Rattling the Heat in Deadwood Read online

  Table of Contents

  Start Reading

  Dear Reader

  Cast

  Lead and Deadwood Maps

  About the Author

  Contact Information

  More Books by Ann

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Excerpt: Blazing Bullets in Deadwood Gulch by Jacquie Rogers

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  Table of Contents

  Start Reading

  Dear Reader

  Cast

  Lead and Deadwood Maps

  About the Author

  Contact Information

  More Books by Ann

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Excerpt: Blazing Bullets in Deadwood Gulch by Jacquie Rogers

  Chapters

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

  Dear Reader,

  Before you dig into this eighth book in the Deadwood Mystery series, I want to point out a couple of things.

  First, this book happens on the Deadwood series’ timeline prior to Tequila & Time, the fourth in my Deadwood Shorts collection. I guess you could say it’s sort of a prequel to that short story—a nice, lengthy prequel with one particular subplot or “thread” the leads up to the tale of Natalie and Violet’s adventures with tequila at the Purple Door Saloon.

  Second, in this story we’re going to revisit the case involving Ms. Wolff from An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (the fifth book in the Deadwood Mystery series). Previously, Violet found out the what, how, and when of that mystery, but she still didn’t know the who or why. Violet wasn’t the only one curious about these last two answers. A couple of Deadwood detectives (aka “the Heat”) had a vested interest, too, which led in part to how I came up for the title for this book.

  While writing about Violet’s latest mishaps in Rattling the Heat in Deadwood, I laughed, flinched, grimaced, and covered my eyes many times. How one woman can take as much as Violet does is beyond me, but I guess being a single mom of twins prepared her for a wagonload of insanity.

  Ol’ man Harvey sends his love and this bit of advice: “If you climb in the saddle, be ready for the ride.”

  Enjoy the ride!

  Ann

  www.anncharles.com

  To Laura

  The nicest sister ever!

  (shhh ... don’t tell Shell)

  Also by Ann Charles

  Deadwood Mystery Series

  Nearly Departed in Deadwood (Book 1)

  Optical Delusions in Deadwood (Book 2)

  Dead Case in Deadwood (Book 3)

  Better Off Dead in Deadwood (Book 4)

  An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (Book 5)

  Meanwhile, Back in Deadwood (Book 6)

  Wild Fright in Deadwood (Book 7)

  Deadwood Shorts: Seeing Trouble (Book 1.5)

  Deadwood Shorts: Boot Points (Book 4.5)

  Deadwood Shorts: Cold Flame (Book 6.5)

  Deadwood Shorts: Tequila & Time (Book 8.5)

  Jackrabbit Junction Mystery Series

  Dance of the Winnebagos (Book 1)

  Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (Book 2)

  The Great Jackalope Stampede (Book 3)

  The Rowdy Coyote Rumble (Book 4)

  Jackrabbit Junction Short: The Wild Turkey Tango (Book 4.5)

  Goldwash Mystery Series (a future series)

  The Old Man’s Back in Town (Short Story)

  Dig Site Mystery Series

  Look What the Wind Blew In (Book 1)

  Make No Bones About It (Book 2)

  Coming Next from Ann Charles

  Deadwood Mystery Series

  Title TBA (Book 9)

  Jackrabbit Junction Mystery Series

  Title TBA (Book 5)

  Important Reader Note:

  If you have read my story, Deadwood Shorts: Tequila & Time, please note that this book, Rattling the Heat in Deadwood, takes place before that story begins.

  Think of it as a prequel—a whole book’s worth.

  Enjoy!

  Ann

  Chapter One

  Saturday, December 1st

  Deadwood, South Dakota

  In my world, police detectives came in two flavors: Acidic Asshole and Bitter Butthead.

  On this cold, windy afternoon, I had the molar-grinding task of house hunting with …

  “You’re speeding again, Parker,” Detective Cooper barked from the passenger seat of my Honda Pilot.

