by Jess Lourey
I knew the owners, a retired married couple, Bing and Kellie Gibson. I recalled that they had bought the place three years earlier from the Woolerys. The Woolerys’ main claim to fame, besides the resort, was that their son was Chuck Woolery, one-time host of Love Connection. He used to visit them and eat at the local restaurants. That was juicy stuff in a small town like Battle Lake. We didn’t see a lot of stars in the North Country.
The closest I had come to someone famous was a girl in high school, Savannah, who had appeared on Puttin’ on the Hits the summer after our sophomore year. She mouthed and wiggled to “Shout” by Tears for Fears with the help of a cousin of hers from Saint Paul. When she was in California filming her episode, she rode on the same elevator as Telly Savalas. She hadn’t won on the show, but that double dose of fame had been heady to all of us. We went around saying his trademark “Who loves ya, baby?” for most of our junior year of high school.
I thought of this as I came upon the main lodge of Shangri-La, and I wondered what I would say to the Gibsons if they were around. They were a sweet couple and always went out of their way to talk to me whenever we’d cross paths, but we had never hung out socially. In fact, I had never even been as far as Shangri-La and had only seen it from the lake. Except for the beach, the whole place was heavily treed and private.
Once inside the trees, the setting was spectacular. The main lodge was as big as a church, but its stained wood siding and cedar shakes blended with the oaks and birch that shaded the grounds. The little island was perfectly tended, with an immaculate lawn right up to the beach, the whole length of it. I could see the four servants’ buildings that now served as cabins for any guests who chose not to stay in the bed and breakfast that was the main lodge. The matching landscaping around all four of the buildings consisted of miniature lilacs, flowering chokecherry bushes, and shade-friendly perennials like hostas, columbine, and lupine. Judging from the piles of lake toys and fishing gear outside the cabins, the place was full. I wondered what finding a dead body near the beach was going to do to business.
I heard children giggling and spotted a group of four kids, all under ten, playing on the metal swing set on the far side of the cabin. I ducked around the front of the lodge so I wouldn’t be seen. I felt like I was trespassing, but I would probably be better off acting like I belonged here. I straightened out my unconscious hunch and told myself to walk with confidence. I rubbed my hands over my face and wiggled my nose, which was turning stiff with sunburn. I belonged here. The earth was my domain.
I strode around to the front of the lodge and past the group of seven or eight people sitting on the front deck, sipping iced tea and speculating on what the boats were doing out front. I nodded at them like I was a guest, too, and went inside.
If the outside of the lodge was spectacular, the inside was Taj Mahal. The floors were a gleaming maple, rich and red, the ceilings were fifteen feet high, and the decorating was a blend of rustic and exquisite. I felt like I was in a spacious English hunting lodge.
I remembered Shirly Tolverson saying the Addamses’ bedroom was upstairs, and I suddenly knew that was where I was headed. Shirly had made it pretty clear that he had caught Mrs. Krupps, the necklace-losing guest from out East, snooping there, and that she appeared to be hiding something. That caused a suspicious chain of events: she lost a diamond necklace, Shirly and the other help were fired, and the Addams sold the place. I was curious what had drawn her to the closet, if maybe there was something unusual about it, but mostly I wanted to see what the bedroom of a fabulously wealthy couple looked like. The Gibsons had taken pains to keep the rest of the lodge authentic, and I was betting that the master bedroom was fantastic. With any luck, it would be the bedroom they stayed in and therefore not a guest room with a lock on the door. I might be able to snoop around.
I walked out of the front sitting room and into the dining room. The table that ruled the dining space could seat twenty people comfortably, and there was still area to spare. The Gibsons had placed antique furniture in the corners, and the curtains floating on the light breeze looked handmade. Fresh daisies and snapdragons were scattered in vases around the room.
