Naughty on Ice

by Maia Chance

I twisted around. Ralph lay on his back nearby, eyes shut, ankles and wrists tied. Blood trickled from his temple but he was breathing—yes, thank God, breathing.

  Tears filled my eyes, and I spun to face Maynard. “What’s happening?”

  Maynard snorted. “What’s happening? Isn’t it obvious? Look around, princess.”

  I looked.

  The ball of light, the hissing noise—that was a kerosene lantern set on the floor a few yards away. We were inside a cave with moist, curved granite walls, the size of a room in a house. Wooden crates, dozens and dozens of them, were stacked around the cave’s perimeter. I knew it was booze; I could smell it.

  “That’s how it’s done,” I said, half to myself. “Titus disguises himself as Slipperyback whenever he’s hauling whiskey crates. He drapes the huge bearskin over the crate on his back, perhaps to scare anyone he might happen to run into. That’s why the ski club fellows say they’ve been glimpsing more of Slipperyback lately. They’ve been glimpsing Titus. Titus must have been creeping around wearing his bearskin and—what?—special bear-paw-shaped molds on his feet?—just to scare everyone, too. To keep people from venturing up to the ridge, and to keep people distracted from the truth.”

  “Someone puts in an order, see,” Maynard said, “for however many crates of hooch they want. Titus carries crates down to the transfer point at the sugar shack. Someone picks up the crates and takes them away. But who the heck’s putting in the orders and picking up the crates?”

  “Ralph and I meant to stake out the sugar shack tonight and find out,” I said. “We’ve missed our chance, because now that Titus knows we’re onto the operation, the whole thing will stall. But we were right about the milk bottles.…”

  “The milk bottles?” Maynard said. “What on earth are you prattling about?”

  He didn’t know about the milk bottles, then, and I didn’t feel like filling him in. The gink.

  “All this time,” Maynard said, “I was looking for bootleggers on the roads—’cause we knew a whole lot of hooch was coming through Maple Hill. We traced it back from Boston and Hartford and Albany. I never thought to look up here in the caves. They must be bringing it along the ridge clear from Canada before the snow falls, and stockpiling it in these caves.”

  “What do you mean, all this time you’ve been looking for—? And, ‘we’? I don’t understand.”

  “I thought you’d have figured it out by now. Didn’t you mention bootleggers when you were trying to give me the shakedown at the funeral the other day?” Maynard snorted. “Women detectives.”

  “Figured out what?”

  “That I’m a Fed.”

  A Fed? Maynard Coburn was a Fed?

  “What do you think I live up here in Vermont for?” he said.

  “To ski?” I said lamely.

  “Anyone in their right mind would move to Switzerland or Austria if all they wanted to do was ski. No. I was offered a job with Customs right after the war. Chasing down bootleggers from the border, see. Turns out, I’m pretty damn good at it, and it’s steady pay. The skiing gig isn’t. Funny thing is, you can be on magazine covers and in the papers and still not have any dough.”

  “Which is why you meant to marry Judith Goddard.”

  “One of the reasons. She was a knockout, too, and…”

  “And it felt pleasant to anger George by marrying his mother?”

  “Sure did.”

  “Now they’re both dead.”

  “Yeah. I feel bad about … about the games I played. With both of them. I mean, they were both just spoiled-rotten rich people, but they didn’t deserve to be murdered.”

  “Which you didn’t do.”

  Maynard scoffed. “Of course not. Why would I? Judith was my ticket to the good life.”

  As much as I disliked Maynard, I believed him on this point. He was selfish and arrogant, yes, but he had no motive for having rubbed out the three Goddards. “Then who?”

  “Someone who’s got a stake in this smuggling scheme, of course. Someone who was willing to kill to protect it.”

  Which narrowed it down to the two surviving Goddards in the mix: Rosemary and Roy.

  And suddenly, I knew exactly why Fenton had had to die.

  Fenton had followed Titus up here. He had photographed him doing his dirty work. And when the killer found out—the killer must have ventured down into Fenton’s darkroom—they realized he knew too much.

