by Emma Lathen
“You see what I mean, Mr. Thatcher,” Ormsby sighed. “If Bisson played his games on others, you could have quite a few innocent passers of fakes. Enough so you ought to be careful whose traveler’s checks you take.”
Thatcher was at his driest. “I can promise you that any Eurocheck presented to the Sloan will receive very thorough scrutiny, Captain. But none of this explains Bisson’s check. Unless you think Bisson himself was not at Saranac.”
For the first time Thibault showed glimmers of intelligence. “Yves was near Saranac yesterday, if that is what you mean.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well, he said so. He and Suzanne Deladier were talking about it at lunch.”
This was all that Ormsby needed. “Do you know where I can find her?”
“I just left her. The whole French team is in emergency meeting. In case of more attacks, you understand.”
“You mean she’s on the team?”
If Ormsby had been scornful of Thibault’s financial methods, that scorn was now returned with interest.
“Suzanne Deladier,” Thibault repeated, shocked at such ignorance. “The figure skater.”
When Suzanne Deladier appeared, it was hard to believe that she was a consummate athlete. Thatcher knew enough about the Olympics to appreciate that any competitor had whipcord muscles, knife-edge reflexes and superhuman stamina. But Suzanne, who admitted to all of 19 years, was a tiny, fine-boned creature with translucent fair skin, velvety dark eyes, and raven hair. She spoke fluent English with a marked British accent. She was not alone.
“Coach Vaux insisted on coming along,” she explained demurely. “To protect me.”
He was still on his mettle. “I do not understand why the police wish to interrogate Suzanne about a terrorist attack, but I am here to see that she is not imposed upon. Tomorrow there will be somebody from the French Embassy.”
“Good. I’m glad the youngsters are being looked after,” Ormsby said mildly. “But you can stop worrying about a terrorist campaign. Bisson seems to have been mixed up in some criminal activity. That is the likeliest motive for his murder.”
The effect on Vaux was immediate.
“But this is outrageous! You may wish to prevent panic here in Lake Placid, but that is no justification for defaming a dead man. I’ve known Yves for over two years, and there was no finer sportsman, no more generous competitor.”
Ormsby held up a pacifying hand. “Now let’s get this straight, Mr. Vaux. Bisson was mixed up in something. Maybe he was a participant, but maybe he was innocently involved,” he said, suppressing all reference to Raoul Thibault’s checkbook. “There’s no way we can tell until we know what went on at Saranac.”
“Saranac?” Little Miss Deladier was interested.
Ormsby turned to her quickly. “You and he went there yesterday?”
“We all did.”
Before a worried François Vaux could intervene, Ormsby pressed forward. “You mean there was a whole group? You and he were not alone?”
“Of course not.” There was the slightest suggestion of disdain in her voice. “It was a celebration really. The boys who came out high in the standings after the first half of the jumping arranged it. None of us had ever ridden snowmobiles before. Yves had heard of this place outside Saranac where you could rent them and ride on miles and miles of track. It was wonderful.”
“And how did you pay for the rental?”
Suzanne’s eyes widened. “I have no idea. I suppose one of the boys did.”
“Perhaps you’d better tell me who else was there.”
“Let me think.” Suzanne wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “It was all very informal. We met together at the shuttle bus. I know Gunther Euler helped arrange it. Tilly Lowengard was there. Oh yes, and Dick Noyes was with her.”
Thatcher and Ormsby looked at each other. The enlargement of the outing to Saranac cut both ways. In the confusion of five or six people milling about, everybody could claim to have noticed nothing. On the other hand, the potential number of witnesses had increased.
Ormsby pushed himself to his feet. “We’d better start rounding them up. I’m going to want to talk with everybody who went on this trip.”
Almost immediately he ran up against the realities of life in Olympic Village. His request for a small group of skiers and skaters produced a buzzing cloud of coaches, trainers and delegation bigwigs. They were bewildered, incredulous, pained, but above all, they were adamant.
