Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (16 page)

A clattering and a yell arose from down the hall. Joanna and Reverend Tony ran to the storage room, Clarke fast behind them. Moaning, Daniel lay crumpled on the storage room floor grasping his ankle. The faint light from the Reverend’s candle showed skis and poles surrounding him. “My foot,” he said.
 

“Hold still,” Joanna said. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”
 

“No. My foot caught something—maybe a ski pole—I lost my balance, and boom!” He groaned when Joanna touched his ankle.
 

She slipped off his shoes. “Can you wiggle your toes?”

The toes of his socks undulated. “Yes.”

She dropped her hands to her side. “Does it hurt now?”

“Only when I move my foot.”

“I don’t think you broke it,” she said. “It’s probably just a sprain. Still, there’s no way you’re skiing anywhere for a while. Let me look at it.”
 

Daniel’s accident was way too convenient. She pulled off his rag wool sock and noted the red band traveling partway across his ankle. She touched it, and Daniel winced. His accident might have been convenient, but it was genuine.

“Should I get something to wrap it?” the Reverend offered.

“He’s going to need some ice. That shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, thinking of the cubic tons of snow outside. “But you can be most helpful getting him on his feet.”

While Tony and Clarke supported Daniel as he stood, Joanna glanced through the dim storage room. She remembered the skis and poles neatly stacked to the side when she was there for firewood, just before she found Jules. She was sure. The skis couldn’t have flown off the walls by themselves.
 

Daniel’s face was contorted in pain. His hand dangled over Reverend Tony’s chest.
 

“Can you put any weight on your leg?” Joanna asked.

Daniel lowered his foot to the floor, then lifted it again, quickly. “No. I got it good.”

Without skiing out for help, they were stranded for at least another day, maybe two. Fear flickered in her chest. Daniel’s fall was more than just an accident, she was sure.

Daniel, with Clarke and the Reverend holding him up, shuffled out.
 

Standing in the storage room, Joanna felt rising panic. The one person who had seemed halfway competent to get them out of the lodge was now being helped up the stairs to a couch, where he’d probably spend most of the day. Their radio was in a dozen pieces in the attic. Meanwhile someone was picking them off, one by one.

Holding the candle Tony transferred to her when he took Daniel’s shoulder, she scanned the storage room once again. She wasn’t a strong skier, but maybe with some instruction she could do it. She pulled a ski from the ground. Its wood was dry, and the leather foot straps were stiff. She leaned the ski against the wall and crouched to examine a pair of snowshoes. Now, snowshoes she could handle. Once she and Paul had driven up to the mountain and spent the afternoon hiking a wilderness trail. He’d laughed that she hiked in a wool skirt, but with long underwear and a flannel slip it was perfectly toasty.
 

“Joanna, are you coming?” Clarke yelled from the hall.
 

She grabbed the snowshoes and hurried to follow.

***

Daniel settled on the lips couch opposite Marianne, and Sylvia wrapped his foot with a wool scarf. Penny left with Portia to make a snowpack for his ankle.

“I can’t believe I tripped.” He shook his head. “I feel so stupid. What are we going to do now?”
 

“Don’t worry. Someone will be here eventually,” Sylvia said. “I’m sure Bette didn’t rent the lodge forever. Someone will come for clean-up, maybe even souvenirs of the wedding. It won’t be long.” She couldn’t hide the uncertainty in her voice.

“I’m going to snowshoe out,” Joanna said. The others turned as if they only then realized she was in the room.

“No,” Daniel said. “Bad idea. Skis might work—they’re faster. On snowshoes, hypothermia would get you before you’d make it anywhere, and that’s if you could figure out the direction anyway.”

Joanna was already on her way to the great room’s window to gauge the direction to Timberline lodge. No, the windows at the front of the lodge, even on the second floor, were blanketed in snowdrifts from the wind up the mountain.

“The door to the patio won’t open with this snow. You’d have to leave through the dining room windows on the side,” Daniel said. “At least, that’s what I was going to do. But don’t risk it.”

“How else are we going to get help?” she said. “Look around you. We have no power and not much food.” She lowered her voice and came closer so Marianne couldn’t hear. “Wilson and the chef are dead. Killed. One of us did it.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to add your body to the casualties.”

