Aunt Dimity: Snowbound

by Nancy Atherton

  “I wasn’t expecting to run into a blizzard,” I said. “No one was. There wasn’t a hint of it in the weather forecasts.”

  “It’s a tricky time of year,” Wendy commented. “It pays to be prepared for anything.”

  I gave her a sidelong look. “Is that why you carry a pry bar? I mean, most backpackers settle for a Swiss Army knife.”

  “I’ve been remodeling my house for the past few years.” Wendy moved to the white dresser and began rummaging through the drawers and the enclosed lower shelves. “I’ve gotten used to having certain tools handy. The pry bar’s good for splitting wood.”

  And for housebreaking. The thought popped into my head so unexpectedly that I didn’t know where to look. I fixed my gaze resolutely on the teakettle, then let it sidle furtively to the red backpack.

  A slender tendril of suspicion was taking root in my mind. It suddenly struck me as odd that an experienced hiker should choose such a tricky time of year to ramble through England; odder still that a lone American armed with a pry bar should happen upon such an out-of-the-way corner of the Cotswolds. I’d never laid eyes on Ladythorne Abbey before, and I lived only twenty—or so—miles away from it. And try as I might, I couldn’t for the life of me remember seeing a long-distance trail on Emma’s map of the valley.

  As my gaze drifted back to the teakettle, I was assailed by yet another disquieting thought—I was almost certain that Wendy couldn’t have tried the front door before slipping around to the back. The snow on the front stairs had been undisturbed, and there’d been no tracks leading from them to the cloister. Why, I wondered, would Wendy lie to me? More important: Why would she sneak into the house through the back door instead of presenting herself at the front?

  The disturbing questions provoked disturbing answers. I’d heard of burglars making hit-and-run raids on unoccupied country houses, and Ladythorne Abbey’s splendid isolation made it seem particularly vulnerable. A clever burglar might park a car some distance away from the house and hike in, disguised as an innocent backpacker, to see if the place was worth plundering. I looked at Wendy and felt a chill despite the range’s increasing heat. Was she a clever burglar? I wondered. Had I stumbled onto a crime-in-progress?

  “You know what?” I said brightly. “I should call my husband. I should let him know that I’m alive and kicking. To tell the truth, I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t phoned me. The last time I got lost in bad weather he called out the army to find me.”

  “The army?” Wendy straightened abruptly and gave me a sharp look. “Are you joking?”

  “I’m absolutely serious,” I said. “I was caught in a deluge up in Northumberland and—”

  “There’s no phone here,” Wendy interrupted, frowning. “At least, there’re no lines running to the house. I checked.”

  “You checked?” I echoed, raising an eyebrow.

  Wendy dropped her gaze. “It’s . . . a bad storm. I thought I might need to call for help.”

  I whistled softly. “You must’ve been one heck of a Girl Scout, Wendy. It never crossed my mind to check for phone lines, but maybe that’s because I brought a cell phone with me. You’re welcome to use it.”

  Wendy’s worried frown eased. “No, thanks. I don’t need to call anyone. But you go ahead and call your husband. Make sure he knows that you’re okay. The army has better things to do than to rescue us.” She resumed her search of the dresser. “I’ll see if I can find some tea leaves and maybe a bite to eat.”

  “I’ve got food,” I told her. “We can divvy it up when I finish my phone call.”

  I retrieved the cell phone from my day pack and stepped into the corridor, pondering Wendy’s shifting moods. She’d seemed perturbed by my mention of the army, and relieved to know that I could head them off with a reassuring word in Bill’s ear. I couldn’t imagine why she’d object to being rescued, but I could think of at least one reason why she might not want to face the army—or anyone else in authority. Burglars, as a rule, are not fond of men in uniform.

  It wasn’t until I stood in the gloomy corridor that I realized why Bill hadn’t called me. I’d evidently been so sleepy-headed when Emma had picked me up that I’d forgotten to turn the cell phone on. I quickly corrected my error and speed-dialed my home number. Bill answered on the first ring.

  “Lori?”

