Mr. Finch was sitting in a lawn chair on the small—and not adequate in Fanny’s opinion—concrete patio. He was drinking a cup of coffee and chuckling at two squirrels chasing each other around a large cottonwood tree. I hated to have to disturb his peaceful morning by bringing him bad news.
“Mr. Finch?” My voice quivered but the gentleman seemed unaware of my trepidation.
“Good morning, sweetheart. It’s actually Mr. Bumberdinger, but please call me Avery. Finch is Fanny’s—or actually Claudia’s—pen name. She gets almost physically ill if someone refers to her as Claudia Bumberdinger… not that I think being referred to as Fanny is much better. You may not believe this, but she can be a real hard bugger at times.” Avery smiled as he spoke, and, naturally, I smiled back at him. But I was thinking I’d also prefer to be called Fanny Finch rather than Claudia Bumberdinger if my name was going to be plastered across the cover of a book I’d written.
Avery Bumberdinger seemed like a very soft-spoken, laid-back guy. It was hard to visualize him as the same man I’d heard viciously squabbling with his wife two short nights ago. He wasn’t half-bad looking, either, when he was fully dressed and not doing belly flops off the diving board in a too-tight Speedo.
I smiled at the kind man now as he took another sip from his coffee cup and I introduced myself. I wasn’t sure how to best break the horrid news to him. Out of an ingrained sense of politeness, I let him know I was happy to make his acquaintance. “My name is Lexie Starr and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Avery.”
“And you, as well, Ms. Starr. What can I do for you this fine morning, pretty lady?”
“Um, well, um, you see…” I stuttered, trying to get my nerve up. I finally took a deep breath, and said, “I’m afraid there’s been an accident at the pool involving your wife and your presence is needed there immediately.”
I spoke with as much discretion as I could, considering the gravity of the situation. I assumed he could tell by my frayed nerves and haunted expression that the situation was dire, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him his spouse had expired.
Avery shook his head like a man at the tattered end of his rope. He let out an expressive sigh and set his almost full coffee cup down on the patio. I looked at it with longing. I wanted to ask him if I could finish it off for him if he was just going to let it go to waste. I was very much in need of a strong dose of caffeine.
Good thing I hadn’t just taken a big gulp of coffee, because I almost choked on my own saliva when Avery asked, “What has Fanny done now? Held someone under water for daring to disagree with her? I’d like to hold her under water for a minute or two myself, and probably would if I thought I could get away with it. I’m just kidding with you, of course. Seriously though, Ms. Starr, what is the problem with my wife now? Is she being a bugger again?”
“I’d rather let the Harringtons explain it to you,” I said. I didn’t have it in me to tell someone about the death of his loved one, even if Avery Bumberdinger had just jokingly stated he wouldn’t be above killing his spouse if given half a chance.
“Oh, all right. I don’t know what’s gotten into that woman, but she’s become nearly impossible to get along with recently. She’s been gnawing on my last nerve all week. We’d been getting along fabulously until her silly book soared to the top of the New York Time’s best best-sellers list. Her success has gone to her head and now she’s almost impossible to get along with.”
I knew that would no longer be a problem that would plague Avery, but I limited my reply to telling him he really should hurry to the pool area. He shook his head again and stood up. He pulled a black comb out of his back pocket to smooth down his hair, which was wavy, the exact color of his comb, and very sparsely accented by gray streaks. Finally, after assuring every hair was in place and the door to his fifth wheel was locked, he began to walk nonchalantly up the gravel road toward the pool.
My next order of business was to get Stone. When I walked into the motorhome, he said, “I thought you and Wendy were going for a swim. You’ve only been away for ten or fifteen minutes.”
After briefly studying my face, he asked, “Honey, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Sit down, and let me pour you a cup—”
“No, not now—”
“Okay, now I’m worried. What’s going on? I’ve never known you to not welcome a cup of coffee. Did I hear Avery say something about drowning his wife?”
