“I’ll bet there’s a great view of the river from those windows,” Donna said, picking her way through the clutter. Frannie was nervous about letting Donna lead; they would be lucky if they didn’t end up hauling her out by a medevac helicopter.
Donna only tripped once, and managed to make her way pretty quickly to the end of the machinery. She looked back at them, saying, “At least the floor is solid here,” and rounded the corner.
She stopped. She gasped for breath and made a mewling sound.
The others halted too, looking at each other in confusion. Donna hadn’t fallen; she stood frozen in place, staring at the floor in front of her.
“Is the floor gone?” Ben asked from behind Frannie.
Donna looked back again, her face colorless. She shook her head.
“There’s two bodies. It’s those twins.” She spoke slowly and quietly, not typical for Donna.
They moved up beside her and saw the carnage on the floor. One of the women lay on her side with her head wedged in the machinery, a gaping wound on the side of her head that had bled profusely. Her sister lay next to her, face up, her skin a sickly grey-blue. Ben sidled around Donna and bent to check the pulse of the woman on her back.
He straightened. “No pulse. She’s still warm though so this must have just happened.”
Donna’s eyes grew wider still as she looked around. “You mean the murderer might still be here?” she croaked.
“Could they have killed each other?” Frannie asked.
“I have no idea,” Ben said. “I think we need to go back upstairs—I doubt if phones will work here—and you can go back up and get help. I’ll stay here.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Nancy said. “The murderer could be nearby.”
“And you’re going to protect me?” Ben gave a little smile at his wife.
“Someone has to,” Nancy answered, and Frannie suspected that Nancy, small and wiry and very fit, could hold her own.
She led Donna back up the stairs and out to the path.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Donna asked, puffing along behind Frannie.
“If someone else killed those women, and I’m not so sure of that, both deaths look like crimes of passion—not planned. I don’t think the murderer would hang around. Besides, Ben can take care of himself.” Ben worked out daily and had considerable upper body strength.
They trudged on up the path.
“You don’t think someone else killed them?” Donna said, panting.
“They were having some issues. Maybe it was a murder-suicide or something. Depends on how they died.”
They reached the parking lot and Frannie debated calling 911, but also felt they needed to notify the nature center first and let them take charge. She wished Larry was around but there was no sign of him or the rest of their group. He would know what to do.
Reluctantly she led the way over to the Visitor’s Center. The only Center employee that they saw when the entered was Deborah McCabe at the information desk. Frannie hurried over to her.
“Ma’am?”
Deborah McCabe looked up and frowned when she saw Frannie. “What is it?” So much for customer service.
“We hiked down to the power plant and there are two dead women down there. I wonder if you could call the authorities?”
Deborah did not flinch. “As I told you, we have no liability there. That is not Center property. Don’t you have a cell phone? You need to call 911.”
Frannie stammered. “Yes, I do, but I thought…”
“Is there a problem here?” A pudgy man, also in a green uniform, had come out of an office behind Deborah McCabe.
Frannie explained the situation, with Donna adding embellishments. The man registered much more reaction than McCabe.
“Let me get this straight. Two dead bodies? Are you sure? Follow me.” Without waiting for any answers, he turned and marched back in to the office.
Frannie resisted smirking at McCabe as she and Donna rounded the counter and walked into a compulsively neat office.
The man hurried around the desk and pulled the phone toward him but did not sit down. He dialed, and when it was picked up said, “Yes, this is Director Lindorf at the Nature Center. We have just had a report of two dead women down in the old power plant.” He paused. “No, it doesn’t appear to be an accident.” He raised his eyebrows at Frannie and she nodded. “Thanks. Yes, they’re here. We’ll wait for you in the parking lot.” He hung up.
He came around the desk again and motioned for Frannie and Donna to follow him. As they passed the information desk, he said over his shoulder, “Deborah, we’ll be outside waiting for the sheriff.”
“But Bob, you have a meeting in ten minutes with…”
“Tell them we’ll have to reschedule,” and he headed out the door. Outside, he stood where he could see the entrance drive and turned to the two women.
“Were you alone when you discovered the—?”
Frannie said, “No, there were two other friends with us. They waited there.”
He frowned. “That could be dangerous. We need to get back down there as fast as possible. As soon as the authorities arrive.”
They stood in silence for a moment. There was little wind and a few lazy bugs circled them. A perfect early summer day. Laughter reached them from one of the other hiking paths. Larry and the rest of Frannie’s group emerged from the trees on the other side of the parking lot.
“Larry!” Frannie shouted, and motioned them over. When they arrived, Larry looked at the Director standing by Frannie.
“What’s the matter?”
Frannie told him what they found in the power plant. They all talked at once.
“Those women next to us?” Rob said. Like they had run in to a lot of twins that weekend.
“Are you sure they’re dead?” Jane Ann asked.
“Ben and Nancy are still there?” said Larry.
“What are we waiting for?” Mickey wanted to know.
