Assailants, Asphalt & Alibis: A Camper & Criminals Cozy Mystery Series Book 8

by Tonya Kappes

  “I’ve got a few things we are investigating, so I’ll be going to the office for a couple hours. I’ll grab her on my way home.” He smiled. “Anything you need me to do around here?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head. “Henry is going to clean up Mason and Dirk’s spot before the weekend guests get here.”

  Our busiest times around here were Thursday through Saturday nights. The guests generally got here around Thursday night or Friday so they could have all weekend to hike and do what they wanted. We were completely full for the weekend.

  “I heard over the weather alert this morning when I went into the office before I picked up Granny that there might be a few pop-ups over the weekend.” He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already expect. We were in the dog days of summer, which brought the heat and humidity along with a few showers here and there. Nothing like the tornadoes we have in the spring.

  “Everything in the camper is secured.” Abby had met us around the back side of my home on wheels as I took the stoppers out from underneath the rubber. “Agnes and Mary Elizabeth are on the couch with their seatbelts on, and Queenie insists she sits up front.”

  “Looks like you gals are ready.” Hank put his hand on my back. “I’ll get this taken care of.” He still had the blue bag to deal with.

  Hank gave me a quick kiss.

  “Be careful,” he warned.

  “I will.” I shook my head and tapped Abby because I heard Mason put his camper in gear. I looked over at him. We made eye contact and gave the good Baptist nod. “Let’s go.”

  Hank stood there and watched as we got into the camper. Mason pulled out, then Dirk, and I followed.

  I couldn’t help but look in my side mirror at Hank standing there. Blue bag and all.

  FOUR

  There was a lot of excited chatter among the ladies as we made our way out of the comforts of Happy Trails Campground and hugged the curvy roads of the Daniel Boone National Park on our way to find the John Swift Silver Mines.

  “You do know that my Graham and I did a little treasure hunting ourselves.” Agnes Swift, Hank’s granny on his mother’s side, was as cute as a button. Not to mention feisty as a cat. “When Hank asked if I wanted to come along, I knew I had to get into my attic and get out Graham’s old maps,” she said. Then she dug down in her pocketbook until she pulled out a folded piece of yellowed paper.

  I watched through the rearview mirror as she moved from the couch to the café table, where she put the paper down. I’d not yet told Mary Elizabeth there was no electric service where we were going.

  Agnes’s wrinkled hand smoothed out the map. Abby rested herself on her forearms and leaned over the table.

  “I got the maps from the library too. One of them looks a lot like this one.” Abby pushed off the table and bent down to retrieve the bag she always took with her to the library. She hoisted it up on the table, letting it land with a clunk. She took out all sorts of hardback books and a stack of papers. “I took every book ever written about John Swift, along with his journals.”

  “My Graham said those journals were so hard to read, and if we can decipher some of it, we just might find some of those crowns.” Agnes nodded her head, running her hand through her grey hair before she pulled something else out of her purse. “Like this here.” She tapped the paper. “‘We first left between 25,000 and 30,000 dollars and crowns on a large creek running near a south course, close to the spot where we marked our names, Swift, Mundy, and one other name, on a tree with a compass and trowel.’”

  “That could be any creek.” Queenie swiveled her passenger captain’s chair to turn completely around to face them. “I stopped and got the maps from the Historical Society, though I probably shouldn’t’ve, but if I’m gonna find the silver this weekend, I’ll give them a very hefty charitable donation.”

  Queenie also had a big bag full of papers and documents that appeared as old as Agnes’s, and since I’d just learned of the John Swift legend less than twenty-four hours ago, I decided to keep my mouth shut on any sort of ideas I might’ve had—at least until I had some more information.

  “Right here John writes in his journal.” She called him by his first name as though they were on a first-name basis. “‘Not far from these trees we left a prize near a forked white oak and about two feet underground and laid two long stones across it, marking several stone marks on the place.’” She thrust her head up and gave Abby and Agnes a good long stare. “Now, you two and I both know that can be anywhere in the entire Daniel Boone National Forest, not just here in this park.”

