by Maia Chance
“Sink them to the bottom of the river.”
“That can’t be good for the fish.”
Patience snorted. “You’ve got a soft heart, Mrs. Woodby. Soft as caramel. Just you watch—it’s going to be your downfall.”
Roy swayed a little. It dawned on me that he was drunk. Was he the reason it smelled so sharply of alcohol in here?
I said to Patience, “You killed Judith Goddard, and then Fenton, because they had figured out your scheme. It was in danger of being exposed. When you saw Fenton’s photograph of Titus Staples, you realized Fenton had been up on the ridge, perhaps even seen what was in the cave. Mrs. Goddard saw Fenton’s photographs first, didn’t she? Then she said something to you, let on she knew about the smuggling—”
“She lorded it over me. Like a cat toying with a mouse.”
“So you got rid of her, with the intention all along to kill Fenton shortly after, making him look like a suicide and shifting the blame for his mother’s poisoning. Fenton was your sacrificial lamb.”
“It should’ve been clean as a whistle.” Patience sounded sulky.
“But it wasn’t,” I said. “Because then you found out that George knew about the smuggling, too—or, wait, I’ve got it—you found out that he meant to sell some of his land off, maybe to the Alpine Club. Selling the land would mean selling your smuggling route, so you had to kill him, too. You were never engaged to marry George, were you? And you aren’t with child, either. That was all a sham to make you look like a victim, to put me off the scent—to put everyone off the scent. I suppose you knew Fenton was spying upon you when he took that photograph of you kissing George. Was that to put everyone off the scent, too? I must hand it to you, Patience, you’re an ace at planning ahead. But where was it going to end? Did you intend to bump off the entire village to protect your criminal enterprise?”
Roy spewed a mucousy little cough.
“You’re disgusting,” Patience snapped.
Coughs.
“And … and your motive for all this is greed,” I said, “or not outright greed, I suppose, since you are devoted to your father even if you’re willing to lay waste to the rest of mankind. He’s ill, chronically ill, with a lung ailment. He needs to move to a warmer climate, and you, knowing the hotel trade inside out, planned to take every dime you’d made in your smuggling scheme to buy a hotel in some warm place. Hawaii, perhaps, or California, or Bermuda. Why did I imagine for a second that those hotel brochures were for your honeymoon?”
Patience bared small, white teeth. “Because you noticed me touching my belly occasionally. My what an active imagination you have.”
“We felt sorry for you,” I said hotly. “Berta and I. We thought you were in a terrible predicament, dizzy in love with George and carrying his pea in your pod and—”
“Then my plan worked.”
“And you, Mr. Ives.” I regarded Roy. “Why did you burn that dossier for Patience? She stole it from Mrs. Lundgren’s room, of course. Why did you tack up those photographs in front of the town hall? Clever of you, Patience, by the way, to have embarrassing pictures of yourself pinned up to direct suspicion elsewhere.”
“I don’t know,” Roy said, his voice cracking.
“You do know why, you old fool!” Patience turned to me. “He’ll do anything for wine.”
“His French wine,” I said. “You bring that down from Canada, too?”
“It’s a small price to pay to have a puppet,” Patience said. “Even a frightened puppet. Then again, I find fear makes people awfully pliable.”
“Fear,” I said. “Yes. That’s one of your favorite tricks, isn’t it? You tried to scare me away by throwing my dog’s ball out on the ice. When that didn’t work, you put the ball in my suitcase. And all along, you’ve been frightening everyone with that Slipperyback nonsense. You had your minion Titus Staples dress up in a bearskin and wear something on his boots that made bearlike prints in the snow—so inventive. You must’ve had him prowling around Goddard Farm the night you poisoned Judith, just so someone might chance to see him out the window, and you had him prowling around the ski jump when George was killed. You like to stir the pot, Patience. Keep everyone confused.”
“It isn’t difficult,” she said in a nasty voice. “Some villages have one idiot, but Maple Hill has dozens.”
