by Imogen Plimp
“What are you fine ladies doin’ out in this weather?” Woody asked while casually chewing on a pen cap.
“Told ya the weather was bad,” I poked Evelyn.
She smiled at Woody. “This is Claire—she’s new.”
“Pleased to meet ya,” Woody extended a beefy paw, then gestured for us to have a seat at the bar. “What can I do ya for?”
“I’ll have a bourbon, straight up,” Evelyn said.
“Same for me,” I added.
“And uh,” Evelyn folded her feet gingerly underneath her body on top of her stool and leaned in toward Woody. “I got some business to run by you…”
“Gotcha,” Woody winked. He strode down the length of the bar and returned with two double shots of Jack Daniels, both balanced in one hand. After he’d delivered the goods, he leaned back onto the cash register, propped up on his elbow, looking at Evelyn expectantly. “Shoot,” he said.
“So you know about these murders up the mountain?” she said.
Woody nodded. “ ‘course,” he said, chewing on his pen cap like a cowboy chews on a piece of straw.
“Well I just got ahold of a property tax statement for Jimmy—and it was sent to Nina’s address,” Evelyn continued. “Know why that might be?”
“I told her she shouldn’t have opened it,” I interjected. “For the record.”
Woody paused his chewing to grin at me, then returned his attention to Evelyn. “She is new…”
“Yep,” Evelyn said.
“Well,” Woody shifted his weight onto his other foot. “Last I heard, they never finalized their divorce.”
Both Evelyn and I gasped.
“They got separated fifteen years ago, then we started proceedings, but both parties were busy and generally uninterested—it never was a top priority for neither of ‘em. Simple case that got put on the back-burner. Eventually, Jimmy paid me out thinking we’d sit on it. Never got back into it.”
I stared at Woody, my mouth agape. “You’re a divorce lawyer?” I asked, stunned.
He shrugged. “Not just divorce. Also handle petty crimes and general litigation. Had to get a straight job a while back—tips don’t exactly pay the bills around here, ain’t that right, Billy?” he called down the bar to his other customer.
Billy took a silent pull from his Budweiser.
Woody shook his head and chuckled to himself.
“Let me get this straight,” Evelyn said. “Jimmy and Nina are still married?”
“Not anymore,” Woody shook his head. “Hard to be married to a dead person…”
“But, wouldn’t that mean Nina gets everything he owns?” I asked, stunned.
He shrugged again. “Prob’ly. Unless he drafted a will in the interim. If so, I didn’t handle that.”
I watched Woody chewing—still in disbelief. “Do you know anything about James and Nina co-owning Nina’s property—James wanting to sell it, but Nina wanting to sit on it?” I asked.
“Sounds about right,” Woody answered. “But that’s been the way of it for twenty years now. Jimmy always wanted to get rid of that place. Nina’s always considered it her baby.”
“Do you think it’s possible Nina and James were still together—really together, you know, romantically—when he—” I gulped, “when he died?”
Jimmy switched his pen cap to the other side of his mouth and gazed off into the distance, thinking. “Naw,” he said.
I continued my line of questioning. “Do you think it’s possible Nina could have killed James?”
Woody looked me, curious. “Doubt it.”
“Even for the money?”
He shook his head. “That I don’t know about. Anybody’s a killer if you give ‘em enough money. Jimmy had a decent amount, but I wouldn’t call him loaded.”
At the other end of the bar, Billy lifted his empty beer bottle to signify he wanted another.
“Excuse me,” Woody said as he headed dutifully that way, whipping his ratty bar rag over one shoulder.
“Well, I think we got what we needed down here,” Evelyn said cheerfully, gulping down her entire bourbon in one shot.
She waited patiently for me to sip my drink—then we thanked Woody for his help and ventured back out into the weather. The snow was beginning to pick up, which meant the ride back was a little touch and go at times.
I looked over at Evelyn as she expertly navigated the icy mountain roads. “We’re going to have to go talk to Nina,” I said.
