Dead Case in Deadwood (24 page)

Mona and I returned to our desks. She looked over the offer
letter, nodded, and smiled at me like a proud parent.

I faxed off the offer and gave Tiffany a call. She answered
with her annoyingly sexy-smoky voice and promised to get back with me within forty-eight
hours with a "Yes" or "No" from her client.

Jane’s Rapid City workshop crimped the celebration lunch
plans for Mona and me. After waiting for a table, I had to scarf down
everything the waitress placed on the table before me, and then run out the
door leaving Mona to take care of the bill with the company credit card.

I sped home, calling my mom on the way to see if it was okay
if I dropped the kids off to go swimming for a bit.

"Sure, your sister just finished skimming the pool."

Crap. I momentarily had forgotten Satan’s concubine was holing
up in the spare bedroom. "Maybe this isn’t such a good idea."

"Violet Lynn, you’re being silly. I’m here. I’ll keep
my eye on them just as I always have."

In spite of my sister’s presence on the property, I agreed
to drop them off. It wasn’t my mother’s fault that her youngest offspring craved
the life of a soap opera villainess. Besides, Aunt Zoe could really use the
afternoon off.

How much corruption could my sister brainwash the kids with in
one afternoon? I didn’t like the answer my brain came back with and decided to
stick with consulting the Magic 8 Ball rather than the other voices in my head.

The kids didn’t waste time getting ready to leave when they
heard they were going swimming at Grammy and Grandpa’s place.

The ride down to Rapid was loud and windy, thanks to the
Picklemobile’s loose muffler and open windows. Layne had "called" the
window seat, so I let Addy run the radio, which picked up only AM stations.

"Mom?" Layne yelled above the whistling wind and crackle-filled
version of Johnny Horton’s twangy
Battle of New Orleans
. I turned the
volume down just as Johnny powdered the gators’ behinds.

"What?"

"Have you considered homeschooling us?"

I glanced over at him, unsure where this was leading. He
stared down at the book in his lap:
Ghostly Tailings. A Snapshot of the Past
.

"Is that the book my friend Doc helped you find at the
library a couple of weeks ago?" I asked, delaying my abrupt "No"
to his other question.

He nodded.

"I thought you were done reading it."

"I wanted to go through it again."

If I hadn’t been fully awake and pushing when Addy and then
Layne entered this world, I’d believe the doctor switched out my real son with the
baby of a NASA engineer. Then again, his sperm donor of a father had been going
to college to be a scientist.

I focused on the road and returned to his question.  "No,
I haven’t considered homeschooling you. Why do you ask?"

"He’s scared to go to school next week," Addy butted
in.

"Shut up!" I saw Layne elbow his sister out of the
corner of my eye, almost hitting her cast. "I am not."

"Layne, stop hitting your sister. Addy, zip your lips
and let your brother speak for himself."

"I’m just trying to help," Addy said.

I shot her a
yeah-right
look. "Layne, is Addy
right? Are you nervous about going to your new school next week?"

He shrugged. "Maybe."

"Why? Is this about meeting new kids, because you’re
really good at making friends."

That wasn’t entirely true, since he tended to keep his nose
buried in books more than engaging the children around him, but I was his mom.
Sugarcoating the truth was in my job description.

He shrugged again and looked out the open window. The wind
ruffled his hair, making him look even younger than his almost ten years. I
resisted the urge to reach out and brush my fingers over his still-boyish
cheek.

Instead, I asked, "Are you concerned about training a
new teacher on your homework style?"

Layne preferred to give long, detailed, elaborate answers on
all of his homework, including his art projects and basic math problems. Each
year, we went through a few weeks of teachers’ notes repeatedly telling him to
cut back on his long-winded responses until they gave up and just let him do
his thing.

Addy, on the other hand, preferred to keep everything short
and sweet, if she answered at all. As Doc said, she hadn’t fallen far from the
tree.

"Maybe." He sighed, the weight of his young world rising
and dropping with his broadening shoulders. "Mostly I’m worried about you."

I blinked. "Me? What are you talking about?"

"This is a pivotal year for us."

