by Mary Daheim
“Of course! We haven’t even been shopping yet.”
“Good. Don’t. Unless you see a nice cardigan,” Gertrude added. “I could use a new one if they don’t try to gouge you. Tourists can be treated like saps. I ought to know. I’ve seen some of your dopey guests.”
Judith ignored the remark. “I’ll make sure we don’t have that problem,” she promised before ringing off.
Renie stood in the doorway between the two rooms. “You woke me up,” she asserted. “These walls must be made of cardboard. Who were you talking to?”
Judith said she’d called her mother. She’d save the news about Phyliss’s broken romance until her cousin was fully alert.
Renie yawned and staggered back into the Joneses’ half of the suite. “Give me half an hour to put myself together. Maybe after that I’ll wake up.”
Judith needed some time, too. It was well after nine when they got into the elevator. A female voice called from the hall to hold the door. A moment later, a breathless Trixie rushed inside and virtually fell against the far wall mumbling something that sounded like “thanks.”
Judith noticed that Trixie looked very different from the pretty, cheerful young woman she’d met earlier at the front desk. “Are you okay?” she asked in a concerned voice.
“Yes. No. I mean . . .” Trixie pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “The last few days have been real bummers.”
“Yes,” Judith said, “you came to work at the height of the tourist season. Baptism by fire, as they say.”
Trixie’s reddened eyes narrowed. “More like hell.”
The elevator stopped. Judith’s smile was sympathetic. “You have a steady job. You should be thankful for that.”
“Thankful?” Trixie curled her lip. “A job’s the last thing I wanted! What’s money compared to love? Men are rotten!” She stomped out of the elevator and disappeared down the hall.
“Gee,” Renie said as they walked out into the parking area, “you flunked a personal relations encounter. Isn’t that the first time in about five years?”
“Not that long. I wonder why she’s so upset?”
“I advise you not to try to find out,” Renie responded. “Maybe she’s the overly emotional type.”
Shaking her head, Judith got behind the SUV’s steering wheel. “Trixie’s certainly distraught. I can relate to her. She has my sympathy.”
“Give yourself a break,” Renie advised. “You have enough to do trying to find out who killed Codger.”
Judith didn’t say anything as they drove away from the motel. When she finally spoke, it was to change the subject. “The RCMP office is open now. We’ll stop there first to tell them about finding the body.”
“No, we will not,” Renie stated firmly. “We’ll eat first. I’m starving and Codger’s not going anywhere.”
Judith knew better than to argue with her cousin when she was hungry. “Okay, how about Wild Flour?”
“They don’t have pancakes,” Renie said, now sounding cranky. “I want a real breakfast. I checked the guide at the motel and Phil’s is supposed to have great pancakes. It’s right across the river from the police station. What more could you ask?”
“The address?”
“Jeez,” Renie growled, “I’m weak at math, I don’t do numbers. It’s on Spray Avenue. How hard is that?”
Judith decided that finding Phil’s would be easier than dealing with her crabby, ravenous cousin. Happily, once she crossed the bridge, the restaurant was only a short distance away. But when they got inside, there was a long line of customers. Apparently, everybody loved Phil’s pancakes.
“Curses!” Renie said under her breath. “Do I have to fake my own death to get served before noon?”
“Why don’t you try it?” Judith retorted. But she said it softly.
Renie merely growled again. Unless, Judith thought, the sound came from her stomach and not her throat.
Twenty minutes later they were seated. Judith unloaded Phyliss’s sad story. Apparently cheered by the prospect of food, Renie was uncharacteristically sympathetic.
“She’s led a really dull existence. Oh, I know she was born late in her parents’ lives and her father abandoned them and then her mother got sick. Phyliss had to nurse her for years. The only source of comfort she had was the peculiar church she joined. I suppose she doesn’t really know any better.”
“That’s true,” Judith agreed. “She complains a lot, but the basic attitude is grounded in her religious beliefs. She may be happier than a lot of people with money and status. Look at the Stokes family. They’re apparently rich, but they don’t seem very happy. I wonder what’s with Ada.”