Evelyn nodded, keeping her eyes on the road and her hands at 10 and 2. She gritted her teeth. “…and she’s not gonna like that one bit.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Rupert and I awoke to a winter wonderland—and it was still coming down! I started a fire and put the hot water on for coffee. I was almost out of Al’s “lifetime supply” of beans. I prepared the French press, then opened up the backdoor to check on Nightmare. She was sitting right outside the door—and tiptoed inside without hesitation. Rupert lifted his head from the cold floor when she came in, but lost interest immediately.
I set her up with a cup of crème and a saucer of sardines on the countertop and went about my business pouring coffee and making myself two fried eggs on a slice of homemade sourdough loaf. I sat at my kitchen island, eating my breakfast and watching Nightmare eat hers, excitedly running down a list in my head of to-dos for the day.
I had already received a couple emails from potential guests for the coming weekend—people wanting to come into town to ski post-storm. But even then, I didn’t have anything urgent to do until Friday. I wanted to walk Rupert on down to Nina’s bed and breakfast—to talk to her about her (still-on) marriage. Evelyn offered to come with me as soon as she got off work in the afternoon, but I doubted I could wait that long. And I wasn’t exactly scared of Nina. Even if she was a murderer, I was pretty sure I could take her—and to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t eat or drink anything she offered me (as if). And, for good measure, I wouldn’t stand next to any stairways.
On the radio in Evelyn’s truck the night before, the announcer had called the blizzard “Winter Storm Benedict.” (“I’ll say,” Evelyn had said. “We do indeed have a traitor in our midst.”) It wasn’t supposed to let up until late in the evening—and it was expected to dump at least two feet before it did.
I decided I would make a big pot of chicken soup. I let it simmer all day while I sipped hot cocoa by the fire and read my book. Evelyn was planning on coming over in the evening—she requested hot buttered rum (which I was prepared for) and a game of ouija board (which I wasn’t—but she assured me she had the fixin’s).
I began to grow restless in the middle of the afternoon. It was 2:45. Evelyn would be off work in two hours and fifteen minutes. I could wait until then—I was an adult. I checked on my soup, which needed a little more salt and some tarragon. Then I reorganized my bookshelf. It was vaguely in alphabetical order, but I corrected some misplacements. It’s funny—I’m a woman “past her prime” as they say, yet I still sometimes have trouble with the alphabet. I have to say it aloud: “L-M-N-O-P…Q-R … right! Right in there.” I did discover some old gems I had forgotten I owned—which I pulled out and stacked on the tiny square mosaic table I kept next to my favorite reading chair in the den. It’s always good to be excited about what you’re going to read, next.
I restocked some towels in the guest bathrooms, which I had hung to dry in the basement. I scrubbed my toilet with an old toothbrush, making sure to throw it in the trash can right afterward. Then I scuttled down back down to the kitchen and pulled the remainder of my chocolate cake out of the fridge. I doused a very small sliver with a delicious raspberry reduction, ate it as slowly as possible—savoring every bite—and put the rest back in the fridge. I rinsed my plate off in the sink and placed it in the cradle to dry.
I looked up at the clock: 3:15. I was going to die of anticipation.
I groaned—which caused Rupert to lift his giant head up off the floor. He watched me expectantly. “Wel
l,” I said. He tilted his head curiously. “Shall we get to it then? Go see what Nina’s up to with her newfound inheritance?”
Rupert excitedly hoisted himself up off the floor and trotted straight to the front door. “No need to wait for me, Rupert!” I called toward him as I reached for my scarf and winter coat, which were hanging out back in the kitchen. He grabbed his leash in his mouth and was sitting patiently in the front hallway when I joined him.
The blizzard was really quite impressive—complete with howling winds and horizontal ice and snow that pelted you in the face, even if you did your best to bundle up. Rupert didn’t seem to mind it, occasionally pausing to stuff his entire snout into a pile of snow in hopes of some kind of surprise.
