Naughty on Ice

by Maia Chance

  Berta was nodding, as though she agreed with Roy.

  “No,” he said. “That’s not at all nice.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said with a funny wobble in my voice.

  “You aren’t very hard-boiled at all, are you?” Roy said with a nasty chuckle. “If it weren’t so pathetic, it would almost be winsome. I suppose you lead the dreary life of an unmarried career woman in the city—walk-up apartment, stuffy subway rides, endless meals at the Automat—but you long for a simpler, more wholesome life in the country?”

  “Sentiment doesn’t make a person stupid,” I said.

  Berta glared at me. “Mrs. Woodby, please do not stray from the point.” She turned to Roy. “It is an unfortunate habit of hers. As Mrs. Woodby noted earlier, we came to Goddard Farm yesterday evening because we had received an anonymous invitation some ten days ago, requesting that we retrieve a stolen ring from Aunt Daphne’s hand and place it in the breadbox. As you may already be aware, that invitation was identical to this one—” She pointed to the print on the wall. “—with the badly rhymed and somewhat sinister invitation typed inside.”

  Roy went blotchy with anger. “What do you mean, as I may already be aware? Are you suggesting that I—?”

  “I suggest nothing, Mr. Ives,” Berta said, “but I cannot help but wonder, why was the invitation one of your greeting cards?”

  “I think the answer is quite simple,” Roy said. “Clearly, one of my own family sent that invitation, and they evidently thought it would be clever to implicate me in their vile little scheme.”

  That made sense. More sense than Roy implicating himself. On the other hand, his fireplace held the charred remains of the dossier—including that original invitation.

  Two heavy thuds made us all jump. Cedric yipped and sproinged in my lap. Ammut lifted his head and woofed.

  “Oh dear,” Roy murmured. “That’s Titus at the kitchen door.”

  Titus? Weird Titus of the milk bottles in the general store?

  “I plumb forgot that he was coming today. I’m sorry, ladies, but I’ve got a fellow here to help with a bit of heavy lifting in the cellar.”

  “Of course,” I said, swallowing. “The cellar. We must be off, at any rate. Thank you for the coffee. We can see ourselves out the front door.”

  7

  “First, Fenton is reported as having been whiling away the time in the cellar,” I whispered to Berta as we walked down Roy’s snowy front walk. “And now Roy is fiddling around with heavy things in his cellar. What is going on with this family and their cellars? It’s downright ghoulish.”

  “The laboratory of Doctor Moreau springs to mind,” Berta said softly, unlatching the picket gate.

  We hesitated outside the gate. In one direction lay the covered bridge and the village. In the other direction, a snowy path disappeared into a steep slope of maples. “Let’s walk up to Goddard Farm this way,” I said. “It’ll be quicker. That minister, Mr. Currier, seemed to have come down from this path here. It can’t be more than, oh, half a mile.”

  “Half a mile uphill,” Berta said. “And with you in those silly boots with heels like ice picks.”

  “Ice picks? Sounds handy. Come on. The exercise will clear our heads.”

  “Oh, very well.”

  We set off on the snowy footpath, ascending the slope on a gentle incline. The path had been well traveled since the last snowfall. It was packed down, and icy in spots. As we went, we softly talked over what we had learned from Roy Ives.

  “If he’s LeRoy Ives the successful greeting card artist, then he isn’t the starving artist and poor relation I took him to be,” I said. “And if he isn’t poor, why does he depend upon having a gratis home in which to live?”

  “Perhaps it is not the ‘gratis’ part that is important to him with regard to the cottage. Perhaps he has an attachment to the place. It is, after all, his home, and it is decorated in a cozy and charming—if perhaps somewhat pretentious—manner.”

  We trudged uphill in silence for a spell. Chickadees flitted on twigs. Icicles dripped in the sun.

  “Should we have asked Roy about the burnt dossier?” I said, trying not to sound as wheezy as Berta did.

  “No. That would only have put him even more on his guard.”

  “Do you think he went into your room at the inn to steal it?”

  “That is difficult to picture. Perhaps he paid someone—a cleaning woman, for instance—to look through my suitcase.”

  “But when? While you were sleeping last night?”

