Criminal Crumbs

by Jessica Beck

  “I think he’s still there,” I answered after a minute of thought. “He must be.”

  “How can you say that? Did you see something that I missed?”

  “It’s not what I see, it’s what I don’t see,” I told her.

  “Leave the riddles to Hank, would you? I need you to be a little clearer with me.”

  “Look around,” I said as I pointed to the slope below us. “Do you see any evidence that someone climbed out of there?”

  Grace looked intently for a full minute, and then she finally glanced back at me and shook her head. “I don’t see anything, but there’s another possibility; he might have found another way up.”

  “That’s true,” I said, frowning at the thought. If those footprints did belong to Hank and he was now hiding somewhere in the lodge, I was afraid of what might happen next. It was pretty clear that he was in no rush to come forward, so that meant that he was lurking in the shadows, staying out of our way and hatching a plan for revenge of his own. I didn’t want to be the person who had caused him to fall if that were the case.

  “What do we do now?” Grace asked me.

  “What can we do? We press on.”

  I took a step in the direction of the cottages, and Grace put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “Suzanne, is that really a good idea? I have a feeling that we should rejoin the others and postpone the rest of this until later.”

  “We still have to uncover what’s really going on around here, and the only way to have a chance of doing that is to follow those footprints and see where they take us.”

  Grace frowned for a moment before she spoke again. “I know you’re right. We can’t just let this go. There’s too much at stake. Come on. Let’s investigate, but if we see a snowman along the way, I’m running back to the lodge. I’m just warning you ahead of time.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to happen, but if it does, I’ll be right behind you,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t think we’d find footprints out here, either, but I was wrong about that, too, wasn’t I?”

  “There’s got to be a logical explanation for it,” I told her.

  “Remind me of that when whoever we’re following decides to kill us,” she said.

  Ignoring the lack of logic in her statement, I pressed on. I had to admit, though, having Grace beside me gave me a great deal more courage than I would have had if I’d been alone. There were more benefits to the buddy system than I’d first realized.

  We got to the Hemlock cottage first. “Is there even any reason to go inside?” Grace asked me. “I can say with a fair amount of certainty that neither one of us has been plotting to kill Nicole over the past few weeks.”

  “You never know,” I said as I opened the door and peered inside.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Grace said.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Someone could have considered this a safe place to stash something incriminating. That way, if we happened to find it, we wouldn’t know who to blame for it.”

  “I like the way you think,” she said. “Devious and all, I mean.”

  “Coming from you, I’ll take it for the compliment I’m sure that you meant it to be,” I said as I looked around the small room. It was quick work pulling open the drawers, lifting the mattresses, checking the bathrooms, and scanning the small space for anywhere someone could hide something.

  “There’s nothing here that doesn’t belong,” Grace said.

  “I knew that it was a long shot, but we had to check,” I replied. “Now let’s go see what Fir has to hold.”

  “Who was in Fir again?” she asked me as we walked through the snow to the next stone cottage.

  “That’s where Georgia and Janelle were supposed to stay,” I told her. “Those two seem to have a real distinct dislike for each other, don’t they? Or is it just me?”

  “No, you read the situation correctly,” Grace answered. “It was bad enough before Hank started playing his little mind games, but since he offered the promotion as a prize, they’ve been openly hostile toward one another.”

  “What about with Hank?” I asked her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did either one of them show any animosity toward your boss?”

  “Certainly not openly, but I know that both women were unhappy with the way he was running things.”

  “I wonder,” I said, and then I failed to follow it up.

  “What exactly are you wondering about?” she asked me.

  “What if Nicole hadn’t been the target after all?” I asked. “Could one of them have meant to send Hank plummeting over the edge on purpose?”

  Grace paused a moment before answering. “What good would it do either one of them to kill him? Nobody’s getting promoted to his old job, not even Nicole. There are going to be some big changes if Hank is really dead, and I don’t think anybody will be very excited about them. Besides, what about the earlier attempts on Nicole’s life? As far as I know, nobody’s had the nerve to come after Hank.”

  “Yes, of course. You’re right. I was just thinking out loud.”

  “Don’t stop doing it on my account. Sooner or later, we might just find the answer we’re looking for that way.”

  Since Georgia and Janelle had removed their things from the Fir cottage, it felt as though we were striking out twice in a row with our inspections—that was, until Grace called out to me from one of the bedsides.

  “What did you find?” I asked. She pulled out a single printed sheet from behind the headboard, a place that I’d failed to examine in the cottage that we’d been slated to share. “Did you check that space behind the beds in Hemlock, too?”

  “Yes, but this one’s got pay dirt.”

  “What does it say?” I asked her as I moved closer.

  “It’s a sales report from our company. Hang on a second,” she said as she studied it a little more intently. After a few moments, she was still frowning at the document, but unlike me, she hadn’t been sharing her thought process aloud.

