Outside, I tried to wrap my head around all the things he'd said. Hickenlooper didn't believe Aunt June had been murdered. There'd been no autopsy. She had a collection of insanely dangerous pets. Maybe this was a no-brainer. It seemed highly likely that Aunt June wasn't murdered after all. Nigel had said she was crazy. As her lawyer, he would know better than I did. Still, I should talk to the doctor at least.
Across the street, the girls were coming out of the post office. Damn. It was too late to see the tooth. I'd have to check it out another time. And I'd really wanted to see it.
"That was amazing!" Inez jumped up and down as I joined them.
"It was huge!" Kaitlyn enthused.
Lauren agreed. "I was impressed. I wonder if he was part beaver?"
Ava gushed, "You have to see it, Mrs. Wrath!"
We all turned to Betty, who was strangely silent.
The girl yawned. "I've seen better."
Kelly motioned to the van. "Come on, ladies. We have to get to the camp."
She started driving, casting occasional glances my way.
"How was the meeting?"
"Weird." I explained everything but the killer creatures.
"And the spiders?"
"I'll tell you about that later." I gestured toward the back seat with my eyes.
"Okay," she said before shouting into the back seat. "Who wants to go to Camp des Morts?"
CHAPTER FOUR
"It says here"—Lauren was in the back seat on her cell—"that there are Indian burial mounds shaped like animals!"
"Which animals?" Ava asked.
"Snakes, bears, fish, easy stuff," Lauren replied. "We'll have to make our own."
"Yes!" Kaitlyn roared enthusiastically.
"We'll need a body…" Inez suggested.
The girls buzzed in the background, eagerly making plans that I was pretty sure I didn't want to know about.
"What arrangements did you make for us?" I asked Kelly as the girls discussed shapes for their burial mounds, which included manatees and aardvarks and Bigfoot.
"We have the small lodge." Kelly smiled. "It has a room with bunk beds, a kitchen, and a fire pit out back."
I looked out at the landscape. We were ascending the bluffs. "That's good."
The troop's favorite activity, besides naming animals, was fire-starting. My girls could get a roaring fire going in mere seconds with only one match. We'd come a long way from a couple of years ago when we'd go through an entire box just to get kindling started.
"Did you bring food?" I asked. Why hadn't I thought of that before? "Was I supposed to bring stuff?"
"I packed sleeping bags, toilet paper—all the important stuff. We'll get food in town. Did you see a grocery store?"
"Just that convenience store." I noticed we were pulling up to a giant totem pole. "That it?"
Kelly nodded. "Someone is supposed to meet us at the lodge."
We drove onto a winding gravel road that divided lush green forest on either side before coming into a large open area. There was a small lodge and a larger one, several campsites, a zip line, and a high ropes course.
"No pool?" Inez sounded dejected. Not having a pool was like not having s'mores—a terrifying prospect at best.
"No pool. But they have something even better," Kelly said. "A lazy river to tube on."
This seemed to be acceptable, as there was an eruption of glee from the back seats.
The camp looked like a staged postcard, with gentle rolling hills surrounded by forest. A short, plump, smiling woman was waiting for us as we pulled up to a large, log-style building.
"Hello!" She waved cheerily as we disembarked. "My name is Toad. I'm the camp director."
"Toad?" I asked. She looked to be near sixty. Had she been called that her whole life?
She laughed. "Oh, I forgot. It's my camp name. Whenever I'm here I use it. And since camp ended a week ago, I keep forgetting I have another name."
Betty stepped up. "I'm Cobra." She pointed to Lauren, Ava, Inez, and Kaitlyn in that order and named off, "Asp, Rattler, Blackadder, and Viper."
We'd never had camp names before. And why did she pick snakes? The other kids didn't seem surprised by this, so I guessed it was all set up in advance. That was typical of my troop. There were a lot of things I found out about after the fact—some of them not dangerous.
Toad beamed, apparently not startled by the deathly quintet. "That's nice!" She looked at Kelly and me. "And your names?"
