Dead Case in Deadwood (10 page)

"Oh, dear God."

"They taste purty good, but the Lovin’ Lava jelly really
burns my—"

"Gahhh!" I shouted, holding my hand out for him to
stop.

"Burns my
fingers
," Harvey finished, his grin
now smug. "Coop was right, you have a gutter mind."

Coop?
"I have the gutter mind? Why were you two
talking about my mind?"

Harvey shrugged, looking at the parking lot, avoiding my
squint. "No reason. Just shootin’ the breeze."

"Your pants are on fire."

"I know. This polyester doesn’t allow my twig and
berries to get much air. Now, are we going to this viewing or what, girl?"
He lifted his cane and tapped me on the calf. "At this rate, I’ll be the
one in the coffin."

"What’s with the cane?" I asked, leading the way
across the porch.

"It makes me look more debonair."

The big canary needed more than a cane to pull that off, I
thought. But I held my tongue … and the door.

A blast of cold air greeted us in the front foyer. One thing
I’d learned after attending multiple viewings over the last few weeks was that George
Mudder liked to keep his visitors chilled, whether they were alive or dead. I pulled
my black shawl around my bare shoulders.

The scent of lilies perfumed the room, thanks to two huge
bouquets of the fragrant flowers standing guard in front of the open French
doors leading into the parlor. I hesitated outside the parlor, listening to the
organ music piping through a speaker in the ceiling.

"Is that
Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be
Cowboys
?" I whispered to Harvey. I hadn’t heard a funeral-ized version
of the song before now, only jazzed up elevator stuff. This had organ riffs in
place of a saxophone. Another Eddie Mudder special.

He nodded. "Elsa Haskell was a big Willie Nelson fan."

I stepped aside to allow Harvey to lead the way. He grabbed
a seat at the back of the room. He’d read my mind. I dropped into a chair next
to him, staring into the mirrored one-way glass lining the wall on my right,
trying to see through it.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d been in the room on the other
side of that glass, sniffing around, searching for evidence of body-part
trafficking, hiding from Eddie Mudder in a crate. All of the usual stuff a
person would do in a funeral home.

Tonight, I wanted to sneak back in there to make sure
nothing had changed, as in no body parts were chilling on ice, awaiting
transportation to some black market set up in a back alley down in Rapid.

"I still have a bone to pick with you," Harvey’s volume
blended in with the low murmur of conversation that rippled throughout the room.

I picked up a whiff of strawberries again and searched the
room for Norma Jean and Lucille, not seeing their curl-covered gray heads.

At the front of the parlor, a tripod holding a heart-shaped
wreath of orchids, roses, and some purple flower tipped over and fell onto the
end of the casket. A wave of gasps rippled through the parlor. A moment of silence
held for a count of three, and then a child began to wail.

George Mudder stepped out of the doorway from the hidden
room and picked up the tripod and flowers. A young, platinum blonde mother
snatched up her child, scolding the bawling boy all of the way up the aisle and
out the French doors. I empathized, having dragged my kids out of many a room
and restaurant while dodging stares.

George righted everything and smiled at the handful of
people sitting in the front row. I could see his tiny yellow teeth and grimaced
at the memory of the close-up I’d had upon our first meeting. He walked over
and closed the door to the room behind the glass, then sat down next to a
petite woman, who was wrapped in black from head to toe.

Had George seen me trying to stare through the glass? What
was he doing back there?

Harvey leaned toward me and said, "Why are we here?"

My eyes still on George, I answered with the obvious. "For
Elsa Haskell’s viewing."

"Don’t try to sell me any cow patties. I own the ranch."

I focused on him. "What?"

"You didn’t even know Elsa."

"Jane did." At least I assumed that was true since
Jane had had a business in town for well over a decade.

"That may be so, but if you’re here only on your boss’s
behalf, then I’m as green as a shavetail in the sack."

Again, "What?"

"You’re up to something and knowin’ you, it starts with
‘no good’ and ends with ‘trouble’."

I hesitated.

