Starke Naked Dead (Starke Dead Mysteries Book 1)

by Conda V. Douglas

  “For an opium den.”

  Mama Chin sliced so hard that half the burger scooted off the plate. “And Great Grandpa Chin died because of it.”

  I gulped. The only time we Starkers succeeded in hanging a man. “That was a long time ago,” was all I could think of to say.

  Mama Chin gave an unconvincing shrug. “Besides, it was your great grandfather built all the connecting tunnels.”

  Great Grandpa had made certain the sheriff didn’t know about the tunnels either. I wondered if Lester knew they existed. Or that one existed under the sheriff’s office.

  A tunnel entrance existed at Mad Maddie’s too. Did Henry expect us to pay to fill it in too?

  Mama Chin placed half of the burger down in front of the tunnel entrance.

  “No wonder Freddy’s so fat,” I said without thinking.

  Mama Chin paused from where she held out the plate to me. “Are you saying my rat is overweight?”

  I picked up the burger and took a bite. Nirvana exploded in my mouth. Sweet and juicy and meaty. “Mama Chin, he’s wider than he is long,” I said around a mouthful of joy.

  Mama Chin snatched the plate from me.

  “Hey,” I protested. My stomach gave a rumble in agreement.

  “If he is fat, and I’m not saying he is, it’s because…” Mama Chin pointed at the container of vegetable shortening. “I use that bear fat to fry everything.”

  “Bear fat? From a bear? Your bear?” I glanced at a photo of Mama Chin standing over a dead bear with her rifle cradled in her arms, stuck to the fridge with a magnet that said, “Every day without a smile is a day without love.”

  “No, from the bear fat store. Yes, from my annual bear kill.” Mama Chin placed the plate next to the other half of the hamburger next to the tunnel entrance.

  “If you move to the Sun Dog Mall, you won’t have time to hunt bear.”

  Mama Chin lifted her chin.

  I stepped back, away from the pain in her face.

  “Doesn’t matter. Henry ran us out.” A century of fear of reprisals for being Chinese in the West echoed in Mama Chin’s voice.

  The anger roiled up from my belly and burned into my throat. “Ran you out?” My voice reverberated, raw with anger.

  Mama Chin’s face shut down. She stared down at her iron pan. “Henry figured he could up the rent and insist we close off the tunnel.”

  Henry was acting like his greedy great-grandfather. How dare he put money ahead of us Starkers?

  “That’s it.” I snatched my half of burger off the plate on the floor, bear fat be damned. “I’ll be at Henry’s.” I stormed out of the kitchen, double doors swinging.

  “You sound just like your aunt,” Mama Chin called after me.

  “There’s no reason to be insulting,” I called back. “I’m going to fix this.”

  I stomped and chomped down the sidewalk toward Cameron Realty. Once I told off Henry, I’d… I paused and chewed the last bite. I’d what? I didn’t know where Rupert might hide. I stood on the wooden sidewalk. At least my stomach lay silent, filled and fulfilled. The only part of me that was quiescent.

  My mind spun. I needed to save my father. I needed answers. So who to ask?

  A flash of bright pink captured my gaze.

  Across Main Street, construction workers crawled over the Sun Dog office, one of them, Dusty, I’d babysat years ago. Now, he stood over six feet tall and seemed confident enough to wear a bright pink bandana around his red hair.

  Pink. Pink Cadillac. Godiva’s car. So who was this nudie chocolate lady, Godiva? What did she want with my father? Why was her brother dead in my father’s cabin? If I knew where she lived, I could ask. Aha.

  I gobbled the last bite of burger and resumed my stomp. I knew where to find out. Hmmm, two goals with one scold, I liked that.

  THIRTEEN

  The bay door rolled open on oiled hinges and spoiled the illusion of Cameron’s Real Estate Office.

  Henry jumped where he stood at a filing cabinet. “Dora?” Today he wore another designer suit in heavy gray wool, even more rumpled than yesterday’s.

  Was it only yesterday that my life was filled with the normal catastrophes of desperately designing jewelry and worrying about snow? I longed for the simple suffering before Rupert showed up at Mad Maddie’s.

  I pushed the door all the way open. Even oiled, the door squealed in protest. The metal, over the decades of use, had warped.

