Murder in Gatlinburg (8 page)

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While the Applewood
Farmhouse and the Titanic attraction are mere minutes from each other, in going
from one place to the other we had officially traveled from Sevierville to Pigeon
Forge without me being able to tell when we left the first and arrived at the
second. And we had arrived at Pigeon Forge without encountering any pigeons,
which to me was a plus. Pigeons are not among my favorite birds. Maybe I would
feel differently if I sent messages. But enough about pigeons. We boarded the
bus in the Titanic parking lot and Earl was able to navigate our exit without
ramming the Titanic or hitting a iceberg. We were about to head farther into
Pigeon Forge. In no way did it look like Hilldale. Lexington, either. It was
more of an "if you build it they will come" kind of place, and
someone had built one attraction right next to another one for as far as I
could see. I couldn't think of anyone I knew who could afford to take in each
attraction, or would live long enough to do so. But the next attraction of
sorts that we were to visit was more of an attraction to me.

I knew where we were
headed. That is, I knew if I was to believe the itinerary. I just had no idea
what Mel's Diner looked like. At Wears Valley Road, the bus turned right, and
one block later we were at Mel's Diner. I'm not sure if I was surprised or not,
but it looked like a diner. Not a ship. Not King Kong. But a diner. With
pictures of classic cars painted on the windows. One at a time our fellow
passengers stepped down off the bus, lined up horizontally, and pulled out cell
phones and digital cameras to take pictures of those windows.

There weren't a lot of
windows, so a minute or so later, the  lemmings headed up the ramp to the
diner. I kept Lou beside me and told him to follow my lead. My goal was to sit
across from two people who were in our group who weren't named Sylvia or Inez.

I used a tactic I
learned from Sylvia. I was already shoving Lou into one side of a booth as I
asked the couple seated on the other side if Lou and I could join them. They
seemed as excited to have us as we had been to have Sylvia and Inez.

I apologized to the
couple and introduced myself. I let Lou introduce his own self. We quickly
learned that our boothmates were Bill and Shirley Richardson of Frankfort, Kentucky. They looked to be somewhere around our age. Both Bill and Shirley
worked for the state, but then doesn't everyone in Frankfort work for the state?
Bill said he was an engineer, which meant that Shirley did most of the talking.
They had two children whose names I forgot almost as soon as she said them, but
I did take the time to look at her cell phone and tell her how adorable her grandchildren
were. Then she showed us pictures of their children and the spouses. I nodded
and smiled, but refrained from telling that her grown children were cute. At
least neither of their children looked like someone with a prison record. I
found out that Bill and Shirley were on their first bus tour, too. I realized
that both of them were very much alive, and neither of them looked like someone
who might end another person's life prematurely, which meant that their
children might have benefited from heredity and environment. That meant I
needed to keep them on my suspect list, the parents, not the children, provided
Lou's brain wasn't going all fuzzy from retirement. Lou and I refrained from
sharing a lot of information about ourselves, so my guess is that if Shirley
had gotten the same message that Lou did, she had kept the two of us very high
on her suspect list. I looked around at our fellow travelers between bites of a
cheeseburger, French fries, and a banana split. As the last person appeared to
finish eating someone looked up and saw that our bus had returned. I assumed Earl
had gone through a drive-thru somewhere else, because he didn't join us in
Mel's Diner

After we boarded while
Earl counted, Earl got on and sat down behind the wheel. The bus returned one
block to the main road and turned in the opposite direction than the one we had
come from. That was good, because I wasn't quite ready to go home. Besides, we
couldn't go home until we solved the murder, and we couldn't solve the murder
until it happened. Lou and I had learned over the years that we stood a better
chance of solving a murder if we knew who had been murdered. And we were
thankful that no serial killers ever invaded Hilldale.

I assumed that the
direction in which we were headed would take us to Gatlinburg, since I
remembered that Westgate Resort was our next stop. We passed one thousand seven
hundred and twenty-two more attractions, left Pigeon Forge behind, and zipped past
a lot of trees that would make a great picture for a difficult to solve jigsaw
puzzle. There was even a stream that flowed beside us part of the time. Locals
called that stream the Little Pigeon River. Obviously, whoever named it had
never ventured as far as the Mississippi. Back home we have creeks deeper than
the Little Pigeon. If I thought it was a poor excuse for a river, I wondered
what Texans would think. Still, it was a scenic few inches of water and made for
a beautiful sight.

A few minutes later, Earl
signaled and eased the bus into a left turn lane and we darted across the
oncoming traffic to get to the other side. Earl's luck was much better than the
possums in my neck of the woods. To be honest, even though Earl knew that the
bus was larger than anything coming at us on their way to Pigeon Forge, he
waited for a break in the traffic before he zipped across and through a parting
of some more trees. I had no idea that mere feet beyond the beautiful wilderness
we had just left behind sat Westgate Resort. Earl drove the bus up to one of
three large buildings that looked like a good place for vacationers to check
in. He stopped the bus and told us what time that he would pick us up that
evening to take us to dinner and a show, all in one. After the most words I'd
heard Earl speak since we first met him, he asked us to stay on the bus while
he unloaded all of the luggage and asked someone where we were supposed to
check in.

Five minutes later,
after rescuing my luggage and receiving a pointed finger from Earl as to where
we were to go to check in, Lou and I headed inside and to the back of the line.
A few seconds later, we were no longer at the back of the line, as several of
our newfound friends joined us. As we waited to check in, I checked out the
beautiful, spacious, log building in which we found ourselves. Westgate Resort
seemed to be quite a place. I knew my room wouldn't be quite as large as the
one where I stood, but if it looked as good it would be fine with me.

