Murder in Gatlinburg (21 page)

Lou and I refrained from
talking about anything we planned to keep to ourselves. There would be plenty
of time later to do that. I looked around to see if anyone I recognized seemed
any guiltier than another. Actually, some of them did, but that didn't mean
that one of them had handed me the note. If Gatlinburg was like most every other
place I knew about, I assumed that the restaurant would be crowded later in the
evening.

I looked at the view,
looked over at the salad bar, and after our server greeted us and took our
drink order, I picked up the menu. I was glad that dinner at The Peddler was
part of the paid part of our trip. I wondered how much the guys in the
department had to pay to send the two of us away for a week. Whatever it was, I
was grateful, murder or no murder. And I knew Lou was, too.

As I looked over the
menu I received a text. It was from George. He wasn't on my list of
possibilities of someone who might have handed me the note. But then he could
have been. The guy didn't slice me.

Did you order baked
brie for an appetizer? I'm still working on your list. Most of them were
recently paroled from Leavenworth.

I wondered how George
knew where we were, and then I remembered that he had seen our itinerary. And
he had told us that Big Brother would be watching. I looked around to see if
anyone looked like an informant for George. No one looked away as I looked at
them. No one smiled, either. I told Lou the text was from George, and he was
trying to be funny as usual.

The two of us discussed
dinner while we waited on our server to return for our order. We opted to go
with something a little different than we could get at home. Which meant we
could order anything on the menu. I started with an appetizer, but not the one
George recommended. Instead I chose smoked trout spread, which came with French
bread. Lou declined an appetizer, and when our server left he told me he would
eat off my plate. I reminded him of the number of knives and forks I had at my
disposal. He informed me that he had a chainsaw under the table.

Lou ordered grilled
rainbow trout. I countered with a 7 oz. filet mignon. We would split the two
entrees, so it was surf and turf for both of us. In the old days I would have
gone with a larger cut of steak. We both complimented our entree with a skewer
of grilled vegetables, and of course there was the salad bar. Eating salad was
new to us too, but we were adjusting. Like at some of the other restaurants we
had visited, this too was more than we had been eating recently, but we
rationalized by saying we were on vacation. Well, there would be no vacation when
we got home. But that was later. It was still vacation, so we ordered a couple
of desserts. Lou chose blackberry cobbler with ice cream. I selected Kahlua
crème brulee. We took our time eating and made the bus wait on us. Actually, no
one was in a hurry to leave the restaurant. I thought about getting a to-go
order, just in case Harlan was still our bus driver. Or to get on the good side
of our new bus driver. But I figured that it wouldn't be good to eat and drive
in Gatlinburg traffic. Even if our bus was bigger than most other modes of
transportation. Still, I envisioned Harlan pouring the dressing on his salad as
he steered the bus with his knees.

It was almost 7:30 when we left. I looked up before I boarded and saw Harlan's longevity as our bus
driver would continue. I stepped up, and after receiving no secret nod from
Harlan, I walked back and took a seat. I received no other warnings, and no one
attacked me. Life in Gatlinburg was on an upswing.

My plans were to go back
to my room and rest. I was full. I was tired. And we would have an early
wake-up call on Thursday. Of course those were my plans, but then we know what
happens to the best laid plans of mice and men.

I got on the bus first,
so I took a window seat and laid back and rested my head. I looked out the
window at the hustle and bustle of people having a good time on the Parkway.
The trip back to Westgate didn't take long, but I still used the time to think
how different my last few days had been, but then some of what had happened the
last few days fit right in with my life as a detective. But I wanted to focus
in on the good parts of the trip. I wondered if I had a chance if I would want
to live part of my life over. The best excuse I could come up with concerning
why I'd never taken a vacation was that I had no one to share it with. Of
course there was Lou, but there's something different about sharing a vacation
with a wife and sharing one with a male best friend. I was sure that if Eunice
had lived longer she and I would have gone places and enjoyed ourselves. And I
think if she had lived, Lou and Thelma Lou would be married instead of a couple
who might see each other once a week, and do most of their talking on the phone
instead of in person. I knew what Lou thought of Thelma Lou. That meant that
either he was afraid of marriage, or he was afraid that I would have trouble
adjusting to a life without him in it so much. I guess there could have been a
third reason. Maybe he didn't marry Thelma Lou because he didn't want to live
with the dangerous aspect of his job and not knowing if he would come home one
day. I knew Lou could be serious. I wasn't sure if he could be that serious.

+++

Lou and I were gentlemen
when we returned to Westgate, so we waited and we were the last to get off the
bus. I was glad we did.

We stepped down from the
bus. Everyone in our group was hurrying off to catch a shuttle that would take
them back to within a short walk to their rooms, where they could rest. I had
planned to do the same, but there were two guys in suits waiting for us, one of
them holding a sign that read "Cy Dekker."

I had no idea who the
guys were. Neither of them looked like a limousine driver. And I certainly
wasn't expecting them to be who they turned out to be. Briefly, I considered if
the whole charade was one of George's pranks. It was time to find out, but
first I wanted to have a little fun at Lou's expense.

"Lou, it looks like
they didn't include you, but I'll let you ride in the limo with me."

The guys a few feet away
looked serious, so I changed to my serious face.

