Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem

by Conda Douglas

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Stealing Patterns

  Blink of an Eye

  Jumping the Gun

  Making It Last

  Mama Chin’s Last Great Bear Hunt

  Appearance is Everything

  Squashed

  Sweet Dreams

  Head Stands

  A Woman’s Touch

  Walking with the Idaho Dead

  Bad Basenji Karma

  Still Life

  Mama Chin’s Live Forever Casserole

  Quinoa Casserole

  Ending: Reader’s Choice

  Starke Naked Dead, the first chapter

  Conda V. Douglas

  Mild West Mysteries:

  13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem

  Conda V. Douglas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. The stories within are works of fiction. The characters, names, organizations, places and events portrayed are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem

  Copyright © 2015 by Conda V. Douglas

  Cover by: Bruce Demaree

  ISBN 978-1-62206-045-0

  Dedication:

  To my fantastic brother and fellow Idahoan, Gilbert Daladin Douglas. Thanks Gil for being the best brother ever!

  Acknowledgments:

  To my permanent boyfriend, Bruce David Demaree, for all his support and the great cover. To my fellow author, excellent editor and critique partner, Kathy McIntosh (and thanks for the title!). And especially, as always, to my wonderful hometown of Sun Valley, Idaho, for the inspiration of my writing.

  Introduction

  A Brief Bit about Mild West Mysteries and Me

  Thanks for reading Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem.

  When I began writing it was as a short story writer and short stories remain my first love today. Many of my stories (and all of my novels) take place in my beloved home state of Idaho and feature Idahoans. I’m even named after a tiny town in Idaho. Yup, I’m an Idaho gal, born, raised and fifth-generation-proud.

  Sorta.

  Since I grew up in the ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho, perhaps my Idaho-ness is suspect. Sun Valley is an odd hodgepodge of playground between the rich, famous, infamous and small remote mountain Idaho townspeople. And everything, including rather … unusual characters … in-between, providing a sometimes overwhelming wealth of inspiration.

  In these pages you’ll find a couple of award winning tales, one of Idaho’s Huckleberry Wars, in which bears and people fight, and sometimes both lose, a story of a garden vegetable gone deadly, a story of an Idahoan lost in the bizarre wilds of Singapore and other mild west mysteries.

  Enjoy!

  Conda’s note:

  This first story is from my Starke Dead cozy mystery series. Stealing Patterns is all about my main character’s, Dora’s, world of jewelry design and selling, especially the hard, grinding work of selling said designs. One difficult but effective way to do that: trade shows, as is shown here—and from the point of view of one of Dora’s nemeses, uh, friends, her sometime boss, Nance.

  Growing up with a jeweler father, I remember many events, all too well, much like this one, without the major crime. However, there is always much of the minor crime of stealing patterns in any trade show or conference.

  Stealing Patterns

  “If you’re going to thieve, you’d better be a little more subtle about it,” I demanded of the scruffy locked-in-fashionable young man. The only note of original style I spotted on his torn jean and faded hoodie clad body was his distinctive jewelry.

  Every piece of his jewelry suite incorporated elements of a revolver. He sported the barrel on a black leather wristband and the stocks and barrels of two guns strung with more leather made a necklace. Most striking, if obviously heavy, each earlobe wore earrings made out of triple brass shell casings, no loaded bullets, cradled by a gold wire hanging low on his ears.

  I could see why the young designer got invited to submit to the jury and then judged good enough to be here at Boise’s very first (and maybe last, if this nonsense continued) International Idaho Jewelry Exhibition. I supposed that I should be grateful that Boise grew to the point that it could now support a major exhibition. Grateful that now I only needed to drive three hours—okay three and a half if I drove the speed limit, from my gallery in ski resort Starke Idaho, instead of the many more hours to Portland or Seattle or the two-day long trek to San Francisco. Difficult to do, when the same sneaky stealing happened here.

  The thief stood three feet away from my table where my ex-employee and now temporary employee, Dora, frantically placed my presentation pieces. The object of my ire covered his cell phone, held waist high with his other hand as if I hadn’t noticed. Too little, too late. Perhaps he believed I was too old, being in my fifties, to recognize what he did. Wrong.

  I resisted the urge to snatch the phone away and delete the photos of my award winning designs. “At the very least, be more traditional and sketch ’em out when I’m not looking, sheesh.”

  At a judged jewelry exhibition like this, sure every designer studied the other award winners’ designs for, ahem, inspiration. Patterns, it’s all about those, we always searched for new ways to make our patterns. Or, to speak true, as any good Buddhist such as myself, Nance, we’d sometimes outright copy. Maybe even copy that bracelet—I stepped closer and loomed over my fellow thief to stop us both. I’m six foot three; I can do that so well.

  Mr. Scruffy shuffled backward out of my looming, grinned and waved the cell phone. “New times, new technology, and who says I’m taking pics of your great jewelry?” He pointed with the phone at Dora. Or rather at her mid-sized cleavage, the biggest part of my short—petite—assistant and part of the reason I insisted she work the show with me.

