“They’ll find the stuff,” Judith replied, her eyes still on the
storm that raged outside the window. She sat up straight
and looked at Renie. “The folder was gone.”
“Folder?” Renie was momentarily puzzled. “Oh, the one
I found on the podium.” She nodded once. “You’re right.
Somebody had picked it up off the coffee table in the lobby
where we set up the bar.”
Judith’s high forehead was puckered in a frown. “I thought
Ava acted kind of odd about which clothes she wanted to
lend me.”
“Maybe. So what? The blue outfit might be her favorite.”
“Then why wasn’t she wearing it?”
“I don’t know,” Renie replied, slightly impatient. “What
difference does it make?”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 59
Judith didn’t reply immediately. “Would you know how
to fashion a garrote?” she asked after another brief silence.
“I think I could learn,” Renie said darkly. “Like about now.
Forget it, coz. This isn’t our problem.”
“If you knew how, I don’t imagine it would take much
strength.”
“I hope not. I’m feeling a little weak.” Renie glowered at
her cousin.
“But you need a stick or something, don’t you? Where
was the stick? I didn’t see anything like that.”
“If I had a stick, I know where I’d put it,” Renie said
between clenched teeth.
“What do you know about Barry Newcombe? Did you
ever meet him?”
“Good God.” Renie rubbed at one eye. “You’re hopeless.”
She tossed her cigarette butt into the fireplace and regarded
Judith with an indulgent expression. “Okay, I’ll play the game
if only because we can’t amuse ourselves by watching Cru-
sader Rabbit reruns on TV. Yes, I met Barry a couple of times,
a year ago last December, when I got called in on the annual
report. He seemed very nice, quite efficient, and otherwise
utterly unremarkable. I also talked to him on the phone.”
“Who did he work for?” Judith asked, adding more ice to
her glass.
“He was assigned to Margo in p.r. then, as a staff assistant.
But I think he’d been in human resources before that.”
“Andrea Piccoloni-Roth?” Judith was finally beginning to
put titles and departments with faces and names.
“That’s right. But I honestly don’t know much more about
him,” Renie admitted. “It appears that he didn’t intend to
make a career out of working at OTIOSE, or he wouldn’t
have started up the catering business on the side.”
Judith grew thoughtful. “How old was he?”
“Mid-twenties, blond, medium height, nice-looking. I didn’t
know until today that he was gay, but then I wouldn’t have
given it a thought if I had,” Renie said, slipping one
60 / Mary Daheim
more pretzel out of the little paper sack. “Quite a few of the
guys who are employed at lower management levels in corporations are gay.”
“So Barry wasn’t in a power position?” Judith asked as the
wind rattled the windows.
Renie ruffled her short hair. “Well—that depends. The
salaries at that level aren’t much, but somehow staff assistants, at least at OTIOSE, have some kind of abstruse clout.
They answer the phones, they run personal errands for the
bosses, they handle correspondence, they know all the gossip.
They can be a great source of information, which means their
importance goes far beyond their lowly titles and puny
paychecks.”
“Interesting,” Judith murmured. “Maybe that’s what got
Barry killed.”
Renie shuddered. “I hope not. I kind of like Nadia’s hermit
theory.”
“It’s comforting,” Judith allowed, then turned a dour face
to Renie. “The only problem is, I don’t believe it.”
FIVE
A FEW MINUTES before eight, the cousins went downstairs
to get some food. They had snooped around on the second
floor until they found a staircase that led from the west end
of the main corridor to a small hallway off the laundry room
and the rear entrance. A quick peek into the dining room
told them that the conferees had finished eating. Judging
from the hum of conversation, they had regrouped in the
lobby.
“Who tidied up?” Judith inquired, noting that the big
round table had been cleared away and the sideboard swept
clean.
“Nadia, I suppose,” Renie replied, opening the refrigerator.
“Maybe someone was kind enough to help her.”
The cousins loaded plates with ham and turkey sandwiches, raw vegetables, and what was left of the potato salad
Judith had made from Gertrude’s legendary recipe. They
were about to return upstairs when Ward Haugland entered
the kitchen.
“You’re still here, huh?” His smile was off-center and selfconscious. “I guess you can’t get out in this storm.”
“That’s right,” Renie replied. “We’re marooned. I don’t
suppose you’ve heard a weather forecast?”
61
62 / Mary Daheim
Ward shook his head. “Nope. There’s no radio or TV at
Mountain Goat. That’s one of the reasons we pick this place
for the retreats. Frank doesn’t want any pleasurecraft bobbing
around our corporate ship of state. Or something like that,”
he added with an uncertain frown.
Judith held up a hand, feeling like a grade-school pupil.
“Did you ever get hold of the police chief?”
Ward winced. “Not yet. The deputy chief called but Frank
won’t deal with him. He wants to go straight to the top.”
Judith bit her cheeks to keep from smiling. “I see. Well,
good luck. With a three-day weekend at hand, I suspect the
chief has gone off to ski in Canada. He usually does, during
the winter.”
Ward’s pale blue eyes widened. “You know the chief?”
Embarrassed, Judith coughed. “Ah—sort of. It’s a complicated story.” It wasn’t, of course, but Judith didn’t think it
was a good idea to mention that her husband was a homicide
detective. “We’ve…um…crossed paths from time to time.”
“Oh.” Ward seemed satisfied. “I’m sorry you folks got
stranded up here. I hope you realize that our meetings are
real confidential.” His off-center smile was apologetic.
Renie waved a hand. “Sure, Ward, I know how these retreats work. We’ll stay in our little tiny room and amuse
ourselves by watching each other’s faces sag with age.”
Ward didn’t seem to see the humor in Renie’s remark. His
long bony fingers fiddled with the belt loops on his khaki
pants. “I think there’s a game room in the basement. You
know—billiards, ping-pong, chess.”
“What fun.” Again, Renie’s irony was lost on OTIOSE’s
executive vice president.
Judith, however, decided to take advantage of Ward’s
hesitation. “What do you remember about Barry’s disappearance last year, Mr. Haugland?”
Ward, who had started for the refrigerator, paused in
midstep. “Barry? Shoot, I don’t recollect much about it.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 63
He took off and never came back. The only thing I remember
was the avocado dip.”
Judith frowned. “What about it?’
“That’s what he went out for,” Ward explained, opening
the refrigerator. “We had all these chips, and he’d made a
couple of special dips. But Margo or Max or somebody got