Renie didn’t answer right away. Their order had arrived. Lavishly buttering her pancakes and pouring syrup over them, she finally responded. “Mentally disabled, I assume. She’s so thin. Maybe she doesn’t eat enough.” She shoveled in a big bite of pancakes, egg, and sausage.
“You do. And you’re still thin.” Judith smiled. “It’s hard to tell how old Ada is. Probably around thirty unless there’s a big gap between her and Teddy.” She paused. “Speaking of age, I’d like to know how old Codger was.”
Renie looked up from her plate. “Does it matter?”
“Yes. I really doubt he could have been close to a hundred as someone suggested. But why lie about his age? I’d like to see his passport. And the photo on it. We have no idea what he looked like. His face, that is. We never saw it.”
“You could go back to have another peek at his corpse,” Renie suggested with a puckish expression.
“No thanks.” Judith actually shuddered. “That was too grim even for me. But the police may know.”
Renie didn’t speak until she’d swallowed another mighty mouthful of food. “Speaking of grim, I wonder what Phyliss’s no-show looked like.”
“That might be grimmer,” Judith said. “Let’s stick to murder.”
Her cousin laughed. “I knew you’d say that.”
Half an hour later they arrived at RCMP headquarters. Sergeant Brewster was on duty along with two other officers, and explained that Constable MacRae had Sunday off. If the stalwart Brewster was surprised to see the cousins, he didn’t show it, but merely asked how he could help them.
“It’s the other way around,” Judith said apologetically. “We found Mr. Stokes’s body.”
Only a tic in Brewster’s forehead revealed his surprise. “I see. How and where did you find it?”
“By accident,” Judith replied. “We took the long way back to the motel after dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel.”
Brewster nodded faintly. “So where was the victim?”
Judith was at a loss when it came to the exact location. She looked helplessly at Renie, who looked at Brewster. “Do you know where the raccoons live at night?” she asked the Mountie in a guileless voice.
“They live all over the area,” Brewster replied with a touch of impatience. “Can you be more precise?”
Fearing that Renie’s overly benign expression might rile the sergeant, Judith quickly intervened. “It was late and quite dark, but we could show you the route we took.”
“Fine,” Brewster said. “We’ll go now in my cruiser, eh?” He led the way out back.
After he drove from the parking lot, he asked if they’d gone over a bridge after leaving the hotel. Judith said they hadn’t, but she recalled seeing something about a golf course in the vicinity. Brewster nodded once.
After a short distance through town, they did cross a bridge. “You were coming from the hotel, eh?” he said. “For some reason, you went the wrong way.”
“It really was quite dark,” Judith pointed out, not wanting to admit that she and Renie had been a bit fuzzy at the time. “I guess we got turned around.”
Brewster didn’t respond at once. When he did, he asked if they remembered any landmarks.
“Only that we could see the trail made by the raccoons,” Judith replied. “We’d stopped to let them cross.”<
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“Ah” was the sergeant’s only response as he slowed down. Judith took that as a good sign. A minute or so later he signaled to turn off onto the verge. “Is this the spot?”
“It could be,” Judith replied. “It really was very dark.”
Brewster opened his door. “Come along, show me where you found Mr. Stokes.”
Judith got out of the car, but Renie stayed put. “I didn’t go with my cousin,” she said. “I don’t suppose you brought any snacks?”
Brewster’s dark eyebrows rose. “Snacks?”
Renie sighed. “Never mind. It was just a thought.”
Judith squared her shoulders and led the way. “You can see the trail for yourself. We don’t have far to go.”
They walked for longer than Judith remembered doing the previous night. She finally stopped by a fallen fir branch and looked at Brewster. “Something’s wrong. We’ve gone too far. I don’t recall that branch and there’s been very little wind here. Let’s go back a few yards.”
The nerve in Brewster’s forehead ticked again. “If you say so.”