  I’d also insisted, that instead of her usual heavy cotton jeweler’s apron over jeans, she wear a low-cut black velvet dress, with my signature Dog Face Mountain pins attached and my award winning platinum and sapphire necklace in pride of place centered in her cleavage. That way every customer got an eyeful of my designs, no matter where they looked and most of them looked straight at that arrowed portion of Dora.

  Dora straightened and glared in the chauvinist pig’s direction. Mr. Scruffy shrugged an apology and walked away. He moved to the best table in the room, next to the only glass display case, a monster at eight feet tall and five wide. The case stood next to the only unlocked single door in, affording an automatic sight direction for customers, plus lots more display.

  Scruffy slouched into a chair and shared something on his phone with one of his companions, a great hulking overall clad master jeweler while I wondered why and how he got the coveted First Prize place. I mean, his dramatic stuff stood out well in the glass case, but still those pieces couldn’t be worth as much as one of my necklaces—maybe a security measure?

  After all, the sleepy security guard sitting in the corridor next to the door didn’t look like he’d be much use, although the sizeable gun in his holster might. Plus, he might just need the weapon to keep back the sizeable crowd waiting in the corridor for the show to open. I nodded. It’d been worth the thousand dollar entry fee to get into this “invitation only juried” exhibition. The organizers obviously used that money to promote and bring in wealthy, eager customers.

  “Good riddance,” Dora said of the
departed guy, breaking into my musings. “Another moment and I’d have gone against all my teachings and smacked the snot,” she continued, just as my gaze floated to the large decorative clock above the door. Uh-oh.

  Ten minutes, only ten minutes left. “Never mind him,” I said as turned back to our tiny table, perched next to the other exit, a fire door leading outside.

  “Darn fool judges,” Dora said, interpreting my grimace as she so often did. We sometimes worked great as a team. “Give you Fifth Place will they? When they gave those jerks,” she pointed at Scruffy Guy and Hulk, “First Place? No woman would ever buy those earrings. They’re too heavy for a woman to wear.”

  I smiled at her vehemence on my behalf while I took a long, careful survey of my carefully planned display. Platinum and gold rings perched, each snug on a one finger stand in a large heart-shaped pattern on the black velvet. Diamonds and high water rubies sparkled in the settings. In the center of the ring-created heart, necklaces copied the heart form.

  The longest chain enclosed a smaller chain, and one more within surrounded my best piece. A rose pin of rose colored diamonds gleamed in the center. Sure, the pin would’ve been bland, except for the leaf curling around one petal, a leaf picked out in emeralds.

  Dora crossed her arms over her chest, obscuring my jewelry. I opened my mouth to remind her she was a walking display when she said, “A touch too sparse and cutsey-wutsey, the display, don’t you think?”

  She snarked about the display we planned together. Typical. When would she ever learn Right Speech? I tried to teach her all I knew, and that’s extensive, about our shared Buddhist beliefs. She should be grateful. Right Thought, all the way.

  Well, maybe not.

  I couldn’t afford to bring more. I needed to sell a few pieces before making more of my high end stock. Platinum, gold, and precious gems cost and too many too expensive pieces could sound a death knell for a jewelry business.

  But did the display appear too old-fashioned, too cute? I puffed out a long, tired breath. No, no. And even if it did, the form of the display helped prevent any theft. It’d be obvious if any piece found its way off the table and into a pocket, purse, or, I’d known it to happen, mouth. Should I rethink the whole thing? In three minutes?

  “What if we shift the display into concentric circles instead of the heart shape?” Dora suggested.

  I agreed. “Brilliant.” I reached for one of the ring stands when a screech, bang and crash made me jump and Dora scream. I whirled around to see that the glass case next to the entry had toppled over, shattered glass everywhere. Hulk jeweler stood to one side, obviously the instigator of the crash. The old security guard, on his feet, stood in front of the crowd, pressing in toward the door. Scruffy guy tore his bracelet off and had the barrel released in a second. He reached for the necklace as Hulk headed in Dora’s direction, hand out.

  I spotted the pattern. Hulk would grab and snatch the best pieces, starting with my necklace while his buddy completed creating the gun. Then, shoot the guard and in the resulting melee, escape out the exit. How to stop—I stared at Scruffy, who was almost finished with putting together the gun. Next, the bullet earrings. Earrings.

  In an instant, I whirled around and nodded my head toward the guy, hoping to communicate my plan to Dora. It worked. Petite Dora scuttled around Big Hulk and, with me, sprinted to Scruffy. He reared back as we arrived. Together we each reached and grabbed an earring and yanked. Hard.

  “Ouch!” He cried as the wires cut through the tender earlobes.

  I turned in time to see Hulk bearing down on me, when a bang resonated through the room. Plaster filtered from the ceiling, where a hole showed.

  “Freeze!” I heard through the ringing of my ears. In the doorway, through the frame of the fallen case, the security guard stood, gun aimed in a two handed grip.

  Dora nudged my arm and when I looked at her, held up the bloody earring. “Good thing you taught me it’s all about the patterns!”

  Conda’s note:

  This story comes from when I lived in Singapore and was a film editor in the 1970s. I may have grown up in somewhat cosmopolitan Sun Valley, Idaho, but exotic Singapore presented many challenges to an Idaho gal.

