by Maia Chance
“You’re hoping Judith Goddard left the club something in her will?” I asked.
“No, nothing like that. It’s … say, who did get what in that will?”
“I’ll tell you,” I said, “if you tell me why you want to know.”
Ralph hid his smile with his whiskey glass.
“All right,” Morton said. “The thing is, the club doesn’t have much land—only ten acres, which isn’t much when you’re wanting to ski and snowshoe all day long. For years, we’ve been trespassing on the Goddard land—they own everything on three sides of the club’s own land, for miles and miles around. All those wild hills stretching north and east? That’s Goddard land.”
“How did you wind up with a patch carved out of their land?” Ralph asked.
“Elmer Goddard sold it to us. He was a good fellow. But after he died, Judith refused to part with any more land once we’d saved up the money to buy it. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she was greedy.”
“I think I understand,” I said. “You’re hoping that whoever inherited the estate will sell more land to the Alpine Club.”
Morton nodded, and leaned in. “So. Who is it?”
“George,” I said. “Well, three-quarters of the estate goes to George, and the rest is Rosemary’s.”
“George! Well.” Morton was grinning. “That’s just great.”
“You’re thinking George will sell you some land?” Ralph asked.
“Yep. He’s an outdoorsman, you see. A skier. What’s more, he doesn’t have any silly notions in his head like Rosemary does, about keeping great tracts of land in the family like some kinda high-muckety-muck English gentry. He’ll be reasonable. We’ll ask him straightaway. Ah, that’s just grand.”
Another fellow came bustling over, carrying a steaming, fragrant plate of food, which he passed to me. “Ladies first—oh—and here’s your fork.”
“Thank you,” I said.
A few minutes later, everyone was eating. The roast potatoes and venison tasted delicious. I dampened my guilty thoughts of Prancer and Dancer with a second glass of whiskey.
I was feeding Cedric a last morsel of meat when one of the men cried, “What in tarnation’s that? Boys, something’s out there!”
Everyone spun around.
The man who had spoken was bounding to a window. He cupped his hands around his face and peered out.
He reared back. “Grab your guns, boys! It’s that confounded bear.” He strode toward the front door and the rifles leaning in the corner.
“Stay inside,” Ralph said to me, getting to his feet.
I set aside my plate and stood. “I’m coming, too.” I placed Cedric on my chair and told him to stay.
There was a flurry of footfalls and coats being flung on and rifles being hoisted. Pickard was helping Berta into her coat.
Strom said to Pickard, “My papa always said never mess with guns when you’re drunk.”
“You’re drunk, too,” Pickard snapped.
The man called Ignatius said, “Heck, we’re all drunk. Come on. We’re wasting time. This could be our chance to nail Slipperyback!”
“Lola,” Ralph said to me, shrugging on his coat. “You really oughta stay ba—”
“No.” I put on my own coat and grabbed my hat. “This is pertinent to my investigation.”
“That’s why I’m going. I’ll report back to—”
I sailed past Ralph, following the stream of a dozen armed, drunken men into the night.
28
“There!” one of the men shouted, his voice shrunken by the wind. “Fur! Disappearing into that thicket up the slope! Confound that critter! Let’s get ’im!”
The men swarmed uphill. A man with a kerosene lantern led the way, with Berta, Strom, and Pickard somewhere in the middle, and Ralph and me trailing at the rear. The forest yawned blackly. Snowflakes stung my cheeks, and I had to lift my feet high to clear the deep snow.
Did I want to see a bear? No, I did not. Which made me feel like a lousy detective, because shouldn’t detectives always wish to confront the terrible truth?
“Footprints!” the man with the lantern shouted. “Only a pair. Oho, it’s Slipperyback, all right, walkin’ upright. C’mon! Hurry up! Cock your rifles, boys!”
“I cannot believe,” I said breathlessly to Ralph, “that a bear would bother to walk upright when it could go on all fours.”
“Who knows?” Ralph said, giving me a hand over a fallen log. “Maybe it escaped from the circus.”