  “Yep, it’s me,” I said, “and I’m okay.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you—”

  “Sorry,” I broke in. “The phone was switched off.”

  “Where are you?” Bill demanded.

  “Ladythorne Abbey,” I replied. “You should have no trouble finding it. It’s on Emma’s map, but it’s not a ruin, it’s a big old house with a roof and walls and—”

  “I know the place,” said Bill.

  I stared at the phone for a moment, dumbfounded, then put it back to my ear and asked, “How?”

  “A client purchased it and its contents a couple of years ago,” Bill told me. “I advised against it—the house was in terrible shape—but she was adamant. She insisted that no price was too high to pay for the kind of privacy Ladythorne offered. I’m glad to hear it has a roof.”

  “So am I,” I said with heartfelt sincerity, “but I’d still rather be under my own. How soon can you come get me?”

  Bill sighed. “Not sure, love. We’re completely snowed in here, and it’s still coming down. I can’t even open the garage door.”

  “Try a pry bar,” I suggested. “That’s how we got in here.”

  “What?” Bill exclaimed. “What pry bar? And who’s we?”

  “I ran into another hiker,” I told him, “the self-reliant kind. Comes with her own housebreaking equipment.”

  “Lori . . .” Bill said warily.

  “I’m not making it up,” I retorted. “Her name is Wendy Walker. She’s from Long Island, she carries a pry bar in her backpack, and I think she may have told me a few big fat lies. Bill,” I continued, lowering my voice, “have you heard of any burglaries in the area recently?”

  “Not recently,” said Bill, “and certainly none pulled off by someone on foot, if that’s what you’re suggesting. The preferred method is to drive a moving van up to the front door, clear a place out, and make a run for it. Your backpacker would have a tough time making a fast getaway, and if she spent the night anywhere near the scene of the crime, she’d be a prime suspect.”

  Bill’s argument made a certain amount of sense, but I wasn’t willing to abandon my theory so easily. “What if she disguised herself as a backpacker so she could check out the house for the guys with the moving van?”

  “She wouldn’t carry a big backpack,” Bill answered. “Why weigh herself down when she could pretend to be a casual walker, like you?”

  “But she says she’s walking one of the long-distance trails,” I countered, “and there aren’t any long-distance trails on Emma’s map.”

  “Are you sure?” Bill asked. It was a loaded question. My husband knew that map-reading wasn’t among my most polished skills.

  “I’m pretty sure. Okay,” I conceded, “I may have misread the map, but what about the missing footprints?” I could almost see Bill rolling his eyes while I explained why I believed that Wendy couldn’t have approached the front door before slinking around to the back.

  “Lori,” he said patiently, when I’d finished, “it’s snowing out. It’s snowing very heavily. Is it possible that Wendy’s tracks filled with snow before you had a chance to spot them? Is it possible that the wind was blowing so hard that you couldn’t see anything clearly?”

  “It’s possible,” I allowed, and grudgingly reconsidered my position. Perhaps I had read too much into the situation. It wouldn’t be the first time my imagination had run away with me.

  “Lori,” Bill said, “do you truly believe that this Wendy Walker is a criminal?”

  “I guess not,” I said reluctantly. “The pry bar spooked me, that’s all. She says she uses it for splitting wood.”

  “
Sounds reasonable,” said Bill. “Diehard campers carry lots of weird tools. How are you for food?”

  “I’ve got Emma’s picnic lunch,” I reminded him. “If we need more, I expect Wendy’ll go out and shoot a moose or something.”

  Bill’s chuckle held an endearingly vibrant note of relief. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “Likewise,” I said. “But we mustn’t overindulge. Since I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, I should probably conserve the phone’s battery. I’ll call again at five, okay?”

  “I’ll be waiting. There’s not much else I can do.” Bill paused before adding, “Listen, love, if you’re worried about Wendy—”

  “I’m not,” I assured him. “It’s just my frostbitten brain running amok.”

  “Okay,” said Bill. “If you’re sure . . .”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Kiss the boys for me.” As I ended the call, I noted the time on the cell phone’s backlit screen. It was ten past one. Less than two hours had passed since the blizzard had struck. It had felt like an eternity.

