Loose Lips Read online

  Loose Lips

  Book 5 in the Dusty Deals Mystery Series

  By Rae Davies

  Published by

  Copyright Rae Davies & Lori Devoti, 2016

  Smashwords Edition

  File Updated April 2016

  This book is set in the real city of Helena, Montana. However, this is a work of fiction and all people, places of business, and events are fictional. Any similarity to anyone, thing or place is purely coincidence.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or a portion thereof, in any form. This book may not be resold or uploaded for distribution to others.

  If you notice any typos or formatting issues with this book, the author would appreciate being notified.

  Email her at [email protected]

  Dusty Deals Mystery Series

  Loose Screw

  Cut Loose

  Loosey Goosey

  Let Loose

  Lucy and the Valentine Verdict (a Dusty Deals Novella)

  Loose Lips

  CHAPTER ONE

  They say competition is good for everything from the soul to the economy to the human race itself – that whole “survival of the fittest” thing and all that.

  That was all fine and good, if you were the fittest.

  But if you were me or Joe of Cuppa Joe’s fame, it pretty much sucked.

  It was a beautiful April Monday in Helena, Montana, with an insanely warm predicted high of sixty–three degrees.

  I’d broken out shorts for the occasion and left my brown burrito of a coat at home.

  However, since the current temp was still a good twenty below what was predicted for later that day, I’d dropped my Alaskan malamute, Kiska, off at my antique store, Dusty Deals, and trotted a few doors down to Cuppa Joe’s for something warm and sweet and invigorating to get my Monday brain out of its fog.

  I’d found Joe. Alone.

  “Where’s the crowd?” I asked, hoping my cheerful tone didn’t sound too cheery, in that Oh–my–God–are–you–dying kind of way.

  He grunted and reached for a clean white mug. “Hey, Lucy. Usual?” he asked. When he turned around, he was smiling, but I could see that the expression was forced.

  “So... uh...” I looked around.

  He set my cup down and sighed. “Coffee cart.”

  “Coffee cart...?” I wasn’t following.

  “New place. Opened up off Euclid, in the shopping center.”

  I had noticed the place. It was on my way in. In fact, I’d considered stopping there myself, it was so convenient, but the line of trucks and cars wrapping around the parking lot to get to the tiny kiosk had to date kept me driving.

  It had also, though, tempted me to stop just to see why everyone else was stopping.

  Dropping my gaze in guilt, I dug through my bag for the three dollars to pay for my latte.

  Joe waved off my money. “Keep it. I owe you at least one for staying loyal.”

  Feeling even more guilty, I shoved the money into the tip jar while he turned to set a dirty cup in the rubber bin under the back counter.

  “So...” I said, feeling like I couldn’t just walk away, free coffee in hand. “What are they doing that’s attracting so many people?”

  He wiped the wooden counter down and shrugged. “I don’t know, but half my usual customers seem to be going there. I haven’t seen Darrell Deere in two weeks. Ben Holden, Randy Getts and about a half a dozen others quit showing in the last week too.”

  All men with offices downtown, and none that I knew of who lived out that direction like I did. There was no good reason for them to desert Joe for some upstart kiosk.

  “I saw Peter there too,” Joe mumbled, looking a little ashamed as he said it.

  Peter Blake was a Helena Police Department detective and my boyfriend.

  “Really?” Peter had been staying at my house more than usual, but still, deserting Joe? What was he thinking?

  “Yep.” Joe stared at me as if I might have some explanation.

  “Might have been police business,” I offered. Lame, but the best I had.

  “I suppose.” He sighed again and glanced out the window.

  A group of men walked by. None walked in.

  “Well...” I said, edging toward the door. “It was good to see you.”

  Sounding sadder than a malamute with an empty food bowl, he replied, “You too.” And disappeared into the back.

  Taking full advantage of the opening, I hustled out the front and back to Dusty Deals.

  o0o

  Betty Broward, my part–time employee, had arrived at my shop while I’d been on the coffee hunt.

  In a silk navy kimono, and with some kind of silver comb sticking out of her hair, she looked even more out of place than usual. The gigantic sketchpad propped on her knees and craft–store’s full inventory of colored pencils, paints, and other artsy tools laid out around her didn’t help blend the image into the backdrop of my decidedly beige shop.

  The kimono, while new, wasn’t surprising enough for a comment. “Another poster competition?” I asked.

  A few months earlier, Betty had won the annual poster competition for the local sled dog race. Her posters were everywhere for most of the winter.

  I personally still had about a hundred stowed in one corner of my office.

  Which reminded me... “I was thinking…

  Her brows peaked. “Really?”

  I made a face at her surprised tone. Honestly, weren’t we more mature than that?

  Putting on my most prim expression, I continued. “It is spring, and you know what that brings...”

  “Showers? Flowers? Bunnies bopping?”

  “No...”

  “Baby bunnies after the bopping?”

  Okay, so maybe. I tilted my head. But not what I’d had in mind.

  “Cleaning!” I announced.

  She lowered the pencil she’d been holding. “Seriously?”

