Chapter 16
"Jane, wake up. The sheriff wants to talk to you," Shelley hissed.
Jane sat up, angry with herself for falling asleep and feeling so fuddled. "Give me a minute to slap myself awake," she said, tearing toward the bathroom, where she slapped some cold water on her face and brushed her teeth fiercely, thinking at least her gums and cheeks would be awake and they were both fairly close to her brain.
As it turned out, she didn't need any special wits for this interview. The sheriff asked her the same things he'd already asked before. Did she know Doris or Bill before coming here? Was she a member of the group that was meeting here? Why did she go to Mrs. Schmidtheiser's cabin? Why did she head toward the snowman? This was a new one and it made Jane laugh, which the sheriff clearly found a distasteful reaction. "I wasn't 'heading' for anything! It was the first time I ever skied and I had absolutely no control over where I ended up! Do you really imagine I'd have risked running into a tree or something by heading for the woods?"
"I couldn't say. I just couldn't say, ma'am. But it sure is odd that there's two bodies and somebody who says she never knew the people before found both of them, don't you think?"
This was at least the third time he'd made this observation. The first time it had surprised her, the second time it irritated her, but this time — in her own temporary "home" and with her daughter in the next room — it made her furious.
"Are you making an accusation?" she said coldly.
"No, ma'am. Nosiree. Just sayin' as how it's odd."
She stood up and walked to the door of the cabin. "It was unpleasant and unfortunate. And I find this conversation to be even more so. I've told you everything I know. And I've told it to you several times. If you have in mind asking me the same questions again, you'll have to ask them of my lawyer. Frankly, I'm tired of this. Get out of here."
"Now, don't go gettin' all riled up—"
"Get out!"
He put his hands up. "Okay, okay, I'm going." He backed out the door, making vaguely apologetic noises, but Jane cut them off by slamming the door as soon as he was outside. She leaned back against it, shaking.
Shelley looked at her admiringly. "Wow! I've never seen you do anything like that. I'm really impressed!"
"You're rubbing off on me, I guess. That ignorant, nasty-minded hick! How dare he—"
"Now calm down. He's gone."
A few minutes and a restorative cup of coffee and cigarette later, Shelley ventured to reopen the subject. "You see what this means, don't you?"
"I have no idea," Jane said.
"Look, the people here are bright and much more sophisticated than they like to let on. They wouldn't have anybody as sheriff who really is as much of a rube as he acts like. So he must be smarter than he seems."
"He'd have to be!"
"And if he has the wits to stay sheriff, he must know you're telling the truth."
"Rave on," Jane said. "So why is he bothering with me?"
"Because he's at a dead end."
"Are you suggesting that I should be encouraged by this?"
"Not encouraged, but it does mean there isn't any evidence that we don't know about that's helping him any. So we are just as well equipped to figure this out as he is."
"And just as motivated," Jane added sourly.
"Okay, so we can assume that either both deaths have to do with the whole Tsar/Holnagrad thing or they don't."
"That's a big help."
"Jane, it gives us a structure for analyzing what we know."
"If you say so."
"All right. Let's assume first that it does have to do with the Tsar business. Which certainly seems likely, since one death was the person promoting Bill Smith as the heir, and the other death was Bill himself."
"Okay, I see where you're going now," Jane said. "Who are the people involved in any way? Pro or con?"
"Right. There are the two victims, of course. There's Pete, and we've already talked about him pretty thoroughly. There's Stu Gortner, who is really the one with the greatest motivation to get rid of the competition for his candidate."
"Wait — go back to Pete. What would this fight he got into with HawkHunter have to do with it?"
"Hold it, Jane. Don't sidetrack me yet. We're just laying out the groundwork for how we're going to think about this."
"So we're thinking about how we're going to think? You wouldn't like to offer to run a couple states and several major corporations in your spare time, would you?"
Shelley ignored that remark. "So — we have Bill, Doris, Pete, and Stu as interested parties. Now we have to add Joanna. Don't make faces like that. Joanna's very much a concerned party. Suppose Doris had made some kind of grand announcement to the press about Bill being the rightful Tsar. On Bill's behalf as well as her own, that would have a real impact on her life."
"Okay, I'll give you that."
"We've also got to consider Lucky. He's the president of the Society and had both Doris and Stu trying to get him on their sides. Maybe he is quietly involved with one or the other of them."
"But that could be true of practically anyone in the Society."
"Yes, but the rest of them don't appear to have much of anything at stake. Stu sees his candidate as his way to fame and fortune. Same with Pete. Doris saw it as a private coup. Even Lucky, who seems to care deeply about the Society, may feel that the group itself could either triumph or dissolve in the publicity a 'new Tsar' would generate."
"I notice you're not mentioning Tenny."
"No. Except that Tenny didn't want her uncle bothered with it, I can't see a motive for her. Even if she did have a motive to knock off Doris to protect Bill, she'd hardly hurt Bill. So there are the suspects if it has to do with the Holnagrad Society."
"What else could it logically have to do with?"
"The sale of the resort, for one thing."
"You suspect Paul!"
"Jane, quit being silly."
"I'm sorry."
"Since the two deaths occurred so close together and right now, I think we have to assume that something in particular precipitated them. Nobody around here is a drooling maniac, so you have an otherwise normal person who has to do something terrible immediately for some reason."
"To keep the sale from going through, maybe," Jane said, nodding. "Or to make sure it does go through. The great problem is Doris. I can't imagine that there's any way that Doris's death would make the slightest difference either way."
"Unless Doris's death was suicide."
"Come on!"
"I know it seems absurd, but it is possible. Jane, we don't know anything whatsoever of her background. For all we know, she could have lived half her life in mental institutions. It's not likely, but it could be that the humiliation of that debate drove her over the edge. On the other hand, we know absolutely that Bill's death was a murder. So let's deal with him for a minute. A handful of people had a stake in the sale of the resort. Joanna again — Bill's death allows her to avoid Florida."
"It also makes her a widow."
Shelley shrugged. "Maybe she wanted to be a widow. A rich widow. Just because she crochets the ugliest afghans west of the Piedmont doesn't mean she might not have simply snapped and said to herself, "I can't stand another day with this man!" Wives have felt that way before. And Pete has any number of possible motives here, too. Bill and Joanna have no children. He and Tenny are their logical heirs. That makes them both suspects."
"But Joanna's still alive. And she's sure to inherit everything."
"According to Tenny, I remind you. Even if she does inherit everything, either Pete or Tenny might have thought they could put something over on her that they couldn't put over on Bill, who could apparently hang onto his money extraordinarily well."
"Are we still just thinking about thinking, or may I speculate?"