  It’s a frightening thought, knowing that one could be bumped off simply for being a good observer or, as in Fenton’s case, a good observer and documenter. Not that Fenton was utterly innocent, since he’d taken those intrusive photographs of Patience Yarker. But he hadn’t deserved to die.

  And Judith and George, well, they must have been somehow involved in the smuggling operation, or perhaps they, like Fenton, had simply seen too much.

  My eyes had been resting upon Ralph’s unconscious face, but now I realized Maynard was standing up and tossing pieces of rope aside. “There.” He folded a pocketknife and stashed it in his coat pocket as he strode toward the door.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Aren’t you going to untie us?”

  He stopped, and turned. The kerosene light threw his eye sockets into shadow. “Why would I do that?”

  I swallowed. “Um. Because you’re a … gentleman?”

  He tipped his head and laughed. “Aren’t gentlemen really only obliged to help ladies?”

  “Ralph is hurt!” I cried. “He’s unconscious and bleeding! You can’t just—just leave us up here!”

  “You managed to get yourselves up here. I’m sure you can get yourselves down. It’s really no concern of mine.”

  “You’re a beast!”

  “I’m in a hurry.” Maynard turned again.

  “Wait!” The film in the Brownie. The camera was by some miracle still stashed against my bosom, under my half-buttoned coat. “Oh, but it is your concern,” I called. “Unless, of course, you don’t mind the whole world seeing you without the doormat you wear upon your head.”

  Maynard’s shoulders tensed. Slowly, he turned. “Are you blackmailing—?”

  “Untold numbers of tawdry publications would surely adore publishing a photograph of the almost-famous Maynard Coburn with his scalp, as it were, in the altogether.”

  “There will be no piece about my hair!” Maynard shouted so loudly, it echoed off the cave walls.

  Ralph stirred.

  “Cut the ropes and tell me what you were doing up here on the ridge tonight, and I’ll give you the film,” I said.

  “Where is the film?” Maynard asked, his voice now low and smooth.

  “In a safe place.”

  “Why should I trust that you’ll turn it over?”

  “Have you any choice?”

  “Well, yes, actually, I have. I could simply abandon you and your husband here to your fates, while I return to your room at the inn and locate your roll of film.”

  “Knock yourself out. I think you’ll be sorely disappointed. You see, the film is still inside the camera, and the camera, I’m afraid, is at this moment upon my person.”

  Maynard looked me up and down incredulously. In all my warm layers, I probably resembled a tuber.

  “Cut Ralph and me free,” I said, “and then, upon my honor, I’ll hand over the film.”

  Maynard sighed, took out his pocketknife, and set about sawing ropes. Moments later, Ralph—still unconscious—and I were both free.

  “Now, hand over that film,” Maynard said, folding up his pocketknife again.

  I undid my remaining coat buttons, opened up the Brownie, removed the film, and passed it over.

  Wordlessly, Maynard slipped it into his pocket and was gone.

  That was it, then. The case was closed—or, rather, it would be just as soon as Maynard Coburn alerted his Fed cronies to the location of the bootleg cave and the smuggling route.

  Maynard had crabbed the act. Because if he cracked the smuggling case, he’d also expose the murderer,
and that would mean the Discreet Retrieval Agency’s efforts were all for naught. He’d get the credit. That hardly seemed fair, but at that precise moment, fairness wasn’t paramount in my mind.

  My snowshoes dragging, I crawled closer to Ralph. His gloved fingers were moving a little, but his eyelids quivered without opening.

  “Ralph,” I whispered, stroking the hair from his forehead.

  A bump the size of a hen’s egg had risen where Titus had clobbered him, just under his hairline. There was an open, blood-wet wound on the bump, and dried blood caked his eyebrow.

  My voice thickened. “Please wake up, darling. Please.”

  Ralph’s eyes opened, their bright agate gray heart-stopping even in these horrid circumstances. “Lola,” he mumbled. “Sweetheart. You look like an angel.”

  “What, in this hat?”

  Ralph smiled weakly. “Marry me.”

  “Still teasing me with that?” I whispered with a lump in my throat.

  “I’m not kidding. Let’s be a family. You, me, and the pooch.”

  My heart felt as though it were blooming wide open, tender, fresh. Vulnerable. Eek.

