Buddy barked, drawing my attention to the flickering light past the trees up ahead. We’d gotten turned around in the woods and had come out at the bonfire pit where the party had gone full rager.
“Oh dear,” Bee shouted, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t want to go out there.”
“I don’t think we have a choice. Unless you’d rather walk through the forest and try to find our way back to the tents. Bee… Look!”
Just off to one side of the bonfire, stood Van. He leaned on a table, gripping a beer in one hand, a leery smile directed at the woman seated across from him.
Lulu.
She wore her glasses and was missing her book but didn’t have a glass of wine or a beer in her hand instead. She smiled up at Van, batting her eyelids, occasionally twirling a strand of dark hair around one finger.
“Are you kidding me?” I pulled a face. “That’s plain weird. Poor Charlene.”
“Disgusting. The man needs a reality check. His wife has just gone missing.”
“Or left him.”
“Yeah, or he kicked her out,” Bee said, shaking her head. “I’ll never understand men like that.”
I’ll never understand men in general. That wasn’t fair. Most men probably didn’t leave their fiancées without a note or a call or a goodbye.
“Let’s just leave them to it,” I said. “We’ve seen enough.”
“Enough to make Lulu even more suspicious than she already was.”
We opted to walk alongside the trail and away from the bonfire party. No one even noticed us. Buddy, Bee and I were exhausted after the woods, Leon and the noise. We yawned our way back to the food truck.
“Hello there, dears.” A woman stood in the open door of her camper. It was Bubby, Lulu’s grandmother, clutching a pair of reading glasses in one hand and holding her robe closed with the other. “Having as much trouble sleeping as I am?”
“Yeah,” Bee and I said, in unison.
“Van is such an evil man. My grandmother told me when I was a little girl that I should never trust a bald man, and she was right.”
Talk about a sweeping statement.
“And he didn’t kick her out of the campground either,” Bubby continued. “He’s lying about that. How do I know?” She raised both silvery eyebrows at us. “Because I saw her the night before she disappeared. She left him.”
“You saw her?” I asked, taking a step off the trail toward Bubby’s trailer.
“I did, yes. I was out for an evening stroll to escape Lulu’s incessant talk about her novel when I heard them arguing over by the offices. She came storming out, so I watched. Neither of them noticed me standing there. They were too involved in their argument to care, I think.”
“What happened?”
Bubby drew the hand holding her glasses through the air. “He grabbed her, she pulled herself free and ran off into the woods. He didn’t follow. Just headed back to his camper and slammed the door shut.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
Bubby shook her head. “She’s got to be out there somewhere. Hiding from him.”
Or hiding from the police.
18
“It might not be the best decision to go boating on two hours sleep, Bee,” I said.
My friend was already on one of the uncomfortable little plank seats in the rowboat, her hands on the ends of either oar. “We came here to have a vacation, Ruby, and I’m not going to let Van or Charlene or that crazy man in the woods stop us from having a good time.”
“Yes, but you’re not the one who has to push the boat out into the water,” I said, wading in and taking hold of the front of the vessel. What was the front of a boat called? A bow? A stern? I couldn’t think the word for it when I was this tired.
Buddy barked from where he sat behind Bee then promptly rested his snout on her shoulder. He was behaving well and hadn’t rocked the boat, not in the literal sense, so far.
The water was so cold it took my breath away, and I hopped into the boat the minute I could, like a fish out of water. The vessel rocked from side to side then settled.
“There’s a towel in the stern,” Bee said, already working the oars. They plopped into the water with a ‘gloop’ and splash. “Ooh, it’s been a while. I need to get back into the swing of things.”
“You go rowing often?”
“Fishing with my father on occasion,” Bee said. “Before he passed. Some of my fondest memories were out on the lake when I was a girl. My mother wanted me in the kitchen learning how to bake, but my father would whisk me away before dawn. By the time we got back, my mom would be halfway through making the first cake of the day. It wasn’t every weekend, but every other. Fun times.”
“But you still learned how to bake,” I replied.
“Oh yes. And I loved it too.” Bee rowed us out into the middle of the lake. It was early, so we were alone, and the early morning chill was matched by mist rising from the water. The trees around the sides of the lake watched on in the quiet. Occasionally, a fish flopped in the water and ripples spread across the surface.
“This is so peaceful,” I said, as I toweled my legs off. “We should have taken one of the bigger boats from the jetty.” I was still chilled from wading in. “But at least I’m awake now.”
The bigger boats at the jetty had been tied down with sailor’s knots, though, and we weren’t entirely sure we could take them, whereas the old rowboat was always on the bank.
We halted in the middle of the lake so Bee could take a break.
I brought out the Tupperware of macarons—our go-to snack at the campgrounds—and two bottles of water. I emptied water into a second smaller Tupperware for Buddy and set it in front of him. He lapped up a few sips.
Bee ruffled his ears then accepted a bottle from me. “This is the life,” she said. “Out here, things are simpler.”
“It’s lovely.” I busied myself with the macarons, selecting a pecan nut flavored one and biting into it. It was crisp then mellow and smooth inside. “I’ll never get used to how amazing you are at baking.”
