Optical Delusions in Deadwood (3 page)

BOOK: Optical Delusions in Deadwood
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      “Why do you think I left town for a while and didn’t return your calls?”

      That was the million dollar question. “You wanted to see more of America?”

      The intensity lining his face softened. “Not quite.”

      “Inquiring minds would like to know.”

      “I can’t stop thinking about you.” His gaze fell on my mouth. “Or your boots.”

      “So you left town? Sheesh, you’re hard on a girl’s self-esteem.”

      “This thing between you and me—” He loosened his grip on my shoulders, trailing his fingers down my arms, his eyes climbing back to mine. “It’s a little unnerving.”

      “Unnerving?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Spoken by a man who claims to be able to sniff out ghosts and frolic with the spirit world.”

      During the long days and nights since our last encounter, I hadn’t forgotten about Doc’s so-called ability to interact with the dead. As a matter of fact, I’d gone so far as to check out a couple of books at the Deadwood library about some of history’s most famous psychics, mediums, and clairvoyants—which probably hadn’t helped my newfound reputation for ghost-loving, judging from the raised eyebrow I caught from the starchy librarian.

      “Shhh.” Doc pointed at the ceiling, his voice low. “That’s different. I can control that a little.” He paused before adding, “Well, sometimes.”

      Ah, there it was, the heart of our problem. “You don’t like to be out of control.”

      “You do?”

      “Doc, I have two kids—twins, with no father on the scene since their conception. My life’s been twirling out of control since the day they popped into this world.”

      His frown returned. “I like to at least
think
I have some control.”

      “I’m more interested in what you’re going to do about this.”

      “I’m still working on that. There’s a lot at stake here.”

      “Yes, there is.” As in me and my feelings.

      “I don’t want to hurt you, Violet.”

      This was getting way too serious for a Wednesday. All I wanted was Doc to return my phone calls for a change. Everything else could just wait. I tried to lighten things up with a fake smile. “Don’t worry. My skin is tough. Rhinos have nothing on me.”

      Doc’s fingers skimmed back up to my shoulders, then slid around and cupped the back of my neck. “Don’t take on the Carhart house.”

      “I probably won’t.”

      His chuckle came from deep in his chest. “Is that as far as you’re going to bend?”

      “On this subject, yes. But I’m willing to bend a lot more for other purposes.”

      He leaned toward me, his eyes focusing on my lips. “If that’s a come-on, it’s working.”

      “It’s not a come-on.” I rose up on my tiptoes, closing the distance, clutching his T-shirt. “It’s a shut-up-and-kiss-me.”

      “Uhhh-hmmmm.” Someone cleared his throat.

      The inspector.
Crud!
Where’d he come from? I hadn’t heard his footfalls.

      Doc groaned and pulled free of my grip, bee-lining out of the kitchen before I could catch my breath.

      Every cell blushing, I stepped away from the wall and tried to act as if I hadn’t been about to play tongue twister with the home’s future owner.

      The inspector avoided my gaze. “I need to check out your plumbing.”

      Doc’s bark of laughter coming from the other room made my skin tinge even redder. The inspector’s jowls darkened.

      “I mean the plumbing,” he said, staring at the clipboard in his hands. “Here. In the kitchen.”

      “Yeah, sure. Have at it.” I couldn’t escape the room fast enough.

      I found Doc sitting on a stair step, staring at the closed front door. Dropping onto the step next to him, I clasped my hands so they wouldn’t wander his way. My mind fumbled for a safe subject. “Have you been in the Carhart house?”

      “Nope. Where is it?”

      “Lead.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You think there’s a ghost in it?”

      Doc looked at me for a long pause, his eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”

      “Maybe I’ve changed my mind about that.”

      “Have you?”

      “Not really.” I didn’t think so, anyway. “I need some proof.”

      “If it were only that easy.” Doc turned back to the front door. “I don’t know if there’s a ghost or not. I haven’t been in the place.”

      “You interested in finding out?”

      “Violet, stop right there.”

      “What? I’m just saying you could come with me this afternoon when I go.”

      “Why are you even going?”

      “I told them I’d come.”

      “You could just call them.”

