On the trip down from Lexington Lou and I sat on the left-hand side of the bus, behind Earl, the driver. But this time we chose the right side, which was closer to sliding off the mountain and farther from someone who would bump into the other side of the bus. Maybe Miss Friendly knew about this and had chosen to live to frown another day.
I contemplated my will, which I had yet to make out. I had no next of kin. I didn't even have a least of kin. To whom would I leave Lightning? Not George or Frank. Neither of them appreciated her. And I didn't envision Lou living through this if I didn't. I thought of everyone I knew, and came up with a solution. I contemplated texting Mrs. E. at the bookstore to let her know that Lightning was hers if I didn't make it back. I looked at the list of numbers I had. Lou. George. Frank. And Jennifer. I wasn't about to text George or Frank to let them know that John Jacob Astor from Friday survived the Titanic, but not the bus ride. And I didn't want Jennifer to think that her Cy was scared of riding on a bus. And we hadn't encountered any bumps in the road, like a bus would make if it plowed on over scattered bodies from a previous disaster. I looked down upon the Little Pigeon waterway. I felt better when I didn't see any arms or legs sticking up out of the water after being pushed aside by a street sweeper.
It seemed to take forever to get to Cade's Cove. Maybe Harlan wasn't really a bus driver, but the murderer, and all of us were to become his victims. Or maybe he was only going to hold us for ransom. I wondered who would be willing to pay to get me back, and how much they thought I was worth. I knew that Jennifer thought I was worth a lot, but I doubted that she had that many millions to spare. Again I thought of how long it was taking us to get to Cade's Cove. Surely we had crossed over into a different time zone, and maybe even another state. No wonder Harlan planned to give me the list of passengers at Cade's Cove. We were never going to get there. I wondered if some day people would pay to visit the attraction of the bus that skidded off the narrow road into the Little Pigeon Creek, and if each day a different person would receive a card with "Cy Dekker" written on it, only to find out that after they walked through the bus replica that Cy didn't survive the bus ride.
I was about to discuss all of this with Lou by text when someone in the front shouted that Cade's Cove was just ahead. I knew it all the time. And I was sure that when I got out of the bus the road would be wider than I thought.
+++
Some things don't make a lot of sense. Like any decision made by someone who works for the government. But someone had decided that it was okay for a big, wide bus to travel on a curvy, two-way road up a mountain, but we had to resort to traveling by van once we got to the flat, one-way road at the top of the mountain. And then I remembered that national parks are run by the federal government, so it all made sense, in a nonsense kind of way.
Well, we arrived at the top and Harlan parked the bus and informed us that we would take the Cade's Cove Loop Trail in vans. Each van would stop at each of the points of interest along the loop. All the passengers would get out and take an appropriate amount of time checking out that particular point of interest and return to the first van on the left, which may or may not have been the one they had previously ridden in. Once a van filled up, that van would take off for the next point of interest. That way each person could take as long as he or she wanted at each place, as long as we were back to the parking lot by the time the bus needed to leave. The last couple of stragglers could linger at their own risk. That seemed easy enough to understand, which told me someone wouldn't understand. Maybe someone would get left at Cade's Cove, or someone might get murdered there before we left. If so, would Cade's Cove add another point of interest? Probably not, since more than likely they would be murdered at one of the already designated points of interest. Imagine, the next group driving by might be the one to find a body above ground at one of the church cemeteries. Would Lou and I be called back to solve that murder? Probably not.
20
The two guys slipping into retirement waited for the others to get off the bus, and Harlan slipped me a list of the passengers as we got off. I slid it into my pocket and planned to pull it out when the opportunity arose. It arose immediately. We were given a few minutes to head to the facilities before the first van took off. I headed to the restroom, walked into one of the stalls, and sat down to read the list. There were twenty-three of us. I knew exactly seven of us by name. I tried to guess which one of the others was Miss Friendly. I considered Max Huffington. Miss Friendly looked like a Max. I looked at all of the names. I remembered Lou's clue of the day. There wasn't a Mary Ann Evans on the list. Maybe someone was traveling using an alias. If so, was Mary Ann Evans more likely to be the murderer or the victim? There was one Jack but no Jill in our group. And since there was only one Sylvia and one Inez, I took it that our two newfound friends were formally known as Sylvia DuBois and Inez Weddle.
I slipped the list back into my pocket and hurried off to join the others. My plan was to put a name with each face as quickly as possible, which meant that I didn't plan to ride in the same van with the same people all the way around Cade's Cove.
As I came out of the restroom and back into the sunlight, Lou was waiting for me. He saw my look and read my mind. He gave me a look that reminded me that we were on vacation. And retired. I sighed and nodded, and looked around at some of the beauty God had created. I was shocked at how flat everything was on the top of the mountain. I thought all mountains came to a peak and that people with too much time on their hands and no interest in Facebook climbed a mountain until they reached the peak, then took in the view for "x" number of minutes, crossed it off their bucket list, maybe took a selfie to let others know they were there, and then started back down to conquer the next item on that list.
