The Blue Coyote (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Book 2) (13 page)

The woman’s eyes narrowed in
anger, but then her face crumbled.

“Apparently, there’s nothing
anyone can do—the police, that state guy—,” she said bitterly,
tears streaking her face.

“Agent Sanchez is very good,
and thorough. These things take time...”

“Time? Taylor may not have
much time! She may be out of time
...,
” and she started
to sob.

Frannie had reached her and
put her arm around the woman’s shoulders, guiding her to a chair. Mrs. Trats
did not resist.

“Can I get you something? Are
you here alone?”

She could hardly talk and
shook her head. Finally she said, “My boyfriend went to get clean clothes for
us.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not leaving here until they find her. She may
be nearby and come back and if she couldn’t find us...”

“Do you think she might be
with your...ex-husband?”

She shrugged. “Not really.
He’s been an ass through this whole divorce, but I don’t think even he would do
this.”

“Do you know the woman,
Maddie Sloan, that Taylor asked for help?”

Mrs. Trats looked very
defeated. “No. I always told her if she was afraid, to ask an adult for help. I
never thought to tell her to ask someone she
knows
.” She stared off into the woods again.

“Do you live far from here?”
Frannie asked.

“About fifty miles. Brian
should be back before long—he left about
...,
”
she pulled out her cell phone and glanced at it, “...an hour ago.” She looked
up at Frannie. “I’m sorry about reporting you. I was so angry...” she trailed
off, shaking her head.

“I know. Having my
grandchildren here this weekend made me fearful of what could happen to them,
too. I can only imagine what you are going through.”

Mrs. Trats did not respond.
She tugged down her too-small shirt and looked away, wiping the tears off her
face with her hand.

Turning back to Frannie, she
said, “The state agent told me your husband was a cop and that you helped solve
a crime one other time. Can’t you find her? Who do you think did it?”

********************

Happy Camper Tip #12

Storage in a camper is always
an issue. There are some great suggestions on the internet, but anything that
1) keeps items secure, 2) makes things easier to find, or 3) uses vertical or
overhead space without adding much weight is a bonus. One of the most practical
is a plastic frame or wire basket that can be installed inside the cabinet door
under the kitchen sink. Hang a plastic grocery sack in it and you have a
wastebasket that meets all three criteria. It can’t tip over while traveling,
it appears when you open the cabinet door, and it uses underutilized space.
There are lightweight plastic stemware holders that work well in campers and
use the upper space in a cabinet. Wall-mounted wine bottle racks can hold
rolled bath towels or under counter racks can be mounted on the ceiling in the
bathroom, also to hold towels. Rubberized shelf liner helps keep items in
cabinets from moving around too much.

Sunday Afternoon

Frannie was taken aback at
Mrs. Trats' request. “Well,” she stammered, “there’s some possibilities, but
most of the people around here are accounted for at that time. And if it was
someone from outside the campground, we wouldn’t know...”

“
Please
help,” Mrs. Trats begged, gripping Frannie’s sleeve.

Frannie nodded hesitantly.
“We’ll do what we can. Meanwhile, if you need company, stop by. We’ll be here
until Tuesday.”

Mrs. Trats let go of her
sleeve, shoulders sagging. “Thank you.”

Frannie turned and headed
back down the road. When she reached the campsite, Larry looked at her
quizzically. “Where’d you go?”

“I saw Mrs. Trats outside by
herself and went to see if there was anything we could do for her.”

“Frannie, I’m sure she’s the
one who reported us about Joe.”

“She did, and she apologized
for that.”

“Lotta good that apology will
do if we’re on a state list.”

“Right.” Frannie sighed. “But
she’s very distraught. I can’t imagine what she’s going through.” She looked up
at Larry. “She wants our help.”

“Frannie, you should not...”

“I know, I know. But I can
certainly do a little more research on the Web.” Frannie looked around their
site. “Did Mickey and Jane Ann go inside?”

“Yeah, Jane Ann was going to
lie down and Mickey was going to watch TV—behind his eyelids, I bet.”
Larry grinned. “Thinking that’s not a bad idea, myself. What are you
researching?”

“Just thought I’d do a search
on some of the people we’re curious about—Bernie Reid, for one.”

“He has an alibi, remember?”
Larry said as he mounted the trailer steps.

“I know.” Frannie couldn’t
explain her suspicions. She followed Larry in, and while he settled in his
recliner, remote in hand, she got out her laptop, fixed a glass of ice water,
and scooted into the dinette bench. She typed ‘Bernie Reid’ into the search
engine and scanned the results. Apparently, there was also a Bernie Reid who
was a city council member in New Mexico, one who had written a book on spiders,
and one who had a plumbing business in Illinois. But she found several
references to the storyteller.
A couple were
newspaper
articles about his appearances at schools and county fairs in
Iowa—nothing new in those. Then she found his web site.

