Naughty on Ice

by Maia Chance

  Berta caught me looking. “Not yet, Mrs. Woodby,” she whispered, biting into a square of shortbread. “We must confirm George’s whereabouts before we attempt to locate his bedroom.” Her eyes landed on something across the room. Her shortbread chewing slowed.

  Here came the Alpine Club co-presidents, heading for Berta as eagerly as two cows to a salt lick.

  I refrained from rolling my eyes.

  “Mrs. Lundgren,” Strom said in a decorous murmur that didn’t match the glitter in his eye. “May I entice you with a cookie?” He held out a piled plate.

  “Surely Mrs. Lundgren would prefer something with chocolate, you dunce,” Pickard said, pushing his own plate of cookies in front of Strom’s.

  It was as though a light switch had been flipped inside of Berta. Gone were her weary posture and grimly pressed lips. She laughed gaily and patted her hair.

  How could I tear her away from the only thing that made her happy? Even if that thing was two men with ear hair difficulties? I plunked Cedric, still in my handbag, into Berta’s arms and slipped away.

  * * *

  I strolled through the splendid downstairs rooms, searching for George. I saw a library with a dark green carpet and tall shelves of books. A lady’s parlor wallpapered with turquoise-plumed birds. Lots of crumbs on the floors, dribbled by funeral guests.

  Just as I was peeking into what must’ve been the breakfast room—unoccupied—someone behind me said, “Casing the joint again?”

  I spun around, hand pressed to heart. “Golly! You frightened me!”

  “What a pity.” Maynard Coburn didn’t appear pitying. His eyes practically zapped with malice.

  “Ripping reception, isn’t it?” I said.

  I would’ve been bowled over by how dashing Maynard looked in his black suit, if I hadn’t been acutely aware that his wafting, dark-gold hair was a fraud.

  “Say, Mr. Coburn, now that we finally have a chance to schmooze, I simply must ask—what were you doing in the early hours of yesterday morning? Stumbling back home after a motorcar crash after a spot of bootlegging, by any chance?”

  For a fraction of a second, Maynard’s mouth pulled tight in what was, unmistakably, fear. But in a flash, he rearranged his expression into contempt. “A word of advice, Mrs. Woodby—you’re out of your depth. Go back to finding lost puppies in New York before you get yourself mixed up in something ugly.”

  “Is that a threat?” Gosh, was that a tacit confession of bootlegging?

  “Think of it as a friendly warning.” Maynard’s eyes were as friendly as a Nile crocodile’s. “I am glad I’ve bumped into you, however.”

  “Oh?”

  “I want that film.”

  I batted my eyelashes. “What film?”

  “You and that Swedish meatball burst into my rooms, and I clearly saw that she had a camera. She took a picture of me in a … a rather awkward…”

  “State of undress?” I suggested.

  Maynard smoothed a hand over his toupee. “I. Want. That. Film.”

  “Sounds like it’s one hot commodity,” I said, arching an eyebrow.

  “How dare you … are you attempting to—to blackmail me?”

  “Heavens no.”

  Maynard didn’t seem to believe me, because he’d pulled a leather wallet from inside his jacket. He glanced over his shoulder and leaned in. “How much? One hundred dollars? Two?”

  “Mind if I ask why you’re so upset about having an artificial haircut?”

  “It’ll ruin my reputation.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Do you think the magazine editors and admen will give me so much as a mention if I don’t keep up appearances?”

  “Since it’s question-and-answer time,” I said, “I saw you just before the coronation of the Winter Carnival King and Queen yesterday evening. You didn’t look particularly joyous.”

  Maynard’s hand pinched his wallet hard. “What are you getting at?”

  “I understand there is a strong sense of, shall we say, sporting competition between George Goddard and you. Are you squigged off about George and Patience’s … understanding?” I was bluffing; I had only suspicions of such an understanding, based upon the Possible Pea, and the swanky hotel brochures Patience had hidden under the inn’s reservation book.

  “What understanding? George and Patience? Not in a million.” Maynard opened his wallet and thrust a few one-hundred-dollar bills in my direction.

  “No, thank you,” I said, edging past him.

