Bats and Bones (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries) (5 page)

Mickey
said, “Here comes the fuzz, here comes the fuzz…”. Larry gave him a look.

Sheriff
Ingrham and Deputy Smith had parked their patrol car in the road and were
getting out. They looked around at the immediate campsites and spotted the
Shoemakers and their friends at the picnic table.

“Handy to
find you all in one spot,” the sheriff smiled rather grimly as they approached.

Frannie
jumped up to pull up some lawn chairs. “Do you want to talk to us all
together?”

“That’ll be
fine for now.”

“Coffee?”
Jane Ann asked. The sheriff shook his head and held up his bottled water but
Linda Smith nodded.

“That would
be great.”

The sheriff
leaned back in the lawn chair at a dangerous tilt and Deputy Smith pulled out a
notebook and pen.

“Tell me
how you happened to come upon Mrs. Schlumm’s body,” he said, nodding at Larry.

“We were
just hiking the trail. The caves, as you know, are closed, but we wanted to get
a hike in before it got too hot. We were trying to look inside from that area
below the entrance when one of our dogs, Bugger, suddenly picked up the scent
and ran up to the entrance. Before we could get him pulled back, he knocked
over a couple of rocks that were covering the foot.”

“Was the
dog on a leash?”

“Yes.”

“Who all
actually went into the cave?”

“I did at
first,” Larry said. “I had a small flashlight and could see that her condition
didn’t look very hopeful. I asked my sister, Jane Ann—she’s a
nurse—to come up and check for vital signs. There was nothing. No one
else came in. We tried to not touch anything more than necessary.”

“How did
you know Mrs. Schlumm?”

“We didn’t
really,” Donna jumped in. “We just saw her around the campground last night.
She had a couple of run-ins with other campers—she was kind of
crabby—oof!” Rob had kicked his wife under the table.

“He asked
Larry,” he said quietly.

“Sorry,”
Donna said. Ingrham nodded, and if he was perturbed, hid it well.

“Ms….Ferraro?”
The sheriff said looking at the notes Linda had taken earlier. “What is your
medical training and experience?”

“I have a
BS from the University of Iowa and was an ER and a surgical nurse for 27 years.
I also worked as a school nurse for a couple of years.”

“And what
checks did you make on Mrs. Schlumm?”

“Well, I
have to say after seeing the injury to her head, I wasn't hopeful. I called her
name but got no response and I didn’t find a pulse or sign of breathing.”

“Did either
of you see anything in the cave besides Mrs. Schlumm’s body?”

Larry and
Jane Ann both shook their heads and then Larry said, “Wait! There was a small
flashlight on the floor of the cave. I didn’t pick it up and look at it.”

The sheriff
nodded. “So that wasn’t yours?”

Larry
pulled his out of his pocket. “No, this is mine.”

“Well, a
deputy is checking for fingerprints now. Our equipment isn’t sufficient to get
anything off the rocks, but he will fingerprint that light.”

Donna
interrupted again. “Was it an accident, Sheriff? Or did someone. . .” She
trailed off, unable to voice their worst fears.

“We don’t
know yet. It appears the injury to her head was caused by collision with a
rock, but we don’t know whether she fell or was hit. Until we know, we will
treat it as a suspicious death.” He turned to the whole group. “Since this is a
state park, the DCI—Division of Criminal Investigation—is sending
someone who should be here by afternoon. Until they give the word, the park is
closed and everyone in the campground must remain here.”

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

Happy
Camper Tip #4

Marinated
Cold Roast Beef: This easy recipe is excellent for picnics and parties also.
Cook a beef roast in the oven to 140. Cool and slice as thin as possible. Pour
over a marinade made of ½ cup oil, 1/3 cup lemon juice, minced garlic
and lots of fresh rosemary. Chill and serve on bread or buns.

Late Saturday Morning

Ranger
Phillips walked into the campsite and motioned the sheriff over. They conferred
a minute and then the sheriff called Larry over.

