My throat ached, and a warm sensation brushed across my cheek. I really had the perfect man right in front of me…somewhere. And he touched my soul in a way no human could. I swallowed hard.
“Did you just touch my cheek?” I whispered.
I did. Did you feel my hand?
“Something.” I covered my cheek with my hand and breathed deeply.
A golf cart pulled up next to the picnic bench, and I looked up to see Sean staring hard at me. I jumped up, feeling vulnerable in a seated position.
“My grandmother said you stopped by the trailer last night. She was pretty upset when I got home.”
I nodded but offered nothing.
“She thinks you’ve been telling police that I killed Jason.” He watched me with steely blue eyes. His red hair and stubbled beard gave him a distinctly Viking-like appearance.
“Nope, not me. I never said any such thing.” I shook my head and stood my ground. My bossy early-nineteenth century Army navigator and cartographer gave me strength. Were he alive and in the flesh, he could beat Sean up ten times over!
Ah! Minerva, surely not ten times…
“I tried to tell her you probably had no idea what was going on, but she thinks you do.”
“Not a clue,” I said briefly, keeping my eyes on his.
“She’s overprotective.”
I nodded, giving him nothing.
“If anyone deserved to die, Jason did,” Sean ground out.
I shoved my hands in my pockets, wishing I had my air horn with me. But people were out and about, and I was fairly safe.
I said nothing. Sean was rapidly moving up to my number one suspect.
“My fiancée died over there.” His voice broke, and my heart softened and went out to him. His fiancée?
“She was an Army interpreter, out with the guys who were killed. No one knew we were seeing each other. She was an officer. I was enlisted. We had to keep it private, so no one knew.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles whitening.
My eyes bulged. Yes, Sean had just moved into my number one suspect, but somehow, I didn’t feel one bit sorry for Jason. His actions, it seemed, had indirectly ruined many, many lives.
“Did your grandmother know?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but not the guys in the unit. No fraternizing with officers.”
“I’m so sorry, Sean.”
He shook his head violently as if to repudiate my sympathy. I guessed he was trying hard not to cry.
“Just thought I’d explain why my grandmother seems so worked up about the whole thing.”
I nodded.
“Gotta get back to work. Later,” he muttered, and he drove off.
I sank back onto the picnic bench.
“Oh, Ben, how sad. I think I’m going to cry.”
It is unutterably sad indeed. My heart goes out to the young man. I cannot fathom losing the woman I love to war.
“This kind of puts him at the top of the list of suspects, though. Not that I blame him.”
Surely, you do not condone murder, my dear.
I shook my head. “No, but sometimes, I can almost understand it. I guess someone got tired of waiting for a bolt of lightning to strike Jason down.”
Chapter Seven
I made myself a sandwich and pulled out my lawn chair to sit down and eat. I hoped I would be able to relax and gaze out at the lake as I saw other campers doing, but I always had the uneasy feeling I was being watched from the cabin on the hill above me.
Even with that awareness though, I still jumped when Scott showed up at my side. Although everyone now knew he was staying in the paid-for cabin, he still had a furtive way of looking around. And he still wore the same black T-shirt and dingy jeans.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said when he saw me jump. He sat down on the nearby RV steps and leaned his elbows on his knees.
“Good morning,” I said, swallowing the last of my sandwich. “I heard there was quite a ruckus at the cabin last night.”
“Yeah, Sean saw me, and his grandmother, Mary, called the police, apparently scared that Sean was going to kill me. Heck, even I was worried when he showed up with a rifle and fired off a round.” He almost smiled, but didn’t.
“Why would Sean want to kill you?” I wasn’t quite clear about this.
Scott shrugged carelessly. “I have no idea. Seems extreme for trespassing or whatever he was trying to call my staying in the cabin.”
“No idea?”
“Like I said, my brother screwed up a lot of lives. Since Jason’s not around to shoot, maybe Sean thought he might come gunning for me.”
