to faces, but she couldn’t keep from trying to figure out if
one of the ten people—or persons—who congregated in the
lobby looked like a murderer. Maybe they all did; certainly
each of them seemed to have the killer instinct.
“Drink ’em if you got ’em,” Frank Killegrew said, his usual
jocular manner tempered by a hint of anxiety. “I believe Ms.
Jones has some news for us.”
“I thought she’d already made her presentation,” Andrea
Piccoloni-Roth said in a waspish tone. “And why is she
wearing Nadia’s castoffs?”
“They’re not castoffs,” Nadia declared with a malevolent
look for Andrea. “Are you mocking me because I don’t make
as much money as you do?”
“Now, now,” said Killegrew. “Let’s get settled and hear
what Ms. Jones has to say.”
Margo, who had just accepted a very dry martini from Judith, stared at Renie. “You haven’t reneged on my color
scheme, have you?”
“Your color scheme!” Andrea exploded. “No wonder I
didn’t much like it!”
“It beats the crap out of the purple and pink you wanted,
Andrea,” growled Max Agasias, the simianlike marketing
head. “What the hell do you think we are, a bunch of fruity
florists?”
48 / Mary Daheim
“It wasn’t purple and pink, you idiot,” Andrea retorted. “It
was purple and gold. They’re regal colors, fit for kings and
queens.”
“Speaking of queens,” Ava began, “what do you suppose
happened to…?”
But Killegrew cut her off. He was standing in front of the
fireplace, Scotch and soda in hand, looking less like a corporate CEO and more like a building contractor in the casual
attire that tended to show off his impressive girth.
“As you know, the purpose of this retreat is to get away
from the workplace, to put some distance between ourselves
and what goes on in each of our shops, to reflect, to recreate,
to…” He paused and leaned toward Margo who was sitting
on a leather ottoman by the hearth. She whispered something
to him and he resumed speaking. “To revitalize ourselves.
Given those parameters and the current, often chaotic state
of the industry, we…”
“It’s an old speech,” Renie said behind her hand. “Margo
writes all of his public utterances. I actually got stuck listening
to one last Memorial Day. You’d have thought Frank won
the Korean War all by himself.”
“…feel compelled to do some soul-searching. But,” he added, lowering his voice and apparently ad-libbing, “we can’t
accomplish much if we’ve got a bunch of distractions. The
last hour or two should have been a time to relax in peace
and quiet. I mean, you can’t play golf in the snow.” He
paused to finger his belt buckle as dutiful laughter rose from
members of the audience. “Anyway, some things have been
going on around here that have gotten me a little frazzled.
I want to keep the ship on course. Before we settle in for the
rest of the weekend, I’d like an explanation. I’m sure it’s
nothing to worry about, but we’re here at Mountain Goat
Lodge because we don’t want to get this train side-tracked.
The moonshot’s got to land on target, right?” The smile he
gave Renie went no farther than his nose. “Ms. Jones, you’re
on.”
Renie, who looked as if she’d been stuffed into Nadia’s
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 49
sweater and slacks, moved in front of the fireplace. She hesitated, staring down at the flagstone hearth, then lifted her
head and let her eyes take in the entire gathering.
“We found Barry Newcombe this afternoon. He’d been
murdered. Thank you very much.” Renie stepped aside and
lit up a cigarette.
Frank Killegrew gasped; Nadia Weiss screamed; Max
Agasias swore; Andrea Piccoloni-Roth sagged in her chair;
Margo Chang protested Renie’s smoking; Russell Craven
asked, “Who’s Barry Newcombe?”
“I don’t get it,” Ward Haugland said, scratching his head.
“This sounds screwy.”
“I think,” Gene Jarman said carefully, “we need to have
this situation clarified. Ms. Jones?”
Renie related how she and Judith had accidentally uncovered the ice cave by the creek. Judith, in turn, told how
she had seen the garrote around the skeleton’s neck. Some
of her listeners reacted with skepticism.
“That’s crazy,” asserted Ward Haugland. “It must have
been a joke. Somebody did that after poor Barry died.”
“Hikers, probably,” said Killegrew, though his fingers
shook as he picked up his slide rule. “They can be strange.
A lot of them are ex-hippies.”
“Excuse me,” put in Margo. “I don’t think that makes sense,
Frank. Who would find a body and make a joke out of it?
Why didn’t they call in a forest ranger? No, I’m afraid Ms.
Jones’s cousin is right.”
“Poor Barry!” Andrea was still reeling in her chair. “He
was so sweet! Do you remember the duck pate he left for
us? It was divine.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Margo snapped. “You ate all
of it.”
“Did I ever meet Barry Newcombe?” Russell Craven asked
in a bewildered voice.
Killegrew intervened before the two women could go at
it again. “Let’s not get derailed,” he urged. “We don’t want
to go off on a sideline and miss the depot.”
50 / Mary Daheim
“What the hell happened?” Max demanded from his place
behind a big wood and leather sofa. “Barry took off here
around two in the afternoon. Did somebody jump him outside?”
“He didn’t take the van.” The speaker, who had been silent
until now, was the gnarled little man Renie had identified
as Leon Mooney.
All eyes turned to the vice president and comptroller.
“That’s true,” said Ava. “Or if he did, he came back and then
disappeared.”
“We thought he’d walked to the store at the summit,” Ward
said. “It was a mighty funny thing to do, but Barry was a
great walker.”
A dozen questions flashed through Judith’s mind, but it
wasn’t her place to ask them. Renie, however, possessed the
corporate cachet. “How long was it before you realized he
was missing?”
Glances were exchanged; several people shrugged. “A
couple of hours?” Max finally offered.
“It was at dinner,” Andrea said. “Actually, it was before
dinner. We expected Barry to serve as bartender. When he
didn’t show up, Gene stood in for him.”
Gene Jarman uttered a self-deprecating laugh. “I’d tended
bar while I worked my way through Stanford Law School.”
He lifted one shoulder in a dismissive gesture, as if to suggest
that those degrading days were far, far behind him.
Judith couldn’t resist. “What did you do when Barry never
showed?”
The others looked at her in mild astonishment. “We carried
on,” Margo said. “We figured he’d…had one of his whims.”
“All that’s behind us,” Killegrew declared before Judith
could speak again. “Let’s get this tugboat hooked up to the
barge. The question is, what do we do now?” His glance
lighted on Gene Jarman.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 51
Gene tugged at one earlobe. “The authorities must be notified.” He gazed at Judith and Renie. “Or has that already
been done?”
“We tried,” Renie said. “There seems to be some confusion