Murder in Vail

by Moore,Judy

  “Yes, the woodpile is out on the deck.”

  Glen frowned. “Mom, I don’t understand why you don’t have a staff up here to take care of those kinds of things. This is just too much.”

  “I do just fine, Glen. I have Helga. She’s all I need. She’s a fabulous cook and housekeeper—and a darn good Yahtzee player, too. We get along great.”

  Gwen shook her head and pursed her lips.

  “Mother, you really shouldn’t fraternize with the help,” her daughter lectured her. “She’ll just take advantage of you. She’s probably stealing from you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Helga’s been with me for years. She’s a friend.”

  At that moment, a stocky woman in her fifties with graying blonde hair came into the room. It was apparent from her manner that she had overheard the conversation.

  “Your bedroom ready for you upstairs,” she told Gwen brusquely with a thick Scandinavian accent. She immediately turned and left the room.

  Sally glared at her daughter. “Great, Gwen! Now you’ve offended her!”

  It certainly didn’t long for the trouble to start, Sally thought angrily. Why did she always find herself apologizing for her children?

  Upset with her daughter, she started to follow Helga to the kitchen, but couldn’t resist turning back to say, “By the way, Gwen, you have snow spots on the back of your coat.”

  Gwen shrieked, craning her neck around to see the stains.

  Sally spent the next ten minutes apologizing to Helga for her daughter’s rude comments. But Sally could tell that Helga was turning a deaf ear. She’d spent too many Christmases with Sally’s children.

  Helga had been with Sally for twelve years, from the time the youngest Braddock child had gone off to college. Helga came highly recommended from another Vail household that had sold their estate and moved two hours southwest to Aspen. Looking for a live-in situation, Helga moved into the downstairs bedroom of the Vail house and had taken care of the estate whenever Sally and her husband were in Canada.

  Always close, Sally and Helga had become almost inseparable after Jack died. Sally looked to Helga to keep the large estate running smoothly, and Helga took great pride in the running of the house, almost as if it were her own. But she had never warmed to Sally’s children, and there were skirmishes every time they came home. Her children hadn’t grown up with Helga, and at times saw her as an interloper. Sally knew Helga felt the same way about them.

  Chapter Three

  After her shower, Sally dressed in a light pink warm-up suit, crossed by the staircase, and walked to her daughter’s room midway down the long hall.

  “Gwen,” she said, tapping lightly, and talking through the door. “I have to run into town to pick up a few things. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “No, no, wait, Mom!” Gwen called. “I want to go with you. I need to buy a new coat. I can’t wear this one.”

  Sally groaned. She had hoped for a peaceful shopping trip without a constant barrage of complaints and orders from her daughter.

  “All right.” Sally sighed. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  Sally waited for nearly half an hour in the living room before her daughter appeared. She started to say something about the long wait, but decided to avoid an argument this early in her daughter’s visit.

  No apology, just a “C’mon, Mom!” when Sally took a second too long to put on her ski jacket.

  Sally could feel the color climbing up her neck, but she was determined to keep her cool. “Only three days,” she kept telling herself.

  Gwen was wearing a light purple cashmere sweater, slim-fit black Prada pants, and a Balenciaga white scarf. On her arm was a purple purse.

  “Interesting purse,” Sally said, as they walked to the car. “Is it new?”

  “Yes! Can you believe it? I was able to find one of Marc Jacobs’ crocodile handbags.”

  Sally had heard of the designer, but the kind of purse meant nothing to her except that an animal had died for it.

  “I’m afraid to ask how much it cost.”

  “A little more than most of my other ones.”

  “And how much would that be?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Fifty dollars? Pretty good bargain.”

  Gwen burst out laughing. “You are kidding, aren’t you? You know I meant fifty thousand.”

  Sally shouldn’t have been surprised knowing her daughter’s spending habits. But she was floored at that price tag.

  “For a purse? That’s disgraceful.”

  “A little high. But, Mom, in Palm Beach, it’s important to keep up. Some of the women down there spend a lot more than that.”

  “You know, Gwen, when I graduated from high school, I took some of the money I got as gifts and bought the most expensive purse I’d ever owned. It cost thirty-five dollars. A beautiful beige leather purse—the first purse I ever had that was real leather. And three days later, the lid fell off a felt-tipped pen and left a huge black circle on the side of my new purse. It was ruined, and I was sick. My high school boyfriend laughed at me and said it served me right for wasting that much money on something as silly as a purse. And you know what? He was right. I haven’t bought an expensive purse since.”

  “You should have been more careful with your things, Mom.”

  “That’s not the point, Gwen. The point is that it’s just a purse. It’s ridiculous to pay that much money for something to carry your stuff around in.”

  Gwen rolled her eyes. “Mom, you’re living in the past. Next you’re going to tell me you walked miles in the snow every day to get to school.”

  “Well, I lived in Southern California, so I didn’t walk through the snow, but I did walk over a mile to school each way every single day.”

  “Mom, seriously. Stop living in the past! You need to be living in the here and now. And now, good purses are expensive.”

