Meanwhile, Back in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 6)

by Ann Charles

  “I had a visitor stop by today,” he told me, his eyes still on Kelly.

  “Someone to check out the house?” The market was slow with winter coming on, but Jeff’s house was set in a good location and had cleaned up well, including a brand-spanking new roof on his detached garage.

  “Not the house. He was checking on you.”

  That grabbed my attention. “Me?”

  “He said his name was Detective Hawke, but he looked more like a sloppy version of that private dick James Garner played on that old show.”

  “The Rockford Files.” Hawke, damn it! That son of a bitch was still hounding me.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “What did Detective Hawke want?” Besides my ass on a hot griddle?

  “At first he was asking about my garage explosion. I figured he was sent by the insurance company, so I took him out to the garage and showed him the good job the roofers did. But then he mentioned you being my Realtor and wanted to know how I felt you were doing. I talked you up, of course, especially how good of a kisser you are.”

  “Oh, jeez.” We’d had one lousy kiss, and I meant lousy. Jeff had treated my tonsils like they were clay pigeons.

  “What?” He knocked my knee with his. “You are.”

  I grunted. It wasn’t my actual kiss that had hoisted Jeff’s flag. It was the beef-jerky I’d eaten before letting his tongue scrub the back of my teeth. Smoked beef was an aphrodisiac for the oversexed buffoon.

  “Was there anything else he asked about me?”

  “Yeah, it was sort of odd, too. He wanted to know if I’d ever heard you talk to ghosts.” Jeff chuckled, not noticing that I was white-knuckling the swing chains. “I told him that whoever was spreading the Spooky Parker rumors and saying you chatted with ghosts was full of shit.”

  Splendid. So much for the work I’d done to convince Detective Hawke that I was a medium and not a witch. But I couldn’t be mad at Jeff. He had no idea how much the tide had turned for me since our do-you-believe-in-ghosts conversation months ago.

  “I like that dress.” Jeff reached out and rubbed the skirt fabric between his fingers. “Sort of reminds me of something Beaver Cleaver’s mom would wear, minus the pointy boobs.”

  I was too tired from being hounded by the cops to let my insecurities about my non-pointy, post-baby boobs flare up. “You look nice tonight,” I told him, redirecting attention onto him. “You got a hot date?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Your aunt said I could bring Kelly by for the night. But if that doesn’t work for you, I can cancel the slumber party.”

  “It’s fine.” I spun a little in my swing. “A slumber party? This must be some date.”

  “Oh, we’ve had sex lots of times already, so it’s not like a cherry popping night or anything.”

  Good old Jeff. He had such a way with romantic phrases. I could only imagine his whispered, heart-stopping vernacular while “popping cherries” between the sheets.

  I heard an engine rumble to a stop up front and prayed Doc would come to my rescue soon.

  Aunt Zoe yelled out the back door for the girls to go inside and wash up for supper. She looked over at me on the swing.

  I tried to smile, but my mouth really wasn’t up to it.

  Her face wrinkled with concern, but she left us alone anyway.

  As soon as the back door closed, Jeff dug in his pocket and pulled out a little jewelry box. “I have something to show you,” he said in a low voice, “but keep it to yourself.” He lifted the lid. Two matching gold rings were jammed into the blue velvet base.

  I stopped spinning. His divorce wasn’t final yet. As messy as the whole break up had been with his soon-to-be ex, I’d have thought he’d want a breather before cinching another tourniquet around his nut sack.

  “Are those what I think they are?” Although, I wasn’t accustomed to seeing two of them in a jewelry box and usually there was a diamond involved, but maybe Jeff’s new woman wasn’t into sparkly rocks.

  “Yep,” he closed the box with a snap. “Nipple rings.”

  “Eww. I mean, ouch.” I winced at both the thought of having a needle jammed through my nipples and at Jeff’s choice for show and tell this evening. Hell, now I was probably going to check out his girlfriend’s chest when I met her, looking for those rings, and undoubtedly get caught staring. That was an embarrassing moment just waiting to smack me upside the head.

