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

  Frogskin and Muttonfat

  The Thea Barlow Cozy Mystery Series, Book Two

  Carol Caverly

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 1996, 2015 by Carol Caverly. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61417-732-6

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Before You Go…

  Dead in Hog Heaven

  Also by Carol Caverly

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Sheila Rides Horse lay on the cot in her small room at the back of the house, her head propped up with three thin, lumpy bed pillows, the tattered quilt scrunched down around her ankles where she had pushed it to avoid the heat. She wasn’t asleep. She was sure she wasn’t asleep, but the walls of her narrow room were disappearing. She was outside, sitting on a rock. She could feel the hard ridges and uneven protuberances digging into her soft buttocks. Her large bare feet splayed firmly on the ground in front of her.

  Her thoughts stretched out into gossamer threads that sucked up the night scents, tangled with the sharp breeze, and searched for the unusual. A meaning. A message. She wasn’t frightened. She had done this before, knew how to hang on to that one piece of reality that would keep her safe.

  She focused on something between her feet. A plant? A rock? Her eyes caressed the odd shape, trying to know it, but she was puzzled. The thing had a peachy glow that spoke of succulence, yet its branches…Yes, branches. A bush, a shrub of some kind. She clung to her thoughts, gripping their solidity to ward off the sweet, fuzzy haze that shredded reason.

  Then the bush began to move. Pulsing with life, the branches writhed, swayed and began to reach for her. Flesh-colored but hard as stone, the tendrils brushed her legs, curled around her arms, stretched to her neck, twining, squeezing.

  She grabbed frantically for cognition. “Fin…fingers…” but mind and breath began to swirl away. The cold reaching fingers tore at her mouth and reached for eye sockets. With a final burst of terror, she threw her head back and caught a pinprick of light. Clinging to the glow, she willed it closer and closer until it burst into shape. A light bulb hanging from a chain. Her room. Her bed.

  “Holy shit!” Sweat poured down her face and neck and between her heavy breasts. She wiped it off with the tail of the ragged T-shirt she used as a nightgown, then stared at the shirt, surprised to find it soaked through. Impatient, she yanked the clammy shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor, then stood up on rubbery legs.

  “What in hell was that all about?” she said, comforted by the sound of her voice. She had had her share of visions, but nothing with that kind of power.

  The cards, she thought. I gotta get the cards. Naked, she padded to the sink on the far wall and took down a packet wrapped in a blue velvet cloth from the shelf above.

  The cloth dropped to the floor unnoticed and with trembling fingers she began to shuffle the deck. The cards, worn to a limp softness by years of use, calmed her. Holding the deck in both hands, she touched the shuffled pack to her forehead and her heart, then sat on the edge of the bed. Fanning the cards face down on the sheet, she pressed them briefly into the dampness to soak up the fear. Quickly, she gathered them up again and began her spread.

  She flicked the cards into patterns with the speed of familiarity, but no matter how she varied the spread the message remained the same. Danger, the Tarot symbols warned her, Anguish, Foolish Decisions, Deception and Sorrow. Always the suit of swords dominated, with its reigning king present.

  So all right; she thought, wiping her hand across her face, a man is involved. The King of Swords, a dark-haired man, a man to be feared, avoided, a man who wasn’t what he seemed to be.

  She gathered the cards and shuffled them again, thoughtfully. Always enigmatic, the cards had their own ways of signaling urgency, demanding attention. Repetition was one of them, reinforcing the message of her vision and that awful clawing bush. Forces were swirling around her. Danger poised ready to pounce. But from where? What was the meaning of a twining grasping bush? Danger from the earth? She shook her head, bewildered. She only knew that to ignore the warning would be to her peril.

  Heart racing, Sheila did a final three-card cut. Influences. Past, present, future.

  There the bastard was again. In the middle, controlling the present, the King of Swords sat on his throne brandishing crossed sabers. No use denying it: he’s here now. Somewhere. A dark-haired man.

  The King was the force. He would cause the chaos indicated by the card to his right, The Tower. Crumbled by a bolt of lightning that threw a man and woman helplessly from the parapet, The Tower was a harbinger of violent, cataclysmic change. Her fingers traced over the lurid pictures on the cards, absorbing the symbols, searching for connections, then moved to the third. The Hanged Man.

  He hung upside down by one ankle, the free leg crossing the other at a right angle to form a cross. The hands were hidden behind the back. Helpless. The ancient symbol could mean many things, she knew, but it was always the surrendered one. A life surrendered to habits perhaps, to patterns. Patterns repeated over and over again. But whose life? The king’s? Hers? Until she knew more she would have to be vigilant.

