An Old Faithful Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

“Well, the snowcoaches are booked for months in advance, so he didn’t go that way. And you can’t rent a snowmobile in the park, you have to rent it outside or bring in one you own, and he was supposed to be a strong skier.…”

  “But to ski fifty miles!”

  “Tough, but not impossible. And he might have hitched a ride on a snowmobile, come to think of it.…”

  “We should find out,” Susan insisted.

  “You’re right.”

  “You’re going to help me investigate!” Susan grinned.

  “I can’t resist,” Kathleen answered with a smile. “Besides, this time I’ll get to be Hercule Poirot. You’ll run around and do all the legwork, and I shall sit back at the lodge and use the little gray cells—and nurse Bananas.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “ ‘Time to mourn later.’ That’s precisely what he said.” Susan was sitting up in bed, blankets wrapped around her knees, talking to Jed while he shaved in the adjacent bathroom.

  “And you think—”

  “I think this was a planned murder, a family-planned murder,” Susan said, not giving him a chance to finish his sentence. She bounced up, with more energy than she usually felt in the morning. “You know, Jed, this may be a lot like Murder on the Orient Express.”

  “I remember that movie.…”

  “It’s a book.”

  “I only saw the movie.” He wiped the last of the shaving cream off his face with a washcloth, and peered around the corner at his wife. “That’s the one where everyone in the family gets together to kill one person—they all stab him, right?”

  “Yes …”

  “But only one blow killed George Ericksen.…”

  “Not exactly like the book, Jed. I didn’t say that.”

  “But …”

  “What I’m thinking of is some sort of conspiracy. A murder that was planned by a group of people, carried out, and covered up by the entire group.”

  “But if they’re trying to cover up, why ask you to help solve it?” He pulled a heavy wool sweater over his flannel shirt.

  “Because they think I’m going to screw up the investigation in some way, or that my investigating will interfere with the official one, or something like that. They think I’m an incompetent bored housewife, with some sort of delusion that I can actually solve crimes. They’re banking on my bungling it.”

  “How can that be? They didn’t know you were going to be here to bungle up everything.”

  “What?” It was more a shriek than a question. “Are you saying that I can’t solve crimes? Don’t you remember—”

  “I remember. I just don’t understand how they could have planned on you … getting involved.”

  “Jed, of course they didn’t. They just found us here, and probably Chad told them about my investigations in the past, and they were smart enough to take advantage of the situation.” She frowned. “Why people think housewives are stupid … well, the only way to prove them wrong is to solve this,” she muttered, more to herself than her husband. “Kathleen and I were talking about it last night.”

  “Hon …”

  “I know. We’re here on vacation.” She smiled brightly at her husband. “Don’t worry. I’ll just poke around a little, ask a few questions. We’ll still have our vacation.” She glanced at the clock. “Look at the time. I’d better get dressed if we’re going to meet the kids for breakfast.” She started to do just that, getting up and yanking open drawers. “Why don’t you check on the kids?”

  “Good idea.” He headed out into the hall, completely undeceived by his wife. She was going to investigate, and she was going to do it seriously. One of the things that had impressed him about her when they first met was her determination, her ability to get things done despite obstacles. It had gotten them through more than one crisis in their lives; of course, it had also caused one or two. He frowned, almost running into Chad, who, since turning thirteen, had found it difficult to walk slowly.

  “Hi!”

  Jed looked at his son. It wasn’t like him to sound perky in the morning. “Hi, Chad. Where’s C.J.?”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped. “Who knows? Probably moping around somewhere.”

  “Well, Chad …” his father began.

  “I know. I know. He’s had a terrible shock, his grandfather’s been killed, et cetera, et cetera. It’s just that he’s so upset. I swear, Dad, he cried all night. I don’t know … maybe I’ll act like that when Pop dies, but … Oh, I don’t know.” Chad hung his head.

