The Blue Coyote (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Book 2) (14 page)

Mickey said, “Did you? Were
you? Did you? What’s for supper?”

“I don’t think you’re going
to reform him at this point, Jane Ann,” Frannie said.

“I know I’m not. We have pork
steaks to grill.”

“Great minds, et cetera, et
cetera. We have pork chops marinating in an olive oil and steak rub,” Frannie
said.

“Excellent,” Larry said.

“How about if I cook up some
of the squash, tomatoes and onions we got this afternoon in the skillet?”
Mickey suggested. “That should do us, along with the baked apples, of course.”

“Don’t forget Nancy’s
lettuce. We’ll have to fix a salad and use it up. She will check,” Frannie
said. “I’ll do that.”

They went into their own
units to start preparations.

“Oh, Larry,” Frannie said,
remembering the picture on the laptop. “Take a look at this and see if you know
this woman.”

She opened the laptop and
brought the screen to life. Larry peered over her shoulder at where she was
pointing.

“Doesn’t look familiar at
all,” he said.

“So it must be someone I saw
that you didn’t,” she said, reaching into one of the overhead cabinets for
plates. She scanned her memory for someone in the campground, at the nature
center, or that she had seen at the flea market. Nothing.

“It’s really pretty cold to
eat outside tonight,” Larry said, changing the subject.

“You’re right. I’ll go tell
Jane Ann we’ll eat in here.” When she returned, she put the lettuce in a large
bowl and added some fresh tomatoes, feta cheese, and pine nuts. Then she opened
a bottle of wine, poured a glass, slipped into her old parka and went out to
join the cooks. Mickey was stirring the vegetables in a cast iron skillet.
Wonderful aromas drifted over from the fire. Dusk was approaching and the air
felt even colder, although the wind had died down a little.

Larry and Mickey were
carrying on their usual banter as they moved the skillet to a side rack to keep
warm and put the pork steaks and chops on the grill. Frannie sat in her chair
sipping the wine, trying to replay the events of the weekend and remember
who
she saw in ‘old lady clothes’ and who resembled the
woman in the photo. She felt sure they were one and the same. Just as Jane Ann
came out of their RV with the dutch oven of apples, she remembered.

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

Happy Camper Tip #13

Campfire Baked Apples: Core
apples and place in a cast iron
dutch
oven. Put a
small pat of butter and a little cinnamon-sugar in the center of each apple.
Add about a half-inch of water around the apples. Cook over the fire for about
twenty minutes until apples test done with a fork. Remove with a slotted spoon
into serving bowls and top with warm vanilla sauce.

Vanilla Sauce: Melt two
tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Stir in two tablespoons of flour. Add 1
/4 cup
sugar, 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of water; cook
over low heat and stir continually until thickened. Remove from heat and add
one teaspoon of vanilla. Makes enough sauce for two or three apples.
Or one if you really like vanilla sauce.

Early Sunday Evening

“Maddie Sloan!” Frannie said,
sitting up straight in her chair and sloshing a little bit of her wine.

“What about her?” Larry said.

“I think she’s the woman in
the photo and when I went with the ranger on Saturday, she was wearing a pink
sweatsuit.”

Larry looked puzzled. “And?”

“Old lady clothes. When Jane
Ann and I were in town, we stopped at the restaurant to ask the waitress what
she meant by that,” Frannie confessed. “She’s talking about pastel sweatsuits
with cute logos. That’s what Maddie Sloan was wearing when I saw her. That
means there’s a connection between Bernie Reid and Maddie Sloan.”

“But why is that suspicious?
Did Sommers ask her if she knew Reid?” Larry persisted.

“No.” Frannie paused. She
didn’t really know where she was going with this.

Jane Ann held out a platter
and Mickey forked the meat onto it. “Time to eat,” he said. “We can discuss
this over food.”

He grabbed the skillet of
vegetables with a heavy glove and they trooped into the Shoemakers’ trailer.
Frannie’s mind whirled with possible implications, but she held off discussion
while she put plates and silverware on the little dinette table. Larry got out
the salad and dressings and refreshed her wine glass.

The next few minutes were
occupied with squeezing into the little benches, and dishing up. The camper
offered a welcome coziness as the wind seemed to be picking up outside again.

“Now,” Mickey said, chewing
and waving his fork. “Explain why it matters if the storyteller knows Maddie
Sloan.”

“Because,” Frannie began
slowly, still thinking, “Bernie Reid has an alibi for the time of both
disappearances. He was performing at a nursing home when Taylor was abducted
and in South Dakota when Courtney Jamison was. But if he and Sloan are in
cahoots—and she’s the one who last saw Taylor...”

Larry nodded. “You might have
something there. But if that’s true, Maddie Sloan could be anywhere by now with
Taylor. If she’s still alive.”

