'I ordered lots of extra sandwiches. Did you find Mel?'
'Yes, and he's meeting us at your cabin.'
'Did he know about Bill?'
'Yes. Don't sidetrack me. I'll forget the rest of my list. Paul's leaving in an hour. He says that naturally their negotiations have been put on hold and he thinks it would be bad for the investors to hang around looking like vultures waiting to pounce on the grieving widow.'
'Oh, dear. I guess we should all go, shouldn't we?'
'No, no reason to. In fact, he asked me to stay on to attend the funeral. And it would cost the absolute earth to get plane tickets on such short notice for all of us. If you don't mind, I'll just move in with you, though.'
'Fine by me.'
Ever efficient, Shelley nodded and continued. 'Now, if you'll wait for the sandwiches and bring them along, I'll go ahead, say good-bye to Paul, grab my stuff, then get a nice fire started in your cabin so we can get good and warm. I'm not sure I'm capable of getting warm again, but I'd like to give it a shot. Let me have your key.'
And without any more fuss, she was gone. Jane marveled, as she had so often over the years of their friendship, at how well organized Shelley was under the slightest pressure. She seemed to be able to pluck information out of the air — her rapid determination of where all the children had gone was proof of that— and to make quick, sensible decisions whenever they were required.
Jane waited another ten minutes and went back to the carryout section of the restaurant. Linda Moosefoot was waiting there, too. Her eyes were red.
'Oh, Mrs. Jeffry, I was just on my way to your cabin. Do you mind if I have a fast lunch first? I should have been there an hour ago, but what with…' Her voice trailed off and she sniffed.
'Good heavens! Don't think about it. There's no need to tidy up after us.'
'No, I'm glad to have something to do.'
'Then bring your lunch along and eat it with us. I'm waiting for sandwiches.'
Just as she spoke, the waiter came through the door from the kitchen, took a look at her, and slapped his forehead. 'Shit,' he muttered and then looked even more upset that she'd heard him.
'You lost my order?' Jane asked.
'I'm so sorry. We had a cancellation of an order and I think I canceled yours by mistake.'
'No harm done. Let's start over.'
Linda said, 'Give him your order and I'll bring it along with mine.'
'Thanks. My toes are numb. I have to get these boots off to see if they're still alive,' Jane said.
As she reached her cabin, actively shivering now, Shelley opened the door. 'I've dumped my stuff in the bedroom and the fire is going. Come in. You look half dead yourself.'
They didn't talk about the body until Jane had replaced her boots with warm, fuzzy slippers and was huddled in front of the fireplace.
Shelley had fixed them both hot cocoa. 'I thought it was better for shock,' she said, handing Jane a steaming mug.
Mel arrived a minute later. He was both angry and concerned. 'I should have known, if there was a murder victim anywhere within a ten-mile radius, that you'd stumble onto it,' he said to Jane.
'Not so much a stumble as a slide,' she said, her voice weak.
'Are you all right?' he asked contritely.
'Fine. Just cold and hungry.'
'Tell me what happened.'
Jane recounted her collision with the snowman. 'That's why it was so large and squat. Bill Smith's body was inside the body of it. He was in a sitting position. It looked like the snow had been piled up around him, and then I guess the snowball head was stuck on top of the pile. Putting aside the fact that murder is unthinkable in itself, why on earth would anybody do anything so bizarre?'
Mel said, 'Not so bizarre, really. If you hadn't run into it, the chances are that nobody would have found him until summer.'
'Ugh!' Shelley said. 'Just imagine—'
'Better not to,' Mel said. 'By then the chances of anybody remembering when the snowman had appeared would be almost nil. All possible witnesses would have been long gone, and half would have forgotten most of the details of their stay here. And there certainly wouldn't be any question of physical evidence — time of death, footprints, anything like that.'
'But footprints are really a lost cause,' Jane said. 'By the time the sheriff's people got there, the whole area was trampled. And anyway, it had snowed overnight and covered them up. I do remember when I was heading for the thing, there wasn't a mark anywhere near it. And I would imagine packing a body in snow would make havoc of body temperature. Not only is snow cold, but I understand it's an insulator. At least the gardening programs say so.'
'Tell me what the sheriff's people did,' Mel said.
'They actually seemed fairly thorough. They took a lot of photographs. They brought two toboggans up the hill. One for Bill, and the other to put the snow on as they removed it from around the body. They packed the snow into plastic containers and labeled them.'
Mel nodded. 'Good. They can melt it down and check for fabric fibers. What else?'
'Well, after they took the body away, they dug a big circle around where it had been. I mean dug the snow, not the ground. The woods must act as some kind of windbreak or snow fence. The snow wasn't awfully deep right there. They took away a lot of samples of that, too. I guess they were looking for anything the murderer might have dropped.'
'Not necessarily the murderer, keep in mind,' Mel said absently, gazing past her at the fire.
'What do you mean?' Shelley asked. She had gone to the kitchen and came back with a third mug of cocoa for Mel.
'Nothing, really. Just that the person who killed him and the person who put him in the snowman aren't necessarily the same. They probably are, but that's not proof.'
'But why else would anybody build the snowman around him if they didn't kill him?' Jane asked.
'I don't know. A grisly prank, maybe? I didn't mean to suggest that it was likely, just that you can't afford to jump to any conclusions with something like this. Did the sheriff say it was murder? Smith didn't, by any chance, die of natural causes, did he?'
'No, the sheriff said there was clearly a violent blow to the head. Fortunately, I didn't see that much. I only saw his shirt and hand and knew it was a person; then I screamed and turned away. I didn't find him on purpose, you know,' she added, harking back to his earlier criticism.
'I know. I'm sorry I was nasty about it. It's just that you do have a way of finding bodies.'
'The sheriff mentioned that, too. Rather pointedly. It's a talent I do nothing to encourage,' she said wryly.
He nodded and changed the subject. 'Do you have anything to eat here?'
'Linda Moose foot is bringing our lunch with hers. She should be along any minute now.'
And as if summoned by the thought, Linda opened the door, calling out, 'Hello? Mrs. Jeffry?'
'Come in, Linda.'
Mel and Shelley extended their sympathies to her on the death of her employer.
'To tell the truth, he wasn't a really likable man,' Linda said. 'But I'm sorry he's dead. His ties to our tribe go back a long way. We have good reason to be grateful to him. They're saying it was murder. Is that true?'
'I think so,' Mel replied. 'Who's saying that?'
Linda shrugged. 'Everybody. Well, finding him in a snowman… and all the sheriff's people… what else could people think?'
'True enough,' Mel admitted.
'How are Tenny and Joanna doing?' Jane asked.
'Pretty well. They were expecting it, after all.'
'What?' Mel exclaimed.
'Oh, I don't mean that he'd be murdered. Nobody expected that. But that he'd die. See, he had a very bad heart condition. Not too many people knew. He was real private about his life. But he'd had a couple heart attacks,
