Better Off Dead in Deadwood Read online

  “That may be a problem. Natalie has my boots.” She’d borrowed them right before our friendship hit the rocks.

  He frowned, taking off his sunglasses and cleaning them with his shirt. “I don’t suppose she’s broken her silence.”

  “Nope.” I pointed at him. “But I’m not giving up.”

  Not on Natalie forgiving me.

  Not on figuring out the whole Mudder Brothers mess.

  “You never do,” Doc grabbed my finger and tugged me toward him. “Which is one of the reasons I lose sleep at night, damn it.”

  I glanced around, looking for any gawkers, seeing none.

  “Insomnia is more fun with friends,” I said as his mouth lowered toward mine. “It could be worse.”

  He paused inches from my lips, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Really? What’s worse than my girlfriend chasing down a relentless killer albino who likes to decapitate his victims?”

  His girlfriend. My heart flip-flopped, the silly thing. Didn’t it know that thirty-five-year-old mothers weren’t supposed to get such flutters?

  “I don’t know, maybe two relentless killer albinos,” I answered, considering the albino’s unaccounted for twin.

  Groaning in his throat, he pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head. “And that’s partly why I can’t think straight during the day anymore.”

  “Oh, yeah? What else is bugging you?”

  His dark eyes zeroed in on my mouth. “This.”

  He kissed me, taking his slow, sweet time with it. Achingly slow. His tongue teased mine, sending warm trickles down my backbone. Everything south of my bellybutton melted and pooled in my shoes.

  Then he was done and gone, sliding into his car, leaving me all cranked up and sparking.

  “Call me collect if you end up in jail, Trouble.”

  Grabbing my tote, I waved as he drove away, fantasizing about sneaking over to his house tonight and tying him to his new bed.

  I turned toward Calamity Jane’s back door and reality smacked me with a frying pan.

  My boss was dead.

  This hotel sale might be my last one as a Calamity Jane Real Estate agent if Jane’s widower decided to shut us down.

  Jane had taken me under her wing and carried me for almost three months with no sales. On top of that, she’d put up with my inability to have a normal agent-client relationship. There was no way another boss would tolerate my shortcomings.

  As soon as it leaked out that I had a weekly contracted dinner rendezvous with Harvey, traded kid-sitting shifts with Jeff Wymonds, went on a couple of dates with Wolfgang the pyromaniac, broke Detective Cooper’s nose, and ended up in bed with Doc, I would undoubtedly be explaining my assets to a job specialist at the unemployment office.

  And that wasn’t even including Cornelius Curion, my newest client. I doubted a new boss would be amused by the Abe Lincoln look-a-like who claimed to be a ghost whisperer, or with hearing that I’d joined Abe Jr. for not just one séance, but two.

  My career was about to go the way of General Custer’s.

  I dug for my keys in my purse.

  When I reached out to unlock the door, I realized it wasn’t locked. Weird. I hadn’t seen either Ray’s or Mona’s SUVs parked in the lot, but maybe one of them had walked over from Mudder Brothers after the funeral.

  I took a deep breath and stepped inside, steeling myself against the pinching loss I felt every time I walked by Jane’s closed office door. I could smell Ray’s Stetson cologne. I gritted my teeth, gearing up for another round of Rock’em-Sock’em with the dickhead.

  The sight of the lights on inside Jane’s office and her door wide open surprised me to a skidding halt. I stood on the threshold, frowning.

  Somebody had mucked with the shrine. Where were the stacks of papers on the filing cabinet? The piles of receipts on her desk? The random blazers and scarfs, the wadded up pieces of paper strewn here and there, the empty bottles of Jack Daniels?

  Besides Detective Cooper and his team of evidence collectors, nobody had touched Jane’s stuff.

  Until now.

  The sound of a certain jackass’s extra-loud, extra-fake laughter snapped me out of my stupor.

  Ray! He must be the one who’d dismantled the shrine. He probably figured he had dibs on Jane’s office after having sex with her in here almost two weeks ago.

