by Ann Charles
“You can smell it.” He held it out for us to do just that.
I recoiled. “I’ll take your word for it. Where did you find it?”
“In my bathroom wastebasket. That wasn’t the only mess left behind. Come take a gander under my sink.”
I followed him into his bathroom and squatted in front of the open cupboard doors. There were bottles tipped over, bandage wrappers strewn about, blood smears on the inside of the cupboard doors, a disarray of wadded towels, and more brown stained rags left behind.
“What do you think?” I asked Harvey and Natalie. “Maybe somebody was hurt and broke in here to fix themselves up.”
“That’s one notion.” Harvey stroked his beard. “We should probably call Coop and have him weigh in on it.”
“I agree,” Natalie said from where she leaned against the door jamb, wringing her hands together. “And then you can suggest he bring Detective Hawke along so I can start working my magic on loosening his lips.”
I’d rather she worked her magic on sealing them shut.
“Like I told you before, Nat, you’re going to have to be subtle. This guy is a detective, albeit a shitty egotistical butthead, but he’ll know when he’s being set up.”
“And if subtlety doesn’t wind his crank,” Harvey said with a wide grin that showed off his two gold teeth, “you could flash him your hooters. That’ll loosen his lips and then some. Trust me, a sweet set of hooters is as good as any truth serum the Army ever came up with.”
“That’s your answer to everything,” I told Harvey.
“You can look down your nose at me, girl, but it works. Just ask the widows down at the senior center.”
“I’d rather not.” I stood and brushed my hands off on my slacks. “While you were packing, did you notice anything missing in your bedroom? Anything of value?”
He shook his head. “Not yet anyway.”
I pulled out my cellphone and took a few pictures of the bloody rag and the mess under the sink. “There, we’ll show these to Cooper when we move you into his place tonight. He can come out tomorrow and see them for himself.”
Back in his bedroom, Harvey grabbed an armful of socks from his dresser and stuffed them into his duffel bag. “What were you bellyachin’ about out there in the kitchen?”
“Your barn doors,” Natalie answered. “The padlock and chain are gone.”
His eyes narrowed. “My doors were still sportin’ my padlock the other day when I was here with Coop.”
Something didn’t feel right about this—the unlocked front door, the dried blood, the missing padlock and chain. I palmed my phone, debating on making that call.
“Let me finish packing,” Harvey said, “and we’ll swing by the barn on the way out of here. I need to let Red out to water the bushes before we head back to town anyway.”
Natalie and I stood there swapping worried frowns while Harvey stuffed more clothes into his bag.
“Let’s skedaddle.” He grunted as he hoisted it.
I helped him adjust the heavy pack on his back. “Criminy, you could use a mule to carry this thing. How many clothes do you need?”
“Depends on how many women I’m gonna be wooing this winter. The fresher the duds, the fresher the women.”
Natalie chuckled and led the way out. Harvey made sure the door was locked behind us.
At the pickup, Red was waiting for us with his head sticking out the window, sniffing the wind.
Harvey let him out the driver’s side. “Get down outta there, boy. Go lift a leg before we head back to town.”
The lab hopped out of the pickup like he was still a pup, turned his nose up again, and then dashed toward the barn.
I watched him, my mouth catching air. Who was that dog? “I’ve never seen Red move that fast before.”
Harvey tossed his full pack in the back of his truck, securing it with some bungee cords. “When he needs to lift a leg, he doesn’t stop to smell the posies.”
Natalie nudged me, pointing at the doors. “Look.”
We watched as Red sniffed around the doors. Then he nosed them open and slipped inside.
“Red just went in the barn,” Natalie told Harvey.
“Why’d he go in there?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why.
Harvey started toward the barn, calling back over his shoulder. “Violet, grab old Bessie from under the seat, would ya?”
“Why do we need your shotgun?”
“In case he’s sniffed out a mountain lion or some other critter that’s holed up inside my barn.”
“I’ll get it,” Natalie said.
He pulled the doors open. “Red! Here, boy.”
