Dead Case in Deadwood (16 page)

"Right. Did he tell you about your ghost-talking friend
with the corny name?"

"His name is Cornelius."

"That’s right. The chimp played by Roddy McDowell."
Harvey stroked his beard. "I always thought his chimp wife, Dr. Zira, was
kind of sexy. Nothin’ like Nova, though. That woman knew how to wear a pelt."

I sighed. We were regressing.

"Harvey, what’s going on with Cornelius?"

Please, please, please don’t say he’s skipping town.

"Doc told me that crazy Corny riled up some ghosts at
the Old Prospector Hotel last night. Some mirrors were shattered in the guest
suite. And a window broken. Or was it two? I can’t remember."

Son of a bitch.

"How did Doc know about this?" And why didn’t I?

"Tiffany told him."

I blinked. Come again. "Tiffany?"

"Yeah, you know, that hot little redhead number with
the tight—"

"When did she tell him this?"

If Harvey said "last night," I was going to sneak
over to Doc’s house after Nat and the kids went to sleep tonight, strap him to
that new bed of his, and pour hot wax on his tender parts.

Harvey shrugged. "Around lunchtime, I think. She was
leaving his office when I showed up for my weekly appointment with him."

I gritted my teeth. Which explained why my second and third
calls went unanswered.

Thunder boomed over our heads, impending doom knocking.

I flipped it off with both hands, and then squinted at
Harvey. "Do you have any tequila?"

He scoffed. "Tequila is for pussies. If you want
something to take the edge off, I’ve got just what you need."

I hopped to the ground. "Bring it on, old man."

Fifteen minutes later, I stood up from leaning over Jeff’s toilet.
I wiped off my lips, flushed the toilet, and then rinsed out my mouth with sink
water.

Old man Harvey’s reflection grinned at me in the mirror from
his post against the doorjamb. "And that’s why you don’t chug firewater."

"Firewater?" I dried my face on a hand towel and
threw it on the sink vanity. "More like paint thinner."

I’d just stripped the lining from my guts and flushed it
down the john. Criminy. I’d thrown up two times already today and the sun was
still up. I was on a real bender.

"Is she done puking?" Jeff hollered from the other
room.

Harvey’s brows raised. "You done airin’ your paunch
now, girlie?"

"Yes, she’s done," I answered loud enough for
Jeff’s ears and poked Harvey in the chest as I passed him, receiving a
satisfactory grunt in return.

Jeff waited for us in the kitchen, leaning against the
counter. Speckles of white paint added a sugar-like coating to his sandy blond
hair, black biker rally T-shirt, and faded jeans. He held a glass of water out
toward me.

"Thanks." The water turned out to be the sparkling
kind. Even better.

I leaned against the counter next to him and his broad
shoulders, glaring at Harvey’s gold-toothed grin over the rim of my glass. The
fizz tickled my nose.

"I don’t know why you got your bloomers all cinched up
over Crazy Corny," Harvey said.

"His name is Cornelius." I didn’t need Harvey’s
new nickname for my cash-buying client to catch fire and spread throughout
town. I tried to shush Harvey with a squinty-eyed glare. "And we can
discuss this more later."

"Cornelius who?" Jeff asked.

"Everyone in town knows that hotel is haunted,"
Harvey said, obviously ignoring me. "What’s a few pieces of broken glass?"

"It’s not the glass that’s bothering me. It’s what
happened that caused the glass to break and who else was involved."

Was Safari Skipper, a.k.a. front desk clerk there? Any other
employees or locals or tourists? Had there been any newspaper reporters nearby?
Anyone taking pictures or videos that would show up on the Internet? I had a
not-so-good reputation to protect, damn it.

"Which hotel are you talking about?" Jeff asked.

"Never m—" I started.

"The Old Prospector," Harvey blared.

Jeff nodded. "One of the painted ladies hangouts."

"Painted ladies?" My stomach bucked a little.
Harvey’s firewater still boiling in my tank. "You mean prostitutes?"

"Yes, indeedy." Harvey’s grin split even wider. "One
of Deadwood’s finest traditions."

The place had been a bit seedy looking, but, "Really? I
thought the FBI cleared out the last of the brothels back in the early
eighties."

"They did." Jeff grumbled. "The damned Feds
just couldn’t leave well enough alone."