“You’ll have to. I plan on doing it for the rest of my life.”
“—doing here!” Words echoed from afar, traveling across the water. It was a woman speaking, a sweet voice I recognized.
I whipped around in the boat, tipping some of the macarons into the bottom it. “What was that?” I whispered.
Bee waved to quiet me.
“—meet up another time?” Another voice. Where on earth were they coming from? We were in the middle of the water for heaven’s sake.
“Sound travels over water.” Bee pointed at the far side of the lake.
Underneath the trees, two figures stood a few feet apart, both women, their arms folded. I raised a hand over my eyes to block the rising sun’s light.
One of the women was short, a book tucked under her arm. The other taller, wearing a pink button-down shirt, and had chestnut brown hair.
Charlene?
I lurched forward in the boat, trying to get a better look. That was definitely Charlene!
The women spoke a few more words, but the snippets were lost before they reached us, then Charlene walked off between the trees and Lulu, it had to be her, hurried around the side of the lake, heading along the bank and toward the restaurant at the far side.
“Bee.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” My bestie was already rowing for the shore.
* * *
Bee and I dragged the boat onto the bank then jogged for the restaurant. It was just opening at eight in the morning, and we’d witnessed Lulu heading into it only moments before. Bee held Buddy’s lead—she was much better with him than I was.
Inside, a tired server stood next to the greeter’s stand, occasionally rubbing under his eyes. “Welcome to the Tomahawk Trail Restaurant,” he said, in a monotone. “We’re happy to serve you breakfast all day long.” He straightened, spotting Buddy who had taken to snorting something that looked a lot li
ke jam on the floor. “You can’t bring dogs in here.”
“We’re not here to eat,” Bee said.
I scanned the restaurant.
“She’s outside!” I gestured to the windows that looked out on the balcony.
Lulu was at one of the tables, slurping on the end of a straw.
Bee and I swept past the waiter, who called out after us about the dog, and headed outside. We sat down at Lulu’s table, Bee next to her, and me across from her.
“H-hello,” Lulu said. “Uh, no offense but I didn’t expect to have company for breakfast this morning.” She’d placed her novel on the table next to her and leaned one arm on it casually.
“We’re not here for breakfast,” Bee said, ominously.
“You were with Charlene.”
Lulu’s jaw dropped. She snapped her mouth closed again, quickly. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” Bee insisted.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble, all right? I’m just someone who stays at the campgrounds. I write books. That’s it. That’s all.”
We hadn’t even asked her a question and she was already singing like a canary. Buddy barked once, and the sliding door that let out onto the balcony opened. The waiter appeared and waved at us. “Excuse me! You can’t be in here with a dog.”
“Listen, Lulu, we saw you talking to Charlene. And last night, you were with Van. Something’s going on here and if you don’t tell us what it is, we’re going to call the police about this,” I said.
Lulu sucked on the straw so hard, it flattened. She choked and spluttered.
“Miss!” The waiter yelled. “The dog?”
Bee grunted and got up. “I’ll wait outside with Buddy.”
And that meant I was on my own in interrogating our key suspect. Sheesh, when had I started talking like a cop?
“Don’t call the cops,” Lulu breathed. “They can’t know about… they just can’t know. They’ll think I murdered Ronald, and I didn’t. OK?”
“Why would they think that?”
Lulu chewed on her lips compulsively. She looked over both shoulders then finally met my gaze. “Because they think the person who killed Ronald did it because they wanted his money.”
That was true. Detective Hanson had mentioned that the motivation for the crime was robbery. That had made Leon seem more suspicious, since he didn’t have much money himself.
“And what does that have to do with you?” I asked. “The money, I mean.”
More lip-chewing ensued.
“Lulu, it’s probably best if you tell me. Bee and I aren’t cops, but we’re interested in figuring out what happened. If you know something…”
“I do,” she whispered, and brought her novel forward. It was a hard cover—not one of the paperbacks she’d been trying to hand out earlier. “I—look, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with money, OK? And I knew that Ronald was rich and successful. I asked him for a loan, and he said no.”
“When was that?”
“On the afternoon of the bonfire, just before it started. He walked off into the forest to get away from me, claiming he had some meeting to attend,” Lulu continued, “and I got real frustrated. It’s not fair! He’s got all that money and he won’t just share a little of it with me? He’s an author too, he’s supposed to help.”
“So… what? You killed him?”
“No! No, I swear I didn’t. I don’t even own a gun. I’ve never fired a gun either.” Lulu fiddled with the corner of the book. “I just… I wanted to talk some sense into him. I followed him into the forest, but I got lost. I heard a gunshot and kind of freaked out.” Her breathing grew ragged, her forehead dotted with perspiration. “At that point, I—I—uh, just wanted to get out of there, so I ran back through the forest. It was getting dark and I stumbled across—oh gosh. I stumbled across Ronald’s body. He was dead. He’d been shot.”
