Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping Read online

  “Yeah, I agree,” Wendy said. I noticed with a sense of relief that she spoke in a soft tone so as not to be overheard by Veronica or anyone else. “I would think that news of Vaughn performing at Frontier Days the exact same week his nemesis was killed in Cheyenne would leak out to the press, or at least to someone in his inner circle. Wouldn’t this long-shot coincidence make Vaughn a prime suspect?”

  “You’d think,” I said. I was hesitant to try to incriminate the man who’d spared me great humiliation by lending me his private privy, but Wendy’s point was well-taken. I’d been thinking along those same lines myself. I listened closely as she continued.

  “Did you know Vaughn has been cast in a bit part in an upcoming made-for-TV movie? He’ll be playing himself in the movie, which has several well-known actors in it. And he’s appeared in small parts in several other TV shows in the past, which I find quite significant.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard anything about that, but Vex Vaughn’s career was not one I would have ever bothered to follow, even if I’d known of his existence before this week. Why do you find this significant?”

  “Only that he has experience in acting.”

  “And?”

  “Could he have been displaying some of his acting skills while pretending to be hearing about Fanny’s death from you?”

  “Hmm,” I said, thinking back to my conversation with the singer the previous evening. “I can’t remember our conversation exactly, but I guess it’s possible. You know, it seems to me I told him Fanny Finch had died, not that she’d been murdered, and he came back with a question about whether or not the killer had been caught. If he didn’t know anything about her death, why would he automatically assume she’d been murdered? Statistically, wouldn’t she have been more likely to have died of a heart attack, aneurysm, seizure, or some kind of fluke accident, like choking to death on her own words of self-proclaimed importance?”

  “Ha, ha, Mom. In the case of someone like Fanny Finch, the statistics might be a little skewed, but, yes, you’re right. Unless Vaughn knew more than he was telling you, it seems odd for him to instinctively sense she’d been the victim of a violent crime rather than a tragic accident or fatal health issue. Of course, it likely could have just been wishful thinking on his part. Still, I think he remains a viable suspect in this case,” Wendy said. “Did anything else come up in your conversation that didn’t seem quite right to you?”

  “Not that I can think of,” I replied. “He did seem to perk up when I mentioned Kylie Rue, though, as if he recognized her name or something. Of course, that might have just been a figment of my over-active imagination. As you can imagine, I was a bit flustered at the time.”

  “Well, I can certainly understand that,” Wendy responded with a chuckle. “I’m thinking any kind of reaction to Kylie’s name was a figment. You had to be in a state of bewilderment. After all, you’d just finished taking photographs of his dirty skivvies and other personal belongings. Besides, how could he possibly have any connection to a hair-dresser from Florida?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. The chances of that are too remote to consider. I wonder if he’s been questioned by the homicide detectives yet. If Justin’s right about the crime rate here, and the fact that this would be the first murder to occur in Cheyenne this year, I’m curious just how big the homicide department is, and how many resources they have? Wendy, can you think of any way we could contact them and run my conversation with Vaughn by them? If they haven’t thoroughly investigated Vaughn and his possible motives or and confirmed his whereabouts at the time of her death, maybe this would persuade them to do so.”

  “Possibly, I suppose. But other than walk straight into the police department and ask to speak to the Chief of Police, I don’t know how we can voice our concerns,” she replied. “And how serious are they going to take two out-of-state female tourists?”

  “As I see it, the female aspect should have no bearing whatsoever. And you do work in a coroner’s lab, even though it’s in Missouri, Wendy. Maybe that will give us a little more credibility. After all, looking into the cause of death involving murder victims is right up your alley, and it’s part of what you do for a living. That, and the fact that we were the ones who discovered her body, should be enough for the homicide detectives to at least hear us out,” I reasoned.

  “That’s true. It might be worth a shot. You know, I don’t know why I even care who killed the obnoxious writer, but there’s something about this case that interests me and I just can’t let it go.”

  “Yeah, don’t you just hate when that happens?” I asked. “It seems to happen to me a lot these days.”

