“Make a wish,” Abner said, before sticking the burning stick deep into the center of the unlit fire. Immediately, a series of loud pops, followed by a consistent crackling and occasional cracks, emerged from the fire.
Abner pushed the flaming stick in a little farther, and then took a step back. “That’ll do ‘er.”
Just as the sun set at the other end of Main Street, and the last of the natural light began to disappear, the fire blossomed to its full height, all of the wood in the center catching ablaze and sending the flames licking skyward.
We all began to crowd closer to the fire until we had surrounded it. As soon as the sun had dropped, the air had noticeably cooled, and the fire drew us toward it like we were a crowd of moths.
“Romantic, isn’t it?” Brad said in my ear.
“A memorial for a dead grandmother? Not really, Brad, not really.”
“Well, I think it is. In fact, I think it’s pretty—”
“S’cool, right? Or should I say brad?” Pepper said, stepping between us. “Can you say a few words about my Nanna? I want to make a memorial video so that we can remember her by it.”
“I really didn’t know her that well.”
“That’s okay. A few minutes is enough. Just say what’s in your heart.”
A few minutes? I didn’t think Pepper had any idea how long a minute was. It’s an excruciatingly long time to talk about a topic when you have next to nothing to say about it.
“You go first,” Brad said with the kind of tone that implied he was being gentlemanly.
“Gee, thanks.”
“And three, two, one… go!”
Pepper had the camera in my face and was recording already. Oh well. I’d give it my best.
“Mrs. Watson, or, Nanna as some called her, was a powerful woman. Almost alone, she managed to bring a ghost town back to life, before unfortunately she, umm, passed away. We’ll always remember her for her strength of character, and her… organizational skills. She could bring a room to order in a second. And she could, umm, she was really… you know… good at what she did. Mrs. Watson, you’ll be missed. I hope you’re in a better place now. Thank you for letting me, and all of us, share this place with you. Goodbye.”
Pepper lowered her camera. “It was a little short. But it did sound off the cuff, which is good. Do you want to do it again? Get it right? We can do it as many times as you like.”
“Just one and done for me,” I said to her. “I get worse with each attempt.”
“But you could add that—”
“No, that’s it, Pepper. Please. I’ve got to go.”
I whipped my head around looking for where exactly it was I had to go. Considering we were in a ghost town, in the middle of nowhere, there weren’t too many possibilities. But I spotted one. Simone and Antonio. I’d barely spoken to them since the previous weekend.
“See you later,” I said quickly, head down and already moving.
In a few short steps, I slipped in beside Simone, an inane smile already on my face while I tried to think of what to say. Thankfully they were already engaged in conversation.
“You know,” Simone was saying, “being out here, with the memorial and all, it really puts things in perspective.”
“Oh? How’s that?” I said, bustling in. Simone greeted me with a warm smile before she carried on with what she’d been saying.
“How old was Mrs. Watson? Maybe seventy? It’s no age at all. If that’s how long I end up living, it means I’ve lived more than a third of my life already. And what have I done with it?”
“Lots of things?” I suggested. In front of me, the fire crackled and I put out my hands to soak up some of the heat.
“Yeah. But it’s making me think. What more could I be doing? I think I need to sit down and think about things. Really think about them.”
“You are the best thinker, my love,” Antonio said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
“Thanks, lover. But I need to find out what I really want to do. It’s time to stop messing around and do more. More enjoyable things. I wasted nearly a week of my life in Macau just to please Dad. No more. I’m going to live my life for me. No more boring wastes of time. I need new hobbies and new adventures. I’m not going to waste another instant.”
“So you’re going to do more fun stuff?” I asked for confirmation.
“Exactly!”
“Wow.” As far as I could tell, I thought Simone already dedicated her life to hedonism. But it sounded like she was going to redouble her efforts to fill her life with nothing but pleasure.
“Simone?” Pepper called. “Can you do a little video for Nanna? I…”
I slipped away again before Pepper decided to ask me to re-shoot my attempt again.
Standing on his own, around the other side of the fire, was Abner. I walked around to join him, standing beside him and staring into the fire.
“Do you know where Mr. Watson went?” I asked to initiate a conversation.
“Hot dogs.”
“Hot dogs?”
“Yep. He’s cooking hot dogs.”
“He said they were Mrs. Watson’s favorite. Is that true?”
“Could be.”
Still as talkative as ever, I thought to myself. I stared into the flames for a while.
“Did she get many visitors out here?”
“Nope.” I thought Abner was done, but after several more moments of crackling from the fire he offered a little more. “The last few weeks, there were a couple though, as you know.”
“As I know?”
Abner turned to look at me. In the flickering light of the fire, his face looked even older and more wizened than it did in the day. “Well, sure, you’ve been investigatin’, right? Your friends over there came to see her just a couple of weeks ago.”
Abner nodded across the fire to where Pepper was standing next to Simone on one side. On her other side, Rachel and Hunter were now standing, presumably waiting their turn to record a memorial video.
“Pepper and Dylan were here. I remember.”