It didn't take me long
to find out what my room looked like. Someone named Emily, who called herself a
concierge, took Lou and me to a multi-seat golf cart, and we loaded up our
luggage to take off. All she needed was the number of the rooms where we were
staying. As I rode, holding on to make sure Emily didn't deposit me before we
arrived at my room, I quickly learned several things about Westgate. Everywhere
except the place where we checked in was on a hill. There were enough huge,
three-story log buildings that each attraction in Pigeon Forge could have had
one, and all the log mansions had green roofs. They didn't all look exactly
alike, but similar enough that it would behoove someone staying there to stay
sober. Of course there were also some smaller buildings that housed fewer
guests. Some of them allowed people to get inside without climbing any stairs.

Emily must have been on
vacation, too, because she waved at everyone who walked or drove by. She told
us a little about the place, but I was too busy deciding if I was ready to retire
there to pay any attention to her. Later, I planned to ask Lou if any of what
she said was important.

After continuing to go
up until we could look down on Pike's Peak, she pulled over and told us we had
arrived. We soon learned that Lou's room was next to mine, which was good, and
that our rooms were on the top floor, which I wasn't sure if it was good or
not. After conquering the summit, I was happy that I'd lost weight. I'm not
sure I could have done the whole climb in one day before I slimmed down, and I
didn't see an elevator anywhere.

We visited my room
first. Emily unlocked an outside door, and then there were two other doors.
Mine was straight ahead. Emily unlocked it too, and allowed me to enter. I wasn't
aware that I was sharing the room with someone else. No, there wasn't anyone in
the room, but it was large enough for a good-size campout. Or camp in. I had a
kitchen, a dining room, a living room with a fireplace that I wouldn't need,
and a door leading out to a balcony. Off that was a large bathroom, and a
bedroom with a king-size bed that I could wallow all over. I could even get to
the balcony from there, too. The place wasn't quite as large as my house, but
it was close. I wondered how much all of this set back the guys back home. I
wondered if I should cut George some slack, but I quickly convinced myself that
I shouldn't. I still planned to get even with him, and Lou.

Lou came in and checked
out my room, just in case his ended up being larger or smaller. Actually, Lou's
room wasn't the one right next to me, but was at the other end of the top floor
of Fort Westgate, sixty or so feet away, and from what I understood from our concierge
Emily, it looked just like mine only backwards.  

After Emily left to take
Lou to his room, I stepped out onto the balcony, and looked out at the
beautiful trees, a little farther away than reaching distance. Then I looked
down. I didn't see any bodies, but I realized that the ground was far enough
below to allow a person to start out living at the top and mutilated at the
bottom.

I stood there for a few
minutes, wondering if I could talk the department into sending me back for a
second week or just let me stay there for a while. Maybe I could unretire and
investigate all of the murders that would take place at Westgate. After a
couple of minutes of daydreaming,  I walked back inside and plopped down on the
most comfortable leather couch I had ever encountered. I could have slept
there. It was comfortable enough and large enough. But I didn't want to give up
my king-size bed. It would be the first time I had slept on a king-size bed,
since I didn't have one at home, hadn't taken any other vacations, and didn't
ever go to visit anyone. Compared to my bed at home, this bed was so large that
even a married couple who weren't getting along could have slept on it and not
encountered one another, even if both of them tossed and turned during the
night.

As I sat there on that
comfortable brown leather couch, I decided to text Lou. I wanted to text
periodically to make sure that I continued to remember everything Mark, my yard
boy and computer expert, had told me about texting, and to see if Lou was
paying attention that day.

DOES YOUR PLACE LOOK
AS GOOD AS MINE?

A couple of minutes
later, I received a reply.

Stop shouting.

I couldn't understand
what he was talking about at first, and then I remembered that all caps is
shouting. Before I could reply, I received a second text.

I didn't remember
yours having a hot tub.

I was sure his didn't
have one, either, but I was sure I could find one somewhere on the grounds.

Listen, I'm going to
take a nap. Wake me at 4:30 if I haven't called you back by then.

As I lay in the center
of the bed, I wondered how long it would have taken me to get out of that bed
if I hadn't lost all that weight. I just knew that when it came to comfort, the
bed felt as good as the couch. Even better, if that was possible.

As I sometimes do when I
sleep, while I slept I dreamed. Some of the dream was realistic. The setting
was my one bedroom deluxe at Westgate. But in my dream, I mean nightmare, I
heard a noise and walked out on my balcony to see where it was coming from.
Sylvia was climbing up a column toward my balcony.

I turned over to lie on
my other side, hoping to change my luck. It worked. In my new dream Jennifer
and Heather were fighting over me. When I woke up I was kissing my pillow.
While I thought about sharing my dream with Lou, I planned to leave out the
part about the pillow.

I lay there, looking out
the window at the trees. I have a bed and trees at my house, but I found out
that doing the same thing on vacation felt better. I thought of the guys back
home and teared up when I visualized them feeding the kitty so Lou and I could
actually have a vacation. Most of the guys back home took one every year, and
some of them traveled to places more distant than Gatlinburg. But to me this
was a good thing.

Next I thought of
Jennifer, back home, missing me. Well, I hoped she was missing me. She said she
was when she texted me.

When I envisioned my
next-door neighbor at the locksmith getting herself a duplicate key made to my
house, I knew it was time to get out of bed.

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I checked my watch. Gatlinburg
was in the same time zone as Hilldale, so I had awakened  in time to catch the
bus. Once I arrived and our group was intact, I counted heads and realized that
everyone else in our group were still surviving. I began to wonder if Lou
really did receive a message, or if he was playing mind games with me, and
seeing how I would handle retirement.