  Singapore is a changed world there now, although the Raffles still exists, and I hope the parakeets as well.

  Blink of an Eye

  In Singapore, a day of murder resembled a monsoon day. It began bright and easy, with no hint of the storm to come. The first wisp of dark cloud appeared when I sat on my glasses. Before the day ended a storm of murder roared through my life.

  I yelped when I sat on my glasses.

  “Is a problem?” Anna said. On her way to the clothesline, she poised a basket of wet laundry on her plump hip.

  “I took off my glasses to do hot splices,” I said, “and now look.” I held up the glasses, the frames twisted. “Now, I can’t focus on the screen of my editing machine.”

  “Is okay, amah fix.” Amah means maid. AmericonTran, the Boise-based company, provided me with Anna two days a week.

  One of the perks they gave their contracted workers like me. All those perks and the great pay convinced me to transplant myself all the way from Boise, Idaho to Singapore. I wondered now if I made a mistake, blinded by the lure of the exotic. I wondered if I could ever see this city and its’ people with any clarity.

  The clothes soaked a large wet spot onto Anna’s sari.

  “You’re getting wet,” I said.

  “Is okay, I leave work sari here tonight, dry tomorrow,” Anna said. “I know optometrist fix your glasses quick, Missy.”

  “Please don’t call me Missy, my name’s Beth.” A vestige of old Singapore: I’m Missy because I’m unmarried.

  Anna beamed, showing even white teeth. A Tamil Indian, Anna stood a minute, plump five feet, an exquisite coffee colored doll in her purple sari.

  “I call, glasses one hour—is okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Where’s this speedy optometrist?”

  “You go Raffles, you know Raffles, everybody know Raffles,” she said.

  * * *

  I jumped on the bus to the Raffles Hotel, a tourist landmark. This early on a monsoon morning the sky shone brilliant robin’s egg blue, with no hint of the storm to come. I’d never visited the Raffles, the distillation of all Singapore before. The Raffles boasted white colonnades, mahogany walls, and whirling ceiling fans.

  Down the hallways offices lurk. I got lost.

  I found the huge birdcage in the back courtyard by sound. A crowd of parakeets chattered in high shrill voices.

  “You keep away from them birds!”

  I whirled to confront a man standing before me wearing an archaic white linen suit. He glared at me, blue eyes in a once attractive face, now marked by drinker’s pink.

  “Don’t bang on the cage,” he said.

  “I’d never do that.”

  He smiled a rogue’s grin. “No, I can see you’re a lady.”

  “They tame?” I asked.

  In answer, he opened the cage door.

  I held out my hand with my index finger as a perch. A blue flew out and perched on my finger.

  “By God, he’s never done that before,” the man said.

  The perky little bird chirruped. I stroked the soft feathers of his blue breast and he nibbled gently at my fingers.

  The man reached out and stroked the bird’s tiny head. “He’s chosen you as his own.” He stroked my finger. When his hand moved up to rest on my arm, I drew away.

  He dropped his arm and the corners of his mouth followed. He snatched the little bird off my hand. I fled.

  My last sight of the man was as he precisely poured birdseed into the feeders.

  I found the optometrist at last, and while waiting for my new glasses, I window shopped. I avoided going into the shops; without my glasses the wares became mere indistinct blurs. I stepped outside the hotel onto the busy sidewalk, needing to take a break from the demanding shopkeepers, eager fo
r the first sale of the day.

  A rustling sensation crept up my back and then came a sharp tug on a lock of my hair.

  “Ow!” I whirled around and confronted a Chinese boy.

  “Ang mo,” said my small tormentor. Ang mo means redheaded devil, a derogatory term for Caucasians. “So you buy.” He pointed at a tiny rickety table set up on the sidewalk. People flowed around the table covered with the ubiquitous white plastic Singapore “sea lions,” a male lion above and a fish with curled tail below, the symbol of Singapore.

  “Great works of art,” the boy said, “fine crafted in ivory.”

  “And I’ve got some great plastic antiques for you, Splices,” a voice came from behind me.

  I winced. Judy.

  “I’m Judy, one of the oil rigger widows,” she had announced the first time we met. When I told Judy I edited films for AmericonTran she dubbed me Splices.

  She held her third child, a “shore leave production,” nestled in a basket. She pointed with her chin at something on my sun dress. “Where’d you get the feathers?” she asked.

  I brushed the tell-tale remnants off and told her of my encounter.

  “You met Budgie,” Judy said.

  “Budgie?”

  “He’s crazy about those budgerigars. He lives at the Raffles and takes care of them for the hotel and—” she stopped. She stared.

  I squinted. Down at the end of the corridor, I caught a flash of Anna’s brilliant purple in a moving blob.

  “Anna!” Had the amah come to make sure I found the optometrist?

  The figure darted down the hallway. When I turned back, Judy too had gone.

  Standing there, I realized that Budgie would make a perfect “personality” for my film. I returned to his courtyard of parakeets.

  He lay in a pool of blood, his skull smashed, while his birds screamed a dirge from their cage.

  * * *