Nearly Departed in Deadwood (9 page)

     
He’s a client!

      Oh, what the hell. “Yes.”

      * * *

     
Thursday, July 12th

      “Where’s your shotgun?” I asked Old Man Harvey while climbing out of my Bronco.

      Leaning against his porch rail, Harvey’s gold-toothed grin was coat hanger wide. “I save Bessie for bill collectors, bank presidents, and four-wheelers.”

     
Bessie?
He’d named his shotgun after a cow? He was right; living out here alone all these years had warped him.

      My sandals crunched on his gravel drive. The mid-morning sunshine had me squinting behind my sunglasses. There was something about being five thousand feet above sea level that made me feel like I could reach up and punch the sun.

      The porch’s shade still held a trace of coolness, keeping me from shedding the short-sleeved sweater covering my sleeveless paisley dress. I took a step toward Harvey and stopped, cringing. “What’s that smell?”

      Harvey checked the bottoms of his boots.

      My eyes watered. “It’s like heated vinyl and spearmint.”

      “Oh, that’s my new cologne.”

      Noticing his greased-back hair under his weathered cowboy hat, I raised my brows. “You sprucing up for me now, Harvey?”

      He hooted a little too loud for my self-esteem. Not very encouraging for a single mom midway through her thirties. “My cleaning lady came this morning. She’s quite a looker.”

      I jumped on that like a hyena on fresh kill. “Who is she? Is she taking new clients?”

      “I don’t think Margo has any time for new clients. She seemed pretty frazzled this morning. She vacuumed Red and then raced off and left her cell phone behind.”

      Upon hearing his name, Red—Harvey’s fat, yellow dog—lifted his head from the porch long enough to sneeze.

      I sighed. Margo again. I should’ve known. Hers was about the only cleaning company in the Hills. “Isn’t she married?”

      “Who cares? I like to play the odds.”

      I did, too, lately. I pulled Mona’s digital camera from my purse. “All right, Harvey. Let’s take some pictures.”

      The inside of Harvey’s ranch-style house smelled like fresh-baked cookies. I moved from room to room, snapping shots for the website. Contrary to his own scruffy, crusty exterior, Harvey’s interior decorating skills were worthy of a
Good Housekeeping
spread. With leather furniture, butcher-block countertops, new bathroom fixtures, and a vase of fresh wildflowers on the maple, claw-foot table, I knew the house would show well.

      The problem was Harvey’s Timbuktu address. I had a better chance of winning this year’s Ironman Triathlon than selling his place before Jane kicked me out on my hind end.

      “You look like someone spanked your puppy,” Harvey said as I stuffed Mona’s camera back in my purse.

      After searching his face to make sure that wasn’t some weird sexual innuendo, I gave him a cockeyed grin. “Sorry. I’m just having a run of bad luck lately.”

      “Me, too. Fate must have brought us together.” Harvey grabbed my arm as I turned toward the door. “Where are you going so soon? I made molasses cookies and opened a bottle of Kahlúa.”

      I really needed to hire Harvey a companion. Red, who’d managed to drag his sorry ass into the house and plop in front of his empty food dish, apparently wasn’t filling the role.

      “I wish I could stay.” Warm molasses cookies would be the closest thing I’d had to an orgasm in two years. “But I have some appointments this afternoon.”

      “It’s only ten.” He dragged me over to a barstool and shoved me onto it. “Have a seat.”

      His eyes had a determined glint. I dropped my purse on the floor at my feet. I could use a glassful of courage, anyway. “Where are those cookies?”

      He pulled a plate out of the stove and set it on the counter in front of me.

      “Did Margo make these for you?”

      Harvey shook his head. “My mama’s own recipe.”

      Sweet gooey goodness drew a groan from my throat. The crazy old buzzard surprised me at every turn—including the small armory of shotguns and rifles I’d stumbled upon in his bedroom while taking pictures. How many guns did one man need? It’s not like they were disposable. “So, you still hearing funny noises out behind your barn?”

      “Yep. I found a mutilated deer carcass back there the other morning. A big, 12-point buck.”

      I wrinkled my nose. “Mutilated? Like by a poacher?”