"Oh, um, Kelly." I pointed at my co-leader then myself. "And I'm Merry."
Toad's face fell.
"We don't really have code names," I said.
"Camp names," Kelly corrected.
"Right. What she said."
"That's too bad," Toad tut-tutted. "It's always more fun at camp with camp names."
The girls gave us stony looks.
"Guys, I'll never remember your camp names." Hell, I was thrilled to have only one Kaitlyn.
Kelly added, "Besides, we are only here a few days."
"Whatever you want to do is fine by me. Let's go inside." Toad led us through a set of glass double doors.
The lodge was just as impressive on the inside. From the stone tile floor to the log walls and the high, timbered ceilings, this looked more like a model of what a lodge should be. A huge stone fireplace was in the corner, surrounded by overstuffed, comfy-looking chairs.
Toad said, "The kitchen is stocked with cutlery, dishes, and cookware. Did you bring food?"
"We need to do that next. Is there a place in Behold where we can manage that?" Kelly asked.
She shook her head. "Just the convenience store."
"We'll just run to Dubuque, then," I said.
Toad's face hardened. "I know that Sin City is closer, but you should really go to Guttenberg. It's only half an hour away."
I guess the rivalry with Dubuque transcended centuries and town limits.
"Oh, okay," I said.
Toad went back to smiling. "The kitchen is over here."
With stainless, state-of-the-art appliances and mahogany cupboards, the kitchen did not look like it was for actual use.
"Kelly said you have a fire pit?" I asked.
"Of course!" Toad said. "You can't have s'mores without a fire pit! We'll end the tour there."
Toad led us through the rest of the lodge, explaining that this wasn't the main lodge, which held the cafeteria and art rooms. "This one is for younger Scouts who may have trouble transitioning from home to their first time at camp."
From the kitchen, we moved on to a room with twelve bunk beds. The girls squealed and began climbing them while Toad showed us a fully functioning bathroom, shower, and then the fire pit outside.
"Wow." I took it all in. "This is a fabulous setup!" Certainly better than staying in the spider house, a place I was going to check out tomorrow. I needed to get this investigation started. From what Nigel told me, there might not have been a murder after all, and then I could sell the place and go home.
Toad beamed again. "Thank you! We try. So"—she pulled a map from her pocket—"here's the lazy river. You'll find inner tubes in the shed on the little beach. The water is quite cold, I'm afraid, as it comes from a spring in the bluffs. And it's about three feet deep." She frowned for a moment. "I assume one of you has lifeguarding experience?"
We hadn't thought of that.
"Yes," I lied. "And Kelly is a former emergency room nurse, and I've had camp training."
The woman stared at us intently, and for a moment, I worried that I'd said the wrong thing.
"Wonderful!" She clapped her hands before pointing at the map. "And here's the mud pit. There's a hose attached to a stone shelter so that you can make it muddier. And there are showers on the outside of the shelter to rinse off."
Kelly studied the map. "What about the Indian burial mounds?"
Toad hesitated. "Well, be careful around them. They're over five hundred years old, and you shouldn't go there after dark."
&nbs
p; "Because of the safety risk…" Kelly nodded.
"No, dear, because of the ghosts."
CHAPTER FIVE
"Real ghosts?" Kelly's voice dripped with doubt.
"Of course! What other kind are there?" Toad looked at us as if we were simpletons. "After all, the camp was named Camp des Morts because of the burial mounds."
"What kind of paranormal activity," I said, trying to find the words, "have you experienced here?"
"Oh!" Toad thought about this. "The usual. Apparitions, disembodied conversations, poltergeists. We get the lot."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Kelly struggled to say.
Was she afraid of ghosts? I wasn't. My philosophy was simple. If you can't shoot them, they can't hurt you. Or was that my philosophy on Russian secret agents? I couldn't remember.
"Only if they chase you off the cliff," Toad said as if she was telling us about the weather. "But that hasn't happened in, oh, I don't know, five years?" She leaned toward us. "They're better than the aliens."
