Mary Daheim - Snow Place to Die - A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery

didn’t hear the kitchen extension.”

“So what good does it do us?” asked Renie. “Now we’re

shut up in here.”

“With a much simpler lock,” Judith called out over the

flushing of the toilet. “The only problem is, we don’t have

access to a phone on this floor. I forgot about that.”

“Crazy,” Renie muttered. “What did you mean when you

said ‘bathroom’?”

Judith was washing her hands. “What? I can’t hear you.”

“Never mind.” Renie collapsed onto the bed and lit a cigarette. “I’m sure I’ll find out.”

Judith entered the bedroom. “I’m glad Mother is okay. It

sounds as if I’ll lose some money with the cancellations, but

I can’t do anything about that. And, as usual, Arlene is

coping very well.”

“It’s a good thing this is a three-day weekend,” Renie

pointed out. “Bill doesn’t have to teach and nobody has to

work. Maybe by Tuesday, things will get back to normal.”

A knock sounded at the door. Ava and Max had arrived

with chicken salad sandwiches, chips, and the carrot and

celery sticks Judith had cut up early Friday morning. Only

two days had passed since then, but to Judith, it felt like

much more.

The cousins thanked Max and Ava, who both seemed extremely subdued. “How’s everyone doing?” Judith asked, her

usual compassion surfacing.

“Lousy,” Max retorted. “Honest to God, we have this sense

of impending doom.”

“But Max,” Ava said, giving his sleeve a little tug, “it is

melting. By tomorrow morning, I’ll bet we can get out of

here.”

“Tomorrow’s a long way off,” Max replied in a grim voice.

“I won’t go to my room tonight. I’ll stay up, and insist that

everybody else does, too. We can take turns

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sleeping on those sofas in the lobby. Three on guard duty,

three catching some Z’s. The buddy system was a bust.”

“That’s because we’re not used to doing things in pairs,”

Ava pointed out, then turned to the cousins. “I mean, we’re

executives, we’re used to being independent and going our

separate ways.”

“No teamwork, huh?” said Renie. “Every man—sorry, every

person —for him or herself.”

“Well,” Ava said lamely, “we do tend to think mostly in

terms of our own departments. You have to. Otherwise,

you’d get shortchanged on personnel, budget, even floor

space and office equipment.”

“Don’t I know it?” Max muttered, starting back into the

corridor. “As Frank would say, you have to chart your own

course.”

“But he also says we have to row together,” Ava countered,

following Max down the hall. “When you’re at the top, like

Frank is, you can see the big…”

Renie closed the door. “I can’t stand another word of that

crap,” she declared. “They’ve got dead bodies all over the

place, the company may be in ruins, they’re all scared out

of their wits—and they still talk the corporate line. It’s sickening.”

Judith wasn’t really listening to Renie. After taking a couple

of bites of her sandwich, she asked her cousin to make sure

the coast was clear in the corridor.

Renie opened the door again. “They’re gone. So what?”

Judith gave Renie a baleful look. “They didn’t lock the

door. Either Max and Ava don’t think we’re dangerous, or

they know we’re not. Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Renie was looking blank.

“The bathroom, remember?” Judith breezed past her

cousin.

“What bathroom? I thought you—oh, never mind.” Renie

trotted behind Judith as they covered the length of the corridor until they reached Leon’s room.

In the struggle to get Killegrew and Russell out of the

242 / Mary Daheim

room and away from Nadia’s corpse, no one had thought

to lock Leon’s door, either. Judith marched right inside,

though Renie lingered briefly on the threshold.

“How many times do we have to view the body?” Renie

asked.

“Avert your eyes,” Judith called over her shoulder as she

went into the bathroom. “At least they already moved Andrea

upstairs.”

With a sigh of resignation, Renie followed. Judith was

pushing back the nylon shower curtain.

“Don’t tell me…” Renie began with a gasp.

Judith shook her head. “No body. Just…the files.”

Several folders covered the empty tub. Judith picked them

up, handing the first batch to Renie. “They had to be somewhere,” Judith said. “It dawned on me that along with Andrea, Nadia knew Barry Newcombe fairly well. Let’s say that

Barry was privy to some of the items in Andrea’s private

files. He worked for her, didn’t he?”

Renie nodded. “Barry might have snooped. Clerks often

do.”

“Okay. So Barry might have passed something juicy on to

someone else. Why not Nadia? Since he was in the business

of bartering gossip, she’d be a likely client because she’d

know what was happening on the executive floor. Let’s say

Nadia got an inkling that more was to come—except Barry

never got the chance to pass the rest of it on. In the normal

course of events at work, Nadia couldn’t get at Andrea’s

private files. But once Andrea was dead, Nadia seized an

opportunity. That must be who Max saw in the corridor

Friday night. Nadia must have beaten him to the punch by

just a few minutes.”

Renie was looking skeptical. “How did Nadia know Andrea

had those files with her?”

Judith waved a hand. “Andrea was dropping hints, especially about the hooker files. I suspect she was passing tidbits

on to the others as well. Gene and Russell and even

SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 243

Nadia were being clobbered with some of that data. It had

to come from somewhere.”

The files were somewhat damp, but otherwise appeared

to be intact. The cousins gathered up the folders and hurried

back to their own room, and this time, they locked the door

from the inside.

“The hooker file!” Renie cried. “It’s right on top!”

“Good,” Judith responded, fingering the tabs on the other

folders. “There are files for each of the conferees, including

Andrea. Does that strike you as odd?”

Renie, however, shook her head. “I’ll bet it’s full of stuff

she heard people say about her. Not true necessarily, but

potentially damaging.”

“Corporate paranoia and skullduggery never cease to amaze

me,” Judith marveled. “Shall we start with Ward? He’s first.”

On a gray, wet January afternoon, what little light there

was began to die away shortly after three o’clock. The cousins

had to turn on the bedside lamps before they completed the

dossiers on Ward, Gene, Nadia, Russell, Max, Margo, Leon,

Ava, and Andrea’s own much slimmer folder. Judith and

Renie had learned very little that they hadn’t already heard.

“So what if Ava had had a youthful, unhappy marriage

before she left Samoa?” Renie shrugged. “Russell collects

dead bugs. Big deal. Margo supposedly slept with everybody.

Naturally, Andrea would want to believe that. Ward’s wife

was an albatross. Andrea had fingered Max for running the

hooker ring. No surprise there, either. I’m getting bored.”

“Leon was devoted to his mother,” Judith said, flipping

through the chief financial officer’s file. “He was very secretive

about his personal and his professional life. Obviously, the