Optical Delusions in Deadwood (7 page)

      “Oh, right.” My cheeks heated. “Of course.”

      Harvey elbowed his nephew hard enough to send pieces of lettuce flying from Cooper’s fork. “You didn’t answer her question, Coop. That was rude. You need to apologize to Violet, or I’ll tell your ma you were being disrespectful to a lady.”

      My face burned even hotter. Cooper was a cop. He didn’t need to apologize. “That’s okay, Harvey. It’s no big deal. It’s really not my business.”

      “Shut up, Violet,” Harvey said.

      I blinked. “Talk about rude.”

      “Fine.” Cooper picked up the bits of lettuce from the table and dropped them on his plate. “I’m sorry, Violet.”

      “That’s better. Now answer her question about your plans for my cemetery problem.”

      Cooper nailed Harvey with a glare but obliged his uncle. “I’ll probably head out there and take a look around again, see if we missed any evidence.”

      “You want to use Bessie?” Harvey had named his favorite 12-gauge shotgun after a cow.

      Cooper closed his eyes in a silent sigh. “I’ll be packing my own firearm, thank you very much. And I’d prefer you kept Bessie in the closet a little more often.”

      “What good will she do in there? You’re not keeping score very well, son. The boogeyman isn’t hiding in the closet any more. He’s out behind the barn.”

      Scooping up another forkful of salad, Cooper eyed me, his nostrils flared. “Can we talk about my house now, please?”

      “Not until you tell Violet what you told me about that hand you found up on Mount Roosevelt.”

      Cooper cursed under his breath and lowered his fork. “You probably told her everything already.”

      “Not her. Not everything.”

      “I heard about the hand,” I confirmed. “But only that you found one. I hadn’t heard anything more about the foot.”

      “We’re still waiting for lab results on the foot.”

      Harvey snorted. “You need to find another lab. The guy at this one is sleeping on the job.”

      Chewing on that, along with his salad, Cooper waited until he swallowed to speak. “We think the hand and foot belong to the same guy, but we have to wait until the lab confirms it.”

      “Is there another serial killer at large?” I asked.

      Cooper met my eyes. “I’m sorry you had to go through what you did, Violet. And that I didn’t figure out Hessler was behind those missing girls sooner, before you were compromised.”

     
Compromised
? That must be the polite cop term for sautéed in lighter fluid and fricasseed.

      His apology caught me by surprise. I sat back, stricken shy. “That’s uh ... okay. I mean, it’s no big ... it’s fine. Thanks. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?” Or maybe that was
who
doesn’t kill you. I grabbed my Diet Coke and sucked down a few mouthfuls, wanting to drown my tongue before it said something else incredibly obtuse.

      “I told you she was no shrinking Violet.”

      Maybe not shrinking, but definitely shrieking. Especially when I was staring death in the face, as I was last night in my dreams during yet another 3-D rehash of the whole horrific circus.

      Cooper’s eyes were beginning to burn holes in my head. “I meant to tell you that we figured out Hessler was calling you from Spearfish when he said he was in San Francisco.”

      So Wolfgang had lied about that, too. No surprise there.

      Cooper continued, “I don’t know if what we’re dealing with here is another serial killer, Violet. Or if it’s just a plain old murderer suffering from a lack of attention from his mommy.”

      “Or
her
mommy,” I added, equal rights and all.

      “Or
her
.” Cooper sat back to let the waitress slide a plate full of French fries and a grilled cheese sandwich in front of Harvey. My stomach growled at the bouquet of fried butter and cheese.

      After the waitress unloaded Cooper’s and my plates and left us again, the detective picked up a fry and bit it in half. “Now, can we please talk about my goddamned house?”

      “No,” Harvey said through a mouth full of grilled cheese. “I want to hear about Violet’s date yesterday with the Carharts.” His pale blue eyes locked onto mine.

      “There’s nothing to tell.” I stuffed a handful of fries in my mouth.

      “Which Carharts are we talking about?” Cooper asked.

      “Wanda Carhart.” Harvey stopped chewing, his eyes narrowed on me. “Your nose is twitchin’.”

      “So what?” I rubbed it. “It itches.”

      “You’re hiding something.” He pointed his fork at me. “What happened at the Carharts’ place?”

