A Wild Fright in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 7) (27 page)

“Did you touch it?” Doc asked.

“Touch the clown doll?”

He nodded.

“Hell, no.”

“Then how do you know it wasn’t an illusion?”

“It looked real.”

“Didn’t you—and Harvey—say that Prudence looked real sitting there in the seat next to you last weekend?”

Harvey and I exchanged wrinkled brows. “I guess so.”

“Did either of you touch Prudence?”

We both shook our heads. “No, but she touched me.”

“Her hand went through you, though, right?” At my nod, he continued, “I would suspect what you saw in the elevator today was a very real looking manifestation.”

“Of a half-burned clown doll?”

He shrugged. “It’s better than the alternative.”

“Next time you need to touch it,” Aunt Zoe said.

“I’m not touching that doll.”

“I hate clowns,” Harvey said. “Touchin’ that thing would turn my knees to puddin’.”

I wet a clean dishrag and started wiping down the table. “What about the whisper and the bite? Are you going to tell me they weren’t real either?”

“No,” Doc lifted the bottle of hard cider I’d given him so that I could wipe under it. “I think Wilda has the ability to telepathically communicate with the living. As for the bite, she could have put that idea in your head as well and psyched you into thinking she bit you.”

“But I’m a dud.”

“You’re not a dud.”

“How come I’ve never been able to hear or see ghosts before?”

“You were a skeptic then, with your mind closed to possibilities. That’s changed in the last five months.”

“You think that’s why I could see Prudence?”

“I think it might have something to do with your ability to see certain ghosts now, but that’s really more of a theory. We don’t know the extent of your abilities yet … or hers.” He smirked. “We may never know on both counts.”

“You’re like a young flower,” Aunt Zoe said. “Your outer petals are only now beginning to open.”

“I feel more like an onion, sloughing off dead skin.”

“Ya look like an onion tonight in that ragamuffin outfit, that’s fer sure.”

I threatened to throw the dishrag at Harvey. “For that, old man, you’re coming with me and your nephew to see Prudence.”

“No I’m not. That batty dead broad is bucksnortin’ mean. She makes me all squirmy in my skivvies.”

“I need a bodyguard.”

“What do ya think Coop is?”

“Not
my
bodyguard. You gave me your oath.”

“To defend you against livin’ things.”

“Do I need to stop down at the senior center and find another bodyguard?”

His bushy eyebrows pulled together. “Now, ya don’t need to go stirrin’ up hell with a long spoon.”

“You’re going then?”

“Well, ya sure seem to be makin’ it somethin’ I can’t ride around.”

“Blame your nephew. He’s the one bent on meeting Prudence.”

“Why is he so set on meeting her?” Aunt Zoe asked.

I grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge for me, popping the top. “I kind of wonder if he thinks we’re telling tall tales and wants to see her for himself.”

“If she’ll talk to him,” Doc said, “Coop might find out a few answers to some of his unsolved cases.”

I tipped the neck of my bottle toward him. “Or that.”

“I think it’s a mixture of both.” Doc stood and left the room.

“Whatever the reason.” I took a swallow of beer. “You’re coming with me, Harvey.”

“Why don’t you take Doc?” Harvey asked.

“He needs to save up his energy to deal with Wilda. Besides, Prudence has proven that she can use pretty much anyone for a medium.”

Harvey was still grumbling when Doc walked back in carrying the wooden box I’d stuffed in the closet earlier. Apparently, while it had slipped my mind, it hadn’t his.

“What’s that?” Aunt Zoe stood to take a closer look.

“It was outside on your front porch when I arrived earlier. It has Violet’s initials on it.”

I glanced at Aunt Zoe. “It’s nailed shut. What do you have handy to pry it open?”

Harvey beat her to the punch, pulling a screwdriver from the side pocket in his overalls. “Ya never know—”

“When you’re going to need to screw something,” I finished for him. “You told us that once before.”

“Spoilsport,” Harvey said to me.

Doc grinned, taking the screwdriver from him. “It’s always good to come prepared.”

Aunt Zoe brought him a hammer. It took a minute, but he managed to loosen the lid. He turned to me. “It has your initials on it. You open it.”

I chewed on my lower lip. “What if there’s a half-burned clown doll inside?”

