by Tracey Quinn
When Nick bought the place he not only changed its name, but changed its reputation, too. The Happy Rest Motor Lodge was a pleasant place for families and business travelers to stay, but every now and then he still had to run off a few sketchy characters who remembered the motel from the old days. I was hoping that one of those sketchy characters was named Belcher; if Belcher had come from out of town, the Happy Rest was the most likely place he would have found to stay. There were some fine little family-run bed-and-breakfasts in East Spoon Creek City, but the didn't seem very grizzly bear friendly so I didn't think Belcher was staying at any of them.
As I was driving I turned on the radio and found that, regrettably, the only station I could get was broadcasting The Dolly DuPoint Show, a call-in show in which Dolly gives advice about life and love to her callers. Apparently most of the local radio stations don't think there are enough consumers for their advertising to make it worth while to extend the signal to cover the 20 miles between East Spoon Creek City and Kettletown. They're probably right. Dolly was just finishing with a caller when I tuned in.
“And the best thing you can do for your marriage, Hector---”
“Excuse me, Miss DuPoint, my name is George.”
“No need to be nasty, I'm just trying to help you. Obviously you made a big mistake when you quit drinking. You say that because of your drinking you lost everything and it took you 12 years to get your wife, your children, your job and your house back, but I can tell from talking to you these last three minutes that you're uptight and no fun anymore. Take my advice and go ahead to your friend's bachelor party and get smashing drunk with the others. Convince your wife that you'll have more fun if you both get drunk together. Why, I can remember back when my brother and I were in pre-school how much fun it was to watch my parents drinking, falling over and breaking things. We used to laugh ourselves silly. Don't deprive your children of those precious moments, Claude. We missed those moments later when the police took my parents away and we went to live with our grandparents. Life was quite dull after that.”
“Uh, well, I think I'll stick with dull. Actually hearing your story did help me make up my mind,” the caller said before he hung up.
I was reaching over to turn off the radio when I heard a familiar voice.
“Thank you for taking my call. If you don't mind I'd like to use my initials M.F.”
Good Lord! Could it be? It was. Millie Farnsworth.
“Of course, M.F., everything you say to me will be kept confidential. I believe in patient/client privilege just like in a doctor's office. As a matter of fact, my husband is a doctor of sorts. He's a neurosurgeon. Maybe he didn't do enough studying to become a regular doctor. I'll have to ask him about that someday, but what can I help you with, my dear?”
“Well, there is this woman that I dislike---”
“The witch!” yelled Dolly. “You must destroy her, M.F.!”
“That's exactly what I thought!” said Millie. “You are so insightful, Miss Dupoint.”
“That's because I have a despicable, repulsive neighbor who is identical to the woman you just described. Last winter she actually called Child Protective Services because my twins built a snowman. It was a blizzard, for heavens' sake, no one was out driving anyhow and it was easier for them to build it in the middle of the street where the snowplow had cleared. After all, they're only three years old, how did she expect them to build a snowman in a yard that was covered with a foot of snow? And, of course, they were only wearing pajamas, warm flannel pajamas I might add, because they had just gotten out of bed. My negligent husband, taking no responsibility for them at all, had left for work before they were awake. After he left, my station manager Tom and I locked ourselves in my bedroom so we wouldn't wake them and discussed business.
“While the police were interrogating Tom, I slipped out with a baseball bat and proceeded to smash every window of my neighbor's house. I had managed to shinny halfway up a drain pipe to get to the second floor windows when a policeman grabbed my ankles and pulled me down, but not before I managed to show my displeasure by kicking him in the face. I won't bore you with the details of what happened after that, but let's just say it did not go well for me. And this is why I must advise you to attack this evil woman by every means possible before she does you any more harm. You must protect yourself from her viciousness!”
“You are so right, Miss DuPoint,” Millie said. “You are validating my own thoughts. I hope I may call again.”
“Of course, M.F.,” replied Dolly. “You are such an admirable person to withstand the assaults of this disgusting person without a hint of complaint. I feel we are soul mates. Call again anytime, and please call me Dolly.”
Well, that was something you don't hear on the radio everyday! I did have to agree with Dolly on one thing. She and M.F. sure seemed to be soul mates, possibly cell mates someday.
As I pulled up in front of the motel I scanned the cars in the parking lot, but there was no sign of a tow truck. Nick Havers was at the check-in desk and saw me drive up, and as I got out of my car he stuck his head out the door and waved to me.
“Hey, Dani! Long time no see!” he called. “What brings you out here so early?”
“Oh, I was looking for someone; an old acquaintance who had been out of town for a while,” I said. “I thought he might be staying here. His name is Belcher.”
“Belcher, hmm... What's his first name?”
“Uh... I don't know.” Nick looked at me curiously. “Okay, so he's not really an acquaintance,” I admitted. “Actually, he's the sort of guy that would have stayed at a place like this back when it was the old run-down Dry Bed Motel. He's a big scary guy that drives a tow truck. Have you seen him?”
“No, I can't say that I have,” Nick replied. “We've been trying to cut down on the number of big scary guys that hang around here recently. What did he do? Did he cause some kind of trouble at the Breezy Spoon?”