I said nothing but continued to watch him. I wasn’t half as relaxed as I looked.
“Listen, I didn’t kill my brother,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine.
I blinked. “Okay,” I said in a long drawn out tone as if I didn’t know why he was telling me this.
“Well, make sure the police know that. I saw Josh Wilson pick you up last night, real friendly like, opening the door for you like you were on a date. Tell him. No one has said anything yet, but I’m pretty sure they think I killed Jason. Couldn’t stand him, but I didn’t kill him.”
As much as I really did not like Scott, his voice held a ring of truth. Judging whether someone was a killer by the sound of their voice and the steadiness of their gaze was hardly an exact science, but it was all I had to go on at the moment. So, if not Scott, then who? That left Sean really, at least in my book. Ben saw it differently.
Yes, there are other people with motive enough if hatred and revenge can be considered reasons to kill.
Well? I asked. Is Scott telling the truth?
I do not know, Minerva. I wish that I did.
Some sleuthing sidekick you are! I dared not smile as Scott was watching me, but I’m sure Ben knew I was kidding. I turned my attention back to the tightly wound man on the steps in front of me.
“I don’t have any influence over what the authorities think, Scott,” I said with a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry, but I’m a nobody. I’m sure that they’ll find the right guy, so if you didn’t do it, you should be fine.”
He rose quickly, and I jumped up, unwilling to stay seated while he stood over me.
“Well, I don’t trust the ‘authorities,’” he said. “I don’t think they really care who did it as long as they get an arrest. Neither one of them is a friend of mine.”
He moved past me, and I opened my mouth to protest, but he strode up the hill, and I would have been talking into thin air.
“Well, how about that, Ben?” As it happened, I did speak into thin air, at least as far as anyone who might have seen me would think.
How about that? Ben repeated in a thoughtful voice.
“It’s a good thing I don’t have to figure this out because I really couldn’t. Then again, maybe Jason was killed by somebody completely random that we don’t even know about. Or maybe a deer head-butted him off the cliff.”
Ben chuckled, and I smiled.
“Well, I’m out of bread, and I don’t want to run to the store just for a loaf of bread. I think I’ll just pop into the office and see if they have some in their little convenience store.”
It is likely that Mary works in the office today. I see Sean is still driving his small vehicle about.
“Oh, shoot, that’s right. I’m not sure I want to face her this morning.” I bit my lips and looked over my shoulder. Sean was indeed emptying trash from several garbage bins spread throughout the park.
Just then, my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket and answered it.
“Good morning,” Josh Wilson said in an attractively warm voice. “How did you sleep?”
“Good morning,” I said with a blush. I turned around as if to turn away from Ben, but that was pointless. “Fine, thank you. And you?”
“Good. We’ve got a break in the case. I just called Sam, and he said he’d talked to you this morning, that you were up and about and strolling by t
he lake.”
“Oh, really?” I hardly expected Josh to share the details with me, but a girl could hope.
“The forensics lab got some hair from Jason’s fingers that doesn’t matched Jason’s hair. They’re going to run DNA on it, and hopefully, we’ll get the results within a few days.”
“Well, that’s good news!” I said. I wondered if I could wait a few days to find out who had killed Jason. “They can’t get it done sooner?”
“No, these things take time.”
I nodded.
“Well, anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to try dinner again. Somewhere away from the lake this time, just to get away from the case.”
I looked around for Ben, but it’s not like I could see him or anything. I knew he was there.
“Sure,” I said. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll pick you up at 7.”
“See you then.”
I hung up and stowed my phone back in my jeans pocket.
“Don’t say it, Ben,” I said preemptively. I thought he might start with the handsome and charming Deputy Wilson, but he remained silent.
“Ben?”
Yes?
“I don’t quite know what question to ask, but if you can read my mind, you know what I want to know.”
All is well, Minerva. I satisfy myself that I remain your favorite ghost companion.
