She raised her eyebrows and turned to me. “Please, don’t refer to my automobile as a sore thumb. Got it?”
“Yeah, but you know I’m right.”
“Then I’ll park it and we can walk.”
And that’s what we did.
The campground was maybe half a mile back from the main park area, and on our short nature excursion we got to see more trees. A lot of trees.
Finally, we came to a clearing and there were rows and rows of campers and tents. The campers were the expensive ones that you can pull out the sides to make more room, and the Air Stream shiny aluminum trailers.
Fancy names like North Ridge, Holiday Rambler, and Coachman were printed on the sides of some. There were also campers that looked to be on their last leg, campers with dents and cracks, and tents that were stretched taut over poles. There were several lots with what looked like blow-up rooms and in the distance, I saw outhouses.
We walked together, eyeing the paths that ran between the temporary homes. A little girl with pigtails came racing out between two campers on a Big Wheel and almost took my left foot off, and not ten seconds later a dirty-brown mongrel mutt leaped at us, baring his yellow teeth. I jumped back, almost falling on top of Em, but the dog was restrained by a chain attached to a post driven into the ground.
“Do you anticipate any more attacks?” Em asked.
“I didn’t anticipate the last two.”
We kept walking, staring down each path, hoping to see some sign of the bike or the biker, but there was no sign of the black Harley with the gold fender.
“He may have grabbed a sandwich back at the restaurant and taken it with him on the road. There’s no proof that he’s here.”
She might have been right, but I took her hand and tugged her along. I hadn’t given up hope. But as we ended the walk, coming up on the last row of campers, I had to agree. We’d lost whoever it was we were following.
“Well, damn it. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
She squeezed my hand.
We reversed our course and headed back the other way, still pausing to see down the rows where cars and trucks parked on small crushed-seashell lots. I felt it in my bones, this guy was back here.
“Don’t see it, Skip.”
“Could be pulled up beside a trailer or tent. We’d have to walk every path.”
“We can do it, but I think someone might get a little suspicious of this couple that’s scoping out the campground.”
“Good point.”
We walked back through the trees and headed for the Porsche.
I looked down and kicked at a beer bottle that lay on the ground. Watching it land in a clump of brown grass, I raised my eyes to see a man walking toward us. In his hand was a helmet, and he was swinging it back and forth.
Turning my head, I nudged Em. She turned as well and we stepped to the side of the narrow road to give him wide berth.
“Is that him?” She said it in a coarse whisper.
“I don’t think so.”
I risked a glance as the man walked past us. His eyes were focused ahead and he paid no attention to us.
I felt my heart literally jump in my chest and my stomach took a dip, as if I was on a roller coaster.
“Skip, for God’s sake, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t utter a single word. I froze in place, trying to catch my breath. Sweat broke out on my forehead and for a second I closed my eyes, trying to gather my thoughts.
“Tell me.” She grabbed my arm, shaking me, but it did no good.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I just kept nodding my head up and down.
I had seen a ghost. The person walking down that road was the dead guy. I would have sworn on it. The same guy that I saw in our room at the Cove, the blood from his head seeping into the carpet.
CHAPTER THIYRTY-SEVEN
“Peter Stiffle was the name of the dead guy.”
“James finds that amusing,” I said.
“The name?”
“Yeah. Not the death.”
“James would.”
“Could have been his twin, Em. This guy today looked just like him. Minus the cracked cranium.” I shuddered, thinking about that gruesome scene.
“Let’s walk through the case.”
She was driving back, the road almost empty and she had opened it up to eighty. My car, James’s truck-they had no idea what eighty was. Forty, fifty, that was a stretch for them, but eighty?
She goosed it up to ninety for a short stretch, but brought it back after a couple of seconds.
“Mary Trueblood hires Markim and Weezle. They agree to help find the gold.” Em was reciting from the story I’d told her.
“Right. And she waits for six months to hear from them. When she checks in, they’ve disappeared. Their phone is disconnected, their website is gone, and a personal check turns up nothing.”
“And she waits six months?” She had the speedometer up to ninety again. “Six months before hiring you?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Okay, maybe.” She stared out the windshield, seeing the same trees and pavement that I saw. A monotonous blur of green and gray.
“But she must have given them some clues. They didn’t just drive down here and await further instructions. I mean, she told you guys about the Coral Belle and you found,” she paused, slowing down as we approached traffic ahead, “well, we’re not sure what you found.”
“There’s always that.” I was worried about what we’d found. “But, we’ll find out tomorrow. I can’t believe it’s not good news.”
“So these two investigators disappear and you and your partner look them up on the Internet. If memory serves, you went to the Yellow Pages online and found their firm. Right?”
“We did. Right there, as a matter of fact.” I pointed out the window at The Green Turtle as we cruised by.
“You’ve got an idea of what they look like.”
“We do. We saw their pictures on the web.”
“And when James discovers the body in your room, he’s convinced it’s one of the investigators.”
“I was convinced, too. It wasn’t just James.”
“Okay, so you’re both positive that the victim bleeding all over your carpet was Weezle.”
“Yes.”
“And today, not more than thirty minutes ago, you are certain you saw the same man who was killed in your room at the Cove.”
I nodded. “I’m glad you timelined it, Em, but the fact remains, I saw a ghost or someone who looks exactly like the dead guy, Peter Stiffle.”
