A Deadly Snow Fall

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A Deadly Snow Fall Page 12

by Cynthia Gallant-Simpson


  “So, does that mean you are planning to stay? Not returning to England anytime soon? And if so, I wonder if you might agree to go steady with me, Liz O-S?”

  Unable to come up with a clever response, I simply gave him a doe-eyed look as I leaned against his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. Grinning like a fool, he dipped me and planted a kiss on my mouth right there in front of everyone. To my great embarrassment, everyone clapped and hooted.

  In the early morning hours after the ball, I awakened suddenly to find that I was alone in the bed. The wail of fire engines and the siren of a police car seared my sleep-addled brain. Pulling the covers over my head and hoping it was just a dream, I knew better. I even seemed to know, by some kind of sixth sense, where the emergency vehicles were headed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was up and climbing into jeans and a t-shirt and down the stairs headed for my Jeep as if Beelzebub was hot on my heels. The bright orange flames shooting into the sky were easy to spot as I drove fast along the highway toward Pilgrim Lake Hill Road. The scene before my eyes was indeed surreal. Huge, mountainous flames appeared to be coming up and out of the dunes. A roaring volcano about to burst its full anger and power upon the sleeping village.

  As my reluctant Jeep climbed the steep hill, suddenly there it was. Not a volcano but what had been, until that night, a fine Victorian mansion. Although all the tall, stately windows glowed orange as if a party was going on inside, it was the rotund, glass solarium on the south side that was putting on a show. I pulled to the side of the road just as glass flew like glittering rain, backlit and, had it not been for the ugly truth, a lovely breath-taking spectacle.

  The lovely, old Snow mansion.

  Neighbors in pajamas and robes huddled off to the side where a white-haired woman was pouring coffee at a table set out on the side of the road. One gray-haired man hugged a huge Persian cat to his chest. A woman held two leashes at the end of which were exact duplicate, tiny black dogs. That led me to wonder what had happened to the old man’s pit bull, Patton.

  Chief Henderson walked over with a cup of hot coffee in his hands looking disheveled and in pain. “You know, Miss, I’m just getting too old for this stuff. Come and join us. Mary Malone makes a fine cup of coffee. Hell of a night. Police Chief Chester Henderson.” He held out his hand and I introduced myself.”

  “Know who you are. My right hand man Finneran’s taken a shine to you. Welcome to Provincetown. Your aunt was a fine, fine woman.”

  I was unable to keep my eyes from the fire. “The fascination of the abomination.” How aptly Joseph Conrad had put it. Despite the horror and shock, it was difficult to tear my eyes from the spectacle. However, watching the violent death of such a magnificent piece of local architecture caused the heart to sink.

  The streams of water from four fire trucks--Provincetown’s two, Truro’s one and one from Wellfleet--seemed to be no more than a slight annoyance to the raging flames determined to gobble up the house. The sounds were terrifying, snapping, crackling, smashing and a sound like a violent winter wind. But also, something else. Way in the background. What is that? I asked myself. Human voices? No, it couldn’t be. Funny, it did sound like people riding a roller coaster. Simultaneously thrilled and terrified. No one else seemed to have heard it though.

  Then, “Oh, my God!” “There it goes!” “Just downright heartbreaking,” and “Such a terrible loss.” The old glass conservatory collapsed in on itself like a house of cards as the huddled neighbors watched. Mary Malone grasped at her chest as if her heart would burst forth if she did not hold it back. This was my first time seeing the old Snow mansion. I’d heard that it had once been a showplace but Edwin hadn’t cared for it and it was badly in neat of paint and repairs. Edward Granger had evidently admired it; painted it three times in different lighting.

  The sweet voice behind me pulled me around to face Mary Malone. “Dear, please join us for some nice, hot coffee. I also have tea. A nice, English breakfast variety.”

  “Oh, thanks. I’m Liz Ogilvie-Smythe. I own the Cranberry Inn.”

  “I know dear. I’m Mary Malone. Knew your dear Aunt Libby very well. Miss her terribly. Now though, we have you to take her place. Come, join us, dear.”

  “So nice to meet you… of course under tragic circumstances.”

