A Deadly Snow Fall (15 page)

One year, I actually joined the Hastings
Polar Bear Club for their annual February plunge into icy water
from which they ran quickly to the Hen and Wolf Pub for hot toddies
and lots of good cheer. I fully intended to carry on this tradition
in Provincetown.

Pulling on my bathing suit, I found that all
the good living had added a bit of unwanted padding. Mostly I
blamed the experimenting with recipes for both my book and the
up-coming inn season breakfasts. Time to walk more but also, now
that weather was warming, I could easily swim every day.

Wearing an oversized man’s shirt and ratty
cut-off jeans over my black bikini, I set out for the stretch of
beach to the west of MacMillan Wharf. Daphne was just raising her
hand to reach for the brass lobster knocker on the kitchen door as
I opened it and we nearly collided.

“Hey, where are you going in such a hurry?
Got a fire to get to? Your best friend is here for a cuppa.”

“Hi. Sorry. I am going for a swim.”

“Right. And I am growing a third ear, the
better to hear you with.”

“Seriously. Remember last year when I swam
earlier than anyone else and everyone thought I was nuts?”

“And you are going for a record by reassuring
them for the second year running that you are truly bonkers?”

“Come on with me. It’s a great day. You can
sit on the beach and watch me. I like doing this for myself. I’m
not trying to impress or amaze anyone. Actually, I’m thinking of
starting a polar bear club in town. They have one in Boston. You
might want to be a charter member. If not then, as you like to say,
cut me some slack. There are surely others who love an early and
late in the season swim, as well.”

As we walked, I filled Daphne in on the climb
to the top of the Monument. She suggested the awful stink was
rotting blood and guts, but I cautioned her to keep that to
herself.

“Do you think a small woman could overpower
an eighty year old man if she was angry, Daph?”

“Even if she wasn’t angry, why not? Her age
wouldn’t be a factor because a woman’s strength comes from more
than her muscles. A mother can pick up a car to save her child. You
must have read Ashley Montagu’s The Natural Superiority of Women.
When necessary, any woman can excel over any man. So you do think
Rosita came back for her bit of revenge?”

I managed not to answer. I needed some more
time before sharing that tidbit.

Two local men were casting fishing lines from
the shore and one of them spoke to us. “Morning, ladies. Come to
see how it’s done, have you?”

“Hi Sam. No; just go on about your business.
Just here for a quick swim.” Daphne smiled and the two men laughed
at her joke.

“Sure you are.”

With that, I stepped out of my jeans, took
off my shirt and raced for the water while the two fishermen stood
open-mouthed.

“Lady is crazy. What the hell is she doing in
that freezing water, Daph?”

“Nutty as a fruit cake, but not to fear;
she’s not a danger to anyone but herself. I’m her nurse. No
stopping her when she gets a wild notion in her head. Valium
prescription ran out. Just go about what you were doing but please
try not to hook her.” Daphne laughed but the two men seemed too
flabbergasted by the sight of a crazy lady in the still
far-too-chilly-for-swimming water to enjoy the joke.

The other man couldn’t resist. “Hey Lady
aren’t you a little young for hot flashes? The wife says when she
gets one she wants to race out of the house and jump into the bay,
even in winter. But she never actually follows through.”

I simply smiled and continued to enjoy the
cold water. “Come on in. It’s great.”

Later, back at the inn, Daphne carried the
newly painted and faux marbleized table she’d recently finished for
me into the sitting room to my applause. “It is so lovely, Daph.
You are so very talented. The lady paints pictures on canvas, does
murals on walls and takes a junky table found at a yard sale into
the realm of a precious treasure. And she is also my best friend.
Now, if you could just cook.”

Daphne ignored my last remark, placed the
table in the spot waiting for it and took a little bow. “Not bad if
I do say so myself.”

“Come on into the kitchen and try my new
chocolate raspberry layer cake with mocha ganache. Renew your
strength after all that heavy lifting.”

“Bring me up to speed, girl. I’ve been in
Boston for three days. Are you and James the copper married yet?
Baby on the way to make me an aunt, maybe?”

“Get a grip girl. We are just having fun.
He’s a sweet guy who just happens to be very sexy and he seems to
like me. He’s working on the case with me.”

