Snow Place to Die Read online

  MARY DAHEIM

  Snow Place To Die

  A BED-AND-BREAKFAST MYSTERY

  In memory of Katharine Dawson Marshall, the last of the Dawson clan to enter eternal life on January 30, 1998, joining Monica Richardson Dawson, Louis Dawson, Frances Dawson Webster, Thomas Dawson, and Helen Dawson Shelley. We will always love you.

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  JUDITH MCMONIGLE FLYNN stacked twenty-four pancakes on a platter, grabbed…

  TWO

  FRIDAY DAWNED COLD and cloudy. Renie was driving the Jones’s…

  THREE

  AS SHE’D PREDICTED, Renie’s presentation went well. “There were the…

  FOUR

  “IT WAS ONE of those things you see, but you…

  FIVE

  A FEW MINUTES before eight, the cousins went downstairs to…

  SIX

  NEITHER JUDITH NOR Renie screamed. Instead, they held onto each…

  SEVEN

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight before Judith and Renie finished recounting…

  EIGHT

  IN THE STRAINED atmosphere of the kitchen, Judith felt the…

  NINE

  AVA BURIED HER face against Gene’s shoulder. Max half-carried Nadia…

  TEN

  “HE PASSED OUT upstairs,” Max announced in a tense voice.

  ELEVEN

  MAX AND WARD had decided to go out through the…

  TWELVE

  EVERYBODY SCREAMED. GENE spilled his drink on the Navajo rug,…

  THIRTEEN

  AFTER THE GAME hens and the bean dish had been…

  FOURTEEN

  UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, it was natural for everyone to assume…

  FIFTEEN

  “WHO ELSE WAS in the corridor last night?” Judith asked…

  SIXTEEN

  “THIS…CAN’T…BE…happening,” Judith gasped.

  SEVENTEEN

  JUDITH AND RENIE both started to protest, meanwhile backpedaling across…

  EIGHTEEN

  JUDITH AND RENIE flattened themselves against the wall, hopefully out…

  NINETEEN

  FRANK KILLEGREW WAS sulking. “Sh’almost shix,” he mumbled. “Who drinksh…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARY DAHEIM

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  ONE

  JUDITH MCMONIGLE FLYNN stacked twenty-four pancakes on a platter, grabbed the syrup pitcher, and opened the swinging door with her hip. Just behind her, the kitchen phone rang.

  “Damn!” Judith cursed under her breath, then sheepishly smiled at the eight hungry, curious faces seated around the old oak dining room table. The phone kept ringing. “Sorry,” Judith apologized, as she set the pancakes and syrup on the table, “I don’t usually get calls this early unless they’re reservations from the East Coast.”

  The bed and breakfast guests made various incomprehensible sounds, then began dishing up pancakes. Judith returned to the kitchen just as the phone trunked over to the answering machine. After delivering bacon, eggs, and extra butter, she checked the message.

  “I know you’re there, you twit!” Cousin Renie’s voice had an early-morning croak. “Call me! Quick!”

  It was 7:36. Judith’s cousin never, ever got out of bed before nine and almost never achieved full consciousness until ten. Apprehensively, Judith dialed Renie’s number.

  “Are you okay?” Judith asked in a breathless voice.

  “I’m terrible,” Renie replied crossly. “I’m up the creek, in the soup, down the toilet.”

  The exaggerated response relieved Judith’s mind. If Renie had been held hostage or was lying at the bottom of her basement stairs, she wouldn’t describe her plight so vividly. Judith poured a mug of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. “So what’s really wrong?” she asked, more intrigued than alarmed.

  A big sigh rolled over the phone line from the other side of Heraldsgate Hill. “It’s the OTIOSE conference—you know, the Overland Telecommunications and Information Organization of Systems Engineers.”

  “It’s called OTIOSE for short?” Judith asked in surprise. “Do they know what it means?”