I rushed on. “Stealing that dossier was your first error, Patience. You must have been prowling through Berta’s things, and you saw it, and panicked. But the missing dossier is what kept us in town. If we’d gone home to New York, you would’ve gotten away with murder.”
Patience’s lips pinched.
“And your second error was allowing me to see you argue with Maynard Coburn. What were you arguing about? Had he hinted to you that he was a Fed on your tail? You crashed that stolen car, didn’t you?”
“Enough talk,” Patience said. “Let’s get started.”
“Get what started?” I asked blankly.
“Why do you suppose I brought Roy along? For decoration?” Patience gave an upward yank to Roy’s already twisted arm.
He yelped, and his mouth remained open.
Patience’s voice was brisk. “I’m going to kill you and Roy. Everyone will think Roy killed you—or perhaps the other way around—in a final confrontation about the murders. Roy shall take the blame—I’ve got it all worked out, I’ll plant a few clues in his house for that fool Peletier to find—and Dad and I shall be on the next train out of this dump. I was going to wait another year or two, to save up more money, but it’s obviously time to cut and run. I’ve already packed our trunks—that ruby ring is going to fetch a pretty sum—I’m so glad I pinched it from the breadbox as an afterthought. We’re going to Hawaii, by way of Los Angeles. We’ll change our names. Once I figure out how to buy some fake passports, we might keep going, to Fiji or Bali or Ceylon. Now. Step over here—come on. Snap to it.”
I had stupidly supposed that Patience was using both hands to keep Roy’s arm twisted like that behind his back. But now I saw that in one of her hands, she held a gun … and now she was aiming it at my heart.
Where are the police? Where is Mr. Currier?
I tried to swallow, but my dry throat couldn’t swing it. “Isn’t this a bit extreme?” I said. “A little melodramatic?”
“Stand over here,” Patience said, waving the gun.
I saw now why the odor of alcohol was so strong: puddles of whiskey shone on the floor.
“I’ve got matches in my pocket,” Patience said. “It’ll be delicious to watch this damned factory go up on a ball of fire. The hours I’ve spent in here, bored out of my skull.”
The gun was still aimed at my heart, but I would not bally well go down without a fight. So I did the only thing I could think of: I made a mad dash, straight for Patience and Roy.
The gun popped.
Roy screamed.
I rammed into both of them and toppled them in a writhing mound.
Patience swore and kicked.
Roy whimpered.
There was Patience’s gun—she was struggling to lift it, even though her arm was pinned under Roy—it was quaveringly moving toward my face, her trigger finger slowly squeezing—
I jerked my own arm free and batted the gun.
It spun through the air and clattered several feet away.
“You bitch!” Patience snarled breathlessly.
I was struggling to my feet—“Roy,” I cried, “keep her down!”—tottering to the gun, picking it up—
“Freeze!” a man shouted as a door crashed open. “Police! Put your hands up!”
I burst out laughing and crying at once. “Hello, Sergeant Peletier. You’ve come just in the nick of time.”
* * *
You can bet your snow boots that we—Ralph, Berta, Cedric, and I—were on the train out of Maple Hill that afternoon. We just barely made it, the day having been eaten up in giving our statements to Sergeant Peletier and Clarence. Patience Yarker had been arrested for triple homicide and was sittin
g, sulking and ranting by turns, in the station’s jail cell. The county sheriff had been summoned. Things weren’t looking too peachy for Patience.
“We didn’t make any money on this case,” I said, feeling guilty as I snuggled myself a little deeper into my plush crimson train seat. At the Waterbury depot, we had booked a first-class parlor car on the Montreal–New London line. After all, we were on the cusp of Christmas.
“You’ll make it into plenty of papers, though,” Ralph said. “Starting with a write-up by Clive Persons in the Cleveland Courier.”
“Which amounts to gratis advertisement for our agency,” Berta said, sipping tea that had been festively supplemented with the contents of her flask.