  Right turn, Clyde, I heard Clint Eastwood’s voice in my head. I clenched my right fist and imagined slamming it into Cooper’s left cheek. But common sense prevailed before I followed in the steps of the orangutan from Every Which Way But Loose.

  I took a deep breath, reminding myself that punching an officer of the law would most likely land me in a heap of trouble … if not jail. The probability of being slapped with an assault charge was even higher with this particular detective since I’d “accidentally” broken his nose a few months ago, and he was still clinging to a grudge about that teeny-tiny incident. The big baby.

  “Relax, Detective.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m only going thirty-five.”

  “That’s ten over the limit for this neighborhood. Slow down.”

  Detective Cooper and I had a colorful history filled with blackened eyes, blue bruises, and red welts. Months ago, as payback for breaking his nose, the jerk had thrown me in jail. He’d denied that one was related to the other, but since his nose was still bent out of shape and bandaged when he slapped the cuffs on me, leaving my wrists battered along with my reputation, I had my doubts.

  Since then, he and I had exchanged plenty of insults and a healthy amount of swearing, but we’d managed to find some common ground, too. For example, besides my acting in his best interest as his Realtor, we shared a partiality for Doc Nyce, my boyfriend and Cooper’s current roommate. We’d also bonded over a mutual loathing for Cooper’s current crime-solving partner, Detective Stone Hawke.

  Unlike Cooper, who was a decent detective except when he was harping on me for something that wasn’t my fault, Hawke was a pen-clicking, brown-nosing dipshit who’d most recently mistaken me for a witch. Not the nice, sexy sort of witch either. More like the wart-covered, spell-casting type with knowledge of mind-altering potions and disfiguring hexes. I wasn’t sure if this included flying broomsticks, but most days I wouldn’t put it past Detective Doofus.

  I slowed to thirty miles per hour, but that was as far as I was going to bend for Cooper this afternoon. “Are you telling me that you always do the speed limit?”

  “Unless I’m in pursuit.”

  A guffaw came from the back seat. I looked in the rearview mirror at Cooper’s uncle, old man Harvey, who was tagging along today to keep me out of trouble. The buzzard knew me too well when it came to his bristly nephew and my daydreams about jumping on Cooper’s back and pummeling him with a rubber chicken.

  “That’s a whole lotta corral dust, Coop,” Harvey said.

  Corral dust? That was a new one for me. Harvey had a way of speaking that often left me either scratching my head or fanning my cheeks.

  “I’ve seen you rip-roarin’ through town, tear
in’ up the streets without your cherry lit too many times to recall.”

  After shooting his uncle a glare, Cooper pointed at my speedometer. “Slow down, Parker, or I’ll give you a speeding ticket.”

  I batted Cooper’s hand away. “You can’t give me a ticket when you’re not on duty. Hell, you’re not even wearing a tie or one of those bulky police utility belts.” Not to mention his short blond hair looked like he’d been trying to tear it out tuft by tuft.

  Surely he’d already clocked out when I’d picked him up at the station a couple of hours ago to find a new place to call home-sweet-home. His house up in Lead was in the process of being sold, thank God. As far as I was concerned, moving Cooper out of my boyfriend’s house couldn’t happen soon enough. I preferred my morning-after cups of coffee with cream and sugar, not scowls and interrogations from a rigid-jawed, Daniel Craig doppelganger.

  “I’m always on duty, Parker. That’s something you should remember the next time you plan to break the law at one of my crime scenes.”

  A snicker came from behind me. “It’s hard to belly through the brush when the law is planted in yer front seat, Sparky.”

  I slowed and pulled as far to the right as possible on the steep hillside located above Main Street while a Chevy pickup rattled past. It continued down Star Street, taking the branch onto Centennial Avenue toward downtown.

  “You’re one to talk,” I told the old man in the mirror.

  “What? I shoot straight every day, don’t I, boy?” When Cooper didn’t answer, Harvey reached forward and flicked his nephew’s ear.

