by Lee Hollis
After a two-hour drive to Camp Pine Tree, where Randy’s last-ditch efforts to wiggle out of going by pretending he was suffering from food poisoning from the one bite of lobster he was forced to try the previous night failed, we arrived at the registration tables just past the main entrance. I was already on cloud nine because across the parking lot was my last year’s summer crush, Nate Hall. Our eyes met and he gave me a playful wink and nod. I smiled back shyly, which in camp language meant we were officially still a camp couple.
As excited as I was, Randy was twice as miserable. After only two minutes in his cabin, he ran back to the parking lot hoping to catch Mom before she left, only to see her driving away (he swears to this day she spotted him in the rearview mirror and sped up). When a sympathetic counselor led him back to the cabin, he walked right through a small patch of poison ivy, and so for the next few days, he suffered from a rash on his face and arms, causing his bunkmates to avoid him like the plague. To make matters worse, he quickly became the target of a couple of bullies, who rummaged through his duffel bag and found his Big Jim action figure (yes, action figure, not a doll as he would loudly point out!). The next morning Randy woke up to the sight of poor Jim swinging from the cabin rafters by a rope with a hangman’s noose tied around his neck.
In the dining hall, he refused to eat the hot food and survived on cold cereal. One day, when it was his turn to be a table waiter for his cabin, he was carrying a large heavy tray with a full pitcher of bug juice (in the civilian world this is basically a very sugary Kool-Aid type of drink) and glasses to his table when he tripped over someone’s outstretched leg and flew forward. The tray of bug juice launched into the air, as if in slow motion. Everyone watched as it finally came down and crashed to the ground, drenching everyone in the general vicinity.
Kids started screaming and shouting, others were laughing and pointing at poor Randy, who was so embarrassed he got up and started to run out of the dining hall, but slipped on the spilled juice and went right up in the air and landed on his butt to more guffaws and howling. He tried to pretend he had a broken leg in the hopes of going home early, but the nurse dismissed his claim and sent him back to his cabin, where he wrote a letter to Mom threatening suicide, but couldn’t afford the cost of a stamp to mail it.
I wish I could say I was the ever-protective older sister keeping a close watch on my little brother, but I have to admit, I was too caught up in my Nate Hall summer romance of holding hands during our nature hikes, flirtatiously dunking each other while swimming in the lake, sharing s’mores and stealing kisses at the bonfire every night. I was completely oblivious to Randy’s pain until one week in, when I found him sitting in the parking lot with his packed duffel bag on turnover day, when some kids left and new campers arrived. He was hoping Mom might have a change of heart and pick him up a week early. In fact, he had faked a stomachache and gone to the nurse’s office, and while he was there, moaning on the examination table for effect, the nurse got distracted by a kid with a bloody knee. Randy crept over to her desk and called home. Mom wasn’t there but he left a message on the answering machine, informing her he was dying, and only had a week to live! Well, the nurse caught him and called her back when she got home and told her everything was fine. He was going to be an inmate at Alcatraz for another week.
I really felt bad for him, and gave him my best pep talk, how we were at Camp Pine Tree together, how we were bonded by familial ties, and how I would be more sensitive to his predicament.
“This is going to be the best last week of camp ever!” I declared.
“How do you know?” he asked, sniffing.
“Because for the whole week you can tell yourself, ‘This is the last camp week I’ll ever have to live through because I’m never coming back!’”
That made him smile.
Suddenly I heard a familiar voice shouting from across the parking lot. “Hayley! Hayley Powell!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, slowly turning around, all the while praying to myself that what I was hearing wasn’t true. But sadly, my luck had just run out. It was true. I knew that voice. And when I opened my eyes, there she was running straight toward me from across the parking lot, dragging a stylish L.L.Bean duffel bag on wheels in one hand and waving wildly with the other. It was Sabrina Merryweather! My arch rival and chief nemesis at school!
Of course, as she hugged me and with her fake smile told me how excited she was to be at camp with me, neither of us had any idea that the two of us would be trapped together in a life-or-death struggle for survival before the week was out!
To Be Continued
Hayley’s Grown-Up Bug Juice Cocktail
Ingredients
1 ounce melon liquor
1 ounce coconut rum
1 ounce sweet & sour mix (prepared)
2 ounces pineapple juice
In a cocktail shaker filled with ice add all your ingredients.
Shake until mixed; then pour into a chilled cocktail glass.
Sit, sip, and relax out in the summer night.
Sheila’s Man-Bait Lobster Tacos
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup thin-sliced red onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
Pinch or more to your taste red pepper
flakes
2 cups chopped lobster meat, cooked
1 cup salsa
4 8-inch flour tortillas
Optional ingredients: shredded lettuce, sliced avocado, chopped onion, sour cream, and your favorite jar of or homemade salsa.
In a large skillet over medium high heat your oil. Add the sliced onion and garlic and cook until they begin to soften. Add the cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes, and cook about a minute.
Add the cooked chopped lobster and salsa and heat until heated through.
Warm your tortillas on top of the stove or in a microwave for 30 seconds until pliable and divide the lobster mixture between the four tortillas.
