by Mary Daheim
“I don’t mean to trouble you, but…ah…er…I would enjoy a cup of tea. Um…often, in the afternoon around this time, my secretary, Ms. Honeythunder, brings me a nice hot cup.”
“It’s no bother,” Judith assured him. “I’ll put the kettle on right away.”
“Soothing,” Russell said with a little sigh. “Refreshing. Bracing. Hot tea.” He started to sit down on one of the stools, then jumped back as if he’d been stung by a bee.
“Is that…?” Jerkily, he pointed to the counter.
“More or less,” Renie said. “Go ahead, sit down. What Leon had isn’t contagious.”
“But it is.” Russell’s fair, rather weak features were filled with despair. “One by one, we’re…doomed.”
The remark was unsettling. Judith opened her mouth to contradict Russell, considered what had happened thus far, and kept quiet. Renie squirmed a bit before taking Russell by the hand and leading him to a stool on the opposite side of the counter.
“If you really believe that,” Renie said, at her most solemn, “then you must try to help us. Do you know why your people are being killed?”
Russell chewed on his lower lip. “I’ve been thinking about that. Of course, that’s all I ever do—I think.”
“And you get ideas,” Renie said encouragingly. “Often, they’re brilliant ideas. How about now?”
“Well…um…” Russell ran a hand through his unruly hair. “It had occurred to me that someone was trying to get Frank’s possible successors out of the way to make room for himself—or herself. Naturally, the ultimate decision is always up to the board of directors.” Russell uttered a nervous little cough, perhaps embarrassed by his uncharacteristic loquaciousness. “But you see, I don’t think Andrea or Leon was being considered—though you never know. And that young fellow—what was his name?—he was from the lower ranks. So that doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“No,” Renie agreed. “It doesn’t. I understand that Ward and possibly Ava and maybe you are the prime candidates.”
“Not me!” Russell held up both hands as if to ward off the corner office. “I’d never take such a pressure-packed position! I’m perfectly happy where I am! I’d make a terrible CEO!”
Judith, who had gotten out a big oval tray and placed it on the counter next to Russell, began opening boxes of crackers. “Can you think of another motive?” she asked in a quiet, composed voice.
Russell sighed. “I try to avoid getting involved in office politics. I always have. I’ve spent my whole career in research and development, starting with Bell Labs right after I graduated from college in the East. Since I came to OTIOSE eight years ago, I’ve concentrated solely on new products and applications. I pay no attention to what goes on in other departments. That’s why Max got so mad at me last night. Maybe he has a point. But I abhor distractions.” Russell uttered a small, embarrassed laugh. “I guess that’s why my wife told me I could come out here by myself. Emmy felt as if she was a distraction. Poor girl, maybe she was.”
Judith was slicing cheese. “Your wife remained in the East?”
Russell nodded. “She still lives in New Jersey. Our children are grown, and on their own. More or less.”
“Less is not more when it comes to children,” Renie murmured. “You live alone, Russell?”
“I do. It’s fine.” He gave both cousins a diffident smile. “No distractions.”
The tea kettle whistled. Judith hadn’t been able to find a tea pot, so she poured the hot water directly into a mug and added a tea bag. “Then you can’t think of any reason why someone might be killing your co-workers?”
Sadly, Russell shook his head. “As I mentioned, power is very attractive to certain people. Persons, I mean. But it doesn’t seem to be the case here. Especially under the revised circumstances.”
Renie jumped on the phrase. “What revised circumstances?”
Russell drew back on the stool. “Well…” His fair skin flushed. “I can’t actually say. It’s just that…er…ah…the future isn’t as clear as it once was.”
Renie leaned closer to Russell. “For OTIOSE in general?”
He fidgeted on the stool. “Not…um…well…It’s too complicated, and I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Remembering that Russell liked cream, Judith poured some into his mug. “You should if it would save lives,” she said in her sternest voice.
For one fleeting moment, the stark expression on Russell Craven’s face indicated that he was about to unburden himself. But he shook his head, and spoke with unusual firmness. “No. I can’t betray a trust. Besides, I honestly don’t believe that there’s any connection between these awful murders and…my point of reference.”