  “Of course not. They’re engineers. Anyway,” Renie went on, still sounding vexed, “they used to be part of the local phone company before the Bell System got broken up by the Justice Department. Remember I told you I was putting together a really big graphic design presentation for their annual winter retreat? I’m redoing their logo, their colors, everything right down to the cheap pens they hand out to lucky customers and members of their board. But there’s a problem—the caterer backed out at the last minute and they’ve asked me to find a sub.”

  “So? There are a zillion caterers in the Yellow Pages. If they’re telephone company people, why can’t they let their fingers do the walking?”

  “Because they are telephone company people. Their brains aren’t attached to their fingers. Plus, these are the top executives. They’re not used to doing things for themselves.” Renie was clearly exasperated. “Anyway, I opened my big mouth and told them I knew a topnotch caterer. Believe it or not, I was referring to you. What do you say?”

  “Ohhh…” Judith set her mug down with a thud and splashed coffee onto the plastic table cover. Running a B&B was hard enough, especially with the holidays so recently behind her. Of late she’d been trying to phase out the catering arm of her business. For several years it had been a joint venture with Judith’s friend and neighbor, Arlene Rankers. Her husband, Carl, had retired two years earlier, and their family of five had expanded. The quiet leisure years they’d anticipated had turned into a merry-go-round of grandchildren crawling around in the laurel hedge that separated the Rankers and Flynn properties. Arlene no longer had the time or the energy to help run a full-scale catering service, and Judith couldn’t do it without her.

  “I really don’t think I can manage on such short notice,” Judith said at last. “Isn’t the retreat this weekend?”

  “Right, over the three-day Martin Luther King holiday.” Renie paused. “It’d be for only a day, actually. All you have to do is set up the first meal on Friday, then stock the fridge and freezer and whatever. The rest of the weekend is…”

  “More coffee please,” came a request from the dining room.

  “Do you have powdered sugar?” called another guest.

  “There’s something gruesome crawling around under the table,” complained a third, rather frantic voice.

  Judith hadn’t heard the last part of Renie’s explanation. “Coz, I’ll get back to you in half an hour,” she said, feeling a touch of panic.

  The coffee and powdered sugar were delivered, then Judith dove under the big oak table to retrieve her cat, Sweetums. The cat arched his back, hissed, and began rubbing against the sheer stockings on a pair of rather hefty legs.

  “Eeek!” cried a voice somewhere over Judith’s head. “My hose! I’m being attacked by an animal! I feel fur and disgusting warmth!”

  “What is it?” inquired an anxious male voice. “Not a porcupine, surely.”

  Judith grabbed Sweetums with both hands and dragged him out from under the table. “Sorry,” she apologized again. “My husband must have let him in when he went to work.”

  “I hate cats,” said the woman who had first complained.

  “Cats carry all kinds of dread disease,” stated a man at the end of the table.

  “That cat looks mean,” remarked a woman who was sprinkling powdered sugar on her pancakes. “Is he rabid?”

  Sweetums was now sitting by the swinging doors, his long, fluffy tail curled around his large orange, white, and gray body. The yellow eyes narrowed and the whiskers twitched.

  “He’s a
very healthy cat,” Judith declared in a defensive tone. “I’ll take him outside. Come on, Sweetums. Let’s go eat some birds.”

  A gasp went up from some of the guests. Judith immediately realized she should have kept her mouth shut. But this time she didn’t apologize. Nudging Sweetums with her foot, she guided him into the kitchen, down the narrow hall past the pantry and the back stairs, and out onto the porch.

  Sweetums balked. It was extremely cold, as befitted the third week of January. Heavy dark clouds hung in low over Heraldsgate Hill. Despite the budding camellia bushes and the green forsythia shoots, Judith sensed that winter was far from over. She didn’t blame Sweetums for not wanting to stay outside. Maybe he’d be satisfied visiting Judith’s mother in the converted toolshed. Gertrude Grover was probably champing at the bit, awaiting her own breakfast.

  Judith went back into the kitchen to prepare her mother’s morning repast. Then she and the cat trudged down the walkway to the small apartment. Gertrude opened the door and offered her daughter a knuckle sandwich.

