Snow Place to Die

by Mary Daheim

  Renie, however, made a face. “Not good ones, seeing how we found him dead next door to the family cabin.”

  Judith inclined her head in assent. “His art lives on, though. He did some wonderful work at one time.”

  “Let’s skip the body count,” Renie said. “You and I have had our share of stiffs over the years.”

  It was true. But Judith rarely marveled at her encounters with premeditated death. She was married to a homicide detective; she was engaged in a business which brought together all sorts of people, with all kinds of passions and quirks; she had a natural curiosity and a penchant for the unusual; she lived in a violent world. To outsiders, her daily routine of personal and professional domesticity should have invited calm. But coping with husbands, children, relatives, in-laws, neighbors, and friends brought not only joy but conflict. And the B&B guests ran the gamut from amiable to zany. If Judith didn’t exactly live life in the fast lane, she was accustomed to traveling a bumpy road with unexpected detours.

  “Here’s the library,” Renie said, standing in the doorway of a room off the far side of the lobby. “It’s nice.”

  Judith agreed. Unlike the rest of the lodge, the room was paneled in knotty pine. Tall, open bookcases reached almost to the ceiling. With her librarian’s eye, Judith took in the collection, from some of the classics to the latest best-sellers.

  There was also a combination game-and sunroom, which faced what was probably a terrace when the snow melted. Renie showed Judith the main conference room, though it lay in darkness and they couldn’t find the lightswitch.

  “You get the idea,” Renie said dryly. “Chairs, tables, a viewing screen, sound system, etc. Seen one big conference room, seen ’em all.” She started to close the double doors.

  Judith put one hand on Renie’s arm and signaled with the other for her cousin to be silent. A faint rustling noise could be heard from somewhere deep within the room.

  Renie’s face puckered with curiosity as she stared at Judith. The rustling stopped, only to be replaced by what sounded like heavy breathing. Transfixed, the cousins waited.

  At last, there was silence. Renie slowly and quietly shut the doors. “What was that?” she whispered. “People? An animal? A gas jet?”

  “They don’t have gas up here,” Judith murmured. “It’s all electric. Whatever it is, I don’t think it wants to be interrupted.”

  “OTIOSE sex?” Renie put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Why in the big conference room? These people have private bedrooms, for heaven’s sake!”

  “How would I know?” Judith retorted. “You’re the one who has them all figured out.”

  “I’m drawing a blank this time,” Renie admitted. Rapidly, she opened the doors to the three smaller conference rooms, including the one where she’d made her presentation. “Shoot,” she said, espying a folder on the podium. “I must have forgotten to collect all my stuff.” Hurriedly, she marched down the aisle between the folding chairs. “This isn’t mine,” she called back to Judith. “I guess I’ll leave it here. Whoa!”

  Judith straightened up from where she’d been leaning in the doorway. “What is it?”

  Staring down at the open folder, Renie shook her head. “I’m not sure. It’s a list, sort of like a racing form.”

  Judith’s curiosity got the better of her. “Let’s see.”

  Renie hesitated, then picked up the folder and brought it to Judith. “Look. It’s a bunch of names, with comments. ‘Heady Amber—light on her feet; Willy-Nilly—slim, trim, ready to roll; Algonquin Annie—new to the game.’”

  Judith grinned. “You’re right, it’s some sort of handicapping. Which one of your OTIOSE pals plays the ponies?”

  “It could be any of them.” Renie closed the folder. “I’ll leave this on that big coffee table in the lobby. I wonder how it got up on the podium. I was the last to leave.”

  Having completed their exploration of the lodge’s main floor, the cousins went outside. During the half-hour since Renie had finished her presentation, the clouds had begun to settle in again but there were still spectacular views. The tips of evergreens poking out of the snow looked as if they had been covered with great dollops of spun-sugar frosting. The elevation was so high and the mountains so close that the great peaks loomed above the landscape, their sharp crags pocketed with new snow.

  The afternoon sun apparently had warmed to just above freezing, for there were signs of thaw. Icicles dripped under the eaves of the lodge and ice chunks flowed freely in a creek that tumbled among big boulders. The footing was just a trifle soft, forcing the cousins to walk with care.

