An Old Faithful Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

“Do people often thrown things into the … uh, the thermal features?” asked a man wearing a bright red parka.

  “Not so much now—and, of course, it is totally illegal to do anything of the kind in Yellowstone National Park—but in the past, a lot of things were done which are frowned on today.” She gave her charges a stern look of warning. “There were laundries and bathhouses—like the one I mentioned earlier—which took advantage of the steam and boiling water available for free. In fact, Chinaman Spring was named for the man who set up a laundry there in the eighteen eighties.”

  “I’ll bet all the hot water really got clothes clean,” someone said.

  “Well, I don’t know if it did that, but it erupted and ejected the tent and wicker basket of clothing that the man had set up. And surely you’ve all seen the famous picture of the fisherman boiling his catch in a hot spring right on the bank of Yellowstone Lake. None of that is allowed today. In fact, the health of these thermal features is carefully monitored by the Park Service. If you do happen to be around an eruption of one of the major geysers, we sure would appreciate it if you would take the time to report it to a ranger back at the Visitor’s Center.

  “Now, watch this next patch along the boardwalk. It might be slippery.”

  The lecture stopped as the skiers tracked across ice and water on the wooden boardwalk built around the numerous geysers and bubbling springs. But when they had all traversed it successfully, the questioning continued.

  “What about animals?” Jed asked. “Don’t they ever fall in?”

  “They certainly do, especially in the winter when some of them manage to survive by using the steam for warmth. And once in a while one of them gets too close. That’s when we end up with something like buffalo stew. The carcass simmers until the meat rots and falls off the bones. It smells something awful. In fact, you can usually smell it before you see it.”

  Members of the group made various understanding noises, and Susan, who loved to cook and frequently produced homemade broth, was rather wildly considering the addition of onions, salt, and possibly some summer savory to the mixture.

  “But it doesn’t last long,” Marnie continued cheerfully. “Yellowstone’s full of scavengers—coyotes and ravens. There are lots of animals around that are on the lookout for anything of nutritional value.”

  “Don’t fall into a geyser,” Jed kidded his wife. “You’d hate being something of nutritional value to a coyote.”

  “We’re coming to a typical pool up here,” Marnie continued. “It’s a pretty good example of some of the things we’ve been talking about. It’s one of the most beautiful pools in the park, but it has lost some of its vivid coloration because so many people have thrown so much into it over the years. In fact, the bottom of the spring is so littered with debris that less water gets into it than is supposed to. This has caused the water temperature to cool, so there’s been an increase in the growth of algae, and that has destroyed some of the bright blue coloration.”

  Everyone gathered around her on the boardwalk built a few feet above the pool. They chattered and laughed until, one by one, the sight at the edge of the pool shocked them into silence. The last to arrive were Jane and Charlotte Ericksen, who slipped into the last space available for viewing the fabulous sight.

  Jane interrupted her description of an ideal vacation with which she had been amusing her sister. “So we walked down the dune to the most perfect beach, and it was totally deserted.…” She paused to look over the rail. “Oh, my God,” she said loudly. “It’s Father.”

  EIGHT

  Susan had gotten free of her equipment and was lying on the bed with her eyes closed. Jed sat on the end of the mattress. “Thank God it wasn’t him. At first glance, I thought—”

  “We all thought,” Susan corrected him.

  “We all thought it was George Ericksen boiling away on the edge of that beautiful pool of water.” Jed finished taking off his boots. “They still work,” he said, wiggling his toes. “I was a little worried that I had killed them.” He lay back on the bed beside his wife. “Anything interesting on that ceiling?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Susan? Are you okay?”

  “Just thinking … You know, Jed—” she swung her legs over the side and sat up “—I can’t figure out why anyone would play a stupid trick like that on Jane and Charlotte. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sense?”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” she corrected herself, ignoring her husband’s confusion and flopping back down on the bed. “I don’t know enough about the sisters—or the family. How could it make sense?” She stretched her arms over her head. “I wonder where Kathleen is. She’ll be interested in this.”