  The table was set when I returned to the kitchen. In rummaging through the dresser, Wendy had produced cups, saucers, plates, cutlery, a pair of much-mended linen napkins, and an eight-cup brown earthenware teapot. She’d also found the tea tin and the sugar canister, both of which were, thankfully, full.

  “Is your husband coming to get you?” she asked.

  “Eventually,” I replied. “At the moment he’s as stuck as we are. If you ask me, every weatherman in this country will be looking for a new job tomorrow morning.”

  I took off my gloves and shoved them in my pockets, opened my day pack, and unloaded the picnic lunch. Emma must have expected the fresh air to sharpen my appetite because she’d packed four chicken-and-watercress sandwiches, a large wedge of Stilton cheese, two crusty baguettes, two apples, a half dozen chocolate bars, and four enormous cranberry muffins.

  Wendy expressed her admiration of the feast before adding, with a touch of sarcasm, “Cute bunny. I’ll bet he’s helpful in emergencies.”

  I looked at the table and realized that I’d unpacked Reginald along with the picnic lunch. He was sitting between the wedge of Stilton and the apples, holding his paws out to the range.

  I felt my face redden. “He’s a . . . a mascot. A lucky charm.”

  “Not so lucky today,” Wendy observed.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, tucking Reginald back into the day pack. “I think I was pretty lucky to find my way here. It beats camping out in a snowdrift.”

  While we waited for the water to boil, Wendy munched on an apple and treated me to a guided tour of the Victorian range. She pointed out the plate-warming rack, the open grill, the roasting spits, the multiple ovens, the warming compartments, and the complicated flues.

  “That’s a reservoir,” she concluded, touching a spigot that protruded from a flat panel covering the lower-right quarter of the range. “It’s designed to heat large quantities of water. I filled it while you were on the phone and it seems to be working pretty efficiently.”

  The range was, in fact, churning out the kind of heat that would make summer bread-baking a misery. I put my stocking cap in the day pack and hung my jacket on the back of a chair. When Wendy took off her own jacket, I saw that beneath the bulky parka lurked a slender woman with broad shoulders and an enviably slim waistline. She wore what appeared to be a hand-knit wool sweater in shades of gray that went well with her blue-gray eyes. When I complimented her on the sweater, she told me she’d knitted it herself.

  “Do you have one of these monsters at home?” I asked, nodding toward the range.

  “I have a microwave,” she conceded. “But I’ve read about ranges, and I enjoy figuring out how things work.”

  “What are you?” I joked. “A rocket scientist?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  I studied her perfectly straight face and decided that she must be telling the truth.

  “I work for a company that monitors orbiting satellites,” she amended, with a small smile.

  “That would explain why you can work a coal stove.” I ran my fingers through my stocking cap-crushed curls. “Is February a slow month in the satellite business? I can’t think of any other reason to hike a long-distance trail in England at this time of year.”

  “It’s the perfect time of year for hiking,” Wendy countered. “Air fares and hotels are dirt cheap, and the trails are virtually empty. I like saving money, and I like having the trails to myself.”

  I eyed her curiously. “Have you been staying in hotels?”

  “I have so far,” said Wendy. “As I said, they’re dirt cheap.”

  I was about to ask why, if she was staying in hotels, she found it necessary to split wood, when the kettle let out a shriek and we busied ourselves with the all-important task of brewing a lifesaving pot of tea. I’d just deposited the steaming teapot on the table when the door to the courtyard flew open with a bang.

  “What the . . .” I began, and sputtered into silence as yet another backpacker marched into the kitchen, followed closely by an old man with a shotgun.

  “Thieves!” the old man bellowed before turning to point the shotgun straight at me.

  Four

  My heart skipped a beat. My mind went blank.

  Though my feet had finally thawed, I stood frozen in place. No one had ever pointed a gun at me before. It was a novel experience I hoped never to repeat.

  “Uh . . .” I quavered before lapsing into stupefied silence.

  Wendy’s nerves, by contrast, were evidently made of stainless steel.

