3 Requiem at Christmas (3 page)

“C-crap.
I w-wish I were home with
M-
marley
and s-some eggnog.”

“Oh
God!
You made me do this.
You idiot!”
The voice sobbed and the hands shook, but it
didn’t stop the man from finishing what needed to be done.

The matter had to be
put right or he was a dead man. His boss would not forgive.

But where was the damn
thing? He had been sure that it would be in the car, but it wasn’t. He’d looked
everywhere—even searched the body which was covered in blood. Who knew a man
could bleed so much?

But it just wasn’t
there. So it was back in Tahoe. It had to be—and he needed to find it and get
it back before his boss discovered it was missing.

*
 
*
 
*

The ranger’s station was not far away, and it had on its
porch light which Juliet could just see through the snow. Though Juliet loved
skiing, she would never willingly try it again under blizzard conditions. She
knew she was lucky to be alive. Without the porch light, she would have
traveled right past the tiny side road and never have seen the small cabin. She
could have even ended up in a ravine with broken bones or even a broken neck.

The ranger heard her fumbling with her skis and pulled open
the door. Heat rolled out over her and made her moan with pleasure.

“Good God,” the ranger said, expression and voice equally
shocked.

“N-n-no, J-
juliet
H-henry,” she answered
through numbed lips, managing to free herself from the bindings and push past
the older man and into the cabin. The station was small, modest and rustic enough
for Abraham Lincoln. The walls were wood, but covered in so many corkboards pinned
with notices that the logs were all but invisible.

“Jack
Nyland
,” the man answered,
closing the door. His tone was bemused.

The small cabin was warm enough to demand that she take off
her outerwear before trying to tell her story. The furnishings were an old scarred
desk, an older scarred chair, and a broken-down sofa that seemed a match for
the broken-down ranger who was best described as hirsute and leathery. And dry.
He hadn’t been out in the storm.

While she was trying to decide where to put her coat and
gloves, Ranger
Nyland
poured out a mug of coffee and
thrust it into her hands. She tossed her coat onto the back of the sofa and
then folded herself onto the sagging seat. She was grateful for the hot drink
and able to actually sip at it because she had taken care of personal matters
before putting on her skis. Squatting by the car had been painful and
distasteful, though she had been lucky enough to have tissues in her purse.
Hopefully no frostbite had happened.

Though glad to let her muscles rest, the sofa was a long way
from being comfortable and Juliet found herself getting to her feet again
almost immediately. She noticed a worn copy of
War and Peace
on the ranger’s desk.

“If you’re feeling better, ma’am, perhaps you could tell me
what you’re doing here. I mean, you are hell and gone from anyplace. Surely you
aren’t from the ski lodge. They shut down days ago when the power went out and
no one sent out a missing persons report.”

“No, I’m not from the ski lodge.” She sounded breathless.
Frightened.
Juliet took a deep breath, silently chanted her
favorite yoga mantra, and then told her host the incredible story.

The ranger was not stupid, but he was skeptical and
basically unimaginative, and he understandably lacked enthusiasm for going out
into the storm to see the murdered man for himself. It wasn’t really part of
his job.
Especially if the man was dead.

Juliet was glad that she had had a few dress rehearsals with
rigid thinkers in her old job because it helped her keep her temper as she
argued.

Nyland
sat behind his desk, his
shaggy brows rising higher and higher as she talked until he rested his
forehead against his folded hands in a prayerful manner. Juliet finally stopped
talking.

“I guess I better call it in.”

The phone line was down but the ranger did have a radio
which he used to contact the highway patrol, who promised to come as soon as
they could, but it obviously wouldn’t be real soon. There was no need to rush
out for a dead man when there were living people stranded all over the roads who
needed help.

Juliet again urged the ranger to come with her so that they
could photograph the body—something she was kicking herself for forgetting to
do—when the small window facing east lit up with an orange glow. A moment later
there was an explosion, which probably wasn’t all that large, but with the
sound trapped in the canyon came across as something impressive.

“Dear God.” The ranger was apparently a religious man, at
least when circumstances were trying.

“That was probably the Jaguar.”
And maybe
her car too, a thought which brought a fearsome frown to her face.

“But you said that you turned off the engine.”

“I did, but the killer probably went back to finish the
job.”

“Finish the job? The guy was dead—or so you said. What’s to
finish?”

“He
was
dead. As for
what is to be finished—it’s hard to identify a body, let alone determine what
happened to cause death, once it has been blown to bits and then had the bits
burned. Except for me, the whole thing might have been passed off as some freak
accident. It might not have been discovered at all,” she added.

The thought left her cold in spite of the glowing potbelly
stove.

Had the killer seen her and let her go for humanitarian
reasons?

Or had he—or she—simply been unable to keep up with Juliet
once she hit a downhill slope?

“Damn.”
Nyland
reached for the
radio again. “They aren’t going to like this.”

*
 
*
 
*

Juliet was glad that Sheriff Garret lacked the messianic
enthusiasm for prompt paperwork and procedure that afflicted Officer Gibbons,
who seemed—among other sins—to have about an inch less forehead than was
standard in most humans, and had more fuss and whine than any granny. He was
very proper in appearance. His buttons gleamed, his shirt was tucked in tight
as a drum and his boots were polished, his hair exactly in place. This was
actually quite a feat as he had come on a snowmobile. But proper dressing was
where his competence ended.

Juliet could tell
Nyland
disliked
him and decided that she did too. Standing side by side, the two men put her in
mind of
The Odd Couple
. Though rather
a Felix herself, this time she sided with Oscar.

