The Body in the Snowdrift (24 page)

The garage and a shed stood some way beyond the house, and she went over to them. The shed was locked, but the garage was open—and empty.

Gertrude wasn't home. So where on earth were Scott and Ophelia?

The shed had a stovepipe. A place for someone to live? To camp out in? Was that what they were doing? Faith walked back over to look in the windows. She wished it were open so she could get warm before starting back. The garage didn't offer much in the way of comfort. If she could only get into the shed, find a blanket and lie down for a little nap…Trying the doors of the house, looking for a key over the door was much too Goldilocks, aside from breaking and entering. A shed was different.

She trudged slowly back toward the small shelter, her head filled with thoughts of home. Her shadow was lengthening, she noticed. It must be getting later. Pix would be pleased at Faith's progress toward becoming one, truly attuned to nature. Attune. A tune. Faith thought she heard someone whistling. Was Gertrude back? The kids? She whirled around and the sound stopped. I'm imagining things, she thought.

But she wasn't imagining the pain of the sharp blow she felt on the back of her head, nor the next, which shut out all thought and feeling.

 

“She's coming around!” Faith opened her eyes. She was in the ski patrol's hut. Tom was standing over her with several of the members and Simon. It was Simon who had cried out.

“How did I get here?” she whispered, then, realizing she was whispering, she raised her voice. “I was at Gertrude's cottage and someone hit me.”

Tom looked worried. “The ski patrol found you in the woods, not that far from the condos. A branch broke off from a tree and knocked you out. It was on top of you.”

“Lucky thing we found you. You could have gotten pretty cold,” a young woman said.

“I
was
cold. That's why I was going to the shed—to warm up. It wasn't a branch. It was a person. There must be something in that shed. Tom, you have to get the police to go there and search it. I'm sure it has to do with John's murder. And Gertrude is gone. Scott and Ophelia, too.”

“Honey, I'm sure you did go to the shed, or what
ever it was, but you were on your way back here when you had the accident.”

“Mrs. Fairchild. I'm Dr. Moses. You have probably suffered a very mild concussion. Fortunately, nothing worse, since they found you before dark, when the temperature drops. After something like what happened to you occurs, our memory often plays tricks on us, even blocks out whole segments of time. It's got a name: retrograde amnesia.”

Faith closed her eyes. It was no use. She'd never get them to believe her. She'd have to wait to get Tom alone.

She started to sit up.

“Honey, are you sure you feel all right? The doctor thinks you should stay here for a while.”

“I feel fine, except my head hurts, and I guess that must be because of the
branch.
” Faith was sure her sarcasm was lost on everyone, but it felt good to express it. “Give me some Tylenol or something and I'll go back to the condo and lie down.”

Simon seemed concerned. “Mrs. Fairchild, Faith, please don't be foolhardy. You don't want anything more to happen.”

“Thanks, Simon, but I'm okay, and I promise to take it easy.”

She had to get out of there and tell Tom what had happened—not just at Gertrude's but also about Dennis and the kids. Ophelia's face came back to her—the horror and fear writ large upon it this morning. Where was she? Where was Scott? And there were these other images nagging at her like certain dreams. The more you try to remember them, the harder it becomes, until
they vanish completely. She was lying in the snow. Where? Someone was carrying her. Who? How long had she been unconscious? It was about one o'clock when she'd set out for Gertrude's place. About twenty minutes to get there, twenty minutes or maybe less poking around. She looked at her watch. Only a little after 2:00
P.M.
She couldn't have been out long.

The ski patrol insisted on transporting her via snowmobile, strapped to a stretcher, which Faith had only agreed to when she realized they wouldn't release her otherwise. As soon as she was inside the condo, she asked Tom to make her a strong cup of coffee and take it upstairs. They were alone.

The Parkers' bedroom was in total disarray, half-packed bags strewn around. Dennis's work, calculated to drive his wife crazy, Faith was sure.

She went into her bathroom, washed her face, and tried to get a look at the back of her head with her makeup mirror. The skin hadn't been broken, but she had a lump the size of a Santa Rosa plum. Maybe I'd better lie down, she thought.

