Snowed Under, page 7
I shook my head, which hurt more than I thought it should. “In a word, no,” I said. “We came up here to clean out the clutter amassed by generations of Patrick’s family members and get your house ready to sell,” I reminded her unnecessarily. “We’re making no inroads into the amount of work that’s left to do. None.” My voice rose in volume and tension. “You’ve said you need to maximize your profits from the sale if you and Teddy are going to realize your dreams. But an unsolved murder is going to tank the selling price.”
I stopped and replayed what I’d said. Tess knew all that without my telling her. She was a savvy real estate agent and I was harping incessantly about our project. But we weren’t all that different, she and I, which was why we’d become such good friends. If I was obsessing about these issues, she was too.
She nodded. “You’re right. But we need to leave the investigating to the police. Quinn is good at his job. He knows everyone around here, including the people who live way back in the woods in the shadows of the mountains—the people the rest of us never see.”
Tess made it sound as though the woods were full of creatures from Middle Earth, both the good ones and the evil.
The doorbell rang, forestalling the speech I was about to make to Tess. Belle and Mozart barked and pelted down the stairs, nearly leapfrogging each other in their eagerness to greet the newcomer.
Tess peered out the front window. “Police car. Must be Quinn.”
“It must be and it is,” said Quinn, who’d let himself in. He crested the top of the stairs with Mozart and Belle following close on his heels. “Do you know you left your door both unlocked and ajar? With an unexplained death in the neighborhood? Is that wise?”
If I’d been standing, I would have kicked at the rug and dropped my gaze, embarrassed at our failure to adhere to the most basic home safety rules. But Tess laughed. “Who would break in? Most of the neighborhood is already on this side of the door.”
Jens Zimmer separated himself from the crowd noshing around the table and stepped forward to shake Quinn’s hand. “So, is Elisabeth the killer?” he asked. “She and Dev hated each other. Are your men taking her away in cuffs as we speak?” I couldn’t tell whether or not he was kidding, but there was a nasty cutting edge to his voice that made me wince.
Quinn removed his trooper hat and spun the brim through his fingers. “Why bother asking?” he said, smiling to take the sting out of his words. “You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation. At this point, everyone is a suspect.” He waited a beat or two. “Especially someone like you, Jens, who can’t get along with anyone for more than a few minutes.”
Jens laughed as though he may have had too many glasses of wine, and I wondered whether he’d been under the influence when he crashed into my car. Or whether, as he’d claimed, he’d made a sober and reasonable choice in an impossible situation. That question was one I could leave to the police, who would undoubtedly test his breath.
“You been drinking, Jens?” Quinn asked, gesturing toward the wine glass in the older man’s hand. “Guess there’s no point in a breath test now.”
Jens recoiled. “What are you saying?” he asked in a voice that was louder than necessary. “I’m not drunk and I never drive if I’ve had so much as a sip. You know that. No way anyone in my family gets behind the wheel when they’re impaired.” Jens’s grandson Han flushed, and I didn’t know either of them well enough to determine whether it was in embarrassment over his grandfather’s outburst, or if he’d skated too close to the edge of the law a time or two and felt guilty.
“Relax,” said Quinn, patting Jens on the shoulder. “If you hadn’t had a glass of wine, I would have done a breath test so you could pass it along to your insurance company. And to quell any gossip. No point, now, but I believe you.” He ran his hand over his forehead and turned toward me, “Jens here gives annual lectures at the local schools under the auspices of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Most folks around here wouldn’t drink and drive for fear of facing the wrath of Jens, let alone a DUI. When we have a problem ’round here, it’s almost always visitors.”
“Natives know that drink and winter driving conditions don’t mix,” Jens said. “For Pete’s sake, the resort runs its shuttle in even the worst storms. No excuse for anyone to get behind the wheel when they’ve been drinking.”
“You’re preachin’ to the choir, Jens,” Quinn said. “Preachin’ to the choir.”
