“The basement?” Renie offered.
“I don’t think so,” Judith said, straining to hear. “It seems
to be coming from outside.”
The sound grew fainter. Max jumped off the sofa. “Come
on! We’re going upstairs! Maybe we can see something from
the second-floor windows!”
They raced from the elevator to Max’s room, which was
closer than the cousins’. But once inside, they could see
nothing. It was dark, and the snow, which now consisted of
big, wet flakes, obliterated the landscape.
“Damn!” Max tugged the window open and leaned out.
“Listen!”
Judith and Renie practically fell over each other trying to
get close to the open window. Sure enough, they heard the
sound again.
“An engine, a motor,” Judith breathed.
“Look!” Renie was halfway over the sill, snow soaking her
sweatshirt. “A light!”
Judith and Max barely glimpsed the faint amber glow before it disappeared. The sound died away, too. The trio
continued to watch and listen. Close to five minutes passed
before anyone spoke.
“Damn!” Max swore again. “I don’t get it.” He gestured in
the direction where they’d seen the light, then closed the
window with a rattling bang.
Judith recalled where she and Renie had seen the light the
previous night. Their room was down the hall from Max’s,
at the end of the corridor. “We saw a light on this
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side of the lodge last night,” said Judith. “Is there a road in
that direction?”
Max looked thoughtful. “I think so, to the caretaker’s place.
But it’s got to be impassable. The only way you could get
through is with a snowmobile. They can go in just about
any conditions.”
“You wouldn’t need a road,” Renie said, more to herself
than the others.
“That’s right,” Max agreed. “If there’d been one here in
the lodge, we could have gotten out by now.”
Judith was wearing a curious expression. “There are skis
and all sorts of other winter sports equipment in the basement. I assume they’re rentals. Why isn’t there a snow-mobile?”
Max shrugged. “Liability, maybe. They can be dangerous
if you don’t know how to handle them. Some models go up
to a hundred and ten miles per hour.”
Judith took one last look out the window. All she could
see were the big, white flakes, falling softly onto the drifted
snow. It was very quiet.
But someone was out there. Judith’s logical mind told her
it couldn’t be the killer. The lodge had been locked up the
entire weekend. The blizzard had cut off access to all but the
highest windows. Yet nothing was impossible, not to
someone with murder in mind.
With a sudden jarring tremor, Judith wondered if they had
been looking for the killer in the wrong place.
FIFTEEN
“WHO ELSE WAS in the corridor last night?” Judith asked
Renie some two hours later after the cousins had done their
laundry and retired to their room. “Did you catch the part
about Max seeing someone when he tried to talk to Andrea
last night?”
Renie nodded. “You, of course, never saw him or anyone
else, you big fibber. Are you thinking Max may have seen
the mysterious stranger?”
“I’m not sure who—or what—Max saw,” Judith replied.
“Andrea’s room is at the far end of the hall. The lighting’s
pretty dim. Max seemed uncertain. I got the impression that
maybe he sensed rather than saw someone. It might have
been anyone, including the alleged outsider.”
“It could be done,” Renie asserted. “If someone climbed
up the side of the lodge, they could get in through one of
the second-or third-floor windows. A ladder, snowshoes,
ropes—whatever. If someone was determined to get in, they
could probably do it.”
Judith was sitting on the bed, chin on fists. “What’s the
risk factor? If seen inside the lodge, a stranger would automatically become the prime suspect.”
“But no one’s seen this phantom,” Renie pointed out. “This
is a big place, and for the most part, we’ve all
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tended to congregate together in two or three rooms. Look,”
Renie continued, perched on the edge of her twin bed, “Leon
and Andrea were probably killed within a couple of hours
of each other last night. Ward was murdered this afternoon.
Why couldn’t the killer have come in late last night, hidden
on the third floor or in the basement, and committed all
three murders before heading out again? The first time we
saw the light was early evening yesterday. We all heard the
laugh this afternoon, after Ward was killed. Now, midevening, we see another light, but not in the same place.
During the time the murders were committed, nobody—that
we know of—heard or saw anything outside. What does that
suggest?”
“I see your point,” Judith agreed. “Which is reassuring in
that it means the murderer may have finished his—or
her—grisly business. However,” she added on a heavy sigh,
“it also means that if the killer is an outsider, you and I don’t
have the foggiest notion of who it might be.”
Renie made a face. “Better to have an unknown homicidal
maniac wandering around the mountains than one of the
OTIOSE gang prowling the halls. I like outside; I really hate
inside.”
Judith got up and went to the honor bar where she removed a Pepsi for Renie and a diet 7-Up for herself. “I understand your reaction. But it doesn’t work for me.”
Renie looked mildly offended. “Why not?”
“Because,” Judith said, sitting back down on the bed, “it
doesn’t fit. I’ve been thinking this through for the last couple
of hours, and much as the outsider theory appeals to me,
the rest of the pieces don’t mesh. Barry was killed a year ago,
during the retreat. We find Barry, and suddenly other people
start dying. I’m convinced there’s a connection. Except for
the conferees, who could know we’d found his body?”
“Whoever is out there,” Renie replied.
“I don’t think so,” Judith said, though there was a tinge of
doubt in her voice. “We didn’t see any tracks in the
208 / Mary Daheim
snow when we went back the second time. And after that,
it started to snow pretty hard. I’m sure that little cave has
been covered up again. No, coz,” Judith said with a sad shake
of her head, “it doesn’t wash. I still think the killer is in the
lodge.”
“You want the killer to be inside,” Renie accused. “Otherwise, you couldn’t figure out whodunit.”
“Don’t say that, coz!” Judith shot Renie an angry look.
“I’m trying to use logic. Does it make sense that somebody
follows the OTIOSE conferees to Mountain Goat Lodge two
years in a row and starts killing them?” She didn’t wait for
Renie’s response. “Of course it doesn’t—it would be easier
and safer to do away with them in the city. If we knew why
Barry was killed in the first place, then we’d know why the
discovery of his body meant that Leon, Andrea, and Ward
also had to die. What is the common link between the four
of them? That’s what we should concentrate on.”
Renie sipped her Pepsi and considered. “First link—OTIOSE. They all worked for the same company, never mind at