Judith’s shoulders slumped in discouragement; Renie turned her back on Russell. A strained silence fell over the kitchen.
At last, Russell cleared his throat. “Excuse me…Could I have some sugar, please?”
Judith gave Russell the sugar and a baleful look. Seeing that he would not leave the kitchen without them, Judith hurried through her task. She found some olives and pickles in the refrigerator, added them to the tray, and headed for the lobby.
Renie and Russell followed. Killegrew was not the only one who was drinking by the time Judith put the appetizer tray down on the coffee table. Max and Gene had returned after a fruitless search of the third floor. They each held a martini glass, as did Nadia and Ava. Margo was drinking straight Scotch from a shot glass.
“I have hot tea,” Russell said in a shy voice, though it was impossible to tell if the statement was made to assert his virtue or to prevent an offer of alcohol.
“Gene and I are going to start shoveling after we polish these off,” Max said, indicating his cocktail. “We can’t wait around all day for Ward, especially now that it’s started to snow.”
“I can’t think where Ward would be,” Nadia said in a fretful voice.
“Who can?” Margo snapped. “You’ve already said that forty times.”
Judith glanced at the flagstones near the entrance. The water was getting deeper and wider. “We’d better get back to work,” she said to Renie. “Otherwise, we’re going to be at flood stage.”
“Great,” Renie murmured. “I can’t swim.”
The cousins returned to their seemingly endless chore. They could hear the pressure of the snow against the lodge, causing creaks and groans in the structure. Despite the new flakes, there was yet more daylight showing at the top of the doorway. Judith noted that the branch or piece of roof or whatever it was that had fallen onto the drift was moving downward and forward.
“Watch out for that thing,” she said with a warning poke for Renie. “It’s starting to slide. It might be something heavy.”
It was. As Judith and Renie watched with a sickening sense of horror, they saw the body of Ward Haugland skid from the top of the snowbank and fall on the flagstones with a dull, dead thud.
TWELVE
EVERYBODY SCREAMED. GENE spilled his drink on the Navajo rug, Margo reached for her gun, Max dropped a gin bottle, which smashed on the flagstone hearth, and Frank Killegrew leaped from the sofa so fast that his pants ripped. Ava slid off the footstool, just missing the broken glass from the bottle that had slipped from Max’s hands. Nadia and Russell swayed in their respective places with eyes shut tight and expressions frozen in grotesque masks.
“Ward!”
“Is he…?”
“God!”
“No! No! No!”
“How…?”
“Save us! Somebody, please!”
“I’m going to throw up now.”
Bedlam reigned for the next few minutes. Judith and Renie scrambled out of the way, slipping and sliding on the wet floor. Ward Haugland stared at them from wide, lifeless eyes. The cousins finally staggered toward the cluster of sofas.
Gene, whose normal composure now seemed completely shredded, took a few hesitant steps towards the latest victim. “Madness,” he muttered. “Where will it all end?”
He stopped, some ten feet away from Ward.
Max joined Gene. “What the hell…?” Max said under his breath. “I don’t get it.”
“His room,” Judith said thickly. “Where is his room?”
Max and Gene looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. Maybe, she thought dazedly, she had. “His room,” she repeated, more clearly. “Wouldn’t Ward’s room be above the front entrance? It’s in the middle of the second-floor corridor.”
Comprehension dawned on Gene. “I see. You mean…” He stopped, then shook his head. “That’s terrible.”
“What are you jabbering about?” Killegrew demanded. “Speak up, dammit!”
Gene turned to face his CEO. “Ward’s room is right above the entrance. Whoever killed him must have pushed him out the window.”
“That’s why it was so cold in there,” Renie said under her breath. “The window had been open.”
“Ridiculous,” scoffed Killegrew. “Ward must have jumped. It’s another suicide.”
“Jeeesus!” screeched Margo. “Who would try to commit suicide by jumping out a window into a snowbank? Get over it, Frank—Andrea didn’t kill herself and neither did Ward.”
