Christmas, Criminals, and Campers

by Tonya Kappes

  CHRISTMAS, CRIMINALS,

  AND CAMPERS

  A CAMPER AND CRIMINALS COZY MYSTERY

  BOOK FOUR

  BY

  TONYA KAPPES

  CHRISTMAS, CRIMINALS, AND CAMPERS

  The loudest scream I’ve ever heard came from the office.

  I stood there in slow motion as I watched Hank draw the gun from the hidden holster under his shirt. I shoved past him, running towards the office. It was as though my feet had a mind of their own.

  “Abby?” I questioned when I got to the door and noticed she was standing over Nadine White on the floor. “Did you scream?”

  I could feel Hank behind me.

  “Abby?” Hank called.

  She stood with her back to us. My eyes drew down her body until they saw the bloody knife dangling from her fingers.

  She turned around. Her eyes hollow.

  “She’s dead,” she replied in a small frightened voice.

  CONTENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  RECIPES AND CLEANING HACKS

  EGG IN A BASKET

  APPLES ON A STICK

  CANDY CANE DONUTS

  About the Author

  Also by Tonya Kappes

  Copyright

  One

  “The way Nadine carefully wove the tapestry of the small town really did make it feel like its own character,” Abby Fawn said with a deep sigh of happiness. She spoke so fondly of the book she had picked for The Laundry Club’s monthly book club meeting.

  It was no secret that Abby Fawn was Nadine White’s biggest fan. Abby had used her position as a librarian many times to get advance reader copies of Nadine’s books before they were published.

  “No matter what we say about the book, Abby is going to defend it until she convinces us to feel the same way.” Dottie Swaggert curled her nose as though she smelled the dirty laundry a tourist was throwing into the closest washing machine.

  The Laundry Club was a full-service laundromat in downtown Normal, Kentucky. It wasn’t just a place to do your laundry; it was like nothing you’ve ever seen. It was upscale, and Betts Hager had done a fabulous job offering the comforts of home for her customers.

  Since Normal was located smack dab in the middle of Daniel Boone National Park, it was a tourist destination for campers and hikers who needed a laundry facility. Betts wanted her customers to be as comfortable doing laundry at The Laundry Club as they were in their homes. She set up a coffee and drink bar and offered snacks. She had a sitting area complete with a television and couches. The customers loved to hang around the puzzle area where there was always a jigsaw puzzle to solve. The little library area, where we held our monthly book club meetings, had shelves stocked with books from Abby that the library could no longer use or were too damaged to put on the shelf as well as a computer.

  The first time I drove into downtown Normal in my camper, The Laundry Club had been my first stop. And this here is where I’d met these ladies that I now could rely on for anything I ever needed. We’d truly become what the name was - The Laundry Club.

  “Do you have something to say about Cozy Romance in Christmas?” Abby directed her question to Dottie.

  “Nope.” Dottie sat back, crossing her arms in front of her. “I thought it could’ve used a little more oomph if you know what I mean.”

  “This is a very popular women’s fiction book. It was my turn to choose the book and I wanted to pick something that gave us a good and happy feeling inside that we can hold onto during the Christmas season since our next book club won’t be until the New Year.” Abby jerked her head towards me. Her brown-haired ponytail whipped around her. “Mae? What are your thoughts on the town being its own character?”

  “Well.” I hesitated by taking a moment to look at the book’s cover to get the author’s name.

  We all knew that Dottie liked her novels a little steamier and Queenie French liked her cowboy romances, but honestly, I preferred a good cozy mystery. Over the past few months I’d even used some tricks I’d learned from my favorite cozy mystery authors to help the local sheriff’s department bring a few criminals to justice.

  “Um. . . Nadine White does make you feel like you are in the town on the cover.” I held the book up with the cover facing outwards. “I love how the snow is falling in front of the yarn shop. It’s also cute how the cat is in the display window.”

  “But what about the friendships Nadine wrote about?” Abby asked.

  “If y’all treated me with kid gloves and all that rah-rah we are sisters stuff, I’d think you’d lost your ever-lovin’ mind.” Dottie didn’t waste any time giving her opinion.

  “I think it was very nice.” Betts Hager was opening The Laundry Club’s mail. “No matter what you think, Dottie, our little group has become a much-needed girls’ group for me just like the one Nadine created in the book. There were some people with flaws, but it’s fiction.” She ripped open an envelope and pulled out a letter. “What about you, Queenie?” Betts asked another member of our book club, pushing back a strand of her wavy shoulder length hair and brushing her bangs to the side as she read the letter to herself.

  “I’m not saying it was the worst book we’ve read, but I’m certainly not going to continue with the series.” Queenie adjusted the Jazzercise logo headband up over her forehead. Her short blonde hair was sticking straight up like a bunch of matchsticks. She did look great for being in her sixties, but her colorful wardrobe choices could use a little improvement. “There’s like twenty books in the series.”

  Abby Fawn’s brows drew down.

  “Abby, we all liked it. Just not as much as you.” I reached over to give her comfort.

