Last Resort (6 page)

TEN

“There's only one thing I hate more than karaoke,” Jake said, tilting a beer bottle in my direction. “And that's bad karaoke.”

We were down at the pavilion near the pool, a large covered area with about twenty picnic tables and a couple of barbeque pits. We'd showered and dressed and I suggested we walk down to the pavilion because they were offering up free hamburgers on the barbecue, as well as coolers full of cheaply priced soda and beer. We'd chosen to walk down, enjoying the cool, crisp air as the sun sank for the day. The bugs weren't too bad and the birds were chirping as we strolled down the hill. Chipmunks and squirrels scampered across well-manicured lawns and up trees and I smiled. I was happy we'd stayed.

“What about my parents? You don't hate my parents more?” I said.

He grinned. “I like your parents just fine. I think
you
are the one having issues...”

I picked up my own bottle of beer and took a sip. “They lost Grace and Sophie at the park!”

“They did not lose them,” he said patiently. “They...misplaced them.”

I rolled my eyes. “What's the difference?”

We'd talked to the kids before heading down to the pavilion. Grace had wasted no time letting us know that Grandma and Grandpa had let the two younger girls go for a walk in the wooded section of the park—which would have been fine if they'd stayed put on the bench where they told the girls they'd be waiting. Instead, my dad had freaked out about poison ivy and bears—even though there were no bears in Moose River—and decided to go in after them. My mom followed, which meant the girls emerged from the woods ten minutes later and discovered an empty bench where their grandparents should have been waiting.

“They're fine,” Jake said. “That's all that matters.”

“I probably should have just left Emily in charge,” I said, referring to our fifteen year-old. “She would have done a better job.”

“Except they would have all starved,” Jake commented. Emily's culinary expertise consisted of pouring cereal into a bowl. “Speaking of, I'm starving. Let's get some food.”

We left our beers on the table and made our way to the front of the pavilion. There was no line at the barbeque and an older man wearing a John Deere hat plucked two burgers off the grill and plopped them on to our plates. We loaded our buns with ketchup and pickles, then found a spot at one of the tables. Jake paid a couple bucks and grabbed two more bottles of beer.

“This alone might be worth staying,” he said, cracking the new one open and taking a long swig. “One buck each. Just wish I would have brought ear plugs.”

I was still working on my first bottle. I took a sip and looked around. The pavilion was filled with families and other campground denizens—some chatting and laughing together, some sitting alone like me and Jake. While we caught a few people looking in our direction, there didn't seem to be a whole of whispering or staring. Even the Hackermans seemed oblivious to our presence. Wayne held court at a table with several other families, waving his beer in the air and loudly boasting about some fish he'd managed to catch earlier in the week.

I'd mentally congratulated myself for scouring the schedule of events and knowing about the free barbecue. But what I'd missed on that very same calendar was the announcement that karaoke would accompany the barbecue.

At the front of the pavilion, they'd arranged several picnic tables side by side and a computer was set up along with a couple of old and battered house speakers. A pleasant-looking guy in a bucket hat, tank top and denim shorts got up while we were finishing our burgers and started tapped away at the computer. A few seconds later, the speakers pounded to life with a little Michael Jackson.

“Please don't tell me people are going to try to sing Michael Jackson,” Jake moaned.

I popped the last of my burger into my mouth. “I thought you liked Michael Jackson.”

“I do,” he said. His eyes narrowed as he studied the people seated at the tables. “And he's not here.”

“Well, that's because he's dead...”

His gaze shifted to me. “I think the idea of karaoke should die.”

No one else agreed with him because people scurried toward the DJ table, chattering about the songs they were going to attempt to sing. Within minutes, hits from the 60s and 70s were being mangled by Windy Vista campers. When a woman in her sixties wearing an oversized Minnesota sweatshirt screeched out a particularly awful rendition of
Mustang Sally
, I glanced at Jake. His pained expression told me he was probably ready to saw his ears off.

“You think she was that bad?” I asked.

“I think the coyotes that howl in the woods at night think she was bad,” he answered. “Atrocious.”

“Well, maybe someone will surprise us,” I said. “In a good way.”

But there were no immediate surprises. A tone deaf woman got up and mumbled and grunted her way through some country song I'd never heard. A guy around our age in a Twins hat and sweatpants screamed his way through AC/DC. Another guy got up and did Johnny Cash, but with a Canadian accent.

It was like all of the rejects from American Idol had converged on Windy Vista.

Jake stuck his index fingers in his ears. “This is horrific.”

It was. And I was loving every minute of it.

Delilah marched up to the DJ table and teetered a bit to her right, then caught herself on the table. I was surprised to see her at the event considering the discovery made earlier that day. Her gray hair was down but pinned back with glittery barrettes. She stumbled, trying to maintain her balance, and it became apparent that she was either experiencing her own mini earthquake or she was a little drunk. She laughed loudly at something the DJ said, teetered again, and I decided to go with a lot drunk.

She grabbed the mic from the last performed and smiled out at the crowd. Her red-rimmed eyes were wide. “A goodie, but oldie.” She paused. “I mean, an oldie, but an oldie.” She paused again, then waved a hand in the air. “Oh, hell. You know what I mean. This one is for Harvey. Because he just wanted to make the world a better place.” Her voice cracked and she held her hand to her mouth and hiccuped. “Hit it, Stan.”

Stan the DJ nodded and the opening notes of the Beatles “Hey, Jude” blasted through the speakers. Delilah's drunken squealing came through the speakers, too, except the words were nearly a full beat behind the song and it sounded like she was saying, “Hey, dude.”

There were murmurs and whispers and a couple of campers held up lighters and flashlights as she struggled through the last half of the song.

“Ol' Delilah's having a rough night,” a voice said off to my right.