“Always,” I said with a smile. “Well, I think that safely eliminates Josh as a suspect. After all, if he’d thrown Jason off the cliff, he wouldn’t be so enthusiastic to find his hair in Jason’s hands.” I’ll admit I felt some relief. Josh was a nice man. I may state the obvious, but I really did not want him to be a killer.
I concede the point. It does not, however, eliminate Deputy Kline as a suspect.
“I suppose not,” I sighed. “It does narrow the field anyway.” I looked toward the office. “Well, I still need that bread. Maybe someone else is working in the office. Surely, Sean and Mary aren’t the only employees here.” I entered the RV to retrieve my wallet and peeked at my computer in passing.
An email from John brought a smile to my face, and I opened it. I’d been so distracted by events that I had forgotten to respond to his earlier email.
What? No word from my ex?
You are okay, right? Let me know. I can call out the FBI if I need to. A smiley face followed.
Signed Your Ex-Husband
I dashed off a quick email summarizing everything that had gone on. The email was long, but a lot had occurred in the past twenty-four hours. I skipped the part about dinner with Josh, and I never, ever mentioned Ben, though I wished that I could. I felt bad hiding Ben from the world as if I were ashamed of him. I had months ago given up on the idea that I was nuts, and I had accepted that Ben was very real.
If only in an ethereal way, Ben added.
“Yes,” I agreed with a smile as I snapped my computer lid shut. I trotted down the RV stairs and walked over to the office, still hoping that some other happy-go-lucky, sunshiny, camping face would greet me from behind the counter.
Mary looked up when I entered, and her face hardened. What on earth did she have against me? Or had she just given up on being a sweet little old lady? I sighed. Maybe I was being too hard on her. Murder had occurred almost on the RV park’s doorstep, and everyone was under a lot of stress. She worried that her grandson would be accused of the murder.
I nodded a greeting and picked up a loaf of bread.
“I heard you were up early this morning,” she said.
It seemed even the smallest movement was cause for talk in the RV park.
“Oh, really?” I laid the bread on the counter and fished in my wallet for money. “From Sean?”
“Yes,” she said. “He said he told you about…” Her face crumpled, and tears rolled down her face.
I didn’t know what to do. I knew she wouldn’t welcome a hug.
“Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry. Did you know Sean’s fiancée?”
She shook her head, and wiped at her face with a tissue. Her tears slowed, and she drew in a deep breath.
“No, but her death broke his heart,” she said in a mournful voice. “Just broke his heart. He hasn’t been the same since. Do you think that angry man is the same pleasant boy that I said goodbye to when he went off to Afghanistan?” She pointed in the general direction of the park. “No! Jason is to blame for that. I blamed Jason for that.”
I looked into her blurry pale blue eyes, and I wondered.
Yes, Minerva! Yes!
Apparently, Ben had the same questions. I thought I might throw some oil onto the fire.
“The sheriff’s office says they found some DNA evidence on Jason. Hair caught in his hand. My guess is that he grabbed hold of someone’s head as he fell.”
Mary’s eyes bulged, and she sucked in a sharp breath. Her eyes flew to the door. I wondered why.
“Whose hair is it?” she cried out in a strangled voice.
“I don’t know. Deputy Wilson said that the lab is analyzing it now, and they should know in a few days.” Maybe it wasn’t my place to have said anything, but I couldn’t resist shaking things up a bit. And boy, were they shaken!
Mary turned and looked around the office wildly. She positioned her back to me, and I couldn’t see her expression.
“Mary? Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I can’t wait to find out who killed Jason,” she said in a muffled voice. I peered around to see that she covered her face with her hands.
She dropped her hands and swung toward me. “Excuse me. I’ve got to lock the office for about an hour. I’m going to lunch, and Sean is busy in the park.”
“Oh, okay,” I murmured. She hurried out of the office and ushered me to the front door. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye before she slammed the door behind me. I heard the lock click.
