old Grover mantra of finding something to laugh about even
when things got really grim.”
Judith knew what Renie meant. Grandma Grover, who
had endured her share of tragedy, had never, ever, lost her
ability to laugh. “Keep your pecker up,” she’d advised. “It’s
always better to laugh than to cry.” Such homely, even trite
counsel had been the family by-word, and it worked because
it was practiced rather than preached.
“I guess it’s this retirement thing,” Judith admitted.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 35
“And Mike getting married. Those are big life changes. You
can’t just shrug them off. You have to stop and think what
it all means.”
“You think I never think?” Renie was still trudging awkwardly, if gamely, around in the snow. “I think plenty. I
couldn’t be married to Bill if I didn’t think now and then.
He’d shoot me. Bill thinks all the time. But what I think now
is that you…Ooops!”
Renie slipped in the snow at the edge of the creek and
tumbled into the cold, swift-flowing water. Her shoulder
struck the steep bank on the other side, dislodging a great
chunk of snow. Judith rushed to her cousin’s aid.
“Damn!” Renie wailed. “I’m soaked!”
Judith tried to grab Renie’s hands, but their heavy gloves
impeded them. They grappled for several moments, with
Renie finally trying to gain some purchase on a boulder in
the creek. The water rushed past her knees as she struggled
into an upright position. Then a piece of loose ice hurtled
into her, and she fell into the opposite bank. This time a
veritable cloud of snow came loose from above the creek,
pelting Renie and showering chilly particles on Judith.
Renie swore, resurrecting every curse she’d learn at her
seagoing father’s knee. But she’d managed to get to her feet
and was slogging toward Judith.
“I’m going to catch pneumonia!” she shrieked. “I’ll die
before I can collect ten cents from OTIOSE!”
Judith, however, barely heard her cousin’s lamentations.
Her eyes were fixed on the far bank which now revealed a
gaping hole above the creek. Broken branches protruded
from each side, like long wooden fangs. Hazily, Judith
thought of the ice caves she and Renie had explored in their
youth a few miles from the family cabin. But this opening
wasn’t quite the same. It was much smaller, no bigger than
a hall closet, and not quite as high.
What made it remarkable was the body inside.
36 / Mary Daheim
Judith tried not to scream. She succeeded, and just stood
there while Renie collapsed against her shoulder. “Do you
have any spare underwear?” Renie murmured through chattering teeth.
Judith didn’t respond. She was transfixed. “Coz,” she finally
gulped, “I hate to mention this, but…” Gently, she held Renie
by the shoulders and turned her around. “Look.”
“Good God.” Renie sagged against Judith. “I don’t believe
it.”
The cousins stood together in silence for what seemed like
a very long time. The sun was setting, the clouds were rolling
in, and it was beginning to grow dark. At last, Judith and
Renie moved.
“I might as well get wet, too,” Judith sighed. She waded
into the creek and crossed the four-foot gap to the other side.
“Dare I ask what you’re doing?” Renie inquired in a bleak
voice.
“Ohhh,” Judith replied, sounding weary and haggard, “just
the usual cursory check. Whoever these poor bones belonged
to still possesses remnants of clothing.”
“Don’t touch anything!” Renie shouted. “Come on, get
back here! I’m turning blue!”
But Judith’s curiosity overwhelmed caution and consideration. “We can’t just run away. Besides, I wondered if…ah!”
She held up a wallet. “There’s more, scattered around the
ground.” Despite her aversion to being in such close quarters
with skeletal remains, Judith dug around in the snow and
ice. She found a keychain, a watch, a coin purse, and a soggy
notebook. Unable to convey so many small items in her big
gloves, she tossed each in turn to Renie, who stuffed them
into the pocket of her all-weather jacket.
Judith had kept the wallet in her own coat. After she was
satisfied that there was nothing else in the little cave except
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 37
the body, she recrossed the creek and stood next to Renie,
shivering and shaking with cold.
“Let’s not dawdle,” Judith said. “I feel like a freaking
popsicle.”
“I’m already dead,” Renie replied through stiff lips. “Can
we make it back to the lodge?”
The lodge, in fact, was less than a hundred yards away.
Still, it took the cousins over five minutes to get there. They
arrived in a numb, half-frozen state.
The fair-haired man with the round head that Judith had
noticed before lunch now stood in front of the stone fireplace
which he’d apparently just lighted. He turned jerkily when
the cousins entered the lobby.
“Sorry,” he said, waving both hands as if to shoo Judith
and Renie away. “This is a private gathering.”
“It’s me, Russell,” Renie said in a feeble voice. “Serena
Jones, remember?”