“Any news on what happened to Dev?” asked Ryan, in a voice that carried across the room in one of the inevitable lulls that occur at any large gathering. The murmur of other conversations remained silenced as everyone waited for the answer.
“Not yet,” Quinn said. “I’ll let you all know as much as I can. In the meantime, I urge you all not to speculate. Contact me or my officers if you think of anything that’s happened ’round here that might have some bearing on the investigation, no matter how inconsequential.”
“Oh, man,” said Klaus. “Next you’re going to tell us not to leave town. But if you’re not here to update us on Dev, why are you here?”
“Never want to miss a party.” Quinn’s statement was met with great hilarity, but I didn’t know enough about the neighborhood dynamics to understand why the statement was funny. Was the tall officer a known party animal or was he a notorious hermit who avoided local gatherings? I’d have to ask Tess later.
After the laughter abated, he added, “I wanted to check on the injured, but I also needed to make sure you all heard that the forecast has changed. Two Pacific storms that were expected to go around the area are now going to collide right on top of us in the early hours of the morning. Top up your emergency supplies and make whatever preparations you need. Check on each other. There’s nothing any of us need to do that can’t wait a few days. Nothing.” Quinn made eye contact with each of us.
I glanced out the window. The snow had started already.
One look at the snow flurries swirling in the updraft close to the building and most of the guests gathered up their coats and said goodnight. Quinn lingered. “We need to talk,” he said.
Chapter 9
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
—Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath. 1452-1519
Thursday, February 18, Evening
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Quinn asked me after everyone else had left. “I’d feel better if you saw a doctor. My department car can get through almost anything. I popped my snow blade on the front before I came out. Let’s get you to the hospital before the storm gets any worse.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “The worst is the damage to my ego. I’m a Flatlander through and through. Walking on ice is a skill I may never master.”
“Did either of you smell alcohol on Jens’s breath immediately after the accident? Did you get close enough so you would have smelled it?” Tess and I shook our heads.
“Was he confused in any way?”
“What’s this about?” Tess asked.
“Just a hunch. I got a complaint from Sam Stillwell. Know him?”
“The name sounds familiar but I can’t place it.”
“Runs the hotdog and pretzel stand next to Siobhan’s bakery. A few weeks ago, Jens got into it with one of his customers. Sam called me to help defuse the situation, but by the time I got there, they’d moved on.” Quinn picked up a few of the plates remaining on the table, took them over to the sink, and started loading the dishwasher. “Last week, Jens left his groceries behind at the store and said someone had stolen his truck, but it was right where he usually parks it. I wondered if you’d seen any confusion like that.”
“You’re thinking dementia of some kind?
“Not sure. Stillwell suspects Jens is mixed up in some criminal activity and is faking his confusion to avoid being questioned. But Sam is not our most reliable community member.” Quinn frowned. “Don’t mention this to Jens. I’ll have a word with Klaus, see if maybe it’s time for Alison to take a look at the old guy, see if we need to talk about revoking his license.”
I frowned. “He seemed pretty together to me, but I don’t have any frame of reference. Is he still working?”
Tess nodded. “He’s a renowned workaholic. Hasn’t missed a day of work in like…ever.”
“Maybe it’s just getting to be too much,” Quinn said. “A few days off wouldn’t hurt.”
“Good luck with that.” Tess finished clearing the table and wiped it down with a wet cloth. “What kind of crimes could he be involved in, anyway? Isn’t crime a young man’s game?”
Quinn shrugged. “You never know. We’ve got ongoing trouble with break-ins, drugs, and smuggling. And we’re seeing an uptick in sex trafficking that’s really disturbing.”
“I’ve known Jens for years,” Tess said. “The behavior Stillwell described isn’t like him, but neither is the idea that he’d be involved in anything illegal. It makes no sense.”
“I’ll look into it,” Quinn said, speaking firmly and communicating clearly that this particular topic was closed.
