Mountain Retreat Murder
Autor:in
Beth Cornelison
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Prologue
Something was wrong with her. She couldn’t say just what, but she hadn’t felt well all morning. Maybe she should have stayed home. No one would thank her for spreading germs—assuming she had something contagious and not just general age-related fatigue and aches. But Mary needed the income she received from cleaning the cabins at Cameron Glen Retreat, so she’d dragged her sixty-two-year-old bones to work that morning, despite feeling like she’d been hit by a Mack truck.
She finished tidying up the kitchen of the Hemlock cabin and headed in to start the first floor bathroom, dreading the backbreaking task of scrubbing out the tub. She was tempted to shortcut the job, to just wipe the walls of the shower with rags and call it a day. But the Cameron family insisted on first-rate work. Irma Jean was let go when they grew unhappy with her shoddy work. Not that Mary could blame them. Irma Jean was a lousy housekeeper. Anyone in town who’d ever hired her services knew that. The woman should get a clue. If you do a crappy job of cleaning, you won’t get invited back.
Right. So don’t cut corners, or you could end up cooling your heels with Irma Jean at the employment office.
Stretching her back, Mary mustered her motivation and nudged the air conditioning a couple degrees cooler as she marched back to take on the master bathroom. She blinked when she read the current setting of sixty-eight, four degrees cooler than the lowest setting the Camerons wanted the thermostat on. Yet she was sweating from head to toe. How could it be sixty-eight in here and she was sweating?
She stumbled a little as she dragged her weary self to the bathroom and got to work cleaning the mirror, wiping the counter and sink with sanitizing wipes, scrubbing the toilet. Finally she faced the bathtub and, knowing she couldn’t stall any longer, applied a heavy spritzing of cleaning spray. The directions said to let the spray sit for a couple minutes before rinsing.
She chuckled to herself. “No problem there. And while you sit, so will I.”
Turning to go back into the front bedroom, she swayed on her feet, her head spinning with a bout of vertigo. She grabbed for the bedroom dresser and knocked off the wood carving of a bear that decorated the chest. She didn’t dare bend over to pick it up now. She’d probably fall over. Let the dizziness pass.
She staggered to the bed she’d made earlier with fresh sheets and collapsed with a sigh. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired, so weak and dizzy. And what was with the crazy sweating? She cut a side glance to the comfy pillows and with a groan, she flopped over and raised her feet to the bed. She’d have to remake it likely, but so what? Right now she needed to rest. Maybe even a nap. The next guests for this cabin weren’t scheduled to arrive until after the three o’clock check-in time.
Mary closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. Her chest tight, she struggled to fill her lungs. Good grief. She really should go see her doctor when she left. She’d started to doze off, when she heard a noise at the front of the cabin. In the main room, maybe the kitchen. Male voices. Thumping.
Gracious! Had she fallen asleep and let the guests arrive with her still here and the cabin half-cleaned? She sat up wearily and checked the bedside clock. One-thirty p.m. So no. Not the new guests.
“Yeah, well, you better find it!” one of the men said, his voice raised in anger. The shout was followed by a low mumble and the scraping of chairs being dragged across the kitchen floor.
Curious, and a bit concerned—no one was supposed to be in the cabin but her until the guests arrived—Mary rose from the bed to see what was happening. Her head felt thick, unfocused, as if coated in cobwebs then submerged in water. Her vision blurred, but she shuffled forward slowly. Reaching the doorway to the main room of the cabin, she peered into the kitchen. Two men knelt on the floor under the oak breakfast table. One man held a flashlight while the other worked with a flat-edged tool, prying at the wood planks of the hardwood floor.
Dismay rippled through Mary. “What in tarnation do you fellas think you’re doing? You’ll ruin the floor!”
Both men jerked their heads up and angled their bodies to face her. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
She staggered farther into the room, her chest squeezing tighter. “I...could ask...the same...of you.” Damn, she was short of breath.
“Never you mind what we’re doing. You ain’t seen nothing. Hear me?” one of the men growled.
The second man, glared at his companion. “Are you crazy? She’s seen plenty! Too much. Our faces, what we’re doing...” He swiped a hand down his face, then reached behind him to pull a gun from under his shirt.
Mary gasped when she saw the weapon, and spots danced before her eyes.
“We can’t have her shooting off her mouth, givin’ us up!”
The man aimed his gun at her, and panic rose in Mary’s gut. Her chest squeezed so hard, she’d have thought an elephant had stepped on her.
Elephant... That was how Hank Winfred from church had described...
Mary clutched her breast. The pain shooting from her chest down her left arm left no doubt. Heart attack! Again she reached for something to steady herself and knocked the decorative lamp to the floor. Colored glass shattered and littered the floor.
“Help...me!” she rasped as she crumpled. When she gasped for another breath, her vision dimmed.
