doorway. Judith noted that the branch or piece of roof or
whatever it was that had fallen onto the drift was moving
downward and forward.
“Watch out for that thing,” she said with a warning poke
for Renie. “It’s starting to slide. It might be something heavy.”
It was. As Judith and Renie watched with a sickening sense
of horror, they saw the body of Ward Haugland skid from
the top of the snowbank and fall on the flagstones with a
dull, dead thud.
TWELVE
EVERYBODY SCREAMED. GENE spilled his drink on the Navajo
rug, Margo reached for her gun, Max dropped a gin bottle,
which smashed on the flagstone hearth, and Frank Killegrew
leaped from the sofa so fast that his pants ripped. Ava slid
off the footstool, just missing the broken glass from the bottle
that had slipped from Max’s hands. Nadia and Russell
swayed in their respective places with eyes shut tight and
expressions frozen in grotesque masks.
“Ward!”
“Is he…?”
“God!”
“No! No! No!”
“How…?”
“Save us! Somebody, please!”
“I’m going to throw up now.”
Bedlam reigned for the next few minutes. Judith and Renie
scrambled out of the way, slipping and sliding on the wet
floor. Ward Haugland stared at them from wide, lifeless eyes.
The cousins finally staggered toward the cluster of sofas.
Gene, whose normal composure now seemed completely
shredded, took a few hesitant steps towards the latest victim.
“Madness,” he muttered. “Where will it
161
162 / Mary Daheim
all end?” He stopped, some ten feet away from Ward.
Max joined Gene. “What the hell…?” Max said under his
breath. “I don’t get it.”
“His room,” Judith said thickly. “Where is his room?”
Max and Gene looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Maybe, she thought dazedly, she had. “His room,” she repeated, more clearly. “Wouldn’t Ward’s room be above the
front entrance? It’s in the middle of the second-floor corridor.”
Comprehension dawned on Gene. “I see. You mean…”
He stopped, then shook his head. “That’s terrible.”
“What are you jabbering about?” Killegrew demanded.
“Speak up, dammit!”
Gene turned to face his CEO. “Ward’s room is right above
the entrance. Whoever killed him must have pushed him out
the window.”
“That’s why it was so cold in there,” Renie said under her
breath. “The window had been open.”
“Ridiculous,” scoffed Killegrew. “Ward must have jumped.
It’s another suicide.”
“Jeeesus!” screeched Margo. “Who would try to commit
suicide by jumping out a window into a snowbank? Get over
it, Frank—Andrea didn’t kill herself and neither did Ward.”
“Then how did he die?” Ava asked, clinging to the footstool.
With small, creeping steps, Max and Gene moved forward.
“We really shouldn’t touch the…” Gene began.
“Stick it up your backside,” Max growled. “We have to find
out what happened and we can’t leave poor old Ward lying
here like a doorstop.”
“Close that door!” Killegrew ordered in a savage voice.
“We’re never going to shovel through that stuff! It’s getting
dark, it’s too late. Besides, this place is a mess. Look at that
floor!”
Naturally, everybody looked at Ward. “Gee, Frank,”
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 163
Margo said, at her most sarcastic, “you’re right, as usual.
Having Ward’s corpse cluttering up the flagstones is pretty
darned unsightly. How come we can’t keep this vessel shipshape and trim-tidy?”
“Margo,” Killegrew roared, “I’ve just about had enough
out of you!”
“You sure have,” she shot back. “All my speeches, all my
words, all my vast vocabulary. If it weren’t for me, you’d be
reciting catch-phrases off of gas station reader boards.”
“Good God Almighty!” The words were torn out of Max’s
throat as he and Gene bent over the body. “It’s a garrote!
Just like—” He jabbed a finger at Judith and Renie. “—they
said about Barry!”
Several people gasped, including Judith, who edged forward. Bending down to peer between Gene and Max, she
saw what looked like a leather belt twisted around Ward
Haugland’s neck. But something was missing. There was no
stick. Judith said nothing, but she had to wonder why.
The unease in the lobby was palpable. Every person in the
room seemed to be casting wary glances in the direction of
everyone else. Margo was hugging her suede handbag, but
fear flickered in her dark eyes.
“Close that door, I said.” Frank Killegrew’s voice sounded
hoarse. “Now! I feel a draft!”
“It’s the hole in your pants, Frank,” said Margo. “Aren’t
you a little old to have pictures on your underwear?”
Killegrew turned crimson. “Close that door!”
Nobody moved. Gene cleared his throat. “We have to face
facts. One of us is a killer. There’s no one else here.”
“Did any of you hear me?” Killegrew roared. “For the last
time, close that damned door!”
Max finally went to the door and gave it a tug. “I can’t,”
he said in a helpless voice. “There’s too much snow blocking
it.”
Someone laughed. The sound did not come from the
164 / Mary Daheim
lobby. It came from outside, drifting in over the snowbank
and echoing off the knotty pine walls.
The listeners inside the lodge were too stunned to scream,
too scared to move. They just stood there, open-mouthed
and terrified.
Then, their little world became suddenly, ominously silent.
Judith and Renie had taken their very stiff drinks into the
library. “They think we did it,” Judith said. “They think we
have an accomplice outside.”
“Do we?” Renie saw Judith’s puzzled expression, and
continued. “I mean, is someone out there who might be the
killer?”
Judith propped her chin on her fists. “It’s possible. But
hasn’t the lodge been locked until now? And how would
anybody get through the snow? If we can’t get out, who
could get in?”
“It’s crazy,” Renie responded. “But somebody’s out there.
Who the hell is it?”
Wearily, Judith shook her head. “I can’t imagine. The
caretaker? He’d have keys.”
“His place is a half-mile from here,” Renie said. “Keys or
no keys, he’d still have to get through the snow. And what
would bring him out in this awful weather when he’s been
ordered to stay away?”
Judith didn’t answer immediately. In the lobby, she knew
that Max and Gene were removing Ward Haugland’s body
and taking it up to the third floor to join Leon Mooney. Frank
and Nadia had gone upstairs so that she could mend his
pants with her sewing kit.
“Who is the caretaker?” Judith finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Renie responded, stoking up the fire which
had been about to die out. “Somebody hired by the lodge,
I suppose.”
“His place is a half-mile which way?” asked Judith.
“I don’t know that, either.” Renie was getting crabby.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 165
“Let’s find out,” Judith said, taking a big swig of Scotch.
“How?” Renie was still irritated.