From Here to Paternity

Tenny said he was already quite upset about Doris, who was only an acquaintance. And then to have his uncle not only die, but be murdered? That's enough to make anybody damned touchy.'

'Especially if he's afraid of being found to have caused one or both deaths,' Jane said.

'Do you really think so?' Shelley asked.

Jane shrugged. 'I have no idea. I only know that I had nothing to do with either one and there's a dim-bulb good-ol'-boy sheriff who would dearly love to blame it on me. Even if Doris's death is questionable, Bill Smith was clearly murdered and somebody did it. Somebody other than me!'

'But you know we keep coming back to Pete because he's not very likable. It's always easier to believe the worst about someone who's a jerk to begin with.'

'True enough, but that's not the only reason. He's obviously playing some complex game of his own, genuinely upset with HawkHunter and the tribe in the morning, palling around with him by the same evening.'

'Now, Jane, be fair. He doesn't strike me as a rocket-scientist-caliber brain, but he might have really been trying, in his own way, to represent his uncle's best interests. And for that matter, we don't even know that he's as stupid as he looks. It's entirely possible to look like an overage surfer and still have an I.Q. higher than a kitchen appliance.'

Jane laughed. 'Tenny doesn't seem to think so.'

'But we don't really know Tenny. We never met her until yesterday.'

'True,' Jane admitted. 'Though I sure wouldn't want to have any reason to think badly of her. I really like her.'

'She could have some agenda of her own. Jealousy, maybe. We've made most of our judgments about Pete based on things she's said about him. She could be a pathological liar for all we know.'

'I'd hate to think so.'

'So would I, because I really like her, too, and I'm inordinately proud of my ability to sum people up accurately. But anything's possible.'

They could hear the shuttle bus coming up the last hill and were pleased to see Mike get off it. 'Where are the girls, do you know?' Jane asked him.

'They'll probably be on the next bus. They were waiting at the stop with me, but there was something wrong with something they bought and they went back to exchange it.'

'Did you have fun skiing today?' Jane asked.

'Yeah, it was okay. But I think I've had enough. I'm tired and sore.'

'I'm sort of glad to hear that,' Jane said. She explained to him briefly about the resort owner's mysterious death. 'Somebody killed him, Mike.'

'That's awful!'

'It is. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with us,' she said, omitting any mention of her having found the body or the sheriff's apparent suspicions of her. 'But the fact is, somebody around here is dangerous. I can't imagine that this person would take the slightest interest in any of us, but—'

'You want me to keep a close eye on Todd and John, right?'

Jane nodded. 'I'm going to have my hands full making sure your sister and Denise aren't wandering around on their own.'

'The boys won't get out of my sight, Mom. Where are they now?'

'Locked up in the cabin with Mel, who's probably heard enough Super Mario music to last him the rest of his life.'

'I'll go up there now. He's probably locked himself in a closet by now. I can just see it. Mel in a fetal position, humming Nintendo music and looking stoned.'

'Shelley, why don't you let Mike walk you back?' Jane said. 'I'll wait for the girls.'

There wouldn't be another shuttle for fifteen minutes, so Jane used the time to run down to the gift shop. She bought the bowl she and Tenny had talked about, even though it was far more than she could afford and would be a challenge to pack. Then she ran to the tiny bookstore and inquired whether it had HawkHunter's book.

'You mean the first one?' the elderly bookstore lady said.

'I guess so. I didn't know he wrote another.'

'Oh, yes. The publisher tried to cash in on the success of I, HawkHunter and got him to write another. It was a dismal flop. Written too fast, with not much more to say. Just a careless rehash of the best-seller, really. Publishers never learn. It was remaindered about as fast as it was printed.'

'My, but you know a lot about it.'

'I had a chain of small independent bookstores in Denver back then. I retired up here and run this one just to keep my hand in. This is the last copy until I get another order,' she added, taking a paperback copy from the rack to the left of the counter.

'I'm surprised you carry his book here.'

''Why is that?'

'Well, he's not exactly a friend of the resort.'

'Oh, the Smiths wouldn't think of interfering in my stock. That's our agreement. And he is a celebrity. I don't think they care anyway. Half the people who have bought copies since yesterday thought the demonstration was some kind of free entertainment.'

Jane was back in her spot in front of the resort when the next shuttle arrived. She was relieved to see Katie and Denise on board, not least of all because she was no longer in the fading sunshine and it was getting uncomfortably cold. They got off the shuttle urging her to look at their purchases — a lot of hair paraphernalia, primarily. 'Come on, girls, I want to go back to the cabin,' Jane told them.

'Were you waiting for us?' Katie asked suspiciously.

'I'm afraid so. Let's go. I'll explain why on the way.'

Jane gave them an even more abbreviated version of what she'd told Mike. 'Now, I don't want to frighten you. There's no need to be worried. As long as you're in our cabin with the doors locked or in the lodge, there's no question that you're entirely safe. And we're all probably safe anyplace else, too. But just to be real sure, I don't want you going back and forth without an adult.'

'Oh, Mom! We're not babies!' Katie said. But Jane recognized this as an obligatory whine. Much the teenage equivalent of the perfect housekeeper who automatically laments what a mess the house is when visitors come.

'I guess you've been eating all afternoon?' she asked, to change the subject as they started up the road. 'There's a dance here tonight, but it isn't until eight o'clock. I thought we might rest for a while, maybe nibble some of the stuff we've got at the cabin, then come down here for dinner.'

'What kind of dance?' Denise asked.

'A line dance, the poster said. Whatever that is.'

The girls groaned in unison.

'That bad?' Jane asked. 'We'll give it a try anyhow. Nobody from home is around to know. And it might be fun. And there might be some interesting boys there.'

The girls considered this in silence for the rest of the way.

Shelley was sound asleep when they got back. The girls disappeared into their own room and closed the door. Jane started a pot of coffee and tidied up the living room. While doing so, she discovered to her annoyance that she still had Doris Schmidtheiser's file folder. She'd have to remember to give it to Lucky, who could return it to Doris's family or offer it to a member of the Holnagrad Society who might want to continue her research. Jane sat down and took the papers out, mildly curious. They were still in a jumble, just as they had been when she'd picked them up and stuffed them in the folder. She sorted them into stacks of similar-looking documents.

Most of it didn't make any sense at all to her. There were copies of old census reports which were interesting in a purely historical sense. She liked the look of the old-fashioned handwriting and found the sizes of the families on the sheets interesting, if appalling. Most of the families seemed to have a child every two years like clockwork. Here and there was a three-year gap, which Jane took to indicate a miscarriage or a stillborn baby. Many of the women were in their forties and still had an infant around, as well as children as old as the early twenties. Jane tried for a moment to imagine herself with a tiny baby and a couple more still to come, and shuddered at the thought.

There were also a great many middle-aged spinsters and bachelors living with elderly parents, sometimes