Dashing Through the Snow

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Looks like this press conference really drew the media,” Nora commented.

  “It sure does,” Regan agreed. Her attention was riveted on a fortyish man, with a red face and balding head, dressed in jeans, boots, and a heavy parka, who was scowling and gesturing as he spoke on-camera to a reporter. “Look at that guy. I wonder what’s on his mind. He certainly can’t be one of the lottery winners.”

  “Maybe he is and just found out how much Uncle Sam is going to share in his winnings,” Luke suggested.

  Jack stopped the car at the front door. “I’ll grab a luggage cart. Let’s unload the bags and get inside. I know Steve and Muffy will be looking for us.”

  The Reillys had barely stepped into the noisy lobby when they spotted their hosts across the room. “Such an attractive couple,” Nora murmured. “That will certainly help on the campaign trail.”

  “You made it!” Muffy cried as she rushed over to them. Her shoulder-length blond hair was perfectly streaked and held back by a red-and-green striped headband. A whimsical sleigh-shaped pin was fastened to the lapel of her emerald-green suit.

  Dark-haired, brown-eyed, Steve was right behind her, dressed in a pinstripe business suit, crisp white shirt, and a tie with the same pattern as Muffy’s headband. “Hey, buddy, good to see you,” he said to Jack, giving him an affectionate hug. His smile was quickly replaced by a worried frown, but he greeted the rest of the Reillys with genuine pleasure. “Hope you all had a good trip.”

  “Me, too,” Muffy added quickly, getting the niceties out of the way. “Nora,” she wailed, “you’ve got to help us get this Festival back on track. All anyone cares about is that stupid lottery. And that horrible producer Gary Walker not only cancelled our interview, but now he’s trying to make the Festival and this town look foolish.”

  “We saw a man being interviewed outside who looked very upset,” Nora began. “He had on a parka and jeans…”

  “That’s Harvey! His ex-wife, Glenda, is one of the winners. They were divorced about three months ago,” Muffy explained.

  “His ex-wife is now a multimillionaire?” Jack asked. “No wonder he’s not happy. I bet he wishes they had kissed and made up.”

  “Glenda doesn’t,” Steve said. “The guy’s a jerk.”

  “What happened to the poor fellow who’s missing?” Nora asked.

  “Duncan Graham is still unaccounted for,” Steve said. “Folks have been out looking for him all morning. But that producer is pushing the theory that Duncan was the one who bought the other winning ticket, then hightailed it out of here. Everyone in town is arguing about it and taking bets. The latest development is that the local jeweler is displaying a ring Duncan put a deposit on six months ago and was expected to pick up before Christmas. People are guessing that a girlfriend collected him, and they took off.”

  “Can you believe this happened just at the start of our Festival of Joy?” Muffy asked, her blue eyes widening. “I can’t,” she answered herself.

  She is obviously going with the girlfriend theory, Regan thought.

  “Listen,” Steve said, looking around and lowering his voice. “There were so many reporters swarming into town this morning when word about the lottery broke that I thought it would be a good idea to call a press conference and let them get their pictures and stories all at once.”

  I’ll bet it was Muffy’s idea, Regan thought. One way or the other, she’s going to get herself in front of the camera. She’s not about to let those coordinating outfits go to waste.

  “I’ll open with a few remarks,” Steve continued, “introduce the lottery winners, then, after they take questions, I’ll switch the focus to the Festival and the fact that we have lots of wonderful things going on this weekend, like Nora Regan Reilly here to sign books.”

  The press is only interested in the lottery winners, Regan thought. Wait till Steve and Muffy find out they ended up on the cutting room floor.

  “So, Nora, if you don’t mind, after the reporters interview the lottery winners, I’ll introduce you, then maybe you could say a few words about the Festival,” Steve suggested.

  “Of course,” Nora said obligingly.

  Steve beckoned to a clerk behind the desk. “These people are our guests—the Reillys,” he said quickly. “Send their luggage up to their rooms please.” He took Muffy’s hand, and the Reillys followed him to a large parlor off the main lobby.