  “Would you please point that thing somewhere else?” she asked the intruder. “And please close the door. You’re letting the heat escape.”

  “Don’t you be giving me orders, missy,” the old man growled. He was seventy if he was a day, unshaven and wild-eyed, clad in scuffed hobnailed boots, a half dozen woolly scarves, and a tattered canvas jacket any self-respecting charity shop would have rejected. The shotgun, on the other hand, was immaculate.

  “She said ‘please,’ ” the old man’s captive pointed out. “Twice.”

  “You keep your mouth shut,” the old man barked, but he kicked the door shut and swung the shotgun away from me to its original position, nudging his hostage further into the room.

  The hostage wore faded jeans, a blue parka, and hiking boots. He was male, tall, slender, and—at a guess—somewhere in his late thirties. Snow clung to his forest-green backpack and to the tangle of dark curls spilling from his stocking cap nearly to his shoulders. The dark beard and mustache encircling his lips looked as soft as eiderdown, and his chestnut-brown eyes betrayed not a trace of fear.

  “Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. May I remove my backpack? Please? It’s been rather a long day.”

  “Go ahead.” The old man poked the backpack viciously with the shotgun. “But if you make one false move, I’ll blow your thieving head off!”

  The old man’s brutal response to the backpacker’s humble request roused my most protective maternal instincts. As the dark-haired man removed his heavy pack and set it carefully on the floor, my terror was abruptly overwhelmed by fury.

  “Y-you bully!” I shouted, freed from my fear-induced paralysis. “If you want to shoot someone, shoot me, because frankly, given a choice between being held prisoner by a trigger-happy lunatic and having my head blown off, I’d sooner have my head blown off. So go ahead, Mr. Big Shot, pull the trigger!”

  The old man glanced at me uncertainly, as if he thought I might be a lunatic, and in that moment of uncertainty the younger man ducked, twisted, and swung around in one graceful movement, grasping the shotgun by both barrels and removing it deftly from the older man’s grip. The old man flailed at him briefly, then shrank back against the door and folded his arms. He seemed more disgruntled than cowed.

  The dark-haired man stepped back, broke the shotgun, and peered into the breech. His lips tw
itched in an amused smile as he looked from the gun to the old man. “How, may I ask, were you were planning to blow my head off? You’ve forgotten to load your weapon.”

  “Didn’t forget,” the old man retorted. “Don’t believe in wasting good shot on vermin.”

  “I can assume that you don’t happen to have any shells in your pockets, then? Good. It was unkind of you to frighten the ladies. We wouldn’t want it to happen again.” The dark-haired man placed the shotgun on the white dresser’s highest shelf, well out of the older man’s reach, and motioned toward the table. “Now we can have a civilized conversation. Won’t you sit down, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Catchpole,” snapped the old man. “No Mister. Just Catchpole.” He scowled at his former prisoner, but took a seat at the table. “And what would your name be, sonny? I’m sure the coppers’ll want to know, if they don’t already.”

  “I’m Jamie Macrae. No Mister. Just Jamie.” The name was Scottish, but the accent was an odd blend of midwestern American and upper-class English.

  “A filthy Yank,” muttered Catchpole. “A filthy, thieving Yank come to strip the abbey bare. Dear Lord, what would Miss DeClerke say?”

  “You’re American?” I said to Jamie. “So are we. I’m Lori Shepherd, and this is Wendy Walker.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Jamie Macrae piled his cap, gloves, and parka on his backpack, brushed snow from the collar of his bulky, dark-blue turtleneck, and sat at the table, with his back to the dresser, as if determined to keep himself between Catchpole and the shotgun. “Can you spare a cup of tea, by any chance? It’s a bit blustery out there.”

  “We noticed,” Wendy said dryly. She fetched two more cups and saucers from the dresser and poured tea for everyone, including Catchpole.

  The old man was holding his head between his hands and muttering to himself. “Three Yanks? Dear Lord in heaven, what would Miss DeClerke say if she knew that three lying, thieving Yanks—”

  “How do we know you’re not a thief?” Wendy broke in, taking a seat directly across from the old man.