“Yes, please!” Uncle Joe said loudly. His answer was joined by several more.
Maeve left the room to head into the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, it seemed like everyone’s heads moved on a swivel as one—and all of them to look at me.
“So,” Roman said casually, “any progress on your investigation?”
“Some.”
“Go on. Don’t hold back.” Roman looked at me expectantly. I flicked my gaze across the table. Everyone else had the same expression, except for Uncle Joe, who gave me an apologetic sympathy-wince.
“We don’t talk about cases during an investigation. Especially in front of—forgive me for saying this—the suspects. It can prejudice the case, and of course it can upset everyone who’s innocent as well.”
“But you’ve found something? A clue? A lead?” Roman pressed.
“We’ve found plenty of things to think about and follow-up on. And I’ll say no more, if you don’t mind.”
Roman looked like he did mind and was going to push me for further answers, but Uncle Joe beat him to it. “We understand. We won’t ask any more questions, will we?”
With a stern look at each of the other diners, he extracted an agreement to drop the topic for the time being, to my relief.
Maeve returned, this time holding two large pots. One of the vessels was loaded with more spaghetti, and the other with her delicious sauce.
“Help yourselves.”
And oh, how we did.
When we were all completely stuffed, we retired to the drawing room. The fire provided a substantial amount of light, and we carried in the candelabras to fill out the darker corners. While they were probably a terrible fire hazard, they sure did improve the atmosphere.
Maeve produced a bottle of port, and soon Uncle Joe, Marcus, Roman, Yumi, and Maeve herself were sipping at the ruby red drink. The rest of us clutched mugs of rich hot chocolate, which served as our dessert after the delicious meal.
“I think,” Uncle Joe said, “if the weather improves, we need to check the state of the road tomorrow. We need to see how bad this avalanche that blocked Norman from leaving is.”
“And perhaps I’ll hike into town,” Ian said, flexing his shoulders back and forth as if already warming up for the trek.
“That’ll depend on the weather,” Joe told him. “If it’s cold enough, it might work.”
“Cold enough?” Ian asked in some confusion. “Do you mean warm enough?”
“That snow’s pretty thick out there. If it warms up tomorrow, the whole thing will turn into three-foot-thick slush. Every step will be like wading through mud. But if it’s cold, you’ll be able to crunch over much of it.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Shame we don’t have some huskies,” Ian said. “We could sled out of here. That’d be something, wouldn’t it?”
Joe’s brow crinkled. It looked like he had an idea. “Maeve? I don’t suppose the house has a snowmobile stashed away in the garage, does it?”
She shook her head with a little laugh. “I’m afraid not. We don’t normally get snowed in for more than a day or two here. And I don’t think Beryl really had the constitution for riding a snowmobile at her age. And nor do I.”
“Shame.” Joe slumped back into the armchair. He covered his mouth with a hand while he yawned.
In short order I found myself yawning too. Marcus took notice.
“I think we’re all feeling tired, aren’t we?”
There were murmurs of agreement.
“It’s because there’s no electricity. Without the bright artificial lights, our bodies are becoming in tune with the sun—when the sun sets, so do we. At least we want to.”
“Then I think I might have to call it a night,” I said with another yawn. “Goodnight, everyone.”
After everyone said their farewells, I slowly walked up the stairs, lantern held in front of me to light the way.
Back upstairs, I went to check on Norm again. I wasn’t surprised to find that Maeve had followed right behind me. She was taking her role as his nurse very seriously.
“He looks like he’s still sleeping peacefully, doesn’t he?” I said to her.
Maeve bent her head over for a closer look. She stood up straight. “He does. I’ll do as you asked and not give him any more morphine. Let’s hope he’s recovered in the morning.”
“Thanks, Maeve. Sorry to intrude in your area. It’s just… Ian and I really do need to speak to him.”
“Yes, I understand. Back in Vietnam, I occasionally saw the same situation. A commanding officer wanted intelligence from a wounded soldier, and didn’t want him to be too sedated. It was difficult.”
“Hopefully Norman’s injury isn’t as bad as a war wound.”
Maeve nodded. “It’s a lot less messy at least.”
“Goodnight, Maeve.”
“Goodnight, Tiffany.”
I returned to my room. It looked a whole lot cozier now. Miraculously, the old radiator had actually managed to heat the room up. I held my hands and nose up against the window and peered outside. Snow was continuing to fall slowly.
I sure was glad I didn’t have to go out there.
After stifling another yawn, I summoned up the energy to put myself to bed.
All that sleuthing had left me exhausted.
At least, I thought before I finally drifted into dreamland, there are no alarms to wake me up. I’d just sleep until I woke up. It’s the best way to—
But I was already gone.
Chapter Fourteen
It was still dark when I awoke, the vaguest hints of gray beginning to appear through the window.
I heard the footsteps first.
A fast, urgent shuffling, as someone hurried down the hallway outside my room. I held my breath and listened. At that time of the morning, you don’t hear footsteps. And if you do, they’re slow, dull, and tired. They don’t rush. They don’t hurry. They’re not urgent.