I heard voices behind me as I tiptoed up the stairs. I needn’t have bothered walking lightly. The voices belonged to some Shangri-La guests who ignored me as they walked past the dining hall and into another wing of the first floor. I continued upward. The steps were hand carved out of expensive wood and wouldn’t be caught dead creaking, so I again reminded myself I didn’t need to sneak. I had decided that if I ran into the Gibsons, I would say I was there to tell them about the body I had found. It seemed like a neighborly thing to do, and it was good cover. Anyone else who noticed me would think I was a guest.
At the top of the stairs, I really got a feel for the size of the lodge. The steps wound up the middle of the building and divided the open-area landing of the second floor. If I went left or right off the stairs, I would walk in a square and be able to peer down into all the main rooms below me. Off of this square were eight doors, two on each side, and I guessed they all led to bedrooms or suites.
I walked around the first bend of the square but didn’t try any of the doors because they all looked too normal to be the master bedroom of a man who would name his summer home Shangri-La. Sure enough, a second hallway led off the main square. This offshoot was lit by a string of triangular skylights, and I walked down it. Bingo. At the end of the hallway was a door straight out of Camelot. It had gilded leaves carved into its heavy wood, and the doorknob was a glittering crystal—it had to be the master bedroom. I felt the ball with my hand, and it was warm. Then it started to turn.
I jumped back, and all my excuses fell out of my head. Why was I in the hallway of a main lodge where I wasn’t staying, about to go into a room where I didn’t belong? Best to run. I turned as the main door opened, rushed my guilty hand through my hair, and hunched my shoulders over.
“. . . the rocks must be goddamn invisible if they’re in that room, because I’ve—Mira?” The male voice went from exasperated to dangerously annoyed.
I kept walking.
“What’re you doing here, Mira?”
I pushed my hair behind my ears and turned. It was Happy Hands, his sharp eyebrows drawn together in a V over his dark, angry eyes. “Hi, Jason.” I would have been less surprised to see him at a spelling bee, but I tried to hide it. Jason and I had never really spent any one-on-one time together, even before he assaulted me. For him to appear at my house last night and in Shangri-La today was too much bad luck.
He was decked out in zebra-striped Zubaz, a white Coors Light T-shirt, and the same shoes he wore when he had accosted me the night before. Apparently he hadn’t gone far after that encounter. He didn’t look much happier than he had when I’d last seen him, either. I made a weak attempt at a joke. “No room at the parents’, huh?”
He scowled at me, and then was pushed aside by a heavily jeweled hand. “Get out of my way, Jason! Gawd! You make a better window than a door.” The hand was followed by a bleached blonde with a heavy New Jersey twang, probably in her early thirties but a heavy smoker judging by the rasp of her voice and the premature crow’s feet around her green eyes. She looked at me. “Hi. You staying here?”
I smiled back at her and held out my hand. “Nope, I live up the road. You a friend of Jason’s?”
She rolled her eyes in an “unfortunately” kind of way, and shook my hand. Her fingernails were claw-like and red, and I wondered if they were what had left the mark on Jason’s back, either in ecstasy or pain. “The big dope.” She smiled at him and rubbed his cheeks like he was a naughty child, even though he was a good seven inches taller and eighty pounds heavier than her. “I’m Samantha Krupps. Who’re you?”
I felt a weird jolt of déjà vu. Krupps. The last name of the woman who had lost the diamond necklace many years earlier. “Mira. You from around here?”
She smiled, revealing poison-berry lipstick flecks on her teeth. “I’m f
rom New York. Jason dragged me out here for a little vacation. Aren’t we lucky that we found this place?”
Luck, indeed. I smelled something fishy, and it wasn’t even me. “Where’d you two meet?”
“Oh, we—” Before Samantha could finish, Jason slammed the door shut behind him, locked it, grabbed her hand, and pulled her down the hall.
Before he went down the stairs, he turned to glare at me. “After you.”
“I’m staying. I want to talk to the Gibsons.”
