Dashing Through the Snow Read online

  As usual, when his wife wanted him to agree, Burt’s head nodded affirmatively. “Tommy’s a good boy,” he declared. “He’s always deserved the best, even when he didn’t have a dime in his pocket. When you see how someone as smart as Sam Conklin can get swept off his feet and rush into a disaster, it scares you. To think Sam was married all those years to Maybelle, one of the sweetest, nicest ladies who ever walked the face of the earth, and then he marries a woman nobody knows.” Burt looked around the table. “What do you all call her, the Raccoon?”

  “The Skunk, Dad,” Tommy corrected him, increasingly embarrassed by the drift of the conversation. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Believe me.”

  “That skunk!” Ralph’s wife, Judy, cried. “Boy was she guilty of bad timing. I hear things are a mess over at Conklin’s right now, and I couldn’t be happier!”

  “You have?” Muffy asked anxiously. “I hope there won’t be any problem with the food for the Festival.”

  “Don’t worry, Muffy,” Ralph said with a wave of his hand. “We did so much advance preparation that they should be able to handle it without us.”

  “I hope so. This is Branscombe’s first Festival of Joy, and we want to make a good impression on all our visitors plus everyone who tunes in to the special.”

  Marion pushed back her chair. “Festival or no Festival, we’ve got to get to the bank. I won’t rest easy until we put that lottery ticket in a safe deposit box and see them lock the vault.” She turned to Nora. “I’ve just loved chatting with you. Hope to see you later.”

  “We’ll all see each other later,” Muffy said enthusiastically. “Everyone in town is going to be at the opening of the Festival. I hope Duncan can be there. It’s wonderful that he made it back safely from wherever he was. It would have been such a downer if he were still missing.”

  That’s one way of putting it, Luke thought. Since Willy came into the room without Alvirah, he knew that Nora was chomping at the bit to find out the real reason Alvirah had gone with Regan and Jack. She obviously didn’t buy the story that Alvirah was dying to get a look at Branscombe. Luke didn’t either.

  “Oh Duncan’s back, all right,” Tommy’s mother said to Muffy, a hint of derision in her voice. “And I notice he didn’t turn down the chance to be included in the winning group.”

  “Mom,” Tommy said hurriedly. “Remember the number 32. That was Duncan’s Powerball number. We wouldn’t be sitting here now if he hadn’t chosen it.”

  “I suppose,” she acquiesced. “We’ll go to the bank with you, son.”

  Muffy turned to Nora. “I would just love to drive you around our pretty little town this afternoon. We can stop by the church bazaar where we’ll get a sneak preview of all the wonderful things that will be on sale starting tonight. They’ll be putting the final touches on everything, and I can show you where you’ll be doing the story hour tomorrow. Does that sound good?” As was her custom, she answered herself. “I think it sounds great! I just wish Regan were here. Maybe she can catch up with us later. Willy, Luke—does a tour of our village sound agreeable to you?”

  “Yes,” they both answered quickly, if only to stop the flow of talk.

  “Muffy,” Nora said, “Luke and Willy and I haven’t even been to our rooms yet. Why don’t we meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes?”

  “Super!”

  The Reillys and Meehans had rooms across the hall from each other on the second floor. As they were getting off the elevator, Nora said, “Willy, could you come into our room for a minute?” It wasn’t a question.

  Here we go, Luke thought. “Get ready for the interrogation, Willy,” he warned.

  Willy rolled his eyes. “Regan swore me to secrecy.”

  “She didn’t mean us,” Nora assured him.

  “Yes, she did,” Luke said positively.

  “Oh, Luke, stop it,” Nora said, laughing, “hurry up and open the door.” They were barely inside the room when she spun around. “Willy, what’s going on? What made Alvirah take off with them?”

  Even Luke’s usually unflappable demeanor registered shock and disbelief as Willy filled them in. “You mean to tell me they’re riding around with a lottery ticket worth 180 million dollars that belongs to two criminals?” he asked.

