Better Off Dead in Deadwood (15 page)

“You think she’d marry me?”

“Why mess with a ceremony? Just stuff her in your coat pocket and run away to Neverland.”

“I’m going to get her phone number.”

I did a double-take, watching him comb his bony fingers through his black wavy locks. “You’re kidding, right?”

He looked down at me. “Not at all. We’re a perfect match.”

Cornelius must have been sniffing pixie dust before the tour started. “You really think so?”

“She hears ghosts.”

“How do you know that?” Was there a secret hand signal I’d missed?

“She said it when she led us in here.”

“I don’t remember her saying that.”

“Well, she didn’t exactly say, ‘I hear ghosts,’ but she gave away her secret when she mentioned that the theatre is haunted.”

Boy, oh, boy, he was really reaching. I hated to burst his love bubble, but I hadn’t noticed a single sign of attraction—more the reverse in her avoidance of eye contact with Abe Jr.

“Plus, it was in her gaze when she talked to me.”

“You mean when she asked you to remove your hat?”

“Exactly. Then she winked at me a few times.”

I didn’t think those were winks. Caly seemed to be having trouble with her contacts, which explained her red eyes. But I didn’t have the heart to squash his hopes.

Turning back to Caly, I listened as she pointed out decorative molding that had been recast using molds made from the few pieces of the original architecture that had survived the flames.

Through Caly’s tales of the post-fire events, I came to have a whole new respect for those hell bent on returning the place to its former glory. Those who fought tooth and nail for funds to rebuild it, who volunteered their time to polish it back to its previous majesty, who helped fill seats by participating in community plays.

People like Jane.

It would be a cruel injustice if it turned out that her murder was somehow connected to this stately place where she’d spent so much time. Neither she nor the opera house deserved such an indignity.

“With time and donations from generous patrons, our theatre will return to its previous grandeur,” Caly said, her light-colored eyes rounding, imploring, like a cute little kitty cat. I found myself liking her in spite of her perky boobs, butt, and everything else. She probably even had perky pinkie toes.

Dang, she was good at campaigning for a cause. I needed to hire her to help me convince buyers to pull out their wallets.

Cornelius reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet.

Hold on a second, Mr. Moneybags!

I took the wallet from him and stuffed it back inside his coat. We had bigger financial commitments to focus on first—like my career and his ability to kill it if he couldn’t come up with the funds for that hotel.

As the tour continued, I tried to stick close to Cornelius, who was trying to stick even closer to Caly.

The bouncy nymph led us upstairs and then back down, sprinkling happiness along the way. By the time we’d covered the unrestricted areas of the building, including what used to be a library, a gentlemen’s lounge, a sitting room for women, a bowling alley turned shooting range, and the bottom floor where concrete now filled the old swimming pool, I was trying to decide how much time and energy I could donate to help restore the brick structure since cash wasn’t exactly overflowing my coffers.

Then I stepped outside under the gray cloudy sky and got hit with a cool breeze that smelled like rain and knocked off my rose-colored glasses. I was a single mom on the verge of losing my job with a boyfriend whom I didn’t want wandering off just because he never saw me anymore. Maybe I’d take my kids to see the zombie play next month and call it good. When I looked back to see where Cornelius was heading next, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

Nor Caly.

Crap. The last thing I needed was for the little blonde siren to convince Cornelius to write her a big fat check.

I returned to the lobby and stood in one of the theatre’s open doors. Cornelius wasn’t in there, but a handful of non-tour group folks were, moving pieces of set around at the back of the stage.

Two zombies dressed in blood-stained clothes stood in front of the stage on the temporary wooden floor that covered the musicians’ pit. I watched for a minute or two as they took turns reading aloud from the sheets of paper in their hands, their grotesque faces and blood-smeared mouths mesmerizing even from a distance. One of them picked up a fake bloody arm from the stage and pretended to eat it like corn on the cob.

A shout from backstage made all three of us jump. I backed out of the doorway as the zombies returned to practicing their lines and taking turns hitting each other with the severed limb.

I needed to pay a quick visit to the little girls’ room thanks to all of the coffee I’d downed at brunch while interrogating myself by accident in front of Cooper. I was tempted to ignore the Keep Out sign and hop over the velvet rope that sectioned off the refurbished women’s sitting room and its small bathroom, but a few of the tour group folks were still milling about. Maybe I’d wait until I got up to the Piggly Wiggly to take care of business.

Now if I could just find Cornelius. I crept up the stairs, calling his name softly. The rooms up there and the upper balcony were sans Abe Jr.

What in the hell? A six-foot-plus top-hat-wearing ghost talker didn’t just disappear into thin air.

Back downstairs I found the lobby empty. The last of the tour group had trickled outside and were heading across the street toward a restaurant with a couple of outdoor tables.

To the left of the theatre entrance was an unmarked wooden door that Caly hadn’t taken us through on the tour. Maybe it led to an employee lounge or her office.

I sidled over to it, pretending to inspect the paint on the lobby wall next to it. After a quick glance around to make sure nobody was watching, I turned the handle. It was unlocked. I slipped through and closed the door quietly behind me, finding myself in a fluorescent lit hallway.

On the right was a set of stairs and stainless steel elevator doors. Another closed wooden door stood across from the elevator. The other end of the hall emptied through the frame of a doorway into what looked like a bathroom. My bladder panged at the sight, reminding me of other non-Cornelius matters growing more pressing.

Everything sounded muffled in the hallway, like I was a spider trapped under an upside-down glass. It was a sharp contrast from the acoustic-friendly high ceilings of the lobby and theatre.

Ignoring the claustrophobic sensation tightening around my lungs, I stepped away from the door, peering down the hall. Maybe I could just slip quickly inside the bathroom without anyone noticing.

