by Ann Charles
“Is that a pagan symbol?” Natalie asked. “Or something witchcraft related?”
I looked to Doc for an answer.
He stared at it with a wrinkled brow. “I’ll have to look it up.”
“Can you print it?” Cooper asked Mona.
Mona obliged and then opened the next image file.
I cocked my head to the side. “Is that the same symbol taken at a different angle?”
“I think so,” Mona said, moving the cursor over it. “Although the scarring on the surface behind it looks different.”
“Let’s see the video,” Natalie whispered, holding onto my shoulders as she watched.
Mona double-clicked on the file.
It took a moment to buffer, and then everything was a moving gray blur for a couple of seconds, reminding me of watching the wall outside of elevator doors as it dropped. The camera’s descent came to a stop and a grainy picture of the symbol we’d seen in the other files came to life. The video was shaky as the camera slowly spun in a circle. Actually, there were multiple copies of the same symbol carved into the walls. The shadows were heavy at the edge of the screen, the light eerie and bright, whiting out some of the symbols as the camera turned one way and then back the other. I watched with my breath held, waiting for something to jump out at us. Something not human, or worse—something that was human at one time. But the video ended without a jack-in-the-box finale.
Doc was right. I needed to lay off the horror movies.
“I don’t understand,” Mona said. “Where was this video taken?”
“Your boss was a clever lady,” Cornelius said, walking over to the printer. He held up the image she’d printed, nodding, and then turned it for us to see. “It appears she managed to get a camera down in the Hellhole before she died.”
“How can you … ?” I started to ask as I watched the video play again. Then I saw the giveaway clue at the bottom edge of the screen. “Oh. Now I see it,” I told Cornelius. “The old mining carbide lamp.”
Cornelius flipped the printout back over to view for himself. “She must have used a rope and lowered her camera down through the grate with the flashlight and video running.”
“It was probably her cell phone,” Cooper said.
We all watched the video again, as if hypnotized by the spinning.
Then my computer screen went dark.
So did the fluorescent bulb over Ben’s desk.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
Natalie shushed me, grabbing my wrist. “Listen.”
I heard several soft squeaks. I knew that sound. I’d heard it day after day when Jane was still alive. I sniffed, knowing that sharp smell, too—a marker.
“Coop,” Doc said. “Your flashlight.”
“On it.” A beam of light pierced the darkness.
“Look.” I grabbed Cooper’s wrist and directed his light at the whiteboard. “Jane left us another message.”
Scrawled diagonally across the pending sales list in large black capital letters were two words written in Jane’s handwriting: STAY OUT!
Chapter Thirteen
Monday, December 17th
I woke up at too-flippin’-early-o’clock feeling chewed up, spat out, and stepped on.
And then I rolled over and fell out of Addy’s bed.
Picking myself up from the floor, I limped to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. The reflection of the toilet made me grimace.
After the past six hours, I’d sooner face off with whatever had Jane’s bobbin wound up tight than see one more speck of vomit.
I splashed my face with cold water. Leaning over the sink, I let my thoughts return to last night, water dripping from my chin.
Jane had refused to play. Period. The séance hadn’t made it off the ground because all signs of her ghost—sight, sound, scent, as well as fluctuations on Cornelius’ EMF meter—had disappeared soon after she’d left us her whiteboard message. Cornelius speculated that her demonstration with the computer and whiteboard might have sapped her energy. I figured she’d said her piece, dropped the mic, and floated away.
While we were regrouping in Jerry’s office, discussing whether to try to reach Jane anyway, Cooper received a call about a possible hit-and-run at the south end of town. He tipped his hat and left us to head to the scene of the crime.
Natalie watched him go with a small scowl at his backside. I didn’t bother touching that hot mess. I’d dabbled in their business enough for one night. Besides, I’d probably end up defending the detective again to Natalie, and frankly, I was getting sick and tired of hearing that dingbat cheerleader’s voice spell out G-O C-O-O-P in my head.
Not long after Cooper took off, Aunt Zoe called me. Addy had woken up soaked in sweat and sick to her stomach. Before my aunt could even finish informing me of the situation, Addy had raced past her into the bathroom.
