Assailants, Asphalt & Alibis: A Camper & Criminals Cozy Mystery Series Book 8

by Tonya Kappes

  “Don’t forget she did the finger-across-the-neck gesture.” Agnes did the motion.

  The goosebumps crawled along my neck as I watched her bony finger cross her throat.

  “Oh yeah.” Abby held her pen up in the air and then went back to writing. “She said she wished the curse would get him.”

  “Love and scorn is a good motive to kill someone,” I said, rubbing my neck to take away the itching from those pesky bug bites.

  “Then we have Dirk.” I glanced out the kitchen window over to the headquarters tent, where Dirk still stood over the table, looking at the drawings. He had a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Dirk? That’s his partner.” Queenie didn’t seem so convinced he could be a suspect.

  “But Dirk was supposed to get fifty percent of the treasure since Sue Ann was knocked out of her percentage.” I wiggled my finger in the air. “Mason told him he wasn’t getting the fifty this time, and it angered Dirk. Money is a good motivator.”

  “What was my motive?” Mary Elizabeth asked.

  “Revenge. You wanted your pearls back, and when you saw him on the rock with your pearls in his hand, you pushed him out of anger.” The words rolled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “I’ll be…” She jerked, sitting up on the couch. She gave me a hard stare. “I’m going for a walk.” She jumped up and headed straight out the door.

  “I have lime-green nail polish.” Queenie unzipped her fanny pack. “Dab a little on each one of them chigger bites. It’ll kill the eggs under the skin.”

  “Eggs are under my skin?” The thought of little bugs hatching under my skin and living in my body was scarier than seeing Mason’s corpse.

  “Maybelline! Mayyyybellllieeeeen!” Mary Elizabeth’s shrill voice pierced the walls of the camper from the outside while me and the other Laundry Ladies tried to figure out motive.

  Nearly scalding myself with my coffee, I plunged toward the door and opened it. Mary Elizabeth stood at the entrance of the headquarters tent, screaming her head off.

  Ritchie and Sue Ann were already running over to her.

  “What’s she’s squalling about?” Agnes asked as we all piled out of the camper.

  “Dirk!” Mary Elizabeth covered her mouth with her hands.

  Ritchie and Sue Ann pushed past her. I ran faster and faster to see what was going on. Ritchie and Sue Ann had stopped once they got inside, but they weren’t near the area where we’d placed Mason.

  “Did you kill him too?” Sue Ann lunged toward Mary Elizabeth right as I got there.

  “Stop it.” I stood as a buffer just in time.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” Agnes asked.

  I glanced over at Dirk’s body lying on the ground near the table where he and Mason had looked over the maps. I walked over and bent down to see if there were any signs of life. I shook my head at Agnes, signaling he was dead.

  I quickly observed the bowl of stew on the ground that it appeared he had been eating. The cup of water sat on the table. It was as if he were standing over the maps, eating. The thought of how he could be doing that with Mason’s body in there was just unbelievable to me.

  Mary Elizabeth had started to shake. Abby wrapped her arms around her and took her out of the tent where they met Queenie. The three of them walked to the camper.

  “His eyes are open. There’s no pulse.” Ritchie gulped. “I think he’s dead.”

  “This is not good.” Agnes’s eyes shifted, but her face was still and stern. Her saggy jowls quivered. “Ritchie, how are the roads?”

  “I just got back from looking, and they are still too muddy to even think about trying to move across them.”

  “We need to move out of the tent. This is a crime scene, as are Dirk and Mason’s campers.” Agnes used her arms to usher all of us out.

  “It couldn’t be something he ate because we’ve eaten all the same stuff,” Ritchie suggested. “Maybe they ate some wild berries? There’s no visible signs of death.”

  “I have to go. I can’t stay here any longer.” Sue Ann hugged herself. “My crew will be out looking for me, and I’m afraid I’ll end up dead if I hang out here.”

  “I want to talk to you.” Agnes was insistent Sue Ann stay.

  “I don’t have to…” Sue Ann started to protest before Abby saved the day.

