The Body in the Snowdrift (13 page)

“Thanks, Aunt Faith,” Scott answered, “but Mom gave us some of the sandwiches she packed. We'll eat those; then we're meeting Phelie. Were you here when Dad was?”

Deciding that her hair could wait, Faith went down to continue the conversation face-to-face. Why did Scott think his father had been there? But then, why not? Everybody else in the greater Burlington area seemed to have been in and out.

“I've been here since you left, but I didn't see your father. He must have come in while I was in the tub. What makes you think he was here?”

“This is his neck warmer. Mom gave us each one in our stockings at Christmas, and Dad's is blue. Oops, I mean Santa put them in our stockings.” Scott and Andy laughed.

“Don't slip in front of Amy. She's still a believer,” Faith cautioned.

“We know, we know—also the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Tinker Bell,” Andy said.

“Anyway, Dad was wearing his when he left, but if he didn't leave a note or anything, I guess we can meet Phelie.” Scott paused. “Mom didn't say we couldn't, but she doesn't like her. The walkie-talkies are working now, so we'll tell her where we are. Dad, too.”

Where you are, but not with whom, Faith thought. The surest way to drive any child into the arms of an undesirable peer was to make it forbidden fruit. This wasn't something she'd picked up from Pix; it was instinctive. She thought of her assistant, Niki, searching out beaux all these years who were guaranteed to get a rise from her parents—the vegan biker, the sixty-year-old unpublished poet, the apparent pilot of the Jefferson Airplane, who was still circling. Maybe he'd been one of Gertrude's conquests, too. After each initial meeting, Mr. and Mrs. Constantine would dramatically bar Niki from ever bringing her swain to their doorstep again, thereby prolonging each affair beyond Niki's natural inclination.

“That sounds fine.” Faith wasn't getting involved in this one. “I'm meeting Tom for lunch; then I have to go
to work. It's Nordic Night, and we have a lot of specials to get ready.”

“Yeah, we know. Mom is getting all excited about it. She wants everyone to go on a sleigh ride.”

There was little excitement in Andy's voice.

“I know Ben and Amy want to go down to the Sports Center for the games early. Tom's taking them. I'll suggest that he try to organize the sleigh ride then.”

And get it over with, she added silently. The two boys shot her grateful looks. Maybe raising teenagers wasn't going to be as hard as she feared. It was a question of choosing battlegrounds, deciding what was important. A sleigh ride versus whatever they, especially Scott, were up to with Ophelia. Faith would forego a tussle over the former to find out more about the latter any day. She hoped it was just night skiing.

A light snow was falling—the kind where each large flake looked as if a child had cut it out of paper. Faith was tempted to stick out her tongue to catch some. She had heard that the Eskimo peoples supposedly have fifty-six words for snow, which made sense when you were as immersed in the white stuff as Faith was. English was sadly lacking at times like this.

The activity at the resort provided a sharp contrast to the leisurely morning. Skiers of all ages, shapes, and sizes were everywhere; their brightly colored outfits stood out against the white slopes. The Staffords must be relieved, Faith thought. Yesterday's pool incident was today's funny story. If any guests had left, it wasn't apparent in the lift lines or the people Faith could see crowding the base lodge. She walked in and went to the second floor, where the pub was located.
Tom hadn't arrived yet. Faith snagged a table by the window and sat down to wait. She had a lot to tell him, starting with Gertrude.

Gertrude! Hamlet's mother. Ophelia's prospective mother-in-law. Mother figure. Gertrude Stafford, Earth Mother. When had Joanie changed her name? Faith thought back to the way the two had embraced on Gertrude's porch last night. Mother/daughter. Doomed to madness and death in the play.

 

Tom joined his wife in time to see his daughter triumphantly snowplow—or pizza-slice—her way down the bunny slope. He was also in time to see his sister-in-law walking arm in arm with her ski instructor away from the bunny, and every other, slope, and also away from the condos and lodge.

“Maybe they're signed up for the Pilates class in the Sports Center?” Faith offered. There were many ways to increase one's flexibility and endurance, after all.