  “That about sums it up,” Willy answered, as he reached for the door handle. “I’d better go powder my nose. I’ll see you downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

  24

  The sixtyish receptionist in the emergency room of Branscombe General Hospital looked up when the group appeared at her desk. Spotting Glenda, she smiled. “I saw you on TV. You’re one of the lottery winners!”

  “Yes, I am,” Glenda replied. “Trust me. I still can’t believe it. We’re here to see my fellow winner, Duncan Graham.”

  “I just tried to call his girlfriend for him, but her message box was full. What a lucky girl she is! As my grandmother would say, she certainly landed in a tub of butter.”

  “My mother used that expression, too,” Alvirah said, thinking that her mother’s version was a little more colorful.

  “Granny had a saying for everything,” the receptionist said with a laugh. She pointed to a door. “He’s right through there. The third cubicle on the right. I shouldn’t let you all in at once, but we don’t have any serious cases at the moment. Just a bunch of broken bones.”

  “Is that all?” Jack muttered as they went through the door.

  They reached the third curtained cubicle. “Duncan?” Glenda called.

  “I’m here,” Duncan replied, his voice faint.

  Glenda pulled back the curtain.

  Alvirah took in the sight of the unshaven, pale, anxious-looking figure on the bed. He doesn’t look like he could use any more bad news, she thought.

  “Glenda!” Duncan said, trying to sit up. “Do you have my cell phone?”

  “Right here.” Quickly she handed it to him. “I think you’ve met Jack Reilly.” She began to introduce him to Regan and Alvirah, but Duncan interrupted.

  “I’m sorry to be rude but I’m worried about my girlfriend. Maybe she was in an accident…” He checked his messages. “She still hasn’t called me!”

  A nurse approached. “Mr. Graham, it’s time to take you in for your cast. And you must turn off that phone. They’re not permitted in here.” She turned to the others. “This won’t take long. You can wait outside.”

  “Glenda,” Duncan said quickly. “Would you please try to reach Flower? Her number must still be on your phone. If you can’t reach her, please call her work number. That must be on your phone, too—I called earlier. Ask if they know where she is.” His eyes were sick with worry.

  “Of course, Duncan. I’ll make the calls, and we’ll be waiting for you outside.” She turned to the nurse. “Will he be able to leave as soon as his cast is on?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll fit him with crutches, and off he goes.”

  The four of them retreated to the waiting room. Glenda tried Flower’s phone, but her mailbox was still full. She then tried Flower’s work number. A woman with a soothing voice answered. “Precious Darlings Day Care.”

  Not all of them, I’m sure, Glenda thought. “Hello, may I speak to the manager?”

  “We’re fully enrolled for the next four years,” the woman said proudly.

  “No, I’m not calling about that,” Glenda said. “It’s very important I speak to someone about one of the employees. Flower…” Glenda realized she didn’t know Flower’s last name. But how many Flowers could be working there?

  “Oh, yes, Flower,” the woman said.

  “I’m calling for her boyfriend who just broke his leg, and he really wants to reach her.”

  “Duncan broke his leg?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “No. But Flower talks about him all the time. He called earlier.”

  “Yes, he did. He’s concerned that he hasn’t been able to reach her and didn’t know that she was taking today off.”

  �
��Wait a minute. It’s mid-afternoon there, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  Glenda’s heart sank. “What do you mean?”

  “Flower was flying in to surprise him today. She took the red-eye to Boston last night, then was planning to take an early morning bus to where Duncan lives. She should have been there hours ago. And it’s odd she isn’t answering her phone.”

  “Do you by any chance know what flight she took?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “Okay,” Glenda said. “If you hear from her, could you please call me or Duncan?” She recited their numbers.

  “And if you hear anything, please call us,” the woman said. “We love Flower. We were already feeling terrible that we might lose her soon.”