"What?" That was the second person today to mention aliens.
She acted as if I hadn't said anything. "Well, I'll let you all get settled. My number is on the kitchen counter. I live in town, but the ranger is here all year."
"That's funny. I didn't see a house as we drove up," Kelly pointed out.
"He has a shack in the woods." She opened the map and pointed at a small building on one of the bluffs. "His name is Ned. He's recently experienced some hardship, so please don't bother him unless you have to."
"Do we have his number too?"
"No. Ned doesn't have a phone. You have to use the walkie-talkies in the communications lounge."
I noticed something on the map. "Is there only one way into camp?"
"Yes. You can only come and go the way you've come. The bluffs would be the only other way out." She burst out laughing. "Or should I say down?"
And with that, she went back into the lodge. She was gone before we went back inside.
"How did you find out this was the best camp in the state?" I teased. "Did you see it in Paranormal Quarterly Magazine?"
Kelly seemed defensive. "It's what I'd heard…from other people."
"What other people?" I pressed.
Kelly changed the subject. "It's late, and we have to get food."
"Are you worried about the ghosts?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" she said, but her eyes darted around nervously. "But since it isn't safe to go out at night, we'll stick to the lodge."
"Good luck with that," I said before I was mobbed by little girls.
"Are we going on a night hike?" Lauren asked. "I want to see the burial mounds at night!"
"No!" Kelly said a bit too sharply. "I mean, it's dangerous at night. Toad said it's easy to fall off one of the bluffs."
Nobody moaned or complained. It made me very suspicious. Obviously, I was going to have to stand guard at night. My troop had a history of doing whatever they wanted—damn the consequences.
"Alright!" Kelly clapped her hands together. "It's getting to be almost dinnertime, and we have groceries to get!"
"Where are we going?" Ava asked as we walked out to the van.
"What do you think?" Kelly asked me. "That convenience store in town or the unmentionable city of Dubuque?"
I knew what I wanted. "If I had my way, we'd eat every meal at Fancy Nancy's."
A cheer went up. Apparently, the girls agreed.
"We're only here a few nights." Kelly bit her lip. "The girls have so much fun cooking."
Betty shook her head. "That's the other Kaitlyns, Hannah, and Caterina. They like cooking."
Lauren piped up. "Not us."
Ava added, "And they aren't here."
We got in and closed the doors to the van. "It wouldn't hurt to have dinner there tonight, would it? Maybe I could get some intel on what happened to Aunt June."
"Yes!" Betty slammed her fist into her palm. "That's what I'm talking about!"
"We could split up and infiltrate!" Ava agreed.
"No one is infiltrating or splitting up." I held up my hands. "I'm doing the investigating. If you guys behave, I might share what I find out."
Lauren didn't seem to like this arrangement. "But we helped you before! Like at that mystery house!"
"And at the Civil War reenactment," Inez added.
"And the time we swiped your van and rescued you!" Betty said.
Kelly's eyebrows went up. "Swiped your van? They drove?"
"Look." I decided not to answer. "It's been a very long day. We drove three and a half hours, had lunch, I met with the lawyer, you got to see the world's largest tooth…"
"Human tooth," Kaitlyn interrupted.
Kelly got in on the act. "And we've checked into our camp."
"We still have to get groceries and settle in for the night." I left out the part where I'd be staying up all night standing guard. With these girls' records, it was probably a given.
"Fine," Betty said. "But let's get food first. I'm not hungry yet."
"Maybe we can get everything at that convenience store?" Kelly suggested.
"We might as well give it a shot," I agreed.
The Glory of Gas Station and Car Wash looked a little better on the outside than the other decrepit buildings on Main. We parked, piled out, and flowed inside.
And like every other place in town, the inside of the building was surreal. It practically sparkled. No, it literally sparkled. And it had the best selection I'd ever seen at a convenience store, and I'd been to a gas station in Dubai that had a solid gold slushie machine.
"Hello!" Nigel appeared, dressed more casually in khaki slacks, polished loafers, and a shirt and tie. "Can I help you?"