  “It sounds like you have a lot of hunting to do.” Mary Elizabeth leaned over the couch and opened one of the kitchen drawers I used as the junk drawer. She rooted around in there until she took out a fingernail file and eased back onto the couch, filing her nails. “I’ll be sure to have a nice supper fixed when y’all get back. That way”—she circled the file in a circle—“we all have a part when the treasure is found, and we can split it.”

  “Well, I declare.” Agnes’s saggy jowls dropped even more. “I never figured you to be a campfire cook.”

  “Campfire?” Mary Elizabeth fingered the pearls around her neck. “I’ll be using that electric fire right there.” She noted the small two-burner stove in my kitchenette.

  “Electric?” Agnes shot a look at me in the rearview. “You do know there’s no electrical hookup at the campsite, or any sort of hookup for that matter.”

  “What?” Mary Elizabeth shot up and moved to the edge of the couch, gripping the leather when I started to bring the RV to a stop.

  Agnes and Abby had pulled the curtain away from the window to look outside and see what was going on while Queenie swiveled the chair to look out the windshield.

  “Looky there at those kooks holding those signs. Don’t they understand progress?” Agnes tsked. “Some do-gooder official from the environmental office probably sent them down here. It’s all they’ve been talking about down at the station.” She shook her head. “I’m so glad I’m off this week.”

  A line of protestors demanded the stop of the asphalt being laid down. They were chanting something, but I couldn’t hear over the chatter in the RV about it. Everybody had a cause to chase after, and it wasn’t my place to say whether they were right or wrong, as long as it didn’t hurt my chances of getting at the silver.

  Still, Mayor MacKenzie’s little talk with me about saying anything about the legend not being real or even thinking it wasn’t real was heavy on my mind. Here she was using up all this state grant money to fund a big asphalt road when there might not be any silver to be had. All the same, I was having a good time with the gals, and even the thought there could be something kept me going.

  “This must be a doozy of a grant.” Agnes unbuckled her seat belt and jumped up to get a look out the window over the top of the sink. “Because I just can’t believe they’d go right through the ginseng fields.”

  “Ginseng?” I asked. “You mean the supplement or vitamin type ginseng?”

  “Mmhhh.” Agnes was about to rub a hole in my flooring, going back and forth between the two windows as the RV crept along at a snail’s pace. “Didn’t you know Kentucky ginseng is one of the most sought after by the Japanese? That’s why the national park has put a hold on any certified ginseng harvesting for the past couple of years.” Her neck strained as she tried to see farther up the road. “The field over there is sparse too. I guess they’re just gonna do without all the extra money that brings into the national park.”

  “Did you see in the paper where they arrested that one tourist for even picking any? He got a five-thousand-dollar fine and six months in jail,” Abby told Agnes.

  Agnes sat back down once we got past the protestors, the ginseng field, and the little bit of asphalt the workers had laid down. The gravel churned under the tires of the RV, smacking little pebbles up underneath the carriage.

  “We gettin’ close now.” Queenie nodded and rubbed her hands together. “’Bout ano
ther half hour.” Queenie wiggled her brows. Some sort of body part on Queenie was always wiggling and jiggling, which made her perfect as a Jazzercise instructor. “Girls, you better get a little shut-eye because once we get there, I’m hittin’ the trails.”

  I had no clue where we were going, but following right behind Mason and Dirk was where I was going to stay.

  They all must’ve taken Queenie’s advice because when I looked back to see what happened, it got suddenly quiet. All of them had their heads thrown back, eyes closed, and appeared to be what Mary Elizabeth would call resting their eyes.

  After about fifteen minutes of gravel road, we turned down a dirt road for another fifteen miles before I saw a sign that read JOHN SWIFT SILVER MINE CAMPGROUND written in black paint on a piece of wood stuck in the ground. The dirt road just stopped, and we continued on the grass until it opened up to a clearing.

  A few tents were already set up near the far end of the space where the tree line had shaded a few feet. A small cabin-type structure sat in the middle with a permanent campfire structure enclosed with cement blocks.

