Dance of the Winnebagos
Page 1
“Ann Charles delivers laugh-out-loud dialogue, unforgettable characters, and pulse-pounding suspense.”
~Vicki Lewis Thompson, New York Times Bestselling Author
DANCE OF THE WINNEBAGOS
by Ann Charles
Dear Reader
For once in my life, I’m going to keep something short and sweet—this note to you. My editor will be amazed.
I am often asked how I came up with the title of this book, DANCE OF THE WINNEBAGOS.
Once upon a time, I was playing hangman at work with one of my coworkers, who is also a very talented artist (that has nothing to do with this story, but she really is amazing and I like to crow about her, even when not mentioning her name). It was her turn to come up with a word, and she added a lot of spaces on the white board. After I landed two consonants and a vowel, the board looked like this:
T _ E _ _ _ N _ _ _ T _ E _ _ _ _ E _ _ _ _ _ E _
I was feeling pretty ambitious that day. I took one look at this puzzle and yelled, “The Dance of the Winnebagos!” (I know, the letters don’t match up—I’ve never done well in spelling bees.)
My coworker laughed, hung my poor stick man, and then wondered what in the heck The Dance of the Winnebagos was.
I said, “I don’t know, but it would make a great book title, don’t you think?”
This game of hangman kick-started my brain. A weekend of plotstorming with my critique group fleshed out the story even more. Before I knew it, I had a fun cast, an intriguing mystery, and a book that practically wrote itself.
After I finished it, this book caught the interest of my agent. It was also a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. But being that it’s a mix of genres (my usual style), my agent and I couldn’t find a home for it with a publishing house. Now, years later, it will finally have its chance in the spotlight, and I can’t wait to share Claire’s story with you.
I picked Arizona as the setting, because I lived there for a year and loved every minute of it. I picked a beagle to share the limelight with Claire, because I’m a fan of Snoopy.
For those of you who have read my Deadwood Mystery series, you may remember that Claire Morgan is Violet Parker’s childhood neighbor, as well as Natalie’s cousin. Harley Ford is Natalie’s grandfather, too.
And now, this short note has become a little long, so I’ll wrap it up with a tip of my cowboy hat.
Welcome to Jackrabbit Junction!
Ann Charles
Award-winning author of the Deadwood Mystery Series
www.anncharles.com
www.anncharles.com/deadwood
DANCE OF THE WINNEBAGOS
Copyright @ 2011 by Ann Charles
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Corvallis Press.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook: ISBN-13 978-0-9832568-4-7
Trade Paperback: ISBN-13 978-0-9832568-5-4
Edited by Mimi the “Grammar Chick” (www.grammarchick.com/)
Cover Art by Chuck Kunkle (www.cskunkle.com)
Cover Design by Mona Weiss
Contact Info:
Corvallis Press, Publisher
630 NW Hickory Str., Ste. 120
Albany, OR 97321
www.corvallispress.com
Ann Charles, Author
Website: www.anncharles.com
Email: ann@anncharles.com
DEDICATION
This book is for my dear ol’ dad, who is my inspiration for Harley (aka Gramps).
A bit crusty, a little ornery, and a general smartass at almost every turn;
fun-loving, wise-cracking, and always candy-carrying.
You let me “clean” your shop, “organize” your tools, and “serve” you mud pies.
You let me drive you around the farm when I was twelve, race combines against you up and down the lane when I was sixteen, and race school buses with you in the wheat field when I was thirty-five.
You have always been there for me.
Your determination to succeed in life taught me to never give up on my dreams.
P.S. You were right about so many things, including Jolly Ranchers filtering out the pollutants.
DANCE OF THE WINNEBAGOS
Chapter One
Jackrabbit Junction, Arizona
Friday, April 9th
If Claire Morgan had known she’d be chaperoning a senior citizen sock hop, she wouldn’t have given up smoking. Yet here she was, stuck in Jackrabbit Junction, Arizona, with an ornery old man, his smartass dog, and a parade of blue-haired babes.
“Gramps, your dog found a bone!” Claire yelled, staring at the foot-long bone clenched in the jaws of her grandfather’s beagle.
Harley Ford stepped out from behind a half-dead cottonwood tree, zipping up his faded Levi’s. “Damned prostate. I have faucets that leak more.” He shuffled towards Claire. “What’d you say?”
Claire wrinkled her nose. After traveling together for three days in his well-used Winnebago Chieftain, she’d learned everything about him from the pattern of his snoring to the number of prunes he needed to maintain regularity. He’d left his modesty in Colorado, and she’d lost most of her sanity long before they had crossed the Arizona state line and pulled into the Dancing Winnebagos R.V. Park.
“I said Henry found a bone.” She squatted next to Henry and examined the broken end of the white fragment hanging from his black lips. “It’s pretty chewed up already.”
Gramps stood behind Henry. “Is it made of gold?”
What kind of a question was that? “Of course not.”
“Then why get your knickers all bunched up over it?”
