Last Resort (14 page)

TWENTY THREE

I walked back to the cabin to find Jake stretched out on the sofa with a book. I told him where I'd been and what Delilah said.

“Not totally surprised,” he said, rubbing my knee as I sank down next to him. “Everyone around here seems like they care about everyone else's business.”

He was right. It was a bit like a junior high school hallway, with gossip and innuendo everywhere you looked. And we were the new kids, unsure of what was true and what wasn't.

We grilled burgers for dinner and, after the tow truck arrived to carry the rental car away, we opted to take the golf cart out for a slow, sunset cruise. We made our way to the trail and navigated the steep terrain and Jake pressed hard on the gas pedal, quickly passing the area where we'd found Harvey's body. I kept my eyes averted from the brush-filled forest, focusing instead on the dirt trail in front of us. We continued down to what was known as the lower campground. The roads were unpaved and it looked more like your traditional campground, with tents and older RVs populating most of the lots. We found another pool and then a small park and drove down each of the roads, looking for signs of where everyone was from: license plates, sports flags, anything that told us where people had arrived from. I think we were both surprised to see that people came from all over. My heart hurt again for a moment, thinking of how it all might be gone because of Delilah's financial circumstances and I wondered if and when she planned to tell everyone that this was the last summer.

We turned down a road lined with what looked like newer campers that dead-ended in a cul-de-sac. One camper in particular stood out because it looked very much like the one we were staying in, a log cabin exterior with a front porch. The lawn was a touch overgrown, but the grass was emerald green and perfectly edged. A small hummingbird feeder hung from a shepherd's hook in the middle of the yard and a gravel path had been laid from the street to the stairs of the camper.

“That's pretty,” I said, pointing to the cabin.

Jake nodded and started to stay something as we passed by. And then we heard glass break.

Jake tapped the brakes on the cart. “You hear that?”

I was still staring at the cabin. “Yeah.”

Then a clank echoed through the evening air, like a tool dropped to the ground. Then broken glass crunching.

Jake got out of the cart. “Stay here.”

I got out. “Are you crazy? I'm not staying here. And where are you going?”

“To see where the noise is,” he said and he pointed at the cart. “Just sit and wait for me.”

I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

He rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. He headed toward the side of the cabin and I closed in on his heels. Our feet crunched on the gravel path and we slowed our steps, trying to be quiet. Footsteps thumped on the deck and more glass cracked. Voices whispered. A sliding door opened.

Jake slowed and I bumped into his back when we reached the stairs.

“Hurry up,” a female voice whispered. “You're always so slow.”

“Shut up,” another female voice whispered back. “You're slower than me.”

“Well, you're dumber.”

“You failed sixth grade.”

“Whatevs.”

Jake turned to look at me. “It's your friends,” he whispered.

“Who?”

He took a couple of steps toward the stairs that led to the deck and spoke in a loud voice. “What's up, girls?”

I hustled behind him to see who he was talking to. One of the twins from the pool was standing on the deck with a hammer in her hand and a crowbar at her feet. The other twin was staring back at us on the other side of the broken kitchen window. They both had on black tank tops and the one on the deck was wearing hot pink denim shorts.

The one on the deck looked confused and quickly dropped the hammer to her side. “Uh, hey.”

“What are you two doing?” Jake asked.

The one in the broken window said, “Nothing.”

“Is this your cabin?”

“Maybe.”

“So you're breaking the window in your own cabin?” Jake asked.

Neither said anything.

“I can call the police,” I said. I dug into my shorts pockets. “I have my phone.”

The one on the deck looked at me and I thought she raised the hammer just a bit.

“You don't need to call the police,” the one in the window said quickly.

“Yeah,” the one with the hammer said. “We were just leaving.”

The one in the window glanced at her sister, irritated. “You are so stupid, Mary.”

Mary, the one on the deck with the hammer, glared at her sister. “
You
are so stupid, Carrie.”

“I'm calling them,” I said, lifting my phone up.

“No!” Carrie said. “Don't! Please! I can't go back to jail!”

“Me either,” Mary muttered.

“Go back?” Jake asked.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Carrie explained, her tone defensive. She tucked a long strand of blond hair behind her ear. “I was going to go back into the liquor store to pay for all the vodka after I loaded it into my car. No one was at the cash register and they just assumed I was stealing it.”