“Not on your life,” said an American coach roundly. “It was hard enough getting my boys out of the disco and into the sack. I sure as hell won’t get any of them up now.”
“Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, Captain Ormsby,” murmured a tidy German who had shattered five world records in his younger days.
The Swiss was not so polite. “Do you realize that it is after eleven-thirty?” he demanded.
Ormsby tried to justify himself. “Look, I was just talking to Suzanne Deladier, and she wasn’t in her nightie. What is all this?”
The French, everybody told him, were the exception. Fearing attack, they had preferred not to scatter their forces.
“But now that there is no longer any question of terrorists,” said the Swiss, “they, too, have retired.”
Ormsby bowed to the inevitable. But it then developed that the undisturbed slumber of his witnesses was not the only impediment facing him. Tomorrow’s agenda was crammed with practice sessions, competition, and transport to distant places. Access to any one Olympian was difficult; access to five of them at once seemed impossible.
Making the necessary arrangements, Thatcher foresaw, was going to take time.
“Let me know when you finally corral them all,” he said, rising to leave.
Ormsby looked up from his calculations. “I will,” he said, “and thanks for your help, Mr. Thatcher. I’ll have one of the boys run you back to your motel.”
That, however, was not where Thatcher was headed. These police inquiries had been no more than a busman’s holiday.
“I want to look in on Gabler and Roger Hathaway,” he said, responding to Ormsby’s open curiosity. “The Sloan’s going to be doing a little digging of its own, Captain.”
20 minutes later, a cruiser deposited him at the Sloan’s local command post, a one-time Victorian summer home, gracing a hillside on the outskirts of town. Turrets, porches, and gables abounded and, by moonlight, evoked the statelier past. But appearances were misleading. In recent years every other season had brought a new couple eager to turn this relic into a charming country inn or a cozy ski lodge. Since blueberry pancakes can do only so much, a three-month lease by the Sloan Guaranty Trust was the best thing that had happened to the Andiron Inn since William Howard Taft.
The arrangement was not working out badly for the Sloan, either. As lights blazing at innumerable windows attested, the Inn provided 12 much-needed bedrooms for the Sloan staff. Downstairs there were parlors and dining rooms where Sloan customers could be wined and dined in comfort, if not elegance. Another advantage was the self-contained owner’s apartment which provided some semblance of normalcy for Roger Hathaway.
The rental charge for these conveniences had startled even Bradford Withers. At the moment Thatcher was more interested in another large sum of money.
A vaguely familiar young man answered the bell, opening the door onto a large foyer dominated by stained glass and ski racks.
He insisted on guiding Thatcher. “You see, the real entrance to Roger’s place is around by the side,” he explained, heroically stifling a yawn, “but you can get there from here. Only it isn’t easy.”
It was, in fact, an obstacle course. Thatcher lost count of the massive fireplaces, unexpected staircases and oversized sofas they passed. Each room had a piano, a stuffed moosehead, or both.
Hathaway’s apartment came as a relief. Living room, bedroom, kitchen and bath were simply but brightly furnished. One wall was covered with a magnificent aerial photograph of Lake Placid, and
there was a potbellied stove in the corner.
Even the clutter of Hathaway’s life struck a welcome note: ski boots heaped carelessly near the door, a pile of records, in and out of sleeves, near the hi-fi. The desk at the window held a portable typewriter, and a pile of business papers.
Inevitably that was where Everett Gabler had chosen to station himself.
“Ah, John,” he said severely.
“Olympic Village took more time than I expected,” said Thatcher while Hathaway helped him out of his coat.
“Did Ormsby come up with anything?” Hathaway asked.
“We may have explained how and why Bisson’s counterfeit Eurocheck came to light in Saranac,” said Thatcher, removing his scarf.
The snowmobile saga kept Hathaway motionless with Thatcher’s belongings draped over his arm. Everett was less impressed.