  “Lordy be, if Ritchie Stinnett don’t look bad.” Agnes got out of her seat belt again and propped herself up between the two captain chairs, looking out the windshield. “I ain’t seen that boy since he was knee high to a June bug.” Her chin jutted forward as her eyes squinted. “Look at that tangled mess of hair he’s got.”

  The pimply-faced young man had patches of beard that his razor had obviously missed. He wore a T-shirt that used to be white but was covered with dirt spots. His long pair of cut-off shorts showed off his scrawny legs. He had on a pair of brown hiking boots. He flailed his arms in the air and pointed our RVs to the far right of the clearing.

  I threaded the RV through the people who didn’t seem to care that this big recreational vehicle was coming toward them. They continued to look at their maps.

  “I really don’t see any hookups.” Mary Elizabeth pressed her lips together as tight as a zipper and breathed all hot and heavy, giving off her disapproval.

  “Did you think I was a liar? Or a jokester?” Agnes’s head jerked to look over her shoulder at Mary Elizabeth. “There’s no electric, no water, and no cell service.”

  “What on earth am I going to do without air-conditioning?” Mary Elizabeth threw one hand over her mouth and the other to finger the pearls around her neck. “I mean sleeping and all?”

  “We will just have to rely on the open windows.” Abby got up and started to open the windows as the RV came to a stop where Ritchie had parked us, like those workers at the airport pull the planes to the ramps.

  “That just won’t do.” Mary Elizabeth grabbed one of Agnes’s maps off the café table and started fanning herself.

  “Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?” Agnes jerked the paper from Mary Elizabeth. “My Graham went through a lot of trouble working on these, and I’ve gone through just as much effort preserving them. Do you want to split this treasure or not?” Agnes wagged a finger at Mary Elizabeth. “Because if you do, you’re gonna have to take off them pearls and get dirt under those fancy nails.”

  I tried not to look back at Mary Elizabeth, though I could only imagine the look on her face.

  FIVE

  “I hope them protestors didn’t cause y’all too much trouble.” Ritchie Stinnett had already planted himself at the door of the RV, his hand out. “How many of y’all in there?” He craned his neck to see in the door.

  “Five of us.” I didn’t even bother saying anything about the protestors because he’d already moved on.

  “It’ll be fifty dollars a night. Ten each,” he said and grabbed everyone’s money as they anted up their part.

  “Is there really no electric?” Mary Elizabeth held on to the edge of her money.

  “No’m, there ain’t. But you gonna be too busy looking for the silver to worry about any sort of electric. You gonna be so plumb tuckered out, you won’t be able to get them fancy pearls off your neck to sleep.” Ritchie Stinnett smiled, which didn’t do much for the poor boy’s looks. His teeth were rotted.

  “Oh dear.” Mary Elizabeth backed into the RV, her hinny leading the way. “I wonder if you could call Hank to come get me.”

  “There’s no cell service.” I pointed to my phone, sitting in the cupholder of the console up front between the captain chairs. “Go on and look.”

  She was bound and determined to prove me wrong.

  “I’m gonna take my Metamucil before we get going.” Agnes and the others got out of their seatbelts while I headed out the door to greet Ritchie and get the layout of the land. “Where you going?”

  “You can’t go without us.” Queenie dug through her overnight back.

  “I’m just going to see what I need to do with the RV and find out from Mason what our plan is.” I sighed deeply, wondering exactly what I’d gotten myself into.

  The heat hit me, taking my breath as soon as I’d opened the door. It would just be a matter of seconds before Mary Elizabeth had her first conniption about the heat and demanded something be done.

  Ritchie had walked over to Mason and Dirk to collect their money, so I headed on over to talk to them and really get a handle on how all things treasure hunting happened.