“This is no joke, Ralph. There’s something out there.”
“I don’t believe in monsters, Lola, and besides, you’re safe with me.”
We slogged upward after the men, following the swinging orb of the lantern.
A few moments later, Berta cried out, her voice frail in the stormy night.
“That was Berta!” I said to Ralph, picking up my pace. “She sounds hurt!”
I pushed through the men, who had come to a standstill, to see Berta flat on her back, half-absorbed by snow, and Pickard kneeling over her.
“Mrs. Lundgren,” he was saying. “Where does it hurt?”
“My ankle,” Berta said, her voice small and tight. “I have twisted my ankle. The branches hit my face and I lost my balance—oh. I do not believe I will be able to walk any farther.”
“Durn you!” Pickard snarled up at Strom. “You let those tree branches whip into her face! Didn’t anyone ever tell you that a gentleman always holds the branches for a lady behind him? Come on, Mrs. Lundgren, let me help you up before all this snow starts melting on you.”
“Uh … what about Slipperyback?” one of the men said.
This was met with jeers and shouts and murmurs of things like, “Lady’s been hurt, man!” “Can’t you think of anything but hunting, Johns?” “We’ll have to nab that bear later. Got to tend to the lady!”
With Strom looking sheepishly on, Pickard slid an arm around Berta and attempted to hoist her upright. She cried out again and sagged in his arms. Her weight made him crumple like a paper doll, but with a grunt, he straightened. Then, bowlegs sagging, he swooped Berta into his arms after the fashion of a romantic cinema hero.
“Let us through,” he grunted.
We all parted to let Pickard pass, and he started down the snowy slope. He cast a swift glance over his shoulder, straight at Strom. He bared his teeth in triumph.
Strom glowered.
“Let’s take a look at those footprints,” Ralph murmured to me.
“But Berta is hurt.”
“You don’t want to miss your chance.”
“Oh, all right.”
Ralph asked the man with the lantern to illuminate the footprints for us.
“Sure,” the man said.
The rest of the men were straggling, deflated, down the slope, their rifles drooping in their arms.
With the snow pelting down and the wind swaying the fir branches above us, the man with the lantern stooped to show us the prints.
They were man-sized, and they had been made by someone or—gulp—something walking upright on two legs, not four.
“Here’s a good print—look at the shape of ’em,” the man said, pointing a gloved finger at one of the prints. “No bootheel marks. They’re triangular like a bear’s pad. And see the claw marks?”
I swallowed. Five long, teardrop-shaped claw marks were clearly pressed into the snow.
“Well, I’ll be,” Ralph murmured.
“It sounds as though you’ve seen prints like these before,” I said to the man with the lantern.
“I have, though not since I was a boy. But folks up in these parts have been seeing glimpses of Slipperyback—or maybe his ancestors—for centuries.”
“No one has ever caught more than a glimpse of him?” I asked, looking up the slope where the tracks merged into the darkness.
I thought I heard the faint snap of a branch.
Run! my muscles shouted.
I stood my ground.
&n
bsp; “Nope. He’s wily like that. But someday … Seen enough?”
Ralph looked at me.
“Yes,” I said. “Except for one more thing. What’s at the top of this slope here?”
“You mean, where’s Slipperyback headed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s Goddard land up there—”
“Yes, I know.”
“—and it’s the ridge running north to south. There are caves up there, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got a den in one of those. You wouldn’t catch me venturing near those caves—no, sir.”
We started down the slope, the man with the lantern leading the way.
“Wait a minute,” I whispered to Ralph as we went. “I’ve just remembered something. Mr. Currier, the minister, told Berta and me that he ran into Maynard Coburn up on a ridge last summer. Mountaineering, you know. What if Maynard was really scoping it out or, I don’t know, searching for Slipperyback, or…” My voice trailed off, and a violent shiver shook me from head to toe.
“Come on.” Ralph curled his arm around me. “Let’s get back inside before this snowstorm blows us away.”
