A Deadly Snow Fall (16 page)

Then, “Oh, my God!” “There it goes!” “Just
downright heartbreaking,” and “Such a terrible loss.” The old glass
conservatory collapsed in on itself like a house of cards as the
huddled neighbors watched. Mary Malone grasped at her chest as if
her heart would burst forth if she did not hold it back. This was
my first time seeing the old Snow mansion. I’d heard that it had
once been a showplace but Edwin hadn’t cared for it and it was
badly in neat of paint and repairs. Edward Granger had evidently
admired it; painted it three times in different lighting.

The sweet voice behind me pulled me around to
face Mary Malone. “Dear, please join us for some nice, hot coffee.
I also have tea. A nice, English breakfast variety.”

“Oh, thanks. I’m Liz Ogilvie-Smythe. I own
the Cranberry Inn.”

“I know dear. I’m Mary Malone. Knew your dear
Aunt Libby very well. Miss her terribly. Now though, we have you to
take her place. Come, join us, dear.”

“So nice to meet you… of course under tragic
circumstances.”

“Probably just as well, dear; let them all
free at last.”

Before I could respond to ask who the all
might be, the Truro Fire Chief came over seeking coffee. “Hell of a
night. Hate to see the fine old architecture go. This one was one
of the finest, indeed. Some of the real dogs you don’t mind losing,
but this place was an honest beauty. Would you maybe have a couple
of aspirins for an old man, Mary, dear?”

Mrs. Malone left and then reappeared with a
bottle of aspirin and, after the chief took two, she offered them
around like a box of chocolates.

“It occurs to me to ask, Mrs. Malone…Mary,
did someone take Mr. Snow’s dog?” I hoped the poor orphaned dog had
not been caught inside the inferno.

“Oh, yes, dear. Not to worry. I took Patton
to live with me after Edwin passed. He’s just fine. Lonely for his
master but he’s settling in nicely. Left him in the back room so he
couldn’t see this. It would just add to his unhappiness, you
know.”

“What happened, Mrs. Malone? When did it
start?”

“I woke as always at two to let Patton out.
He has a bladder problem and needs to go every four or five hours
during the night. I set my alarm, let him out, and off he goes. But
tonight, at the end of the front walk, he suddenly stopped, his
legs stiffened and his nose went into the air. I couldn’t imagine
what he smelled but expected it was just a skunk. Hates skunks, he
does. Then I smelled it too. That was when I turned and saw that
the windows over there were all aglow. Like there was a party going
on and all the lights were on.”

“How frightening for you, Mary.”

“Yes. But not entirely unexpected. It was
time. They deserved it. This way, they won’t bother anyone
else.”

I was nonplussed. Who could she mean? Who
deserved to be cooked in a hot fire? The voices I’d heard? If there
was someone inside, why wasn’t anyone else upset? But, upset wasn’t
what Mary Malone was. She was pleased.

“Now, I’m not one to place blame, but your
Aunt Libby should not have done that to Edwin. Not that he wouldn’t
have done the same to her if he’d had the chance. She just beat him
to it.”

I opened my mouth to ask what Mary could
possibly have been talking about just as James approached looking
like a well-dressed chimney sweep. He started to pull me into his
arms and then thought better of it. Because of his ashes and
soot-covered tux and propriety.

Mary looked at James and then back at me with
a sweet knowing smile and moved away so that we could be together,
as privately as possible in the situation. “Does everyone in this
town know that we are dating, James?”

“I’d say that after seeing us on the dance
floor last night, you can expect inquiries regarding our wedding
date and which caterer we’ll be hiring, in the coming days.”

I flinched. I felt very deeply about James,
but marriage was something I’d managed to fend off for years and
still had no real inclinations toward taking on. It was something
that of course we’d have to discuss eventually, but not at that
moment. Before I could respond, James apologized for slipping out
of bed without waking me.

“Sorry I had to slip out of that lovely warm
bed. But you never heard my cell and you were sleeping like an
enchanted princess, so I just jumped back into my tux and headed
here. Taken a lot of ribbing for the formal dress at a fire. But I
suppose I won’t get busted for being out of uniform, considering
the situation and everyone having been at the ball last night.”