  “You’re late, you moron,” Gertrude snarled. “It’s seven-forty-nine. I’m practically ready to keel over from starvation.” Her small eyes brightened as Judith uncovered the plastic tray. “Flapjacks, huh? You got any little pigs?”

  “Not today,” Judith replied as Sweetums sniffed around the legs of Gertrude’s walker. “Bacon, not too crisp, just the way you like it, swimming in its own grease.”

  “Mmm.” Gertrude seemed appeased. “Did you warm the syrup?”

  “Of course.” Judith began setting the breakfast things on Gertrude’s card table, which was littered with magazines, jumble puzzles, candy boxes, candy wrappers, and half a chocolate Santa. Gertrude had already eaten the head and shoulders, and was obviously working her way through the little round belly. Though bacon, eggs, and pancakes might not be the most wholesome of foodstuffs, Judith consoled herself that at least they weren’t sweets. In recent years, Gertrude had begun to reject such items as fruit, vegetables, and almost anything else that was healthy. The problem had been exacerbated by the holidays. Gertrude had stockpiled sugary treats given by friends, relatives, and neighbors. If her mother had had any of her own teeth left, Judith guessed that they would have fallen out by New Year’s Eve.

  Returning to the house, Judith tended to her guests’ latest, not always reasonable requests, and tried to keep smiling. She knew she was suffering from the usual post-holiday doldrums. Traditionally, January was a slow month in the hostelry business, but this year had proved to be an exception. For the first time since Judith had converted the family home into a B&B almost eight years earlier, Hillside Manor was booked through the twenty-first. Following on the heels of the holiday season with its professional and personal hustle-and-bustle, Judith could have used a respite. But there was none, and she was tired, cranky, and drained of her usual cheerful enthusiasm.

  It was eight-thirty by the time the guests had finished breakfast. Two couples had drifted into the living room to drink coffee in front of the fireplace, and the others had gone upstairs to prepare for checkout. Judith dialed Renie’s number, propped the portable phone between her shoulder and ear, and loaded the dishwasher.

  “You’re late,” Renie snapped. “I was ready to drive over to see if you’d died.”

  “Just busy, coz,” Judith replied in a listless voice. “Anyway, the answer is no. I’ve got a full house this weekend and I’m really beat. Today’s Tuesday, and if this event is set for Friday, that doesn’t give me much time to put together a menu that’ll last through the long weekend.”

  “Oh. Okay. Bye.”

  “Wait!” Annoyed with herself for letting Renie goad her, Judith slapped a hand against the dishwasher lid. “I mean, you’re not mad?”

  “Huh? No. That’s fine. See you.”

  “But what will you do?” Judith asked anxiously. “You said you were in a bind.”

  “I’ll kill myself. I’m getting a noose out of the broom closet even as we speak.” Renie’s voice was unnaturally placid. “Now where’s a box I can stand on?”

  “Dammit, you’re making me feel guilty.”

  “That’s okay. You’ll forget all about it when Bill keels over from grief and you and Joe end up with our three kids. They may be adults legally, but they’re still a financial drain. Unlike you, we haven’t been able to marry ours off.”

  Judith’s mind flashed back to Mike and Kristin’s wedding the previous summer. It had been wonderful; it had been terrible. Judith had felt the wrench of parting with her only son, and had somehow temporarily buried her feelings by trying to help her homicide detective husband catch a murderer. But during the months that followed, the sense of loss had deepened. Even though Mike hadn’t lived at home for several years, his marriage had been a major life change for Judith. He and his bride worked as park rangers some four hundred miles away in Idaho, but they were due to be transferred. The new posting could take them almost anywhere in the fifty states, and Judith feared she wouldn’t see her son and his wife more than once a year. The hollow feeling wouldn’t go away, and Judith knew it was another reason she felt not only tired, but suddenly old.

  “When do you make your presentation?” Judith asked, forcing herself out of her reverie.

  “Friday,” Renie answered, no longer placid. “I told you, it’s just for a day. Can’t Arlene Rankers help you throw some crap together for these bozos? Bring her along. You’ll be up at the lodge for about six hours, and they’ll pay you three grand.”

