Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping (29 page)

Sitting at the motorhome’s dinette table, which could magically be turned into an extra bed if needed, Stone and I were eating French toast for breakfast. I’d also heated up some pre-cooked sausage in the microwave, which was surprisingly tasty. I was mentally patting myself on the back. Wanting Stone to join in on my self-congratulations, I said, “Looks like my diligence in not drinking any beverages after lunch yesterday paid off. No bathroom emergencies all day.”

“Congratulations, you’ve really outdone yourself,” Stone said, rather mockingly. “But your ‘diligence’ in avoiding beverages did answer a question I’ve had since I met you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve wondered if your body was so accustomed to boatloads of caffeine every day that you couldn’t function without it. And you’ve now proven that theory to be so.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Honey, you fell asleep at the concert last night before the second song ended, and didn’t wake up again until the middle of the encore. I’m beginning to think you need caffeine to keep going like the rest of us mortals need blood coursing through our veins.”

“I was pretty wiped out last night from the events of the last couple of days,” I said in an attempt to justify my napping during the concert.

“I was a little disappointed that you didn’t get to really experience one of your favorite singers’ performances, but it was nice to see the kids all enjoying it. Watching their reactions was more entertaining than watching the musicians on the stage, wasn’t it?” Stone asked, before teasing me with his next remark. “Oh, I’m sorry. You wouldn’t know, would you? You slept through the whole damn thing.”

“Laugh it up, buster. The next time you—”

A sharp rap on the door stopped me in mid-sentence, which was a good thing, because I had no idea what I was going to say, anyway. I opened the door to find Emily standing there. She’d parked her golf cart on our patio next to the picnic table. I opened the door wide and said, “Come on in. What brings you here so bright and early?”

“I wanted to tell you what I just learned from Detective Colmer, who is the lead detective on the murder case,” she added for Stone’s benefit, who didn’t seem to question how Emily and I knew his name. She recovered before she let the cat out of the bag about our true activities the previous afternoon. “He was here yesterday while we were messing around downtown.”

“Has there been a break in the case?” I asked anxiously.

“He felt Stanley and I deserved to know what our guards, Jack and Mike, were doing the night of Fanny’s death, since we were paying them a good wage to watch over the campground throughout the night while we got some sleep.”

“Oh, goodness,” I said. “What were they doing?”

“Well, not what they were being paid to do, that’s for sure. If nothing else, we at least found out we need to hire different guards next year. No telling what’s been going on at night this last week. It can get pretty crazy during Frontier Days. There’s occasionally a little too much partying and carrying on, and we try to control it by hiring night guards. We enforce a ‘quiet time’ for the sake of our customers who are trying to get some sleep.”

“Go on, go on,” I urged her, impatient for her to get to the point. “So what were they doing that night?”

“Detective Colmer notified them to meet him here at the campground yesterday at two-thirty so he could question them. He wanted to see if they’d witnessed anything unusual or suspicious. They’d been questioned before and were very evasive with their responses, so this time the detective grilled them and put the fear of God in them. They finally opened up after being threatened with jail time for obstruction of justice and some additional trumped up charges the detective came up with. They began to sing like canaries, which would have been beneficial had they known anything to sing about.”

“I’d be spilling my guts too if I were them, whether I knew anything or not,” I said.

“The detective also got their attention with a comment about how all their hard work at the gym would make them real popular with their cell mates. It didn’t take them long after that to start answering Colmer’s questions as truthfully as they could. They claimed they didn’t recall seeing anyone pull in the gate besides the shuttle buses and other folks returning from the night show Saturday around eleven-fifteen. Neither did they recall seeing any vehicles parked near the pool area, or even any foot traffic near the pool. But they confessed they couldn’t be certain something like that didn’t occur, because they couldn’t see the front gate or the pool area from their vantage point.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Weren’t they patrolling the park on their golf carts?”

“No, they were sitting behind the trash dumpsters, in their carts of course, smoking a couple of joints, playing games on their cell phones, and texting their girlfriends. For that kind of service, I was paying them each twenty bucks an hour, and this is the third year we’ve employed the lazy creeps,” Emily explained with a grimace. “According to Detective Colmer, when he inferred that the two of them were prime suspects in the murder of Fanny Finch, they couldn’t get the truth out quick enough. Imagine, using incompetence as an alibi.”

“Good grief,” Stone said. “I’ll bet Stanley wanted to throttle those two.”

“We both did,” Emily replied. “I also spoke with Kylie. I told her you all had seen her walking into Vex Vaughn’s motor coach. I hope that was all right for me to tell her.”

“Sure, no problem. What did she say?” I asked, feeling a bit uneasy about telling the young woman’s employer something she’d obviously wanted to keep to herself. On the other hand, I felt the Harringtons had a right to know the truth.

“She told me she’d discovered Vaughn was her biological father just a few weeks ago, by tracking down and contacting her grandmother on her mama’s side, just as she told you guys at dinner a couple of nights ago. Kylie knew he was a prime target of the media, and was under additional scrutiny due to Fanny’s book right now, so she didn’t want to take the chance of causing him more problems by releasing his identity. She was afraid he’d want nothing to do with her if news of her existence got out, especially at this most inopportune time of his life and career.”

“I can understand why she’d feel that way,” I said.

“Yes, so can I,” Emily agreed. “Then I asked her why she wanted to go back home to Florida so soon. She told me that when she spoke with Vaughn, he was very gracious to her. He seemed truly happy to see her and to know that she was doing well. But, for the same reasons Kylie didn’t want her relationship to him to be released, Vaughn didn’t want the news to be made public either. He promised to keep in touch with her, if she promised to keep their connection a secret. But visiting with him made her realize how lucky she’d been to be adopted by the very parents she would have chosen had she’d been able to pick them out herself. And she told me she really missed her folks back home in Longwood.”