      “We have an appointment. You’re a businessman. You know what that means.”

      He nudged my knee with his. “You just want to see the house where the murders occurred.”

      “Maybe.” A dark curiosity had been growing inside of me since Harvey had mentioned the chilling event.

      “I can’t join you. I also have an appointment.”

      With whom? When Doc wasn’t sniffing out ghosts, he was running his own financial planning business. I looked forward to the day when I could talk money with Doc. But until I had more than a pocketful of finances that wasn’t already earmarked for my kids, I could only stand on the sidelines and watch.

      “But you’re not going to sell that house, right?”

      “Probably not.”

      “Violet.”

      “What?”

      His cell phone chirped. He kept his focus on me as he dug it from his pocket. “Promise me.”

      “Come on. What are we? Ten?”

      “I know you, Violet. You don’t have to seek out trouble. It finds you.” Whatever was on his phone’s screen made him grimace.

      “Then what’s the use of me making a promise?”

      “Humor me.” He stood, pocketing his phone. “I have to go.”

      “Where?”

      The inspector chose that moment to interrupt again. “I need the key to the detached garage.”

      Doc opened the front door. “Promise me, Violet.”

      “Doc—” I stood.

      “If you could just give me the key, I can wrap this up.”
And get the hell out of here
, the look on the inspector’s face finished his sentence.

      “Just a second. It’s in my purse in the kitchen.”

      “Violet.” Doc pressed, straddling the threshold.

      “Doc, I ...” I didn’t know why I was hesitating.

      “Lady, the key.”

      “Just say it, Violet.”

      “Fine!” I yelled. “I promise. Happy now?” I glared at both men in turn.

      “I will be, lady,” the inspector said, “as soon as you give me the damned key.”

      Doc shut the door behind him, the sound of his laughter seeping through the seams.

       

 
       

       

     
Chapter Three

       

      The inspector didn’t stick around long after Doc left. Either the house and garage were in tip-top shape, or I unknowingly had leprosy. I hoped it was the former as I watched him lumber down the sidewalk to his pickup and disappear in a belch of stinky black exhaust.

      With an hour to spare before I had to show up on the Carharts’ welcome mat, I headed home for lunch. Call it mother’s intuition, but something told me that I needed to check on my kids to make sure they weren’t dissecting road kill on the front porch or creating
awesome
fireballs with the microwave again.

      I rolled to a stop in the drive of my Aunt Zoe’s house, a spruced-up, no-fuss Victorian that my aunt was sharing with my kids and me. The sun cooked my roots as my sandals flopped and crunched along the gravel. A lawnmower growled from somewhere nearby.

      On the porch, a couple of yellow jackets harassed each other, but that was it for beings—alive or dead. The sharp scent of citrus tickled my nose when I stepped inside the front door.

      “Addy? Layne?” I called out.

      “They’re out back.” Aunt Zoe’s voice came from the kitchen.

      I found her standing at the sink, squeezing lemons into a glass pitcher. With her long, silver-streaked hair secured in a braid, the scene looked the same as it had twenty-five-plus years ago when I used to visit for a month each summer. The same sunshine-yellow kitchen, the same Aunt Zoe in blue jeans and a faded cotton shirt, the same warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach.

      “Good, I’m glad I caught you alone.” I opened the cupboard next to her, thirsty as all get out suddenly. “I need to talk to you.”

      “If it’s about that foot Layne found, Harvey already called and told me the newsflash.”

      I stopped mid-reach, the warm and fuzzy feeling gone. “What newsflash?”

      A little over a week ago, the same day I’d played doctor with Doc in his office, Layne had found a human foot dangling from a red satin ribbon in a tree up the hillside behind Aunt Zoe’s house. The ribbon had been threaded through the Achilles heel and a sprig of mistletoe stapled to the big toe—one of only three toes still attached. Detective Cooper and his motley crew had yet to find the rest of the owner ... unless something had changed.

      Aunt Zoe’s forehead creased. “Coop told Harvey someone found a hand up on Mount Roosevelt, near the monument. He thinks it goes with the foot.”