  They followed the creek, not down toward the parking area, but up a bit where they could see a small waterfall caught between two large outcroppings of snow-covered rock. The sun was setting, and the mountains’ long shadows reached far across the silent world of white.

  “This is when I wish I’d learned to ski,” Renie said, puffing a little with exertion.

  “You did try,” Judith responded. “That’s more than I ever did.”

  “I quit after I skied between some tall guy’s legs,” said Renie, stopping and leaning precariously against a fallen evergreen limb. “It was up here, at the pass. Gosh, that must have been thirty-five years ago.”

  Judith gazed upward, taking in the majesty of winter. “Doesn’t it seem weird to talk about things that happened so far back in the past? I remember hearing our mothers mention things they’d done when they were young and thinking how old they’d gotten. That was years ago, when they were a lot younger than we are now.”

  Setting her gloved hands on her hips, Renie glowered at Judith. “What’s with you? Suddenly you’re obsessed with getting old. For God’s sake, coz, you’re two years younger than I am, and it never even occurs to me! Besides, we took a vow. Remember?”

  Judith looked puzzled. “What kind of vow? A suicide pact? Or is it the promise I asked your daughter Anne to make, that when I got old and impossible like my mother, she’d put a pillow over my face, slip a Gone with the Wind video in the VCR, and wait for me to peg out?”

  “Jeez!” Renie threw up her hands. “No! It was a few years ago, when our kids were teenagers, and they were accusing us of not acting our age. We told them we never would, because we might get older, but we’d never get old.”

  “What did the kids say?”

  “Who cares? That’s not the point.” Renie began tramping around in the snow, leaving a circular pattern of foot-prints between the fallen branch and the tree. “It was our attitude that mattered. I remember, we looked at each other as if to say, This is a solemn promise. Except that being solemn wasn’t part of it. We would always keep our sense of humor and our slightly screwy perspective on life and uphold the old Grover mantra of finding something to laugh about even when things got really grim.”

  Judith knew what Renie meant. Grandma Grover, who had endured her share of tragedy, had never, ever, lost her ability to laugh. “Keep your pecker up,” she’d advised. “It’s always better to laugh than to cry.” Such homely, even trite counsel had been the family by-word, and it worked because it was practiced rather than preached.

  “I guess it’s this retirement thing,” Judith admitted. “And Mike getting married. Those are big life changes. You can’t just shrug them off. You have to stop and think what it all means.”

  “You think I never think?” Renie was still trudging awkwardly, if gamely, around in the snow. “I think plenty. I couldn’t be married to Bill if I didn’t think now and then. He’d shoot me. Bill thinks all the time. But what I think now is that you…Ooops!”

  Renie slipped in the snow at the edge of the creek and tumbled into the cold, swift-flowing water. Her shoulder struck the steep bank on the other side, dislodging a great chunk of snow. Judith rushed to her cousin’s aid.

  “Damn!” Renie wailed. “I’m soaked!”

  Judith tried to grab Renie’s hands, but their heavy gloves impeded them. They grappled for several moments, w
ith Renie finally trying to gain some purchase on a boulder in the creek. The water rushed past her knees as she struggled into an upright position. Then a piece of loose ice hurtled into her, and she fell into the opposite bank. This time a veritable cloud of snow came loose from above the creek, pelting Renie and showering chilly particles on Judith.

  Renie swore, resurrecting every curse she’d learn at her seagoing father’s knee. But she’d managed to get to her feet and was slogging toward Judith.

  “I’m going to catch pneumonia!” she shrieked. “I’ll die before I can collect ten cents from OTIOSE!”

  Judith, however, barely heard her cousin’s lamentations. Her eyes were fixed on the far bank which now revealed a gaping hole above the creek. Broken branches protruded from each side, like long wooden fangs. Hazily, Judith thought of the ice caves she and Renie had explored in their youth a few miles from the family cabin. But this opening wasn’t quite the same. It was much smaller, no bigger than a hall closet, and not quite as high.

  What made it remarkable was the body inside.