  A powerful smell of petrol permeated the old garage. Now, even carpeted with an expensive deep pile in tasteful beige, the space retained all the earmarks of its original purpose. A suspicious oily gray showed in one spot on the carpet.

  Henry slammed the file shut. “You’ve brought the back rent?” he asked, his face as eager as Fat Freddy’s at mealtime.

  I strode into the office. “Henry, how dare you?” I thumped my fist on his highly-polished new desk.

  Henry jumped. “You sound like your aunt. Are you going to shoot me?”

  “Good thing I don’t have my gun. I might forget all my Buddhist teachings and do just that.”

  “Your aunt does owe the back rent, Dora. If you can’t pay…” Henry ran his hand through hair already a collection of cowlicks “You can pay, right?”

  “It’s not about that. You ran Mama Chin out.”

  “Out where?” Henry looked behind me as if Mama Chin might be standing in the middle of Main Street.

  “Out to the Sun Dog Mall.”

  “What?”

  “She’s moving the Save On there.”

  “Oh no, she’s really leaving?” Henry covered his face with his hands.

  My ire faded, a tiny bit. “Of course, she’s leaving.”

  “But Mama Chin’s has been in that same spot since the fire.”

  My anger dampened more. However, I reminded myself, being a Cameron, Henry might be faking his dismay. “You charged her extra rent because she’s Chinese American,” I said.

  Henry stopped scrubbing and looked at me. “Mama Chin believes that?”

  I nodded.

  “Mama Chin isn’t Chinese American. She’s a Starker,” Henry said as if the two were mutually exclusive.

  “When you charged her extra, what else was she supposed to think?”

  “But her mom’s Mrs. McChin now that she’s a member of the Widows Brigade. How can Mama Chin think that?” He plunked down in the leather office chair behind the desk. “Besides, I’m charging your aunt the same—”

  I whimpered. “You are?”

  “It’s part of your back rent too. Miss Maddie didn’t tell you?”

  No, no, of course not. Aunt Maddie wouldn’t want me to worry. She’d figure she could find a way to pay. She figured wrong.

  I grabbed my Ohm pin and stood up straight. “You can’t do that to us or Mama Chin, Henry. You can’t expect us to pay before the ski resort opens,” I said with all the force I could muster.

  “But that crazy town council insisted those tunnel entrances need to be sealed, too dangerous, so I need—” He slumped in the chair, a little boy playing big important developer. “Oh God, I’ve fucked it all up.”

  “Henry?” Us Starkers never swore. The Widows Brigade made sure of that, unless we swore over a true catastrophe. “What’s wrong?”

  Instead of answering, he stared around the garage. “This place doesn’t even look like a real estate office.”

  I followed his gaze. The ceiling showed stains from old leaks. Built in the thirties, the garage had a flat roof behind its traditional false front. Not good in snow country.

  “It’s not. It’s Cam’s Auto Repair, always has been, always will be,” I said.

  “Man, I worked so hard for my dad.” Henry glanced at the oil stain and his mouth quirked in a half-smile.

  I pointed at his fancy suit. “You can dress up the mechanic, but oil still runs through your veins, Henry.”

  “Used to be gold.”

  “Huh? Oh yeah, you mean Cameron’s Assay.” I crossed my arms.
“Good thing that was before Maddie’s time or she’d have killed the lot of you after you stole the town from us Starkes.”

  The Camerons always succeeded, no matter what. Even when the Starke mines closed along with most of the businesses, Henry’s father kept Cam’s Auto Repair successful. People still needed to get their cars fixed.

  He snorted a laugh. “Now it’s dirt.”

  “Dirt, you mean land, your real estate business?”

  After Henry graduated from high school he’d headed to Boise and hadn’t come back until he could make a profit from owning most of Main Street.

  Henry hung his head. “Just worthless dirt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His head drooped farther. “If only the ski resort had opened last year…if the town council hadn’t insisted on fixing those tunnels and the wiring. If those sons of bitches—”

  I jumped at his use of another swear word. Oh, dear.

  “Those Dog Face Developers didn’t want to condemn my properties…” Henry’s chin rested on his chest.

  The vegan burger roiled in my stomach. Like everyone else in Starke, Henry needed money. That’s why he demanded all that rent.

  All us Starkers had jumped with joy—except for Fat Freddy, who was too fat to jump—when Starke got the go ahead to be Idaho’s newest ski resort. I wondered if anybody jumped anymore.

