“No, but his fancy new Silverado pickup is parked out back, so he’s around.” Natalie leaned her hip against the crate. “Is this one of the crates you told me about last time?”

  “Yeah.” I joined her.

  She tugged on the lid. “It wasn’t locked up like this before, right?”

  “Right.” I moved to one end and nodded toward the opposite. “See if you can help me move it.”

  “To where? We can’t exactly sneak this out through the foyer under our skirts.”

  “I just want to see how heavy it is and if anything shifts when we lift it.”

  Natalie rounded the other end. “I can’t put much weight on my bad leg, you know.”

  “So, lift with your good leg, silly.” I wrapped my fingers around the top edge. “Ready? One, two, lift.”

  Natalie grunted. I strained. We were able to get just a fraction of ground clearance before we had to set it down again.

  “Christ,” Natalie wiped her hands on her skirt. “What in the hell is in this? A buffalo?”

  “That’s the million dollar question.”

  I tiptoed over to the door that opened into the parlor and ran my fingers along the jam, finding several indents midway down. Upon returning to where Natalie now sat on the crate, I told her, “They bring them in and out through the parlor door. It’s a tight squeeze.”

  “Excellent deduction, Nancy Drew. Didn’t you say there was a cooler in the crate you hid in last time?”

  “Yes, it had a biohazard sticker.”

  She tapped on the lid. “Is this the same crate?”

  “I’m not sure. It looks the same, but I was a little distracted when I was here last time.” I inspected all three sides of the crate for any tell-tale markings. “You think there’s a body in here?”

  “I doubt it or we’d smell it.”

  “Not if they sealed it tightly in a plastic tub.”

  Natalie frowned at me. “That’s twisted. You’ve seen that movie Phantasm too many times.”

  “Maybe the Mudders have, too.”

  “Next, you’ll be telling me you saw the ‘tall man’ digging up graves on Mount Moriah.”

  I shivered just thinking about that creepy film.

  “Short of coming back here with a crowbar or some x-ray glasses,” Natalie hopped down from the crate, landing on her good foot, “there’s no way to tell what’s in this thing.”

  “Is your toolbox in your truck?”

  She cocked her head. “Vi, we’re not—” her eyes flicked behind me. “Cooper’s here.”

  I spun around and watched, my breath locked up tight in my chest.

  Detective Cooper strode toward the front of the parlor and sidled up next to his uncle. He leaned down and said something in Harvey’s ear, then he turned and glared at me through the one-way glass.

  I gasped. Blood roared in my ears like a jet engine. I took a step back and grabbed Nat’s arm, lugging her toward the door. “Cooper knows we’re in here.”

  “How? He can’t see us,” she said, thumping behind me.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he wears special police-force contacts. Or he’s not human. We need to get out of here before he catches us spying.”

  At the door, I shot a glance back through the glass. Cooper was hemmed in, Norma Jean and Lucille had him blocked as they made their way side-by-side toward the casket. He stared into the glass again, squinting.

  I opened the door a crack and peered out, almost expecting to see Cooper looming there. The foyer stood empty. “Let’s go.”

  We slipped into the foyer and raced to the front door as fast as Natalie’s boot would allow, not slowing until we’d crawled into her pickup, slammed the doors, and locked them for good measure.

  Natalie checked the rearview mirror. “Here he comes.” I yanked her down out of sight.

  We ducked there in silence for a couple of seconds, then she giggled and said, “Got ya.”

  I glared at her. “You big brat.” I sat up, twisting in the seat to check on the front doors. Both were closed, no Cooper in sight.

  “I’m sorry, Vi. But you should have seen the freaked out look on your face when your tractor beam locked onto Cooper back there. I thought your eyes were going to pop right out of your skull.”

  I pinched her upper arm. “Shut it, be-otch.”

  “Hey, ouch!” she rubbed her arm. “What’s your deal with Cooper, anyway? He’s just a cop, you know. He cleans his guns the same as the rest of us.”

  I fanned my dress at chest level. “He makes me sweaty.”