“Did you see anyone else there?” I asked, immediately, withholding my disbelief. She expected me to believe that she just had happened to find the body? And what about the other day? We’d found her at the scene of the crime, and she’d pretended she hadn’t known.
“No,” Lulu said. “But he was just lying there, and he was definitely dead. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I kind of, well, I emptied his pockets and I took his Rolex, and I buried them under a tree nearby.”
My stomach turned. She’d disturbed the scene! That would make everything more difficult for the police. And it made her an even bigger suspect.
“Look, look, just look, OK? It was a mistake. I panicked. I was afraid people would think I did it, so I didn’t tell anyone, and I wanted to keep the money. I’m not in a great financial place right now. The people who published my book made me pay out of pocket and I haven’t gotten any of my royalties back yet and—”
“Please slow down,” I said. “Tell me what happened next.”
Lulu took a deep breath. “I waited a day or so until everything had been cleared away and then I went back. Um, I actually ran into you guys.”
“You were there to get the money?”
“And the watch,” Lulu said, nodding. “But look, I’ve been wracked with guilt ever since it happened. I know I did the wrong thing. Please, don’t go to the police about this.”
“What about Charlene?” I pressed on. Van’s wife was our main concern now. “What’s she got to do with this?”
“She was friends with Ronald. I think more than friends, whatever, but she… found me out in the woods. I was trying to clean up the mess I made at the crime scene and she came up behind me and grabbed me. She made me tell her everything.”
“So, why were you meeting with her this morning?”
“Because she wants the money and the watch I took,” Lulu said. “Ronald’s stuff. She wouldn’t tell me why, but she wants it.”
“And did you give it to her?”
“Not yet,” Lulu whispered. “I told her that I have to go get it from where I buried it, but I was just going to run.” She hung her head. “I know that’s wrong, but I don’t want her to do to me what she did to Ronald. I mean, it must be her, right? Why else would she have hidden away like that?”
“Where’s the money?”
Lulu commenced chewing her lips. She carefully lifted the front cover of her book.
Inside, she’d cut out a perfect square in the paper. A watch and a wad of cash lay inside it. She shut the cover again quickly. “You’re going to report me to the police, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t lie and say ‘no.’
I leaned in. “When are you meeting with Charlene to hand over the cash?”
19
The puzzle pieces of the case didn’t quite fit together properly.
Charlene wanted Ronald’s money, but not his inheritance—since that would likely go to the long-lost brother. She was hiding out, though, and she’d run away from Van.
Lulu was a petty criminal and had the motivation to murder Ronald.
Van was a jealous creep who’d probably believed his wife was cheating with Ronald.
And Leon? Well, he’d come all the way out here to meet his brother, who’d just so happened to have died shortly afterward.
We were so close to the truth, I could almost taste it—or maybe that was the ten macarons I’d gulped down before we’d entered the forest, following Lulu. The meeting with Charlene was set for the afternoon, thankfully, so we didn’t have to worry too much about being ambushed in the darkness.
The dappled light between the trees gave the forest an almost cozy effect.
“She’ll be through there,” Lulu said, stopping. “I’m not going any further, sorry.”
“And the money and the watch?” Bee asked.
Lulu hugged her book to her chest. “I guess I should hand it over. Are you really going to give it to her? What if she’s the murderer?”
Lulu had no idea, but we’d called the police before we’d left the food truck. Detective Hanson knew exactly
what was going on and would be meeting Lulu at the campground and removing the book with its money from her. An interrogation would follow. He wasn’t privy to the fact that we were out here talking to Charlene, though.
We’d had to do the right thing.
“You keep the money,” I said. “Go back to camp and do the right thing.”
Lulu perked up. Her version of ‘the right thing’ probably wasn’t to call the cops on herself. “Thanks.” She disappeared between the trees and left us to face Charlene alone.
The meeting was organized to take place at the same spot on the lake’s shoreline where we’d seen Charlene and Lulu that morning. We traipsed along, and the scent of woodsmoke reached my nose. A fire? Was that Charlene?
“This way.” Bee gestured.
We found our suspect, not at the meeting spot, but further removed from it. Charlene had set up a tattered camo tent underneath the trees and had started a fire. She held a stick over it, a marshmallow spiked on the end.
“Hello, Charlene,” Bee said.
She let out a shriek and threw up her arms. The marshmallow flipped off the end of the stick and landed in the dirt, a goopy mess. Charlene pressed a hand to her chest. “Are you trying to scare the pants off me?”
“Definitely not,” Bee replied. “Sorry about that.”
“What are you doing here? Where’s Lulu?” Charlene asked.
She’d only been ‘missing’ a couple of days, but her cheeks were gaunt and dark circles discolored the skin under her eyes. She got up, raking fingers through her hair and snagging knots on the way. “You… why isn’t she here?”
“We came instead.”
“Why?” Charlene backed up a step or two, glancing past us into the trees. “Are you here alone?”
“Yes. Why? Charlene, what’s going on? Why did you run away?” I asked.
Tears welled in the corners of her eyes and sprang free instantly. She trembled and lowered herself back down to the ground. “I had to get away,” she whispered. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
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