  The King was the key. She had to find the dark-haired man.

  One

  I stood on the crumbling sidewalk in front of the old house and looked around with a wry sense of déjà vu. Another whorehouse. I was developing a reputation: Thea Barlow, whorehouse connoisseur. I lifted my heavy hair off my neck to let the hot breeze dry the perspiration clinging to my skin. I should have worn shorts on the plane, rather than slacks.

  Picking up my suitcase, I headed up the stairs of the
renovated bordello, or, as the garish sign posted outside the house said: Rawhide Wyoming’s Own Racy Ladies Bed and Breakfast.

  Fourth of July bunting draped the fan lit front door. Inside was a small vestibule; an oak table blocked off a narrow hallway beside the staircase and appeared to be used as a registration desk of sorts.

  Nobody was around. I let my suitcase drop with a thunk, hoping to rouse someone. I could hear a low mumble of voices coming from a back room somewhere.

  I glanced around. To the right was a good-sized dining room with more seating than I would have expected for a bed and breakfast. Across the hall from the dining area was a sitting room with old, but comfortable-looking furnishings, and softly colored Navaho rugs on the floor.

  Racy Ladies might be interesting, but I hadn’t come to Rawhide, Wyoming, to write about another whorehouse. I was after bigger quarry this time: Kid Corcoran, Last of the Western Bandits. Web Corcoran had earned his fame in the ‘thirties with a series of inept, but nevertheless successful, bank and train robberies throughout Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The western press, hungry for entertainment during the desperate days of broken banks and dust bowls, launched the small-time criminal into something of a myth. I was eager to interview him. It was going to be a great story.

  Then, of course, there was Max. To be honest, Max Holman was the real reason I was in Wyoming again, even though both of us had cloaked the visit with the safe premise of work to be done.

  But right now all I wanted was to get into my room. It was ten o’clock in the morning on a blasting hot July day and I had been up since the beginning of time. My patience was at a low ebb.

  Placed out of reach on a shelf behind the registration table was one of those round bells you bang for attention. Impatiently, I stretched across the desk. As my fingers grazed the bell a voice bellowed out.

  “Bring me some goddamned coffee, I said! Where in hell are you?”

  The bell clattered to the floor, but the sound was drowned out by the man’s continued roar.

  “Get your stupid butt in here, Florie. I—” The words were cut off by one of those raspy, phlegmy coughs that seem as if they will end in death by strangulation.

  Steps clattered in response to his noise. I crawled under the table to get the bell.

  “Shut up, Grandpa. You’re a hateful old man.” The woman’s voice was low and venomous, but I could hear her plainly. The old man’s room had to be on the other side of the hall. “If you think your life is so miserable here, just wait until I ship you out to the nursing home. You’ll be sorry you ever came back to this town.”

  The threat outraged me. He might be an irascible old man, but no one deserved to be spoken to in that manner. I grabbed the bell. As I emerged rear first from under the table, the front door opened and someone came in. From my awkward position I saw two sets of legs, male and female.

  But the angry voices coming from the other room held my attention. “Just try, you bitch.”

  Good for you, I thought, cheering him on. Fight for yourself.

  More phlegmy coughs. “Some way to treat your own flesh and blood,” he whimpered, echoing my sentiments exactly.

  I scooted out from under the table and stood, bell in hand. The male half of the newly arrived couple looked at me with a raised eyebrow. He had a gorgeous tan, the kind that had to be worked at, a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, designer jeans, and a rather smarmy look to his handsomeness. I shrugged, put the bell on the table and banged it. The ring was puny, and didn’t stand a chance against the argument blasting through the wall.

  “I never wanted you in my life,” the unseen woman’s voice went on. “Why didn’t you stay in California? I’m trying to run a business here and you’re ruining everything.” Her voice broke on what might have been a sob. At least it dropped to a lower register and became a mumble to our ears.

  The male newcomer stepped closer to the desk, his eyes bright and avid with interest in the conversation. Snoop, I thought righteously, as if I hadn’t been taking it all in myself. The man’s wife, or whatever she was (she looked more like a whatever), stood in the middle of the sitting room, eyeing everything with a pinched look of distaste.

  “Come on, Gar,” she said, petulantly, “let’s get out of here. I’m not staying in this dump. We’d be better off at the Best Western.”