  “Really?” Natalie’s gaze narrowed. “Do you think he’s hot?”

  I frowned. Only in a branding-my-ass sort of way. “I meant sweaty from nervousness.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know you did. Let me rephrase my question—would you sleep with him given the right circumstances? If you were the last two people on Earth.”

  “Can I dress him up like Elvis and slather him in chocolate and caramel first?”

  “Cute. Answer the question.”

  “No. He’s not my type.” Under her steady squint, I shrugged. “But I suppose many women would find him sexy.” Mona, my coworker sure did. The woman practically steamed up the windows whenever Cooper walked into the office.

  “You know,” Natalie said, “I think he’s exactly your type. You always go for the rugged, tough guys.”

  “Yeah, but when you ask Cooper if that’s a gun in his pocket or if he’s happy to see you, it’s really a gun.” Unlike Doc, who was just happy to see me.

  Natalie laughed. “Come on, Cooper’s not that bad.”

  “Then why haven’t you ever dated him?”

  “Who says I haven’t?” She winked.

  After thirty-five years of living in the same town, Natalie had dated most of the single guys in Deadwood—twice. “You’d have told me by now if you had. So, what’s the deal?”

  She sniffed and looked away. “He’s not interested.”

  “Right.” A guy would have to be a eunuch not to find Natalie’s hips and lips at least a little bit sexy.

  “I’m serious. About five years ago, I was playing pool with him at the Purple Door Saloon, flirting here and there. When I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere a little quieter for another drink, he told me he didn’t get involved with ‘local citizens.’” She made the quote signs in the air at those last words. “Then he hung up his pool stick and left without a backwards glance. Ever since then, I’ve kept my distance, and he’s been as cold as Terry Peak in January.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like women.”

  “Oh, he definitely does. A while after that night, I saw him in a bar down in Rapid getting hot and heavy with this curvy blonde. There was no way she was just reaching for his gun.”

  “Really?” I had trouble picturing Cooper doing anything with his mouth besides chewing glass.

  “Yeah, but I haven’t seen him get excited about a woman since then. Although, he certainly keeps his eye on you when you’re in the room.”

  “You mean his stink eye.”

  “I’m serious.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re blonde and curvy.”

  “Cut the chatter about my curves.”

  “I bet he likes you.”

  I leaned back against the door, my palms out to ward off her crazy talk. “Trust me, that man does not like me. In fact, he seems to maintain a steady pissed-off state whenever I’m around.”

  “That’s because he wants you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It makes total sense, all of that bristling and glaring. He’s got it bad for you.”

  Cooper? The glares? The growls? “No, that isn’t desire, it’s irritation with a healthy dose of rage peppered into the mix.”

  “And you think he’s sexy.” Natalie appeared to have hearing problems tonight.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  No, Doc was sexy as hell in a dark and dangerous way. Cooper was just dangerous. “I said some women may find him sexy, not me. He’s way too bossy for my taste, and his constant scowl turns me off.”

  She pointed at something over my shoulder. “You mean that one.”

  I turned and jerked back at the sight of Cooper’s scowling face in my window. Harvey’s bearded mug leaned into view next to Cooper’s shoulder.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  “Unlock this now,” Cooper ordered through the glass.

  As soon as I obeyed, he hauled open my door. His broad shoulders blocked my escape route. “Violet Parker, you’re under arrest.”

  All of my internal organs froze as a cold blast of panic howled through me.

  Had he found out I had withheld evidence in the Carhart case? Who had told him about the demon cult book? Doc and Wanda Carhart were the only two around who knew about it.

  Or had someone linked me to the dead guy in Mudder Brothers basement?

  “What for?” I croaked out through ice-coated vocal chords. Jail was not a good option for me. I had kids and a job and a reputation that was about to get a lot worse.

  “Creating a public nuisance.”

  “What?”

  “He means me,” Harvey explained, and grinned wide enough to show both gold teeth.

  “What did he do?” I asked. Okay, dumb question. “You can’t arrest me for that.”