“I’m not so sure,” Frannie
said. “By the way, Mick, these veggies are excellent. Anyway, the waitress told
us this afternoon that Reid had just been
there
getting
three
carry-out meals.” She
paused allowing this information to sink in. “Two full meals and one that was
just a hamburger.”

“But where could they be
keeping her?” Jane Ann asked. “The sheriff has searched all of the surrounding
homesteads.”

“It could be a little farther
afield—Bernie Reid’s movements haven’t really been restricted,” Larry
said. “We’d better get this information to Sanchez. I don’t think they’ve been
able to connect Sloan with any of the suspects.”

“I don’t think they have,”
Frannie said. “Remember, he said last night that they aren’t even sure that’s
her real name. He told us today when we were on our walk that the items left
behind in her campsite appeared to be new and cheap—almost like they were
staged. They don’t know anything about her.”

Larry got up from the table
and took his plate to the sink. “I’ll go see if I can find Sanchez or the
sheriff.” He grabbed the truck keys from the hook and his jacket and was out
the door.

Jane Ann and Mickey helped
clear the dishes while Frannie ran dishwater. Jane Ann got towels out of a
drawer and handed one to Mickey. He grumbled out of habit but immediately
pitched in.

Frannie stopped washing a
minute and looked at the other two. “I keep thinking of what Sabet asked last
night after the puppet show. How do you hide something in plain sight? I
suppose Reid and Sloan could have scouted out a hiding place when they first
got here, but how would they know they would need it? This had to be a crime of
opportunity. Where can you hide a white van—if, in fact, that is theirs?
The waitress said he was driving an old black truck.”

Mickey stacked the clean
plates in the overhead cabinet and turned back. ”Put it in a used car lot?”

Frannie continued washing and
putting clean silverware in the basket, considering what he said. Then she spun
around and looked at him, dripping water on the floor.

“Mickey, that’s brilliant!”

“Well, I don’t know...most
lots around here would be small. Owners would know what should be there and
what shouldn’t. I mean, you’re right about me being brilliant...”

“I know what you
mean—but the other day when we were lost, we turned around in a lot on a
dirt road
full
of all kinds of
vehicles—more of a junk yard. I doubt anyone pays much attention to it.
Sabet calls them ‘camper daycares.’” She dried her hands on her shirt. “Soon as
Larry comes back, we’ll need to find Sanchez again...”

“Call him, “ Mickey said.

She pulled her phone out of
her pocket and dialed Larry. A phone rang. Frannie and Mickey looked at the
cell phone lying on the counter by the TV and then looked at each other.

Leaving the rest of the
dishes, Frannie grabbed her parka to rush outside and wait for Larry’s return.
Mickey washed up the few remaining dishes and he and Jane Ann followed her out.

While Mickey built the fire
back up, she stood peering through the darkness toward the campground entrance.
There was no sign of anyone moving until finally—actually only a few
minutes by the clock—headlights appeared moving slowly into the main
road. By the time Larry got to the campsite, Frannie was waiting in the middle
of the road for him. He halted the truck when he spotted Frannie in the
headlights and rolled down his window. Frannie hurried around to his door.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you. Did you
talk to Sanchez?”

“No, the ranger didn’t know
where he was and the sheriff is on an accident call.”

“I thought of a place that
they could be hiding that white van!” she said, excited. “Remember the lot we
turned around in on Friday? The ‘camper daycare’?”

Larry nodded. “You’re right.
It would be easy to hide it there.”

Jane Ann and Mickey had come
up behind Frannie.

“We need to find Sanchez,”
Frannie said.

“Sommers
was
going to try and call him. Get in,” he said to all of them. He opened his door
so that Mickey and Jane Ann could get in the back and Frannie jogged around the
front of the truck to climb in the passenger side.

Larry turned the truck around
and headed back to the ranger residence. Ranger Sommers was walking back to the
house from a maintenance shed. She looked up and stopped as their headlights
swung into the drive.

Larry lowered his window. “My
wife has a wild idea about where that white van could be hidden.” He proceeded
to fill the ranger in on their suppositions and describe the location of the
junk lot.

“I’m not all that familiar
with the surrounding area—I’ve only been at this park a couple of months.
I wish the sheriff
was
here. Let’s go take a look at a
map.” She led them into the house. To the right inside the front door was a
small office, cluttered with stacks of papers and binders.

She searched through one of
the stacks and produced a county plat book. The book fell open easily to the
map showing the park area.

“You said this place is west
of here?”

“I think it has to be,” Larry
said. He looked at a state map on the wall. “We came up from the interstate on
this county road,” he pointed at the thin line. “There was a detour sign at
this intersection with 36A and it was turned the wrong way so we continued
north here. It doesn’t show the road on this map but it turned into a dirt road
and curved toward the east.”