“But you were going to ski out.”

“Skiing’s different. Faster. Besides, I’ve done a lot of telemarking, and I’m used to it. None of us should be snowshoeing in this weather. I don’t trust the snowbanks to hold you. Plus—no offense—but I don’t know that you have the stamina.”

“Who else will do it?” Joanna asked. Penny and Bette were out of the question. Portia was a little more rugged, but definitely the urban type, as was Clarke. Sylvia and Marianne needed to stay together. The Reverend was a possibility. Joanna turned to him.

“No way,” Reverend Tony said. “Uh uh. Not safe. And you’d be an idiot to try.”
 

Joanna pursed her lips. “I’m in decent shape. I should be able to handle a hike out. Besides, there’s a child here.” She looked from guest to guest for some kind of support. Surely at least Sylvia would understand. “There’s no way we can keep track of everyone in this monstrosity of a house.” She was a regular walker, but truth be told she had no idea how long she could handle slogging through the snow in sub-freezing temperatures. But it was their last hope. “I’ll take a cell phone and keep trying it as I go. Maybe I’ll hit signal range. Do any of you have one that still has power?”

“Mine does, I think,” Sylvia said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m convinced you should go.”

Joanna strode to the dining room window. Snow came up to the sills. It had taken her probably another twenty minutes, maybe a bit longer, to reach Redd Lodge once she’d passed Timberline. Twenty minutes at ten miles an hour was three miles. Three miles wasn’t far. Normally, at least. Above the timberline, it wouldn’t be easy to find the road. But if she could, and if she could follow it…

“Yes. I’ll do it,” she said when she returned to the great room.

Penny and Portia arrived with a towel full of snow. “We chipped this out of the tunnel on the way to the garage. Put up your ankle,” Portia said.
 

Sylvia set it on an ottoman covered with a blanket. “Thank you.”

“Joanna says she’s going to try to snowshoe out for help,” Daniel said. “I told her it’s a bad idea.”

“Why not?” Bette said. Apparently she’d been listening in the library the whole time, and now she stood at the doorway, her caftan filling its frame. “Someone has to do it. My girls can’t, obviously, and if the Reverend refuses, well, what alternative do we have? If she’s so hot on trying, let her do it.”

Joanna turned her back on Bette. “Penny, will you go with me to my room to get suited up?”

Joanna sat on the dining room’s window sill, then swung her legs out onto the vast, white expanse that rolled into the distance toward the ice-laden pines. Already she felt a little more free. Free of the lodge’s oppressive mood and the grief, fear, and suspicion that infested it.

Penny handed her the snowshoes, one by one, and she buckled them on. Daniel had examined the snowshoes and pleaded with her not to go. He said the leather webbing was brittle and might not hold. He said the straps that held her feet in might give at any time. Maybe they were a little stiff, but they’d felt strong when Joanna tugged at them. Resigned, Daniel had lent her his ski jacket and waterproof pants to wear over her double layer of long underwear. Joanna had tucked Sylvia’s cell phone in a pocket. She was warm almost to the point of overheated.

Snow pelted her face, its flakes big and wet. With one hand on the window frame for support, she pulled herself to standing. The snowshoes sank a few inches into the powder but held her weight.

“Good luck,” Penny said. “I’ll be sending you good energy.” She shut the window between them.

Joanna turned toward the open field of white and maneuvered the snowshoes in a three-point turn toward the front of the house. That’s where the road led. She could use the lodge as a beacon at least until she dipped below the timber line and trees obscured the view.
 

Slowly, she sloughed through the snow. With each step, the snowshoe sank and she pulled it up in an exaggerated motion, but she was moving forward. Penny undoubtedly still watched from the window, but Joanna wouldn’t turn around to check. She needed to continue forward, toward help. She trudged, step by step, around the side of Redd Lodge. Each step dragged. Foot down, heave forward, pull up. Next foot down. Her breath was heavy and steamed the air, but it was freeing. All she heard was the rustle of the parka’s hood as she turned her wool-capped head inside it.
 