“I don't think so—and you don't think so.” Tom frowned. “Why did she have to pick this week? Everything's been going so well.”

Faith had to remind herself that her husband had been spending the majority of his time skiing down various mountain trails, all of them black diamonds. She also reminded herself that Robert wasn't the only one in the Fairchild family who put blinders on whenever anything untoward was going on with his kin. Parishioners—the entire rest of the world, in fact—were quite another matter, but Tom turned turtle when it came to his sibs.

“Maybe Craig won't find out. That is,” she added hastily, “if there
is
anything to find out.”

“Could they be any more flagrant? Of course he'll find out—whatever it is. Let's just hope he can keep his cool, so Mom and Dad don't know.”

“Your dad, sure, but your mom probably knows more than we do.”

“And we all thought Glenda was going to help Craig settle down.” Tom sounded bitter.

After one look at Glenda, Faith had never entertained any notions that her future sister-in-law would be the kind of wife to settle a husband down, but she had kept the thought to herself then, and she kept it to herself now. Time to change the subject.

“The week has certainly turned out well for Pine Slopes. We're completely booked for the two smorgasbord seatings tonight, one at six and one at eight, so people can get to the Sports Center activities. We've commandeered the pub, too, even though the tables are smaller. People said they didn't care. After the pool prank, things could have been dicey. Whoever thought of this mini Nordic festival was a genius. I'm pretty sure it was Simon.”

“I heard that, too. He's been a real plus for Fred. They make a good team.” Tom reached for his wife's hand. He gave it a squeeze. “You're in the thick of things, as usual. Have you heard any scuttlebutt about who pulled the prank? Kitchen talk?”

“Most of the kitchen talk is in Spanish, but I have learned that
la piscina
means ‘swimming pool,' which I got from knowing that it's
piscine
in French. Aside from that, nada. And it was only right after the phone call that anyone mentioned
la piscina
in my hearing. I'm sure they've all been talking about it when I'm not
around, and it's probably already headlines in Lima and La Paz.”

“According to Craig, Fred still thinks it was his stepdaughter, despite what you said about seeing her the night before. Craig thinks it was Ophelia, too. But he'd think whatever Fred did. I worry sometimes about how easily influenced my little brother is. Fred's a good guy, always has been, but you know Craig's made some half-assed decisions in his young life on the say-so of others.”

Faith had lived through them, along with the rest of the family, and had even kicked in to bail him out several times. There'd been the organic-vitamins franchise, a surefire bet; a dubious dot com; and, most recently, a condo development that turned out to be slated for a former hazardous-waste dump site.

It was mesmerizing watching the skiers through the window, and Faith hoped she'd be able to get a lot more time on the mountain herself. Ben was skiing today, not boarding, and they watched him come speeding down, crouched low in the tuck position, a look of pure joy on his face.

“That's my boy!” Tom said, beaming.

“Yes indeed,” Faith replied.

They'd both ordered onion soup, and Tom decided onion rings were the perfect redundancy, which—oddly enough—they were.

As they ate, Faith returned to their speculations about the vandalism at the Sports Center. “Means, motive, opportunity. We should be able to figure this out.”

“Before we start, do I have to be Watson again?”

Faith smiled indulgently. Of course he did.

“Let's count Ophelia out and focus on who has a key to the facility and knows the alarm code.”

Tom's mouth was full, so Faith continued. “Josh, as manager; Sally, as Nordic director—those are definite. Then, Fred—and by extension Naomi—and I'd imagine Harold. Fred may be in charge now, but Harold still plays a major role here, I've noticed. Simon would also have access. Who else?”

“Don't forget Pete,” Tom said.

“That would be impossible. Okay, that's seven right there. I don't imagine Candy would need the alarm code, but she might have a key, being head of housekeeping.”

“So we've established means for eight people. But what about the other two—motive and opportunity?”

“In this case, means equals opportunity. Any one of them could have entered during the night or early that morning. For example, Josh could have staged the whole thing before Sally arrived.”

“But why? Doesn't he live and die for the Sports Center? Craig says he's always after Fred to get more equipment, allocate more of the budget for Sports Center activities. I get the impression that the whole ski thing is secondary, scenery for people to look at while they work out or swim.”