  “What does it mean, though, Grace?”

  “It looks legit at first glance, but someone faked it to make it look real. See the numbers in this column? They always line up on the ones I get. Not here, though.”

  I saw what she was talking about. “Okay, so it’s been tinkered with. Why is the real question?”

  Grace looked at the top of the sheet. “That’s Nicole’s employee number. The last two digits are transposed from mine, and I remember that we laughed about it when we saw how close they were once when they got mixed up.”

  “Why would someone fake one of her reports, though?”

  “According to this sheet, she didn’t win the job, at least not fair and square. The numbers just don’t add up. See?”

  She thrust the document toward me, so I took it and studied the entries. It could have been reporting the national debt for Lithuania for all that I knew. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Suzanne, I’m willing to bet that either Janelle or Georgia was going to try to get Nicole fired this weekend. This is a pretty strong motive for murder, if you ask me.”

  “Nicole didn’t kill anybody, though,” I said. “How do you read it that way?”

  “Maybe motive is the wrong word,” she replied. “What if one of those two women tried to scare her into quitting by making a few clumsy attempts on her life? When that didn’t work, they decided to come after her job directly. If Hank had seen this, it might have been tough for Nicole to explain it away, and knowing the man, I wouldn’t have put it past him to fire Nicole and replace her with someone else on the spot, no matter how much she might protest that the report had been faked.”

  “But Hank never saw it, did he?” I asked.

  “I doubt it, or we would have heard about it.”

  �
�The question is, whose headboard was it hidden behind, Georgia’s or Janelle’s?”

  “It was the one for the bed closest to the front door, if that helps,” Grace said.

  “Why don’t you hold onto it for now?” I asked her as I handed it back to her. “We might be able to use it later.”

  “How?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know, but the author doesn’t know we have it, so there may be a way to make it useful. Is that it here?”

  “As far as I can see,” she said.

  “Then let’s move onto Hank’s cottage, Spruce.”

  I’d expected it to be messy, but it was neat as a pin. We even went through the man’s luggage, which gave me the creeps, but in the end, there was nothing there, at least not that we could use.

  “Should we even bother going through Pine Cottage?” Grace asked me. “The potential victim and the one person we’ve come close to ruling out both stayed there.”

  “Just to be safe, let’s look,” I said.

  There was nothing there, either, or it was too well hidden for us to find it.

  I wasn’t sure how to use the falsified sales report to our advantage yet, but it was time to go back to the lodge and tell the others at least some of the things we’d discovered so far.

  Chapter 14

  “How much of what we’ve found are we going to tell the group?” Grace asked me as we neared the lodge’s front door.

  “We definitely have to mention the footprints,” I said.

  “What about the sales report?”

  “Let’s keep that in reserve,” I said. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Hey, you’re the boss of this investigation,” she replied.

  “I don’t mean to be pushy about it,” I said. “I just think it makes sense to wait, but if you believe otherwise, that’s fine with me.”

  “No, I trust your instincts, Suzanne. Let’s go in and see how people react to our news.”

  We found everyone gathered around the fireplace when we went back inside. Nicole didn’t even wait for us to report. “What’s wrong? What did you find out there?”

  “There were footprints in the snow outside the lodge when we got out there,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

  “Sure, after you made them,” Georgia replied.

  “Hardly. We found these before we took our first step off the porch,” Grace added.

  “But we didn’t see any this morning,” Celia countered. “Suzanne, you and I both looked out the window.” She moved there to check again. “Oh. I see them now.”

  “That’s because they made them,” Dina said.

  “You’re going to have to trust us. Someone else was outside before we went out,” Grace said.

  “Who would do that?” Nicole asked. “For what reason?”

  “Maybe they were looking for something they accidently left behind in one of the cottages,” I said. I didn’t want to get into our theory that it might be Hank, coming back from his fall to exact punishment on whoever had made him tumble down the hillside.

  “Like what?” Janelle asked.

  “First, I’d like everyone to line up,” I said.

  “Why on earth should we do that?” Georgia asked in clear protest.

  “We want to see if anyone’s shoes are wet from the snow,” I answered.

  She immediately tucked her feet under her chair. “That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  “If you weren’t out skulking around in the snow, then you won’t mind showing us,” Grace said. “Only someone with something to hide would refuse to let us see their shoes.”

  “Fine. Happy?” Georgia asked as she brought both of her feet out. Her shoes were bone dry, as were everyone else’s. It could mean one of three things, as far as I was concerned: none of them had ventured out before Grace and I had, meaning Hank might be in the lodge after all; whoever had done it had made sure to dry their shoes by the fire as soon as they got back; or there was indeed a stranger among us. I wasn’t sure which option I preferred to be the truth.

  “There’s another theory,” Grace said, “but I’m guessing that none of you are going to like it.”

  “Go on. We’re listening,” Nicole answered.

