The dictionary was passed to Alex and he opened it about halfway, which I knew was the S-T section. The back of the book is a law dictionary. I planned to use that part when my turn came.
Alex chose schiltron. This stumped me for a moment and then I remembered what he was reading at bedtime. It was a book about historic war strategies. I had glanced at the back cover and it had mentioned the schiltron. It had something to do with William Wallace. Or Waterloo. I looked down at Blue, letting my mind wander at will since forcing it in a straight line doesn’t always work with memory. Like me, Blue was having a bit of a bad hair day. The damp had her fur standing straight up on her rump and I could see the fire through the strands. She looked like a giant … hedgehog. That was it. The hedgehog formation. I didn’t quite know what that was except it involved spears, but I figured I was close enough to score—and I was right. I gave Blue a pat of thanks for helping me remember.
Now both Patrick and Andrew were eyeing me with respect and Della watched with flattering awe. Alex respected me too, but he was used to my ability to remember obscure things and pull that inner stuff out of what seemed like thin air.
Della went next and she chose preternatural. She scored well since the others didn’t really know the difference between preternatural and supernatural. I almost faked not knowing so she could have a sweep, but as a child I had never appreciated being given easy wins and I didn’t think she would like it either.
It was interesting to me that Minnie chose prestige [F]. It might have been because the dictionary was open to the P’s and she just went with the first words she saw, but I didn’t think so, especially not after she chose it and then stared hard at me.
Because she specified that it was the French and not the Latin version, I was able to guess that she meant the juggler’s trick or a magician’s illusion. The others guessed that the definition was the standard one about respect of one’s peers. None of us mentioned that it had another meaning—to extinguish—though I think it might have been on someone else’s mind.
It was my turn. I skipped over demurrage as soon as I read the definition and realized it pertained to railroads. I found what I wanted and asked for a ruling on hyphenated or compound words. Technically they are usually against the rules, but so were foreign words and we had used them. Also, by then, everyone was wild with curiosity and wanted to see if they could beat me.
So I skipped fifth columnist and went with the synonym cat’s-paw. The definition of fifth columnist is a member of a clandestine subversive organization who tries to help a potential invader. The idea that the saboteur might have had more inside help occurred to me over dinner and I decided to see who would blink if I brought up the idea of a dupe or confederate.
Alex gave me a short stare and I knew that he understood what I was driving at—and probably didn’t approve of my playing with cat’s-paw. I watched the others carefully as they wrote down their answers and handed them to me to read aloud.
Andrew guessed that it was a nautical knot—which is correct. Minnie guessed that it was a surgeon’s dismembering knife (that is actually called a catling and I wondered how the hell she knew about that). Della knew it was a word for an instrument of torture (turned out the kid read a lot of Poe). Alex and Patrick both opted to go with the scientific definition of capillary waves, though both of them knew darned good and well what I was driving at.
I kept watching as they argued which definition to vote for, but the only one who looked unhappy was Minnie, and since she always looked that way, I couldn’t read much into it.
A small movement near the Christmas tree drew my eye. It was the chef, Mike Briggs, and his face was very still as he listened to us. Whether that had anything to do with the game, or a dislike of interrupting his employer, I couldn’t tell.
“Yes, Mike?” Patrick asked, noticing that I was staring.
“Sorry to interrupt. Could I see you for a moment?” Mike’s eyes flicked over us. I thought he might have been looking at Della or Minnie, but since Andrew was also on the sofa, I couldn’t be sure.
“Certainly.” Patrick put his pen aside and followed the chef. He didn’t look happy.
I wanted very much to follow them and eavesdrop, but couldn’t very well do it, especially since there wasn’t even a plausible restroom nearby.
We didn’t have to wait long for Patrick to reappear. It was apparent straightaway that he was angry.
“Someone has taken all the fire extinguishers from the kitchen and dining room,” he said abruptly. His eyes, for the first time, were hard and I saw the businessman who lived inside the genial host.
My mind went almost immediately from ghastly thoughts of a midnight inferno to a lesser reason for the theft. The hotel would probably not be allowed to open without fire extinguishers, even with a fire-safety system installed. Ordinance, at least in my town, required redundancy in places like kitchens and in boiler rooms for commercial establishments. This was probably another delaying tactic, not a plot for mass murder by immolation.
Though I hate to do it with an audience, I slipped briefly into ANALYTICO.
“Best check upstairs too,” Alex said mildly, but I knew he wasn’t as relaxed as his voice.
“First, the stable,” I said, almost immediately figuring out the location of the extinguishers, if not who had taken them. “The woodpile covered by the green tarps. Start there.”
None of the men needed to be told twice. They were headed for the pantry door before I could remind them to put on their coats.
“Well, that is very odd,” Minnie said, staring at me. Her gaze was so glacial it could have sunk the Titanic. “But since it seems our game is over, I think I’ll retire. Coming, Della?” It was framed as a question but wasn’t really a request.
“Sure,” Della said, picking up the dictionary and returning it to the shelf. “I’ll just help Chloe pick up a little first.”
Minnie wanted to argue that the staff would do it in the morning, but shrugged and walked away.
