An Old Faithful Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  “Good idea. I’m feeling pretty rotten.”

  Susan looked at Darcy, surprised that he had thought he was keeping his condition from her. What a nice boy he was.

  They huddled in the warmth for a while, thawing out as they rested. Darcy even took off his gloves and held his hands directly in the steam.

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “They were beginning to get numb. I was having some trouble holding on to the poles,” he admitted.

  Susan noticed that he was still breathing hard. How long should they rest? she wondered. Darcy was leaning back against a tree, his eyes closed. “Maybe we should get going. It isn’t much farther,” she urged, having no idea if she was lying or not. She hadn’t recognized anything since they passed Morning Glory. Could they have taken the wrong trail? If there was more than one trail, it was certainly possible. She had just followed Darcy without considering that possibility. How stupid of her!

  “I don’t think I can go any further. Maybe you should ski back without me. If I rest here for a while, I’ll be all right.”

  Susan knew that wasn’t true. “No. I won’t leave you. We’ll ski back together,” she added in her best I’m the mother and know what is good for you voice. It didn’t work any better with him than it did with her children.

  “No, I can’t do it,” he protested.

  “Darcy!” Susan grabbed his jacket and tried to get his ever-wandering attention. “If you stay here, you could get hypothermia. You could die.”

  “That’s okay,” he insisted. “It really is okay.” He looked at her earnestly. “Without Randy, I don’t have any reason to live.”

  NINETEEN

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you and Chad hadn’t found us then,” Susan called out. She was sitting in a tub of warm water, speaking to her husband through a crack in the bathroom door. A very thin crack, as she didn’t want any heat to escape unnecessarily. She had been in the bath for almost half an hour, but she still felt a chill in her extremities. “Darcy was ready to faint, and I couldn’t leave him—but I couldn’t do anything for him there.… What is that?” she asked as Jed walked into the room with a glass in his hand.

  “Brandy. It was sent over from the bar. Drink it down. It’s good for you.”

  “It was nice of you to order it,” Susan said, taking the glass he handed her.

  “I didn’t. Maybe Kathleen or Jerry did—or someone at the front desk who saw the shape you were in.”

  “Did I look that bad?”

  “Pretty close to exhaustion. And Darcy looked even worse.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In his mother’s room. She was trying to find a doctor to look after him—but some of the rangers have extensive first aid training and are probably able to deal with any problems he may have.”

  “He’s so upset,” Susan muttered. “I was a little shocked.”

  “Well, his father …”

  “It’s not his father he’s upset about. He’s worried about where Randy’s gone.”

  “Who’s to say that he didn’t just go back home?”

  “Evidently Darcy has called home—they live together—and he keeps getting the answering machine. It was upsetting him terribly.”

  “There are probably a hundred places Randy could be—with other friends or relatives—and maybe they had a fight and he’s at home listening to the answering machine, but not picking up.”

  “Of course, that’s possible.” Susan didn’t sound as if she believed her own words.

  “Are you thinking of getting out of there before you turn into a prune? It’s almost lunchtime.”

  “Lunch! I’m starving!” Susan stood up immediately, grabbing two towels from the rack at the same time.

  “I could possibly ask for something to be delivered—under the circumstances, I’m sure the lodge would comply. Then you wouldn’t have to go out in the cold right away.”

  “Oh, Jed, I don’t mind. I don’t think I’ll bother to put on skis again, though. Just hiking boots and gaiters.” She was already pulling on a clean turtleneck. “I think I’ll have bean soup to start, and maybe some nachos. I wonder if there’s a table available near the radiators.…”

  “We’ll find you one,” Jed said, smiling at her enthusiasm. “I’ll just run down the hall and tell the kids what we’re doing.”

  “Great. Tell them I’ll be dressed and ready to go in five minutes. I really am starving!”

  The air did feel colder than before when, almost fifteen minutes later, she made the short hike to Snow Lodge. Snow was falling steadily now and she shuddered, thinking what might have happened if Chad hadn’t spied her scarf or if the message had no longer been legible when he did.

  “Didn’t you wonder why I turned back?” she asked, thinking of all the questions she hadn’t had the energy to ask.

  “What we wondered was who you were with,” Jed answered.

  “How did you know I was with someone?”

  “Ski tracks. There was no way only one person could have chopped up the snow so much,” Jed answered. “And there were two clear tracks of Darcy’s skis—they’re the same length as mine. That’s a good six inches longer than yours.”

  “I never thought of that.” Susan walked through the door Jed held for her.

  “You were busy, remember?”

  “Yes, I …” Susan looked around the large lobby of the lodge. She must look worse than she thought; everyone was staring at her. She pulled off her knit hat and hurried toward the restaurant.

  “Mrs. Henshaw. We were hoping you would feel well enough to come for lunch,” the hostess chatted as she led them to their table. “The chef just finished the corn and chicken chowder, and it’s wonderful,” she advised before leaving them. “Have a nice meal.”

  “Thank you, we will.” Susan smiled back. “Isn’t it amazing how they know everybody’s name? I hadn’t noticed before.”

