“Hey! April, was it?” a familiar female voice called from inside the truck. A moment later, her head popped out of the open window.
Blanche leaned over a nice-looking young man with squinty eyes sitting in the driver’s seat.
“My name is June, actually!” She had to yell to make her voice heard over the truck.
“Did you find anything?” asked Blanche over the roar of the idling engine.
June held up the keys. “Found these in the mud.”
“Huh. Well, hopefully we can figure out who they belong to.”
June frowned. “Look, Blanche, I don’t mean to pry, but why don’t you want the police involved?” The more she thought about it, the more she realized that having the police here might be the best thing. They had ways of figuring out who did it.
June couldn’t hear Blanche’s reply over the sound of the engine, but she caught, “worthless, good for nothing…” before the young man drove off.
I wonder where she’s going, thought June.
Chapter Six
June watched Blanche and her husband drive out of the campground, hit the highway, and turn left. The light blue exhaust cloud that followed the truck gave her a temporary headache. She waved her hand in front of her nose to try to clear the air.
“You might not want to bring that up again.” Ronald pushed up his glasses.
Danielle walked over to her, a scowl on her face, making her blue eyes seem that much more fierce. Her black, curly hair was peppered with gray in places and the hood of her blue jacket was thrown back. “Yeah, she really doesn’t like the police.”
June gestured toward the departing vehicle. “I didn’t actually mean to upset her. I just can’t wrap my head around why she wouldn’t want them called. She says she’s heartsick about the alpaca missing but I don’t see her doing much about it.” June knew she should just leave well-enough alone, but it just seemed so illogical.
“Even talking about the police will make her angry. She owns the campground you’re staying on, remember? Trust me, you don’t want to upset her more than you already have,” Ronald crossed his arms over his chest. “Anytime anyone brings it up, she goes off about how the police are a bunch of bumbling idiots who wouldn’t have jobs if it weren’t for her daddy.”
“What did he have to do with the police?” asked June. She had heard of the famous John Bidet, of course. He had set up this campground, but she didn’t really know anything more about him.
Danielle grimaced. “Well, nothing as far as anyone knows, but there are rumors that he donated money to the police department. No one knows where his funds went, except people who won’t tell. It’s possible that he gave money to them when he died, but I don’t remember the officers being his favorite people. All I know is that Blanche hates them. Always has.”
“I think they let him off easy for growing weed out here back in the seventies,” said Ronald.
“That sounds like him.” When Danielle smiled, the fierceness of her blue eyes lessened.
“So you knew him?” asked June.
“I didn’t,” said Ronald, stomping his feet. “I’m only here because of the camp host position.”
“Me neither, but we appreciate the legacy he left behind,” said Danielle.
“Left behind?” asked June.
“You have got to be kidding me,” said Ronald. “I thought everyone knew about the incident with the balloon.”
“Yeah, it was a pretty big deal. All over the news and everything,” said Danielle.
Ronald shook his head, blinking. “No offense, but are you a luddite?”
June tried not to feel uncomfortable. “No, but I’ve been too busy for too many years to even worry about the news. Besides, most of it is depressing.”
“Well, clearly we need to catch you up,” said Ronald, gesturing as he spoke. “If you didn’t catch the news, there was a whole documentary made. There’s probably a few more out by now. People love making them about this sort of thing. It’s one of the main reasons I decided to come out to apply for this camp host position. The Bidet family story is pretty fascinating.”
June wished he would get to the point.
“So, John Bidet, the one who set up this campground, loved nature and adventure and all those kinds of things. One day, he gets this crazy idea to sail off in a hot air balloon all by himself to cross the Atlantic Ocean. That was totally like him, by the way. He did all kinds of dangerous stuff. I guess when you have that kind of money, getting your own hot air balloon is not that big of a deal. So, he launches and everything is fine, right? Not many people paid attention to the liftoff or whatever you call it with a balloon, even though the guy was super famous. I mean, there was a news agency that filmed the liftoff, but they’d already filmed him parachuting, so who cares?”
“Right,” said Danielle. “Most people didn’t even know he was doing this crazy stunt. I didn’t, but I would have watched the takeoff in the news if I had known.”
Ronald cleared his throat. “Anyway, two days after his perfect liftoff, he up and disappeared.” Ronald made a ‘poofing’ gesture with his hands. “That’s when the news went crazy. By this point, everyone is out looking for him. For someone that famous, there’s helicopters and people on boats combing the sea, all kinds of stuff. His family was panicking and crying on the news, but they never found him, just pieces of the balloon along the coast. No one knows what happened to him.” He leaned forward and spoke conspiratorially. “People say that he was shot down, and some of them believe that it was one of his own kids that did it.”
Danielle rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t his kids. People just made that up after the family was so upset about the will.”
“I’d be upset, too,” said Ronald. “All that money given away or tied up in the family trust. I mean, who wouldn’t want their fair cut? They all thought they had big checks coming their way, even the ex-wives. John, for whatever reason, donated most of his wealth to charities and police officers and whatever else. He left a single campground to each of his kids, and that’s it. I’ll bet his lawyer made a ton off the deal, too.”
