Murder in Vail (9 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

It was snowing hard, but the wind had subsided a bit. As Sally quickly crossed the patio, her legs sank into the snow up to her shins. But it was just ten big steps to the pool. Her exposed legs were freezing, but the second she stepped into the steaming pool and submerged herself underwater, she quickly warmed up.

She immediately began to swim laps—twenty of the American crawl and then the same number of the breast stroke. As she began the backstroke, the snow started falling so heavily that it was too cold to continue, so she quit after two laps. She decided to do some practice drills and underwater work from her old synchronized routines to stay warm. They were fantastic exercise —as good as any aerobics or Pilates class she had ever attended.

Most people didn’t realize how much core strength, endurance, and flexibility are required in synchronized swimming. Perfecting movements to be in exact synchronization with other swimmers takes months of practice. Sally always tried to explain to people that synchronized swimming was much more than just water ballet, but people tended to be dismissive of her sport and thought it was easier than other types of swimming. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

Sally bobbed in the pool for several minutes doing eggbeaters with her legs, a way of treading water that made it look like you were standing up. In competition, synchronized swimmers were penalized if they touched the bottom of the pool, so they used the eggbeater kicks during most of their routine while performing. It gave them incredible leg strength. Then she worked on some propulsion kicks, barracuda rolls in which the legs propel vertically up out of the water, and body boosts, a breaststroke kick that brings the body out of the water in a straight line.

By the time she finished an hour and a half later, she felt exhausted. But the tight feeling of stress had left her. Her body felt so warm that she didn’t even notice the sub-freezing cold temperature as she stepped out of the pool, pulled on her white robe, and wrapped her damp hair in a towel. The snow was coming down in sheets, and she could feel it covering every bare spot of skin on her body. Glancing down as she hurried to the back door, she saw that her entire body was white.

All of her children were awake, standing around the kitchen island drinking coffee and talking about the weather report when she opened the kitchen door and stepped inside. There were several gasps, someone screamed, and someone else dropped a saucer on the floor that shattered into dozens of pieces.

Chapter Twenty-three

“Oh my God, Mom?” Lance cried. “You look like a ghost.”

“More like an angel,” Yvette said.

Sally laughed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just getting in my morning swim.”

“Mom, are you crazy!” Gwen exclaimed. “Swimming in a snow storm? You’re going to catch your death of cold.”

“Oh, stop worrying about me.” Sally gave them a dismissive wave of her hand and started toweling off her legs. She said nonchalantly, “It was invigorating.”

Helga brought out a broom to sweep up the broken dish, shooing people out of the way.

Glen poured his mother-in-law a cup of coffee. “Here, Mom,” he said, handing her a mug. “At least drink this to warm up.”

“Thanks, Glen. I’ll take this upstairs with me. I need to go change,” Sally said, adding, “By the way, Lance, after I change clothes, your room will be available.”

“What do you mean?” Lance asked, confused. “What about Rachel? I was just getting ready to go up and confront her. I needed to fortify myself first with a cup of coffee.”

Sally smiled, proud of herself for finding a solution to the tricky problem. “You will be happy to know that the problem is solved. I told Rachel she could have my room. I woke up in the middle of the night and found her in the kitchen having a midnight snack—the poor thing was starving—and we decided to switch rooms then. So I spent the night in your room, Lance, and Rachel spent the night in my room.”

“So she’s out of my room?” Lance asked. “Thank God.”

Stephen set down his coffee cup on the counter and left the kitchen. Lance and Yvette thanked her for giving up her room.

“But where will you sleep, Sally?” Yvette asked.

“I’ll just take Stephen’s room,” Sally answered. “I just wish I’d thought of it before.”

Gwen frowned. “I’m sure Rachel was thrilled to get your room, Mom.”

“She did seem pretty pleased with the solution.”

“She’s so manipulative,” Gwen said. “I hate it that you had to give up—”

A desperate cry rang out from upstairs, followed by a man’s voice yelling for help.

“Is that Stephen?” Lance asked, running toward the staircase.

Everyone raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs. When they reached the second floor landing, Sally realized Stephen’s voice was coming from her room. She ran to the door of the master bedroom. There, she saw Stephen kneeling by the bed, his face buried in the sheets, his arms spread across his wife’s body.

“Stephen, what—” Sally began.

He turned his tear-stained face to look at her. “I think Rachel is dead.”

Chapter Twenty-four

“She won’t wake up.” Stephen looked at Sally and the others with pleading eyes.

Gwen ran to his side. “Did you check her pulse?”

He shook his head.

Gwen reached out and took hold of Rachel’s wrist. “Oh my God. She’s ice cold.”

There was no pulse in her wrist, so Gwen placed her fingertips on Rachel’s throat. “She’s so thin,” Gwen said, continuing to search for a pulse. Finally she backed away in shock, both hands covering her mouth. “I can’t find a pulse. Oh my God. Stephen, I’m so sorry.”

