A Deadly Snow Fall

by Cynthia Gallant-Simpson

  That was when I spotted Frank Kavanagh, a reporter for the Provincetown Banner, the local highly acclaimed daily newspaper.

  “Hi Liz,” Frank greeted me. “So, you’ve met our local Scrooge.”

  “Hi, Frank. Not a nice person, I’d say. Who is he?”

  “That, my dear lady, just happens to be the least liked man in Provincetown, Edwin Snow III. My guess is that after sucking on far too many lemons combined with rarely practicing his smile, his smile muscles simply atrophied.”

  “Why is he so hated? Does his dog hate him too?”

  “Ah, Patton, poor fellow, absolutely devoted to his master. Good old dogs. If you want a best friend who’ll love you unconditionally, get a dog. Even a mean son of a bitch can be loved by a dog.”

  “First person I’ve encountered in the village with not even a smile to offer a newcomer. Maybe he mistook me for a tourist and he doesn’t like tourists.” I laughed and Frank smiled broadly.

  “Nope. Our Edwin doesn’t like anyone. Beginning and ending with himself. But he is one of our local celebrities--at least, in his own mind. Claims he’s writing a memoir of his glory days when he hung around with that artist fellow Edward Granger who spent a few summers in our neighbor town, Truro. Granger and his wife Ellyn, a New York theatre critic, rented a place in the hills of Truro to which their hard-drinking city friends came to visit. If you’ve ever seen Granger’s paintings then you know that he painted the outer Cape in a rather Gothic style. Often wondered if he only painted when drunk. Might explain his odd take on the place. ”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I was in Boston when his recent show came through. I saw it at the Museum of Fine Arts. He certainly saw Cape Cod through a rather stilted lens, didn’t he?”

  “That, he did. It seems, at least according to our local crank, that Granger and his hard-partying New York friends wandered into our fair community looking for the entertainment and watering holes not to be found in sleepy Truro. To hear Edwin tell it, he slipped under Granger’s wing and had a rip roaring old time. Also, according to the old guy, he’s in possession of certain secrets and scandals that are about to come to light. He’s writing a book that will set the literary and art world on fire.” Frank laughed and tossed his Green Genie Coffee Shop paper cup into the nearby trash receptacle. “Gotta go; deadline to meet. Nice talking to you Liz.”

  “But wait, Frank. The man isn’t hated just for that, is he? I mean plenty of people write that kind of book. In fact, wouldn’t you think that, in light of how desensitized we have become to scandal that what he has to reveal will be ho hum to readers? After all, Edward Granger and all of his friends are long dead or too old to care.”

  “Right on, Liz. Unlikely anyone will care. But the old guy is unpopular for lots of other reasons. It didn’t take his announcement of an up-coming sizzler to get him on the list of nastiest people ever. His old man, Ned Snow, started the ball rolling. Mean and greedy and obviously without a scintilla of conscience was old man Snow. Made millions grabbing property for unpaid back taxes, overdue mortgage payments, whatever. Turned folks out into the cold without a by your leave. A real Simon Legree. Real clever though. Knew just how close he could come to the line between legal and illegal in his machinations. Like a hyena smellin’ carrion, old Ned swooped down and grabbed houses, land, everything he could. Built himself a grand Victorian manor house up on Pilgrim Lake Hill Road where he lived in splendor looking down on all us peons. Everyone says that Edwin not only inherited the old man’s fortune but his nasty disposition, as well. Hey, by the way Liz, how’s that book club doing?”

  “Terrific. Want to join?”

  “Nope, I read the blood and guts stuff exclusively. And I heard you gotta’ cook. I live on beef jerky and popcorn unless my mother stops by and fills the freezer with casseroles. Well, gotta go.”

  We parted and I continued on my way to Souza’s Portuguese Market. Tish Souza, the owner with her husband Manny, was behind the counter and in a questionable mood. Not that Tish Souza was a grouch or anything like that but there were certain customers who just grated her. Entering the shop on the departing heels of one of her testy customers could land you in the middle of a gray mood, although they never lasted long. As it turned out on that day, Edwin Snow had just left and she was still smarting from his visit.