Harvey dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. "The Old
Prospector used to house a bunch of the ‘girls’ on its third floor up until the
late sixties. Then there was some big fight between the hotel owner and several
of the girls and they were kicked out. The owner remodeled the rooms, tore out
some walls, and turned the third floor into fancy suites."

Maybe they used to be fancy, but they weren’t so shiny,
anymore. That explained the faded look to the rooms.

"So, let me guess," I said, "the hotel is
supposed to be haunted by some poor prostitute killed by one of her johns."

Jeff scooted closer to me, nudging my shoulder with his. "For
a blonde, you’re a smart cookie, Violet Parker. Our kids would be cute and
clever."

He said that like I should now sigh loudly while little
hearts floated around my head.

Harvey snickered.

I scooted away from Jeff. "Has anyone ever actually
seen this ghost?" I asked Harvey. "Or is it all glowing orbs and
shadows in pictures?"

"I told you yesterday that one of the housecleaners
swore the ghost existed," he answered. "She talked about cleanin’ the
rooms on the third floor and feelin’ warm breath on the back of her neck. Of
course, nobody would be there when she turned around."

I tried to remember if there were any vents in the ceiling
in those rooms. Maybe it was just a weird air current. "Was that it? Hot
breath on her neck?"

Harvey tugged on his beard. "No, there was another
story about spooky messages left on one of the mirrors in the room at the far
end of the hall."

"You mean with lipstick?"

"No, if you steamed it up, there were weird things
written there."

"Like what?"

"I don’t remember. Seems like the gal I heard that from
said it was some kind of foreign language. The hotel owner took that particular
mirror out of there and it stopped."

A haunted mirror? Maybe the ghost was Snow White’s evil
queen.

Jeff crossed his arms. "I remember hearing about some
strange blonde woman hanging out in one of the upstairs windows. She only
showed up there at sunset. Nobody knew her name or recognized her."

"Maybe it was just a mannequin." Like one of the
many fakes I’ve seen in upstairs windows in both Deadwood and Lead. Plastic or
not, those empty looks and flaxen faces gave me the creeps.

With a shrug, Jeff said, "Maybe. I figured the owner
was just messing with people. Having fun."

Jeff was like me, a non-believer in the wispy
population—although, I was moonlighting in the believer camp more and more
these days.

"So, hot breath and steamy mirrors then," I said. "Anything
else happ—"

The muffled sound of my cell phone stopped me. I patted my
pockets and came up empty. Where had I put it?

"Here," Harvey said, and pulled it out of his
pants pocket and held it out to me. "You left it on the tailgate when you
raced for the commode."

Oh, right. I grimaced at just the memory of drinking that
liquid lava. It was a wonder I hadn’t singed Harvey’s beard when I’d coughed
and gasped all over him.

I grabbed the phone. It was Mona. "Hello?"

"Violet, where are you?" Something in her voice
made my heart pick up speed.

What was wrong? Where were my kids—oh, yeah, in the backyard.
Whew!

"I’m at Jeff Wymonds prepping for the open house
tomorrow. Why? What’s up?"

"Have you talked to your newest buyer today?"

Damn! She’d heard about Cornelius and the broken mirror.
That meant Jane had, too. And Ray, who would undoubtedly be gloating the next
time we faced off for a duel.

"Not yet. I was going to call him here shortly. I was
giving him 24 hours to make a decision."

"You’d better call him now."

"If this is about the broken windows and mirror—"
I started.

"It’s not," she interrupted. "It’s about Ray."

"What about Ray?" I looked up to find Harvey
frowning at me.

What did Ray have to do with Cornelius? Mona was the one
helping me with the paperwork and necessary steps for this commercial sale.

"He’s lined up another buyer. He’s on the phone with
Tiffany Sugarbell right now."

Doc’s ex? My stomach kicked again, my lower esophagus
burning. "What do you mean? I don’t understand."

"Ray’s trying to steal the hotel sale out from under
you."

"That fucking rat bastard!" He was going straight
for my throat.

Harvey and Jeff exchanged raised brows.

"You need to talk to your client right away," Mona
ordered. "See if he’s willing to buy the place or not. We don’t have time
for wooing anyone here."

"Okay, I’ll call Cornelius as soon as I hang up."

"No, don’t do this over the phone." I could hear
her fingernails clacking through the line. How could she be typing during a blow
like this? "It’s too easy for a client to say ‘No, thanks,’ when he
doesn’t have to look you in the eyes. Face-to-face is better."

