Optical Delusions in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  I winced at his features’ unsightly transformation, then tried to cover my reaction with a fake shoulder twitch.

  “You’ll have to excuse Violet,” Natalie said, reaching behind me and poking my back hard enough that I flinched. Ouch! I elbowed her hand away.

  “She’s high-strung and twitchy tonight. Feeling a little antsy about a potential sale.”

  George’s bushy silver eyebrows raised. “Whose house?”

  “Wanda Carhart’s place up in Lead.” Natalie spilled it before I could duct tape her mouth shut.

  That was still top-secret information. I tried to shrivel her head with my superhero laser vision.

  She ignored me.

  “The Carharts, huh?” George leaned in close, his voice for our ears only, his aftershave citrus-scented, subtle. “I had a packed house for their double funeral, had to turn people away. We debated clearing out the other viewing room to allow more folks inside.” He pointed his thumb toward the open door. “But the Carhart boy’s fiancée insisted that she didn’t want to hide behind the one-way glass.”

  I stared at my reflection in the windows lining the wall. One-way glass. Was something moving behind them? I squinted, getting nowhere, feeling a bit creeped out. Someone could be back there right now, watching.

  Were more crates back there, too? Filled?

  “Why so many people? Was it because of the—” Natalie mouthed murder?

  “Possibly. But the Carhart boy was pretty popular back in school, in spite of that nasty temper of his.” George smirked. “You should have seen the waterworks show that fiancée of his put on.”

  The image of the happy couple in the photo flashed in my head.

  I huddled closer, matching his voice level. I wanted to know if he’d handled the Carhart bodies when they’d come in, but I thought that might earn me another poke from Natalie. Instead, I asked, “How long had Millie’s brother been engaged?”

  George shrugged. “I didn’t even know he was until the fiancée showed up with Millie and Wanda to make arrangements. Quite a looker she is, too. Wonder what she saw in that boy.”

  I’d wondered the same thing just hours prior. “I’ll have to show you a picture of her sometime,” I told Natalie.

  “Maybe you can sneak a peek at the video,” George said.

  “Video?” Natalie and I jinxed.

  “The fiancée requested we tape the funeral service. She wanted it as a keepsake to remember him by.”

  My jaw slackened. “Is that normal?”

  “As requests go, that’s pretty mild.” George nodded at someone over my shoulder. “I need to go. Nice to meet you, Violet.” He squeezed Natalie’s shoulder. “Tell your Aunt Beatrix I said hello.”

  George detoured to lock the crate room’s door before heading off across the parlor.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Natalie asked, “Well, what do you think? Is George up to no good with Ray?”

  “I don’t know. He seemed nice enough.” Surprisingly so, considering he consorted with Ray. “But we’re coming back here again.”

  “We are? Why?”

  “I’m going to check out that storage room. And you’re going to help me.”

  * * *

  Thursday, August 2nd

  The noon-time biker crowd at Bighorn Billy’s had a cow fetish. I hadn’t seen so much leather under one roof since my sixth-grade class toured the stockyards and an adjacent meat packing plant in Rapid City. But today’s visit wouldn’t end with me puking my guts out onto my Buster Browns.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the door, checking for Detective Cooper, my lunch date, who should be walking through it any minute now. I figured he’d be punctual, being a member of the Deadwood city police force and all.

  Then again, what did I really know about the guy? The few phone calls we’d shared had been either to talk about a dead man or to reschedule this very appointment due to other dead men. Besides knowing his uncle a little too intimately thanks to Harvey’s lack of a filter most days, Detective “Coop” Cooper could be Jack the Ripper’s law-upholding cousin.

  I checked my cell phone. No calls, no messages. Doc was still playing hard to get. Over the last twelve hours, I’d picked up my phone to call him a humiliating number of times. But the nervous sweat of rejection kept me from dialing. Just once, I wished Doc would call me, show some interest instead of making me work for it.

  “What’s for lunch?” Harvey’s gruff voice stopped my woe-is-me bender before it could get rolling.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as he slid onto the bench seat opposite me.

  “Getting some grub.”

  “Our weekly dinner deal was yesterday.”

  “That didn’t count. It was breakfast, not dinner.” He snickered at my glare. “Okay, I’ll let you off easy this time.”

  “That’s big of you.” At my sarcasm, he grinned, his gold tooth glinting. “So what are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for Coop with you.”

  “Wait no more, old man.” Detective Cooper, dressed in jeans and a navy blue T-shirt, nudged his uncle over and scooted in next to him. He flashed me a quick, no frills smile. “Good afternoon, Ms. Parker.”

  “You can call her Violet.” Harvey handed his nephew a menu.

  With sandy blond hair, a craggy face, and a day’s worth of scruff, Detective Cooper looked like James Bond—the Daniel Craig version. Only his eyes were olive-colored rather than blue. And Mr. Bond smiled at least once in awhile.

  “Violet it is.” The detective flipped his coffee mug right-side up and waggled his finger at a passing waitress. “I apologize for my tardiness. Something came up.”

  I imagined something “came up” a lot for the detective. I hoped it wasn’t another body part somewhere. “No apology necessary, Detective Cooper.”

  “And you can call him Coop.” Harvey butted in again. “Now stop running your yap-trap and let’s get something to eat.”

  The waitress stopped by with coffee and took our orders. After she was out of earshot, Harvey asked Coop, “Did those lab rats send anything back yet on that ear?”