Pivotal? The kid must be reading the dictionary in the
bathroom again. I swallowed a chuckle. "Why is fifth grade
pivotal
?"

"Before you know it, we’ll be looking into colleges."

Addy blew a huge pink bubble and popped it with her own fingers,
and then giggled.

He might be thinking about college. His sister, on the other
hand, had a few years of being a "kid" yet to stumble through.

"You’ll be wondering what you are going to do for the
rest of your older years," Layne continued.

My older years? Nice. As forty crept nearer, I preferred to
think that old meant ninety and I wasn’t even halfway there. Layne was jumping
the gun about half a decade with this little prophecy of his, and I had a
feeling there was something more to it than homeschooling and me getting more
wrinkled.

"Don’t worry, Momma," Addy said. "I’m going
to live with you until you’re a little old woman." She wrapped her gum
around her finger, and then twirled the other end of it like a lasso.

I knew my daughter meant well and loved her dearly, but that
offered me no comfort at all. "Addy, put the gum in your mouth."

I hit my blinker and made a right into my parents’ neighborhood.
"Layne, what does homeschooling have to do with me getting old and lonely?"

"If you homeschool me, I would be home with you more."

"Have you forgotten that I work all day?"

"I could make sure to take care of the house while
you’re gone, do things like mow the lawn and take out the garbage."

"You already do those things."

"Yeah, but I’d do it for free—no allowance required.
It’d be one of my regular jobs."

Oh, now I got it. "You mean you could act more like the
man of the house."

"Sure, I guess."

I wasn’t buying his feigned innocence in that response. "Do
you think that if you’re at school every day, I’ll find another man to take on
that role?"

He looked down at his book again. "Maybe."

I pulled to a stop in my parents’ drive. Addy scrambled over
her brother, shoving her way out the door.

"Hold on, Layne." I waited until Addy was climbing
Mom’s front steps and well out of earshot. "Look at me."

He did, his forehead pinched. "What?"

"I’ll never replace you. Understand? You’re always
going to be my favorite boy of all time in here." I patted the left side
of my chest. "If I were ever to fall in love with someone and want to get
married,"
and pigs started manning space shuttle flights to the moon
,
"you will still be my favorite boy of all time."

His frown didn’t waver. "You’ve never mentioned getting
married before in that speech."

I hadn’t? "Oh, well, it just kind of popped in there as
a possibility."

"That’s what concerns me, Mom." He leaned over and
kissed my cheek, and then jumped to the ground and followed his sister into the
house.

My mother looked out the door and waved at me, then closed
it. Guess I wasn’t invited in for cookies and milk.

Shaking off Layne’s worries, I backed out of the drive and
headed for the address on Jane’s Post-it note.

Twenty minutes later, I parked in front of a boring,
rectangular brick building, where I ended up spending the longest four hours of
my life doodling in between taking notes for Jane. Three times I’d almost
nodded off, and one time my forehead actually touched the tabletop. Turned out
I’d found a non-chemical solution for insomnia.

It was after dinnertime when I escaped to the Picklemobile. I
growled at the setting sun, knowing the viewing at Mudder Brothers was going on
as I stood there, a good hour away when figuring in the amount of time to go
home and change into a funeral ensemble.

Since there was no way I could make the viewing, I sat
behind the steering wheel and checked my messages. The first was my mom telling
me she was taking the kids to a movie and keeping them for the night; she’d drop
them off at Aunt Zoe’s tomorrow.

I thought of my sister and debated on insisting on bringing
them home with me, but it was Monday night and Aunt Zoe was working at the
gallery. If Mom kept the kids, I could sneak down to Mudder Brothers and maybe
peek into their garage-turned-crematorium windows without worrying about
finding a sitter for my kids.

Decision made.

The second message was from Harvey. He was in Deadwood and
wondering what I was up to, hoping it was no good.

The old bugger knew me too well.