Red whimpered in the shadows off to the right, giving me goosebumps. “Why’s he making that sound?”
Natalie cocked Harvey’s shotgun like she was Rooster Cogburn readying for a passel of bad guys. “Something has him spooked.”
“Point that thing at the ground, would ya?”
“What? I’ve been shooting since Gramps taught me how back before I even needed a bra.”
“Give Bessie to me.” Harvey took the shotgun from Natalie. “Red’s probably whimperin’ because he hurt himself jumpin’ out of the truck like he did. He keeps forgettin’ he’s not a young pup anymore. You two wait here.” With a hitch of his pants, he and his shotgun headed off in the shadow-filled direction of Red’s whimpering.
Happy to obey, I stood in the shaft of sunlight coming through the doors. I was getting really tired of finding pieces of people and animals out here in the boonies. “Maybe we should call Cooper.”
Nat jammed her hands on her hips. “Now you start with this shit?”
Red’s whimpering turned to a growl, then a bark.
“Well, I’ll be a twice-baked potato,” I heard Harvey say. “What’d ya sniff out there, ol’ boy?”
Something creaked, like metal on metal. What had Harvey and Red found? The Tin Man?
“Harvey?” I took several steps into the shadows beyond the shaft of light. “Is everything okay?”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Harvey’s voice sounded higher, surprised.
Red let out a volley of barks.
“What’d they find?” I whispered.
“Let’s go see.” Natalie caught my wrist and tugged me deeper into the barn.
We found Harvey standing in a wood-walled grain bin. Dust floated in the light of his flashlight beam. The place smelled like straw and stale grain, slightly fermented, almost rotten. Harvey was holding Red by the collar with one hand and a flashlight with the other, his shotgun pointing at the ceiling while tucked under his armpit. In front of him was an ancient-looking bank safe. Dust covered the dark metal.
Harvey’s forehead was zigzagged with lines when we joined him in front of the safe. “I think you need to call Coop now,” he told me.
“Not me. Detective Cooper hates receiving phone calls from me.”
“I reckon he’s gonna want to eyeball this sooner rather than later, and I don’t think snappin’ a picture of it with that phone of yours will cut it. Here, help me put Bessie down.” I took his shotgun and carefully leaned it against the wall.
“Why do you keep an old bank safe in your barn?”
“It was too darn heavy to carry into the basement.”
I didn’t doubt it. The thing was almost as deep as it was wide.
“Did somebody break into your safe and take something?” Natalie asked.
“Nope. They broke in and left somethin’.” Harvey reached out with the toe of his boot and pulled open the door. It creaked all the way. Aha, so this was the Tin Man.
“Left what?” I took the flashlight he held out to me.
“See for yerself.”
I did.
Then I let out a small scream, more of a squeal really, and stumbled backward into Natalie.
“Oh, my God! What is that?” Natalie held me by the shoulders, using me as a shield.
“Is that a man in there?” I asked and th
en gulped.
Harvey tightened his grip on Red, who was straining to investigate further with his long snout. “It sure looks like one, from what I can tell.” He reached inside the safe with his free hand.
I grabbed the back of his suspenders, pulling him away from the safe. “What are you doing?”
“Gettin’ what’s mine.” He tugged free of my grip and reached inside again, extracting a sawed-off shotgun. “This here shotgun belonged to my grandpappy. It was his favorite. See the way the triggers are wired back?” He held it up so we could see the copper wire. “Grandpappy kept it that way because the triggers got busted, but she still shoots true. There ain’t no way I’m lettin’ Coop and his boys lock it away in that evidence cage for the rest of eternity.”
I looked at the tangled pretzel-like mess of arms and legs stuffed in Harvey’s safe. “How long you think it’s been in there?”
Natalie sniffed from where she was hiding at the back of my neck. “Eww. It’s just starting to smell.”
Yeah, I’d noticed and didn’t want to think about it too much.
Harvey poked the body with the double barrels of his grandpappy’s gun. “This one’s still juicy. The flies are just beginnin’ to show up for the party.”
I gagged. I couldn’t help it.
