Better Off Dead in Deadwood (24 page)

Harvey took a hard right and backed into a narrow gravel parking lot across from the historic brick building.

My gut tightened. “What are you doing?”

He shut off the pickup and scratched his beard. “She said the undead ones threw Jane’s body in the pit.”

Yeah, I remembered. Prudence’s voice replayed in my thoughts, giving me goosebumps again. “We shouldn’t be here, Harvey.”

“Let’s go beat some bushes, see what we can shake loose.”

I jammed my feet against the floor. “Absolutely not.”

“Just a quick looksee.”

“I’m not going in there.”

“What’re you scared of? Them zombies aren’t real.”

For one thing, running headlong into a killer wasn’t on my to-do list for this morning. For another, “If Cooper catches me within twenty feet of the Tarragons, I’ll be behind bars before you can say, “Boo!’”

“Cooper’s not around right now.”

“How do you know?”

“I was on the lookout for his car as I was driving. It’s nowhere around. Besides, it’s Wednesday.”

“What’s so special about Wednesday?”

“Didn’t you look at his calendar last weekend?”

“No, why would I?”

Harvey shook his head at me. “If you’re going to keep up this sleuthing on the side, you need to pay attention better.”

I didn’t want to sleuth on the side. I didn’t want to sleuth out front either. I just wanted to raise my kids, sell real estate, and enjoy a lot of peanut butter fudge ice cream and Doc—separately or together, I wasn’t picky.

“Coop had a note on his calendar about a dentist appointment this morning.” Harvey glanced at his watch. “He should still be down in Rapid.”

So that’s where he had his incisors sharpened. “What if he skipped the appointment?”

“Why would he do that?”

“To catch me doing something I’m not supposed to.”

“Coop’s world doesn’t revolve around you. Besides, I don’t think he’ll really arrest you. He’s just snarlin’ at anything that moves because he’s frustrated with not figuring out who’s killin’ who.” Harvey shoved open his door. “Come on, I’ll show you some parts of this old place that they don’t cover on that fancy tour.”

I stayed put. “How do you know about these secret parts?”

“You kiddin’? My uncles both worked for Homestake. I spent a lot of time growing up in this old building, bowling with my aunts, taking swimmin’ lessons, and watching dime movies back when they used to show flicks in the theatre. Hell, my initials are probably still etched in the underside of one of the tables up in the old library.”

He stepped down onto the ground. “Come on.”

I shook my head. “I’m not taking any chances at getting caught.”

“Chicken.”

I stuck out my tongue. “You can call me Elvis Jr.”

“Fine. You stay here and keep an eye out for Cooper. If he shows up, distract him.”

“What? How am I supposed to distract him?”

His gold teeth showed. “Flash him.”

“You said he’s sweet on someone else.”

“Hooters are hooters, girl. If you flash him, he’ll be temporarily blinded and drift off course long enough for me to make my escape.”

“I will not—”

He slammed his door on my refusal, and then hitched across the street, slipping inside the street-level back doors.

The pickup engine ticked as I sat there alone, watching the traffic inch by at the top of Siever Street. I inspected my fingernails, checked my hair for split ends, picked the lint off my suede skirt, and tried not to think about Wanda, Prudence, Harvey, or Cooper.

Five very long minutes had dragged by when I noticed a white and black taxi cut through the traffic and make a turn toward me down Siever Street. The taxi pulled up next to the sidewalk and a familiar top hat popped out of the front passenger side.

Cornelius!

What was he doing back at the opera house? Was he meeting Caly?

I watched him pay the cab driver and start walking up the sidewalk toward the front of the block, his cane clacking on the sidewalk loud enough for me to hear.

“It’s not my business,” I told Harvey’s pickup.

Cornelius was a big boy. If he wanted to waste his time and energy on a little pixie who had shown absolutely zero interest in him besides asking him to take off that damned hat, that was his prerogative. His broken heart was not my problem.

But maybe I should give him a call, see what he was up to today. We could meet later, talk about other options if this hotel deal fell through.

I fished my cell phone from my purse and called him.

Cornelius paused as he rounded the corner, pulling out his phone.

It rang for a third time in my ear, then a fourth.

