Detour

by Lorena McCourtney

  DETOUR

  Book #2, The Mac ‘n’ Ivy Mysteries

  By

  Lorena McCourtney

  Copyright 2018 by Lorena McCourtney

  Published by Rogue Ridge Press

  Cover by Travis Miles

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in reviews or articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. Certain actual locations and historical figures mentioned in the book are portrayed as accurately as possible but used in a fictional manner. All other names, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  OTHER E-BOOKS BY LORENA McCOURTNEY

  Chapter 1

  IVY

  By now we should be in Arizona, romantic newlyweds lazing around a sunlit pool at some nice RV park, holding hands and sipping something cold and fizzy. Instead, here we were, somewhere on the rugged coast of Northern California, peering through an Ark-worthy downpour at a monster in the middle of a parking lot.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “I think it’s a triceratops,” Mac said.

  The tank-sized creature had a bony ruff around the neck, two enormous horns above the eyes, and another horn on the snout. A nearby sign read GHOST GOAT DINOSAUR PARK. Below, in smaller print, Come See Ferocious Beasts of the Past Up Close!

  No doubt this parking-lot creature was meant to be intimidating, and in size it certainly was. But, as Mac pulled our motorhome closer, it looked more morose than ferocious, as if it were having a really bad dinosaur day. Maybe having the tip missing from a horn, two plastic bags plastered to your side, and three of your feet in a puddle will do that to you.

  A rough hillside loomed beyond a high chain-link fence, and another dinosaur head on a long neck peered at us from above a forest of tangled foliage. This one too, in spite of its height, came across as somewhat less than ferocious. A windblown, broken branch drooped over one eye, like some attempt at dinosaur fashion gone awry.

  BoBandy jumped up on the console between Mac and me. No friendly wave of his reddish-brown tail for the dinosaurs. He looked out at the creatures and decided they warranted a semi-growl. BoBandy is only a mid-sized dog, but he’s very protective. Orange-colored Koop, his stubby-tailed body curled in my lap, opened his one good eye and then shut it again. Koop couldn’t care less about dinosaurs unless they came packed in a cat-food can.

  “That long-necked one may be a brontosaurus,” Mac said.

  “How come you know so much about dinosaurs?”

  “I was really interested in them when I was a kid. But I’ve probably forgotten a lot of things. This one might be a brachiosaurus instead of a brontosaurus.”

  Which made me realize again that even though we’d known each other for several years before we married a few weeks ago in October, there was probably still a lot I didn’t know about my new husband. Who’d have thought Mac knew anything about dinosaurs? It was exciting to think we had the rest of our lives to explore and learn all these surprises about each other. Including the not-world-shaking but interesting puzzle of that blue motorcycle tattooed on Mac’s forearm, a tattoo that he’s always been reluctant to talk about. I’ve not yet asked a direct question about it, but I’ve been curious about it since the first time we met.

  I wasn’t thrilled with this unexpected detour into dinosaur world. Neither was Mac, but just before we were ready to leave on our honeymoon, he’d received a frantic phone call from the editor of a magazine that has published a number of his travel articles. The magazine had scheduled an article about a big dinosaur theme park somewhere back East for next month’s issue, but the writer had come down with shingles and couldn’t get the article done. Now the editor was desperate for something to fill the space. He’d suggested we make a quick detour to visit this Ghost Goat Dinosaur Park.

  That’s one of the things I love about Mac. He’s always willing to help someone in need, even an editor who thinks Northern California is a “quick” detour between Montana and Arizona. So I’m not going to let a detour, bad weather, and some deteriorating dinosaurs dampen my enthusiasm for our new married life together. Although the place did look like an excellent spot for hiding dead bodies, which have a troubling tendency to turn up in my life. Hopefully, marriage will change that.

  “Do the owners know we’re coming?” I asked. The one-story building to the left, with a TV satellite dish on one corner of the roof, had “Gift Shop” in faded rainbow letters across the top, but a Closed sign blocked the door.

  “The dinosaur park isn’t open during the late fall and winter months, but there’s supposed to be a manager or caretaker living here all year who will show us around.”

  “The dinosaur business doesn’t look too profitable.”

  Potholes dotted the parking area, and I noticed now that the triceratops also had a toe missing on the one foot that wasn’t in a puddle. A fanciful imagination might suggest the dinosaurs came to life and fought epic battles in the night. I figured a more pragmatic explanation was that time and the elements were gradually weathering the triceratops into an amorphous mass. Rather like time has aged me, if not yet into an amorphous mass, at least into a state often close to invisible. An invisible Little Old Lady, otherwise known as an LOL. Although I’m pleased to say that invisibility can sometimes be a handy asset.

  “I think people expect more than statues just standing around these days. They want Jurassic Park type action. Leaps and roars and snapping teeth. Maybe a stomach-churning ride or two.” Mac peered at the trees and vines crowding the fence and thrusting green tentacles into the parking area. The dinosaurs were lifeless statues, but the dark labyrinth beyond the chain-link fence looked as if it might hide anything from otherworldly beasts to man-eating fungi.