Ignoring his sarcasm, Claire tried to wrestle the bone from the dog’s teeth. Henry growled and dug his back paws into the sand. He yanked the slobber-covered bone free of her grip, ran several feet away, plunked down next to a prickly pear cactus, and watched her with the shaft still locked in his jaws. She wasn’t sure who was harder to live with, Gramps or his spoiled dog.
Gramps snorted. “As soon as you’re done playing with the dog, can we get the hell out of here?”
“What’s your hurry? Got a hot date tonight?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Grinning, Claire stood and wiped Henry’s slobber onto her jean shorts. “I wouldn’t be here with you if it wasn’t my business.”
“I told you I don’t need a chaperone.”
“And I told you that Mom put the squeeze on me. She’s expecting a call tonight with the first of my weekly reports on your love life.”
Just the thought of hearing her mother’s voice made Claire’s fingers itch to hold a cigarette. Instead, she dug a stick of cinnamon-flavored gum from her pocket. Three weeks now without a single cigarette. God, she missed nicotine. Even more than sex.
“If I wanted my private life spilled to your mother, I’d write a story for the National Enquirer.” Gramps crossed his arms over his chest. “The nosey busybody.”
Henry trotted past Claire, obviously teasing her. She lunged for the bone, but the dog sidestepped her and bounded away. “Would you tell your damned dog to sit still for a second?”
Gramps smirked. “It’s more fun to watch you chase him.”
“With your cheeks rosy like that,” Gramps said, “you remind me of your grandma when she was your age.”
A warm breeze rustled the leaves of the cottonwood overhead. Claire’s mind flashed to an old black and white picture hanging on Gramps’s wall back in Nemo, South Dakota. A young version of her grandma stood in the shade of the same tree, only its canopy had been full then.
“She sure loved this spot,” Claire said, remembering Gramps and her trip six years earlier to this corner of the state on a chilly fall day. Her throat ached at the memory of him sprinkling her grandma’s ashes around the base of the tree.
“She called it her own little Utopia.” Gramps’s tone was scratchy around the edges. “She’d drag me here for a picnic every damned day while we were staying at the R.V. park.”
The man hated eating off a blanket. Ah, true love. Claire smiled. Some people found it; others ran screaming from it.
She fell into step behind him as he hiked back toward the car.
“Your grandmother had a way of making life interesting.” He looked at Claire over his shoulder. “She could turn a funeral into a carnival. I doubt I’ll find another like her, but a man needs a woman. Especially an old man.” He whistled for Henry.
“I understand, Gramps. But did you and your Army buddies have to round up a harem to find one?” Why couldn’t he just get another dog?
“It’s nice to have choices.”
“Yeah, but there are better, less flea-market-like ways to meet women.” She never should’ve shown him how to use the Internet. He’d become the king of the senior-set chat rooms.
Henry trotted up to Gramps and dropped the bone in his outstretched palm. She could’ve sworn the dog snickered at her before dashing ahead.
“Just keep out of my way and we’ll get along fine for the next month.” Gramps wiped the slobber-covered bone on his pants before handing it to Claire. “And remember the rules.”
“I know.” She gripped the bone. As the trail widened, she upped her pace until she walked next to him. “Rule number one: When you have a lady friend over, I should make myself scarce for a half-hour—”
“An hour,” he blurted, then glanced at her. “My equipment is a bit rusty these days. Getting the gears all greased takes—”
“Ahhh!” She waved the bone in front of her. “Stop before I lose my Twinkies.”
“Fine, smartass. Just make sure you stay lost until I give you the sign that the coast is clear.”
She nodded as her gaze locked on the bone. Her footsteps slowed. “This kind of looks like a femur.” The marrow was long gone. She measured the thickness with her finger.
Gramps stopped. “Child, it’s hot, I’m thirsty, and there’s a six-pack waiting in the fridge. Quit playing CSI.”
She ran her fingertips along the length of the bone. Its smooth hardness was cracked and bleached from the sun. The other end was broken and rough with the gnaw marks she’d noticed earlier.
“Claire, are you listening? Because heatstroke is knocking.”
“Look at the diameter. It’s as thick as Mr. Bones’s femur,” she said, remembering the male skeleton from her Human Anatomy 101 class.
“Sweetheart, I know you’ve taken more college classes in the last decade than most people take in a lifetime, but you’re making something out of nothing. It’s just an old bone.”
“No.” Her heart galloped. “This isn’t just any old bone.” She thrust it in front of Gramps’s pale blue eyes. “It’s a human leg bone.”
Chapter Two
Saturday, April 10th
“Well, well, well, look who we have here,” Sophy Wheeler-Martino said, cranking up her southern drawl. “Richard Rensburg, just the man I hoped to see this morning.”
She leaned her hip against the booth table in Wheeler’s Diner where the two-month-new vice president of the Cactus Creek Bank sat. Sophy had wanted a moment alone with him, and with the breakfast rush over that moment had come.
