Murder in Gatlinburg

by Steve Demaree

  "We stopped there for a late breakfast yesterday, on the way in. And we'll eat there next Friday before we head back home."

  I looked up and saw that it was a short trip to Gatlinburg from where we were staying. Too far to walk, but a short ride on the trolley.

  "Well, here's our stop."

  As we got off Brenda pointed out the different colors of trolleys and told me that each one heads to a different place, so make sure I get on the right one.

  I wondered if when Lou and I sought a trolley to return to Fort Westgate if we would be riding the wrong trolley all night, because we couldn't remember which color our trolley was.

  "Are you in a hurry?"

  "Not a huge hurry, but we want to get away from here before the next trolley from Westgate arrives."

  "I think that's in thirty minutes."

  Brenda told me a couple of attractions we should check out and a couple other good places to eat. She was about to leave, when I had to satisfy my curiosity.

  15

  "What is it about this place that brings you back here each year?"

  Maybe I had asked her a question I shouldn't have asked, because she started to cry.

  "Sorry. It's tough. But twenty-two years ago I met my husband here on Memorial Day weekend. While we didn't come from the same place, we were both in our last year of college. We kept in touch, and he came to see me about once a month. A year later we had had enough of being apart, so we married. We have come back each year on the week that overlaps Memorial Day weekend. Three years ago Mike got cancer. Eight months ago he died. But he made me promise that I would continue to come back to this area every year during the week that was our week here. And told me to enjoy it for both of us. He wouldn't like these tears of mine, but I can't help it."

  "My Eunice and I were married only five years when she died of cancer. We'd only gone on a couple of vacations, and this is my first vacation since she died, and that was over twenty years ago. At first I couldn't picture myself taking a trip and having fun without her. And then not taking a vacation seemed normal to me. So, I haven't been anywhere until this weekend."

  She reached out and hugged me, and I hugged her back. She told me to enjoy my vacation, and I told her to do the same. And then both of us did our best to wipe away our tears, and then she walked away. If it hadn't been for Jennifer back home and the fact that Brenda was still in love with Mike, I would have considered coming back to Gatlinburg next year on Memorial Day weekend, and seeing if I could find her. Or, if conditions were different, I might have told her that if we continued to think of each other, and wanted to see each other again, we could both take the downtown chairlift to the top of the mountain and meet at the top at 10:00 on Saturday morning of next year's Memorial Day weekend. But I had Jennifer, and Brenda still had memories of Mike. I will merely have to think of Brenda as a Good Samaritan I met briefly in Gatlinburg, or as a kindred spirit who knows what it is like to lose a spouse much too soon.

  I turned and looked at Lou, who remained in the background as Brenda and I talked, but was aware of what was going on.

  "Lou, we'd better get out of here before Sylvia and Inez show up."

  "I agree. Otherwise you'll have more women to pick from than The Bachelor."

  "What bachelor?"

  "I don't know. I just know it's some TV show that someone was kidding George about watching. I don't even know if it's still on. It was a while back when I heard about George watching it. I don't know why I thought of it just now."

  As we walked the short distance from the trolley stop to the Pancake Pantry, I thought of what Brenda had said about Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg being different. It definitely wasn't hard to tell the difference between the two small towns in the mountains. I already knew that Pigeon Forge is best navigated by car. There was no way I wanted to walk all the way from one large attraction to the next. But in Gatlinburg, the buildings were right out on the street, one next to the other, and from what I could tell, even though Lou and I were walking uphill, we were going faster than the cars trying to navigate the street. But no one seemed to mind. I was sure most of those people were on vacation, and might be among the millions leaving for home the next day. I figured the locals had some kind of underground passage to get where they wanted to go and they wouldn't share that information with any out-of-towners.

  A few minutes later, it wasn't just the cars that had come to a standstill. It seemed there were a lot of other people who had gotten the memo that the Pancake Pantry served delicious food. Maybe we weren't the first people Brenda met. But she was right about the line at the Pancake Pantry being out the door and down the street. But the line moved quickly, and Lou and I were inside before the place closed for the day.

  We ordered, and Lou and I started to talk about what we were going to do that day. By the time our food arrived, I was glad that most of the rest of our vacation was planned. We still hadn't come up with anything we were going to do. After a couple bites of the pecan pancakes I ordered, and after stealing a bite of Lou's chocolate chip pancakes, I thought about staying at the Pancake Pantry all day. I wondered if it was like an amusement park ride. Could I stay at my table, or would I have to go back outside when I finished breakfast and go to the back of the line before ordering lunch?

  One of the places I saw as we waited to go inside the breakfast haven was an attraction that delighted many boys growing up, but one I had never experienced. A mirror maze. Ripley's Marvelous Mirror Maze to be exact.

