by Mary Daheim
seems like an odd duck, and I can’t help but wonder if Frank
didn’t get him the job up here. If so, Rudy’s in his debt. I
also wonder if Rudy knew about Barry Newcombe but kept
his mouth shut. It wouldn’t surprise me if Rudy Mannheimer
helped hide Barry’s body. Still, I don’t
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think it will be easy to get Rudy to open up.”
“Barry,” Ava murmured. “It’s strange how we keep forgetting him.”
“Not really,” Judith said with a touch of irony. “Barry
wasn’t in upper management. That made him a nonperson.
But last year when he was hired as caterer, this whole series
of tragic events was set in motion. Barry must have swiped
Andrea’s private personnel files. I’ve no idea what he intended to do with them—blackmail, perhaps? Or just a bit of
clout to get some financial support to start his own catering
business?”
“I don’t know.” Ava’s response seemed candid. “I wasn’t
lying when I said I didn’t know Barry very well.”
“Whatever the reason,” Judith continued, “it was a terrible
mistake on his part. He must have told Frank, who looked
at the files and saw certain things that could never be made
public. Barry might not have recognized their significance,
but Frank did, especially the part—which has turned up
missing—about using Patrice’s personal funds to help set up
the company. Leon Mooney knew all about it, he had to as
chief financial officer, and no doubt altered the books under
duress. But Barry had signed his own death warrant. Everyone knew he was a notorious gossip and wouldn’t hesitate
to barter his juicy tidbits. Unlike Andrea and Leon and the
rest of you, Barry couldn’t be manipulated by threats of losing a prestigious position. So Frank killed Barry and hid his
body by the creek. He also hid the files there.”
Renie’s head swiveled. “What? You never told me that!”
Judith gave her cousin an apologetic look. “Sorry. It didn’t
dawn on me until you mentioned that I should piddle in the
library wastebasket. Then I remembered you found an empty
plastic garbage bag in Andrea’s wastebasket. Why would
she have such a thing? It was incongruous. Andrea wasn’t
the type to carry her belongings in a garbage bag. But more
to the point—why had we uncovered Barry’s
258 / Mary Daheim
body so easily? The answer had to be because someone had
already been rooting around in the snow by the ice cave.
Frank had disturbed the hiding place earlier in the day when
he went to retrieve the files.” Judith gazed at Ava. “But you
already knew that. That’s why Frank tried to strangle you.”
Ava nodded. “I saw him go out to the creek. I couldn’t
figure out what he was doing, so I followed him partway.
He was digging around in the snow, and then he had
something in his hands—the garbage bag—and I kept
watching while he tried to cover up the place where he’d
been searching. Suddenly I had this sinking feeling. Since
we’d only arrived an hour earlier, I knew whatever Frank
had found must have been there much longer. Like from last
year. I thought about Barry, and after our afternoon meeting,
I confronted Frank. That’s when he tried to kill me.”
Renie looked stunned. “That was terribly risky, Ava. Why
didn’t you wait until you were back in town?”
Ava’s fingers twisted around the juice can. “I don’t know.
I felt compelled to act. Maybe I thought Frank would confess
and turn himself in and that would be that. In retrospect, it
was a very stupid thing to do.”
“You’re right.” Renie grew thoughtful. “I suppose Frank
originally intended to leave the files there with the body, but
realized he could use them against the others. That’s why
there were no entries for an entire year.”
“That’s right,” Judith agreed. “Those files took on a life of
their own. I suspect Frank planted them in Andrea’s room
after he killed her. Then Nadia stole them—or Frank did
later. Either way, they were meant to be found. Ward and
Leon’s vacancies on the board would have to be filled,
probably by Gene—and you.” Judith inclined her head at
Ava.
Ava gingerly touched the bruises on her neck. “So any dirt
about us could be used to coerce us into changing the bylaws. And Leon was killed because he knew how Frank had
bankrolled the company. But Ward…He was so loyal
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 259
to Frank. Surely he’d have gone along with Frank’s wishes
not to retire.”
Judith offered Ava a sad little smile. “Maybe so. But Frank
had promised you Ward’s job. Ward had to go.”
In distress, Ava ran her fingers through her long black
hair. “That’s what I was afraid of. Everything suddenly
crashed in on me this afternoon. I couldn’t work for a murderer. And I felt guilty, too. You’re right—Ward’s blood is
on my hands.”
“You put your career ahead of justice,” Renie said quietly.
“I’m afraid it’s true—lives might have been saved if you’d
acted sooner.”
Ava dropped her hands into her lap. “It’s like tunnel vision
up there on the executive floor. They talk about career
pathing. It’s literal. You travel down that path and you never
look left or right. All you see is that title or that salary or
those perks at the end of the tunnel. Nothing else matters.