“Move aside, yellow belly.” Harvey said, grabbing the lid and tugging it the rest of the way free.

Straw filled the interior.

I looked at Harvey. “Keep going, tough talker.”

He stuck his hand into the straw, feeling around. Then he paused, his eyebrows turning into one long crinkly caterpillar. “What in tarnation?”

“What is it, Willis?” Aunt Zoe asked.

He pulled out what appeared at first to be a short handled ax. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was more a hammer of sorts, not an ax, and quite a bit more elaborate than a regular old hammer, having a spike on the opposite side of the face rather than a claw. A metal ram’s skull decorated the center of the head while a dark leather strap wrapped down the handle, acting as a grip. The leather was darker at the far end, like it had been handled plenty. The metal head had several scars.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a war hammer,” Doc said, taking it from Harvey to admire under the kitchen light. “I’ve only seen them in books and museums. Often they have longer handles so they can be used when on horseback.”

“There’s a note.” Aunt Zoe plucked a piece of folded paper from the straw. She held it out to me.

The outside was blank. I unfolded it and read the words inside, a sinking anchor of dread hit bottom in my gut as I stared at the paper.

“What’s it say?” Doc glanced up from the war hammer.

I held up the paper for him to see the words scrawled in a script that reminded me of something I’d see on a medieval scroll:

You will need this soon.

“Why am I going to need a war hammer?” I dropped into one of the chairs, resting my chin on my hand.

Doc touched his index finger to the tip of the spike. “Let’s hope it’s not to penetrate something coated with extra tough armor.”

“Who left it for me? The war hammer fairy?” I inspected the paper again to no avail.

“I’m more worried about why it was left.” Doc handed the war hammer back to Harvey.

“Whoever left it must know you’re an executioner,” Aunt Zoe said.

“Why’s that?”

She pointed at a word branded in the wood on the inside of the lid. “
Carnifex
.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s the Latin word for
executioner
.”

* * *

Friday, November 16th

Morning came no matter how much I tried to hide under the covers and make it go away.

Doc was putting on his coat as I came down the stairs, his jaw dark with stubble, his duffel bag zipped and waiting by the front door. His gaze traveled up from my bare feet and legs to my puffy eyes. “You look soft and sleepy.”

“I feel like something Layne dug up in the backyard.” I paused on the bottom step, almost eye level with him. “Are you heading to the Rec Center?”

He nodded. “How’d you sleep? Any nightmares?”

“Only the usual sweet dreams. You know, killer clown dolls, angry one-armed albinos, and a bone cruncher or two.” I shrugged. Such were my nights when I was left to my own devices for entertainment during pillow time. “How was the couch?”

Harvey had taken Aunt Zoe’s bed since she’d planned to spend the night in her workshop, crashing on the sofa in her back room. That left the couch for Doc instead of my bed.

“I don’t remember much after you went upstairs for the night.”

“Any more wooden boxes left on the front porch?”

He peeked out the front window. “No. I guess one war hammer is all you’re going to need.”

“Lucky me.” I ran my fingers through my hair, patting down a poof I’d acquired from my pillow. My first attempt in front of the bathroom mirror had barely made a dent in the tangled mess. “I should hop in the shower. Jerry wants to debrief me first thing this morning before the TV crew shows up.”

He leaned back against the door, a smile on his lips. “I can’t blame Jerry. I’d like to debrief you, too. Especially with your hair all crazy sexy like that.”

I squinted at him. “You had your chance last night, but you passed.”

“Your kids are right down the hall.”

And they would be for another nine or ten years, maybe longer. We’d hit a stalemate on this one, since I wasn’t going to ask him to make any kind of long term commitment and risk scaring him off, and he wasn’t going to take a chance of my kids catching him under the covers with me.

“My door has a lock, you know.”

He stared at me for several seconds, his expression sobering. “You do realize this isn’t about your bedroom door, don’t you?”

I thought on that for a moment, letting it sink into my foggy brain. No, I didn’t. “Of course.”

“Your nose twitches when you lie, Boots.”

Covering my tell-tale appendage, I asked, “Okay, what’s it really about?”

Was it me? My morning makeup-less face? My breath? Hair? Or was it something deeper, like the commitment that came with sleeping semi-regularly in a single mother’s bed? Was he afraid if he had sex with me in my bed routinely with the kids down the hall that I’d think a wedding ring came next?

