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

  “You did that on purpose,” Florie said in disgust.

  He continued to glare. Florie whirled and left the room.

  The old man turned his gaze to me. His blue eyes were small and had the washed-out filmy appearance that comes with age. Even so, there was a shrewdness to them, and I guessed he didn’t miss much.

  “Who in hell are you?”

  “A guest.” I said. His khaki trousers and well-worn blue plaid flannel shirt covered a solid, but wiry-looking small frame. No more than five-eight or nine, I guessed. He had one of those round boyish-looking faces that was probably just now showing his real age. A plastic oxygen hose connected to a portable carrier beside the bed dangled around his neck, rather than from his nose.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, get me my shoes.” He unhooked a cane from the headboard and pointed it at a pair of off-brand athletic shoes against the wall, then glared at me again.

  I was used to crusty old men, and held back a grin, more amused than irritated by his over-the-top rudeness. He reminded me of Gramps, or I thought sadly, of the man Gramps had once been.

  “Say please,” I said.

  His mouth twitched a bit, and a gleam of humor flashed briefly behind his eyes. “Service ain’t much around here,” he mumbled, as if in explanation, or maybe even apology. “Shoes?” he asked sarcastically, pointing at them again. “I got to get a smoke.”

  The hint of inquiry in his tone was probably as close as he ever came to “please.” I relented. Of course, I was also pretty sure I knew who the old guy was.

  Web Corcoran, a.k.a. Kid Corcoran, sometimes known as the Nickel Kid. Last of the Western Banditos.

  “I have you at a bit of a disadvantage, Mr. Corcoran,” I said, as I crossed the room to get his shoes. “I do know who you are. I’m Thea Barlow, an editor for Western True Adventures magazine. I called your granddaughter several weeks ago and she said you’d be willing to talk to me. I hope you were a party to that decision, because I think our readers will be really interested in hearing about you. Your exploits brightened a lot of lives back in the depression.”

  The old newspaper stories were wonderful. One of my favorites involved a bank heist, followed by a Keystone Cop-ish car chase through the streets of a small Utah town. Finally the Kid ditched his car for a saddled horse he snatched from somebody’s corral and fled cross-country where the Pinkerton cars couldn’t follow, juggling his bags of loot. In the process he—either accidentally or intentionally—tossed one of the bags to a group of boys who’d been following the chase on foot. As it turned out, that bag contained most of the money and the Kid ended up with a haul of not much more than a hundred dollars.

  I asked, “Are you familiar with the magazine?”

  It was a loaded question. I could see a copy of the latest issue on a stack beside the bed. He harrumphed a bit, but appeared more concerned about pulling one of the objects that littered the floor closer to him. He poked at it with the head of his cane, trying to draw it forward.

  “Here. Let me,” I said, and picked it up by its handle. It was a knife of some kind, handmade, the long, narrow blade covered by a leather sheath wrapped tightly at the haft with a rawhide strand. I felt sure it would be referred to as a “pigsticker.” A jailhouse remnant? I handed it to him wordlessly.

  With a penetrating look, he took the knife and placed it on the bed beside him, then stuffed his feet into his shoes. But when Florie Dunn came back in the room with a mug and carafe of coffee I caught the swift movement of his hand as he shoved the weapon out of sight under his pillow.

  Florie didn’t notice, her eyes were on the shoes. “What are you doing?” she asked, watching him lace up.

  “Getting out of this damned bed for awhile.”

  “The doctor said no. Not for another day, at least.”

  “This young lady here is going to take me out on the porch so’s I can get a smoke.”

  Florie’s jaw firmed up again and she shot me one of those and-what-business-is-this-of-yours looks. I didn’t want to become a part of this battle, or any other between the two of them until I knew more about what was going on.

  I raised my hands and grinned at him. “Sorry,” I said. “This young lady is not going to do any such thing. I just got here. I’m going up to my room and get unpacked. I’ll see you later.” I nodded to both of them, and got the hell out of there.