  Jed put his arm around his son’s shoulders; luckily, the boy hadn’t come into close contact with loss before, and he didn’t know how to accept it. “He’ll come out of it. Everyone deals with death in his own way. But, you know, it shouldn’t have to ruin your vacation. We could ask the Ericksens for another room switch. I’m sure they’d understand.…”

  Chad took a deep breath and looked his father straight in the eye. “I don’t desert my friends when they need me. I’ll stay where I am.”

  Chrissy and Heather’s appearance put a stop to the conversation before Jed had time to decide whether Chad’s response was admirable or just immature.

  “Hi, Dad … Chad. Where’s Mom? Aren’t we going to breakfast? I’m starving.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Henshaw.” Heather’s greeting was decidedly subdued; she was old enough to understand that certain things were expected of her in this situation. “ ’Bye, Chrissy. I’ll talk to you after breakfast.”

  “Okay. See you in the lobby in about an hour,” Chrissy agreed, as Heather turned and headed up the stairs. “She thinks she should be with her family right now,” she explained to her father.

  “That’s what C.J. thought,” Chad said, not to be outdone by the older teens.

  “So where is Mother? I’m really hungry.”

  “Right behind you,” Susan said, appearing in the doorway, skis in hand. “I thought you didn’t eat breakfast.”

  “All this skiing is making me hungry,” her daughter explained. “Are we going to ski over to the restaurant?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Good idea,” Jed chimed in. “I’ll just get my skis.…”

  The next few minutes were obviously going to be spent sorting through equipment. “I’ll go get a table for us all,” Susan volunteered, hurrying away before anyone could ask her help in their search for shoes, mittens, and all the other items one’s family can’t find without Mother. They should learn to do these things for themselves, she decided. Besides, she was hoping for a chance to speak with Kathleen; they had gotten tired before there was time to formulate a plan last night.

  “You mean this morning,” Jerry corrected her as she mentioned her errand, slipping in beside him at a large table. “I thought I was dreaming when Kath walked into the room carrying her skis at two a.m.!”

  “We—”

  “She’s not getting enough sleep, Sue. The baby keeps her up all night, and she absolutely refuses to give up skiing during the day.…”

  “She looks wonderful,” Susan insisted, managing to interrupt.

  Jerry stopped being the concerned husband long enough to beam at Susan. “She does, doesn’t she?”

  Susan just laughed, waving for the rest of her family to join her. “I assume we’re all eating breakfast together, aren’t we?”

  “Kathleen thought it might be a good idea. I came down early to get the table. I was afraid that we were taking the space reserved for the Ericksen family, but the waiter said that the lodge was arranging for them to eat privately.”

  The Henshaw family’s appearance was followed by Kathleen, cuddling little Bananas. Chloe followed, an infant seat, crocheted afghan, and half a dozen stuffed toys dangling from her arms.

  “Guess who’s starting cereal today?” the proud mother asked.

  “I’m not giving up my sausage and French toast for anyone,” Jed answered factiously, handing a bright red plush lobster that had fallen on the floor to Chloe. “I assume this is part of your
burden.”

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  Susan wasn’t delighted with the shy smile Chloe gave her husband. Or his response.

  “Why don’t you sit down right here.” He pulled out the seat next to him. “And we can just pile Bananas’s toys on the windowsill,” he suggested, helping to stow the equipment away.

  “Oh, Chloe, if you’re going to sit there, I think I’d better trade with Jed so Bananas and I are near his things. You don’t mind, do you, Jed?” Kathleen asked, oblivious to what she was doing. “And if Susan could sit on the other side of me, we won’t bother anyone with our little nursery … and we can talk,” she ended in a whisper to the other woman.

  Susan sat down, not looking at her husband. It was so tacky to gloat.

  “What are you going to do today?” she asked Kathleen, after giving her order to the waitress.

  “I’ve been thinking about spending some time in the lobby—it gives Bananas such an opportunity for mental stimulation.” She winked at her friend. “And I want to offer my condolences to Mrs. Ericksen. She only has her family here, which might be difficult for her, and she was so nice about Bananas. I feel it would be rude not to say anything, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely!” Susan was sure Kathleen would use the opportunity to gather information.