But Tess wasn’t finished. “Can you tell us anything about Dev?”
“Nice try.” He added soap to the dishwasher and started it up. Tess had said the neighbors were close and often hosted potluck parties in each other’s homes, or in the turnaround circle in the summer. I wondered if Quinn’s familiarity and ease with Tess’s kitchen was the result of years of neighborly festivities or whether there was a past relationship between them that I didn’t know about. But then I felt ridiculous. Tess and her late husband Patrick had met in high school and dated through college before their marriage. Besides the fact that the marriage had seemed strong, they were both unfailingly loyal. There was no room in Tess’s life or history for another man.
Quinn must have read my thoughts. “When I first moved up here from New Orleans,” he said, “The house I was renting burnt to the ground. Patrick and Tess took me in and I lived here for almost two years.”
“Little more than a year.” Tess corrected him. “You peeled out of here after Teddy was born. No stomach for a crying baby.”
“I was working nights.”
“You were.” Tess wrung out the cloth she’d used to wipe the table and draped it over the dish rack.
Quinn sat at the table. “I need to make sure my team is ready for the storm, but I need to tell you both one thing about Dev.”
Tess and I leaned forward.
“I don’t yet have the official report from the medical examiner, but it’s looking like Dev had a fairly severe head wound, and that he was hurt somewhere other than where we found him. I wanted to reassure you both that it’s unlikely you had anything to do with his death.”
I let out a deep breath and then caught it again. “But still. We must have walked right past his body in the storm that night.”
“We all might have walked past him every time we picked up our mail,” Quinn said, his face looking pained. “But we won’t know for sure until I get the official word from the doc.”
He thanked Tess and told her he’d take a look at the garage door before he left. He’d verify that it was relatively wind and weather tight. “You’ll have enough to dig out after this next series of storms without having to unearth a car that’s inside your garage.”
“You’re expecting it to be that bad?” Tess asked.
Quinn plopped his trooper hat securely on his head and pulled on the brim. “Or worse.”
As soon as Quinn left, I phoned Max and the boys to make sure they’d taken note of the revised forecast and adjusted their plans accordingly. Reluctantly, I told them about my mishap and new scar.
“Be careful,” Max said. “Maybe you both should come home now, before the storm. We’ll reschedule the ski weekend and carve out time for you and Tess to work on her house.”
“We may have to make another trip up anyway. It’s been slow going.”
“A few bumps in the road have never stopped you before, but…Mags,” a pleading tone had entered his voice. “Even forgetting about the storm, is it safe for you two to be up there? Someone killed Dev, or left him for dead. It could be anyone in the neighborhood, or someone you haven’t met who’s keeping a lower profile—a serial killer.”
“The neighbors all seem nice and look out for each other. Alison stitched me up, right in Tess’s living room.”
“Glad she was there to help, but you wouldn’t have needed medical attention if one of the other neighbors hadn’t had a problem with his truck. How do we know he didn’t try to mow you down deliberately?”
Max’s over-protective and alarmist concerns about Jens Zimmer’s motives, and his fears about a lurking threat to our safety were, to be fair, based on our family’s past history. For whatever reason, we’d run into more than our share of homicidal neighbors since our move to the Silicon Valley enclave of Orchard View a few years earlier.
“Past performance is not indicative of future results,” I reminded him, quoting an obnoxious radio ad for a dubious investment scheme.
Max scoffed. “Fair enough but be careful. I’ll keep an eye on the storm. If it veers off by tomorrow morning, we’ll come up. The car is packed.”
“Folks up here are taking it pretty seriously. It’s already snowing and the plows are out.” I could hear their powerful engines and scraping blades keeping the main artery clear on Highway 89. Ryan had already made a few passes on the main road through the neighborhood, around the turning circle near the mailboxes, and on the Bailey’s driveway. “Tess and I are going to need earplugs to get any sleep.”