So, that was that. I had to go tend to my sick child, and Doc insisted on driving me. The séance was a bust. Yet it wasn’t, because Jane had made contact with us, if only on her terms.
I grabbed a towel and patted my face dry, wondering how Doc had slept. When I checked on him after Addy’s second tango with the porcelain prince, he’d been sound asleep under my covers. Rather than risk waking him if and when there was another upheaval from Addy’s stomach, I took one of my pillows and crawled into my sick kid’s bed.
I sized up my teeth and hair in the mirror. Both were fuzzy, especially my curls, but the smell of coffee lured me downstairs before I did anything about either. If Doc truly loved me like he said yesterday, then he’d understand that caffeine comes before beauty after a night with a vomiting child. Besides, if we were going to keep playing house, he needed to see me in all of my morning glory.
Cooper was standing in the kitchen when I stumbled in. His bloodshot eyes were at full squint when they locked onto me.
I stopped and blinked—twice.
Turning to my aunt sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee, I pointed at the detective, who leaned against the counter next to the coffee maker wearing jeans and a black long-sleeve T-shirt. “Aunt Zoe, do you see a crooked-nosed, cranky cop standing between me and my coffee?”
“Hell, Parker. Did you stick your toothbrush in a light socket this morning? You could hide a chicken in that nest.”
I glared bullets at him. “Really? You want to do this dance with me pre-caffeine, Detective Dickwad?” Without waiting for his answer, I shouldered him aside. I was in no mood to play patty-cake with Johnny Law after facing off with the contents of Addy’s stomach displayed in full technicolor multiple times throughout the night.
Aunt Zoe chuckled. “I know you’re a tough son of a gun, Coop, but Violet turns borderline rabid after pulling all-nighters with sick kids. You might want to keep your tail tucked this morning.”
“Addy or Layne?” he asked me.
“Addy.” I filled the mug to the rim. I was going to need straight up high octane to get through today. According to Mona, Jerry had scheduled Rosy to come to Calamity Jane’s for some website vlog prep with each of us. If I didn’t jump-start my brain, my vlog would consist of me with my head down on my desk, singing a chorus of zzzzz’s for the viewers.
“Is she okay?” Cooper asked.
I took a sip of black coffee, cringing a little. “She’ll live.”
“Is it the flu?” Aunt Zoe asked.
“I believe it’s a common case of too-much-sugar-itus.” I carried my coffee over to the table. “The candy fiend ate a bunch of Mom’s peanut butter fudge along with several Christmas cookies before bed.”
“What?” Aunt Zoe frowned. “When did she get into the fudge? I put it away as soon as Susan gave it to me.”
“According to Addy, dear diabolical Aunt Susan let her take a couple of handfuls to her room before delivering the tin to you.”
The tin of fudge was what the Bitch from Hell had driven up to Deadwood to drop off yesterday. Feeding my little sugar addict’s habit was yet another reason fo
r me to want to stick gum in Susan’s stringy hair the next time I saw her. After the third trip to the bathroom with Addy, holding her trembling body while she emptied the last drops of her stomach contents, I considered calling Dominick and telling him I’d changed my mind—he could have Susan for free.
“It’s no wonder you look like hell,” Cooper said.
My chin swung in his direction. “Strike two. One more, Coop, and I’m going to shove my foot so far up your ass that my toes will tickle your uvula.”
He almost cracked a grin, but not quite. “I’m going to steal that one. And it’s ‘Cooper’ to you, Parker. Always.”
“Criminy. After all we’ve been through, why won’t you bend even a little on that ‘Coop’ rule?”
“Because I don’t bend.”
Cornelius had that right. “Whatever. Why are you here in my face at oh-dark-thirty and what have you done with Doc?”
“Your boyfriend is at the Rec Center,” he said. “I saw the green Ford in the lot.”
I sighed. Doc had a morning appointment over in Spearfish and had wanted to get up and out early, but dang. “He’s nuts. Who in their right mind goes to the gym at this hour, let alone with bruised ribs?”
