Murder in Gatlinburg (22 page)

"As dead as they
come."

"Then you might
want to know that another one of our party is missing. Went missing sometime
last night or today."

"What kind of tour
group is this? Wait a minute! You wouldn't happen to be the group that had the
bus driver who was murdered?"

"One and the same.
That's why I thought you wanted to talk to me. I thought you knew about our
reputation and wanted to know what we knew."

"That's what
Charlie's doing now. Checking on your reputation. We'll see what he has to say.
If he can find that town you say you're from, it shouldn't take him long to
confirm your stellar reputation."

As if on cue, the door
opened, and Charlie walked in.

"I talked to the
Chief up there. He said to lock them up and throw away the key. Some lieutenant
named George got a few laughs out of it, too."

I wondered why George
and the Chief would be at the station at night. Or maybe George was hobnobbing
with the Chief at his house. Lt. Curlee interrupted my wondering.

"Cut to the chase,
Charlie. I guess you mean they're who they say they are?"

"Not only that but they
were there over thirty years and never had an unsolved murder."

"Did they have any
solved ones?"

"Yeah, evidently
they have a grumpy bunch of people up there."

I interrupted as Charlie
slammed my hometown.

"I'm surprised they
told you that. They must have really been afraid you thought we did it."

"Let's look at it this
way. We hope to have another number one suspect soon. Okay, hotshot retired
detective, do you have anything that might help us solve this case?"

"No, but you might
check on the whereabouts of Inez Weddle. My guess is either she's victim number
three or responsible for the first two deaths."

"Okay, Charlie,
let's go check the front desk, find out where this Weddle woman was staying.
And as for you, retired detective, if you get an urge to get involved again,
call me first. Here's my card."

"Okay. And that guy
named George you were talking about. I sent him a list of all the people in our
group, asked him to check on them. A few of them look suspicious."

"You did
what?" Lou asked.

"Oh, so this one
can talk, too."

"Yeah, but mainly Cy
does all the talking, and I do all the work. And for the record, I had no idea
he was doing all this stuff. I told him that we're retired and on vacation, and
if he had anything that needed looking into, he should give you a call."

"Smart man, you
are. Keep him in line. I'd hate to spoil his vacation. And give me this
George's last name. I'll call him and see if he's found out anything."

Lou scribbled down
George's name and handed it to Lt. Curlee. I had another question I wanted
answered before the Tennessee lieutenant left.

"Oh, another thing,
Lieutenant. Do the names Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith mean anything to you?
And if so, what's their connection."

"What's the name of
this place where you live?"

"Hilldale."

"And when will they
be putting in electricity?"

"Listen. Neither
Lou nor I have heard of either of them. Neither of us are interested in sports,
current movies, or TV. So, I assume that these two have something to do with
one of those. I've narrowed it down to movies or TV."

"Well, at least
you're using your brain for something. But you call yourself a homicide detective
and you don't know their connection?"

"That's why I asked
you. And don't tell me they are famous homicide detectives."

"They were both in the
movie
Body Double
, as in two bodies, as in what we have so far today.
Did someone leave a clue saying that?"

"Sort of."

"Care to explain
that?"

Lou interrupted before I
could answer.

"Lieutenant, it's
nothing that will help you solve these murders."

Curlee turned back to
me.

"Well, whatever
happens, you stay out of this. You hear me. If you hear anything, or get any
more clues, give me a call. You've got my card."

+++

They walked out and I
breathed a sigh of relief as I shut the door. Lou died laughing. I was sure
that back home there were a few others laughing. Part of that was soon confirmed.
I received a text from George.

Let me know when
visiting day is. I'm due some time off soon. Maybe I can get a couple of
familiar faces together and come see you.

A few minutes later
George called, asked if I had been released yet. He said he would tell me what
he found out as long as I didn't do anything about it. I promised, although it
hurt me to do so. But I was a stranger in a foreign land. I didn't know what
they would do to me. George had only four tidbits for me. Jack Ripatoe had
served time for assault, although it was a few years ago. Angel was raised in
several foster homes, many of which she ran away from. George had no
verification that she and Jack were actually brother and sister. Sylvia DuBois
knew Inez's husband before she knew Inez, and Inez's husband was thought to be
involved in a lot of illegal activities. And Max Huffington, had been fired
twice for being a little too aggressive. He was a bouncer. One time he broke a
guy's jaw. Another time he beat up a guy so bad the guy ended up spending time
in the hospital. Both employers said he could have stopped after he threw the
guy out, but he continued to pummel each guy, and suffered the consequences
from that. I wondered if George knew if any of them knew Earl or Miss Friendly
before we left Lexington, but I knew better than to ask.

George ended the
conversation by saying, "Cy, it cost us a little more to send you with
this particular group, but we wanted you and Lou to feel at home. So, how many
murders do you have so far?"

"Well, I've been
warned off the case, but there have been two murders so far, and Inez Weddle is
missing."

"Do you want me to
send Heather and Dan to solve this case for you? All's quiet on the northern
front."

I laughed.

"Goodbye, Cy. And
stay out of jail."

"You mean you don't
have a 'get out of jail free' card for me?"

"I do, but I don't
know the number for the fax machine down there."

"Would it work if
you sent it to my phone?"

"You mean you've
learned how to use your phone?"

"No, I hired a
teenager to text for me."

It was George's turn to
laugh.

After a few minutes Lou
went to his room. That gave me time to think about what I wouldn't be involved
in. Was my interest in this case a way of saying I wasn't ready to retire yet?
If so, I think it was a little too late for me to go back. I thought about the
threat I had received. Did I really want to go back to that kind of a life? But
then, I really didn't live that kind of a life in Hilldale. Seldom had I
received threats, and never from someone carrying a running chainsaw.