He picked up his duffle bag and hung it from his shoulder. “Think about it, and when you come up with a possibility, I’ll be all ears.” He bridged the distance and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Until then, beautiful, you know where to find me.”

“On the couch?”

He smiled and left. I watched him close the door behind him, wishing I’d stuck with Plan A for the day and stayed hidden under the covers.

The kitchen was empty, thank the stars. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone yet this morning, especially with the worries buzzing around my head thanks to Doc’s cryptic reply.

And men complained that women were hard to figure out.

Oh, that was rich.

Doc had made fresh coffee. I grabbed a quick breakfast of yogurt and toast, chugged down a cup of coffee, and headed back upstairs to shower and get dressed. Harvey and the kids were stirring by the time I was ready to go talk to Jerry.

“Thanks again, Harvey,” I said as he came down the stairs.

He helped me with my coat. “You owe me, girlie. How ‘bout ya leave me out of the Prudence field trip in return?”

“Nope. There’s no way I can handle Prudence
and
your prickly nephew on my own. You’re stuck, so quit trying to weasel out of it.”

Grumbling and sputtering, he waddled off toward the kitchen. I kissed each kid goodbye and threatened eternal grounding if they didn’t behave for Doc when he took them to “exercise” at the Rec Center after school.

There was a dusting of snow on the ground this morning, making it look like someone had dropped a big bag of flour above the town on Mount Moriah. The streets were clear without any slipping and sliding, the ground not cold enough to keep the snow from melting.

The Picklemobile wasn’t parked in Doc’s usual spot, but then I was a half an hour early coming into work this morning. Jerry’s Hummer was the only vehicle on the scene. I climbed down from my SUV, breathing in the fresh, cool pine-scented air as I made my way to Calamity Jane’s back door.

When I stepped inside, I could hear Jerry’s voice. His office lights were on but the door was shut. His voice was too clear for him to be behind a closed door. The bathroom was dark, the door open. I made my way out front and found Jerry sitting at Ben’s desk, talking on his cell phone.

“Sounds good, Dickie. We’ll meet you there in an hour.” He hung up and smiled at me as I set my purse down. “Good morning, Violet. Thanks for coming in early. This filming business has me burning the candle at both ends.”

Why him? He hadn’t shown up yesterday at The Old Prospector Hotel until the afternoon, and then he’d only stayed for an hour and left again.

“No problem.” I glanced down the hall toward his office. “Do you want to talk out here or in your office?”

“I don’t want to go in there right now,” he said, scowling in the direction of his office. “How did it go yesterday?” He leaned back in Ben’s chair, his fingers laced behind his head. “Did you have any luck with the ghosts that I’ve heard haunt the place?”

Hadn’t he been speaking with Dickie a moment ago? Surely Rosy had shown Dickie and Honey the Wilda footage. The clown doll shoved in the camera’s eye? I would think that piece of film would be gold for the show and Dickie would be raving about it on the streets of Deadwood. The idea of how this piece of film would affect my reputation and future as a Realtor had been one of my middle of the night worries last night, right after my nightmare about Caly stabbing me in the eye with a broken piece of glass over and over and immediately before the one where I woke up next to that half-burned clown cackling at me with its big frozen mouth.

“I’m not sure.” I played dumb, heading over to the coffee machine so my nose didn’t get all twitchy about my answer. “I didn’t notice anything while we were filming.” No lie there.

Until Rosy told everyone about the segment we’d caught with Wilda, I wasn’t going to say a peep.

“I liked your outfit yesterday. It turned out better than the pink one we’d discussed.”

I stirred some sugar into my coffee, waiting for the “but” that was sure to come. When it hadn’t by the time I tossed the stir stick in the trash and returned to my desk, I smiled. “Thanks. I tried to keep your clothing tips in mind when I picked it out. I spilled toothpaste on the pink dress.”

A note was stuck to my desk. Mona’s writing was on it, telling me she was still working on finding out if the owner of the Sugarloaf Building was interested in selling to Katrina King.

“Is the pink dress still usable?” Jerry asked.

“Sure. I dropped it off at the cleaners on the way to the shoot yesterday. They said the toothpaste should come out without a problem.”