But forty-eight hours from now she'd be on her way home — provided the sheriff didn't detain her! No, she couldn't even contemplate that. Even getting away from here was going to be awful. They had an eight o'clock flight, which meant that they'd all have to be up and moving pretty briskly by five at the latest to get everything, including Willard, packed up, down the mountain, through rush-hour Denver traffic, and to the airport. They'd have to return the rental car, check Willard and the baggage through, and all without losing any of the kids. Ugh! What a thought. It might just be easier to stay up very, very late and never go to bed at all Monday night. If only there were an airport closer.
She stared out the window at Flattop.
Airport…?
Airport!
She leaped up and ran to the bedroom. Shaking Shelley's arm, she said, "Wake up, Shelley. I've got to talk to you. I've got an idea!"
"What time is it?" Shelley asked her pillow.
"Time? Oh, time. Almost nine, I think."
"Fix… coffee…" Shelley mumbled.
"Okay, but hurry and wake up."
She started the coffeemaker and ran back to the bedroom to check on Shelley's progress. Her bed was empty and the shower was running. Good.
Jane paced around excitedly until the coffee was ready and Shelley emerged. "Now, what is this?" Shelley demanded as Jane handed her a steaming cup.
"Come to the window. Look at the hill."
"Uh-huh. It's still there."
"Describe it."
"A little mountain with the top cut off," Shelley said.
"But it's long and flat. It isn't a mountain, it's a long, straight ridge with the top cut off. Now, do you remember the last thing I said up there before we skied down?"
"Something about breaking your neck and me raising your children?"
"No. You were saying it was a long, flat place where you might expect to find a cemetery, and I said you could land a 747 up there."
Shelley turned from contemplating the mountain to stare at Jane. "An airport," she said quietly.
"Yes. An airport. Think how good for business an airport up here would be."
Shelley sat down on one of the sofas. "Let me think."
"Don't you see how much more valuable an airport would make this place?" Jane said. "And HawkHunter wants the Indians to own that land. From what Tenny said, he was making threats to try to take the whole resort, but I'll bet that was just a ploy to get Bill, or the new owners, to settle and get rid of him by giving the tribe the hill. Just that little old useless, bunny-slope hill. With the cemetery at the top that Linda Moose foot had never heard of, even though she's part of the tribe."
Shelley shook her head as if to clear it. "Okay. Okay. Say HawkHunter had this airport idea and was trying to force somebody to give up the land to the tribe so they could build an airport and make a — forgive the term — killing. Are you casting him as Bill's murderer because of it?"
Jane stopped pacing and flung herself onto the other sofa. "I was, but I'm not sure why." She thought for a minute. "Okay. Here's one way: HawkHunter wants to get this land from Bill and thinks Bill's more likely to cave in than the investors—"
"Logical so far."
"But when Bill gets Paul up here, and Bill is apparently going through with the sale, HawkHunter stages the protest to make things difficult. Bill is mad at HawkHunter for queering the deal and tells HawkHunter if he doesn't lay off, Bill will just keep the damned place and build the airport himself on the top of the ridge. The tribe knows Bill is a man of few words, but he really means the few words he says. HawkHunter sees his cause is lost now. But if he kills Bill, he accomplishes two things. He really scares the investors off, which is what it looks like has happened with Paul clearing out, and he doesn't have to worry about Bill's threat to build the airport. He knows from the tribe that Joanna wouldn't take on a big, new project like that. She'd be hard pressed just to keep the place going on an even keel. Besides, Joanna is much more likely to cave in to Hawk-Hunter's demands than Bill ever was."
She sat back, looking smug.
"What about Doris?" Shelley asked.
Jane stopped looking smug. "I don't know. Hell. Maybe she overheard them talking about it?"
Shelley shook her head. "And if killing Bill was a deliberate attempt to scare off the investors, why dress the snowman up like a king and make it look like it had to do with the genealogists?"
"Okay. Good points," Jane said sadly.
"Cheer up," Shelley said. "We may be on the right track with this airport thing and just be looking at it wrong. What would you think about just talking to Tenny about the idea of an airport here — without voicing any suspicions of anyone — and seeing what she says?"
"I think it's a good idea. We might learn something valuable."
Shelley gave Tenny a call and said she'd like to talk to her about something. Tenny seemed glad to hear from her and said she was on her way to the re-sort office to do a little paperwork. They could just ask for her at the desk there whenever they wanted.
Jane and Shelley dressed hurriedly and woke Katie to say they were leaving for a bit and not to let anyone in while they were gone. Then they set out to trudge to the lodge. The heavy snow was now only a blowing mist off the pines, and everything looked incredibly clean and crisp. "It's hard to believe there's mud and pine cones and trash under all this, isn't it?" Jane said.
Halfway down the road, they had to climb onto the snowbank at the side to let a snowplow grumble by. As they stood there, Shelley said, "Don't look right now, but there's somebody following us."
Jane's heart gave a frantic lurch, but she pretended to gaze around casually and spotted a man in a navy ski outfit lurking farther up the road. "I think I recognize him," she said quietly. "One of the sheriff's men."
"I wonder if he's protecting us or spying on us," Shelley said.
"I don't think I like either choice."
When they got to the lodge, the receptionist said that Tenny was, indeed, in her office, but was on the phone now if they wanted to wait.
"Let's go to the gift shop," Shelley suggested.
"I can't afford to go in there again," Jane said. "I'll wait out front. I want to see what's become of our 'escort'."
"Get a load of the bulletin board," Shelley said.
A listing of events on a large board in the lobby was constantly being updated. This morning it announced that HawkHunter would be doing a reading from his best-selling book, I, HawkHunter, in Lounge A at 7:00 p.m. on Monday night. Public invited. Reception to follow. Cost: $5, to be donated to the Native American Legal Rights Fund.
"I don't know if it's admirably open-minded or just plain stupid of the Smiths to offer him a forum," Shelley muttered. She went off shaking her head in wonder.
Someone had just shoveled the front walk and the sun had emerged for a moment. The light hitting the brickwork made it steam. Jane sat down on one of the benches and looked around. There was no sign of the navy-clad officer. Maybe he'd come into the lodge behind them and was watching her from inside. Or maybe he was trailing after Shelley.
Jane gazed at the bricks at her feet. She hadn't noticed before, but they were laid in a very unusual herringbone pattern. She'd been thinking about bricking over her cement patio in the spring, and this would be a nice pattern to copy. At first, as she studied the design to memorize it, she wasn't consciously aware of the oddly shaped, shiny white pebble next to her foot. Then she picked it up idly to toss away and realized it wasn't a pebble.