  “Keep your fingers crossed she’s willing to try them out tonight and get rid of the studs she has in there now.”

  Come on! Did he have to paint a high definition picture to go with those rings? He might as well call me after the show was over and give me the X-rated details.

  “Are those like the equivalent of trading high school rings these days on the dating circuit?” Doc and I hadn’t quite reached the jewelry exchange level in our relationship. We had just made it to edible soap.

  “Sort of, but she knows I’m just in it for the fun stuff until this divorce is history.” He held up the box. “You should try these sometime. They’re supposed to really get your engine revving, make your nipples super sensitive.”

  Hmmm, the last time I’d talked to anybody about the sensitivity of my nipples, I’d been pregnant with twins and the man had been sticking his rubber-gloved finger in my hoo-haa. Oddly enough, this moment with Jeff felt pretty much the same, only more ham-handed.

  The back door opened and Elvis ran out, clucking down the steps. Thank the chicken gods for the interruption!

  Harvey followed in the hen’s wake. “What’re you two doing out here?” He came down the steps to join us.

  Talking nipples, I thought, but knew better than to go down that red-lit alley with the old buzzard. “Just swinging until supper is ready.”

  Aunt Zoe had called me before I left work, telling me she was making baked chicken and rice pilaf tonight, which had me salivating on the way home.

  Harvey looked down at the box in Jeff’s hand. “What’s in the box?”

  Jeff popped it open and held it out.

  Harvey whistled through his teeth. “Nipple rings, boy howdy!”

  Of course Harvey would know.

  The old man looked at me, then at my chest. “You gettin’ your hooters pierced?”

  I crossed my arms over the objects in question “No!”

  “Don’t go gettin’ all uppity on me, girl. I don’t know what sort of kinky toys Doc and you are into these days.”

  “They’re mine.” Jeff snapped the box closed. “I have a hot date tonight.”

  “Does she have one of those tongue studs, too?” Harvey asked.

  Jeff’s grin looked like someone had stuffed a boomerang between his cheeks. “Yep, with a diamond tip on one end.”

  Harvey blanched a little. “How’s that feel?”

  “Scratchy at first, but she does this trick with her tongue where she takes my—”

  “Oh, my God, stop!” I stood up. “Jeff’s sex life and appreciation of tongue studs is not appropriate pre-supper conversation.”

  The back door opened. This time Doc walked out on the porch. He leaned against the porch post in his work garb—khakis and a green button-up shirt. One of his eyebrows rose as his gaze settled on our trio. “Zoe wants to know what you three want to drink.”

  “Something with tequila in it.” I grabbed my purse.

  Jeff and Harvey followed me onto the back porch.

  “I should take off,” Jeff said.

  “The stud-meister here has a hot date,” Harvey explained. “He won’t be grubbin’ with us, but I’ll take a glass of some of that sweet lemonade of Zoe’s.”

  Doc gave me a once-over, hitting me with a smoldering glance before returning to Jeff. “Hot date, huh?”

  Jeff pulled that blasted ring box out of his pocket again and flipped it open under Doc’s nose. “I’m hoping to break these babies in tonight.”

  “On anyone in particular?” Doc asked.

  “My woman.” He closed the box and po
cketed it—for good I hoped, since my kids didn’t need to have a hands-on lesson about nipple rings tonight. “She’s got a bunch of other piercings, too.”

  I was surprised no drool leaked out of that huge grin Jeff was sporting as he bragged her up.

  “She sounds pokey,” Doc said.

  “Hokey pokey, if you ask me.” Harvey hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. “Does she like to shake it all about,” he asked Jeff, wiggling his bushy eyebrows at him.

  And we were back in the gutter again. “I’m going inside.”

  Doc caught up with me at the door, holding it for me. Inside the kitchen, he helped me shuck my coat. “Not into nipple rings, Tiger?”

  I pushed up on my toes and gave him a quick kiss just because I could. “I’ll pierce mine if you pierce yours.”