  My Ohm pin rested cold under my fingers and offered no comfort. Did Henry demand payment because he knew Rupert possessed a necklace worth millions? Did Henry know about the necklace and about how much it could bring, even if it was stolen?

  “I wanted to save Starke,” Henry continued.

  “Oh, Henry.” I went around his huge desk, bigger than some of the cars he once worked on, and patted his arm. His bicep muscle moved under my hand, still large and powerful even after a decade as a developer desk jockey. Yum. I leaned closer. “Oh, Henry,” I said in a different tone altogether.

  Henry raised his head. I smiled. He sat up straight and grinned back. “Hey, Dora, remember after the senior prom when we—”

  “We most certainly do, young man,” Mrs. McGarrity said from the open bay door.

  Henry and I leaped in opposite directions. Henry toppled off his chair while I banged my hip hard on the desk corner.

  “God da—Shii—Ow,” I said.

  “We weren’t doing anything.” Henry scrambled to his feet.

  “Exactly what you said the last time,” Mrs. McGarrity said. Behind her bulk, her dog Bark, Mrs. McDay, and Mrs. McChin all fluttered.

  Mrs. McDay wore her signature straw boater, a black monstrosity from the forties. The straw hat, with the weave unraveling, was decorated with a cluster of once-red, now faded, wooden cherries.

  Henry tugged on his waistcoat. If he attempted to smooth out its myriad wrinkles, he failed. “Which was eight years ago,” he muttered.

  “There you were with Dora in that stolen car—”

  “Borrowed from my dad’s shop,” Henry protested.

  “Both of you almost naked.”

  The heat rushed into my face. “I only had my dress top down.” I blushed harder at my own words.

  “Freeze your nipples off, being middle of March and all.” Mrs. McChin patted the pure white braids wrapped around her skull, a white-haired version of the hairstyle worn by her daughter, Mama Chin. And for all I knew, once worn by Mrs. McChin’s mom. Family tradition.

  As I recalled, my nipples had been cold. But other portions of me had compensated by being quite warm. Until the Widows Brigade showed up and froze both Henry and me.

  “That’s why we’re here, naked nipples.” Mrs. McDay nodded her head and the faded cherries on her ancient black straw hat bobbed up and down.

  “Dora’s naked nipples?” Henry stared over at my chest and gave another faint smile. I smiled back.

  “Anybody’s naked anything. Where’s Godiva staying?” Mrs. McGarrity said. Always to the point, or two points, was Mrs. McGarrity.

  Yay. My next question to Henry. With the Widows Brigade asking, I’d get an answer.

  “What?” Henry looked at his desk as if he expected to find pieces of chocolate scattered over it.

  “She’s the nudie lady,” Mrs. McChin said.

  “She said they call themselves naturists now,” I said.

  “Nothing natural about it,” Mrs. McGarrity said. Bark wriggled his curly tail as if he agreed, even though he was naked.

  “Oh, that Godiva.” Henry gazed at the open bay door as if contemplating a run for it. I understood how he felt, a common emotion when dealing with the Widows Brigade.

  “It has to be stopped,” Mrs. McGarrity said.

  “Yes, before it spreads,” Mrs. McChin said.

  “And somebody’s nipples freeze off,” I couldn’t help adding. That earned me a communal scowl from the Widows Brigade.

  Henry ran both hands through his hair. “Um, why do you think I’d know?”

  Mrs. McGarrity shook her finger at Henry. “Now, Henry, where else would she come to find a place in Starke to—”

  “Go starkers,” I said and grinned.

  Another communal scowl and this time Mrs. McDay shook her head at me. Cherries bobbed.

  “—open her den of iniquity,” Mrs. McGarrity finished her sentence.

  I remembered the short, somewhat plump and middle-aged woman I’d met. “Iniquity? Have you met Godiva?” I asked.

  “Thanks to those goddamn Dog Developers.” Henry clamped his lips shut.

  Too late. “Henry,” the Widows Brigade and I said in unison.

  “Your father, Henry,” Mrs. McGarrity said, “didn’t let that crazy woman and her brother settle in, not for no reason, no way, no how. So why did you?”

  Henry shot a determined look at me. “She’s my only paying renter. You said you’d have the back rent today, Dora. Where’s my money?”