  “Ugh. I do hope not. If Roy sent the invitation, he would have known we were coming to Maple Hill, so he could have had my suitcase—and yours—searched yesterday after our arrival at the inn. While we were having our afternoon coffee, for instance.”

  “Any one of the family members mentioned in the dossier could have some reason to want it destroyed,” I said.

  “Yet it was in Roy’s fireplace.”

  “Anyone could have stolen it and then taken it to Roy’s house to burn it.”

  The matter of the burnt dossier was baffling, but we agreed to try not to formulate any firm conclusions until we had spoken to all the suspects on our list.

  “I observed red wine stains on Roy’s robe,” Berta said.

  “And I saw wine bottles in the kitchen,” I said. “However, difficulties with tipply are neither here nor there when it comes to murder.”

  “But it is interesting that it is always wine with Roy, is it not? French wine last night. Red wine on his robe. Wine in his kitchen. Wine is not nearly so easy to come by as gin or even whiskey these days.”

  “He must have a special supplier.”

  We trudged up and up. Cedric romped, joyfully free of his leash, chasing a squirrel here, a finch there. He seemed to have forgotten his distaste for snow. My feet grew sore and numb in my fur-lined boots, but I would admit that when pigs followed in the footsteps of the Wright brothers.

  “I believe these are sugar maple trees,” Berta said, panting.

  “Are they? For some reason they seem to have a distinctly Transylvanian flair this morning.”

  “Do not be silly. I have never understood people who are frightened of forests. They are places of beauty and shelter.”

  “Then you haven’t read your fairy tales.”

  “When I was a girl, I traipsed about endlessly in the forests near my village, picking mushrooms and wildflowers.”

  “Okay, maybe you lived inside a fairy tale.”

  The footpath was now following a tight ravine full of saplings. Down at the bottom, a small stream gurgled beneath a layer of ice. Across the way, the slope rose sharply, with a bristly dark undergrowth of some kind of evergreen shrub.

  The shrubs rustled.

  I froze. Fear zapped down my limbs.

  Berta, ahead of me, went a few paces before noticing I’d stopped. She turned. “Mrs. Woodby, what is the matter? You look as though you have been struck by a baseball ba—”

  “Shh.” I was peering hard at the shrubs across the ravine.

  Berta followed my gaze.

  We watched, spellbound, as the shrubs quivered, exactly as though someone—or something—quite large were pushing through them.

  Cedric, who had been sniffing a fallen log up ahead on the path, began to growl, his ears pricked in the direction of the shrubs.

  My heart, already thumping from the hike, kicked into a frantic tempo.

  And then—the shrubs stopped quivering. Whoever or whatever had been over there was gone.

  “We are quite safe,” Berta whispered. “It could have been any number of creatures, but whatever it was, it cannot easily reach us with this ravine in the way.”

  “It could’ve been a person,” I whispered back. “They could’ve been eavesdropping on our conversation. They could’ve heard us speculating about Roy’s drinking, and the possibility of him being a murderer—”

  “A person, Mrs. Woodby? With black fur?”

  “You saw black fur?
” I yelped.

  “Yes. You did not?”

  “No!”

  “It was only the briefest glimpse.”

  “Could it have been a hat? Or a coat?”

  “Perhaps.” A long pause. Then Berta whispered, “Patience Yarker said—”

  “Yes.” I swallowed.

  Patience had told us that Hester Albans claimed to have seen a furry critter walking upright in the darkness outside Goddard Farm last night.

  “But what kind of furry creature walks upright?” I said. “And I’m not talking about within the pages of Lurid Tales magazine.”

  “One sometimes sees things in the forest,” Berta said darkly. “Uncanny things.”

  I chose not to request further details. I already had the jimmies.

  As we continued up the slope, I tried to be rational and serene, to be hard-boiled and scoffing and calm. Yet I kept thinking I glimpsed dark fur slipping just past the edges of my vision. When I’d snap my head to the side, though, I’d see nothing but swaying pine boughs or fidgeting birds.

  * * *

  At last, we emerged on the open hilltop upon which Goddard Farm sprawled.

  “How beautiful!” I exclaimed. It was beautiful, although mostly I was relieved to be out from under the trees. There was nowhere for furry monsters to hide up here.