  25

  The Skunk!” Rhoda thought as she turned the key in the lock of the three-bedroom home Sam had lived in since his marriage to Maybelle fifty years ago. She slammed the door so hard that several of Maybelle’s figurines jiggled on the shelf over the foyer table. Too bad they didn’t fall off, Rhoda thought. Sam had reluctantly agreed to allow her to redecorate but had insisted on keeping Maybelle’s trinkets in place, which annoyed Rhoda no end. The living room of the colonial house had been done over with black leather couches and chairs, a white shag rug, and modern art that Sam complained he couldn’t make head nor tail of. Paintings of mountains and lakes and flowers and animals had been relegated to the attic.

  Maybelle’s maple dining room furniture, with its corner cupboards and cushioned chairs, had been replaced by a glass table with massive steel legs and chairs shaped like triangles. Upstairs, Richard’s boyhood room was now serving as Rhoda’s office, and the former guest bedroom was filled with her exercise equipment.

  Go back to my lah-dee-dah apartment, she thought, as she yanked off her coat and threw it over the bannister. I can’t wait to pack up and get out of here! I’ll fix his wagon! All I’ve tried to do for him, and he just takes me for granted. Through the window, she could see that the snow, which had been light and intermittent, was suddenly coming down harder. Oh no, she thought, I can’t drive in this. By the time I get my things together, the roads will be slick, and I’ll end up getting stuck in all that traffic going into Boston on a Friday night at holiday time. Good riddance to this burg—but not till tomorrow.

  I took a shot at the country life, but it’s not for me. Rhoda thought of her previous husbands, two of whom she had not mentioned to Samuel. It’s not bad to be divorced twice, but four times suggests I can’t get along with anyone and scares off potential suitors.

  Samuel had seemed so easygoing, but she soon found out that he was stubborn as a mule. Getting him to agree to put his employees’ bonus money in our retirement fund had been a struggle. I was only looking out for our future, she thought. Oh well, the prenup gives me $200,000 if we get divorced. I’ll start off the New Year with that happy thought in mind. If I had known how much that geezer had in his savings account, I’d have insisted on more.

  In the six months she’d lived in town, Rhoda had made exactly one friend, Tishie Thornton, who never had anything nice to say about anyone and was the only human being in town Rhoda found who couldn’t stand Maybelle. “From the time we were six years old, she was so annoyingly sweet,” Tishie confided to a delighted Rhoda. “I have a beautiful singing voice, but she was the one always chosen for the solos in the school and then in the church choir. I couldn’t bear the sight of her looking so innocent, holding her song book, singing with her eyes looking up to heaven like she was an angel. I finally quit the choir and never went back even after Maybelle died. I didn’t want to hear all the talk about what a saint she was.”

  Rhoda stood for a moment in the quiet house. I don’t want to hang around here all day, she thought. She hurried into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Tishie answered on the first ring.

  “Rhoda, I hear you’ve had a rough day,” Tishie said, trying not to sound pleased.

  “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “No bonuses, huh?”

  “They got paid well enough all year.”

  “I bet they did. And now look at them! They don’t need your bonuses. Did you hear about the ring Duncan bought for his girlfriend?”

  “I haven’t heard anything. I was too busy picking apples off the floor.”

  “Duncan put a deposit on some kind of flowered ring at Pettie’s, and now he’s bent out of shape. Turns out Pettie put the ring in the display window next to those Festival charms Luella’s told me about at least a hundred times.”

  “A flower ring?” Rhoda repeated.

  “Yes. A little diamond surrounded by colored stones shaped like petals.”

  “Who’s his girlfriend?”

  “Nobody knows. Who cares?”

  “Who cares is right,” Rhoda said, her mind flashing to the face of the young girl who was asking for Duncan this morning. “I certainly don’t.”

  “So, what’s up? I know you can’t be calling just to chat what with everything going on at the store.”

  “Sam and I broke up. We’re totally kaput. Finished. Bye-bye.”

  “So soon? I knew you’d be bored to tears by him. But you should have waited to get a Christmas present.”