  The squint Cooper aimed at his uncle would have sizzled the backside of a less ornery rooster, but after years of hanging around his nephew, Harvey had a nonflammable set of tail feathers.

  “Keep it up, Uncle Willis, and I’ll shoot straight, too—right at your big toe.”

  I pinched my lips together to keep from grinning when Cooper’s focus centered on me for several seconds before returning to the windshield again.

  “What’s got ya so buggered up this afternoon, boy?” Harvey asked as I hit the gas and steered away from the hillside. “You should be nicer to poor Sparky. She’s tryin’ to help git ya situated in some new digs.”

  “Your uncle’s right. All I want to do is warm the cockles of your heart. You know, that beating organ in your chest that’s coated with glass shards and wrapped in barbed wire?”

  Cooper smirked at me. That was the closest he’d come to a smile since he’d crawled into the cab with me and unzipped his leather coat. “When did you start letting Uncle Willis call you ‘Sparky’?”

  Harvey had taken a shine to the nickname I’d earned from the captain of Deadwood’s fire department after numerous multiple-alarm incidents that also weren’t my fault.

  I shrugged. “I’ve given up on telling him to stop. You know as well as I do when it comes to your uncle that sometimes it’s easier to let him do his thing.”

  “You can borrow money on that,” Harvey agreed.

  “You shouldn’t encourage my uncle. It only makes him more incorrigible.”

  “Me?” I frowned at Cooper. “What about those illegal traps out at his ranch that you keep pretending he doesn’t have?”

  A sputtering sound came from the back seat. “Ain’t a man allowed to defend his property anymore in this country?”

  “What do you call Bessie?” Cooper asked.

  Harvey had named his favorite shotgun after a cow. At least I’d always figured he borrowed the name from a cow. Maybe it came from an old flame. Harvey had enough of those flickering around the Black Hills to keep the fire department hopping.

  “Bessie is my peacekeeper,” Harvey explained. “But she ain’t enough to scare off those damned Slagton whangdoodles on a dark night. I’ve been shoppin’ for a cannon online.”

  Cooper made a choking sound. “I’d advise against it.”

  “A cannon?!” I gaped at Harvey in the mirror. “Who do you think you are? Yosemite Sam?”

  “I’m a Hessian without no aggression,” Harvey said, quoting Sam.

  Chuckling, I slowed to a stop in front of one of my coworkers’ new listings—a three-bedroom, two-story house built in the early 1900s high in the Forest Hill neighborhood. The roof of one of my listings, the Galena House, was visible through the bare cottonwood branches below us.

  The cottage-style house out my window had been renovated recently inside and out, according to Ben Underhill, my male counterpart at Calamity Jane Realty. The updates were clear to see in spite of the growing gloom as dark clouds moved into the gulch. From the black shutters bracketing the windows to the fresh coat of gray paint with white trim on the gables and porch railing, the place looked spiffed up and ready for a new owner. I figured Cooper would like the lack of color on the exterior since his current bungalow was filled with black furniture, white curtains, and plenty of steel-gray firearms.

  Cooper stared at the house, his face lined with craggy ridges. I’d seen a similar profile on a PBS show last week showcasing Ansel Adams’ monochrome photograph of Manly Beacon in Death Valley National Park.

  “What do you think?” I asked, letting my Honda idle. It was too dang cold to make the short hike up to the front door if he wasn’t interested in the property. “It sort of looks like a storybook house, don’t you think? Especially with that curly design detail at the apex of the gable.”

  “Curly design?” Cooper raised one eyebrow. “Do I look like the type of guy into curly things?” His gaze moved to my curly blond hair. “You have me confused with Nyce.”

  I bared my teeth at him. “Don’t start with my hair today, Cooper. I won’t be held responsible for my retaliation if you do, which may include a windmill maneuver or two.”

  A smile cracked his expression. The sight of it had me reaching for the door handle in case it was really a precursor to his biting me. “I could use a good laugh, Parker, especially after the bullshit going on at work.”