“Do tell. The way he looks at you, wowzer! I
just wish some guy would look at me like that. What’s stopping you
from taking it to the next level, Liz? You’re getting long in the
tooth, you know. Your hormones are drying up and wrinkles are on
the way. Better pop out a little one soon or you’ll be on the shelf
lonely and whining. Women of our…your age are like yesterday’s
produce. Looking a little wilted with a few rotten spots but
cleaned up and propped up they can see another day. It looks to me
like the universe has sent you a bargain shopper and you’d better
not let him go or it’s off to the rubbish tip for you.”

“How romantic you are, Daphne. Give me a
break. My biological clock is still ticking along happily, not
feeling pressured at all. Eight years of university education, a
busted career in my chosen profession, a new career as innkeeper,
so I’m just getting started. In fact, I may not want to have
children anyway. Where do you get these wild ideas? That is
absolutely the wildest theory regarding a woman’s body that I have
ever heard. Please, let it die within this room. I fear the
villagers may decide to burn you on a pyre if you don’t watch your
back. You are just inches from being called a witch.”

“Hey! This cake is better than sex. Not that
I can remember sex. It’s magnificent, orgasmic, in fact. If you
haven’t already named it, I’d definitely go with, ‘Better ‘n
Sex.’”

“Right. That’ll guarantee sales of the book.
On another subject, while you fill your face. Daph, I think I might
be getting close to being prepared to go to Chief Henderson with
what I know.” Daphne nodded as she stuffed cake into her mouth as
if she knew it was her very last meal.

“I’m beginning to think a woman was involved.
Maybe even Rosita.”

“Gob, dis is gweat cag.”

“Daphne, do you suppose you could stop
filling your gob for just a minute and speak in the language we
share.”

Daphne swallowed, washed down the cake with
tea and said, in her quirky non sequitur way, “Did you know that
George Bernard Shaw said something to the effect that the problems
that arise between Great Britain and the U.S. are based on the fact
that they are separated by a common language?”

“Oh I give up. You are hopeless. Here. Have
another piece of cake; it will only add another 3000 calories to
your day and you have a high revving metabolism, so what will it
matter? I myself must go to wash my hair and pass an iron over my
gorgeous new ball gown in preparation for attending the Blessing of
the Fleet Ball tonight.”

“Oh, boy! James’ll probably pop the question
tonight right on the dance floor. Bet he has a ring box in the
pocket of his tux. It’s the traditional thing to do hereabouts.
Whoopee! This could be the night. I promise to get set planning the
wedding shower tomorrow.”

“Nut. Get out and never, never darken my door
again, crazy woman.”

Daphne left when she was good and ready. I
left her in the kitchen expecting to find only a few dark brown
crumbs left on the cake plate.

James rang the kitchen door bell precisely at
seven. He was delicious-looking in his tux and it was obvious his
longish hair had been trimmed a bit. Handing me a yellow rose
corsage, his smile set off sparks in my heart. Maybe we should just
stay in and…no, mustn’t waste the gorgeous black dress and sexy
high-heeled sandals. Later.

“Great dress. Thought you were going to whip
up something from the living room drapes, however.” James said. I
stood mystified. The living room drapes?

Silence. “Oh, now I get it. Scarlet O’Hara,
right? Your iconic all-American movie. I didn’t see it until I came
to the states.”

It passed through my mind that I hoped the
villagers could not tell the difference between a fifteen dollar
costume jewelry pearl necklace from Marshalls and the
seven-thousand dollar pearls with a six diamond clasp I’d received
for my sixteenth birthday. Or my Vera Wang dress. I had been, after
all, working hard at being one of them

Standing there taking each other’s measure,
James made an audible swoon and I imitated it but even louder and
more like a wolf call. He hugged me and we laughed at our own silly
antics. Once again, I thanked Cupid for inspiring this romantic and
passionate relationship that was also great fun.

“You are the most gorgeous woman in the
entire world. I am the luckiest guy on the planet. Step back and
let me take this all in, woman. Wow, that is the sexiest dress in
eight counties and love the pearls. My Mam always wears pearls. My
Da forked over two hundred dollars one Christmas so she could have
a real nice string of them. Earrings to match. She’s pretty proud
of those pearls. Wears them like she’s the Queen. Your Queen. Not
that you or my Mam can afford that quality, but these are
lovely.”