Nobody was out on the streets—really. I had never seen a place so deserted, with the exception of an occasional county plow truck that lumbered by cautiously. But when the plows were up the hill and out of earshot, the town was beautiful. It looked like a postcard from a village in the Swiss Alps—little colorful houses buried in snow, golden street lights flickering through the precipitation. And it was so quiet: only the sound of the wind and the crackle of frozen tree limbs, waving ever-so-slightly.
Rupert and I trundled up the hill toward Nina’s house. It took us a good while to make the journey (between the accumulation and Rupert’s excitement about smelling whatever still remained sufficiently uncovered by snow). When we arrived, I took Rupert off his leash and told him to sit in the corner nook of the Nina’s covered porch. He did so—and whined.
I rang the doorbell. I thought I heard some shuffling around inside the house, but it could have just been the giant oak tree rubbing against the house’s brick exterior in the howling gale. I rang the doorbell again—a few stabs in quick succession. Nothing but the distant rumble of the snow plows.
I pressed my face against the window at the side of the front door, sheltering my eyes from the white outdoor glare with my mittens, and peered into the house. Everything looked miraculous as usual—a spotless white floor, a spotless hallway armoire, and way in the back, a spotless kitchen island. I could see the vase Nina had placed in the center of her island—which, the last time I saw it, showcased a single red rose. She had since replaced it with a single white lily. But it didn’t look so good—it was wrinkled and sagging sadly. Which seemed odd to me. It seemed odd that Nina would be interested in keeping anything alive (meaning organic) whatsoever inside her house—but that fact aside, it seemed odd that she’d allow a flower to wilt in the presence of her perfect kitchen. I’d have thought she would consider it an eyesore.
I rang the doorbell one more time—and pounded aggressively on the door for good measure. After waiting for what seemed like hours—due in part to Rupert’s prodigious whining—I decided we should try our luck around back.
I pulled an Evelyn and peered into every window low enough to see through on our way. I also tried every door—all locked. Everything inside was spotless. And completely vacant. None of the side yard walks were plowed. No footprints in the snow. I knew that the snow had only just started, but it seemed as though nobody had been in or around the house for days and days. I had no evidence to support my hunch—just a feeling.
After trudging through feet and feet of snow drifts, Rupert and I arrived on Nina’s back porch. I stared through the window into the kitchen, my nose and mittens pressed against the panes like a little kid who wanted to be let in, studying her wilting lily—and then I remembered that Nina travelled pretty often. She had probably run off to Manhattan for the week, having procured absolutely impossible-to-get tickets to the Met’s production of Carmen. Or maybe she’d jetted off to Vancouver to go skiing—I could just see her saying something like, “You haven’t been skiing unless you’ve skied in Whistler. The mountains are to die for.”
Meanwhile, Rupert was pulling on his leash relentlessly, whining and moaning, ready—apparently—to go home. “Alright, alright,” I conceded, ruffling his ears with my mittens. “You win. I’ll come back later with Evelyn. Plus, if Nina’s out of town, Evelyn will know all about it by now.”
But it didn’t seem right that Nina would leave her bed and breakfast right before a snowstorm and therefore perfect tourist weekend. Nor did it seem right she’d skip town right after her husband and his possible mistress had been murdered—leaving her everything. Was she on the lam? More importantly, Did Sheriff Sellers know she was gone?
Rupert and I returned to a cozy-warm house which smelled deliciously of chicken and sounded of lazily crackling firewood. I peeled off my layers and pulled off my galoshes, added some wood to the fire, and then padded on wool socks into the kitchen to put on a pot of water for tea. I looked out the window at the impressive force of Mother Nature, which was continuing to put on quite the show. And because it was so overcast, it was already getting dark—the kind of deep blue and grey dark that only happens in a snowstorm.
Evelyn rang my doorbell at 4:30. “I couldn’t stand it anymore, it was so boring in there!” she said, flustered, when I opened up the door.
She came bearing gifts—a bottle of dark rum and an old, battered ouija board.
“Where did you get this thing?” I asked, turning the board over in my hands. It was cracked and worn smooth, and the writing was barely legible. “It looks absolutely ancient.”