  “Arlene’s getting ready for her annual jaunt to Palm Desert with Carl, and…three grand?” Judith’s jaw dropped.

  “Right.” The smirk in Renie’s voice was audible. “OTIOSE pays well. Why do you think I’m so anxious to peddle my pretty little proposals? I could make a bundle off these phone company phonies.”

  “Wow.” Judith leaned against the kitchen counter. “That would pay off our Christmas bills and then some. Six hours, right?”

  “Right. We can come and go together, because my presentation should take about two hours, plus Q&A, plus the usual yakkity-yak and glad-handing. You’ll get to see me work the room. It’ll be a whole new experience. I actually stay nice for several minutes at a time.”

  Judith couldn’t help but smile. Her cousin wasn’t famous for her even temper. “How many?” she asked, getting down to business.

  “Ten—six men, four women,” Renie answered, also sounding equally professional. “All their officers, plus the administrative assistant. I’ll make a list, just so you know the names. Executives are very touchy about being recognized correctly.”

  Judith nodded to herself. “Okay. You mentioned a lodge. Which one?”

  “Mountain Goat,” Renie replied. “It’s only an hour or so from town, so we should leave Friday morning around nine.”

  Judith knew the lodge, which was located on one of the state’s major mountain passes. “I can’t wait to tell Joe. He’ll be thrilled about the money. By the way, why did the other caterers back out?”

  There was a long pause. “Uh…I guess they’re sort of superstitious.”

  “What do you mean?” Judith’s voice had turned wary.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Renie said, sounding unnaturally jaunty. “Last year they had a staff assistant handle the catering at Mountain Goat Lodge. Barry Something-Or-Other, who was starting up his own business on the side. He…ah…disappeared.”

  “He disappeared?” Judith gasped into the receiver.

  “Yeah, well, he went out for cigarettes or something and never came back. Got to run, coz. See you later.”

  Renie hung up.

  Joe wasn’t excited about Judith’s bonanza. Indeed, Joe didn’t really hear her mention the OTIOSE catering job. He was uncharacteristically self-absorbed and depressed, though the reasons had nothing to do with his wife.

  “It’s these damned drive-bys,” he complained, accepting a stiff Scotch from Judith. “They’re always kids, both victims and perps, and sometim
es they’re innocent bystanders. The victims, I mean. God, it’s such a waste.” He loosened his tie and collapsed into a kitchen chair.

  Judith came up behind him and massaged his tense shoulders. “It’s sad. What are they trying to prove?”

  “That they belong.” Joe sighed. “It doesn’t matter that it’s a gang of punks just like themselves. They fit in somewhere, there’s a place for them, a niche they can’t find with family, because they don’t have any. Not a real family, I mean. They’re the new outcasts, and they can only prove their worth by blowing some other poor kid away.”

  “It’s an awfully stupid way to prove anything,” Judith said, turning back to the stove where mussels boiled in a big pot. “You usually catch them, though.”

  “That’s the frustrating part,” Joe said, taking a deep drink. “The perps end up in the slammer for fifteen, twenty years, wasting their young lives. What’s even worse is that the rest of them don’t learn by what happens to the ones we send away. There are times when I hate my job. Do you realize I could retire in three years?”

  Judith, who was draining the mussels into a colander, almost dropped the pot. She’d never heard Joe mention retirement before. “Do you want to?” she gulped.

  Joe sighed again, his green eyes troubled. “I’ve been thinking about it lately. Hell, I’ve been on the force for thirty-three years. Plenty of guys burn out by fifty-five. I’m past that already. I figure I’m lucky to have lasted this long.”

  So was Judith. Only in the five and a half years of her marriage to Joe had she been able to count on financial support from a spouse. During her nineteen years with the unemployed and unemployable Dan McMonigle, Judith had worked two jobs. By day she had served as a librarian, and at night, she had toiled behind the bar at the Meat and Mingle. The daytime and evening clientele neither met nor mingled. Most of the hard-fisted drinkers were lucky they could read the bar specials posted on a chalkboard set next to the blinking sign depicting a hula-skirted chipmunk.