Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping

by Jeanne Glidewell

  I don’t know what it was about Sarah’s attitude that made me feel obliged to speak in defense of Fanny, who was an egomaniac I had disliked from the second I’d first laid eyes on her. But I found myself doing it anyway. “I’m sure Ms. Finch’s writing skills paid a role in her success, as well.”

  Both ladies looked at me as if I’d just said the reason Fame and Shame had become a New York Times best-seller was because the world was flat, and that both Fanny and I sacked up kittens and threw them in the river for our own amusement.

  “Are you nuts, Ms. Starr? Fanny Finch’s, or, rather, Claudia Bumberdinger’s, success is in no way the result of her writing skills. Norma and I exhibit more impressive writing skills while making out our grocery lists. It was fortunate for Fanny that a good editor could mask the fact she thrived on butchering the English language. That woman could dangle participles with incredible regularity, almost as if she were trying to prove she could dangle anything she darned well pleased, whenever she darned well felt like it. Her grammar was absolutely atrocious.”

  “Well, Sarah, you two are in a better position to judge her writing prowess than I am. I’ve no doubt I dangle participles at every opportunity myself, with little regard for my lack of grammar skills. I’ve even been known to throw around a double negative or two, and you’d be appalled at how often I erroneously end a sentence with a preposition. But I understand where you two, as master wordsmiths, would be able to detect all of Fanny’s writing inadequacies with no trouble at all.”

  I flinched as I felt the tip of my daughter’s left boot make contact with my shin under the table. She was reacting to my deliberately stinging remarks, which, as far as Sarah and Norma were concerned, fell on deaf ears, or were just not blatant enough. They both beamed as if I’d just offered up a highly flattering compliment and they were basking in their glory. I found their attitudes almost nauseating.

  Before her insensitive and offensive mother could embarrass her by making another inappropriate remark, Wendy said, “We better get back to our table. I think I just saw our waiter carrying the taco salad I ordered. It’s been nice chatting with you ladies. I hope your supper is delicious and the remainder of your stay in Cheyenne is pleasant, as well.”

  “Thank you,” the ladies said in unison. As we got up to leave, Norma asked a question that made me sit back down instantly.

  “Do you know if Cassie has been cleared as a suspect in Fanny’s murder?”

  “I don’t know, Norma,” I said, with renewed interest in the conversation. “Why do you ask?”

  “It seems to me she has a strong motive, and it’s obvious she despised the woman who broke up her marriage. When I asked her earlier if she was at the campground when Fanny’s body was discovered, she said she’d taken a sleeping pill the night before and was practically unconscious until ten that morning. She’d heard about the murder from a couple in the fifth wheel next to her later in the day.”

  “And you think that somehow makes her a likely suspect as the killer?” I asked.

  “Not that in itself, of course. It was her next remark that makes her a likely suspect, in my opinion anyway.”

  “And what remark was that, Norma?”

  “She said the sleeping pill she took is known to make people do things during the night that they have no recollection of the next day, such as sleep-eat, or sleep-drive. Then she laughed, and said, ‘Gee, I wonder if the pill turned me into a sleep-killer?’ Cassie said it as a joke, but I’m not sure it was one, because before she walked away she laughed again and said, ‘Doesn’t really matter, though, because either way, she’s dead.’”

  * * *

  We returned to our table where the three men, along with Veronica and Kylie, were all laughing at something Wyatt had just teased his girlfriend about. Veronica was playfully punching Wyatt in his upper arm as Wendy and I sat back down in our seats.

  I didn’t see a waiter carrying a taco salad over to the table and realized Wendy had used that as an excuse to drag me away from Sarah and Norma’s table. She often said I could be relentless when I was determined to make a point, or pry information out of people not willing to spill their guts on their own. I couldn’t argue with Wendy’s assessment of me, nor could I change my inborn nature and morph into a milquetoast, either.

  From the gist of the next few comments in their conversation, they’d also been discussing the murder of Fanny Finch. Veronica, who was an accomplished cook, as any partner of Wyatt’s would need to be, poked fun at herself by saying, “I can guarantee you, the last two things I’d be apt to sacrifice by throwing them into a pool to electrocute someone, would be my hair dryer and my electric skillet.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Wyatt said.

  Kylie cut in with a remark of her own. “As a cooking catastrophe waiting to happen, I’d gladly toss any cooking apparatus I owned in the pool, but the hair dryers I used as a licensed cosmetologist cost too much to deliberately destroy.”

  Not surprisingly, as everyone was laughing, they all turned to look at me. I knew what they were thinking, so I spoke for the whole group when I said, “I can certainly relate to your cooking catastrophe comment, Kylie. I once came close to burning down the Alexandria Inn with an over-nuked potato.”9

  “And she nearly killed both of us, along with her new boss at the library, with a bacteria-laden under-baked chicken,”10 Stone added, for Kylie’s benefit, who was the only one at the table unaware of some of my finer moments in the kitchen.

  The restaurant was packed, and service was slow as a result. But, kicking back, sipping on our beverages, and enjoying the camaraderie of friends, no one seemed to mind the long wait. Even Wyatt seemed content with just digging into the bowls of tortilla chips and salsa the waiter had just refilled for the second time.