Tom appeared soon with two steaming mugs and a plate of cinnamon toast. He knew his wife's comfort food.

“Now look, Tom, it's just us. I know what happened to me, and it wasn't a branch, memory loss or no memory loss. You have to call down to the Sports Center and have the police look in that shed. Somebody didn't want me to see inside—so much so that the person knocked me out and arranged my ‘accident.' It's probably too late, but at least tell them to try.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I can't stand to think of your
being attacked. I guess I want to believe it was the branch, but I'll call.”

As Tom was talking to the police, Faith nibbled on the toast and sipped her coffee. Making a good cup of coffee was one of many talents Tom had brought to the marriage. He could also sew on buttons, which came in handy, as she couldn't.

“All right. They're sending someone out to check. The place is empty, though, they said. Gertrude Stafford left yesterday. You know the situation, right? Her brother and nephew are trying to get her to agree to holding off on her demand for the money they owe Boyd's estate. Simon has been trying to convince her, too. If Pine Slopes goes under, he's out of a job. But so far, it's no go, and she's taken off for parts unspecified.”

“She's been known to do that before,” Faith said. The image of Gertrude's smiling face as she left Simon's office surfaced in Faith's mind. Gloating? And where had she gone after that? “I thought for sure Scott and Ophelia were out at Gertrude's house. I followed Ophelia there the other night, and I'm positive that's where Scott's been going to get away from his mother. Ophelia was headed that way early this morning, and I assumed Scott had overheard me talking to her, because the back door was open. He probably left by the front. Could they be at the Staffords? Ordinarily, I'd say it was the last place Ophelia would go, but the house would be empty today, given what's been going on. Let's try calling there.”

“I saw Ophelia at the Sports Center around noon, but I haven't seen Scott all day. I'll try the Staffords,
senior and junior, but are you sure he didn't go with my mother?” Tom sounded worried.

“He wasn't with them. Remember, his mother is part of the outing—and in any case, he wasn't here when they left. Which reminds me. You don't know about Dennis. Oh Tom, when can we go home?”

Tom called both Stafford houses and left messages on their machines. He left one on Simon's, as well. Then Faith told him about Dennis, starting with seeing the Williston motel on the news.

“Poor Bets,” Tom said softly when Faith had finished. “She and Dennis have been together so long. I never felt very close to him, and each time the family got together, I'd resolve to spend some time with him, but I didn't really try hard enough. Maybe he felt isolated and—”

“Just a minute,” Faith said. “The man is a total sleaze, and you're beating up on yourself? Isolated in your family? You'd have to move to Mars to be isolated in the Fairchild clan.” As she said it, she thought about Glenda's protest. Was the family a members-only club? Or was it the fault of those who felt excluded? But wherever the fault lay, it wasn't with Tom.

“You don't know what's going to happen, and we're certainly not going to tell Betsey what Dennis said, I hope.”

Tom shook his head. “That's up to Dennis.”

Faith lay back on the pillows Tom had arranged, then sat bolt upright as the phone rang. Tom picked it up on the first ring.

“Yes?…Oh, thank you for getting back to me…
Nothing?…Yes, the snow is coming down pretty hard…. Okay, I'll let my wife know.”

“The police?” Faith said.

“They didn't find anything out of the ordinary in the shed. It wasn't locked, by the way. And no one was at the house. The snow that's been falling all day would have obliterated any tracks, including yours. But they're sure no one's been there since Gertrude left.”

“The shed was locked. I tried it before I went over to the garage. So someone
was
there after me. And it was that someone who hit me on the head when I went back to look in the windows. Whatever was out of the ordinary was removed.”

Tom caressed the side of his wife's face and smoothed her hair back. “Darling, let's say it wasn't an old lock that stuck and it really was locked. What could have been in it that someone didn't want you to see?”

He had her there.

“Now, how about some soup? Or something else to eat? More toast?”

Faith looked at the empty plate in surprise. She hadn't realized she'd finished the toast. And Tom was right: She did want something more to eat. She wanted the half sandwich she'd so generously given to Dennis. But she'd settle for soup.

When Tom left, she tried to think what could have been in the shed? It was all getting to be a little like
Cold Comfort Farm,
that incomparable novel by Stella Gibbons with Ada Doom, who saw something “nasty in the woodshed.”