  “Probably just as well, dear; let them all free at last.”

  Before I could respond to ask who the all might be, the Truro Fire Chief came over seeking coffee. “Hell of a night. Hate to see the fine old architecture go. This one was one of the finest, indeed. Some of the real dogs you don’t mind losing, but this place was an honest beauty. Would you maybe have a couple of aspirins for an old man, Mary, dear?”

  Mrs. Malone left and then reappeared with a bottle of aspirin and, after the chief took two, she offered them around like a box of chocolates.

  “It occurs to me to ask, Mrs. Malone…Mary, did someone take Mr. Snow’s dog?” I hoped the poor orphaned dog had not been caught inside the inferno.

  “Oh, yes, dear. Not to worry. I took Patton to live with me after Edwin passed. He’s just fine. Lonely for his master but he’s settling in nicely. Left him in the back room so he couldn’t see this. It would just add to his unhappiness, you know.”

  “What happened, Mrs. Malone? When did it start?”

  “I woke as always at two to let Patton out. He has a bladder problem and needs to go every four or five hours during the night. I set my alarm, let him out, and off he goes. But tonight, at the end of the front walk, he suddenly stopped, his legs stiffened and his nose went into the air. I couldn’t imagine what he smelled but expected it was just a skunk. Hates skunks, he does. Then I smelled it too. That was when I turned and saw that the windows over there were all aglow. Like there was a party going on and all the lights were on.”

  “How frightening for you, Mary.”

  “Yes. But not entirely unexpected. It was time. They deserved it. This way, they won’t bother anyone else.”

  I was nonplussed. Who could she mean? Who deserved to be cooked in a hot fire? The voices I’d heard? If there was someone inside, why wasn’t anyone else upset? But, upset wasn’t what Mary Malone was. She was pleased.

  “Now, I’m not one to place blame, but your Aunt Libby should not have done that to Edwin. Not that he wouldn’t have done the same to her if he’d had the chance. She just beat him to it.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what Mary could possibly have been talking about just as James approached looking like a well-dressed chimney sweep. He started to pull me into his arms and then thought better of it. Because of his ashes and soot-covered tux and propriety.

  Mary looked at James and then back at me with a sweet knowing smile and moved away so that we could be together, as privately as possible in the situation. “Does everyone in this town know that we are dating, James?”

  “I’d say that after seeing us on the dance floor last night, you can expect inquiries regarding our wedding date and which caterer we’ll be hiring, in the coming days.”

  I flinched. I felt very deeply about James, but marriage was something I’d managed to fend off for years and still had no real inclinations toward taking on. It was something that of course we’d have to discuss eventually, but not at that moment. Before I could respond, James apologized for slipping out of bed without waking me.

  “Sorry I had to slip out of that lovely warm bed. But you never heard my cell and you were sleeping like an enchanted princess, so I just jumped back into my tux and headed here. Taken a lot of ribbing for the formal dress at a fire. But I suppose I won’t get busted for being out of uniform, considering the situation and everyone having been at the ball last night.”

  “I suppose it’s a complete loss?”

  “Yup, not a chance of saving it. Poor old place.” James looked crestfallen, bless his sensitive heart.

  “Kind of poetic justice. The family line ended with Edwin Snow and now the family home is gone.”

  “Any
idea how it started, James?’

  “Not until the team can get inside and take a look. Going to take a while to get it cool enough. The place was stuffed like a warehouse. I was able to get inside before it became completely engulfed. Don’t know how the old man lived there. Had to follow narrow trails through high and wide piles of stuff of every description.”

  Eventually, the fire trucks were preparing to leave. The Fire Chief, Ben Sears, gathered the upset neighbors together to explain that it would be best if they stayed in the village overnight. He suggested the Howard Johnson’s Happy Holiday Motel. I simply could not see those saddened, dislocated people shipped off to the out-dated and mildewed, nineteen fifties motel.

  “Please, everyone, I’d love to have you as my guests at the Cranberry Inn. Just made all the beds with brand new sheets.” I smiled at the group and they smiled back. They went off to gather what they would need for the night. Mary gathered up Patton and carefully put him into the car holding his head so that he would not see the burned out rubble that had been his home.

