by Ann Charles
Doc led me past Socrates, the full-size stuffed mule with a balding nose from too much petting over the decades. We leaned on the reception desk where my favorite hotel employee, whom I’d nicknamed Safari Skipper, was running the show.
She smiled wide when she saw us, her eyes lighting up. “Hi, you two! Are you here for another séance?” she asked loud enough to draw several stares from the sprinkling of slot machine gamblers within earshot.
“No,” Doc said in a much quieter voice. “We’re here to see the manager. I made an appointment with her.”
“Be right back,” Skipper bounced off.
I looked up at Doc. “She’s way too cheery for this time of the morning. Someone must have spiked her Cheerios.”
Skipper came back alone carrying a ring of keys. “My boss is on the phone right now, but she said I can show you the storeroom. I have to stay and watch you, though.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Lead the way.”
We followed Skipper past the elevator.
“You doing okay?” I asked him.
Doc had been overrun by ghosts more than once in this hotel. While all previous encounters had been on the upper floors, and he claimed to be able to brace himself after that initial contact for the second go-around, I was always a little antsy about having him keel over at my feet.
“I’m fine. There’s nothing here right now.”
“How did you convince the manager to let you look in their storage room?” I whispered.
“I told her I’m Cornelius Curion’s financial manager and I needed to take stock of the antiquities in the building for valuation purposes.”
“Oh, you’re good.”
He winked at me.
Safari Skipper led us down a set of wide, carpeted steps to the finished basement equipped with a sound stage and microphone, walnut bar, and tables and chairs.
“We rent this out for receptions and parties,” she explained.
I didn’t bother telling her that I had already peeked down in the basement along with Cornelius when we’d first toured the building with Tiffany, Doc’s lovely ex, who represented the seller.
Skipper took us down a narrow, concrete-floored hallway to a set of double metal doors at the end. Unlocking the deadbolt, she pushed one open and slipped inside. Light flickered on within.
“Here you go,” she said, holding the door open for us. “If it’s cool with you, I’ll be out by the bar. I can’t get good cell reception back here.”
“That’s fine,” Doc said. “We’ll try to make it as quick as possible.”
I followed him through the doorway. “So, what exactly are we looking for in here?”
He frowned as he looked around the cluttered storage room. “I think I’ve uncovered something hellish.”
I laughed.
He didn’t, which sobered me up real quick.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“If we can find that old picture, you’ll see,” was his cryptic answer. “Look over there in those tall cabinets against the wall, will you? The picture is from the late 1800s. It has three men in it; the one in the middle is sitting on a chair, holding a rifle.”
I opened the doors of the cabinets, finding folding chairs, plastic totes labeled with “Christmas,” tablecloths, and crumbling boxes filled with assorted odds and ends from what I guessed were previous promotions. I unrolled a Mardi Gras party banner from 1963. Cornelius was going to need to have someone go through all of this and figure out what was salvageable.
I paused for a moment, trying to imagine Cornelius running a hotel, sitting behind a desk, punching figures into a calculator and chuckled to myself. Maybe he’d keep the same crew to run the place for him while he held his séances from his private room. I hated to see anyone get fired, even Skipper.
“Any luck?” Doc called across the cloth-covered mounds separating us.
“No,” I said, walking around a huge covered object shaped like a horse. I lifted the cloth. Nope, not a horse—a mule.
I lifted the drop cloth more. On the floor next to its front hooves were the words: Plato—First Mule in the Black Hills.
“No shit,” I said half to myself. Why wasn’t old Plato up there next to Socrates? Flipping the cloth over his nose, I saw how much worse for wear the old mule was—one ear missing, a scruff of hide hanging loose on his cheek, and a chunk torn away from one of his nostrils. I grimaced. No wonder; Plato the Mule would scare people away. Maybe Cornelius could use him at Halloween as a Frankenstein version of Socrates.
“Violet, come here,” Doc’s tone sounded grave, making the back of my neck tingle.
I covered Plato back up and made my way around some filing cabinets and stacked tables to where Doc stood in the opposite corner. On the floor next to him were several picture frames leaning against the wall.
“What?” I asked.
“Yesterday, I went to the library to find whatever I could about this hotel. I wanted to figure out the stories behind some of the thirteen ghosts that swarmed me during the last séance, right before you knocked me out.”
“Accidentally knocked you out,” I clarified.
His lips twitched. “Your elbow to my cheek was no accident.”
“It’s in the past. We should just let that go. Continue with your library story.”
“Anyway, I was going through old newspapers and in one from June of 1956, there was a tribute article for the long-time manager who’d just passed away.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. “It has his picture, too.”
I flattened the paper on top of a nearby shelf, then held it up for more light. Doc pulled a penlight from his pocket and handed it to me.
It was a copy of the newspaper article and picture, which was grainy, but the image of a man probably in his late sixties with thinning white tufts of hair on the side of his head and dark eyes smiled back at me.
“He looks like a friendly guy,” I said.
“Sounds like it, too, if you read the article.” He pointed at the framed photo on the wall behind the manager. “Look closely at that.”