She settled back a little and
clicked on the headings at the top, one by one. She read his brief biography.
No mention of a wife or family. His scheduled appearances for the year were
there and she noted the one at RST Consolidated Schools shortly before Courtney
Jamison disappeared. There were photos of his appearances in Jonesboro,
Tennessee at an international festival. Short videos highlighted some of his
briefer stories. One heading just said ‘Photos’ so she clicked on that. The
first ones were the most recent—about a month earlier—and she
rather absently scrolled through them. Some showed just Bernie with a variety
of puppets or mini-disguises: hats, wigs,
goofy
glasses. Others depicted him working a crowd, children gathered around with
amazed and transfixed faces, adults in the background. She examined several
from the state fair, but learned nothing new.

As she scrolled through the
pictures, she noticed that she was getting two and three years back. She was
about to go back to the top of the website when something caught her eye in one
of the photos. Clicking the picture to enlarge it, she took a sip of her water
and leaned toward the screen.

Reid was shown from the side
with toddlers sitting on the floor in front of him. Older children perched on
small chairs behind the toddlers, with adults standing around the sides and the
back. Reid was holding the princess puppet and the kids appeared to be shouting
out suggestions to him as they had the previous night at the campground. The
adults were smiling and watching their children rather than Reid. Except for
one.

A woman on the side of the
room was focused solely on Reid. Being in the background, the image was fuzzy,
and although she seemed familiar, Frannie could not make out the features
enough to identify her. She appeared to be older than most of the adults, maybe
a grandmother. She had brown or dark gray hair in a style that reminded Frannie
of the ‘bubble’ cuts of the sixties.

Frannie glanced over at Larry
but his head lolled to the side as he emitted soft snores. She closed the
laptop, deciding she would come back to the photo later and maybe she or Larry
would be able to recognize the woman. Gathering her book and a fleece throw,
she went back to the bedroom to curl up for a while and read a little. She
nodded off on the second page.

When she woke, she stretched
and opened her book again, but couldn’t concentrate. Might as well get up.
Larry was no longer in his recliner, and she was surprised to see when she
looked at the clock that she had actually slept for over an hour. Voices
filtered in from outside. Mickey must be up also.

She belatedly appreciated the
cozy warmth of the trailer when she hit the bite of the outside wind. Mickey
and Larry were stoking the fire and Jane Ann stood chewing her lip.

“Oh, Frannie! Glad you’re up!
Do you guys have any milk left? I was going to fix those baked apples in the
cast iron tonight, and of course one has to have vanilla sauce with baked
apples.”

“I don’t think so. The kids
finished it last night. I meant to get some when we were in town for lunch. We
could run in now and get some.” After forty-plus years of marriage, Frannie was
well aware that in Larry and Jane Ann’s family, baked apples were only eaten
with vanilla sauce, their mother’s recipe.

“Were you going to do
something else right now?”

“Not a thing. Won’t take us
that long. Larry, are the keys in the truck?”

He nodded. “I think we’re low
on bread, too—in case we have to fix our own lunch tomorrow.”

“Right,” Frannie said, and to
Jane Ann, “I’ll get my billfold.”

On the road to town, Frannie
told Jane Ann about her visit with Mrs. Trats.

“Wow,” Jane Ann said. “That’s
kind of an about face.”

“I think she’s desperate, and
once she accepted that Larry hadn’t taken her daughter, decided to look for
help wherever she could get it. But I really don’t know what we can do.”

“I agree. You’ve told Sanchez
all you know about the suspects. The sheriff knows a lot more than we do about
possible hiding places.”

“I keep hoping it’s the
father, but Mrs. Trats was pretty sure it wasn’t him.” They rode in silence for
a few minutes.

“I did some research on
Bernie Reid...didn’t find much and Larry keeps reminding me that he has an
alibi. All of the stories I found on the Internet were about his
performances...nothing shady.”

“Sanchez hasn’t mentioned
that he has a record, has he?”

“No, and I’m sure they’ve
checked. Actually, wouldn’t you think he’d have to be squeaky clean to do all
of these performances for kids?” Frannie turned into a convenience store on the
edge of Orien. As they walked into the store, she said, “It seems funny that if
he’s with a woman, we haven’t seen her at any of his events.”

“How would we know?” Jane Ann
said. “We’ve only seen him when there’s a crowd around.”

“True.” Frannie looked a
little sheepish. “I guess I was thinking I hadn’t seen anyone in ‘old lady
clothes’ but I have no idea what that girl really meant by that.”