  “Guys,” Betts Hager put her hands in her lap, gripping the letter. “We all better really like it because Nadine White is coming to our book club.”

  “What?” Dottie’s face pinched.

  Abby reached across our circle of chairs and snatched the letter out of Betts’s hands.

  “I always invite the authors we pick to The Laundry Club book club meetings, never figuring one would show up.”

  “Oh my Gawd!” Abby shook with excitement. “She’s getting ready to write her next novel over the winter and will be in Normal for Christmas. When she looked up Normal on the internet, she noticed all of my social media posts and hashtags. She decided that she’s going to check out Happy Trails Campground and rent a camper for the entire winter season to work on her next novel.”

  “Happy Trails?” That got my attention right away since I was the owner of the tourist destination of choice deep in the Daniel Boone National Park.

  Long story short, my now-dead ex-husband had gone to jail for a Ponzi scheme after swindling millions of dollars from people all over the country, including all the women in the book club. When he went to jail, I had no idea he’d named me the sole owner of a rundown campground in Normal, Kentucky, while everything else was his name only and was seized by the government.

  Going from the high life in Manhattan to a campground in Normal wasn’t my idea of fun or the way I had wanted to spend my life. I’d spent the better part of my teenage years getting out of the Kentucky foster care system after my own family had been killed in a housefire.

  It had taken me a few months to get the camp
ground up and running on top of doing many odd jobs around the quaint town of Normal, but I’d made it a success. In doing so, not only did I gain the trust of the citizens that my husband had abused, but I had also brought the tourists back to the sleepy town by offering luxurious camper-style arrangements that were better than any hotel in Daniel Boone National Park.

  Over the past couple of seasons, Happy Trails Campground had been used for family reunions, honeymoons, and family outings. I was proud of what I had done and its impact on our small town, and Abby Fawn had worked alongside me by doing her fabulous social media marketing in addition to being the town’s librarian.

  “I ain’t never gotten no call about a Nadine White.” Dottie Swaggert reached out to get the letter from Abby. She would know. She and I both lived at the campground. She was the manager and took all the reservations.

  “Can I have that letter to keep?” Abby gushed with delight and took her phone out of her pocket. “Hashtag Nadine White is going to join the hashtag The Laundry Club hashtag book club to talk about her hashtag women’s fiction hashtag novel hashtag Cozy Romance in Christmas.”

  “Abby!” Betts called out her name when she realized Abby was plastering Nadine White’s visit all over social media.

  “What was that?” I looked around when the lights in the laundromat flickered.

  “The snow.” Betts waved it off. “We have overhead powerlines out back that feed the electric and the heavy snow will sit on the line, wreaking havoc with the electricity.” She pointed to the television that showed a snowy picture instead of the Weather Channel we had been watching because there was a snowstorm headed our way. “The electricity rarely goes out, but the internet and cable do. Abby,” she got Abby to look up from her phone. “You can’t put that on social media. In her letter, she specifically states that it’s a getaway and no one but her agent will know where she is.”

  “Oh, no.” Abby clicked and swiped away on her phone. “I don’t have service.”

  “You better get service fast because she’s coming today.” Dottie shoved the letter in my face.

  “Today?” My jaw dropped. “We don’t have her reservation.”

  “Not under her name, but under Valerie Young.” Dottie poked at the paper with her finger. “That’s her agent.”

  “Valerie Young is the one who requested a Christmas tree and some fun lights around the rental camper.” I had just finished putting up the Christmas tree last night in anticipation of her arrival.

  “You’ve got to do more than that,” Abby’s voice rose with each word as the joy and anticipation over her favorite author’s arrival bubbled up within her. “You’ve got to go all out and decorate the outside too.”

  “I did see Buck put some new decorations in the display window of the Tough Nickel Thrift Shop.” Queenie unzipped the fanny pack that was clasped around her waist and took out an emery board to file a hangnail.

  “You’ve got to do it. Can’t you tell how much Nadine loves Christmas from this book?” Abby begged. “I can help. I’ve read all of her books and there’s a few Christmas ones. She loves trees all decorated with colored bulbs and she loves those snowmen blow-ups. Loves them,” she emphasized with her hands along with wide open eyes. “I’ve got to invite her to the library to do a reading.” Abby jumped up and started to pace. She’d stop, hold her phone up in the air, look at it, shake it, and do it all over again in an effort to get some cell service. “It’s perfect. A Christmas present for Normal.”

  “I’m not so sure she wants anyone to know she’s here.” Betts sighed. We all stared at Abby in amazement. She was so giddy and childlike. Granted, she was in her early twenties and the youngest of the group, but this was an author, not some big Hollywood actress.

  “No.” I put my hand out. That was the last thing she needed to be involved in. I’d never seen Abby this excited, not even since she’d started dating Ty Randal, one of Normal’s most eligible bachelors and kinda a suitor of mine when I first moved to Normal. “You’ve got a lot on your mind and I’m crunched for time to get the camper ready.”

  “It’s her own fault if she didn’t tell you to get more decorations up.” Dottie tugged her cigarette case out of her front pocket. “Come on, I’ll go with ya.”

