by Ann Charles
“Good. Get him fully schnockered, please. If he can’t see straight, I have a slight chance of not ending up with a bullet in my ass.”
“Don’t worry. Your ass is mine tonight, Boots.”
I smiled. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
“Yes, you will. Hey, Killer, do me and my heart a favor and try not to execute anything in the meantime.”
“I give no guarantees.”
“I’m serious.” His timbre echoed his words.
I held up my left hand. “I solemnly swear not to kill anything else today. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” I said, reverting to one of my childhood vows often pledged to Natalie.
“Sure, you say that now, but then I get phone calls,” he teased.
“Admit it—I keep your life exciting. You never know what’s going to happen next.”
His chuckle warmed me through the line. “That’s true. Phone calls from you make my heart pitter-patter faster for more reasons than one.”
“Life is not all lovely thorns and singing vultures, mon cher,” I said, repeating one of my favorite Morticia Addams quotes.
“Ah, Tish, that’s French,” he said, playing along.
“Son of a— Jesus, Nyce!” I heard Cooper snap. “You two are like rabbits, I swear. Now give me that damned phone.”
There was a shuffling sound on the other end, followed with Doc laughing. “See you later, Killer,” he called out and then the line went dead.
I set my phone on the desk, still smiling. Then I looked out the window at the darkening sky and my smile flipped upside-down as reality settled back onto my shoulders. My focus returned to Jane and her cryptic messages.
“Are we done here, Jane?” I asked, watching my computer screen to see if any new words appeared. “Is there anything more you can tell me about Ray’s shadow or why you think he’s being used as bait?”
The fluorescent light over my desk flickered.
“I take it that’s a no.”
It flickered again.
Fudge nuggets. “Okay, but if you see or learn something more, let Mona or me know.”
The streetlight outside the plate-glass windows glowed to life while the shadows deepened.
How many more Nachzehrer were hiding out there, waiting for me to let my guard down? One? Two? Or even more, in spite of what Dominick said about pack sizes?
I puffed my cheeks and blew out a long sigh. Before this was all over, I was going to give ol’ Lizzie Borden and her ax a run for her money.
A glance at the clock spurred me off the desk. It was time to head home and grab something to eat before heading down to Spearfish for Cooper’s birthday fun. Maybe I’d get a chance to meet Reid’s son before we took off, if Aunt Zoe hadn’t called the whole dinner off.
As I locked up and collected my keys and purse, my thoughts returned to that infamous rhyme about Lizzie Borden and her gruesome whack-job.
“Violet Parker took an ax,” I sang under my breath while heading down the hall toward the back door. “And gave the Nachzehrer forty whacks.” I grabbed my coat from the wall peg. “When she saw what she had done,” I said, pausing to slide my arms into the sleeves, “she gave the next bastard forty-one.”
With a final glance at the empty office where Jane used to spend her days and sometimes nights, I said “Good-bye” to her and walked out into the dark.
Chapter Eleven
“Why’s it so dark in here?” Cooper whispered from behind me. And then he hiccupped. “Parker, hit the lights. I can’t see a damned thing.”
Pluck my duck! What in tarnation possessed Natalie to partner me with Detective Whiskey-on-the-Rocks tonight? Having to work with a hammered law dog to escape from a rusty old jail had to be some kind of sadistic payback for me declaring squatter’s rights on her man “claim” last August when she had a crush on Doc. Why else would she choose to torture me like this?
I paused partway down the creaky basement stairs and turned, shining my flashlight at Cooper, who was leaning against the wall several steps up. “It’s dark because that’s part of the game, remember?”
The lack of lighting throughout the three-story jail had been one of the line items listed on the “Escape from Jail” instruction sheet we’d found on the “sheriff’s” desk next to six flashlights—one for each of us.
He shaded his eyes from the light. “Oh, yeah.”
“You do recall insisting on reading the instructions aloud to all of us after prattling on and on about having the most experience with solving mysteries, don’t you?”