They stopped outside my room. Of course they stopped outside my room.
A fist hit my door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three quick thuds.
“Tiffany! Tiffany, you must get up!”
It was Maeve.
When I opened the door, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I didn’t know what to expect. Maeve immediately tugged at my arm.
“It’s Norman! He’s gone!”
“Gone?”
She was already pulling me by the arm down the hallway toward his room.
She flung open the door, a lantern held above her to fill the room with a dim glow.
The bed was empty, but it was not completely devoid of something of interest: On top of the blanket was a pair of men’s pants, a shirt, and a jacket. They were Norman’s.
“Where did he go?” It was a stupid question, I know. If Maeve knew where he was she wouldn’t be so panicked. But I’d just been woken up and was looking for any hint I could get.
“Out.”
“Out? Outside?”
Maeve’s voice was timid, almost trembling with worry. “I think so. I woke up because there was a draft.”
If she woke up every time there was a draft in this house, she’d never sleep. “What do you mean?”
“I felt it in the air. There was a draft, a new one, blowing into my room. I knew something wasn’t right. I got up, and when I got to the hall I saw that the front door was open. I thought perhaps one of you hadn’t closed it properly, or perhaps even Uncle Joe had gone out for an early walk. I closed it, and then I went to check on Norm.” Maeve raised a hand and pointed a bony finger at the bed.
“He’s gone.”
“But his clothes are here. His jacket. His shirt. His pants.”
“It’s the concussion. A bad one can make people act completely unpredictably. That’s why someone with a bad concussion needs to be carefully observed.” Maeve squeezed my arm and stared into my eyes, her gaze narrow and accusatory. “And if you can’t observe them, then they should be sedated.”
&
nbsp; The night before I’d almost begged her not to give him any more morphine.
“You think his concussion did this? Made him leave?”
“I can think of no other reason. And without his clothes! He’ll freeze to death out there.”
I stared at the bed again, willing Norman to reappear. Hoping for him to return to the room, a jaunty tone in his voice as he informed us that he was feeling much better and had just returned from a bracing walk.
A bracing walk in his underwear.
That didn’t happen. Instead, the rest of the guests began to appear behind us, asking what had happened.
Dang it.
* * *
While Yumi, Jini, Uncle Joe, and Maeve searched the house, the rest of us got dressed for an expedition outside.
Ian was waiting by the front door already, dressed in all the appropriate gear. Marcus and Roman came down the stairs together, both bundled up warm. I had cargo pants, a hoodie, and my thick jacket I hardly ever wore.
“Here,” Ian said, handing me a pair of woolen gloves. “I knew you wouldn’t be ready for the wilds so I brought a spare pair.”
“Thanks.”
The gloves were a little big, but they were sure going to be warmer than nothing.
We stood in front of the open door. The sun was now above the invisible horizon, and the world was a wonderland of whites and grays. The snow had stopped falling, and everything glistened and shone with its new blanket of smooth snow laced with tiny ice crystals.
“No tracks,” Ian said with a frown as he surveyed the ground in front of the door. “The snow must have stopped after he left.”
“What should we do?” Marcus looked to Ian for guidance. So did I. While he may not have been an experienced outdoorsman, he’d spent several days reading everything he could about living and surviving in the wilds. That small amount of knowledge unfortunately made him more of an expert than city people like Marcus, Roman, and me.
“Let’s circle around the property. We know the snow has stopped now, so there will be tracks visible at some point. He was quite old, and unwell, so he probably didn’t get too far. Tiffany and I will sweep in front of the house, you two behind. Check carefully under trees or sheltered areas as any tracks left there may not have been covered by snow.”
Ian and I trudged out in front of the house.
“We’ll probably find him,” Ian said. “He probably tried to get to his car.”
“The car that was hit by an avalanche?”
“Sure. He’s concussed. He’s confused. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“I guess. I think this was my fault, Ian.”
“Because you told Maeve not to give him more morphine?”
“Yeah.” I trudged through the snow. It was thick, but some of the deeper snow was frozen solid so I didn’t sink all the way to the bottom with every step.
“We couldn’t know this was going to happen.”
It was nice of him to say, but of course he was just being supportive.
“Maybe he is in the house somewhere,” I said after several minutes of finding no visible tracks. “Even in his concussed state, he must have felt the blast of cold when he opened the front door.”
We both looked back over our shoulders at the house. Hoping for Uncle Joe to emerge and begin waving and yelling that they’d found him. He didn’t. No one did.
“Come on, let’s keep looking.”
At least the weather was improving. If the snow didn’t return, a hiking expedition into Mount Washington to summon the authorities could finally be on the cards.
“Hey! Over here!”
The voice was distant, but in the clear air and silent wilderness it carried cleanly, the words as crisp as the air around us.
I turned around. “Is that Marcus?”
“Sounds like Roman.” Ian started to run back in the direction of the house and the voice. “Come on!”
We hurried back, half-trotting, half-speedwalking to meet with the other half of our search party. When I tried to run, I sank deeper into the snow than when I walked, and conversely ended up going slower than when I walked with careful, brisk steps.