I thought about calling Harvey back and having him join me
at Mudder Brothers, but then Cooper’s face popped into my thoughts. After Harvey’s
and my last adventure at Mudder Brothers, the detective might be keeping tabs
on his uncle as a means to watch me. Maybe that was just paranoia talking, but
Harvey was a risk and I couldn’t take a chance on Cooper catching me. Like
Jane, bright orange jumpsuits clashed with my skin tone and hair color.

Instead, I called Natalie.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," she said. "How was
the porch last night?"

"I don’t remember. I slept like the dead." Well,
the dead that didn’t come back and haunt Deadwood.

"Was I snoring that loud?"

Not snoring, just mumbling. "I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t
want to toss and turn and wake you."

"I could’ve bored you back to sleep with stories about
my childhood."

"I’ve heard them all before and lived most of them with
you."

"Well, you are the center of my universe. So, what’s
up, my queen?"

"Are you busy tonight?"

"It’s Bingo night at the VFW."

"Crap, I forgot." I could have used her to keep me
from being too lily-livered.

"Want to come and fondle some hard little balls with
me? We can stick them in our bras and ask folks if they think it’s cold."

I grinned. "As tempting as that sounds, I’m going to
have to pass."

"I’ll be home around eleven, after I drive my parents home.
We could do something then. Hang out at the Purple Door Saloon? Go up to the
Golden Sluice and stare at the other bored locals? Maybe Cooper will show up."

Cooper? Why would I care about … oh, yeah. "Nat, I told
you that I’m not interested in Detective Cooper."

"Your mouth says one thing, but your eyes tell a
different story."

"Then my eyes are full of shit."

Natalie scoffed. "Says Cleopatra, the Queen of de-Nile."

"Is that your sad attempt at a pun?"

"Shut up. So, you want to head out when I get back from
my parents’ or not?"

"No, that’s too late. I’ll see you later."

"Don’t have too much fun without me."

I hung up and started the Picklemobile.

By the time I rolled into Deadwood, the streetlights had
kicked on. I cruised by Mudder Brothers on my way home. The parking lot was
still a third full, but a handful of people were walking out to their cars.

If I hurried, maybe I could change my clothes and get back
there while the family of the deceased was still inside to distract George.

It took me ten minutes to get home and change into my
spy-wear—black leggings and a purple Elvis t-shirt. I couldn’t find my tennis
shoes anywhere, including under my bed or in the shoe bin by the front door.
After ransacking my closet one more time, I grabbed my purple boots and Aunt Zoe’s
dark gray hoodie, slipped them on, and then raced out the door.

I parked the Picklemobile behind Calamity Jane’s, where the
old beast coughed, sputtered, and then died with its usual final gunshot "bang."
If Cooper came looking for me, I planned to use work as my alibi.

I stepped inside the office, turned on the overhead lights,
and dropped my tote on my desk in plain view of the large plate-glass windows.
Then I turned on the bathroom light and fan and shut the door.

There. All bases were covered if Cooper came snooping.

After grabbing the emergency flashlight from the cupboard
under the coffee maker, I zipped up the jacket and pulled the hood over my
head. Finally, all of those years of watching Charlie’s Angels reruns were
paying off. Dad would be so proud.

I slipped out the back door and snuck through the parking
lot, keeping an eye out for a cop car or Cooper’s unmarked sedan parked among
the shiny classic cars.

The coast appeared to be clear. I hesitated, gripping the
flashlight tight in my palm. Without Harvey or Natalie by my side, sneaking
around a building where corpses were incinerated wasn’t nearly as fun as it had
seemed in the light of day.

Slinking around the back of the Rec Center, I paused on the
other side and peeked out at the street, and then at Mudder Brothers. As I
watched, one of "Deadwood’s finest" cruisers turned in the funeral
parlor parking lot, pulled into a spot, then reversed and rolled back out onto
the street. I didn’t put it past Cooper to have one of his patrol cars watching
the funeral parlor for the Picklemobile or Natalie’s pickup. Word on the street
said the detective was as thorough as a blind proctologist.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and frowned
at the number. It was local. I let it go to voice mail.

Before I had it jammed back in my pocket, it started
vibrating again. I pulled it back out. The same number filled the screen. I
forced it to voicemail and dared it to ring again.