Sommers went back to the plat
book. She turned back a couple of pages and found the main road where they had
seen the detour sign. Larry leaned over and located the road they had followed.
He pointed at the approximate spot where they had encountered the
junk yard
.

“We turned around and went
back to 36A because we had no idea where the dirt road led. But look—it
comes out here at Williams Avenue.”

Sommers looked at him.
“Williams Avenue runs along the backside of the park.” She pointed at a large
map of the park on the other wall. “If you follow the park road to the
campground, but don’t turn and keep going, it comes out at Williams Avenue.”

“That’s awfully convenient.
Did you contact Sanchez?”

“I did. He’s headed back
here—he should be here in about an hour. As soon as he gets here, we can
check it out.”

Frannie was bursting with
impatience. “We could go drive by it and see if we see a van.” It sounded
pretty weak.

“It’s dark out,” Sommers
said. “How could you see anything?”

Frannie shrugged.

“I can’t let you do that,”
Sommers said. “Go back to the campground and wait. We’ll let you know what we
find.”

“Can I have your cell number,
in case we think of anything else?” Larry asked. She gave it to him and he
programmed it into his phone.

“I mean it. Don’t try and
handle this yourselves.”

“We won’t,” Larry promised
and herded his group out the door.

Once back in the truck,
Frannie let out an exasperated sigh. “I feel we’re
so
close.”

“Frannie,” Larry cautioned,
“relax. We are going to let Sommers and Sanchez handle it.”

She slumped in her seat,
knowing she would never persuade him to even just drive by the junkyard. How
could she relax? Who knew if Taylor Trats was still alive, or, if she
was
, how long she would stay that way. She thought of Mrs.
Trats’ face when she was begging for help.

They rode in silence and as
they neared the campground turn, Mickey leaned forward from the back seat.

“Larry, have you ever seen
the other side of the park? I don’t even know what’s over there.”

“It’s
dark
out, Mick,” Larry said, eyes on the road. “What would there be
to see?” Larry was a stickler for rules and procedures, but Frannie thought she
could hear a little wavering in his voice. But she kept silent and let Mickey
take it.

“How do we know if we’ve
never been there?” Mickey grinned at Larry in the rearview mirror. Larry had
slowed for the campground entrance and Frannie’s heart sank. She leaned her
head on the window and looked out into the darkness. The campground lights and
a few campfires were visible. It took her a moment to realize that Larry did
not turn. She looked at him in shock. He gave her a quick glance and shrugged.

“It’s just a drive. We are
not
getting out. We are not stopping.”

Frannie sat back and wondered
what brought about even this concession. She thought back to their argument the
night before. Certainly he would be concerned about Taylor’s safety, but his
feelings of responsibility in her disappearance obviously were overriding his
natural caution.

The gravel park road wound
down toward the Bluffs River, crossed a small arched stone bridge, and climbed
back out of the little valley. A stop sign stood at the top of the hill at a
tee intersection and the truck headlights reflected off a street sign that read
‘Williams Avenue.’ Larry turned left.

A half-mile down the road, an
unmarked dirt road branched off to the right.
A ‘Level
B Maintenance’ sign was posted at the corner. Larry slowed the truck and turned
into the road. Mickey leaned forward again from the back seat.

“Somebody’s been using this
road recently.”

The truck bounced and lurched
through fairly deep ruts, barely dried and hardened from the morning’s rain.
The road led downhill from the ridge they had been on since they left the park.
The moon was waning and made intermittent appearances but gave only strobe-like
glimpses of fields on either side of the road.

They crossed a little
one-lane bridge over a dark cut in the earth, probably a small stream that fed
the Bluffs River in rainy seasons. On the other side, tall trees closed in over
them as the road headed up a rise. Before they crested the hill, bright
headlights came over the hill and filled the windshield forcing them all to
blink, duck away or shield their eyes. Larry swore and swerved to the right
edge of the narrow road.

“Stupid idiot!” Larry said,
glancing up in the rearview mirror at the disappearing taillights.

“Frannie! I think that was a
black pickup!” Jane Ann said. She twisted in her seat but by now they were on
the other side of the rise and the taillights had disappeared.

“There it is,” Frannie said,
pointing off to the right up ahead. “The junkyard.”

Larry slowed the truck and
they peered at the mass of dark shapes.
Sommers was
right. It was too dark to make out individual vehicles. He slowed even more,
and they each concentrated on the junkyard. The sliver of moon seemed to coast
out from behind the clouds and briefly illuminated the area.

“There’s something white
behind that combine—I can just see the corner...” Frannie was pointing
but Larry stepped on the gas as headlights from behind them suddenly illuminated
the inside of the cab.