Russell whipped off his rimless glasses and peered at the
cousins. He was still wearing the glen plaid suit he’d had on
earlier in the day. Vaguely, Judith noticed that the suit was
blemished with grease spots. “Oh! Ms. Jones!” Russell exclaimed in astonishment. “Why are you so wet?”
“It’s a long story,” Renie said with an inquiring glance at
Judith. “We were…”
Judith’s response was to shove Renie toward the dining
room and kitchen. “First things first,” she muttered. “I can
barely walk or talk.”
There was a washer and dryer in an alcove off the kitchen.
The cousins undressed, rubbed themselves down with big
towels, and proceeded to do their laundry.
“I didn’t bring any extra clothes,” Judith said, the feeling
in her feet starting to return. The cousins were sitting in the
kitchen, each wrapped in the biggest towels they could find
in the supply room.
“I’ve got my good suit, but that’s it.” Renie fluffed up her
short, straight chestnut hair. “We can’t leave until our clothes
are dry.”
38 / Mary Daheim
“We can’t leave anyway until I get the food out,” Judith
said in frustration. “How am I going to do that wearing a
towel?”
“Nobody’s around. I’ll help. My stint’s over, and they
won’t see me. We could do it in the nude.”
“Yeah, right, and scare the OTIOSE executives half to
death.” Judith grimaced. Only now that her teeth had stopped
chattering and her limbs were responding was she able to
face up to their awful discovery. “None of the above are the
biggest problem, though.”
Renie sighed. “I know. I’ve been trying to forget about it.
Maybe we were hallucinating.”
“We weren’t.” Judith’s eyes wandered over to a telephone
that was set against the far wall. “We’ll have to notify the
authorities.”
“We could do that now,” Renie said, clumsily lighting a
cigarette. The raw redness in her skin was beginning to fade
and she had almost stopped shivering.
Given the circumstances, Judith refrained from criticizing
Renie’s newly acquired habit. Indeed, she could have used
a cigarette herself, not to mention a stiff drink. “Hang on for
a minute,” she said, gathering the towel around her and
walking over to the counter where she’d put the items she’d
collected from the little cave. “Maybe we can read some of
this stuff.”
The plain leather wallet was soaked, but Judith pried it
open and saw that most of its contents were either plastic or
encased in plasticene. “Here’s a driver’s license,” she said,
holding the laminated item under an overhead light above
the counter. “It’s in pretty good shape.”
“Better shape than its owner,” Renie remarked, rubbing at
her feet.
“I’m afraid so…Ohmigod!” With a stricken expression on
her oval face, Judith turned to Renie. “This belongs to Barry
Albert Newcombe!”
Renie slid off the tall stool where she’d been perched.
“Barry! The disappearing caterer! Holy Mother!”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 39
With shaking fingers, Judith rifled through credit cards
and other personal pieces of ID. “It’s him, all right. Some of
this stuff is paper, and it’s unreadable, but here are his
OTIOSE employee card, credit cards, gas cards, medical
enrollment card—the whole lot.” Still clutching the wallet
and the towel, Judith leaned against the counter.
“I guess,” Renie said in a subdued voice, “Barry’s not
missing anymore.”
Judith gave a single nod. “Are you going to call the cops
or shall I?”
“Why call the cops?” Renie objected, puffing frantically at
her cigarette. “We need an undertaker. Barry must have
gotten caught in the middle of a snowstorm and froze to
death.”
“We need a cop because he was a missing person,” Judith
persisted. “Besides,” she began, then made a face, “we need
a cop, because that’s what you do when you find a body.”
Renie winced. “I wonder if we should tell the rest of them
about Barry first. I mean, he belonged to them, not us.”
“We found him.” Judith chewed her lower lip. “Let’s call
and then you can tell them about Barry.”
“Me?” Renie placed a hand on her semiexposed chest and
gulped. “I didn’t find him. You did.”
“You fell and knocked down that big snow pack,” Judith
countered.
“I didn’t go crawling around inside the cave.”
“This is your big project.” Judith was beginning to get annoyed. “Where’s all that bravado you were showing off an
hour ago?”
“I don’t know,” Renie replied, gazing around the kitchen.
“Where is it?”
“Oooh…We’ll do it together. As usual.” She marched over
to the phone. “I’ll even call the cops.” She punched in 911.
A quavery voice answered on a crackling line. Judith
40 / Mary Daheim
could barely understand the woman—she guessed it was a
woman—at the other end. “I’m calling from Mountain Goat
Lodge,” Judith said, speaking more loudly and precisely than
usual. “We’ve found a corpse.”
“You want a Coors?” the voice said, sounding slightly
stronger. “This isn’t a tavern, it’s the county sheriff’s emergency line. Please hang up at once.”
The line went dead. “She thinks I’m a nut. Now what?”
