The bulk of Brax’s job was asking questions, probing the intimate details of people’s lives to ferret out the truth, badgering them until they revealed what he wanted to know.
Simone wasn’t the usual suspect. She’d committed no crime, staged no robbery, executed no property damage. She hadn’t even run a stop sign or driven over the speed limit. He felt like a puppy kicker. She was a jet engine gone mad, and she’d sucked him in completely. And that was a compliment, in every way.
But did he believe her? Dammit, he wanted to. He wanted to be sucked in. So to speak. Which was the problem. He’d never let lust override intellect or suspicion. But this time, mere lust wasn’t the only thing attracting him like the proverbial moth to the flame.
She was different. She was dazzling. Damn, he could imagine her in the middle of a heated argument, shaking her finger at him and muttering at him between clenched teeth, Don’t make me bring out the flying monkeys. Jesus, wasn’t that the most frightening fantasy any self-respecting man could ever have? She definitely made him hot—really hot—thinking of how he’d take control of that finger pointed smack-dab at his chest, nibble it a little, lick it, follow the finger bone connected to the hand bone and the hand bone connected to the... Dammit.
He had to be vigilant around Simone Chandler. The woman muddied his brain and made him think with his tallywhacker. She made him put aside morose thoughts and actually laugh. She made him forget that dark afternoon he’d attended his good friend’s autopsy. The scent of Formalin and the drone of Hyram’s voice dictating dissection details still haunted him. Cottonmouth was by no means immune to violence, but somehow the murder of one of the town’s most upstanding citizens had stolen a piece of its innocence. In addition to arresting the perpetrator, it had been Brax’s duty to protect Cottonmouth’s innocence. He’d succeeded in the former, but failed in the latter. Not to mention that Nick Angel and Bobbie Jones had almost lost their lives as well.
Damn. Guilt had crept up on him again. He’d done a good job hiding his feelings on the subject from everyone in his hometown, but his own culpability ate a hole through his stomach.
Screw it. Self-flagellation could turn into self-pity if you indulged in it too much. He cut off the emotions ruthlessly.
An idea occurred. For appropriate interrogative purposes, maybe he was going about this investigation all wrong. Instead of running away from Simone, closer proximity might be required. Hot pursuit. He was good at that, very good. They never got away when he was behind the wheel.
First, he had other fish to fry. Make that chickens to roast, at The Chicken Coop. The black paint of his SUV soaked up the sun, and heat waves shimmered off the hood as he rolled to a stop in The Chicken Coop’s gravel lot. How he’d made it there was beyond him. Thank Christ it was on the highway south of town as Maggie had said, because his mind was not on road directions.
Heavily traveled Highway 95 was the main route between Las Vegas and Reno. Though only two lanes wide at this point, it split Goldstone in half. Right on the edge of the highway, The Chicken Coop—its bright neon sign advertising Girls, Girls, Girls—was perfectly situated to attract truckers and lonesome travelers.
The sunbaked trailer with pale blue siding stood on cinder blocks. A crushed shell path bordered by cacti led to two wooden steps. Five cars flanked his in the lot, all equally dusty with varying degrees of flaked paint and rusty fenders. Thankfully, Carl’s relatively newer-model truck was not among them.
Behind the double-wide, several smaller trailers formed a semicircle, each with an identical shell path connecting them to the main trailer. Only the cacti were different. The effect was neat but barren.
Sparkling white blinds rattled against a window on the right, then the front door opened. A woman stood there, leaning on the door handle, her blouse gaping enough to reveal the swell of very large breasts.
“Howdy, stranger,” she said, like a line out of an old Western. He wanted to answer Howdy, Miss Kitty, but didn’t. Her voice, low enough to be sexy, raised goose bumps on his arms. Damn, with her upswept cap of gray hair, she resembled someone’s mother. His mother.
“You must be here for the early-bird special,” she purred.
Brax glanced at his watch. A little after noon.
“Well, don’t stand there speechless. Come in and check out the menu, Big Boy.”
