“City slickers, you mean? Who can't tell the difference between a corpse and a pile of dead leaves?" Jane asked. She was as mad as Shelley. "We saw Sam Claypool's body. There was no mistaking it. We were standing only a couple feet from him. He was lying on his back. His eyes were open and he'd apparently been smacked in the head with a frying pan that was on the ground next to him. There was blood.”
Taylor was shaking his head and glaring at them from under his heavy eyebrows. "We've had people here swear they've seen the ghost of a pioneer woman. It's easy out in the woods. There are strange shadows, animals, and tonight it was pouring down rain, there was lightning. It doesn't mean you're crazy, just that—"
“It was a body," Shelley said firmly. "If Sam Claypool's not dead, where is he?"
“I just sent my deputy to their cabin. We'll know in a minute or two.”
Nine
"well, he is missing," the deputy reported to the sheriff a few minutes later.
Jane and Shelley had dragged their bedspreads off the beds, and were huddled in them by the doorway where they were eavesdropping.
“See!" Shelley exclaimed.
Sheriff Taylor glared at her and turned back to the deputy. "When did he go missing?"
“His wife says" — the deputy consulted his notes—"that he said he wanted to just sit by the fire for a bit and told her to go on back to the cabin. She walked back with her brother-in-law and his wife and went to bed to read. Fell asleep and didn't even realize he still hadn't come back until I wakened her. Now she's in a panic."
“The couple in the cabin across from her are her in-laws. Better send them to her," Taylor said. "Keep her as calm as possible until we have this sorted out."
“That's it," Jane said to Shelley. "I'm giving up and getting dressed. We're not going to get any sleep.”
Taylor overheard this. "Good idea. I'd like all you people in the lodge. My deputy will escort you down there when you're ready. Don't come outside unless he's here. Don't roam around anyplace on your own.”
Jane closed the door, muttering, "Can we possibly look as stupid as he seems to think we are?”
Shelley looked at Jane, then down at herself. Both were clad in several layers of nightwear topped with matching bedspreads.
“Yes," she said.
They put on clean, dry clothes, but had to don the wet, muddy ponchos. The deputy — who turned out to be named Reedy, which was a serious disappointment to Jane, who wanted him to be called Fife — was waiting for them. The rain had again let up a little bit, but they hurried along as quickly as possible anyway for fear it would start up again. And it did, just as they reached the lodge. There were several unfamiliar cars parked in front, plus an ambulance, but no sign of the people who went with the vehicles.
Inside, most of the rest of the guests and staff, plus the ambulance driver and another police officer, were milling around. Allison wasn't in sight, but Benson, Edna, and one of the boys who had helped with dinner and entertainment had thrown together hot cocoa, coffee, and an assortment of doughnuts, apparently on the premise that a crisis always went better if there was plenty of food around. John Claypool was moving the sofas away from the fireplace and setting up rockers from the porch to hang clammy ponchos over to dry. He looked like a man who wanted to find something to do to keep his mind occupied.
Jane handed her poncho and Shelley's to him, and he arranged them neatly over the back of a chair. "You ladies found him, didn't you?"
“Yes, we did," Jane said.
“I should have gone back sooner," John said. "I told Eileen he'd stayed behind and I was concerned that he was worried about something."
“You went back to the campsite?”
John nodded and adjusted a few folds of fabric as if it were very important. "Went up there to see if he wanted to talk, but I didn't see him."
“And you didn't look around?" Jane asked.
John shrugged. "No reason to. He was sitting by the fire when we left. When I got back, he wasn't. I didn't have any reason to hunt for him. I just figured he'd gotten tired of sitting out there in the rain."
“Then what?"
“Huh? Oh, the rain was letting up, so I strolled on down here to the lodge and looked in the windows to see if he'd come here. Place was mostly dark, though, except for some light under the kitchen door, so I went on back to our cabin. I'm surprised I didn't run into you two ladies somewhere along the line. You sure he was dead? You couldn't be mistaken, could you?”
Jane shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I'm sure. Is Eileen with Marge?”
He nodded. "They aren't much alike, but they do get on pretty well. Poor ol' Marge. I don't know what she'll do without Sam. It's going to be tough on all of us.”
Jane mumbled her regrets and, not knowing what else she could say to a grieving brother, went to join Shelley, who was picking over the doughnuts. "You might be interested to know that John Claypool was out roaming around in the rain this evening after we left the campsite," Jane said in a low voice. She repeated what John had said.
“So was Al Flowers. Maybe," Shelley whispered back.
“What do you mean by 'maybe'?"
“He was telling me he went out to their car to get something he'd forgotten to bring in. Said he'd bought an audiotape, some kind of music Liz hates and wouldn't let him play on the drive up. So he sat out in the car and listened to it by himself. Had the engine running and the heater on and said it was warmer and drier than the cabin."
“Did he see anyone suspicious?"
“He says he was listening with his eyes closed and fell asleep."
“It's probably true," Jane said. "But it is an odd thing to do on a cold, rainy night, isn't it?" She thought for a minute. "I wouldn't want to think badly of him. I like him a lot."
“Me, too. Jane, should we be telling the sheriff these things about John and Al?"
“I don't know. They'll probably tell him themselves. John didn't indicate that it was a secret anyway.”
Shelley nodded. "No, neither did Al. Jane, why would anybody move a body? Especially a body that had already been seen by others."
“Maybe he didn't know we'd seen it," Jane said, choosing a doughnut with chocolate icing. She wasn't really hungry, just needed the comfort of chocolate.
They took their coffee cups and plates into the dining room, which was darkened. Nobody could overhear them there.
“He?" Shelley asked.
“Well, I suppose it could have been a woman. Sam Claypool wasn't a very big man, and I guess a strong woman could have moved him."
“But what I can't get my mind around is why anybody would move him," Shelley said. "Look at it from the killer's point of view. Sam stays back after the rest have gone. The killer creeps up on him, smacks him with the frying pan—"
“No, wait. He probably wasn't still sitting by the fire," Jane said. "If he had been, we'd have found him there. Or John Claypool would have when he went back."
“Right. Okay," Shelley said. "So the killer picks up the frying pan— No, that won't work either. If I were sitting out in the woods alone and somebody came along and picked up a heavy frying pan, I wouldn't stick around to see what they had in mind."