Peete and Repeat (The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Book 3) (14 page)

Monday Morning

Monday morning was crisp, clear, and on the cool side. As they entered the grounds of the nature center, Larry, in the lead, turned down a road marked with a sign that read “Bird Watching Area.” The narrow track followed the slope down toward the river and ended in a small parking lot. A railing divided the parking lot from a heavily wooded eight or ten-foot drop down to the river. The trees and shrubs had been cleared in an area about twenty feet wide to provide a view of the river.

To the side of the lot was a three-sided wooden structure, open to the lot with a long bench and a high rectangular opening away from the lot that looked out onto the bluff. They walked over and discovered laminated posters on the walls identifying the birds native to the area. Outside the opening, various types of bird feeders were hung in the trees and were being frequented by a greater variety of birds than Frannie had ever seen out in the open in one place.

They observed in awe, poking each other and naming varieties that they recognized in hushed tones.

“Didn’t anyone bring binoculars?” Ben asked.

“Oh! I did!” Frannie pulled a small pair out of her backpack and handed them to Ben.

He scanned a group of pines down the slope a little ways. “I thought so. There’s a cedar waxwing in those evergreens. We don’t see those often.” He handed the glasses back to Frannie and pointed in the general direction. She aimed the binoculars and, after some adjustment and moving slowly up and down and back and forth, saw the yellow-bellied bird in the branches of an old twisted juniper, nibbling what appeared to be raisins and berries from a flat wooden platform.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” she breathed.

“I wanna see!” Sometimes Donna sounded like a five-year-old. Frannie looked a little longer and as she panned away from the bird, caught sight of an opening in the side of the bluff near the water.

“Wait a minute,” she said, moving the glasses out of Donna’s reach and losing the view of the opening. When she focused in on it again, she said. “I think maybe that’s the upstream entrance to the tunnel. Jim Larson said you could see it from here.”

Larry said, “Show me.” Frannie handed him the glasses, ignoring Donna’s almost pathetic face. She gave Larry directions to find what she had seen.

“I think you’re right. Looks like it would be pretty hard to get down there from here.” He passed the glasses to Donna, who then grudgingly handed them to the others after a couple of minutes. Frannie thought about what Larry said and then returned to the open view in the parking lot. She stood looking down at the river until Larry joined her.

“Now what, Sherlock?”

“When we were on that memorable float the other day, the last time we stopped I think was right down there on that point.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember when I was waiting, I said I saw Richard and his girlfriend or whatever and they kept disappearing? I think they had gotten out right below here.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“I wonder if they were going into the tunnel.”

“Why would they?”

“Last night I did a search on his name. There was a Reynolds in Chicago connected to the prohibition era and bootlegging. Maybe it was a relative and Richard had heard stories growing up.”

He shook his head. “But the DNR is in there regularly, and if there was anything left from those days in there, they would have found it long ago. Besides, Richard has been here many times. He probably just found the tunnel exploring.”

“Could be.”

The rest of the group had joined them and decided to continue on to the Visitor’s Center. They boarded the vehicles again and headed back up the narrow road, hoping they wouldn’t meet anyone.

At the Center, Frannie was relieved to see that a young blonde woman was behind the reception desk rather than the formidable Deborah McCabe.

“Hi!” she said, smiling brightly. Her name tag read ‘Sara Hermanson.’ “Can I help you?” Yes, a definite change in the atmosphere.

“We’re interested in all of your programs here,” Mickey said. “Like what is the ‘Night Sensory Course?’“

“Oh,” Sara laughed. “Everyone wonders about that. There is a length of rope and it might run along a tree, across a log on the ground, around a stump, and like that, y’know? People pair off and one person is blindfolded.” She mimed putting a blindfold on and then grasping an imaginary rope. “The blindfolded person hangs onto the rope and tries to figure out where they are and what they are touching as they go along. Their partner follows along to make sure they don’t get hurt. It’s really cool. People learn to listen and use their other senses besides their eyes.” She took a breath. “If you would like to try it, we are having an open house tonight to get more people familiar with what we offer here.”

Mickey said. “That sounds great. What time?”

“It starts at 7:00. It won’t be dark enough for the night course until about 8:30 but you can check out the other challenges until then.”

“So we know about the high ropes courses. What else do you have?” Rob said.

“All kinds of stuff. There’s an obstacle course, a zip line, a rock climbing wall, and you can try archery if you want. Here’s a flyer that lists everything and also has a small map.” She passed out one apiece from a large stack.

Director Lindorf heard them and came out of his office. “Glad to see you back again. I hope this visit ends better than the last one. How are you all?”

“We’re fine,” Larry said. “Well, most of us. Frannie took a fall canoeing the other day and is pretty sore.”

“Oh, my,” he said, looking at her with sympathy. “That’s not what we want, is it?”

Frannie shook her head, feeling like she was his niece or granddaughter and a delinquent one, at that. Larry went on, “We’re thinking of coming back tonight for your open house.”

Lindorf clapped his hands. “Great! You need to try the zip line.” He looked at Frannie again. “Well, maybe not you, Mrs. Shoemaker.”

Surprised that he remembered her name, Frannie shook her head again. “I wouldn’t anyway. I’m afraid of heights.”

“No loss, then,” he smiled. “I must run. Another meeting, I’m afraid.” He nodded, and headed down a hallway to the back of the building.

The group went back outside to decide how much looking around they wanted to do before lunch. Rob wanted to hike down to a restored Indian encampment and pointed out the route on the map. Frannie looked over toward the edge of the woods and spotted two people leaning toward each other in heated discussion. One was Deborah McCabe and the other was Dale Dubrak.

“Hmmm,” she mumbled to Nancy. “That’s an interesting pair.”