“Yep. But I meant the other two.”
I glanced back at Abner for confirmation. He was serious.
“You mean Rachel and Hunter were here too?”
“Yep. Didn’t you know? They were here about a week after Mrs. Watson’s granddaughter came out here. She called ‘em up special.”
Now that wasn’t something they mentioned to me. And nor had anyone else. But maybe no one else knew.
Could Rachel and Hunter have been out here without Pepper’s knowledge? If Mrs. Watson herself had invited them, then I supposed they could have. But why wouldn’t they have told Pepper?
“Do you know what they were here for?”
“Nope. Not my business. Don’t like people nohow. I busied myself fixing up the saloon ‘til they were gone.”
“Thanks, Abner. You’ve been a big help.”
I had a good mind to ask him why he hadn’t told me that information earlier, like at the two times we’d visited him at home. But I suspected I knew what his answer would be: I didn’t ask.
“Hot dogs!” Carl called as he approached the fire. “Hot dogs for everyone. Come get ‘em while they’re hot. Cold dogs are no good!”
Pepper was there with her phone in front of her, filming as the first few customers lined up for their dogs.
Just one more night, I said to myself. One more night and I’d be away from Pepper and her constant intrusions with her smartphone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Neither Nanna nor I stayed around the bonfire too long. Nanna’s legs got tired and I was fed up trying to avoid being constantly filmed by Pepper.
Pepper had entered a manic state, bouncing around the fringes of the fire, shoving her phone in everyone’s face and laughing hysterically. While she pretended to be in a great mood, celebrating the life of her grandma, there was clearly something wrong. She made a few quips toward Rachel and Hunter but avoided exploding at them, which was a relie
f. A big argument between them was inevitable, but I was hoping it wouldn’t take place until after everyone was back in Las Vegas and I was off the case.
We stayed just long enough to eat a couple of hotdogs each and hear the first of Brad and Dylan’s songs together. Although Brad had claimed to me that he was no longer a fan of Dylan, he managed to keep that opinion to himself for the time being so they could perform. Pepper acted as their loudest cheerleader, jumping up and down and declaring them to be s’cool and brad. Every now and then, she would break away, and film a mini-monologue to the camera about how to celebrate life, or how to deal with grief, or some other pearl of wisdom that she made up on the spot.
When Nanna and I returned to our cabin, the fire in the corner of the room had been started for us by Abner making it toasty inside, and warmly lit from the dancing and flickering flames that licked up against the metal fireguard. Bridget rushed over to the fire as soon as we were inside, collapsing in doggy-delight in front of it.
“Tiffany?” Nanna said after we’d turned off our electric lantern and climbed into our respective beds. Outside, we could still hear the bongos and guitar, luckily dulled by the doors and walls of the cabin.
“Yes?”
From in front of the fireplace, Bridget let out a loud yawn. She was exhausted after all the hotdogs she’d eaten that evening and the cuddles she’d received from everyone around the fire.
“Did you solve the case?”
“Maybe, Nanna, maybe.”
“Are you going to tell us in the morning?”
“That’s the plan.”
“That’s very good news, dear. Goodnight, Tiffany.”
“‘Night, Nanna. Sleep well. Sleep well, Bridget.”
Bridget was already softly snoring.
I only lay awake a few minutes. I hadn’t completely solved the case, but I was pretty sure I had put everything together. I just needed to confirm a few details.
I think I was dreaming of more hotdogs when I was woken up by a hot dog of my own.
Bridget was barking up a storm, and Nanna was sitting up in bed, coughing and wheezing and trying to say something but unable to.
I opened my eyes and they immediately began to sting.
Why was Nanna coughing? Why were my eyes stinging?
“Na—” I broke into a coughing fit, unable to even finish the word. The last vestiges of sleep fled and I tried to suck in a deep breath of air. It was another mistake. With lungs full of smoke, I began to choke like Nanna.
We had to get out of there—fast.
Bridget had her paws up against the door of the cabin and was barking as loud as she could, scratching at the wooden surface as if she could dig her way through it. I grabbed my pillow and held it up against my mouth, as I climbed out of the bed.
“Nanna?” I said.
She answered me with another fit of coughing.
“Come on,” I said, voice muffled by the pillow pressed against my face.
The cabin was so small I was only a step away from the door. I pushed down on the handle to open it.
The handle did not go down.
The door was jammed shut.
I pushed down on the handle again and again, but it barely moved a fraction of an inch, blocked by something sturdy on the other side to prevent me from opening it.
Perhaps I could knock over whatever was wedging the door shut. I brought my shoulder to bear, slamming it into the door at the same time as I mashed the handle down as hard as I could.
Thump, thump, thump.
Nothing budged. Unless I came up with a plan, we were stuck in the cabin with a blocked-up chimney and a roomful of smoke.
Just like what happened to Horrible Nanna.
“Tiffany!”
I turned to look at Nanna, and she’d copied me with a pillow up against her face. In her right hand, she was grasping a broom, which she was waving emphatically at me.