As he climbed the stairs, for a moment he feared she’d remain in the doorway so that he would be forced to brush past her. The idea didn’t sit right. She even smelled like his mother, the scent of talcum powder drifting off her like haze off asphalt.
He’d have considered moseying out of the place lickety-split if Maggie hadn’t seemed desperately in need of his investigative skills concerning The Chicken Coop.
He assumed the interior was your typical Nevada whorehouse, several settees placed haphazardly about the darkened room, lace doilies in shades of pink and blue covering the lampshades.
The woman patted his back. “I’m Chloe, and these are my little chickens.” She waved a hand at four women seated in a circle on the floor at the far end of the trailer. “Day shift,” she whispered close to his ear. “Take your pick. What’s your pleasure?”
He was no prude, and he’d certainly encountered his share of prostitutes, not as a customer, but on the other end of the law. But Chloe’s breast pressed to his arm gave him the heebie-jeebies. He’d complete his business and be out of there pronto.
He raised his nose, sniffing for the sweetly floral aroma Maggie had described. Instead he encountered only the mixture of heavily abused cheap cologne. The chickens must have dabbed themselves with the same scent.
“Go ahead, Big Boy, don’t be nervous. You can get to know them a little first, if you like.” Chloe pushed him toward the circle of women on the floor. “Cotton Candy, Chocolate, Peppermint, and Caramel.” Which did not refer to the color of their skin, but the hue of their frilly look-alike lingerie.
At least she hadn’t given them chicken names. Maybe it was a brother’s loyalty, but he couldn’t imagine Carl choosing a chicken over Maggie.
An open box and a conglomeration of pieces and parts lay strewn about the middle of the girls’ circle.
“What ya got there?” he asked.
“It’s Chocolate’s little nephew’s birthday, and we bought him a robot,” said Peppermint. Presumably she was Peppermint, based on the red and white swirls of her lacy teddy. She might have been pretty if not for the hard glint in her turquoise eyes, which were most likely contact-lens enhanced. And yes, he noticed her breasts. How could one not notice, though to his taste, they were overdone. Simone’s were less ostentatious, but far more appealing. He wondered if breast enlargement would be considered a tax-deductible expense for a topless dancer or a Nevada prostitute.
“But we can’t figure out how to put it together,” Chocolate added. She leaned over the box. “Some assembly required. Who are these jokers kidding? This is rocket science here.”
“Maybe I can help.”
The circle parted like the Red Sea to include him. He hadn’t sat cross-legged since he was ten years old and Maggie’d bounced a ball off his privates. She’d always claimed it was an accident.
“Here’s the instructions,” Candy said, wearing a pink teddy to identify the Cotton Candy of her name. She handed him a ten-page legalese document with a smattering of drawings.
“Well, let’s get some light on the subject.” He waved at the blinds on a nearby window, and Caramel rose to open them, her backside wiggling beneath caramel-colored lace and ribbons.
Brax studied the diagrams.
“All right, let’s get started.” He held out a hand, palm up. “Screws.” Someone tittered, but slapped the plastic bag full of nuts, bolts and screws into his outstretched hand.
“What’s your name?”
“Big Boy.”
This time they all laughed. “No, really. We have to tell Timmy who put together the robot.”
“Brax.”
“That’s a funny
name. You’re not from around here.” It didn’t matter who said what; Brax’s attention was on the instructions, or so the chickens would have thought.
“Visiting.” His opportunity presented itself that easily. Not that he wouldn’t have found another way. He was a cop, after all. Interrogation was his middle name. “I’m Carl Felman’s brother-in-law.”
“Ah, the brother-in-law. You’re a sheriff. Wanna arrest me?”
As in Cottonmouth, word traveled fast and everyone knew everything. Even the chickens. “Wouldn’t dream of arresting such lovely ladies.” Brax sifted through the pieces on the floor for the one he wanted. “So you know him?”
“Everyone knows Carl. Him and Whitey are fighting over Whitey’s outhouses.”
Whitey, purveyor of skull license plate frames like the one on Simone’s truck. Brax held out his hand again, like a surgeon asking for his scalpel. “Phillips screwdriver.” Thankfully, the kit had come with the proper tools. “They’re fighting over outhouses?”
