Dead Case in Deadwood (12 page)

"Maybe he doesn’t like women."

"Oh, he definitely does. A while after that night, I
saw him in a bar down in Rapid getting hot and heavy with this curvy blonde.
There was no way she was just reaching for his gun."

"Really?" I had trouble picturing Cooper doing
anything with his mouth besides chewing glass.

"Yeah, but I haven’t seen him get excited about a woman
since then. Although, he certainly keeps his eye on you when you’re in the
room."

"You mean his stink eye."

"I’m serious." Her eyes narrowed. "You’re
blonde and curvy."

"Cut the chatter about my curves."

"I bet he likes you."

I leaned back against the door, my palms out to ward off her
crazy talk. "Trust me, that man does not like me. In fact, he seems to
maintain a steady pissed-off state whenever I’m around."

"That’s because he wants you."

"Shut up."

"It makes total sense, all of that bristling and
glaring. He’s got it bad for you."

Cooper? The glares? The growls? "No, that isn’t desire,
it’s irritation with a healthy dose of rage peppered into the mix."

"And you think he’s sexy." Natalie appeared to
have hearing problems tonight.

"I didn’t say that."

"Yes, you did."

No, Doc was sexy as hell in a dark and dangerous way. Cooper
was just dangerous. "I said some women may find him sexy, not me. He’s way
too bossy for my taste, and his constant scowl turns me off."

She pointed at something over my shoulder. "You mean
that one."

I turned and jerked back at the sight of Cooper’s scowling face
in my window. Harvey’s bearded mug leaned into view next to Cooper’s shoulder.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

"Unlock this now," Cooper ordered through the
glass.

As soon as I obeyed, he hauled open my door. His broad
shoulders blocked my escape route. "Violet Parker, you’re under arrest."

All of my internal organs froze as a cold blast of panic howled
through me.

Had he found out I had withheld evidence in the Carhart case?
Who had told him about the demon cult book? Doc and Wanda Carhart were the only
two around who knew about it.

Or had someone linked me to the dead guy in Mudder Brothers
basement?

"What for?" I croaked out through ice-coated vocal
chords. Jail was not a good option for me. I had kids and a job and a
reputation that was about to get a lot worse.

"Creating a public nuisance."

"What?"

"He means me," Harvey explained, and grinned wide
enough to show both gold teeth.

"What did he do?" I asked. Okay, dumb question. "You
can’t arrest me for that."

A muscle in Cooper’s jaw ticked. He took a step back,
holding the door wide. "Get out of the pickup right now."

I climbed down, straightened my dress, and faced Cooper.

In my peripheral vision, I noticed a familiar pair of
blue-haired babes standing next to their Lincoln cruise ship, both gaping at
the show. Norma Jean would have plenty to gab about with her poker buds at the
senior center now. I could practically hear my reputation being ripped to
shreds.

"Explain your presence here tonight," Cooper
demanded, his hands on his hips, his shoulder holster and pistol butt visible.

"Why are you packing heat at a funeral?" I tried
to steer Cooper off course.

"He always packs heat," Harvey said. "He even
sleeps with it under his pillow. One of these days he’s going to blow off the
Tooth Fairy’s fingers when she comes a callin.’"

Cooper’s eyes stayed glued to me. "That’s none of your
business—just answer the question."

There was no budging him, so I fell back on my usual
defenses and jutted my chin. "You didn’t
ask
me anything. You
demanded, as usual."

"She has a point," Natalie said, sidling up next
to me, leaning against the bed of her pickup. "You need to be a little
nicer to her if you want Vi to warm up to you."

I shot Natalie a squinty-eyed,
don’t make me stuff my
socks in your mouth
look.

She winked back. "Violet isn’t one of those women who
likes to be dominated. She’s spent too many years being a single mom, reigning
over her own empire."

Nat was spot on. My gut reaction to a dominant male was to shoot
him in the ass with a tranquilizer dart, and then relocate him to another
continent.

"Violet," Cooper warned through clenched molars.

"You’d better cough it up, girl," Harvey said. "Ol’
Coop is a regular curly wolf, especially when it comes to taming shrews. He
gets that from my side of the family."