  “Hi Tish, how are things?”

  “They’d be a lot better if that miserable old coot Edwin Snow would move away--like to Timbuktu. Sorry, Liz. Don’t mean to take it out on you, but the man just drives me to distraction.”

  Having spotted old man Snow and his dog turning the corner at Seashell Lane as I reached the market, I guessed who’d set her off. I gave Tish a moment to recover by checking out a shelf of new teas. When Tish’s smile returned, it seemed to me that it might be a good opportunity to get another opinion on the old man with the nice dog. Basically, I am an insatiably curious person, interested in what makes people tick. Having come face to face with the old man on every villager’s most hated list, I felt it behooved me to know more about him. Ironically, that curiosity would become a useful skill when I needed it most in the coming weeks.

  Tish wiped her hands on a towel and straightened a tray of sausages that didn’t need straightening. “Everyone else in town tries to be pleasant. It’s a small town and a long winter so it makes sense for us all to make an effort. You know what I mean? But not that old bat. I just don’t understand why he bothers to come in except to bug me.” Tish handed me a sample of a new cheese. It was delicious.

  “Frank Kavanagh gave me a little rundown on the man but tell me what you know about why he is so miserable? Usually, someone who acts that way is just plain unhappy and takes it out on everyone around him. Is that his excuse, do you know?”

  “Let’s sit down, Liz. Just made a pot of caramel chai and my daughter Shelley made a coffee cake for breakfast. Never got a chance to try it because I had an early delivery to unload. Join me?”

  “Love to, thanks. As long as I am not taking you from your work.”

  “Hey, after a session with that nutcase I need a break. He comes in here about once a week when he comes into town for his meager rations. Not that he ever buys anything here. Just looks around, makes a few critical comments, and leaves. However, never without saying under his breath, ‘They ought to go back to Portugal where they came from.’ Hey, Manny is from New Bedford and I’m from Quincy. The man is unstable and just plain mean.”

  “Do you think he really is writing a book about Granger the artist?”

  “Well, someone does and someone is mighty upset by it, I’d say.”

  “Why do you say that, Tish?”

  I never heard her answer since the shop was suddenly very busy. It was the day Manny put out the newest batch of homemade Portuguese sausages and the rush was on. After all, not only were the sausages terrific, but there was a finite supply every Tuesday morning. They were always gone by noon. Later, I joined the anxious throng, rising early on Tuesdays to be there first.

  What Tish would have gone on to present as evidence that someone was upset about Edwin’s real or imagined book, Daphne filled me in on, a few days later at the scene of Edwin Snow III’s fall into the snow. The man had been, if not physically attacked, then at least, the victim of two attempts. The cement block and the stone may have missed him but that did not mean, necessarily, that he didn’t have an enemy out to get him. Curiouser and curiouser

  Chapter Five

  When I’d told my mother about my inheritance, she was far from pleased. “But, Mother, you know I love the sea and I can have a little sailboat and swim every day and I’ve always wanted to live in a small village. In addition, I can finally put to use those lovely cooking lessons from the Cordon Bleu. Owning and running an inn really appeals to me.”

  My mother, Lady Gwendolyn, let out a loud “harrumph” that travelled all the way from her townhouse in Holland Park, London, across the wide ocean and into my ear like a trans-Atlantic taser. I held the cell phone a
way from my head for fear of hearing damage.

  I had put this off for days, but, finally, I had no choice. The call to my parents to let them know that I was beginning a new career had to be faced. I didn’t kid myself that they would be pleased--particularly my patrician mother.

  “Sometimes I do believe that you are not my child. Why must you do such a foolish thing as go into that business (her tone might have been in response to my announcement that I was driving a rubbish truck)? A subservient business. Running an inn. Darling, you will be a servant. Does your trust fund not provide enough for your needs, my darling? Tell me how much you need and MaMa will send it. I have more than I need. Or better yet by far, do come home and marry that lovely man who has adored you since childhood, Cecil Bottomley. Have a few little ones and learn to garden. But pleeeeze, darling, not commerce.”