“Not exactly, dear. It was more of a new item on his bucket list, I think. But you’re half-right, because Fanny did drown, Stone! Wendy and I found her at the bottom of the pool. She wasn’t breathing! She’s dead! I can’t believe it, Stone! I just can’t believe she’s dead!” My voice rose another octave with every word I spoke. I knew I was beginning to hyperventilate and sound as if I was on the verge of hysteria, which I was. The seriousness of the situation was just beginning to hit me. There might be a killer staying in our friend’s RV Park, I realized, and his RV might just be parked right next to our site.
“Settle down, honey,” Stone said, as he wrapped his arms around me. “You’re in shock and I don’t want to have to slap you.”
He smiled to let me know he was only kidding, but his comment helped to calm me down. I explained to him as quickly as I could what had transpired. Then, together, we rushed back to the scene, where numerous emergency vehicles were beginning to arrive. We’d heard the sirens approaching as we had been briskly walking up the road.
Wendy was introducing herself to an EMT who was stepping out of an ambulance, while Emily and Stanley were speaking to Avery. I thought Stone really might need to slap Fanny’s husband, because his expression never wavered as he listened to the campground owners explain the situation to him. His face looked like it had been carved into the side of a mountain, so I knew he was in such a state of disbelief that the finality of his wife’s death had not yet sunk in.
As squad cars and a fire engine pulled into the campground, people began emerging from their RVs and tents, following the source of the activity. Despite the fact that it was just past seven o’clock in the morning, a crowd formed quickly. Two divers in neoprene wetsuits were entering the men’s shower. They had obviously retrieved the body from the bottom of the pool and were changing back into their regular outfits.
As the news spread about what the commotion was regarding, I could hear the blending sound of many conversations occurring simultaneously. The grapevine was operating at full force. I saw Fanny’s fellow authors, Norma Grace and Sarah Krumm, standing off to the side. Neither of the ladies, still wearing their pajamas and bathrobes, looked particularly astounded by the horrific turn of events, nor upset about the death of Fanny Finch. In fact, they wore identical contented, almost-evil, expressions.
They appeared to be happy about the shocking tragedy and relieved to be seeing the last of someone they despised. If I had to adequately describe their demeanor, I’d say they looked like two women watching a fireman rescuing their pet kitten from a high, flimsy branch up in a tree; pleasure, mixed with relief. I mentally vowed that I would never treat others so badly that they might some day be looking down at my dead body with that same expression on their face.
I saw Kylie, who’d been rendered speechless, wipe a tear off her cheek before returning to the office—most likely in the event a customer needed attention. I think it was safe to say there were no customers in the office, due to the mob that surrounded the pool area. At that moment, discovering what had a huge crowd abuzz was more intriguing than the idea of purchasing a bag of ice or Wyoming keychain.
The police officers on the scene were trying, without much success, to push the crowd back from where the body bag had been laid out next to the once-energetic body of Fanny Finch. They realized that observing something of this nature could be very traumatic to the curious onlookers, so they were trying to shield the body from the crowd’s view as much as possible.
After the coroner zipped up the bag in which Fanny’s body had been placed, several men worked to
gether to hoist the bag up and load it into the back of the medical examiner’s van to be transported to the morgue. I glanced over at Avery to gauge his reaction. His stony expression was that of someone watching men load a large burlap bag of turnips they’d just purchased at a farmer’s market into the bed of a truck.
I wondered if somebody really did hold Fanny’s head under water until she drowned; perhaps even Avery, who might have been attempting to cast suspicion away from himself. I couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be at least tempted to do such a terrible thing to the self-centered and unpleasant woman, given the opportunity. I mentioned the possibility to Stone.
He rolled his eyes in response, and said, “Oh, good grief. I hope this isn’t going to turn into another unfettered determination to prove the woman was murdered and her death wasn’t an accidental drowning. After all the harrowing events surrounding Ducky’s death2 last fall, I should think you’d steer as far away as possible from getting involved in the matter.”