  “So it’s set.” Abby gathered in the middle of us before we all went our separate ways. “If I can get Nadine White to do a book reading at the library, you’re all coming, right?”

  “Can I tell her that her book is no good?” Dottie took out a cigarette, sticking it in the corner of her mouth and letting it bounce as she talked. “She needs to be told that she needs more substance than a romantic fling and all that hoping to find love again.”

  “Dottie, I promise. You are going to love her. She’s amazing.” Abby’s smile was brighter than the North Star on the night Jesus was birthed. Well, at least brighter than how I pictured it. “I have to go! I’ve got to get to some internet and take down that tweet about her being here.”

  The rest of us stood there watching Abby bolt out the door into the falling snow, leaving her coat on the back of her chair.

  “Poor girl.” Queenie tsked, clasped her hands, and bended forward to the ground. “I guess I better get to the church. I’ve got a Jazzercise class to teach and that undercroft gets really cold if they haven’t put the heat on.”

  Queenie gave hugs all around.

  “We’ve got the heat on.” Betts moved the chairs from the circle back to where they belonged. “I made sure Lester knew.” Lester was Betts’s husband and preacher of the Normal Baptist Church.

  “The three of you aren’t getting no younger, so you better come join me for some good cardio exercise.” Queenie wiggled her fingers into jazz hands before she slipped her hot pink gloves over them.

  “Here.” Betts had run over to the coffee bar and made to-go cups of coffee. “Take a cup with you. It’s cold out there.”

  Betts was a woman who wore many hats. She not only did everything she could to be a wonderful wife and mother, she ran The Laundry Club, which was doing great, cleaned houses on the side, and was involved with various clubs around town.

  Dottie and I said our goodbyes to Betts and put our coats on.

  “I sure hope Abby doesn’t get her hopes up.” Dottie stood on the sidewalk and lit her cigarette.

  “I’m worried about that too. She’s built her up in her mind to be this wonderful woman. I just hope Nadine White doesn’t disappoint her number one fan.” I wrapped my hand around the crook of Dottie’s arm. “Let’s walk on over to the thrift shop and see what decorations Buck’s got over there for Nadine’s camper.”

  Two

  Downtown Normal was truly beautiful in falling snow. I had never lived here before during the winter and the scenery didn’t disappoint. In Kentucky, we had all four seasons. I’d have to say that fall happened to be one of my favorites, with all the changing colors Mother Nature offered deep inside the forests of Daniel Boone National Park.

  The shops downtown were all different shapes and size. Some were cute chippy buildings and some were quiet large, but none of them had big signs. They all had small, wooden, hand painted signs. There was The Smelly Dog Groomer, Cookie Crumble Bakery, Normal Diner, the Normal Library, Sweet Smell Flower Shop, The Trails Coffee Shop, Grassel’s Gas Station, Deter’s Feed-N-Seed, and the Tough Nickel Thrift Shop, to name a few.

  “It looks like Abby has gone into Sweet Smell.” Dottie drew her finger along Abby’s footsteps in the snow and pointed into the window of the flower shop as we passed by.

  “She is probably telling them all about Nadine White.” I shook my head and looked both ways before Dottie and I crossed the one-way street along that side of the median to cross to the other side of Main Street.

  Main Street was split in two, right down the middle, with a one-way street on each side. In the middle were a small amphitheater, covered shelter, and several picnic tables scattered around the tall trees. During the warmer seasons, it was a wonderful place to
have lunch while visiting downtown or to see plays put on by the community theater. A lot of tourists liked to come down here and have family reunions in the shelter. In the winter, it was turned into a tree lot, with twinkling Christmas lights scattered around the perimeter of the entire area.

  There were a few vendors and local artists set up that were allowed to sell what they made. Crafts were a big thing around here, especially anything monogrammed. It was definitely a great place to Christmas shop for someone because you were guaranteed to find something unique.

  Dottie snuffed out her cigarette as we hurried across the streets and into the Thrifty Nickel. It was a neat shop owned by Buck. He’d kept the old building exactly how it was built, with exposed brick on all walls and a large open space with tall ceilings. There was an upstairs full of clothing and a back room with thrift store items, but I was more interested in the blow-up snowman he’d displayed in the front window.

  Dottie and I made sure to shake the snow off our coats and boots near the door. We didn’t want to get Buck’s hardwood floors or his oriental rugs wet. While she moseyed around to look at the big antique furniture and expensive items, I checked out all the Christmas things he had until I found Buck to ask about the snowman.

  Buck was tall and slender with coal black hair. He was in his late sixties and was very knowledgeable about the history of not only Normal, but of all the items in his shop.

  “Mae West. How’s your first Christmas season in Normal?” Buck trotted down the steps. He had a stack of long johns in his hands.

  “Surprising.” It was a word I’d found myself using a lot when people asked about Happy Trails over the last couple of weeks. “I never figured anyone would want to stay at a campground during winter. Especially with the big snowstorms we are projected to get.”

  He folded and stacked the long johns into a tobacco basket he used for display near the front of the shop.