  But, by then it was too late. I was settled in and enjoying my new life as innkeeper. My aunt’s very capable manager, a grad student in hotel management, Katy Balsam, had quickly immersed me in learning the business when I arrived on a lovely August day. The inn was full and the town was, as Katy described it, “a zoo with all the animals un-caged and on the rampage.” I rather liked the crush of tourists. They added a carnival air to the little seaside village. Katy was an excellent instructor. In fact, in the interim since my aunt had died she had carried on so well, that, as she said, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful Liz, but it seemed important to me to continue on doing my job in such a way that the guests would never suspect that Mrs. Huntley had checked out.”

  When Katy returned to school that first autumn of my new career, leaving me in charge, I actually enjoyed myself. Perhaps, if I’d known what was waiting for me in the not too distant future, I might have run like a rabbit. But, maybe not.

  That first winter, I put my own mark on the inn. Never having painted a wall in my life I took on four bedrooms, turning them from my aunt’s evidently favorite colors of lilac and aqua and blushing pink to Williamsburg Blue, Tanbark Red and Scrivener’s Gold. The white woodwork had been fairly recently done and was just fine so I left it in place. The shiny wide pine floors were lovely, needing nothing more than the handsome striped Dash and Albert cotton rugs that I ordered on-line.

  I turned a long sun room off of the kitchen into an office that did double duty as a sitting room. There I could work at my laptop, read on sunny afternoons (the room had six long windows that offered wonderful light on all but the darkest, stormiest days) or serve tea to friends. I bought a wonderful, antique pine hutch where I stored, out of sight, everything related to running the inn. I replaced the old brown tweed, cat hair-infested couch with a glove soft, navy blue leather sofa and added two deep, comfy wing chairs. Thus, over time, the Cranberry Inn Bed and Breakfast was transformed from a charming, out-dated summer hotel into a nautical-style oasis. The addition of framed nautical charts on the two windowless walls completed the picture along with a wicker coffee table and two matching lamp tables. As a house-warming gift, Daphne had painted six white cotton duck cloth throw pillows with assorted nautical themes. A wonderful antique brass sextant from a local antique shop sat proudly on a side table and an old a ship model graced the mantle. The Great Age of Sail meets Ralph Lauren in a nautical mood.

  It was during my re-decorating period that I’d met Daphne Crowninshield who was to become my dearest, new friend in the “new world.” I was becoming more American every day. Not that my giveaway British accent matched the transformation, but I was one more lump in the “melting pot.”

  I’d popped into Daphne’s art gallery called Galimaufry, on my way to Souza’s Market one morning that first autumn. I was greeted by a statuesque runway model obviously impersonating a struggling artist. “Good morning. Welcome to Galimaufry. I know, a weird name but a good one nevertheless, I assure you.” Daphne said by way of introduction.

  Immediately, I liked her. “Hello. I am Liz Ogilvie-Smythe. I just love your work. So…local.”

  We laughed and were immediately friends. “After all,” as Daphne said that day, “we bounders must stick together while in the colonies.” Although I wondered at her butchering of the King’s English, I found her to be great fun and always a breath of fresh air. Even so, things sometimes got mighty weird and there were days when I wondered if I just might have to return to England and marry simpering Cecil Bottomley.

  Daphne told me that Galimaufry was an archaic term meaning “a mixed collection of things, a kind of hodgepodge of unrelated objects.” She explained that her goal was to bring in different styles of painting, eventually. We spent an hour and a half bonding and then went off to the Lobster Bowl for lobster rolls. “The best on the east coast,” proclaimed Daphne. She’d been quite correct. Yum.

  I told her how I’d come to end up in Provincetown. She told me that she’d known and very much liked my aunt. We talked about art and I told her about attending the Edward Granger show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts while temporarily staying in the city. She told me that she liked most of Granger’s work except for his local paintings. I laughed until my sides hurt when she commented on her impression of the paintings Granger had done while summering on the Cape.