“Well, of course, Stone. I’m merely intrigued by the situation because I’ve seen Fanny Finch swim. She was the embodiment of what the offspring of Michael Phelps and Esther Williams would be.”
“Seriously?” Stone asked, with a chuckle. “I can’t quite visualize Michael Phelps, who’s in his twenties, hooking up with Esther Williams, who’s got to be nearing ninety if she’s even still alive.”
“Okay, smart-aleck. Esther Williams passed recently, and I know she and Michael would be an unlikely pair. My point is that I can’t imagine her drowning accidentally. She appeared to be the picture of health, and was definitely an impressive swimmer. She was like a dolphin on speed in the water.”
Stone rolled his eyes again and walked over to greet Andy, Veronica, and Wyatt, knowing they’d be interested in what was going on. They’d been among the throng of people ascending on the scene from their RV sites.
The next thing I knew, Wendy was standing in front of me, having finished her conversation with the coroner. I had not been surprised to see her speaking with him. With my daughter’s passion for all things cadaver-related, and her unseemly desire to immerse herself in every discussion involving the cause of someone’s death, I would have been more astonished if she hadn’t spoken to him.
“You know, Mom, I’m finding it hard to believe she drowned accidentally. When you two were swimming laps yesterday, Fanny swam by you like you were a warning buoy floating on the surface of the water. It was like watching greased lightning flash past a dying slug.”
“Well, I think your analogy might be a gross exaggeration,” I said, rather miffed by the comparison. “I wasn’t trying to break any speed records, just warming up.”
“No offense intended, Mom. She’d have passed me as if I were in a coma had I had been swimming a lap myself. I’m just saying the woman was an advanced swimmer.”
“Yes, I agree, and I do get your point, Wendy. She was too accomplished a swimmer to drown accidentally, barring a sudden health impediment that rendered her unable to function, of course. I was just saying the exact same thing to Stone.”
“Eli, the coroner, said her liver temperature was eighty-four degrees, which indicates she’s been dead for around nine hours, which would make her drowning somewhere about ten last night. The pool is heated because of the cool evenings here, but the temperature of the water still factors into the formula to determine the time of death. So she could have died even later than that; maybe around eleven.”
Wendy loved to flaunt her knowledge of the science of mortality, even to someone like me, who was likely to turn a deaf ear as soon as she began spouting words like rigor mortis, lividity and dissection. I often wondered where I’d gone wrong raising my only child to make her turn into someone so fascinated by what caused some unfortunate person to bite the dust. But out of an inborn curiosity I wasn’t proud of, I reluctantly paid attention to what Wendy was saying.
“As you just mentioned, I’d guess her drowning was probably precipitated by a heart attack, aneurysm, stroke, or seizure. I’m sure that an autopsy will determine what caused her to lose consciousness and drown.” As an assistant to the county coroner back home in Missouri, Wendy sounded confident of her assessment. I had to agree it was the only reasonable explanation for Fanny’s untimely death. Or, at least it was until I spotted a shiny silver object under the hedge row just inside the fence surrounding the pool patio. It was barely discernible, but something told me it would turn out to be an important factor in Fanny’s demise.
Chapter 6
The shiny object turned out to be a hair dryer hooked to a long orange extension cord rolled up and used to hide the hair dryer in the dense foliage. If not for the sun glinting off a tiny exposed area of the silver plastic, I wouldn’t have noticed it, even though it would have been just a matter of time before one of the detectives discovered it. The unplugged and spooled-up extension cord appeared to have been plugged into an electrical outlet behind the pool’s pump. It was now being photographed from every imaginable angle by a team of homicide detectives who’d been called in when I brought the hair dryer to the attention of the closest police officer.
Wendy tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to face her. “Now I’m certain the official cause of death will be listed as asystole of the heart.”
“Layman’s terms, please.”