“You meant cat’s-paw in a different way, didn’t you? It has nothing to do with waves or torturing people?” Della asked softly.
“No. That wasn’t the meaning I was after.”
“I didn’t think so.” She sounded satisfied. “Uncle Patrick didn’t know that I could hear him talking to Alex. You guys are detectives, right?”
“Of a sort,” I admitted. “We don’t advertise.”
“Is someone trying to stop Uncle Patrick from opening the hotel?”
“That’s what we are here to find out.”
“I wish they would stop it. It would be so great if I could live here always.”
My prowess at Dictionary would remain unchallenged, at least for the night. I had rather given away the fact that I have other gifts though. But that was okay. The villain was playing to my strengths now. And that was good, because Alex and I could work in the open to hunt him or her down.
On the downside, it meant Patrick truly was a victim of someone close to him. A stranger could not have slipped into the hotel and walked out with an armload of fire extinguishers. Still, I think it is better to know this for certain and not live in doubt, always staying your hand because you aren’t sure it is an enemy lurking in the shadows. And maybe knowing that I was watching would make the saboteur think twice before acting again.
“Are you going to go stealthing tonight?” Della whispered, glancing over her shoulder.
“Probably.”
“Can I come? I want to know who stole the fire extinguishers and where they are—and everything.”
“Better not chance it. Your mom might notice if you leave your room. But I’ll tell you if I see anything in the morning and maybe we can figure this out together,” I promised. “Anyway, I’m betting the fire extinguishers are in the stable. Not much mystery there. This is just going to be cold and boring. It always is.”
This was a slight lie. Actually, it was a whopper, but I needed to discourage her.
“Hm.
Okay.”
“Della!” Minnie called. Della sighed and handed me all the scraps of paper. She scurried after her mother. I hoped that she would be satisfied with this compromise and not decide to go “stealthing” on her own. With subtle means blocked, our saboteur might try more direct methods and I didn’t want Della getting hurt because she was in the wrong place and witnessed something she shouldn’t. Her youth might not stay the saboteur’s hand.
Chapter 5
I waited for the hotel to quiet down and for everyone to go to bed and begin sleeping the sleep of the just, then I slipped on shoes and jacket, and Blue and I went exploring.
Not sure why, I headed for the basement first. I think somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that if the saboteur wanted to hide anything obviously sinister—like, say, an accelerant for starting a fire—that they would do it there. But once I reached the top of the stairs and opened the heavy doors at the end of the dining room, I found myself hesitating to go on.
I looked down the dark stairs. My body remembered the ground giving way under my snowshoes and announced that it would rather not go down there where danger could be lurking. I needed to pull up my nerves so they didn’t gallop off on me. The dark filled me with conflicting impulses and this wasn’t a situation that could be calculated with a slide rule. Emotional impression had to be counted.
Blue licked my hand. I reached for the light switch on the wall one step down. It didn’t help much. There was only one dim bulb glowing at the bottom of the concrete steps.
I sniffed the amalgam of odors—paint foremost. But under that was a smell of damp from rooms that were poorly ventilated. It was the used oxygen of days and years gone by. Sighing, I quit fighting my instinctive worry and revulsion of the odor, and let my senses tell me what they wanted me to know.
The sound was utterly dead. The space had to be large but it was utterly still. I had been in tombs that had more life. I listened to the dark, hoping it would tell me something, but not a creature was stirring. And if anything did move down there they’d need a defibrillator to start my terror-frozen heart. I had no idea that supernatural dread could weigh so much.
But down the stairs I went. To tell the truth, without Blue I never would have managed it.
There was no heat down there. Probably there were other lights inside the pools, but I didn’t see any switches.
The baths had likely been emptied when they were closed, but condensation, or maybe the old cistern, had allowed water to creep back in, covering half of the mosaic tiles.
There was nothing there. Nothing in the changing rooms but empty cubbies and vacant benches.
I decided that I had done enough. I was cold and tired and—okay, still frightened of the creepy basement. Blue felt the same way and galloped up the stairs ahead of me. We did find the furnace room and the water heaters later. They stood like robotic sentries, austere and dangerous as they worked at creating Prometheus’ gift. They didn’t frighten me though. They were just machines.
“Can’t sleep?” Alex asked sleepily as I got back into bed. Alex can be a heavy sleeper and hadn’t realized I was gone. Which was good because he wouldn’t have approved of my wandering about at night.
“No, I can. But maybe we should open our Christmas presents early,” I suggested, snuggling close and kissing the back of his neck. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Are you trying to manipulate me with sex?” he asked, sounding more awake.
“Well, sure. Is that a problem?”
“Um … no. I guess not.”
* * *
As I had pointed out some hours ago, it was Christmas Eve. Alex was headed for Bethlehem and the Internet café. I was headed for Lost Mine Confections—and any other store featured in the brochure that was open. Alex and I had not made any provision for gifts for our hosts since Patrick had waved the idea of presents away. That was all well and good for the adults, especially since Minnie didn’t fill me with the Christmas glow and I couldn’t begin to think what she would like, but I didn’t think Della would understand being overlooked. To keep things from getting awkward with her mother, the gift could be from Blue.
