whet your appetites. Take your drink orders?'
'Coffee, black,' Grissom said.
'Hot chocolate,' Sara said.
When Amy returned with their beverages, Grissom said, 'I heard you were one of the last to get here tonight, before the storm closed the roads. Or was it still afternoon?'
As she gave Sara the steaming mug, Amy said, 'Afternoon. Two-thirty or three, I guess. But it was getting pretty slick out even then.'
'Lucky you made it in at all,' Sara said, over the rim of her mug.
'Yeah, I wanted to beat the storm in; don't like missin' a night's work…I can use the money.'
'I hear that,' Sara said. 'You were lucky nobody hit you, rushing home, when you were coming in.'
'I did see a couple cars, and it made me nervous-didn't want any slidin' into me, that's for sure. Some of these guests, with rental cars, if they're from some part of the country where it doesn't snow, well!'
'We're from Vegas,' Grissom said.
'You're dangerous, then!' the waitress said, with a good-natured chuckle. 'You people who aren't used to winter driving, you're lethal weapons on wheels.'
'Sounds like you almost got hit,' Sara said.
'Not really. It wasn't on the mountain drive, anyway, it was down on the road between here and New Paltz. Anyway, you decided on choice of meat?'
Grissom explained he was only having the coffee, and Sara asked for just the vegetable dishes.
And off Amy went.
'We need to talk to Amy in depth,' Grissom said. 'One of those cars may have been driven by the killer.'
'If so, then our perp is off the premises, and even if that waitress has a photographic memory and gives us a license plate number, what are we going to do about it? With the phone lines down and cells dead and…'
Grissom shrugged. 'How did detectives solve cases before all the technology came along?'
Sara paused. 'By observing. By asking questions.'
'That's what we need to be doing.'
'That and guarding our snowbound crime scene, you mean.'
'My turn now,' Grissom said. 'Yours will come soon enough…. Remember, Sara, Sherlock Holmes was a scientist too.'
'Grissom-Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character.'
'Based on Joseph Bell-a scientist.'
Amy brought a basket of rolls and breads and butter, and Herm Cormier seemed to materialize next to them, an apparition in a heavy parka, bearing two thermoses of coffee.
With a thin smile, the hotel manager asked, 'Ready to rough it, Dr. Grissom?'
Grissom nodded, got up, slipped on his varsity jacket.
A few other guests had found their way into the dining room and Cormier kept his voice low, trying not to alarm the customers starting to fill the restaurant. 'I'm on record that this all-night vigil with the…the thing…is a bad idea.'
'Duly noted,' Grissom said. Then to Sara, he said, 'See you in two hours. In the lobby.'
'If I'm not there,' she said, 'call my room-case I fall asleep.'
Grissom nodded and the two men headed for the door, Cormier's voice far too loud as he said, 'And if there's anything else we can do to make your stay more comfortable, you just let us know!'
Sara finished her veggie dinner-mixed vegetables and parsley potatoes (she figured she'd ingested a stick and a half of butter)-and chatted some more with Amy, but got no real information out of the waitress. Pushing any harder would've been too obvious-she and Grissom would eventually have to interrogate the woman, Sara knew.
As she indulged in a sliver of pecan pie, Sara watched Amy and a tall, thin waiter handle what little there was of a dinner rush. Amy worked the cluster of tables around where Sara was seated, and the thin, dark-haired waiter worked some tables toward the entrance. He too wore a white shirt, black bow tie and black slacks, and seemed to possess the same energy to please that inhabited Amy Barlow.
Back in her room, seeking a little privacy and maybe even some rest, Sara pulled out her cell phone-it paid to keep trying. She flipped through the local White Pages, and tried the county sheriff, the New Paltz P.D., the state patrol, and even the phone company, all with the same lack of success.
On a whim, she punched in Catherine's cell phone number. Surprisingly, the phone rang!…and Sara felt a little jolt shoot through her.
'Catherine Willows,' the familiar voice said, a nice clear, strong signal.
'Catherine! It's Sara.'
'Well, hi, stranger. I see on the Weather Channel you're getting some snow.'
'Are we. And you're not going to believe what happened, here…'
'Yeah, well you're not going to believe the case you missed out on. You may be the one hip deep in snow, but we've got the frozen-'
And the line went dead.
Sara quickly hit redial and another familiar voice-the robotic one-returned with the news that her call could not be completed and to please try again later.
Though Grissom and Constable Maher were, technically at least, nearby…just up that slope…Sara suddenly felt very alone.
Usually a person who didn't mind a little seclusion, Sara Sidle found herself wishing she could speak to just one person beyond the world of Mumford Mountain Hotel. But, for now at least, that appeared impossible.
Heaving a sigh, Sara returned the phone to her purse, placed it on the nightstand and took a nap with the light on. In part this was because she didn't want to fall too deeply asleep, with the two-hour stint of crime-scene duty ahead of her. But it was also because, for some inexpressible reason, she didn't feel like being in the dark, right now.
Before they'd left the hotel, Cormier loaned Grissom a muffler, but as the two men trudged up the rocky slope through the snow-the hotel man again leading the way-the CSI kept the woolen scarf off his face. Cold or no cold, he had questions to ask.
Grissom had to work his voice up over the wind. 'Mr. Cormier…'
'Call me Herm!'
'Herm, now that you've had some time-any idea who the victim was?'
'Be a long time,' Cormier said, ''fore I forget that sight.'
They were taking the same circuitous route up the slope as they'd used getting down. Trodding behind the man, in the howling storm, Grissom had to strain to hear; but even without Mother Nature's wintry distractions, he'd have had trouble catching the man's words.
'The truth is,' Cormier went on, 'that poor bastard's body was just too badly burned for me to recognize! If that was my own brother, I don't know that I could tell you.'
'I understand!' said Grissom, practically yelling to be heard over the wind. He picked up his pace and fell in alongside Cormier, but the old man was far more at ease with the weather and terrain, and Grissom really had to work to keep up. 'How many of the staff are actually here?'
'Those I already told you about-Amy, Mrs. Duncan, the head cook, Jenny at the desk, Pearl and me.'
'Didn't I see a waiter in the dining room?'
'Oh, Tony! Tony Dominguez. He's one of our best workers, even if he is a little…' He bent his wrist.
'Gay?'
The hotel manager smirked humorlessly. 'Let's just say Tony ain't the macho-est guy around. But he does a helluva good job for us.'
'Any other staffer you might've overlooked?'
They plodded along and the wind picked up in intensity for about a minute and a half. Just when Grissom was wondering if Cormier had either forgotten or ignored the question, the hotel man said, 'Bobby! Bobby Chester made it in…. Lunchtime fry cook! He's also Mrs. Duncan's dinner-hour helper.'
Grissom did the tally: Cormier, his wife, Pearl, and five others. Seven.
