Frogskin and Muttonfat (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book Two)

by Carol Caverly

  I smoothed cleanser over my sunburned face. Later, if I thought about it, I’d look through the brochure Florie had given me with the room key. Maybe there was something in there about Tarot readings.

  And, I thought, trying to bury a lingering sense of uneasiness, I’d ask Florie about security. The locks around here looked so antiquated I could probably pick them myself.

  Refreshed by a bath and shampoo, I put on clean clothes and fixed my still damp hair into a fat French braid. Fairly confident I wouldn’t shame myself by falling asleep over dinner, I still didn’t plan on giving Jimmy Chin more than a couple hours of my time, and wished now I hadn’t promised that.

  I wiped the bathroom counter with a wad of tissue and dropped it in the basket. The Queen of Swords hadn’t dropped to the bottom of the basket, but stuck on the plastic lining close to the rim, still brandishing her sword.

  “So,” I said out loud, “you don’t want to be thrown out.” I retrieved the card and wiped off the spatters from the soaked tissue. There was something comforting about the old girl. She sat on her throne in profile, chin up, feet planted, sword at ready. Strong, prepared. Not looking for a fight, but ready to defend herself if need be. I could use some of that, I thought.

  “This is the card I worry about,” Sheila’s words floated in the air around me as clearly as if she were in the room. “The King of Swords, a man with dark hair who is not what he appears to be.”

  I stuck the Queen back in the mirror frame above the dresser where I found her, surprised to find my fingers trembling a bit. But what of the Queen? I wondered. Was she the King’s partner in crime, or did she stand on her own?

  Changing my mind, I took the card and tucked it into my purse. She didn’t look like anyone’s patsy. You’re going with me, I thought, not entirely facetiously. I might need you. After all, no one had hair much darker than Jimmy Chin.

  Eight

  It was a few minutes before eight o’clock when I went back downstairs. As I expected, the cocktail hour was over and I’d missed my chance to pump Buster Brocheck for information. Rocky Dunn was alone in the sitting room, cleaning up debris. The diners sat at the tables across the hall with dimmed lighting and soft music playing in the background. Good food, or the prospect of it, tempered the conversation to a soft buzz. Snatches of mixed aromas, fresh baked bread, garlic, basil, seared meat, tickled my nostrils and brought saliva to my mouth.

  Buster Brocheck dominated a large table in the center of the room. Both of the Caldwells now sat at a discreet corner table with another couple. Phoebe Zimmerman was nowhere in sight. Neither was Sheila Rides Horse or Florie. Both, I assumed, were busy in the kitchen. I sighed and picked up a couple of empty glasses and discarded cocktail napkins from the stairs.

  “Hi, Rocky,” I said, handing him the sticky mess.

  Kendall Hauser bounced through the front door all slicked up in new jeans and a fancy shirt. He cased out the dining room, then came over to us.

  “Is Phoebe around?” he asked us both.

  “She was here earlier,” I said, “but I don’t see her now.”

  “She said she was going to the dance, and I just thought I’d see if she needed a ride.”

  “You missed the boat, Hauser, she left on her own a bit ago,” Rocky said, with a leer that indicated he didn’t think she’d be alone for long.

  Never to be outdone, Kendall turned to me with an exaggerated Groucho Marx ogle. “How about you? You want to join me for a few fandangos out to the Legion Hall?”

  I laughed. “No, you go on. Maybe you can catch her. Jimmy and I are going out for a bit of dinner.”

  “Whoee! Cutting the boyfriend out, is he?”

  “Oh, get out of here,” I said good-naturedly.

  He gave me a sad-eyed, mournful look. “Dumped again,” then waved and took off.

  Rocky shook his head. “What a nut.” He went back to wiping down the bar.

  “I see things have quieted down a bit,” I said, indicating the empty sitting room. “I hate to bother you, Rocky, but I’m a bit concerned about the lock on my door. It looks ancient. What kind of security do you have around here?”

  “We’ve never had any complaints,” he stated rather belligerently, immediately on the defensive. “The whole house gets locked up at eleven o’clock. If you’re out after that just ring the bell; someone’s always here to let you in.” There was more than a touch of weary condescension in his voice, as if he spent the majority of his time having to deal with vaporous females. “We don’t worry much about that around here.”