  My prim look quota was about used up, but I did my best. “Yes, seriously.”

  Looking less than believing, she tapped one lone red nail against the sketchpad.

  “I know it’s been a while, but summer is coming, and there will be auctions and tourists and—”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “I get it.”

  I was immediately defensive. “Get what?”

  “Your family. They’re still coming this summer, aren’t they? Do you know when yet? Where were you planning on them staying anyway? They know you... they won’t expect this place to be too clean, will they?”

  There were a lot of questions loaded into that two seconds of breath, and I didn’t really feel like answering any of them. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Some sudden thought apparently occurring to her, Betty waved her hands in the air, hopped off the stool, and, silk fluttering behind her, hurried into my office.

  A few seconds later, she was back with a flyer pinched between thumb and index finger. “This!” she cried triumphantly.

  Wary, I stepped forward and took the paper.

  Help the Downtown Celebrate Helena’s 150th Birthday!

  Below the headline was a list of events that the Downtown Merchants’ Association had planned for the coming year, all of them to mark 150 years since the four Georgians wandered past a creek and stopped to pan for gold. It was, they had claimed, their “last chance” before they were giving up on their dream of hitting it rich.

  The creek was gone, but the street where my store stood was named after that last chance and ran along where the creek had been too.

  I scanned the list: a stone monument, a mural, a brew fest... the list went on and on.

  Apparently losing patience with me, Betty stabbed at the paper with one nail. “Here
!”

  “Window display contest,” I read. “Downtown business to develop the best window display featuring some historic event or theme of Helena’s past 150 years will win a featured spot in the Downtown Merchants’ Association’s full page ad in the Helena Daily News, one year free membership in the Downtown Merchants’ Association, and a one–week stay at Chambers Bed & Breakfast.”

  I looked up into Betty’s beaming smile.

  “Well?”

  Well was right. The Chambers was a little close to my shop for my taste, walking distance actually, but close to my shop was a whole lot better than in my house, which is where my parentals had been planning to stay. My mom because in her mind being packed like sardines was, when it came to family, a good thing, and my dad because he’d rather live like a sardine than pay for one. And sardines were cheap.

  My dad was cheaper.

  “Well...” I repeated. The contest wasn’t going to get rid of my need to clean. In fact, with my mother within strolling distance of the shop, it might intensify that need, but the chance to win a week of semi–privacy when I undoubtedly would need it most?

  “What do we need to do?” I asked.

  o0o

  Two hours later, after a trip to the library by me and an intense session of Googling by Betty, we were sitting in the front part of my shop going over possible themes for our window display.

  “It should match the store,” I said, reaching down to stroke the top of Kiska’s head.

  Done with his morning nap, he’d decided to join us on the loveseat.

  “You run an antique store. Anything you do will match.”

  True enough.

  Of course that also made my mission harder. Anything I did would have to be historically accurate.

  I said as much to Betty.

  She nodded. “Not like what The Castle is doing.”

  The Castle was a downtown casino, named after a long–gone Helena brothel.

  “Not prostitution?” I guessed.

  Betty shook her head. “A friend of mine who works there said the owner was worried about offending people.”

  “They’re a casino, and they’re named after a brothel,” I replied, more than a little dumbfounded.

  Betty shrugged. “But most people don’t know that last part, and people here aren’t as uptight about the first part as they are in other parts of the country.” She raised a brow as if was from one of those parts, and maybe I was. Missouri didn’t have casinos like Montana did. They had some, but the ones I knew of were on riverboats, and there weren’t any that I could think of anywhere near my hometown in the Missouri Ozarks.

  “They pride themselves on being family–friendly,” Betty added.

  I couldn’t help myself. “They’re a casino.”

  “With the best prime rib in town.” Betty nodded in a “and that ends that” kind of way.

  Whatever. I personally had no issue with the casinos. I even enjoyed a little computer blackjack now and again. But I also found it somewhat annoying that The Castle would put on some high–and–mighty act and deny their namesake.

  I sat a little straighter in my seat. “Madams were the first businesswomen and female property owners in the West.” Okay, so I didn’t know enough personal information on the madams of Helena and other Gold Rush towns to say they were all that was good and kind, but there hadn’t been a lot of options for women in that time, and I respected that a number of them had risen as far as they had in what was inarguably a man’s world.

  “So, is that our theme?” Betty asked, looking completely content with the idea.

  I stuttered. I respected the idea of strong women coming west and gaining power and property, but a part of me, maybe the hometown part of me, still wasn’t sure.

  “Of course, if it isn’t family–friendly enough for you...” The mockery was clear in her eyes.

  “What if someone else is already doing prostitution?” I hedged.

  “They aren’t.” She folded her hands in her lap.

  I didn’t know how she could be so sure, but I’d known Betty long enough not to doubt her.

  She stared me down in obvious challenge. Put your shop window where your mouth is...

  “Then, of course, we’ll have to do it,” I replied with a don’t–be–silly titter.

  “Great!” she announced, standing. “I know just where to get us costumes.”