  “I got the CB to work!” Abby yelled from the open door of the camper and then ran over to us. “I got Dottie on the line, and she called the police. Hank was with her.” She huffed and puffed as the adrenaline coursed through her. “They are going to use some ATVs to try to get in here.”

  “Abby!” I threw my arms around her. “You’re a genius.”

  THIRTEEN

  The Normal police had done one better than ATVs: they brought in the National Park Rangers and their big Jeeps. The Rangers had gone into the woods to where we told them Mason had fallen off the cliff. Agnes told them he was pushed.

  “I’ve never been so happy to see you.” I couldn’t stop staring at Hank. “This has been a nightmare, and I think it’s the curse you told me about.”

  “I’d bet there’s a logical explanation for why there are two men dead.” Hank stood next to me and Agnes while we watched the police start their investigation alongside the rangers.

  “There is all right.” Agnes gave him a swift nod. “There’s a murderer here.” She pointed directly at Sue Ann and Mary Elizabeth.

  “Hold on. You don’t know that.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Agnes has deputized herself in order to investigate.”

  “You did?” Hank looked so pleased with his granny. She agreed with pride. “What did you find out?”

  “I found out Mason wasn’t very popular. Sue Ann Jaffarian is his ex who he claims stole his maps to find the treasure. If that’s not enough, he had her and her crew kicked out of here and almost out of the other campsite. And it just so happened she’d come right around the corner after Mason was pushed off the cliff.” Agnes’s thin brows cocked up. “Then we had Dirk, but I guess he’s dead and really isn’t a suspect. Unless he somehow killed himself.” She stopped talking, like that was a possibility.

  “How is Mary Elizabeth on your list?” Hank asked in an entertaining sort of way.

  “Mason kept asking to buy her pearls off of her. He was very persistent. Then, someone broke into our camper.”

  Agnes had told Hank too much. He looked at me with big eyes and a dropped jaw.

  “It’s fine.” I waved my hands. “At no time were we in danger.”

  “We were. A killer and two dead.” Agnes was good about reminding us. “Anyways, Mary Elizabeth accused him of stealing them. They were in his hand when he fell off the cliff. I put them in my bag for evidence.”

  “Don’t forget the finger.” Queenie ran a finger across her neck.

  “That was Sue Ann, not Mary Elizabeth.” Agnes nodded. “Yeah. Sue Ann.” She made the gesture.

  “Be sure you tell the police all of this.” He held his hand out to shake the hand of the officer who walked up to us. “Jerry, I think you know Mae.”

  “Yes. Hello, Mae,” he greeted me. Jerry stood about six feet tall and was probably in his sixties. A little bit of a belly showed underneath his blue uniform. He had black hair. He was nothing special like Hank. I’d seen him at the station a few times but never really talked to him. “Mae, I’m going to need the keys to your campervan. It will have to be fingerprinted because Ms. Moberly claims the pearls were stolen, and she wants to file a stolen goods report. And if this does become a homicide team, we will have to keep it here until our investigation is over.”

  “The campervan is open. The keys are in the console.” What kind of bad luck was going on here? First Mary Elizabeth’s pearls were stolen. There was a terrible rainstorm that cut us off from the world, not to mention no cell service. Then Mason died, followed up by Dirk dying, and now my home was taken from me.

  I was beginning to think the curse was real, and John Swift never intended anyone t
o find his hidden treasure.

  “How are you?” He focused his attention on Agnes. After all, she did work for the man.

  “You know me.” She winked. “Finer than frog’s hair. But I deputized myself in order to keep this an investigation.”

  “You did.” Jerry looked amused. “And what did you discover?”

  Hank tugged me aside when Agnes started telling Jerry exactly what she’d told Hank.

  “Are you okay?” Hank asked again as if I’d had a few minutes to think about it since he’d last asked.

  “I’m fine. I just want to get my camper back to Happy Trails and be done with this,” I told him and watched as the officers had Sue Ann and Queenie sitting on the back of the Jeep, asking them questions.

