Meanwhile, Back in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 6) (31 page)

“He got in a fight?” she guessed.

“Yeah, and he started it.”

“Oh.”

“And this isn’t the first time this has happened.” I told her about the prior notes that Layne had hidden from me, had forged my signature on.

When I finished my sordid tale of debauchery, including his week-long suspension, she was wringing her hands right along beside me. Then I told her my theory that Layne was acting out because of Doc’s entrance into our lives.

Aunt Zoe’s brow creased. “I don’t know, Violet. Layne isn’t happy about you having a boyfriend, but I thought Doc was making headway with him. There are those books he gave to Layne on Deadwood’s history, and the time he’s spent hanging out with them, like during Oktoberfest.”

I sighed. “Well, I hope you’re right, but we’ll see after I get home tonight and have a chance to talk to Layne. Addy, too. She might have an idea if there’s something going on at school with him that I don’t know about.” A lump formed in my throat. Just a short time ago my son had told me everything going on under the sun and moon; now the tide had shifted. “Aunt Zoe, what kind of a mother doesn’t know her son is so bothered by something that he’s picking fights at school. God, I suck at this parenting business.”

Aunt Zoe took me by the chin. “You stop it right now, Violet Lynn. You are doing the best you can with what you’ve been dealt. You love your kids and they know it. Now, get back to work and give yourself some time to calm down and think things through, because how you handle this with Layne will set a precedent.”

I gave her a grim smile. “Okay.”

She turned me toward the door, opened it, and smacked me on the butt. “Go. I’ll take care of Layne for now.”

I paused long enough to drop a kiss on her cheek. “I’m glad you’re home, Aunt Zoe.”

“Me, too.”

As I walked down the steps, Reid Martin rolled by slowly on the road in his red dually pickup. He waved at me, and then looked past me and lowered his arm.

Back on the porch, Aunt Zoe stood with her hands jammed on her hips. “Keep right on going, Martin!” she hollered.

He did, his laughter echoing back to us.

Opening the driver’s side door, I looked up at Aunt Zoe’s pinched expression. “It looks like someone else is glad you’re home, too.”

“If that man thinks I’m letting him get within touching distance again, he’s going to find himself stinging from a shotgun shell full of rock salt.”

She slammed the door behind her.

And the soap opera continued.

I backed out of the drive and headed back to work, pondering life, children, love, and everything under the cloudy sky.

I hoped Reid didn’t give up on Aunt Zoe.

I hoped Aunt Zoe was right about Layne and Doc.

I hoped I could get through to my son tonight and find out what was prompting this fighting before we had to get a damned counselor involved.

But mostly, more than all of the other hopes put together, I hoped the aggression brewing inside of Layne had nothing to do with our family history, because if it did, I was pretty sure there wasn’t much a counselor could do for a kid who came from a killer like me.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon sailed by, my thoughts so preoccupied with Layne and the school mess that I didn’t even bite when Ray returned from the day’s filming and tried to bait me with blonde insults.

“What’s wrong with you today, Blondie? You been sniffing too much of the bleach you use on your hair?”

“Knock it off, Ray.” Mona stuck up for me. I’d told her about Layne getting kicked out of school when she had returned from showing a few mule-friendly places to the Rogers couple. “Jerry would be ticked if he heard you’re messing with Violet the night before she’s on air and you know it.”

He grumbled something about Mona showing favoritism as usual but left me alone. A short time later, he grabbed his keys and said he was going to go out to take a look at a potential property, then head home.

I didn’t waste energy on celebrating his departure.

Ray wasn’t gone long when my phone rang. Detective Cooper’s name showed on the screen. I sent it to voicemail. Cooper tried two more times, and then he called my work phone. I sent the work call to my voicemail, too, not in the mood to arm wrestle with the detective this afternoon.

Ten minutes later, the bell over the front door jingled. I glanced up into a pair of squinty, steel-colored eyes.

“I need to talk to you, Parker.”

“Sheesh. Can’t you take a hint, Detective?” I leaned back, crossing my arms over my chest. “I sent you to voicemail like five times. In case my nonverbal messages weren’t clear, I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Too bad.” He leaned over my desk, all growly and threatening like a German shepherd at the end of his leash. “You’re stepping out back with me right now.”