But there was no more time for me to daydream. It was time for the vans to head out. I didn't care who I sat with when we left. Well, I didn't care as long as I didn't ride with Sylvia or Inez, Tom Jenkins, the computer software guy I talked to before we went in to see the Titanic exhibit, and Bill and Shirley Richardson, whom we ate with at Mel's Diner. I had already put names with those faces. I needed to learn all the others in as few van trips as possible.
I had planned it that Lou and I would take the last two seats in one of the vans. One had already left. There were two seats left in the second van, and I noticed that I hadn't met any of the people inside. I started to jump in when a couple of women showed up. I couldn't take a lady's seat. Besides, what if one of them was the murderer and taking her seat would set her off to the point where she added me to her list. Me, so new to total retirement. Me, who wanted to stay retired and sitting or standing a lot longer.
As it turned out, Lou and I ended up occupying two of the seats in van number three, along with Bill and Shirley Richardson, Tom Jenkins, and one person I didn't know. I impressed those I had met by calling them by name. I didn't tell any of them I had just looked over the list of suspects five minutes earlier. It turned out that the person who was new to me was Herbert Atherton, who wasn't all that talkative. That was okay. I had a name to go with a face and most murderers don't talk their victims to death. Atherton looked like a bird watcher or a librarian, but then John Christie looked much like that and he killed at least eight women at his home in England. If Lou and I take a trip to England and Atherton is there, I'm moving him to the top of my list of suspects.
Our first stop was at a cabin set back off the road. A sign said it was John Oliver's Cabin. John Oliver wasn't on our list, but I kept him on my list of suspects. I watched my step as I walked over uneven ground to get back to my first point of interest. It was that far of a walk. I think the sign said a quarter of a mile. I saw the cabin and realized that it was not a recent development. Lincoln might have built it, but Westgate didn't. Once we arrived at the cabin, I looked inside just to make sure that Earl and his bus weren't in there. I had a feeling that he wasn't, because some employee with the National Park Service was staked out there. It's kind of hard to drive a bus past
one of those guys, especially with this particular guy being a female, meaning she was probably smarter than the guys. I asked her about John Oliver, just in case he might be our murderer, and found out he was one of the earlier victims. I crossed off stop number one as a possible place where the murder was committed or where the body was left. It was an open area, so it was a bad place to throw a body out unless you are hoping that it decomposes quickly. I had already looked around without seeing a wild animal that looked like it had bitten off more than it should have chewed.
"Is this your first time here?"
"You don't remember me from yesterday's group? I was the one you had to keep telling not to feed the bears."
She smiled.
"Are you getting plenty of exercise on your vacation?"
"The most I've gotten since my belt buckle got caught on a treadmill."
She smiled again, which encouraged me.
"Have you been horseback riding?"
"Not since I almost fell off that horse in front of K-Mart last year."
"Are you appearing nightly somewhere down here?"
"Yeah, at Westgate, but we don't always get back at the same time. It depends if we have to take any of the old people in our group by the hospital."
"So, you're with a tour group."
"How could you tell? Did I rub up against someone and get Ben-Gay on me?"
"You're the hit of my day so far. Usually people just ask about the cabin and the animals."
"I can already tell about the cabin. You're asking too much or you'd be able to rent it by now. And you might want to fix it up a little bit. And I'm allergic to animals, so I don't talk about them."
I noticed the little boy and girl in our group walk up with some questions, so I stepped back.
After Lou and I had looked around the cabin that no one had rented for the weekend we walked back to a van that was waiting for two more people. This time no old ladies got in our way and Lou and I made it a full load. I looked at my companions and was relieved that only Tom Jenkins of Titanic acquaintance was on board, so we played a game of meet the people. There were two couples, one of whom looked like Grant Wood had painted them. The American Gothic couple were named Luther and Sarah Harkness, from Pine Knot, Kentucky, wherever that is. I doubt if either of them has smiled since they lost their teeth. The other couple, who claimed to be brother and sister, said their names were Jack and Angel Ripatoe. I finally got out of them that they were visiting from Chicago. Jack looked like he had ripped a toe or two from time to time, and Angel didn't look like any angel I'd ever seen. I pictured them as hired killers, and only the one who completed the job got paid. I asked Angel if anyone had ever called her Jill, and she didn't even crack a smile. Obviously, Jack and Angel were not of the smiling vacationers persuasion. So, at least until the next stop, Lou and I had to share a van with four of Miss Friendly's relatives.
21
Our next stop was at the Primitive Baptist Church. It sounded like a good place to leave Jack and Angel. Luther and Sarah Harkness, too. No one wanted to get out so soon after our most recent stop, so we went on to stop number three, the Methodist Church. Everyone got out there, and neither Jack nor Angel smiled until they got to the cemetery behind the church. Their smiles were the most sinister smiles I had ever seen. I decided I might have a longer retirement if I didn't continue to ride with Jack and Angel. I felt my chances were better for survival if I hooked up with a couple of bear cubs.