  “I don’t think they know everyone. Susan, you saved Darcy’s life, you’re the heroine of the day.”

  “You certainly are. And we’re impressed; three days ago you couldn’t ski, and now you’ve become a one-woman rescue team.”

  The voice came from behind them. Susan turned around. “Jerry. Kathleen. Why don’t you pull up that table and we can all sit together?”

  “You can take my seat,” Chad offered graciously. “C.J.’s waving to me over there.…” He explained this sudden burst of excellent manners.

  “Thank you, Chad.” Jerry held out the chair for his wife and borrowed a spare from another table for himself. “So tell us all about your adventure. Everyone in the lodge is talking about it.”

  “All I did was get Darcy out of the woods and then follow him about halfway back here. If I hadn’t been found by the rest of my family and Chloe, I’d probably be suffering from frostbite—or worse—right now. I don’t think I’m the real hero here.”

  “Chloe said something about a message and a scarf,” Jerry said. “But Bananas is having a difficult morning and was crying so much that we didn’t really get the full story.”

  So Susan explained to the Gordons what had happened, and then to the waitresses who gathered around while presumably taking their orders, and then to Charlotte and Jane, who appeared right before the chowder arrived. The sisters thanked Susan for saving their brother’s life and wanted to hear the story from the beginning.

  “Thank heavens you stopped when you did,” Charlotte exclaimed when Susan had finished. “Darcy probably would be dead by now if you hadn’t.”

  “How is he?” Susan asked, picking up her spoon.

  “Some of the park rangers are looking after him. He has frostbite on his nose and one of his ears and was still cold when we left the room, but there’s no serious damage, and even the frostbite is mild.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Jed said, giving his wife a chance to eat her lunch.

  “How’s your mother?” Kathleen leaned across the table and asked.

  “She�
�s fine now. She was frantic earlier, of course,” Jane said, pushing her silky velvet headband deeper into her curls.

  “Why?”

  The sisters exchanged looks. “Well,” Charlotte began, “Darcy and my mother had a fight this morning—”

  “My sister is exaggerating,” Jane interrupted. “Darcy and Mother are still connected by some sort of invisible umbilical cord. They don’t fight in the sense of screaming and yelling. They disagree vehemently. They exchange wounded looks.”

  “Jane!” Charlotte glared at her sister. Evidently some of the family disagreed more vehemently. “When Darcy left the lodge this morning, he was very upset. And Mother was very upset. And I know she would have been devastated if something serious had happened to him.”

  “After Father’s death, I don’t think she could have taken another tragedy,” Jane agreed. “My mother is much more fragile than she appears, you know. We all have been very worried about her.”

  “Darcy is terribly upset,” Susan said. “He mentioned something about Randy leaving—as well as his father’s death. Maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to go out skiing alone.”

  “We would never have let him go if we had known. Never!” Charlotte shook her hair vehemently. “He just stamped out of the lodge and skied off into the snow—at least that’s what Mother said. We were in our rooms.”

  “If it is what I said, it’s true.” Phyllis Ericksen appeared behind her daughters.

  “Mother! No one thought that you weren’t telling the truth.…” Charlotte protested, apparently horrified at causing her mother more distress.

  “I know that, my dear. I’m not accusing anyone of anything. It’s been a long morning, and I’m afraid I don’t know what I’m saying.” She turned to the Henshaws. “My son is going to be just fine. I wanted to come down and let you know—and, of course, thank you for saving his life.”

  “Oh, I don’t think …” Susan began to make self-deprecating noises.

  “No. I’m sure that’s exactly what you did. I don’t believe Darcy planned to return from his little ski trip this morning. He would not be alive now if it weren’t for you.” A woman with exceptional posture, she straightened up even more. “I thank you.”

  With that, she turned and walked from the room. Jane and Charlotte exchanged another group of significant glances and got up to follow their mother.

  “You know, maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t come back. I don’t know how she’s going to take this,” Jane said as they followed her.

  “Did she say what I think she said?” Kathleen asked, choking on a corn kernel.

  “They think he did it,” Susan said. “They all think Darcy killed his father!”

  “Just because he objected to Randy? I don’t think so,” Jed argued.

  “Why not?”

  “In the first place, this couldn’t have been the first time that George Ericksen objected to his son’s choice of life-style—after all, Darcy isn’t sixteen. This has probably been known for a long time.”

  “And in the second place?” Susan asked.

  “What the girls were just saying about the relationship between Darcy and his mother—he wouldn’t want to hurt her. And killing his father was bound to do that.”

  “Think of Oedipus. Think of Freud,” Jerry urged, getting into the discussion. “It isn’t unheard-of.”

  “A Greek play and a psychological theory aren’t evidence,” Jed argued. “I don’t see the poor kid as a murderer. He had a fight with his family about his choice of life-style, his lover got mad and left. Those are rotten things to happen, but not reasons for murder.”

  “I think—” Jerry was interrupted by a large commotion out in the lobby. Shouting and yelling were heard, and a woman screamed. Chad, who had been sitting closer to the doorway, ran over to their table.