“What could have happened to her?” Glen asked, stepping forward to hold his wife. “Do you think it was drugs?”

“Maybe all the years of abuse caught up with her,” Gwen suggested. “Or maybe she overdosed on something.”

Stephen shook his head and continued sobbing, clutching Rachel’s body and saying her name over and over.

“She seemed fine last night,” Sally murmured, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. “She was excited to stay in my room. She loved the canopy bed. And I was going to teach her how to paint. We were going to have a lesson today.”

Yvette put her arms around her mother-in-law and began weeping too. Lance ventured closer to the body and took Stephen by the shoulders.

“Stephen, let’s get you out of here,” he said. “We need to call for an ambulance. I guess we should call the police too.”

As Lance pulled Stephen away from the body, Stephen kept shaking his head and murmuring, “I can’t believe she’s gone. How could this have happened?”

Sally went to the telephone on her nightstand and dialed. Then she held the phone out in front of her. “It’s dead,” she said.

“Cell phones don’t work up here either,” Glen reminded them. “What are we going to do?”

“We can email for help,” Lance suggested. “I’ll try the computer in the study.”

Helga entered the conversation. “No. Internet been down for two days. We’ve been waiting on serviceman to come.”

Gwen looked at Lance in dismay as the realization hit them—they were snowbound.

They both stared at Rachel. The question of what to do with her body was clearly on their minds.

“Can we move her someplace?” Gwen asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” Lance responded. “I think we’re supposed to leave her exactly as we found her until the authorities get here. I hate to say it, but for now, maybe we ought to just close the door and leave her where she is.”

Some of the others nodded in agreement, as distasteful as that alternative seemed. They all filed out of the room and closed the door behind them, leaving Rachel’s body alone in the room.

Chapter Twenty-five

Gwen led her brother back to the study where he was staying. He was inconsolable and could barely talk. “Lie down, Stephen. I’ll get you some tea,” she said softly, covering him with a blanket.

When she left the room, she came upon Lance and Glen in whispered conversation at the top of the staircase.

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Stephen,” Glen told Lance, “but shouldn’t we put the body on ice or in a freezer or something? We could be snowed in for a few days and the body could get a little”—he seemed to be searching for the right word—“ripe, if you know what I mean.”

Lance nodded morosely. “I was thinking the same thing. Legally, I’m not sure what we should do.”

Gwen offered an idea. “We have a freezer in the basement. I guess maybe we could take her there. It’s big enough. But before we do anything, Lance, do you think you could fly the helicopter down to the village? Or at least use the radio in the helicopter?”

Lance thought for a moment. “The snow is too heavy, and the wind is too strong to go up in the chopper. I’ll check the radio, though. Good idea. Glen, how about lending me a hand? I may need to dig through some snow to get the door open.”

The two men hurried down the staircase to the front door while Gwen went to the kitchen to make Stephen a cup of tea. Her mother, Yvette, and Helga were sitting quietly together at the small breakfast table in the kitchen. Duchess sat in Yvette’s lap.

Sally was still crying, very shaken by her daughter-in-law’s death.

“We had such a nice little talk last night. She was being very sweet,” Sally said. “It was the first time we ever connected. I was really looking forward to teaching her how to paint. I think painting would have been really therapeutic for her and could have helped her conquer her demons.”

“That’s nice that the two of you were able to bond, Sally,” Yvette told her. “Now, when you remember her, you can remember her that way instead of the way she was a lot of the time.”

Sally nodded and thanked Yvette. “I just wish I’d done something last night when she locked herself in. We didn’t even take her a tray of food,” Sally said, weeping. “She might have taken something because she was so upset. I should have been a better hostess. I should have thought to give her my room earlier.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Sally,ˮ Yvette said. “You couldn’t have known this would happen. It was her decision to take so many drugs and nobody else’s.”

“Yvette right,” Helga said. “People who take drugs play with fire. You never know when it catch up to them.”

“She seemed fine, though,” Sally insisted. “It didn’t seem like she was on anything.”

Gwen went to the stove and turned on the tea kettle. “I’m making Stephen a cup of tea. I’ll make you one too, Mom. Yvette? Helga? Would you like some tea?”

They both said they would, so Gwen reached up into the cabinet and took down an antique teapot her mother had bought in Quebec, opened a box of Earl Grey tea, and set five cups and saucers on the counter.

“Let me make tea,” Helga said, standing up.

“No, no,” Gwen insisted. “You sit, Helga. I’ll do it.”

As Gwen stood staring at the tea kettle, waiting for the water to boil, she told them that Lance and Glen were checking the radio in the helicopter.

“That’s a good idea,” Sally said looking up, her face blotchy from crying. “I was thinking of skiing down the mountain to see if I could get help.”

“No!” all three women exclaimed, almost in unison.

“Sally, that’s much too dangerous!” Yvette cried. “The weather is so bad.”

