Chapter 4 – Cabin Fever
1714 Words
Chapter 4 – Cabin Fever
Mel
Monday Afternoon, October 13th, 2014
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
“That was quite a night last night and then, our brisk little hike around this morning...” Dana sighed, “I’m feeling every bit of 35 today, that’s for sure.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded. Dana knew I was already 35 myself. We’d kind of glossed right past the birthday I shared with my twin in July. Dana was recovering from a kidnapping incident at the time and I was in the midst of a murder investigation that involved the criminal activity of one of my own staff. Celebrating was the last thing on my mind, then.
“You know what I mean. Between my leg issues and a level of other activity I’m not, ahem, used too,” she cleared her throat suggestively.
I tried to hid my grin but I failed miserably. Instead, I suggested, “It’s a little warm outside yet today but maybe you ought to soak it out in the hot tub; you know, to limber up a little bit.”
“Naw, too warm outside right now, you’re right. It must be 70 out there. But, maybe I’ll just go upstairs and give that Jacuzzi tub a try.”
“Hmm, naked this time?”
“Well, yes. It’s a tub silly!” She swatted at me lightly.
“I may just have to come and make sure you’re doing the whole soaking thing right.”
“Great...you’re the reason I need to soak in the first place,” Dana tossed over her shoulder as she marched as smartly as she could muster toward the steps.
After about a half hour of waiting downstairs at loose ends, I couldn’t take the thoughts running through my head anymore and I went upstairs to check on my wife. I found her still lounging in the tub as it bubbled gently from the jets. She was leaned back against the far end which was along the same wall as the head of the bed. Her eyes were closed but, from the lazy circles she was drawing with the foot she had raised partially out of the water, I knew she wasn’t asleep.
I stepped into the space between the bed and the side of the tub where the water spigot was. “Dana, honey, your water’s probably getting cold.”
She half opened her eyes and looked at me. “It feels so good in here. I don’t want to move.”
I glanced at the clock on the nightstand beside the bed, between it and the tub. “It’s almost...”
I’d been about to say ‘noon’ when I checked myself and stepped over to look at the stand a little more closely. I pointed at the edge closest to Dana, “What does that look like to you?”
“What does what look like?”
“That.” I moved my finger back and forth a few inches over the trim lip of the bedside table.
She leaned over the side of the tub to get a good look, “It looks like grimy fingerprints.”
“Close, but not quite. It’s fingerprint dust that picked up some fingerprints.”
“Ewww!” Dana screwed up her face, “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Someone’s done a crappy job cleaning this place but, worse than that, it looks like a crime may have been committed here. The place must have been dusted but somebody was slacking on the job and missed lifting these.”
Once Dana was dressed, we drove down the mountain to speak with the management company. We needed to check in with them anyway since we’d arrived after hours but now I was far more angry than pleased with the cabin and I wanted some answers.
Heidi, a cutesy 20 something supposed property manager with a little gold name tag met us at the counter. “How can I help y’all?”
I pulled out my ID because I knew she’d need it but I left my wallet open with my wallet badge prominently displayed. “I’m Melissa Crane. We got in yesterday after you were closed.”
The young woman interrupted, “Oh right, the Mountain Hideaway cabin. Let me just pull up your paperwork right quick.” With that, she stepped away from the counter and back to a desk across from a man only slightly older than her who was expounding on the features of various cabins to someone on the phone. I stood there tapping my foot impatiently as Dana waited silently next to me.
She pulled some papers out of a small stack after rummaging through another larger one first. When she returned to the counter, she handed them across to me. “That there’s your rental contract. I just need to copy your ID, I need her name if she’s staying there with you,” she pointed toward Dana, “and I need your signature on page three.”
Listen, Heidi, about the cabin...”
“It’s a nice one isn’t it? It’s one of our most popular ones for honeymooners...and... for couples.” She paused, looking between Dana and I again, a question in her eyes.
I didn’t owe her any explanations so I didn’t explain our relationship. She, however owed me an explanation and I wasn’t about to let her interrupt again. “Heidi there’s a problem with the cabin and an explanation is definitely in order.” I looked at her pointedly. The man on the phone, likely catching my tone of voice, stopped talking and looked my way too.
The young manager swallowed hard while trying to maintain her smile then looked toward the man on the phone. He asked the person on the phone to hold for a moment and then stepped quickly up to the counter. “I’m Josh, the GM. Is there a problem?”
“Yes Josh, there is. The cabin we’re renting hasn’t been cleaned very well at all after an apparent crime or an alleged crime took place there, possibly very recently. I’d like a full explanation, please.”
