An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 5) Paperback – September 4, 2014 Read Online Free PDF

legacy. This place was in really bad shape when they got here. Pop poured years and lots of money getting it this far, but then they spent a January down in Nevada and fell in love with the desert. That’s where I come into the story.”
    “So, you’ve been living here on your own?”
    “Mostly. My name is on the deed, but my parents come up in the summer. They help me with odds and ends, like fixing the roof, replacing the lead plumbing with copper, painting and staining, and whatever else they’re up to tackling.”
    I glanced back at the doorway, making sure Detective Cooper wasn’t loitering within hearing distance. “How long had the woman in apartment four lived here?”
    “Ms. Wolff?” Freesia lowered her gaze. She kicked at a raised nail head in the porch floor boards. “She moved in about a year after my parents took over the place. They’d changed it from a boarding house into an apartment building, and she was the first to rent a unit. She told my pop that she’d lived here years ago, too, back before it fell into disrepair.”
    I wondered if Ms. Wolff had been around during the last round of murders and shrunken skulls. Now didn’t seem like a good time to ask that question aloud. Freesia probably wouldn’t know the answer anyway.
    “What was Ms. Wolff like?” I pressed, trying to see if she had a history of crazy or if her phone call to me had been a one-off?
    “Violet,” Harvey warned, nudging his head toward the front door. “Coop’s wrapping up.”
    I needed to hurry it up if I was going to pick Freesia’s brain before Cooper bullied her into keeping her lips sealed around anyone without a badge. “Ms. Wolff called me today,” I said quietly to Freesia. “She insisted I come over here and see her immediately.”
    “I know.” Her volume matched mine. “Willis told me.”
    Her use of Harvey’s first name inspired a raised brow for the old man. “What else did you tell her?”
    He shrugged. “She had a right to know since she owns the place.”
    “Anyway …” I turned back to Freesia, catching sight of Cooper in my peripheral. He was talking to the cop guarding the door to Ms. Wolff’s apartment. “What I’m wondering is if Ms. Wolff was in her right mind when she called me or if she was prone to eccentricity.”
    Like calling a Realtor out of the blue and scaring her with talk about the Grim Reaper.
    Freesia pulled her jacket tighter around her and buried her hands in her pockets. “Ms. Wolff had a mind like a steel trap. She knew the history of the Black Hills inside and out and could tell you the names of people who had come and gone since back before Big Jake came to town. Her bedroom has a long shelf filled with one history book after another, as well as some personal journals she’d acquired over the years. I asked her once if she was a retired teacher, but she shook her head and changed the subject.”
    Harvey shouldered me over a step. “What’s with all of those cuckoo clocks?”
    “She liked to collect them.”
    “How come none of them have the right time?” Harvey prodded some more.
    “I asked her about that when I first took over. She said that if they all were to go off at the same time, the commotion would keep her up day and night.”
    The ticking alone would make me climb the walls. “It would be pretty loud. There have to be over fifty clocks in there.”
    “One hundred and thirteen last time I counted,” Freesia corrected me.
    “Did she have any friends who’d visit her?” I asked. “An ex-husband? Or a boyfriend even?”
    “Or a girlfriend?” Harvey asked. When I frowned at him, he shrugged. “What? Maybe she didn’t like boys.”
    Freesia’s forehead furrowed as she looked toward Main Street. “Every now and then she’d talk about a man she used to go on picnics with years ago and this forlorn smile would creep onto her lips; otherwise, she was a textbook version of a loner. Most days, she went out only if she needed groceries. My