      “Nah. They’d have taken the antlers. That’s an impressive rack.” He grinned. “Kind of like your neighbor’s.”

      “You mean Miss Geary?” Harvey had ogled Aunt Zoe’s neighbor the evening we’d gone out to eat with the kids. She’d been weeding her flower bed wearing a tube top, short-shorts, and a pair of heels. I hoped my legs looked half as good as hers when I hit sixty.

      “Damned straight. I have to get me some of that.” Harvey growled and took a big bite of cookie. “So what’s on tap for today? Anything fun?”

      Chewing, I shook my head. Nothing I wanted Harvey to know about, anyway.

      Last night after the kids went to bed, I’d snagged the previous Wednesday’s copy of the
Black Hills Trailblazer
from Aunt Zoe’s workshop, looking for any details I could find on the most recent missing girl, Tina Tucker. She’d made page two. Why not the front page? Did Deadwood’s mayor have his boot heel on the chief editor’s throat, squelching any tales that might tarnish the town’s good-times reputation?

      The article consisted of text only, Tina’s ‘Missing’ poster’s picture absent. A few short paragraphs explained how Tina had left her grandparents’ house around seven Sunday evening to walk the four blocks home to her mom’s place. She’d never made it. Tina’s mother had gotten a flat tire on the way home from her job at a Sturgis diner. She’d pulled in the drive an hour later than usual and found the house empty, her daughter gone without a trace.

      The police said they were looking into the matter. What that meant, I have no idea, but the “no current suspects” bit didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The mother was “not fit for an interview,” per Tina’s aunt, who also mentioned the little girl’s “shocked and devastated” grandparents. I wondered why nobody brought up Tina’s father. Was he dead? Or no longer in the picture like my kid’s dad?

      My gut ached after reading the story, my heart torn for the grief-stricken family. I’d checked in on Addy and Layne two more times before going to bed, wishing I hadn’t sold my baby monitor with most of my other belongings when I’d moved back in with my parents last year.

      All of my middle-of-the night fretting about missing girls had spurred me into action this morning. Before heading to work, I’d looked up Addy’s new friend’s address in the phone book, planning to drop by Kelly’s house for a surprise visit after leaving Harvey’s. If all was hunky-dory there, I’d consider letting Addy spend the night. While I didn’t want to let Addy sleep out of my reach, I knew my daughter—there’d be no end to this when-can-I-have-a-slumber-party-at-Kelly’s whining.

      “Thanks for the picnic the other night,” I said, grabbing another cookie. “The kids enjoyed themselves.”

      Harvey nodded while pouring me a Kahlúa. He topped it off with some milk. “That Kelly Wymonds girl sure was quiet the whole evening. You think her head is still all messed up from her little friend disappearin’ last summer?”

      I froze in mid-chew. “How do you know about that? Did Kelly say something to you?”

      “Naw.” He pushed the glass of Kahlúa my way. “I remember reading about it in the paper. That was the first girl gone missin’, ya know.”

      For someone who lived in Boonieville USA, Harvey had his stethoscope on Deadwood’s back, listening for any rattles.

      “So I’ve heard. Do you know Kelly’s dad?”

      Snorting, Harvey said, “That dip shit? Sure, I do. He could have been a big-time football player. But after too much boozin’, he didn’t have the gumption to graduate. The local colleges didn’t want him after he flunked out of school.”

      I sipped my drink and crammed half a cookie in my mouth. My picture of Kelly’s dad was morphing. Now I could add “alcoholic” to the growing list of disparaging adjectives like
over-sexed
and
dim-witted
. Addy’s chance of getting to spend the night at Kelly’s was shrinking faster than a rain puddle in Death Valley.

      Harvey gulped his Kahlúa and milk like it was a shot. “Hard to believe that knucklehead could produce such a cute daughter. She must take after her mama.” He refilled his glass.

      “How do you know all this about Kelly’s dad?”

      He shrugged. “Drinking holes are filled with homemade shrinks and drunken gabbers. You choose your role depending on how early in the day you show up.”

      I preferred playing the shrink. My dirty laundry didn’t need airing, especially in such a small town. It’d taken me years to live down that damned incident with the cop in the movie theatre bathroom.

