into the creek and crossed the four-foot gap to the other side.
“Dare I ask what you’re doing?” Renie inquired in a bleak
voice.
“Ohhh,” Judith replied, sounding weary and haggard, “just
the usual cursory check. Whoever these poor bones belonged
to still possesses remnants of clothing.”
“Don’t touch anything!” Renie shouted. “Come on, get
back here! I’m turning blue!”
But Judith’s curiosity overwhelmed caution and consideration. “We can’t just run away. Besides, I wondered if…ah!”
She held up a wallet. “There’s more, scattered around the
ground.” Despite her aversion to being in such close quarters
with skeletal remains, Judith dug around in the snow and
ice. She found a keychain, a watch, a coin purse, and a soggy
notebook. Unable to convey so many small items in her big
gloves, she tossed each in turn to Renie, who stuffed them
into the pocket of her all-weather jacket.
Judith had kept the wallet in her own coat. After she was
satisfied that there was nothing else in the little cave except
the body, she recrossed the creek and stood next to Renie,
shivering and shaking with cold.
“Let’s not dawdle,” Judith said. “I feel like a freaking
popsicle.”
“I’m already dead,” Renie replied through stiff lips. “Can
we make it back to the lodge?”
The lodge, in fact, was less than a hundred yards away.
Still, it took the cousins over five minutes to get there. They
arrived in a numb, half-frozen state.
The fair-haired man with the round head that Judith had
noticed before lunch now stood in front of the stone fireplace
which he’d apparently just lighted. He turned jerkily when
the cousins entered the lobby.
“Sorry,” he said, waving both hands as if to shoo Judith
and Renie away. “This is a private gathering.”
“It’s me, Russell,” Renie said in a feeble voice. “Serena
Jones, remember?”
Russell whipped off his rimless glasses and peered at the
cousins. He was still wearing the glen plaid suit he’d had on
earlier in the day. Vaguely, Judith noticed that the suit was
blemished with grease spots. “Oh! Ms. Jones!” Russell exclaimed in astonishment. “Why are you so wet?”
“It’s a long story,” Renie said with an inquiring glance at
Judith. “We were…”
Judith’s response was to shove Renie toward the dining
room and kitchen. “First things first,” she muttered. “I can
barely walk or talk.”
There was a washer and dryer in an alcove off the kitchen.
The cousins undressed, rubbed themselves down with big
towels, and proceeded to do their laundry.
“I didn’t bring any extra clothes,” Judith said, the feeling
