Snow Place to Die : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery
Mary Daheim
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…
1
TWO
FRIDAY DAWNED COLD and cloudy. Renie was
driving the Jones’s…
12
THREE
AS SHE’D PREDICTED, Renie’s presentation went
well. “There were the…
29
FOUR
“IT WAS ONE of those things you see, but you…
45
FIVE
A FEW MINUTES before eight, the cousins went
downstairs to…
61
SIX
NEITHER JUDITH NOR Renie screamed. Instead,
they held onto each…
77
SEVEN
IT WAS ALMOST midnight before Judith and Renie
finished recounting…
90
EIGHT
IN THE STRAINED atmosphere of the kitchen,
Judith felt the…
105
NINE
AVA BURIED HER face against Gene’s shoulder.
Max half-carried Nadia…
114
TEN
“HE PASSED OUT upstairs,” Max announced in a
tense voice.
129
ELEVEN
MAX AND WARD had decided to go out through
the…
145
TWELVE
EVERYBODY SCREAMED. GENE spilled his drink
on the Navajo rug,…
161
THIRTEEN
AFTER THE GAME hens and the bean dish had
been…
176
FOURTEEN
UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, it was natural for
everyone to assume…
193
FIFTEEN
“WHO ELSE WAS in the corridor last night?” Judith
asked…
206
SIXTEEN
“THIS…CAN’T…BE…happening,” Judith gasped. 221
SEVENTEEN
JUDITH AND RENIE both started to protest,
meanwhile backpedaling across…
233
246
JUDITH AND RENIE flattened themselves against
the wall, hopefully out…
NINETEEN
FRANK KILLEGREW WAS sulking. “Sh’almost shix,”
he mumbled. “Who drinksh…
266
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY MARY DAHEIM
COVER
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.”
1
2 / Mary Daheim
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
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 3
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 n
otice,”
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
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.
4 / Mary Daheim
“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 sevenforty-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?”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 5
“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 week- 6 / Mary Daheim
end 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 liv
ed 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
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 7
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