A Wild Fright in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 7) (21 page)

“Or knock me out with your elbow.” He grunted when I pinched the skin over his ribs and then grinned. “I’ll be okay.” He tapped his temple. “I’m ready up here.”

“I’ll be thinking about you while playing with Deadwood’s finest. Text me when you make it out of the hotel in one piece.” I grabbed my hat and jammed it on my head, squishing my curls. “You left again without saying goodbye this morning.”

“You were still sleeping when I looked in on you.”

“How about you spend the night in my bed again tonight?”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “How do I know you won’t take advantage?”

I trailed my fingers down his shirt. “You don’t trust me?”

His chest rumbled under my touch. “I don’t trust
me
. You have a history of turning me inside out whenever I get too close.”

“What if I promise not to touch you?” I batted my eyelashes at him and licked my lips, hitting him with a double dose of over-the-top flirting.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he asked, his focus on my mouth.

“Hmmm. Maybe you’d like to watch while I touch
me
.”

His gaze darkened in a flash. “Damn, Boots. You play dirty.”

“We could do that, too.”

A groan came from his throat. “Vixen.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

He turned me around, smacking me lightly on the rump to get me moving. “Go over there and give Hawke hell for trying to mess with you, Tiger.”

I headed out, pausing in the doorway to frown back at him. “Be careful, Doc. Wilda is out for blood.”

He saluted me.

My boots clinked across the street. I tipped my hat at a gray-haired man leaving the police parking lot who gaped at me from his truck window.

The cop at the check-in desk snickered at the sight of me. “If it isn’t good ol’ Spooky Parker. I’m glad you’re here. I needed a laugh this morning.”

I ignored his jiggling jowls. “I have an appointment with Detective Hawke and Detective Cooper.”

Cooper appeared several jowly comments later, holding open the steel door leading further into the station. “Parker, get your spurs back here.”

Fortunately, there weren’t many cops in the station this early in the morning. The two by the coffeemaker stopped and stared, grins spreading wide.

“Is that Spooky Parker?” one of them asked extra loud.

“It looks like Poncho Parker to me,” the other shot back.

“Hey, it’s the donut patrol.” I bared my teeth at them. “Is that the best you two Town Clowns can do?”

“Zip it, Parker.” Cooper took my elbow, practically dragging me into his office. He pointed at the chair across from his desk. “Detective Hawke will be in here shortly. You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. I might dump it in his lap in the heat of the moment.”

Cooper’s gaze narrowed. “Try to keep it under control this morning, and you’ll be out of here in plenty of time to go home.”

“Why would I go home?”

“To change out of that stupid costume.”

I smoothed down the poncho. “Maybe I’ll wear it all day. Jerry might think it’s perfect for my on-camera moments.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s try to get through this without your smartass comebacks.”

“I give no guarantees.”

The door opened and Detective Hawke blew into the room, ruffling the papers on Cooper’s desk. He skidded to a stop when his gaze landed on me. “What in the hell is this?”

“It’s your seven-thirty interrogation appointment,” Cooper answered, offering Hawke his chair. “She’s your suspect, you take the desk.”

Instead of settling in, Hawke sat on the corner of Cooper’s desk. He probably figured he could brow beat me better from up on high.

“Why are you wearing that stupid costume, Parker?”

I perused his rumpled, gray corduroy blazer, blue and white striped tie, and bushy sideburns. “Why are you dressed like Detective Wojo from the
Barney Miller
show, Hawke?”

“Here we go,” Cooper muttered from where he was leaning against the door, barring any attempt at escape.

“This is a serious interrogation,” Hawke leveled at me. “You do understand that you are a suspect in a murder case, right?”

Please, like this was the first time I’d been a suspect in a murder case.

“I understand that
you
think I’m a suspect in Wanda Carhart’s murder. I also understand that you are desperate to find out who actually did kill Wanda and are so busy pointing fingers in my direction that you’re probably overlooking key information that would tell you who her true killer is.”

Detective Hawke looked across the top of my hat at Cooper. “Is this normal behavior for this suspect during an interrogation?”

“I have found that there is no ‘normal’ in Ms. Parker’s behavioral makeup.”