"I'm Cy Dekker. And
you are?"

"I'm Lt. Curlee
with the Sevier County Police Department. We have a few questions for
you."

"Is this about the
murder?" I whispered, just in case anyone was still close enough to hear.

I don't think they were
expecting that answer, the way one of them turned briefly to look at the other.

"We'll discuss it in
a few minutes. We'd like to go to your room and talk privately. We have a car
over here."

Lou and I followed the
other policeman to an unmarked vehicle, while Lt. Curlee brought up the rear.
He didn't seem the type I could ask where Larry and Moe were.

"I'm sorry, Mr.
Dekker. I'm only interested in you right now."

"But we're
together."

"I don't care what
you do on your own time, but we just want to talk to you."

"But his room is in
the same building as mine, and we were both kind of involved with this,
although I'm the one who made the calls."

"Okay, both of you
in the back, but we'll be talking to you separately."

I gave the driver
directions to the building where we were staying, and a couple of minutes later
we were there. I think we even beat the shuttle. And we didn't have to walk the
last hundred yards.

"Okay. Out. And no
talking until we're inside. We'll have someone else here in a few minutes."

I was beginning to think
that they weren't there for the same reason I figured they were there. I'd been
a detective long enough that it looked like they thought I was the bad guy. At
any rate, I did what they said. They followed me up the steps to my room. I
unlocked the outside door, walked to my room and unlocked that door, too.

I shut the door and
walked over to the couch.

"The kitchen table
will do nicely. And I want you, Mr. Murdock, to remain silent until I ask you
some questions."

"Look, you guys act
like I've done something wrong. I assume this is about Earl, and I'm sorry to
say, but Harlan, our bus driver, is the one you need to talk to about him. He
knows a lot more than I do. He's even the one who went and identified the body.
At least that's what he told me."

"I'll check on that
later, Mr. Dekker. Right now I want to know what you can tell me about Agnes
Trueblood."

It took me a second to
remember who Agnes Trueblood was. I still couldn't get used to calling her
anything except Miss Friendly.

"Not much. She came
down on the bus with us, then seemed to disappear after the first night."

"And did you talk
to her on the way down?"

"No. Not then. And
not afterward."

"Then how is it
that you know her name, if you never talked to her?"

That was supposed to be
a secret between Harlan and me, but I doubted if Lt. Curlee would be satisfied
with an answer, "That's for Harlan and I to know and for you to find
out," so I told him the truth.

"Harlan gave me a
list of all the passengers. I was trying to learn everyone's name, and I had to
learn hers by eliminating all the others."

"And why were you
so anxious to learn everyone's name?"

"I was getting a
little suspicious."

He let that ride and
asked another question instead.

"And why is it that
you were so interested in her?"

"Because she was
missing."

"And did you report
her missing to someone at the front desk?"

"I sure did."

I was proud of my
answer, to let the lieutenant know what I had done.

"And did you call
back later and tell them to check for her down the hill from her room?"

The follow-up question
told me I didn't tell the lieutenant anything he didn't already know.

"Well, I said they
might check and see if she went over the balcony. I came up with that idea when
I was leaning over my balcony one day. I thought maybe she fell over or was
thrown off."

"And why would
anyone want to throw her off the balcony?"

"That's what I was
working on."

"And why were you
so concerned about her? After all, according to your statement, you didn't even
talk to her."

"Because I'm a
retired homicide detective. So is my  friend Lou here. We just retired four
weeks ago. It's in my blood. And something seemed suspicious."

"You're a
what?"

"A retired homicide
detective. Just like you, only retired."

"Well, if you are, you
don't act retired."

"That's what Lou
said. He told me to leave it alone. That we were retired and on vacation."

"But you didn't do
that."

"Some habits are
hard to break."

"And why are you
here, on this particular trip?"

"Because this is
one of the gifts the department gave us when we retired."

He exchanged looks with
his partner. It was as if both of them hoped their parting gifts are as good
when they retire. The look lasted only a minute. He looked back at me.

"Let's get back to
being a homicide detective. Where were you a detective?"

"Hilldale, Kentucky."

"Never heard of
it."

"That's okay. I
didn't know much about Gatlinburg until we got here. And I'd never even heard
of Sevierville. I had no idea that Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg
are all in Sevier county."

He held up his hand to
halt the geography lesson he didn't need.

"Hold on a minute.
Charlie, go check on these two guys. See if they're on the up and up.

"Okay, now back to
Miss Trueblood. We found her this morning. Actually, someone from security here
found her, then called us. Someone
had
thrown her from her balcony. Only
they had broken her neck before they threw her.  You forgot to add the part
about having her neck broken before they hoisted her over the railing."

"Maybe it's because
I wasn't there. And when I'm not there, I can't know everything that goes on.
But I felt that someone might have done that to her. I assume she kept rolling
until she hit the trees at the bottom."

"She did. And why
didn't you go and check on her yourself if you thought she might have been in
jeopardy?"

"I would've done
that, but the people here wouldn't tell me where her room was. I found that out
later after talking to one of the other members of our party. And besides, that
hill is so steep I would have been afraid that  if I had tried to walk down it
I might have fallen all the way down the hill and broken my neck, either when I
fell or when I hit those trees at a good clip. So she really is dead?"