Top with any of the optional ingredients and enjoy this scrumptious taco treat!
Chapter 16
“If this Sheriff Wilkes wants us to leave so bad, then I think we should just do what she says and get the hell out of here,” Liddy said, zipping up her suitcase and rolling it over to the front door of the cabin.
“I won’t be scared off,” Hayley said defiantly.
“Hayley, as nice a time as I’ve had here, despite the dead body turning up on the beach, I want to go home. I have a lobster shop to run,” Mona said. “Besides, if I see Corey one more time, I’m not going to be able to help myself. I’ll jump his bones. And I’m a married woman!”
“Okay, fine, you win, we’ll leave. But I just don’t understand why Sheriff Wilkes is so determined to get rid of us,” Hayley said, walking over and grabbing the handle of her own roll-away luggage.
“Who cares? We had our weekend getaway, one for the books I might add, and now I’m done,” Liddy said, standing at the doorway. “Mona, could you be a dear and carry my luggage to the car?”
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Mona barked.
“Because you haul lobsters every day and are built sturdier. I just do Pilates once a week,” Liddy said.
“More like once a year,” Mona said under her breath.
“And I never once asked you for gas money so you owe me. You can pay me back with your brute strength.”
Not in the mood to argue, Mona marched over to the door where Liddy was standing, snatched the handle of Liddy’s suitcase, and dragged it outside to the car. “Fine, you just relax, Princess Kate.”
Hayley rolled her luggage across the room and followed Mona out the door. Her mind was racing. It bothered her that she didn’t know what Sheriff Daphne had against her, why she was so obsessed with them leaving town. Normally, she would just dive right in, asking questions, talking to the locals, digging for the truth. But they were in an unfamiliar town with p
eople she didn’t know, and it would just make the task harder.
This was one mystery Hayley Powell was not going to attempt to solve.
Mona was right.
It was time to go home.
Hopefully, another amateur sleuth, if not the police, would pick up the mantle and solve the crime of who murdered Boston travel writer Jackson Young.
After loading the trunk of the car with their luggage and piling into the Mercedes, the three friends, with Liddy behind the wheel, Mona riding shotgun, and Hayley in the back, drove off down the dirt path to the main road for the long trip back to Bar Harbor.
They had driven about two miles down the road, when Liddy slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt at the side of the road. “I think I may have left my Chanel Sublimage La Crème back at the cabin!”
“Your what?” Mona asked, stretched out in the front passenger’s seat.
“It’s a beauty cream,” Liddy said.
“It’s an anti-wrinkle cream,” Hayley corrected her from the backseat.
“Yes, so? It’s why I look half my age,” Liddy sniffed, waiting for them, even just one of them, to agree.
They didn’t.
There was just a brief, uncomfortable silence.
“I don’t want to go back. Just buy another one,” Mona groaned.
“It costs four hundred dollars a bottle! I am not leaving without it!”
“Are you sure you left it back at the cabin?” Hayley asked.
“No, I’m not sure. If I did, it’s on the kitchen counter since the cabin doesn’t have a bathroom,” Liddy said. “I remember applying some on this morning but I don’t remember putting it back in my purse. Hayley, could you check for me?”
“We’re never going to get home,” Mona said, shaking her head, annoyed.
Hayley reached over and lifted Liddy’s bag off the car seat next to her and rummaged through it, pulling out Breath Savers, lipstick, loose change, a compact, until she finally found a small white bottle of cream.
“It’s right here, Liddy,” she said, holding it up so Liddy could see it in the rearview mirror.
“Bless you, Hayley! I just had to be sure,” Liddy said, pressing her foot on the gas and pulling the Mercedes back out on the road.
Mona closed her eyes to take a nap and within thirty seconds was snoring loudly.
Hayley picked up all the items she had spread out on the seat next to her and dropped them back inside Liddy’s bag. She was just about to zip it closed when she noticed something stuck to the side. It looked like a loose credit card at first but then it dawned on her. It wasn’t a credit card. It was a hotel room key card. She yanked it out and thrust it into the front seat so Liddy could see it.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked.
Liddy glanced at it and gasped. “I forgot I even had that.”
“It’s the key to Jackson Young’s hotel room. He gave it to you that night at the bar,” Hayley said, excited.
“Hayley, I don’t like that look in your eye, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what you’re thinking.”
Hayley thought about it for a moment.
“You know what, I’m sure the police have already swept the place for prints and clues, and housekeeping has scrubbed it clean, and there’s probably a new guest in there already,” Hayley said.
“No, I was talking to Bill and Vanessa, or Buck and Vera, I can’t remember their names, you know, the irritating couple I met last night, well, their RV is getting serviced so they’re staying at the hotel in town, and they told me the police will not allow the management to touch anything in that room during an active murder investigation.”
“So the room is exactly how Jackson left it before he was killed?”
“I assume so,” Liddy said, before catching herself. “What am I doing? I shouldn’t be encouraging you!”
“Liddy, turn the car around,” Hayley said.
“No, we’re going home!”
Mona’s snoring got louder, drowning out the sound of their voices.