“Confirmation, as if we need it, of a considerable counterfeit scheme,” he snorted. “Five athletes—”
“No, no, Everett,” Thatcher hastened to say. “You’re being premature. Of course, something may come to light when Ormsby speaks to them tomorrow, if he ever rounds them all up. But at the moment, the presumption is that they were no more than witnesses. Which reminds me, Hathaway. Did you know Bisson? Or—” he dug out a note he had made for himself—“or the rest of them? Dick Noyes, Tilly Lowengard . . .”
Hathaway was jamming Thatcher’s coat into an already overstuffed closet. “No, I haven’t met many of the competitors,” he said. “They got here late. I did meet some of the Olympic officials who were setting things up.”
“Well, then,” said Thatcher, handing the scrap to Gabler. “I think this is your baby, Ev. You can add it to your list.”
He was perfectly confident that Everett had a list. But mindful of the awkwardness of Hathaway’s position, he waited until the younger man rejoined them before continuing. “Now, what have you two been doing?”
For all his quirkiness Gabler, too, comprehended Hathaway’s predicament. So, with rare self-effacement, he let a subordinate hold the floor.
“We held a meeting for the whole staff,” said Hathaway, explaining the yawn that had greeted Thatcher. “We showed some of the stuff to everybody. You noticed the rag count? Well, from here on in, I think I can safely say nobody’s laying off any queer on the Sloan.”
“If there’s any more out there,” Thatcher interjected. “It looks very much like a one-shot operation.”
With a dispirited shake of the head, Hathaway accepted this without argument. “But I’ve got to admit that before this happened, I would have sworn this was impossible.”
“Tsk, tsk!” said Everett. “Still, crying over spilled milk won’t get us very far.”
Thatcher was less Spartan. “Yes, we have to be thinking of the other steps the Sloan should be taking. Εν, I think you’d better get back to New York as soon as possible.”
“Exactly what I thought,” said Gabler promptly. “I’ve ordered a car which should be here in another half-hour.”
Thatcher, who had been thinking in terms of an early morning flight, tried to measure up. “Excellent. Now, you’ll want to get in touch with Eurocheck. Also, we should ask around banks in New York, and Montreal, too, I suppose, to see if they’ve encountered any problems. And I expect we’d better get some currency experts up here to study what we’ve got sitting in the vault. Then I’d like you to make some inquiries about those names I gave you.”
None of this came as a surprise to Everett.
“One more thing,” said Thatcher, glancing toward Hathaway. “Regrettable but necessary, I’m afraid. We’d better double check the personnel file of every single Sloan employee here in Lake Placid, just in case. See if there are any local connections, Olympic connections, anything.”
At this, Roger Hathaway was thunderstruck. “My God!” he said, dismayed. “I never thought of that!”
Reverting to form, Everett was astringent. “A credit to your heart—but not to your head.”
Chapter 4
Cloud Cover
BY dint of great perseverance, Captain Ormsby finally managed to settle on a time the following morning when five Olympic schedules could accommodate a murder investigation. Ten-thirty, he was assured, was the only possible moment.
Strictly speaking, this was not true. While the high-level dickering went on, the young people had put their heads together. As a result, at 7:30 the next morning, they picked up their breakfast trays and cornered a table in the Olympic cafeteria. The three men, who lived in different dormitories within the compound, had had no opportunity for conversation. Tilly Lowengard, on the other hand, lived on the same floor of the women’s quarters as Suzanne Deladier. She was complaining that this advantage had been futile.
“Suzanne says there’s nothing to tell,” she appealed to the others, “but she must have learned something from the police last night.”
The two girls could not have been more different. Tilly had a short crop of brown curls that was almost always tousled from exercise, the outdoors, or her habit of tweaking stray strands in moments of excitement. Practicing for the Swiss women’s slalom team had left her with windburned cheeks and a fine collection of bruises. Although she was two years older than Suzanne, she seemed younger when her bursts of impulsive enthusiasm caromed off the French girl’s controlled elegance.