  “I’m serious, Ritchie,” said Mason. “I’ve been here a long time, and if it doesn’t get straightened out”—Mason pointed to me—“we will take our money back and head on out. There’s plenty of camps around here. In fact”—Mason rocked back on the heels of his hiking boots—“Edward Summers had sent me an email saying the new asphalt had already let him get internet into his camp. I could do a lot of research with the internet at night when I’m not hunting, so just go on and give us all our money back.”

  “Now hold up,” Ritchie stammered. “I can’t help who shows up here without a reservation. Can’t you just go on your way and she go hers?”

  “Who?” I asked, wondering if they were talking about me.

  “Sue Ann.” Mason nodded toward the other camp we’d seen on our way in.

  “Sue Ann?” I asked and glanced over when I noticed the woman stalking over to us. The closer she got, the more I recognized her as the woman who was at the campfire. The one who told me the forest held more secrets than I was aware.

  “Sue Ann Jaffarian.” Mason’s scowl told me how he felt about her. His mouth twisted. “I’m not going to try and make nice after she stole my maps.”

  “What is going on here?” The woman planted her hands on the waist of her too-short shorts. Blond curls framed her bright, Cupid-like face. Perspiration oozed out from underneath her makeup as words poured out of her mouth. “Are you still stuck on the fact that I know something or two about the John Swift silver and don’t have to rely on you?”

  “Rely on me?” An evil laughter escaped Mason. “You took it all. Little floozy.”

  “What did you say?” Sue Ann snapped, showing off a little of her spirit.

  Mason looked at her with a wide grin on his face like he knew he’d just poked the bear.

  “You heard me. Jezebel.” Mason’s jaw tensed.

  “You are a crooked, lyin’ son of a…” She looked at me then zipped her lips. “You know what you are.” She swerved then quickly turned back around with a closed fist and gave him a swift knock to that tense jaw.

  Mason’s head swung to the side. He brought his hand up to where she’d landed the blow and rotated his jaw both ways as though he were working out the pain he was trying to hide.

  “I oughta,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Oughta what?” Sue Ann tugged the edges of her T-shirt over the waist of those too-short shorts.

  “Now, now.” Ritchie pushed between them. When I got a good look at him up close, Agnes was right. Though I’d never seen him before, he was a scrawny and pale fellow. Kinda sorry-looking guy who probably worked hard just to make a buck. “Can’t we compromise here?”

  “Why not now, Ritchie?” Sue Ann stuck her hip out and planted a
fist on her hip. The other hand she fisted and stuck in the air, shaking it at Mason. “You better wipe that smug look off your face, or I’m gonna get the other side.”

  “Violence is not good around here.” Ritchie seemed to have taken Mason’s side, for which I could not blame him. “The trails and hiking around here is very dangerous in the calmest of situations. I can’t have the two of you taking your lovers’ spat out there and risk getting hurt.”

  “Lovers’ spat?” My brows rose a notch. “You two?”

  “No.” Mason spit on the ground, nearly getting Sue Ann’s boot, making her jump as if a rattler was underfoot.

  “Fine.” She threw her hands up in the air. “But you.” She pointed straight at Ritchie. “I’ll never do business with you again.” Then she swung her finger at Mason. “I do hope the curse of John Swift gets you while you are here.”

  “Curse, my butt.” Mason shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Good riddance, thief!” he called out to her with a big smile on his face, even though he rubbed his jaw where she’d socked him.

  Ritchie gave each of us a hard look before he walked away.

  “What was that all about?” I questioned Mason.

  “She’s my ex. We did a lot of treasure hunting together. We broke up, and I found out about her stealing. Some of my very own maps I’d made from years of research were gone. Luckily, Dirk has a great memory, so we were able to get some of the points back on a new map.”

  “Did you ask her about returning them? Or calling the police?” It seemed like a logical thing to do when you were accusing someone of stealing something so valuable from you.

  “Are you kidding? A map for a 400-year-old treasure that most people think isn’t real?” He made a good point. “The police would laugh at me.”

  I was going to encourage him to rethink that, but Hank’s voice started playing in my head on how it wasn’t real, and then there was the matter of the mayor and her veiled threat toward me to keep my thoughts to myself.