To tell or not to tell, that was the question. Natalie was
the only one who knew about my Ray-and-the-Mudder-Brothers conspiracy theory. If
I told Harvey, would he laugh at me? Well, besides for the reasons he usually
did. Would he believe me or think I needed an examination from the neck up,
like Natalie did.

"Cough it up, girl. Don’t make me hang you up by your
ankles and whack it out of you."

Here went nothing. I looked around to make sure George and
Eddie, or anyone else for that matter, wouldn’t hear me. "Okay, but you
need to swear that you won’t say anything about this to Aunt Zoe."

"I swear every damned day."

"You know what I mean. Swear you won’t tell her."

"Fine, I swear."

"Or Doc." There were no ghosts involved, and he’d
made it clear earlier that he agreed with Cooper about my "big" nose,
so the less he knew at the moment, the better.

"Or Doc. Shit-criminy, girl. What now? Should we cut our
thumbs and share blood over it?"

"Back in July, I saw George Mudder and Ray carry a
crate out the back doors of the funeral parlor and load it into Ray’s SUV.
Whatever was in it weighed down the back springs."

I paused to read Harvey’s expression. His eyebrows were
still smooth, his eyes only slightly narrowed. No scoffs yet.

"Later, when I asked Ray what was in the crate, he got
all snarly and surly and told me to mind my own business. Only he didn’t say it
quite so nicely, and he threw in a threat for emphasis."

I sat back and let that settle in with Harvey.

His head cocked to the side. "So, just to be clear, I’m
sitting here as hot as a whorehouse on nickel night in this damned canary suit because
you saw an asshole carrying a crate around in his truck?"

"It’s an SUV. And there’s a little more to it than
that." I leaned in closer, picking up the scent of strawberries again. "Why
do I keep smelling strawberries?"

"I think we got a couple of drops of strawberry love
goop on this jacket last time I was over."

Eww!
I pulled back, my nose wrinkled. "Oh, my
God."

He rolled his eyes. "Don’t get yourself in a snit. We
were just taste testing. Now get a wiggle on and wrap this up. My skivvies are
getting sweaty."

Grimacing, I lowered my voice and leaned in again, trying to
ignore the strawberry odor and thoughts of Harvey’s sweaty boxers. "Natalie
and I came here two weeks ago for a viewing and I snuck in the room behind this
wall of one-way glass."

He glanced at the glass, then back at me. "I’ve always
wondered what’s back there. Figured it was some kind of private mournin’ room
for immediate family."

"It is, but it’s also a storage room. When I was in
there, there were two crates that looked exactly like the one George and Ray
had loaded into his SUV."

"What was inside of them?"

"Nothing. Both were empty—well, except one had a little
cooler in it with a biohazard sticker on its side." At his raised brows, I
added, "The cooler was empty."

"Is that all you got?"

"Not quite. Earlier today, Ray was talking to George on
the phone and said something about somebody tailing him. Ray told George he hid
the goods from the tail, but thought his follower seemed to know where he was
going the whole time."

Harvey’s forehead creased. "Why am I sitting here in
this canary suit, Violet?"

"I just told you."

"No, you just gave me some cockamamie story about Ray,
a couple of crates, and George, which was mostly full of hot air and guesswork.
Lay it out in one sentence, girl. Why are we here?"

"I think George is paying Ray to haul crates of illegal
stuff somewhere."

"Illegal stuff?"

I glanced around again, then whispered in Harvey’s ear. "Body
parts to sell on the black market."

Harvey stared at me for several seconds, his face scrunched.
"Just what do you think you’re going to find here tonight? A receipt for
goods sold?"

That would be nice and easy, but my life didn’t roll that
way. "A clue. Something that tells me I’m on to something." Something
that I could use to catch Ray red-handed and knock him off his high-and-mighty
perch.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Distract George long enough for me to get into that
room and see if both crates are still there." I nudged my head at the
one-way glass. "I want to find out if Ray was talking about hauling one of
those crates around in that conversation I overheard earlier."

He sniffed, straightening his bow tie again. "A
distraction, huh?"

"Yes." I shot him an extra-wide smile, willing him
through my teeth to say he’d help me.

"You could scare little kids with that face,"
Harvey said, echoing something Doc had said over a week ago about my attempt at
a convincing smile.

