Designer Detective (A Fiona Marlowe Mystery) (25 page)

I heard the door open behind me and was afraid
to turn around to see who else had joined the party.

“Excuse me,” Jake said, delicately moving me
aside so he could get by. He yanked Cody off the couch before he could protest and
gave him a resounding punch in the face. He went down in a drunken heap.

Jake stood looking down at Cody a moment then
came over and pulled me into a big bear embrace. “Fiona, I keep saying you need
me to protect you.”

“You’re right, Jake Manyhorses.”

Jake and I sat on the front porch of the old
bunk house in Harney Valley, Oregon, watching a line of rigs stir up the dust on
the ranch road to Opal’s house. Opal had hosted a come-one-come-all barbecue, the
guests were leaving, and we were recovering.

Jake said, “I’m glad the Lodge family disaster
is over.”

“Yes, it is. Let’s not think about the disaster.
I want to think about decorating my bunkhouse and Opal’s house. That’s all I
want to think about.”

“Right.
Though, you
know, I heard they found a guy down in the desert east of here. He was in an
old rusted car, nothing but bones. The sheriff doesn’t know if it was murder or
suicide.”

Really?”
I said,
trying to keep the excitement from my voice.

Jake started laughing.

I soon recovered my senses. “I’m not interested
in the least.”

THE END

Marjorie Thelen lives and writes novels
outside a small town on the Oregon frontier. She enjoys writing stories that
entertain her and, hopefully, her readers. If you would like to learn more
about her books or to contact her, visit her web site:
www.MarjorieThelen.com
. She enjoys
hearing from her readers. The second book in the Fiona Marlowe mystery series,
High Desert Detective
, is now available
on Amazon.com.

Fiona
had never been to a party quite like this one. Everyone wore wide brimmed hats
and cowboy boots. Even she wore them. She’d bought them at the local ranch
store especially for the party. The other folks wore them every day. She
spotted Jake across the room immersed in circle of men, probably talking about
cows. Talk was getting louder by the minute. And here came Opal, steaming
across the room, her eyes fixed on Fiona.

“There you are,” Opal said. “Don’t stand all by
yourself. Come with me. I’ll introduce you around.”

“I don’t know what to say. These people aren’t
talking about anything I know about.”

“Don’t be silly. You have lots in common. They
aren’t aliens from outer space. Don’t talk religion, sex or politics, and
you’ll be fine.

She
tugged Fiona’s arm in the direction of a couple of gals who looked like they most
recently had been astride a horse. Women here didn’t believe in face cream or
SPF. They were tanned and lined and looked comfortable with it. She felt
overdressed in mascara and blush.

“Rosemary.
Esme.
I want you to meet Fiona Marlowe. She’s the gal
I told you was coming to redecorate my house. She’s going to be living in the
bunk house and has plans to spruce it up.”

The two
women halted in mid-conversation, but not before Fiona caught Rosemary saying,
“He murdered both his wives. They weren’t accidents.”

Her
detective DNA came to full alert.

“Murder?”
she asked, taking up on the conversation they hadn’t finished. She didn’t like
to waste time on niceties when murder was in the air.

Rosemary
smiled. “A guy by the name of Hank
Little
had two
wives disappear on him. I say he killed them. Probably beat them to death,
knowing him.”

“Has he
been arrested?” asked Fiona.

“Not
yet,” said Rosemary. “They don’t have enough evidence. The Sheriff hasn’t found
the bodies of either wife. Hank said both wives ran off with someone else. That
doesn’t say much for his prowess with his pistol.”

Rosemary
snorted and Opal and Esme joined in the laughter. Fiona had to smile.
So much for taboo topics.
A clanging bell interrupted her
quizzing the ladies any further.

“Time
to eat,” shouted Queenie, a large woman wrapped in a butcher’s apron with red
checks and flying frizzy hair from a day spent in the kitchen. She carried a
tray full of ribs. Another skinnier woman followed with a platter of beef
barbecue. Fiona’s stomach leapt in happiness. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast,
and it was now late in the afternoon. She’d taken forever deciding how to put a
cowgirl outfit together and hoped the looks the men were casting in her
direction weren’t because something was wrong with her attire.