But whatever it was, Faith was convinced it was
tied to the chef's murder—and the rest of what had been going on this week at Pine Slopes. It wouldn't have been a murder weapon—that was all too present on location, so to speak. But what? She wondered if the police had found John's things in his car. Suitcases with what had been in his room. If not, maybe that was what had been hidden away. Which would mean Gertrude was involved—or Ophelia? When had Gertrude left yesterday? Another question for the police. Had anyone seen her drive away? She'd be hard to miss in her Flower Power VW bus. If she'd left in the afternoon, that would eliminate her as a suspect. John had to have been killed in the early-morning hours. But Ophelia had been around. Yet somehow Faith couldn't see the anorexic sixteen-year-old grappling with John by the pool at the pump house, forcing him into its lethal depths. And why? It was more likely she'd have tried to push her stepfather in—or her mother.

The bedroom door crashed open.

“Tom?” Faith was startled.

Betsey Parker came toward the bed so fast, she seemed jet-propelled. “What have you done with my child?” she screamed. Tom was close on her heels. He grabbed her from behind. Faith wasn't sure what Betsey had planned, but she was very glad Tom was stopping the escapee from the Furies in her tracks.

“I haven't done anything with Scott. I thought he was with Ophelia this morning. That's what I told Marian. Didn't she tell you?”

“She didn't say anything,” Betsey said bitterly. “She knew what I'd think about that. If only she had. I
would have made him come with us. I thought he was with his father.”

Faith was feeling very guilty. But the boy was almost sixteen, and she had thought it would be better for him to be with a friend. She realized now that she should have left that up to his mother. “I went out to Gertrude Stafford's house, because I thought that's where he was, but no one was there, and—” Faith decided not to go into any more particulars. Betsey didn't need to hear about the attack on Faith, not when Scott was missing. But he wasn't missing. He was somewhere holed up with Phelie. If they could find her, they'd find him.

“Tom saw Ophelia down at the Sports Center. I'd try there.” Faith was trying to keep her voice from shaking. Tom still had an arm around his sister's shoulders. He was looking warily from one woman to the other.

“That's a good idea, Bets. We'll go down there right now.”

“Mom?” Andy was standing just outside the doorway. He didn't look like someone who had had a happy day. Maybe Ben & Jerry's had been out of his favorite flavor.

Betsey didn't turn around. “Not now, Andy. I'm busy. Go next door with your grandma and grandpa.”

“
Mom,
” he said insistently. “I…well, there's something, um, something…”

Betsey turned around.

“What is it? Right now. Tell me. What is it?”

The boy put one hand on the door frame, as if to steady himself.

“Scott didn't come home last night.”

“
What are you talking about?
”

Andy grabbed the frame so tightly, Faith could see his knuckles bulge out.

“I promised I wouldn't tell, because he was so mad, and you were, too, and anyway, I just promised. He's been going out at night, when everybody's asleep, and last night he didn't come back. Usually, he comes back.”

The boy looked terrified. Betsey had stepped away from Tom and toward her son. She reversed herself and sat down on the bed. She looked at Andy again and seemed about to say something to him, then burst into sobs—heart wrenching sobs.

“It's okay, sis, we'll find him. He's with Ophelia someplace. You know that.”

Betsey raised her tear-streaked face.

“A man has been killed by some maniac. My son has been missing for God knows how long. And you tell me everything is ‘okay'!” She was speaking in leaden tones. It was better when she shrieked, Faith realized. The woman sitting so close to her was a very different woman from the one who had come raging in a few minutes ago. This woman was doing what every mother anywhere would do: assuming the worst.

“Call the police, Tom. Go down there. Take Andy with you.” Faith reached her arm out toward her nephew, and he came close enough for her to hug him. “You did the right thing, telling us, even if it was a promise. Scott will understand. And everything will be all right.” She waited for Betsey to echo her words, but she was in a far-off place, not taking in the scene at her side. Faith released Andy and said, “Betsey and I will
stay here. When you leave, I'll call next door to tell them what's happening. Ben and Amy can stay there. The minute you hear—”