  She was petite and quite pretty, with lovely, soft reddish hair that skimmed her shoulders, but there was a look of restless discontent about her, as if nothing ever satisfied her for long. She wore a green silk shorts outfit with a loose tunic and gold accessories that reeked of money. I couldn’t imagine that she’d feel any more at home in the Best Western than she did in this rustic place. But then, I was having an attitude problem: I’d taken an instant, if unfair, dislike to both of them. Her whiny bitchiness wasn’t making it any better. Nor was his slow, deliberate appraisal of my body, with its accompanying smile indicating I should be all aflutter at his approval. Jerk.

  The unseen man’s bellow rose again, startling us. “Get me out to the old place, Florie, and I’ll leave you alone. Gimme a break. I’m an old man. I want to see the old place again.”

  “I can’t,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  “Then find someone who can, damn it. What’s wrong with that worthless husband of yours? You’ll be sorry, girl. I’ll make you sorry as hell. All you do is snivel…”

  I’d had enough. When I raised my hand to bang the bell again, my eavesdropping companion made a move as if to stop me, then, with an unctuous smile, dropped his hand to his side.

  I gave him a dirty look, hit the clapper repeatedly, and yelled out for good measure. “Anybody home? You’ve got customers out here.”

  The argument in the other room stopped abruptly. Silence. Then unintelligible whispering. Finally, a door slammed and footsteps came our way.

  I guess I had expected some kind of out-sized virago, possibly with whip in hand, but the woman who appeared was tall and painfully thin with a pathetic caved-in appearance. Thirty something, with only a cute hairdo of bouncy blondish natural curls to save her from looking like a limp, worn-out dishrag.

  “Sorry about that, folks,” she said with a forced smile. “I didn’t realize anyone was here. What can I do for you?”

  I held out my hand. “Florie Dunn?” I asked. “I’m Thea Barlow. I have a room reservation.”

  “Oh, yes.” She reached for the reservation book and opened it in front of her. Her facade of chirpy politeness slipped away, and I saw her hand tremble as she thumbed through the pages. Lines of worry creased her forehead and compressed the corners of her eyes. My feelings softened a bit. I knew only too well that old people could be a trial and sometimes a burden, but that was no excuse for threats or abuse.

  “Yes, here it is.” She straightened with a weary effort, but the smile she gave me was genuine. “For a week. We’re so pleased to have you.”

  “I also spoke to you on the phone, Mrs. Dunn.”

  “Florie. Please call me Florie.”

  “Okay,” I said, “Florie it is. I spoke to you about wanting an interview with…” I let the sentence dwindle off, deciding I didn’t want to go into this now with the couple hanging over my shoulder.

  Florie looked blank for a minute, then said with a heavy sigh, “Oh, yes. I don’t know, now. He…”

  “That’s all right, we can talk about it later. Why don’t you help these people?”

  She handed me a registration form to fill out, then turned to the other couple.

  “I’m not staying here, Gar,” the redhead said under her breath.

  He ignored her. “We’d like a double for at least two nights. Understand you’ve got great fishing around here.”

  “We sure do,” Florie said, patently eager for another customer. “I’ll be glad to get—”

  “Where’s that dammed Indian?” The raspy disembodied voice bellowed through the wall again, making us all jump. Thumps sounded, and another roar. “Tell her to bring me some coffee, or
I’ll get the dammed stuff myself.”

  “He’s getting up,” Florie said. “He shouldn’t get up.”

  The man beside me made an exasperated sound and shoved his half-filled-out form across the desk. “Sorry.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I think we’ll go somewhere else after all. Come on, Trish.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Florie said. “It’s my grandfather. He’s usually not this bad. We’re very quiet here. Really.”

  Despite her pleas, the couple walked out with what I thought was undue haste. Headed for the Best Western, no doubt.

  “Shit,” Florie said under her breath. “I’ll kill that old fart.”

  She looked up, gave me a phony smile and hurried through her spiel. “Here’s your key. You’re up the first flight. There are four bedrooms there, all named after the girls who used to ply their trade here. You’re in Mavis, to the left of the stairs.” The thumping behind the wall began again. “Here’s a pamphlet that ex—”

  A huge crash followed by a bellow of rage reverberated through the hall. Florie Dunn jerked around with a stricken look. “No!” She turned and ran through the door at the end of the hall.

  I hesitated a moment, then ducked under the table and ran after her. The door led to another hallway. I followed Florie into a small bedroom, expecting the worst.

  We came to an abrupt halt inside the doorway. An old man sat calmly on the edge of the bed, glaring at us out of angry eyes. A spindly-legged bedside table lay on its side with a lamp, clock radio, ash tray, box of tissues and a variety of other things strewn in a mess across the floor.