, but the ones I knew
of were on riverboats, and there weren’t any that I could think of
anywhere near my hometown in the Missouri Ozarks.

“They pride themselves on being
family–friendly,” Betty added.

I couldn’t help myself. “They’re a
casino.”

“With the best prime rib in town.” Betty
nodded in a “and that ends that” kind of way.

Whatever
. I personally had no issue
with the casinos. I even enjoyed a little computer blackjack now
and again. But I also found it somewhat annoying that The Castle
would put on some high–and–mighty act and deny their namesake.

I sat a little straighter in my seat.
“Madams were the first businesswomen and female property owners in
the West.” Okay, so I didn’t know enough personal information on
the madams of Helena and other Gold Rush towns to say they were all
that was good and kind, but there hadn’t been a lot of options for
women in that time, and I respected that a number of them had risen
as far as they had in what was inarguably a man’s world.

“So, is that our theme?” Betty asked,
looking completely content with the idea.

I stuttered. I respected the idea of strong
women coming west and gaining power and property, but a part of me,
maybe the hometown part of me, still wasn’t sure.

“Of course, if it isn’t family–friendly
enough for you...” The mockery was clear in her eyes.

“What if someone else is already doing
prostitution?” I hedged.