In the heavy silence, I heard what sounded like several sniffs from the other end of the hall.

Who’s there?

A high-pitched sob answered.

That wasn’t Cornelius. I glanced back at the door. Gray clouds and freedom beckoned. I could just call Cornelius later to see if he ended up offering to buy the opera house in order to impress Caly and then deal with that fallout on safer turf.

The sound of a woman weeping reached me, tugging at my mothering strings. Maybe it was Caly. Maybe she wasn’t as chipper as she’d acted on the tour.

Tiptoeing down the hall, I paused at the elevator to listen again. A loud sob tore through the thick quiet. Two more followed, wrenching my heart.

I hesitated, stuck between the urge to comfort and the need to get out of there and go take care of business somewhere sob-free.

Compassion won. I tiptoed further down the hall. The weeping woman must be inside the open room at the end.

As I got closer, I realized two things—that the sign on the open bathroom door said MEN; and there was another room at the end of the hall, the recessed entry hidden from view. Propped slightly open with a yellow Caution—Wet Floor cone, the door had a WOMEN sign on it.

I inched up to the women’s restroom, moving just outside the threshold. From my vantage point, I could see in through the partially open door. Natural light brightened the room, beckoning. The white and green tiles on the floor ran mid-way up the walls. White paint coated the rest of the way to the ceiling. The sniffles were amplified thanks to the lack of carpet.

I covered my mouth as I listened. I’d done my fair share of crying in public bathrooms over the years, at times wanting to be left alone, other times needing a shoulder to lean on. Maybe I could whistle a little tune out here to let her know I was coming in, then fake surprise at finding her in there.

The honk of her blowing her nose made me grimace. From the sound of it, she’d been crying for quite a while.

I heard a rustling sound from within, footfalls coming toward me, and chickened out. Backpedaling into the men’s bathroom, I hid out of view just inside. My bladder cramped and tickled in protest. I crossed my legs, my eyes darting to the urinals.

What in the hell was I doing? I was supposed to be going to the Piggly Wiggly for some snacks for the kids and now here I was hiding in a men’s bathroom.

I held my breath, straining to hear the weeper. My stomach chose that moment to gurgle so loudly that most of Lead
and
Deadwood had to have heard it.

Rubbing my stomach, I tried to soothe it into silence. It was probably ticked off about the diet Cooper had put me on for breakfast. I couldn’t blame it—I was still pissed, too.

The creak of a door hinge froze all internal rants against the detective. I did my best mannequin impression as the bathroom weeper’s footfalls headed away from me.

Leaning my head back against the wall, I closed my eyes and waited for the sound of a door closing.

“Where in the hell have you been?” A man asked out in the hallway, his tone gruff, all bristly with irritation.

My eyes opened wide in surprise. Where had he come from? Had he seen me steal into the men’s room?

“Relax, Petey,” a woman said, who I assumed was the weeper by the plugged-nose sound of her voice. “There was something in my contact.”

No way was that bathroom episode a something-in-her-contact ordeal. She’d been sobbing.

“Damn it, I told you to call me Peter while we’re here. I will not tolerate your disrespect, especially in front of the rest of the cast.”

“Yet it’s okay for you to publicly reprimand me.”

“You’re supposed to be acting up there, not creating a bloopers reel. You couldn’t even remember your lines last night, for fuck’s sake. Do you know how humiliating it is for the director’s wife to need continual cues?”

The director? Peter Tarragon, the director? After hearing about him from Mona, I had to see the man in the flesh. I stole a glimpse around the edge of the doorframe.

My glimpse turned into an all-out gape. At the other end of the hall, Tarragon stood toe-to-toe with a zombie bride. Or maybe I should say THE zombie bride, since she must be the star of the play. Her white wedding dress was torn, the neckline splashed with fake blood. I couldn’t get a good look at her face through her ragged veil, which made her even creepier. It was a good thing I’d chickened out on going inside the bathroom to comfort her. I probably would have peed my pants if I’d walked in and run into that mess.

Tarragon’s profile looked the yin to the bride’s yang. He was dressed all in black, from his porkpie hat to his tight shirt and jeans to his motorcycle boots. He reminded me of Gene Hackman in
The French Connection
, one of my dad’s favorite flicks when I was a kid, except Tarragon had a goatee, longer sideburns, and a Roman type nose.

“It’s not my fault I can’t remember my lines.” The bride shoved her veil back from her face, giving me a glimpse of a blood-streaked chin, gray-colored skin, and dark-circled eyes. “If you’d quit tweaking the damned script every night, I could get my lines straight.”

“Damn it! Look at the mess you made of your makeup.” He grabbed her jaw, turning her face to one side and then the other. “Your mouth and eyes are ruined. You’re going to have to go back downstairs to makeup and have that fixed.”

From where I stood, she still had no problems giving goosebumps.

The bride slapped his hand away. “It will only take a few minutes.”

“That’s a few minutes the rest of us have to wait for you to get ready yet again.” Tarragon leaned in close, his body all threats and dominance. “One more time, baby,” I could practically hear his lip curl around that endearment, “and I swear I’ll …”

“You’ll what? Do to me what you did to Jane?”

Jane?
My breath caught. Did she mean
my
Jane?

“Maybe,” Tarragon said.

What had he done to Jane? Did Cooper know about this?

The zombie bride snarled. I half expected her to lurch forward and take a bite out of Tarragon. “Try it,
Petey
, and I’ll tear your dick off and use it as bait out at Pactola.”

Try what?

“That would mean you’d have to actually touch it again after all of these years.” Tarragon grabbed his bride by the arm and jerked her toward the door. “Get down to makeup before I remove you from the equation permanently.” He yanked the door open and shoved the bride through it, following behind her torn train of lace.