“Mona, wake up! I can’t hear myself think!” Liddy screeched.
Mona momentarily stopped snoring and snorting and repositioned herself so her face was smashed up against the window, her eyes shut, her tongue pressed to the glass like a suction cup. But less than ten seconds later she was snoring up a storm again.
“We can just slip in and then slip out. No one will even know we were there,” Hayley pleaded. “Come on, I know you’re curious.”
If it had been anyone else staying in that room, Liddy would have held out and refused to go back. But it was Jackson Young. The man who had flirted with her, and made her feel so special, and then broke her heart by standing her up for the lobster bake. She was too emotionally invested not to want to know what might be in that hotel room.
Without saying another word, Liddy turned the car around and headed back to Salmon Cove while Hayley reached over the headrest of the passenger’s seat and pinched Mona’s nose shut to cut off her oxygen supply and stop her incessant snoring. Mona went quiet for a few seconds and then gasped and grunted and waved her arms in the air until Hayley let go. And then she shifted her body again, this time so she was facing Liddy and continued sleeping, and yes, snoring.
Liddy pulled the car into a parking space just down the street from the hotel, making sure the tires were less than an inch from the curb and turned out in case anyone might consider the flat street some kind of hill.
When she shut off the car engine, Mona was roused awake.
“Are we home already?” she said, sitting up.
“Not quite,” Liddy said, eyeing Hayley, anticipating Mona’s reaction when she heard the news.
“Where are we? This place looks exactly like Salmon Cove,” Mona grumbled, rubbing her eyes.
“That’s because we are in Salmon Cove,” Liddy said.
“What the hell are we doing back here?” Mona yelled.
“Ask Hayley,” Liddy said.
“Mona, I just want to check out Jackson Young’s hotel room. It’ll take five minutes,” Hayley said, unfastening her seat belt.
“Why would you want to do that? We were told in no uncertain terms we are no longer welcome here! Why are we not getting the hint?”
“Have you met Hayley?” Liddy asked.
“I believe Sheriff Wilkes is acting mighty suspicious, and if her behavior has anything to do with Jackson Young’s murder, I feel obligated to find out the truth, and our best chance of doing that is inside that hotel.”
Mona knew she wasn’t going to win this argument. “Okay, fine. But let’s make it fast. I’m starving and that diner we liked on the way here is only open for breakfast and lunch.”
“Ten minutes tops,” Hayley assured her.
They got out of the car and casually strolled into the lobby of the hotel. The desk clerk was busy showing a guest points of interest on a map he had laid out and didn’t even see them pass by. Instead of the elevator, they hurried up the staircase to the second level. When they reached Jackson Young’s room there was a sign taped to the door: NO TRESPASSING PER ORDER OF THE SALMON COVE POLICE DEPARTMENT.
They all froze in place.
It was a clear, stern warning.
And it gave them pause.
“What should we do?” Liddy asked, holding the key card, hesitating.
“We’ve come this far. I say we go for it,” Hayley said, eager to get inside the room and look around.
“I knew that would be your vote. What about you, Mona?”
“Just hurry up. I’ll keep watch out here,” Mona said, looking around to make sure no one was watching them.
Liddy sighed, inserted the key card, and a small green light lit up. They heard the door unlock. Hayley and Mona slipped inside and flipped a wall switch to turn on the light.
The room appeared perfectly normal. The bed was made. The room was very sparsely decorated. There was a TV remote on the nightstand and a notepad and pen but nothing els
e. No personal items in view.
“You take the bathroom. I’ll look around here,” Hayley said.
Liddy made a beeline for the bathroom, and Hayley started with a small suitcase propped up in the closet. She laid it out on the floor, unzipped it, and found nothing but some unironed shirts, dirty shorts, and smelly underwear. She then focused her attention on a black leather computer bag. There was a laptop inside, which she fired up, but didn’t have the password to gain access. She searched the pockets of the bag but it was empty of any personal identification or papers. Jackson most likely had his wallet on him when he was killed so the police undoubtedly had already admitted it as evidence. Tucked deep inside a side pocket was a small photograph in a small, thin silver frame. It was a picture of Jackson with an attractive blond woman and three adorable children, two boys and a girl, standing on a peak with the Grand Canyon in the background. It looked like a family photo, and the silver frame suggested he carried it around when he traveled and kept it out to look at when he missed his wife and kids. She opened the back of the frame and took the photo out. On the back was scribbled “Grand Canyon, summer of 2016.”
Liddy ambled out of the bathroom. “Nothing in there, just some men’s toiletries and a lot of disgusting hair and shaving cream in the sink. It never would have worked with us, he’s too much of a slob.”
She noticed Hayley staring at the picture.
“What’s that?”
Hayley handed the photo to Liddy.
She stared at it, grimacing, and then she thrust it back to her. “I should have known he was lying about being single. He probably does it all the time when he’s on the road.”
“I don’t know, Liddy, something just doesn’t make sense here.”
“Everything makes perfect sense. He’s a vile, lying cad who will say anything to get a poor, trusting, unsuspecting woman in the sack.”