“Jeez, what a stroke of luck for Fanny. I’ll bet that Sarah thought it would have been her fate instead of Fanny’s had Fanny not destroyed her books and claimed her assigned table at the entrance?” I said in the form of a question.
“Yes, she did. Norma told me that she, herself, was realistic enough to know that her book about coupon-clipping would only appeal to a limited audience, but Sarah was naïve enough to believe her book about multi-generational households was worthy of the same level of success as Fame and Shame. Norma told me Sarah was still under the impression that anyone who had a published book to her credit was destined to make a killing off their ‘masterpiece’. Norma said she personally didn’t expect to break even, with what it had cost her to write and promote her own book, but it was a labor of love for her more than an attempt to make a profit,” Wendy explained.
As a response, I simply simulated the sound of snoring. Wendy ignored me and continued.
“According to Norma, when Sarah approached Fanny with this theory of Fanny ‘stealing her thunder,’ so to speak, Fanny told Sarah that she’d be legally able to marry her pet Shih Tzu before her ‘silly’ book ever became a best seller. Sarah was so livid, Norma said, that if looks could kill, Fanny would have been dead several months ago.”
“Legally marry her Shih Tzu? Well, you’ve got to give Fanny credit, she did have a way with words—an important skill for a writer, you know.”
“Yeah, right, Mom,” Wendy said, with a dramatic display of eye-rolling. “So, to put it in a nutshell, Sarah feels that Fanny stole her prosperity and fame. It was something Sarah could not let go of. She’s been allowing it to suck the joy and happiness right out of her life. Norma thinks Sarah might have been looking to settle the score.”
“That’s really a shame,” I said. “It seems to me that the person who wants revenge almost always suffers worse than the person they want vengeance against, who often don’t even realize, or care, that they’re the subject of that other person’s wrath. It ends up hurting the hater worse than the hated.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure! Oh, before I forget, since Wyatt bought us tickets to the Vex Vaughn concert tomorrow, I wish there was some way we could get to meet him.”
“I thought it was Veronica who idolized him, not you,” I said. “I wasn’t even aware you liked county music. I thought you liked artists like Pink and Bruno Mars.”
“I do. But I also like George Strait, Pitbull, Bob Marley and Mumford and Sons. I like all musical genres. And I really don’t care about meeting Vex Vaughn, or any other artist, for that matter. I’d just like to see what Vaughn has to say about the death of his nemesis, who was determined to undermine him. But, frankly I don’t think there’s any way we could get within a hundred feet of him,” Wendy said.
Her comment floored me because nosiness was normally my bad trait, not hers. Was this the same daughter who had gotten up on her “don’t be such a fool” soapbox and railed at me time and time again about getting involved in murder investigations? Was my reckless and impulsive nature rubbing off on her? For her sake, I hoped not. But at the moment I was happy to see I had lured her over to the dark side.
Wendy yawned and told me she was getting sleepy, so after she headed back to her own rig, I went inside and joined my husband in bed. I stayed as far away from him as the queen-sized bed would allow.
I felt another wave of discomfort and, for a second wondered if I’d been poisoned with something intentionally added to my nasty-tasting snow cone. I’d been poisoned before and had that same light-headed and confused feeling now that I’d had then. But I couldn’t see how either Norma or Sarah could have a clue that I suspected either of them of murder, or about my penchant for taking it upon myself to find people responsible for committing a deadly crime.
Then a bout of nausea hit me like a prizefighter. I leaned over Stone and grabbed the bathroom trash container just in time. It occurred to me then that perhaps a liberally salted pretzel, powdered sugar-coated funnel cake, corn dog dipped in spicy mustard, rancid blue snow cone, and half of Wendy’s nachos and cheese, had made for a dangerous combination. My empathy for my husband instantly went up a notch.