“That’s a touching story. Was Kylie aware from the beginning that Fanny Finch was the author of the book vilifying her father?” I asked, wondering if the gal could have been resentful enough to murder Fanny in order to avenge her biological father. It had been blatantly obvious she had no use for the author. In fact, Kylie had practically snarled at Fanny in the office on Saturday morning for penning such a disrespectful book with no regard for the lives of the people who might be affected by it.

I described the confrontation in the office that morning to Emily, who hadn’t been present at the time. After I finished my story, she said, “Kylie was a little vague about whether or not she recognized Fanny Finch when the woman walked into the office to register for her site, or if she knew in advance Fanny had a reservation here. I didn’t want to press the issue, because I didn’t want to give her the idea that I or anyone else suspected she might have been involved in the woman’s death.”

“That was probably a good decision on your part,” I said. “And I appreciate you coming over to fill me in on the details. I’m anxious to pass them on to Wendy.”

I looked at Stone as I spoke. He just shook his head and rolled his eyes before stabbing another sausage patty off the plate in front of him.

* * *

After I cleaned up the kitchen and washed our breakfast plates, I decided to walk over to Wendy’s site and tell her what I’d learned from Emily. We had nothing on our agenda for the day, and had planned to rest and relax around the campground until suppertime.

While the four youngsters, as Stone and I refer to them, spent the evening at the Lady Antebellum concert, Stone and I would be treating our hosts, Stanley and Emily, to supper and cocktails at the Little Bear Inn a few miles north of Cheyenne. Emily had described the place as a former brothel with plenty of history behind it and said it was a longtime personal favorite of theirs. She raved about their lobster tails, and Stanley loved their steaks. I was looking forward to visiting with them over a meal and drinks.

Just as I approached Andy and Wendy’s site, Brandi and Chace Bumberdinger met me coming from the other direction. I acknowledged them with a pleasant greeting. Without any unnecessary small talk, I asked Brandi if they were managing all right after the loss of their stepmother. After she replied affirmatively, I asked, “Weren’t you shocked to find she and your father were staying here when you arrived?”

“No, we planned it that way so my brother and I could spend some time with Daddy. He took us to the carnival and rodeo a couple of days ago. This afternoon he’s taking us down to Rocky Mountain National Park for lunch and to view some wildlife, like elk, bighorn sheep, and maybe even a moose if we get lucky.”

“Now that sounds like a fun day to me,” I said sincerely. I had always been interested in wildlife photography and wish we’d had time to visit the park, too. “I could have sworn your mother told the detectives she was unaware your daddy and Fanny were going to be here at the same time as you three.”

“She did. When I asked her why she told them that, she told me she didn’t want to look as if she were stalking them, or anything else of that nature. I’m not sure I even understand why a person would stalk another human being, but that’s what she told me. Why are you asking me about that, anyway?”

“My daughter and I are doing a little delving into the murder case, and we’re trying to tie up loose ends. I’ve actually been instrumental in solving a number of murders in the recent past. So we were just curious about the discrepancy in her statement to the police. Thank you for clearing that up for me. We wanted to assure ourselves we had the right killer pin-pointed before we went to talk to the cops. Do you remember what your mother did the evening of Fanny’s death?”

“No, I can’t recall anything about that night,” Brandi replied defensively. I knew this young girl would do anything to protect her mother, and I admired her loyalty. I listened as she went on to say, “But I’m sure my mommy didn’t hurt Fanny. We have to go now. We told Daddy we’d be at his trailer by nine o’clock, and it’s two minutes to nine already.”

“I don’t want to hold you kids up, so you better get going. I hope you see a whole slew of moose, lots of elk, a herd of bighorns, and other amazing animals as well!” The stalking part of Brandi’s remarks sounded feasible, but I would bet my last dollar Brandi had lied about not recalling what their mother did the night of the murder. This baby Einstein could remember all the distinguishing features of a mountain lion’s turd, so she surely wouldn’t forget seeing her mother sneak out of the house with her hair dryer late in the evening.

“A group of moose are called a herd, not a slew, as are multiple elk, and a group of sheep are referred to as a flock, unless there’s a large number of them, and then it’s—”

“Okay, okay, Brandi,” I said before I had to listen to the entire list of what groups of animals were officially called. “I only meant to say I hope you have fun.”

I had pulled Brandi’s string and she wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to put her vast knowledge on display. With her hands on her hips, she asked, “Did you know that three or more crows is called a ‘murder?’”

“How interesting, Brandi,” I replied. “Does that make two crows an ‘attempted murder’ then?”

The young girl looked befuddled as the children walked away. I’d forgotten Brandi lacked a humor chip in her DNA makeup.

* * *

Stone and I sat with the Harringtons at our table near the bar at Little Bear Inn, sipping on our drinks and waiting for our meals to be brought to our table. I’d taken Emily’s advice and ordered the lobster tail. Stone and Stanley ordered porterhouse steaks. If my lobster was as good as the Tequila Sunrise I was drinking, I’d be more than satisfied.

One drink led to another, and before I knew it I was draining my fifth glass of strong tequila with barely a splash of orange juice. The drink contained just enough grenadine to make the concoction look like the bartender had sliced his finger cutting a lime into wedges and dripped a few drops of fresh blood in it.

I was pretty much looped before my supper arrived, and was thankful to have something to soak up the alcohol. I think at one point I told the young man who waited on us that he had the sexiest little butt I’d ever seen, but I can’t be certain I said it out loud. However, he’d looked at me as if he were on the verge of throwing up after some old blitzed broad had just hit on him, so I’m guessing I did verbalize the observation. The look Stone threw my way was not one of amusement, but more one of concern about my behavior.