Back inside the lodge, the party spirit was extinguished. Berta reclined on a chair with one boot propped in Pickard’s hands. She wore a grimace of pain.
“Berta, are you all right?” I asked, hovering over her.
“No. I suspect it is a sprain. Mrs. Woodby.” Berta beckoned me closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Promise me you will stake out the general store in the morning and get to the bottom of who is marking those milk bottles. I may not be able to go, but it will drive me potty if I never find out.”
“I promise,” I whispered back.
“I think you oughta have your ankle looked at by Dr. Best,” Pickard said. “He’s got an office at his house.”
“I’ll drive her,” Strom said quickly.
“No, Strom,” Pickard said, “I think you’ve done quite enough.”
* * *
I meant to wait up for Berta’s return from the doctor’s office that night. But the airing cupboard was too warm, Ralph’s arms were so comforting, and Cedric’s snoring so sweet. The snowstorm rattled and swished on the windowpanes, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
“They say it’s always coldest just before dawn,” I said to Ralph the next morning, “and this morning is proof. It’s colder than a Frigidaire out here!”
“Mmph,” Ralph said into his turned-up collar.
We crunched across River Street toward the general store, where we meant to catch the milk-bottle marker in the act. I had stashed Cedric in Berta’s room—she was still sleeping—in order to be nimble. Five pounds of dog tends to gum the game.
Only one set of tire tracks marred the street’s thick, snowy quilt. Pale pink saturated the eastern sky behind mountain silhouettes. Smoke drifted from chimneys, but not a soul was out and about. I enviously imagined everyone curled up in feather beds. And somewhere, probably not very far away, a killer was abed, too. At Goddard Farm, or the Old Mill Inn, or within a snug clapboard cottage.
Or, perhaps, the killer wasn’t abed at all, but lacing on their snow boots in preparation for a day of villainy—beginning with a grease-penciling excursion to the general store.
Ralph tried the store’s door handle. “Locked,” he said into his scarf.
A figure appeared behind the glass of the door—Green, the shopkeeper. His eyebrows shot up when he saw us, and he unlocked and opened the door with a clatter and a bell-jingle.
“You’re bright and early,” he said gruffly. “You can come in, but the stove’s not lit yet. Almost as cold inside as out.”
“Thanks,” Ralph said, and he and I filed inside.
“What’re you needing at this hour?” Green asked with his back to us. He crouched in front of the potbellied stove and opened its little door.
“Milk,” I said. “Fresh milk.”
“Farmer Tunkett just left his crate round back.” Green was arranging kindling inside the stove. “Soon as I get this fire going, I’ll put it out in the icebox.”
“Dandy,” I said. Since Green’s back was turned, I gave Ralph a thumbs-up sign with my mittened hand. Actually, my mittened hands were more or less fixed in the thumbs-up position.
Ralph and I pretended to be engrossed in a bin of penny candies, and then a display of wool long johns, as we waited for Green to put out the milk bottles. Once we heard the distinctive glassy rattle of the bottles going into the icebox, we went over.
“There you go,” Green said, picking up the empty wooden crate. “Fresh milk.” He disappeared into the private realm at the back of the store.
Ralph and I eagerly examined every one of those milk bottles. They were icy to the touch, all with lightning-style metal and porcelain stoppers.
“No grease pencil,” I whispered.
“Nope,” Ralph whispered back. “So now we wait.”
“How are we to explain to Green why we’re hanging about?”
“If he asks questions, we’ll say we’re going back to New York this afternoon and we’re picking up Vermont country gewgaws for our friends back home.”
“Spiffy idea.” I made for the maple sugar candy display.
Ralph and I loitered. We gradually piled up quite a lot of little things to purchase at Green’s counter: boxes of candies, bottles of the local maple syrup, handmade pot holders, birch baskets. I hadn’t done any Christmas shopping yet, so I felt that I was virtuously killing two birds with one stone. Meanwhile, the woodstove was starting to emanate warmth, and Green had unfolded a newspaper. He kept an eye on Ralph and me over the top edge, but he didn’t ask any questions.