  A muscle in Cooper’s jaw ticked. He took a step back, holding the door wide. “Get out of the pickup right now.”

  I climbed down, straightened my dress, and faced Cooper.

  In my peripheral vision, I noticed a familiar pair of blue-haired babes standing next to their Lincoln cruise ship, both gaping at the show. Norma Jean would have plenty to gab about with her poker buds at the senior center now. I could practically hear my reputation being ripped to shreds.

  “Explain your presence here tonight,” Cooper demanded, his hands on his hips, his shoulder holster and pistol butt visible.

  “Why are you packing heat at a funeral?” I tried to steer Cooper off course.

  “He always packs heat,” Harvey said. “He even sleeps with it under his pillow. One of these days he’s going to blow off the Tooth Fairy’s fingers when she comes a callin.’”

  Cooper’s eyes stayed glued to me. “That’s none of your business—just answer the question.”

  There was no budging him, so I fell back on my usual defenses and jutted my chin. “You didn’t ask me anything. You demanded, as usual.”

  “She has a point,” Natalie said, sidling up next to me, leaning against the bed of her pickup. “You need to be a little nicer to her if you want Vi to warm up to you.”

  I shot Natalie a squinty-eyed, don’t make me stuff my socks in your mouth look.

  She winked back. “Violet isn’t one of those women who likes to be dominated. She’s spent too many years being a single mom, reigning over her own empire.”

  Nat was spot on. My gut reaction to a dominant male was to shoot him in the ass with a tranquilizer dart, and then relocate him to another continent.

  “Violet,” Cooper warned through clenched molars.

  “You’d better cough it up, girl,” Harvey said. “Ol’ Coop is a regular curly wolf, especially when it comes to taming shrews. He gets that from my side of the family.”

  Fine, but I was only giving in because of that damned police badge. “I am here for Elsa Haskell’s viewing.”

  “Then why weren’t you in there looking at her with everyone else?”

  “I had to use the restroom.” Did Cooper know about my twitchy nose telltale sign? Was it illegal to lie to a cop? Were different degrees of lying allowed? I wasn’t under oath … yet.

  “You were in the bathroom for over fifteen minutes?”

  Is that how long I was in that crate room? It seemed longer. “I had … err … complications.”

  Natalie chuckled.

  “Really? That’s funny. Norma Jean Russell and Lucille James said they didn’t see you in the bathroom at all.”

  They hadn’t seen me standing outside the front doors when they arrived either, nor hiding behind the bouquet of lilies, but I wasn’t going to brag about my invisibility powers to the fuzz. “That’s because I was standing on the toilet.”

  One blond eyebrow arched. “Do you do that often?”

  I shrugged. “When the mood strikes.”

  “Why didn’t you join my uncle when you finished standing on the toilet?”

  “I ran into Natalie.”

  He raised the other eyebrow, but said nothing, apparently waiting for more.

  I added. “She had something to show me.”

  Both eyebrows still waited.

  “In her pickup.”

  He glanced behind me into the cab of the pickup, and then focused on Natalie. “And what was that?”

  “Show him your tattoo, Natalie.” I crossed my fingers behind my back, willing her to play along like she used to when we were kids and got busted.

  “Which one?” she replied without hesitation.

  Whew! “The latest.”

  “The one on my butt or my right boob? I got them on the same night.”

  “Really?” Cooper’s disbelief curled his upper lip. His gaze dropped below Natalie’s chin for a split-second. If I had blinked twice, I’d have missed it.

  “Show him both,” Harvey chimed in. “Coop, you’d better double check them for authenticity.”

  “Are you into tattoos now?” Cooper asked Natalie.

  “Sure. What can I say? It was one hell of a wild Tupperware party.” I could practically hear her grinning. “Those tattoo parlor girls know how to shake, mix, and stack like nobody else.”

  “Show him the one on your left cheek,” I told her, referring to the knife-stabbed heart she’d had tattooed there one very drunken night after walking in on her then boyfriend bare-back riding some floozy wearing tassels. Seriously, who walked around with nipple tassels on? Hiding them under a shirt would be a real trick.