  “We’re not through—where do you think you’re going?”

  “Straight to the coffee cake,” I said over my shoulder.

  Whew. Fellows. And they say we ladies are vain.

  * * *

  A few ticks later, I spied George in the billiards room, hunched over his cue. A lit cigarette dangled from his lips. Mr. Persons, the sportswriter, hovered nearby with an open notebook.

  Who had let him in?

  I loitered just outside the open door. The men hadn’t noticed me yet.

  “… and you can quote me on that,” George was saying.

  “Righto.” Persons scribbled in his notebook, tongue bitten between his front teeth. “Maynard Coburn’s jump … over Maple Hill … will prove … he’s … past it. Clever, Mr. Goddard, very clever. Readers love a play on words. Say, I wanted to ask you if you think Maynard Coburn is mixed up in all this murder ballyhoo. I mean, two murders? Sheesh.”

  Crack went the balls, and they rolled and ricocheted in colorful blurs. None of them fell into a pocket.

  “I told you, Clint—”

  “Clive.”

  “—Clive—my brother wasn’t murdered. He killed himself. Left a suicide note and everything. Fenton killed Mother because she was going to leave him behind on her long honeymoon when she married Maynard. Fenton was a mama’s boy, you see.”

  “But then, why didn’t he kill Maynard instead of his mother?”

  George shrugged. “Maybe he meant to, and that cyanide of his wound up in the wrong drink.”

  “Inneresting. Can I quote you on that?”

  “Go right ahead.” George caught sight of me, and straightened. “Well, well, if it isn’t our perpetual uninvited guest. What’s the matter? New York City doesn’t want you back?” He picked up a glass of some amber liquid and sipped, eyeing me over the rim. “What do you want? I’ve only got a few minutes before I must trot off to the library like a good boy and listen to the lawyer read Mother’s will.”

  Ah. The Big Moment was to occur in the library, then. Should I grab my coat, go outside, and try to listen to the will-reading from below the library window? No, I wouldn’t hear a word. Maybe I could loiter at the keyhole.…

  “Care for a game of billiards?” George asked me.

  “Only if you were hoping to knock out some of these walls.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I don’t get along well with any sport that involves balls, heights, or speed.”

  “What’s left?”

  “The back float. Listen, Mr. Goddard, are you truly going ahead with the ski jumping contest tomorrow under the, um, circumstances?”

  “Course he is,” Mr. Persons said with a scowl. “Hey, you trying to mess up my story?”

  George puffed his cigarette and ostentatiously set his drink on a sideboard. “I’m finally rid of my own mother, and I don’t need some female detective to mother-hen me,” he said. “I mean to enjoy my freedom.”

  “I believe it,” I said. I watched George closely as I added, “Although, there might be a village lass or two who’d be disappointed to hear that.”

  George’s eyes narrowed. Mr. Persons’s pencil froze in midair.

  “What did you say?” George asked.

  “Come now, Mr. Goddard,” I said cheerily. “Everyone saw that photograph. You know, the one of Patience Yarker and you having a kiss and a cuddle in the woods?”

  “Dammit,” George said, suddenly sounding drunk. “I’ve had it with your prying! I wan
t you out of here!” He pointed a wavering finger toward the door.

  “Say,” Mr. Persons said to me, “you don’t know where I could get my hands on a copy of that photograph, do you?”

  “Oh, close your head!” George snapped.

  I decided that my work in the billiards room was done. “Toodles!” I said, and legged it for the door.

  Back in the living room, Berta was laughing at something either Strom or Pickard had said. And here was Ralph beside me, chewing a gingersnap. “How’s tricks?” he said.

  “George is in the billiards room, so for the moment, I’m free to search upstairs. I don’t think I’ll be able to tear Berta away from her beaus. Would you come with me?”

  “To the ends of the earth, kid.” Ralph smiled, and popped the last bite of gingersnap into his mouth.

  How I wished he wouldn’t joke about things like that.

  I led Ralph toward the kitchen and the back stairs Berta and I had used a few days earlier. As we went, I softly explained how I’d learned that Judith’s will was to be read in the library in only a few minutes. “I suppose I have no choice but to listen in at the keyhole,” I whispered, “but I won’t have much privacy with so many people in the house.”