Fine, but I was only giving in because of that damned police
badge. "I am here for Elsa Haskell’s viewing."

"Then why weren’t you in there looking at her with
everyone else?"

"I had to use the restroom." Did Cooper know about
my twitchy nose telltale sign? Was it illegal to lie to a cop? Were different
degrees of lying allowed? I wasn’t under oath … yet.

"You were in the bathroom for over fifteen minutes?"

Is that how long I was in that crate room? It seemed longer.
"I had … err … complications."

Natalie chuckled.

"Really? That’s funny. Norma Jean Russell and Lucille James
said they didn’t see you in the bathroom at all."

They hadn’t seen me standing outside the front doors when
they arrived either, nor hiding behind the bouquet of lilies, but I wasn’t going
to brag about my invisibility powers to the fuzz. "That’s because I was
standing on the toilet."

One blond eyebrow arched. "Do you do that often?"

I shrugged. "When the mood strikes."

"Why didn’t you join my uncle when you finished
standing on the toilet?"

"I ran into Natalie."

He raised the other eyebrow, but said nothing, apparently
waiting for more.

I added. "She had something to show me."

Both eyebrows still waited.

"In her pickup."

He glanced behind me into the cab of the pickup, and then focused
on Natalie. "And what was that?"

"Show him your tattoo, Natalie." I crossed my
fingers behind my back, willing her to play along like she used to when we were
kids and got busted.

"Which one?" she replied without hesitation.

Whew!
"The latest."

"The one on my butt or my right boob? I got them on the
same night."

"Really?" Cooper’s disbelief curled his upper lip.
His gaze dropped below Natalie’s chin for a split-second. If I had blinked
twice, I’d have missed it.

"Show him both," Harvey chimed in. "Coop, you’d
better double check them for authenticity."

"Are you into tattoos now?" Cooper asked Natalie.

"Sure. What can I say? It was one hell of a wild
Tupperware party." I could practically hear her grinning. "Those tattoo
parlor girls know how to shake, mix, and stack like nobody else."

"Show him the one on your left cheek," I told her,
referring to the knife-stabbed heart she’d had tattooed there one very drunken
night after walking in on her then boyfriend bare-back riding some floozy
wearing tassels.  Seriously, who walked around with nipple tassels on? Hiding
them under a shirt would be a real trick.

"Just lift up the back of your skirt," I added.

"Raise that skirt an inch and I’ll arrest you for
indecent exposure," Cooper said, his face a mask of granite. The guys up
on Mount Rushmore had nothing on him.

He stepped closer and pointed his finger in my face. "Violet,
if I catch you here again, you’d better be sitting in that parlor when I walk
in the door."

Yikes! He was dead serious.

Was knocking Ray off his mountain really worth having the
town’s detective breathing down my neck day and night? Waiting to lock me up? "Or
what, you’ll arrest me for improper loitering in a funeral parlor?"

Addy would try to sneak me a nail file, only she’d probably
use the cardboard kind I kept in my makeup drawer. Layne would burn off his
eyebrows again while trying to make me a small bomb to blow a hole in the cell
wall.

"I’ll have George file a restraining order against you."

My mouth fell open. "You can’t do that."

"Yes, I can. It’s for your own protection as much as
George’s. I don’t have enough manpower on the force to keep you out of trouble."

"I was just attending a viewing."

"I highly doubt that. If I dusted for prints, I wonder
where I’d find evidence telling me otherwise. Besides the bathroom, of course."

Oh, crap. Fingerprints. I needed to start carrying gloves
under the Picklemobile’s seat if I was going to keep up this snooping business.
Maybe I should just focus on passive aggressive attacks on Ray, like Mona and
her spoonful of Benefiber in his orange juice.

Cooper plucked something from my shawl. Then he grabbed my
hand and dropped a one-inch sliver of wood into my palm.

The crate.

"Stick to selling real estate, Ms. Parker. I don’t want
you to be the next one lying on that autopsy table in Eddie’s basement."
He took a step back. "Come to the station tomorrow afternoon. I need to
talk to you in private."

"I have an appointment with another client." I
wasn’t bullshitting him this time. I had some open-house prepping plans to
discuss.