  “What are you … ?”

  “We’re going to Mystic Falls,” Jed announced, not allowing Kathleen to finish her question. “Chrissy, Chad, and I were just talking about it,” he added with a look at his wife.

  “One of the rangers told us that it’s a beautiful trail,” Chrissy insisted. “He might even be up that way today—at least that’s what he said,” she ended.

  “If it’s what the rangers recommend,” Susan said without even smiling at her daughter’s latest crush.

  “Mystic Falls … I heard … overheard … some people talking about that place while I was walking Bananas in the hallway last evening.” Chloe was very enthusiastic. “They said it was the most beautiful place they had been in the park. And that it was a nice ski trip up there!”

  “Well, this is your morning off,” Jerry reminded her.

  “If you would like to go with us …” Jed offered.

  Susan now regretted the space between them.

  “Oh, I would love to. If you don’t mind.” She looked anxiously at Susan.

  What else could she say? “We’d love to have you.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “I’ve been on skis since I was a little girl. In the part of Switzerland where I was brought up, this is the way we traveled to and from school and how we did our chores in the winter.”

  “You certainly look comfortable—which is more than I can say for any of us.” Jed followed his self-deprecating remark with an embarrassed grin.

  You should be embarrassed! Susan kept the accusation to herself. It wasn’t like Jed to act so infatuated with children—truly a girl young enough to be his daughter, as the cliché said. Susan stopped pushing herself and dropped behind her family. Heavy snow was falling from a gray sky, and as the rest of the group skied out of sight, Susan was left alone in the woods. She could hear the sound of nearby water rushing between rocks and ice floes, kept moving by the warmth of a nearby hot spring. There were gentle plops as snow piled on frozen branches, and bent them low enough to drop their load onto the ground. Her skis shush shushed along the parallel tracks in the snow between tall ponderosa pines. And suddenly nothing mattered. Not the Ericksens, not the murder, not her children’s adolescent angst, not Jed and Chloe. She was in the woods, and it was beautiful. She was smiling happily when a buffalo strolled onto the trail in front of her.

  She had been in the park for three days, she had read about the dangers of wild animals several times each day, rangers had been insistent and persistent, bringing up the subject repeatedly, warning and explaining. Now, faced with over a ton of shaggy brown animal less than twenty feet from her, she had no idea what to do. Fortunately, neither did the animal. Or maybe Susan appeared a little eccentric in her carefully chosen outfit. He looked her straight in the eye, snorted, then turned and walked back the way he had come.

  Susan watched his tail disappear through the trees, becoming aware of how her heart was pounding—and that there was something behind her. She forgot the skis on her feet and tried to spin around, succeeding only in falling. Expecting to discover another wild animal, she was overwhelmingly relieved to look up into the eyes of Darcy Ericksen.

  “Are you okay?”

  “There’s a buffalo,” Susan answered idiotically.

  “I saw it. Poor thing. It didn’t look like it was going to survive the winter, did it? Too old and too worn-out for this climate. Probably can’t walk through the high snow anymore and has to stick to the ski trails to get around while he tries to find food.”

  “You feel sorry for him!” This was a different outlook on her experience.

  “Yes. I know it’s sentimental—that good old Mother Nature renews herself by weeding out the weak and the old. But I feel badly when I see something like that. My father would have told me I was being foolish. And maybe I am.” He stared at the ground.

  “I was very sorry about your father. We all are,” Susan said, wondering if he was sad for the buffalo or for his father. Certainly the conversation she had heard last night had not been that of an intensely mourning son. She noticed his hands were shaking. “Are you okay?” She asked him the question he had asked her. “Are you out here alone?” She looked around. Wasn’t shaking hands one of the first symptoms of hypothermia? And she knew Darcy wasn’t a skier.…

  “I’m fine. It’s just that it’s been a … a difficult week.” Suddenly he looked at her with anguish in his eyes. “I can’t understand it.… I can’t understand where Randy has gone.”

