She nodded. “I was surprised, too. Usually they're here for a night before someone comes and picks them up. I think they get fed better here than they do at home.”
“Who came to pick them up?” I asked.
“No one,” she said. She must have noticed the look of confusion on my face because she added, “They actually had the money to bond themselves out.”
That was odd. It wasn't like they'd stolen the router and then turned around and sold it. Neither of them seemed like the type to keep cash on hand.
“First time for everything, I guess,” she said. “Probably not their own money, but nothing we could do to prove it.” She shrugged. “Who knows?”
I thanked her for her time and walked back outside.
I was sure that someone had to know.
TWENTY NINE
I got back to Windy Vista to find Jake and Wayne Hackerman in conversation.
I drove back from town and used the temporary pass card to lift the gate at the entrance of the campground. I obeyed the speed limit and crawled up the hill past the clubhouse and toward our cabin. I did a double take when I drove by Hackerman's massive black RV and saw him talking with Jake. No punches were being thrown, so I drove past, parked the car at the cabin and then walked back toward Hackerman's lot.
“I have no idea,” Hackerman was saying. “But I'm tired of this crap.”
“What crap?” I asked, coming up behind them, my feet crunching on the gravel in his drive.
Jake turned, surprised. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Hackerman just frowned at me.
“How was your trip into town?” Jake asked.
“Fine.” I wasn't ready to share the details of my visit at the county jail. I looked at Hackerman. “What crap?”
He waved a hand in the air. “All the crap that's been going on around here. And it started when you two showed up.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “I was going for a walk after I woke and found your note. I was walking by and he asked if my wife found any more thieves. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I stopped to ask.” He forced a smile. “Here we are.”
“Look, I'm sorry,” Hackerman said. He lifted the cap sitting on his head, repositioning it. “I'm just a little on edge. I know you two aren't really responsible for all this, but I don't wanna lose this place, okay?”
“I understand,” I said. “I don't blame you.”
“And when I hear Delilah talking about selling and what-not, then I get a little worried about not having a place to go,” he said, frowning again. “Me and Rhonda and the kids have been coming here for years and I don't wanna go nowhere else, okay? This is our second home and I wanna keep it that way. No place else offers what we have here.” He sighed. “So with all of this crap going on, I'm just tired of it.”
“Maybe you can buy it then,” Jake offered.
Hackerman looked at him like he'd gone insane. “You know what this land will fetch if she sells it? A lot. Way more than I got in my bank account.” He shook his head. “There ain't no way. Rhonda and I, we do alright, but not that kind of alright.”
On cue, the door to the RV opened and Rhonda sauntered out in cut off denim shorts and a yellow bikini top, both of which were too small for her. Initially, her mouth was tightened into an irritated little knot. But then she saw Jake and the knot morphed into a blinding smile.
“Guests!” she said, stepping down from the steps of the RV. “How lovely!”
Hackerman and I rolled our eyes in unison.
“He told me what happened,” Jake said to me, ignoring her. “About those two kooks taking the router and chasing them down. You're alright?”
“I'm fine,” I said. “And Wayne was the one that caught them. Otherwise, they would've gotten away.”
Hackerman shrugged off my giving him credit.
“Yes,” Rhonda said, batting her fake eyelashes at Jake. “Wayne told me about helping out your wife.” She paused and a corner of her mouth turned upward. “Maybe you'll be able to return the favor.”
“Jesus Christ, Rhonda,” Hackerman said. “Put a cork in it.”
I tried to ignore her for a moment. “You said everything started when we got here. So there haven't been any other problems this summer?”
Hackerman thought for a moment. “Well, I can't say that. Ned Bailey had the windshield on his golf cart smashed a couple weeks back. Big old crack that ran right down the middle of it and he had to have it replaced. And Bruce Hanstad told me he had a busted window in his camper. Came back one night from dinner at The Landing and saw it. Nothing taken, though, that he found.” Hackerman rolled his thick shoulders. “So I guess there's been some stuff before you all arrived.”
“What about before this summer?” I asked. “Like last year?”
Hackerman thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not that I recall, no. Everyone kinda watches out for one another and there ain't been no trouble. Those boneheads I clotheslined have always been around, but its been more like them hanging out because they had nothing to do instead of them stealing stuff.”
“People skinnydip,” Rhonda said, eyeing Jake. “Occasionally.”
Hackerman made a face. “Yeah, but that ain't the same as breaking into people's places and doing harm to their property. That's a whole different game.”
So it was happening all of a sudden. I didn't think Jake and I were responsible for it, but it sure sounded as if it was all something more than a coincidence. I could think of two possibilities. One, maybe someone wanted others to think that Windy Vista was an unsafe place. They wanted to drive people away, so that it would either have to close or be sold. It was hard to think that anyone would want it to close, though, especially given the fact that most of the people I'd run into seemed to love the resort.
The other possibility was that someone was just mad at Delilah and were trying make her life miserable and force her out of business. The twins had openly said they didn't like her. I couldn't imagine that Chuck and Jaw were too fond of her, either.
But would either of those things be enough of a reason for someone to actually kill Harvey?
Hackerman glanced at his watch, then at his wife. “We gotta be getting down to bingo at the lodge at the resort.”
Rhonda Hackerman made a face as if that was the last thing she wanted to do. Then she glanced at Jake. “You should come. And play.”
“I'm not much for bingo,” Jake said, smiling at her. “But good luck.”
She murmured something I couldn't understand and looked him up and down like she wanted to cover him in chocolate and eat him.
I slipped my hand into his and stared at Rhonda. “Enjoy bingo. We'll find something to keep us busy.” I winked at her. “If you know what I mean.”
Rhonda's face darkened as Hackerman pulled her away.
THIRTY
“I thought you meant we were going to go have sex,” Jake said.
We'd left the Hackerman's lot and continued walking past our cabin, taking the long outer loop to stroll in the sunshine.
“That's what I wanted her to think,” I said. “I swear, I'm going to punch her in the face if she looks at you like that one more time.”
“Like what?”
“Like she wants to strip and throw you to the ground right on the spot,” I growled.
“I hadn't noticed,” Jake said, but he was grinning.
“Maybe I'll just punch you instead.”
“Back to my original question,” Jake said, squeezing my hand. “I thought we were going back to the cabin to—”
“I need to think,” I told him. “Clear my head. So you'll just have to keep your desire at bay for the moment. Unless you'd like to go chase down Rhonda Hackerman.”
He squeezed my hand again. “Stop. The only woman I'm interested in chasing down is you.”
“Good answer,” I said. “And I'm too distracted to have sex right now.”
“Why's that?”
“Because all of this is bothering me,” I said as we walked. “Those idiots stealing the router. The vandalism. The murder. What exactly is going on here?”