  Snowy mountains rolled away in all directions from the house’s splendid seat. Down below in the valley, Maple Hill’s rooftops and church steeples peeked over a froth of gray tree boughs.

  “You can practically see to Canada,” I said, turning my overheated face to the cold breeze coming from the north.

  “Let us proceed to the house before my feet freeze solid.”

  “But Canada is where Jimmy the Ant is hiding out,” I said.

  “I do not enjoy being teased, Mrs. Woodby.”

  Jimmy was Berta’s on-again, off-again gangster beau, a lizardlike little fellow with one glass eye, spats, and a taste for crime. He’d recently peeved his boss, Lem Fitzpatrick, and fled to Canada. I knew he sent Berta lovey-dovey postcards, but they never had a return address. I wondered if Berta’s melancholy had something to do with missing Jimmy. Of course, I would never ask her this. She was as impervious as a battleship.

  Goddard Farm stood in all its glory, a yellow Colonial-style mansion with tall white pillars. A large garage stood at a distance behind the house, and beyond that, stables and fenced snowy pastures that eventually gave way to more forest.

  Three motorcars were parked near the house: a Rolls-Royce beneath the porte cochere, a sporty Vauxhall, and a saggy Model T. Smoke puffed from both the massive brick chimneys.

  Hester Albans answered the door. “Oh. Hello.” She did not appear to be tickled pink to see us.

  “Hello, Miss Albans,” Berta said. “Good gracious, you work long hours!”

  “Someone must see to the family,” Hester said flatly. She was a rangy woman of middle years with a work-ravaged air: flyaway salt-and-pepper bun, red knuckles, creased forehead.

  “Speaking of the family,” I said, “we would like to see Aunt Daphne—Mrs. Lyle, that is—”

  “She’s still abed.” Hester’s nostrils flared. “Hungover.”

  “What of Mrs. Rogerson?” I asked. I meant Rosemary.

  “She’s gone down to the village.”

  “All right, then George—”

  “George is at ski jumping practice.”

  Whew. Funny thing to do the day after your mother was bopped off.

  “And Fenton?” Berta asked.

  “Fenton’s up in his room, I believe, but I don’t think he’ll wish to speak to anyone.” Hester’s eyes went flinty. “What business is it of yours to be pestering the family, anyway? Folks have been wondering just what your hand was in all this, you know. Big-city detectives showing up unannounced like that, trying to pinch a helpless old lady’s ring?”

  “We are letting cold air into the house,” Berta said, trundling past Hester into the entry hall, “so we are happy to wait inside for Fenton or Mrs. Lyle to come downstairs.” She plunked herself onto a bench.

  I followed, and Hester, clearly flabbergasted, shut the door.

  I sat down beside Berta with Cedric on my lap.

  “Suit yourself,” Hester said with a shrug. “You could be waiting an age. I must get back to work, boxing up all the Christmas decorations and covering all the mirrors. This is a house of death now.” This was spoken with certain morbid relish. She began to walk away.

  “Before you go,” I said, “I wonder if I could ask you a question or two.”

  Hester’s bony shoulders hitched. She turned. “What is it?”

  “Patience Yarker told us you saw something out the window last night,” I said. “A critter.”

  Hester touched a hand to her throat. “She spoke to you about that?”

  “Only in passing,” I said. “What was it?”

  “It was…” Hester swallowed thickly. “You city folk won’t understand.”

  Berta leaned forward. “Oh, but we are not truly city folk, Miss Albans. I myself was raised in a small Swedish village, and Mrs. Woodby comes from the bleakest of farm towns in the Midwestern United States—”

  “It wasn’t really bleak,” I said.

  “—so we understand country ways.”

  “It was Slipperyback,” Hester said.

  “Slipperyback?” I blinked. “Who’s that?”

  “Folks say he’s only a silly legend,” Hester said, “but is it silly when Slipperyback knocks over woodpiles? Is it silly when he breaks into cellars and steals everyone’s cured hams? Eh?”

  My heart was squeezing. “What is he? A—a monster?”

  Hester’s eyes flared. “A bear.”

  “A bear?” Berta said. “But bears hibernate in winter.”

