Nearly Departed in Deadwood (5 page)

      The clown theme continued throughout the downstairs as Wolfgang tore off dustcovers and exposed decorative plates and paintings, stacks of clown-covered magazines, and pieces of clown-themed ceramics. Good thing furniture didn’t come in clown.

      The second floor consisted of four rooms—three similar-sized bedrooms and a bath. Luckily, the clowns didn’t follow us up. Two of the bedrooms had flowery themes, one pink roses, the other purple violets. While the wallpaper had faded and the furniture veneer had dulled, the rooms were almost pretty.

      In the rose room, after a quick peek in the empty closet, I noticed a framed black-and-white photo of a young blonde girl in frilly clothes sitting next to the bed. I picked it up, reminded of the missing girls’ posters for a gut-twinging moment. I looked up to find Wolfgang’s gaze on me, his eyebrows arched. Silence stretched like taffy. I held up the frame. “Is this your sister?”

      “Actually, that’s me. My mother had a penchant for lace.”

      “Oh.” My neck warmed. I removed my foot from my mouth and tried to skip over my blunder. “Sorry. I just assumed you had a sister.”

      “I do.”

      “Does she live close by?”

      “No. She died shortly after that picture was taken.”

      I placed the picture back on the stand. “I’m sorry,” I apologized again, wondering at his choice of verb tense.

      “Mother never quite got over Wilda’s death. She’d always had a fondness for girls.”

      Unsure whether I should sympathize with a touch or frown or words, I stood there staring at the lines wrinkling his brow.

      He brushed his hands together. “Shall we move on?”  

      I led the way out. The third bedroom had hunter green paint on the walls, with horses and groomsmen on a strip of wallpaper trim. This room must be Wolfgang’s, but the dust layer on the embroidered duvet looked like it hadn’t seen the south side of a derrière in years.

      “You’re not staying here, Mr. Hessler?”

      “Oh, no,” he said with a grimace. “I have a room at the Buffalo Ranch.”

      The Buffalo Ranch was a not-so-cheap resort outside of Deadwood’s city limits. I’d only been in the lobby once, and I hadn’t dared to touch anything.

      Like the rest of the house, the bathroom needed some remodeling to catch it up to the twentieth century, let alone present day. At least the porcelain shined and the plumbing worked—with a groan from the old pipes. A rust-stained sink advertised a leaky faucet.

      “Is there a basement?”

      “Yes, but it’s overflowing with mother’s boxes and trunks.”

      And clowns, I’d bet. “Is the garage usable?”

      He nodded. “Although the door creaks. It’s on its way out.”

      We tromped back downstairs and onto the front porch.

      Thunder rumbled, this time loud and close. Dark, threatening clouds blocked the sun. I hadn’t noticed the change in lighting in the shut-up house, too lost in my world of “what-ifs” and “oh, shits.”

      “What do you think, Miss Parker? Can you sell it?”

      Sure, but not in three weeks, and therein lay my problem. Unmarketable, “as-is” houses sold quickly in a seller’s market; but Deadwood was mired in the buyers’ pockets right now.

      However, with a little—okay, a lot—of elbow grease, this place had the potential to be a big-ticket sale. Maybe I could convince Jane to keep me on longer with the promise of a high commission. Or even all of my commission.

      What the hell. I had nothing to lose. “Yes, I can sell it, but under one condition.”

      “Name it.”

      “You sign the listing agreement today.” If I was going to put sweat equity into this house, Ray wasn’t going to steal it out from under me.

      “Deal.” He held out his hand to seal it. “But only if you start calling me Wolfgang. ‘Mr. Hessler’ was my grandfather.”

      “Okay, Wolfgang.” I clasped his hand and squeezed. “No more Miss Parker, either.”

      “Violet, it is.” He squeezed back and gave me another one of his de-pantser smiles. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful hair?”

      * * *

      The black Camaro SS with rally stripes had stolen my spot again. Two blocks later, my windshield splattered with fat raindrops, I found a parking spot. Halfway to the office, the clouds split open with a loud crack and dumped buckets of icy cold water over my head. I swam through Calamity Jane’s front door, my pink silk blazer soaked, my hair a drippy mess. The place smelled like permanent ink and jasmine, a lovely bouquet.