“Haven’t you heard the rumors, Tilly?” asked the man sitting next to her. “All over the Village they’re saying that Yves was up to his neck in something criminal.”
Tilly’s eyes widened. “Gunther!” she protested. “You don’t mean something seriously criminal, do you?”
Gunther Euler shrugged. “If it involved murder, that is certainly serious enough for me.”
“You guys have got to be kidding! You’re trying to tell me that Yves was into something really crooked? Where in hell would he get the time?”
This involuntary explosion came from Dick Noyes. He was the only American present and the only true amateur. The others were all world-class competition athletes, familiar figures on the international circuit. Dick was the lowliest member of the low-ranked American downhill team. A series of last-minute wins had sent him to Lake Placid, but the serious business of his life was studying to become a veterinarian. Juggling the demands of his training schedule and his college career was a constant strain. For the others, the 1980 Winter Olympics would be a victory only if they brought home a medal or broke a world record. For Dick Noyes, the victory was being there.
“We are not certain of anything as yet. Suzanne, you had better tell us what you know.”
The air of quiet authority came naturally to Carlo Antonelli. At thirty he was not only a good deal older than his companions, he was also an Olympic veteran. This was his third try with the Italian bobsled team.
Suzanne had been quietly eating breakfast while the others spoke. Even this simple act was marked by her ballet training. As she spooned oatmeal, her wrist gracefully led the upward movement. She did not reply directly.
“It is very mortifying, being singled out for police attention,” she said.
“Well, you can relax now,” Dick Noyes told her bracingly. “Now they’re after all of us.”
Suzanne was not grateful. “If I had not agreed to go snowmobiling in Saranac, I would not be involved. That is what the police want to ask questions about.”
“So that’s why they selected us.” Carlo Antonelli ignored Suzanne’s lament. “I do not understand what crime Yves could have committed on that trip, but since we were with him . . .”
“You may be offended by this development, Suzanne. Personally I am relieved,” Gunther Euler confessed. “Naturally I am sorry about Yves. But it is not so pleasant, flinging yourself into the snow and being afraid that someone is about to shoot you.”
Antonelli studied him appraisingly. “I had forgotten that you were present when Yves was killed.”
“As was the entire German jumping team,” Euler reminded him. “And I can tel
l you, our performance would suffer if every time we jumped we were afraid of becoming targets for a marksman.”
This effectively silenced everyone except Tilly Lowengard, who had been following her own train of thought.
“It’s just occurred to me, Gunther. Do you realize that you’re now in the lead for the combined jumping?”
A spot of color appeared on Euler’s cheek, but his voice did not falter.
“Yes. I had thought of that.”
Three hours later he was again under fire.
“Mr. Euler, I understand that you and Yves Bisson arranged this trip to Saranac. Is that correct?” Ormsby was asking.
Gunther Euler was untroubled as he faced the police captain and John Thatcher.
“It depends what you mean by arranged. On Monday, Yves and I finished first and second in the standings for the ski jump.” He grinned unashamedly as he went on to explain: “That was good because there was only one more round to go. One of us would certainly win the gold on Friday. And because of the gap the coaches were giving us a free day on Tuesday. So, when we were sitting in the disco on Monday night, we decided to celebrate. We’d get a group together and go snowmobiling.”
“I understand all that. But why Saranac? There are snowmobiles in Lake Placid.”
“There are also 60,000 people,” Euler retorted. “We wanted to get away from it all and find some space.”
“All right.” Ormsby pressed on. “Let’s go back to Monday night. How were you going to get a group together?”
Euler blinked. “By asking people to come with us. Yves said he was going to ask Suzanne. We could see her dancing on the other side of the room.”
Suzanne Deladier did not wait for Ormsby to question her. “Yes, it must have been shortly afterwards that Yves invited me.”
“He asked me at the disco also,” Carlo Antonelli volunteered. “It was late, just before I left.”
Wordlessly Ormsby swiveled to the remaining couple.