Once we had rounded the house, we saw Roman waving at us beneath the edge of a grove of pine trees. It was on the opposite side of the property from where we had gone for our walk, and Ian and I hadn’t explored in that direction at all.
We got to Roman as quickly as we could.
“What have you found?”
“Tracks. Footprints. Under the trees over here. Come on!”
Marcus was just inside the grove of trees. The ground here had far less snow on it than the open ground, only that which had made it between the packed branches above us, or been whipped in by the wind, had made it to cover the ground.
“He went this way,” Marcus said, already beginning to follow the boot prints.
I’m no tracker—at least not of physical trails—but even I could follow what must have been Norm’s trail. We all could.
With every turn around a tree, or boulder, I expected to see the old lawyer ahead of us, lying in the snow. Breathing, hopefully. But every time I was left disappointed.
“I hope he didn’t go too much farther.” Roman’s voice was low and muttered.
“What’s up ahead?” Ian asked.
“Nothing. That’s the problem. The trees stop a little farther ahead.”
“Stop?”
“Yeah. You’ll see.”
And then we did see. The trees stopped, and Roman held out his arms on either side to signal for all of us to do the same. Slowly, he edged forward.
“Look.” The last of the footsteps ended about a yard from where the ground itself ended. There was a steep, rocky cliff, and the trail led straight over the edge.
“Please, no,” I whispered to myself.
Ian squeezed my elbow. “Hold on.” He released my arm and then dropped to the ground.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
Ian didn’t respond, and soon it became clear. With his body nearly flat on the ground, he pulled and pushed himself forward until his head was right over the edge. My breathing turned shallow, and my stomach knotted into a ball. Just watching him was enough.
“What do you see?”
Ian didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he went forward even farther, more than I thought was possible, until his entire head was over the edge.
“Ian!”
“I’m fine, but I need to look straight down. Just a little bit more…”
Ian scooted himself over a little more. His shoulders, too, were over the edge now.
“Uh-oh.”
“What? What is it?”
Ian’s body writhed and he went even farther forward.
“Help!”
Roman grabbed one of his legs while Marcus grabbed the other.
“Oww!” As the two men yanked him back from the edge, his body scraped along the rough, icy ground. When he was safely away from the precipice, he sat up again.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“I’m better at going forward than I am at going backward.” He brushed away a clump of snow that had stuck to his nose while being dragged away from the edge. “You know what I’m like. Never admit defeat. Always march onward.”
Those were not exactly the first characteristics that came to mind when I thought about Ian.
“What about Norman?”
Ian shook his head. “I couldn’t see any sign of him. It was just white at the bottom.”
“He’s not there.”
“Or perhaps he caused a small avalanche and snow fell on top of him.”
“Or maybe the snow’s really deep there and he sunk into it,” Marcus suggested. “The wind could have blown a drift up against the cliff.”
“Or he could have crawled away. Especially if there was a drift and the snow broke his fall.”
“Can we get down there?” I asked Roman, our local expert.
“No. Not from anywh
ere near here. You’d have to approach it from the bottom. And to get down there you’d need to go to…” He rubbed his chin. “I don’t even know where. Miles away.”
“Guys?” Marcus said to us.
We all looked at him.
“I think we’ve got to admit it. If Norman came this way, he’s dead. Concussed seventy-year-old men in their underwear don’t fall off a cliff like that and survive.”
“But maybe there’s a chance.” I said it quietly, not believing it myself.
“Got what he deserved anyway,” Roman said, jerking his chin at the cliff edge.
“What do you mean?”
Roman shrugged. “It was him, right? Had to have been. He was concussed and didn’t know what was going on. Crept into Beryl’s room and murdered her while she slept. If he’s loopy enough to go wandering around outside in this weather, then he was loopy enough to kill her in his confusion.”
I stared at Roman. Did he really believe what he was saying?
“He was hopped up on morphine. I don’t think he left his bed.”
Roman shrugged, unwilling to believe that made his theory less viable. “Maybe his concussion made him act different. Ignore the morphine. I bet it could happen.”
And what? In his concussed state, he quickly murdered Beryl with an ornate Chinese knife and then ran back into his bed and hid? This wasn’t the time or place to start arguing it out with Roman. But his theory had bus-sized holes right through it already.
“Maybe you’re right,” I conceded. Roman gave a little nod in response, clearly pleased.
“So what do we do know?” Marcus asked.
“Breakfast,” Ian declared. “Sleuthing and traipsing through the wilderness really works up an appetite, doesn’t it?”
Everyone agreed it sure did.
But how could we enjoy a meal after what was almost certainly another death among our dwindling little group?
Chapter Fifteen
Back in the house, Maeve had already put her concern about Norman aside. I couldn’t help but remember how much she disliked him before he became her patient. It was as if, when he was injured, a switch flicked inside her from grumpy housekeeper to concerned nurse. Now that he was gone, the concerned nurse had disappeared right along with him.
Reunions and Revelations in Las Vegas: A Humorous Tiffany Black Mystery Page 11