  “I wasn’t so much worried about a boogieman from outside,” I said dryly, “as about an invasion from within. Or can you vouch for all your customers and help?”

  He grinned then, granting me a point. “The help, yeah. As for the guests, we do our best. As I said, we haven’t had any problems. The guest room locks are set to be replaced next month; we’re working for our Triple-A rating.”

  He might be confident about the help, but I wanted to know about Sheila Rides Horse. I opened my mouth to ask when the front door flew open and banged against the wall. Hildy, the pint-sized woman from the jade shop, burst in with a flurry of tiny, staccato steps, looking entirely too much like the Energizer pink bunny. She stood in the doorway to the dining room, fists on hips.

  “Buster!” Her voice cut across the dining room.

  Buster jumped up, jostling the table and sending his chair rocking crazily on its two back legs. He grabbed it, clattering it to a standstill, and motioned Hildy to come join the table.

  She looked around disdainfully, wrinkling her nose. “I wouldn’t sit down in this place if my life depended on it.” She gave a hearty sniff.

  As if on cue, Jimmy Chin drifted through the open door, eyed the situation and came to stand beside me.

  “Hi,” he said softly. We both watched Buster, red-of-face, maneuver his bulk clumsily through the tables.

  “Let’s go outside,” Hildy said when he reached her. “How you can stand to set foot in this place is beyond me. I need some fresh air.”

  Buster ran his hand over his bald pate and gave Jimmy and me an unsmiling nod of recognition. He followed Hildy out the door.

  The diners went back to their food.

  “What’s going on?” Jimmy asked, glancing at both me and Rocky.

  Rocky mouthed the word, “Bitch,” and went back to cleaning glasses.

  “You ready to go?” Jimmy asked me, apparently ready to dismiss the little drama we’d witnessed. Not me.

  “Yes.” I was already halfway out the door. I wanted to see what was happening.

  Nothing very exciting, as it turned out. Buster and Hildy leaned against a parked car, deep in a one-sided conversation. Hildy was doing the talking, sending her points home with an occasional jab to Buster’s chest.

  “Are those two married?” I asked suspiciously, wondering if dismal couplings were going to dodge my steps like an evil portent. Hildy seemed like the typical termagant, giving the old man hell for some imagined sin.

  “Who, Buster? And Hildy?” he said, obviously tickled by the idea. “No, no. Buster’s married to the sweetest little lady in the world. She can cook your heart out; she’s been fattening me up since I was a sprig.”

  He guided me across the street to a Ford Bronco parked at the curb. “Well, she’s wasting her efforts on Buster,” I said lightly, remembering my earlier overheard conversations. “His taste in food seems to run to mutton fat and frog skin.”

  Jimmy had a grip on my elbow, balancing me for the big step up into the four wheel drive. At my words his fingers tightened, digging into the tender flesh.

  “Ow!” I yelped and shot up into the front seat.

  “Sorry.” He shut the door and went around to the driver’s side. He got in, started up the car, and gave me a smile. “You hungry?”

  “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

  He was silent for a moment, then said, “Do you know anything about jade?”
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  “Jade? No. At least I didn’t until I stepped into Hildy’s store this afternoon. She showed me some of the stuff she has and told me about…I had no idea jade was found in Wyoming, but what does that have to do with—”

  “I don’t know about frog skin, but mutton fat is a kind of jade, or a color of jade, a soft milky white. Prized. Hildy’s father was one of the old jade men, and so was Buster’s dad. Most of those old guys are dead now, and the jade’s gone. But ever since the Kid came back that’s all everybody talks about.”

  “What does the Kid have to do with it?”

  “Who knows?” he answered. “I don’t, but he’s the villain of every story you hear. Nobody says anything for as long as I can remember, then suddenly the old guy shows up and all you hear about is how Kid Corcoran murdered Buster’s father and stole tons of jade from everyone.”