Judith moved slower, finally pausing by a tall cedar. “That big whorl in the bark—I remember it. I happened to shine my flashlight on it. The body was right there by this tree. Except,” she added after a gulp, “it’s not here now.”
“I can see that,” Brewster said in a controlled voice.
“Look,” Judith said, annoyed with herself for feeling defensive, “I didn’t invent finding Mr. Stokes here. If you bring in your crime-scene people, I’m sure you’ll find evidence that the body was ditched here. He was covered by a dark blue blanket that looked as if it had been torn in places by some of the local wildlife.”
Brewster regarded Judith with what she first took for skepticism, but realized was more like curiosity. “You have a reputation as an amateur detective,” he said at last. “Why would anyone put the body here in the forest?”
Frustrated, Judith shook her head. “I don’t know. But there has to be a reason. As a guess, I’d say it was because they didn’t want an autopsy performed on the victim.”
“That makes some sense,” Brewster allowed. “Then why didn’t they bury it, eh?”
“Because they didn’t have time?” Judith suggested. “Then again, there’s nothing about that family that does make sense, including why he was killed in the first place.”
Brewster didn’t comment until they returned to the cruiser. “I’ll request a crime-scene team to come from Calgary. Hopefully, they’ll get here later today.”
Judith nodded faintly. “I have to ask—have you found the weapon?”
“No.” The sergeant’s face was expressionless. “We suspect it may’ve been thrown into the river.”
“Oh.” Judith felt remiss for not considering as much. “I don’t suppose it could wash up somewhere.”
“We’ve thought of that,” Brewster said, still deadpan. “Of course, a half-dozen knives could fall into the Bow from fishermen or hikers or picnickers. The chances of getting prints from any of them would be slim, eh?”
“Yes,” Judith agreed. “But someone in the family might recognize it.”
“Maybe.” Brewster ushered her into the cruiser. “Meanwhile,” he continued, getting into the driver’s seat, “we don’t have extensive forensic resources in Banff. We’ll secure the site here by the tree to keep out trespassers.”
“Of course,” Judith echoed. She’d settled in next to Renie in the backseat and nudged her cousin in the upper arm. “Are you conscious?”
“No,” Renie replied, and closed her eyes in an attempt to prove it. She stayed that way until they’d returned to headquarters, where Brewster told them they were free to go, but to keep in touch.
“Having fun?” Renie asked after they got into the SUV.
“Murder is never fun,” Judith declared, and then told her that Codger’s corpse had gone missing.
“No kidding,” Renie said vaguely. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I was,” Judith admitted. “Well . . . maybe not as surprised as I was to find the old guy there in the first place.”
Renie fastened her seat belt. “When do we get to the part where we discover that Codger isn’t really dead?”
“Don’t say things like that!” Judith cried. “Nothing about this crazy case could surprise me.”
But to add to her unease, all sorts of weird notions niggled at her brain, including that maybe Codger wasn’t Codger. For once, she kept that nutty idea to herself.
Chapter 11
Adela Odell was waiting for them in the motel parking area. She was pacing, wringing her hands, and looked as if she’d been shortchanged on sleep.
“They’re not here,” she called to the cousins as they got out of the SUV. “Have you seen them?”
“You mean . . . your twins?” Judith asked.
“Yes! They never came back last night,” Adela replied, gesturing frantically at the motel’s parking slots. “The car’s still gone and their beds haven’t been slept in.”
“Maybe you should alert the police,” Judith said.
Adela shook her head. “No! I can’t. That would . . . well, it might make the Mounties think Win and Winnie did something . . . foolish.”
“Such as what?” Renie inquired. “Ditching Codger’s body?”
Adela turned pugnacious. “What do you mean by that?”
Judith had an urge to strangle her cousin. “Serena refers to your father’s disappearance. We were told by the Mounties that his body can’t be found.”
“Then they haven’t looked very far,” Adela snapped. “As silly as it may seem, Pa and Teddy may’ve carried out Codger’s wishes to be sent down the Bow on that bier. All the police have to do is search the river.”
