Meanwhile, Back in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 6) (16 page)

“You must’ve downed a cup of smartass for breakfast, sweetheart.” He waited until I’d quieted to explain. “Cooper didn’t want to drive home, so he crashed on my couch.”

“Hold on.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the brick wall fronting the building. “I’m picturing you and Cooper having a pillow fight in your pajamas.”

Actually, in my fantasy Doc was beating the crap out of a fully uniformed Cooper with a couch pillow and then handcuffing the detective and kicking him outside. I added the slamming of the front door for an encore.

“How about picturing you sans pajamas having a slumber party with me? If you want to wear one of those silky camisoles I peeled off you last time you spent the night, I have no problem with that, either.”

“What? No pillow fighting with me?”

“Naked pillow fights are completely acceptable. You’ll inspire me to invest heavily in the goose down market.”

“Naked? You have a one track mind, Mr. Nyce.”

“When it comes to your skin, Boots, I’m a real train wreck.”

“Will I need a reservation to bunk at La Casa de Doc now?”

“There’s always room in my bed for you.”

But was there room in his life for a killer and her two offspring plus one annoying chicken?

“I’m on my way out the door.” I heard the slam of a door as soon as his words were out. “I need to head down to Spearfish after I grab something from my office. How about I meet you in the parking lot in a few?”

“Sure. I’ll be the one carrying two coffees.”

“Great. I’ll be the one drooling over the hot blonde carrying two coffees.”

When he said stuff like that, it made me want to bite and scratch him all over again.

Doc was leaning against the trunk of his Camaro when I pulled into the parking lot behind Calamity Jane Realty. He looked stark raving handsome in his black pants and leather jacket over a cream button-up shirt. He opened my door, taking the drink carrier from me and setting it on top of the old pickup.

My boots had barely touched the ground when he pulled me close.

“Morning.” He kissed off the lip gloss I’d just applied on the way between the Tin Cup Café and work. “Mmmm, cherry-flavored Violet lips. My favorite.”

I stepped aside so he could close the pickup’s door and grab his coffee from the carrier. “Let’s go into your office, and I’ll give you another one of your favorites.”

He blew out a breath. “Damn, Boots. You’re not playing fair today. I’m running late already.”

Sipping my coffee, I gave him a sly wink. “All work and no play makes Doc a randy boy.”

That made him chuckle. “I was thinking last night about that massage you owe me.”

“Oh, were you?”

“And this morning,” Doc added.

“While you were eating breakfast with Cooper?”

“No. I was too busy dodging his questions about you and that bottle of mead then.”

I grimaced. “Sorry about that.”

“He told me about your find in the chicken coop out at Harvey’s place.”

“Did he tell you that he hid the bottle from Detective Hawke, along with those masks?”

“He mentioned the masks but nothing about his partner.”

“I think he’s keeping stuff from Hawke now.”

“Why would he do that?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who spent the night with him.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t talk much in his sleep.”

“Are the rumors true? Does Cooper’s teddy bear sleep with a loaded pistol, too?”

“No, it’s a 12-gauge.” Doc leaned down and teased me with his mouth for a few breathless beats. “Gotta go, Tiger. I’ll be at your place in time for dinner. Then we can head to Mudder Brothers and find out who’s stalking my girlfriend this time.”

“Happy number adding.”

He waved as he backed out of his parking spot and then rumbled away.

I whistled “Dixie” all of the way to Calamity Jane’s door.

“Violet.” Jerry didn’t even let me make it past his office. “Will you tell the others we need to huddle up. I’ll be out there in two shakes.”

Huddling for Jerry meant that all of us sat at our circled desks while he held court in the center like a head coach who’d called a timeout to direct us on our next play.

I nodded and joined my three coworkers out front, delivering his message while I tucked my purse in my desk. I settled into my chair, coffee in one hand, pen and paper in the other, and waited to get my huddle on.

Was that even a saying?

Jerry didn’t disappoint. “Okay, team. I just got off the phone with Honey, Dickie’s assistant.”

We all knew who Honey was. Unlike her golden sounding name, she had straight black hair, resembling Cher more than Goldie Hawn. Honey was nice enough but not super sweet like her namesake, and she pretty much ran the show while Dickie acted as the front man. I hadn’t figured out yet if she ran his personal life as well as his professional life, but Dickie did tend to spend more time than normal admiring her long hair and even longer legs.