      “Nothing happened.”

      “Bullshit.”

      “We had a nice chat.”

      “Hogwash.”

      “What? They showed me their house.”

      “And?”

      “And it’s a beautiful house.”

      Cooper watched us as if this was match point in a ping-pong game. “Wanda Carhart’s house?”

      “Damn it, woman!”

      “What?”

      “You’re gonna sell it, aren’t you?”

      I gulped more Diet Coke, avoiding Harvey’s squint.

      “What’s wrong with her selling the Carhart house?” Cooper asked.

      “Did you get kicked in the head by a mule, son?”

      “It’s a beautiful house,” I repeated.

      “With blood all over it.”

      “The blood has been cleaned up,” Cooper said.

      I could confirm that. “The place will sell within a month,” I told Harvey. “The Carharts are motivated sellers.
Very
motivated.”

      Harvey grunted and took a huge bite from his sandwich, grumbling as he chewed.

      Cooper on the other hand was watching me with his head cocked to the side. “I didn’t realize Wanda was so gung-ho to get out of town.”

      “Not so much Wanda.” She hadn’t said more than five words to me yet. “But Millie seems very excited about selling.”

      “Hmmm.” Cooper picked up his pickle, his face still thoughtful. Something in the crook of his lips made me rush to the Carharts’ defense.

      “Can you blame them for wanting to leave?”

      He shrugged and crunched on the pickle.

      “That house has bad juju,” Harvey mumbled through his cheese.

      “Jeez, Harvey.” I rolled my eyes. “Next you’re going to tell me it’s haunted.”

      “Damned tootin’,” Harvey said.

      “Not exactly,” Cooper corrected. “Although there are rumors.”

      Rumors, shmoomers. This town overflowed with all varieties of tall tales. “What, then?” I wiped my mouth, ready to be done talking about the Carharts. “Possessed?”

      “It’s got bad luck.” Harvey shook his head. “You’re gonna get yourself into trouble again. Doc’s gonna be pissed.”

      “Leave him out of it, Harvey.” I turned to his nephew. “Cooper, please explain to your crazy uncle that one incident in the house doesn’t mean the place should be razed and bulldozed.”

      “That’s not the only incident,” Cooper said.

      I blinked. “It’s not? What are you saying?”       

      “That house has a history.”

      “A history of what?”

      “Murder.”

     
Chapter Five

      The rest of lunch was filled with Realtor talk about Detective 007’s selling and buying needs, interspersed with Harvey’s growls and grumbles about my always going off half-cocked. I did my best to listen to one and ignore the other over the ebb and flow of leather-clad biker patrons.

      When lunch ended, I had an appointment to keep, so I removed Harvey’s rat-terrier teeth from my ass and made Cooper promise to call me and set up a time to pay his house a visit. As I scooted on up the road to Lead, I could see Harvey in my rearview mirror, sending me on my way with a pointed-finger warning.

      The Carhart’s house perched in all its lovely splendor on the edge of the man-made canyon. Two lanky boys on ladders scraped paint off the front of it. They stopped working to watch me approach the porch, their up-to-no-good grins wide. Had they heard the rumor about me? I couldn’t be that notorious, could I?

      “Hey, aren’t you Spooky Parker, the ghost Realtor?” the ganglier of the two asked from the top of his ladder.

      The other snickered and stared.

      I guess they’d heard. I shoved them both off their ladders ... in my diabolical dreams. In reality, I ignored them and knocked on the front door. Millie answered before I finished with my fourth rap. Her frizzy hair framed her owl eyes; her black cardigan, matching her wool skirt.

      Seriously, did this woman have any warm blood flowing through her veins? It hovered near ninety degrees today with blue skies and sunshine all around town. The top of my head had been baked twice already.

      “Hi, Millie. I’m here to—”

      “Hurry, before the flies get in.” She grabbed my arm and yanked me over the threshold into the ten-degrees cooler house.

      I was unaware that we had such a big fly problem in the Hills. She slammed the door behind me, throwing all three deadbolts. Wanda waited just inside the kitchen archway, her red gingham replaced with cornflower blue today. She shrank into the shadows when I smiled at her. All seemed par for the course here in Murderville, USA.

      “Do you have the listing agreement?” Millie asked, ushering me into the sitting room. The thick velvet curtains were drawn, turning afternoon into early evening.