  Two

  I lugged my suitcase up the staircase, stopping to catch my breath on the first landing. The thing weighed a ton. I was pooped. All I wanted was to get settled in my room and relax a bit. The flight from Chicago to Casper, Wyoming, had left during the wee hours of the morning. From Casper I’d caught a puddle-jumper, laughably called the Antelope Airlines, piloted by a man—a kid, it seemed—wearing jeans and a John Deere cap.

  On the ground in Rawhide, the pilot became a gratis taxi driver and brought me into town in a twenty-year-old pickup truck with a loose steering wheel and a hole in the gas tank. We only had to stop once while he raced around and filled the tank from a gas can he carried in the back. I soon learned his name was Kendall. He was twenty-five, not the fourteen he looked, and he sure as hell hoped that I was going to the rodeo that night ‘cause he was all set to ride a saddle bronc and if he won top money he might put it into this here truck, but probably wouldn’t ‘cause he much preferred to fly anyhow. Sweet as he was, neither of the rides I’d had with Kendall were my most favorite things in the world. I felt fortunate to be let off at Racy Ladies in one piece.

  I struggled up the rest of the stairs and looked around. Each of the four rooms had a name scrolled on the door enlivened with a fancy gilt border. I found mine, Mavis, but was a bit envious of the room opposite, named Hard-Nosed Lu. She sounded much more venturesome. Lucky was next to me on the right and Jenny Frisco on the left. I hoped we didn’t all share the bathroom that was situated between Jenny and the unfortunate Lu.

  A large bulletin board with stuff tacked on it hung on the wall next to the bathroom, and tucked around the corner from the stairwell was an archway with another flight of stairs to either more rooms above, or storage space. Worth investigating at another time, perhaps.

  My bedroom was fine, even though the air conditioner turned out to be one of those cheap rattly things stuck in a window. I turned it on, hoping for the best as it wheezed to life.

  I tossed the key and brochures I’d been given onto the dresser and inspected an old photograph hanging on the wall beside the mirror. The woman pictured wore a long dress with tight sleeves and held a parasol demurely over her shoulder. She looked prim and crabby, but maybe it was just the tight corsets getting to her. Mavis Perkins, the placard underneath said, came to Rawhide with the railroads. Looked like a pretty tough cookie to me.

  To my delight, I didn’t have to share the bath down the hall. I had my own. No shower, but a wonderful old enamel tub with feet.

  I put my suitcase on the bed and unzipped it. I had a couple of hours before Max was supposed to meet me here.

  An independent oilman and geologist, he was off sitting a well somewhere in the boonies.

  “The West goes wild on the fourth of July!” Max’s fax had said. “Steers, sheep, pigs and cowboys, including yours truly, cavort at Wild West Days in Rawhide, Wyoming. Will you come?” He had followed up that message with a phone call and a kicker: The town’s most notorious son, Web Corcoran, a.k.a. Kid Corcoran, or the Nickel Kid, had returned to Rawhide after a long stay in a California penitentiary. Max knew his story would be prime fodder for Western True Adventures and of great interest to me.

  He was right. I was always on the lookout for interesting material. There’s not much new to be said about the old West. Western True Adventures is a pulp magazine aimed at a small but faithful audience interested in all the minutia of history to be gleaned about the old, and not so old, Wild West. Max knew the presence of Web Corcoran, and even the Racy Ladies brothel turned bed-and-breakfast, another possible story, would be enticements.

 
; Of course, all of this was totally immaterial and came under the heading of obfuscation. Both Max and I knew that the real reason for this visit was to decide, once and for all, if there was a spark worth fanning in what had once been a hot and steamy relationship.

  I’d met Max on my first trip to Wyoming. It seemed like a hundred years ago. In fact, it was only three. I had just been hired at the magazine and was working on my first project, the history of an old whorehouse called Halfway Halt. At that time I was quite desperate to prove myself a success at something, anything, so the new job took precedence over everything else. When the project was finished I went back to Chicago.

