A Wild Fright in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 7) (41 page)

“Sure.” She focused on Reid, who had singled out a key and was holding it up in the glare from the headlights. “The Italians were on Railroad and Miners Avenues and Ridgeroad in the Sunnyhill area. The Slavs were mainly behind the Opera House in Slavonian Alley, and there were a bunch of Finnish who lived down in the Park Avenue and Parkdale region. Over here on Washington Street, the miners were mainly from Cornwall. That group brought pasties to Lead, and Ottó Sugarloaf apparently built himself a home amongst them.”

She lost me at “pasties.” Just thinking about those pastries filled with meat and potatoes had me licking my lips.

The clanking of chain links followed by creaky hinges brought our history lesson to a close. Back to Hungarian Devil Hunting 101.

“Normally I’d allow you ladies to go first,” Reid said, blocking the doorway as Aunt Zoe tried to enter, “but not tonight.”

“Reid, please step aside,” Aunt Zoe spoke with a quiet firmness.

He pointed his flashlight at Zoe’s chest. “Zo, don’t you leave my side.” His light moved to me. “As for you, Sparky, try not to burn this place down on my watch.” His tone was light, but tension underlined it.

Aunt Zoe sighed. “Reid, forget about this macho crap and let me lead the way.”

“You don’t know the layout of the building.”

“If there is a
lidérc
in there, knowing the floor plan won’t make a difference.”

“I’m the fire investigator here. I’m liable if something happens to any of you, so I lead. If you don’t like my rule,” he spoke directly to Aunt Zoe, “we can cancel this little field trip right now, and I’ll put the chains and padlock back on these doors.”

A growl came from Aunt Zoe. “Fine.” She fished in her bag for a few seconds and pulled out what looked like a bundle of twigs. “Lead the way, Fire Captain Martin.”

Reid stepped inside, disappearing into the thick shadows, followed by Aunt Zoe and me. Doc brought up the rear, closing the door behind us. I half expected it to lock on its own, barring our escape, but it turned out my imagination was getting ahead of itself.

Inside was one bigger room up front, a living area maybe or an office waiting room. As Reid led us through the thick layers of dust, pieces of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, and critter droppings, our flashlights covered every square inch of the room … especially the dark corners.

“When was the last time anyone occupied this building?” Doc asked.

“I’m not sure,” Reid said, “but according to the paperwork on it, it failed inspection over a decade ago. It’s not listed as officially condemned, but it needs some serious capital sunk into it to fix the flagged problems.”

And some serious air fresheners. I stepped over to one of the plastic-covered windows, wishing I could tear the thick sheet away and let in a little Black Hills pine-scented air, even if it were freezing cold. The place reeked like the local wildlife had thrown a rave party in here.

I tried to see through the plastic. Its opaqueness along with years of built up grime and dust turned the street lights below into blurry orange-brown circles. It swished slightly as a breeze whistled through the old wooden window frame.

I heard the rustle of Doc’s jacket as he came up behind me.

“Are you picking up anything?” I asked as my gaze blurred along with the street lights.

“If you mean signals from the next galaxy over,” his voice was laced with laughter, “all I’m getting is static at the moment.”

I looked up at him, sticking my flashlight under my chin with the beam aimed upward, giving him my best spooky face. “I mean signals from the dead.” I tried to sound like Vincent Price, but imitations weren’t my specialty.

“Who was that supposed to be?”

I stuck my tongue out at him and then lowered my flashlight.

After a quiet chuckle, his smile flat-lined. “There’s a definite unnatural scent in the air, sort of smells sweet and citrusy, like Brylcreem or some other pomade.”

“A little dab will do ya,” I repeated the company’s old slogan.

“But I’m not sure if I’m picking up something ectoplasm based or not. I haven’t noticed any of the other usual signs.”

“If it’s not a ghost, what could it be?”

“Residual energy embedded in the building’s bones.”

“Is that something you come across often? Residual energy?”

He nodded. “Especially in buildings as old as this. But I’m not well-schooled in Paranormal Psychometry, so I notice it every now and then, but that’s it.”

Reid’s light swung our way. “Paranormal Psycho-what?”