I turned from my sitting position at the picnic table. The voice belonged to a woman in a wheelchair that was outfitted with tires that looked more appropriate for a BMX bike. I placed her in her eighties, with silvery white hair beneath a purple kerchief and long, bony fingers that rested on the arms of the wheelchair. She wore a white crewneck sweatshirt and denim jeans, along with bright white shoes that looked like they'd just left the rack that evening. Gold hoops hung from droopy ear lobes and my hands immediately flew to mine, wondering if that was a sign of old age I'd never thought of.

I wasn't sure what she was referring to. Did she mean she usually sang better or was she referencing the fact that Delilah had lost her business partner? I decided to stick with the more benign reason. “Singing in front of an audience is hard.”

She waved a hand in the air. “Bah. She can sing pretty well, but she's off tonight. Guess I can't blame her, what with everything that happened today.” She eyed me carefully. “You were the ones that found Harvey?”

I glanced at Jake. He shrugged and went back to watching the DJ.

“We were, yes,” I said reluctantly.

She nodded like she already knew this. “Yes, yes. And you're still here.” She cut her gray eyes to me. “Interesting.”

“Is it?” I asked.

“I'd think something like that might scare you off,” she said.

She had a point. But she also didn't have my experience with dead bodies. Not that I was going to recount that for her.

“We didn't want to give up our vacation,” I said instead.

“Not worried about more bodies in the bushes?” she asked with a smile.

“Not really,” I said. “I have a feeling it might be a one time thing.”

She eyed me again, then pointed a long, gnarled finger in Delilah's direction, who was still slurring her way through the song. “Speaking of one-time things, you know about Delilah, right?”

I frowned. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to know about Delilah. “I've met her, yes. We're staying in her cabin. We won our trip here to Windy Vista.”

She smiled but it didn't quite reach her eyes. “Yes, dear. I'm well aware of why you're here and where you're staying. I'm usually aware of everything that goes on here.” She gave me a pitying look. “When you've been coming here as long as I have, not much gets by you.”

“How long is that?”

She took a moment to look around before settling her gaze back on me. “Since this place wasn't much more than a weed patch. My father first brought me up here when I was ten. It was just a patch of land back then, with people parking wherever they wanted. When the land was bought and lots became available for rent, he grabbed the first two.” She smiled. “Been here ever since. Even before Delilah.”

It sounded to me like she had some sort of competition going with Delilah; maybe not one that mattered, but there was some sort of proprietary contest to see who was more Windy Vista than the other. I wondered if Delilah was aware of the competition.

She shifted in her chair and reached her hand toward me. “I'm sorry. I'm Copper Marchand.”

It sounded like a regal name, like something an East Coast gentry family might name their daughter, not the Scandinavian-sounding names I was used to encountering in Central Minnesota.

I shook and, despite its delicate appearance, her hand gripped mine with a fair amount of strength. “Daisy Savage,” I told her. “And this is my husband Jake.”

Jake waved a hand from the other side of the table, his eyes still on Delilah and the DJ table.

Copper nodded like she already knew our names. “Of course. A pleasure.” She paused for a moment. “But did you know about Delilah? And Harvey?”

I thought about our conversation with Delilah when we'd first arrived. “I know they ran Windy Vista together.”

She gave me the pitying look again. I half-expected an Emily-worthy eyeroll. “That's a little charitable, but I suppose it's true enough. Delilah runs this place, but Harvey was the one really keeping it afloat.”

Delilah screeched something and I looked up. She did a spin move and stumbled to the side, her hand still tightly wrapped around the mic.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Copper rotated her wheelchair so she was facing me now. “Delilah's the face of Windy Vista, but Harvey was the body and the guts, to put it rather crudely. He did everything around here. Fixed things. Tossed people out who were misbehaving. Constructed the website. Was working hard to expand it. He had a greater vision for this place.”

I thought of the website and the pictures Jake and I had seen. If those were Harvey's ideas, they were certainly grand in comparison to what we'd experienced so far at the campground resort. It was like comparing a cat to a lion. Windy Vista was the cat and Harvey's dream resort was the lion.

“So Harvey just worked here?” I asked. “He wasn't a co-owner or anything like that?” I'd been under the impression that he and Delilah were co-owners.

She gave me a sly smile. “He was something in between, I guess you could say.”

Delilah finished her drunken caterwauling and there was generous applause. She said something to the DJ guy and he smiled and took the mic from her. Delilah waved at the crowed and shuffled to a picnic table.

Jake stood. “Be right back.”

I wasn't convinced. “You will?”

“Yes.” He gave me a small smile and leaned down so he could whisper in my ear. “I might not
want
to if more people sing like Delilah, but I'll be back. I promise.” He dropped a kiss on my head.

I turned my attention back to Copper. “What do you mean something in between?”

The sly smile stayed on her cracked lips. “Delilah and Harvey had something...a little extra going on.”

The way she said it, there was no mistaking her meaning. “They were a...couple?”

Copper pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side. “I wouldn't say a couple, no. They weren't open about it and to be a couple, I'd think you'd need to publicly acknowledge that you were together. Which they certainly did not.” Something sparked in her eyes. “But they had something going on. For a long time.”

I though about the face I'd seen in the bushes. The young, unwrinkled face I'd seen in the bushes. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Harvey—”

“Younger?” Copper said, chuckling. “Oh my goodness, yes. Delilah wasn't just robbing the cradle. She'd stolen it and was holding it for ransom, dear.”

I wasn't sure that was an exact analogy, but I understood what she was aiming for. Harvey was significantly younger than Delilah. If I'd had to guess, I would've put the age difference at maybe thirty years, based on looking at both of them. Of course, Harvey was already dead when I saw him, but I didn't think he'd aged much in those bushes.