“Yeah. Whitey wants to charge Carl bucks up the ying-yang to excavate his four outhouses.”
Brax raised one brow, then pointed to what he believed was the mechanical calf of the robot. Chocolate tossed it to him.
“Bucks up the ying-yang?” he repeated to keep the girls going.
“Whitey wants seventy-five percent of whatever Carl finds.”
“Hmm. That’s a bit steep. Allen wrench.”
“What’s that?” Caramel leaned forward to shift through the tools and parts, her filmy negligee falling open.
Brax ignored the sight. A man needed all his concentration when assembling a child’s toy. He indicated the hexagonal key near Peppermint’s bare knee. With a few twists and turns, he gripped a completed robot leg in his fist.
Peppermint whistled. “Wow, you’re good.”
He smiled. “Yeah. That’s what they all say.”
The girls all giggled at once. Brax pointed to the torso. “So, Carl come by often?”
Candy snorted. “Carl? Here? You gotta be kidding. He stinks like an outhouse.”
“Worse, he smells like bat shit.” Peppermint grimaced.
Caramel threw a nod to her boss. “Chloe wouldn’t let him in the door.”
“And Maggie would shoot him right between the eyes. Then she’d come gunning for us.” Chocolate punctuated with an eye roll.
Brax cranked and screwed. Yep, just like in Cottonmouth, everyone knew everyone else’s business. It was obvious Carl wasn’t getting any at The Chicken Coop.
The front door rattled beneath a pounding fist, and light filled the trailer’s other half as Chloe opened up. “Come on in, Big Boy.”
Hey! Brax had been Big Boy. Maybe the name wasn’t so special. The man that walked in was rail thin and beanpole tall, his grin reminiscent of one of the witch’s flying monkeys.
“Oh God, it’s the foot,” Peppermint groused under her breath.
“The foot?” Brax asked as Caramel handed him the robot head.
“Jason Lafoote.”
Across the room, Chloe waggled her fingers at the chickens. “I’ll be right back, girls. Keep our boy there entertained.” Then she led The Foot through a stream of beaded curtains.
“Yuk,” Candy murmured. “I can’t imagine them doing it.”
Peppermint slapped her knee. “She doesn’t do him. She doesn’t have to do anyone. She owns the place.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Brax asked.
“He’s a pain in the ass. He doesn’t know blow from suck and in from out.”
Nice analogy, that, which Brax took to mean that Lafoote was lacking in the sexual-expertise department. He attached the head to the torso, then the torso to the legs, and had a brief flashback to that little fantasy about Simone, the flying monkeys, her finger, and him nibbling on it. Damn, he had it bad for the woman.
“And he doesn’t tip,” Caramel added.
Who? Oh yeah, The Foot. He was losing concentration here.
“Jason’s pumping money into us so he can get to Chloe.”
Brax figured it wasn’t only money Lafoote was pumping at The Chicken Coop. “What’s he want from Chloe?”
“He wants to renovate that old broken-down hotel in the middle of town. And he thinks she’ll talk to the judge for him.”
“About what?” With the robot body, head, and legs put together, all he needed were the arms. He held out his hand to Candy, who had possession of both.
“The judge won’t give him the permits he needs. But Chloe’s a good businesswoman, and she sees the boom a gambling resort could be for the town,” Peppermint explained.
“He’s riling everyone up over the whole thing.” Candy glared at the beaded doorway through which Chloe and Lafoote had disappeared. “People are getting pissed. Chloe should stay out of it, because if they get pissed enough, we could find ourselves out on our tail feathers.”
Peppermint wriggled her eyebrows. “It could be a big boon for us, too.”
“Dream on. He’s a cheap sonuvabitch,” Caramel grumbled. “I don’t trust him to follow through on a darn thing he says he’s going to do.”
“I take it you ladies don’t like him.”
“He’s a pussy.” Chocolate batted her eyelashes at Brax, licked her lips, then dropped her gaze to his crotch. “We like you much better.”