  “Be careful of the wires,” Steve warned as they entered the room. “They’re all over the place.”

  Furniture had been pushed against the back wall. Rows of folding chairs were nearly filled. Cameras were directed at a table at the end of the room where two men and two women were seated. A fifth chair in the middle was empty.

  “There are our winners,” Steve said.

  They look more exhausted than exhilarated, Regan thought as she observed them. She could see from the thin black wires on their lapels that they had already been miked. The two men, one in his twenties and the other middle-aged, were whispering to each other. An older woman was trying to squash down the ruffles of a pink blouse that climbed halfway up her chin. But it was the obvious distress on the other woman’s face that caught Regan’s eye. She’s really worried, Regan thought.

  Steve brought the Reillys over to the table and quickly introduced them to the winners. Marion brightened immediately when she met Nora.

  “Nora Regan Reilly. I love your books. You should write our story…”

  Regan turned to Glenda. “I know you must be upset about your friend.”

  “I am,” Glenda said.

  “I’m a private investigator,” Regan told her. “And my husband is the head of the Major Case Squad for the NYPD. We’d love to do whatever we can to help find him.”

  Glenda’s eyes brightened. “Thank you. We were searching for Duncan all morning. Then we had to get ready for this press conference. We promised the mayor we’d be here.”

  “When did you first realize that he was missing?” Regan asked, wondering if Glenda knew her ex-husband was in the middle of a heart-to-heart interview with a reporter outside.

  “I tried to call Duncan last night as soon as we won, but I couldn’t reach him. This morning we stopped by his house at quarter of seven on our way to register the ticket, but he didn’t answer the door. We thought he might have had a few too many beers and was sleeping it off. Last night we got stiffed on our Christmas bonus, and he was very upset when he left work. After we validated the ticket at the convenience store, we went back to his place and he still didn’t answer the door. We kept ringing the bell and knocking on the windows. Finally, Tommy noticed the key ring in the ignition of his car. We decided to use his house key to go inside, just in case something happened to him. I felt funny just barging in there…”

  “I would have done the same thing if I was concerned about a friend,” Regan said. “The fact that the keys were in his car would have really worried me.”

  “That’s the way I felt!” Glenda cleared her throat. “The television was on, the lights were on, his bed didn’t look as though it had been slept in, there was no sign that he had taken a shower and gone out early…” Her voice trailed off. “Then we tried to start his car, but it was dead. I think that last night he must have realized our lottery numbers won. He was probably so frustrated that he hadn’t played, he decided to go out, but his car wouldn’t start. I think Duncan might have started walking and had an accident or a heart attack. I know he didn’t buy that other lottery ticket!” she said, her eyes flashing. “But Tommy and Ralph think he’s fine and would have been at work today if he hadn’t come into money. They’re furious with me because we announced his name as one of the winners of our ticket. If it ever turns out that Duncan cashes in the other winning ticket, I think they’ll kill me. I’m the one who initially suggested cutting him in on the ticket, even though he was too cheap and stubborn to throw in a lousy dollar.”

  Oh boy, Regan thought. Alvirah better get here soon. She has at least four ne
w candidates for the Lottery Winners Support Group.

  Steve looked at his watch. “It’s noon. We should get started.” He gestured for the Reillys to take the seats he’d reserved for them in the front row, then went to the podium and pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. With Muffy at his side, he tapped on the microphone for silence.

  “Welcome everyone, to Branscombe’s first annual Festival of Joy. I am Mayor Steve Patton, and this is my wife, Muffy.”

  “Hi, everyone.” Muffy giggled, leaning toward the mike. “I can’t tell you what an honor and a pleasure and a delight it is for me to be the First Lady of Branscombe. Branscombe is such a special, special town. For those folks who don’t live here, we want to welcome you, and we hope all of you are staying for the entire Festival of Joy. We promise you a wonderful, heartwarming experience…”

  “Thank you, Muffy,” Steve interrupted.