  The next morning, everyone gathered in the dining room for a full breakfast that was enjoyed by all. Afterwards, everyone went their separate ways, some to shop and some to visit village friends. Mary asked me if it would be an imposition to leave Patton there for the day while she went off to visit her sister in Brewster. “I can take the bus but Patton hates buses. Doesn’t mind a car but he gets very nervous on a bus.”

  “No problem, Mary. It will be fun to have him for the day. The backyard is fenced in so he will be quite safe. Enjoy yourself.”

  I drove Mary to the bus and returned to the inn to strip beds and try and do some writing on the cookery book. However, my mind could not shake Mary Malone’s odd reference to something or someone who deserved to be burned in the conflagration. My concentration was interrupted by Patton scratching at the French doors leading out to the back deck. Opening the door, I found him standing looking very proud of himself with a long bone in his mouth. “What do you have there dog? Who gave you that bone? That’s odd. Well, I’d rather you didn’t bring it in the house so…” Skidding by me, Patton headed directly for the front room. Down the polished floor of the hall and around the corner he went, with me hot on his heels.

  As the dog took the corner into the living room like a NASCAR racer, I caught a vase full of beach grass nearly in mid-air as it flew from a lamp table. Scatter rugs went flying as Patton headed for the large antique Oriental rug looking as if he might be considering digging into it to bury his treasure. “No, no, Patton! Naughty boy! Stop!” Softening my tone like a good canine psychologist, I said, “Oh well, you’ve had a tough night, old boy. How about you give me the bone and I will give you a scone? Believe me, it’s a good deal.”

  Patton didn’t agree. He kept the bone tight in his jaws. He seemed to be laughing at me for even considering that he’d so easily give it up.

  “Hello, anyone here?” James called from the back door. I gave Patton one last look of disdain and went to greet the now cleaned up, handsome policeman. Looking around for my overnight guests, he inquired as to how it went.

  “Just great. What a nice group. We had a lovely time. Come on, fresh tea and scones in the kitchen. Oh, but first. Would you please help me get Patton and a big bone back outside? He insisted on bringing it in. Couldn’t bribe him with a scone.”

  James headed down the hall and I followed. “Okay Patton, the law is here. Prepare to be cooperative. Should I read him his Miranda rights?” James grinned at me and then went back to negotiating with the determined dog. But the Indiana Jones of canines with the bone held tightly in his endearing, grinning white and black face had no intention of cooperating. Law or no law.

  James bent down over the dog and, patting and praising him for being a clever boy, tried to get the bone away from him while I ran for a better, more convincing treat than a scone. The steak I was thawing for our romantic dinner.

  “Damn, I thought so. Give it here boy.” James’ reaction sounded odd. I handed James the partially thawed, boneless sirloin. “Our dinner, right?” I nodded sadly.

  A deal was struck once Patton took a sniff. The trade completed, I took Patton by the collar. Returning to the kitchen after I led the delighted dog out to the backyard, I found James looking quizzical in the kitchen. Looking down at the bone that he’d placed on a long sheet of paper towels, he scratched his head and shook his head slowly. Quite a strange reaction to a stray dog bone.

  “What, James?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s a human leg bone. Where did he get it?”

  “Damned if I know. Well, I mean, he was in the fenced yard the whole time so he must have dug it up out there.” I slumped into the wing chair by the kitchen fireplace and James sat in the one opposite.

  “James, if it is human, then the rest the body is probably out there as well, right?”

  “Could be. Sorry but I’ll have to get someone here to spot where he got it and dig for more. I hate to have to wreck your nice grass and flowers, Liz.”

  “No, don’t worry about some old grass and flowers. We have to get to the bottom of this. First a mysterious death, then a mysterious fire and now a human bone. Gad James, what next? Alien abductions?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  James called from Boston just after three, four days later. I hadn’t seen him at all in that time and we’d only talked a few times. He was busy working with the arson team. I was sitting in the sunroom looking at the handsome Victoriana Gothic Snow mansion gracing the page of a book on the great art of the twentieth century I’d borrowed from the library.