“I suppose it’s a complete loss?”

“Yup, not a chance of saving it. Poor old
place.” James looked crestfallen, bless his sensitive heart.

“Kind of poetic justice. The family line
ended with Edwin Snow and now the family home is gone.”

“Any idea how it started, James?’

“Not until the team can get inside and take a
look. Going to take a while to get it cool enough. The place was
stuffed like a warehouse. I was able to get inside before it became
completely engulfed. Don’t know how the old man lived there. Had to
follow narrow trails through high and wide piles of stuff of every
description.”

Eventually, the fire trucks were preparing to
leave. The Fire Chief, Ben Sears, gathered the upset neighbors
together to explain that it would be best if they stayed in the
village overnight. He suggested the Howard Johnson’s Happy Holiday
Motel. I simply could not see those saddened, dislocated people
shipped off to the out-dated and mildewed, nineteen fifties
motel.

“Please, everyone, I’d love to have you as my
guests at the Cranberry Inn. Just made all the beds with brand new
sheets.” I smiled at the group and they smiled back. They went off
to gather what they would need for the night. Mary gathered up
Patton and carefully put him into the car holding his head so that
he would not see the burned out rubble that had been his home.

The next morning, everyone gathered in the
dining room for a full breakfast that was enjoyed by all.
Afterwards, everyone went their separate ways, some to shop and
some to visit village friends. Mary asked me if it would be an
imposition to leave Patton there for the day while she went off to
visit her sister in Brewster. “I can take the bus but Patton hates
buses. Doesn’t mind a car but he gets very nervous on a bus.”

“No problem, Mary. It will be fun to have him
for the day. The backyard is fenced in so he will be quite safe.
Enjoy yourself.”

I drove Mary to the bus and returned to the
inn to strip beds and try and do some writing on the cookery book.
However, my mind could not shake Mary Malone’s odd reference to
something or someone who deserved to be burned in the
conflagration. My concentration was interrupted by Patton
scratching at the French doors leading out to the back deck.
Opening the door, I found him standing looking very proud of
himself with a long bone in his mouth. “What do you have there dog?
Who gave you that bone? That’s odd. Well, I’d rather you didn’t
bring it in the house so…” Skidding by me, Patton headed directly
for the front room. Down the polished floor of the hall and around
the corner he went, with me hot on his heels.

As the dog took the corner into the living
room like a NASCAR racer, I caught a vase full of beach grass
nearly in mid-air as it flew from a lamp table. Scatter rugs went
flying as Patton headed for the large antique Oriental rug looking
as if he might be considering digging into it to bury his treasure.
“No, no, Patton! Naughty boy! Stop!” Softening my tone like a good
canine psychologist, I said, “Oh well, you’ve had a tough night,
old boy. How about you give me the bone and I will give you a
scone? Believe me, it’s a good deal.”

Patton didn’t agree. He kept the bone tight
in his jaws. He seemed to be laughing at me for even considering
that he’d so easily give it up.

“Hello, anyone here?” James called from the
back door. I gave Patton one last look of disdain and went to greet
the now cleaned up, handsome policeman. Looking around for my
overnight guests, he inquired as to how it went.

“Just great. What a nice group. We had a
lovely time. Come on, fresh tea and scones in the kitchen. Oh, but
first. Would you please help me get Patton and a big bone back
outside? He insisted on bringing it in. Couldn’t bribe him with a
scone.”

James headed down the hall and I followed.
“Okay Patton, the law is here. Prepare to be cooperative. Should I
read him his Miranda rights?” James grinned at me and then went
back to negotiating with the determined dog. But the Indiana Jones
of canines with the bone held tightly in his endearing, grinning
white and black face had no intention of cooperating. Law or no
law.

James bent down over the dog and, patting and
praising him for being a clever boy, tried to get the bone away
from him while I ran for a better, more convincing treat than a
scone. The steak I was thawing for our romantic dinner.

“Damn, I thought so. Give it here boy.”
James’ reaction sounded odd. I handed James the partially thawed,
boneless sirloin. “Our dinner, right?” I nodded sadly.