  “I admit, Mom, this murder does help me appreciate your commitment to the other cases you’ve been involved in,” Wendy replied. “A case like this kind of grabs hold of you and won’t let go, doesn’t it? But still—just thinking back to some of the risky messes your determination to solve a murder case has landed you in is almost enough to make me want to just drop the whole thing. Besides, I don’t think Stone and Andy are going to go along with our decision to speak to the detectives, Mom. After all the worry and angst you’ve put Stone through in the past, I have a feeling he’s going to give us a big fat ‘no’ if we ask him about taking us to the police station in Stanley’s truck.”

  “Who said I was going to ask him to take us in Stanley’s truck? Emily’s got a car, too. And I have a sneaking suspicion that she’d be more than happy to take us, or let us borrow her car again. I think she’d like this case solved as much as anyone, seeing as it happened in her campground. And after all, I’m doing this more for Emily than anything else.”

  “Yeah, right,” Wendy said. Sarcasm was, unfortunately, one of the less admirable traits she’d inherited from my genes, but it still irritated me when she used it on me. “And how would we get away without telling the others where we’re going?”

  “Leave that to me. You’re talking about something that’s right up my alley now. This is the kind of delicate situation I excel at,” I said, gloating just a bit too much for my daughter’s sense of propriety. I could see her biting her tongue to keep from employing more of that inherited sarcasm I was just referring to. I had no intention of lying about where we were going, or what we planned to do when we got there. In fact, I had no intention of telling the others in our group anything. What they didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them, or us, was my way of looking at it. I’m sure there was some perfectly good reason we needed to go into town with Emily. I just hadn’t figured out what that was yet.

  “Oh, boy,” Wendy said with a long-suffering sigh. “I already have a feeling I’m going to regret this. If I’ve learned anything in my nearly thirty years of life, it’s not to get involved in any kind of secret mission with you. I admire your moxie, Mom. I really do. But it’s your nasty habit of throwing caution to the wind that scares the bejesus out of me.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, honey. Okay, I admit, if the occasion necessitates it, I might be compelled to throw caution to a slight breeze, but—”

  “A slight breeze?” Wendy interrupted. “It’s more like hurricane force winds, sometimes, even when the occasion doesn’t necessitate it.”

  Before Wendy could back out of joining me on a trip to the police station, I steered the conversation in another direction. “Darling, would you mind riding up next to Cassie and see if you can engage her in a conversation about Fanny’s death? I still think she could be a prime suspect. She’s got motive, for sure. She did make a remark about Avery dumping her for Fanny. And you know what they say. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “Yeah,” Wendy said. “And they also say that love is blind, and I certainly think that applies in this case. I still can’t picture slovenly old Avery Bumberdinger and Cassie together. She looks like she should be on the front of Vogue Magazine and Avery on the front of Plumbers Digest.”

  “Oh, he’s not so bad, but I agree. Avery definitely married up when he hooked up with Cassie, and then in turn,
married down when he divorced her and married Fanny. So, go on up there, honey, and see if you can strike up a conversation with Cassie. You can begin with asking her questions about the horseback-riding classes she offers, and her children’s interest in being rodeo participants one day. You both share a love of horses and you can use that common interest to strike up a conversation.”

  “Oh, all right,” Wendy said. I could tell she wasn’t wild about the idea, but she pulled up beside Veronica, who was about thirty feet in front of her, and spoke briefly to her. Then she picked up Riptide’s pace once again to a fast trot in order to catch up with Cassie and her kids. We had been riding single file through a narrow gap in between two rocky crevices. Our increasing distance from one another forced me to shout out my last comment.

  “Don’t forget to ask her about Fanny!” I hollered. I knew Wendy could be easily derailed from her purpose if she got involved in a discussion about something she was passionate about—like horses. I didn’t want her to lose sight of her original goal.