  What was going on at the police station? Was that why Cooper was being extra bristly this afternoon? Did it have anything to do with me? Detective Hawke? Both of us? Or had someone else turned up dead? Someone not linked to me for once. Wouldn’t that be a treat—not that I wanted someone to die, but a distraction from my trail of suspicious crumbs would be good.

  “That rock wall looks purty solid,” Harvey interrupted, his nose pressed against the window. “Ya reckon they’ve fortified it recently? A couple decades ago they had a whoppin’ bunch of problems with the walls crumblin’ on this here hillside after the snow melted.”

  Cooper’s focus shifted back to the house. “Since we’re here, we might as well check it out.”

  Or … we could return to the police station and I could shove him out the door as I detoured through the parking lot on my way home to Aunt Zoe’s kitchen and her cookie jar filled with lemon drop cookies. Personally, the cookies sounded like a better choice to me.

  He opened his door, letting the freezing wind inside. “Let’s go, Parker.”

  Unfortunately, the lemon drops would have to wait. I killed the engine, careful not to let the wind catch my door and slam it into the retaining wall Harvey had been admiring. The wind nipped at my long corduroy skirt, hurrying me along. By the time I made it to the porch steps, it had torn some of my curls free from the bobby pins I’d used this morning to keep it from morphing into an eagle’s nest. Tiny pellets of ice peppered my cheeks as I climbed the steps. My fingers shook when I fished the key from the lockbox. I’d like to blame the cold for my trembling, but I had a feeling the stress of sitting so close to Detective Cooper this afternoon, putting up with his nit-picking about my speeding and more, was strumming my nerves.

  “Hurry up, girl.” Harvey pulled his sheepskin coat tight around his neck. “It’s colder than Jack Frost’s balls out here.”

  After pausing to wrinkle my nose at him and remind him of my new decree about his refraining from testicle-talk around me, I pushed open the door and led the way inside.
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  The house smelled like a mixture of old varnish and new paint. The heat had been turned down since the owners lived on the other side of the state, so I kept my red pea coat buttoned—all except for the missing one in the middle that my daughter’s stupid pet chicken had undoubtedly stolen again.

  Slipping off my boots, I grabbed two pair of booties from the basket on the sideboard and held them out for Cooper and Harvey. Both men looked at the shoe-coverings as if they were slimy and squirming.

  “What? If you want to see the place, we have to abide by the rules. You know all about rules, remember, Detective? You were blathering on and on about obeying them all the way here.”

  With a wrinkled upper lip, he snatched the booties from my hand and slipped them on over his black cowboy boots. When Harvey still bucked me, I pointed at his feet. “Harvey, those shit-kickers look fresh from the pasture. Put the damned booties on or you’re waiting outside in the cold.”

  Cooper pushed past me as I waited for Harvey to take the coverings. The clump of the detective’s heels on the hardwood flooring was muffled by the booties as he moved toward what appeared to be the dining room.

  As soon as I made sure Harvey had his booties in place, I sought out Cooper. He’d apparently bypassed the dining room with its gorgeous maple crown molding and lace curtains and headed for the kitchen. The modern appliances, wood floor, and can lighting gave it a warm, homey feel. Cooper, however, was too busy opening and closing the doors of the double oven to focus on his inner comforts.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Perfect for Christmas dinner, right?” Did Cooper even bake? I should ask Doc since he’d been sharing kitchen space with Cooper for over a month.

  I knew from first-hand experience that Cooper’s uncle baked. Harvey could give Betty Crocker a run for her money if she weren’t a figment of fiction. His cooking was so delicious that I’d asked him to marry me in an effort to keep him cooking for me and my two kids until death did us part, but the bachelor refused to even consider it, saying I was too much work.

  “The oven door creaks.” Cooper demonstrated the issue for me.

  “I’ll come over and oil it once a week for you.”