He hiccupped again. Still leaning against the wall, he took a step down. His coat scraped along the cement, undoubtedly leaving scratches on the black leather. Knowing Cooper’s and my tendency to exchange bruises when forced to work together, I’d probably wind up with several marks, too, before this night was out.
“I didn’t prattle,” he whispered. “I’ve never prattled in my whole life, and I certainly wouldn’t do any such thing in front of Nat.”
Oh, he definitely prattled, ostentatiously even, trumpeting about his detective skills loud and clear for all the land to hear. A little too much whiskey had turned the sullen detective into a regular chatterbox. Lucky me.
“Fine,” I conceded so we could finish with our detecting down here in the damp, musty basement. “You waxed eloquent. Your presentation of the subject was clear and succinct, and I believe several of us in the crowd experienced knee-buckling awe.” More like knee-buckling boredom.
“Damned straight,” he whispered, and then hiccupped yet again.
“I told you upstairs that we don’t need to whisper.”
“Oh, yeah,” he whispered and slid down another step, adding more scratches to his coat. “I forgot that, too.”
“I think you’re too drunk to remember your own name, Coop, much less what you read on that instruction sheet.”
Doc and Cooper had arrived at the timber baron’s historic mansion over ten minutes later than our agreed-upon time. At our collective raised brows about their tardiness, Doc explained that Cooper hadn’t wanted to leave the bar, refusing to vacate his barstool until Doc told him where they were going. The truth had gone over like a Sherman tank—with a lot of rumbling and grumbling. In the end, it’d required a bit of finesse along with some brute strength to get Officer Tanked to leave the bar.
With only minutes to spare before the six of us—Doc, Cooper, Natalie, Harvey, Cornelius, and moi—were scheduled to sign in, there had been no time to work on drying out the whiskey-soaked detective before the game started. So, we’d all filed in through the front double doors of the mansion, pooling together in the sconce-lit foyer where we were met by a stooped docent who looked timeworn enough to have been around when the century-plus-old house was built.
After reading through a short history of the place, including details about when the jail was added on and how many people had died within its walls over the years—three prisoners and a guard in a fire on the third floor, and one guard in a skirmish during an attempted escape—the docent had led us into a brightly lit kitchen with modern appliances and marble countertops. Then he’d opened a steel door next to the pantry and ushered us into a room decked out as the sheriff’s office, closing and locking the door behind us.
According to the game instructions, we had an hour and a half to escape before the docent would come to our rescue. Since it was Cooper’s birthday, Natalie had let him take the reins, which would have been fine and dandy if he hadn’t been filled to the gills with liquor.
I continued down the basement steps, waiting at the bottom of the stairs with my flashlight beam showing him the way. The last thing I needed was for the half-corned Sherlock to fall and break something down here—especially if he landed on me.
“I’m not that drunk,” he whispered yet again when he joined me on the packed-dirt floor.
“You’re slurring.”
“No. I’m. Not.” He emphasized each consonant, speaking loud and clear.
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“You are, and you smell like the inside of a shot glass.”
“I do not.” He lifted his shirt and sniffed it, wrinkling his slightly crooked nose. “Okay, so maybe I do a tiny bit, but that’s only because I accidentally spilled some of my drink on my shirt at the bar.”
According to Doc, Cooper had hurriedly dumped his last glass of whiskey down his gullet, spilling a good amount of it down his chin and using his shirt to mop it up before being dragged out of the bar.
“A whiskey-smelling shirt does not mean I’m drunk. I’m just happy is all.” He gave me a big sloppy grin as demonstration, pointing at his white teeth. “See?”
“You happy?” I guffawed. “That only happens when you lock me up behind bars.”
He let out a loud laugh. “That’s true. Your face gets really twitchy when you’re mad. It’s funny.”
I growled at him. “How many fingers am I holding up, Coop?” I held up my middle finger right in front of his face.