  Wait... costumes? I should have known.

  o0o

  The next morning, as Kiska and I passed the shopping center where Joe’s competition was located, I couldn’t help but notice that cars were once again lined up, waiting for their turn at the kiosk.

  Time, I decided, to do a bit of market research for Joe.

  I pulled into the lot and carefully maneuvered my Jeep Cherokee around the winding line. Car, truck, bigger truck... New, old, barely running. The kiosk’s clientele seemed to be pretty varied.

  Except...

  I circled around and drove by again, this time against the flow, so I was facing the customers. Y, Y, Y... I was eight vehicles down before I saw someone not bearing a Y chromosome, and she wasn’t in line for coffee.

  In fact, she seemed to be in direct opposition of one Y chromosome in particular getting his coffee.

  Four vehicles from the front of the line, a red truck with a toolbox in the back sat idling. Standing beside the truck, pounding on the driver’s side window with her fist was a middle–aged woman wearing nylon shorts and a T–shirt that proclaimed her love of cheese.

  I liked cheese too, but felt the size of my thighs advertised that fact enough.

  “Don’t tell me you need coffee! You had coffee at home! I know why you’re in this line, you dirty old man!”

  The dirty old man in question did not roll down his window or, for that matter, even glance in her direction. He wrenched his steering wheel to the right and sped out of the line and out of the lot.

  The cheese lover crossed her arms over her chest and eyed the next man in the queue. Already rolling his sedan forward to fill the vacancy, he thought better of it and exited too.

  She stood there for another few minutes, eyeing those more determined in their search for coffee and mumbling to herself before tromping to a non–descript hatchback, starting it up and leaving the lot.

  My curiosity peaked, I took one more turn around the parking lot, slowing down as I passed the kiosk in an attempt to see inside. Unfortunately, a gray 4x4 completely blocked my view.

  I considered getting in line myself, but I was worried that Joe would find out and think I too had deserted him. Better to take my intriguing information to experts in the field of gossip and Helena goings on.

  o0o

  Like any good ex–reporter, I met with my sources in private. Meaning, I talked my best friend Rhonda into putting off opening her used book store, Pegasus Books, while she, Betty and my other employee, somewhat partner, Phyllis, ate stale donuts that some well–meaning customer of Rhonda’s had dropped off the day before.

  A customer who obviously didn’t know my health–conscious friend all that well.

  I bit into a chocolate–covered Long John and described the scene. “It was crazy,” I added at the end of my tale.

  Betty selected a huckleberry–jelly–filled donut from the box. “Prudes. Those girls have every right to dress however they like.” To emphasize the point, she fussed with today’s outfit, another kimono robe worn over what appeared to be not a whole lot more.

  I really hoped the knot in the silk belt held.

  Phyllis, in her very proper, very skin–covering slacks and cardigan, crossed her legs. “You wouldn’t say that if Everett was sitting in that line every day.”

  Betty narrowed her eyes at Phyllis and bit into her pastry with a tad more gusto than seemed necessary.

  I, obviously, was missing something here though. “What do you mean they can dress how they like? How are they dressing?”

  “Trampy,” Phyllis announced. “And not a one of
them is under a C cup.”

  I glanced at Betty, who just rolled her eyes.

  “What exactly does trampy mean?” I asked. Native Texan and regular wearer of pearls and cashmere, Phyllis and I didn’t exactly share the same worldview. Her trampy might be my... well, I couldn’t think of anything I wore she would term trampy – ugly, inappropriate, embarrassing, sure...

  “Bikini tops,” Rhonda announced, popping something healthy and not of the pastry family into her mouth.

  I frowned. “Bikini tops, but...” It was warm this week. Not bikini warm, but by Montana standards pretty nice. But last week, we’d still been in full parka–wearing winter. And the kiosk had appeared at least two weeks before that.

  Betty finished her donut and gave her nemesis, Phyllis, a glare. “It’s marketing, and it’s working. If I could pull it off, I’d put my brass on display too.”

  “You’d have to polish it up a bit first. Maybe pound out a few dents,” Phyllis retorted.

  Betty growled, and I quickly threw my body between them. A few jaw snaps and waving of fingers later, they’d settled down enough I thought it was safe to go back to our conversation.

  “So, the woman I saw was mad because her husband was coming to the kiosk for—”

  “Something other than coffee,” Phyllis declared.

  “Oh.”

  Joe had said he’d seen Peter there too. I glanced down at my chest.

  Betty rolled her eyes.

  Still not sure I had the whole story, I looked around the group. “So, the men are going there because the girls working there wear bikini tops.”

  Betty nodded, Rhonda considered, and Phyllis pursed her lips.

  “More or less,” Phyllis added.

  “Less?”

  Phyllis raised a judging brow. “Two words... Mardi Gras.”

  “Mardi Gras?”

  Seeing how slow I was on the uptake, Betty jumped in to translate.

  “She’s saying they flash their headlights.”

  “Their...?”

  Betty pointed at her chest.

  I dropped my donut. “No!” As soon as I did it, I was embarrassed. I was a progressive woman, and I wasn’t a prude.

  “Guess they really are BAREistas,” Rhonda offered with a grin.