I dropped the smile and scowled instead. "Are you going
to help me or what?"

Harvey tapped the cane on his shoe. "You really think
Ray and George are up to something fishy, huh?"

"Yes."

"Feel it clear down in your belly?"

"To my toes."

"This isn’t about some fight you and that horse’s ass
you work with are having?"

Yes. Sort of. "No."

He squinted at my nose. "Don’t lie to me, missy."

"Fine! It has a little something to do with taking Ray
down a notch, too. Now are you in or not?"

He grinned. "Just try to keep me out of it. Besides, as
your bodyguard, it’s my duty."

I patted his leg. "Thank you."

"But you need to give me a swearin’ of your own."

"What do you mean?"

"Promise me that if things start to get a little kooky,
you’ll tell Coop about all of this."

Cooper? No way. He’d throw me in jail. Harvey was staring at
my nose, so I couldn’t outright lie. "I’ll definitely consider going to
the cops if things start getting hot."

"That didn’t sound like the same thing I said."

"It was."

"If you don’t, I’ll tell your aunt."

"Okay, okay. I’ll contact Cooper, I promise." Harvey
couldn’t see my fingers crossed behind my back.

"Good." Harvey looked at the front of the room
where George stood with several mourners, obviously consoling. "You ready?"

He didn’t wait for me to answer, just grunted as he stood. "One
distraction coming up."

I grabbed my purse and waited, hovering at the back of the
room as he hitched his way up front. I watched with bated breath as he bent
over the casket, glanced to his left and right, then reached inside. In a
flash, his hand was back out of the casket.

The old buzzard moved lightning fast, which explained his "mongoose"
nickname over at the senior center.

Stepping back, Harvey pointed down at Elsa Haskell. "George,"
he spoke loud and clear across the low hum of conversation. "We got us a
problem here."

While all heads swiveled in his direction, I slipped out to
the foyer just as the bathroom door creaked open. I grabbed a brochure from the
side table holding the lilies and buried my nose in the piece of paper. Slowly,
I sidestepped behind the long green leaves, hiding as much as possible.

A steady squeak-squeak-squeak drew closer. I peeked through
the bouquet and saw Norma Jean making her way toward the parlor entrance; Lucille
followed in her wake.

Holy horny toads. Had they been in the bathroom all of this
time? What were they doing in there? Painting it?

Neither seemed to have noticed my presence yet. I silently
urged them to hurry it up before someone else joined us in the foyer and
screwed up my chance at alone time with two big crates.

Both women paused on the threshold. I held my breath,
waiting for one of them to peer through the flowers and see me.

"Lucille," Norma Jean whispered loud enough for me
to hear from my foliage hideout. She leaned over her walker and adjusted her
glasses. "Is that Willis Harvey up front by Elsa?"

"Well, pinch my pooch, I believe it is," Lucille
said. "I barely recognize him with his clothes on."

What?!
I did a double take. Was Lucille one of
Harvey’s women? She was about his age, which was about ten years older than he
usually preferred his partners.

"What on God’s green earth is he wearing?" Norma
Jean asked.

"I don’t know, but he looks sharp with his hair combed."

Norma Jean harrumphed. "You mean with the mud washed
out of his hair."

"He’s been looking younger lately. You think it’s all
of that mud he’s been wrestling in?"

"More like something to do with all of those young
girls he’s dallying with."

"I wouldn’t mind doing a little leg wrestling with him
again, but I hear he’s been hanging out at Amber Geary’s a lot lately."

Norma Jean gave another harrumph. "The girls at the
center said something about him spending a lot of time with that curly-haired
blonde who works at Calamity Jane Realty. The one they say can talk with ghosts."

My face warmed. Damn. Hanging around with Cornelius was
going to cement this silly rumor even more firmly in everyone’s heads.

"You think she’s Willis’ new girl?" Lucille asked.

"Or his nephew’s. You know, the bossy cop. I’d like to
take that boy by the ear some days."

Cooper and me? No way. I like my men rough and tough, but I
draw the line at rabid grizzlies high on PCP.

Norma Jean continued, "Us girls have a bet going."