      “Oh, good, you’re back,” Mona said as she capped the marker she’d been using to write on the whiteboard.

      “Do you know who owns the black Camaro that keeps stealing my spot?” I strongly suspected it was one of Ray’s buddies.

      “No.” Mona handed me a tissue. “Your face is running.”

      I wiped away the rain and half of my makeup.

      “You missed some.” She placed another tissue on my desk. “Did your Ken doll sign a contract?”

      “Yep.” I pulled out the comb holding the remains of my French knot in place and shook out my waterlogged curls. The peachy scent of my shampoo surrounded me.

      “Congratulations!”

      “Don’t buy any party poppers just yet.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Wolfgang’s house is a mess. I’m not sure I’ll be able to have it ready to show within three weeks, let alone find a buyer.”

      “Damn.”

      I grabbed the Yellow Pages and scooted up to my desk. “Do you know the name of any good contractors?”

      Twenty minutes later, I’d found plenty of contractors, just no available ones. Deadwood winters were often harsh and snow-filled, so summer was the busy season for building, remodeling, and anything else that required a hammer and nails. Same went for gardeners, too, as it turned out.

      My hair frazzling more by the minute, I gave up on the outside of the house and focused on the groaning pipes and leaky upstairs faucet. The soonest I could get a warm body lined up was two weeks from now. I booked the plumber and called the cleaning company we used when preparing for a showing.

      “Margo, it’s Violet from Calamity Jane’s. I’m in need of your magic touch.”

      “You’re out of luck,” Margo said.

      “Can’t you spare even a day?” I’d take any crumbs.

      “Sorry. The biker-week rush started early this year. We’re booked solid through the end of August.”

      I hung up, rubbing my eyes. My fingers came away with black smears from my cheap eyeliner—the waterproof stuff was too pricey for my budget these days.

      “Mona, do you know any other cleaners?”

      “Let me make a call.”

      I pulled out my compact as she dialed and grimaced at the face staring back at me. The clowns at Wolfgang’s house weren’t as scary.

      My cell phone trilled. I dug it out of my purse. Aunt Zoe’s number showed on the screen. “Hello?”

      “Mom, can I bring a friend tonight?” Addy asked, her breath quick and shallow, her voice an octave higher than usual.

      “Sure.” The more the merrier, as far as I was concerned. I was happy to hear Addy was making friends. “Is it one of the neighbor girls?”

      “No, I met her at the pool today.”

      Deadwood had a Rec Center just down the hill from Aunt Zoe’s house. It had been there since long before I’d splashed around in the pool during my childhood summer visits to Aunt Zoe’s. These days, my kids liked to hang out there when they weren’t hiking through the graves at Mount Moriah or peddling their bikes around Deadwood.

      “I look forward to meeting her.”

      “Thanks, Mom. Kelly’s been really sad since her best friend disappeared last summer. I thought it might be fun for her to see the dinosaurs with us.”

      I raked my fingers through my hair, trying to make it look less Tina Turner-like. “Disappeared? You mean moved away?”

      “No. She went missing and they never found her.”

      My fingers froze, goosebumps spreading up my arms. “If you’re joking, Adelynn Renee, that’s not funny.”

      “That’s what she told me, Mom, I swear.” There was a loud crash on the other end of the line that left my ear ringing.

      “What was that?”

      “Layne! Stop it right now or I’m telling Mom!”

      “What’s he doing?”

      “Gotta go, Mom. Bye.” Addy hung up on me.

      I sighed and closed my phone and tossed it on my desk. Addy’s comments about her new friend left an acidic taste in my mouth. Disappeared last summer? Addy must be confused. The first girl went missing this past winter—January, if I remembered right.

      “Thanks, anyway,” Mona said into her receiver and hung up. She gave me a lopsided grin. “Sorry, Vi, but every cleaner I know is too busy to take on another job right now.”

      Everyone in Deadwood but me was making money. I guess if this realty gig didn’t fly, I could always clean houses. Rather than stomp around and cry about it, I changed the subject. “Addy just said the oddest thing.”

      Mona stuffed her laptop in her briefcase. “What?”

      “That a girl went missing last summer.”

      Frowning, Mona grabbed her rain slicker from the office coat tree. “Was that a year ago already? Man, time flies faster the older I get.”