Alex had stared at me but didn’t argue when I suggested he look under the car and make sure there wasn’t a puddle of brake fluid. It meant getting some straw on his coat but I brushed him off and in no time Blue, Alex, and I were headed down the hill into Bethlehem.
A part of me was nervous about leaving the hotel, though the fire extinguishers had been found in the woodpile in the stable and restored after being tested. Alex wasn’t happy that I had been outed the night before, but as far as we knew, Alex was still in the clear. He was just a man married to a woman who noticed things.
As Alex inched his way down the hill, I ruminated on how the malefactors of the world never took time off for the holidays. And they really should, as a courtesy to the rest of us. Of course, if they ever took their eyes off their resentments and looked out at the beauty around them….
I decided to take my own advice and stop looking at ugly things. This was Christmas Eve and there would be no more brooding on the evils of the world. Suffice it unto the day and so on. And anyway, maybe our saboteur was busy making hot chocolate and cookies instead of contemplating mayhem. It could happen. Not every criminal was the same.
Bethlehem was beautiful, a miniature jewel, preserved from the late nineteenth century. Brick buildings, wooden walks, and restrained decorations of fresh greens tied up with red bows made it pretty enough for a Christmas card. It made me want to call my parents and tell them—truthfully—that I wished they were there.
It didn’t so overwhelm common sense that I actually wished that I was at home at the annual holiday mash-up with Althea and Dale and my in-laws though. Things would have to be a lot worse before that happened.
The only other vehicle on the road was a tow truck being driven—poorly—by a squinting Santa with a beard so bushy it pressed against the driver’s side window. He was also wearing a holster, I saw as he crawled past us, getting entirely too close. He was crouched over the wheel, suggesting either that he was of extreme height or else suffering from advanced myopia.
“Do you suppose that was the sheriff?” I asked, looking over my shoulder and out the partially fogged back window. From the rear, all I could see was the fat end of an enormous Christmas tree, so large that it obscured the truck and the winch that had pulled it out of the ground, root and all. The conifer made a sweeping right turn and knocked over a mailbox and then disappeared up a long driveway, pulling the mailbox and post with it.
“I hope so,” Alex said, taking it all in via the rearview mirror. “I’d sure hate to think that Santa was that bad a driver.”
Alex parked in a tiny lot near the feed store. The snowplows had been through and had gotten pretty close to the wooden walkways. Blue and I could safely make the jump onto the sidewalk.
“Sure you don’t need a peppermint latte to fortify you?” Alex asked, his breath showing white. The temperature was dropping.
“Later. You and Blue start without me. You’re sure they said it was okay for Blue to be in the café?” I asked, not wanting to leave Blue in the car if they turned her away. I pulled on my mittens.
“Patrick says it’s dog-friendly,” Alex assured me.
“Okay. Then I am heading for the candy store. I need to find something for Della. See you in twenty.”
I had to pass a small bed and breakfast—Cranford House since 1923. I bet they were thrilled about the hotel opening. Most of the businesses had to be happy, but what would it do to the tiny B&B?
Not everything was open that Christmas Eve, just the places where shoppers were likely to go for necessities like caffeine and candy. The tavern doors were open too for those who needed solace, or some liquid courage before they went home to face the family.
The candy store was small but had exquisite treasures. It was owned by a husband and wife confectionary team. Their last name was Winters. It was a littl
e expensive but I got a sugar egg with an interior snowscape with fir trees and a sad-eyed milk-chocolate rescue dog who wore a wreath instead of a keg. Della would like that. Though Reggie was too young to appreciate it, I got an egg for him too. Some chocolate covered orange peel was irresistible since Alex liked it and the treat was seasonal. They also had peanut butter dog cookies so Blue got a treat as well. Mrs. Winters wrapped my purchases in white and gold cellophane while I sat on a milk stool near the potbellied stove and toasted my extremities.
Next door was a tiny jewelry shop whose window glittered with lights and tinsel. A small crystal snow angel pendant in the paned window caught my eye. I didn’t want to go overboard with Della, but given her love of snow, it seemed right. If it wasn’t too expensive.
I opened the door and rushed inside. The owner and jewelry maker was a man called Cummings. He was clearly a lineal descendant of Paul Bunyan’s, but for all his giant size and taciturn nature, he made dainty gems out of crystal and silver.
“You from up at the Folly?” he asked as he showed me the snow angel. It came on the finest of silver chains.
“Yes, we are up visiting Patrick and Andrew,” I said, wondering if the piece was too dainty for a girl who liked to flop in the snow and flail around. It was awfully pretty and only thirty-eight dollars. “My husband went to school with them. Alex has always been close to Patrick.” This was an overstatement but I will exaggerate in a good cause. “And it turns out that Andrew and I share an interest in trains.”
Brown eyes turned my way and they were quizzical.
“Admittedly I didn’t know that I was interested in trains, but now that I am aware of this interest I am cultivating the hobby.”
The stern mouth almost smiled.
Snow Angel Page 4