“Bruised isn’t broken.” Cooper finished his coffee and set the mug in the sink. He smirked at me. “Besides, he needs to keep up his strength. Taming his shrew and her wild hair is hard work.”
Aunt Zoe laughed.
“That’s it.” I set my cup on the table and stood, fists clenched. “Aunt Zoe, call my lawyer. I’m going to assault Deadwood’s current top-ranking town clown.”
A laugh escaped Cooper’s locked lips. Then another. And then a bunch more.
I sat back down, frowning at him. Uh-oh. I’d witnessed this rare event once when he was forced to share quarters with me. It was the equivalent of a pressure cooker valve releasing steam. I aimed a worried brow at Aunt Zoe. “I think he’s stressed out again.”
“When has he ever not been?” she asked.
When Cooper quieted, wiping the corners of his eyes with the back of his hands, Aunt Zoe asked, “What’s wrong, Coop?”
He sighed. “I got a call early this morning.”
How early? Hell, the sun wasn’t even up yet.
“Eddie Mudder requested I come over to the morgue and take a look at what he called a ‘bit of a situation.’ “
The garage behind Mudder Brothers Funeral Parlor, which was located down the hill from Aunt Zoe’s house, acted as the town morgue, temporarily storing bodies for the Deadwood Police Department. For minor county autopsy needs, Eddie Mudder filled the bill. If the state needed to get involved, though, they shipped the corpses off after getting them nice and frosty for the trip.
“What sort of a situation?” I asked, wondering if one of Eddie’s corpses up and walked away again like the faceless guy that Harvey, Natalie, and I had found out at the old buzzard’s ranch months ago.
“You remember the partially eaten, burnt corpse discovered on the Michelson Trail a couple of weeks back?”
Aunt Zoe crossed her arms. “The one I said could be the result of a Nachzehrer?”
He nodded.
“What’s a Nachzehrer again?” I asked, needing more coffee before I’d be ready for this conversation.
“Think of it as a ghoul and a vampire mixed,” Aunt Zoe said. “A human that’s reanimated after death. Only it’s not a blood drinker. It eats human flesh—living or dead.”
I shuddered and took another sip of coffee.
“We were storing the body at Mudder Brothers’ morgue for the time being because the county coroner is out of town for the upcoming holidays and this case is a little advanced for Eddie.” He crossed his arms, looking both pissed and tired at the same time. “When Eddie went into the morgue around three this morning, the freezer door was busted open.”
“Why was Eddie in there in the middle of the night?” I asked.
“That’s not important.”
“It is to me.” I’d grown to like Eddie Mudder, in spite of his love of eccentric organ music and his somewhat creepy resemblance to Lurch from the old black and white Addams Family television show.
“He likes to work on the dead in the middle of the night,” Cooper explained. “He claims most of the bodies are less active when it comes to de-gassing at that time, because it’s when they were normally in sleep mode while alive.”
I cringed. “That’s an unsettling observation about the dead.” It figured Eddie was the source.
“Can I continue?”
I waved him onward. “You were saying the freezer door was open,” I helped him return to where he’d left off.
“When Eddie looked inside the freezer, the body from the Michelson Trail was gone.”
Aunt Zoe rubbed her eyes. “That could be a big problem.”
“That’s not the only issue,” he said. “There was another body in there—another of the older Haskells passed a couple of days ago.”
“I heard.” Aunt Zoe ran her finger around the rim of her cup. “I ran into Eloisa at the store. She told me her uncle Elliot, the hoarding bachelor she was named after, had finally kicked the bucket. There’s a rumor that he had a lot of money hidden under his chicken coop.”
“Good ol’ penny-pinching Uncle Elliot,” Cooper said, staring out the back door into the darkness for a moment. When he turned back, he scowled in Aunt Zoe’s direction. “While Uncle Elliot was on ice, something gnawed on his corpse.”
“Oh, jeez,” I muttered, covering my eyes since it was too late for my ears. “Please tell me it was a hungry raccoon or coyote.”
“From what Eddie and I can determine, the bite marks are human.” He grimaced. “Well, made by something that used to be human, anyway.”