“Psychometry. It’s the idea that an object may have an energy field that can be ‘read’ by certain mediums, giving information about the history or future of someone associated with that object. You’ve probably heard of mediums who use psychometry when working with police to help find missing people. The medium will hold onto the victim’s personal belonging, like a teddy bear or hair brush, and employ a dose of precognition to determine a possible future location where the missing individual might be found.”

Reid motioned for us to follow and piloted the way down a hallway that appeared to lead to several smaller rooms in the back. I counted five open doorways. The layout sort of reminded me of the floorplan in Calamity Jane Realty, only with a few more rooms in the back.

“Is this residual energy something you can sense with these medium abilities you were telling me about before we left Zo’s place?” Reid asked, stopping in the dark doorway of the first room and glancing back at Doc.

Ah, so that’s what they’d been murmuring about in the dining room when I’d come down the stairs.

I joined them, peeking between their shoulders into the room. It was empty except for plaster littering the floor below a hole in one of the interior walls.

“Yep.” Doc waited for me and Aunt Zoe to step back before squeezing past Reid to enter the room. He shined the light into the back corner and sniffed a few times.

“Well?” Aunt Zoe asked from where she and I were peeking in again, watching him work his magic from the hallway.

He shook his head but wore a frown when he returned to the hall.

Had something else beeped on his sixth sense radar? Something that could morph into the shape of an ex-lover? I wrinkled my nose. Oh dear Lord, if that
lidérc
thing turned into Tiffany Sugarbell right before my eyes, I was going to use my war hammer as a meat tenderizer and flatten the hell out of its perky boobs and round little bottom.

Wait, Aunt Zoe had said a
dead
relative or lover. Damn! And here I was sort of hoping to have a shot at a Tiffany look-alike.

“What did you say this building was used for?” Reid asked Aunt Zoe as he led us further back the narrow hallway, pausing to shine his flashlight into one empty room and then the other directly across, lighting up all corners before moving onward.

“I didn’t say, fearless leader.” I could hear the challenge in her tone.

Reid gave her a brief glare. “Quit messing with me, Zo, or I’m going to kiss you right here in front of Sparky and Doc.”

“Try it and I’ll knock you on your ass again, Martin, and this time I won’t need my glass block to get the job done.”

He stared at her, our breathing the only sound. Then the creases on his shadowed face deepened and he laughed. “You’re beautiful when you’re mad, have I ever told you that?”

“Shut your big trap,” Aunt Zoe mumbled and pushed past him, leading the way to the next room. “According to what I read about Ottó and this building, when he first had it built, he had a doctor’s office down here with several patient rooms, and his living quarters were upstairs. But then it changed hands after he died and became a small hardware store, then a boarding house for single miners, and most recently it was split into two apartments, one upstairs and one down—that’s when they added the outside stairway.”

“That explains those then,” Reid said, aiming his light at several boards nailed to the ceiling at the end of the hallway. He pointed at some heavy duty hardware still bolted to the wall. “There must have been a circular stairwell here that led to the upper floor, but they took it out when they made it into two apartments.”

“And this room over here was the kitchen,” I said, which was obvious by the ancient looking stove left behind to rot with everything else. When I stepped into the narrow room, I heard a scuffling sound in the rusted chimney pipe leading out through the wall. I could only imagine what critters I would find nesting inside the oven if I opened the door.

The last room in the far back corner, sharing an interior wet-wall with the kitchen, was a cramped bathroom with a dust and dead insect laden porcelain claw-footed tub and stained toilet. The sink was gone, leaving behind corroded galvanized iron pipes sticking out of the wall below a broken mirror that was hazy around the edges.

It reminded me of the mirror in Ms. Wolff’s apartment and the questions returned about what my breaking that mirror meant. Was that doorway now forever open or closed? Had I screwed up something major or were there other doors to be opened elsewhere? Surely there was more than one.

I leaned my war hammer against the wall and stared into the mirror, listening to the sounds of the other three moving around in the hallway and kitchen, whispering to each other.
Okay Mr. Hungarian troublemaker, where are you?
I waited, watching the wall behind my reflection for a ghostly face to appear over my shoulder like I’d seen so many times in horror movies.

But nothing appeared.

Nothing pounded on the mirror’s glass from “the other side” either, nor made it shudder or crack further.