“And I was only sitting in the driver's seat with the engine running so the car would be cool,” Mary added. “It was like the hottest day of the summer. Well, night...but you know what I mean.”

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose, then shook his head like he was trying to clear his thoughts. “What are you doing here, then?”

Carrie sighed. “We just wanted something to remember him by.”

“Yeah,” Mary chimed in, nodding vigorously. “Like, a memento or something.”

“Remember who by?” I asked.

“Harvey,” Carrie said.

“This is Harvey's place?” I said, looking more closely at the cabin.

They both nodded.

“Get out of there,” Jake ordered. “Now.”

Carrie disappeared from the window and reappeared at the glass slider. She unlocked the door, opened it and walked out onto the deck, her shoulders sagging like a dog that had been reprimanded.

Jake looked at me. “I have no idea what to do here.”

I looked at the girls. “Did you take anything yet?”

They both shook their heads.

“I wanted a shirt,” Mary said. “He smelled amazing.”

“That's what I wanted, too,” Carrie said. “Or his toothbrush.”

I made a face. “His toothbrush?”

Carrie shrugged.

“Didn't you both tell me he'd broken up with you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Carrie said.

“Then why would you want anything to remember him by?”

“We miss him,” Mary said, her lower lip quivering a little.

“Yeah,” Carrie agreed. “We miss him.”

Jake just gave me a look like we had wandered into Lunatic Land and I was in charge.

“You broke the window,” I said, pointing to the pile of shattered glass on the deck. “That's going to need to be fixed and paid for.”

“But no one lives here,” Mary said. “And we don't have a key.” She held up the hammer. “That's why I used this.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said. Their logic was unbelievable. “But it's not your home and it doesn't matter that he doesn't live here anymore. You can't just go breaking into places that aren't yours to steal T-shirts.”

“Or toothbrushes,” Carrie said.

“Or those,” I continued. “So here's the deal. You're going to tell Delilah what you did.”

Mary's eyes widened. “She hates us.”

“Too bad,” I said. I folded my arms across my chest. “You need to tell her what you did and then pay whatever she tells you to pay to replace it. Otherwise, we can call the police and let them handle it and whatever happens, happens.”

“Delilah really hates us,” Carrie said. “And we hate her.”

“Can we just call the sheriff?” Jake interrupted. “This is ridiculous.”

I held up a finger in his direction, then looked at Carrie. “Why do you hate her?”

She looked at her sister.

“Because of Harvey,” Mary finally said.

I thought back to what Copper had said about Delilah and Harvey but I wanted to hear the girls' version of things. “What does she have to do with Harvey?”

She snorted. “Because Harvey broke up with me to be with her.”

Carrie snorted. “And he broke up with me to be with her, too.”

I looked at both of them. “He broke up with both of you to be with her?” My voice squeaked with disbelief. “That's what you're telling me?”

They both looked at each other, then nodded.

“So you saw them together?” I pressed. “In that way? Like, together together?”

They exchanged glances and I could almost see the non-verbal communication between them.

“Well, I don't know that we saw it,” Carrie said slowly. She picked up a lock of hair and twirled it around her finger and her sister mirrored her action. “Because they were totally secretive on account of Delilah being so old and all.”

“Yeah,” Mary said. “Ancient.”

My head was spinning. I still found it hard to believe that Delilah and Harvey had been a couple, but I certainly believed he would've tried to ditch these two nutjobs.

Copper's words replayed in my mind. I looked at the twins. I didn't exactly consider them trustworthy news sources, either.

“Look, I don't think I care about Harvey and you and Delilah,” I told them. “All I care about is the fact that you guys are running around, vandalizing other people's property. You have your choices. We call the police or you go talk to Delilah. Now.”

They both stared at me with sour expressions, like I'd just forced them to swallow lemons.

“We'll go to Delilah,” Carrie said, pouting. “Just don't call the police.”

“Yeah,” her sister echoed. “Don't call the police.”

They were both very anxious to avoid the police, which I understood because no one liked dealing with the police, especially when they were guilty of doing something wrong. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if there was another reason they were looking to avoid the law.