  “Slipperyback doesn’t. He’s no ordinary bear. He’s enormous. He’s wily. He’s at least one hundred years old—some say twice that—he always walks on two legs, and no man’s traps or bullets can harm him. That’s why he’s called Slipperyback, you see. He causes a ruckus, plays tricks, steals and breaks and frightens, and then—” Hester spread her big hands. “—slips away into the woods.”

  Berta and I exchanged sidelong glances: Had we just encountered Slipperyback on our way up here?

  “I see you don’t believe me.” Hester sounded angry and hurt.

  “No! We do,” I said. “We do. Tell me, Miss Albans, what precisely was Slipperyback doing outside the house last night?”

  “Peeking in at us, of course.”

  My skin crawled. “Weren’t the curtains shut?”

  “The living room curtains never close properly. There’s always a little crack. Something’s the matter with the curtain rod. And I saw his footprints last night, too.”

  “Where?”

  “Just outside the kitchen door. I burned a batch of bread rolls, you see, and I had to open the door to let out the smoke, and that’s when I saw them. Paw prints, going right past the kitchen porch. Then I knew for certain it was Slipperyback and not some other critter, because it was just the two paws. Not four.”

  “Because he walks upright,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you suppose he had anything to do with Mrs. Goddard’s death?” I asked.

  “Certainly not!”

  “Miss Albans,” Berta said, “who do you believe poisoned Mrs. Goddard last night?”

  “One of her children, of course. For the inheritance.”

  That was the obvious answer, of course. But then, which child?

  “Or perhaps—” Hester lowered her voice. “—it was Maynard Coburn. It was as clear as day he pursued Mrs. Goddard for her money. Why, she was more than twenty years older than he.”

  “Still, Mrs. Goddard was very beautiful,” I said.

  “Beauty is as beauty does. Mark my words, Maynard is a fortune-hunter—we don’t know if he was in her will or not, do we? He’s not from around here, you know. He’s from Maine. Son of a p
oor Skowhegan timberman. Grew up half-starved and half-frozen, with his eyes on bigger prizes. The worst of it is, he attended college with George—down in Hanover at Dartmouth, you know. Maynard had a scholarship, of course, and he’d come up here to Goddard Farm for the summer and Christmas holidays. Poor Elmer, well, Elmer got to thinking of Maynard almost like a son. Not that Mrs. Goddard thought of him as a son, oh no—when she was here at all, because even when her children were small, she’d be off gallivanting in distant places half the year—”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said. “Are you suggesting that when Maynard was in college, he and Mrs. Goddard—?”

  “Oh no, not back then. She didn’t give him the time of day till about a year ago. Once he’d gotten almost famous, on magazine covers and such. Then she started parading him down in Cleveland like a show pony.”

  Ugh. I’m no prude, but taking up with one’s son’s college pal really was the limit.

  “I must get back to work,” Hester said. “I’ll tell Mr. Goddard”—she meant Fenton—“that you’re here.” She had thawed toward Berta and me, I could tell. Sharing gossip has that effect. “I’ve got my other jobs to tend to today, too, and then more of my Christmas fruitcakes to bake. I’ll be selling them at the carnival, if you happen to like fruitcake. We are raising money to give the Methodist church a new coat of paint.”

  “Fruitcake? Scrumptious,” I lied. I would not deign to use a fruitcake for a doorstop, for fear of offending the door. “What are your other jobs, Hester?”

  “Well, there’s my work at the maple syrup factory—that’s just a day or two each week except in sugaring season—and I do a sweater here or there at the knitting factory, and of course there’s the inn every afternoon, and I look after the Reverend Mr. Currier’s house—”

  “The inn?” Berta said.

  “The Old Mill Inn. Didn’t you know? I clean the rooms. Now. I must get to boxing the decorations.” Hester went away.

  8

  “Hester Albans is a cleaning lady at the Old Mill Inn,” I whispered to Berta once Hester’s footfalls had receded. “That means she has access to all the room keys! She could have stolen the dossier from your suitcase!”

  “Do calm yourself, Mrs. Woodby,” Berta whispered back. “You resemble a pink balloon on the verge of bursting. Hester is not one of our murder suspects, so why would she have stolen the dossier?”