In answer to his question, a sheriff’s car pulled into the entrance.
A petite woman with short brown curls jumped out of the car almost before it came to a stop. As she approached, Lindorf mumbled to Frannie, “Don’t let her size fool you.”
“What’s going on, Bob?” she asked, jogging up to the group.
Director Lindorf introduced her to the group as Sheriff Mary Sorenson and precisely recounted the events.
“The paramedics are on their way, although sounds like it’s probably too late. Which of you actually found the body?”
Donna and Frannie raised their hands. The sheriff jotted down their names and hometown. Frannie gave her Ben and Nancy’s names as well.
“Did you touch anything? Move anything?”
“Ben checked for a pulse—he’s a physical therapist,” Frannie said. As if no one else was qualified to take a pulse.
“Okay, I need to get down there. I would like one of the women who discovered the bodies to go with me.”
Donna usually had to be in the middle of everything, but paled, stepped back, and said, “Frannie can go.”
Frannie said, “Can my husband come, too? He’s a retired cop,” and then thought she sounded like a five-year-old, begging for a friend to go on a family outing. The sheriff looked at the rest of the group and Larry stepped forward a half step and raised his hand slightly.
The sheriff appraised him a moment and then said, “Good idea. Let’s go.”
They had a little trouble keeping up with Sorenson. When they reached the power plant, Frannie introduced Ben and Nancy and indicated the stairway to the lower level. Sheriff Sorenson sent the Terells back to the nature center and led the way down the narrow cement steps. When they got to the bottom, Frannie pointed out the direction to go around the machinery. As the sheriff picked her way through the debris, Frannie noticed that the place seemed to have acquired an even more sinister air, just because she knew what lay on the other side of the room.
She watched the sher
iff as the woman turned the corner. A little look of shock before her face turned impassive. Frannie and Larry reached the corner, but stood back while the sheriff examined the bodies. When Sorenson stood, she noticed the open door to the second room, and, resting a hand on the gun at her side, sidled around the bodies, and peeked around the edge of the door.
She relaxed when she saw no threat there, but before turning around, she glanced down at the floor, and pulling a pen out of her shirt pocket, leaned around the corner and snagged a small backpack by the strap.
She held it up for Frannie to see and said, “Did you see this here before?”
“No. None of us went in there,” Frannie said.
Sorenson carefully replaced the bag where she found it.
“So you know these women?”
“We just met them last night,” Larry said. “They’re camped across the road from us at River Bend.”
“What are their names?”
“Valerie and Virginia Peete,” Frannie said. The horror of the site began to harden into a lump in her stomach. “I think they’re—that is, they were—from Minneapolis. The campground owners should have that information.”
“Do you know which one’s which?” Sorenson asked.
Larry and Frannie both shook their heads, then Frannie said, “Wait!” and looked at their wrists. The woman who had fallen into the machinery had a watch on her right wrist; the other woman wasn’t wearing one. She pointed at the one with the watch. “I think that’s Virginia.”
But then she noticed something else. “Can I move a little closer?” she asked the sheriff. Sorenson nodded and moved into the open doorway so that Frannie could get past her. Frannie bent over the woman, trying to ignore the bloody wound to her head. Fastened around her neck was a necklace such as Valerie had described to her the night before.
She straightened. “I don’t know for sure. I think that necklace belongs to Valerie. But…” She continued to stare, noticing the clasp exposed at the back of the woman’s neck as she lay on her side, her hair falling away.
She turned to the sheriff to explain her dilemma. “Last night, the one who introduced herself as Virginia wore her watch on her right wrist, so I thought she must be left-handed. Valerie wore hers on her left. I was trying to figure out some way to tell them apart. But Valerie had told me about that necklace earlier—said she had gotten it from a man she was in love with. He’s at the campground this weekend and asked her to wear it.”
She shook her head. “But, the thing is, it looks like the necklace was fastened by a left-handed person.” Frannie looked from the sheriff to her husband.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
She looked back at the sheriff. “You know what I mean. If you are right-handed, you work the little clasp-thingy with your right hand and hook it into the little ring on the left. That necklace has the clasp thingy on the left, so it looks like she is left-handed and that is Virginia. But she seems to be wearing Valerie’s necklace.”
Larry still looked baffled, but Mary Sorenson nodded. “I see. Very observant. I didn’t find any ID on them. We’ll hope there’s something in their dental records, because if they are identical twins, DNA won’t be any help. If their fingerprints are in the system, we can use those.”
“You don’t think they’re identical?” Frannie asked.
“Well, fraternal twins can look a lot alike, but these two appear to be identical. We’ll see.”
“They told us they had been to Europe so they should have passports on record.”
“You’re right. Thank you for your help,” the sheriff said as they all heard more footsteps on the stairs. “I’ll want to talk to you later. Try to remember if they felt threatened by anyone. You’re staying at River Bend, right?”