      I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more, but I asked anyway. “What makes Detective Cooper think they’re both part of the same ...” I paused. It was easier to think of these parts as individual pieces rather than a whole person. “Same body?”

      “More red satin ribbon.”

      “Oh.”

      “And mistletoe.”

      I grimaced.

      “And a little silver bell tied to the thumb.”

      “Jesus!” I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and closed the door. “This is kind of scary.”

      “Tell me about it.” Aunt Zoe tossed the squeezed lemon onto the pile of rinds in the sink. “We just got rid of one monster, thanks to you.”

      Thanks to me? Right. That made me sound heroic. My memories of the whole Hessler Haunt climax involved a lot of shrill screaming and tail-between-my-legs scampering.  

      “It’d be nice to have a little break before the next one shows up to terrorize the town,” Aunt Zoe said, moving over so I could get some water from the tap.

      “Or a big break.” I could feel her eyes on me as I filled my glass. “Like lifetime big.”

      “How are the nightmares?”

      I turned off the faucet. I wanted to deny that I was still having them, but the dark circles under my eyes most mornings undoubtedly gave me away. “Still coming.”

      “How often?”

      “Every now and then.” They showed nightly on the big screen in my brain, sometimes in 3-D—a special feature. But Aunt Zoe didn’t need to hear that. She had enough on her plate with creating all the spun glass pieces required to fill an order from a fancy gallery in Denver. She needed to focus, not have her creativity sapped from worrying about me.  I gulped several swallows of cold tap water, quenching my thirst, wishing I could quench the nightmares with it.

      “You sure you don’t want to pay a visit to that therapist the Emergency doctor recommended?”

      Glass in hand, I moved to the back door and looked out at my kids, who were filling one of Aunt Zoe’s big plastic storage tubs with water from the garden hose. “I’m fine. It’s just some residual stuff still bouncing around in my head, that’s all.”

      “Violet Lynn.”

      The sound of my middle name made me turn her way. “What?” That came out sounding more defensive than I’d have liked.

      “You experienced a very traumatic event. While most of the physical evidence has disappeared—”

      I pointed at my eyebrows, or rather the patches of them.

      “I said ‘most.’” She lifted the pitcher from the sink and placed it on the counter. “The mental bruises will take longer to fade.” She grabbed the sugar canister and dumped a heap into the lemon juice. “You should think about calling that therapist and setting up an appointment with her.”

      Absolutely not. I couldn’t afford to pay a therapist right now, unless she accepted Monopoly money as currency. “I’ll consider it.”

      I could tell by the set of her mouth as she stirred the juice that she didn’t believe me. Aunt Zoe had been able to read me like a Wall Drug billboard since I stopped wearing diapers.

      “If anything, she could give you a prescription for something to help you sleep better.”

      Sleep? Bah. Who needed it?

      Movement out the back door caught my attention. I grinned at the sight of Layne squatting in the plastic tub, his head the only thing above water, his teeth visibly chattering. Meanwhile, Addy chased her chicken, Elvis, around the swing set and then around Layne. Addy’s red checkered one-piece bathing suit reminded me of Wanda Carhart’s red gingham dress, which in turn jogged my memory about what I’d wanted to talk to Aunt Zoe about when I walked into the kitchen.

      “Aunt Zoe?”

      She looked up from filling the pitcher.

      “Do you know Millie and Wanda Carhart?”

      The slight narrowing of her eyes spoke volumes. “A little. Why?”

      “I’m going to go walk through their place up in Lead this afternoon. They want me to sell it for them.”

      “That was an ugly scene.” She shook her head as she dumped a tray of ice cubes into the lemonade.

      “Do you remember the details?”

      “Well enough.” She grabbed the towel, wiping her hands. “Are you going to sell it?”

      “I don’t know. What do you think?” I might as well solicit her opinion. Everyone else had already thrown their two cents at me.

      “I think you’re going to do what you believe is the right thing.” She held out her hand for my glass. I gulped the last bit of water and obliged. “Which might not be the best thing,” she continued, “but if there is one thing I’ve learned about you in the last thirty-five years, it’s that there’s no stopping you once you get up a head of steam.”

BOOK: Optical Delusions in Deadwood
6.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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