do I make it stop?”
Renie sighed. “First off, you look in the little window to
see who’s calling you. Then you press a button that’ll keep
it from reringing. Those things are set up so that they keep
going off until you acknowledge that you’ve taken the call.”
“Oh.” Judith fished the pager out of her purse. “This is
hard to read.” She held the little device under the table lamp
next to her chair. “Drat. It’s my home number. It could be
Mother. I wonder what’s wrong? How do I answer this?”
“You can’t, without a phone,” Renie said, then brightened.
“This might be a good thing, coz. If it really is an emergency,
then maybe somebody will figure out that you can’t call
back.”
Judith looked askance. “Meanwhile, Mother is lying on the
floor of the toolshed with her dentures wedged in her gullet?”
“Something like that,” Renie murmured. “Now if it were
my mother, she would already have tried to page me about
fifty times. It’s a wonder she hasn’t given me a pager for my
birthday or Christmas. I keep hoping she won’t figure out
how they work. Her half-dozen phone calls a day are already
enough to make me nuts.”
Judith was well aware that Aunt Deb’s obsession with
134 / Mary Daheim
the telephone—and with Renie—went to extremes. But
Gertrude abhorred the phone and disdained the pager. She
wouldn’t try to contact Judith unless something serious had
happened.
“Now I’m worried,” Judith said, getting up and starting to
pace around the library.
“That makes a lot of sense,” said Renie. “You’re worried
about something that may or may not have happened and
about which you can do absolutely nothing. In the meantime,
we’re sitting here like…sitting ducks.”
Judith stopped pacing. “Meaning what?”
Renie laid her head back against the soft brown leather.
“Meaning that you and I are not OTIOSE employees. We
have nothing to gain by keeping our mouths shut. That, in
turn, means that the killer has nothing to lose by getting rid
of us. Now do you get it?”
Judith got it.
Lunch was a moribund meal. Judith and Renie served
sliced ham and turkey, three kinds of bread, four varieties of
cheese, what was left of the fresh fruit, and a pasta salad
prepared beforehand at Hillside Manor. For the most part,
the conferees picked at their food and kept conversation to
a minimum. Whatever had gone on during the damage
control meeting had markedly dampened their spirits.
“Poison,” Judith heard Nadia whisper. “What if we’re all
being poisoned?”
“We’d have keeled over by now,” Ward said, but he closely
inspected his ham.
“I don’t feel so good,” Russell said, and spit out a strawberry.
“Don’t be silly,” Margo remonstrated. “You’re imagining
things.”
“We have to eat to keep up our strength,” Killegrew declared. “Look at me, I’m not afraid.” He took a big bite out
of his sandwich to prove the point.
Judith returned to the kitchen. A few minutes later, after
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 135
the cousins had eaten their own turkey sandwiches, she
suggested that they check out Andrea’s room.
Renie grimaced. “Must we?”
“It’ll be okay. Gene covered Andrea with a sheet. We might
as well do it now. When I went into the dining room the
last time, it didn’t look as if anybody intended to stir for a
while.”
The cousins used the back stairs. As they’d guessed, Andrea’s door was unlocked. Upon entering, Judith and Renie
both paused, lost in morbid thought.
“Gruesome,” Renie whispered, gazing at the figure in the
bed.
Judith was examining the extra pillow, which had been
turned over to show the cosmetics smudges. “Andrea had
put on fresh makeup for Leon and some of it had gotten
smeared when she found out he was dead. But I knew there’d
vital piece of evidence. I hate to see it left lying out in the
open with an unlocked door.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Renie said faintly.
Judith folded her arms across her bosom. “I would, if I
thought it would help convict a killer.”
“Aren’t we in enough trouble already?”
“Not quite.” Gingerly, Judith slipped the case off the pillow.
“Oh, great!” Renie reeled around the room, accidentally
knocking Andrea’s briefcase off a shelf by the bathroom door.
Hastily, she bent down to pick it up.
“Keep that briefcase,” Judith ordered.
Renie stared. “You are deranged.”
“Endangered, not deranged. You said so yourself.” Judith
began to pull out drawers, then go through the small closet.
“We’re buying life insurance,” she said, opening Andrea’s
suitcase. “We’re taking whatever evidence we can find and
we’re going to stash it and then we’re going to threaten the
OTIOSE crew.”
“Good grief.” Renie had sat down on the spare twin
136 / Mary Daheim
bed. “What with? Margo’s gun, which we’ll wrestle away
from her in a dazzling display of martial arts?”
“No, of course not.” Finding nothing of interest in the
suitcase, Judith put it back in the closet. “We threaten them
with the evidence.”
“Which consists of one smudged pillowcase.” Renie shook
her head in a forlorn manner.