As I lay in bed waiting for the nausea to abate, I thought about how the way I felt now was reminiscent of the way I’d felt when I’d been poisoned before. It crossed my mind that Norma, Sarah, or both, had ample opportunity to slip something into my snow cone between purchasing it and handing it to me to eat. It would explain the bitter aftertaste of the frozen concoction. But what had I said or done at that point to raise a red flag? How could they know I wanted to elicit damning information from them and turn it over to the cops?
Had they spoken to Emily, who was aware of previous incidents when I’d done that, and been apprised by her of my ingrained inquisitiveness, as I like to call it? Or, as Wendy, Stone, Detective Johnston, and the Rockdale, Missouri, Chief of Police are apt to call it, my bad habit of intrusive meddling.
I convinced myself I was over-reacting to a well-earned case of carnivalitis. It seemed to be contagious amongst our little party of vacationers.
Although discovering Fanny Finch’s killer did not have any personal bearing on me, as previous cases I’d been involved with had, I still found myself wanting to see the no-account, scum-of-the-earth murderer brought to justice. And having my usually reticent daughter interested in the case as well, and seeing her willingness to act as my partner in crime-solving, simply spurred me on and made me want to throw caution to the wind. I only hoped my fascination with the crime did not come back to bite me in the you-know-what, as it often had in the past.
Chapter 8
Before parting the previous evening, Wendy and I had made plans to meet at the little café centrally located in the Cozy Camping RV Park for a cup of coffee. We then planned to go for a walk around the park to admire some of the fancier rigs.
I had awakened feeling fairly refreshed, considering how I’d felt when I finally drifted off to sleep the night before. I dressed quietly and sneaked out the door of the motorhome so as not to disturb Stone, who was still snoring like a freight train. But to me, silence is deafening. I sleep with a noisy fan to drown out the sound of not only my sleeping partner’s snoring, but everything else. Even a serial killer breaking the glass on the patio door wouldn’t wake me. If a serial killer was going to make me his next victim, I could do perfectly fine without being aware of that fact in advance. I’d prefer to wake up dead than be an active participant in the crime.
Kylie smiled when I entered the café shortly after six, and said, “Greetings!”
“Good morning, sweetheart,” I said, smiling back. “You sure do work long hours here, don’t you?”
“Yeah, too long, I’m beginning to think.”
“Don’t let it affect your health,” I told her. “Burning both ends of the candle soon leaves you with no candle left to burn.”
“I know,” Kylie replied. “Please don’t mention it to the Harringtons, but it’s one of the reasons I’m considering going back to Florida. It’s only a seasonal job anyway, but after Ms. Finch’s death—which I feel somewhat responsible for, by the way—I think I need to go back to my job at the hair salon.”
“Honey, don’t blame yourself for the woman’s fate. It’s not your fault. Whoever killed her would have most likely found a way eventually, you know,” I said in an attempt to console the troubled young lady.
“I should have looked down into the pool before I locked the gate that night. Maybe it wouldn’t have been too late to save her.”
“Yes, it would have been too late, Kylie. The electrocution would have caused instant death, I’m sure. There was nothing you could have done. Fanny’s death was inevitable, with or without you checking for bodies at the bottom of the pool,” I assured her.
“Well, I hope you’re right. Would you like a cup of coffee, Lexie?”
“Absolutely! Pour two because Wendy will be here any minute. Would you care to join us while the café i
s empty except for us?”
“I can join you for a few minutes, and then I’ll have to start making some biscuits, sausage gravy and cinnamon rolls. I’m working the café today instead of the front counter in the office, which is fine with me.”
“You must be a multi-talented gal,” I said. “I cook for guests at our bed and breakfast and still worry about potential lawsuits for killing someone with salmonella. I almost bumped off my old boss that way.4 I especially suck at cooking breakfast. I can’t cook an ‘over easy’ egg to save my soul. I offer two choices at the inn: barely warmed over or hard as a hockey puck. I really hate to serve anything more complicated than a bowl of cold cereal and a pop tart.”
“Hey, that’s exactly what Emily told me about your cooking,” Kylie said, with a teasing wink. “While I was in cosmetology school I worked as a cook at the local greasy spoon, so this is old hat to me.”