Larry nodded and gave her their site number. He and Frannie moved into the corner to allow the EMTs to pass and then went back up the stairs. As they headed back up to the parking lot, they met an older man carrying a bag and a young one in a sheriff’s department jacket. They nodded at Larry and Frannie and took the path down to the power plant.
“Must be the medical examiner and a crime scene tech,” Larry said.
When they rejoined their group, questions flew. Donna, as usual, led the bombardment.
“What did the sheriff say? Did she think it was murder?”
“She didn’t share—just asked us what we knew about them,” Larry said.
“Do we need to stay here?” Mickey asked.
“They’re definitely dead?” Jane Ann said.
Larry held his hands up. “We really don’t know anything more. The sheriff said she’d come talk to us later, so we might as well head back to the campground.” It was a quiet ride back.
Chapter Six
Late Saturday Morning
When they arrived back at the campground, Frannie noticed that the old blue pickup with the topper was parked in the same spot. She would have to make sure the sheriff gave Richard the news. She certainly didn’t want to do it. Back at their campsites, Mickey put on a new pot of coffee.
As they settled in their chairs, Jane Ann said, “Do you suppose we’re going to be confined to the campground again?” She was referring to two previous incidents in their camping history when that very thing had happened.
“I doubt it very much,” Larry said. “This time the crime wasn’t committed here and there’s no reason to believe it was one of the campers any more than an outsider.”
“I heard that people all over the Midwest are checking to make sure Frannie doesn’t have the next campsite when they make their reservations these days,” Mickey said, grinning.
“Oh, hush,” Frannie said. “You and Jane Ann were there both times too.”
“And people have avoided being next to Mickey for years,” Larry added.
“Seriously, Larry, could you tell anything about how they died?” Nancy said.
“Of course, that will be determined by the medical examiner, but on the surface it appeared that the one was pushed into that machinery and the other may have been choked or strangled, judging from the tone of her skin.”
“Which one was which?” Donna asked.
Frannie shrugged and told the group what they had observed. She also repeated what Valerie had told her the night before about the necklace.
“From what she said, it sounded like Virginia had impersonated her in order to break her up with Richard.”
“Could they have killed each other?” Ben asked Larry.
“I don’t see how.”
“Wonder if that guy Richard knows yet,” Donna said.
Frannie thought about him. “He’s camping here—I saw his truck when we pulled in. But the authorities wouldn’t have any reason to notify him. The sheriff didn’t find any ID so they wouldn’t know who to notify.”
Nancy said, “Neither of them had a purse or anything?”
That jogged something in Frannie’s memory. “The sheriff found a little backpack on the floor in other room. But…I saw one of them leave this morning in the pickup and she had a camera bag. I didn’t see that there.”
“But if only one went in the pickup, how did the other one get to the power plant?” Rob said.
“The hiking path,” Nancy said.
“But that would be odd,” Frannie said. “If they were both going to end up in the same place, why didn’t they go together?”
Larry said to Frannie, “You’re sure only one was in the truck?”
Frannie nodded. “She waved before she got in the truck. It was about 8:30—we were done with breakfast and the rest of you were inside, I think.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Larry rubbed his hand over his crewcut and leaned forward in his chair, elbows on knees and hands clasped. “I’m still worried about that old trailer. Those women were photographing it yesterday and they said one of the guys saw them.”
“If one of them took the hiking path,” Nancy said, “it’s on that side of the campgrou
nd. She might have been seen by one of those guys.”
Larry nodded and sat back. “Well, the sheriff said she wanted to talk to us and would be over. We need to tell her about the camera bag, the guys in the old trailer, and you need to fill her in on Richard. Did you say he’s camped here, too?” He looked at Frannie.
“Yeah, his site is over near the office. He has a little blue pickup with a topper. It was there when we came back just now.”
Donna got out the cinnamon rolls left from breakfast and coffee mugs were refilled. Conversation rambled in kind of an audible version of shuffling feet and twiddling thumbs.
When the sheriff’s car edged up the road, everyone perked up, hoping for an end to the suspenseful atmosphere.
Mary Sorenson parked her patrol car on the grassy edge of the road and pulled a small notebook out of her pocket as she walked toward them. She declined coffee but accepted a lawn chair.
“I’m going to go back in a minute and have you tell me everything you know about these women, but when you first went down to the power plant, did you meet anyone?”
The ones who had made that hike all shook their heads. “No, we didn’t,” Ben said.
“And you,” she looked at Ben, “stayed there while the others went for help? Did you see or hear anyone while you waited?”
“Not a soul,” Ben said. “Why?”
Sorenson sighed. “From the preliminary ME’s examination, it appears they must have died about 9:30.”
Nancy’s mouth dropped open. “But, that’s just about the time we started down there!”
Frannie nodded. “We got to the Visitor’s Center right after it opened and looked around at the exhibits, then split up to explore.” She shivered. “But we didn’t see anyone on our way down there.”
Peete and Repeat (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Book 3) Page 5