  Judith tried not to scream. She succeeded, and just stood there while Renie collapsed against her shoulder. “Do you have any spare underwear?” Renie murmured through chattering teeth.

  Judith didn’t respond. She was transfixed. “Coz,” she finally gulped, “I hate to mention this, but…” Gently, she held Renie by the shoulders and turned her around. “Look.”

  “Good God.” Renie sagged against Judith. “I don’t believe it.”

  The cousins stood together in silence for what seemed like a very long time. The sun was setting, the clouds were rolling in, and it was beginning to grow dark. At last, Judith and Renie moved.

  “I might as well get wet, too,” Judith sighed. She waded into the creek and crossed the four-foot gap to the other side.

  “Dare I ask what you’re doing?” Renie inquired in a bleak voice.

  “Ohhh,” Judith replied, sounding weary and haggard, “just the usual cursory check. Whoever these poor bones belonged to still possesses remnants of clothing.”

  “Don’t touch anything!” Renie shouted. “Come on, get back here! I’m turning blue!”

  But Judith’s curiosity overwhelmed caution and consideration. “We can’t just run away. Besides, I wondered if…ah!” She held up a wallet. “There’s more, scattered around the ground.” Despite her aversion to being in such close quarters with skeletal remains, Judith dug around in the snow and ice. She found a keychain, a watch, a coin purse, and a soggy notebook. Unable to convey so many small items in her big gloves, she tossed each in turn to Renie, who stuffed them into the pocket of her all-weather jacket.

  Judith had kept the wallet in her own coat. After she was satisfied that there was nothing else in the little cave except the body, she recrossed the creek and stood next to Renie, shivering and shaking with cold.

  “Let’s not dawdle,” Judith said. “I feel like a freaking popsicle.”

  “I’m already dead,” Renie replied through stiff lips. “Can we make it back to the lodge?”

  The lodge, in fact, was less than a hundred yards away. Still, it took the cousins over five minutes to get there. They arrived in a numb, half-frozen state.

  The fair-haired man with the round head that Judith had noticed before lunch now stood in front of the stone fireplace which he’d apparently just lighted. He turned jerkily when the cousins entered the lobby.

  “Sorry,” he said, waving both hands as if to shoo Judith and Renie away. “This is a private gathering.”

  “It’s me, Russell,” Renie said in a feeble voice. “Serena Jones, remember?”

  Russell whipped off his rimless glasses and peered at the cousins. He was still wearing the glen plaid suit he’d had on earlier in the day. Vaguely, Judith noticed that the suit was blemished with grease spots. “Oh! Ms. Jones!” Russell exclaimed in astonishment. “Why are you so wet?”

  “It’s a long story,” Renie said with an inquiring glance at Judith. “We were…”

  Judith’s response was to shove Renie toward the dining room and kitchen. “First things first,” she muttered. “I can barely walk or talk.”

  There was a washer and dryer in an alcove off the kitchen. The cousins undressed, rubbed themselves down with big towels, and proceeded to do their laundry.

  “I didn’t bring any extra clothes,” Judith said, the feeling in her feet starting to return. The cousins were sitting in the kitchen, each wrapped in the biggest towels they could find in the supply room.

  “I’ve got my good suit, but that’s it.” Renie fluffed up her short, straight chestnut hair. “We can’t leave until our clothes are dry.”

  “We can’t leave anyway until I get the food out,” Judith said in frustration. “How am I going to do that wearing a towel?”

  “Nobody’s around. I’ll help. My stint’s over, and they won’t see me. We could do it in the nude.”

  “Yeah, right, and scare the OTIOSE executives half to death.” Judith grimaced. Only now that her teeth had stopped chattering and her limbs were responding was she able to face up to their awful discovery. “None of the above are the biggest problem, though.”

  Renie sighed. “I know. I’ve been trying to forget about it. Maybe we were hallucinating.”

  “We weren’t.” Judith’s eyes wandered over to a telephone that was set against the far wall. “We’ll have to notify the authorities.”

  “We could do that now,” Renie said, clumsily lighting a cigarette. The raw redness in her skin was beginning to fade and she had almost stopped shivering.