Harvey closed the safe door, stepping back. “Who’s making the call this time?”
“Natalie,” I volunteered, shoving my cellphone at her.
“Why me?” She pushed my phone away.
Because I’d recently figured out that Detective Cooper had an Achilles heel—he was smitten by one Miss Natalie Beals. The thing was, Natalie didn’t know about this attraction yet and with the positive effects of her sabbatical on her self-esteem, I didn’t want to mess with her head by letting the cat out of the bag. Or in Cooper’s case, the sabre-toothed tiger out of the cage.
I grabbed her hand and slapped my phone into her palm. “Because you lost the coin toss.”
“That was for riding in the back seat on the way out here.” She tried to make me take back my phone, but I danced out of her reach.
“Give me that.” Harvey grabbed the phone. “If you want somethin’ done right, you have to do it yerself.” He tapped on the screen, pulling up my contact list. “Where’s Coop’s name—ah, here we go.” He held the phone up to his ear, eyeing both of us in turn.
“Hey, Coop.” He paused, listening. “Yeah, it’s me.” Another pause. “I know, I’m borrowing her phone.” Pause. “Well, we’re out here at the ranch gettin’ my stuff and Natalie went and sniffed out some trouble in my barn.”
“What?! Harvey! It wasn’t me.” Natalie tried to back away, but I caught her arm and planted my heels.
“Sure. I’ll let you hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.” He held the phone out to Natalie, a ghost of a grin on his lips. “Coop wants to talk to you.”
Sputtering, Natalie took the phone. “Uh, hi, Detective.”
Harvey snickered, hip bumping me. “That’s how you drive a skittish heifer up a chute.”
After baring her teeth at Harvey, Natalie returned to Cooper. “Yeah, we sort of found another body.” She winced, holding the phone away from her ear until the ranting from Cooper’s end quieted. “Well, it’s hard to tell who it is.” She winced again through his reply, and then hit me with a furrowed brow. “Because it’s missing a face.”
Chapter Two
Meanwhile, back in Deadwood …
By the time we made it back to town several hours later, the parking lot at Bighorn Billy’s Diner was empty except for two trucks and Doc’s black 1969 Camaro SS.
We piled out of Harvey’s pickup, leaving Red snoring in the back seat. His hunting adventure for the day had apparently worn him out. It had worn me out, too, but as much as I would have liked to join Red’s snore-fest, I had two things I wanted more: food and Doc, preferably together.
Conway Twitty was soloing on the golden oldies country station inside the restaurant, crooning about something being only make believe. Too bad Conway was full of crap. As much as I wished what we’d discovered this morning had been another nightmare, that dead body stuffed into Harvey’s safe was as real as my file at the Deadwood Police Station. The very file that was going to grow even fatter after all of the writing Detective Hawke had been doing in his stupid little notebook during his onsite interrogation.
The other two vehicles must have belonged to the cook and the waitress, because the diner was empty except for Doc, who rose from the corner booth as we weaved through vacant tables toward him. Dressed in black pants and a dark brown button up shirt that matched his eyes, he looked better than a bacon-wrapped filet.
My stomach growled in disagreement. It thought the filet would be sexier.
The frown on Doc’s face matched my mood. After enjoying another session of Detective Cooper and Hawke’s rubber glove therapy, I felt snarly and bushy tailed.
“You okay?” Doc asked me while helping me slip out of my coat. His fingers lingered on my shoulders.
“Sure, aside from Cooper’s teeth marks on my ass.”
Harvey snorted from where he had settled in next to Natalie. “Doc can rub some healin’ ointment on your hindquarters later. For now, plant your keister on that there seat. I’m hungry enough to swallow a steak and the cast-iron skillet it was fried in.”
Doc waited for me to slide in first and then joined me, his palm warming my thigh through my wool pants. “Cooper bared his fangs at you again today, huh?”
“Only once or twice.”
Actually, the detective had appeared relatively cool on the surface while looking at the dead body and soaking up the crime scene. But I’d been around him while he was in a pissed off state enough to know that the ticking muscle in his jaw worked like a pressure cooker valve. It was only a matter of time before his head blew right off, and I needed to stay clear of the blast zone.