  “Susan, I know what you’re doing. You’re investigating, but there’s no reason to. No one has been killed—no one has even been hurt. And Kathleen is here for a vacation—just like we are. Maybe you should leave it alone this time, hon. After all, no crime was committed.”

  “It isn’t a crime to throw an effigy of someone into an ordinary pool of water, but I’m sure it is here,” Susan argued. “But that’s not what’s worrying me. What’s worrying me is that whoever did it really wanted someone to think George Ericksen was dead.”

  “It was the suspenders. All that white hair and those red suspenders. No one else looks quite like that around here,” Jed said. “Anyone who had ever seen George Ericksen would have thought it was him lying there—What are you doing?”

  Susan was putting on the ski boots she had just removed. “I’m going out.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Hang out, as your son would say. I just want to see what the rangers are saying about this afternoon. We’re not eating until six-thirty tonight, are we? I have over an hour before then.…”

  “You’re not going to ski, are you?”

  “Is there any other way to get around here? I’ll be fine. You look as if you could do with a nap. Maybe you should set the alarm so you’ll be up in time for dinner.” She pulled skis and ski poles from where they had been dripping in the corner of the room. “Did you ever think I’d get comfortable on these things?” she asked, pushing the equipment in front of her.

  “No,” he answered as the door slammed behind his wife.

  Five minutes later, Susan had stopped chortling with glee over how easily she had snapped her boots into their bindings and was wondering just what to do next. Her first thought had been to ski out to where the body had been found, but it was getting dark and she suspected that her newfound ability wouldn’t get her there and back to civilization (as represented by the Visitor’s Center) in daylight. Well, perhaps the Visitor’s Center itself was as good a place to start as any. She swung her arms and skied off, only to be stopped by the sight of her son, skiing toward her in C.J.’s wake.

  “Chad!” she called to get his attention.

  “Hi, Mom! Hey! You’ve learned to ski!” he called out approvingly.

  “I told you she wasn’t too old to learn,” C.J. said.

  “Thanks, guys. Where have you been today?”

  “We went up to Fern Cascade. It was cool,” Chad answered. “The trail is a little steep on the way up, and you have to herringbone almost until your legs fall off, but it’s a great trip down. I only fell twice—and hit a tree once.”

  “Are you—”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, knowing what she was going to ask—what any mother would have asked—without hearing it. “Did you hear about C.J.’s grandfather?”

  “His … ?”

  “Not really my grandfather—just a dummy made up to look like him,” C.J. corrected the information.

  “I was there when he—it—was found. In fact, I was wondering if it upset your aunts. For a minute, you know, we truly did think it might be your grandfather himself. The effigy looks very real, you know.”

  “Sure does. We just came from there. The rangers really had to work to get that thing out of the water.”

  “Th
ey didn’t want to damage the sides of the pool by getting too close, but they had to make sure it didn’t get waterlogged and sink to the bottom,” C.J. said, continuing the story. “They told us how there’s this ranger who knows all about geysers and fumaroles and stuff, and how, once in a while, he lowers the water level in the pool and it spits stuff into the air—stuff that people have thrown into it, like boots, tires, and other garbage.”

  Susan was impressed by all they had learned. “Do you know what they were going to do with it after they got it out? Did they tell you?”

  “They were joking around about using the wig for a Santa Claus disguise at their Christmas party.”

  “Why are you so interested?” Chad asked. His mother’s involvement in crimes had embarrassed and inconvenienced him more than once in the past. And in his adolescent view, she was embarrassing enough without playing detective.

  “Just curious,” she answered. “I’m going over to the Visitor’s Center. I thought I’d look around in the bookshop before dinner.”

  “That’s where they were taking the dummy.” Chad sounded suspicious.