I looked out the door that
led to the balcony. It was dark. I refrained from going outside and being eaten
by insects and considered my other options. There was the really comfortable
leather couch, the recliner, and the bed. If I went to bed I would go to sleep,
which meant I wouldn't be doing much mulling over the case I couldn't be
involved in. The couch was tempting, but then it might tempt me to lie down and
go to sleep where most men go to sleep at night. The recliner looked like my
best bet. I didn't usually go to sleep in my recliner at home, so I could
probably stay awake there if I didn't lean back too far.

I sat down and leaned
back and studied what I had, thanks to personal effort and what George had
found out. As far as I knew, there were two dead people. One of those was Earl,
and the other was Miss Friendly. I wondered what connection they had. I thought
of calling George and asking him to check and see where Earl was from and where
Miss Friendly lived, but then I thought if I did that someone might knock on
the door and when I answered it Lt. Curlee would be standing there dangling a
pair of handcuffs. Too bad I didn't ask George to share hometowns with me when
I called him earlier.

I thought back to when I
met both of the deceased, when Lou and I left Lightning behind and traded one
type of transportation for another. It was just after I spotted the guy with
the limp. I tried to remember their faces. Did they look like they knew each
other? I remembered that neither of them seemed to be happy at that moment,
with each other or with the world, so as far as I knew that meant they could
have been married. If so, they had had a whale of an argument, because she
didn't sit in the seat behind him, and she did have the first choice of seats.
He was the first person there, and he was murdered. She was the second person
there, and she was murdered. I hoped there was no one was running around Westgate
checking to see who the third person there was. Did the order in which people arrived
have anything to do with the murders? If so, would I not live to regret that I
should have had Lou step up onto the bus first? I tried to think of some time
in my life where Lou did something that made me want to sacrifice him. All I
could think of were the times when he did something that made me want to jump
in front of him and take the bullet myself. I refocused on the two dead people.
Just like the movie
Body Double
there were two bodies, a man and a
woman. Was there any significance that one man and one woman were murdered,
rather than two people of the same sex?

I was getting nowhere
rather slowly, so I moved from the dearly departed to the ones who were scheduled
to depart on Friday. Depart Gatlinburg that is. I felt it was okay to have
suspects as long as I didn't tell anyone I had suspects, and I didn't go
ringing the doorbells of all of our suspects. Yes, doors at Westgate have
doorbells.

I could picture myself
ringing a suspect's doorbell, and when he or she opened the door, asking,
"Where were you on Friday?" Provided they recognized me, and I
figured most of our group could pick me out of a lineup by now, they might
answer, "First I was on a bus with you. Then we stopped and ate at
Applewood Farmhouse, then visited Titanic aground in a parking lot, then ate
again at Mel's Diner, then checked into this place, then went and ate with my
fingers at Dixie Stampede. After that, I returned here on the same bus you were
on, came back to my room, and went to bed, by myself. No witnesses. Why do you
ask?"

No, that wasn't going to
work. A move like that would get me in handcuffs for sure. Besides that,
Westgate is a big place, and I had no idea how many days it would take for me
to find each of my suspect's rooms.

Suspects. Who were they?
Well, the people George mentioned immediately came to mind. I wasn't sure who
was at the top of my list. Was it Jack Ripatoe or Max Huffington? Both could be
violent. And Angel was no angel. I was sure of that. And was Sylvia as innocent
as she appeared to be? Just because she knew Inez and claimed to be her friend
didn't mean that she wasn't involved. And what did I know about Inez? She was
missing. Missing people don't always have to be victims. Sometimes they can be
suspects, even if she did have a husband who was less than thrilled with her.
So that elevated my number of suspects to five. Should I also include the
couple who looked like they posed for the American Gothic painting? Should the
fact that they never smiled be enough to put them on my suspect list? Their
grim looks might mean something entirely different. Maybe they were Baptists.
Not like Baptists in Hilldale. I was thinking of the Primitive Hard-Shelled
Snake Handling kind that have been taught that it's a sin to smile. Maybe those
people aren't Baptists after all. They could be part of a cult who were afraid
they would have to go away and drink Kool-Aid. Of course, maybe the reason they
didn't smile was something entirely different than being a bad person, or that
their bible had extra parts or some parts removed. Maybe it was as simple as
their underwear was too tight, they had heard that they got left out of the
family will, their dog had died and they had gone away to grieve, or they have
yellow teeth.

Or could it be that the
murderer was someone else entirely, someone I didn't know about or someone I hadn't
considered. After all, anyone in our group could be the murderer except the two
kids. I didn't think they were strong enough to break an old lady's neck, drag
her across the floor, lift her up, and throw her over the balcony. But I could
talk to them and find out if the woman with them is really their mother. But
then I didn't think I would be allowed to talk to them, either. All I knew was
that it was hard being retired and have someone practically throw a couple of
bodies in your face.

I got an idea. When in
doubt at home, I went to the computer. My new laptop was setting on the
counter. I hopped up on one of the stools and fired it up. First I went to Facebook.
My mouth fell open to Mammoth Cave proportions when I saw that Jack Ripatoe had
a Facebook page. He liked Kiss, the Grateful Dead, and
Nightmare on Elm
Street
movies. Sounded like my Jack. He had eight Facebook friends. A
couple of them were due to be up in front of the parole board again soon. Well,
maybe not. But they looked like they could be. None of his friends were part of
our party except Angel. One of her Likes on Facebook told me where I could go
if I decided to try body piercings.