  “That’d be pretty risky,” Ralph whispered back. “You might have to rely on questioning the family members about the will afterwards.”

  “But they’re a bunch of liars.”

  “Just watch ’em hard. See if they scratch their ears or rub their lips or shift their eyes around. It’s like playing poker, kid.”

  “But I’m rotten at poker.”

  Ralph chuckled. “That’s only ’cause you burst into a big, beautiful smile whenever you’re dealt a good hand. That doesn’t mean you can’t read other people.”

  “I can’t read you,” I said. Rats. Why had that popped out?

  A pause. Then, in a slightly less jovial tone, “You sure about that?”

  24

  The first room into which Ralph and I looked seemed wholly unoccupied, without even bed linens on the four-poster. The second door led to a lavatory that was, alas, occupied by a gent arranging his suspenders.

  “I beg your pardon!” he cried.

  “Whoops!” I said. “Looking for the—er—linen closet!” I slammed the door.

  Ralph was shaking his head and grinning. I held my laughter in with my palm.

  The next door was locked.

  Ralph whispered, “Do you want me to—?”

  “I’ll handle this, darling,” I whispered back. I pulled my skeleton key from my pocket, fit it into the keyhole, applied a little finesse, and—click—the lock tumbled.

  “Gorgeous,” Ralph whispered.

  I pushed the door open. Ralph looked up and down the corridor, and we darted inside.

  The curtains were drawn so the room was dim. I smelled cigarettes and made out clothing—men’s clothing—draped over chairbacks and lumped on the carpet.

  “Jackpot,” I whispered. “This is surely George’s room, and Fenton said something about a highboy—and there it is.”

  Boy, did I ever feel slick. I practically strutted across the room.

  The highboy’s top was cluttered with the usual rich man’s paraphernalia—cuff links, eau de cologne bottles, silver hairbrush and comb set, nail scissors—

  “There are no letters here,” I said. “Was Fenton lying?”

  “Nope.” Ralph crouched. “Look.” A brass wastebin sat on the floor. From the bottom of the wastebin, beneath a discarded newspaper and an empty Lucky Strike box, he pulled out a crumpled page, stood, and passed it to me.

  I uncrumpled it. Blush stationery, floral letterhead, and the name Juliet Vanderlyn with a Cleveland address. Scrawled violet ink. The note was dated December 15.

  Ralph and I silently read:

  My Darlingest Georgiepoo,

  I’m dashing off this note on my way out the door to the big Christmas dance at the Smythes’ place. Gosh I miss you, snoogums, and I wish you could see me in my new Florrie Westwood gown! It’s positively scrummy and goes just swell with the new motorcar Daddy bought me!

  I want to ask you, sweetums, just as soon as the season dies down a smidge and you have time to noodle it over, would you give the idea of wedding bells for us a good long thinkie winkie? I know Daddy won’t be pleased one bit if you keep coming around without making your intentions known, as the old folks say, and I don’t need to remind you, poopsie woopsie, that Daddy simply adores Harry Shute!

  Counting the days until I see you on New Year’s Eve at the Chesters’ party! Until then, darling, I’ll dream of your Eskimo kisses.

  —Your ickle Jules-Bean

  The signature was punctuated by a smudged red lipstick kiss.

  “Golly,” I said. “Debutantes these days drive a hard bargain.”

  “A girl on the side,” Ralph said. “’Cause didn’t you say this Georgiepoo guy and the innkeeper’s daughter—?”

  “Yes, but it’s not clear which girl is on the side. There could be even more girls. Or—what if George was desperate to get at his inheritance in order to beat this Harry Shute number to the altar with Juliet? George is awfully competitive, so—”

  Ralph glanced at the door. “I hate to say it, but time’s about up, kid. You found what you were looking for, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” I crumpled the letter and tossed it back into the wastebin.

  On the way to the door, I tripped on something, stumbled, and looked to see what had caught my toe. It was a brass vent set into the floor.

  “This house has got central heating!” I whispered excitedly.

