Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (13 page)

It obviously held a heavy load. Curious, Joanna lifted the icy handle. The dumbwaiter’s door nearly burned her fingers with cold. Something on the inside pressed against it. She slipped the flashlight in her pocket and with both hands slid open the latch. Her heart stopped.

Curled in the fetal position, a body tumbled, stiff, from the dumbwaiter. Ice crystals laced its hair, and its too-light jacket was rigid with snow. Trembling, Joanna took the flashlight from her pocket and trained the beam on the body’s face. Eyes, frozen opaque white, stared back at her. The flashlight clattered to the floor and rolled away.

It was the chef. Dead. Clutched in his hands was a box of cigarettes with
FUMER TUE
emblazoned in its side.

When Joanna regained her breath, her lungs had tightened, allowing her only shallow sips of air. Chef Jules must have hoisted himself up in the dumbwaiter to smoke, leaving the door to the outside open so he wouldn’t blow smoke into the lodge. Someone sabotaged the mechanism so he’d be trapped outside and freeze to death. Deliberately.
 

Someone at the lodge was a killer.

Joanna stood riveted in shock as that fact sank in. The kitchen was dark and quiet. All she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears and the sharp tick-tock of the wall clock that ran backward.

Wilson was murdered, too. Had to be. It was no accident he ate that sandwich.
 

She tightened her fists, then released them. She must get help, must get to the radio in the attic. Stooping to the floor, she felt around for the flashlight’s metal shaft. Her slippers crunched glass. Damn, it was broken. She clicked the flashlight off and on, but it refused to illuminate. She found a candle and matches near the stove.

She tied her robe tighter and entered the dark central lobby, which felt even colder than before. A rustle of fabric caught her ear. Joanna flattened herself against the wall. A slender figure—Penny?—candle in hand, passed from the north wing up the stairs to the second level.

“Penny?” Joanna called after her, but the rustling only quickened.
 

The Reverend. Penny had been visiting Reverend Tony. Late at night, too. The darkness thickened around her. That question would have to wait. Right now she needed to radio for help.

Joanna moved soundlessly down the north wing. Tony’s room was now dark. She felt for the cold doorknob of the service staircase, and eased its door shut behind her. Only when she was in the stairwell did she pull her candle from her pocket and light it. Within moments she was at the door of the attic and then inside. Wind whistled over the lodge’s shingled roof. Catching her breath, she paused just inside the door.
 

Was that a noise? The cave-like attic, so immense, swallowed her candle’s dancing flame. The noise sounded like a door shutting. Yes, probably Penny, below, settling in for bed. She let out her breath.

The radio shouldn’t be too hard to operate. She’d seen Daniel connect the power to the car battery, then adjust the tuner to find the Forest Service. It should be all adjusted now, in fact. She held her fingers to warm them. She’d tell the dispatcher they needed the police immediately, that two people were dead. Although snow still raged, the wind had died down a little. Maybe they could even get a helicopter in.
 

Joanna held her candle to the cabinet with the radio and gasped. The radio was shattered, its pieces twisted and smashed.

***

Carefully gripping the candle in her trembling hand, Joanna descended the staircase to the second level, where the bedrooms were, and stepped into the pitch black hall. Part of her wanted simply to barricade herself in her room until the snow died down and help arrived. She’d have to push furniture against the doors to the hall, but she could do it.
 

But that wasn’t fair. Waiting until morning to tell someone about Chef Jules wasn’t right. She had to alert the house. One of them killed Chef Jules. She might choose the wrong bedroom door to knock. She’d have to take the chance.

Her thoughts first went to Sylvia. She seemed reasonable, logical. However, waking her would also wake Marianne. A child didn’t need to know about this. No, she’d leave Sylvia to sleep. Daniel had endured enough with his brother’s death. Penny, Portia, and Bette were out of the question. Too emotional, and Penny—what had she been doing downstairs? Best to leave her out of this for the moment.
 

Clarke. Clarke was Wilson’s manager, a businessman, he arranged things. He might be a little absent-minded, but at heart he was practical. She’d tell him about Chef Jules, and they’d figure out what to do next. His room was across from where she stood, the last room at this end of the hall. She hesitated—was she making a mistake?—then knocked quietly. After a moment with no response, she knocked again, this time with more force.
 