“Honey said they would be arriving tomorrow with their crew. They’ll spend the weekend prepping for the show and plan to start filming on Monday.”

Eek, Monday. That would be here before I knew it. I took a big drink of coffee, wishing I’d spiked it with some Baileys this morning.

Jerry pointed at me. “Violet, you’ll run the first play.”

“What exactly does that entail?”

While I was getting better at deciphering Jerry’s sports metaphors, not having seen the play board, I didn’t know if that meant taking something to “the hole” or passing whatever off to Ben, Ray, or Mona.

“Leading Dickie and his film crew around The Prospector Hotel.”

Hold the phone! Did he just say … “Come again?”

“You know. Your most recently sold property,” Jerry added. “You’re still on good terms with Mr. Curion, right?”

“We still keep in touch.” And some days I felt like reaching through the phone and strangling Cornelius.

“I need you to pay him a visit, tell him about the upcoming Paranormal Realty filming, and see if he’d like some free publicity for his new acquisition.”

“But that hotel is not on the list of places we came up with for Dickie’s crew to film.” I knew that for a fact because I’d purposely left it out, knowing how eccentric its owner was ninety-nine percent of the time.

“I added it to the list,” Ray spoke up.

That earned him a glare. “Without consulting me first?”

“You’re the talent, Blon—Violet. Your job is to make Calamity Jane Realty look good on camera.” He tried to hide his sneer behind his tooth-whitened smile. “My job is to make the location look even better. The Old Prospector Hotel is a well-known haunt in the Black Hills. It’s the perfect location to get the ball off the sidelines and score out of the gate with a three pointer.”

The horse’s ass knew how off the bell curve Cornelius was. Hell, he had even gone so far as to try to woo Cornelius away from me after Ray’s attempt to secure a different buyer ended in a catastrophic fail.

I looked at Jerry, whose hair was freshly buzzed since I’d seen him last. “Doesn’t a basketball game start with a jump ball?”

“Quit being smart,” Ray snipped. “You know what I meant.”

“Violet,” Jerry’s gaze bounced between Ray and me, his blond brows wrinkled. “Do you foresee a problem with filming at Mr. Curion’s historic hotel?”

I could think of plenty of potential disasters involving my ghost-talking friend and his little buddy, a life-sized Safari Skipper who had trouble not bubbling over about the cool tricks I had done at the séances we’d attended together.

“Define problem?”

“Something that would make Calamity Jane Realty, you, or the hotel look bad in the public eye?”

Since it was Jerry asking me this, I ignored my gut reaction to the idea and gave it some thought. Cornelius had big dreams of opening a world renowned haunted hotel that brought visitors to Deadwood from around the globe. The TV show would bring him some free publicity, good or bad. Any of the ghost fans who watched the show might then flock to Deadwood to see the haunted hotel and drop money all over town, helping other business owners. Some of the diehard, ghost-loving buffs might even want to buy a house … from me.

Well, when I thought about it that way, “Nope, there are no problems.”

I’d just have to figure out a way to keep Cornelius in check so that he looked mildly eccentric, not ludicrously idiotic. For starters, no dressing like Abe Lincoln on camera and talking to walls.

“Excellent. You need to contact the owner after we finish with our huddle and have him sign the release papers Honey faxed to me yesterday.”

“Will do.”

“I’ll also need you to get a release for that supposedly haunted house up in Lead that overlooks the Open Cut.”

“The Carhart house?” I shot Ray another blast of burning hatred. Prudence and her past were also not supposed to be on that list.

“That’s the one.” Ray’s gloat made me want to grab my stapler and commit a technical foul on his head.

Maybe I’d sic Prudence on his ass when we were there. That was if Zeke and Zelda Britton, the soon-to-be new owners of the Carhart place, were game to have their house on television. “Do I need the almost owners or the seller to sign off on the paperwork?” I asked Jerry, not even bothering with an attempt to convince him that taking a TV crew into Prudence’s lair was a splitting-atoms level of a bad idea.

“When will the sale close?”

“Early November if we have no delays.”

“Maybe we should get both to be safe,” Mona suggested, giving me a supportive smile.

Someone should get Prudence’s okay, too, but that wasn’t going to be me. That ghost had freaked the shit out of me too many times to count. I might have to call in sick if we ended up filming in her lair.