Customers trickled in. We didn’t recognize the first several, but we watched all the same to see if they went to the icebox. The first person to visit the icebox was a small girl of about six with pigtails sprouting from below a fleecy hat. After she paid for her milk and left—she had to stand on tiptoe to give Green her quarter—I went to the icebox. I felt absurd, of course, but while Ralph distracted Green up at the counter, I checked the bottoms of the remaining eleven milk bottles.
No grease pencil.
I went to peruse the crank-operated apple peelers.
Ralph and I had been in the store for more than half an hour when it was suddenly rather crowded. The old-timers had taken up their chairs around the potbellied stove. A woman inspected the shelf of canned foods. Mr. Pickard bustled in, purchased some magazines and newspapers, and left. Two small children were counting out their pennies for peppermint sticks. Mr. Strom came in, piled his arms high with purchases, and left. And then … Rosemary Rogerson came in, bundled in black wool.
Ralph was up at the counter again, talking to Green. He hadn’t noticed Rosemary’s arrival, and I thought it would be indiscreet to alert him. I’d keep tabs on her myself.
I was behind a shoulder-high shelf, and Rosemary didn’t appear to have noticed me yet. I was wearing a hat, and I slouched so that only my eyes would be visible should she turn around.
Rosemary went straight to the high shelf holding jars of spices, yeast, coffee, and tea. She appeared to be searching for something in particular—her head moved left to right along the shelves. This went on for a minute or two. She appeared to find what she was looking for, and pulled a jar from a high shelf. Then she repeated the process, and pulled another jar. She carried both jars to the counter. When she saw that it was Ralph standing there talking to Green, her pace faltered. Then she lifted her chin and barreled over.
“Excuse me,” I heard her say to Ralph in a cold voice.
Ralph stepped aside.
Green measured out portions of whatever was in the jars into tiny paper sacks. Rosemary paid and left.
Perhaps she had come to mark the milk bottles, but seeing Ralph and me there, she had changed her plans.
And—it occurred to me that I hadn’t looked in the direction of the icebox in about five minutes. I hurried to the icebox. I re
ached for the bottle in the rear corner, the one that Titus always purchased. I turned it over.
Grease pencil on the bottom of the bottle said II 6p.
No.
With shaking hands, I replaced the bottle, shut the icebox, and walked swiftly to the front door.
“Lola?” Ralph said as I passed him.
There was no time to answer. I shoved open the front door, blasted by cold air, and looked up and down the sidewalk.
There was Rosemary, hurrying toward her parked motorcar far up the street. And … here came Titus Staples, greasy black hair straggling from beneath his red cap.
I dodged back inside the store.
Ralph was right there. “What’s up?” he whispered.
“The bottle has been marked—and Titus Staples is coming to get it! I want to go after Rosemary—would you stay here to see what Titus does? Thank you, darling.” I went on tiptoe, kissed Ralph’s cheek, and darted outside.
29
I passed Titus Staples just outside the general store, and although he didn’t even look at me, I couldn’t help shrinking away, remembering the BLAM! of his rifle.
I bobbled up the sidewalk in knee-deep snow after Rosemary.
She was thumping into the driver’s seat of her cream-colored motorcar, shutting the door—
I broke into a clumsy run.
—she was turning over her engine—
I slipped and scrambled over a snowbank and into the street in front of her motorcar. “Mrs. Rogerson!” I shouted.
She wrestled with her steering wheel and tried to drive around me. But her motorcar wasn’t agile in the snow, and I easily blocked her path.
“Mrs. Rogerson!” I shouted over the warble of her engine. “Might I have a word?”
I wasn’t certain if she could hear me, but her face behind the windshield flushed with fury. She switched off the engine, threw open her door, and came at me with her handbag swinging from one arm and her teeth gritted.
“How dare you block my way, you—you wicked creature!” she cried.