  “Well, maybe I’ll get a closer look at it,” Susan said, trying to keep her voice casual.

  “You know who might like to look at it? My grandfather!”

  “I’m sure he would,” Susan agreed, starting to ski away. The sight of George Ericksen meeting his effigy was something she didn’t want to miss. “Oh, Chad,” she called back over her shoulder, “dinner’s at six-thirty.”

  She didn’t think he heard. Well, that’s what fathers were for. She swooshed through the snow toward the lights spilling from the two-story glass front of the building. The number of skis in the rack by the front door indicated something unusual was going on inside. She clicked her boots free, hung skis and poles on the crowded rack, and entered the Visitor’s Center.

  A large, open building paneled with pine, the Visitor’s Center was divided into two parts. The auditorium was at the rear, while the front half looked out through large panes of glass toward Old Faithful. Susan glanced through the windows at the tail of steam rising into the air; she still hadn’t seen an eruption. Three sides of the room were lined with shelves of books for sale and displays explaining various thermal activities. A small desk was located near the door, in a place convenient for tourists to question the ranger, who left his or her seat only to get up and throw a log on the wood-burning stove. On the floor in front of it lay the effigy. A dozen people stood around or sat on nearby benches. No one paid any attention to Susan as she wandered across the room and pretended to study the seismograph mounted on the wall.

  “But it must have been someone who knew the old man. I can’t see how they can deny that.”

  Susan was startled to hear voices close behind her: two rangers had moved away from the rest and were conversing nearby.

  “Don’t be so sure. If it’s someone who knows him, it must be a member of the family—and they’re not so likely to admit that.”

  “So what do we do? Ask the family to cough up the money it cost to get the body from the pool? Call in the FBI for a full investigation?”

  “Marnie’s in charge here. I suppose she’ll just warn them that this type of thing can’t possibly be tolerated, and leave it at that. It was probably just one of the teenagers in the group, playing around. If they get a stern warning, it won’t happen again.”

  Susan gasped and thought of her own children. She certainly didn’t want anyone to think they were involved in this! She turned and walked purposefully to the group in the middle of the room.

  “We can store it in one of the woodsheds near the staff cabins,” Marnie was saying. “I sure wish Dillon would get here with those garbage bags. I should have told him to ask first at the Snow Lodge kitchen. If he went all the way back to his apartment—”

  “Here he is,” one of the young men standing close to the door called out as their driver from the previous day appeared bearing a box of double-thick plastic garbage bags.

  “We shouldn’t have all this nonbiodegradable stuff in a national park, but since it’s here, we may as well get some use out of it,” Marnie muttered, accepting the box. “We really don’t need all that many bags.”

  Susan was surprised by the size of the pile of wet clothing. Looking closer, she realized the stuffing was gone: all that was left of the effigy was jeans, boots, wool shirt, those suspenders, and the wig and beard. “What was it filled with?” she wondered aloud.

  “Newspapers. Crumpled newspapers.” Marnie looked up from where she squatted on the floor. “Something else may have been used for the head. It fell off when we hooked the wig—it’s probably at the bottom of the pool by now.”

  “It must have been dropped by the pool just a few minutes before we arrived,” Susan said. “Otherwise, the papers would have been waterlogged and sunk, too.”

  Marnie stopped with one hand still in the bag she had almost finished filling. “I don’t think so. It was on a ledge at the edge of the pool, not really in it. I think it could have stayed there for a day or so without falling further in.”

  “Or decomposing?” Susan asked.

  “Probably. The water isn’t very hot on the edges of the pools, you know.”

  “What are you going to do with the clothing?” Susan asked, having overheard her answer, but wondering what it would be officially.

  “We’re going to be asking if anyone can identify the clothing at the interpretive talks for the rest of the week, but I don’t expect that anyone is going to come forward and admit to doing this. It was probably just a prank. Maybe someone will call a ranger and make an embarrassed confession, but I doubt it.”