A deal was struck once Patton took a sniff.
The trade completed, I took Patton by the collar. Returning to the
kitchen after I led the delighted dog out to the backyard, I found
James looking quizzical in the kitchen. Looking down at the bone
that he’d placed on a long sheet of paper towels, he scratched his
head and shook his head slowly. Quite a strange reaction to a stray
dog bone.

“What, James?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a human leg bone. Where
did he get it?”

“Damned if I know. Well, I mean, he was in
the fenced yard the whole time so he must have dug it up out
there.” I slumped into the wing chair by the kitchen fireplace and
James sat in the one opposite.

“James, if it is human, then the rest the
body is probably out there as well, right?”

“Could be. Sorry but I’ll have to get someone
here to spot where he got it and dig for more. I hate to have to
wreck your nice grass and flowers, Liz.”

“No, don’t worry about some old grass and
flowers. We have to get to the bottom of this. First a mysterious
death, then a mysterious fire and now a human bone. Gad James, what
next? Alien abductions?”

Chapter Seventeen

James called from Boston just after three,
four days later. I hadn’t seen him at all in that time and we’d
only talked a few times. He was busy working with the arson team. I
was sitting in the sunroom looking at the handsome Victoriana
Gothic Snow mansion gracing the page of a book on the great art of
the twentieth century I’d borrowed from the library.

Entitled simply, Ned’s House by Edward
Granger, the house had been just lovely. Edwin Snow’s father, also
Edwin but called Ned, had evidently treasured his home as evidenced
by its pristine condition when the artist painted it. There it was
in its glory days. Looking freshly painted with curtains in the
windows, neat trim, gardens overflowing with colorful flowers and a
Model T Ford parked over to the left side. The wrap-around porch
had wicker furniture set out just waiting for ladies in white
dotted Swiss summer dresses and straw hats to visit. The Snow
house, sometime in the nineteen forties. I felt deeply grateful
that Granger had captured it and made it immortal. Gone but still
alive and well.

Peering as closely as I could with a
magnifying glass, I searched for what my sixth sense told me was
there…but hiding. Deep in the shadow created by a huge overhanging
maple tree branch, there it was. A young man’s face. Edwin’s? Half
in deep shadow, the other half caught just enough light, however,
so that I could tell it was his. But, I was looking for it. Granger
had seen him and included him and yet, I wondered if the art
experts had picked him out from the fool-the-eye dappled shadows.
Why I thought I’d find Edwin watching, I could not say. Just a
hunch but, it proved itself.

The strident ring of the kitchen phone that I
intended to have replaced but hadn’t gotten around to on my
unending list of things-to-do, pulled me out of my reverie. James’s
voice brought me back to earth and I smiled as I always did at the
lyrical sound of his brogue that came and went in intensity
depending on to whom he was speaking. I liked it when he used it on
me. It sounded like a gently flowing brook on a summer’s day.

“It’s a human leg bone, all right. Been dead
about sixty years or so.”

“Oh, James.” There, words failed me.

“I’m heading back to the Cape in few minutes.
I’ll pick up a nice steak to replace the one we had to sacrifice to
Patton.

“Great.” I answered, “but make it a boneless,
please.”

The men sent to do random digging in my
flower beds assured me that there were no more bones to be found.
James spoke to them and then came into the kitchen for tea. “Oh
James, I wonder if my Aunt Libby was involved in something
unsavory.”

“Now, love, one bone does not a murder make,
necessarily. Sometimes the old cemeteries give up bones and dogs
drag them away. There have been less than careful burials in the
past. Not burying deep enough or in improper soil. Erosion takes
its toll and bones appear. Sandy soil is particularly
problematic.”

“So, what happens now?”

“Nothing much. This is not a first, according
to the Chief. Early tribal sites and old gravesites do, on
occasion, throw up human bones.”

James dropped by a bit later. We had time for
a quick kiss before Daphne knocked and then let herself in through
the kitchen door. “Hey James, Liz. What’s this about a human leg
bone in your garden? Everyone’s talking about it.”

Looking from Daphne to James, I asked, “Does
everyone in this village tune into some extra-sensory communication
band that I don’t know about?” Handsome James shrugged.