“Did you see Harvey?” I asked. Jake gave me a warning look but I pressed on. “I mean, before he died?”

“Well, duh,” Mary said. “We saw him a lot.”

It was an uncomfortable thing to be mocked by someone I was beginning to think of as a not-so-bright psychopath. “I meant right before he died.”

“Oh,” Mary said, then looked at her sister. “I don't know. Did we?”

Carrie glanced at the sky, like she was trying to remember. “Yeah, we saw him. He was always around. And we saw him with that creepy dude. Hacker-whatever.”

“Wayne Hackerman?” I asked.

“The guy with the big black bus,” Mary said. “And the really mean kids.”

“Those kids spit at us,” Carrie told me. Her green eyes narrowed into slits. “I hate them.”

“And the boy ran over my foot on his bike,” Mary said. “Yeah, I hate that kid.”

“But you saw Harvey with Hackerman?” Jake said, trying to get them back on task.

Carrie nodded. “Yeah, that guy. They were arguing or something. And Harvey never argued.”

“By the laundry room?” I asked. “That's where they were arguing?”

“Yeah,” Carrie said. She leaned up against the sliding glass door. “Were you there?”

I shook my head. “No. Just heard about it. You didn't ask him about it? About the fight?”

“No, because Harvey told me if I came near him again, he was going to ban me from Windy Vista,” Carrie said.

“Me, too,” Mary said.

“But I overheard him,” Carrie said, a small smile appearing on her lips.

“You did?”

She nodded.

“What were they fighting about?”

Carrie's smile widened. “They were fighting about the medallion.”

TWENTY FOUR

“So you really don't think those two dimwits did anything to him?”

Jake and I were sitting at the table on our deck the next morning. We'd followed the girls to Delilah's place, made sure she answered the door, then let her deal with them and headed back to our cabin. We'd spent the rest of the evening parked on the couch. Jake had started a movie on Netflix and I knew the reason why: so I wouldn't hound him incessantly with my suspicions and theories. Even with a million thoughts swirling through my head, I'd managed to fall asleep with my feet propped in Jake's lap. Somehow, he'd persuaded me into my pajamas and into bed. But I didn't remember either.

Jake shook his head and shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth. I'd made bacon and eggs and toast. “No.”

“That's it? That's all you have to say?”

We were sitting out on the deck, the morning breeze rustling the trees, the sunlight filtering through the canopy of leaves. 

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don't know.” I bit into a piece of toast. “Discuss it with me?”

“Discuss or investigate?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

I smiled innocently. “Discuss.”

He scooped eggs on to his slice of toast and took a bite. “Fine. Discuss.”

“Why do you think they didn't kill Harvey?”

“Because they liked him.”

I took a sip of my coffee. “Well, duh. But people sometimes do stupid, irrational things when they're in love. Crimes of passion.”

“Those two are definitely stupid,” Jake commented.

I gave him a look and he sighed.

“Okay,” he said. He swallowed a mouthful of orange juice. “A couple of reasons. One, they seemed genuinely afraid he would ban them, so whatever he said to get them to stay away from him worked. And, two, I'm not sure those two would have been smart enough to hide his body if they'd been the ones that killed him. They probably would've propped him up on their couch and pretended he was still alive.” He shook his head again. “Because, as we both know, those two aren't all there.”

“No kidding,” I said, breaking my piece of bacon in half. “But they also give me kind of a Fatal Attraction vibe. Like they might try to take Harvey out so no one else could have him.”

He frowned. “Maybe, but I didn't get much of that from them. They're more troublesome than dangerous, I think.”

He was probably right, but when I felt like we still hadn't heard much about who might've killed Harvey, I was looking for anything that might help out Delilah.

“Do you believe the stuff about him and Delilah?” Jake asked, scraping the last of the eggs off the plate.

“No.” I poured orange juice into my half-empty cup. “I really don't. I just don't get that feel from her. I didn't even get that feeling from his mother at the restaurant, you know?”

He nodded. “Agreed. I think they might've been close, but people are always quick to whisper.”

“I'd really like to know what he and Hackerman were arguing about, though,” I said. “Now that guy totally seems capable of killing someone.”