      “It’s in my bag.” I took a seat on the soft leather sofa.

      The house still smelled of vanilla, making me crave Aunt Zoe’s homemade vanilla wafers. Spirited Mexican music trickled down the stairwell. One or both women seemed to have some kind of a hankering for a fiesta.

      As I pulled the listing agreement and a pen from my tote, I glanced over at the sideboard, looking for the picture of the happy couple, and did a double-take. The picture frame remained, but half of the picture was missing—the Carhart oaf half. The raven-haired beauty still sat in the frame.

      I turned away, peeking at Millie and Wanda under my lashes to see if they’d observed me gawking, but both seemed distracted. Millie watched the door, chewing on her nails; Wanda stared at something over in the corner, just as she had the last time I’d visited.

      Smoothing out the listing agreement, I decided to hurry up and procure Wanda’s signature and get the hell out of Dodge. There was something about those two women that made me feel like I was walking around in a tilted room with the furniture stuck to the ceiling.

      “Okay, Wanda,” I addressed the silent partner, since her name was on the deed. “Read through this while I’m here and let me know if you have any questions. I’ve included the increased percentage rate we agreed to during my last visit.” I held out the listing agreement for Wanda, but Millie snatched it from my hand.

      “I’ll read it.” Millie scanned the document. Wanda spared her daughter a glance, then focused back on the corner, her lips tight.

      There was no easy way to do it, but I had to ask, “Millie, is your mother able to sign the listing agreement?”

      Millie didn’t look up. “What do you mean?”

      “Is she of sound body and ...” I shifted, smoothed an invisible wrinkle on my pink paisley skirt, “mind?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      Well, that had less impact than I’d figured. “So you don’t have a power of attorney?”

      Her owl glasses remained glued to the listing agreement. “She wouldn’t sign one.”

      Hmm. Wanda wasn’t quite as “gone” as she appeared. Interesting. Could have fooled me.

      “This seems right to me.” Millie placed the listing agreement on Wanda’s lap. “Sign it, Mother.”

      The front doorknob rattled, then the deadbolts clicked, one by one.

      “Lila,” Millie whispered and jumped to her feet as the door swung wide.

      Catcalls and whistles followed a dark-haired beauty in through the front door—the same beauty whose picture sat solo on the sideboard.

      Smiling like the happiest girl in the whole USA, Junior Carhart’s fiancée shut the door and leaned against it. Her smile clouded over and her eyes narrowed when she noticed me. “Who are you?”

      I stood and faced the woman who’d wanted the Carhart funerals taped. My hackles rose right off. She was too damned gorgeous, without a single flaw. Call me a jealous bitch, but I wanted to rub poison ivy on her porcelain skin and bury wads of gum in those thick, wavy black locks. Those Liz Taylor eyes made my lip want to curl. “I’m the Carharts’ Realtor.”

      Something brushed my arm. I looked over to find Wanda standing next to me, shoulder to shoulder, facing off against the fiancée.

      “Oh, right.” The beauty’s smile returned, brighter now. Extra bright. I didn’t trust it. She pushed away from the door, strolling toward me. “You’re the one who specializes in selling haunted houses.” Her belittling tone set me even more on edge.

      “No.” I almost lost the battle to retract my claws in a sudden surge of hostility. “I specialize in selling houses. Period.”

      She was too tall, towering a good six inches over me. Like a long-legged spider in a very mini light blue cheerleader-type skirt. Her red camisole hugged her small, super pert breasts. I wanted to hang Christmas tree ornaments from them.

      “Millie,” she said without breaking eye contact with me, “go get our little Realtor friend a drink, would you?”

      Millie scurried off, as ordered.

      “I’m Lila Beaumont, by the way.” She didn’t hold out her hand.

      “Violet Parker.” I didn’t hold out mine, either.

      “I know.” She turned to Wanda, her gaze hardening. “Wanda, dear, go help Millie in the kitchen. I’d like a word with our new friend without you lurking about.”

      When Wanda didn’t move, Lila snarled, “Now!”

      With a squeak and a jump, Wanda hot-footed it out of there.

      My dislike for Lila was growing at record speed. Somebody should’ve called Guinness; I was close to making the list.