A Murky Murder

by Constance Barker

  “That would be nice. A refreshing change.”

  And, Charli thought, it would free the dream, the coincidences from reality. That would be even nicer.

  Chapter 10

  Nobody Home

  The address that Elle and Charli had gotten from Mr. Toomy turned out to be a tidy duplex at the edge of town. It was a quiet neighborhood, slightly past its prime. No one answered the door at Christine’s house, so Charli went to the other door and knocked. A smiling gray-haired older woman opened the door looking delighted to see them.

  “Can I help you?”

  “We are looking for Christine Horner,” Charli told the woman.

  “What a sweet girl she is, but I'm afraid I haven’t seen her in a few weeks,” the woman said. “I’m starting to worry about her.”

  “Do you know her well?”

  “Not really,” she said. “I’m her landlady and we chat sometimes. I know she works at the auto center place. I did a little checking before I rented her the place, you see. I’m rather particular about who lives in the other half of my house.”

  “Of course. That’s sensible.”

  “She was always quiet and polite.”

  “Did she say anything about taking a trip, or being gone for a while?”

  “Not a blessed word.”

  “The thing is...” Elle said, stepping close, we are checking into the disappearance of a friend of hers. We were hoping she knew something, but she hasn’t been to work in weeks. If she is missing too... well, I hope she isn’t in danger of some kind.”

  “That would be terrible.”

  Elle handed her a business card. “We aren’t police or anything like that, but I’m trying to decide if the police should be involved.”

  “Involved how?”

  “Well, if I can’t track her down, they’d need to get a search warrant to look through her things to find clues to where she might’ve gone.”

  The lady put her hand to her mouth. “What a dreadful ruckus that would make.”

  Elle nodded. “If you were to be kind enough to let us in so that we could look around, under your watchful eye, of course, then we’d just pass along any information to the police... if it’s even necessary.”

  She looked uncertain. “It’s her place, her things...”

  “That’s why I’d insist you come with us. You would see that we don’t take anything. We only want to find her. And she isn’t in trouble with us.”

  “That would be dreadful.”

  “It wouldn’t take long at all to put our minds at rest that she is all right.”

  The woman grabbed a ring of keys. “Then we need to do it now.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Charli said.

  They went to the front door and the woman unlocked it. The house had a musty smell from being locked up for a time. The living room was tidy, but when Charli went into the bedroom, she found clothes tossed over an unmade bed. The closet was open and several drawers in a dresser were half shut. When she opened them, they were empty.

  “It looks like someone packed in a hurry,” Elle said over her shoulder. She walked to the closet. “She didn’t take any cold-weather clothes. That makes the flight to Mexico a real possibility.”

  Charli turned and looked at her. “If she’d been planning this trip you’d think she’d have been ready. I’m surprised by the mess.”

  “If she was waiting for him to call... If it was a last-minute decision...”

  “If he disappeared, it certainly seems planned out. Maybe he didn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut and called and told her to get to the airport at the last minute. If she didn’t intend to come back she might not care about taking the time to be neat.”

  “He?” The landlady asked.

  “We think she had a boyfriend.”

  “Oh, I see.” She rubbed her nose. “I do recall her bringing a man home a couple of times. I heard their voices as they walked from the car to the door.”

  Elle brightened. “Would you recognize him?”

  “I never saw him. I can’t even say for certain that it was always the same man. She was a pretty girl and probably didn’t have to settle for one man if she didn’t want to.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “She told me once that the manager she worked for her had a crush on her. Maybe it was him.”

  “I doubt that,” Elle said. “I’m certain he had a crush on her, but he’s still around.”

  “And,” Charli added, “he’s hardly the impulsive type.”

  She sighed. “Ah well. The poor man. Young love is complicated.”

  As Elle and the woman chatted about Christine’s love life, Charli walked through the rest of the house. It was decorated simply, as if the person living there didn’t much care what it looked like as long as it was neat. There were no charms or icons, or even any knickknacks. “She wasn’t into magic,” Charli muttered.

  “Of course not,” the landlady said. “What sensible person would believe in those things?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Elle told her. She winked at Charli. “Some folks around here even believe in the legend of the Woman of the Lake.”

  “The Lake Woman,” Charli said. “At least get it right.”

  “Well that’s more than just a legend,” the landlady said. “People believe that because it’s rather true. Fishermen who go out on that lake, especially at night, are just being foolish if you ask me.”

  Elle cringed. “You know it’s true?”

  “The Lake Woman has claimed a few in my time. The men disappeared and even the police don’t have a better explanation for it.”

  “But they don’t...”

  “They can’t admit a ghost is killing people,” she said firmly. “People would be horrified.”

  “I suppose you're right,” Elle said.

  “What do you do now?” The landlady asked. “Do you need to call the police?”

  “From what I see, she left of her own free will, so there isn’t anything to tell the police yet. For all we know. her boyfriend simply took her on a trip.”

  “Oh, that’s what you were going on about. But she would have mentioned that she would be gone for a while.”