  “They found Darcy’s friend. And he’s dead.”

  TWENTY

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “What?” Susan turned, looking at Kathleen with a blank expression.

  “Susan, you’ve been sitting here staring at a tiny trickle of steam coming from a geyser cone for almost fifteen minutes. You must be concentrating on something—as well as risking freezing to death,” she added, pulling her hat down over her ears.

  “I am cold,” Susan admitted. “Want to warm up with me at the Visitor’s Center?”

  “I think that would be an excellent idea.”

  “I was sitting there trying to picture Darcy as a murderer,” Susan said, following Kathleen down the path.

  “And?”

  “And I still don’t see it.”

  “But now that Randy has been found …”

  “Surely no one thinks Darcy killed Randy!”

  “I don’t know what anyone thinks. All the tourists are in a state of shock. The rangers aren’t talking anymore—not even to be polite. Anyone who asks any questions is told that the matter is under investigation and they are not allowed to speak of it. I know: I tried asking a few questions of a few people.”

  “Darcy would never kill Randy!”

  “I agree. But what if George killed Randy, and then Darcy found out about it?”

  “And then killed his father. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “I think it’s possible. There’s certainly motivation there. His father disapproved of his life-style, publicly humiliated him, and then killed his lover. Except for a will leaving Darcy millions of dollars, I don’t know what more a person could ask for in the way of motivation—or what more the police will ask for,” she concluded, stamping the snow off her boots and opening the door for her friend.

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t explain a lot of things—the effigy of George Ericksen, for one,” Susan insisted.

  “Why couldn’t Darcy have put that there? Or maybe Randy did, and George found out, and that’s why he killed him?”

  “He killed him in revenge for a practical joke? I don’t think even George Ericksen was that sensitive.…” Susan began.

  “But we don’t really know very much about George Ericksen, do we?”

  “No. In fact, we don’t know very much about the entire Ericksen family, but we’re going to find out—unless they leave the area.”

  “I was wondering about that, too,” Kathleen agreed as they moved closer to the warmth of the wood stove. “But they can’t leave the park.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I asked Betsy.… Is that the name of Jon’s girlfriend?”

  “Beth.”

  “That’s right: Beth. She was sitting alone in the lobby before I came out to find you. I went over and expressed my condolences, and while I was at it, I asked if the Ericksens would be leaving the park.”

  “And?”

  “And she said probably not. It seems that all the snowcoaches are booked up months in advance and it would be impossible for that many people to leave without inconveniencing a lot of other people.…”

  “What about snowmobiles?”

  “I was getting to that. Usually they could rent a number of them to come into the park and pick them up, but this snow is the beginning of a major storm, and it’s considered too dangerous right now—maybe in a few days or if the weather forecast is wrong. But for now, they’re stranded here.”

  “And we may only have a few days to sort through all this and discover the answer,” Susan mused.

  “If we’re going to do it.”

  “Of course we’re going to do it. Do you think I saved Darcy Ericksen’s life just so he could stand trial for a murder he didn’t commit?”

  “But you don’t know that he didn’t do it,” Kathleen reminded her.

  “And they don’t know that he did.”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re stubborn?”

  “I know. It’s just that I’ve been thinking and thinking, and I cannot believe that Darcy did it. He seemed so genuinely worried about where Randy was—he wouldn’t have been worried if he had known that he was dead, w
ould he? And he would have known if he killed his father in revenge over his father killing his lover.… This is getting a little complex.”

  “True.”

  “Did you have a chance to talk to anyone about the Ericksens this morning before Darcy got lost and Randy was found?”

  “Yes, I did.” Kathleen looked around the room. A half dozen tourists were thawing out or waiting for the next tour to begin. Two rangers stood by the information desk discussing whether the coming bad weather warranted rearranging the afternoon’s schedule of events. No one was paying attention to two women warming themselves by the stove. “I spent a fair amount of time with two different people,” she started, lowering her voice so they wouldn’t be overheard. “First Bananas and I talked with the maid who cleans the senior Ericksens’ room in the lodge. She’s just a young girl, taking a break from college to earn some money for tuition, but she seems quite bright and a pretty reliable witness.…”

  “So what did she tell you?”

  “She said that Darcy has moved in with his mother. I don’t know if it means anything. If they are very close, the family may have felt it better that Phyllis have someone with her, and who better than her favorite son?”

  “True. But could he stand being there if he was the one who killed his father? Probably not,” Susan answered her own question.

  “Or maybe his mother knows that he did it and she is trying to protect him,” Kathleen suggested. “That is just as possible, you know.”

  “Protect him?”

  “Maybe keep him nearby so that he doesn’t say anything to incriminate himself.”

  “That’s crazy. Next you’re going to suggest that she wanted him to stay with her because he’s a compulsive killer and she’s afraid if she leaves him alone, he’ll massacre everyone in the lodge. Phyllis Ericksen loves her son, but she also loved her husband—”

  “Why did you stop?”

  Susan was remembering the argument she had heard between George and Phyllis. But all couples had arguments, she reminded herself. “I was just thinking about George Ericksen. So what else did she say?”