Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Where did you get this?” she cried. “Have you been in my mother’s room? Have you been stealing her things?”

  The silver Ullr dangled from her fingers on its chain, and I remembered that I’d taken it from my purse to return to the tote bag pocket. I took it from her gently.

  “This doesn’t belong to your mother. It’s mine. Someone gave it to me a long time ago.” I turned it over casually so she could see the diamond marked upon the back, obliterating the lettering that lay beneath.

  She looked at it doubtfully. “But—my mother had one just like it. My father had it made for her especially. There couldn’t be two so much alike.”

  “There are probably many medallions like this. Are you sure it’s exactly like the one your mother had?”

  “No—there’s that diamond thing on the back of this one. My mother’s wasn’t like that.”

  “Then I hope you’re sorry about making wild accusations,” I said.

  She looked taken aback and upset, perhaps concerned about having offended me. Her look made me sorry for my deception, but I couldn’t let her go rushing off to tell Shan that I had her mother’s medallion. Clay and Emory might keep their counsel, even though for reasons I didn’t understand. Shan never would.

  On the bed Cinnabar announced himself. He stood up and made an unearthly yowling sound. Adria turned around slowly.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered. “She doesn’t like what you said. Maybe she knows it’s her medallion.”

  I spoke a bit sharply. “I suppose Cinnabar skis? I suppose he needs an Ullr for luck when he comes down the slopes?”

  Adria stared at me for a moment, and then relaxed, laughing softly. “You make it sound silly. Come, Cinnabar, I’ll let you out if you want to go. Though I don’t think you’ll enjoy it outside. Margot never really liked to be out, in a storm. She wasn’t a storm baby like me.” She threw me an impish glance, caught Cinnabar up about his middle and carried him squirming out the door.

  I thrust the medallion under a pile of lingerie I’d put in a dresser drawer, and pulled on my boots and my parka. Then I hurried downstairs, glad to meet neither Shan nor Adria, and found Julian once more at his desk in the library. Strangely, I had a sense of shyness at seeing him again. There had been—something—out there on the mountain. Something that reached tentatively between us, and which I must now deny. But Julian smiled at me in welcome, denying nothing.

  “I’ll take you up on that escort service, if you’re still willing,” I said a little stiffly.

  He nodded. “If you really feel you must go, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  I waited for him near the front door, peering out at the storm through small colored panes, thrusting back the uneasiness in me. There was nothing moving out there except the wind. No footprints, no Emory Ault lurking behind a tree. I wondered where the old man lived when he was not working, and I recalled unhappily Stuart’s warning that it was he who might hold the key to everything, if only it could be pried out of him. If he intended concealment that might be difficult, and even dangerous. I had already sensed his malevolence.

  Julian joined me quickly and took my arm as we went down the steps. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve seen worse.”

  I hadn’t. I ducked my head against the wind and the snow sand it flung in my face. The buffeting was furious, and I doubt that I’d have been able to stand without his support. The house vanished immediately, and I’d not have known which way to turn if I’d been alone. Julian apparently knew the path blindfolded, and he found his way without difficulty. It took longer than usual, but the very effort I made warmed me, and I reached the back door of the lodge breathless and laughing a little over my victory.

  Julian thrust open the door and we stood for a moment in the vestibule while I stamped snow from my boots, and Julian brushed it from my parka.

  “I’m fine,” I said, letting the hood fall back from my head. “But I don’t want to try it alone getting back.”

  “You’re looking better now,” he said, and brushed the hair back from my eyes with a quick light touch that left me as breathless as I’d been in the storm. I froze in something like alarm at my own response, and he saw and laughed. He knew women all too well—did Julian McCabe.

  “Suppose I come for you around ten o’clock,” he said. “I suspect everyone will go to bed early tonight. If this lets up there will be fresh powder on all the slopes tomorrow. Comparatively deep powder for around here.” Matter-of-fact words that did not hide the warmth in his eyes.