“Then how did he die?” Ava asked, clinging to the footstool.
With small, creeping steps, Max and Gene moved forward. “We really shouldn’t touch the…” Gene began.
“Stick it up your backside,” Max growled. “We have to find out what happened and we can’t leave poor old Ward lying here like a doorstop.”
“Close that door!” Killegrew ordered in a savage voice. “We’re never going to shovel through that stuff! It’s getting dark, it’s too late. Besides, this place is a mess. Look at that floor!”
Naturally, everybody looked at Ward. “Gee, Frank,” Margo said, at her most sarcastic, “you’re right, as usual. Having Ward’s corpse cluttering up the flagstones is pretty darned unsightly. How come we can’t keep this vessel ship-shape and trim-tidy?”
“Margo,” Killegrew roared, “I’ve just about had enough out of you!”
“You sure have,” she shot back. “All my speeches, all my words, all my vast vocabulary. If it weren’t for me, you’d be reciting catch-phrases off of gas station reader boards.”
“Good God Almighty!” The words were torn out of Max’s throat as he and Gene bent over the body. “It’s a garrote! Just like—” He jabbed a finger at Judith and Renie. “—they said about Barry!”
Several people gasped, including Judith, who edged forward. Bending down to peer between Gene and Max, she saw what looked like a leather belt twisted around Ward Haugland’s neck. But something was missing. There was no stick. Judith said nothing, but she had to wonder why.
The unease in the lobby was palpable. Every person in the room seemed to be casting wary glances in the direction of everyone else. Margo was hugging her suede handbag, but fear flickered in her dark eyes.
“Close that door, I said.” Frank Killegrew’s voice sounded hoarse. “Now! I feel a draft!”
“It’s the hole in your pants, Frank,” said Margo. “Aren’t you a little old to have pictures on your underwear?”
Killegrew turned crimson. “Close that door!”
Nobody moved. Gene cleared his throat. “We have to face facts. One of us is a killer. There’s no one else here.”
“Did any of you hear me?” Killegrew roared. “For the last time, close that damned door!”
Max finally went to the door and gave it a tug. “I can’t,” he said in a helpless voice. “There’s too much snow blocking it.”
Someone laughed. The sound did not come from the lobby. It came from outside, drifting in over the snowbank and echoing off the knotty pine walls.
The listeners inside the lodge were too stunned to scream, too scared to move. They just stood there, open-mouthed and terrified.
Then, their little world became suddenly, ominously silent.
Judith and Renie had taken their very stiff drinks into the library. “They think we did it,” Judith said. “They think we have an accomplice outside.”
“Do we?” Renie saw Judith’s puzzled expression, and continued. “I mean, is someone out there who might be the killer?”
Judith propped her chin on her fists. “It’s possible. But hasn’t the lodge been locked until now? And how would anybody get through the snow? If we can’t get out, who could get in?”
“It’s crazy,” Renie responded. “But somebody’s out there. Who the hell is it?”
Wearily, Judith shook her head. “I can’t imagine. The caretaker? He’d have keys.”
“His place is a half-mile from here,” Renie said. “Keys or no keys, he’d still have to get through the snow. And what would bring him out in this awful weather when he’s been ordered to stay away?”
Judith didn’t answer immediately. In the lobby, she knew that Max and Gene were removing Ward Haugland’s body and taking it up to the third floor to join Leon Mooney. Frank and Nadia had gone upstairs so that she could mend his pants with her sewing kit.
“Who is the caretaker?” Judith finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Renie responded, stoking up the fire which had been about to die out. “Somebody hired by the lodge, I suppose.”
“His place is a half-mile which way?” asked Judith.
“I don’t know that, either.” Renie was getting crabby.
“Let’s find out,” Judith said, taking a big swig of Scotch.
“How?” Renie was still irritated.
“We’ll ask somebody. Maybe Frank. Or Nadia. Didn’t you say that…”
The pager went off. Judith jumped, then groped around in her shoulder bag. “Now what?” She peered in the little window. “Damn—it’s my home number again.”