“There is no such thing as normal behavior,” I butted in, focusing on Hawke. “Normal is relative to the subject at hand. For example, take your choice of cheap aftershave this morning.”

“Parker,” Cooper warned, heading me off at the pass.

Detective Hawke and I had a mini squint-off for several seconds, and then he stood and walked around behind the desk. “Ms. Parker, where were you the evening of November 9th?”

“What day was the 9th?”

“Last Friday,” Cooper supplied.

“Let’s see, last Friday evening I was home with my children.”

“Do you have an alibi that will back you up on that?”

“Yes, two—those same children.”

“What time did they go to bed?”

I thought about that for a second or so. “Around eleven.”

“Isn’t that a little late for young children to be going to bed?”

His tone pricked me like a sharp needle. “It was a Friday night.”

“Do you often let your children stay up so late or was this a special occasion?”

“What time my kids go to bed is none of your business!” I was starting to get loud and I knew it, but who was this jackass to question me about my parenting?

“What’s with the questions about her kids?” Cooper asked Detective Hawke.

“She could’ve gone over to Wanda Carhart’s house earlier and killed her, and then returned home and purposely kept her kids awake so she’d have an alibi.”

“What kind of parent do you think I am?”

“For all I know, you could be the kind who kills innocent old women and then hides behind her kids.”

I glared at him, trying to make him go away with my mind powers. Unfortunately, my mind powers sucked.

“How would you describe your relationship with Wanda Carhart?” Detective Hawke asked.

“She was my client.” I thought about Wanda and the times she’d saved my life. “And a friend.”

“Do you make a habit of becoming friends with your clients?”

I hesitated on that question. Truth was, I had trouble differentiating between clients and friends much of the time. Doc and I were way beyond friendship, let alone client-Realtor relations. I was about to try to help Cornelius rid himself of a ghost via yet another séance. Harvey was my backup when it came to hauling my kids to and from school and declared himself to be my personal bodyguard. And Jeff Wymonds—well, I’d rather not think about Jeff and his lacy red thong, especially after my nightmare this morning.

However, there was one client that didn’t fit the bill. “I wouldn’t call Detective Cooper and me bosom buddies.” Although he was living in my boyfriend’s house at the moment and had been to supper at my aunt’s twice this week already.

“Were you aware of—”

The theme song to
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
whistled from under my poncho again. I let it keep playing.

“What is that?”

“Was I aware of what, Detective Hawke?”

Hawke opened his mouth and then closed it again, frowning. “Don’t you hear that?”

My phone stopped suddenly. Harvey hung up, as planned. “Hear what?”

Hawke turned to his fellow detective. “What’s going on here?”

I peeked at Cooper, whose face was a blank slate. “You’re interrogating Parker about Wanda Carhart’s murder.”

“I know that,” he sounded disgusted, turning on me. “These silly games aren’t going to work, Parker.”

I pulled a pack of candy cigarettes from the pocket of my sheepskin vest and tapped one from the pack. “Listen, Detective Hawke, I have a job to get to, so if you could keep on track here, I’d appreciate it.”

“You can’t smoke in here,” he snapped at me.

I could see his edges starting to unravel.

“Oh, these aren’t real cigarettes.” I stuck one in my mouth. “It’s just candy.”

“Why do you have candy cigarettes?” he asked.

“Detective Hawke,” I said, “I’m having trouble understanding what candy cigarettes have to do with Wanda Carhart.”

I bit off the end of the candy cigarette and leaned forward to spit it into Cooper’s wastebasket, mimicking Eastwood in the movie.

Cooper muttered something behind me that sounded like, “Un-fucking-believable.”

Detective Hawke ran his hand through his rumpled dark hair. “Listen, Parker. This is no joking matter. A woman is dead here.”

“Not just any woman, Detective Hawke. My friend is dead.” I leaned forward, glaring up at him. “Do you see me laughing?”

Detective Hawke glared back at me, squint for squint.

My phone rang again, playing the whistling tune.

He jerked back at the song. “Shut that damned thing off.”

I reached inside of my poncho and hit the silence button on the side of my phone. “Detective Hawke,” I said, sitting back and lacing my fingers over my lap. “You know from Detective Cooper that I’m receiving the same messages that Wanda received. Why would I hurt my friend and send myself these messages when I have two kids I’m trying to raise?”

