An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 5) Paperback – September 4, 2014 by Ann Charles Read Free Book Online Page B

all of those clocks.
    “Parker?” his voice had the hint of a snarl to it again.
    “I’m thinking.” I had recounted everything to him, I was sure. I didn’t want to get pulled into this mess, especially not with shrunken heads involved. “No.”
    “You’re absolutely positive.”
    “Cooper!”
    “Okay, okay. It’s just you don’t have the best record for total honesty in the past.”
    That was his fault for being such a frustrating prick. “Will there be anything else, Detective?” Or was he done with his rubber glove?
    “Yes. Why is there a picture of a horse’s skull in your phone?”
    “You looked at my pictures?!!” My cheeks burned as I remembered a picture I’d taken last week of a weird mole on my back where my bra strap rubs and sent it to Natalie to check out. Thankfully Doc and I kept our phone sex to verbal stimulation, not photos of me in compromising positions.
    He chuckled. “Goodnight, Parker.” He hung up on me.
    “I’m going to shoot him in the foot with his own gun, I swear.” I handed Doc his cell phone.
    “That’s been done before,” Harvey said. “If you want to be original, you’ll need to aim for his knee.”
    Doc pocketed his phone. “Violet, tell me again what the lady said to you during the phone call.”
    I repeated what I could recall, including the various “nine” lines, which had now morphed into three garbled possibilities.
    “Does she have one ‘F’ or two in her last name?”
    Harvey and I shrugged as one. “I didn’t ask,” I told Doc.
    “The clocks in her house were Black Forest designs?”
    “Yep,” Harvey said. “Over one hundred of them.”
    “And this Freesia woman who owns the Galena House said the victim made peppernut cookies?”
    I nodded, still worrying about what other pictures I had stored on my phone. I vaguely remembered taking a picture of Cooper’s case board of Jane’s murder in his basement last month. That would surely have made his blood boil if he’d found that one. Had I taken a picture of the crate full of bottles of mead that was stashed at Mudder Brothers?
    Doc leaned his hip against the desk, rubbing his jaw. “She wasn’t saying ‘nine’ like the number, Violet.”
    Wait! Those were all on my old phone, the one I’d dropped in the toilet at the Opera House. I sat back, relieved. Putting aside all worries about what Cooper might have seen on my phone, I absorbed Doc’s words. “She wasn’t?”
    “No. She was speaking German. ‘Nein’ means ‘no.’”
    “Of course!” Once he said it, everything clicked. “I’m an idiot.”
    “You were distracted by everything going on today,” Doc said. “You would’ve figured it out once the dust settled.”
    “So what does ‘shark trickster’ mean in German?”
    “It means you don’t hear for shit.” Harvey grunted to his feet. “And knowin’ your luck, whatever she said is not gonna help you get some much needed beauty rest anytime soon.”
    I stuck my tongue out at the old bugger.
    “I have just the sleep aid for you, Boots.” Doc said, locking the front door and turning the sign to Closed.
    He sure did. Too bad his bedroom wasn’t just down the hall from mine. “If only Ms. Wolff had been calling about a house. Now there’s a whole new mystery to figure out.”
    “For Cooper or you?” Doc asked.
    “This one is all Cooper’s. I’ll even wrap it up and put a bow on top.”
    “Well, hunky dory, it’s agreed then.” Harvey knocked twice on Doc’s desk. “We’re leavin’ this one to Coop. You ready to go, girl? I have a cow mystery to piece together.”
    I stood, pulling out my keys. “I’m worried about you staying out there alone.”
    “Don’t be. I’m not stayin’, just headin’ out to take care of chores and wait for Coop’s instructions. I’ll be back in a bullwhip snap.”
    “Should I make up the couch?”
    “I’d appreciate it. I’ll twit ya later, Doc.”
    Doc followed Harvey toward the back hallway.