  “This also isn’t the most accessible location,” I noted. We were several miles off Highway 101, the main route along the California coast. There was a sign about the dinosaur park out on the highway, but this wasn’t a place kids would see from the car and instantly clamor to stop.

  “Well, let’s go see if we can find Brian Morrison. Maybe I can wrap this up in a day or two.”

  I followed Mac out of the motorhome. We take turns driving, but my bones felt stiff and creaky, and I needed to move around after sitting most of the day. Shades blocked windows in the gift shop, so we circled around back, gusting wind driving rain at us as if it had a personal vendetta against us. A carport attached to the building stood empty, but an older green Honda was parked behind the building. A travel trailer and a blue pickup stood in a cleared space back in the trees. None of this suggested any greater prosperity in the dinosaur business than did the morose triceratops in the parking lot.

  A sign on a back door of the gift shop building read Private Residence, and Mac knocked there
. I stepped up beside him to get under the shelter of the overhanging roof.

  No response to his knock. Another knock. Another nonresponse.

  Nothing peculiar about this, of course. Brian Morrison didn’t know what day we’d arrive, so he wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for us. My nerves skittered anyway. Little Old Lady intuition telling me all was not right here?

  Then a woman’s voice came through the door. “I’m sorry. We’re closed for the winter.”

  Sometimes my LOL intuition is as spot-on as a laser beam. Sometimes it’s about as accurate as a fortune cookie. This time it was apparently spinning in cookie world because the woman’s voice sounded, if not welcoming, at least normal.

  “I’m here to do an article on the dinosaur park for Fun on the Road magazine,” Mac said. “I’m looking for Brian Morrison?”

  “Brian went into Eureka for the afternoon, and I’m kind of . . . busy.”

  What was she so busy at that she could come to the door but couldn’t open it? It could be something unpleasant but mundane, of course. Scrubbing the toilet or oven. Cleaning moldy gunk out of the refrigerator. Been there, done that. But, considering my experiences in recent years, other possibilities loomed: maybe she was cleaning up blood puddled on the kitchen floor. Dismembering a body in the bathroom tub. Hiding a corpse under the floor in a closet. Or maybe she was being held prisoner, with a gun at her head and a murderer/kidnapper telling her to get rid of us?

  No such ominous possibilities apparently occurred to Mac, however. He simply said, “Okay, thanks. We’ll wait out here for Mr. Morrison.”

  I didn’t mention my thoughts to Mac. He never disparages my thoughts, even the far-out ones, but I had to admit these were probably circling the drain. Find an occasional dead body and you start imagining one in every dark corner or unanswered knock. But still . . .

  Mac turned and started back through the rain to the motorhome, but I leaned toward the door. “Are you all right? Do you need help or anything?”

  The dead bolt unexpectedly clicked and the door flew open. The plumpish woman standing there had a towel flung around her shoulders and a plastic cap over her head. A few stray rivulets of reddish-brown color dribbled down her cheek. She swiped at them with a corner of the towel.

  “That’s so nice of you to ask. I could have been in here in an ‘I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ state of distress, couldn’t I? Thanks.” She smiled. “Come on in. You don’t have to wait out there in the cold.”

  Mac turned and looked at her as if she were some sort of two-legged dinosaur, and I was mildly annoyed with him. Hadn’t he ever seen a woman coloring her hair? Of course she didn’t want to come to the door. My next and quite unexpected thought made me squint at her. Hey, don’t I know her from somewhere?

  “Come on in,” she repeated. “Brian should be home before long. He’s looking at some local properties for investment.” She lowered her voice, as if we were in a small conspiracy together. “Just don’t tell him you caught me improving on the hair color nature gave me.”

  I smiled back and joined the conspiracy. “Everybody colors their hair,” I whispered. “It’s practically un-American not to.”

  She eyed my hair. Was she wondering if some company actually sold possum-gray hair coloring? I’ve tried changing the color, but after disastrous results a few years ago—think volcanic eruption of neon orange—I let nature have its way. Unfortunately, nature seems stuck on possum gray.

  “You’re welcome to wait for Brian in here. I’ll make coffee or tea as soon as I rinse out my hair.”

  I motioned Mac back, and we stepped inside. Again I had that definite sense of familiarity. She was midfifties or thereabouts. She probably bemoaned her weight—I could see a carton of Slim Fast on a kitchen counter—but plump looked good on her. No wrinkles marred the smooth glow of her skin, and her blue eyes had an energetic sparkle.

  Yes, I knew her from somewhere. I was sure of it. But I’ve traveled all over the country in the last few years, avoiding the clutches of the murderous Braxtons, so it could have been anywhere. I didn’t see any echo of recognition from her, but I asked anyway.

  “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

  Her head jerked as if I’d poked her with a hot curling iron. A few reddish-brown dribbles flew as she shook her head with unexpected vigor. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Colorado, perhaps? A little town in the mountains called Hello? Were you in the chorus line at that town celebration there?”