“So far.” Judith pointed to the briefcase. “We might find
something in there. Come on, help me collect the water
glasses and the sleeping pill bottle.”
“Fingerprints,” Renie said doggedly. “You’ll ruin any fingerprints.”
“No, I won’t,” Judith replied from the bathroom. “I’m very
carefully putting the glasses back in the paper wrappers they
were set out in by the staff. I’m also going through the
wastebasket.”
“I’m going through the window,” Renie said. “I wish I’d
never mentioned that we were about to be killed.”
The wastebasket yielded nothing except the paper covers
for the glassware and an empty plastic garbage bag. “Let’s
go,” Judith said, grabbing Andrea’s purse. “I’ve checked out
everything I can think of.”
Renie was still on the bed. “I think it’s safer to stay here
with Andrea. At least she’s not babbling like a self-destructive
idiot.”
“That’s because she already self-destructed.” Seeing Renie’s
curious look, Judith clarified her statement. “I don’t mean
suicide. I mean that something she did—or more likely
something she knew—caused her death. I’m guessing that
the same holds true for Barry and Leon.”
Reluctantly, Renie stood up. “If you’re referring to the exchange of gossip, I can see that with Andrea and Barry. But
not with Leon. Did he strike you as someone who would sit
aroun
d savoring juicy corporate tidbits?”
“No,” Judith admitted, “he didn’t. But I keep thinking of
that phrase somebody mentioned—‘Mooney’s Money.’
Money is always an excellent motive.”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 137
The cousins went out into the hall. “We’ve got to find a
good hiding place,” Judith said when they were in their own
room. “It’s too obvious to hide anything in here. Think, coz.”
“How about the safe?” Renie said off the top of her head.
“You can change the combination. Nobody will know.”
Judith beamed at Renie. “Perfect. Let’s check out the
briefcase and purse before we go back downstairs. If there’s
nothing of interest, we can put them back in Andrea’s room.”
They went through the black leather handbag first. Andrea’s wallet contained a great many credit cards and even
more business cards. There were also several receipts, apparently saved for the purpose of possible returns or for income
tax records.
“She hadn’t cleaned this out for a while,” Judith remarked.
“Most of this stuff goes back to November and December.
Wow!” She held up a small piece of paper. “Andrea bought
somebody a Rolex watch! A Christmas present for Alan,
maybe?”
“A bribe’s more like it,” Renie said, sorting through the
rest of the handbag. “Maybe Andrea was trying to buy her
husband’s fidelity.”
“This is kind of interesting,” Judith said, holding up another
receipt. “It’s from Thursday, and it’s for lunch at the Manhattan Grill. Andrea filled in all the tax-required info. Apparently, she treated Patrice Killegrew.”
“So? I imagine it doesn’t hurt to butter up the boss’s wife
now and then.” Renie dug deep into the leather handbag.
“Hey, I found another wallet. More keys, too. No wonder
this sucker’s so heavy…” Renie stared at the items in her
hand. “This is Barry’s stuff!”
Judith put Andrea’s wallet down on the bed. “I’ll be
darned. What about the notebook and the rest of it?”
“It’s all here.” Renie handed the weathered notebook to
Judith.
138 / Mary Daheim
For a few moments, Judith was silent. “These things were
meant to be found,” she said at last. “If Andrea was a suicide,
and the Leon Mooney affair story didn’t wash, then we were
supposed to believe that Andrea had killed Barry. Let me see
those keys.”
Renie handed over the ring that Judith had found in the
cave. “Six keys,” Judith said, spreading them out on the
counterpane. She pointed to the first key on the ring. “House
or apartment key, right? The next one’s the same type,
probably for a second lock. The big one’s a car key. It looks
a lot like the one to my Subaru. These three smaller ones
are—what? A gym locker? A filing cabinet? Luggage?”
“They could be any of those things,” said Renie, looking
puzzled. “What’s your point?”
“Did Barry have a car?”
“How would I know?” Renie sounded mildly annoyed,
then snapped her fingers. “He must have. How else could
he transport his catering supplies?”
“Okay.” Judith seemed satisfied. “So that big key would be
his. Where then is the key to the company van he drove to
Mountain Goat Lodge?”
“Maybe it’s still in the cave,” Renie suggested. “You might
have missed it.”
Judith shook her head. “Not possible. They left in that van,
with Nadia driving, remember?”
“Ah.” Enlightened, Renie smiled at Judith. “Good thinking.
So what you’re saying is that the killer made sure he—or
she—retrieved the van key from Barry after he was dead.”
“That’s right. Now we have to find out from Nadia who
gave her that key. And why.”
“Why what?” The puzzled expression returned to Renie’s
round face.