  Blech! My vagina still shuddered at the notion of him touching Jane that way.

  I slammed her office door shut.

  “Damn you, Ray Underhill!” I yelled and stormed toward the front of the office where Ray, Mona Hollister, and I all congregated each day. I didn’t care if he was talking on the phone; this king-of-the-hill shit was going to stop right now. “Did you even wait until Jane’s service was over before making your move on her off—?”

  I swallowed the last of my rant at the sight of a strange blond guy with a pair of big broad shoulders over-filling the back of my chair.

  Who in the hell was that?

  I glanced at Ray, who hated me in plain sight with a sneer on his overly tanned face.

  Darn. So much for the two of us forming a chummy new friendship after I had risked my hide to save him and his family jewels from a scalpel-happy albino.

  The stranger spun around. A wide smile was carved on his face, joining the fans of crows’ feet around his eyes and deep-set lines across his forehead. He was good looking in a used-to-be-a-surfer way and had managed to keep from going to seed south of his chin. I was trying to guess his age when he planted his feet and stood all the way up, up, up.

  Holy shit! I took a step back, gaping all the way to the top of his sun-bleached-blond crew cut and back down to his clown-sized shoes. The guy had a good five to six inches on Doc, who stood a head taller than me.

  Who ordered the Nordic giant?

  Judging from his square-cut jaw and rock-hewn cheekbones, someone must have chiseled him out of a cliff that overlooked a Scandinavian fjord.

  “Wow,” I said aloud. Whatever else I’d been about to say had been knocked clear out of my head.

  Thor, the God of Thunder, smiled down at me, his teeth tight, even, white rectangles, like extra-large Chiclets. Maybe he’d come looking for his big hammer. Maybe I could borrow it to knock that stupid smirk off Ray’s face.

  “You must be Violet Parker.” His voice was as deep as he was tall. “I was just telling Ray that I was hoping to catch you here today.”

  Oh, no no no. Nuh uh. Nope. There was absolutely no way I was taking this guy on as another client. I had my fill with a dirty old man, a sexy medium, a frustrating ghost hunter, a soon-to-be single dad, and a crotchety detective. I drew the line at a blond giant wearing a green shirt big enough to make into curtains.

  Heck, he probably wouldn’t even fit in the Picklemobile unless I turned him lengthwise in the cab.

  “You were looking for me? Really?” Pasting a smile on my face, I trekked around the monolith and dropped my bag on the corner of my desk. “Have we met bef—”

  My desk phone rang.

  We both looked at it. I saw the incoming number and recognized the area code.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said to the giant, “I need to take this.”

  He nodded and spun my chair around, holding it out for me.

  Nodding my thanks, I picked up the handset on the fourth ring. “Hi, Cornelius.”

  “I’d like to talk to Violet Parker, please,” Cornelius said in my ear.

  I rolled my eyes. How many times had he heard my voice now?

  “It’s me, Cornelius.”

  “Who’s me?”

  “Violet.”

  “Excellent. Your secretary is quick on the draw.”

  Cornelius wasn’t an idiot; he just gave oblivious a new look, which included a top hat, a long black frock coat, and a cane.

  “What do you need, Cornelius?”

  “There’s a slight problem with my funding for the hotel.”

  My knees gave out, my butt hitting my chair. “Define
‘slight problem.’”

  Ray snorted.

  I tried to shrivel him alive with my glare.

  “The money is sort of tied up at the moment,” Cornelius said.

  Turning my back to Ray, I said in a low voice, “You spoke previously of an abundance of cash.”

  “I know, and there will be … if we can dump the other property.”

  “The due date is in a week.”

  “Could we file some sort of extension?”

  Maybe, but … “This isn’t your taxes.”

  “I’m detecting some tension in your voice, Violet.”

  “You think?”

  “Have you ever had your chakras realigned? It’s very good for releasing tension and stimulating your mental health.”

  I was going to realign his chakras with my shoe.

  “Cornelius,” I said. I may actually have snarled between each syllable.