  “That won’t be tonight. It’s too muddy out there.” He ran his hand through his hair and looked at me with his big green eyes. “I knew you shouldn’t’ve come out here. I’m glad Granny was with you.”

  “How’s Fifi?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “She’s fine, and you can’t avoid talking about this.” He wasn’t going to stop poking the bear. “I mentioned bad weather. I told you there’s no cell service out here. Thank God, Abby knows what she’s doing.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I was annoyed. “It was fun until this. You can’t keep me in a bubble, Hank. I live my own life.”

  “Yes, you do. But I’m in it now, and it’s my job to protect you from the evils that can happen in and around the forest.” He made it sound like a third-world country.

  “Are you two arguing?” Queenie must’ve satisfied the officer with her answers as well as Sue Ann, because they’d been replaced by Abby and Ritchie. “Is this the first spat?” she teased.

  “He’s saying how it’s his job to protect me. I think I did all right out here, didn’t I, Queenie?” I asked her for confirmation.

  “I’ll let you protect me.” She winked.

  “You are too much.” I shook my head. “When do you think I can drive out of here?”

  “It might be tomorrow.” He looked up, and the sun was giving its last bit of heat before it sank behind the trees for the night. “Or it could be two days. Depending on how quick it’ll dry.”

  “I’m not staying here that long.” Queenie bounced on her toes.

  “No. We will take y’all out tonight.” Hank rubbed his hand up and down my back.

  “Hank.” Jerry called Hank over. “Can I see you for a second?”

  I watched as Agnes stood in between them. She was telling them something that I couldn’t make out. She was talking softly, and her jowls wiggled when she nodded her head while one of the officers talked to her.

  “What do you suppose she’s saying?” Queenie asked me.

  “I don’t know.” My eyes narrowed. “I have a sneaky suspicion she knows something or saw something, and she didn’t tell us.”

  Queenie, Abby, Mary Elizabeth and I had taken turns being brought out of the campsite by a ranger on the back of an ATV to where Hank’s big blue car waited on part of the new asphalt road.

  “Where’s Agnes?” I asked Hank when one of the rangers brought him out of the campsite. I was squeezed on the hump in the middle of the front seat with the lap belt on and Mary Elizabeth next to me. Queenie and Abby were in the back.

  Hank leaned across the front seat and looked at Mary Elizabeth.

  “Why aren’t you in the back?” he asked her and ignored me.

  “I want to be here with my daughter before someone hauls me off to jail.” She patted my leg. “I’m not stupid. I know what those officers were getting at when they asked me all them questions.”

  “What questions?” I asked her. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “You were off in the woods, peeing,” Queenie reminded us.

  “You peed in the woods?” Hank put the keys in the ignition and started the car. “That is out of your character.”

  It was out of Mary Elizabeth’s southern manners to do anything of the sort, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

  “See. Right there.” She turned her head and looked out of the window.

  “It doesn’t mean she killed Mason.” I let out a long sigh and rolled my eyes. “If anyone is to be looked at, I think it’d be Sue Ann Jaffarian.”

  “The police will decide all of that.” Hank made a U-turn and headed back to Normal.

  “How is Happy Trails with all the rain?” I asked, hoping to get our minds off the murders for a little bit of time.

  “It’s all good. But I heard the rain devastated some of the primitive camp sites. Sue Ann told the rangers where she and her crew were staying, so they sent some other rangers there to see if they were stuck.” Hank gripped the wheel. The tense jawline told me he was thinking, and I was positive it was about the murders, something I would question him about when it was just me and him.

  “The dogs?” I asked, even though I’d asked earlier.

  “I told you they are fine. Fifi will be happy to see you when we get back to my place.” Hank glanced over and gave me a planted smile.

  “She’ll be staying with me.” Mary Elizabeth’s mouth was clenched, a sure sign she wasn’t happy.

  “I’m not staying with you or you,” I told them both. “I’ve got an entire campground of rentable campers and bungalows.”

  “Fine.” Mary Elizabeth harrumphed.