Holy hell. He stuck the right robot arm in the wrong socket. He started over on arm construction and finished in a jiffy. Just in time, too, since the girls had tightened the circle around him, and their liberally applied cologne was starting to choke him. He’d learned everything he needed to know about Carl and the chickens. The information about Lafoote and Chloe didn’t appear germane, but he’d store it for future reference, if necessary. Maggie had nothing to worry about; her husband wasn’t a customer.
“That’s it, I think.” He held up the fully assembled robot.
“Wow,” they crooned in unison.
Not bad, if he did say so himself. He rose to his feet, his knees creaking after sitting cross-legged on the floor so long.
“You’re a genius,” Peppermint said.
“You’re awfully cute,” Candy added.
“So which one of us do you want?” Chocolate asked.
A robot leg almost snapped in his hand. “Well, ladies, now that I’ve gotten to know you all, the choice is too damn difficult.”
“You don’t have to choose, Brax.” They gazed up at him with identical twinkles in their eyes.
“You can have all of us.” Candy smiled and sucked her index finger into her mouth.
“Together.” Caramel stroked a finger over her nipple.
He squeezed the robot body so hard the head almost popped off. But he was a seasoned cop and adept at diplomatically extricating himself from unwanted situations. The chickens couldn’t hold a candle to Simone, but there was no need to hurt their feelings. “I haven’t got that strong a constitution. All that pleasure might be the death of me.”
“Oh, come on, Brax. We’ll be gentle.”
He held up a hand. “No, no, ladies. You’re all much too much woman for me. I’m a humble sheriff from California. Catch.”
He tossed the robot at Chocolate and got the hell out of Dodge before the chickens tackled him to the floor.
Twenty minutes later, he opened the front door of Maggie’s trailer. He found her in the back bedroom tapping on her computer keyboard. “Is Carl usually out late at night?”
She shrugged. “He’s mostly home in the evenings. Out in that trailer of his.”
Brax ignored her gibe. “Then you must have figured he was diddling someone on the day shift at The Chicken Coop.”
“I didn’t know they had shifts.”
“They do. I learned a lot today.” He raised one eyebrow.
She tipped her reading glasses to look over the tops. “What have you been doing, Tyler Braxton? Better not be something our mama would be ashamed of.”
A man had his pride, and saying he’d put robot parts t
ogether down at the local brothel instead of...that didn’t sit right. Even if he was talking to his sister. He hedged. “Among other things, I was interrogating. And I’d be willing to bet my left nu—” He caught himself. “I’d bet my left eye your husband isn’t planning to run away with one of Chloe’s chickens.”
“Then what’s he doing with our money, and why’s he stink like perfume?”
“Did you ever think maybe he’s trying to cover up the odor of bat guano?”
She stared at him.
“As for the money, maybe he’s planning a surprise trip for the two of you. For your tenth anniversary.”
“That was two months ago.”
He heaved a sigh. “Maggie, I’m a cop. Invariably I look for the worst in people instead of the best. Suspicion is as natural as breathing. But you don’t have to be like me. Give him a break. Talk to him. Calmly. Find out what’s going on with him.”
She pouted. “It won’t do any good.”
“Maybe it won’t. But it sure as hell isn’t going to make things better if he finds out you asked your brother to spy on him.” He wasn’t good at dispensing advice on relationships, but he knew things would only deteriorate if Maggie and Carl didn’t at least try to talk.
Maggie worked her lips from a grimace to a half smile. “Well, maybe. I need to think about it.”
“Good. While you’re thinking, let me get on the computer.” He wanted to check out Simone Chandler’s website.
* * * * *
Goodness, she was consumed by sexual thoughts. Every time Simone tried to describe the hero in her story, he had short blond hair and blue eyes, though her client had asked for tall, dark, and handsome. Tall and handsome, yes, but no matter how many times she hit the delete key, he always came back with blond hair and gazed at her with arresting blue eyes as he crawled down the length of her body to...
It was rather pathetic when you couldn’t control your own wayward fingers. For typing, that is.
The phone rang. She pounced on it without checking caller ID. Simone never answered the phone unless she knew who it was. Why, a person could lose an hour of their life if they picked up for the wrong caller.
Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Page 4