  “Which isn’t for snow bunnies like me,” I said, purposely light. “But I suppose the machines will pack it down and break up the surface.”

  He smiled. “You’re a better sport than some of the bunnies. And you’re doing wonders with Adria.”

  “You can do more wonders,” I told him. “Everything was just right for her when we went up on the mountain this afternoon.”

  “Thanks to you, Linda.” He touched me lightly on the shoulder with one gloved hand and went back into the storm. I shut the door hastily upon a swirling fog of snow, unzipped my parka, and tried to brush more snow from my pants, since I’d brought no others to change to. Clay heard me and came out from the hall.

  “Hello, Linda. I didn’t expect you to make it tonight.”

  “Julian brought me, or I wouldn’t have. He’s coming, back for me at ten o’clock.”

  “You could have stayed here overnight. The radio promises clearing before morning.”

  “I know. But Adria wants me there. Apparently she has bad dreams at night. Though whether I can help her or not, I don’t know.”

  His look was a little cool. “You’re really digging in, aren’t you? And Julian hasn’t the faintest notion of what he’s harboring. I can tell that when he’s mentioned you on the phone. You’re very clever, Linda. Whatever good it may do you. What do you hope to learn that no one else has?”

  He made me angry. “One thing I learned today is something Adria told me. She says it was Shan who locked that door from the library to Margot’s room—after Margot died. I think you said it was locked while you were in there—when you heard her scream.”

  He nodded at me almost fondly, though his eyes were still cool. “Shan would do that for me, of course. And of course I would accept her claim that the door was locked—to protect myself. I do not like putting my head in a noose. It’s much simpler this way. And makes no difference, since I didn’t go through that door. Shall we get your fondue started? Everybody’s turning up early this afternoon.”

  He opened the hall door for me, his manner formal and a little mocking. There was nothing I could say. I went ahead of him into the lounge, where groups of two and three were already gathered, and found myself busy at once.

  The fire was a blaze of logs, offering cheer against the storm outdoors, and Clay had lighted a surplus of candles, to give a warmer glow than electricity. I went out to the kitchen to mix the fondue and soon had it bubbling in a big chafing dish in the lounge. The crowd was smaller tonight, but there were a few newcomers who were disappointed because they’d been driven from the slopes before their day was over. There was talk about the various qualities of snow, the preferences and handicaps, the dangers from boiler-plate ice to deep powder. Of course that was one of the things that kept skiing interesting. No slope was ever the same, and weather changes could come within hours. What was an excellent pack could melt and ice over in the same afternoon—and if there was one thing most skiers didn’t relish it was ice.

  Some of the crowd had gone, but the little nun was still there. I saw her sitting close to a lamp with a book open upon her knees. Her habit was neat and modern, with a trim, light coif, and her skirt was short and unhampering. She saw me nearby and looked up, smiling.

  “Agatha Christie,” she said, tapping her book. “Good for a stormy evening. But I’ll have to stop reading so I can listen to people.” She made a small gesture. “They’re even more interesting than mystery stories. Take
your Clay Davidson, for instance. He was telling me about the novel he’s working on. It’s a suspense novel dealing with skiers, and it sounds fascinating. I asked him if he used real people in his writing.”

  I dropped into the chair next to her. “And does he?”

  “He claims not. He says real people would get in his way and not do what he wants. But I suspect he uses bits and pieces—perhaps without ever being conscious where they come from and putting them together in a new form. I expect you can tell a lot about a writer from his work. His philosophy, his outlook—everything must come through, even when he hides behind his characters.”

  “A mystery writer must hide behind some pretty nefarious characters. Do you think you can find Agatha Christie there?”

  Her smile was gently serene. “Aren’t we all mixtures of good and evil? Isn’t that why we need something outside ourselves to pull us through?”

  “You make me curious about Clay’s writing,” I said. “I’ll get him to loan me something of his to read.”

  We discussed innocuous matters for a time, and then someone came up to speak to her, and I moved among the other guests until dinner was ready.