“No, although he did come in once,” I said. “He was rude and he wanted four sugars in his coffee.”
“Four sugars! The man must be some kind of monster!”
“See, that's what I thought! Anyway, if he does come around you should probably call the sheriff. I think he's dangerous.”
“Thanks, but I finally got the sheriff's department out of the motel yesterday and I'm in no hurry to have them back! It doesn't help business to have a parking lot full of police cruisers and crime scene investigators!”
“What were they all doing here?” I asked.
“They wanted to see the room of that guy who got killed.... uh, Duval, I think his name was.”
“Lloyd Duval was staying here?” This was news I hadn't seen coming; the Duval family has a house by the lake near East Spoon Creek City where they lived for years. After Lloyd went to prison and his father died, his mother moved to Florida, but she never sold the house and I had assumed that Lloyd had been living there when he moved back to town. Why would he be staying in a motel this far outside of town when he could have lived in his own house?
“Yeah, he's had a room here for a couple of weeks or so,” Nick said.
“Wait- he'd been here for two weeks? He only came back into town a few days ago. Why would he stay out here without letting anyone know he was out of prison?”
Nick shrugged. “No idea. Maybe he thought people in town wouldn't be happy to see him. It looks like they weren't, either. Not only did someone kill him, but when I let the police into his room yesterday I found out that the place had been trashed; pictures off the walls, furniture overturned, carpet ripped up, the whole thing!”
“That's crazy! It's like someone thought Lloyd hid something in his room and they were searching for it,” I mused. “I wonder if they found what they were looking for?”
“I don't know, but I can tell you this: if I find them, they're going to have a big fat lawsuit on their hands! I had to throw everything out and remodel the room from scratch! Do you think it was that Belcher guy you're looking
for?”
“I'm wondering the same thing,” I said.
It was almost nine AM by the time I got back to our booth at the fair. The fair didn't officially open until ten but I needed the food ready to sell by then. Normally most people don't start eating until around noon, but there are always a few who want something early and I don't want to miss out on sales. I had only been working for about half an hour when I looked up and saw our first customer of the day heading for the booth: Mayor Pumphrey.
“Morning, Dani,” he called as he came up to the front counter. “Velma's setting up my booth and she wants me to get out of her hair so she can put the finishing touches on it. Between you and me, I was glad to go! She rushed us out of the house this morning with nothing more than a light snack of bacon, eggs, cereal and toast, so I figured I'd pop down to your booth and see if I could get something to keep me on my feet until lunch. What have you got on the menu today?”
“We're doing the Breezy Spoon version of carnival food,” I said. “Chili flavored corn dogs, Italian sausage coated with garlic bread crumbs, and Polish sausage with pretzel crumb coating, all with our three-cheese dipping sauce. For dessert, deep fried chocolate cheesecake on a stick and funnel cakes topped with fresh cranberries and homemade whipped cream. There will be the usual french fries and fried onion rings, plus milk shakes, soda, iced tea and pink lemonade.”
“I suppose that'll do,” Mayor Pumphrey said. “I take one of everything but, uh, hold the onion rings.”
“Sure, but the fryers are still heating up so it'll take a few minutes to get your order ready. I hope you don't mind waiting.”
“That's fine; just as long as I can eat before the opening ceremonies get under way. I don't like making speeches on an empty stomach.”
“At least you don't have to debate Lloyd Duval,” I said. “That must be a relief.”
“Er, not at all,” the mayor replied, squirming a little. “I was looking forward to giving him a trouncing. He was foolish to even think about taking on an experienced politician like myself. I'd have mopped the floor with him.”
“Yes, but it can't have been a good feeling knowing that someone was trying to take your job away. I'm sure you must have resented Duval; I'll bet you were even tempted to go meet him and give him more than a trouncing!”
“Why, um, of course not! He was no threat to my position as mayor! Everyone in town loves me!” His voice didn't sound very confident.
“Well, if you did go out at night to confront Lloyd and just happened to walk in on him breaking into the bank vault, I think a lot of people would call you a hero for trying to stop him,” I said. “One of your neighbors did see you get in your car and drive away from your house on the night Lloyd was killed.”
“Oh, those old busybodies! Always peeking through curtains and spying on everyone!” Mayor Pumphrey fumed. “You can tell them that I don't care for their insinuations, and while your at it, tell them to clean their glasses better because they must have seen someone else! I didn't go anywhere near that place-- I mean, I didn't go anywhere at all! I've got important business to attend to! I can't stand here all day talking wild gossip!”
With that he turned and strode away toward the town square. Brendan was just arriving, pulling a pair of ice chests behind him full of soda and lemonade from the Breezy Spoon.
“Was that Mayor Pumphrey?” he asked. “What was he doing at the booth, as if I didn't know?”
“He was leaving without waiting for his food.”
“Wow, that has to be a first! Why would he do that?”
“Maybe a guilty conscience,” I said.