You cannot begin to imagine, James Finneran.
One day soon I would have to come clean, I reminded myself. The
“Lady” title, the huge inheritance from my grandmother, vast
properties in England and Scotland that would one day be mine. But,
not just yet.

We danced all night to the local orchestra
made up of two storekeepers, an inn keeper, the guy who pumped gas
at the Bradford Street Shell gas station and two fishermen. Fishing
boats were in for the fete from George’s Bank where the best
fishing was. The Blessing of the Fleet was an annual event everyone
in the village came out for. Emily Sunshine was there manning the
drinks and snacks table wearing a vintage twenties dress that
sagged on her tiny frame.

“Aren’t we lucky? I just love living here,
James.” He whirled me around the floor as if we were on our own
private cloud.

“So, does that mean you are planning to stay?
Not returning to England anytime soon? And if so, I wonder if you
might agree to go steady with me, Liz O-S?”

Unable to come up with a clever response, I
simply gave him a doe-eyed look as I leaned against his shoulder
and kissed him on the cheek. Grinning like a fool, he dipped me and
planted a kiss on my mouth right there in front of everyone. To my
great embarrassment, everyone clapped and hooted.

In the early morning hours after the ball, I
awakened suddenly to find that I was alone in the bed. The wail of
fire engines and the siren of a police car seared my sleep-addled
brain. Pulling the covers over my head and hoping it was just a
dream, I knew better. I even seemed to know, by some kind of sixth
sense, where the emergency vehicles were headed.

Chapter Sixteen

I was up and climbing into jeans and a
t-shirt and down the stairs headed for my Jeep as if Beelzebub was
hot on my heels. The bright orange flames shooting into the sky
were easy to spot as I drove fast along the highway toward Pilgrim
Lake Hill Road. The scene before my eyes was indeed surreal. Huge,
mountainous flames appeared to be coming up and out of the dunes. A
roaring volcano about to burst its full anger and power upon the
sleeping village.

As my reluctant Jeep climbed the steep hill,
suddenly there it was. Not a volcano but what had been, until that
night, a fine Victorian mansion. Although all the tall, stately
windows glowed orange as if a party was going on inside, it was the
rotund, glass solarium on the south side that was putting on a
show. I pulled to the side of the road just as glass flew like
glittering rain, backlit and, had it not been for the ugly truth, a
lovely breath-taking spectacle.

The lovely, old Snow mansion.

Neighbors in pajamas and robes huddled off to
the side where a white-haired woman was pouring coffee at a table
set out on the side of the road. One gray-haired man hugged a huge
Persian cat to his chest. A woman held two leashes at the end of
which were exact duplicate, tiny black dogs. That led me to wonder
what had happened to the old man’s pit bull, Patton.

Chief Henderson walked over with a cup of hot
coffee in his hands looking disheveled and in pain. “You know,
Miss, I’m just getting too old for this stuff. Come and join us.
Mary Malone makes a fine cup of coffee. Hell of a night. Police
Chief Chester Henderson.” He held out his hand and I introduced
myself.”

“Know who you are. My right hand man
Finneran’s taken a shine to you. Welcome to Provincetown. Your aunt
was a fine, fine woman.”

I was unable to keep my eyes from the fire.
“The fascination of the abomination.” How aptly Joseph Conrad had
put it. Despite the horror and shock, it was difficult to tear my
eyes from the spectacle. However, watching the violent death of
such a magnificent piece of local architecture caused the heart to
sink.

The streams of water from four fire
trucks--Provincetown’s two, Truro’s one and one from
Wellfleet--seemed to be no more than a slight annoyance to the
raging flames determined to gobble up the house. The sounds were
terrifying, snapping, crackling, smashing and a sound like a
violent winter wind. But also, something else. Way in the
background. What is that? I asked myself. Human voices? No, it
couldn’t be. Funny, it did sound like people riding a roller
coaster. Simultaneously thrilled and terrified. No one else seemed
to have heard it though.