"All right."

"Do you want me to come with you to talk to him?"

No way! Mona would see how much of a freakshow Cornelius really
was, and then she’d look at me in that way of hers that made me feel like I’d
piddled on the rug. Besides, Cornelius had come looking for me and me alone.

"Thanks, Mona, but I want to fly solo on this."

"Okay. Call me if you need me. I’ll talk to you in a
bit." She hung up.

I tossed my phone on the counter and covered my face with my
hands. "I’m so screwed."

"What’s going on?" Jeff asked, rubbing my lower
back, an intimate act that would have earned him a shove or shooing smack if my
hands weren’t busy trying to hide me away from the world.

"Let me guess," Harvey said. "Ray is tryin’
to put a spoke in your wheel."

"If that means he’s trying to screw me over again and
get me fired, then yes."

"You want me to introduce him to Bessie?"

Yes, I did, and I wanted Harvey to aim low. "It’s
probably not a good idea. I’m going to need you around to take care of Aunt Zoe
and the kids after I suffocate Ray with his own dirty underwear."

"I could break his kneecaps," Jeff jumped on
Harvey’s bandwagon and squeezed me in an awkward side-hug.

I lowered my hands and pulled away from Jeff without trying
to make it obvious how much his touch was
not
comforting me.

Enough wallowing in my kiddy pool of self-pity. I scooped up
my phone and searched the room. "Where’d I put my purse?"

"By the front door," Jeff said.

"Where are you going?" Harvey asked as I raced out
of the room.

"To see Cornelius." I grabbed my purse. "Addy!
Layne! We need to go!"

"I’ll take them home," Harvey offered. "You
just skedaddle and take care of ol’ Ray."

"Thanks," I said, and then turned to Jeff. "Keep
painting and move the furniture around in your bedroom like we talked about."
At his nod, I continued. "I’ll be by early tomorrow to help with the final
prep."

Harvey walked me out to the Picklemobile. The dark clouds
had passed to the south, taking the rain with them. Turned out the northern
hills wouldn’t be watered today after all.

"Sure you don’t want some help?"

"Positive." I crawled inside the cab. "Harvey,
promise me you won’t tell Aunt Zoe or the kids about any of this shit with Ray."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He frowned through the open
window at me. "You sure you’re okay? Your eyes are all buggy and rolling
around in your head right now. Are you feelin’ any hit from the firewater?"

I’d thrown it all up too soon for it to hit my bloodstream. "I’m
fine and dandy. Happy as a dung beetle in a cow pie." I used one of his
own lines on him.

"It’s ‘cow patty.’" His eyes narrowed. "You’re
not going to go off and do anything cuckoo, right?"

Maybe. Probably. Mostly likely. Define cuckoo. "No. Not
at all."

* * *

I called Cornelius while sitting at a red light at the opposite
end of Main Street from his hotel. In front of me, a dark green 1938 Dodge,
just like Bogart’s car in
The Big Sleep
, my all-time favorite Bogart
film, idled in a low growl.

I rolled up the window.

"Hello?" Cornelius answered, sounding like a
Vincent Price impressionist.

I ground my molars, wanting to tell him to knock off the
act. "Mr. Curion, it’s Violet Parker."

He breathed into the phone.

"Your Realtor."

"I know who you are, Violet. I came looking for you,
remember?"

Right. "I’m calling to see if you have made a decision regarding
the hotel."

"Yes, I have."

It was my turn to just sit there and breathe into the phone.
Only he didn’t continue. "What’s your decision?"

My heart pounded so hard that my big toe throbbed.

"I’ve decided that I need you to see something first."

Like I hadn’t heard that line before, but I hadn’t expected
it from Cornelius. "Excuse me?"

"I want you to come to my hotel room tomorrow night."

I sat there, my jaw resting on the steering wheel. Damned
Tiffany for making my boobs look bigger in that dress yesterday.

Someone honked behind me. The light was green.

I hit the gas. "Why?"

"Just trust me," he said.

Surely Cornelius wasn’t thinking I’d exchange sex for a
sale. I mean, I was desperate and all, but not that desperate. I’d sooner use
Addy’s bike to deliver newspapers for a living than have sex with Abe Lincoln.
My butt could use the exercise, anyway.