  “Relax, Violet. I just wanted to test you and see how you’d respond to this kind of a situation.”

  “So you’re joking then?”

  “Not at all.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and counted to five. “Would you like me to come over to the hotel and meet with you to discuss this more?”

  “No. I have to go buy some socks and batteries.”

  The line went dead.

  Criminy! I was going to kill him. It would be in all of the papers—Abe Lincoln slain again. The tabloids would name me as a long-lost relative of John Wilkes Booth.

  I hung up the phone and turned back around. Two sets of eyes watched me—one wide and curious, the other narrowed and calculating.

  Shaking off my Cornelius moment, I turned up the wattage on my smile again and faced off with Thor.

  “So, what can I do for you, Mr. …?”

  “Jerry Russo.” He strolled over and helped himself to a cup of coffee like he owned the place.

  “Are you interested in buying a home in the Deadwood area, Mr. Russo?”

  “Not at all. And you can call me Jerry, Violet.”

  First names already, huh? At least he was a friendly giant.

  He used Mona’s desk as a chair and took a sip of coffee. Grimacing, he set down the cup. “What I am interested in is watching you sell homes.”

  I frowned. Was he some kind of real estate voyeur? Next he’d want to fondle my For Sale signs.

  “Watching me?”

  He nodded. “You see, my ex-wife just passed away, leaving me as the sole surviving partner in a business venture we started together years ago when we were still married.”

  A low whooshing sound started in my ears.

  “Your ex-wife?”

  “Jane Grimes.”

  “So, you were Jane’s …”

  “Husband. Her first one, anyway.”

  I thought she said her first husband was a client, not a partner. I remembered her telling me that when she’d warned me about dating Doc. She must have been in real estate before marrying Jerry and starting Calamity Jane Realty.

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say. The whooshing grew louder as anxiety flooded my brain. Here he was, the man who would determine my future in Deadwood. Now I understood the fake laughter I’d heard coming from Ray earlier, and I knew who’d cleaned up Jane’s office.

  Jerry shook his head, sadness lining his cheeks. “I’m going to miss my Janey girl.”

  Me, too, but I couldn’t stop gawking at Janey girl’s first husband. I’d always envisioned her ex-husbands smaller, more weasel-looking, not so juggernaut-ish.

  Jerry clapped his hands together.

  I jumped in surprise.

  “I think it’s high time we get this office up and running again,” he said. “I hope you and my man Ray here are in it to win it, because Jerry Russo doesn’t allow any losers on his team.”

  What about Mona? Had she already talked to Jerry? Was she feeling like a winner yet? Jane’s death had hit Mona the hardest of us all. She’d worked with Jane for almost two decades.

  Standing, Jerry towered over Ray and me. “Are you ready to go out there and show Deadwood what you got?”

  “Yes, sir!” Ray shouted like the rat-bastard bootlicker he was.

  “How about you, Violet?” Jerry asked.

  My heart panged. Man, I missed Jane.

  “Sure,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster two hours after the funeral service for my last boss. I’d have to be ready if I wanted to keep my job.

  But first, I had an appointment with a gravel-chewing detective regarding the murder of my new boss’s ex-wife, for which I’d somehow ended up on a list of “usual” suspects … again.

  Chapter Three

  The glass doors of the police station were propped open. Deadwood’s crime-busters apparently weren’t worried about any convicts spilling out onto the street on this fine, sunny afternoon.

  I crested the top step and skirted a pedestal fan blowing warm air in my face. The temperature inside the building felt a good ten degrees hotter than outside. Wonderful, now I’d really be cooked during Detective Cooper’s grilling.

  The cop at the front desk had his nose buried in the newspaper. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his silver sideburns. He smelled like his deodorant had run out for lunch and never come back.

  I set my purse on the counter. “It’s warm in here.”

  “Well, well, well,” the cop said, setting his paper aside. A fat grin spread his chubby cheeks. “If it isn’t the one and only Spooky Parker.”