Jane Ann looked at her watch
while she waited for the cashier to ring up her purchases. “That doesn’t speak
well for your fashion sense, but if the restaurant is still open, we could go
ask her.”

“We could. I think the sign
on the door said they were open until 7:00 on Sunday night. Obviously no one
dines fashionably late in Orien.”

The two hurried back to the
truck and Frannie turned toward the center of town.

The main street was almost
empty and Frannie pulled into a spot right in front of Ellie’s Eats. Inside,
their waitress from lunch was standing at the lunch counter refilling salt and
pepper shakers
. She looked up and smiled as she recognized
them.

“You’re back. Still hungry?”

“No,” Jane Ann laughed. “We
probably won’t be able to eat again for a week. We just have a question about
something you said.”

The girl cocked her head.
“Yes?”

“You told us about the man
and woman that ate supper here the other night. He had an unusual tattoo?”
Frannie said.

“Oh, sure. He was just back
here for three carry-outs.”

“Really?” Frannie was torn
between her question and this new information. Well, first things first.

“You said the woman was
wearing ‘old people clothes.’ What did you mean by that? What kind of clothes
did you mean?”

The girl giggled
self-consciously and flushed slightly. “I didn’t mean anything bad. Just, you
know, my grandma wears these funny sweats—like yellow, blue, light green,
you know—with cutesy animals or sayings on the shirt and little white
collars. The lady was dressed like that. I mean, she looked fine—so does
my grandma. Just not very much in style, you know what I mean?”

Frannie smiled at her, glad
that she was wearing jeans and a denim shirt rather than one of her own
sweatsuits. “We know what you mean. So this guy was just back in here? And got
three dinners?”

“Yeah—well, two full
dinners and one hamburger—no fries or anything.”

Frannie thought of something
else. “Did you see what he was driving? Was it a white van?”

“No, it was an old black
pickup.”

A middle-aged, stocky woman
stuck her head out from the kitchen. “Megan? Is there a problem?”

Megan looked even more
flustered, so Jane Ann pulled her
sun glasses
out of
her pocket. “I left these here this noon. She was just returning them.”

“Okay. Glad you found them.”
The woman pulled her head back and closed the swinging door.

Megan let out a breath.
“Thanks. I probably shouldn’t be talking about the customers.”

Frannie patted her on the
shoulder. “Thank you. You’ve been a big help.”

“But, why...” Megan started.

“We’ve
gotta
run,” Jane Ann said. “Our husbands will send out a search party.” They made
their exit, leaving Megan standing with a
salt shaker
in her hand and a puzzled look on her face.

Frannie backed the truck out
of the parking spot and executed a deft U-turn in the middle of Main Street.
“Big city move,” she
said
as she got up to speed and
headed back out of town.

“Well,” said Frannie after a
moment, “interesting.”

“What are you thinking?” Jane
Ann said. “I can see the wheels turning.”

“I don’t know, really,”
Frannie admitted. “I’ve seen someone this weekend dressed in ‘old lady
clothes,’ as Megan so tactfully calls them. But, for the life of me, I can’t
think who or where. And why would Bernie Reid be picking up three meals? In the
biography on his website, it doesn’t mention any marriage or children.”

“Maybe he wants to keep his
personal information personal. Or maybe he even has friends?” Jane Ann gave her
a little smirk.

“Okay, okay, you’re probably
right,”
Frannie
sighed. “And he
does
have an alibi.”

“According to Sanchez, so
does your favorite suspect, Don.”

“I know. So we’re probably
back
to a total stranger or the father. But what bothers me
about that is who would know when Taylor Trats was accessible, unless they were
in the campground all of the time? Her mother only let her ride up and down our
section of the road and obviously drilled her on dealing with strangers to the
point of paranoia.”

They rode silently for
several minutes.

“And if it was someone in the
campground, it comes back to the question of where they could be keeping her,”
Frannie said finally.

“Assuming she’s still alive.”

“Yeah, assuming that. I don’t
even want to consider anything else.”

They pulled back in the park
entrance. When they reached the campground, Frannie noticed there were still
five or six campers parked in the main loop. She really didn’t know much about
any of the other campers who had been there through the weekend. But unless the
kidnapper had reserved a place for longer than the weekend, wouldn’t they have
already left and taken Taylor with them? Why hang around and be a possible
target for the investigation? On the other hand, if they had a longer
reservation, they may not want to raise suspicion by leaving early.

Larry and Mickey had a
sizable blaze going and had added stocking caps and gloves to their attire.
Mickey’s greeting was to be expected.

“What’s for supper, dear?”

Jane Ann laughed. “I wish you
would surprise me sometime and ask me if we had fun or if we were arrested or
if I met a good-looking guy.”