  “Uh-huh?” Ralph had cracked the door and was peering out.

  “We didn’t think of a good way to hide in the library to overhear the reading of the will, which—” I glanced at my wristwatch. “—should be almost under way. But if this house has central heating, that means there will be vents like this all over the place. What if there’s a vent in the library ceiling? You know, where the will is being read?”

  Ralph’s face lit with understanding. “Got it. Where’s the library?”

  “In the other wing of the house.”

  We went out of George’s room, I relocked it with my skeleton key, and we hurried along the upper hallways.

  I would have liked to locate Rosemary’s room and look around for that secret notebook of hers, but there was no time.

  We arrived at the east wing’s central corridor.

  “The library overlooks the side of the house,” I whispered, “so I’ll bet this room here sits above it.” I tried the doorknob, and it gave.

  We entered a nursery, with shelves filled with dusty-looking dolls and toy bears, an exquisitely painted rocking horse, and shelves of storybooks.

  “I hear voices,” I whispered.

  “There.” Ralph pointed. “There’s a floor vent over by the window seat.”

  We tiptoed over. Ralph crouched and I knelt beside the vent. There were most certainly voices below, although I couldn’t make out any distinct words.

  “There’s a lever,” Ralph whispered. “You do the honors.”

  I eased over the lever that opened the vent slats all the way. Instantly, the voices were louder and I could see, through the gridwork of brass and a blur of dust bunnies, a dark green carpet far below.

  The library had a dark green carpet.

  I gave Ralph a thumbs-up and a smile.

  Silently, he reached over, slid a hand behind my neck, and pulled me in for a kiss.

  Time stopped. I melted. How could I have said I couldn’t read this man? Of course I could. With my eyes closed.

  “… skip to the good part.” This was George, speaking too loudly and slurring slightly.

  I pulled away from Ralph, flushing. I strained my ears.

  George went on, “No one cares about Mother’s goddamn rubies and pearls.”

  “Some of us do.” This was Rosemary, tearful and sharp. “Some of us care about heritage and tradition and fam
ily heirlooms, and that ring was supposed to be mine. It has been passed from mother to daughter on the Ives side of the family for a century—don’t pour yourself another drink, George! You’ve had quite enough—”

  “To hell with you and your temperance league ninnies!”

  Rosemary burst into noisy sobs. “Doesn’t anyone care that Mother and Fenton are dead?”

  There was the sound of clinking crystal.

  Uncle Roy spoke next. “A glass of that Bordeaux, too, if you please, George, my boy. There’s an open bottle behind the whiskey.” I supposed this was it for Roy. He might very well be out on his ear once the will was read.

  There was a great deal at stake for all three of them, actually.

  “Why did Judith have to go and get herself poisoned?” Roy said. “So selfish of her. Now we’re left to deal with the consequences. And Fenton, too. Although he was always a hideously selfish creature. Had a few screws loose—”

  “Fenton wasn’t murdered,” George said in a droning voice, as though he’d reminded Roy of this several times already. “There was a suicide note.”

  “That wasn’t his handwriting!” Rosemary cried.

  “Don’t be hysterical, Rosemary. You’re getting your eyeglasses all smeary. Of course it was.”

  “I am uncertain about Fenton’s handwriting,” Roy said, “but I for one wouldn’t have thought Fenton had the guts to kill himself.”

  “It was suicide, dammit!” George roared. “Why do you two wish to believe this is about anything more than Fenton’s being a weak-minded, vengeful, jealous, and violent mama’s boy?”

  Rosemary said, “I think a better question would be, why don’t you, George?”

  This was the second time in the span of thirty minutes that I’d heard George insist that Fenton killed Mrs. Goddard and then did himself in. Did he truly believe that? Or did he have more nefarious reasons to campaign on that claim?

  An “Ahem-hem” made the family fall silent.

  “Now, then,” said a man with a voice as dry as melba toast. “I will commence to read the Last Will and Testament of Judith Desdemona Ives Goddard. Ahem-hem. ‘The estate in its entirety is to be split equally between my two sons, George Goddard and Fenton Goddard—’”

  “What?” Rosemary gasped.