“It was Detective Hawke who went all lock-jawed onto Violet’s ass like a honey badger,” Natalie clarified. “It’s a good thing she doesn’t have testicles for him to latch onto.”
Doc chuckled. “I for one am thrilled she’s testicle-free.”
“I swear,” Harvey turned the coffee cup in front of him right-side up. “That fool Hawke has as many brain cells as a turtle has feathers.”
“Sounds like a good time was had by one and all.” Doc squeezed my leg. “I wish I could have been there with you.” His words were light, but his forehead was weighed down with worry.
Me, too.
“It was a regular ol’ knee-slappin’ barn dance, let me tell ya.” Harvey waved the waitress over.
After we’d placed our drink order and the waitress had left, Doc turned to me. “What did you mean in your text message about there being no face?”
“From what we could tell, the killer had sliced clear around it,” I drew a circle around my own face with my finger, “and then peeled it off.”
Natalie shuddered visibly, as she had several times while we waited at the ranch for Cooper to tell us we were free to go. This wasn’t her first time hanging out with a corpse. Considering how quiet she’d been since leaving the ranch, I wondered if she were having flashbacks to one dark and freaky night months ago at Mudder Brothers Funeral Parlor when she’d been locked up in the freezer with another dead guy.
“There were no fingertips either,” Harvey added. “Whoever skinned his mug also sliced off the ends of each of his fingers. I told Coop they looked gnawed off to me. He’s gonna have a hell of a time identifying this one.”
“Christ.” Doc rubbed the back of his neck. “You two keep tumbling deeper into the Twilight Zone, don’t you?”
“Us three,” I said, nodding at Natalie. “She was there, too, don’t forget.”
“I’m not sure I want to join your musketeer club.” Natalie blew out a shaky breath. “Unless we get to slam back shots at the weekly meetings.”
The waitress returned with our drinks, shutting us up on the subject of mutilated bod
ies for the time being and shifting the focus to food.
Harvey and I both craved meat—him a T-bone, me a ribeye, both medium rare.
Natalie gaped at us. “How in the hell can you two eat red meat after this morning?”
“What happened this morning, sugar?” the waitress asked Harvey.
I aimed a zip-it glare at Natalie.
“We hit a deer out on 385,” Harvey explained. “Guts flew from here to Nebraska. A real humdinger of a mess.”
The waitress took it in stride. “It’s that time of year.”
Natalie looked green around the gills when the waitress aimed her order pad in her direction. “Just a small house salad for me, please.”
Doc brought up the rear with his order of thick-sliced bacon and eggs, including extra bacon on the side. As soon as the waitress was out of earshot, he bumped shoulders with me. “The extra bacon is for you, if you want it.”
He ordered extra bacon just for me? Oh, boy. Could he see the little hearts floating all around my head?
Natalie leaned forward. “Who would’ve done something as diabolical as that?”
I was still enjoying the warmth of Doc’s bacon love. “What? Order extra bacon?”
“No, you dork.” She reached across the table and pinched my arm. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Ow!” I wrinkled my nose at Harvey. “Did you teach her that?” The old bugger was prone to pinching me when he wanted my attention.
He didn’t answer, just flashed his two gold teeth at me.
“I’m going to be afraid to close my eyes tonight,” Natalie continued. “You might need to make room at your Aunt Zoe’s place for me.”
Harvey and I exchanged knowing glances. We’d both seen our fair share of weird, macabre shit surfacing lately up here in the hills.
“Okay, but I draw the line at my bed,” I said, trying to lighten her mood. “Your snores could wake the dead in Mount Moriah.” Deadwood’s star-studded cemetery sat right up the hill behind my aunt’s place.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Only when I sleep on my back.”
“You can come share my bed at Cooper’s place,” Harvey offered. At my narrowed gaze, he held up his hands. “What? I wasn’t even thinkin’ about hanky panky. I snore, too. We’d serenade each other in dreamland.”