  Muffy raised her index finger. “One more thing, honey. Tickets are still available for the community supper tomorrow night and the pancake breakfast Sunday morning. With the ticket you get a pass to see It’s a Wonderful Life, which will be shown continually in the church auditorium. Don’t you just love that movie? I cry every time I see it…”

  Regan was amused by Steve’s ability to keep smiling as he struggled to regain control of the microphone.

  “I just love that movie, too,” Steve said. “And now I want to introduce our lottery winners, who proved that Branscombe is not only a happy town, but a lucky town, a town where people care about each other and cheer each other’s good fortune. That fifth seat is reserved for Duncan Graham, the coworker these folks so generously decided would share in that great big pot of money, even though, thanks to advice from his financial advisers, he decided not to play this week.” Steve laughed. “I’d love to know what other kind of advice those guys are giving!”

  “What are their names?” a reporter called out.

  “Not sure,” Steve answered. “We’ll get you that information later. Now let me introduce the four recent employees of Conklin’s Market, which, incidentally, will be catering the Festival.”

  As their names were called, the winners stood and waved. When they were all seated again, Steve turned to the audience. “I’d like to open up the floor to your questions.”

  Hands shot up. Steve pointed to a young woman in the second row.

  “Is it true you left the framed photos that the Conklins gave you for Christmas outside the store this morning, tied together with a note saying, ‘We Quit!’?” the woman asked, clutching her notebook.

  “Yes, we did!” Marion said proudly. “That was my idea!”

  “Did you think that was a nice way to start off the Festival of Joy?” another reporter called out. “We understand you are, or should I say were, their key employees. Wouldn’t it have shown cooperation and good fellowship to work at Conklin’s this weekend when they certainly must need your help catering the Festival?”

  “It would have shown good fellowship to give us the Christmas bonus we had every right to expect,” Ralph said hotly. “I can tell you one thing. We’d all be right there right now, millionaires or not, if they had treated us fairly.”

  Oh boy, Regan thought. The Festival of Joy is off to a great start.

  Another reporter stood. “We understand your missing coworker made a down payment on a ring at Pettie’s Fine Jewelry here in Branscombe six months ago. Do any of you know if he has a girlfriend?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “I see,” the reporter said. “I must ask you. Do any of you think your coworker, or perhaps the intended recipient of this ring, bought the other winning lottery ticket?”

  Ralph and Tommy both looked at each other, then raised their hands. “We do now,” they said in unison.

  Marion looked perplexed. She bit her lip, then fluttered her hands, indicating she couldn’t make up her mind.

  Glenda jumped to her feet. “No!” she said vehemently. “He wouldn’t have betrayed us like that. I’m terribly afraid something happened to him.”

  “Something did!” Duncan cried from the back of the room.

  The crowd gasped and turned to see a disheveled, unshaven Duncan hobbling toward the microphone, his right hand wrapped around a splintery-looking wooden pole. “I am outraged that anyone, especially Tommy and Ralph, would think that I would go out and buy a ticket behind my friends’ backs!” he shouted. “I did NOT buy that other ticket! I swear on my life I didn’t!” His voice was quivering as he reached the podium and turned to face the crowd.

  “I knew it, Duncan!” Glenda cried.

  “And even worse! That special moment in a man’s life when he pops the question to his girlfriend has been ruined for me! I find it disgusting that the jeweler in this town would invade my privacy for his own profit!”

  With that ringing statement, Duncan, weakened by fatigue, hunger, and pain, collapsed into the arms of Mayor Steve.

  11

  An hour into their drive to Boston, Edmund and Woodrow were still bursting with excitement at their incredible stroke of luck.

  Woodrow was at the wheel of their rented sedan. “Dark gray, nothing flashy,” they had told the agent at Budget Rent A Car. Each of them owned a top of the line Mercedes, but that was not the image of economy and thrift they wanted to convey to their clients.

  They took turns coming up with new ways to describe their winnings.