Although she was supposed to move, eventually, down the mountain, her path took her slightly uphill as the snow had banked up the building’s facade. She turned her head toward the lodge. She’d been slogging forward for nearly a quarter of an hour, but barely made it to the building’s front. Daniel was right—skis would go much faster. But with Daniel laid up, skiing wasn’t an option.
 

Now she was out of sight of the side windows, out of sight of anyone. The only windows visible were in the tower room. No one would be watching from up there. Up there where Wilson’s body lay.
 

She couldn’t help herself and glanced up. As she’d expected, the windows were dark. She started to turn her head again, to focus on navigating the snowed-over parking area, when a corner of white flashed in the window. Couldn’t be. She jerked her head again up to the tower room, and at the same time her snowshoe broke through an ice layer, swallowing a leg up to her thigh. She gasped and fell backward, submerging her other leg at a wide angle.

Damn.
Here where the snow had drifted up, it must have melted a touch the day before then frozen overnight. She should have skirted the lodge’s front. She should have known better.

She struggled to stand, her legs still firmly gripped by the snow. Ice had found its way under the too-large snow pants and chilled her calves. No one could see her here. She twisted to look again at the tower room’s window. Someone had been there—she was sure she’d seen a flash of white by the darkened window. Maybe he’d seen her fall. As she watched the window, her hope soured to disappointment. The window was dark now. No light, no onlooker. Even if someone was there, he couldn’t possibly make it out to pull her from the snow.

Calm, stay calm, she told herself. Be logical. How could she right herself? She scanned the horizon as if it would give her a clue. Except for the wind through the trees below, it was quiet. The drift of smoke from the lodge’s central chimney was all that betrayed the trapped guests’ existence. The satyr weathervane was now shapeless, caked with white.

She drew her attention to the ice that surrounded her. Too much pressure on one spot would pierce the snowbank. She brushed the blowing snow from her sleeves. She’d hoist herself up the best she could, and she’d lie flat, distributing her weight across the snow’s surface. Yes, that’s what she’d do.

Leaning forward, she hugged the snow, her arms spread like a front-fallen snow angel. Her face ached with cold. She pulled one leg, but the snowshoe had anchored itself in the ice. She jiggled her foot side to side to loosen it. Somehow ice had slithered up under the coat, as well, soaking her sweater and numbing her belly. Even if she worked herself free, she wouldn’t be able to go on.
 

In a surge of fear and anger, she yanked at her leg again, and it popped suddenly free of the snow—and the snowshoe. The leather strap had broken. With three limbs now above snow, she gasped for breath, icy air filling her lungs. Half an hour ago, it was the last place she wanted to be. Now she longed to be swaddled in blankets in front of the fire. Daniel was right. She’d been stupid to think she could snowshoe out for help. Tears of frustration clouded her eyes. Now she could freeze to death, like Jules, only yards from the lodge.
 

Breathe. Calm.
The only way out of this was to free her other leg from its snowshoe and somehow crawl back to the lodge.
Focus.
With her right hand still splayed on the snow to keep from being further submerged, she began to dig with her left hand to loosen her leg. After a few minutes—her hand numb with chill—she’d loosened her leg to the knee. By rocking her leg from side to side, she managed to lift the snowshoe an inch, but it was still wedged in the ice. She didn’t have a choice. She slid her hand down her leg and loosened the lace of her hiking boot and slid her foot free.

Giddy with relief, she lay on her back on the snowbank a moment. Gingerly, she rolled to her stomach and began to crawl back to the dining room window. She pulled one knee forward, then the next. Put one hand out, then the next.
Forward, forward
, she told herself. The numbness in her hands had turned to a splitting pain, and she could barely move her fingers. The person at the tower room window would be waiting there for her, surely. They would pull her inside, help her make her way to the fire.

At last she had the dining room window in sight, only ten yards or so away. It was closed, and no one stood inside ready to help her. She was so close.
Keep going, keep on
. Then she was at the window. She banged at the glass, her fingers frozen in a claw-like grasp, sobs mounting in her chest. A few minutes passed and no one arrived. She pounded again. The window was made of small panes of glass, and breaking it wouldn’t let her in. To her left was the opening for the dumbwaiter where Jules had smoked. He too had pounded at the window, but they’d all been asleep on the opposite side of the lodge, unable to hear him. She raised both fists to pound once more.