  “He already bought it for me. A gorgeous bracelet we got in Boston when we went to see that son of his in a play. Sam almost had a heart attack when he signed the credit slip. The bracelet’s in the safe, nicely gift wrapped. Don’t worry, it’s going with me.”

  “I’m proud of you, Rhoda. After all, you gave him the best six months of your life.”

  Rhoda laughed. “It feels like the best six years! Tishie, the weather’s not great, so I’ll have to put up with another night here. I was thinking, why don’t we go to The Hideaway for tea this afternoon? That woman Betty is a little annoying with her saccharine sweetness…”

  “Just like Maybelle was,” Tishie interrupted.

  “Don’t remind me! I don’t know if Betty can sing, but she sure knows how to bake. We can sit and gossip, away from all this hullabaloo about the Festival. I’m sick of it.”

  “Me, too. I can be there in half an hour, okay?”

  “Tishie, I’m a city girl. I can’t drive so well in the snow. Would you mind picking me up?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Thanks, Tishie. If I hadn’t met you, I probably would have been out of here months ago.”

  “Sorry about that. See you soon.”

  Rhoda hung up. Even though she could care less about Samuel, she felt a little let down. A sudden thought cheered her. There’s got be a holiday singles dance for seniors somewhere in Boston tomorrow night. She’d gone to six of them in the month of December last year. She hadn’t met anyone special, but who knows? There might be a new crop of widowers or divorcés that sprung up in the six months she’d been buried here. Maybe my next great romance will begin while Samuel is slaving over chicken potpie at the church supper. She began to hum as she ran upstairs to check her computer.

  26

  By the time Duncan was wheeled into the waiting room, his right leg in a cast from his knee to his ankle, Jack had learned from his office that Flower had been on a red-eye flight of Pacific Airlines that landed in Boston, where she had bought a bus ticket to Branscombe.

  “But there hasn’t been any further activity on the credit card she used to buy those tickets,” Detective Joe Azzolino reported to his boss. “And that stock certificate is as phony as a three dollar bill.”

  As they had expected, Duncan’s first question when he saw them was, “Have you reached Flower?”

  “Not yet,” Jack said. “Let’s get you out to the car.”

  Alvirah’s heart ached for Duncan as the attendant at the emergency room exit helped him up and handed him his crutches. At least I was able to walk out of the emergency room in New York on two feet, she thought, unconsciously patting the bandage over her eye.

  Outside it had begun to snow hard. They were
barely in the car when Duncan asked anxiously, “Glenda, did you call the day care center?”

  “Duncan, I’m sure everything’s going to be all right…”

  “What do you mean?” he demanded, his eyes suddenly frantic with worry.

  “Flower took the day off. She flew to Boston on the redeye last night and was planning to surprise you. We know she bought a bus ticket to Branscombe that would have gotten her here at about ten o’clock this morning.”

  “So where is she then? Why isn’t she answering her phone?”

  “We don’t know, Duncan,” Regan said quietly. “We thought we’d go down to the bus depot and make some inquiries to see if anyone remembers seeing her there. Glenda threw a few things in a bag for you because we think you should stay at the Inn tonight. We put a picture of a young woman you had on the mantel in it. We assumed it was Flower.”

  “Of course it’s Flower! Who else would it be? Can I have it?” Duncan asked, his voice cracking.

  Glenda retrieved the picture from the bag and gave it to him.

  Duncan held it in his hands, his eyes suddenly moist. “Something’s happened to her,” he said, his voice trembling as he stared at the picture. “I’m sure of it. Even if she wanted to wait until tonight to surprise me, she’d be answering her phone. Those Winthrop thieves were on their way to Boston. I told them about Flower when I talked to them about my goals in life. Could they have somehow run into her?”

  “Did they ever see her picture?” Jack asked.

  “No.”

  “Then it would seem unlikely, Duncan. But we did find out that the stock certificate is fraudulent. We’ll have to go to the DA’s office where you can swear out a complaint. They’ll get an arrest warrant for those crooks.”