  “Y’all are quiet.” I turned around and looked at Abby and Queenie. Both were just staring out the window.

  “I want to go home, get a good shower, and see what I missed on social media.” Abby stared at the phone in her hand.

  “I need some exercise to clear my head,” Queenie said with quiet but desperate firmness. “I can’t believe the curse has struck again.”

  “Oh.” Abby’s eyes grew. “I can hashtag the heck out of our trip and use ‘swift curse’ as the tag.” Abby’s face lit up when her phone dinged. “Whoooohooo!” There was excitement in her voice. “I’ve got service.”

  “We won’t see her for a week,” I joked about Abby being so tied to her social media.

  “Speaking of social media. Mayor MacKenzie was in the office when Dottie got ahold of me, and she is all over this murder thing. She doesn’t want anyone to say anything until the investigation is over.”

  Hank knew the back roads so well. He was able to get us to Happy Trails in no time.

  “So it is a murder investigation.” I made a point to hear him admit it.

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that she wants to make sure before anything gets out.” He never liked how I could manipulate the words that came out of his mouth.

  “Looky there.” Queenie sat up on the edge of the back seat and laid her elbows on the back of the front seat, staring out the windshield. “Dottie is wearing the soles of her shoes out from pacing.”

  The grass in front of Dottie’s camper was all patted down where it looked like she’d been walking back and forth. Dottie must’ve heard us driving up the gravel because she stood there with her hands on her hips, pink sponge curlers in her hair and a cigarette dangling from her lips.

  She waved her arms in the air, and her eyes were half closed as the smoke billowed in her face.

  “Wait!” she hollered when Hank almost passed her up.

  He brought the car to an abrupt stop, and everyone but him opened their doors.

  “We’ll walk from here.” I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be down to get Fifi.”

  “I can drop her off. And Chester, if you don’t mind.” There was that look on his face again, the look that told me he was going to be working on this case and there wouldn’t be any time for us.

  “So it is an investigation.” I eyed him when all the gals were out of earshot and trying to tell Dottie their side of the story.

  “It’s suspicious. That’s all. And they need all the manpower they can get. I’m going to be looking into a few things for them while they process the scene. The rangers are involved too.” He shru
gged. “I’m not sure how involved I’ll be or how much they’re going to need me, but I’m only working on one other case that doesn’t even have to do with the John Swift silver mines.”

  “I’d love to keep Chester. Does that mean you won’t be back tonight?” I asked.

  “Probably not.” He put his hand on the side of my face. “I’m glad you’re okay. When Dottie called, I got scared.”

  “I’m fine,” I said just as Dottie tapped on Hank’s window.

  He rolled it down.

  “You’re staying with me tonight. We can get Joel Grassel to get in Ritchie’s campsite tomorrow and tow you out if we need to.” Dottie showed no signs of relenting. Her words were final.

  “I can stay in one of the unrented campers.” I shook my head. “I don’t need to be a bother to anyone.”

  “Unrented?” She laughed. “Honey, when the rain fell, all those campsite people came here to stay. We are booked solid. Get out of the car and grab a shower. I’ve got some grub on over at the main campfire. You come on over and get something good in your belly.”

  “You heard the woman,” I said to Hank. “I’ll grab the dogs soon.”

  After we kissed goodbye and got out of the car, Dottie leaned over and whispered, “Uh-oh.” She lifted her chin at the car pulling in. “Here comes trouble.”

  Mayor Courtney MacKenzie drove by real slow, curling her finger at me to come see her.

  She parked her car near the office, which was right across from Dottie’s camper. She got out, and before she headed toward me, I went ahead and met her there. Dottie had rejoined Queenie, Abby, and Mary Elizabeth in front of her place.

  “What went on out there?” the mayor asked me.

  “Good evening.” I took the moment to greet her. “I’m doing fine.”

  “I know you’re fine, Mae. You’re always fine. But if you want to do the pleasantries, how are you really?” She drawled with distinct mockery.

  “I’m starving, and I need a shower.” I pointed to the communal campfire. “I… um…”