From Here to Paternity

'Okay, here's the deal,' Shelley pronounced. 'We're going clear to the top of the hill. Then we're coming back down by whatever method works out best and no matter how many times we fall along the way. Then we're retiring. Just think, for the rest of our lives we can say We Have Skied. And nobody will ever be able to say, 'But you must try it once.' So we'll never have to do it again.'

'Sounds like a good plan to me. Is there food at the end of this scenario? You didn't mention food.'

'There's a huge lunch, Jane.'

'Okay.'

They started laboriously stairstepping their way up the hill. After about ten minutes, during which she had to look at her feet to make sure they were doing the right thing, Jane stopped. 'Jeez! We should be clear to the top by now. And we're still at the bottom.'

'Keep going, Jane,' Shelley said. 'Think about lunch.'

'There's that person again,' Jane said, shading her eyes and looking up at the top of the hill.

'Which person?'

'I don't know. Just a person I keep seeing. He has cameras and binoculars. A nature nut, I imagine.'

'Jane, stop talking.'

They stairstepped some more, and it was Shelley this time who wanted to stop. 'Look at that! We're nearly halfway up the hill.'

'We could just go from here.'

'No, we're going to the top. Once. Look at the cute snowman.'

'Hadn't you noticed him before? He appeared overnight.'

'What's he got on his head?'

'I think it's supposed to be a crown.'

'I know, but what is it really?'

'I dunno. Maybe one of those sort of fluted fruit bowls? Remember the gold plastic ones we used for that PTA fund-raising party with a Tropical Holiday theme? To quote a friend of mine, stop talking!'

After two more rest stops, they reached the top of the hill and sat down to get their breath. 'Wow! This is neat up here,' Jane gasped. 'Look, the whole resort's laid out like a map. You should have brought a camera along. You could have taken a picture for Paul so when he gets home and wonders just where the various buildings and wings are, you'd have it. Are you ready to go?'

'Not yet. I'm never coming here again for the rest of my life, so I want to appreciate it for a few minutes. The snowman looks weird from the back. Just the cape and crown showing.'

Jane was gazing around behind them. 'The Indians who were demonstrating said there was a graveyard up here. It doesn't look like that to me.'

'Jane, it's covered with snow. How would you know? You expect to see a mausoleum or a totem pole or something sticking up?'

'Hmmm. You have a point. It's certainly flat enough to make a good cemetery. Looks like somebody took a gigantic knife to it and sliced the top off. You could land a 747 along here.'

Shelley was hoisting herself to her feet. 'Speaking of landing, are we ready to take off?'

'I guess so. It sure looks a lot steeper from the top.'

'How are we going to do this? One at a time all the way down?'

'Okay. Who goes first?'

'I do. I want to get this over with.'

Shelley took a deep breath, turned her skis forward, and started gently drifting away. She picked up speed gradually until, apparently feeling it was too much of a good thing, she sat down suddenly, plowing a bit of a trench before she came to a complete stop. She yelled up to Jane, 'Come this far and we'll go the rest of the way together.'

Jane set out, cleverly charting a course a little farther left than Shelley had gone so that she wouldn't run over her. The first few minutes were okay. She started going a little faster, discovered that she could actually breathe at the same time she skied. And a little faster yet. She tried toeing-in to slow herself, but that just made her veer more to the left. Maybe, she thought frantically, it was toe-out. She glanced down at her feet, which was how she made her fatal mistake. When she looked back up a second later, she realized she was headed toward the woods. Specifically, straight for the snowman just on the edge of the woods.

She tried to sit down, but was leaning too far forward. Crouch! she told herself frantically, but she was so tense that her knees just wouldn't get the message.

With a terrific mental effort, she made her legs go limp and sat down. By that time she was moving so fast that she kept going for another five feet, sending up a spray of snow. The thing that finally stopped her was the snowman. She didn't so much crash into it, for her speed had diminished considerably, as bump into it firmly. Very firmly.

The snowman's head rolled off, sending the crown/ bowl spinning across the snow.

'Jane! Are you all right?' Shelley yelled from someplace off to her right.

'I'm okay,' Jane said, trying to stand up. Where had her skis gone? she was wondering. If they'd buried themselves in the snow, how would she ever find them? Still shaky from her adventure, she leaned on the snowman, placing her gloved hand where its head had been. But as she did so, the whole front section of the snow crumbled away in a slab.

And there, inside the snowman where there should have been nothing but more snow, was the body of Bill Smith.

Chapter 12

It was another hour before Jane and Shelley could get away. The sheriff and his deputy had been summoned, people had been questioned extensively (especially Jane, who had discovered the body), the bunny slope had been cleared of skiers, and finally the earthly remains of Bill Smith had been taken away. By that time Jane and Shelley were frozen clear through. They hadn't been allowed to do anything but sit impatiently on the bench next to the equipment hut.

'At the risk of seeming insensitive, I'm starving,' Shelley admitted when they were finally allowed to leave.

'Me, too,' Jane said. 'Let's go get some sandwiches at the lodge and take them to one of our cabins. I wish I knew where Mel was. He should have been there before the sheriff and his crew of bumblers trampled everything. I guess that's not really fair to say. They seemed to be taking it very seriously this time.'

'I wonder if the sheriff is going to look more closely into Mrs. Schmidtheiser's death now.'

'Surely he'll have to,' Jane said. 'I didn't like the way he started asking me more questions when he realized I was the one who had found her, too.'

'It's just a weird coincidence, Jane.'

'You and I know that, but that's when he asked me how I knew them both before I came here. Not if I knew them, but how I knew them. Shelley, I'm really uneasy about this.'

The atmosphere at the lodge was subdued. Apparently word that the proprietor of the hotel had died had filtered down through the guests. And though few of them had ever seen him, much less met him, the news clearly dampened everyone's spirits. There was no sign, of course, of Tenny, Joanna, or Pete.

'Jane, you order us some sandwiches and chips and maybe some salad,' Shelley said. 'I'm going to give Paul a quick call on the house phone and see where all the kids are and what they're up to. I don't like not knowing exactly where they are.'

'Me, neither. Keep an eye out for Mel, too, would you?'

Jane ordered plenty of sandwiches, assuming that they might end up feeding children as well as themselves. Even if the sandwiches weren't consumed right away, they'd have them for snacking. Shelley came back as Jane was settling in front of the fireplace in the main lounge. 'Got the food yet?'

Jane shook her head. 'They're real busy. It'll take about ten more minutes.'

'Okay. I've got everybody accounted for. Katie and Denise have taken the shuttle to town to shop at the music store. Mike is skiing with the girl he met yesterday,' she said, ticking them off on her fingers as she spoke. 'Todd and John are playing Nintendo in Mel's cabin and they want lunch.'