  Gwen opened the car door and stepped into the passenger seat, putting an end to the conversation. Sally just shook her head, took another deep breath, and got in the driver’s side of her four-wheel drive Jeep Wrangler. It didn’t matter how much money they had, she would never understand such wastefulness.

  On the twenty-minute drive down the mountain, Sally barely said a word as Gwen began a nonstop tirade against Glen.

  “He’s gone all the time, Mom. He’s always down at the marina. All he cares about are those damned boats. He owns five of them! All different sizes for whatever his whim of the day is. And, Mom, you know I don’t like being out on the water. I get seasick.”

  Sally nodded, trying to look sympathetic, but privately wondered if part of the reason Glen went boating so much was because Gwen didn’t like to go.

  “He was selling boats when you met him,” Sally reminded her.

  “I know that, Mother! But I thought it was just a job. I didn’t know he was obsessed.”

  “It’s a shame you don’t share a common interest with Glen. Your father and I—”

  “It’s like now that he has money, he wants to buy every boat he used to sell!” Gwen interrupted. “And he always goes back to the place in Miami where he used to work to buy them. He loves flaunting it at them.”

  “Does he discuss it with you before he buys a new one?” Sally asked.

  “No! And now, he’s looking at buying a yacht. He wants to totally gut it and renovate it. Teak everywhere, gold faucets, even a swimming pool on the deck. Do you know how expensive that will be? It will cost millions.”

  Sally sighed in disgust. What a waste. What would her husband say?

  “Can’t you discourage him from buying it? Is he able to get to your money without your approval?” Sally asked with concern.

  Gwen turned away sullenly. She nodded. “Yes. He can spend whatever he wants.
I was stupid. Everything is in a joint account. He seemed offended when the lawyer brought up a different arrangement before we got married, so I insisted everything be put in a joint account so that we would have equal access to the money.”

  As they drove down the mountain on the narrow, two-lane road, the thick forests of snow-tipped firs and spruce trees began to thin out and were replaced by clusters of the tall white trunks and golden leaves of aspen trees. The snow also stopped about halfway down the mountain.

  Interstate 70 came into view, and Sally turned left onto the highway to drive into the village of Vail. The traffic was heavier than usual with both visiting skiers spending the holidays in Vail and local residents doing their last-minute Christmas shopping.

  “Mom, speed up. Everybody is passing you left and right,” Gwen instructed. “You’d never make it in South Florida. They’d blow you right off the road.”

  “As you can see, Gwen”—Sally gestured to the tall piles of packed snow by the roadside—“we are not in South Florida. You’re at sea level. We’re up 8,000 feet. When you’re driving on roads that could be icy, you need to take it a little slower.”

  Ignoring her, Gwen continued to backseat drive. “Mom, go around the Winnebago,” she said, leaning forward and pointing to the passing lane. “You’re tailgating.”

  With growing exasperation, Sally told her, “You know, Gwen, I don’t know how I’ve managed to survive driving for nearly forty years without you right here by my side telling me what to do every second.”

  Her daughter responded matter-of-factly, “I don’t know either.”

  Turning off the highway, Sally pulled into the Vail Village parking structure, took a token, and drove up to the top level, her daughter instructing her on precisely which parking space to take.

  As they walked down the wide pedestrian walkways of the picturesque Alpine village, they crossed through a quaint covered bridge over a fast-flowing stream bubbling with whitewater. Every hotel, restaurant, retail store, and business on the pedestrian street resembled a Swiss chalet, with gabled rooftops, exposed beams, and intricately carved railings on each balcony. All were aglow with twinkling white Christmas lights, and bright red poinsettias hung from every balcony. Looming high above the village were the snow-covered peaks and winding ski runs of the tallest ski mountain in Colorado.

  While Vail had the look of a nineteenth century Bavarian village, it actually had been built in the early 1960s, when World War II veterans of the mountain ski patrol discovered the challenging ski mountains and opened the Vail ski resort. Today, the village included dozens of hotels and ski lodges, elegant restaurants, boutiques, spas, and a golf course. It had also become a center for nature studies as well as symphony, dance, film, and other cultural events.

  “I need to go to the ski shop,” Sally said, as they strolled past busy restaurants and boutiques, crowded with holiday shoppers. “I want to buy a new pair of ski boots. My left one has a big crack in it. And I’d like to buy Helga a ski cap and scarf that I saw advertised a couple of weeks ago to go along with her Christmas bonus.”

  A sheepish expression crossed Gwen’s face. “Look Mom, I’m sorry that Helga heard what I said and that she’s upset. But you really should be careful about getting too close with the help. You never know what people are really like. I worry about you.”

  Sally appreciated her daughter’s apology and concern, and told her so, but she ignored the unsolicited advice about Helga. She trusted her longtime housekeeper completely.

  Chapter Four

  As they approached the end of the street, Sally and her daughter stopped in a small park at the base of the mountains to admire the contemporary sculpture of a muscular downhill skier, one of the landmarks of the Vail Village. Around the corner, they entered a large ski and sports shop where Sally was immediately greeted by name by the proprietor behind the counter.