  “180 million beans!” Woodrow said.

  “180 million big ones!” Edmund countered.

  “180 million smackers!” Woodrow chortled.

  From time to time ever-cautious Edmund would remind Woodrow to slow down. “We could hit an ice patch and get in an accident. We have too much to live for.”

  “I have a perfect driving record,” Woodrow insisted.

  “Too bad you have another record,” Edmund said dryly.

  Woodrow laughed. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Yours is just as long as mine. Thank God, we can be squeaky-clean from now on. But I’m going to miss cheating people.”

  “Me, too. But it’s not worth it. That judge threatened to lock us up and throw away the key if we ever got caught in another swindle.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to go back to Branscombe for the final session.”

  “You think it’s my idea of a good time? But if we’re not there for the class, our students might start comparing notes. This way we’ll say our individual good-byes to them and promise a weekly report on the oil well until we cash the ticket and disappear.”

  Woodrow was silent for a moment, then said, “Edmund, I have an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We paid our dues for the other scams. Why not wipe the slate clean? Why don’t we return the money to the people in Branscombe next week? We don’t need it now. We’ll tell them the oil well is not as secure as we were led to believe but promise to keep in touch about future investments we think are worth considering. That way we won’t have to worry ever again about having the Feds on our tail.”

  Edmund frowned. “Give people back their money? How unnatural.” He pretended to shiver. “It goes against my every instinct. Besides, we worked hard convincing them to cough up that dough.”

  “Eddie, it’s chump change now. Sixteen of our seventeen students invested in the greasy driveway we called an oil well. How much did we collect? Seventy-one thousand dollars? I’ll tell you one person who will be thrilled to get his money back—Mr. Duncan Donuts. Maybe he’ll go back to buying lottery tickets.”

  “He must be really out of his mind mad at us right now,” Edmund laughed.

  “I hope he doesn’t show up for class next week,” Woodrow said. “He might kill us.”

  “I thought you wanted to pay him back.”

  “We can send him a check.”

  Edmund’s eyes twinkled. “Woodrow, what are we going to do with ourselves when we collect all that money?”

  “Have fun, that’s what we’re going t
o do.”

  “Together, right.”

  “Of course, together. We’re a winning team. We’ll always stick together.”

  Edmund shifted nervously in his seat. “So you think Aunt Millie is the right person to cash in our ticket?”

  “She’s perfect,” Woodrow answered. “She’s the one person in our family who always loved us unconditionally, no matter how much trouble we got in. She has no heirs but us, thank God, so she won’t have anyone telling her to keep all our money. We’ll give her a million bucks to make the trip to lottery headquarters.” He laughed. “You know her. She’ll love the excitement.”

  “I just hope she doesn’t have a criminal record she hasn’t told us about,” Edmund joked.

  Woodrow laughed. “Can you imagine that? Aunt Millie forbidden to gamble?”

  “If that’s the case, she’s broken parole at least a thousand times. She turns into a demon when she sits in front of those slot machines in Atlantic City. Can you believe how mad she got when they started computerizing those one-armed bandits? She said half the fun is hearing the sound of quarters tumbling into her bucket. Clink, clink.”

  “We sure take after her more than either one of our mothers,” Woodrow said. “I just hope we can trust her to do right by us.” He paused. “That wasn’t nice. I know we can. We’ll pay her a surprise visit next week after we leave Branscombe in the dust.”

  Edmund leaned forward to turn up the heat. “It must be getting colder out,” he observed. “But at least it’s not snowing.” He pushed the power button on the radio.

  “This is station WXY in Boston. We have breaking news from our reporter in Branscombe, New Hampshire, covering the incredible lottery story. What have you got for us, Ginger?”

  “Bob, we do have quite a story going on up here. The missing man, Duncan Graham, who was cut in on the lottery winnings by his generous coworkers even though he decided not to play last night…”

  Woodrow whistled. “Way to go, Duncan! But he’s missing?” He leaned over and turned up the volume.