“You’re kidding,” said June. If she had a fortune to leave behind, she would definitely divide it equally between her kids. Of course, she didn’t have so much money that she could give them all a campground, either. A hot air balloon accident? What a way to go.
“The whole thing about the kids doing it is just plain ridiculous. You’re not going to go kill someone when you hope that they might live long enough to fix the will,” said Danielle.
“Maybe one of them was tight with the lawyer, knew what was going down and they tried to change it but something happened, or maybe they had no idea that they’d been stiffed in the will. You saw how shocked they looked coming out of the court house.”
Danielle huffed. “That’s just a conspiracy theory. There’s people who believe that he went too high and aliens got him.”
“Yeah, well I saw Blanche on TV after the whole meeting with the lawyer. She looked like she was about ready to murder someone.”
Danielle didn’t look convinced. “Blanche didn’t do it. She’s too lazy to even run her own camp. I think she cared about her dad even if she didn’t get all the money she expected.”
Ronald raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. The dude was not around for any of them a whole lot. He sort of moved from one woman to the next.” He sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway because nobody really knows what truly happened. Without a body and no evidence, whoever did it pretty much got away with murder.”
June shivered, and not just because of the cold. “How long ago did this all happen?”
Ronald looked up at the sky, scratched a red sideburn and said, “Probably fifteen years. Maybe just a decade.”
They stood in silence for a time until June remembered that she had things to do. “So why did Blanche drive off, anyway? Didn’t she want to be here to talk to the ranch hand?”
“Nope. That’s what I’m here
for,” said Ronald. “To do the jobs she doesn’t want to do herself, which is most of them. She hires out just about everything. Don’t get me wrong, this job has its perks. I’m glad she didn’t decide to run the whole place herself. I think one or two of her siblings did that with their campgrounds, but not her. If I were in her shoes, I’d be doing things differently. She’s sitting on a potential goldmine here and barely makes enough to squeak by every year.”
Just then, a truck turned off the highway and stopped in front of the camp host spot. “That’ll be Kurt. I better go earn my keep.” Ronald jogged off toward the truck.
Chapter Seven
June turned to Danielle. “Are you doing ok? You seemed really upset this morning.”
Danielle took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine. It’s Penelope I’m worried about.” She walked back toward the pens and June followed.
The alpacas seemed to be waiting to get Danielle’s attention, all clustered by the long, wooden fence. The sun had come out to begin warming the day.
“I’m sure wherever she is, she’s safe,” said June. The words sounded hollow to her own ears, but she doubted that anyone would take an alpaca just to kill it.
“But to her, home is safety,” said Danielle, blinking as if she might start crying again.
June didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m sorry I brought it up, but if someone stole the alpaca, do you think it was someone at the camp?” The site was out in the middle of nowhere. It was a good half-hour to the nearest town of Panguitch, Utah.
Danielle reached out a hand and petted a brown- and white-spotted alpaca. “Maybe. I mean, it would be easier for someone who was already here, but then they still would have to take her away somewhere, otherwise she would just try to get back to the herd.”
“But you didn’t seem to think that the alpaca was kidnapped this morning,” said June. Danielle had seemed so insistent that they search the forest.
She tucked a lock of curly, black hair behind one ear and then continued her ministrations to the alpacas. Most of the females were crowding near Danielle, begging for attention, and she took turns petting their long necks and noses. “Actually, Blanche is probably right about that. The girls never wander off. Even when Prince Albert leaves their gate open, they all stay put. I was just upset that she’s not going to do anything. Searching the forest would be at least something to try, even if it doesn’t amount to anything.”
June stood far enough back that she wouldn’t get sniffed again. She still clutched the keys in one gloved fist, and her fingers were stiff when she opened them. She leaned her cane against the fence and rubbed her hands together, trying to clean the keys as best she could without water. She held them up, cringing at the amount of mud that was stuck to the fabric of her gloves. “Do you know who these belong to?”
Danielle leaned over June’s hand so she could see them a little better. “Yeah,” she said, an alarmed look on her face. “These are Melanie’s. Look at the medallion. I don’t think anyone else has a set like these.”
June looked closer. There was a big round medallion with writing on it, but she couldn’t make out more than a word here and there.
“Where did you find them?” asked Danielle.
June pointed. “We found them in the pen, right near the troughs. Do you think Melanie had anything to do with the missing alpaca?”
The shorter woman scrunched up her face in disbelief. “I doubt it. I know her pretty well. We’ve both lived here for a really long time. Maybe she dropped them when she was in the pen. A lot of us visit the alpacas sometimes.” Danielle paused and shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone here who would have wanted to endanger Penelope’s life like that. We all love the alpacas, they draw a lot of interest from people who have never seen them before, and they help keep the place running by bringing in a fair amount of income for the camp.”