Pots clanged in the kitchen as the first shift cook cleaned up the breakfast-prep mess. Charley Pride sang, “Kiss an Angel Good Morning,” from the boom box sitting next to the cash register. The smell of grease filled the air, just as it had every morning for the past forty years that Sophy had wiped down the lunch counter.
Plucking her compact from her apron pocket, she flipped it open and added a fresh coat of glossy Cherry Burst lipstick to her full lips. Not a single wrinkle. The Botox therapy had erased years of hard time under the Arizona sunshine.
She winked at Rensburg over her mirror. “When was the last time you did more than just speak big, fancy banking words with that tongue, sugar?”
Rensburg stared as she added a second coat to her upper lip, his steaming cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. A blush spread from his neck to his silver sideburns.
Men were so easy to play. She snapped her compact shut and dropped it and the lipstick into her pocket.
“You’re a big man in the county now.” Bending over the Formica table, she graced Mr. Vice President with an R-rated view of her 36 double D’s. “And I sure do like big men.”
Coffee sloshed over the edge of his cup. “Uh, Ms. Mart—”
“Call me Sophy, darlin’.” The booth’s vinyl seat creaked as she slid next to him. She reached under the table and walked her fingertips up his inseam. “And I’ll call you ... Dick.”
She watched him blink rapidly, his mouth opening and closing.
Easy, easy, easy.
“Now,” she whispered, her lips nearly brushing his ear. “Did I hear you say something on your phone about foreclosing on Ruby Martino’s loans?” She pressed her breasts against him.
His breathing grew more ragged the further north her hand traveled. “You know that’s private—”
She dragged her fingernails across his zipper.
“—business.” He slopped more coffee onto the table.
“Is it true?” She pressed harder.
“Uh ...” Wheezing, he shifted so that the bulge in his polyester-blend pants rubbed against her hand. “Yes, it’s true.”
She rubbed back. “And what was that you said about her nephew?”
“He’s coming to ... to determine the value of her ...” He closed his eyes and gulped. “Her mines.”
Damn! The last thing she needed right now was someone nosing around inside those mines. “When?”
“Today.”
“For how long?”
He leaned his head back against the sun-faded orange cushion. “Three weeks.”
“Why? Is the bank going to take them away, too?”
“No.” Sweat beaded his upper lip. “The mining company wants the copper in them.”
So, Ruby was going to sell the mines in order to pay her debts. Sophy gritted her teeth. Time was running short.
The bells on the diner’s glass door jingled. Sophy glanced up as three members of the Company’s third-shift mining crew trickled in for their “usuals.” She gave the vice president’s crotch a final squeeze and slipped out of the booth.
The banker’s eyelids snapped open. He frowned. “But—”
She hiked her short skirt even higher and flashed him a complimentary glimpse of her black garter snaps and straps. “Thanks for the dirt, darlin’.” She caught a whiff of pine-scented aftershave as she kissed his smooth cheek. “Give Judy and the kids my love.”
With a wiggle of her hips, Sophy strutted toward the three miners leering at her from the corner booth. Come hell, high water, or some meddling nephew, she was going to find that damned loot.
* * *
“Damn it, Gramps!” Claire shoved open the Winnebago’s screen door and stormed out into warm, mid-morning sunshine. “Why’d you shut off my alarm?”
Harley, wearing a pair of green Bermuda shorts and a yellow shirt, leaned against Mabel, the 1949 cobalt blue Mercury he had ha
uled from South Dakota. He frowned as Claire approached. “I thought you could use your beauty sleep. Look at you.” He pointed at the tear in the knee of her jeans. “This is no way for a respectable young lady to dress.” He yanked her red Mighty Mouse baseball cap off her head.
“I’m not here to impress anyone.” She lunged for the hat, but he held it out of reach. Despite the frustration bubbling inside her, she giggled at the mirth dancing in his eyes. “Give me that. You’re going to make me late for work on my first day.”
A wolf-whistle sounded from behind her.
Claire whirled around. Manuel Carrera, one of Gramps’s Army vet buddies, lounged in a lawn chair in the shade of Gramps’s Winnebago. The other two Army cronies, Chester and Art, must not have rolled into the R.V. park yet.
“Well.” Claire grinned. “Look what the coyotes left on our doorstep last night.” She hadn’t seen Manny in years. His hair had more salt than pepper in it now, but he still looked like an older version of Jimmy Smits.
Manny pushed to his feet and sauntered toward her, his machismo thicker than the aroma of Old Spice that burned the back of her throat when he hugged her. “Buenos dias, my love bunny,” he said in a soft Mexican accent, squeezing her against his side.
Claire glanced down to make sure she’d closed the top button of her shirt. Harmless as a newborn puppy, Manny lived for two things: women and sex.
“Keep your hands off my granddaughter, Carrera,” Gramps warned jokingly, playing the age-old game he and Carrera had started decades ago. He pulled a new cigar from his shirt pocket.
“How old are you now, Manny?”
“Sixty-nine.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Oh, dear God.” She elbowed him lightly in the chest. “Manny, you’re hopeless.”
“Hopelessly in love with you, mi amor.”