“Since there are no photos, we’ll need to call in a sketch
artist—”

“No need. I am an artist.” Juliet sat down at the desk. Her
hands were finally warm enough to function after their second trip into the
snowy night to see a burning automobile. She turned over a flyer for a garage
sale that hadn’t made it onto the corkboard and proceeded to draw the body as
she had last seen it.

Then, realizing from Gibbons’ and
Nyland’s
shocked looks that this wasn’t the sort of thing they could put out on the
evening news when asking for information about the identity of the dead man,
Juliet picked up another flyer for a bake sale and drew a less gory portrait of
the dead man. He still looked a little terrified, but what could she do? He’d
been dead when she saw him.

“That should suffice for the media.”

“If it’s accurate,” Gibbons muttered.

Juliet was the first to acknowledge that she wasn’t at her
best when she was hungry. Reasonable became difficult when she was tired and
she had passed tired hours before. That evening, after a return to the scene
where there was nothing of the crime scene but a burnt-out hulk of what had
been the Jaguar, she was clutching at the last straws of good manners. Her
limbic system was still fully functioning, but as her reptilian brain was
telling her to lock both men out in the dark and eat all the cookies she knew
were hidden somewhere in the ranger’s desk, it couldn’t be counted as a plus.

Juliet pulled up the last reserves of professionalism. This
silly man was a representative of the state police. Though he was used to
dealing with traffic violations he did actually have the authority to enforce
any state law. The seven points on his badge stood for character, integrity, knowledge,
judgment, honor, loyalty, courtesy. She was trying hard to respect that even if
she felt the man himself fell a bit short in several of these areas.

“It’s accurate. Now, I have told you everything I know.
Twice.
As I said, he had a Las Vegas newspaper in the
backseat along with an expensive leather case that contained a musical score. He
was wearing a kilt in the Buchanan tartan and there is a Celtic festival going
on in South Lake Tahoe—the direction from which he came. If anything else
occurs to me I will call you. You have the name of my hotel if you think of
anything relevant to ask me or if the homicide investigators wish to be in
touch before morning.” Her voice suggested that any questions before an
advanced hour of the morning had better be very relevant indeed.

“But—” Officer Gibbons looked desperate. Murders were above
his pay grade, but given the weather he was going to have to deal with the
situation until the homicide detectives arrived. Juliet sympathized but she was
at the end of her resources.

“Thank you, Jack, for towing my car down and clearing the
road back to the highway. If you have the chance, please come up for the
Requiem Mass. It’s at Saint Clair Church. There will be a seat for you.”

“My pleasure,” he lied. Nothing about the night had been
pleasurable, but he had been raised in the old school where people were taught
that good manners cost nothing and one should by God use them.

“Now, I need to leave. I am exhausted and hungry and my
friends are expecting me. And as they are the kind of people who will begin
with calling hospitals but end by calling Governor Black and Commissioner
Border, it might be best if I got underway before we have a four-alarm fuss.”

Ranger
Nyland’s
eyes had actually
begun twinkling and he looked a bit gnome-like. Put him the right clothes and
he could pass for a large elf. Since it amused him, she supposed that she should
have started being ruthless and bossy hours ago. It would have saved a lot of
wear and tear on her nerves.

“Let me help you get those skis on your car,” the ranger
said.

“You’re very kind.” Juliet pulled on her gloves but not her
ski mask. The snow had stopped
falling
when the wind
died and the mask with its red lips and pompom nose was undignified.

“Good luck, Officer. Keep warm,” she said and sailed out the
door.

Juliet made it to the Aspens without any further problems or
delays and managed to get checked in without a single hitch though with rather
more conversation than she would have liked. The manager was an art fan and once
she mentioned she was part of the group from Bartholomew’s Woods, he wanted to
know all about Raphael and Asher. He also asked her if she wanted a goldfish
for her room. Juliet stared at him until she recalled that the inn was
pet-friendly and would supply you with a pet if you didn’t have one of your
own. The goldfish would have been entertainment—and probably food—for Marley,
but since she was alone, Juliet declined the distraction.

Her room was done in a kind of rustic Victorian style that
was comfortable and warm and inoffensively bland, and what flaws there were,
like too small a closet, were easy to ignore.

Further proof that her luck had changed for the better, she
also caught room service right before the kitchen shut down and they promised her
the cheeseburger she had been craving for the last fifty miles. She ate it and
most of the fries too.

Though physically exhausted, she found that sleep was far
away, and knowing that Darby had nocturnal habits she decided to give her a
call before retiring to count sheep.

“Hello.” There were party noises and Juliet could hear
Carrie Simmons’ emotion-encumbered voice in the background. She always liked to
emote, but it was worse when she’d been drinking.

“Darby,
it’s
Juliet.”

“You made it. We were getting worried.”

“Me too.
I had a little adventure
on the way up.”

“Are you okay? The weather has been awful.”

“Yes, I’m fine—now that I’ve eaten. Listen, is Harrison
there with you?”

“Yeah, he’s beginning to look
sleepy
though.” More liked bored with Carrie doing Mae West. Her
voice changed. “Is it something important? Do you want me to put him on the
phone?”

“No. But do you think you could slip away from the party and
come to my room for a few minutes?”

“Sure. What room are you in?”

“Um.…” Juliet had to think. The rooms were named as well as
numbered. “I’m in Cedars ten. That’s second floor.”

“Okay. We’ll be there shortly.”

Juliet pulled the bottle of Amaretto out of her suitcase and
fetched three tumblers from the bathroom. Darby and Harrison weren’t big drinkers
but she figured that they might need something after she talked to them.

A tap on her door came a moment later. She opened, expecting
Darby and Harrison, but instead it was Esteban and Raphael crowding her
doorway.

“Are you psychic?” she asked, stepping back, and going to
the bathroom for the last glass. If pushed she would drink from the bottle. It
had been that kind of day.