There was a phone on the desk in the library. “Try it,” Renie said, apparently making an effort to overcome her annoyance. “Maybe the brief lull in the weather freed up the line.”
To Judith’s surprise, she heard a crackling noise when she picked up the receiver. Jiggling the disconnect button, she tried to get a dial tone. Nothing happened. “They could be working on it,” she said as she hung up.
“Could be,” Renie said. “We don’t know where the problem is. It might be clear down the pass or even back in the city.”
“It must be Mother trying to reach me,” Judith murmured, drinking more Scotch. “I’m not sure I ever mentioned the pager to Joe.”
“It’s Saturday, Joe’s home,” Renie pointed out. “If something happened to your mother, he’d know about it.”
“Joe might be working overtime. He could be running errands. He may have gone somewhere with Bill.” Judith’s voice grew increasingly agitated.
“They may be snowed in, too,” said Renie. “You know how it is on Heraldsgate Hill—three inches, and we can’t budge. Heck, it’s so steep in our neighborhood that we can’t even get out of the garage.”
“Y-e-s,” Judith admitted, then finished her drink. “Come on. It’s time to present the evidence.”
Renie looked skeptical. “Which is?”
“Just follow my lead.”
Sidling up to the coffeetable, Judith poured herself a small measure of Scotch. The OTIOSE group appeared to be in wary, desultory conversation. They all seemed to tense when Judith and Renie joined them.
“Excuse me.” Judith rattled the ice cubes in her glass. “Excuse me,” she repeated, somewhat louder. Nadia and Russell were still talking to each other. “Thank you,” Judith said when everyone had finally turned anxious faces in her direction. “I have a small speech.”
“Hunh,” snorted Margo. “Somebody’s giving a speech I didn’t have to write for them? How bizarre!”
Judith tried to ignore Margo. Indeed, she also tried to ignore the malevolent stares from the OTIOSE employees. “My cousin, Serena, and I are in a very awkward position,” Judith began, her voice sounding unnaturally high. “While Serena knows some of you slightly, I’m a complete stranger. Therefore, I wouldn’t blame any
of you for being suspicious of us.”
“Damned straight,” said Max.
“You’re outsiders,” said Ava.
“Why shouldn’t we be suspicious?” demanded Killegrew.
“I’m not suspicious,” Russell maintained. “They made me a nice cup of hot tea.”
“Thank you, Russell,” Judith said with a small smile. “As I was saying, we understand your concern. It appears to be on two levels. The first is that some of you may think we perpetrated these heinous crimes.” Judith paused, waiting for comments. There were none, though anxious glances were exchanged. “The second,” she continued, “is that you may be afraid that we’re going to rush off to the media and reveal everything that’s happened here.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” cried Nadia.
“Don’t try it,” warned Killegrew.
“We can get an injunction,” murmured Gene.
“Talk your heads off, who cares?” said Margo.
It occurred to Judith that the threat of exposure by the cousins posed a greater danger to most of the OTIOSE crew than did the possibility of Judith and Renie carving them up with a chainsaw. Taking their reaction as confirmation, Judith resumed speaking.
“The fact is, we haven’t harmed anyone nor do we intend to. Not in any way.” Again she paused, this time for emphasis. “However, we will do our civic duty. It so happens that we have acquired certain evidence which points to the killer. Not only has this evidence been placed in safe hands, but so has a note stating that if anything should happen to either of us, those damning proofs will be turned over as soon as humanly possible to the authorities.”
“Evidence?” Ava wore a bewildered expression.
“You’re bluffing,” Killegrew declared.
“Is this physical evidence?” Gene queried.
“Most definitely,” Judith responded, wondering if Gene had an inkling about the pillowcase. “Several pieces of evidence, in fact. They’re all in safe hands.”
“Wait a minute,” Max said with a deep scowl. “Who did you give this stuff to? There’s nobody here but us.” Despite his statement, everyone turned toward the entrance where the door still stood open.