“Clarke?” she said, mouth close to the door. Rustling came from inside. “Clarke, it’s Joanna. I need to talk to you.”

The door opened, and a groggy Clarke tied the sash of his robe around fine cotton pajamas. Without glasses, he squinted to focus. “Babe, I—” He put a hand on the door jamb. “Sorry, I’m still half asleep. It’s Joanna, isn’t it? What are you—?” He said, then stepped back. “You’re out of breath. What’s going on?”
 

“Inside,” Joanna said.

Clarke stepped aside to let her enter. Even under the candle’s weak glow, Clarke’s room flamed with red. The rug, linens, and curtains were all scarlet. An embroidered tapestry of a golden scorpion hung above the bed. “What’s going on?” he repeated.

“I wasn’t sure who else to turn to, but someone killed Chef Jules.”

“What?” He stumbled backward.

“I went downstairs to get wood and felt a draft coming from the kitchen. Someone had rigged the dumbwaiter so it couldn’t come down. It was open to the outside, upstairs. The chef was inside.” Those white fingers clutching the pack of cigarettes. “It looks like he froze to death.”

Clarke reached for his glasses. “Another accident?”

“No. Planned. There was a bent fork stuck in the lever mechanism. Someone knew he was smoking up there and purposely locked him out. They let him die.”

Clarke’s mouth parted slightly, and he stared, dazed, past Joanna. “I don’t believe it. I can’t…Wilson—”

“I know. I had the same thought.”

He snapped to attention. “We’ve got to radio out. Get the police.”

Joanna shook her head. “I tried. The radio’s been destroyed.”
 

“But—” he sputtered.

“I know. I ran up there as soon as I found the chef. The radio’s in pieces. Even if we could put it back together, I’m willing to bet some important part is missing. Whoever did this isn’t messing around.”

“You’re sure the chef is dead? Show me.”

Of course she was sure. But Clarke wasn’t going to believe it until he saw it. She braced herself.

“Come on.” She led him briskly down the hall and staircase. Candle held aloft, they passed through the lower lobby and into the kitchen. Joanna paused and steeled herself in front of the dumbwaiter. Maybe the body wouldn’t be there, maybe she’d hallucinated the whole thing. Hell, maybe the lodge itself was a giant hallucination.

“Dead all right,” Clarke whispered.
 

The ice on Chef Jules’s face had melted, leaving a pool of water in the dumbwaiter, and his body had slouched forward, but his lips were still blue. His finger tips were ragged and stained with blood. He must have fought to claw the dumbwaiter door open to the inside, but failed. The snow around the house was too deep and fragile to have held his weight had he tried to come in one of the lodge’s windows.
 

“Jules,” Joanna whispered. His panic. His struggle. God willing, he found some peace at the end.

Clarke put a hand on the chef’s neck, then dropped it.
 

“What should we do?” Joanna asked.

“Reverend Tony’s room is down here, isn’t it?”

Joanna raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think—I mean, sure, the chef was smoking, but come on.”

“Look, Chef Jules didn’t just die on his own. Someone did this. Someone here, at the lodge.” He drummed his fingers on the counter. “There’s something you should know. I didn’t want to bring it up before, but—”
 
He grabbed the bottle of Armagnac, poured himself a slug, and downed it in a gulp. “Wilson ran a background check on Tony. He ran checks on anyone who was involved with his life. He didn’t like how much time Tony spent with Penny.”

Joanna raised an eyebrow. “Background checks?”

“Yes. Even on you.”

She remembered Wilson’s focused gaze at dinner, the night before he died. He’d already known things about her. “Did they come up with anything on Tony?”

“Don’t know. They sent the report to Wilson. But judging from their bill, it wasn’t a clean and simple record review. I don’t trust him. I just don’t, and I don’t think Wilson did, either.” He put the glass on the counter. “I should have told everyone. I shouldn’t have let us stay here with a criminal.”

She had no idea how much Tony was getting paid in his special role as “spiritual advisor,” and he had a lot of influence over Penny. Still, what would he gain from killing Wilson and the chef? Unless he knew about the background report and had something to hide.

Clarke and Joanna stared at the body. “We can’t leave him here,” Clarke said finally.