  “I’ve never been to Colorado. Or in a chorus line anywhere.” She wiped a streak running down her neck. “But I do remember now that Brian said someone was coming to write about Ghost Goat Dinosaurs for a magazine. So that must be you.”

  “Yes. I’m Mac MacPherson and—” Mac motioned to me. “This is my wife, Ivy.”

  She held out a hand and smiled. “Kathy Morrison.”

  Mac supplied information about the magazine and the article he planned to write. Tactfully not including the information that Ghost Goat Dinosaur Park was a second-choice replacement for a larger and more important dinosaur theme park. He didn’t show any sign of recognition as he was talking to her, and I had to pause for a moment in my efforts to place her anyway. Hearing myself identified as Mac’s wife does that to me. I’m now Ivy MacPherson! That giddiness will no doubt wear off eventually, but right now I get this tingle of delight.

  “I’m curious about the name Ghost Goat Dinosaur Park,” Mac said. “Do you know any history on that?”

  “No, but Brian probably does. I love it here, but sometimes I think a more dinosaur-ish name would be better.”

  Dinosaur-ish. My kind of word. I liked Kathy Morrison. Maybe a rekindling of liking her from some time in the past when I’d known her before? Not unusual that she didn’t remember me, of course. Being non-memorable runs parallel with invisibility.

  “Perhaps, to save time, you could give us a little more information before Mr. Morrison returns?” Mac suggested. “You can probably tell me much of what I need to know.”

  She took a step back. “I’m really not out and about in the park much. Brian takes care of everything out there, and I just run the gift shop. But we have some pamphlets—” A buzzer sounded somewhere beyond the living room. She grabbed at the plastic cap again, as if the buzzer might signal imminent hair explosion. “Would you excuse me for a minute? My hair’s done. Do sit down.”

  “Okay if I go outside and look around?” Mac asked. “I think the rain has let up.”

  Hand on top her head to hold the plastic cap in place, she reached toward a hook beside the front door. “I’ll give you a key to the gate so you can— Oh, dear, it isn’t here. Brian must have stuck it in his pocket. He makes a quick tour through the park every few days to, you know, check it out.”

  “To see if any dinosaurs escaped in the night?” Mac suggested.

  “Or if any new ones sneaked in to join them.” A friendly smile replaced that hint of uneasiness when I’d suggested we’d met before.

  Mac has that ability to set strangers at ease. But I still thought I knew her from somewhere. Maybe that little town in Arkansas where I’d stayed with my niece and her family for a while? The place where the Braxtons had tried to blow up my old Thunderbird?

  She waved at a sofa and disappeared down the hall. I looked around the cozily cluttered living room. Bright pillows and throws swamped the blue sofa. A pair of blue recliners faced a flat-screen TV. A door on the far wall apparently led from the apartment to the gift shop. Tucked in a corner, partly concealed by a folding screen, a laptop computer sat on a small desk, a printer on the floor beside it.

  Pamphlets and booklets covered an end table by the sofa. I picked one up, thinking it was something about Ghost Goat Dinosaur Park, but these were pamphlets from various other dinosaur parks around the country. The picture on the cover of the one I’d picked up showed a merry-go-round with kids riding dinosaur figures. Stuck inside was a sketch of
a big-toothed, walking dinosaur with a carrier basket on its back.

  Vigorous green plants overflowed hanging baskets around a window. Knickknacks, elves and fairies and angels, covered the glass shelves. No dinosaurs, I noted. No photos of grandchildren, either, which surprised me. I’d have tagged Kathy as a woman who’d plaster her walls with pictures of grandchildren.

  We heard the sound of a car outside, and Mac stepped to the window. His head gave a little jerk of surprise, and I peered out the window beside him. I’m not all that great at car recognition, but even I could see this was an expensive vehicle pulling into the carport. Red, low-slung, and classy. It looked as if 90 mph might be its natural cruising speed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Porsche. Maybe the dinosaur business is more profitable than we thought.”

  The man who got out of the car carrying a grocery sack had dark hair, mustache, and beard. He was on the heavy side—maybe they shared that SlimFast—but he walked with a rakish swagger. Mac stepped up to tell him who we were when he opened the door.

  “Brian Morrison,” he responded with a smile. He held out a hand. Do men ever get a little help with beard coloring from a bottle? Mac doesn’t. His beard is elegantly silvery white, but Brian may have, as his wife put it about herself, improved on nature.

  “Good to see you got here okay,” he added, and we all shook hands. “I hope you had a good trip?”

  “Yes, great trip. If you have time, perhaps you could give me a quick tour through the park before the rain starts again?”

  “Sure. I’ll take Duke’s almond milk over to him later.” He took the sack to the kitchen, set it on a counter, and turned back to us. “Although I have to admit I’m surprised a magazine such as Fun on the Road is interested in our little dinosaur park. We’re not exactly a star among the dinosaur parks around the country.”

  “I think the editor had some fond memories of coming here as a boy.”

  Mac asked if I wanted to come along for the tour, but I said I’d see the dinosaurs later.