  He winced, dittoing my earlier reaction. “How’d the rest of your day go?”

  I’d called him earlier after leaving the hotel to tell him we were definitely on for tomorrow, damn it.

  I shrugged, heading to the sink to wash my hands. “Ray’s threatening to bill me for that stupid tooth incident.”

  “What stupid tooth incident?” Aunt Zoe asked, sweeping in from the dining room to check on the tray of baked chicken in the oven. I’d been too whipped last night to tell her about yesterday’s go around with Prudence.

  While Harvey and Jeff continued their nipple discussion outside on the porch, I filled Aunt Zoe in on my enlightenment at the Carhart house, making sure to include the bit about Prudence’s family line now being extinct and how ours was considered brutal by comparison.

  Doc set the table, pulling out a chair for me as I talked. Harvey joined us midway through. Jeff must have left via the side gate, because he didn’t follow Harvey inside.

  When I finished with the part about my realizing it was Ray’s tooth in my palm, Aunt Zoe had a hint of a smile. “Ray shouldn’t have insulted an executioner—even a dead one. That’ll teach him.”

  “So what do you think?” I asked her, really wishing she’d laugh about it all and tell me it was a hoax she’d somehow engineered to mess with my head. That all of this executioner talk was one big Halloween practical joke.

  She came over to the table and sat next to me, taking my hands in hers. “I think you’re very fortunate that Prudence waited for you to come.”

  Fortunate? “She scares the living daylights out of me.”

  Harvey snorted in agreement. “The ol’ gal almost puts me off my feed.”

  I shot him a smirk. “You seemed perfectly able to chow down on crackers in the thick of things yesterday.”

  “I said almost.”

  Aunt Zoe squeezed my hands. “Violet, this is a good thing. It may not seem like it when she’s in your face like she was yesterday, but Prudence can help you in ways I can’t because I’m not an executioner. You need to talk to her more, learn from her.”

  “How do I do that? She’s dead.”

  Aunt Zoe looked over at Doc, who was stirring the rice on the stove. “Sounds like you need a medium to act as your interpreter.”

  Doc stopped stirring. “I know one who could help.”

  “No,” I said without hesitation.

  “Violet, listen,” he started, joining us at the table.

  “No, I won’t listen, not even for a second. I don’t like her inside of your head.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “Not this time. Not with her.”

  “Why not?” Aunt Zoe pressed.

  My answer made my face warm before I even said it, but I needed to make my feelings clear, especially with these three who were on the inside of this executioner business with me.

  I pulled my hands from Aunt Zoe, clasping them together in my lap. “Because …” I squirmed in my seat and started again. “Because I’m intimate with Doc, and I don’t want to share him with her.” I looked over at Doc, unable to read from his expression whether or not he thought I was being silly. “I’m afraid seeing her use you as her ventriloquist doll over and over will make it hard for me to separate you two when it comes to sex.” Or even have sex with him, and I really liked getting naked with Doc, especially when he got busy with his hands.

  “You don’t want to bump uglies with a dead woman?” Harvey asked, his tone edged with laughter.

  “Not if I can help it. In spite of how good Demi Moore made it look, I’m just not that into ghosts.”

  “Okay.” Doc squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll find another person to act as a conduit for her.”

  “I think Prudence already did. Remember how I told you she wanted me to bring her the librarian?” He nodded and I continued, turning to Aunt Zoe. “Zelda Britton is an actual librarian who’s into ghosts. I think Prudence might have tested her out when I was showing her the Carhart house. She recognized a replacement for Wanda, who was very easy for Prudence to control.”

  “Does Zelda know about this?” Aunt Zoe asked.

  I shook my head. “She’s very excited about living in a haunted house, though, so maybe with a little nudge, she’d be okay with my coming over to visit Prudence periodically.”

  “We’ll give Zelda a try then,” Doc said. “But we have a more critical situation to deal with tomorrow night.”

  “What’s tomorrow night?” Aunt Zoe asked.

  “They’re comin’ out to my ranch to gab with my grandpappy’s ghost.”