Evelyn grinned. “It was my grandmother’s.”
“They had ouija board back then?”
Evelyn guffawed. “Of course they had ouija board ‘back then’! How do you think people communicated with the dead before electricity?”
“I’m just gonna let that one slide…” I cradled her gifts underarm.
Evelyn pulled off her outer wear, snuggled into a pair of thick wool socks she had brought along in her coat pocket, and hurried right into my den. She sat on the plush couch and put her feet up in front of the fire. “Ah!” she exhaled. “Been waitin’ for this aaaalll week.”
I headed back into the kitchen. “Want some tea?” I called to her.
“Yes please!” she called back.
With some care, I waltzed back into the den carrying a silver serving tray of tea, accouterments, and biscuits. I gently set it down on the coffee table and nestled into my seat right next to the fire.
I was looking into the flames when I said, “Nina’s not at her house.”
Evelyn almost choked on her tea. “You went over there alone?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t there.”
Evelyn stared into the fire, too. “That’s weird,” she said dully.
I nodded.
We both sat for a minute, sipping in silence.
“You think she’s out of town?” I asked.
Evelyn shrugged stiffly. “I don’t know. She does leave town a lot. ‘Oh Evelyn, you just haven’t lived until you’ve attended the Santa Fe Hot Air Balloon Festival’…”
I smiled to myself. “That’s what I thought at first. And that’s what I’d still think were it not for…”
“The timing,” Evelyn interrupted. “You think we should call Arnie?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I wonder if he already knows she’s gone.”
There was a pause. “Unless of course, she’s dead too,” Evelyn said cryptically.
Just then, the wind picked up—blowing the icy branches of my old oak tree into the side of the house with a volatile thud-thud-thud. The lights in the den and in the kitchen flickered—and then they went out. Rupert sat up at my feet with a start. And then all three of us found ourselves enveloped by the grey, wintery darkness of twilight, our shapes illuminated by the fire.
“Power’s out?” I asked, made slightly uncomfortable by the prospect.
“Looks like it,” Evelyn said. “You know what this means?” the shadows of lapping flames only made her smile look even more mischievous than usual.
“Hot buttered rum?” I guessed.
“Yup—” she nodded. “And the perfect night for a proper séance.”
Chapter Twenty
-Two
Evelyn and I finished our tea and biscuits and then made to venture down into the basement—where I was fairly certain I had a box of tea candles buried somewhere. I took up the lead, lighting the way with the giant flashlight that had been stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet (another nifty gadget from Al’s emergency preparedness kit). Evelyn was right behind me, illuminating her path with her cell phone.
We cautiously felt our way to the back of the basement, located just underneath the kitchen, where all my unpacked items lived for the time being. Evelyn immediately found a menorah perched atop a box of books. “I didn’t know you were Jewish!” she said cheerfully. “This could come in handy tonight…”
“George,” I replied—but I was distracted by a ray of dim, grey light, cast onto the wall at the end of the basement corridor. I approached it uneasily—not quite sure what I was afraid of. I was surrounded by darkness, but I had Evelyn with me, and a bloodhound upstairs…
Turned out it was just the cellar door, left slightly ajar—and it had blown a small drift of snow into the corner. I pulled the door shut, but it wouldn’t stay—the latch had rusted off. I sighed. “Another thing to ask Ray to fix, I guess.”
I looked over at Evelyn, who was smirking.
“Oh, shut up,” I said. I propped the door closed as best I could and turned to the pile of storage in our midst.
We started opening boxes, sifting through kitchen supplies and cookbooks—there wasn’t much, thank goodness. But our search wasn’t made any easier by the darkness. Or by Rupert’s incessant howling from the top of the stairs. He made it sound as if someone had just died.
“Why doesn’t he just come down here?” Evelyn asked me as she perched an old costume top hat on top of her head.
“He’s afraid of the dark,” I answered.
“Of course he is.” She returned her top hat back into its plush velvet hat box.
