Valleys, Vehicles & Victims: A Camper & Criminals Cozy Mystery Series

by Tonya Kappes

  “What do you say about it, Mae?” Violet Rhinehammer shook her head to the side. Her long blond hair went with it, exposing her ear. She and I had our differences because she never asked any sort of questions or checked on anyone when it didn’t benefit the current scoop she was working on for Channel 2 or the Normal Gazette, our local paper.

  Plus, I just might’ve been a little envious of the dripping curls cascading down her back. She also had the ability to apply the perfect makeup, and it didn’t help that her eyes always seemed to have a twinkle in them. One of those types.

  “It depends.” When Helen tapped me on the shoulder, I got up to move over next to Coke under the hair dryer. She took the rest of the foil squares from me. “Are you going to be quoting me?”

  “I’m more than happy to do a story—the real story—and see if they’d let me submit it instead of Pierce. He’s here. He’s going to do the story. So you might as well let me.” She had a point.

  “You think he’s still going to do the story?” Helen gasped.

  “If he’s not, then he’s spending a lot of time outside.” Violet let out a happy sigh and looked out the window, where Pierce was taking photos of the outside of Cute-icles.

  “He can’t do that.” Helen put the foils in the drawer and slammed it shut. She stalked over to the window, put her hands on her hips, and stared at Pierce.

  He took the camera away from his face. When he and Helen made eye contact, he flashed that white smile and waved.

  “Yep, he’s doing the story,” I said to Coke as the dryers buzzed around us.

  “Then you should let Violet do it before he can.” Coke knew as well as I did that Violet was just as sneaky as Pierce. “Sometimes it’s better to know the one doing the investigating than not.”

  “You mean a ‘keep your friends close but your enemy closer’ kinda deal?” I asked. Coke slowly slid her chin up and then down.

  “I’m not the enemy, Maybelline West.” Violet evidently took great offense. “You either want to help further my career by giving me the true story while you look good or do us both an injustice by letting him snoop around Normal and come up with his own conclusions.”

  “I still can’t believe this bride”—Sally Ann waved the file in the air—“had enough gall to even think she could guarantee something like an interview with you.”

  “She must be fascinated with your life or something.” Helen zipped the windows’ new curtains shut just as the door to the salon opened. “You are not going to get any photos of…” Helen stopped when she saw it wasn’t Pierce but a woman standing at the door.

  “Misty, what are you doing here?” I pushed the dryer up so I could hear what was going on.

  “Now, Mae, we can’t be ruining the magic I just put on your hair.” Helen rushed over and tilted the dryer’s head back over me.

  “I came to talk to you and Coke about my daughter’s lack of judgement and how she thinks she can just say or do anything to get what she wants.” Misty sashayed into the salon, looking around at the pink room. “My oh my, I’ve read about these sort of places in books. Granted, they were fiction, but still I had no idea they existed.”

  “And you wonder where your daughter got her lack of manners,” Coke muttered. I laughed. Fortunately, the dryer was too loud for Misty to hear it.

  “I’ll pay you handsomely if you will still host the wedding of my daughter to that awful Lewis Malone.” This was the first time I’d heard Misty mention the groom.

  “You can’t buy off Coke Ogden.” Coke referred to herself in the third person. “I don’t mind doing the wedding, but our own Mae can’t be involved in no article written by the jerk out there with the camera because she’s already doing one with the one and only local celebrity reporter Violet Rhinehammer.”

  “She is?” Violet perked up.

  “I am?” My shoulders slumped.

  “Mmhhhh.” Coke curled her lips with a ho-hum. “Mmm-hhmmm, you sure are.”

  “Good. I’m glad to see we’ve come to an agreement.” Misty sucked in a deep sigh of relief. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me. My husband and the RV are due anytime back at the campground, and I want to make sure everyone on it survived.”

  “Don’t forget about the rehearsal dinner I set up over there tonight.” I pointed out the window to the grassy median.

  Misty didn’t say a word. She simply turned the doorknob and walked out.