“Maybe there’s money in it for you. Wanda had recently received a sizeable inheritance.”

“I know about her aunt dying and leaving her a chunk of money. I know that Wanda’s dead husband and his lover had plans to take that money and move to Florida. I know that Millie and Lila Beaumont had probably hoped to get their hands on that money. But what does that have to do with me? I was in no way going to benefit from Wanda’s death. I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Now, if you’re done stomping about and pointing fingers at shadows, why don’t you tell me if you have something that ties me to this murder. If not, I’m walking out of here with my spurs a-jingling.”

Detective Hawke reached inside his blazer and pulled out a plastic bag with what looked like pictures in it. He tossed the bag on the desk in front of me.

“Here kitty, kitty,” he said.

I frowned at the bag but didn’t touch it. “Is that code for something?”

“No.” He opened the bag and pulled out the pictures, shuffling through them until he came to one that appeared to suit his fancy. “Here kitty, kitty,” he said again and held out a picture for me.

I took the picture and examined it. From what I could tell, the picture was of a mirror with words written on it. I realized I had it upside down and rotated it, reading under my breath, “Here kitty, kitty.”

“That was written in blood on the victim’s bathroom mirror.”

Written in Wanda’s blood? I grimaced and then repeated the words under my breath, my pulse picking up speed as another voice echoed it in my head.

“Wanda’s body was in the bathtub.”

“That’s enough, Hawke,” I heard Cooper’s voice in the distance as those damned words kept echoing in my head.

Here kitty, kitty.

“The old lady was torn into pieces, just like your ex-boss, Jane Grimes, had been at the bottom of the Open Cut.”

In my memory, I heard the sound of something metal being dragged across bathroom stall doors.

Here kitty, kitty.

My breath whooshed from my lungs as if invisible arms had wrapped around me and squeezed tight.

“Violet,” Cooper said, standing in front of me.

“See,” I heard Detective Hawke say. “I told you she’d know something. She always seems to have inside information when it comes to your case files. How you can think she’s not in on this is beyond me.”

My heart was pounding its way up my throat. I looked away from the picture, letting it hang between my knees, and latched onto Cooper’s steely stare.

Whatever Cooper saw in my eyes made his jaw tighten. “Hawke, go get some water.”

“I’m not your errand boy.”

“Just go!” Cooper’s tone left no room for arguing, yet Hawke bickered and tossed a dirty look our way as he left.

As soon as the door closed, Cooper pinched my outer thigh.

“Ouch!” I cried, smacking his hand away. “Damn it, Cooper, that hurt.”

“Good. Now what’s the deal with that mirror?”

“She’s back,” I whispered as if she’d hear me if I spoke too loud. “
Here kitty, kitty
was what she called when she was hunting me down that night in the Opera House.”

“Parker, who are you talking about?” When I didn’t answer right away, he threatened to pinch me again.

I lifted the picture, holding it in front of his face. “I’m talking about Calypso, Dominick Masterson’s minion. This message on the mirror is for me.”

He took the picture from me and frowned at it. “You mean that white-haired girl who used to run the tours at the Opera House?”

“Bingo. Caly’s back, and it looks like she’s on the hunt again.”

Chapter Eleven

An hour and plenty of knuckle-chewing later, I sat at my desk in Calamity Jane’s and stared blankly at my computer screen.

There’d been no word yet from Doc about how his visit had gone with Cornelius and any of his ghostly lemmings. I’d picked up my cell phone to call Doc so many times that I’d finally given the damned thing to Mona, my only coworker in the office this morning, and told her to let me have it only if someone called.

Katrina King-Mann had rescheduled this morning’s appointment, moving it from nine to eleven, thankfully. I needed those extra two hours to stop my world from cartwheeling enough to handle a meeting with the ex-wife of the philanderer whose secret lover had tried to kill me.

Good old small towns and the twisted relationships tangled up in their nets.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Vi?” Mona asked.

She’d checked on my well-being multiple times since I’d stumbled through the front door with my spurs jangling. After leaving the police station, I’d been so preoccupied with thoughts of Caly and what she’d done that night not so long ago in the Opera House bathroom that I’d neglected to go home and change.