Opal’s
guests moved toward a table set in the middle of the immense dining room. The
two meat platters were only the start of the feast. A table full of potato
salad and a parade of other picnic salads, corn bread, corn on the cob, and desserts
at the far end made Fiona swoon. More platters of meat arrived as the guests
heaped their plates.

Fiona took a plate and started down the table. Her
appetite never failed her.

“What’s
that?” she asked an older gentleman who was loading up with slices of meat. These
men did not remove their hats to eat, and this one, besides the hat, the plaid
shirt, jeans, and boots, wore a fancy scarf wrapped around his neck which gave
him a rakish look. He couldn’t have been much under eighty years old.

“Goat,”
he said with a grin. “Gal, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

She wrinkled her nose. Goat had to be an acquired
taste and since the ethnic in her was Irish and not Latina, she passed. She
loaded up on everything else. By the time she got to the end of the table, she
could barely lift her plate.

Opal
appeared at her side. “I love a girl with an appetite,” she said. “Tables are
outside on the back patio.”

Rosemary
and Esme were in line behind Fiona and followed her out to a table. Opal must
have assigned them guard duty. Or maybe they were as curious about Fiona as she
was about them.

“Glad you’re
here,” said Esme to Fiona. She had blond and gray hair pulled back in a low
pony tail. She wore a sweat stained black hat that looked like it had been
trampled by a herd of antelope. “You figure you’ll stay long?”

“It
depends how long it takes me to re-design and decorate Opal’s house. I think
that’s what she wants done. She’s been rather vague.”

“I kind
of like it as it is. Has the feel and smell of old money to me,” said Rosemary.

Esme
laughed. “You behave yourself now.”

“No way,” said Rosemary. “
Life’d
be no fun.”

“Tell
me more about the guy who murdered his wives,” Fiona said.

Rosemary smiled. “Let’s get the Sheriff over
here. He could give you the gruesome details. There he is.” She nodded in the
direction of a table of men, the loudest at the party.

“I’ll catch him later,” Fiona said, not wanting
to make a scene. She wanted more time to see which direction the wind was
blowing, politically speaking and otherwise

 
“We’ll introduce you,” Esme said, undeterred.
She turned and shouted to the table of men. “Hey, Hoover. Come on over when you
finish.”

Hoover looked around to see who had called his
name, spotted Esme waving at him and returned the wave.

“You bet,” he shouted back.

His
buddy elbowed him, said something, and they all laughed.

“How is
it you know Jake?” Rosemary asked. She had flashing dark eyes, shoulder length
dark hair, and wore the flat, wide brimmed hat of the buckaroos in the south
end of the valley. At least, that’s what the lady at the ranch store told Fiona
when she bought the same style hat. Rosemary looked much more authentic than
Fiona felt in hers.

“I met
him when he came to Northern Virginia to help Opal settle her
brother
Albert’s estate.”

Esme nodded. “I heard about that. Jake said he
met an interior decorator out there. That must be you.”

“Designer.
I redesign and
improve upon living spaces. That would be me.”

“I get it, like Martha Stewart. Can’t say we
ever see your type out here. Ranchers put their money into livestock,
machinery, and irrigation equipment, not pretty houses.”

“I’m hardly
Martha Stewart. I’m more sophisticated than that.”
 
She’d noticed the houses here were not like
those in the posh suburbs of Washington, D.C. where she lived and worked.

Rosemary
continued on. “That old bunkhouse’ll be a challenge. Do you know it’s haunted?”

The
bite of lemon meringue pie Fiona just swallowed stuck in her throat. She
coughed and cleared her throat. “You’re kidding, of course. You’re trying to
scare me off.”

They weren’t laughing.

“No, she’s
serious,” said Esme. “Opal didn’t mention that?”

“No.
There’s quite a bit Opal hadn’t mentioned about the bunk house. She said it sat
on a knoll with a tree and had a nice view. I came out to take a look.” She
didn’t mention that it was payment for being Opal’s alibi in the arson
investigation of her brother Albert’s house after it went up in flames. She had
envisioned a bunk house a little different than what she got. “I can’t say that
a ghost excites me. Does the ghost have a name?”