“Okay,” Jerry clapped his hands, a signal that the huddle was almost over and we’d be sent back onto the court to play ball again soon. “We’re on our way to tying up all loose ends. Violet and Ben, I’d like to huddle with you two this afternoon to discuss clothing and makeup choices and to toss some scripted lines around.”

Ben and I both nodded like matching bobble-heads.

After a final “Go team!” Jerry headed back to his office.

I pulled up Cornelius’s phone number. He didn’t answer, so I left a detailed message and hung up.

Downing my coffee in one long gulp, I stared out the plate glass windows and watched traffic roll by as usual.

Doomsday was a weekend away.

I fought the urge to climb under my desk and wait for the mushroom cloud.

* * *

Harvey’s pickup was parked out front when I pulled into Aunt Zoe’s drive after escaping from Jerry’s day-long seminar on how to walk, talk, and dress for the camera. He seemed to have forgotten I’d read the book—sort of.

I shut down the Picklemobile and sat there for a few sighs, switching modes from upcoming television starlet to wickedly cruel mother.

Finally Jerry’s years of being a pro-basketball player hounded by the paparazzi, wanting to talk about his wins and losses both on and off the court, were paying off. Back then, he’d learned from his fellow veteran teammates how to shine for the cameras even when his reputation was tarnished. Now he was teaching Ben and me the tricks of his glamorous trade.

It was too bad Jane hadn’t hired Tiffany Sugarbell instead of me back in April. The redheaded siren would have loved being in the spotlight, showing off her wares and talents in front of the cameras.

Me? I just prayed I made it through each day of filming without falling flat on my face or ass, or both. My smoldering reputation as Spooky Parker, the ghost Realtor, was about to get a squirt of lighter fluid.

If only I had Aunt Zoe’s creative talent and could do something with my hands other than wrangle children and kill white-haired freaks who weren’t quite human. Neither of which I was doing that well currently.

Maybe Doc would consider paying me to be his sex slave if this whole thing went south. I’d be content to work for room and board for three minus one chicken.

Inside the house the aroma of cooking meat blocked all further worries from surfacing. My nose led me straight to the kitchen, not even giving me time to shed my coat and kick off my boots. Harvey stood next to the sink mixing something in a bowl.

“What is that?”

“My momma’s famous ‘slaw recipe.”

“No, that smell.” I inhaled.

“Meatloaf.”

I peeked into the oven, licking my chops. “It’s heavenly.”

“It’s just baked meat and some spices.”

Just baked meat …
“My dear, wonderful, amazing Chef Harvey.” I smiled for the first time since saying goodbye to Doc this morning. “How about you and I tie the knot and then you can cook for me and my kids every night.”

He hooted, leaning back on his heels. “No way in hell, girl. You’re too big of a nut to crack for this ol’ boy. Besides, I’m savin’ my pennies for one of them there catalogue women.”

“What’s a catalogue woman?”

“Mail-order bride.”

“Oh, yeah? What do those run these days?”

He looked me up and down like I was on the auction block. “A helluva lot less than a dame with two foals.”

“What about Miss Geary?”

Harvey and Aunt Zoe’s neighbor across the street had enjoyed each other’s company both night and morning-after for quite some time until she’d kicked him to the curb a while ago.

“She’s a daisy, but she’s into the younger studs now from what I hear.”

As in Rex, my ex, who’d used Miss Geary so that he could spy on me and my kids from close range. “I haven’t seen Rex’s car parked in her drive for weeks.”

“That’s because she found a new beau over in Sturgis. He has a chromed out Harley with one of those ‘bitch’ seats on the back.” He pushed me toward the dining room. “Now go get dressed for Ebenezer’s funeral while I round up the kids for supper.”

Right, the funeral. Joy.

Luckily for me it was Halloween time, because they didn’t sell funeral hats with veils at any of the regular department stores down in Rapid. However, in one of those stores that pops up in time for the spook-filled holiday selling costumes, animated yard decorations, and zombie pieces, I’d found just what I needed to disguise myself for the evening. I debated on adding a fake bloody stump for an arm, but I was supposed to blend in, not make people scream. Besides, it was a funeral after all, so I needed to remain respectful of the dead while trying not to end up as one of the non-living myself.