  “We can’t get married, Ralph,” I whispered. “I mean, just look at us! Our jobs—our lives—are just crazy. That’s no way to be a family.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Ralph said. “Before. But I realized that the craziness, Lola, the craziness is exactly why we need each other. Why we oughta be a family.”

  “But like … this? Now?”

  “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it just now.” Ralph eyes flicked away. They widened. “Are those crates of bootleg? Is this a cave?”

  “Yes.”

  Ralph’s proposals weren’t teasing, I realized that now … but oughtn’t we be someplace more romantic than a smelly bootlegger’s cave when he officially popped the question?

  “Hell.” Ralph winced. “My head.” He was sitting up.

  “We’ve got to get out of here before Titus returns. Do you think you can walk?”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  * * *

  We set out on our snowshoes toward the Alpine Club Lodge. On either side of the ridge trail, the pointed fir trees with their white shawls looked so lovely, like giant Christmas trees in the moonlight. And yet the night felt hostile.

  We could’ve died. Titus could’ve killed us, or we could’ve perished from cold or thirst if Maynard had left us tied up in that low-slung cave, where no one would find us but hungry animals.

  We trudged along the ridge, down the switchbacking slope toward the lodge. In breathless spurts, I told Ralph what I’d learned from Maynard, and how Maynard intended to take all the credit for getting to the bottom of both the smuggling and the murders.

  All the while, my eyes flicked left, right, forward, over the shoulder, searching for Titus.

  We didn’t see him, nor did we see any sign of Maynard. And at last, there was the lodge down below, windows glowing cheerily, its chimney piping smoke. We went inside to give the snowshoes back to Strom.

  “Mrs. Lundgren gave me her final answer this evening,” he said.

  My belly twisted. “Oh?”

  “Turned me down flat! Guess that means she’ll be Mrs. Pickard soon.” He snorted. “That just sounds stupid, doesn’t it? Berta Pickard? Too many a’s in there. Sounds like you’re opening wide for the dentist.”

  “Um,” I said.

  Strom peered at Ralph’s head. “You’d best pay a call on Dr. Best and have that looked at. That’s a nasty bump.”

  But Ralph didn’t wish to see Dr. Best; he wished only to drink a lot of water and go to sleep. It sounded pretty good to me, so I got behind the wheel of the Speedwagon and aimed it toward the Old Mill Inn.

  33

  Forty-five minutes later, Ralph was fast asleep on the army cot in our airing cupboard. Berta was likely canoodling with her new fiancé, Mr. Pickard, but she’d want to know that the case was—as far as we were concerned, anyway—closed. Besides, I couldn’t sleep, despite the weariness in my bones, and I wanted Cedric.

  I donned a warm, dry dress and went down to the second floor. I rapped on Berta’s door.

  Instantly, I heard thumps inside—yes, as though she was hopping on one foot—and the door swung open.

  “Mrs. Woodby! I have been on pins and needles waiting for you to return! Thank goodness you are all right!”

  I looked past her. No Pickard. Only Cedric, lounging paws-up on her bed. He regarded me with idle curiosity.

  I said, “No … beau?”

  Berta made an impatient noise. “Oh, come in, come in. We’re letting out all the heat.”

  I stepped in, and Berta shut the door. “It’s really warm in here,” I said. “Won’t that melt your chocolates?”

  “No, because I have already eaten them all.”

  “Won’t it wilt your orchid?”

  “I could not take a potted plant back to New York on the train. Just think of the hassle and fuss.”

  “Back to New York?”

  “Mrs. Woodby, you did not think I was going to stay in the snowy wilderness forever, did you?”

  “But Mr. Strom said you turned him down.”

  “Precisely. And I turned down Mr. Pickard as well. One day of sitting in pampered idleness led me to conclude that becoming a Maple Hill housewife would be a terrible, terrible mistake. Why, I would be bored silly.”

  I smiled for the first time in what felt like ages. “Then we—you and me and Ralph and Cedric—we’ll all go home tomorrow. That’s Christmas Eve, you know. We’ll be home for Christmas!”

  Berta’s forehead crinkled. “But what of our investigation?”