I leaned closer, opening my mouth wide. Was anything lurking down my esophagus, waiting to show its fingers in the back of my throat as it crawled up and out? Or would my throat split open, showing a blinking, bulbous eyeball? Or something even worse that would freak the hell out of me?

Wait, what could be worse than an eyeball in my throat?

It didn’t matter. Nothing was hiding in my mouth. My “dud-ness” was showing its plain old anticlimactic self again.

“What are you doing?” Doc asked.

I glanced over, slowly closing my mouth. He was leaning against the door jamb, watching me with one raised eyebrow.

“Looking for trouble.”

“Can’t you see it, Killer? It’s staring back at you in the mirror, capital T and all.”

“Very funny, Mr. Tall Medium.” I used Cornelius’s name for Doc and walked over to him, pretending to pull a punch.

He caught my exaggerated swing and spun me around, pulling me back against him, resting his chin on the crown of my head. “So, do you talk to mirrors often, my evil queen, or is that a side effect of your new career?”

“I’ve always talked to mirrors. The girl on the other side is the only one who understands all of my highs and woes.”

“Clever, oh fairest of them all.”

“We’re heading back out front, you two,” Aunt Zoe said from behind Doc. “Bring that hammer, Violet.”

I grabbed the war hammer and followed Aunt Zoe out into the hallway. “I’m feeling a bit silly carrying this thing around. There’s nothing to swing at in here but spiders and the dead morsels caught in their webs.”

“We’re not done here.” She stopped and pointed her light at the ceiling.

“Wouldn’t that thing roam both upstairs and down? Surely it doesn’t need a stairwell to go back and forth between floors.”

“Reid, you were upstairs investigating when you saw the shadow, right?”

“Yes, in one of the back rooms.”

“And weren’t the flames and weird lights that were reported said to be coming from the upper windows?”

“I believe so.”

She looked back at me. “Like I said, we’re not done.”

“Yeah, but shouldn’t I be sensing or hearing something from down here?”

“I don’t know, Executioner. Should you?” She reached out and pulled the necklace she’d made me from my neckline, palming the glass charm. “Maybe you’re not focusing.”

She was right. I wasn’t. “Do you want me to try to focus on it from down here or wait until we’re upstairs?”

“I think you would be smarter to start down here. If for some unknown reason it only resides on the upper floor, then you might be able to hear it and give us a head start on what we’re going to face.”

“Okay.” I led the way back out to the front room, feeling the need for more space around me. I used my boot to clear a spot in the center of the floor and sat down with my legs crossed, as if I were preparing to meditate.

“That’s different,” Doc said as he looked down at me.

I laid my war hammer across my lap, the handle within easy reach of my right hand. “My legs are shaky from playing Twister too long.”

Pathetic but true.

He grinned and then backed up to give me more room.

“Here goes nothing,” I told Aunt Zoe and closed my eyes.

I did the ol’ flickering flame trick, focusing on that little fire as it danced and weaved in the blackness. When I opened my eyes, Doc, Aunt Zoe, and Reid stood by, watching and waiting.

I closed my eyes again and thought of Cornelius’s humming as he did during our séances. His one horned Viking helmet. His cornflower blue eyes.

Focus, Scharfrichter, focus.

I opened my eyes again. Doc, Aunt Zoe, and Reid were still there, all staring down at me. Still waiting.

Damn it!

It was usually easier than this. Something was throwing me off.

I closed my eyes and this time thought about the bone-cruncher, its foul breath, its milky gaze, its long spikey teeth gnashing at me. I squeezed my eyes even tighter, thinking about Wilda’s damned clown doll.

When I opened my eyes, Aunt Zoe was digging in her bag, Doc had moved over next to one of the plastic covered windows, and Reid was inspecting some wiring sticking out of the old fashioned, push button light switch in the wall near the doors.

I sighed. “Aunt Zoe, this isn’t working. I can’t seem to—”

Heavy footfalls clomped overhead, interrupting my whine.

My mouth went dry. My stomach churned, sudden nausea making me gulp until it passed.

I slowly looked up at the ceiling, following the loud clomping sounds from the front of the building toward the back until they stopped suddenly. I waited for the ceiling to fall in on our heads, but it held firm, not shedding even a flake of plaster.