“Ben? What’s she doing? Can you see?”
She is hurrying back to the office. She opens the money drawer and pulls money from within.
“Ben! Is it possible…?” I didn’t finish the sentence.
That she committed the crime, and not some large man with greater strength? It would not take much to push someone over the edge of a cliff.
I moved away from the door and around to the opposite side of the building. From that vantage point, I could see Mary’s movements if she left the building. Within minutes, she came around the corner and headed up the hill toward her trailer. She paused and looked out over the park as if looking for Sean, but apparently not spotting him, she quickened her steps.
“Guilty much?” I asked, a rhetorical comment more than anything.
I beg your pardon? Yes, I think she must be guilty.
“I know. I think I’m going to sort of sashay up there and see what I can see!”
Minerva! If Mistress Mary is capable of murder, why do you think she would hesitate to kill you? Be sensible. Call the authorities with your suspicions. Call the handsome and charming Deputy Wilson.
“If I’m wrong, I’d look like a complete idiot. Maybe she’s just shook up. Maybe she thinks Sean did it, and she took the money from the till to bankroll him while he makes a run for it. Either way, if I don’t know what’s going on, what could I tell the police when I called?”
Please be careful.
“Always,” I reassured Ben.
Loaf of bread still in hand, I moved away from the office building and headed toward a thicket of trees off to the side. From there, I could climb the hill and approach the trailer from the safety of some bushes behind it. I’m not sure if I wished it were dark, but some sort of waning light would have made me feel less visible. Sunny Lake was living up to its name once again, with the sun high overhead and illuminating everything.
I heard her voice coming from the trailer, raised in a veritable shriek. I couldn’t tell if she was on the phone or yelling at someone in the trailer. I could no longer see Sean or his golf cart from my hidden vantage point. I strained to make out her words,
garbled as they were with emotion. Given that her trailer was isolated from the other campers, she seemed unconcerned that she could be overheard.
“I have to go,” she cried hysterically. “No, you don’t understand. I can’t wait for you. I’ve gotta go now.”
Who was she talking to? I heard no other voices.
“I’m sorry, Sean. I’m sorry.” Sobs distorted her voice.
So, she was talking to her grandson. Was he in the trailer?
Just then, I saw the golf cart charge up the hill toward the trailer, Sean driving with one hand and holding a cell phone with the other. I ducked down behind the bushes, and I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket to push the redial button for Josh’s number.
“Grandma!” Sean called as he jumped out of the cart and ran into the trailer. “What’s going on? Where are you going?”
I pressed the phone to my ear. Josh answered on the second ring.
“Hello there!” he said warmly. “What’s going on?”
“Listen,” I hissed. “Just listen.” I held the phone out in the direction of the trailer.
“What do you mean?” I heard Sean shout. “You did what?”
“I killed him. I killed that scum. I made him pay for what he’d done. No one else was going to.”
“Grandma! You’re out of your mind. Of course, you didn’t do it. You couldn’t hurt anyone.”
“I hurt him, Sean. He ruined your life. He ruined you!”
I put the phone back to my ear and whispered. “Can you hear? They’re at Mary’s trailer.”
“We’ll be right there!” Josh muttered. “Get out of there, Minnie. Get back to your RV.” He hung up the phone.
I stuffed my phone back in my pocket and listened to Sean and Mary. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“No, Grandma, no,” Sean pled with his grandmother. “You didn’t kill him.
I heard her voice breaking.
“I did,” she sobbed. “The day he paid for the cabin, I said I knew a good fishing hole. I drove him out there, and I told him what he had done to you, how you had changed, and how much I hated him. I don’t think he realized how close to the edge we were. It was nothing to push him over. He grabbed my hair, but I didn’t think anything of it. Now, the police have my hair, and when the DNA comes back, they’ll arrest me.”
Minnie Crockwell - Will Travel for Trouble 02 - Trouble at Sunny Lake Page 8