It was Josh’s turn to smile nervously, “Oh.” He paused, and seemed to be gathering his thoughts.
After several seconds of my own impatience, I prompted him, “Was a crime committed there?”
He finally spoke, “Sort of, yes.”
“Sort of?”
“Actually, it was an accident, see.”
“An accident?”
A woman was staying in the cabin back in September, a uh, a few weeks ago. She was out on the front balcony where she caught a stray bullet or something from a hunter and she was killed.”
“She was killed on the balcony by a hunter?”
“That’s what the police determined.”
“Was anyone charged?” Dana asked.
Heidi piped up in response, “I don’t think they ever even found anybody who realized they did it.”
I was dumbfounded, “So someone was supposedly hunting, God knows for what in September, kills a woman by mistake, never comes forward and no one knows a thing?” The two managers simply nodded.
“Well here’s my question then, if it was an accident, why did they dust the cabin for fingerprints in the first place and leave powder residue on the furniture?”
Josh shrugged a slim shoulder and held up his hands in protest, “I can’t answer that. Maybe they did all that before they determined her death was accidental.”
“Let’s back up a bit, okay? What was the victim’s name?”
Josh pursed his lips.
Dana jumped in to assist, “Look guys, it’s a matter of public record. You may as well tell us because we’re going to find out anyway.”
“Oh, alright,” Josh gave in. “It was Patricia Dunkirk. She was a regular that would come down from Ohio and stay in one or another of our cabins every couple of months or so.”
My eyebrows rose involuntarily, “Ohio, you say?”
They nodded simultaneously.
“Why would anyone have been hunting in the area in September? I mean, what’s in season in Tennessee then.”
“Technically, nothing was then,” Josh supplied, “but you can hunt coyote and wolves year round because they’re a nuisance, what with killing off chickens and small house pets and such. That cabin’s not far from the local sportsman’s club. Some of their members were known to be out in the area hunting coyotes at that time. Cops figured one of them shot at a one and the bullet found her instead.”
Heidi, found her voice, “I can get someone up there right away to give your cabin a thorough cleaning or, we have a couple of empty one bedroom cabins right now, we can, um, move you maybe,” she looked to Josh for confirmation, “if you like.”
Before I could speak, Dana nudged me with a foot below the counter and out of their view. “Neither will be necessary,” she said. “We’ll take care of it.”
Once we were outside and out of earshot, I questioned my wife, “Dana are you sure? Why don’t you at least want them to clean it?”
“Something isn’t right Mel. I can feel it; don’t you?”
I set my mouth and nodded at her. Once we’d climbed into her car, I admitted, “Yeah, I do too. My primary question is: why would the police dust for prints inside the cabin if they thought the shooting was an accident? Something inside had to originally trigger them to think it was murder.
We drove through Gatlinburg, through the park and down to the strip in Pigeon Forge, chatting about the ‘how’s’ and ‘what if’s’ as we went. Once we were seated in one of the many pancake houses that seemed to dot the strip and Dana had decent cell reception, she pulled out her smart phone and started searching on the name ‘Patricia Dunkirk’. It didn’t take her long to find something.
“The top result is from the Gatlinburg daily newspaper from the day after the shooting reporting that an Ohio woman, Patricia Dunkirk, was shot and killed on the balcony of any area cabin. The body was reported to police by an anonymous male caller. When police arrived at the scene, they found her lifeless, on the balcony wrapped in a towel and wearing a swimming suit that was wet. She had an apparent gunshot wound through the neck. No other persons were present in the area. The caller that reported her body had not come forward at press time. The Gatlinburg Police Department and the Sevier County Sheriff’s Departments are investigating. They are asking anyone with any information to contact the county crime hotline or to come into either station to make a report.”
Dana scrolled down a bit. “That’s it for that article.”
“There’s no pool anywhere nearby,” I said. “If she was in a swimming suit and wet, she was either in the hot tub downstairs at the back, which makes no sense unless she went upstairs to change and went to the balcony for some reason, or she was in a suit in the Jacuzzi, got out and went to the balcony.”
“There’s a whole déjà vu, statement...” Dana smiled and went back to her search results but shook her head several times as she scanned through them. “Most of the reports are from the next day or a day or so after that. Nothing says much more than that.” She paused as something seemed to catch her eye.
“Did you find something?”
“Yeah, a short mention in the same paper. About a week after she was shot, the Sevier County DA ruled Dunkirk’s death ‘Negligent Homicide,’ a Class E felony in the State of Tennessee. Still no suspects though.”
- Writer