I shook my head. “Mona, call the cops for me.”

“But he’s already here.”

“Quit fucking around, Parker.” Cooper reached for me.

I hopped out of my chair, my fists raised and ready to box him in the nose if he touched me. “Try manhandling me, Cooper, and I’ll break your nose again.” I danced a couple of foot moves like Sylvester Stallone in one of the Rocky movies.

The detective watched my feet for a few seconds, the anger melting from his face.

“I know a few moves,” I said, mocking a full on windmill attack with both arms circling around and around.

Cooper tipped his head back and laughed, a full volume, belly-shaking laugh.

That particular sound coming from his mouth confused me into stillness. “Are you laughing or coughing up your last victim?”

“Jesus, Parker. You’re the real thing. Crazy spelled with a capital C.” He started down the back hallway. “Get out here and talk to me for a minute.”

“Why?” I called after him.

“I have something for you.”

“I don’t trust Trojans bearing gifts.”

“It’s not a wooden horse.” He stopped at the back door and looked back at me. “Come on. I have something to discuss about your boyfriend.”

What about Doc? Was he okay?

I followed Cooper. “I thought you said you had something for me.”

“I lied.”

There was nothing as comforting as a lying lawman. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, Mona, call the other police.” I aimed a mirroring squint at the bristly detective. “The nice truth-telling cops.”

Cooper held the door for me. I skirted wide of him as soon as I stepped through the doorway.

“I’ve had a shitty day, Cooper, and it’s partly your fault, so let’s get this over with.”

“My fault? You’re the one who likes to hang out at morgues at midnight. You should be thanking me for saving you from Hawke.”

“You haven’t saved me. He’s still bugging me every other day.”

“Well, stop looking for trouble and he won’t.” He glanced around the parking lot, and then focused back on me, lowering his voice. “Listen, I need your help.”

I looked behind me and then back at him. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes, I’m talking to you. Knock off the wiseass shit.”

“What do you need from me?”

“I want to go out to the ranch again.”

“And you want me to go with you as your Realtor?”

“No, as Nyce’s helper.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to see what Nyce picks up on his ghost radar.”

“Why do you need me for that?”

“Because when I talked to Nyce about it on the phone earlier, he said he won’t do it unless you come along, too.”

“He did?” I wondered what that was about. Doc could do his medium song and dance without me.

“Yes. He expressed concern about what he may find out there and mentioned that you two work as a team now, so if you go, he’ll go.”

“We’re a team now? Wow, that’s like a form of commitment, don’t you think?”

Cooper hit me with look of disbelief. “You must be confusing me for one of your girlfriends, Parker, because I could swear you just asked me about your relationship with your boyfriend? What’s next? You want me to tell you what shoes to wear on your next date?”

I bared my teeth at him. “You know, if you want me to say ‘Yes’ to this field trip of yours, you should be a little nicer to me.”

“Fine.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yes,” he continued in a robot voice, “that did sound like a form of commitment to me.”

I snorted at him. “You really do have a heart made of rusty iron, don’t you?”

“Whoever told you I have a heart?”

We stood there mired in a glare standoff for several heartbeats. Then I suddenly felt worn thin, tired of the tension coiled around me and tightening by the minute. “I’ll think about it, Detective, but not because you so rudely asked me to do it. It’s your uncle’s ranch and I’m more worried now about his welfare after finding that body in his barn.”

“I thought I asked nicely.”

“The word
please
didn’t once cross your lips.”

He rolled his eyes.

I thought about poking them in a Three Stooges move.

“I’ll let you know when I think we have a clear window so that Nyce and you can work your little magic trick.”

“If you’re going to be a skeptic out of the gate, I might change my mind.”

“Christ, you’re a royal pain in the ass.” He reverted to his robot voice. “I promise to keep an open mind about your ghostly friends.”

The ghosts were definitely not my friends, especially Prudence and her hair-raising ventriloquism act. I was dreading returning to her lair with the film cameras in tow, especially with how irrational she was getting about her missing box of teeth.