  Watching Wendy conversing with the pretty redhead a few minutes later, it occurred to me that my daughter had been right about Cassie and Avery being a mismatched couple. If opposites truly did attract, those two would have been a pair made in heaven. Could there have been something more to that marriage than met the eye? As far as I was aware, it was their union that had produced Brandi and Chace, so there surely had to have been some love connection between the two at one time. But the fact that it was Avery who had ended the marriage made me wonder if Cassie’s beauty truly was only skin deep. Perhaps what lie beneath the surface wasn’t quite as attractive. It was an intriguing relationship for sure, and I hoped Wendy could discover a little more to the story in her conversation with the widower’s ex-wife.

  * * *

  About forty-five minutes later, Justin instructed us all to dismount and tie our horses to a hitching post next to a rippling stream in the middle of a lush meadow. The stream was named Rolling Creek, and was the ranch’s namesake. The thick vegetation had been cleared in an area about fifty-by-fifty feet wide. Next to the hitching post were a half dozen picnic tables and two johnny-on-the-spots marked “Dudes” and “Dudettes.”

  When I hesitated to dismount Buttercup, in what could have only been an unceremonious tumble to the ground, Justin waved at me and said, “Be right there, ma’am.”

  With the guide’s assistance, I was able to stick the landing with only a tiny step back. Had I been dismounting a balance beam in the Olympics, I’m sure I would have received at least an eight from the panel of judges. Then, with my new sense of self-confidence, I stepped forward and collapsed to the ground like a newborn giraffe taking its first step. I hadn’t realized until that moment how sore my thighs had become. I’d never succeeded in staying on the back of a horse that long before. Usually by the time an hour had passed, I’d already been bucked off, kicked, rudely snorted at, and left behind in the horse’s dust to lick my wounds.

  When, due to cowardice, I hesitated to stand up again, Justin looked at me with a knowing smile. After giving me a second to compose myself, he gently helped me to my feet, and said, “Easy now.”

  Other than crumbling to the ground like an unbalanced stack of wood, which I’m sure everyone in the vicinity witnessed, I was quite proud of the way the morning had gone. I had sustained no bruises, welts, abrasions, or episodes of panic. Maybe my luck had taken a turn for the better when it came to horseback riding.

  I was actually looking forward to the rest of the trail ride, after a welcomed cowpoke lunch, accompanied by a cup of strong coffee. I needed a boost of caffeine to perk me up. I still felt a little groggy from having slept poorly the night before. Every horseback riding mishap I’d experienced, and even worse ones I imagined, raced through my mind as I tossed and turned. At one point, I’d even moved to the couch so as not to keep Stone awake all night.

  I utilized the privy before joining the line at the chuck wagon. The man spooning out beans, whom Justin introduced as “Cookie,” was singing a song about a cowboy leading a bunch of “dogies” across the lonesome prairie. His voice was soothing, but had a forlorn tone to it. When I stepped in front of him, he tipped his cowboy hat, ladled some beans on my plate, and placed a raisin biscuit next to it. He stopped singing to ask me if I wanted some cow grease on my huckdummy.

  “Um, well, I don’t know, Cookie. Do I?” I asked.

  Cookie winked, and replied, “Yes, ma’am, you do, ifin’ you have a hankering for a little butter on that there biscuit.”

  I chuckled at the good-natured cook’s remark, and played along with his bantering. “I’m thinking this old greenhorn does have a hankering for some cow grease on her huckdummy. In fact, load that there huckdummy plum up with cow grease, ifin’ you would.”

  Wendy, who was ahead of me in line, turned around long enough to look at me as if she’d just found the idiot who had wandered away from the village. I shrugged my shoulders and stuck my tongue out at her. She shook her head at my silly gesture, turned back around, and stepped up to take a set of plastic silverware that was wrapped in a paper napkin out of a straw basket.

  When I turned back to Cookie, who I guessed was about my own age, he had obviously sensed that Wendy was my daughter. He gave me a sympathetic smile, and said, “Kids! God must have given them to us to keep us humble, and it seems to work quite well.”

  “You think?”

  Cookie winked again, and said, “Don’t forget to get a piece of boggy-top for dessert.”

