She drove all the way down to the river and then turned right, moving slowly past the campers parked in the best spots. She noticed her Casita, still on site number seventy-one, the same place she had been since she first made her way to Shady Grove Park almost six months earlier. The two sites beside her rig were empty, and then there was the large motor home with the couple from California, J. D. and Myrtle Hinshaw's travel trailer next to that one, and then the three rigs from the group from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on their way south to Brownsville, Texas. One of the couples was just returning from a walk around the property, and Rose greeted them as she drove past them.
It was cold and she wanted to return to the office, but she huddled down inside the cart, trying to get out of the wind. She went up and down the three roads that accessed all the sites near the Mississippi River but did not see any new camper, only the same vehicles that had been parked there the previous day.
She turned down the river road again and was returning to the office when she noticed Ms. Lou Ellen's dog standing in the center of the driveway that led to the part of the property that was closed to campers.
Rose pulled the golf cart toward the dog, and as she got near him, he jumped up and turned, running down the drive. Without knowing what to expect, she decided to follow the old mutt. She stepped on the gas pedal and drove down the dirt drive. She didn't see the truck and the Coachmen until she was right in front of them. She hit the brake and sat in the cart, staring at the rig, while the old dog stood at the sliding trailer steps and barked.
Apparently, Rose thought, surprised to find the travel trailer in that section of the campground, Mr. Lester Earl Perkins had arrived at Shady Grove in a Coachmen. And he was not traveling alone.
THREE
Rose stepped out of the golf cart as the dog wagged his tail and barked.
“What is it, old guy?” she said as she walked toward the camper. “This your home?”
She headed toward the front steps, stopping to rub the dog on the head. “Whose idea was it to park over here?” she asked as she stood up, glanced around, and finally knocked on the door.
“Hello,” she called out. “Anybody home?” There was no response except the whining of the dog.
The camper had been backed into the small space. There were no tracks coming in from behind, just the ones in front of the rig, a wide curve to the right, and then a straight movement to the rear, stopping in the position in which it now rested.
As she stood waiting at the steps, Rose did notice, however, another set of tracks following up the drive.
At first, she thought that maybe the driver had pulled up and backed in a couple of times before getting his rig like he wanted it; that perhaps he or she had even realized that this was not part of the working campground and was going to exit. When she looked more closely, however, she realized that the other tracks were different. The tires were wider, a tighter tread. There were two vehicles that had driven into this area the previous night.
Rose turned to examine the area behind her and could make out the departing tracks that returned to the drive and led out the main entry. She faced the door, puzzled at where the other vehicle was and how it had also entered and departed without anyone hearing it. She checked her watch, wondering if she was waking the traveler, shrugged her shoulders, and knocked again.
“Hello, is anybody home?” she called out as politely as she could.
She tried to peek through the window on the door, but she couldn't see anything but a pale blue curtain that covered the glass completely. She waited and then knocked again. There was not a single noise coming from inside.
She moved down the steps and walked around the rig. She could see that there had been no attempt to unhook the truck from the rig, that the driver had only backed in and then placed two large stones behind the rear tires, a temporary means to secure the camper.
Even though the trailer and the truck appeared to be old, there was a good strong ball and hinge attachment on both vehicles that appeared relatively new. The silver finish was not rusted like the axle on the trailer and there were no chips or scratches to show age or wear. There was also an additional pin and fastener, found only on the newer models, so that Rose could see that the owner had updated the hauling features, apparently planning for a long trip.
The safety chain was thick, at least four-inch links, and it wrapped around the hitch on the truck and under the extension that was bolted to the camper. It, too, looked new. It seemed that the latest Shady Grove tenant had taken extra care to travel safely from New Mexico all the way to West Memphis, Arkansas.
Rose read the license plate on the truck. There was nothing significant about it. The bright yellow plate with the parallel red lines pointing in all four directions was dusty and bent. She saw that the sticker had expired at least four months earlier, but it was hard to read, since the paper had been torn and replaced.
She knelt down and noticed a leak under the engine block, a small puddle near the front of the vehicle. The liquid was dark, black like oil, she thought. She wondered if it was the engine trouble that had led the campground guest to park where he did, thinking that he was making the attempt to be courteous and not stain the large concrete pads on the other sites. She certainly did not know any other reason for the camper to be in that location.
As she stood up, she peered again around the empty lot. She considered that maybe the trailer owner had taken a walk or was down at the riverbank fishing, that maybe he had gone searching for the dog. She saw no one moving about on this side of the campground.
She turned again to the trailer, and that was when she saw a small opening in the curtain in the rear window of the camper. She was hesitant at first, but then she moved over to it and gently knocked on it. She guessed that this would have been the window right above the bed, and again she hoped she was not waking anyone up.
She pressed her face against the glass, cupping her hand around her eyes as she peeked in.
It was dark inside and it took a minute before her eyes adjusted. When they did, what she saw immediately concerned her. Either the visitor at Shady Grove was the most cluttered person she had ever encountered or the trailer had been ransacked. Although she couldn't see the entire interior space of the old Coachmen, what she could make out were household itemsâpots and pans, linens and clothesâall tossed around.
The small kitchen table was overturned, as was the back bed. Sheets and pillows were thrown about. Cabinets were standing open and cookware and canned goods were strewn across the camper floor. It was a mess, and Rose, concerned that someone was inside and had been hurt, began rapping on the window.
“Hello! Is there anybody in there?” she yelled. Then she pressed her face against the glass again. This time, she tried to see as much of the inside of the trailer as she could. And when her eyes panned around the second time, she noticed something sticking out from beneath the narrow table.