  The big dining room seemed drafty tonight under the heavy wind, for all that it boasted the wide fireplace of the original farmhouse. A bronze American eagle stood on guard in the center of the mantel, with a porcelain rooster crowing at each end, and there was a spinning wheel near the hearth. It was a homey, comfortable room, with the wide floorboards of another day, and old beams overhead.

  Clay and I sat together and talked in a desultory fashion. There was the constant spat of snow against the windowpanes and a great rattling of glass. At times the old house trembled under the impact of the wind. Candles about the room dipped and smoked, dancing erratically.

  “I hope the wires don’t ice over and go down,” Clay said. “We’ve had power loss and blackouts before this during storms.”

  We were both being cautious, avoiding dangerous ground, measuring each other. I told him lightly that Sister Mary Elizabeth had recommended his writing, and wondered if I could read some of his fiction.

  He seemed unexpectedly pleased. “If you’d really like to I’ll loan you a manuscript after dinner. You can take it along to the house if you want to. If you promise to keep it dry on the way home.”

  I told him my parka had big flap pockets and I’d take good care of his story and be happy to read it.

  “It won’t tell you much,” he said, and his eyes mocked me wryly.

  I ate my salad and did not look at him, and after a moment or two he went on in the same dry tone.

  “You’re the wrong sort to make a good detective, Linda. I’d never use you in a story. You’re so forthright, a child can see through you. I’m sure Adria does.”

  I thought of Adria and the medallion and wondered.

  “I saw Stuart again this morning,” I told him. “He says Emory has invented lies about him from the first. He thinks Emory holds a few answers, if only I could get at them.”

  “Of course.” Clay seemed unsurprised. “Emory would lie his head off for Julian. The biggest lie of all, of course, is that Emory Ault was the first to find Margot after her chair came down that ramp.”

  I stared at him, and my voice rose a little. “Then—who—?”

  Clay cast a hasty glance around the dining room, but storm sounds had blotted out my words, and no one was interested in our table near the kitchen door.

  “Julian found her,” Clay said.

  I gasped. “But Julian wouldn’t have—”

  Clay looked at his plate. “Anyway, Emory jumped to conclusions about what might have happened. He knew that Margot had done everything possible to enrage Julian and goad him into violent action. And if I know Emory, he’d go to any extreme to protect Julian.”

  Or perhaps to protect himself? I could so easily imagine Emory with his hands on that chair. “Even to blaming someone innocent like Stuart?” I asked.

  “Especially Stuart. Emory never wanted him around—because of Margot’s wandering eye. This was a way to pay him off, get rid of him and spare Julian at the same time.”

  “What about your wandering eye?” I spoke deliberately.

  The betraying flush darkened his face, and I plunged ahead, pressing on the nerve I’d exposed.

  “Shan talks quite readily, you know. I understand Margot broke up your marriage.”

  He held himself in check very well and even managed to smile a bit grimly.

  “Perhaps it’s not detective talents you need, after all, Linda. Perhaps just being able to stir up trouble is enough. Unless some of those stirred pots boil over and scald you. Anyway, that’s ancient, though perhaps regrettable history, and—”

  “Shan says not,” I broke in. “She says Margot wanted you back and could never believe she’d lost her fascination.”

  The slight grimace that crossed his face was betrayal enough of his feeling about Margot. “As I was about to say—it was Julian we were talking about. Not me.”

  I’d been holding off the thought of Julian, because I couldn’t accept what Clay had told me.

  “Julian wouldn’t let Emory say he’d found her if it wasn’t true,” I said flatly.

  Clay’s smile took on a taunting twist. “Julian makes his own laws.”

  I could hardly swallow the rest of my dinner. Clay watched me covertly, and I knew he was watching. Julian, Adria, my brother Stuart! I could accept none of the three as having pushed that chair. I didn’t want to sacrifice any one of them for the other two. And yet I knew that if it came down to a final judgment, it must be Stuart I would try to save. Was it Julian he was trying to protect?

  “Do you care so much what happens to Julian?” Clay asked softly.