  When I raised my eyebrows at him, he replied, “It’s a pie with no upper crust. Strawberry with whipped cream is on the menu for today. And, if I must say so myself, I make a mean strawberry pie.”

  “In that case, I will most definitely get me a piece of that there boggy-top, Cookie. It will go perfectly with a strong cup of joe, which I’m trusting is thick as axle grease.”

  “Wouldn’t serve it any other way, ma’am.”

  * * *

  As soon as I sat down next to Wendy, she leaned over and whispered, “Look at Veronica’s plate. She doesn’t have enough food there to keep a barnacle alive.”

  Even though I’d have liked to tell her about Veronica’s struggle with an eating disorder, I didn’t want to betray Wyatt’s trust by telling my daughter what he’d shared with me in confidence, so I just shrugged my shoulders once again and began to eat.

  With everyone sitting close to each other, I didn’t get a chance to chat with Wendy about her conversation with Cassie Bumberdinger. As we ate our lunch, Cookie sang a number of cowboy songs in his rich, baritone voice. A short time later, I listened contently while I ate an ample-sized piece of strawberry pie, topped generously with whipped cream, which was as delicious as Cookie said it would be.

  Also, as Cookie had promised, the coffee was thick and strong, more like espresso than coffee. More out of pure habit than anything else, I drank several cups in quick succession. As I was getting up to fill my blue-speckled tin cup one more time, Wendy grabbed my arm, and said, “Mom, did you learn nothing from last night? Justin warned us that once we resume our trail ride there would be no more opportunities to use the restroom until we get back to the ranch. Don’t you think you had better pass on yet another cup of coffee? I know you like to compare your bladder to that of a camel, but that so-called camel bladder of yours let you down last night, and I don’t think you want to put it to the test again today. You’ve already drank three cups that will probably come back to haunt you, as it is.”

  Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike being lectured to by my daughter? When she turned twenty-one, she had morphed from my respectful, obeying daughter, to my sometimes over-bearing and critical protector. I loved the fact she always kept my safety and best interests in mind, but I occasionally loathed the way she went about doing so. I’ll admit it’s mainly because her condescending attitude had a tendency to make me feel obliged to do the things she had advised, or frequently even insisted I not do. In nearly every case my
act of rebellion came back to haunt me, just as she had suggested my stubbornness might do this time.

  I prayed this would not be another one of those occasions, as I defiantly sipped on my fourth cup of coffee before Justin gave me a boost up into my saddle, and we fell into line to continue our journey.

  Chapter 12

  It didn’t take long to realize my prayers were not on God’s list to answer that day. Evidently, helping the ill and downtrodden, and saving people from life-threatening catastrophes, were given preference to miraculously increasing the size of some rebellious woman’s bladder.

  Gosh dang it! I thought. When exactly had my bladder, which I swear really was once the size of a camel’s, shrunk down to the size of a gnat’s? All I could do was tough it out and hope the ride back to the ranch would be quick and merciful. Bouncing up and down on Buttercup’s back wouldn’t help the problem any, but I’d let my bladder swell up and explode like a water balloon before I’d ask Wendy to help me find a way to rectify my precarious condition.

  “Doing all right?” I heard Wendy ask, as she and Riptide pulled up behind me. This was the perfect opportunity to admit I’d been foolish to consume so much coffee. I’m sure after a chastising me briefly, she’d step up and assist me with my predicament.

  “Yes, of course, I’m fine,” I said instead. Bull-headedness is not a trait I’m proud of, but it was deeply ingrained in my nature. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Just checking,” she replied. “I know you aren’t accustomed to long horseback rides. I was afraid your rump might be getting sore.”

  “No, not too much. A little extra padding in that department goes a long way, you know.”

  “Well, I don’t know that you have all that much extra padding. Even I will be sore by the time we get back to the barn. I’m sorry I didn’t think to warn you that your legs would be weak after a couple of hours in the saddle. I should have advised you to be extra cautious when you got off Buttercup for lunch break. But I think you’re doing great and I’m proud of you.”