“Phillips
talked to Dave Schlumm who apparently just got up. He’s called his daughter but
she lives about an hour away and will be here as soon as she can. Meanwhile,
we’re pretty shorthanded and need to talk to everyone in the campground and set
up a roadblock at the park entrance. I’m wondering if you would be willing to
give us a hand? I’d like to have you and possibly your wife go sit with Dave
until the daughter gets here.”

Larry stuck
his hands in his back pockets and hesitated before he answered. “I certainly
can. I don’t know about Frannie. She’s taking this kind of hard.”

The sheriff
narrowed his eyes. “Did she know the deceased?”

“No, it’s
just that she lost her mother a couple of weeks ago and it’s still pretty
fresh. I’ll ask her but I won’t push her.”

“Well,
either way, we don’t want Dave alone for a number of reasons. I’m hoping I can
count on your discretion.”

Larry
nodded and walked back to his wife. When he explained the situation, she agreed
to go and, in the time-honored custom of dealing with grief, suggested they
take a thermos of coffee and the last of the muffins.

When they
reached the Schlumms’ trailer, Larry knocked lightly on the screen door and
called inside at the same time.

They heard
a shuffling step. Dave Schlumm appeared and opened the door without a word, his
thick white mane more disheveled than the night before. He didn’t speak but
rather waited for them to do so.

“Mr.
Schlumm, I’m Larry Shoemaker. We’re camping here and the sheriff asked if we
would come and keep you company until your daughter gets here,” Larry said.
Schlumm still didn’t utter a word, but held the door open for them. He motioned
them to the couch and sat down himself in a plush swivel rocker. The interior
was neat and uncluttered with just a few family photos around. The windows were
all open, but only warm, sticky air was coming in. They sat for a minute in
silence.

“We also
brought some coffee and some muffins,” Frannie said. “Would you like some?”

He sat
forward in the chair, elbows on knees, head hanging down. “Jus’ coffee,” he
said but made no move. Frannie spotted a mug tree on the counter and poured him
a cup from the thermos. The counter was spotless, as was the rest of the
camper. Maeve, or perhaps Dave, was an excellent housekeeper.

She handed
him the steaming mug and he barely raised his eyes to acknowledge her gesture.

“We’re very
sorry for your loss. It must be a terrible shock,” Frannie said gently,
thinking: duh, how original. He barely nodded, not looking up again.

“Mr.
Schlumm, we were the ones who found your wife,” Larry said. Schlumm did look up
at them now with small interest.

“Do you
know why your wife was out there?” Frannie asked, ignoring her husband’s slight
frown.

Schlumm
just shrugged and made a sound between a gulp and a sob. “Don’t know.”

Frannie
changed the subject. “So your daughter lives nearby?”

He
brightened. “Jodi. Yeah. About an hour away. Worried about her driving alone.
She and her mom were so close. Maybe my grandson will drive her—her husband’s
gone on business.”

“Do you
have other children, Mr. Schlumm?” Frannie said.

“A boy. He
lives in North Carolina. Gonna have Jodi call him. Just can’t do it. Ranger
called Jodi for me.” He took a deep breath and continued. “Maeve, you know, was
such a caring person.” Not a side Frannie had noticed. “But it just upset her
so when people didn’t take care of things or broke the rules in the park. She
loved this place.”

“I’m sure
she did. Are you sure you don’t want a little bite to eat?”

“In a bit.
Couldn’t swallow anything solid right now.”

Another
silence. “How many grandchildren do you have, Mr. Schlumm?” Larry asked.

Again Dave
Schlumm perked up. “Dave, please. No one calls me ‘Mister’. Three. Jodi’s boy,
Aaron, is 19, and Darren, our son, has two daughters, 8 and 10. That’s them in
that photo.” He pointed at the end table next to Larry. Larry picked it up and
held it so Frannie could see it too.

“Good
looking kids,” Larry said.