“Keep your phone charged up as long as you can and stay safe.” Max said before we wrapped up the call with our customary endearments. I missed him, but I knew he’d have fun with our two boys and Tess’s Teddy, even if they weren’t able to come up skiing.
Just before we ended the call, Max cleared his throat. “Mags, you know I trust your judgment, right?”
“Of course.”
“And your ability to accomplish any task you undertake?”
“Especially when you have my back,” I said. There were lots of ways to say I love you, and expressing concerns about my safety was one of Max’s favorite ways.
“I didn’t want you to interpret my worry as a crisis of confidence.”
“I love you too,” I said. Max laughed and we ended the call on that note.
The doorbell rang.
The power went out.
In the silence that followed, we could hear the gusting wind slam icy pellets of snow against the front windows. The direction and speed of the wind combined perfectly to vibrate the weather stripping under the storm door downstairs. It moaned loudly, as though in great pain.
Before either of us could answer the door, it opened. The wind slammed it against the wall. “Sorry about that!” called the visitor. “It’s super gusty. Tore the door right out of my hands.”
Tess leaned over the stairway railing. “Siobhan! Come on up.”
I joined Tess at the railing and she introduced me to her friend the bakery chef. As with everyone else I’d met from the neighborhood, Siobhan was dressed in thick layers, making it impossible to guess what she looked like. Tess must have identified her from her parka.
Peering at her from above foreshortened my perspective, but Siobhan appeared shorter than average. Her voice was light and airy, bringing to mind a fairy or woodland creature. When she pushed back the plush-trimmed hood on her jacket and pulled off her knit cap, she revealed a pixie haircut that glowed gold, even in the unlit entryway.
“I can’t stay,” she said, holding up an enormous white paper shopping bag with twisted paper handles. “I’m dropping off care packages.” Tess met her halfway up the stairs and took the bag from her. “I closed Flour Power early while my staff and I could still get home. We’d baked way more than we sold and didn’t want it to go to waste. “Everyone on the cul-de-sac is getting a thermos of coffee, one of soup, a loaf of bread, and an assortment of pastries and cookies.”
“Can we pay you for it?” Tess asked, opening the bag and sticking her nose inside. “It smells wonderful.”
“You know how it works.” Siobhan’s expression was that of a patient teacher of a slow student. “I do a favor for you, you do a favor for someone else, everyone wins.”
The pixie was back down the steps and zipping her storm gear before Tess replied, “That’s very generous. Thank you.”
“Return the thermal containers to the bakery after the storm.” Siobhan shouted the words over her shoulder and above the sound of the gale as she stepped outside. Tess caught the door before it could slam into the wall again. She pushed firmly against it, forcing it closed, and then locked it before the wind could rip it from her hands once more.
She called up the stairs to me. “I’ll grab some more wood before I come up. We’re going to have to stoke the fire all night.”
While Tess fetched logs and kindling, I adjusted the faucets in the bathrooms and kitchen so they’d trickle slowly through the night. It was standard practice for preventing frozen pipes, but it pained me to turn the tap. After so many years of drought, we Californians don’t waste water lightly. My hand hovered over the fixture longer than was strictly necessary.
Tess caught up with me in the kitchen and nodded her approval. “Great. Can you open the cupboard doors under the sinks, too? Warm air from the room will help save the pipes.”
By the time we’d finished our storm preparations, we settled into the couches in front of the fire with Siobhan’s hot soup. Tess lit candles on the fireplace mantle and handed me a flashlight. “Keep it handy.”
We listened to the weather report on the radio. The forecast was for a brutal three-day storm, followed by a week of spectacular ski conditions. We’d timed our visit wrong, but for the moment we were warm and content. Belle settled herself between the coffee table and the sofa. I stroked her ears and she sighed happily. Mozart’s ears and nose twitched, listening to the storm and noting changes in the cocktail of fragrances in the air that only a dog could detect. “Settle,” Tess said quietly. He tilted his head and raised one ear, then sighed and rested his head on his paws.