“If Barry had supposedly run off, he wouldn’t have left the
key behind,” Judith reasoned. “So how did the killer explain
having the key in his—or her—possession?”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 139
“Maybe,” Renie said, “we should go downstairs and leave
the rest of this stuff until later.”
“You mean we should get to Nadia while she’s still alive?”
Judith thought for a moment. “That’s not a bad idea, but I’d
like to finish our search so we can return this stuff in case
somebody else comes looking for it.”
The briefcase was full of what looked like personnel folders
along with Andrea’s notes, many of which had been taken
at the previous day’s meetings. “See what you make of these,”
Judith said, handing the notes to Renie. “I don’t speak corporate lingo.”
Renie scanned the handwritten pages. “Most of the references are about planning for the future. Frank’s vision for
OTIOSE, comments from the others, suggestions, ideas, all
that sort of thing. It’s pretty bland, if you ask me.”
“I did,” Judith replied absently, flipping through a fat daily
planner. Since it started with January first, there weren’t
many entries, and most of them struck Judith as routine. She
did, however, find Patrice Killegrew’s name written in three
times.
“Isn’t this too much buttering up?” she asked of Renie.
“Here’s dinner with Patrice on Wednesday, January third,
lunch on Friday, the fifth, and again last Thursday.” Judith
sifted through the receipts again. “I can find only the one
from the Manhattan Grill. Patrice must have treated on the
other two occasions. They lunched both times at that bistro
in the public market.”
“It might have something to do with Frank’s retirement,”
Renie said, removing several folders from the briefcase. “You
know, planning a big bash to honor the occasion.”
“Wouldn’t Nadia be involved in that?” Judith inquired.
“Well—yes, but sometimes human resources people get
sucked in, too.” Renie opened one of the folders. It was the
same one she had found on the podium in the conference
room. “Andrea played the horses?”
140 / Mary Daheim
“Why not? We do when we get the chance.” Judith put
the receipts back in Andrea’s wallet.
“I suppose she needed a vice besides Leon Mooney,” Renie
allowed. “He wouldn’t make me feel steeped in sin. Hey,
this is weird.” Renie had turned to the second page of material in the folder. “There’s another list, but it’s names and
titles and companies, along with a bunch of other really
strange stuff.”
Judith took the sheet of paper from Renie. The first listing
read, “Charles E. Fisher, vice president—customer services,
S.W. Com.; Oct. 8–10, Cascadia Hotel, Room 608, bouncy
blonde or redhead, no S&M.”
The cousins stared at each other. “Hookers.” Judith formed
the word silently. “Look at this—James L. blah-blah, assistant
vice present, blah-blah, Plymouth Hotel, blah-blah, Asian or
Hispanic, pl
umpish, into bondage. Here’s one that says,
African-American dressed as Little Miss Muffet, and right
below it is some guy who wants a tall Scandinavian wheatthrasher.”
Renie started to giggle. “Somebody was running a hooker
ring out of OTIOSE? That’s rich!”
Judith wasn’t laughing. “Andrea?” She wrinkled her nose.
“It’s possible, I suppose. In another life, she could have been
a madam.”
“No.” Renie grew serious. “Not Andrea, not any of these
top level female executives. They wouldn’t exploit other
women. I know I said that the sisterhood is a myth, but there
is a code. Prostitution isn’t part of it.”
“So this was planted along with Barry’s stuff?” Judith was
puzzled.
“Maybe.” Renie, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed,
rocked back and forth. “Or Andrea found it on the coffee
table where we left it and was going to take somebody to
task.”
Judith leafed through the remaining four pages in the
folder. There were more names and descriptions, similar to
the ones they’d originally thought belonged to race horses.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 141
“Bronze Beauty—long-legged, aloof, can dominate”;
“Crinkles—nicely padded, fun-loving, extensive costume
wardrobe, wigs, undergarments, etc.”; “Frangipani—exotic,
erotic, no funny stuff.”
The cousins, however, didn’t recognize any of the supposed clients’ names. They all appeared to be from out of
town, mostly from the officer corps, and almost exclusively
connected to the communications business.
“Who?” Judith demanded, handing the folder back to
Renie.
“In this bunch? I could only guess, which would get me
nowhere, because I wouldn’t put it past any of the men.”
Renie hesitated before putting the folder back into the
briefcase. “Evidence? Or not?”
Judith considered. “That folder seems to have a life of its
own. Let’s leave it and see what happens to it next. As long
as we know where it is now, maybe we can learn something
if it turns up somewhere else.”
Renie complied. “I might exclude Killegrew,” she said as
they headed back into the hall. “He wouldn’t dare dirty his
hands with this sort of thing.”
“He must know about it,” Judith said as they approached
Andrea’s door.
“Maybe not,” said Renie. “Maybe that was Andrea’s fatal