  “Romance,” Charli said. “Young lovers being impulsive and crazy.”

  “That could be. I wish she’d call me though. Eventually, I need to figure out if she intends to come back. I need the income from the rent.”

  “If she calls,” Elle said, “would you let me know?”

  “Happily,” the landlady said. Then she looked at Charli. “I’m rather curious to know why you were thinking she might be into magic?”

  “It has to do with the disappearance we are actually investigating,” she said. “Some of the people involved are under the impression that magic, or at least the Lake Woman, had something to do with it.”

  The landlady snapped her fingers. “That Carter Block who disappeared. Was that her boyfriend? I thought he was married.”

  Elle laughed. “You put that together quickly.”

  “The old brain isn’t totally shot yet, young lady. Two and two still fit together as four.”

  “To answer your questions, yes we are looking for Carter Block, trying to figure out what happened to him. We learned that he was having an affair with Christine Horner. We’d hoped she could tell us something.”

  “So now you think they ran off together.”

  “To be honest,” Elle said, “I hope that’s exactly what happened. I’d love to find out they just ran away, but the man’s wife wants the company to pay on his insurance policy. So we need to know.”

  The landlady put her hands on her hips. “At this point, I’d imagine that the woman would probably prefer the money to getting her faithless husband back.”

  “That could be.”

  “And given the circumstances...” the woman stopped and snorted. “Why in the world would a man go fishing with his buddies and suddenly decided it was a great time to fly to Mexico? That makes no
sense.”

  Elle laughed. “What does make sense then?”

  The landlady tipped her head. “That she heard about his disappearance and was afraid that the wife killed him and was using the legend to cover his murder. If so, she could’ve thought she was next.”

  Charli considered that. “That’s possible. It’s hard to know what the girl thought, or even if that was the sequence of events, but that’s quite an insight. We need to learn more about what happened.”

  The landlady grinned. She was getting caught up in the adventure. “I wish Christine had left more clues in her place for you to find.”

  “At least we didn’t walk into a crime scene,” Charli said.

  “There is that.” She made a face. “All that blood to clean up.”

  They said goodbye and as they walked to the car, Charli found herself pondering the way the landlady dismissed magic, yet embraced legends, and even the reality of a ghost taking her revenge on an unfair world.

  “It surprised me to learn that she believes in the legend,” Elle said. “She seemed sensible.”

  “Unlike your friend, Charli,” Charli said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “You need to be more open-minded.”

  “How is that going to happen?” Elle laughed.

  Suddenly an idea dawned on Charli. Not only would it help her understand her vision better, but it would mean another chance to meet Roger Tanner. “Well, it’s going to happen after you and I camp out overnight at Reelfoot Lake.”

  Elle laughed louder. “Me? Camping?”

  “Yes. I need to get another hit of the place, get an idea of how it feels there at night.”

  “You do, huh? And you're equipped for this?”

  “Dorian has a ton of pawned camping gear and he said we could borrow whatever we needed.”

  “Dorian?”

  “A friend who is researching the legend, or its influence on this world, and who owns a pawn shop filled with stuff.”

  “So we’d be prepared... like with a tent and sleeping bag, that kind of prepared?”

  “Yeah.”

  Elle rolled her eyes. “How joyous. So go with my blessing. Have a grand time.”

  “I’m not spending a night out there alone. This is in the interest of your investigation, dear friend.”

  “Maybe Roger Tanner will keep you company.”

  Hearing her say that out loud made Charli feel uneasy. Was her interest in the man that obvious? “Hey, I’m doing all this for you. The least you can do is be supportive.”

  “Why can’t you do it alone?”

  “Haven’t you heard? The lake is haunted. I want company. Even the ranger said it gets spooky at night.” She avoided saying his name again. Elle would jump on it.

  Elle slumped. “All right, but no ghost stories around the fire, got it?”

  “Me, ghost stories?”

  “All those myths and legends are spooky,” Elle said.

  “Not all, but I get it. Fair enough. There will be enough tension from communing with nature.” While Charli wasn’t anything close to being an outdoor person, compared to Elle she was a regular Davy Crockett.

  Elle gripped the wheel tight. “The question is how I explain to Lester that I’m going camping, which I never do, to track down a ghost I don’t believe in.”

  “You could always tell him you are spending the night with another man.”

  Elle snorted. “That’s tempting, but you know Lester better than that. He’d never believe that either.” She laughed. “In fact, if I told him that, I’m not sure what he’d think.”

  “You could always tell him that a wise woman you met today told you that young love is complicated and you want to find out where that led two young lovers.”

  “You are a complicator, Charli. You and your legends.”

  “Well, we need to spend the night at Reelfoot Lake to find out more about this legend.”

  “I’ll tell Lester I’m going to visit my mother,” Elle muttered. “That will keep him from asking anything.”

  Charli let out a soft sigh. Now that she’d committed and the trip was on, all the doubts and concerns she had, the worries that she’d put a lid on while she convinced Elle, came bubbling up. What had she gotten them into now?

  Well, even if it was camping, at least she’d have a chance to see Roger Tanner again.