Jake shrugged. “I don't know. The guy's a weasel, but what does a killer really look like or act like? There isn't exactly a type and he sort of strikes me as a coward. Lots of bluster, but doesn't do a whole lot to back that up in any way.” Then he shrugged again. “But who knows? All of these people seem to have brought a little of the crazy with them.”

I agreed with him that you couldn't know what a killer looked like. Rex, our home inspector, didn't want to recommend an exterminator for the mice that were living in our house before we moved in, because he was adverse to killing things. Yet he'd been the one to dump Olaf Stunderson's body in the coal chute. So maybe we couldn't tell a killer just by looking at someone. But Hackerman just gave me the creeps and I could see him getting in an argument with Harvey and doing something stupid. Hackerman seemed more than capable of doing a lot of stupid things.

We finished breakfast and cleaned up the table and did the dishes together. Jake was feeling sluggish and wanted to go for a run. Since I only ran when chased, I declined to accompany him. After he left, I walked down to the clubhouse and saw Delilah scurrying around the picnic tables on the pavilion, trying to move them all by herself.

“Do you need some help?” I asked.

She brushed the wisps of hair from her face and planted her hands on her hips. “I'd like to say no, but yes. I do.” She rubbed the small of her back. “I'm not in any shape to be moving these around by myself anymore.”

I walked over to the opposite end of the table she was standing at. “What do you have going on today?”

“Camper potluck,” she said, lifting her end of the table. “Everyone brings something and we provide burgers and hot dogs.”

“But the barbeque was just the other night...”

“I know.” She offered a tired smile. “We had a schedule goof-up and didn't realize we'd put both events in the same week. It was too late to change dates so we just had to go with it. Besides, people like the get-togethers.”

I picked up my end and we scooted it over to the empty space she'd been angling for. “I'm sure they do.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah, they really do. And it's usually fun and low-key.”

There was something in her voice that made me think she was looking at it as something other than that, though. “Usually?”

She guided me toward another table, which we picked up and slid over near the other one.

She took another deep breath. “Just with everything that's been going on, I'm not sure who's coming or bringing anything or really anything at all.” She surveyed the picnic tables. “I'm not sure this is all worth the effort at this point.”

We moved a couple more tables into place and I offered to give her a hand with the plastic table cloths. We covered each table with a red-checked cloth, securing each in place with metal clips. By the time we were done, the entire pavilion had been transformed from a drab-looking eating area to something fun and festive.

Delilah eased her frame on to a bench. Her pink t-shirt was damp with sweat. “Thank you for helping.”

I sat down next to her. “Of course. It's a lot of work for one person.”

She nodded. “It is. Harvey was really good at helping me get things ready. He was far more organized than I am.” Her voice trailed off and she looked away.

“What did you end up doing with those girls last night?”

She rolled her eyes. “I wish I had the heart to call the authorities and have them locked up. But I don't, of course.” She shrugged. “I made them promise to stay away from Harvey's and they brought me a check for the cost of the window this morning.”

“So you don't think they had anything to do with Harvey's death?”

She stared at a crack on the concrete floor. “I don't want to think they did.”

“But you do?”

“Honestly?” She looked back at me and I saw the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “I have no clue. They were always harmless when it came to him. Like puppies following around their owner. But after he broke up with them? They went a little crazy.” She offered a half-laugh. “No. Not a little. A lot.”

“The hammer and the fire?”

Delilah nodded. “They blew it off. Said they were accidents and what-not. And Harvey didn't give either incident another thought. But they just seemed to turn a corner after that. Like, if they couldn't have him, no one else could, either.”

I tended to agree with her and a tingle shivered up my spine as I thought about our encounter with them the night before at Harvey's camper. What if they'd freaked out when Jake confronted them? They'd had a potential weapon and it wasn't like they'd had a problem attacking someone before. 

“Did he really like them?” I asked. “I mean...for more than just...?” I couldn't force myself to finish the sentence.

She smiled. “Harvey was a good person, but let's be honest. I mean, he was still a man and both of those girls are very attractive. Pickings are slim up here for relationships, and they basically threw themselves at him.” The smile faded. “But even with what they had to offer, they wore thin on him quickly. I think he ended up tolerating them more than liking him and that was because he knew it was his fault for becoming involved with them in the first place. But he certainly didn't dislike them.”