  I sighed. “It’s curtains, I’m afraid.”

  I couldn’t help feeling bad that the chocolate was all eaten up as I told Berta the tale of Titus-as-Slipperyback, the hooch-filled cave, and Maynard Coburn, federal agent and all-around arrogant louse. I could’ve done with a cherry cordial or two.

  Berta’s expression grew increasingly thunderous. “No,” she said once I had finished. “We cannot allow Maynard—oh, to think I admired that man once!—to cut us off at the pass.” She stood abruptly, winced, and shifted her weight to her good ankle.

  “You shouldn’t be—”

  “Come with me.” She hobbled over to a chair, over which her coat was slung. She picked it up and put it on.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To tell the police what you saw up there in the caves. Even if Maynard Coburn and Customs are onto the smuggling operation, if Peletier takes your story seriously, perhaps he will go up to the cave first. Then we will beat Maynard Coburn. We will get credit for solving the case.”

  “It’s tempting, Berta, but Sergeant Peletier isn’t likely to believe anything we say. He has never made a secret that he loathes us.”

  “We must try.”

  “All right—but mark my words, it’ll take more than the lurid tales of two exhausted women to pry those men away from hot cocoa at the electric hearth on a night like this.”

  * * *

  I motored us to the police station. The closer we got, the more hope buoyed my heart. Peletier would take me seriously—why wouldn’t he? I’d be insane to make up stories about crates of tiddly in caves—and then they’d go up there and, well, figure something out. Something that gave Berta and me all the credit.

  Gosh, I couldn’t wait to see Maynard Coburn gnashing his teeth in frustration.

  I parked the Speedwagon and we went into the station. I was already stiff and sore from the snowshoeing expedition. Tomorrow, I would be like an unoiled suit of armor.

  “By gum,” Sergeant Peletier said. He sat at a desk, boots propped up, the orange glow of an electric fire pulsating beside him. “Looks like Santa Claus came early today, Clarence.” He slid his feet off the desk, and they hit the floor with a thud.

  Clarence, holding a steaming mug of something, let out a low whistle.

  Peletier’s desk was strewn with lots of unt
idy papers, a plate of half-eaten fruitcake, and a few black-and-white photographs.

  There were quite a lot of photographs floating about Maple Hill, so I wasn’t sure why seeing those in particular—which I couldn’t even make out from this distance—sent a surge of bitter fear through my veins.

  “I never thought for a second that you’d turn yourselves in,” Peletier said, standing. “I’d pegged you as the kind to run.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Berta said.

  “Turn ourselves in?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “But I shouldn’t complain, should I?” Peletier was advancing slowly toward us. “No one wants a scene. Not this close to Christmas. Hey, if you play your cards right, maybe someone will cough up bail for you two, and you won’t be spending baby Jesus’s birthday in the slammer. Clarence, why don’t you show Mrs. Lundgren and Mrs. Woodby the little surprise we found this afternoon?”

  “Sure, boss.” Clarence set down his mug and picked up—oh no—the photographs. He waddled over and held them out.

  They were, of course, the damning photographs Rosemary had shown me that morning. The one with Berta inspecting the silver teaspoon was on top.

  “Unflattering, isn’t it?” Peletier said with a humorless chuckle. “In more than one way.”

  “Precisely what are we to make of your photographs?” Berta asked coldly.

  “You don’t need to make anything of them,” Peletier said. “That’s up to a judge and jury. But they were enough to make up my mind.”

  “Did Rosemary Rogerson give the photographs to you?” I asked. It seemed like some sort of unfunny joke, really, that the photograph of Maynard Coburn applying his toupee would have gotten me out of one vat of soup, only to have these photographs plunge us into another.

  “Found ’em in an envelope,” Clarence said through a mouthful of fruitcake, “slid under the station door.”

  “Can’t you see someone’s trying to frame us?” I cried. “That Rosemary Rogerson is trying to frame us?”

  “A frame-up job?” Peletier said. “Oldest story in the book, lady.”

  I took a deep breath. We were getting sidetracked. “Would it interest you to know that we discovered an alcohol-smuggling cave up on the ridge?”