  Susan started to speak, but the effigy seemed to come to life and stride into the room.

  NINE

  Despite the fact that he had the complete attention of everyone in the room, George Ericksen didn’t speak as he strode across the floor, straight through the group, stopping only when he could kneel down beside the effigy. He touched the wig gingerly, then jerked it up with an angry gesture. There was nothing underneath. Susan thought the absence of a face, a skull, or anything similar startled him.

  “I’m afraid the … uh, the head … escaped to the bottom of the pool,” Marnie explained, continuing to fill the garbage bag.

  “Disgraceful!” It was a bellow that a wild animal would be proud to have produced. “I understand that something dropped into a pool could cause a permanent change in the ecology of the feature. This is, as far as I’m concerned, an example of gross criminal behavior, and it should not be allowed to go unpunished. It is imperative that you catch the culprit.” His voice became louder and more demanding with each sentence. “I insist on knowing what is going to be done about this!”

  “Not very much,” Marnie confessed quietly, standing up. “In the winter the staff consists mainly of interpreters and naturalists. We have very little time to investigate pranks. I’ll make a statement at the talk tonight and post notices at various locations in Snow Lodge, but unless someone comes forward and confesses, we probably will never know who did this.”

  “Never?” George Ericksen looked up at Marnie.

  “Probably not,” she admitted.

  Susan wondered if that was a look of relief that slid across George Ericksen’s face. Or something else.

  He stood up, rising over the ranger like a mountain over the plains. “I heard talk at the front desk about the cost of retrieving this … this thing. I would like to pay for that … uh, the rescue.”

  “You’ll have to talk to my boss about it. He’s park superintendent. I’d be happy to give you his number, if you like.”

  “Yes. I would appreciate that.” George Ericksen picked up the largest garbage bag and flung it over his shoulder.

  “You can’t take that, sir.” Marnie’s tone left no room for discussion. Maybe George Ericksen had met his match.

  “Excuse me?” He made the request sound like a threat.

  “I need to k
eep that.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Regulation” was the brisk reply. She took the bag from his hand. Picking up the wig and beard, she slung everything over her tiny shoulder and started from the room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she announced, without pausing long enough for anyone to stop her.

  As she left, Phyllis Ericksen entered, closing the door behind her. “George?” She sounded anxious.

  “I’m right here, Phil.”

  “I couldn’t find you. I was worried.”

  “You worry too much,” he answered like a belligerent teenager. “You’ve always worried too much. And you’re always trying to get the entire family together to do things. If you are so worried about everyone getting to dinner, go ahead and sit down without me. Order me a steak and a bottle of that Chianti, and I’ll join you all in a few minutes. Just make damn sure that I’m at the head of the table and that Randy person is at the bottom—as far away as possible. Understand?”

  “I’m sure, if you would just give him a chance—”

  “I will not learn to like him,” he finished her sentence differently than she had planned. “I have very good reasons not to like that young man, and I see no reason to start learning to like him now.”

  “Of course, George. There’s certainly no reason to start now.” She turned and walked out the door.

  “So how do I get in touch with this superintendent person?”

  “The address is in the brochure that—” Dillon began.

  “I don’t want his address. I want his phone number. How long do you think I have to resolve this foolishness?”

  “I’ll get it for you,” one of the younger rangers, standing near the desk, offered.

  “Excellent.” Susan got the impression that this sort of service was something George was accustomed to.

  Marnie returned as George was putting the number away in the pocket of his inevitable plaid shirt. She was followed by Irving Cockburn. Of course, he was talking.

  “This is very, very interesting—psychologically speaking. The type of personality disorder that would lead someone to perpetuate such an episode … It could take years of therapy to discover the meaning of this.” The heels of his cowboy boots clanked on the floor as he hopped along to keep pace with the ranger’s stride. Susan noticed that he was only slightly taller than Marnie, even wearing a hat. Did he know how silly he looked? Apparently not.