It’s horrible when you stop to think about it.”
A silence followed, as Ava wrestled with her special
demons. Renie finally spoke up, breaking the tension. “What
about Andrea? Why kill her?”
“Because,” Judith said, “she not only knew he’d fleeced
Mrs. Killegrew, but that Leon had been forced to juggle the
books. There was a missing page in her private files that
followed a discussion of an independent audit. I suspect that
page—which Frank destroyed—contained incriminating information about Frank’s financial dealings. He burned that
page—probably along with Leon’s own records—in Leon’s
room. He couldn’t do it right after he killed Leon in the kitchen because Andrea was waiting in Leon’s room. When we
noticed the fire in the grate this afternoon, at first we thought
the entire set of folders had been destroyed. Then we realized
there weren’t enough ashes. So what else had to go? The
phrase Mooney’s money came to mind. Someone had mentioned it, and it stuck. Money is always a serious motive
when it comes to murder. It dawned on me that the real
financial records had been burned, as op- 260 / Mary Daheim
posed to the fraudulent ones that Leon had been forced to
make public.”
“Good grief.” Ava had paled and was holding her head.
“How did Frank think he could get away with it?”
Judith uttered a bitter little laugh. “Frank thought he could
get away with anything. His corner office mentality made
him believe he was different from other people, that he was
above t
he law, that he could do anything he wanted because
he was a CEO. Oh, I realize not all powerful people go on
a homicide spree. But they kill in other ways—they demean
their subordinates, they stifle them, they control them—and
often, they fire them. You can destroy other human beings
without violence. In the isolated corner office, someone like
Frank becomes so disassociated that he lives in a different
world, a false world where the only values are the ones he
makes up.”
Renie nodded slowly in agreement. “Not only that, but
he’d invested his entire life in OTIOSE. Oh, he may have
had a boat and played golf, but those were just extensions
of his executive persona. Unlike other people—like my husband and my cousin’s husband—he had nothing outside of
his exalted position. He was a shell of a man, hollow inside,
and incapable of living anywhere but in the corporate world.
When reality touched him in the form of retirement, he went
over the edge. As my psychologist husband would say, Frank
Killegrew…went nuts.”
“My God!” Ava clapped a hand to her cheek. “Will I be
like that? Am I already there?”
“Let’s hope not,” said Renie. “You’re still young. This
weekend, you’ve seen how corporate thinking can cause total
devastation. Follow Margo’s example—get out before it’s
too late.”
Ava didn’t respond. She seemed to sink into deep thought,
her eyes on the brightly striped rug beneath her feet.
“My cousin’s right,” Judith chimed in. “It was too late for
Nadia, which is why she killed herself. She had nothing
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but Frank—and OTIOSE. That was her family, her gang,
where she belonged. She was utterly devoted to him, as much
as any wife is to a husband. In fact, she acted just like an
old-fashioned wife, waiting on him, fetching and carrying,
soothing, selfless. If his horrible schemes were uncovered—as
Nadia knew they would be—he’d face disgrace and ruin.
He’d go to prison, and she’d lose him. Nadia couldn’t bear
that. Nor could she face what might happen to OTIOSE,
which was her real home. Don’t make the same mistake as
Nadia did, Ava. Find a life—a real life—while you still have
the chance.”
Ava was still staring at the carpet. “I have no family here.
Everyone is in Samoa. But I have some friends outside the
company. Maybe I could start to…” Her voice trailed off.
“We need your help,” Judith said abruptly. “We have to
trap Frank.”
Ava’s head jerked up. “What are you saying? There’s no
evidence? I thought you had…”
Judith slowly shook her head. “We have next to nothing.
These were virtually bloodless crimes. There will be fingerprints, yes, but not just Frank’s. We’ve all been in and out
of the guest rooms, either in groups or as individuals. For
all we know, Frank wore gloves. There may have been a
struggle with Ward—I suspect there was. We found a Bell
System service pin on the floor in his room, which may have
come loose when he tried to fight Frank off. But that doesn’t
prove anything. None of it does. All of his victims trusted
him—he was the boss. I imagine Andrea drank whatever
Frank gave her without a qualm. No doubt he told her it
would be good for her. Whatever Frank said was law. It’s
the way you corporate people think.”
“Good Lord.” Ava took another sip of juice, then rose from
the chair. “What do you want me to do?”
“First,” Judith said, also standing up, “we’re going to call
the park service. Their law enforcement personnel have jurisdiction at Mountain Goat. Then we’re going to restage
262 / Mary Daheim
that little scene with you and Frank in the conference room.
Are you game?”
Ava grasped her throat. “I…I don’t know. It was terrifying
at the time. Just now, before you stopped me, I was about
to…But I really…” She lowered her face into her hands and
began to sob.