  So it wasn’t his father’s death causing his distress. “Have you heard from him since he left?” Susan asked.

  “No. I’ve called and called—” he paused “—but nothing. All I get is that damn cheerful message on the answering machine. ‘Randy and Darcy are out having fun—or in having fun. Let us know who you are and maybe we can have fun togeth—’ ” He couldn’t go on. “We live together, you know,” he added.

  “You seemed to be very close,” Susan said softly. Darcy was leaning against a tree trunk now, and his shaking had become more intense. She was beginning to realize that she had to get him out of here. It was below freezing, certainly too cold to stand still for any length of time, and she had no idea how long Darcy had been outside. They had to turn around and get back to the lodge. She looked up the trail to the spot where she had last seen her family; they were probably more than a mile ahead. What would they think when she didn’t catch up at their next rest stop? They would come back to see if she was in trouble, of that she was sure, but if they didn’t find her in a short time, they couldn’t be sure she had returned to the lodge. What would they think? Where would they go? She glanced at Darcy; he was shivering. The decision was made for her.

  “Do you have a pencil or paper with you?”

  “What?” He looked at her as though she were hallucinating.

  “Something to write on. I want to leave a message for my family.”

  “Oh.” He scrambled through his pockets. “No. Just this.” He held up an extra ski glove. “I was pretty upset when I left. I just wanted to get outside. I didn’t think about bringing anything. I’m awfully thirsty.”

  “Here.” Susan gave him two small cans of apple juice that she had carried in her tiny belt pack. He needed them more than she did. She could always wet her throat with some snow. If only she could use it for paper and pencil, she thought, finding nothing more than a few tissues, Chap Stick, and sunscreen in the pack. Snow … She ripped a stick off one of the trees and used it to shape a few letters in the drift at the side of the trail.

  “Gone back to lodge,” Darcy read through chattering lips. “But they will pass right by. They won’t see it.”

  “Yes, they wil
l,” she insisted, unwinding the long red scarf from around her neck and using it to underline the message. “It’s sheltered under these trees; they will be here before the snow fills it in,” she said hopefully. “We’d better get along. I’ll follow you. We’ll probably be back in front of the fireplace before they find this.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Darcy looked terrible, but obediently he pushed off. And at the speed he was going, she would have little trouble keeping up.

  They skied the mile or so back to Morning Glory Pool slowly but without stopping. Darcy paused as they passed a place similar to where his father’s effigy had been found, and Susan thought he was upset by the location until she realized that he was exhausted and having trouble keeping his balance. The trail widened here, used daily by the many lodge guests, and Susan skied up beside the young man. His face was pale, but there were none of the white patches that, she had read, were the first indications of frostbite.

  “Are you cold?” Susan tried to ask the question casually.

  “My feet are freezing.”

  Susan remembered one book she had read recommending that cold feet should be tucked under the warm armpits of companion skiers. Her armpits were more than warm, she thought, realizing that she had been sweating profusely. Should she suggest such drastic action?

  “It’s beginning to snow more heavily. They’re not going to find your note,” Darcy announced.

  “They’ve probably read it already,” Susan said with substantially more cheerfulness than she felt. They weren’t going to find the note. They might not be heading back to the lodge. She tried not to think that she had left her family to wander around in the forest looking for her. She had no choice but to keep going now. “I’m hungry. Let’s hurry,” she urged, trying to make it sound like a casual request. Darcy was looking worse by the minute. She knew she couldn’t ski and hold him up at the same time. And she couldn’t leave him alone here; there might be animals around, trying to keep warm in the steam pouring from the earth.… She was being so stupid!

  “We can stand in the steam to warm up. Let’s take a break over there by that geyser.” She pointed with her ski pole to a spot where the trees overhung a small vent with steam pouring from the ground.