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