“They
certainly are,” Frannie agreed. “Do you get to see them often?”

“Aaron we
do, being close by. The girls not so often. Always come in the summer for a
couple weeks, though. They loved staying in the park with us. That upset Maeve
too. Supposed to come the end of this month but now we’re leaving. . .” He
stopped and looked up. He’d forgotten for a moment that leaving the park was
not the worst thing facing him now.

“Mr.
Schlumm—Dave—would you mind if I used your bathroom? Or I could
just go to the shower house,” Frannie said.

“No,
no—go ahead. It’s on the right. Can’t get lost.” He gave a very small,
sad smile.

“Thanks.”

In the tiny
bathroom, Frannie noticed a jumble of bottles on the little counter, including
an empty aspirin bottle on its side. She had to remove the bottle cap from the
sink to wash her hands. Not in keeping with the rest of what she had seen in
the camper.

When she
returned to the living area, Dave said “Sorry about the mess in there. Maeve
doesn’t usually leave things like that. Better get it picked up before Jodi
gets here.”

“Does—did—
Maeve have health problems?” Frannie asked.

“Nah,
healthy as a horse most times. She’s had headaches more often lately. Stress, I
guess. Why?”

“There’s an
empty aspirin bottle on the counter. Could she have gone out for more last
night? Is there any place open late?”

Dave sat up
straight. “Don’t know. Possible. There’s a 24-hour shop over on the highway.”

“Her purse
was in the car,” Frannie said, looking at Larry. He frowned at her
interrogating and she quickly glanced away.

They heard
voices outside, and a tall shape was silhouetted against the screen door. Dave
stood and put his hand on the door.

“Ralph.
Good of you to come,” he opened the door.

Larry also
stood. “We’ll wait outside.”

“No, let’s
all go outside. Getting stuffy in here.” A champion understatement, Frannie
thought. “This is Ralph Bonnard, the local funeral director. Uh, sorry, your
names slipped my mind.”

“Larry
Shoemaker and my wife Frannie.”

They shook
hands. Dave continued, “Sheriff asked them to sit with me until Jodi gets here.
Kinda hard to take it all in.”

They all
trooped outside. They noticed then that Ralph Bonnard was not alone. A tall,
broad-shouldered young man with short blond hair and Paul Newman blue eyes
stood to the side. Both Bonnard and the young man wore suits, crisp white
shirts and dark ties.

“Dave,”
Bonnard said, “I don’t believe you’ve met my new assistant, Joel Marner. He’s
from Chicago and just been here a month or two.” Marner shook hands with Dave
and nodded at the other two. “First we want to express our deepest condolences.
This is never easy, but even harder in these circumstances. The sheriff asked
us to come out here because they aren’t letting anyone leave the park at this
time. But as you know, both of you have preplanned arrangements so there won’t
be many decisions for you.”

Larry said,
“Excuse me. This should be a private discussion. We’ll go back to our campsite,
number 17, and if you leave before Dave’s daughter gets here, stop and let us
know and we’ll come back.”

Bonnard
nodded and shook Larry’s hand again. The Shoemakers walked away.

When they were
away from Schlumm's camper, Frannie said “Creepy.”

“What? The
mortician? The arrangements?”

“No, that
assistant. He seemed to be staring at us the whole time. You’d think he would
be concentrating on the client.”

“I didn’t
notice. But he’s new—and young. Probably wondered why complete strangers
would be there. I mean, that was obvious because Schlumm couldn’t remember our
names to introduce us.”

“Could be.”

Along the
road in every site people milled around or sat speaking quietly. No one was out
on the road. Normally, in the daylight hours, any campground road was a
racetrack for bicycles and skateboards. Kids capitalized on the infrequent
traffic and safe surroundings, speeding from one end to the other in a
continual chase. But today, that safety was in question and the same kids
slouched in lawn chairs drawing circles in the dirt with sticks or poking their
siblings with the same.