I sipped my own festively supplemented tea. I was feeling extraordinarily supplemented, and we’d had a lavish meal in the dining car, too, topped off by extra dessert. After all, I had missed breakfast, and we had all missed lunch—and there had been nothing to eat at the police station but fruitcake. It was also Christmas Eve, and the dining car had been serving chocolate layer cake.
“I would’ve done it all for no publicity whatsoever,” I said, “just to see the look on Maynard Coburn’s face when our train was pulling out of the Maple Hill depot.”
Ralph chuckled. “He looked like his self-esteem had taken a slug or two.”
Maynard Coburn had been in his motorcar, stopped at the train crossing. I saw him from the train window, and he saw me, and his face had been livid.
“I suppose Maynard is just heartless enough to be a good Customs agent,” I said.
“There were so very many heartless people in Maple Hill,” Berta said. “To think I believed for a moment that it was a charming village.”
“Any place is a mixed bag,” Ralph said. “No place is perfect. Say, did you ever figure out what Rosemary Rogerson was up to, sneaking around the village with that notebook?”
“I did,” Berta said. “She finally copped to it today when she saw me locked away in a jail cell—overcome with guilt, you see. She is writing a companion volume to her first two books, which is to be titled Mrs. Rogerson’s New England Cookbook. The trouble is, she cannot cook. She is compiling recipes and helpful hints from the village women, with the goal, I understand, of passing it all off as her own to the publisher.”
“What a cheat!” I said.
“Mm,” Berta said, lifting her book, Bedlam in Berlin, and beginning to read. “Yet another reason to stick to reading fiction.”
* * *
A little later, Berta was gently snoring with the book open on her lap, so I thought it wouldn’t be terribly indiscreet to lean over and kiss Ralph.
“Did you see the message I wrote in the kitchen window last night?” I murmured against his cheek. I suddenly felt shy.
“I did,” Ralph murmured back. “I’ve got something for you. It’s just a stand-in, till we find something better.” He pulled away a little and dug into his jacket pocket. He produced a scrap of red satin ribbon. “Lola, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I said, my throat bubbling up with laughter or sobs or both. I stuck out my left hand, fingers stretched. “Yes.”
He tied a little bow on my ring finger with that bit of ribbon, and it was the prettiest ring I had ever seen.
“Oh—and Merry Christmas, kid.” Ralph leaned closer again.
Our train chugged and whistled across the snowy dark landscape toward home.
Also by Maia Chance
DISCREET RETRIEVAL AGENCY MYSTERIES
Gin and Panic
Teetotaled
Come Hell or Highball
FAIRY TALE FATAL MYSTERIES
Beauty, Beast, and Belladonna
Cinderella Six Feet Under
Snow White Red-Handed
AGNES AND EFFIE MYSTERIES
Bad Neighbors
Bad Housekeeping
About the Author
MAIA CHANCE is the author of ten mystery novels, including the Discreet Retrieval Agency mysteries, the Agnes and Effie Mysteries, and the Fairy Tale Fatal series. She lives with her husband and two children in Vashon Island, Washington. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Also by Maia Chance
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NAUGHTY ON ICE. Copyright © 2018 by Maia Chance. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Rotstein
Cover photographs: woman © Incomible / Shutterstock.com; dog © Maria Bell / Shutterstock.com; tree © romvo / Shutterstock.com; snowflakes © Kozyrina Olga / Shutterstock.com; glass © CreativeGameAssets.com / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has catalogued the print edition as follows:
Names: Chance, Maia, author.
Title: Naughty on ice / Maia Chance.
Description: First edition.|New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018022775|ISBN 9781250109071 (hardcover)|ISBN 9781250109088 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women private investigators—Fiction.|Murder—Investigation—Fiction.|GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3603.H35593 N38 2018|DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018022775
eISBN 9781250109088
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First Edition: November 2018