Wendy walked in the door of the café just as Kylie was setting three cups of coffee down on the table, which had the rustic look of a table in a ski lodge. The tables fit perfectly with the cowboy paintings on the wall and the six-foot tall black bear statue that stood next to the cash register. The statue had been carved from a large log with a chain saw, Kylie told us. Hanging around the bear’s neck was a sign that read, “Rude and unhappy customers will be properly seasoned and served up for supper.”
“That’s a little cannibalistic-sounding, don’t you think? Hannibal Lector might feel right at home eating here, but I know reading that sign would make me think twice before ordering a meal in this cafe,” I said jokingly.
“All I can tell you is to beware of the chef’s special—the mystery meat omelet. When the meat used in an omelet is even a mystery to the chef, it’s usually not a good idea to order it.”
“Point taken, Kylie!” I said with a laugh. “But, seriously, the bear is incredible. I’d love to watch someone carve a statue like it with nothing but a chainsaw.”
“You can, Lexie,” Kylie replied. “A chainsaw artist will be giving a demonstration this afternoon at two o’clock in the pavilion next to the tent area. Harvey also sells some of his work after his presentation. He carved Yogi over there for the Harringtons last year, Stanley told me. Stanley is trying to learn the art now too, but he says it’s a challenge because he has a tendency to saw off an ear, or some other vital part of the animal, leaving him with a deformed and not very appealing bear. He hasn’t quite mastered the art of chainsaw carving yet.”
We all chuckled at the idea of Stanley accidentally amputating ears on his chainsaw projects. When the laughter faded, Wendy asked Kylie if she or the campground owners had heard anything new about the drowning.
Kylie shook her head and answered, “Not that I’m aware of, but Emily did tell me that Avery Bumberdinger’s ex-wife is in site C-26 in a small Airstream travel trailer. According to Emily, Cassie Bumberdinger, who apparently kept her married name after her divorce, told the investigators she and her kids are here to participate in a horseback-riding excursion at some ranch northwest of Cheyenne.”
“Is it just me, or does that sound like an unlikely coincidence?” I asked. “The odds of Avery and his ex-wife finding themselves in the same RV Park in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on the very week Avery’s new wife is murdered here have got to be slim to none.”
“That’s what I said to Emily,” Kylie responded. “But Emily overheard Cassie being questioned the afternoon of the murder by detectives in the office. I was working in the cafe here at the time, but Emily told me that Cassie claimed to have had no idea Avery and Fanny would be here at the same time she and her kids were. She said she enjoys horseback riding at ranches all over the country. Says it’s a fun way to bond with her young daughter who is training to be a barrel-racer. She said this trail-riding event in Cheyenne just happened to coincide with the rodeo. I guess it’s possible, even though the chances seems remote to me.”
“Yeah, me too,” Wendy agreed.
I agreed with the two younger women, and said, “We will have to come up with an excuse to speak to Cassie Bumberdinger, Wendy.”
“Emily told me about your success solving murders in the past, Lexie, and I admire you tremendously. But please be careful,” Kylie said, gently touching the top of my hand, which was resting on the table. “I’d be afraid that anyone who would do something so horrific to Fanny Finch would not hesitate to do something horrific to you and Wendy, too.”
“Trust me,” Wendy said. “We’ll be careful, Kylie. I’ll be with her, making sure Mom doesn’t do something rash and impulsive as she has in the past. I lack the apparent death wish Mom often appears to possess.”
“Good. That’s a relief.” Kylie nodded before continuing. “I don’t want to see your mom do something that might get her injured, or worse, because of a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
“Hey! I’m sitting right here, you know,” I said, wondering when I had supposedly left the room.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that,” Kylie responded, as she and Wendy exchanged a look I didn’t care to interpret. “But I am curious about this whole thing, so let me know if you find out anything interesting. If I didn’t have so much work to do, I’d be joining you ladies in the hunt for the killer. Unfortunately, sneaking off to go horseback-riding doesn’t get the bills paid.”
