“What?” I looked at him indignantly. “No.”
“Just listen,” he said. “All that we really know, we've gotten from her. She had some relationship with the dead guy. They had money in an account together. They were already struggling. The sheriff found that deposit slip or whatever it was. You told me that. What if she's the one making this place look bad just so she can close it and then sell it?”
I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “No. Why go through all of the trouble? If she wanted to sell it, she could just put it up for sale and sell it.”
“But this gives her a reason,” he said. “So it doesn't seem like she's just trying to cash in. If she just up and announced she was selling, she'd have to deal with angry campers. And we don't know that she's telling the truth about the money. Or about anything, really.”
I wasn't buying it. “I think that's too much of a reach, Jake. I don't think she's lying.”
“I'm not saying she is,” he said. He drummed his fingers on the table top. “I'm just saying it's a possibility. And, the truth is, we're probably not going to ever know what's really happened. It's not up to us to figure it out. There are about a million different possibilities and we aren't here to sort them out.”
I hated the way he could be so logical. “Sometimes I wonder if you have a heart.”
He offered me a smile. “Sometimes I wonder if you have three.”
I watched the cannonball kid try to boost himself out of the pool but his arms were tired and they failed him, dropping him back into the water. He tried one more time, they failed again. and he laughed and swam down toward the shallow end instead.
I knew Jake was right. It wasn't on us to help or figure out what had been going on at Windy Vista. We weren't detectives, no matter how much I nosed around like one. We didn't have the resources to fix all of Delilah's problems and maybe Jake was right about those problems, too. Maybe some of them were of her own doing and she'd shaded them in a different light. Maybe she was just as much to blame for what was going on at the campground as anyone else. I didn't think she was, but I couldn't deny that it was at least a possibility.
“Double trouble,” Jake whispered under his breath.
“What?”
He nodded toward the far end of the pool. “Looney Tunes squared.”
I turned and saw Mary and Carrie sauntering around the far end of the pool. One had on a red bikini top and black bottoms and the other wore a black top and red bottoms. Mix and match. Their faces were expressionless as they laid their towels down on the lounge chairs and surveyed the pool. When they noticed us, one whispered to the other and they both nodded. Then they waded into the shallow end, still whispering to one another.
“They creep me out,” I said to Jake.
“It's like they share one brain,” he said, adding, “A very small one.”
The twins moved slowly away from the far wall, toward the middle of the pool. They simultaneously dipped beneath the rope that divided the two ends of the pool and reemerged on the other side at the same time. They took synchronized strokes in our direction.
“It's like they're sharks,” Jake said. “And we're the chum.”
“Should we leave?”
“I like to think of us as brave chum.”
“I think you just like seeing them in their bikinis.”
“They're wearing bikinis?” Jake asked innocently.
I shook my head just as they reached our end of the pool. They both set their elbows up on the pool deck and looked at us.
“Hello,” I said.
They looked at one another and then the one on the left said, “Hello.”
A massive, awkward silence followed.
“Are you just enjoying the water or did you swim down here for a reason?” I finally asked.
They looked at one another and the same one as before said, “We swam down here for a reason.”
Another awkward silence.
Very, very small brain.
“We heard Chuck and Jaw got arrested,” the talking one said.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Because of you,” the other said.
“Because they broke into our camper, yes,” I corrected.
They exchanged looks again.
“We don't like them anymore,” the one on the left said.
“Are you Mary or Carrie?” I asked, unable to stand it any longer.
“Mary,” she said, then pointed to her sister. “That's Carrie.”
“Good to know. Why don't you like them anymore?”
“Because they are weasels,” Mary said.
“Yeah,” Carrie chimed in. “Weasels.”
“Okay.”
“Do you think they did that thing to Harvey?” Mary asked.
“I have no idea,” I said honestly. “I don't know what happened to Harvey.”
“We heard there's no more money,” Carrie said. “To run the campground.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“When Delilah screamed 'I don't have any more money to run the campground' a little while ago,” Carrie answered.
“Oh.”
“Is that true?”
“We have no idea,” Jake said. “We don't know.”
“What will happen if there's no money?” Carrie asked.
“Again, no idea,” Jake said. “We're here on vacation.”
Carrie looked at Mary. “I wonder if that's why Harvey got so mad the other day.”
“Hmm. Maybe. He was really mad.”
“When was Harvey mad?” I asked.
“Remember how he was swearing?” Carried asked her sister, ignoring me. “And wouldn't stop?”
Mary nodded. “Yeah. And he never swore. But he said, like, every word that day.”
I snapped my fingers at them. “Hey. When was Harvey mad?”
They both turned to look at me.
“After we took him to Frenchie's,” Carrie said.
“What's Frenchie's?”
She stared at me. “Duh. The grocery store.”
The grocery store? I thought about my grocery shopping trip to the little convenience store. But now was not the time to focus on that.
“And you took him there?” I asked. “And he was cussing the whole way there?”
“Yeah. He needed a ride,” Carrie explained. “And he was, like, all red-faced and muttering to himself the whole way there.” She paused. “But that isn't really where he wanted to go.”
“You've lost me,” I said.
“He didn't really want to go to Frenchie's,” Carrie repeated. “Or he wanted us to think that's where he wanted to go.”
“Yeah,” Mary chimed in. “Like he wanted to fool us. But we were too smart for that.”
It was hard to think of them as being too smart for anything or anyone. “You've lost me again.”
Carrie sighed, like she couldn't believe she was still having to explain. “Okay. He came to us. Said he needed a ride into town to go to Frenchie's. But it didn't make sense, okay? Because he'd gone to the store the night before and he didn't need anything.”
“How do you know that?”
Carried looked at her sister.
“Um, we just know, okay?” Mary said. “We know things.”
“No,” I said, trying to be patient. “How did you know that?”
“She thought he was going to meet another girl,” Carrie said. “So she followed him into town. He actually went to get groceries, though. That time.”
Mary shrugged.
My temples throbbed. “Okay. Got it. So he tells you to take him to Frenchie's. But you said that isn't where he really wanted to go. How do you know?”
“Because we waited for him,” Mary said. “He told us just to drop him and that he didn't need a ride back, that he'd get back on his own. I didn't believe him.”
“So we parked across the street and waited,” Carrie said, dropping her voice a little. “Like, surveillance.”
Just like.
“At the ice cream place,” Carrie said. “I had strawberry while we waited.”
“I had bubble gum.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to stay patient. It was worse than waiting for Emily to get out of the bathroom when we were at home. “But then he came back out?”