  Everyone in the salon sat there in silence until the door closed behind Misty.

  “I’ll be over tonight with my equipment. I want to do an exclusive on Channel 2. I’m sure I can get it through the producers. I’ll have a two-page spread in the gazette. I want photos of the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and all the campground activities you have planned.” Violet shook her hands and blew on her fingernails. Sally Ann kept trying to get Violet to put her hands under one of the light machines, but Violet continued to pull them back. “I don’t have time for that, Sally Ann.”

  “Whatever,” Sally Ann said in a flat voice and let Violet stand up. “Don’t blame me if you get a smudge because I ain’t got no room in my schedule to fix it.”

  “Yes she does,” Helen snapped back and gave Sally Ann a withering look before Violet trotted out of the salon.

  FOUR

  Helen had done her best to straighten out my hair after she’d washed the foils out, and she completely used a handheld dryer to roll out the curls. She wasn’t giving up either. She tugged and pulled on my hair so much that my scalp was sore by the time I’d gotten back to the campground.

  The two big RVs from Shay Moon’s wedding were parked right up front near the office. The men must’ve made it just fine. All sorts of people were gathered around the lake, and Dottie was right among them with Fifi and Chester.

  Instead of heading straight over to her to see how the day had been, I decided to head on into the office to make sure all the paperwork was completed and filed. I didn’t have confidence that if something went wrong and not all the T’s were crossed and I’s dotted, the Moons would request a full refund, and we’d be out all the money they were paying to stay here.

  Before I could even get over to Dottie’s desk, the office door opened, and Shay Moon walked in with Tom Moon and Amy Hill closely behind.

  “If I don’t believe my eyes.” Tom smiled at me. “Mae West. We meet again.”

  He held his arms out and walked toward me. Then he gave me a kiss on each cheek, which I didn’t return.

  “When my dear sweet Shay told me you owned this fantastic little piece of the pie, I just couldn’t wait to see you again.” He pulled back. His brown hair had thinned. His gut had grown. And he was still just as squatty and short as the last time I’d seen him.

  Amy stood in the back of the office. A clipboard had replaced the calendar in her hands.

  “You know each other?” Shay looked surprised. “Because when I told you who she was, you acted as if he couldn’t recall ever meeting her but knew the situation with her husband.”

  “Ex-now-dead,” I murmured and poured a cup of the hot coffee into a mug. “Coffee?”

  “Did I?” He gave Shay an odd look and took the mug. “Anyways, I understand there was a little mix-up about you scratching our back to scratch your back.”

  He took a sip of the coffee and acted as if it were a fine wine before he swallowed. Then he took another sip.

  “Scratching what?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Tom looked at Amy. She stepped up and whispered something in his ear, but Shay was already flapping her lips.

  “Technically, Daddy—” Shay tried to speak up, but Tom took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of Dottie’s desk, making himself comfortable and cutting off his daughter. Amy stood next to him.

  “You told Shay you’d give Pierce the interview in exchange for him doing a spread on my precious baby’s wedding for the magazine.” It became crystal clear that Shay had lied to everyone, including her daddy.

 
“I’m sorry that you thought that, but when I saw Pierce walk into the wedding barn, I had no idea why he was there, and this was news to me.” I looked directly at him.

  Our paths didn’t cross many times before I moved to Normal, but I knew whatever Tom Moon wanted, he got, including all the fancy coffee shops around the world.

  The door opened again. A young man with blond hair peeked around it and opened it fully when he saw us. He wasn’t alone. Another man, much older, grey haired, and wearing a suit, rushed in. Then another man with thinning blonde hair who wore a pair of khakis, a light-blue-and-white-checked button-down, a leather belt, and loafers came in last.

  “Hey, hon. There you are.” He had a big smile on his face, making to-die-for dimples appear on each cheek. He and Shay were going to be the picture-perfect wedding photo. He even had on a pair of two-toned wing-tipped shoes I’d seen worn by yuppies in fashion magazines. Those were some great shoes. Nothing I’d ever get on Hank.