  To everyone’s amusement, Kylie told a few stories about her own cooking mishaps, including the disastrous first meal she’d cooked to impress her latest ex-boyfriend. She explained to us she’d roasted a small turkey with the bag of giblets still inside the bird and served it with a broccoli-rice casserole she’d made with regular rice instead of the minute rice the recipe had called for. She hadn’t not realized the rice would still be hard as tiny bricks when eaten. To make matters worse, she’d deep-fried some hush puppies in peanut oil, unaware of her boyfriend’s nut allergy, and they spent the remainder of the night in the emergency room as he was being treated for anaphylactic shock.

  “Can you believe that after I spent three hours with him at the hospital, the ungrateful jerk never asked me out for a second date?” Kylie asked with an exaggerated pout. After the laughter died down, she continued. “I’m just kidding. Jason and I actually dated for several more months, even though my mom and dad couldn’t stand the sight of him. And they were right, of course. He turned out to be as worthless as they’d warned me he was. It was probably the only time I ever showed any kind of rebellion against them, because they couldn’t have been any more loving or supportive than if they’d been my biological parents.”

  “It sounds to me like you were one lucky girl,” Stone said. “I think I speak for all of us in saying I think they were lucky to have you in their lives, as well.”

  “Thanks,” the smiling young lady replied.

  “Do you have any kind of relationship with your biological parents?” I asked.

  “No, but I hope to have one with my real father, whose identity I have only just recently been able to discover. My biological mother was sixteen when she gave birth to me, and shortly thereafter died from a complication resulting from my birth. I was immediately put up for adoption by my father. I don’t hold that decision against him because I’m sure he realized I’d have a better life with more mature, and financially sound, adopted parents.”

  I thought her father made the right decision and that it was quite a sacrifice for the sake of his newborn child, and I said as much to Kylie. “Have you ever met him?”

  “No, but I would have thanked him had I had the opportuni
ty to meet him. I’d always assumed my mother just didn’t want to be tied down with a kid to take care of when she was really still a kid herself. Unfortunately, in my research, I discovered she’d died of a rare complication a couple of weeks following my birth. That’s something that’s weighed heavy on my mind. But it was that knowledge that made me step up my attempts to locate my father. With the help of my adoptive parents—I call them Mom and Dad—we were finally able to get a lucky break and locate my biological mother’s mother, and learn the identify of my father. I have recently met my maternal grandmother and we are getting to know each other now.”

  I was going to ask her about her father’s identity, but decided she’d tell us more about him if she wanted to. As it was, our waiter approached our table with an armful of plates at that moment, and the conversation quickly changed to whose plate was whose.

  I was happy to see Veronica order a beef burrito with beans and rice on the side, a meal that might seem average for most folks, but for Veronica it was akin to a Thanksgiving feast. I was happier still to watch her finish off everything on her plate except for half the serving of beans, which, if they affected her like they occasionally did me, might have been in order to limit the potential of gassing her boyfriend out of the motorhome later on that evening.

  When Veronica caught me gazing at her, she flashed me a shy, somewhat timid, smile, and I responded with a warm smile of my own. I wanted to convey to her that I was proud of the effort she was making. I had no unrealistic illusions that conquering her demons would be easy, or without setbacks.

  The cheese enchiladas I’d ordered were either the best I’d ever tasted, or I was so hungry I could have eaten under-cooked Rocky Mountain oysters and been just as satisfied. With a full belly, a body as limp as a rag doll, and the rhythmic jostling of the vehicle on our ride back to Cozy Camping RV Park, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I knew I’d be as unconscious as Veronica had been earlier that afternoon within minutes of our return to the motorhome. I was sure I’d sleep soundly that night, and even if I were hooked to an intravenous caffeine drip, I could not have stayed awake for long.

  Chapter 15

  As I knew would be the case, I was so zonked all night that a super-sonic jet, breaking the speed of sound fifty feet above our RV could not have awakened me. When I opened my eyes at ten minutes to eight, I saw Stone waving a cup of coffee back and forth underneath my nose.

  “Good morning, my little chickadee,” Stone said good-naturedly. “I tried shaking you, turning the TV up to a deafening level, and every other thing I could think of short of slapping you awake, and nothing seemed to faze you. So, to wake you up I had to resort to a no-fail method, at least as far as you’re concerned.”

  I guess even though coffee—even massive amounts of it—rarely ever kept me awake, the smell of it could wake me from the nearly dead when nothing else did the trick. Frying bacon was my go-to method when trying to get Stone out of bed. I smiled up at him and said, “Good morning, honey.”

  “I thought you should get up if we’re going to catch the shuttle bus down to the fairgrounds for the Thunderbirds’ performance at ten,” Stone said, as he lovingly ran his hand up and down my left leg, which was sticking out from under the covers. “You still want to go, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. I heard the annual air show was really awesome.”

  “Good,” he replied. “Why don’t you grab a shower while I make the bed and prepare us something for breakfast? I make a mean omelet, you know. How does that sound this morning?”

