Читаем 731c3e32dd6349cda7e9d6caf76b901f полностью

“Can you turn the page for us?” I asked, letting his insult slide. “Go back to the older entries.”

“Smart,” Charles said bumping his shoulder into mine. “No prints.”

Octo-Cat struggled with the task but eventually got the page turned.

I read through that page but still found no mention of Ms. Stevens’s checkin.

“Again, please,” I asked my cat.

It took three more turns of the page before we finally found an entry for a Miss Sara Stevens. The entry was made so long ago that it was in a different handwriting. She’d been here even longer than Junetta had.Hmmm.

Charles pulled out his phone and opened the Notes app.“I’m making a list,” he said as he typed furiously on the tiny keyboard. “Every lot number and the date of the most recent checkin.”

While he did that, I jotted down any names that occurred multiple times—identifying the grounds’ frequent visitors, people like Sharon.

Octo-Cat helped us turn the pages as needed, but not without the promise of many, many lobster rolls, shrimp kebabs, and cans of tuna in his future.

When Pringle returned, he looked absolutely exhausted. I poured him a dish of water and waited for him to catch his breath before asking for a recap.

“Well?” I prompted when he still hadn’t shared his findings with the group.

“Twenty-two RVs,” he said, sucking in a deep, dramatic breath, even though he’d had more than enough time to recover. “I was able to break into seventeen of them. Of those, four had rifles and two had handguns.”

“Do you remember which ones?” I prompted, after relaying this info to Charles.

“Do I remember?” he spat. “Of course, I remember.”

“Then show me.”

Pringle scampered around telling me what he’d found in each RV as well as identifying which ones he couldn’t open. I jotted it all down in a series of text messages to Charles so he could check the occupancy periods for each of our gun owners on the premises.

As Pringle approached the end of the line, I pointed to Sara Stevens’s aqua-accented Airstream. “What about this one? Did it have a gun?”

“No gun, but lots and lots of ammo. I found trail maps, too, with paths marked in red,” he said, unwittingly revealing our smoking gun.

Just then the door to the Airstream flew open, and Sara Stevens stepped out in a robe not entirely dissimilar to my own.“What are you doing out here?” she shouted, then pointed at Pringle. “And what is that thing?”

Another camper door opened and a man and woman wearing matching flannel pajama bottoms exited from it.

“Go get Charles,” I muttered to Pringle from the side of my mouth.

He saluted, then scampered off.

“Not going to answer me?” Her face was red, her eyes wild. “Then I’m calling the cops. I’m sure they’ll just love coming back out after spending half the day with us.”

She grabbed her phone and punched in the number.

“That’s enough, Sara,” a man said. “This is a public campground, not your private property.”

Sara stood on tiptoe trying to see past me in search of the voice. Even with that added bit of height, she wasn’t tall enough, though.

“Is that you, Carl?” she called out. “Don’t be fooled by her pretty face. This woman murdered Junetta today, murdered her in cold blood!”

Aww, she thought I was pretty. Not that that made me despise her any less.

Sara lifted up her phone and shouted,“Do you hear that? I have a murderer sneaking around outside my camper. Come and get her, boys.”

“Funny, from what I understand Angie only just arrived here today,” Carl pointed out.

Sara ended the call with humph and thrust her phone back into her robe pocket.“Yes, and an hour later Junetta was dead. Coincidence? I think not.”

“I didn’t kill her,” I insisted for what felt like the hundredth time. This time my confession of innocence was more for the benefit of the other campers who had come out to gawk at our confrontation. “Someone poisoned her with a pie, and I don’t know the first thing about baking.”

A gasp sounded across the way.“With my pie?” Sharon cried, waddling over in a hurry. “The secret ingredient is love, not poison. Never poison.”

Behind Sharon, I spotted Charles striding over. This gave me all the courage I needed to trot my theory out for all to hear.

“The pie wasn’t poisoned when you gave it to her,” I called to Sharon, then fixed my gaze directly on Sara Stevens. “Someone added it in after the fact. Someone who’s been around for a bit and knows all about Junetta’s open door policy.”

I paused to gauge everyone’s reaction, but no one said a thing. Charles was at my side now, standing in a silent show of support.

And so I continued.“And Junetta wasn’t murdered in cold blood. Her death was planned. Somebody was very unhappy with her. From what I can gather, she might not have been the best campground manager, but she was learning on the job. And recently she’d learned all about an illegal hunting ring operating right here under her nose. She planned to put an end to it, to make sure the guilty parties were held accountable. But they silenced her before she could say a thing.”

Перейти на страницу:

Похожие книги