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

do anything else foolish!”

Ava and Judith were about the same size and build. As

each woman put her weight on opposite sides of the door,

it appeared that the younger and more physically fit Ava had

the advantage. But Judith had Renie. The cousins finally

managed to triumph.

Ava turned a ravaged face on her pursuers. “Why do you

want to stop me? It’s none of your business!”

“Yes, it is.” Judith spoke through taut lips. “Unlike the rest

of you, we’re not indifferent to the sufferings of other people.

Besides, OTIOSE got us mixed up in all this. We couldn’t

get out of here free and clear if we wanted to.”

Ava, who had been backing away from the cousins, shook

her head. “I don’t care. It still has nothing to do with you.

Not really. Leave me alone.”

“No.” For emphasis, Judith sat down on one of the twin

beds while Renie closed the door. “Why waste your life? It’s

not worth it. OTIOSE isn’t worth it, and,” Judith went on,

raising her voice, “neither is Frank Killegrew.”

Ava’s dark eyes widened. “It’s not about Frank!” she

shouted.

“Oh, yes it is,” Judith said. “You know it is. It’s always

been about Frank. Given what I’ve come to understand about

the corporate world, it couldn’t be about anybody or anything else.”

“You know?” The words were whispered as Ava collapsed

into one of the armchairs.

Judith nodded. “I didn’t really figure it out until today,

when I saw how Frank reacted to Nadia’s death. He was

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truly devastated. I realized then that Nadia had in fact killed

herself. She’d taken the sleeping pills along with the gin and

committed suicide.”

“No!” Ava covered her face with her hands.

“Yes.” Judith nodded solemnly. “And you were about to

do the same thing. How, Ava? With a broken glass to slash

your wrists?”

Slowly, Ava’s hands fell away. “How did you guess?”

“There aren’t any more lethal medications around—that I

know of—and I didn’t think you could wrest Margo’s gun

away from her. You might have had better luck with Mannheimer’s rifle, though it would have caused a scene.” Judith

paused, waiting for Ava to regain some measure of calm.

“Do me a favor, will you? May I see your neck?”

Ava’s hands flew to the big collar of her blue sweater. “Oh!

How…? You couldn’t have…” She saw the determination

on Judith’s face and slowly pulled the collar down to reveal

dark bruises.

Judith nodded. “When you loaned me your clothes, you

insisted that I take the red outfit, which had a much lowercut neckline than either the blue one you’re wearing now or

the green one you wore earlier. It was a small but curious

point. Then I remembered that Friday, in the conference

room, Renie and I overheard something. We thought it was

lovemaking, but that was far from the truth. You were being

strangled by the same person who killed the others. At that

point, you suspected that Barry Newcombe was dead even

though we hadn’t yet found the body. You had a good idea

about who had killed him. Tell me, Ava, how did you get

Frank Killegrew to stop ?”

For a long, tense moment Ava didn’t answer. At last she

got up and went to the honor bar where she took out a can

of fruit juice. “I told him OTIOSE couldn’t survive without

me. That meant he couldn’t survive, either.” Ava turned a

dreary face to the cousins, then sat down again. “I had my

informants, I not only knew the changes OTIOSE would

254 / Mary Daheim

have to make in the future, but what WaCom and many of

the other companies planned to do to beat the competition.

Most of all, I could accomplish these goals for OTIOSE. I’d

also learned about the pending WaCom merger, and while

I didn’t tell him outright then, I’d hinted that it might come

up soon. Frank realized I was indispensable.” Ava made a

rueful face.

“None of the old-line telephone types have my background

in computers,” she continued. “Russell deals with ideas for

applications and products, what customers need and want,

rather than the actual means of making these things possible

through technology. Frank’s never understood the whole

computer concept—he’s still living in the sixties. Anyway,

he tried to pass off his attack as a fit of temper. Maybe he

heard you outside the conference room—I had no idea anyone was there, I was too horrified. But something suddenly

stopped him. That was when he promised me Ward’s job.”

Renie, who had settled into the other armchair, nodded.

“A bribe. But what about Ward?”

Ava leaned her head back in the chair. “The implication

was that Ward would succeed to the corner office. But I knew

better. Frank wasn’t going anywhere, he had no intention

of retiring. His whole scheme was to get the by-laws changed

and stay on for at least another five years. Frank, you see,

couldn’t let go of OTIOSE. It was his company, he’d founded

it, he’d staked everything he had on its survival.”

“And something he didn’t have,” Judith said wryly. “Money.

He’d used his wife’s fortune to bankroll OTIOSE, hadn’t

he? Is that why Patrice was going to divorce him?”

Ava sighed. “I’m not sure about that. Andrea and Patrice

were rather close. They’d gotten together several times lately,

apparently so Patrice could vent her rage.”

Judith thought back to Andrea’s daily planner noting the

luncheon and dinner dates with the boss’s wife. Though

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Patrice Killegrew was a shadowy figure, Judith could imagine

the woman’s fury.

Ava continued. “Andrea told me that Patrice only recently

discovered how little money she had left. Mrs. Killegrew was

the kind of corporate wife who did nothing for herself. A

housekeeper, cook, maid, chauffeur—the whole bit, including,

of course, financial advisors to handle her fortune. The Killegrews could afford all the help they wanted, because in the

beginning, they relied on her wealth, and later, when Frank

became a CEO, his base salary was around three hundred

thousand a year. But Patrice’s mistake was letting Frank hire

the advisors in the first place. In effect, he handled her

money, and ended up robbing her blind. When she found

out—I think it was at the end of the year when she actually

got off her elegant behind to talk to their accountant—she

went crazy. Patrice couldn’t bear to be poor. It was one thing

to have Frank be unfaithful to their marriage, it was something else for him to steal from her. I guess she threw him

out.”

“I guess she did,” Judith said. “We found some notes Nadia

had written to herself. There were references to someone

moving. It wasn’t her—she’d lived forever in an apartment

above downtown, and still did, according to the address on

the sleeping pill prescription. Thus, I assumed that Frank

was the one who was moving, and the logical conclusion

was that his wife had given him the thumb. He also had an

appointment with a law firm that specializes in divorce. Gene

knew about that, didn’t he?”

Ava, who had taken a sip of her juice, looked startled.

“Yes, I told him. How did you guess?”

Judith gave a modest shrug. “The slip of paper I mentioned