  “Delicious,” I replied. “I think I’ll go to the shower house this morning, rather than squeeze into the tiny shower in this rig. I’ll make it quick and be banging my silverware on the table in twenty minutes.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, as I was standing at one of the lavatory sinks in the shower house, brushing my teeth and running a comb through my damp hair, an older lady using the basin next to me asked, “Say, aren’t you the one who found that author lady dead earlier this week? My husband and I hurried up to the pool area when we heard a gentleman in the trailer next to us hollering to another camper that someone had drowned.”

  “Yes, my daughter and I had gone up there for an early morning swim and were horrified to discover her body on the bottom of the pool.”

  “I thought dead bodies floated.” The sixty-some year-old lady exclaimed.

  “They do—eventually—but not until after the body has bloated with gas, or so my daughter explained. She’s an assistant coroner back home. It hadn’t been long enough for the body to rise to the surface, Wendy told me.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting. I’m Rapella, by the way.”

  “I’m Lexie Starr and I’m happy to meet you, Rapella. My husband, Stone, and I are out here on vacation, celebrating our first anniversary. This is our first experience in an RV.”

  “It’s an interesting lifestyle,” Rapella said. “My husband and I are full-timers. We’ve traveled all over in our thirty-foot trailer and have stayed in RV Parks in nearly every state in the union, but we’ve never seen anything like this before. We did see an old fart choke to death on a bone from one of the chicken wings he was shoving in his mouth like nobody’s business, and we’ve seen a couple elderly RVers keel over when their tickers shot craps. We’ve never seen one get their ticker stopped for them like this poor unlucky sucker did, though.”

  “Yes, it was shocking, wasn’t it? Especially to my daughter and me, as you can imagine,” I said. I was wishing Wendy were with me right then so she could hear what “insensitive” and “offensive” really sounded like.

  “Oh, my goodness. I’m sure it was an unbelievable sight. Congratulations to you both on your first anniversary. Rip and I have been hitched for almost fifty years. Tied the knot when we were both just eighteen and right out of high school. Reason be, I got knocked up and my pappy would’ve tarred and feathered old Rip if he hadn’t put a ring on my finger,” she explained with a cackle. “My husband has always gone by Rip because his last name was Ripple, and he hated his given name of Clyde. After we got married, everyone started referring to me as Rap, and we were collectively called Rip and Rap. The nickname stuck, but to his dying day my pappy called us Riff and Raff, grudgingly at first, but with affection later on.”

  “Sounds like your pappy was a real pistol,” I said.

  “That he was. I was wondering if you heard if that woman’s killer has been arrested. We’ve heard nothing about it since they hauled her carcass off in a body bag.”

  I tried not to laugh at the this lady’s callous but amusing way of turning a phrase before responding in the negative. “No, as far as I’m aware, the murder’s still under investigation and the killer is still on the loose. My daughter and I have actually been kind of meddling into the case a bit ourselves, but without much success so far. Our interest, of course, stems from the fact we feel personally involved, having discovered her body.”

  “I’d feel exactly the same way, Lexie. You and your hubby need to stop by and meet my old man when you get a chance. Rip and I are in the site directly across from the office, under that big oak tree.”

  “Do you mean that chartreuse-colored travel trailer with the yellow sunflowers painted all over it?” I asked, amazed. We’d all shaken our heads in disbelief every time we passed the outlandishly-painted rig as we pulled into the RV park. At her enthusiastic nod, I replied, “That’s quite a cheerful-looking trailer, Rapella.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it? We got bored one weekend and decided to spruce the old thing up a bit.”

  “Well, I must say, you accomplished your goal. I’m originally from the ‘Sunflower State’ of Kansas. You’d fit right in there. Now we live right over the Kansas border in Rockdale, Missouri, where we own and operate a bed and breakfast in a refurbished turn-of-the-century Victorian mansion called Alexandria Inn.”

  “I believe Emily has mentioned your name on several occasions. She told me she and Stanley
stayed with you around the holidays last winter. Sounds to me like you’re a real sparkplug with a lot of spirit, which I find to be a breath of fresh air. We’ll have to stop by there some day when we’re passing through the Midwest. We’ve been to both states numerous times. Rip and I spent several summers working and staying at a park in the Ozarks. Believe it or not, we fit right in with them toothless boot-legging hillbillies ‘round there,” Rapella said, with a deadpan expression.

  “We would love to have you stop and visit us at the inn. We’re located not too far north of I-70. Is this your first time to come to Cheyenne Frontier Days?”

  “Oh, no. We’re here nearly every year at this time. Emily Harrington is my cousin on my mother’s side, so we’re always able to snag one of the premium sites. And my cousin gives us a sizeable discount—as in we pay zip for our site—and Rip and I clean the two shower houses every morning in exchange. In fact, Rip and I work as what’s called ‘workampers’ at RV parks all across the country. Campground owners advertise for helpers like us in a ‘Workamping’ magazine and online site. It works well for us and allows us to travel and live cheaply.”

  “Emily told us about hiring workampers. It seems like a win-win situation for both the RVers and the RV Park owners. Sounds like a fun lifestyle too! As first-timers, we’re really enjoying ourselves,” I said sincerely.