We continued on stopping here and there and trading one group of people for another. When we got to stop number ten, Abrams Falls Hiking Trail, none of our group wanted to stop and hike two-and-a-half miles to the falls, and another two-and-a-half miles back, provided no one slipped and fell over the falls. I would have taken the hike except for two reasons. There was no promise of a van that would pick me up the next day, and there was the possibility that Jack and Angel were lurking near the falls. It was then when I remembered who Jack and Angel reminded me of. It was Boris and Natasha. And Jack and Angel were Badenov in my opinion.
Things didn't get hairy until we got to stop number eleven, and not even then until we had been there a while. Number eleven, known as the Cable Mill Area Visitors Center, has a mill that is still operating, plus restrooms and a gift shop. It was also the place where a van that carried none of our group arrived with box lunches for everyone in our group. And the box lunch was a cut above some of the others I have had. After stopping off at the restroom and partaking of lunch afterward, I headed inside the gift shop, where I bought a Hershey Almond candy bar in case we got lost, and a book telling about all those trails at Cade's Cove that Lou and I had decided to forego.
I had just stepped out of the gift shop with my purchase, and was on my way to check out the mill when Sylvia came running up to me. The fact that she didn't attempt mouth to mouth, or act like she was frisking me before I boarded an airplane, told me that she had something else on her mind.
"Cy, it's Inez! She's missing! The last time I saw her she told me she was going to the restroom, and then down to the old mill."
"Well, have you looked at the mill?"
"Twice."
"Maybe she took one of the vans on to wherever we are headed next."
"She wouldn't do that without me. I'm her crutch. See, Inez is going through a nasty divorce right now, and her husband has threatened her. That's one of the reasons we decided to get away for a week."
"You figure that he'll forget about his threat after a week?"
"No, but we figured this week will give us a chance to think, decide what she needs to do."
"Is Inez's real name Mary Ann Evans?"
"Where did that come from?"
"I heard the name today, and I don't think there's a Mary Ann Evans in our group."
"Could someone be talking about the Mary Ann Evans?"
"And who might that be?"
"Didn't you go to school?"
"Yeah, but as far as I know there was no Mary Ann Evans in my school."
"Well, more than likely there was. See, Mary Ann Evans was George Eliot's real name."
"This is beginning to sound a little more weird than I thought."
"Didn't you ever read Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, or Middlemarch?"
"No. Should I have? I didn't even catch the movie."
"Focus. I'm talking about Inez now."
I thought of something. I took out my phone, and found what I wanted.
"Look at this. Have you seen these two guys before?"
"Are those the two you were talking about that I said reminded me of the Blues Brothers?"
"That's them."
"Well, they do dress like them, but they don't look that much like Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi."
"Are those two guys who work for Inez's husband?"
"You don't go to the movies, do you? Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi were the two actors who played the Blues Brothers."
"So, you don't recognize these two guys?"
"No."
"Wait a minute! I've got one more. Recognize this guy?"
"I'm not sure."
"What if I told you he limps?"
"That's it! This is the guy who was hiding in the shadows at the motel, back when we were leaving Lexington. Are you telling me he's down here, too?"
"He is. And I saw him when we stopped at the Welcome Center, so he must have followed us."
"Maybe so, but as far as I know, he doesn't work for Inez's husband. Do you have any more pictures to show me, because we're wasting time when we should be looking for Inez?"
"No. Just those. Let's check out the mill again. Maybe Inez is there now. If someone did grab her, maybe we aren't too late. Let's get there before they drown her."
"And you think I'm the one who's getting weird."
I took off, with Lou and Sylvia close behind. It was a good few hundred feet to the mill, but we arrived, and some guy was talking to a group about what the mill does today. We looked around and didn't see anyone that l
ooked like Inez. I even looked down in the water. There was no arm sticking out of the water, but then the old mill stream looked deeper than the Little Pigeon River.
Most of the area was open spaces, so we could see a good distance. Sylvia checked each of the buildings, including the women's restroom. I went into the men's restroom, but I didn't holler, "Hey, Inez, are you in here?"
Lou and I met up with Sylvia and compared our failures. I spoke first.
"You know she's not the first person to go missing?"
"Yeah, I was on the bus. I heard about the bus driver."
"Well, him, too, but I was talking about the woman that bopped me good on the bus."
"Well, you did get right up in her face."
"But that was only because she looked like she was dead."
"Well, I'll admit she hadn't had any glamour shots done lately."
"You don't know the old woman's name, do you?"
"No, but she's staying in the same building Inez and I are staying in."
"Really? Which one is that?"
"Don't tell me that all of a sudden you are interested in me now that Inez is missing."
"No. But if you're staying close to us, then the old biddy is staying close to us, too. I've just been wondering what happened to her, since she hasn't done anything with us since Friday night."
"But this is the first thing we've done together since Friday night. Remember, yesterday was a free day."
"Maybe I am a little melodramatic, but I suspect that something has happened to her. Have you seen her since then?"
"No. Haven't heard her, either. And her place is right above mine. And our building is the next one up from yours."
I got Sylvia to tell me which Deluxe One Bedroom belonged to Miss Friendly. Miss Friendly was on the top floor right, just like I was. I wanted to find some way to see if she was holed up in there, without being the one who went and knocked on her door.
Murder in Gatlinburg Page 9