  Max and I maintained our relationship pretty well for over a year. At that time his business brought him closer to Chicago and frequent visits were possible. But when his oil prospecting turned back to Wyoming and California, things became more difficult. A blaze like that which roared between Max and me is hard to tend long distance. A few smoldering embers was all that remained at this point, and we had both started seeing other people, though we didn’t talk about it much. We hadn’t seen each other for close to eight months. The time had come to decide whether we needed a bellows for fanning, or a bucket of water.

  On one hand, I was looking forward to seeing Max again, on the other, I thought it pretty pathetic, or perhaps prophetic, that I couldn’t quite remember what he looked like. Something that would soon be remedied.

  In the meantime, I was dying of thirst. I remembered seeing some kind of a shop across the street. If they didn’t have a cold drink, surely it wouldn’t be difficult to find one somewhere else.

  I unpacked a few things and put them in the odd little closets tucked in corners and under the eaves, then went out into the hallway. A girl loaded down with baggage trudged up the stairs. I waited at the top while she maneuvered up the last few steps.

  She wore spike-heeled granny boots laced up her ankles, a teeny-tiny, dark flowered chiffon skirt that just flirted with the idea of covering her butt, and a sleeveless low-cut latex top that pushed her boobs into alarming prominence. A fat rose pinned back the brim of a squishy hat pulled low on her forehead.

  “Jeez,” she said, hitching the strap of an over-large duffel bag back in place on her shoulder. “You’d think they’d have a bellboy or something.”

  She let an enormous camera bag that hung from her other shoulder slide to the floor and juggled the purse, newspapers, tote and briefcase as she looked around.

  “Whoa!” she said with delight. “The rooms really are named. Where’s Hard-Nosed Lu? That’s me. Who’re you?”

  She had a pixie face with astonishing blue eyes and a wide smile. Tiny, twenty and adorable, I thought, with the wistful twinge of a thirty-two year old.

  “I’m Mavis,” I said, gesturing at the label on my door. “Otherwise known as Thea Barlow. I think you’ve got the best of it, Mavis sounds kind of prim and mousy to me.”

  “Anybody in these other rooms?”

  “I don’t know, I just got here.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine there’re waiting lines for anything in a jerky town like this. Talk about nowhere.” She eyed my linen slacks and silk shirt. “What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly. “You don’t look like your regular Joe Blow tourist to me.” She tried to slide the camera bag towards her door with her foot, then the notebook and newspapers slid, and the juggling began again.

  “Here, let me help.” I picked up the heavy camera bag. “You a photographer?” I asked, and set it down in front of her door.

  “Yeah, kind of. At least I’m heading that way. I’m a reporter, here for a story.” Her face lit up with pride.

  “Oh, really? What about?”

  Maybe my birds-of-a-feather interest came across too aggressively for her. The big blue eyes narrowed, flitted around the hallway and brushed over the bulletin board hanging by the bathroom door. A poster featuring a bucking bronco announced in big letters a weekend of rodeo events, craft exhibits and a free buffalo barbecue.

  “Small town rodeos and celebrations,” she said, obviously plucking the idea from the poster. “What about you?”

  She was so patently suspicious of me and my motives that I wanted to laugh. Lois Lane, hot on the trail of a fast-breaking story. There couldn’t be more than one big news item in a town the size of Rawhide; she had to be after Web Corcoran, too. But why she was afraid someone might scoop her was beyond me. Kid Corcoran’s seedy past wasn’t a hot item. A few of my competitors would be interested in his story, but we were used to rehashing the same material. If she wanted to sell to them, or anyone else for that matter, it wouldn’t bother me.

  Unfortunately, I can never resist a good toss in the game of one-upmanship. “Small world,” I said as ingenuously as she. “I’m here for a story, too. Ever heard of Kid Corcoran? He was one of the last of the old-time bank and train robbers. He might make a more interesting article than small town rodeos. I could probably arrange an interview for you if you’re interested.”