June clutched the keys in her fist and picked up her cane again. Note to self, clean the cane.
Danielle gave her a sidelong glance. “So, are you going to talk to Melanie? Try to figure this whole thing out?”
June shrugged. She may be working on that, but she didn’t want to get Danielle’s hopes up. “I’m not really qualified. I’m supposed to be on vacation. I honestly should be hiking with my daughter right now, or at very least curled up with my cat and a good book.”
“But you saw the keys.”
“Actually, Ronald pointed them out,” said June. She sighed. She would have to look into this, but she still didn’t know if it would do any good.
If Danielle didn’t think Melanie did it, what was she supposed to do, other than return the keys?
June frowned. Come to think of it, she’d better get back and warn Rebecca and Nathan that people were accusing them of stealing the alpaca. “I better go, but it was very nice visiting with you,” she said, then paused. “Can you tell me which one is Melanie’s RV?”
“I’ll walk you over there. She’s really close.” They passed between the campground bathrooms and a store with little glass windows that housed all kinds of knitted items. Just on the other side of the store, Danielle pointed. “It’s the big fifth-wheel with the blue truck.”
June thanked her and hobbled back to her motorhome, the muddy keys still clutched in her gloved hand. She wondered who Melanie was and what her keys were doing in the alpaca’s pen.
Chapter Eight
June hated the front steps of her motorhome. The way they creaked and sagged made her feel unstable and overweight all at the same time.
“There you are!” Rebecca said. “I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come back.”
“Hey, sweetie. I’m sorry I took so long.” June put her cane on the floor and used the handlebar to climb inside. She was going to have to wipe that down too, now that it, her gloves, and her cane were all covered in a layer of mud.
It still smelled like bacon and eggs inside and all the blinds had been opened, making even the garish vermillion accents look cheery. She picked up her cane and let go of the handlebar, a carefully practiced dance she had to go through every time she wanted to come back inside.
On top of struggling with her cane, she had a furry, orange obstacle to navigate.
Mr. Bigglesworth had found a spot of sunlight on the floor and was doing an admirable job of making the linoleum look comfortable while also barring passage through the motorhome.
While June had been traipsing around the campground, Rebecca had apparently cleaned up and put away the food. She was currently washing the pan from breakfast.
June felt bad. “I’m sorry I left a mess behind. And now I tracked one in too. You don’t have to clean up after me.”
Rebecca had done her hair and makeup and changed into workout clothes and jogging shoes. She rolled her eyes and set the pan in the dish drainer. “I know you are doing better, but you made breakfast. It’s only fair that I clean it up.” She paused, wiping her hands on a towel. “So, are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to all morning?”
“You done with the dishwater?” June asked.
When Rebecca nodded, she dropped the keys into the sink still filled with soapy water and pulled off her gloves. “Give me a minute. I’m trying not to get mud everywhere.”
Rebecca raised an eyebrow and handed her a disinfectant wipe.
June wiped down her cane. Finally, she sat and her hip thanked her for the relief. “Well, the big fuss this morning was that one of the alpacas has gone missing.”
Rebecca moved the dish drainer to the stove and wiped off the tiny space she had for a counter. Living in a motorhome required a constant juggling, and if you left anything out, you’d regret it. “So, why do you look worried? It was probably some kids who did it as a prank or something, like what Ryan did to get himself in trouble.”
Ryan was June’s youngest. He’d fallen in with the wrong crowd as a teenager and when one of his pranks went south, he found himself in trouble with the law. He had just turned eighteen
and would have had a record if the cops didn’t let him off easy. After that, he’d cleaned up his act, finished school and joined the military.
“No,” June said. “I don’t think it was a teenage prank, and even if it was, I can’t help worrying. I overheard Gabriella telling Blanche that you and Nathan were probably the ones to take the alpaca. It wouldn’t be a big deal, only she almost had Blanche convinced and the owner refuses to let the police get involved.”
Rebecca frowned. “So, an alpaca disappears and Nathan and I get blamed? That’s hardly fair.”
“Apparently, the alpacas don’t just go wandering off. They prefer to stay together. Plus the gate wasn’t left open. I think someone took her and I might have found a clue.” She pulled herself to her feet and fished in the warm water until she found the keys. She cleaned and dried them and put them on the table, grimacing at the dirt that was left in her sink. “Ronald happened to spot these. We had to work to get them out of the frozen mud.”
There was one key with a black top that looked like it might belong to a car and a black key fob with a little red button that would set off an alarm. She wiped the small, circular medallion clean. It read, ‘she thought she could and she did.’
Rebecca bent over and grimaced at the potential evidence. “Do you think that whoever took the alpaca dropped them? It could have been someone spending some time in the pens. I know there are at least a couple of guys who were in there the other day. I see people going in and out all the time.”
June tapped her lips with a finger. “That would be possible, but they were at the far end of the pen. I’ll bet that someone was in there last night and that whoever took the alpaca dropped the keys. I know from looking at the frost on the ground that someone moved the trough in front of the gate last night.”
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