Chapter 8
There was a good crowd at the fair that day, and they were hungry; by one o'clock that afternoon we were getting low on most of our dishes, except for onion rings, and I had to call Linda at the Breezy Spoon to have her get some more sausage and french fries ready for Brendan to pick up and bring to the fair. Linda and her husband Don live in the apartment above the Breezy Spoon and I was lucky enough to hire them to work the dinner shifts for me. Linda has lots of restaurant experience and they're both terrific cooks. Today they were handling the early shift at the Breezy Spoon while Brendan and I worked at the booth in the fair.
I was still waiting for Brendan to return when Suze came up to the booth. “Hi hi,” she said. “So, how's business? It looked like you had a big crowd most of the day.”
“Yes, we've been been busy,” I said. “Can I get you anything to eat?”
“Thanks, but I already had a protein bar. That's good enough for me,” Suze replied, helping herself to a deep-fried cheescake on a stick. “Besides, Pollyanna says it's not a good idea to eat too much before a match or it might all come back up.”
“I was surprised to hear that you were going to wrestle Pollyanna. Do you know a lot about wrestling?”
“Nah, but Pollyanna said she'll tell me what to do. I did gymnastics when I was a kid and I figure it's probably not too much different.”
As someone who had experienced the Pollyanna Death Grip I had a feeling that it was going to be a bit different than gymnastics. As I turned to hand Suze a glass of lemonade, I noticed Roger Travers heading our way. Looking around our small booth, I remembered the line from the old song that went “nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide”.
“Hello, hello, hello, lovely ladies,” Roger called. “Just found out that the population of Ireland is twice what it used to be. You know why? It's Dublin! Get it, get it?”
“But why is it doubling?” asked Suze.
“Uh, because Dublin is the capital city of Ireland, get it?”
“You mean that everyone's moving to Dublin for some reason and now there's more room for other people to come into Ireland so there's twice as many?” she asked, scratching her nose ring thoughtfully.
“No, no, it's a joke,” Roger explained with a strained smile. “Dublin, the city, sounds the same as doubling, the word that means to have twice as many.”
“That's sort of confusing. Maybe they should change the name or something. I mean, people are allowed to change their names so probably cities could, too.”
“Yeah, probably,” Roger said, giving up. “Anyway, I just popped by to see if Dani had decided to fly my plane! I've got my first customers lined up and we want to schedule a flight as soon as possible. It's an easy-peasy job and I can pay you cash on the barrel-head to do the round trip. How about it, Dani?”
“I really appreciate the offer, Roger,” I lied. “but like I said before, I just don't know how to fly your plane. I flew helicopters in the military. There really is a difference.”
“How much difference could there be?” he asked. “They both fly. Why don't you come out to the air field and look over the instrument panel, get used to it, take it up for a spin? Flying airplanes isn't that hard.”
“Roger's right, it really isn't, Dani,” Suze agreed. “You know, my brother Baldy is visiting from Alaska and he could tell you; he's a bush pilot and he more or less taught himself. Now he gets a lot of business from people who come to Alaska for the hunting and fishing. He flies them out into the wilderness in his seaplane.”
“A seaplane?” Roger asked.
“Yeah, there aren't any airports out where folks want to hunt so he has to land on a lake or somewhere to get them out there.”
“Say, do you think your brother would be interested in making a flight for me? I mean, could he do it within the next few days?”
“I'm pretty sure he would. Baldy would do about anything for a payday,” Suze replied.
“That's great! Here's my card; have him give me a call right away,” Roger said. “This is a real relief! For a minute I thought I was going to have to try flying myself, and boy, would my arms get tired! Get it? Ha ha!”
Suze looked confused. “Why, do you have to lift a lot of stuff?” she asked.
“Maybe so. I'd better get going,” Roger replied.
I've never been a big fan of Suze, but now that I knew that she was t
he perfect antidote for Roger I was warming up to her!
“Well, I should run along, too,” Suze said. “I volunteered to run the booth for the horse-race game. The kids shoot water at a target and the horse moves ahead every time they hit the target. The winner gets a prize. Sounds like it has real possibilities.”
Possibilities? I didn't know what she meant by that, but knowing Suze, I thought it was better not to ask. Brendan had just arrived with a stack of sheet pans full of sausage and fries, which was good since the crowd was picking up again and I didn't want to run out of any of our popular dishes. First in line was a teenage boy who ordered a corn dog and a side of onion rings. As he was leaving the counter with his food, a woman ran up to him and knocked the onion rings out his hand.
“My God, don't eat those, Jamie!” she cried.
“But, Mom ---” the boy started to say.
“I warned you about those- those things!” the mother snapped.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, uh, no. It just that he has allergies, he's allergic to onions,” she said.
“How about some french fries instead?” I asked. “No charge.”
“That would be great,” she replied. “I appreciate it.”
After they left, I said to Brendan, “Well, that was weird. You'd think the kid would know that he couldn't eat onions.”
“That's the first order of onion rings that we've sold all day,” he said. “Everything else is going fast. I don't get it. Linda offered to give me more onions because they have plenty left over from lunch; she said everyone wanted them left off of their burgers and salads.”
“Is it some kind of new diet that I haven't heard about?”
“If it is, it's news to me, too.”
I saw Pearl come up to the counter with her friend Jackie, another hair stylist from the salon.
“Hi girls, what can I get for you?” I asked.