Page 68 of No Surrender
They stepped out, and Vic pulled down the metal door. “He saved money by not paying for anything as long as he lived here. Stretched his funds. So he’s probably got enough for a couple of weeks’ rent.”
“A campground would have showers and toilets,” Ross replied, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
“That too.”
Vic left the cutter on the office counter. The desk guy wasn’t in sight, although the door had been unlocked and the computers were still running. Then he heard a moan from the direction of the bathroom and figured the guy was “following up” on what he’d been watching earlier.
When Vic got back in the car, he squeezed a generous dollop of sanitizer into his palm and scrubbed his hands. “I need aSilkwoodshower.”
“Should have worn a hazmat suit,” Ross replied, doing the same.
“If Judd’s not at the campground, then we’ve lost him. Fuck!” Vic slapped his hands on the armrests.
“Let’s go see what we find. As you said—he has to be somewhere.”
Vic was surprised when they pulled into the campground. Unlike the decrepit storage unit, this place looked prosperous and well maintained. The large common building housed a snack bar, arcade, recreation center, and the camp office. Well-tended flowerbeds and a few lawn ornaments gave the place a homey touch.
“I don’t get it,” Ross muttered as they headed toward the camp office. “Bert doesn’t own a camper. He hasn’t been able to blackmail anyone into lending him the money. Why would they let him stay?”
Vic looked around and spotted his answer on the other side of the compound. “They have cabins, no lease required, and a short stay wouldn’t raise questions. Not a bad plan. Plenty of camouflage.”
They found a woman in her early thirties behind the front desk. Unlike the hapless storage facility desk jockey, she appeared to be on the brink of overwhelm. She held a cell phone between her chin and shoulder, talking while her fingers flew across a keyboard.
Vic and Ross held off until she ended the call, then stepped forward and showed their badges. “You rent a space to this guy?” he asked, showing Judd’s picture.
“He was here for about a week,” she replied. “Didn’t talk to anyone, but he didn’t make any trouble, either. Cleared out day before yesterday. No idea where he was going.”
“Was he staying in a cabin?” Vic asked.
“Number twelve, all the way at the end. He said he really needed a place to stay and didn’t care about the view.”
“You said he didn’t make trouble. Did he do anything…unusual?” Ross followed up.
The office manager, whose name tag readDani,thought for a moment. “We get all kinds through here,” she said finally. “Grumpy old codgers, mid-life mavens touring the country, and families with kids on vacation. As long as everyone plays nice, we don’t care. But that guy just rubbed me wrong.”
“Why?” Vic leaned in, sensing Dani wanted to confide.
“Gut feeling that he might be trouble,” she replied. “Women get a sixth sense for guys like that.”
“Did he do anything inappropriate?” Vic hoped he could create enough rapport for her to trust them.
“No. We haven’t had any complaints. Just comments that he seemed to tune into a wavelength no one else could pick up. He weirded some people out.”
“He didn’t happen to say where he was going?” Ross asked hopefully.
Dani shifted from one foot to the other. “He said something about a big date coming up. I thought he meant a ‘date’ with someone, but maybe he meant a birthday or something. When he came to pay his bill—and he did pay in full, in cash—he told me he needed to go ‘back to where it started to reconnect.’ No idea what that meant.”
“Thank you,” Vic said. “Mind if we take a look at his cabin?”
“Have at it, but the cleaning crew has already flipped it.” She handed over the key, and Vic thanked her.
“Kinda cute campground,” Ross remarked as he and Vic walked to cabin twelve. “Reminds me of some of the places we stopped when my parents decided we needed to do the epic road trip vacation back when I was a kid.”
“How did that go?”
“About as well as you’d expect. My sister got the flu and kept throwing up. I was surly about having to leave my friends. My dad yelled a lot. I’m pretty sure my mother had a flask of whiskey in her purse.”
Cabin twelve smelled of disinfectant and furniture polish. It was a freestanding hotel room with a living area, bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchenette. The tight hospital corners on the bed linens, perfectly even towels hanging from the rail, and the reset of toiletries meant that housekeeping had been thorough removing all traces of the previous owner. Vic and Ross checked under the bed, in the drawers, at the back of the closet, beneath the sink, and around the edges of the room for anything that might have been left behind.