He looked at his phone for another ring, then shook his head and stuffed it back in his coat pocket.

The ringing stopped and his voicemail kicked in.

Hanging up the phone, I yelled through the windshield, “You big bozo!”

Cornelius continued along the sidewalk, swinging his cane now, looking happy as could be as he disappeared from my sight around the front of the old Stamp Mill building that occupied the corner of Siever and Main.

I tossed my phone back in my purse.

Well, damn. Now what?

Only I knew exactly
what
.

Grabbing my purse, I climbed out of the pickup, locked the door, and raced up the sidewalk after the love-smitten fool.

Chapter Thirteen

I was halfway up the block, following in Cornelius’s footsteps, when I heard my phone ringing. It came from somewhere in the depths of my purse. I kept climbing toward Main Street while rummaging through the inside pockets, trying to find the blasted thing amongst my makeup, business cards, wallet, a small field guide on dinosaur bones Layne must have stuck in there, and a sticky unwrapped sucker—
dang it, Addy!

Something vibrated against the back of my fingers.
Ah ha!
I pulled it out just in time for it to stop ringing.

“Of course,” I muttered and looked to see who’d called, pressing
OK
through the low battery warning.

It was Doc.

“Crikey.”

It buzzed again, this time a text appeared on the screen from Doc:
Need to talk to you. Call me when you can.

My thumb hovered over the Call button as I rounded the corner. Beyond the old Stamp Mill building, Cornelius stood in front of the opera house, shaking hands with Dominick Masterson. I stopped short. Caly the Pixie stepped out from the concave marbled entryway wearing a huge pair of black sunglasses that made her look almost fly-like. She held open one of the glass doors, then she followed the two men inside.

What in the hell was going on? Caly hadn’t given Cornelius the time of day yesterday, so what was with today’s sudden interest?

Was Dominick actually meeting with Cornelius and Caly? What exactly did Dominick Masterson do anyway besides trying to get elected for mayor? Maybe he had an office somewhere in the building.

I tucked my phone back into my purse. Doc would have to wait. I had questions to get answered.

Passing the plate-glass windows of the Stamp Mill building, I raced to the entrance as fast as my mule heels would carry me. If Lady Luck were on my side, I’d find Cornelius right inside the doors and catch him before he disappeared with Caly into the bowels of the opera house. If not, I’d be left to wander through shadow-filled halls and empty rooms, risking a face-off with another zombie or worse—Tarragon.

When I opened the front glass doors, there was no one in sight. Frickety-frack!

My heels clacked along the tiled floor as I looked through the inside windows of the art gallery on one side and empty office space on the other. At the stairwell, I hesitated, unsure whether to go up or down.

You should go back to the pickup
, a logical voice in my head urged.

Oh, please. After having had a mid-morning tea party with Prudence the ghost, it was a little late to listen to logic.

I scraped my teeth over my lower lip, worrying about it. Why did I care if Cornelius got his heart broken by a spiky-haired sprite? Why did I have this need to protect him from Caly’s rejection? It wasn’t my business if Cupid’s arrow was buried hilt-deep in his boney ass. He was just a client.

Well, okay a client and sort of a friend.

And a fellow séance groupie.

And a fellow town oddball.

Dang it. What was he thinking by laying his feelings out like street vendor wares to be pointed at and made fun of by Tinker Bell’s twin?

The sound of shoe soles scuffing across a linoleum floor echoed up the stairwell.

Moving down the first step, I waited, listening, wondering if Cornelius was returning to that pool room and the hat-hating ghost.

A door closed somewhere below. Footfalls followed, and then another door shut. A car honked on the street behind me, surprising a gasp from my lips and scaring me down another step.

With one last look behind me to make sure nobody was watching, I headed down the rest of the stairs. At the bottom, I passed what looked like a janitor’s closet on the left, a mop and bucket half full of dirty water blocking the entry. A couple of feet further landed me at a closed door on my right and a long, fluorescent-lit hallway on my left. I recognized the hallway as the one we’d been in yesterday. It led past the door to the bowling-alley-turned-shooting-range and then through a set of double doors to where the pool had been decades ago. If Cornelius had come to talk to the boy ghost, he must be close. I needed to figure out which of the doors down here would take me to the area under the pool he’d told me about.