His nostrils flared slightly. "Don’t make me use my
handcuffs."

Bully! "Fine, I’ll stop by."

With a slight head nod at Natalie, he strode away. Norma
Jean and Lucille waved at him as he marched by them.

Natalie whistled under her breath, "Damn, that was hot.
I can still smell the sexual tension in the air."

I rolled my eyes. "That was not hot, it was irritating
as hell." I turned to Harvey. "Has he always been that bossy and
pushy?"

"Yup. Ever since he was knee-high to a prairie dog."

"What are you going to do?" Natalie asked. "Are
you going to stop nosing into Ray and George’s business?"

"Coop ain’t bluffing," Harvey said. "He will
throw you in jail if he can figure out a good enough reason why."

I crossed my arms and glared at the detective as he drove
off in his unmarked police sedan. "I don’t know what to do."

"Well, keep me posted." Harvey squeezed my
shoulder. "I need to get this canary suit back to its cage. I’ll bring the
Picklemobile back before dawn."

I knew better than to ask where he was going when he had
that glint in his eye. He headed for the pickup, whistling something
happy-go-lucky sounding while he went.

Must be nice to crawl into someone’s bed without worrying
about who was watching.

"Let’s go home," I said to Natalie. I wanted to
soak in a cool bath with a steamy romance and fantasize about Doc until all of
this Cooper business was just a distant disturbance in my Force.

"Your wish is my command."

We climbed in her pickup and headed out of the parking lot, but
she turned right instead of left.

"Home is that way." I pointed up the hill.

"I know, but I want to check on something first."

"What?"

She took another right and drove toward Calamity Jane Realty.
"A suspicion I have."

"About what?"

As we neared the office, she slowed.

Doc’s front blinds were closed, but the lights were on
behind them. Calamity Jane’s windows were blind-free and mostly dark, just a
single florescent on over Mona’s desk so the cops could see in during their
nightly drive-bys—and tourists could see me making out with Doc on my desk. The
former I’d been told back when Jane hired me, the latter I’d learned from a cheek-warming
experience.

Natalie whipped into the parking lot behind the office and
cruised along the line of parked cars, old and new. The orange glow of the
street lights painted everything in bronze.

"What are we looking for?" Personally, I was
searching for Tiffany’s Jeep.

"Hold on."

We passed Doc’s Camaro. I tried not to even glance at it in
case Natalie was looking my way. She pulled into a parking spot about ten cars
down and cut the engine.

"Okay, Nat. What’s going on?"

"You spying at Mudder Brothers tonight gave me an idea."

"I wasn’t spying."

"Weren’t you there hoping to catch a glimpse of Ray and
George in the act?"

"Well, yes."

"How is that not spying?"

"Fine, I might have been spying a little. What’s your
idea?"

"I’m going to spy on Doc."

That didn’t sit well in my gut for a multitude of reasons,
most of which revolved around me. "I don’t think that’s a good idea."

Natalie stared out the rearview mirror at Doc’s back door. "Why
not? I’m not hurting anyone."

"It’s an invasion of his privacy."

"You’re doing it to Ray and George."

"Yes, but we like Doc." And
we
don’t want
to get caught by
our
best friend sneaking around Doc’s back door. "And
he’s not committing any crimes."

"Ray might not be, either. Just because he’s a huge
jackass doesn’t mean he’s breaking the law with George."

"So, now you’re taking Cooper’s side?"

"No, I always stand by you, you know that."

Deep down I did, and yet I’d gone and slept with the man on
whom she’d staked a claim. My guilt weighed heavy, like a Saint Bernard sitting
on my chest.

"I’m just saying," she continued, "that maybe
until you have something more solid than just suspicions you should back off
from Ray and George. I don’t want to be bailing you out of jail again. I will,
but your name in the newspaper for trespassing or invasion of privacy won’t sit
well for your future in realty in this town."

I sighed. "Yeah, I know." The idea of my kids
visiting me through a square of Plexiglas with holes in it didn’t appeal much,
either. "Okay, I’ll back down a little."

"That’s more like it."

"But only if you back off of Doc."

"Why do you care?"

I met her wrinkled brow head on. "For one thing, he’s a
friend of mine."