  “I wondered where you went.” Lewis looked between the father and daughter. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, Lewis.” Shay hurried over, assuring him everything was fine. “Daddy is paying the bill. That’s all. Right, Daddy?”

  “Wait.” The man in the suit stepped forward. “What bill?”

  My uh-oh meter went off. Shay was lying to the man who obviously was her groom, and that was no way to start a marriage, in my opinion.

  “Mae, this is Carl Rippin, my lawyer.” He introduced the man in the suit but left out the others.

  “I’m Dan Malone, my son is Lewis.” The man in the loafers put his hand out for me to shake. “Lewis is the groom.” His voice was flat and not impressed with what was going on.

  When I shook his hand, I could feel the stiffness in his body. He was just as unhappy about this wedding as Misty Moon.

  “No.” I shook my head and decided I would make this situation right. “Tom isn’t here to pay the bill. They are trying to tell me that I have to do an interview with Pierce that I didn’t agree to so the Moons will have a big spread in the magazine that I never agreed to be part of.” I picked up the agreements Dottie had them sign and shook them. “In fact, I had no idea who the bride or her family was until they drove right on into my campground, where I can make all my rules.”

  “Is that right?” Lewis looked at his bride with disgust. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “You mean to tell me that you lied? The magazine didn’t call and ask to do the spread? You mean all that excitement the day you called me was an act?”

  “Now wait a minute.” Tom stood up and put a flat hand on Lewis’s chest just as the door opened again. “They would’ve asked.”

  Coke, Dottie, and another older woman walked in.

  “Take your hand off my son,” the woman demanded of Tom and stalked over, pushing his arm away.

  Obviously, she was the groom’s mother. She was very distinguished with long silver hair neatly parted to the side. I could tell the resemblance between the mother and son when they stood next to each other.

  “Oh dear.” Misty now stood at the door with her hand over her mouth.

  “Mother, it’s falling apart!” Shay cried and ran over to her mom, finding comfort in her mother’s arms as she cried.

  “Honey, you should really try this coffee.” Tom was too busy assessing the coffee to even realize his wife and daughter were fuming mad.

  “Your daddy and Dan only want what is best for you two kids.” Misty glared at the two fathers.

  I wasn’t able to tell if she was really crying, but all the men catered to it.

  “Now, now, sweetie,” Lewis talked to Shay like a baby and stroked her hair. “I still love you so much. It’s all going to be fine. We just need to work out a few kinks. That’s all.”

  “Yes, dear.” The groom’s father also came over and assured her.

  “Tom?” Misty questioned him through her gritted teeth.

  “Whatever my sweet Shay wants, you know you’ll have it.” He didn’t look too thrilled or even seem to really believe himself. “May I?” He looked at me with his cup in the air, signaling a request for a fill up. I nodded.

  “Really, Daddy?” Shay looked up and blinked several times. There wasn’t one tear in her eyes.

  “I don’t think anything she wants is what you mean.” Carl, the lawyer, was trying to reel everyone in, but it wasn’t working.

  “Of course, dear.” He lifted the mug to his nose and took a deep breath, ignoring everyone but Shay.

  Coke, Dottie, and I looked at one another.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s get you back to the bungalow, where the girls have something very special planned.” Misty wrapped her arms around her daughter and led her out of the office but not before turning to Tom. She said, “Get that coffee out of your nose and take care of this.”

  As soon as the door shut, the bickering men started up again despite Amy and Carl’s best effort to stop them. I sat back and just watched all of them tear one another apart.

  “My daughter is too good for you or to be a Malone!” Tom yelled at Lewis and Dan. He swung his hand back and forth as he gestured to the father and son, almost spilling the contents of the mug. “I knew I should’ve never said it was fine for her to marry you when you asked, and you knew it.” Tom wrung his hands. “You had her in the room when you asked me, and you knew I can’t refuse her.”

  “My son and my family name are too good for any Moon to have.” Dan wasn’t going to let Tom insult them anymore.

  “Dad!” Lewis called his dad to stand down. “Shay and I have it under control. We just need to let her have the wedding she wants because she deserves it. We will be fine.”