I tiptoed down the hall. In spite of the fact that there were people on the floor above me, I felt alone in the big old building. It reminded me of walking through my high school after a basketball game, the usual din of shoe squeaks and laughter quieted for the night. My hands grew clammy even though it was the middle of the day.

This sneaking around stuff was for the cats. I wiped my damp hands on my skirt. If Harvey jumped out to scare me, I was going to strangle him with his suspenders. Where had that buzzard gone, anyway?

I passed a set of bathrooms on my left and then the old bowling alley on my right. Beyond that was an elevator, then the stairs that we’d come down yesterday during the tour. Outside yet another closed door on my left, I hesitated, trying to remember if Caly had let us know what was behind it. Something told me this wasn’t the door I needed, so I continued through the double doors and down a short flight of steps to what used to be the pool room.

As I stood there on the bottom step looking at the two doors on my left that bracketed the edge of the concrete capped pool like a pair of parentheses, the door closest to me opened. A woman in white flew out. Blood stains covered the front of her wedding dress.

I knew that bloody dress. Tarragon’s wife, minus the zombie gore and veil, closed the door and leaned against it. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her chest heaved either with sobs or from running; I couldn’t quite tell which.

She hadn’t appeared to notice me so I took a step back up the stairs toward the double doors, not really sure I wanted to get mixed up in whatever had her crying this time. My heel scraped across a step.

She looked over at me, her eyes wide, watery.

Crap!

I opened my mouth to say something but had no clue what. I tried to smile instead, but my mouth felt all crooked and loose on my face.

She sniffed. “You shouldn’t be down here.”

At that moment, I absolutely wanted to be anywhere else but
down here
. I cleared my throat. “I was just looking for—”

“They’ll see you.”

They who? Security guards? Janitors? Cooper’s boys in blue? “I’ll just explain that I’m looking for—”

“You don’t understand,” she interrupted me again. “She’ll hurt you.”

Just for looking … wait, now it was a
she
? “Who’s ‘she’?”

Tarragon’s wife shoved away from the door and grabbed my arm. “I can’t talk about it. She’ll know it’s me.” She tugged me up the steps behind her.

I tried not to trip over her blood-splattered train.

She dragged me through the double doors, opened the door I’d hesitated outside of a moment ago, and shoved me inside. I stumbled into what looked like a supply room, almost knocking over a box of paper cups.

“What are you—”

“Shhhh,” she hissed. Following behind me, she drew the door shut with a quiet click and enclosed us in darkness.

The room smelled like cardboard, floor cleaner, and a hint of sweat. Wait—I sniffed my armpits. Good, it wasn’t me.

Her dress rustled in the darkness. “Deadly things come in tiny packages,” she whispered, as if we’d been in the midst of a discussion about package sizes. “Remember that if you want to live.”

Hmmm. Receiving cryptic advice from a spooked zombie bride in a dark supply room had not been on my schedule today. The urge to bust out through that door and get the hell out of Dodge had me shuffling my feet.

“Um, you know,” I said, trying to sound calm like my pulse wasn’t racing. “I think I’ll just go back the way I—”

“Shhhh.”

I stood quietly and counted to thirty, listening, thinking that Mrs. Tarragon’s brain might have broken under the stress of living with a man who sounded like he was an arrogant dickhead.

The clacking of heels on the floor outside our hideout and the alternating hiss and pause of something being dragged along stopped my ponderings. My heart beat like a tribal drum, so loud that I was sure Mrs. Tarragon would shush me again.

We waited in the dark for another minute after the clacking and dragging sounds disappeared, me with bated breath, her with her satin dress
swizz-swizzing
at each little move. Then she opened the door a crack and peeked out. Without warning, she opened the door wide. The hallway fluorescent lights made me recoil and squint.

“All clear,” she spoke softly, hauling me out into the hallway with her.

I looked up and down the hall and saw no zombies or albinos, nobody at all. Still, the urge to run, not walk, through the double doors, over the pool, and out the glass exit doors beyond zinged down my legs.