  “Is it true? Was Buster’s father murdered?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know all the details; it happened before I was born. Somewhere back then, Corcoran did a stretch in the state pen at Rawlins. During the early ‘forties, I think. Shortly after Corcoran was released, old Reuben Brocheck was found dead out in his winter pasture. Official word was that he fell from his horse and bashed his head on a rock. Wasn’t ‘til Corcoran lit out for California that everyone decided that he must’ve somehow killed the man.”

  “Why was he connected to it?”

  “Kid Corcoran and Buster’s dad were friends from the time they were young and later on partners in some affairs, mostly nefarious, as the old penny dreadfuls would’ve said. The Kid wasn’t involved in anything that wasn’t nefarious though, as far as I can tell. Anyway, during the early days of the jade frenzy they did their share of claim-jumping. Anyone in town who had anything to do with jade hunting claims to have had a find stolen from him by Kid Corcoran.”

  “Did they try to convict him—of the murder, I mean?”

  “No, not that I know of,” Jimmy said. “There wasn’t any proof, no evidence. It was all just talk then; it’s all just talk now.”

  “This is really interesting. One of the reasons I came here was to do an article on Kid Corcoran for my magazine. I’ve done a lot of research on him, but—”

  “Your magazine?” Jimmy interrupted, surprised.

  “Yeah. I’m an editor for Western True Adventures.”

  “You are? I didn’t know that.”

  So Max hadn’t told him all that much about me. I couldn’t decide whether that was good, bad, or just one of those guy things.

  “What do you want to write about Corcoran for?”

  “Last of the old bandits thing,” I said, though I was fast changing my mind. There was a lot more meat to the package than I had expected. This murder stuff must be what Phoebe was so hot to tell me about, I thought, then as quickly reconsidered. If this was the angle she was using for her story, or even new information she’d just picked up, why would she tell me? Goofily enough, she considered me the big arch rival. Or did she just feel like gloating a bit? Possible. And what had she meant about having something to show me?

  But then I remembered how she’d looked, fairly dancing with electricity. I’d felt her urgency. She wasn’t frightened, or worried. She was excited. She obviously wanted something from me, great little people-user that she was. And I was sure she’d get around to begging me for whatever again, if there was ever a moment when a man wasn’t around to distract her. In the meantime, I’d do my own news-grubbing.

  “What is it that people want from Corcoran now?”

  “There’s some who’d still like to see him hang.”

  “Surely if there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him back then, no one can expect to do so now, can they?”

  “No, as I said before, it’s mostly just talk. I don’t think anyone actually thinks he’ll be brought to trial.”

  “Then what’s all the fuss about? What are Hildy and Buster so—”

  “Look, Buster’s my friend. He’s a good guy. He’s been like a father to me in many ways. I just hate to see him go off the deep end like this. It’s stupid. It’s ancient history. And Hildy’s the one who’s lighting a fire under him.”

  “Why? What does she—”

  Jimmy was angry. “How’d we get off on all this stuff anyway?” He pulled to a halt in front of a cluster of dingy, neon-lit storefronts. “Come on, let’s get something to eat. This place may not be the fanciest in town, but it’s family, and you won’t get poisoned.”

  The Lotus Cafe looked anonymously like every other oriental restaurant I’d ever been in. Red tassels and plastic lantern light covers fought a losing battle with bare Formica tables to provide some kind of Asian ambiance. If the place had been full earlier, it had thinned now to a few family groups still happily passing platters.

  An elderly couple, so wizened and oriental in appearance that they could have been caricatures, popped out from behind the cash register to greet Jimmy with the effusive happiness of a long-lost relative. I wondered how long it had been since he’d seen them.

  “Thea,” Jimmy said with a twinkle in his eye, “this is my Great-Uncle Patrick O’Donnal.”

  I could tell by the grin on the old man’s face that jokes about the family name were expected and appreciated.

  But he beat me to the draw, saying with a raspy little cackle, “Funny name for a Chinaman, ain’t it, but I got old sod in me, too.”

  “And this,” Jimmy went on, “is Auntie Lee.”

  She bowed, stern-faced and solemn, her gray hair slicked back tightly in a knot. She had eyes only for Jimmy, and kept touching his sleeve.