“But we can’t mess with evidence. This is murder.”

“The storm is still at it. We have to use the kitchen. The police will have your testimony and mine.”

Joanna turned toward him. “Wait. Portia’s a photographer. She can document it, then we can lay him out in his room, like we did Wilson.”

“All right. Good idea.” He strode to the snowed-over kitchen window then back, averting his eyes from the dumbwaiter. “I just can’t believe it.”

“We have to figure out what to do next.”

“Yes. We need a plan.” He looked all around the darkened kitchen, as if a plan would fall out of a cupboard. He rubbed his chin. “We’re only in danger if we’re alone, I guess.”

“Or with the murderer,” Joanna added, looking at Clarke with new eyes. He seemed harmless enough, but had she made a mistake in waking him and not someone else—or two others?

Clarke seemed to examine her with the same curiosity. “I’m not worried about you,” he said. “But what were you doing down here in the middle of the night?”

“Getting firewood. I felt a draft from the kitchen and went to check it out.” And saw Penny coming from Tony’s room. “Look, if we’re always in company and someone paired off with the murderer dies, everyone else will know who killed whom. The murderer wouldn’t take that chance.”

“Yes. That makes sense.”

“There are only a few more hours of night left, but we’ll need to wake everyone, get people to bunk together. Men in one room, women in the other,” Joanna said. It was such a relief to be doing something instead of waiting—dreading—what might come next. “Penny’s room is the largest. The women can go in there.”
 

“The men can bunk in Daniel’s.”

“I’ll go get Portia.”

He glanced at the chef’s body, then at Joanna. “Not alone, you won’t.”

Portia gathered her wits—and camera—quickly. She closed the door and emerged a moment later with a coat over her pajamas.
 

Portia led the way down the hall. She stopped suddenly at the top of the staircase and turned. “You don’t think…Wilson’s death?”

“Could be,” Joanna replied. “If you don’t want to do this, I completely understand. It’s not pretty. You could lend us your camera if it’s going to be too much to deal with.”
 

“I’ve seen dead men before.”

“But not one you knew personally. This might be different,” Clarke said and began to worry at his bathrobe sash.
 

“I’m afraid we’ve all seen someone we know dead,” Joanna added, thinking of Wilson. “Clarke, could you wake Daniel and fill him in? He can help rouse everyone else.”

He nodded and padded down the hall.

In the kitchen, Portia eyed the corpse with the cold experience of a war photographer. “Hypothermia. You see that in the Pakistani mountains, too. Damn,” she said. She shifted her gaze to the bent fork lying next to the dumbwaiter’s handle. “My God. Someone really did do this on purpose. Why?”

“Hard to say.” The chef’s words from the night before came back to her clearly.
I did not poison Mr. Jack. I can prove it, too.
Whoever killed him might have planned on rising early and removing the bent fork. Then his death would have seemed like another accident.

Daniel burst into the kitchen. “Clarke said—” Joanna held the candle to the dumbwaiter. “Oh.”

“It’s too dark in here for photos, even with the built-in flash. I’ll get my auxiliary lamp. Just a sec,” Portia said.

“I’ll go with you. You shouldn’t be running around here alone,” Daniel said. “You.” He pointed at Joanna “You stay here and don’t move.”

As soon as they crossed the lower lobby, Joanna picked up Portia’s camera. Portia had been showing up in odd places with this camera slung around her neck. Surely Penny didn’t want photos of the past day in her scrapbook, so that couldn’t be it.
 

The back of the camera was a mass of buttons and controls surrounding a small screen. Fooling with technology wasn’t Joanna’s greatest gift. Heck, she still typed most of her correspondence with an aqua 1960s Royal portable typewriter. A small box in the crisper drawer of her refrigerator stored replacement ink ribbons.
 

She pushed the largest button on the back of the camera, and the built-in flash sparked through the darkened kitchen. Joanna nearly dropped the camera. Wrong button. Heart racing, she glanced toward the lobby. Slippers shuffled on stone. She pressed the camera’s second largest button and the screen lit up with an image of the empty breakfast room, a few hi-ball glasses on the table. The breakfast room the morning after Wilson’s death. Portia had photographed it.

She slid the camera on the counter just as Clarke and Portia returned.