“Ghosts,
plural,” said Rosemary. She leaned in, warming to her story. “There’s a cross
cut into that tree by the bunkhouse. Folks say they found a human skull and a
belt buckle from the 1870s under that tree.”

“What
happened to the remains?” Fiona rubbed the goose flesh on her arms though the
day was warm.

“Disappeared.
Nobody knows. But in the old days when Opal
used that bunk house for the ranch hands, they complained of hearing voices
arguing in the wee hours of the morning.
Gunshots sometimes.”

Fiona
frowned. Sharing a house with ghosts was not in her plans. She wondered again about
the wisdom of coming here. Her new duds itched and that reminded her of what a
green horn she was. Her safe, comfortable condo in Northern Virginia beckoned.
No spiders or rats. No creatures that bit or stung.

“Hey,”
said Esme, “we’re scaring you. Don’t listen to us. We had too many beers, and our
tongues are loose. You be quiet now, you hear, Rosemary?”

Rosemary
grinned. “Fiona’s a big girl. She looks like she can take care of herself. But
if I were you, I’d get me a nice looking buckaroo like Jake to keep your bed
warm at night, keep you safe from ghosts.”

They laughed,
and Esme said, “Now you know Suzie wouldn’t like to hear you talk like that
about Jake. You’ll make her jealous.”

“Make
her jealous? Ha, she was born green with envy.”

Fiona
glanced around. “Who’s Suzie? Jake never mentioned a girl friend.”

Rosemary
shrugged. “Suzie thinks she owns every good looking man in the valley. Don’t
pay attention to her, if you’re sweet on Jake.”

“I’m
not sweet on Jake. I hardly know him.”

That
wasn’t entirely true, but Fiona was rattled to hear that Jake might have a
sweetheart. They had spent an intense two weeks together last fall. She hadn’t
seen him since. Opal was the one who had nagged her to come out to re-do her
ranch house and what with Fiona’s other high income projects and the month long
trip to Australia, it was June before she hit the high desert.

Both
ladies looked at her and smiled.

“Really,
I’m not interested in him in the least.”

“We’ll fix
you up with someone else then.
Maybe Sheriff Hoover.
He’s available.”

Sheriff
Hoover strode over to their table as if he’d heard his name mentioned. He
tipped his hat to Fiona.
“Evening.
I hear you are new
to these parts. I’ll guard you from the wolves around here.” He smiled at his little
joke.

Fiona
wasn’t sure she needed Sheriff Hoover’s protection. He was tall and lanky with
a ready smile in a rugged face. He didn’t look threatening, but she had always
been wary of law enforcement types. She had too many speeding tickets. There
was that problem of the ghosts though.

“Fiona’s
curious about Hank
Little
and his missing wives,” said
Esme.
“Any new developments?”

The Sheriff
leaned in. “There’s been bones found in the rubble of a slash pile burn.”

“No,” said Esme.
“Where?”

“Can’t say right now.
We’re investigating.”

“Might be more.
There’s a lot of slash piles up in the mountains.”

Sheriff
Hoover pressed his lips tight and shook his head. He wasn’t sharing any more
information.

Esme
said, “Fiona here might need your help with the ghosts up at the bunk house
when they start bothering her.”

Sheriff
Hoover turned his full attention on Fiona. “I wouldn’t listen to these two.
There are no ghosts in that old place.”

“Yes,
there are,” said Rosemary. “Sure as my name is Rosemary there are. Opal knows
about them.”

“You
listen to me,” the Sheriff said. “Any time you have ghost trouble you call me.
I’ll come running.” He pulled out a well-stuffed wallet, drew out a card, and
laid it by Fiona’s plate. “My cell phone number is on there. Don’t hesitate to
call.”

He
tipped his hat and returned to his rowdy companions.

“Wow,”
said Rosemary. “You made a conquest, Fiona. I do believe the Sheriff’s got eyes
for you. Jake’s going to be jealous now.”

“You
two are bad,” Fiona said.
 
She picked up
the card and studied it. “You never know when I may need this.” She waggled it
in front of them.