  “Not with Moon’s thumb on you.” Dan wouldn’t move his glare from Tom. “Didn’t you see how he acted at the coffee convention? He acts like he owns the world and can do whatever it is he pleases.”

  “Well, I do own the coffee world.” Tom shrugged and sat back down. He didn’t seem to be bothered at all as he continued to sip his coffee. “But this. What is this blend and who makes it?” He questioned me about the coffee I’d served him. “Carl, find out what coffee this is,” he started demanding of his lawyer.

  “Unbelievable. Your daughter is so upset and you can’t turn off making money for a minute.” Lewis shook his head. He turned to me. “I’m sorry Shay assumed you’d give an exclusive interview to Pierce. As you can see”—he glanced at Tom—“she’s used to getting whatever it is she wants without any sort of resistance, and I’m sure she figured you’d be the same.”

  “Just like her dad.” Dan shook a finger at his son.

  “Oh, shut up,” Tom blurted out and took another drink of coffee.

  “But all that is going to change. Shay and I have our own plans after we get married.” Lewis’s words must’ve caught Tom’s attention.

  He bolted up from his relaxing position in the chair. Coffee swished up the side of the mug and splattered on his shirt.

  “What does that mean?” Tom stood up and pushed his chest out.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lewis said in a threatening tone. “Once she says ‘I do’ and takes the Malone name, you can kiss your baby girl goodbye.” Lewis walked to the door. “Come on, Dad. I’m not staying in his campground any longer.”

  The two men left Tom Moon and me alone in the office.

  “And you aren’t going to go after him?” I asked with some disbelief.

  “Why should I? He’s not going to do anything. He just wants a job at my company, and if that’s what it takes to make my Shay happy, then so be it.” He placed the mug on the desk. “Now, tell me what brand of coffee is in the pot.”

  Carl was busying himself near my coffee pot, and Amy had left with Shay.

  “It’s not a brand. Not really a brand. But sorta a brand.” I wasn’t sure how to describe Gert Hobson’s homemade coffee. “A locally owned coffee shop, the Trails Coffee, is located downtown. The owner is very good at making her own creations, and this i
s a new one she’s got coming out for the Christmas season.”

  “The Trails Coffee, huh?” he asked.

  “That’s what I said.” I had another uh-oh moment that made me want to warn Gert because Tom sure did seem like he was very interested in speaking to her.

  “What’s the owner’s name?” he asked and pulled out his cell phone.

  “Gert Hobson. Why?” I asked. His head shot up, and his mouth opened like he was going to say something, but then he quickly closed it as he typed on his phone.

  Carl’s head jerked around, and he joined us. He acted like Fifi when I said the word “treat.” My words got his full attention.

  “Gert Hobson,” he said the name and looked out of the corner of his eye like he was trying to recall something.

  “Yes, but she’s been at a coffee convention in Lexington, so I’m not sure if she’s back yet.” I shrugged.

  “We stopped there on our way here. I had to give a keynote speech to the crowd.” He tugged on his belt and puff out his chest again. “They like to hear from big names like myself. It’ll help fund any sort of misunderstanding about our little Shay issue with Pierce.”

  He pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket.

  “I bet you could use another washer or dryer in your recreation area. Or some new video games in there for kids. Or even a few new things for your campers.” He licked his finger and started to count out the hundred-dollar bills. He plucked a few from his stash and held them out for me to take. “Here’s your trouble for doing the interview.”

  “You can’t pay me to do an interview with Pierce.” I refused even to look at the money, though he was right. It would come in handy.

  Carl bent down and whispered something in Tom’s ear.

  “Oh, Mae. I know what kind of mess Paul left you in. Not only financially, but your reputation isn’t the best in the circle.” The look on his face made me want to spit.

  “I can’t be bought.” I was determined to keep the conversation civil. I pushed my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. I gave Carl a hard look with a brow lifted to let him know that no matter what little legal tidbits he whispered in Tom’s ear, I wasn’t going to budge.