Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping (19 page)

This was a “good news, bad news” announcement as far as I was concerned. I wouldn’t have to feel responsible for ruining the day for the more experienced riders, but I also knew I wouldn’t have an opportunity to speak with Cassie on the return trip because she and her children would be miles ahead of me. As long as Justin didn’t ride off and leave me to fend for myself, I would also encourage Wendy and Veronica to let their mounts stretch their legs and run to their hearts’ content. As for Buttercup and me, we’d be content to continue at the slow, steady pace we were already traveling.

As we approached the foothills of the mountain range, Wendy sidled up next to me and asked how I was doing. I assured her I was getting along just fine, and that Buttercup couldn’t be any more of a joy to ride.

“That’s good, because I know all about your past experiences with horses. It’s a long list of bumps, bruises, and emergency room visits. But then, that pretty much sums up your life in general, doesn’t it?” Wendy chuckled and reached out to lovingly pat my leg as she teased me.

“Easy, child. You’re not too big to bend over my knee and wallop on like there’s no tomorrow.” Wendy, knowing I’d shoot myself in the sweet spot before I’d ever lay a hand on her, laughed at my lame excuse of a threat.

“Yeah, right, Mom! I’m shaking in my cowboy boots,” she said, as she pulled her blue leather Tony Lama boot out of the stirrup and shook it at me. Along with a charm bracelet she had treasured, I’d purchased the boots for her on her twenty-first birthday, back when she was first showing an interest in learning to ride horses.

“As you should be, my child. I will admit, though, that I already regret wearing these old Levi’s. I’ve discovered they’re a bit too snug for horseback riding.”

“Not to mention a bit too ancient to wear out in public. I need to take you shopping at the Legends to refresh your wardrobe. You still have a gift card to use, you know. We could look for new outfits that didn’t go out of style two decades ago. And haven’t you had that flannel shirt you’re wearing since the turn of the century?”

“Yes, I’ve been wearing this shirt since way before Y2K. And, you’re right, honey, I really do need a new wardrobe. I’d love for you to help me select clothes that are stylish, and would help flatter my figure. Well, as much as it’s possible to flatter, at least. You know, last year Veronica got me started buying new shoes—”

“Which you need to stop,” Wendy interrupted. “Your newly acquired shoe fetish is getting way out of hand. I know at least seventy-five percent of those new shoes in your closet have never even been removed from the box they came in. And I hate to say this Mom, but there are quite a few of them that should have been left on whatever clearance rack you found them on. When it comes to a woman’s wardrobe, quality is more important than quantity. Just ask Veronica over there, if you don’t believe me.”

“No thanks, sweetheart. I believe you. I prefer being lectured to and humiliated by one
fashionista
at a time.” I laughed to let my daughter know I was just kidding. I really did appreciate her offer to assist me on my next clothes-shopping spree. I had a new three hundred-dollar Chico’s
gift card that was burning a hole in the pocket of my already tattered, holey jeans. I’m fairly certain this anniversary gift from Stone was a subtle hint for me to spend it on more fashionable clothes, and not new bedspreads for the Alexandria Inn. I’m sure Wendy played a hand in his choice, since Chico’s
was her favorite women’s clothing store at the Legends shopping area in Kansas City, Kansas, which was about an hour south of Rockdale.

After my first husband had died unexpectedly of an embolism when Wendy was only seven years old, I’d pretty much stopped caring what anybody thought about my appearance. I was a single mother, working long hours to support and raise our daughter, and never even took the time to consider having another man in my life. Getting married again was not in my life plan during those years as a widow.

But life sometimes has a way of interfering with your plans. I met Stone on the east coast when I was delving into a cold case involving the murder of Wendy’s husband’s first wife—a previous marriage that Wendy knew nothing about.
⁶
The fact that Clayton Pitt hadn’t shared this important information with Wendy concerned me. If he wasn’t guilty, why would he hide his earlier marriage? If Clay was responsible for his first wife’s death in any way, I didn’t want my daughter to take the chance of becoming his next victim. So I fed Wendy some half-baked story about my upcoming trip, and left my home in Shawnee to head east to Schenectady, New York, in order to do a little digging into Clay’s past on my own.

During my impromptu investigation, I’d met and fallen in love with Stone Van Patten. And now that Stone and I were celebrating our first anniversary, it was far past time to start caring about my appearance again. I owed it to my dear husband to make the effort to look like I hadn’t acquired my entire wardrobe from a box of worn out clothing rejected by a homeless shelter.

In fact, I decided as we proceeded up a narrow trail into the mountains, I’d clean out my closet as soon as we returned home from vacation. I’d have sacked up and given everything in my current wardrobe to a charity to benefit the underprivileged, if not for the fact they weren’t fit to donate. My Sunday best would be an insult to even those who were most in need.

I was starting to look forward to dressing a little more attractively, and thought I might even get a new, more chic hairstyle while I was at the Legends. I would go through my closet and throw away all but a few salvageable or sentimental items, and send a healthy check to our local Goodwill store, in lieu of a sack of cruddy, worn-out duds.

I was so deep in thought that I was startled when Wendy reached out and slapped Buttercup’s rump to spur her to step it up a notch. “Wake up, Mom. You’re starting to fall behind. By the way, I didn’t get a chance to speak to you about your visit with Vex Vaughn last night. I was wondering if you got a chance to ask him about Fanny’s death.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” I replied. “He acted totally shocked at my news, as if it was the first he’d heard about it.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Well, he appeared sincere and was a really likeable guy. However, it’s hard to imagine that, with all his agents, managers, handlers, crew, and hangers-on, someone wouldn’t have heard about Fanny’s murder and brought it to his attention. After all, Vaughn would be personally affected by news of her death, since all of Fanny’s wealth and notoriety had been gained at his expense.”

“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—”