      “I hear you’re gonna try to sell the Hessler house,” Harvey said, biting into another cookie.

      Christ, the ink was barely dry on the contract. “If you’re going to tell me it’s haunted, you’re too late. I’ve already heard about it.”

      “Haunted? That’s old news.” He slammed another glassful. “That Dame Hessler was sure one batty bitch. Her husband died when the kids were still young-uns. The doctor said his heart gave out; too much hard work down in Homestake’s shafts for his scrawny body.”

      Once the largest and deepest gold mine in North America, Homestake Mine shut down operations at the beginning of the new millennium. Most of the old-timers in Deadwood, Lead, and the northern half of the Black Hills that I’d run into either had labored in Homestake’s mines or had family who did.

      Harvey rested his forearms on the counter, his voice lowering, secretive. “But we knew the truth.”

      “What truth?” I took Harvey’s bait. There was nothing wrong with learning more about the man I’d agreed to have dinner with, I reasoned with my guilty conscience. Besides, it’s not like he had any skeletons in his closets—I’d have seen them on Tuesday when I peeked in each of them.

      “She poisoned him,” Harvey whispered.

      That sounded like some good old, bar stool gossip. “Why would she do that?”

      “Her daddy didn’t like him, and her daddy ruled her world. Hell, she never even took her husband’s last name. Nope, kept her maiden name and gave it to the kids.”

      “Was her dad the same guy who started Hessler’s Jewelry Designs in Deadwood?”

      “Yes, ma’am. That’s him, Mr. Hessler. Quite a dictator. Scared the bejesus out of us kids, threatening us with a broomstick beating when we’d roll a smoke out front of his store.”

      With that reputation, I could see why Wolfgang didn’t want to be called “Mr. Hessler.”

      Pouring himself a third drink, this time mostly milk, Harvey continued. “Anyway, Dame Hessler became downright cuckoo after her daughter died. Holed up in that house day and night. Sent her son out for everything, and no amount of prying by the townsfolk would loosen his tongue about her.”

      Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in that house with all of those creepy clowns? That couldn’t have helped bring her back from the edge. I swallowed the last of my drink. My heart twanged for Wolfgang—to be so young and all alone with a crazy mother. At least my kids had each other.

      “How long ago did Wolfgang’s mom die?” I asked, covering my glass when Harvey offered a refill.

      “Nobody knows for sure.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because nobody knows how long she’d been dead in the house before they found her. Rumor was the rats had been there and left long before.”

      Groaning, I smacked my forehead. That was just fucking great. I’d signed on to sell a haunted house belonging to a witch whose body decayed for God knows how long within those walls before someone carted her out. I threw down the remaining half of the cookie I’d been munching on, my appetite out the door and down the road, a cloud of dust in its wake.

      Harvey gulped his milky drink, then set his glass by the sink. “No one had seen hide-nor-hair of her son after high school, not until he showed up for the funeral years later and took over the jewelry store.”

      I frowned at Harvey. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that Wolfgang is as loony as his mother.”

      “Not as far as I can tell. That boy got his grandfather’s looks and build, but his pop’s personality. Seems as normal as you and me.”

      Which wasn’t saying much knowing Harvey.

      “Quite a handsome kid, too, after he filled out.”

      Harvey could say that again. Ever since I went against my No-Dating-Clients credo and agreed to have dinner with Wolfgang tomorrow, I’d been wringing my hands. Two years was a long intermission between dates. Last night, I’d stood in front of the mirror for twenty minutes, agonizing over lipstick colors—siren red or romantic pink, applying and reapplying until my lips looked like two inner tubes.

      “He’s loaded too,” Harvey added, “by the looks of the gems in his store window.”

      Which meant wearing any jewelry from my bubble-gum machine collection was out of the question.

      Harvey grabbed the remaining half of my cookie and chomped on it. “It’s just too bad for all you womenfolk that he turned out to be as gay as a handbag full of rainbows.”

     
Chapter Seven

      Two snowmobiles, a muddy four-wheeler, and a Toyota pickup sporting beefy tires and a “Wish You Were BEER” bumper sticker sat in the Wymonds’ front yard. The driveway was empty, except for potholes. I bounced to a stop and shut off my Bronco.