“It hardly looks like they’re friends,” Nancy said.

“No…, but I get the impression that they know each other pretty well. He’s not just taking a reprimand from her.”

McCabe noticed them looking and straightened up into her officious posture. She then appeared to be giving him directions and he glanced over at Frannie’s group too and then took off down the trail. McCabe strode back toward the Visitor’s Center.

“Strange bedfellows,” said Nancy.

Frannie gave her a sideways look. “Surely not.”

“I just mean like the old saying ‘Politics makes strange bedfellows.’“

“Neither one of them strike me as being very political,” Frannie said.

“Mary Louise did say Dale is always ‘spouting off about imperialists’ and we’ve never actually had a conversation with Miss Congeniality.”

“Girls! Get with the program,” Mickey interrupted. “We’re going to try the trail to the Indian encampment.”

“Okay,” said Frannie. “I need to get my sunglasses and water bottle from the truck first.”

After dropping off excess baggage and picking up hiking supplies at the vehicles, they started down a trail that sloped gently and was wide and well-maintained. Their pace was slow and easy, in deference to Frannie’s injury and Mickey’s tendency to get easily winded.

At the bottom of a ravine, they crossed a quaint wooden bridge and followed the trail, gradually rising between a bluff on one side and small stream on the other. Tall, skinny birches reached up for the sun and resilient wildflowers and ferns clung to the side of the bluff. She was reminded of a hike along a stream at Bat Cave State Park that ended with finding a body in a cave. She shivered.

“You okay, Frannie?” came Jane Ann’s voice behind her.

Frannie gave a wry little laugh. “This path reminds me of the one in Bat Cave Park when we found Maeve Schlumm.”

“You’ve already found two bodies this weekend—I think that’s your quota. We shouldn’t run into any more.”

“Let’s hope so.”

The trail had climbed about twenty feet above the stream and the last ten feet or so were steeper, leading to a clearing at the top of the bluff. Three small bark lodges were arranged around a fire ring. Frannie was excited by the sight. During her years of teaching social studies, she had spent considerable time every year covering the various Native American cultures. How great it would have been to bring kids to a place like this.

They wandered around the site, examining the heavy iron pot over the fire and hides drying on a rack. Frannie lifted the flap on one of the lodges to peer inside, gasped, and lurched back.

Nancy said, “What is it?”

“Someone’s in there…laying down…”

Larry bent over and pulled the flap back, stared a minute, and straightened up.

She waited, holding her breath.

“It’s okay. She’s not real. It’s a manikin of an Indian woman.”

“Oh!” She sat down on a stump. “Oh! We just talked about finding a body at Bat Cave and I thought…,” She gave them all a sheepish grin and pushed her hair behind her ears, taking as deep a breath as she could manage.

Donna, who just had a look for herself, said, “Why would they have a manikin sleeping? I mean, those things aren’t cheap. You’d think they’d have her doing something, like cooking.”

“You can ask Deborah when we get back,” Nancy said with a smirk.

“Right. I’m sure she’d be helpful.”

Mickey looked at his watch. “Getting close to lunch time. Better head back.”

“We don’t have to worry about missing meals with Mickey around,” Rob said.

“Hey, that’s my line,” Larry protested.

They took the path back single file, Larry helping Frannie down the steeper part. At the parking lot, several paused for swigs of water and Ben sat down on a bench to retie his shoe. Sara, the young woman who had been at the reception desk came out of the Visitor’s Center swinging a purse and jingling her car keys.

“Hi!” she called out. “Did you hike one of the trails?”

“We did,” Nancy said. “We went to see the Indian encampment. It’s very nice but we were wondering why they would put a manikin lying down in one of the lodges.”

Sara laughed, a merry tinkling sound. “She doesn’t stand up very well. So when we have tours or open houses like tonight, we’ll prop her up by the hides when we explain brain tanning. Otherwise they put her in a lodge so she doesn’t get knocked over.”

Frannie nodded but Donna said, “
Brain
tanning?”

“They used brain matter to soften the hides,” Frannie said. “Animal brains,” she added seeing the look on Donna’s face.

“I will never wear another pair of moccasins,” Donna said.

“Are you done for the day? Or just on lunch break?” Ben asked Sara.

“I’ll be back to help tonight. I work Monday mornings so Deborah can have some time off. Run errands, that sort of thing.”

“We saw her before we started the hike,” Frannie said. “She appeared to be arguing with that young Dale Dubrak.”

“Arguing?” Sara looked puzzled. “She’s kind of taken Dale under her wing, supervises him on the obstacle course and that sort of thing.”

“He said last night that he’s training, but wouldn’t say for what,” Frannie pushed, ignoring Larry’s signals that they were ready to leave.

Sara shrugged. “I think Dale’s just a big talker. Doesn’t seem to want to work. Well, I have to pick up my little boy from the sitter. Have a good day!” She waved and slid into the driver’s seat of an old compact Honda.

“Frannie…” Larry said, a warning tone in his voice. “Meddle, meddle, meddle.”

“I’m just curious,” she answered as they walked to the truck.

“Right.”

The wooden diner sat on its wheels in a pocket park space between two old brick buildings on the main street of Burdensville. It sported a cream and forest green paint job with dark red accents. Larry was the first up the steps and pulled open an old-fashioned screen door. He turned back to the group. “Standing room only.”

“There’s picnic tables out behind,” Jane Ann pointed out. “We could get carry-out.”

He nodded. “I’ll get some menus.” There were just a few customers at the picnic tables, so they settled around an open one. Donna brushed crumbs off while the rest examined the outside of the unique little restaurant. Larry returned with a handful of menus on newsprint with an old railroad timetable printed on the front.