“What?” Renie, who hadn’t heard the other half of the
conversation, looked bewildered.
“Never mind.” Irked, Judith redialed. The same voice
answered. “This isn’t a joke,” Judith shouted. “We have a
dead body at Mountain Goat Lodge.”
There was a long pause. Judith figured the woman in the
sheriff’s office was trying to figure out if this was a genuine
call. “Mountain Goat?” the woman finally said. “That’s not
our jurisdiction. Try the next county to the east.” She hung
up again.
“What is the next county to the east?” Judith demanded
of Renie.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Renie replied
in an irritated tone. “I’m going to put our wash in the dryer
while you figure out how to call the cops. You’re married to
one, for God’s sake, you ought to know.”
“I’ll try the forest service,” Judith said, trying to put a check
on her impatience. “Their number is posted by the phone.
If they used to own this property, they ought to know what
county it’s in.”
Renie’s eyebrows lifted in mock amazement. “A government agency knowing where they are? Who they are? What
they’re…”
As the connection was made, Judith made a shushing
gesture with her hand. But the voice on the other end was a
would care to leave a name and number…
Judith hung up before the message droned to its conclu- SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 41
sion. “What staff? I’ll bet there’s only one person in a snow
shelter next to the nearest restaurant.”
She was looking for a phone book when the man that
Renie had called Russell poked his head in the kitchen. “Excuse me,” he began, then gasped as he saw Judith adorned
in the towel. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were…ah…um…”
“Russell?” Judith made a reassuring gesture with her free
hand. “You work for the phone company. Do you know
where I can find a phone book?”
The ordinary question seemed to calm Russell. “Of course.
There’s one in the…er…surely it would be…um…have you
looked…ah…I’ve no idea.” His face began to turn a deep
red.
Judith put a hand to her shoulder-length silver-streaked
hair and rubbed furiously at her scalp. “Okay, okay. Tell me
this—how can I reach the local sheriff?”
Russell’s eyebrows rose above his rimless glasses. “You
dial 911, just as you would in the city.”
Judith shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. Maybe
the lines are crossed. Have you got another suggestion?”
“Ohhh…” Russell seemed at an utter loss. “I’m R&D, not
operations. Really, I’m not what you’d call…practical.”
Judith would have held her head with both hands if the
effort wouldn’t have caused her to drop the towel. “R&D?
What’s that? I know R&B is rhythm and blues, but…”
“Research and development.” Renie was back in the kitchen. “Russell Craven is vice president-R&D.” She nodded
at Russell. “Hi again. What county are we in?”
“County?” Russell’s thin fair ha
ir seemed to twitch. “Well,
I really couldn’t say…We are in one, though…I mean, we
have to be, don’t we? Counties are like that, sort of next to
each other and all…ah…Do you ladies need some clothing?”
Renie gave Russell a toothy grin. “Now there’s a helpful
42 / Mary Daheim
idea, Russell. We wouldn’t mind borrowing a few items for
just a bit. Let me see…” Renie glanced at Judith. “How about
asking Ava and…” She paused, gazing down at her own
towel-wrapped figure. “…Nadia. I think.”
“Yes. Yes.” Russell nodded enthusiastically. “Ava and Nadia. Shall I…?” He gestured at the door.
“You shall. And we thank you.” Renie cocked her head.
Russell started out the door, then turned back. “Oh! This
business about the sheriff…is it urgent?”
“It’ll keep,” Renie replied dryly.
Russell left. Five minutes later, Ava Aunuu was in the kitchen, hand-tooled leather suitcase in hand. “What
happened?” she asked, evincing what Judith took for actual
concern.
Renie introduced Judith to the woman who served as
OTIOSE’s vice president–information technology services.
The long-winded title didn’t mean much to Judith, but she
recalled that Ava was some kind of computer genius.
“We fell in the creek,” Renie explained. “You and my
cousin are about the same size, so when Russell Craven
suggested we borrow some clothes, I thought of you.”
“Sure,” Ava said, undoing the straps and flipping the locks
on her suitcase. “I brought extra everything along. There’s
underwear, too. I’m not really into clothes, but you never
know what can happen on one of these retreats.” Her brown
eyes danced with what might have been amusement—or
something less pleasant.
Judith picked up the first items she saw. A high-necked
blue sweater and navy slacks, almost exactly like the dark
green outfit Ava was wearing. “This’ll be great. Are you
sure…?” She gave Ava a questioning look.
“Well…” Ava reached into the suitcase and a removed a
red crewneck sweater and matching slacks. “How about
these? I’ll bet red’s your color.”
“It is.” Judith smiled. “Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t worry about returning them right away.” Ava’s
strong, handsome features seemed to radiate good will.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 43