  I sighed. “You have no idea how busy” —talk about an understatement—“my day has been. I haven’t had a chance to drive to Boise.” Somehow, some way, I needed to do that and real soon. Nance never possessed patience.

  One catastrophe at a time, I told myself. It didn’t help.

  “That was our agreement. You need to pay today,” Henry said.

  I looked at him. He stood ramrod straight, his knees locked back. He’d turned all professional businessman on me.

  “You’ll get what’s coming to you,” I said.

  Mrs. McGarrity tapped one plump foot. Dust jumped from the carpet. “Henry, where is that immoral, naked Godiva?” Her tone brooked no argument.

  Henry gazed down at his expensive carpet. “Good thing she arrived in town early,” he said as if to himself. “I wonder if it’s too soon to go to the Castle and get a check from her.” His head jerked up. His eyes popped open wide when he stared at Mrs. McGarrity. He must have realized he’d told the Widows Brigade where Godiva was. And me.

  “To the Castle,” cried Mrs. McGarrity.

  Bark yodeled his agreement, or excitement, at Mrs. McGarrity’s tone.

  “No, wait,” Henry said over Bark’s woo-woo.

  “To the Castle,” echoed Mrs. McDay and Mrs. McChin.

  “Her brother got murdered by Rupert,” Henry said.

  “He did not,” I said.

  “The brother’s not dead?” Mrs. McDay asked.

  “Yes, but you don’t know that my father killed him.”

  Mrs. McGarrity dismissed my protest with a wave of her hand. “Even more reason. Obviously this nude woman is a bad influence in Starke.”

  “Because her brother is dead?” Henry asked.

  “We already covered that, Henry.” Mrs. McGarrity whirled in a flurry of frills and headed to the bay doors.

  “You can’t go there,” Henry cried. “She’s in mourning.”

  “That sort of thing happens when you’re naked,” Mrs. McDay said.

  We all looked at her. Mrs. McGarrity shook her head. Mrs. McChin sighed.

  Mrs. McDay widened her eyes. “Wha
t? I meant being a bad influence.”

  Mrs. McGarrity paused one foot over the threshold, Bark at her side. “Henry’s right.”

  “He is?” the rest of the Brigade chorused.

  “First, we need a banner,” Mrs. McGarrity said. “After the party, we can use Lester’s.”

  Lester’s? “Oh, no, you’re not going to...” I stopped dead at the idea.

  Mrs. McGarrity puffed out her considerable chest. “Of course, after all, those dogs wouldn’t give him a leave of absence—”

  “There’s no justice,” Mrs. McDay said.

  “—and now he hasn’t got a dime of pension.”

  “No justice,” Mrs. McChin echoed.

  “And they can’t find who ran his poor grandson down.” Mrs. McGarrity nodded. “No justice at all. Least we should give the man is a party. Come, ladies.”

  “We’ll need more of Mrs. McChin’s cookies.” Mrs. McDay licked her lips. I did too. She trotted after Mrs. McGarrity.

  Mrs. McChin followed. “If I’m bringing cookies then you need to bring—”

  “Ladies, please.” Henry took up the rear in a mini-parade after them.

  I was last out and shut the bay door behind me. I trotted to my aunt’s station wagon. I had to get to Godiva before the Widows Brigade got to her. After that she might be speechless or worse.

  FOURTEEN

  I pulled up the graveled circular drive to the Cameron Castle. Set back from Main Street by the long drive, the hotel rotted away out of sight. Renovation efforts on one corner of the huge wraparound porch highlighted the old hotel’s decay. The round tower, added as an afterthought by Henry’s grandfather and almost a third as big as the whole hotel, unbalanced the entire structure.

  The Castle’s one huge tower stood almost half-hidden by an enormous fir tree. The tree looked to be the only thing that held the whole hotel up. Branches crawled across the roof and years worth of pinecones and needles lay deep on one porch corner, a fire danger.

  I grimaced. Last year Henry planned to renovate and re-open the Castle as a signature hotel for the ski resort. Henry had fallen far and hard.

  Another too-pink Cadillac, this one a SUV, sat alongside Starke’s only police car next to the front porch steps. I crouched as I drove around in case Mallard or Lester came out and looked. Like they wouldn’t recognize the station wagon.