“No… time… for cleaning…” I said between choking breaths.
Nanna pushed past me and went to the side of the door. Using the end of the broomstick, she proceeded to shove the handle through the windowpane, smashing it.
Nanna and I stuck our heads in the hole and sucked in some deliciously cool night air. It didn’t last long. The smoke from the fire was drawn to the hole, and in a moment we were choking worse than ever.
“Give me that,” I said before breaking into another round of eye-stinging coughs.
I took the broom from Nanna, pushed it through the hole in the small window, and then twisted my wrist so that the handle smacked up against the front door of the cabin. If I could knock whatever was wedging us in out of the way, we would be able to get out the front door.
Bridget was still barking and whining and scratching at the front door. She yelped excitedly when my broom handle smacked against the door.
“Help!” Nanna yelled over my shoulder through the hole.
“Nanna? Tiffany?” came a voice calling from outside. It was Ian, and he was just leaving his cabin.
I swung the broomstick again, and it connected with something in front of the door. I got the end of the stick lined up right and gave it another shove. It didn’t work. The wedge was still in place.
“I’m coming!”
I shoved again. And again. With the scrape of wood on wood, something shifted and there was a big thump as the wedged-in piece of wood toppled over.
Ian flew up the three steps outside in one bound, slapped his hand down on the handle and pulled it open.
I dropped the broom, pulled my arm back inside, and then with one arm around Nanna hurried us both out the door, coughing and spluttering as we emerged. Bridget was already just outside, urging us to hurry up with more barks.
“Get out of there!” Ian said, hurrying us outside.
I opened my mouth to tell him we were trying to get out as fast we could, but I was coughing so much no words would form. Helpfully, he smacked me hard on the back, sending me almost falling down the stairs outside.
Wheezing, choking, hands on my knees, I stared back up at the cabin. Smoke was pouring out of the front door and the window. Just in front of the door, lying as innocently as any piece of wood ever did, was a rectangular piece of wood about four feet high.
“What in tarnation is going on here?” Carl was striding toward us, his hand resting on top of the Colt holstered on the belt of his jeans. “And what are you doing up there?”
Carl pulled out the gun and pointed it over our heads at the roof of the cabin.
I turned around and looked up.
There was someone on the roof.
Abner.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Carl had us all inside the saloon at gunpoint. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this right now,” he said.
He got everyone else out of their cabins, most of whom had been awakened by the commotion and were already on their way outside anyway.
Pepper was holding her phone against her chest, filming all of us, but being not sprouting any pearls of s’coolness for once. She looked glassy-eyed and half out of it herself.
Nanna and I sat beside each other, both of us wheezing and coughing intermittently.
We all sat around the tables at which we had eaten dinner just one week ago, though that had been much earlier in the evening. This time it was just before dawn, and outside the black of night had already begun to turn into the gray of pre-dawn.
Everyone was there, including Abner. Carl had taped his wrists together behind his back with little complaint from the stoic old man. Abner had just raised his eyebrows and given a mildly exasperated sigh, as if just going through the motions even though he himself knew it was a waste of time.
And course Abner was right. He wasn’t the one we were after.
“Now,” Carl said. “This ends here, this morning. Tiffany?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I was wracked with coughs as soon as I tried. I’d inhaled more smoke than I thought. I held up a finger in the air
to tell them to wait a minute.
“I’ll explain,” Hunter said. “Abner over there killed Mrs. Watson and now he tried to kill Tiffany, too, because he knew she was this close,” he held up a pinched index finger and thumb, “to catching him. Isn’t that right?”
“Go… on…” I said between more coughs.
Hunter licked his lips and leaned forward. He was seated in the middle of the tables, with Rachel sitting beside him on one side and Dylan followed by Pepper on the other. Pepper’s eyes were dilated and she was sitting in uncharacteristic silence as she filmed us.
“Abner never wanted this ghost town developed, did you?” Hunter said to Abner.
Carl nodded at Abner to answer.
“Nope,” Abner said in agreement.
“And you hated the idea of it being filled with tourists, didn’t you?”
“Yep,” Abner said agreeably.
“And you made the furniture, didn’t you?”
Carl tilted his head at Hunter and gave him a quizzical look, as did most of the others around the table. In between coughs, I noticed that Ian had a frown of concentration on his face.
“Yep.”
“And we caught you on Tiffany’s roof just now. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our killer.”
Carl stared at Abner, daring him to deny it.
“Nope,” Abner said. “Ain’t killed, and ain’t harmed no one.”
“He did,” Hunter said. “All the evidence points to it. Only he would have thought to block up the chimneys. And he’d been planning this for a long time. Do you want to know the final proof?”
“Go on,” Carl said. Everyone turned their focus back to Hunter so he could deliver his coup de grace.
“You all saw the chairs on old Mrs. Watson’s porch, right? The ones with the high backs? That Abner made?”
We all murmured that we had indeed seen the chairs. In my case, the murmur came out more like a smoky growl. Hunter was definitely on the right track.
Just Deserts in Las Vegas Page 17