I lowered my hands, looking across at Aunt Zoe. “What now?”
Cooper answered for her. “I’m going to need both of you to join me at Mudder Brothers’ morgue to inspect Mr. Haskell’s remains.”
“Right now?”
“I’ll give you an hour to eat and get dressed. I’ll meet you down there.”
“Are you serious?”
He pointed at his face. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
* * *
Cooper wasn’t joking.
Forty-five minutes later, Layne was up, fed, dressed, and reading his library book on weapons while he waited for me to drive him to school. I’d called Doc and left him a message about my morning’s field trip to the morgue thanks to Cooper. I knew it wasn’t really the detective’s fault that I needed to go look at a dead body first thing on a Monday, but after my sleepless night, I needed to curse and rant about somebody. I probably should have called Natalie instead of Doc. For once I wouldn’t be defending the object of her sexual frustrations.
Harvey showed up a few minutes before we had to leave dressed in a fancy blue western shirt, new-looking jeans, and silver-toed cowboy boots. He’d agreed to come over and keep an eye on Addy while Aunt Zoe and I hung out with Cooper at the morgue. My little sugar junkie was still sleeping after her eventful night. School wasn’t going to happen for her thanks to their 24-hour puke-free rule.
I stepped back to let him inside, picking up a whiff of his spicy cologne. “Wow, you didn’t need to dress up for Addy. She’s not even awake yet.”
“I had a breakfast date scheduled fer this mornin’.”
I pulled on my pea coat, which I’d brushed and beaten thoroughly to get rid of the majority of the chimera’s ash, adding a final spritz with a deodorizer to finish the job. I’d have to drop it off at the dry cleaners sometime this week to do it justice.
I waved Layne over and held the door open for him, saying to Harvey, “We’ll hurry so you can still get your chuckwagon on.”
“Who said anything about food?” he winked. “The sweet buns I ordered were supposed to be pre-glazed, warm, and waitin’ fer me. Ya owe me big fer this, girlie. Like two dinners out on the town big.”
“Put it on my tab, horny toad.”
I headed out the door after Layne with Aunt Zoe on my heels.
The ride to school was quiet, with Aunt Zoe and I exchanging angst-laden glances several times along the way. The last time I’d started my day with a visit to see a body at Mudder Brothers I’d inspected a decapitated guy with a black wart in his bellybutton. Having learned my lesson before, I’d skipped breakfast today in preparation for what we were about to inspect. Throwing up in front of—and partially on—Cooper had been one of my all-time low points since moving to Deadwood. I didn’t want to give him an encore performance.
After Layne kissed me good-bye and hopped out of the SUV, I steered toward Mudder Brothers. I needed to focus on something normal for a few minutes and lower my blood pressure several notches. Something that didn’t include gnawed-on bodies, flesh eaters, and otherworldly hunters.
“What are you getting Reid for Christmas?” I asked Aunt Zoe.
She huffed. “Why would I get that man anything?”
“Because he has amazing bedroom eyes that you love staring into.”
“Shut it, child,” she said without conviction. “You know not of what you speak.”
“Please. All Reid has to do is look your way and your bloomers catch on fire, which in turn makes the sexy fireman reach for his hose.” That made her grin. “Now what are you getting him?”
She stared out her window as I turned right onto Sherman Street. “I made him a new watch band. It’s leather with several different silver charms.”
“Decorated armor. I like it.” I gave her a teasing smile. “He’s going to think you’re going steady when you give it to him, you know.”
“It’s for his protection.”
“Sure it is.”
She jabbed my shoulder. “Quit trying to play cupid, Violet Lynn.”
“I can’t help it. I like Reid.”
“So does my heart, and that’s a problem for my head.”
“Are you going to invite him to Christmas dinner?”
“No. You saw your father’s reaction last weekend. If Reid shows up on Blake’s doorstep, he’ll probably belt him in the breadbasket next.”
Over a week ago, my dad had tackled my ex on Aunt Zoe’s front lawn, landing a few punches in Rex’s midsection before Cooper managed to separate them. It was not one of my family’s finer moments, but at least nobody ended up in jail this time. Well, except for Doc.