He released Samantha’s hand, and I could see the white marks his grip had made on her skin. He strode toward me and leaned down so he was nose to nose with me. “The Gibsons went to town. You should go home. You look like shit.”
The message was clear: he wasn’t leaving until I was. Now that I knew the lay of the land, I could always come back when this ape wasn’t babysitting the room. No way was he getting the last word in, though. “You know, Jason, you’re a big red asshole.”
I tried to sail past him, my nose in the air, but he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. It burned like the snakebites my friends and I used to give each other in grade school, but it didn’t feel like Jason was going to stop before my skin slid off under his grip. I stared haughtily at him—he wasn’t going to see that I was scared and too tired to fight back. He opened his mouth to say something, but instead pushed me toward the stairs. I walked past Samantha, who was looking over the stair rail.
“Nice meeting you,” I said to her, and then walked down the stairs, out the door, and up the road, acting like I was doing it of my own free will. Truth be told, I was happy to get away. I needed some time to think. Jason was looking for “rocks,” and I didn’t think he was after granite. He was in town with a Krupps and was clearly looking for far more than a five-thousand-dollar reward for a lost necklace. Hmm. It sure would be a good story if I found the “rocks” first, and as a bonus, I bet Jason would be upset, maybe even feel assaulted and betrayed. The race was on.
I went back to the doublewide and stacked carbonated water cans in front of the inside of each door so I’d wake up if a dead body or Jason came after me. A quick look around assured me that everything was as I had left it. The rust-colored sectional couch still dominated the front living area, the kitchen was still spotless, and there wasn’t anyone in my bedroom, master bath, or laundry room.
The doors to the spare bedroom and office were closed, as they always were. I had shoved most of Sunny’s clutter into them when she left. I liked a lot of green and open space, and besides the bookshelves, television, and plants in the living room, there was nothing to dust. Tiger Pop and Luna followed me in and watched me as I tore open the fridge, ravenous. I pulled out some honey wheat bagels and organic cream cheese. While the bagel toasted, I snatched the tomato off the windowsill where it had been ripening and sliced it thin. When the bagel popped up, I smeared on the cream cheese, stacked on as many fresh tomato slices as I could, and salted and peppered the whole pile. The first bagel, I didn’t taste. When I got halfway through the second one, I slowed down enough to enjoy it.
While I chewed noisily, Tiger Pop found his favorite spot on the brown afghan draped over the couch and closed his eyes in ecstasy as he kneaded the yarn and soaked up a patch of sunlight. I had named him after my second favorite candy (behind Nut Goodies, of course), a sucker almost too sweet to eat and the same colors as my kitty—patches of white splashed through orange and red. Luna watched me eat, hopeful, and I gave her the last nub of my bagel out of sympathy. She caught it midair.
Tummy full, I walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bottled water. The well water here was not drinkable, although if I’d had a glass I’d have met my mineral content for the day. The sinks were stained orange from the iron level, and the water always emitted a faint toilet smell. I brought the bottle of Aquafina into my bedroom and passed out on my clean, made bed, too tired to undress or even crawl under the blankets. I slept so hard that I dreamt I was sleeping. The sun was cooling when I finally lurched out of bed, and I felt no more rested than before I had lain down.
I forced myself into clean clothes and drove to the yellow-bricked Battle Lake Public Library. This was the only Internet connection I had, and before I did anything else, I was going online to order a Taser. Between the dead body and Jason’s animosity, I was feeling a clear breach in personal security. I parked my car in the empty lot behind the building and decided to go to the Fortune Café coffee shop for some green tea to perk myself up before I went online in search of crime-prevention weapons.
The streets were pretty busy for a Sunday night, which meant two cars passed me and there was an older couple walking toward me. We were on the same block before I realized the couple was the Gibsons, my neighbors and owners of Shangri-La. They must have been eating out. I considered turning around and walking the other way, but they caught sight of me and waved me over.