  “We think it’s a possibility that Hank is hiding somewhere in the lodge,” she said.

  I might have worded it differently, but it certainly had an immediate effect. Protests came from every direction until Nicole quieted everyone down. “Hold on. The least we can do is hear them out.”

  That stopped the protests, so I could speak in peace again. “We couldn’t see any evidence of Hank’s body when we looked over the cliff, and the footprints started, or ended, as the case might be, at the side entrance. He might have managed to climb up somewhere else, because we didn’t see any evidence that he’d done it from where he went over. I’m not sure how likely it is that Hank would be able to recover from that fall, but if he did, he could be in the lodge, and I for one won’t be able to rest until we’ve searched the place thoroughly.”

  I decided not to mention my theory that a stranger might be with us. There was no reason to drive tensions even higher unless I had some direct evidence to back that theory up.

  There were nods of agreement from most of the others, but Janelle brought up something that we’d already considered ourselves. “If he survived the fall, why wouldn’t he just walk up and come in through the front door?”

  I’d been hoping that someone would ask that particular question. “We think it’s possible that he might be looking for revenge on whoever tried to get rid of Nicole and shoved him over the edge instead.”

  Clearly, no one was happy about that particular theory. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right. What should we do about it?” Nicole asked us.

  I shrugged. “I’m not the one in charge here, but if I were, I’d start searching the lodge from top to bottom, and while I was at it, I’d lock every door we came across.”

  “This place is massive,” Dina said in frustration. “It’s going to take forever.”

  “Not if we split up,” I said. Grace and I weren’t finished with our search for clues yet, and this would be a perfect opportunity to keep snooping inside the lodge while everyone else was occupied elsewhere. “Nicole, you and Celia can start in the attic and then take the second floor. Dina, you, Georgia, and Janelle can start in the basement, and Grace and I will take the first floor, unless anyone has any objections.”

  Nicole shook her head. “That sounds like a good plan. If Hank is indeed inside, the moment anyone sees him, scream at the top of your lungs, and the rest of us will come running. Is that agreed?”

  Everyone nodded, and as they took the other levels, Grace and I made a cursory scan through the kitchen and pantry, and then we focused on the pile of bags we’d all gathered the night before.

  “I feel funny searching through everyone else’s things,” Grace said as she picked a bag up at random.

  “We have to do whatever we can to find out what’s really going on here,” I said as I grabbed a laptop bag.

  “What if we get caught?” Grace asked me, clearly worried about the prospect.

  “Then we plead ignorance and say that we were looking for our own things,” I said. “What’s this?” I’d glanced into the pocket of a laptop sleeve, and I’d found an official looking document. “Grace, come look at this.”

  She took it from me, scanned it, and then she said, “Does Dina think that Nicole’s going to actually sign this?”

  It was a waiver of liability absolving Dina for losing so much of Nicole’s money.

  I kept digging, and I hit pay dirt again. Buried deeper in the case’s pocket were torn-up shreds of paper. I pieced several of them together on one of the nearby tables, with Grace helping me. It had to be one of the oddest jigsaw
puzzles I’d ever done in my life.

  “These are all Nicole’s signatures,” Grace said, frowning.

  “Correction. I think they’re attempts at forgery,” I said.

  “So if Nicole wasn’t going to sign it willingly, then Dina was going to do it for her. That’s ridiculous. Nicole would just deny that she’d ever signed it, and then where would Dina be?”

  “What if Nicole wasn’t around to set the record straight, though?” I asked.

  Grace nodded in understanding. “If she’d been the one who’d tried to push Nicole over the edge, then no one would challenge the signature.”

  I took the waiver and the torn paper, and then I started to tuck them into my own bag for safekeeping. “That’s the first place she’ll look when she realizes that it’s all gone,” Grace said.

  “What do you suggest we do with the evidence we’ve found, then?”

  Grace moved over to the bulletin board and pulled on the glass door’s handle. It opened to her touch, and she stashed everything we’d just found, along with the faked sales report, under a stack of old menus on display. I studied the case after she was finished, and I couldn’t see where Grace had added anything to it at all. “That’s clever. It’s all hidden in plain sight.”

  “I have my moments,” Grace said. “We’ve got some time left. Let’s keep looking.”

  I grabbed another briefcase as she said, “There’s no reason to bother with that one. I recognize it; it belongs to Nicole.”

  “Maybe so, but we still have to look at everything,” I told her. On first inspection, it looked to be a random assortment of the type of paperwork a supervisor might have, but the last sheet was different from the rest. “Now that’s interesting,” I said.

  “What did you find this time? Doesn’t anyone store anything on their computers anymore? I haven’t seen so much paper in my life.”

  “It appears to be an extension for the trust arrangement for Celia’s money,” I said.

  “I’m not all that surprised you found something like that. Nicole has been worrying about her sister’s spending habits for quite a while,” Grace said.