  Given the circumstances, Judith refrained from criticizing Renie’s newly acquired habit. Indeed, she could have used a cigarette herself, not to mention a stiff drink. “Hang on for a minute,” she said, gathering the towel around her and walking over to the counter where she’d put the items she’d collected from the little cave. “Maybe we can read some of this stuff.”

  The plain leather wallet was soaked, but Judith pried it open and saw that most of its contents were either plastic or encased in plasticene. “Here’s a driver’s license,” she said, holding the laminated item under an overhead light above the counter. “It’s in pretty good shape.”

  “Better shape than its owner,” Renie remarked, rubbing at her feet.

  “I’m afraid so…Ohmigod!” With a stricken expression on her oval face, Judith turned to Renie. “This belongs to Barry Albert Newcombe!”

  Renie slid off the tall stool where she’d been perched. “Barry! The disappearing caterer! Holy Mother!”

  With shaking fingers, Judith rifled through credit cards and other personal pieces of ID. “It’s him, all right. Some of this stuff is paper, and it’s unreadable, but here are his OTIOSE employee card, credit cards, gas cards, medical enrollment card—the whole lot.” Still clutching the wallet and the towel, Judith leaned against the counter.

  “I guess,” Renie said in a subdued voice, “Barry’s not missing anymore.”

  Judith gave a single nod. “Are you going to call the cops or shall I?”

  “Why call the cops?” Renie objected, puffing frantically at her cigarette. “We need an undertaker. Barry must have gotten caught in the middle of a snowstorm and froze to death.”

  “We need a cop because he was a missing person,” Judith persisted. “Besides,” she began, then made a face, “we need a cop, because that’s what you do when you find a body.”

  Renie winced. “I wonder if we should tell the rest of them about Barry first. I mean, he belonged to them, not us.”

  “We found him.” Judith chewed her lower lip. “Let’s call and then you can tell them about Barry.”

  “Me?” Renie placed a hand on her semiexposed chest and gulped. “I didn’t find him. You did.”

  “You fell and knocked down that big snow pack,” Judith countered.

  “I didn’t go crawling around inside the cave.”

  “This is your big project.” Judith was beginning to get annoyed. “Where
’s all that bravado you were showing off an hour ago?”

  “I don’t know,” Renie replied, gazing around the kitchen. “Where is it?”

  “Oooh…We’ll do it together. As usual.” She marched over to the phone. “I’ll even call the cops.” She punched in 911.

  A quavery voice answered on a crackling line. Judith could barely understand the woman—she guessed it was a woman—at the other end. “I’m calling from Mountain Goat Lodge,” Judith said, speaking more loudly and precisely than usual. “We’ve found a corpse.”

  “You want a Coors?” the voice said, sounding slightly stronger. “This isn’t a tavern, it’s the county sheriff’s emergency line. Please hang up at once.”

  The line went dead. “She thinks I’m a nut. Now what?”

  “What?” Renie, who hadn’t heard the other half of the conversation, looked bewildered.

  “Never mind.” Irked, Judith redialed. The same voice answered. “This isn’t a joke,” Judith shouted. “We have a dead body at Mountain Goat Lodge.”

  There was a long pause. Judith figured the woman in the sheriff’s office was trying to figure out if this was a genuine call. “Mountain Goat?” the woman finally said. “That’s not our jurisdiction. Try the next county to the east.” She hung up again.

  “What is the next county to the east?” Judith demanded of Renie.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Renie replied in an irritated tone. “I’m going to put our wash in the dryer while you figure out how to call the cops. You’re married to one, for God’s sake, you ought to know.”

  “I’ll try the forest service,” Judith said, trying to put a check on her impatience. “Their number is posted by the phone. If they used to own this property, they ought to know what county it’s in.”

  Renie’s eyebrows lifted in mock amazement. “A government agency knowing where they are? Who they are? What they’re…”

  As the connection was made, Judith made a shushing gesture with her hand. But the voice on the other end was a recording. The staff was out of the office, but if the caller would care to leave a name and number…