  “Sally, great to see you!” exclaimed the tall, fifty-something owner of the store, Robbie Maxwell. He had crystal blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair that hung down on his collar. “Where have you been hiding yourself?ˮ asked her husbandʼs old skiing buddy. “I never see you out on the slopes anymore.”

  “I haven’t been out much in the past couple of years, Robbie,” Sally told him. “I broke my boot at the end of last season so I haven’t skied yet this year. That’s part of the reason I’m here, to buy some new ones.”

  “Well, let me show you what I’ve got,” he said, coming around the counter to lead her to the boot section in the back of the store.

  Gwen started to walk away, but Sally took hold of her elbow.

  “Wait. Robbie, I’m not sure if you remember my daughter Gwen—Gwen Sherman now. She lives in Palm Beach,” Sally said. “Gwen, this is Robbie, an old friend of Dad’s and mine from the helicopter days.”

  Robbie extended his hand to Gwen, and she took it with a curious smile.

  “I remember little Gwennie. I sure do. Back when you were nine or ten,” Robbie said with a grin. “Cute as a button. You were a headstrong little thing. Very feisty, as I recall.”

  Sally laughed. “That was definitely Gwen. Still is.”

  Gwen blushed, but laughed.

  Robbie added, “And you still are pretty as can be. Just like your mama.”

  Now it was Sally’s turn to blush. She quickly changed the subject.

  “All the kids are coming for Christmas,” she told him. “I’m hoping we can get in at least a day of skiing while everyone is here.”

  “Count me out, Mother,” Gwen interjected. “But some of the others will probably want to go.”

  “You don’t want to ski, Gwennie?” Robbie asked with surprise. “I can’t believe that. You used to be a little terror out there. Nothing could keep you off the slopes. And everybody else had better get out of the way when little Gwennie came flying down that mountain. You were so fast. I thought I’d be seeing you on TV at the Olympics someday.”

  Gwen’s eyes lit up, and she smiled at the memory.

  “Sometimes I do miss it,” she replied wistfully. “I’ve just gotten away from it since I’ve lived in Florida. I’d probably kill myself out there now. I’d still want to fly at full speed and would probably end up wrapping myself around a tree.”

  Robbie smiled and shook his head. “No, no. It’s just like riding a bike. It would come right back to you.”

  Gwen seemed to mull the idea over in her mind. “Maybe I could do a little skiing this year.”

  Sally was surprised and thrilled that her daughter was considering getting back on skis again. It was the first time in years she’d heard Gwen express interest in much of anything other than decorating her house or going shopping in Palm Beach.

  “If you want to get some skiing in, though, you’d better do it quick,” Robbie warned. “A big storm is rolling in from Wyoming tomorrow or the next day. Real high winds are expected and heavy snow.”

  “I hope it’s not too bad,” Sally said, knitting her eyebrows together. “But at least we’ll have a white Christmas.”

  “That it will be,” Robbie said with a smile. “I’d be sure to have emergency supplies and your generator in good working order, just in case.”

  Then a troubled look crossed his face. “Something else you need to be aware of, if you aren’t already, is that there have been some poachers up your way. They’re hunting mountain lion, bobcat, and bear.”

  “Poachers!” Sally said with disgust. “Hunting is bad enough, but poaching our beautiful wildlife. It makes me sick.”

  “I know. Trying to prove they’re big men,” Robbie said, shaking his head. “Happens a lot at this time of year, but this year it’s especially bad. Tourists come in for the holidays after deer hunting season, and some of them think they can just go out and shoot whatever they like. Parks and Wildlife is cracking down. If the poachers get caught
, they can face huge fines and even jail time. So be careful if you run into any of them.”

  “Thanks for letting us know, Robbie. We will,” Sally said.

  Looking around the store, Gwen asked him, “Where are the women’s jackets?”

  “They’re right over there,” he said pointing to the side wall. “The sale rack is at the end. We have a great sale going on.”

  “Good timing,” Sally said. “Gwen, why don’t you check out the sale?”

  Gwen gave her mother a “You’ve got be kidding look” and headed for the full-price jackets.

  Robbie led Sally to the boot section in the back of the store. As she started to check the different styles and brands of the ski boots lined up against the wall, they reminisced about some of the ski trips and mountain adventures they had endured decades before. Robbie helped her try on several different boots, and she finally found a pair that suited her

  “I sure do miss those days,” Robbie said, boxing up her boots. “And Jack. Boy, whoever thought he’d go so young. You just never know. You sure must miss him. ”

  Sally nodded. “I sure do,” she said quietly. It had been years before she could even talk about her husband’s death without choking up, and it was always worse during the holidays. She didn’t want to take a chance of breaking down in the store, so she focused the conversation on Robbie and asked about his wife. “What about Linda? How is she doing? Were you ever able to interest her in skiing?”

  Robbie shook his head. “We divorced about a year ago. Once the kids grew up and moved away, we found out we didn’t have that much in common anymore. She moved back East.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Robbie,” Sally said sympathetically. “I always liked Linda.”

  He cocked his head sideways and gave her a quizzical look. “Say, Sally, it gets kind of lonely up here for us single people. Do you think maybe when everything quiets down after Christmas we could get together for dinner?”