I held the paper closer, shining the penlight on the framed photo. It was as he’d described earlier—three men, the one in the middle sitting, a big-ass rifle resting across his knees. Two of the three had the old fashioned long handlebar mustaches, reminding me of Wyatt Earp. The third man was standing to the left of the chair. He looked older than the other two, his hair white where the other two still had dark hair.
“Are they early hunters?”
“Maybe. I needed to see the picture itself though to confirm something.”
“What?”
“First, the date on it.”
“What else?”
“If the guy on the left was really an old man or not.”
“What do you mean? He looks older.”
“I know, but look at his body. That’s not an old man’s body.”
“True.”
“Look at his eyes.”
I did, but the picture on the wall was too small to see more than shimmers where the guy’s eyes were. “It looks like they are reflecting the flash.”
“That was one theory I had.”
I frowned up at him. “And the other?”
He grabbed one of the framed pictures leaning against the wall. “See for yourself.”
I took the framed picture from him. I could see where he’d wiped the dust off the glass.
It was the picture of the three men from the newspaper—one man sitting in a chair with his big-ass rifle, which was even more impressive in the real picture, two handlebar moustaches, one shock of white hair.
Only the guy on the left wasn’t old.
And it wasn’t the reflection of a flash in his eyes, either.
I gasped and wiped off more dust, shining Doc’s penlight on him.
“He’s an albino,” I whispered.
“Yeah.” Doc looked over my shoulder. “Is he the same one from Mudder Brothers?
”
“No, how could he …” but I looked closer, trying to remember exactly what my albino pal had looked like. The nose looked similar, long and straight, the cheekbones were cut high, hollowing out the space below, his chin shaped the same. My heart hammered loud enough for Doc to hear it. “Is he?”
“I only saw him for a split second,” Doc said. “I can’t remember many details.”
“I need to see him sneer to be sure, but he has the same face structure, the same body style. But how can that be, Doc? This picture is old.”
Doc pointed at the tarnished brass plate nailed to the lower part of the frame with the words October 1886 on it.
“It can’t be him,” I said. “It has to be one of his ancestors.”
“If there were a long-standing family of albinos living here, don’t you think Cooper would have some of them listed on his case board? The detective acted like he’d never seen an albino around here when I was explaining my side of the story.”
“That’s true. He and Harvey should have known about them.” Even if they were from the sticks … or Slagton.
Doc took out his cell phone and took a picture of the framed photo. Then he stuffed the portrait back behind a stack of others leaning against the wall.
When he turned back to me, his dark eyes were wide, serious. “Violet, you need to walk away from all of this.”
“Walk away from what? The albino? How am I supposed to do that if he has a twin who wants revenge?” Or if he wasn’t really dead. I had no way of knowing since he had disappeared in a damned cloud of smoke.
“I don’t know,” Doc put his arms around me and hugged me close, my nose bumping one of the buttons on his shirt. “But there’s something evil going on here. As much as that sounds like something from a B-rated movie, I can feel it.”
I tipped my head back, smiling up at him, leaning on humor to keep my panic at bay. “You’re right. That was totally a B-movie quote.”
He kissed my forehead, then stepped back, freeing me. “I don’t know if I can protect you from what’s going on.”
“Who says I need protection?”
His stare said it all.
“Let me rephrase that,” I said. “Why should you have to be responsible for my protection?”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Are you fishing for something in particular?”
Maybe. “Of course not.”
He grunted. “I don’t know why I feel like I have to protect you. I just do, and not just because I pine for you late at night while you’re busy snoring away next to an old man during Hondo.”
“Pine for me? Is that another B-movie quote?”
“Moon over you?” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. “Is that better?”
“That’s more like a soap opera line.”
He reached back, running his hand over my butt, first a caress, then a squeeze. “How about I’m hot for your body?”
“All of the above.”
He shut the door behind us. I turned and pinned him against it, pulling him down, wanting to taste and savor him again before we returned to the public eye and I couldn’t. His mouth yielded to mine as I pressed against the whole length of him, feeling the heat from his skin through my black knit top. His hands locked onto my hips, pulling me even closer. I kept the kiss tender, slow, provocative, teasing with the slightest of brushes with my tongue. My fingers delved into his hair, holding him still as I finished with a nip, suck, and final lick.
“Damn,” he whispered when I pulled back, his eyes glazed. That was no declaration of love, but I’d take it anyway. Then the creases in his forehead returned. “Violet?”
Why the frown? I’d brushed my teeth and gargled twice with cinnamon-flavored mouthwash this morning since I’d known I’d be seeing Doc. “Yeah?”
“I want to visit Prudence again.”
I blinked twice. “Prudence? You mean the ghost from the Carhart house up in Lead?”
“Yes, that Prudence.”
My kiss made him think of a dead woman? Nice. “Why?”
“There is something that I need to see. Something she seemed to be doing with her hands before her killers got to her.”
Prudence’s death had been violent and bloody. “So you want to relive her death again?”
Doc’s sixth sense involved experiencing a victim’s demise firsthand.
“Part of it, yes,” he said. “And I’m going to need your help.”