As they
neared their own site, they noticed their visitor from the night before, River,
hanging on the back of a woman’s chair. She appeared to be in her thirties. Her
shoulder length dark blond hair flopped forward over her face as she tried to
read a paperback and ignore the bouncing accessory on the back of her chair. In
concession to the heat, she put her hand under the back of her hair and pushed
it up on top of her head. Just then, River spotted them.

“Hey! Can I
come play with your dog?”

His mother,
assuming that’s who she was, snapped “No! You’re staying right here.” Then she
looked a little sheepish and said to them “Sorry. He better stay here.”

“We
understand,” said Frannie. “Maybe later, okay, River?”

His face
fell but he nodded and resumed trying to annoy his mother.

The Nowaks
and the Ferraros were still at the picnic table but the sheriff and deputy had
moved on to other campers. Mickey looked up from a day old crossword.

“Hey!
You’re back.”

“He’s so
observant,” Frannie said to Larry.

“Yeah,
yeah. How’s Schlumm doing?”

“He seems
in shock, no surprise,” Larry said, taking a seat. “The funeral director came
so we took our leave. Schlumm’s daughter is supposed to be here soon. How much
longer did the sheriff stay?”

“He left
right after you did. Went over to the guys across the road and was there quite
a while. Actually, he just moved on.”

“He asked
about that box,” Donna reminded him.

“Oh, yeah,
he wanted to know if any of us had seen a container of some sort near those
boulders. We told him again that you and Jane Ann were the only ones who went
into the cave.”

“It had
rounded corners,” Donna couldn’t wait to add. “They found an imprint in the
dirt. He said he’d be back to talk to you about it.”

“Well,
there wasn’t anything when we were there,” Larry said.

“And if
there had been, it couldn’t have disappeared unless we took it,” Rob said. “No
one was there after us except the sheriff.”

“The ranger
was,” Frannie said.

Larry held
up his hands. “Take it easy. Let’s not jump to conclusions…”

He was
interrupted by Stub coming up behind him. The big man took a seat at the end of
the table, causing it to tip slightly.

“Wow, a
murder, huh? And you guys found her?”

“As far as
we know, they haven’t decided if it was an accident or not,” Larry said.

“Well, if
it was a murder, there’s probably no shortage of suspects.” Stub gave a crooked
smile.

Frannie
thought it was time to derail him. “So what are you guys going to do about your
reservation for tonight? Even if the DCI says this afternoon that we can leave
the park, you’ll never get that far tonight, not unless you want to set up in
the dark.” She thought that they had enough trouble in the daylight.

“Big change
of plans,” Stub said. “We had to reserve three nights here anyway, ‘cause of
the holiday weekend so we’re just going to stay here until Monday.” He laughed
briefly. “Not much choice, eh? The only other reservation we had made was the
one for Nebraska—we were just going to follow the sun, y’know what I
mean? But even I have to admit we probably bit off a little too much. So Monday
we’ll go back to the Chicago area and find someplace close to home we can hang
out for the rest of the time.” He lowered his voice and seemed to expect his
next words to be a shocker to them, “Guys are kind of fed up with me, I think,
even though none of them wanted to take responsibility for organizing anything.
Oddest thing is that Randy is the only one who wanted to keep going, and I
didn’t think he was having a good time.”

“Sounds
like a good idea—going back, I mean,” Mickey said. “We usually go
somewhere near home at the first of every season to make sure everything’s
working even though we’ve been camping for years.”

Stub looked
up as a car came slowly through the campground, driven by a fairly young woman.

“Huh! I
haven’t seen her around here and I didn’t think they were letting anyone else
in.”

“Might be
Mr. Schlumm’s daughter. She is coming to stay with him,” Larry said.

“Schlumm?
Oh, is that the guy’s name? Even though his wife had plenty to say to us last
night, never did introduce herself. Are most of the hosts in these campgrounds
that grouchy? Don’t they get paid to be more helpful?”