      My stomach churned. “So, three little girls have disappeared from Deadwood in the last year?”

      “Well, technically, this last one was from Lead, not Deadwood.”

      Lead. Deadwood. The same thing. The two towns sat so close together they were practically Siamese twins. “What month did the first girl go missing?”

      “It was last August, I think.” Mona slipped her arms into her jacket. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard about it. Where have you been, Vi?”

      In Russia, of course, leading the glitzy other half of my double life as a world-class spy. “I’ve been a little busy lately, thank you very much. Just explain, please.”

      “The reason Ray got so pissed about the Missing Girl sign is because this third incident has rumors flying all over town that Deadwood has its very own serial snatcher.”

      “Oh, Jesus.” I wrung my clammy palms together. What had I done, moving my kids here? Life down on the prairie had been filled with ruts over the last few years—especially deep ones when it came to my crappy-ass job and lack of satisfying love life, but long unpaid hours at work and a slew of really rotten blind dates didn’t put my daughter’s life at risk.

      “Talk about bad publicity,” Mona said. “This town doesn’t need this kind of problem. Deadwood’s history has been bloody enough.”

      “Do the cops have any suspects?”

      “None so far.” Mona grabbed her keys. “I gotta go. I have an appointment down in Rapid this afternoon. Jane and Ray haven’t come back from lunch yet, so you’re on your own.”

      Good. I could use some alone time to shake off the heebie-jeebies.

      Mona headed past Jane’s office toward the back door. “Good luck tonight, Vi.” The back door slammed shut behind her.

      Why hadn’t Aunt Zoe told me two girls had gone missing in the last year before I relocated my children into a kidnapper’s lair? I chewed on a pencil, brooding. Would it have mattered?

      My need for change had been cracking the whip hard, pushing me into taking risks I’d have run from in the past. Working for over a decade at the car dealership had been draining me dry, and after being groped for the final time by the drunken owner at last year’s summer barbecue, I’d given my two weeks’ notice, applied to realty school, and moved in with my parents to save up my money.

      Aunt Zoe’s invitation to try life in the hills with her had been my gift upon finishing with school. I hadn’t even hesitated before yelling, “Yes, yes!” and crushing her in a hug. Since I was a kid, Deadwood had held memories of sunshine and fun. I didn’t want to let some monster steal that away from me. I’d worked too hard to make it here.

      In the remaining silence, I could hear rain pounding overhead. Gloom penetrated the office, shrouding me in doubts about my ability to provide a safe haven for my kids.

      My cell phone rang again. It was my boss. “Hi, Jane.”

      “How did it go? Did Hessler sign?”

      “Yes.” No lies this time.

      “Good. Now you just need to find a buyer.”

      I heard what sounded like Ray’s usual guffaw in the background and wanted to reach through the line and clock him.

      “Listen, Ray and I won’t be back in today, so I need you to close up the office.”

      “Sure.”

      “And will you do me a quick favor? Go into my office and read me the number that’s on the Post-It next to my phone?”

      Her office fluorescents flickered and hummed overhead. The Post-It note was stuck to a
July Goals
printout. I read the phone number to Jane and she hung up with a “Thanks.”

      As I started to turn away from her desk, I saw Ray’s nephew’s name, Benjamin Underhill, on a folder that was partially buried under the Goals printout.

      It took just a second for curiosity to win the arm-wrestling match against ethics. I pulled the folder out and flipped it open. An 8-by-10 color picture of a younger version of my favorite asshole looked up at me, his eyes icy gray, just like his uncle’s. Benjamin’s smile was identical to Ray’s, down to the last chemically whitened tooth. I glared at the Sharpie in Jane’s pencil holder and fought the temptation to blacken a few of Ben’s choppers.

      His resume followed his picture. I scanned his credentials, sagging against Jane’s desk as each one reduced my own qualifications to a burger-flipping level. The next page was a recommendation from a realty broker in Rapid City. Words like “highly organized,” “go-getter,” and “extremely intelligent” filled the gold-embossed paper.

      Snapping the folder shut, I wanted to crawl under Jane’s desk and nurse my bruised ego back to health with a bottle of Southern Comfort.

      “Hello?” A male voice echoed through the empty office.