  Entitled simply, Ned’s House by Edward Granger, the house had been just lovely. Edwin Snow’s father, also Edwin but called Ned, had evidently treasured his home as evidenced by its pristine condition when the artist painted it. There it was in its glory days. Looking freshly painted with curtains in the windows, neat trim, gardens overflowing with colorful flowers and a Model T Ford parked over to the left side. The wrap-around porch had wicker furniture set out just waiting for ladies in white dotted Swiss summer dresses and straw hats to visit. The Snow house, sometime in the nineteen forties. I felt deeply grateful that Granger had captured it and made it immortal. Gone but still alive and well.

  Peering as closely as I could with a magnifying glass, I searched for what my sixth sense told me was there…but hiding. Deep in the shadow created by a huge overhanging maple tree branch, there it was. A young man’s face. Edwin’s? Half in deep shadow, the other half caught just enough light, however, so that I could tell it was his. But, I was looking for it. Granger had seen him and included him and yet, I wondered if the art experts had picked him out from the fool-the-eye dappled shadows. Why I thought I’d find Edwin watching, I could not say. Just a hunch but, it proved itself.

  The strident ring of the kitchen phone that I intended to have replaced but hadn’t gotten around to on my unending list of things-to-do, pulled me out of my reverie. James’s voice brought me back to earth and I smiled as I always did at the lyrical sound of his brogue that came and went in intensity depending on to whom he was speaking. I liked it when he used it on me. It sounded like a gently flowing brook on a summer’s day.

  “It’s a human leg bone, all right. Been dead about sixty years or so.”

  “Oh, James.” There, words failed me.

  “I’m heading back to the Cape in few minutes. I’ll pick up a nice steak to replace the one we had to sacrifice to Patton.

  “Great.” I answered, “but make it a boneless, please.”

  The men sent to do random digging in my flower beds assured me that there were no more bones to be found. James spoke to them and then came into the kitchen for tea. “Oh James, I wonder if my Aunt Libby was involved in something unsavory.”

  “Now, love, one bone does not a murder make, necessarily. Sometimes the old cemeteries give up bones and dogs drag them away. There have been less than careful burials in the past. Not burying deep enough or in improper soi
l. Erosion takes its toll and bones appear. Sandy soil is particularly problematic.”

  “So, what happens now?”

  “Nothing much. This is not a first, according to the Chief. Early tribal sites and old gravesites do, on occasion, throw up human bones.”

  James dropped by a bit later. We had time for a quick kiss before Daphne knocked and then let herself in through the kitchen door. “Hey James, Liz. What’s this about a human leg bone in your garden? Everyone’s talking about it.”

  Looking from Daphne to James, I asked, “Does everyone in this village tune into some extra-sensory communication band that I don’t know about?” Handsome James shrugged.

  “No kidding. A real human leg bone. What was your aunt up to? Well, I suppose it does cause one to surmise about what she did with difficult guests.” Daphne was enjoying our gruesome find entirely too much. I gave her a look of disdain, but she simply grinned like a fool.

  “So what happens next?” Daphne asked James, ignoring me entirely. “Do the police send out an all-dogs roundup bulletin until they manage to put together a complete skeleton? By the way, are we talking about a really, really old bone like from a Pilgrim or an Indian ah, pardon me, indigenous person?”

  “No, it’s only about sixty years old, Daph,” James answered my whacky friend in his usual kindly, patient way.

  Daphne turned her attention back to me to deliver her take on the bone-in-the-garden question. “Hey, if your Aunt Libby was a murderess, the Lizzy Borden of P’town, she might have killed guests she took a disliking to. Or, maybe anyone who didn’t appreciate her cooking. You could use this to your advantage, Liz. People love that kind of stuff. Millions flock to walk through the famous Lizzy Borden house in Fall River. Money in the bank, girl.”

  Despite my best effort to hold back Mary Malone’s inference of something unworldly in the Snow mansion, I couldn’t help but wonder just what had gone on at the inn in the past. Something had happened between my Aunt Libby and Edwin Snow. A “dirty trick” as Mary had called it. The question was, was there a connection between the dirty trick and the leg bone planted in the garden.

 

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