  “Sort of American Gothic without the pitchfork. Or, Norman Rockwell meets Grandma Moses on the day the Valium ran out. I don’t really think the area was ever so forlorn and seeming to be waiting for true life to begin.”

  We’d been good chums ever since. The day after Edwin Snow III’s body was found in the snow, Daphne and I met for breakfast at Beasley’s fifties-retro restaurant. Known for the best breakfasts for miles around as well as superior comfort food, Beasley’s was run by a family from New York grown sick of the hustle bustle of the city. Daphne told me that it was where Edwin Snow III had eaten his breakfast every day, for years. She’d added that none of the waitresses but DeeDee Bradford would wait on the difficult old man. It seemed to be a place to start.

  As it was not very busy, I asked DeeDee if she could tell me a little about the dead man. She looked around to see if any of her customers needed her and finding that everyone was still busy eating, she sat with us in the booth.

  DeeDee’s story was captivating. Even Edwin Snow’s eating habits were weird. “Every morning at seven minutes to eight he arrived. Folks could set their watches to his schedule. He checked around until he discovered a booth or table where a previous customer had left the daily Provincetown Banner or the Boston Globe and there he sat. I was the only waitperson who’d still wait on him by the time he…died. The others refused to go near the fussy man.”

  “What was he so fussy about DeeDee?” asked Daphne.

  “Everything, but mostly his food. If you could call what he ate food. I mean, he ignored all the great stuff on the menu and ordered the very same thing every day. You know, sometimes I’d start feeling sorry for the lonely old man and then he’d just go and do something so outrageous that I’d go back to disliking him. But, I was sweet as honey and always smiled at the old goat. Might have saved up those smiles for a rainy day. He never smiled back, of course.”

  “What did he order?” I asked DeeDee.

  “Three pieces of burnt toast with no butter but with a “thin skin” of orange marmalade. He’d say, ‘As thin as tissue paper.” Trouble was, he said the exact same thing, day after day, as if I was a dumbbell with a lobotomy and couldn’t remember something so damned simple. Then he’d add, ‘and don’t knock off any of the crispy edges, I want my full money’s worth.’ Can you imagine?”

  “Did he drink coffee or tea?” My inner amateur sleuth was most certainly awakening, burgeoning inside my head. Every question was meant to add a new detail to the profile of the recently dead man. I was becoming a hybrid of my favorite small village sleuths. Then it struck me like a welcome thunder bolt. If I could not dig into ancient tombs and catacombs and buried religious sites, I could dig into a possible murder. A surge of delight raced through my mind as I was pulled back to the fascinating subject at hand.

&nb
sp; “Get ready for a really good laugh.” DeeDee laughed herself as we awaited some gem.

  “He always ordered a cup of hot water and the ketchup bottle. Yup, made his own mix-in-place tomato soup. Is that a hoot or what? Guess you’re not supposed to laugh about the dead but, hey, the man was a trip. Get this, he paid in small change. Yup, had an old leather change purse full of it. Never carried a single bill. He went to the bank every other Monday regularly and withdrew forty dollars in small change. My sister works at the bank. Lived on next to nothing although everyone knows, er…knew he was rich as Croesus.”

  DeeDee drifted off for a second then returned to the present. “I was just remembering something odd I once saw when he went to pay the bill. Never tipped, of course. Mrs. Beasley always slipped me what the tip ought to be. Well, anyway, he pulled out some dimes and nickels and in the process, he dropped something on the floor. I leaned down to pick it up for the old coot. It was a torn-in-half tarot card. That creepy one with the grim reaper on it. The death card.”

  DeeDee went off to wait on another customer and Daphne and I sat talking. Daphne had her own Edwin Snow stories to impart.

  “Everyone knows the man inherited a bundle of money from his equally mean father. But, get this; the man was so stingy he refused to pay for either rubbish pickup or a dump sticker so he could take his own to the, as it is now called, the disposal area. So he snuck around after dark to put it in Tish and Manny’s dumpster.”