  When we left the Pancake Pantry and stepped back out into the world according to Gatlinburg, I mentioned the mirror maze to Lou. He said he was game to see what navigating a mirror maze was like. We crossed the street, walked up to the counter, and paid our money. The woman handed us some disposable plastic gloves. They must have figured we were there to do an autopsy. I took them anyway and put them on. Lou and I stepped into a world of flashing lights of different colors and mirrors everywhere. I didn't know what to think when we had completed our journey in ten minutes, so I asked someone else who exited just after us. He didn't think it was as good or as tough to navigate as others he had experienced. I thought it was a little pricy for the short time we were inside, but then they told us we could come back as often as we wanted all day long. I chalked it up to experience and decided to see a little more of what Gatlinburg had to offer instead.

  One of the attractions Gatlinburg had to offer was one that Lou and I had discussed briefly at breakfast, but we hadn't decided whether or not to try it. Miniature golf. After exiting the mirror maze, Lou and I agreed that a game of miniature golf on a hillside might be fun. Well, it would be if neither of us fell off that hillside. The place was called Hillbilly Golf and it was located at the lower end of Gatlinburg, so Lou and I agreed to chance it. We went back to the only trolley stop we knew and tried to figure out which trolley would get us to that miniature golf place. With help from something we read, and confirmation from someone else waiting for a trolley, it worked. There was even a trolley stop right next to the miniature golf course. And there were two courses. Lou and I couldn't remember the last time we had played miniature golf, although we both thought we had done it once, or had watched someone else play. So, since we had reverted to the childhood we never had, we played both courses without either of us losing a ball down the hill. However, we did have one near death experience, and one we weren't sure about. Lou and I were about halfway through our second set of holes when I heard a noise above and behind me. I started to turn around and check out the source of that noise when something went whizzing past my ear. Lou was slower to react than I was, so I leapt toward him and pushed him to the ground. He took the fall harder than the times he had fallen back when he had more padding. I landed on top of Lou, but we weren't through moving. We both rolled until we hit a tree. Well, I think Lou took the brunt of that, too. I forgot that I no longer carried a gun, but I turned and tried to assess our situation, just in case the gunman realized he had missed, or their was a secon
d gunman somewhere on a grassy knoll. Lou was still assessing whether or not he should take soprano lessons, so it would be up to me to protect both of us. As I was turning, I heard someone running toward us. It was the little girl from our group.

  "Sorreee!I told him not to hit it so hard."

  I still wasn't sure what she was talking about.

  "My brother's golf ball. That was what almost hit you. I didn't realize that it knocked you down. I hope you won't press charges. He's normally a good kid, but he's a little more hyper on vacation."

  I told her that it was okay, and that Lou and I wouldn't press charges. But I wasn't sure if Lou would press charges against me.

  "I need his golf ball back. I think your friend is lying on it."

  I didn't want to reach over Lou and try to locate the golf ball, so I said, "Lou. You okay?"

  I think the little girl being there saved me. Otherwise, I could see him retrieving his putter, hitting me over the head with it, and saying, "Cy, are you okay? Are you better now?"

  Lou felt around and found the golf ball. He handed it to me, and I handed it to the little girl. She apologized again, and turned and headed up the hill. I refrained from tapping Lou on the shoulder and saying, "I believe it's your turn." Before the paramedics arrived, Lou stumbled to his feet, climbed back up the hill after giving me a dirty look, calmly sank his putt, and then smiled at me.

  But our troubles weren't over. A few of minutes later, I looked up the hill again. There were two men in dark sunglasses looking at us. The hillside course is covered by trees, so there was no reason for anyone to wear sunglasses there unless they were celebrities who didn't want to be noticed, or murderers who didn't want to be identified. When these two men saw us they both looked down, as if both of them were putting at the same time. Not knowing who the killer would be, I whipped out my phone and zoomed in and took their picture. I have no idea if they knew that I had taken it or not, but they didn't come charging down the hill after us. That was good because, like I said before, neither Lou nor I had brought a gun, and we had no idea if the two men were carrying or not. Besides, I doubted if Lou was fully recovered from his encounter with the ground and the tree. Lou looked over my shoulder to see if I had gotten both men in the picture. I think he was disappointed that I hadn't captured a tree branch and a scampering squirrel.

  We finished the second game without any other incident. There were no bodies in the tram when it arrived, so we took it back down the hill, and waited for the trolley. There was no way either of us wanted to walk back uphill to the center of town, where most of what interested us were located.

  16

  During a weak moment, Lou and I decided to play a game that sounded more like something children who wished to get in trouble with their parents would do. We went back to our favorite trolley stop and got on the first trolley that stopped by, without having any idea where it was going. We hadn't been on the trolley ten minutes when the trolley stopped and I saw someone step out of one of the shops. It was hard to say, but the guy looked just like the lame man I saw at the motel back in Lexington. The one hiding in the shadows. The traffic light changed and people started crossing the street a few cars in front of us. I whipped out my camera and focused in on the guy just as we started going again. I got a good picture of some bricks. I was used to taking pictures where I had to put my eye up to the viewer. Holding the camera phone out in front of me was different. I looked at the guy again as we started to move. Our eyes met briefly and his seemed to be full of fear. I'm sure he recognized me, too. And I kept watching him and saw him limp away. By the time the day was over, Lou and I had visited Pigeon Forge, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and a few of the area motels, some of which were located so far up in the hills that you wouldn't be able to find them in the winter without a Sherpa. We even talked to a few people as we rode, but we refrained from telling anyone what we were doing, or give out too much information about ourselves. And I didn't have any other moments that reminded me of An Affair to Remember. I did see two guys in sunglasses that could have been the two we saw earlier. I snapped their picture, so that I could compare and see which one was a better image in case we wanted to identify them. Later, I saw the guy with the limp again. This time I was able to get a fairly good picture of him.