  Chapter 11

  So Much Stuff

  Charli had thought that camping would be a simple matter, so it surprised her when she saw the huge pile of gear that Dorian had in his back room.

  “All this stuff.... what do we actually need?” She asked, feeling helpless.

  “A little of everything,” he said. “You can probably skip the snowshoes, but a tent, cots, sleeping bags....” As he talked he grabbed various items and put them into two stacks.

  “The little pile is what I need, right?” she asked.

  “Fortunately. Some of this other stuff is tropical, some arctic....”

  When he thought he’d found everything she needed, they started carrying it out to the car. By the time it was all loaded, she had to hope that Elle wasn’t bringing a lot.... there wouldn’t be room for it.

  When Charli picked her up, Elle took one look at the loaded car and laughed. “I didn’t take this much with me when I took a two-week trip to Europe.”

  “I wasn’t sure what we needed, so I brought everything that looked like camping gear.”

  “Well, I brought clothes and things like that, and a picnic basket of food I like,” Elle said. “We might need to stay out there, but I have no intention of cooking over an open fire.”

  “I don’t think we can do that, anyway. The last time we were out there, there was a sign talking about a high fire danger alert,” Charli told her. “When I called Ranger Tanner to ask if we could reserve the same campsite the fishermen stayed in, he said we’d need a gas stove if we planned to heat anything or make coffee.”

  “And do we have one?”

  Charli shrugged. “There are stove-like boxes and some gas canisters, so I hope so. I didn’t open anything.”

  “Gee, this camping trip will be a lot like Christmas, only if you don’t get the right presents, there'll be hell to pay.”

  Charli laughed. “It isn’t that bad. I think Dorian made sure we have everything we need and then some. The worst case scenario, we'll be miserable all night.”

  Elle snorted. “That’s bad enough to make me grumpy. Which reminds me, are you sure this trip is really necessary for you to track the guy? I was thinking that we could just wait, in comfort, until I find out if he and Christine got on a plane for Mexico. We could go to your house and send out for pizza and pretend we went camping.”

  “I need to be out here at night. I’ve got impressions, but they aren’t clear and finding him requires clarity, right?”

  “Right.”

  “If my dreams have a real connection to this place, to what happened, then proximity, having the tactile sensations, should help clear things up. But impressions fade so we can’t wait. It should do the trick.”

  “Should? I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Hey, what I do, whatever I do, isn’t exactly a science.”

  “Or an art, as far as I can tell.”

  “But it is something that you asked me to try to do for you, Miss Snide.”

  “Yeah, okay. I did ask, and you are getting your pound of flesh.”

  They stopped at the visitor center and Ranger Tanner gave them a ticket to put on the windshield. “It’s a good spot,” he said. “You should see some stars tonight.”

  “Good except for the occasional disappearing person,” Elle said.

  “She’s excited about being with nature,” Charli said. “She just doesn’t like to show it.”

  “Yeah, I’m a real Thoreau,” Elle said.

  “Can you show us where the remains of that deer were found?” Charli asked.

  “The deer? There wasn’t much left, which was why we
suspected it was poachers and not an animal kill. There isn’t anything to see, really.”

  “I’d like to see the spot, get a sense of where it is in the scheme of things.”

  He grinned. “You want to know how it fits into the matrix.”

  “To overuse what has become a cliche, yes.”

  “Fine,” he said. He handed her a map. “Your campsite is over here. You follow the drive as it circles the lake and park in your marked spot.” He pointed to a ticket. “Number 29 is yours. After I close the visitor center for the night, I’ll come by your campsite and show you where the kill was. It will still be light.”

  “The center closes?” Elle said.

  “Sure. People get off work and go home.”

  “What happens when a wild creature goes on a rampage?”

  Tanner shook his head. “Usually people throw a rock at it and it goes away.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Even that panther? The one with the terrible scream?”

  “Even that,” he said. “The only person I know of who was attacked by a panther in this region was a guy who shot at one with a slingshot. I'd call that self-defense, myself.”

  “What about Carter Block?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s easy to blame his disappearance on the cat, but if she was a person, she’d argue that any evidence of her guilt is, at best, circumstantial.”

  “True,” Charli said. “And you think the cat is innocent?”

  He nodded. “Can’t see it. Mostly, because of the lack of a carcass, as I told you.”

  “So you're saying we shouldn’t worry about the panther?” Elle asked.

  Tanner grinned. “As long as you don’t feed her. Those cats are beautiful, but she is a wild animal.”

  “Or shoot at her with a slingshot,” Charli added.

  “Right.” Tanner gave her a grin. “I’m sure you’ll be okay, but I’ll give you ladies my cell phone number just in case.”

  Charli reached out as Tanner took out a business card and wrote his phone number on the back. “Thank you,” she said. “That will be comforting.”

  “So, I’ll be by later.”

  Elle took Charli’s arm as they left to walk out to the car. “It’s worth noting, just so that it is part of the official record that, when the man gave ‘us ladies’ his number, he was looking at you and he gave it to you.”