He knocked my hand away. “You know what, Parker? You’re kinda mean. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“I’m not mean.” Well, unless you ask my sister, Susan, but I have years’ worth of good reasons for snarling at the Bitch from Hell.
He poked me in the shoulder with his pointer finger. “You’re like a stray dog who snarls at me through the fence, but then takes off running when I try to get near.”
I crossed my arms. “This coming from the guy who’s routinely told me that it’s not his job to be warm and fuzzy when I could use a little compassion at his crime scenes.”
His chin lifted. “That’s right. I’m a cop, not a teddy be—shhhh!” He put his hand over my mouth, cocking his head to the side. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.
His hand smelled like soap, which was a relief since he’d visited the bathroom up on the main floor before we’d started down the basement steps.
I rolled my eyes and tugged his hand down. “It’s just the floor creaking under Natalie and Cornelius while they check for more clues.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded a few too many times, giving a decent bobble-head impression. A frown added shadow lines to his face. “Why did she choose Curion as her partner instead of me? I’m her boyfriend now.”
Oh, Lord. I’d rather snarl and circle with the law dog than console a boozehound.
Natalie had set up the sleuthing partners during the reservation process. When I’d found out earlier in the foyer that I was going to have to search for clues tonight with Detective Whiskey-on-the-Rocks instead of Doc, I’d threatened to give her a reverse mohawk haircut the next time she slept over, especially if Cooper ended up shooting me before the night was done.
“Natalie put us together because she wanted to torture me. Plain and simple.” That was my theory and I was sticking to it. I’d objected when Doc suggested that this together time with Cooper might help me learn some detective skills, and I stood by that objection still.
“That makes complete sense,” Cooper said, grabbing my flashlight from me and shining it around the open room.
I followed the beam of light, taking in the few items down here, including a water heater, a four-tier shelving rack, a metal 1950s-era table and chairs, and a rusty-looking two-drawer filing cabinet. There couldn’t be many clues hidden here, judging from the sparse furnishings.
“Why does that make sense?” I asked, glancing his way.
“Because Nat is a dominatrix in the bedroom.”
Cooper appeared not to notice my total body cringe at that keyhole peep into their sex life. Jeez-n-crackers, the guy needed to warn me the next time he was going to drop an X-rated bomb like that so I could plug my ears in advance.
I scrubbed my hand down my face, trying to wipe away the image of my best friend decked out in a black leather catsuit cracking a whip over Cooper while he lay strapped to the bed with a silk scarf muffling his big, bossy mouth.
“I’d use a ball gag to shut him up,” I muttered. One of those gags with an extra-large ball.
He shined the light in my direction. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He lifted the beam to my face. “It sounded like you said something about a ball gag.”
My scoff turned into a snort and ended with me blowing a raspberry.
“Are you choking on a hairball, Parker?”
“Shut up, Coop.”
The beam of light moved away from me. “Okay.” He puffed out his chest, shifting into cop-mode. “Let’s fan out and see what clues we can find down here. We’ll figure out who committed this murder in a jiffy.”
“There is no murder, Mr. Magoo.” I stole my flashlight back. “We’re looking for clues that lead us to the key that fits in that door we came through from the mansion.” When he just stared at me, I added, “The door in the sheriff’s office that leads back into the kitchen. You do remember walking through that door and the old docent wishing us good luck in making it back out alive, right?”
“You mean the leprechaun?”
Come again? “You’re seeing leprechauns tonight?” I’d had a lot of wild tequila nights in my time, but I’d yet to have a leprechaun show up on the scene.
He let out a weary sigh, as if talking to me was akin to carrying the blocks of stone needed to build the Great Pyramid of Giza. “Not an actual leprechaun, Parker. The man was just tiny, wearing a green suit, and had a green clover pin stuck in his lapel.”
I hadn’t noticed the clover pin. I’d been too busy fretting about having to partner with Cooper at the time.