  We got to see a lot of Gatlinburg, some areas several times. And we traveled as far as Dollywood in Pigeon Forge. I knew we would be going back to the amusement park for a longer visit. But the most awesome site we saw was the national park. We were impressed by how magnificent the park looked, but then not every stretch of land gets to be a national park. Just a few of the more impressive places garner that distinction.

  On one of the trolleys a woman got on carrying two of the brightest colored tennis balls I had ever seen. I was sure they glowed in the dark. Each had a three-foot piece of wire stuck in it. My curiosity got the best of me.

  "Excuse me, but can you tell me what those balls are used for?"

  "A friend recommended them. They are for when you stay in a strange place."

  I wondered if she thought they warded off evil spirits. I looked confused, so she continued.

  "They are for if you have to get up in the middle of the night. You put them places where you can see them, places where you might stub your toes in the dark."

  I wondered what someone would come up with next.

  As we rode one trolley after another, I looked at the people we saw on the street, and quickly checked out the places where we might want to stop before we left town. I didn't see anyone I knew, which included Sylvia and Inez, who must have arrived at the transit center mere minutes after we left it. Maybe they were riding other trolleys all over town looking for us. And I didn't see Miss Friendly, but then I wasn't sure if I would recognize her unless she frowned. I didn't see Earl, either. I wondered if bus drivers ride trolleys. If so, would that be a busman's holiday? Not only didn't I see any of the strange people in our group, but I saw no more limping men. I did see more men in sunglasses, but none of them looked like the two we saw. Both of the men we saw playing miniature golf stood out because they were wearing dark suits and ties. Who wears a suit on vacation? Not too many people wear them anytime anymore. And they both had on dark hats. Who wears a hat anymore?

  On our travels through trolleyworld, I saw an attraction that I knew Lou and I needed to try. A block or two uphill from the Pancake Pantry was the chairlift that went to the top of the mountain. I knew there was one there, because I had seen a picture of it in a brochure. And it was the place I thought of in my fantasy about Brenda. Neither Lou nor I had ridden a chairlift in our younger years, and we felt our first vacation was a good time to start. When we located it again after getting off the trolley we paid our money and followed the line until we were next. We sat down as the moving chair met our backsides. I've never been afraid of heights, but then I've never had the desire to stand on the edge of a cliff, either. In a matter of minutes, the two retirees had met enough people coming down that we had arrived at the top. We were warned as we neared the top that a photograph would be forthcoming, but we had already reached our limit of two photographs, and didn't bother to see how we looked with the breeze blowing through our hair. It became obvious how high up we were when we turned around and looked down at all the ants below. After a few minutes of looking down, and looking around without spotting a familiar face or one that seemed bent on criminal intent, we walked over to take the ride down and meet those coming up. As we got on and I looked at how far down it was, I couldn't help thinking of the me I used to be, and the former Lou, and wondered whether the bar holding us would have snapped back then, causing the two of us to tumble to the ground and go bump, bump, bump all the way down. I was glad I didn't have to find out.

  We had a great time acting like two boys who had run away from home. We ended our day by eating at the Best Italian restaurant, which Lou and I agreed could lay claim to that title. At least in Gatlinburg. With food like that, and the Panca
ke Pantry fare, I knew I couldn't spend too many weeks in the Smokies or I would soon come to see my former self. I had worked too hard to see less of myself to go back to where I had been before.

  It wasn't until we were on the trolley back to Westgate that I realized that I hadn't thought of our clue all day. Had we seen the Jack and Jill referred to in Lou's clue? Or were Jack and Jill back at Westgate? Had they tumbled down the hill in our absence?

  I sent Lou a text.

  Jack and Jill

  He sent me one back.

  You've done good today, Cy. Don't blow it!

  I turned to him and smiled, then closed my eyes until I felt the trolley stop.

  We got off and walked under the lighted archway to get a ride back to our suites. Our timing was bad. We ran into Sylvia and Inez coming out of the indoor water park. I had to admit that neither of them looked bad for their age, but I felt they were a little old for the bikinis they were wearing. At least they didn't spill out in the areas where you don't want to spill out.

  They appeared to have mellowed a little. Neither of them came running up and hugged us and got us all wet.

  "So, have you two been in Gatlinburg all this time?"

  "More or less. You?"

  "We spent a couple of hours there, then left a little after lunch."

  "You didn't happen to see a limping man or two guys in dark suits, wearing sunglasses, and dark hats, did you?"

  "What attraction was that?"

  "No attraction. Just three guys we saw."

  "So, you saw the Blues Brothers and Chester?"

  "Who?"

  "Never mind."

  "Oh, wait a minute. I remember Chester. My dad talked about him being a character on Gunsmoke."