“I take it,” Judith said solemnly, “they haven’t done that yet?”
“How would I know?” Adela shot back. “The cops here are no different than they are in Iowa. They keep things to themselves. I’m less interested in where Codger is than in where my children have gone. If you hear or see anything about them, leave word at the motel desk. Please?”
“Of course,” Judith promised.
“Well?” Renie said after Adela went inside. “What’s your take on that? Other than the obvious—that Pa and Teddy lied to Adela and the cops about Codger’s body disposal.”
“I don’t know,” Judith confessed. “Being young and maybe a bit callous, did the twins take off because they didn’t want to deal with their family’s dilemma?”
“Maybe they were scared,” Renie suggested. “Having Grandpa whacked might make them nervous.”
Judith didn’t respond right away. “Let’s go up to the so-called suite. I’ve got an idea.”
“Which is?” Renie asked, shooing away mosquitoes.
“I’d like to find out some background on the Stokeses,” Judith replied. “Aunt Ellen’s tight with her old pal Mayor Boo Whoozits. You’ll recall that our aunt ran her last two successful campaigns.”
“Along with about six other jobs Aunt Ellen was juggling at the time. You want the mayor to start an investigation of the Stokes folks?”
“Boo must have access to all sorts of records,” Judith said as they got in the elevator. “It’s going on noon, so Aunt Ellen and Uncle Win should be back from church. Maybe this is silly, but I’m curious about Codger’s actual age.”
Renie shrugged. “Why not? Curiosity should be your middle name.”
Upon leaving the elevator, Judith noticed that the door to the Flynns’ room was open. “Are we being robbed?” she murmured only half facetiously.
The question was answered when the cousins saw Trixie making up the bed. She gave a start when Judith and Renie entered the room.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m running late this morning. I haven’t yet vacuumed.”
“Is Mrs. Jones’s room finished?” Judith asked with a friendly smile.
Trixie gestured halfheartedly. “You mean next door?” She gave a jerky nod.
The cousins moved on to the other half of the so-called suite.
“That girl’s a mess,” Renie declared after she closed the door. “Is she sick or a head case?”
“Bitter,” Judith replied, after taking a moment to consider. “She’s had some kind of recent romantic disappointment.”
“Got dumped, probably,” Renie said. “It happens. She’ll get over it. Maybe Niall can help her.”
“Whatever it was, she obviously didn’t plan on working here at the motel.” Judith sat down to call Aunt Ellen. The phone in Beatrice rang four times before going to voice mail. Their aunt’s message was terse: “Busy. Will call back ASAP.”
Renie, who had leaned in to hear the response, laughed. “Maybe she’s become the assistant pastor.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Judith said.
“I suppose it’s too early to eat lunch.” Renie sounded wistful.
“By at least an hour,” Judith replied. “I wonder what time the guys will show up this evening? Maybe they’ll call to let us know. If it’s not too late, we could wait for them.”
“They can always get burgers at a—”
Renie was interrupted by a ring on Judith’s cell. Assuming it was Aunt Ellen, she knelt next to the chair to listen in.
“I just got back from the rummage sale after church,” their aunt said. “I had to chair it again this year, so I stayed on to supervise the cleanup. Don’t tell me you’ve got more questions. Or would you like me to send you some of the leftover sale items? There’s a pair of polka-dot knickers that would just fit you.”
Judith ignored the horrified face Renie was making.
“No thanks, Aunt Ellen, I’m good for clothes. In fact, I should weed out some of my old stuff. I’m calling to ask a favor. Could you have Mayor Boo look up the birth date of someone for me? He’s from Big Stove.”
“I can do that,” Aunt Ellen said. “Sue Boo relies on me to do all sorts of research for her, so I have access to public records. Among other things,” she added in a conspiratorial tone. “Give me the name while I go into what I jokingly call my office, but it’s really a sewing and crafts room.”
“It’s Emory Alfred Stokes,” Judith replied, and spelled out the first name.