  “Why?” Aunt Zoe frowned at Harvey.

  Doc answered. “Detective Cooper wants us to have a séance.”

  Her eyebrows practically hit the ceiling. “Cooper does?”

  “Coop’s up against a wall,” Harvey explained. “He’s got dead bodies all around and no breadcrumbs to follow.”

  Aunt Zoe leaned back, shaking her head in disbelief. “I never thought I’d see the day when that boy saw anything other than black and white.”

  “I’m not sure he does,” I grumbled.

  “He will,” Harvey predicted. “Mark my words.”

  Doc fiddled with his fork. “We need your help, Zoe.”

  I frowned at him. “We do?” I didn’t like the thought of putting her at risk along with me. Who would take care of my kids if both of us ended up dead?

  His dark eyes leveled on me. “The last few times Violet was involved in a séance, something else showed up, too. Something darker, more substantive than just ghosts.”

  “You mean the albino,” Aunt Zoe said.

  He nodded. “He’s one example. I can’t protect her on the other side, especially if she heads off on her own like she did in Ms. Wolff’s apartment.”

  “I didn’t head off on my own.”

  “Yes, you did, Killer.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  Doc focused back on Aunt Zoe. “Is there any sort of weapon Violet can use to protect herself the next time she decides to go exploring without me?”

  Aunt Zoe rubbed her forehead. “This is where it gets tricky.”

  “Tricky how?” I asked.

  “Tricky because you are the weapon. Not anything that you carry necessarily, because the way to execute an ‘other’ varies from being to being.”

  Harvey grunted. “That’s a helluva pickle.”

  “Can’t we look up what our ancestors used in that book you gave to me? Get some ideas at least?”

  She shook her head. “For one thing, it’s not a how-to-kill book. It’s more of a who-they-were and how-they-died reference. For another, what works for one executioner may not work for another.”

  “What?” How come this job came with rules that made no sense? I had a feeling I was going to be better at selling real estate than killing, and I sucked rotten eggs as a Realtor.

  “You have to figure out what works for you.”

  “That makes no sense.” I frowned at Doc. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  His brow matched mine. “Whether it makes sense or not, it’s a problem.” He turned to Aunt Zoe. “She has to start from scratch?”

  “Unfortunately. You see,
just as we have to change and adapt to our environment as a species, the others have to change and adapt as well. Only this adaptation happens much quicker than most animal lifeforms on Earth. So, what your great great-aunt might have used to kill a being may or may not still work for you. We have to experiment to see.”

  “Experiment meaning I have to kill something to figure out if that method works.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I said it before,” Harvey spoke up, “and I’ll say it again, girl. You keep findin’ barbed wire fences.”

  I put my head down on the table and banged my fist a few times, making the plates and silverware rattle.

  Aunt Zoe’s touch was tender on my back, soothing. “Sweetie, what you’re not taking into consideration is how strong you already are.”

  I sat up. “I can’t even evict a damned chicken from my bed most days. How am I supposed to kill nasty, vile creatures?”

  “They won’t all be vile. Some are quite attractive.”

  “Great. That makes this game even more fun. How will I know if the hot looking guy coming on to me is out to kill me and not just lure me into the sack?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Doc said with a half-grin.

  I shook off my poor-me blues. “Okay, so you’ve given me triggers that will help me know when I’m facing off with trouble, right?”

  “The triggers will alert you when you’re dealing with something not entirely human. It’s then up to you to figure out if the being needs to be executed or let be.” When I scrubbed my hands down my face over that frustrating answer, she explained, “An executioner doesn’t kill indiscriminately, Violet. You kill only those who are a danger to all others, including humans, if necessary.”

  “So,” Doc leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “If execution is necessary, Violet may or may not need a weapon to kill?”

  “Correct.”

  “Christ,” he said, blowing out a breath. “The enemy could be standing right next to her, and she might not even realize it.”

  “She’ll know.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By your instincts. Different species will set you off in different ways. Some might make your ears ring; others might make you feel sick to your stomach.”