  Her look of dropped-mouth surprise changed quickly to suspicion and anger. Before she had a chance to reply, I gave her a lofty wave, batted my baby browns, and trotted down the stairs, hot on the trail of some iced tea. But I must admit, my curiosity was piqued. I had done my homework. Kid Corcoran was no Butch Cassidy, or even a Bill Carlyle, more truly designated last of the train robbers. Kid Corcoran was a very, very small blip on the edge of Western history. None of the newspapers or magazines that might be interested in him, including ours, paid writers enough money to be worth a plane ticket from very far away. And young Lois Lane certainly didn’t look like she was from around here.

  Had I missed something? Was there more to the mildly infamous Kid than I was aware of?

  Outside, I took a quick look at some for sale items on the porch. A wicker chair and potted geranium sat on one side of the front door. On the other, a screened-in porch ran the length of the house. At its far end was one of those fabulous to look at, but perilous to sit on peacock chairs. Craft items were scattered artistically on and around a bench and two small tables close beside it. Too much country charm for me.

  I went down the front steps. The ever-present Wyoming wind did nothing to cool the heat, but did manage to throw copious amounts of dirt and debris through the air, depositing a fine coat of dust on everything in sight, including an open Jeep badly parked at the curb. I resisted the urge to write something rude on the fender and crossed the street, picking my way around raised ribbons of tar bubbles.

  I had my eye on a small park-like area about half a block down and across from Racy Ladies. An old depot building, now painted bright blue and turned into a gift shop, sat on a patch of green grass shaded by two huge cottonwood trees. Tubs of slightly parched, but still brilliant petunias flanked the front door. Off to one side was some kind of a restored train engine on display. A veritable oasis on a street otherwise filled with drab remnants of unrenovated history.

  A sign above the store’s entrance said Wyoming Jade, then in smaller print underneath, Rocks, Minerals, Gifts, Refreshments. A bell jangled when I opened the door. The inside was bright and airy, not overcrowded with tourist junk. A woman with a frizzy, graying perm and a bright smile sat on a high stool behind a counter at the far end of the store.

  “Hello, there,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Iced tea would be wonderful if you have some.”

  “Of course I do, honey.” She jumped down and bustled around getting a large paper cup and ice. I could see why she liked a high stool. She was short, five-one or two at the most, but filled with energy and good-natured chatter.

  “Sure is hot out there. Where you from?”

  “Chicago.”

  She chuckled. “You’re a long ways from home.” She poured tea from a glass jug into the cup and handed it to me. “Fresh sun tea. I make gallons of it every day. Sell more of it than that nasty old soda pop, but don’t tell Pepsi I said so.” The words burbled out of her like a warm spring. “You
just going through town, or staying awhile?”

  The bell over the door jangled again. An elderly couple festooned with cameras strolled in. Sipping my tea, I wandered off to look at the merchandise while the newcomers received the big greeting.

  “Hello, there. Where you folks from? What can I do for you?” Tourism was alive and well in Wyoming.

  The shelves held the usual tourist gimcracks, as well as some quite nice gift items, but I was drawn to the opposite end of the shop where there were trays of polished agates, rough hunks of turquoise, and rows of mineral specimens.

  A locked glass case sat against the wall and obviously contained the more expensive items. A hand-lettered sign on the top shelf said Wyoming Jade, but an exquisite set of four widely flared wine glasses on the second shelf immediately caught my eye. Each was a different color: pink lightly veined with threads of green; white; pale green; and a dense shimmering black. The bowls were translucent with the delicacy of the finest porcelain.

  “Nice, aren’t they?” the bouncy little woman said, appearing magically beside me.

  “Gorgeous. What are they made of?”

  “Jade,” she said, mildly incredulous, as if I should have known. “Everything in the case is jade, honey. Wyoming jade.”

  “Wyoming? What do you mean?”

  “Why, that it was found here.”

  “But surely,” I said, gesturing at an intricately carved vase on another shelf and a grouping of kimono clad figurines. “Surely those are Chinese.”

  “They were carved in China, but the jade was found right here, by my daddy, in fact. Just about fifty miles up on Soda Creek.”

  “Is it real jade?”

  She gave a little snort. “You bet your life it is.”

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to refute you; I’m just amazed, is all. I’ve always associated jade with the orient, and museums, and stuffy old mansions, not—”