I believed her. As creepy, even sinister, as the sisters seemed, I could see how they'd be attractive to a guy in his twenties, particularly if they were the aggressors. I didn't fault Harvey for that, particularly if he wasn't running into other people his age at Windy Vista.

“You haven't asked me yet,” Delilah said.

“Haven't asked you what?”

“The one thing you probably really want to ask me,” she said. She tugged at the collar of her shirt. “The one thing people have probably been sure to tell you. About me and Harvey.”

“People talk and they like to create drama. It's none of my business.”

She smiled like she was grateful. “That's kind of you to say, but you wouldn't be normal if you weren't wondering, Daisy.”

I felt embarrassed by the fact that I was actually wondering.

“Harvey and I were not in a relationship,” she said, leveling her eyes with mine. “But everything you've probably heard is the result of one dumb thing I did a few years back.”

I wasn't sure what to say to that even though I was dying to know what the mistake was. I pressed my lips together and kept my mouth shut.

She sighed and clasped her hands together in her lap. “A couple of summers ago, I'd had a lousy day. Campers were complaining, we'd lost power for part of the morning, and the well went down for a bit. Just one of those days where everything went wrong. So after I got everything up and running and made sure everyone was semi-happy again, I cleared out of here and went into town to relax and have a couple of drinks.” She paused. “But a couple of drinks turned into a lot of drinks.”

I could think of a few nights where I'd thrown the kids at Jake, started a campfire out back, beer in  hand, ready to unwind. There was no shame in that and Jake would usually end up joining me after the kids were in bed. There might've been a night or two when I'd knocked back more than I'd intended but I didn't think there was an adult on the planet who couldn't relate.

“So I'm just ugly drunk at the end of the night and I know I can't drive back here,” she continued. “I don't know anyone at the bar. The few friends I did know had already gone home. So I called Harvey.” A thin smile crossed her lips. “I knew he was around and I knew he'd come get me. He told me he'd be there in fifteen minutes, so I went outside and waited and tried not to fall over.”

Delilah wrung her hands a little more and glanced back at the concrete floor. A trail of ants followed the seam in the pavement, disappearing into a tiny crack. “So Harvey shows up and loads me into his car. Tells me he'll bring me back to get my car the next day. I'm three sheets to the wind and just trying not to pass out in his passenger seat.” She sighed. “We drive back to Windy Vista and he helps me out of the truck. Because I needed help. I could barely stand.” She shook her head, clearly embarrassed at the memory. “So he's kind of shuffling me along toward my cabin and I stop and try to kiss him.” She cringed. “I tried to kiss him.”

There didn't seem to be any pleasure in the retelling at all and I didn't think it was because she was telling it to someone she didn't know that well. I thought she was cringing because she couldn't believe she'd acted like that.

“I don't know why I did it. He'd always been like a son to me, which just makes the whole thing creepy and horrible. But he was taking care of me and I didn't have a man in my life doing that sort of thing for me, you know? I just...I wanted to thank him somehow, and that was the way I thought to do it.” She sighed and shook her head, a disgusted look on her face. “Anyway, he stopped me before I could really make a fool of myself and helped get me into my cabin. He laid me down on the couch, covered me with a blanket and sat there until I passed out. Which was probably about two minutes.” She took a deep breath and scratched at her knee. “Next morning, he comes by to check on me and I can't apologize enough for making a fool of myself. Harvey being Harvey, he just blew it off, told me it was no big deal and said he wasn't giving it a second thought.” She paused and the corners of her mouth twitched. “And that was it. It was never awkward and he forgave me for acting like an idiot. I finally got over it, too, and chalked it up to just being one of those stupid things we do that we have to learn to live with.”

My list of stupid things included something far worse—marrying Thornton ranked right up there at the top—so I understood completely.

“So we were never together,” she said, glancing at me. “We were never a couple. We were never anything other than friends.”

“So how did it get so blown out of proportion?” I asked. “It doesn't sound like Harvey was the kind of guy who'd go around telling people what happened.”

“He wasn't,” she told me. “But several people saw him unloading my drunk self out of his car that night. They saw him take me in...and then stay for a bit. And they've seen us spend a lot of time together over the years. They all jumped to the conclusions they wanted to jump to.”