Chapter 8 #2
Around us, Happy Trails Campground had settled into that strange middle ground between community gathering and crime scene aftermath.
The fundraiser crowd had mostly gone home, but little pockets of people still lingered beneath awnings and around campfires, whispering quietly enough to pretend they weren’t gossiping.
Crickets chirped from the woods while frogs croaked down by the lake.
Every once in a while, the distant sound of laughter drifted from another campsite before fading back into the heavy summer night.
The kerosene lanterns still hanging around the tiki hut cast soft gold light across the gravel while smoke from the communal firepit curled upward into the dark tree canopy overhead.
Somewhere out in the Daniel Boone National Forest, an owl hooted low and slow enough to make the night feel even bigger around us.
“We should head to the firepit,” I said quietly. “If we’re gonna talk, we don’t need church ladies overhearing every theory before sunrise.”
“Amen to that,” Dottie muttered while flicking ash toward the gravel. “That prayer chain spreads faster than athlete’s foot at a public pool.”
Queenie immediately perked up. “Are we officially sleuthing?”
Betts looked toward Mary Elizabeth’s fifth wheel, where the church ladies still fussed over coffeepots and casseroles. “Maybe we should wait till morning.”
“We’ve never waited till morning,” Dottie pointed out.
Unfortunately, she was right.
The four of us slowly made our way toward the communal firepit near the lake, where the campground sat quieter this far from my RV.
Wooden Adirondack chairs circled the large stone pit while embers from earlier still glowed softly beneath blackened logs.
The smell of smoke mixed with pine, damp earth, and citronella candles burning beside nearby campers.
By the time we sat down, Abby Fawn Bonds came jogging toward us, carrying the familiar purple spiral notebook hugged tightly against her chest like it contained government secrets instead of amateur murder-solving notes.
Her high ponytail bounced behind her while Bobby Ray followed, carrying a flashlight and two bottles of water.
“I knew it,” Abby announced breathlessly while dropping into one of the chairs. “The second Bobby Ray said y’all disappeared toward the firepit, I knew the notebook was needed.”
Bobby Ray pointed toward us. “I don’t wanna hear later that y’all got involved in another murder without me knowin’ about it from the start.”
“You say that every time,” Dottie reminded him. “Then you complain the whole investigation.”
“Because y’all almost get killed every investigation.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Bobby Ray shook his head and headed back toward the campground loops while muttering something about all of us needing supervision. Abby immediately opened the spiral notebook across her lap and clicked her pen dramatically.
“All right,” she said with far too much enthusiasm for midnight after a possible poisoning. “Victim?”
“Florence Sparks,” Queenie answered quietly while staring into the firepit. “Lord, that still sounds strange.”
Abby carefully wrote “Florence Sparks” in the center of a clean page before drawing a large circle around the name. From there, lines branched outward like spokes on a wheel while the rest of us settled deeper into our chairs, thinking through the night.
The campground noises surrounded us softly.
The distant hum of a generator. Wind moving through the trees.
Somebody’s dog barking three campsites over before finally settling down.
A screen door slammed somewhere near the bathhouse loop while golf cart tires crunched slowly over gravel farther up the road.
“All right,” Abby said while looking up from the notebook. “Who had problems with Florence?”
All of us started talking at once.
“Tara Kelly,” Queenie said immediately.
“Alice Charles,” I added.
“Probably half the Historical Society,” Dottie muttered while lighting another cigarette.
Abby held up one hand. “One at a time before my handwriting turns into chicken scratches.”
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “Tara definitely had personal history with Florence. I overheard her on the phone saying she wanted to know who seated her beside ‘the adulterer.’”
Queenie’s mouth dropped open. “You never told me that.”
“There wasn’t exactly time.”
Dottie snorted softly. “Well, that explains the death stare over cucumber sandwiches.”
Abby scribbled furiously beneath Tara’s name. “Possible affair scandal,” she murmured while writing.
Betts shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Now, hold on. We don’t know details.”
“We know enough,” Dottie answered. “Women don’t glare at each other like that over salad forks.”
The fire cracked softly while sparks floated upward into the trees. The humid night air pressed heavy against my skin, and somewhere across the lake, a fish splashed loudly enough to make all of us glance toward the water for half a second.
“What about Alice?” Abby asked.
I nodded slowly. “Alice openly disagreed with Florence about conservation funding. She said Florence treated preserving the forest like wasting money on grass and mud.”
Queenie rolled her eyes. “Florence hated outdoor funding unless it involved a ribbon cutting and photographers.”
“That’s not motive for murder,” Betts pointed out carefully.
“No,” Dottie agreed while exhaling smoke into the darkness. “But it’s motive for fantasizing about murder.”
Abby added notes beneath Alice’s name while Queenie nervously adjusted her headband again.
“I still can’t believe this happened at the Milkery,” Queenie whispered. “Mary Elizabeth is going to be devastated once the gossip starts.”
“The gossip’s already started,” Dottie informed her. “Helen Pyle probably got three versions of the story spread before we even left the sheriff’s department.”
Honestly, that was probably true.
Abby flipped the notebook around briefly so we could all see the growing diagram. Florence’s name sat in the center, surrounded now by “Tara Kelly,” “Alice Charles,” and several blank lines waiting for more names.
“We should add the waitress,” I said suddenly.
All three women looked at me.
“The one who spilled the water?” Betts asked.
I nodded. “She was around the table constantly during the tea. And after the spill, she completely reset everything while we toured the chicken coop.”
Queenie’s expression tightened slightly. “That poor girl looked terrified.”
“Terrified people still kill folks,” Dottie pointed out matter-of-factly.
Betts frowned immediately. “Dottie.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
Abby carefully wrote “waitress” beneath another line. “Do we know her name?”
All of us sat quietly for a second.
Then simultaneously:
“No.”
“That seems important,” Abby muttered while underlining “waitress” twice.
“She could’ve heard something,” I agreed. “Put her on the list to go see. I believe Mary Elizabeth got the catering information from Coke Odgen.”
A breeze shifted through the trees, carrying the smell of lake water and smoke across the firepit. I wrapped my arms loosely around myself while my brain kept replaying the scene of Florence lying at the bottom of the staircase. The pearls. The twisted shoe. The bruise forming near her temple.
“I still don’t fully understand the poison angle,” Betts admitted softly. “Wouldn’t somebody have noticed if Florence got sick?”
“That’s what bothers me,” I answered honestly.
“She didn’t seem sick at the tea party. Bossy?
Yes. Annoying? Definitely. But not sick.
Which makes me think she was poisoned after the tea party,” I said softly.
“Put it on the list that I need to find out what she did between the tea party and coming down those stairs.”
“What did the First Lady of Kentucky say?” Betts referred to Tara sarcastically.
“First Lady my…” Dottie muttered a word under her breath that would make the devil blush as she blew out a line of smoke.
“I’ve not talked to them. I knew Al was going to, so I decided not to say anything yet.” I shook my head, knowing that whatever we said to Tara, it could be used against me, no matter if it was good or bad.
She did have powerful people on her side. After all, she was married to the governor.