  A couple of weeks ago, Cornelius had been hauled into Cooper’s office for questioning about a case in New Orleans involving him, some exorcism attendees, and a now dead girl. During the interrogation, Cornelius had announced that one of the jail cells was haunted and asked if he and I could hold a séance for the ghost prisoner. End of story, beginning of new means of police harassment.

  Biting my lip, I dead-panned the desk grunt. I’d promised myself on the way over to the station that I would not get into another insult-trading match with anyone carrying a badge and gun.

  “So what brings you here today, Spooky? Hoping to assault some more police officers?” He snickered at his own joke.

  Fanning myself, I forced a smile up my cheeks. “You’re a real Keystone Cop, aren’t you?” Chock full of incompetence and buffoonery. “I’m here to see Detective Cooper.”

  He picked up the phone. “Spooky’s here,” he said and hung up.

  I grabbed my purse and ambled over to the “Wanted” posters tacked to a corkboard, which hung above a couple of beat-up chairs.

  “You should take it easy on the detective,” Officer Wise-ass said, his jowls dripping onto the newspaper again. “He’s the only one we got.”

  I should take it easy? Me? Cooper could slice through titanium with his razor-sharp tongue. Hell, I’d rather juggle porcupines naked than face off with him in his office this afternoon. “You tell your one and only detective—”

  The door leading into the cops’ den crashed open.

  Cooper had shucked his suit jacket along with his tie since I’d seen him at the diner. His gray shirt looked like it had been tugged open at the neck, his hair a mixture of spikes and shark fins.

  “Tell the detective what, Ms. Parker?” His voice was as stiff as his jaw.

  I shrugged my purse strap higher up my shoulder and prepared to lock horns on the spot, but then I saw an underlying tiredness rimming his steely eyes. I hadn’t noticed that earlier at lunch.

  “That I might want some coffee with my interrogation today, please,” I said, stepping past him through the doorway.

  The air was a few degrees cooler inside the police department’s lair. A handful of uniformed men filled the smattering of desks. I’d only ever seen two women in the place, and one of them had been wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.

  “Hey, if it isn’t Rocky Parker,” one officer called out, his face split by a shit-eating grin.

  That was new. A little better than “Spooky,” I g
uessed.

  “Keep your eye on that one, Detective,” another cop said, “she’s a real knockout.”

  I grimaced and glanced over at Cooper, noticing a tic in his cheek. I kept my lips squeezed together until we were inside of Cooper’s office with the door closed, opting to skip the coffee today. The temperature in the room was almost cold.

  “What’s with the temperature flux in this place?”

  He shrugged. “Every now and then our system gets confused.”

  Cornelius would claim the jailbird ghost had a hand in it and pull out an EMF meter. Me, I just sighed and fell into the torn vinyl chair opposite Cooper’s desk.

  “For future reference,” I said, “I’d rather lie wide awake through a tonsillectomy than walk through this place.”

  “It’s your own fault,” Cooper said, rounding his desk.

  “Getting harassed by your policemen pals is my fault?”

  He sat down in his chair, leaning back with a creak. “I should have arrested you for police brutality.”

  “Criminy, we’ve done this dance,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I already said I’m sorry three times now for breaking your nose.”

  “And for knocking me out.”

  “And for knocking you out.”

  “And for stealing my gun.”

  “I didn’t steal; I borrowed.”

  “And for giving me two black eyes.”

  I pointed at him. “That was part of the package deal included in the nose apology.”

  “And adding another murder to my caseload.”

  “Hey, I didn’t kill George. Ask Ray.”

  My coworker was the one living witness to that fact.

  “My life would have been simpler if you had. And leave Ray Underhill out of this.” Cooper rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks to both of you, I’m out there looking for some magical albino who disappeared in a puff of smoke. Do you have any idea how that flies with the chief?”

  “Like a cow with chicken wings,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  Cooper’s stony expression hardened even more.

  Feeling like I was back in the principal’s office after clocking little Jack Walker for peeking up my dress, I looked down at my fingers. They were all twisted together.