  I grimaced. Last month, Harvey had complained to me about something making “funny” noises behind his barn at night—funny as in made my skin crawl at the mere thought and sent Harvey reaching for his shotgun. So Harvey, being the crazy old bugger that he was, set a trap. A big trap, squirrel bait included, fluffy tail and all.

  Instead of catching a varmint, he’d caught an ear. A human ear. Plus a flap of skull skin. All licked clean of blood. Last I’d heard, Cooper and the Lawrence County sheriff were still baffled by it. To date, nobody has shown up at the Northern Hills Hospital crying about a torn-off ear.

  Cooper fiddled with his coffee spoon, his olive eyes on mine. “You’ve heard about the ear, I take it?”

  “I’ve told her everything,” Harvey spoke in my place. “She’s my Realtor.”

  I squirmed, uncomfortable under the serious weight of the detective’s gaze. “Harvey and I have an open relationship,” I explained. Eye-opening most of the time.

  Cooper set his spoon down. “Nothing’s come in from the lab yet. It can take weeks to get results, especially since it’s not a life-or-death priority.”

  Grunting, Harvey muttered, “I bet it’s one of those damned Slagton whangdoodles.”

  Slagton was the name of a nearly ghost town just a few as-the-crow-flies miles from Harvey’s ranch. A big mining accident shut down the place decades ago. But there were stragglers—Harvey liked to call them “whangdoodles,” his synonym for loony kooks—holding out, still living up in the hills.

  I hadn’t made it to Slagton. I’d watched The Hills Have Eyes too many times to stroll into that place without the National Guard on my heels.

  “Whangdoodles or not,” Cooper said, “we haven’t seen any sign of activity since we cleaned out the nest.”

  The nest. I shuddered. Scouring the hillside behind Harvey’s barn, Cooper and the sheriff’s deputies found a bur
row of sorts in an old mine, containing a pair of broken glasses, an old boot, dirty underwear, a half-eaten possum, and human teeth.

  “Have you heard any sounds coming from behind your barn this last week?” Cooper asked Harvey.

  “Nope. But something was horsin’ around in that old cemetery back there again. The ground is all torn up.”

  “Are any of the graves disturbed?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Not that I could tell, but I didn’t get off my Gator to take a closer look.” He nudged Cooper’s arm. “You remember what happened in that cemetery in Slagton a few years back?”

  Cooper nodded. “More like twenty years ago, old man.”

  “That’s right. You were still wet behind the ears and working for the sheriff’s department when you helped on that one.”

  Cooper had worked for the sheriff’s department? I guess I’d pictured him in Deadwood since high school graduation. “So when did you make the switch to being a detective for Deadwood?”

  “He switched teams about eight years ago, wasn’t it, Coop?” Harvey spoke for his nephew and didn’t wait for confirmation before adding, “He still helps out that no-good, double-crossing, lousy excuse for a sheriff whenever he’s asked, though.”

  Cooper raised his eyebrows. “Which is coming in awful handy with the ruckus you’ve been causing lately.”

  “What’s your beef with the sheriff, Harvey?”

  “He’s a cheatin’ thief.”

  Cooper’s mouth slipped into a smirk. “You still got your tail feathers all ruffled up about him stealing Edwina out from under you? They’ve been married for almost fifteen years now.”

  “You don’t understand,” Harvey said. “She was flexible.”

  Oh, Lord. “So what happened back in Slagton?” I asked, elbows on the table, goosebumps at the ready.

  Harvey looked at his nephew. “Can I tell her?”

  “Why not? You’ve told her everything else.”

  “A bunch of the graves were dug up, coffins opened, the remains all chewed up,” Harvey said.

  I cringed. “What do you mean ‘chewed up’?”

  “Skulls smashed,” Cooper supplied. “Bones shredded like they’d gone through a wood chipper. Teeth marks were the only evidence left behind.”

  I sat back, mouth open, goosebumps forgotten. “What would do something like that?” And why?

  “Some old timers said it was the white grizzly,” Cooper said with a slight eye-roll. “Personally, I think it was some kids screwing around back there, trying to stir up some entertainment. The Black Hills’ equivalent of crop circles.”

  “What’s the white grizzly?” I was going to have to stop over at the library and read up on Slagton’s history.

  Stirring sugar into his coffee, Cooper answered, “It’s a legend passed down from the Lakota Indians, who considered the Black Hills sacred ground.”

  Harvey leaned toward me and whispered, “Some people say it’s not a bear at all but a demon with milky eyes, spiked teeth, claws like scythes, and a coat made up of its victims’ scalps—their hair scared white before it killed ‘em.”

  Here came the goosebumps. My chances of selling Harvey’s place were sliding downhill, avalanche style. “So you think all this has something to do with what was going on in that mine up behind your barn?”

  “Yes,” Harvey said, drowning out Cooper’s “No.”

  I held my breath while the waitress placed Harvey’s Coke and my diet down in front of us, along with a side salad for Cooper.

  After she left I asked the detective, “What are you going to do about Harvey’s cemetery?” My interest was part curiosity, part need-to-know as Harvey’s Realtor.

  Cooper looked up at me, a forkful of salad halfway to his mouth, his forehead creased. “Aren’t we here to discuss selling my place?”

  “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 ont
o 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.”