  “Sit, sit,” she said softly, patting his arm. “I get you something special.” She scurried off to the kitchen.

  There was a bit of China still in her voice, more a cadence, I thought, than an accent. However, there was nothing of that in the old man; he was pure Western twang. He sat in a booth with us and immediately wanted to know everything about the rodeo, how Jimmy and Kendall had fared, who won each event, and even, it seemed, how certain horses had performed. I let them talk, content for the moment to take in the surroundings.

  My eyes finally settled on a small display case I hadn’t noticed before, nestled between two large fish tanks. The men were still deep in horse talk, so I sauntered over to get a better look at the two displayed pieces.

  One was a bowl of deep green material carved in a lattice pattern with animal handles, ducks perhaps. Jade, I thought, pleased with my new knowledge. The second piece could be jade as well, now that I knew the stone came in many colors. But I couldn’t figure out what it was. A weird shape, pale beige, almost like praying hands, but there were too many fingers. The base appeared to be entwined vines or roots, so maybe it was supposed to be a bush or plant of some kind. Eerie, almost unpleasant.

  “Is that jade?” I asked Jimmy as I slid back into the booth.

  Both men looked at me.

  “What?” Jimmy asked, as if his thoughts were still on bucking horses and steer-roping.

  “In the case by the fish tanks. Is that Wyoming jade?”

  The two men exchanged an uneasy gaze, then the old man said, “It is Chinese. Very old jade.”

  “And the one piece…?”

  He seemed to know what I was curious about. “It is the bud of the lotus plant, sometimes called Buddha’s Fingers.”

  At that moment Auntie Lee appeared with a steaming pu-pu platter. “Ha!” she said with disgust, plunking the dish on the table to emphasize her bitter words. “They are not jade,” she said, “they are fakes.”

  Nine

  Between each serving Auntie Lee went on at great length about how the family treasures had been stolen many years ago. Jade from the Imperial Palace, brought to this country by ancestors. But the gravest mistake was her husband’s thinking that replacing the lost jade with similar copies would satisfy her.

  “Ha!” she said more than once. “Cheap onyx fakes. Only a fool would think they were the true Stone of Heaven.”<
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  Jimmy apologized when the squabbling couple departed for the kitchen. It was obviously something he had heard many times before. I faded quickly after that, possibly overdosed on MSG. Questions about stolen jade, murder, and Tarot-reading Indians swirled together in my mind like gelatinous chop suey, but I couldn’t summon the energy, or even the interest anymore to ask them.

  Jimmy urged me to go to the rodeo dance with him. “It’s at the American Legion Hall; a good old country dance. Your Chicago heart will love it.”

  I wasn’t even tempted. “Thanks, but not tonight. I’ve had way too long a day as it is. I need to get the car Max has for me and call it a night.”

  As it turned out, the Bronco belonged to Max and was the vehicle he’d planned for my use. Jimmy had had the key all along and could have given it to me that afternoon at the rodeo. Choosing his moment well, Jimmy explained it all with great charm and humor. I was too wiped out to figure out if I was flattered that he’d fudged the issue for a chance to see me again, or if I was mad as hell. By the time I reached Racy Ladies annoyance had won out. All I could think about was how I could have been in bed hours ago, catching up on much needed sleep. I pulled the Bronco into the first empty spot I found.

  The broad, black sky pulsed with a brilliant panoply of star patterns. Without the sun, the never-ending breeze was cool, almost chilly. I shivered, rubbing my arms, as I ran up the stairs. My hand was on the front door handle when I heard a faint sound from the far end of the porch. I swung around and caught the glimmer of bare legs stretched awkwardly on the floor. Another faint cry galvanized me and I dodged around the benches and table.

  Phoebe Zimmerman lay sprawled on the floor behind the peacock chair, her head and shoulders propped awkwardly against the wall.

  I dropped to my knees and grabbed her hand. “Phoebe!”

  Her mouth hung open. She rolled her head feebly against the boards and opened her eyes a crack. “Thank God it’s you,” she mumbled. She reeked of stale alcohol. “Help me,” she said muzzily. “Please help me.”