Kylie drained her cup and excused herself to get busy in the café‘s kitchen. She told us that around seven o’clock customers would begin streaming in and she wanted to be prepared for a busy morning.
Wendy and I decided to take our walk around the RV Park. After looking at some of the high-dollar rigs, we also hoped to locate site C-26 in the older section. Maybe we could find Cassie Bumberdinger sitting on her patio drinking her morning coffee. We headed for the expansion area that Emily had earlier referred to as “the south forty.” The fenced-in area was located at the southern end of the campground and contained forty large sites with fifty-amp service.
Many of the beautiful motorhomes we saw were towing small vehicles, some with matching paint jobs. One even towed a trailer with two Harleys strapped onto it. There were a few Prevost motorhomes, and a Newell Luxury Coach with four electric slide-outs, which Stanley had told Stone cost well over a million dollars each. Some of the more elaborate units were purported to have granite countertops, built-in fireplaces, washer/dryer combos, and even dishwashers. They had a lot of customized features, including crystal glass cabinets, onyx bathroom lavatories, Italian art, mosaic tiled showers, and much more. After viewing the exteriors of these units, we were itching to see what they looked like inside.
On the way back toward the section where our three functional, but much less luxurious, rental motorhomes were parked, we found site C-26. The site, shaded by a massive cottonwood tree across from the pool area, was two sites down from the fenced-in dog park. Outside the dog park gate was a wooden bench where we sat down for a short break.
“Andy was talking to Stanley Harrington about Sallie yesterday while Stanley was weed-eating around the tent area,” Wendy said. Sallie was a golden retriever Andy had inherited when he’d moved to the Midwest from the East Coast and purchased a small cattle ranch near Atchison, Kansas.5 He’d instantly fallen in love with the sweet-natured pooch, and was thankful that Sallie got along well with Tank, the Mastiff puppy he’d later adopted. I listened as my daughter continued with her story.
“Stanley told him he’d constructed this dog park to encourage customers to utilize it when they took their dogs outside to do their business. Every morning he shovels up a bucket of dog poo from out of the dog park, but he said he’d rather pick up crap all day long than take it from customers who were upset that another camper had let their pet poop in their RV site and hadn’t picked it up afterward. Stanley said that it was a chronic problem.”
“Has the new dog park helped minimize the number of calling cards left scattered about the campground?” I asked.
“Somewhat, Stanley told Andy, but it hasn’t been as effective as he’d hoped. He s
till hits piles of fresh dog poop with his weed eater, which he claims is not a pleasant experience.”
“I can imagine it would be very aggravating for him. I think people who won’t pick up after their pets shouldn’t even be allowed to own one if they can’t be responsible for it.” This had always been one of my pet peeves, no pun intended. I’d had to deal with this issue every time I went for a walk in our nearby city park a couple of blocks from the inn. “It shows a total lack of consideration for others. The disrespectful pet owner would probably be the first one to complain if they stepped in a pile of dog doo-doo that resulted from someone else refusing to clean up after their pet.”
“I agree,” Wendy replied. “It irritates me too. Andy and I always pick up after Sallie and Tank when we take them out in a public place, or even on the ranch. We don’t want visitors, or even ourselves, to have to navigate our yard like it was a mine field.”
After a few minutes, we continued on our walk. No one was stirring outside Cassie’s rounded, silver-colored trailer, which was fairly small and obviously an older model. On the outside of the Airstream trailer there was a large sticker depicting the United States with about three-fourths of the fifty states covered with state-shaped decals, obviously indicating which ones the owner had visited. It looked like Cassie Bumberdinger was well traveled.
After Wendy had split off to head in the direction of her and Andy’s site, I ran into Wyatt as he was leaving the men’s shower house. His hair was still wet, and he held a damp towel over his arm. He looked to be in great spirits, as was usually the case with the amicable, easy-going detective.
Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping Page 9