  “I care about what happens to anyone who is innocent,” I told him. “How do you know that Emory was lying about finding her first?”

  “Shan looked out the drawing-room window. She saw Julian down in the ravine. Afterwards she told me. But she’d never say anything to imperil her brother.”

  Any more than I would imperil mine, I thought.

  “Shan was pretty busy, wasn’t she?” I asked. “Meeting Adria on the stairs when the child was upset and running away from something. Looking out the window. Locking the library door to Margot’s room. Which isn’t what you told me. Perhaps she even saw who pushed that chair.”

  Clay’s mouth above the neat beard pressed grimly in at the corners, and his eyes had a blaze of anger in them I’d never seen before. All his wry and lazy manner had vanished, making me wonder if it was a sham he liked to wear. Under the shelter of the tablecloth he reached for my wrist, and his fingers hurt to the very bone.

  “I’ll listen to nothing against Shan. Not ever. I’ve told you a few unpleasant truths because you needed help with your brother, and I’ve nothing against Stuart. But there are directions you aren’t to take. I hope you understand that.”

  He frightened me and I tried to twist my hand free from his grasp. The storm came to my aid. There was a tremendous blast of wind that crashed against the old house. For an instant the electric lights flared to brilliance, then died slowly to pinpoints and vanished. The dining room was shadowy with firelight and the light from swaying candle flames. One or two women squealed their alarm, and others laughed nervously.

  Clay let go of my hand and stood up, speaking as cheerfully to the room as though he had never been angry with me.

  “There’s a wire down someplace. I’ll go phone the electric company. In the meantime, we’ve plenty of candles, and we’ll keep the fire going. The hot water may run out, but we’ve got an auxiliary pump for the well, so cold water will hold out. And there’s food enough for a siege, if necessary.”

  He went out of the room and there was laughter and talk again, as the whole thing was turned into an adventure. If anything this proved to be our gayest evening. When we left the dining room everyone grouped about the fire as heat from the furnace gradually dissipated. Sis
ter Mary Elizabeth borrowed Clay’s guitar once more and played old songs from the thirties and forties. Plaintive songs that everyone knew, and her voice rose sweetly in the lead. “San Antonio Rose,” “Tennessee Waltz,” “Star Dust,” and “Deep Purple,” “Moonlight in the Rockies,” and finally, quite wistfully and tenderly, with the snow blowing wildly outside, and all of us shut into a shadowy, firelit world—“White Christmas.”

  I couldn’t sing, though I tried to mouth the words of all the songs to keep up appearances. There was a lump in my throat that kept the words from becoming vocal. A lump of fear and grief, adding up to a foreboding of coming disaster. Somehow the wistful, memory-laden words of sentimental old songs brought tears of longing. I hadn’t been born when some of these tunes were written. Behind the longing—for me—there was fear. I had stirred too many pots to near boiling, as Clay had said, and my wrist ached from his grasp.

  Fortunately, I had my hostess duties. I kept hot coffee going over an alcohol burner, and sometimes I moved about the downstairs area of the lodge. I looked into the dining room, where the tables had been cleared and only firelight sent shadows climbing the walls. I went into the empty office, and out into the dark back vestibule where I’d left my parka and other things. But I did not dare look into Clay’s private quarters. I couldn’t face his anger again.

  Once I opened the back door cautiously against the wind and found the storm furiously increased. It roared and howled outside, and I pulled the door shut upon an icy blast of snow. Surely I couldn’t go out in that. Perhaps I’d better phone the house. The telephone at least was still working. But then I thought of Adria and let my hand fall from the receiver. If the storm was too bad Julian would know and he would call me.

  I went back to listen to still another chorus of “White Christmas.” Christmas! It was only a little way off and I hadn’t thought about it at all. What gift could I bring Stuart except his freedom? Christmas this year at Graystones would be subdued and not very gay, because of Margot’s death. But at least I must try to find a gift for Adria. She mustn’t be deprived of Christmas.