“Don’t you dare, mother,” Gwen begged. “I mean it. Please don’t pull one of your crazy ‘I’ll do whatever I want toʼ stunts.  It’s too dangerous. Promise me you won’t.”

Sally didn’t answer. She didn’t want to make a promise that she might not keep.

Chapter Twenty-six

Gwen placed five Earl Gray teabags carefully in the teapot and poured the boiling water over them. She put a saucer and teacup in front of each of the women and set the teapot on the table.

“I read somewhere that you are supposed to let tea steep for three minutes. No more, no less,” she said, looking at her watch. “So I’ll tell you when it’s ready.”

Sally and Helga traded looks, and smiled for the first time since Rachel’s body was discovered.

“What?” Gwen said. “Why were you two giving each other a look? Isn’t that right?”

“We’re impressed. It is right,” Sally told her daughter. “For a teabag in a cup. You can leave it longer in a teapot though to make sure it’s strong enough.”

“Oh,” Gwen said. “Okay. I learned something. I’ll wait a few minutes then to take Stephen his.”

The tears came to Sally’s eyes again at the mention of Stephen’s name. “Poor, poor Stephen,” she said, emotional again. “Rachel wasn’t always the friendliest to us, but Stephen really loved her. He would have done anything for her.”

“It take time,” Helga responded, “but he heal.”

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Gwen said. “He’s inconsolable. I’d better get back up there. I wish the tea would hurry up and get ready.”

“Try it,” Helga said. “Probably ready.”

Gwen picked up the teapot and poured the steaming brown liquid into a cup. As she began balancing the saucer to take it upstairs, Stephen appeared at the kitchen door. The tragedy he was going through showed in his entire countenance and body language. He looked like a shadow of himself.

“Oh, Stephen. Sit down. Here’s your tea,” Gwen said, guiding him to an empty chair at the table.

Sally stood up and walked around the table to hug him. Tears rolled down both of their cheeks.

There was a commotion at the front door, and the voices of Lance and Glen could be heard in the hall.

“We’re in the kitchen,” Gwen called out.

With snow covering most of their hair, and their faces chapped bright red from the cold, Lance and Glen walked quickly to the fireplace in the kitchen to warm their hands.

“No luck,” Lance reported. “It was all we could do to dig our way to the door. Then, once we got it open, the radio in the helicopter came on, but it was just static. The storm must be causing too much interference.”

“It’s really coming down out there, and the wind has really picked up. We could barely see the house from the helicopter,” Glen said.

Stephen gave them a confused look. “Helicopter? What were you trying do?”

Lance stepped over to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Since the telephones and Internet are out, we were trying to see if the radio in the helicopter worked so we could call for help.” He added gently, “For Rachel.”

Stephen seemed to understand and nodded his head.

“Sally wanted to ski down the mountain,” Yvette said. “But we told her that it was too dangerous.”

Lance reacted immediately. “No, Mom. Absolutely not. Promise me you will not do that.”

Again Sally didn’t respond. Stephen looked at her quizzically. “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Mom? Please tell me you wouldn’t.”

Sally shrugged and didn’t answer.

“We may have to resort to Plan B,” Glen said out of the blue.

“Plan B?” Yvette asked. “What’s that?”

Lance, Gwen, and Glen all exchanged looks. It was obvious that each of them wanted one of the others to say what needed to be said.

“Gwen, you’re the oldest,” Lance said, looking away.

Gwen pursed her lips at her brother, but straightened her back and took a deep breath. “Since it appears we’re snowed in,” she began, “and we’re not sure for how long, the three of us were talking, and we think it might be advisable to move Rachel.”

Stephen looked up at the mention of his dead wife’s name.

“Since it could be a few days before an ambulance is able to get through to come up here,” she continued,  “we were thinking we might need to take Rachel to a colder environment to uh”—she looked around uncomfortably—“preserve her.”

“So what are you saying?” asked Stephen, who seemed confused.

Glen, obviously impatient with the pains his wife was taking to be tactful, interrupted. “Stephen, we need to get her on ice.”

Gwen frowned at her husband for his insensitivity but was relieved that he had taken the burden off of her.

Tears came to Stephen’s eyes, but he was able to fight them off. He responded tightly, “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I hear there’s a pretty big freezer in the basement,” Glen said, forging on.

Stephen looked stunned. “You want to put my wife in a freezer?”

“It full of meat,” Helga blurted in her typical matter-of-fact fashion. “What we supposed to do with meat if we put her in there? We could put her outside. It as cold outside as in freezer.”

“We can’t put her outside, Helga!” Gwen exclaimed. “There are mountain lions out there!”

“Oh God!” Stephen pushed himself away from the table and rushed out of the room.

Gwen ran after him. “Stephen, we can’t just let her lie there in Mom’s room. I know it’s hard, but we have to do something with her.”

Stephen was breathing heavily and looked like he might collapse.

“Just let me say goodbye to her,” he said distantly. “Then I guess we’ll have to move her to the freezer if there’s no other way. I’ll bring her down when I’m ready.”