It was an arm, thin and brown, the palm facing up. It extended from underneath the broken piece of furniture.
“Oh Lord,” Rose screamed as she hurried away from the camper, falling against the rear of the truck. The dog had been standing at her feet, and in her gruesome discovery, she'd tripped over the three-legged mutt. She leaned against the truck to regain her balance.
She ran around to the front steps and tried opening the door. It was locked. She pushed against it, without much luck of forcing it open. So she jumped down, ran back to the truck, and picked up one of the rocks at the rear tire. She hurried again to the front door and, using the stone, broke the window. She dropped the rock and quickly reached inside, turning the lock. Then she pushed the door and moved inside.
It was worse than what she had thought. The place was destroyed inside. It was more than just clutter or things becoming unsettled from a bumpy ride. It was evident that this mess had been created, that someone had deliberately set about to cause damage.
Once inside, walking about and making her way through the mess, she immediately knew that she was compromising the scene, something her father, a police captain, had constantly drilled into her head when he was preaching to her about good police work.
Rose, however, a nurse by profession, knew the most important thing at that moment was trying to find the person who belonged to the arm she had seen sticking out from underneath the table.
She made her way through the pile of boxes and personal belongings to the small dining table and yanked it up, throwing it toward the rear of the camper. There was a bedsheet beneath it. She pulled that away, and there lay a man, older, maybe seventy or seventy-five, dead, she thought, for more than a few hours.
Having worked in health care for all of her adult life, Rose quickly checked for a pulse, found none, and then tried to determine the nature of the camper's injuries. She felt both his left wrist and then the carotid artery in his neck. There was nothing. And she could tell by the slight stiffness in his limbs and the blue tinge across his lips that he had arrived late at Shady Grove Park the previous evening and had died soon after. There was no way he could be revived.
While she was trying to find a pulse at his neck, she noticed the marks circling just below his chin. Large welts, shaped like the tips of big fingers or thumbs, were raised and red; and there had been enough pressure placed on the old man's windpipe that she was sure it was crushed. She assumed that a murderer had used his own hands as the weapons.
Rose assessed the situation and surmised that the old man who had arrived at Shady Grove had been strangled to death by somebody he'd brought with him, or by somebody who was already there, or by somebody who had followed him to his campsite. She was alarmed, sad, and bewildered, and without hope of changing what had happened there in the empty, narrow landing at Shady Grove, she sat down beside the man while the dog that had probably come with him stood at his feet.
She knew that there was nothing to do but return to the office and call the sheriff. She sat only a few minutes, considering the dead man's life and death, wondering where he'd been going and who was waiting for him there. She thought of his family and loved ones, of their grief and loss, and of the evil that had lurked so near to her own tiny residence.
She knelt again above the man and placed the sheet across his face, a gesture of respect, and noticed a broad band across his wrist, an area of skin that was not tan like the rest of his arm. It looked to Rose to be a spot that marked the bearings of a piece of jewelry, a watch maybe, that was now missing. Rose slid her fingers across the pale stretch of skin and then gently laid his arm to his side.
She stood up and searched around the camper. The old man didn't seem to have anything valuable with him. What she could make out of the personal belongings that had been ransacked, all appeared scanty, outdated, and inexpensive.
The dog began to whine, and Rose turned to the black mutt. “I guess you know what happened,” she said. “But you aren't likely to tell.” She reached down, petting his head.
“So, we better go call the law.” She squatted down again, facing the dead man.
“Looks like Mary was right,” she said to no one. “We got some trouble here.”
She got up and walked over to the door, held it open while the dog limped out. She pulled the door shut and stood staring at the camper and the truck, the place of such tragedy.
As she headed down the steps, moving in the direction of the golf cart, she noticed something in the grass about twenty feet from her mode of transportation. She hadn't seen it when she pulled in. It was a small thing, but it shone in the sun, like a mirror or a piece of tin. She walked over to it, knelt down, and realized it was a bracelet. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands.
It was silver, a cuff style, a broad band with intricate designs engraved in it. There were small pieces of blue-green turquoise lining both the top and the bottom edges, one large stone pressed and set in the middle. It was not that old, Rose could tell, but it was very well made. It was thick and heavy, nothing like the thin, slick bracelets that she saw most people wearing.
The designs were the same as the petroglyphs she had read about in an article about prehistoric times. They were designs that people found on stones and sides of mountains in the Southwest, symbols of animals and clans, maps and shields.
She held the piece of jewelry in her hand, rotating it, studying it, and as she tried to understand the meanings of the engravings, she realized that the bracelet was the same size as the faded place on the dead man's wrist.
More than likely, Rose thought, the killer stole the bracelet and then dropped it when he got outside the camper. He was likely in a hurry or had his hands full of other things and it just fell into the grass. He probably doesn't even know he lost it, she thought. And yet, she was almost sure that this was the only thing of value that the old man could have had.
Could the thief be so careless? she wondered. And if he killed a man for this piece of jewelry and then lost it, might he return to Shady Grove and try to find it?
The last question worried Rose. And quickly, as if she thought someone could be watching, she stuck the bracelet in the front pocket of her jacket, got into the cart, and hurried to the office.
This time, the old dog did not follow behind. He stood at the trailer and watched the woman leave, then turned and lay down at the foot of the sliding steps.
Rose drove quickly to the entrance of the campground and parked at the front steps of the office. She ran inside, where Mary had stood up from her desk and come around the counter after hearing Rose speeding up the drive.
“Call the sheriff,” Rose said. Her tone was calm but imploring. “The one-dollar-bill customer was in the old tent section. One of the sites off the road, a back-in, one without any hookups. A truck and Coachmen from New Mexico.”