  “Just lift up the back of your skirt,” I added.

  “Raise that skirt an inch and I’ll arrest you for indecent exposure,” Cooper said, his face a mask of granite. The guys up on Mount Rushmore had nothing on him.

  He stepped closer and pointed his finger in my face. “Violet, if I catch you here again, you’d better be sitting in that parlor when I walk in the door.”

  Yikes! He was dead serious.

  Was knocking Ray off his mountain really worth having the town’s detective breathing down my neck day and night? Waiting to lock me up? “Or what, you’ll arrest me for improper loitering in a funeral parlor?”

  Addy would try to sneak me a nail file, only she’d probably use the cardboard kind I kept in my makeup drawer. Layne would burn off his eyebrows again while trying to make me a small bomb to blow a hole in the cell wall.

  “I’ll have George file a restraining order against you.”

  My mouth fell open. “You can’t do that.”

  “Yes, I can. It’s for your own protection as much as George’s. I don’t have enough manpower on the force to keep you out of trouble.”

  “I was just attending a viewing.”

  “I highly doubt that. If I dusted for prints, I wonder where I’d find evidence telling me otherwise. Besides the bathroom, of course.”

  Oh, crap. Fingerprints. I needed to start carrying gloves under the Picklemobile’s seat if I was going to keep up this snooping business. Maybe I should just focus on passive aggressive attacks on Ray, like Mona and her spoonful of Benefiber in his orange juice.

  Cooper plucked something from my shawl. Then he grabbed my hand and dropped a one-inch sliver of wood into my palm.

  The crate.

  “Stick to selling real estate, Ms. Parker. I don’t want you to be the next one lying on that autopsy table in Eddie’s basement.” He took a step back. “Come to the station tomorrow afternoon. I need to talk to you in private.”

  “I have an appointment with another client.” I wasn’t bullshitting him this time. I had some open-house prepping plans to discuss.

  His nostrils flared slightly. “Don’t make me use my handcuffs.”

  Bully! “Fine, I’ll stop by.”

  With a slight head nod at Natalie, he strode away. Norma Jean and Lucille waved at him as he marched by them.

  Natalie whistled under her breath, “Damn, that was hot. I can still smell the sexual tension in the air.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That was not hot, it was irritating as hell.” I turned to Harvey. “Has he always been that bossy and pushy?”

  “Yup. Ever since he was knee-high to a prairie dog.”

  “What are you going to do?” Natalie asked. “Are you going to stop nosing into Ray and George’s business?”

  “Coop ain’t bluffing,” Harvey said. “He will throw you in jail if he can figure out a good enough reason why.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at the detective as he drove off in his unmarked police sedan. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, keep me posted.” Harvey squeezed my shoulder. “I need to get this canary suit back to its cage. I’ll bring the Picklemobile back before dawn.”

  I knew better than to ask where he was going when he had that glint in his eye. He headed for the pickup, whistling something happy-go-lucky sounding while he went.

  Must be nice to crawl into someone’s bed without worrying about who was watching.

  “Let’s go home,” I said to Natalie. I wanted to soak in a cool bath with a steamy romance and fantasize about Doc until all of this Cooper business was just a distant disturbance in my Force.

  “Your wish is my command.”

  We climbed in her pickup and headed out of the parking lot, but she turned right instead of left.

  “Home is that way.” I pointed up the hill.

  “I know, but I want to check on something first.”

  “What?”

  She took another right and drove toward Calamity Jane Realty. “A suspicion I have.”

  “About what?”

  As we neared the office, she slowed.

  Doc’s front blinds were closed, but the lights were on behind them. Calamity Jane’s windows were blind-free and mostly dark, just a single florescent on over Mona’s desk so the cops could see in during their nightly drive-bys—and tourists could see me making out with Doc on my desk. The former I’d been told back when Jane hired me, the latter I’d learned from a cheek-warming experience.