“Basically, it’s ventricular fibrillation, or cardiac arrest. Detective Colmer told me the hair dryer is fried and nonfunctional. It’s probable that someone attached that hair dryer to the electrical cord, turned it on, and tossed it into the pool near Fanny, causing her to die of electrocution.”
Wendy was obviously proud of her ability to explain the chain of events leading to Fanny’s death to her slightly queasy mother. The smugness she exhibited was almost disturbing. It was a trait she’d inherited from her father, Chester Starr. Chester, my first husband, had died from an embolism many years ago when Wendy was only seven years old. But I can still remember Wendy’s exact expression on Chester’s face after he’d correctly guessed something as trivial as the outdoor temperature.
Wendy left me and walked over to where the rest of our little group was discussing the new discovery, presumably to impress them with her expertise in the field of necropsy. I saw Emily giving information to a homicide detective. Rather than follow my daughter repeat her reasoning, I decided to go over and wait for the campground owner to finish up with the detective. I was anxious to get Emily’s take on what had happened in her RV Park.
After relating what little she knew about the events that unfolded the previous evening, she moved away from the detective and turned to me with a look of total exasperation.
“I was afraid something like this would happen when we put the swimming pool in last year, because a pool is such a liability,” Emily told me. “Our insurance went up substantially, as you can imagine. Now I assume we’ll be embroiled in a major lawsuit. Not to mention that a murder occurring here on the premises is not exactly going to encourage other campers to stay here in the future. I’m wondering if an RV park could lose it’s Good Sam status when customers start getting whacked on the premises. That distinction is very important to the success of the campground.”
I could relate to the fact that Emily’s main concern was how it might potentially harm their business. I’d been in her shoes before, worried a murder at the Alexandria Inn on its opening night would adversely affect the success of our new bed and breakfast establishment.3 I assured her that it hadn’t hurt our business and I doubted it would hurt Cozy Camping RV Park either.
After listening to my opinion, Emily asked, “But why did this have to happen during Frontier Days, the busiest ten days of the season?”
“Just fate, I guess. You know what they say about the Lord working in mysterious ways. It could have happened on any day, and could have just as easily been one of us whose number was up last night.”
“Yes, but I can’t see either one of us having a line of people waiting to have firs
t crack at bumping us off. Oh, well if it had to happen, I couldn’t have picked a better customer for it to happen to,” the park owner said.
“Emily!” I gasped.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud,” she said with a sly smile. “But, truthfully, I wouldn’t wish something like this on anybody, not even my worst enemy.”
“You have enemies?”
“You know what I mean, Lexie. In all the years of owning and operating this campground, I’ve found that every customer brings me pleasure.”
“Oh, how wonderful for you,” I said, wondering how a pain-in-the-tush like Fanny Finch could bring anyone pleasure, least of all Emily. I had watched the deceased browbeat her just a couple of days ago. “You can’t tell me it’s true that every single one of them actually brings you pleasure!”
“Yes, it really is true. Some bring me pleasure by coming here and others by leaving. And, in this case, even by leaving zipped up in a body bag.”
“I can’t believe you said that, Emily!” I exclaimed. I might have thought the exact same thing, but I’d have never verbalized it for fear of looking extremely cold-hearted. I expected Emily to tell me she was only pulling my leg again, the way she had when I checked us in at the office on Friday evening.
“Did I mention she brought me pleasure?” Emily said instead, with a wink. “Seriously, I’m very upset about Fanny’s death, but I’m not particularly surprised she’d tick someone off to the point they’d want to kill her. Who do you think might have done it? Her poor hen-pecked husband? Or maybe even one of the authors who participated in the book signing event with her? None of those three seems to be capable of such a horrific act, but you never know, I guess. How often do you see the next-door neighbor of a serial killer being interviewed on TV saying they’d have never guessed their kind, quiet, and thoughtful neighbor capable of cutting the eyes out of their numerous victims and serving them up like Brussels sprouts with a steak and salad for supper?”
Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping Page 6