Chapter Ten
After parting from Skipper in the casino, Doc and I walked out to the parking lot of The Old Prospector Hotel in silence.
I had no idea where his thoughts were, but mine were hovering somewhere between Albino Street and Prudence Alley. Both places had my stomach churning like a clothes dryer full of tennis shoes.
Doc gave me a quick kiss goodbye, his thumb stroking my cheek with a tenderness that made me wish we had more time. “Be careful today,” he said.
“What’s today?” After seeing that portrait, I was a little distracted. I tugged open the Picklemobile’s door and climbed up and in.
“Your shopping trip.” He shut the door behind me, waiting while I rolled down the window. “Try not to kill your new boss and leave his body in a dressing room in Rapid City.”
“I give no guarantee.” It all depended how many times I heard the word Tiffany.
“Call me tonight,” he said, stepping back. “Even if Harvey shows up.”
That meant Doc didn’t plan on coming over to spend the evening with me. Was he going to be busy with work? Or did it have something to do with the two little beings sharing my life?
I cranked the Picklemobile to her usual sputtering rhythm, leaving Doc with a wave and a black puff of acrid exhaust.
Mona was the only one at Calamity Jane’s when I walked in the back door. The scent of her jasmine perfume calmed me in the way that the smell of my grandmother baking molasses cookies always had.
I made a beeline straight to the coffee pot.
“Morning, Vi,” Mona said, her fingernails clacking away on her keyboard.
“Morning,” I returned over my shoulder.
My cup shook in my hand as I poured the coffee. I set the cup down on the counter and mouthed a few silent “Ohmms.” Then I stuck my finger in the black go-go juice to make sure it wouldn’t scald and gulped the warm, bitter stuff down in one shot.
Ahhh, that was better. Maybe I should keep a flask of tequila in my desk drawer.
The clacking stopped. “Someone stopped by earlier and left you a gift.”
When I shot her a raised brows look, she pointed toward my desk.
One of my purple boots sat on my chair—the right one. The same as her broken leg.
Natalie!
Nat had borrowed my purple boots before she’d found out I was involved with Doc. I’d written off those boots, figuring she’d throw them in a wood chipper and send me the pieces—if she were feeling nice by then.
“How long ago was Nat here?”
“Actually, it wasn’t Natalie who dropped it off. It was Jeff Wymonds.”
Jeff? I moved the boot from the chair and put my butt there instead. Oh, God! Had I driven her to Jeff’s bed? She’d slept with him a long, long time ago back in high school and sworn not to revisit his bed ever again, no matter how drunk she got. But then she hadn’t counted on her best friend betraying her like I had.
Hugging the boot, I wondered what the significance was of delivering only one boot. Was it an olive branch? Or was Natalie just being practical since her leg might still be in a cast and she only needed the left boot?
I searched the inside of the boot for a message, written on paper or on the leather, but found nothing.
“Did Jeff leave any message?” I asked Mona.
“Yes. He said to tell you that he hired a crew to fix his garage roof, and they should have it done in the next two weeks.”
“Nothing about Natalie, though?”
“Nope. He said she’d stopped by his place
with it yesterday and asked him to give the boot to you the next time he saw you.”
Damn.
I grabbed my phone and texted Nat: Thank you for the boot. I hesitated for a moment, then added: I miss you.
As I hit the Send button, the front door whipped opened. Jerry burst inside, moving like a locomotive. He was wearing shorts again, this time with a tank top that showed off his muscular shoulders, one of which had a nasty six-inch scar down it. The neck of his top was soaked with sweat, his face dripping.
“Hello, ladies. Sorry about my appearance,” he said. “I forgot my gym bag in my office.”
He screeched to a stop after passing by me and backed up, looking down at my boot.
“Killer boot,” he said, grabbing it, holding it up. “You should wear these in some of our ads.”
Until the other boot showed up, the ads would have to be one-legged. I could imagine the nicknames that would follow.
Without giving me the chance to reply, he handed the boot back to me. He knocked twice on Mona’s desk as he strode toward his office. “Pretty necklace, Red,” was his parting comment.
Mona watched him from over the top of her reading glasses until he disappeared from view, fingering the single teardrop emerald pendant hanging around her neck.
I heard him rummage around for a few seconds and then his footfalls moved toward the back door.
“Be ready to go when I get back, Violet,” he hollered and then closed the door behind him.
What if I weren’t? Was he going to drag me down to Rapid?
That was tough talk for a real estate agent with only one sale and another barely pending. I shoved the boot in my desk drawer and opened up my Day-Timer to the address book. Under the letter C, I found two phone numbers for Wanda Carhart—one for her house up by the edge of the Open Cut and the other for her sister’s place, where she supposedly was living these days.
I didn’t want Mona to hear what I was about to do, knowing she’d disapprove after my last disaster involving the Carhart house, so I scribbled the number on a piece of paper and pocketed it. “I’ll be right back, Mona; I left something in the Picklemobile.”
Closing the back door behind me, I made sure Jerry wasn’t hanging around anywhere nearby and then hit the Call button.