Judith bit her lip. Ava, like the rest of the OTIOSE executives, had been stripped of all surface emotions. The weekend
had pared them down to the bone. Judith saw the bruises
on Ava’s throat, and understood how deeply the young woman had been wounded.
“Never mind,” Judith said. “I’ll do it.”
“Whoa!” Renie grabbed her cousin by the arm. “Don’t
you dare! It’s not your fight!”
“Yes, it is,” Judith said grimly. “I threw down the gauntlet.
Let’s go.”
Renie was still arguing when the three women reached the
kitchen. Judith, however, had made up her mind. “I know,
I know. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s…”
“Why you?” Renie demanded. “What about me? I’ve got
the corporate connection. Let me stick my neck out for once.
Literally.”
“No. Absolutely not.” Judith picked up the phone and
dialed the park service number. “Let’s see how fast they can
get here.”
A woman, instead of a recording, answered the park service
phone this time. She sounded flabbergasted when Judith informed her what had happened at Mountain Goat Lodge. It
was clear that she initially thought Judith was playing a
practical joke.
“Look,” Judith said, at her most earnest, “if you send some
of your police personnel, they’ll be able to see the bodies for
themselves. Or is it impossible to get someone into Mountain
Goat until the snow melts some more?”
“Of course it’s not impossible,” the woman huffed. “We
can have someone there within the hour.”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 263
Judith frowned into the receiver. “You can? But the first
floor here is still mostly snowed in.”
“Drifts,” the woman said, not sounding quite as suspicious.
“The lodge is out in the open. There’s no real wind-break.
It’s a problem, all right, but the caretaker and the staff should
have seen to it.”
It was pointless to try to explain that the lodge was offlimits to anyone but the conferees. “So the roads are passable?” Judith inquired.
“For the most part,” the woman responded. “The highway
crews have been working through the weekend. How else,”
she added on a note of exasperation, “do you think the phone
company got through?”
“The phone company?” Judith echoed.
“Yes. I understand they restored telephone service late
yesterday. Didn’t you see or hear them?”
Judith had. Noise. Lights. Laughter. Real phone company
people doing real work. The outsiders had been insiders.
Even as the highly paid OTIOSE executives had created
mayhem at Mountain Goat Lodge, the humble craft technicians had come through. Maybe, Judith thought, the spirit
of service was still alive, even if some of the officers weren’t.
Judith finally convinced the woman to send at least two
park service police officers and a couple of rangers to the
lodge. While still dubious, the
woman had finally allowed
that it wouldn’t hurt to check on the situation, but it might
be up to an hour before the personnel arrived at the scene
of the alleged crimes.
“We’ll have to stall a bit,” Judith said to Renie and Ava,
then glanced at the digital clock. It was going on five. “Maybe
we should get dinner.”
“I can’t cook,” Ava declared. “Shall I set the table?”
Before Judith could answer, Margo charged into the kitchen. “Ava! Where have you been? We’ve been worried
sick!”
264 / Mary Daheim
“I’ve been with them,” Ava replied, gesturing at Judith and
Renie. “How’s…everything?”
Margo blinked at the cousins but didn’t question their
liberation. “Awful,” she replied, making a face. “Frank and
that horrid Mannheimer are drunk as skunks. If you ask me,
that caretaker is an alcoholic. Gene and Max have hardly
said a word in the last half-hour, and Russell just stares off
into space.”
Judith frowned. The last thing she wanted was to have
Frank pass out. “We’ll make coffee,” she said quickly. “Ava,
Margo, you start pouring it down all of those men as soon
as it’s ready. And keep them away from the liquor.”
By five-thirty, Margo reported that Frank and Rudy were
still drunk, but in upright positions. Refilling the men’s coffee
mugs, she hurried back to the lobby.
Grimly, Judith turned to Renie. “You’re going to have to
let the park personnel in through the second floor. They can
use Mannheimer’s ladder. I’ll be with Frank in his room.
Remember, it’s opposite ours—the other corner room.”
Renie nodded. “I don’t like this. What if they don’t come?”
Judith grimaced. “Then you’ll have to rescue me.”
“Oh, swell!” Renie twirled around the kitchen, hands
clasped to her head. “How do I do that?”
“With Margo’s gun,” Judith said, pointing to the suede bag
that Margo had left on the counter before carrying out the
coffee refills. “Take it now.”
“Oh, good grief!” Renie reeled some more.
“Do it quick, before she comes back.”
With a big sigh, Renie opened the suede bag and removed
the handgun. “I haven’t fired a gun since my dad took me
target shooting forty-odd years ago. It was up at the family
cabin, and I blew a hole through Uncle Corky’s picnic ham.”