Gene cleared his throat. “Let’s back up a moment, please.”
He turned to Nadia, whose eyes seemed to have grown as
large as the big glasses she wore over them. “Does this account agree with what you recall so far?”
“Yes.” Nadia’s voice was toneless.
“All right.” Gene offered Ava a slight smile of encouragement. “Do you have the note with you?”
Ava shook her head. “I remembered what you said last
night about not touching anything. I left it on the nightstand.”
“What did it say?”
Ava swallowed hard. “It said, ‘Leon, I’m coming to join
you.’”
“Did you recognize Andrea’s handwriting?”
“Not really,” Ava admitted, “but Nadia did. She’d come
all the way into the room when she saw I had trouble waking
Andrea.”
Gene turned again to Nadia. “You’re certain it was Andrea’s writing?”
“Yes,” Nadia answered, still without inflection. “I’ve
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 117
seen it many times. She often sent Frank handwritten notes.”
“What did you do next?” Gene asked Ava.
Ava put a hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure. I think we
both realized at the same time that Andrea was dead. We
ran out of the room and came down here.”
Gene sought corroboration from Nadia, who nodded. “We
may have screamed,” she said. “It was so…ghastly.” Nadia
shuddered at the memory.
“In other words,” Gene mused, “Andrea is still lying up
there in bed…dead.”
“I haven’t heard her walking around,” Margo snapped.
“What’s wrong with everybody? Can’t this crew accept the
facts? ”
“Sleeping pills,” murmured Russell. “Did you say Andrea
took sleeping pills?”
“Sometimes she did,” Nadia said. “Last night she offered
me one, but I have my own prescription. I can hardly blame
Andrea for taking something to help her sleep. She was so
upset.”
Ward stretched out his long legs. “Could it have been an
accident?” he asked.
“Not with that note,” Killegrew put in. “My God, I had no
idea she and Leon were…so close. Sometimes,” he added
darkly, “I wonder what really goes on behind my back in
this company. Sometimes I think the caboose is running this
ship.”
“I think you mean ‘train.’” Margo’s tone was mocking.
Killegrew glowered at her, but said nothing. Indeed, no
one responded until Gene spoke again. “Someone will have
to go up there and check things out. I suppose I should do
it, since I’m the legal counsel.” He grimaced, then uttered a
choked little laugh. “Max, would you come along? We’d
better stick to the buddy system.”
Max, however, demurred. “I already helped cart Leon upstairs, for which the cops are going to jump me. Count me
out on this one.”
118 / Mary Daheim
“Remember,” said Russell in a small voice, “I’m squeamish.”
“I wouldn’t go near that room for a billion dollars,” Margo
declared.
“I’ll go.” Judith was so surprised by her impulsive announcement that she hardly recognized her own voice.
“I don’t think that’s a…” Ward began.
“Good idea,” interrupted Killegrew. “It’s probably smart
to have an outsider on hand for something like this.”
In other words, Judith thought with a sinking feeling,
there’d be someone else to blame. But she’d opened her mouth
and put her foot into it. As a flummoxed Renie watched,
Judith accompanied Gene to the elevator.
“This might not be pleasant,” Gene said as they moved up
to the second floor.
“I’ve done it before,” Judith said without thinking.
“Of course. Leon. And Barry.” Mournfully, Gene shook
his head.
“Yes,” Judith agreed hastily. “Leon and Barry.” It wouldn’t
do to enumerate a few other corpses she’d stumbled across
in the past.
The door to Andrea’s room was wide open. Judith quickly
calculated that it was the same room she and Renie had first
tried the previous night. As they had guessed, Andrea had
been waiting for Leon in his room.
Gene stepped aside to let Judith enter first. She found
herself tiptoeing, but stopped abruptly when she saw Andrea
lying peacefully on the bed. The dead woman could have
been asleep; only her head and shoulders were exposed.
Andrea was on her back, with the silver hair splayed out on
the pillow. Her plump face seemed blotchy, perhaps bruised.
Remembering that Andrea was a fellow Catholic, Judith
crossed herself and said a silent prayer.
“Poor woman,” Gene said softly. “Suicide’s such a desperate act.”
Judith turned sharply. “It is. Andrea didn’t strike me as a
desperate woman.”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 119
“You never know what people are really like,” Gene remarked, coming around to study the nightstand that stood
between the twin beds. “Ah—here’s the note and the empty
pill bottle. Halcion, made out to Andrea Piccoloni-Roth last
month. It’s a popular prescription sleeping drug, I believe.”
“Yes.” Judith’s mind was racing. On the other bed lay the
extra pillow, which had been removed from under the spread.
“What do you think of that note?” Judith asked, coming
around to join Gene.
The company attorney kept his hands carefully pressed
against his sides. “It’s clear, isn’t it?”
“In what way?” Judith queried.
Judging from the scowl on Gene’s face, he didn’t like being
on the other end of questions. “Andrea couldn’t live without
Leon. What else could it mean?”
Judith said nothing. She stared again at the pillow on the
empty bed. “Where’s the water glass?” she asked.
“What water glass?” Gene sounded annoyed.
Judith pointed to the pill bottle. “There’s no sign of a glass
on the nightstand. Why would anyone take a bunch of
sleeping tablets without water?” Judith didn’t wait for a response, but went into the bathroom. “The glass is in here,”
she called. “Two glasses, in fact. One’s clean, the other has
a bit of water in the bottom.”
Gene had moved to the bathroom door. The scowl was
gone, but he looked puzzled. “What’s your point?”
A sudden, paralyzing fear gripped Judith. She didn’t know
Gene Jarman. He seemed like a diligent, somewhat stiffnecked man who had brought himself up by the bootstraps.
Yet his very success was evidence of not just ambition and
determination, but perhaps ruthlessness as well. The same
might be said of all the OTIOSE executives. And one of them
was a killer. It could be Eugene Jarman, Jr.
“Nothing,” Judith said in a careless voice. “I was just
speculating.”
120 / Mary Daheim
“Is there anything unusual in the bathroom?” he inquired,
gazing around the small but economical space.
“No.” Judith started to come back into the other room;
Gene stepped aside. “Have you noticed anything we should
report on?” Judith asked in an unusually meek voice.
Gene didn’t answer right away. He was standing at the
foot of the bed, staring morosely at Andrea. “She was a nice
woman, if you didn’t cross swords with her. Then she could
be a real tiger.” He moved between the beds. “I shouldn’t do
this, but I feel I must.” Carefully, he lifted the sheet and pulled