Box of teeth … a bell dinged in my head. Oh, hey! Here was a golden opportunity! “Before I agree to go out to the ranch, I have one demand you need to fulfill.”

“This is not a hostage situation, Parker. You don’t get to have demands.”

“Yes, it is. I’m holding Doc hostage. If you want us to go out there, I need you to do something for me.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “Name your price.”

“I want those teeth that are tucked away in your evidence locker down at the station.”

“No.” He didn’t even take a moment to think about it.

“Okay then,” I grabbed the knob on the back door. “Fun talking to you as always, Detective. Good luck with that ghost hunting business of yours.” I saluted him. “Who you gonna call and all that jazz.”

“Parker!”

I didn’t even flinch under his barbed glare. “No teeth, no deal, Detective.”

“You have a lot of fucking nerve.”

Of course I did. I was a killer. “You have no idea.”

Without further ado, I left him standing there huffing and puffing, probably daydreaming about blowing my house down.

Chapter Sixteen

Tuesday, October 30th

Meanwhile, back at the Galena House …

The next morning, I rushed out of the house before the kids were awake, choking down a lemon bar as I scrambled into the Picklemobile. The camera called extra early today. Yesterday Jerry had reminded me that I needed to make sure I answered on time, dressed as his own personal Barbie doll, minus the big boobs, impossibly tiny waist, and high heels-ready feet.

As I drove to the office, last night’s surprise visit from my parents replayed in my head, prompting frowns from the woman in the rearview mirror. Why did my parents have the uncanny ability to choose the worst possible moments to walk in the front door?

Take that time many, many full moons ago when I was living under my parents’ roof with two young toddlers in tow. I had gone to a chamber of commerce function in Rapid and met a nice, middle-aged couple who were kind and funny from the get go. They were entrepreneurs who sold what they called “Evening Activewear” for couples and talked me into hosting a sales party for them, promising me a nice profit for my time.

Being young and stupid, I had agreed, having no idea that inside of their Evening Activewear sales trunk were odd and somewhat frightening sex outfits that came with interactive toys. Even more jaw-dropping was the live demonstration they performed right there on my parents’ living room shag carpet in front of Aunt Zoe, Natalie and her current loser boyfriend, and a sweet old couple who lived down the street. To make horribly uncomfortable matters even more squirmy, my parents returned early from their movie and ice cream date with my two toddlers right in the middle of the S&M sampler display, which included a whip, a leather thong, one of those ball-in-mouth muffles, and a first aid kit containing a large tube of antibiotic ointment.

To this day, I am not allowed to have any friends over at my parents’ house besides Natalie. I was hoping they’d make an exception for Doc if the time ever came to introduce him.

The on-the-carpet sex sales show was just one example of Mom and Dad’s history of inconvenient interruptions. The time they didn’t knock before entering my dorm room in college and caught me in the midst of getting a hands-on breast exam from a hot guy in my Chemistry 201 class was another. Their appearance in Aunt Zoe’s drive last night as I was climbing out of the Picklemobile after a day of beating myself up for being the world’s crappiest mother added one more instance to the ever-growing list.

My mother did not need to know about Layne’s black eye. She’d questioned my single-parenting abilities enough over the years without evidence of my failures, often trying to set me up on dates with her version of the perfect potential father material for my twins. But no amount of makeup would hide that black and blue puppy before Aunt Zoe had supper ready for all of us. In the end, I washed my cover-up off his face and made Layne and Addy both swear an oath of silence about school and Doc—neither of which I wanted to talk about in front of my parents.

Downstairs, I’d explained the black eye deal by claiming there was a bully on the loose at school, which wasn’t exactly lying since the bully may or may not be their grandson—time would tell. But throughout supper, while Mom had coddled and baby-talked to my son, Dad had shot me looks edged with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief.

I never had been good at hiding the truth from him, not back when I swore the entrepreneurs hadn’t performed any sexual activities in his favorite recliner, or last night during dessert when I’d told him the kids and I were getting along great up here in Deadwood and then crammed my gullet full of Aunt Zoe’s famous lemon bars.