"Oh! Mr. Hickenlooper," I said, introducing the lawyer to Kelly before asking, "Do you moonlight here?"
The man laughed easily. "I'm afraid you are mistaken. I'm Hal, Nigel's brother. I own this business."
"You look just like him," I said. "Twins?"
He shook his head. "Triplets. We have another brother—Basil. You'll see him around."
That's what Nigel had said. "Should we call you Mr. Hickenlooper too?" I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I mean, really, this was the Midwest. And yet, I was held back by manners and couldn't bring myself to call him Hal to his face, unless he invited me to.
"Nigel is such a prude. You may and should call me Hal."
"Thanks, Hal." I grinned.
"So." Hal rubbed his hands together. "What can I do for you ladies?"
"Are you from England?" Betty studied him.
"My parents were from there. They came here before I was born," he responded respectfully to the girls, and I liked him for that.
"Then why do you have an English accent if you were never born there?" Lauren asked.
Hal shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Good question. You girls are pretty smart to notice that."
I introduced myself and Kelly then the girls.
"Those aren't our names," Inez said. "Our names are Asp, Viper, Blackadder, Rattler, and Cobra."
"We haven't agreed to that," I broke in. Mostly because I couldn't remember who was whom.
"Camp names!" Hal grinned. "You ladies must be Girl Scouts!"
"We are," Kelly interjected. "We're staying at Camp des Morts."
I toyed with mentioning Aunt June but decided against it…for now.
"You want supplies, then." Hal produced a cart and pushed it toward us. "If there's anything you need but can't find, please don't hesitate to ask."
A chime went off as a car pulled up to one of the gas pumps. Hal excused himself.
Kelly gave the girls instructions to find bread, peanut butter, hot dogs, and hot dog buns, and they ran off to do that. The convenience store was large for a place like this, but then, if it was the only place to get groceries besides going into the town-that-must-not-be-named, it made sense. Kelly and I went to look for condiments.
"He has five kinds of hummus," she pointed out. "And four k
inds of pesto. How does a place like this manage with a town this small?"
"Not a clue, but I'm glad we didn't have to go to"—I looked around and lowered my voice—"Dubuque."
Kelly laughed. "Now you're doing it!"
I put a package of Oreos in the cart. "I figure it's probably a local law or something by this point."
It didn't take long for us to find everything we needed. The girls ran back and forth dumping things into the cart. On their last trip, I noticed they were all wearing name tags, hanging from a lanyard, with their camp name on them.
"Where did you get those?" I reached out and touched Kaitlyn's tag.
"They're laminated!" Kelly said. "They look expensive."
"Hal gave them to us. He made them," Ava explained. "Now you have no excuse to forget who is who."
"Well, we're still not calling you Rattler," I insisted.
We made our way to the checkout, and Hal rang up and bagged everything.
"You guys know about the ghosts, right?" He winked at the girls.
You could hear a pin drop.
"We…we hadn't told them about that yet," Kelly said, mouthing the word Impressionable.
"Oh, right." Hal winked again.
"What about the ghosts?" Inez asked.
"It's just something Toad said would be a good campfire story," I said quickly.
The girls seemed to hold a conference only with their eyes. Things were decided, I presumed based on their nods to each other. I felt a little left out. When had they developed telepathy?
"We've decided we want to hear the story now, please." Kaitlyn managed to demand and use manners at the same time.
Kelly and I looked at each other then at Hal.
"Well, you know about the burial mounds, right?" Hal waited for them to nod.
"This is a bad idea," Kelly whispered to me.
"Shhh…" I held a finger to my lips. "I want to hear the story."
Hal began, "About 50,000 years ago, the Iowa Indians lived up on those bluffs. At one time, there was a chief named Red Hawk and his daughter Badger Tooth, who were much beloved by their tribe. The Indian princess was sixteen and nearing marriageable age. Her father, the chief, wanted her to marry a young brave from the tribe, but Badger Tooth had no interest in that."
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