“Got it. Not a real leprechaun.” I shined the light toward the shelving rack. “I’m going to go look for clues now.”
I started to walk away, but Cooper caught me by the elbow before I got far. “Give me back the flashlight.”
“No, it’s mine. Use your own.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Are the batteries dead? Is it broken? You didn’t drop it, did you? We’ll have to replace it if you did, or at least leave some money for it.”
“You ask too many questions too fast.” He reached for the flashlight again. “I lost mine and I need yours to see.”
I gaped at him. “Are you fucking serious? We just started the game. How could you have lost yours already?”
He held his hand out at me like a traffic cop. “You really need to work on controlling your potty mouth before you corrupt your kids.”
Of all the … “Who do you think you are? Chief Coop, top dog of the swearing police?” I tugged him along toward the shelves since he was still holding onto my elbow. “So, maybe I cuss a teeny-tiny bit.” I ignored his guffaw. “But we both know that you rattle out curse words like an auctioneer, especially when you’re pissed at me.”
“Nope. But that’s mostly your fault.”
Huh? I shook off his confusing answer and focused on my part in it. “That’s hogwash. It’s your own fault for being so crabby most of the time.”
He stumbled over his own boots, dragging me sideways a few steps. “I don’t know if you realize it, Parker, but you can be very frustrating. Just ask Nyce,” he slurred out Doc’s last name.
Why? What had Doc told him? Was it something recent?
Wait! No. I wasn’t heading down that road tonight.
“Don’t drag my boyfriend into this.”
Cooper sighed. “Your boyfriend is nice, like his name. Isn’t that funny?” He started to laugh but then hiccupped.
I shook free of Cooper’s hold. Maybe someday I’d look back on this evening and smile. And maybe, with the help of hard liquor, I’d actually laugh about it. But right now, I settled for reaching up and flicking him on the forehead.
“Ow!” He rubbed where I’d flicked. “What did you do that for?”
“Because you need to focus on finding clues, not on Doc, not on leprechauns, and not on Natalie tying you to the bed and tickling your toes with a feather.”
His face crinkled. “Who said anything about a feather?”
“Not tha
t you’ll be much help when it comes to playing detective while you’re drunk off your ass.”
“Not drunk,” he whispered. “Only a teensy bit tipsy.”
“You’re ham-sandwiched.”
He pursed his lips, shaking his head. “I’m just a little sauced. No ham.”
“Who are you trying to kid, Coop? You’re plum pickled and I don’t need a breathalyzer test to prove it, you know why?”
He held out his hands as if to say, duh. “Because you’re a Schraft … a Sharkfricker … a Sharpener.”
I shook my head. “Please stop.”
“A Shrackner.”
I shined my flashlight directly in his rummy eyes, making him recoil and use his fingers to deflect the beam. “Are you done?”
“Maybe.” He squinted at me over his hand.
I lowered the beam to his chest. “I know you’re toasted because I’ve called you ‘Coop’ several times tonight, and you’ve not corrected me once.”
“It’s just like you, Parker, to take advantage of a poor guy when he’s feeling down and out.”
I headed over to the shelving rack. It was about five feet wide and secured to the wall with metal straps and some impressive cobwebs. The water heater sitting a few feet away was coated with a thick layer of dust. I was tempted to draw a smiley face in it, but stayed on task—finding clues, which meant focusing on the rack and its stuffed shelves.
“So why are you down and out?” I asked when he came up right next to me, his shoulder brushing mine as he teetered sideways a few degrees. “Is this about your birthday and turning another year older?”
“Nah. Age is just a number.”
“Then what could possibly be wrong with your life? You have a good job,” I said, starting a count on my fingers.
“Yeah, I like busting criminals.”
I raised another finger. “And you get to carry that stupid gun you love every day.”
“I like carrying my gun.”
“You have a smart, funny, beautiful girlfriend.”
“She’s so hot.” He sounded almost drooly about Natalie.
I counted off a fourth finger. “And you have several great friends.”