Noting that Craig seemed to spend a lot of time talking about Pine Slopes with Fred—and vice versa—Faith agreed with Tom and told him about the argument she'd overheard Sunday morning between Josh and Sally over the decision to put the Nordic rental and retail shop in the Sports Center.

“Maybe he went off the rails and put the dummy in
the pool as a symbolic gesture,” Tom said. “He knew Sally would find it. Maybe he wanted to frighten her off his turf.”

“Possible, possible. I certainly can't think of a motive for any of the others. They're all people who've literally and figuratively invested their lives in Pine Slopes. They wouldn't do anything to tarnish the resort's image.”

Tom had finished the onion rings. Faith looked at her watch, knowing she should be getting to the kitchen.

“The only thing that makes sense is what I've said from the start. It wasn't a person who had legitimate access. Someone hid in one of the locker rooms—it would be easy enough either in a shower or toilet stall—put the dummy in the pool, and then slipped out the front door when Josh was in the weight room or somewhere else. The person wouldn't even have had to leave; he or she could have mingled with the crowd in a bathing suit or ski clothes. I wonder if Josh noticed any Nordic skis in the rack outside when he came in that morning.” Faith had a sudden vision of a “wicked good skier” gliding to the Sports Center with a loaded backpack, spending the night, then gliding home to the Gingerbread House in the woods the next morning. It was the type of joke that would appeal to a latter-day Keseyite, especially if she was still on the bus, metaphorically and psychedelically speaking. Faith would have to somehow ask Sally and Josh if they'd smelled anything out of the ordinary that morning, something sweet and low-down.

 

“Está muy rico,
” Faith repeated slowly. Apparently, she was close, because her whole crew clapped.

“Now you guys say it in English,” she said. “It's very tasty.” This was easy, and they went on to “
Ya está
”: “It's ready.” By the time I leave Le Sapin, I could be fluent, Faith thought, as she gave the Swedish meatballs—the place was fast becoming an outpost of the UN—one last pinch of freshly ground nutmeg before declaring them done. She'd made them the day before—essential with this recipe (see recipe in
The Body in the Cast
). The thinly sliced cucumbers with plenty of dill, white vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper had spent the night in the fridge, too. The salmon was ready for poaching, and the traditional mustard sauce with more dill was all set. Two vats of yellow split-pea soup with plenty of fragrant diced ham were simmering on the back burners. In addition, she'd made a kind of Scandie coleslaw with finely shredded red cabbage and diced apples, with just lemon juice and a pinch of sugar and salt for dressing. She'd varied Janssen's temptation, that smorgasbord stable, replacing the anchovies, not everyone's favorite, with smoked trout, which would do nicely with the strips of potato and onion. The board would further groan with a selection of cheeses, a green salad with Danish blue cheese dressing, a chicken liver pâté that mimicked the traditional Swedish
leverpastej,
and plenty of bread and rolls from the Red Hen Baking Company in nearby Duxbury. For dessert, she'd modified the marzipan princess cake and added several other confections renamed for the occasion, such as Northern Lights Delight, a rich sponge cake layered with lemon custard, and Lapp It Up sorbets in a variety of flavors. Since
coffee was the national beverage throughout Scandinavia, she'd also done a mocha cheesecake.

The Sports Center would be serving the soup, and she'd given Josh her recipe for glögg: dry red wine, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and orange zest heated together, but not boiled. Unfortunately, they didn't have any aquavit—a vital ingredient. The glögg would still warm the cockles of one's heart, just not set it afire the way it would have with the aquavit, literally “the water of life.” A shot of the 100-proof authentic Nordic liquor had been said to bring back the dead. They'd be offering glögg at the restaurant and in the pub, too.

Eduardo poked his head out the kitchen door, “Señora Confianza, phone for you.
Su esposo
.” Eduardo, along with the rest of the South Americans, had settled on “Mrs. Faith” for their boss's name, despite her initial request that they simply call her Faith. “Confianza” was definitely growing on her, and she'd made them write it down. Confident, faithful. Maybe she'd switch. Maybe she'd learn to tango, too.