Bing was a short man, maybe five-foot-five, and his head was entirely hairless except for his bushy white eyebrows, perched like an umlaut on his face. He had been a pilot in a previous life and carried himself with quiet confidence. Kellie was the tall one, pushing five-eight, and she always wore her long gray hair in a French twist. She met Bing after he had broken his leg in a skiing accident and been referred to the clinic where she was a physical therapist. Now, they both were living out their dream of owning a bed and breakfast.
“Mira! How’re you doing?” Kellie held out her hand and smiled warmly at me. Bing did the same.
I suddenly felt personally responsible for the existence of a dead body in front of their resort and ducked my head. “I’m good.” I wondered if they knew. According to Jason, they had been in town when I came across the corpse. I sure didn’t want to be the one to tell them. “How’s business?”
They looked at each other and chuckled. “Good enough to raise the dead,” Kellie said, stifling a guffaw.
I recoiled. If they knew about the body, that was one heck of a tacky thing to say. “I don’t know what’s funny.”
“Didn’t you hear? A diver came across what she thought was a dead body on Whiskey Lake early this afternoon. Right out front of our beach, matter of fact. Turns out it was just a stuffed wetsuit tied to a rock and made to look like a drowned carcass.”
My eyes got big and I had a genuine coughing fit. I had almost gotten myself drowned next to a fake body. Geez. That would have been as embarrassing as hitting a cow with my car, something I might also have nearly done at one time. At least the Gibsons didn’t know I was the diver. I fought the urge to defend the lack of visibility underwater.
“A fake corpse? Why would anyone put a fake corpse in Whiskey Lake? Do the police know who did this?”
Kellie screwed up her face, her green eyes twinkling. “Probably some attention-getting prank related to the Star Tribune contest.”
Boy, these two had a knack for making me feel dumb. “You guys know about the necklace contest?”
“It was actually my idea,” Kellie said modestly. “I have a friend at the newspaper, and she passed the idea on to the woman who wrote the article. It’s fun, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, buckets of fun.”
“You dive, don’t you Mira? You should get a wetsuit and look for the planted necklace!” Kellie grabbed Bing’s hand playfully and pulled him down the street. “We’ll see you around. Why don’t you come to the resort tomorrow night? The Romanov Traveling Theater troupe has agreed to give an outdoor performance, weather permitting. It’s going to be a jungle magic show with jugglers and mimes and bongo players!”
That’s what the doctor ordered—a night with a mime at a resort where my almost-rapist was staying, in front of which I had biffed across a fake dead body. It would be like Christmas in June. I considered taking up cigarettes again as I entered the Fortune Café. The café had been open for over seven years and was run by two local lesbians. For some odd reason, the town referred to them as “the women who played cards.” It was a Lutheran euphemism f
or lady lovers that I didn’t get. I was just glad nobody felt a need to label me based on whom I slept with. It would be “yikes” instead of “dykes.”
Both Sid and Nancy wore comfortable shoes and had thin lips. Sid had short, spiky hair and preferred flannel, even in the summer, and Nancy had flowing, Crystal Gale brown hair that she pulled back with butterfly pins. Nancy’s life motto was “Shit or get off the pot,” and she had a plaque proclaiming this outside the bathroom door of the café. If people wanted to believe it referred to their restroom activities, that was their business.
The whole of the coffee shop smelled like cinnamon and fresh bread, and Sid and Nancy made the best decaf mochas and ginger scones this side of the Cities. The front room of the café was stocked with their personal book collection, mostly mysteries and true crime novels, and comfy furniture. I spent many a free day reading, sipping tea or coffee, and playing Scrabble with Sid when business was slow. Nancy didn’t like board games.
During one of our spring word fests, I’d asked Sid why she and Nancy had come to Battle Lake. Like many a small town, this one had people with small minds who would not line up to give two proud women who happened to be gay the key to the city. Shoot, I still encountered people here who pretended they didn’t hear me when I talked to them because I wasn’t born in Battle Lake.
