condoned by…”
“A bit of both,” Judith interrupted hastily before Renie
could go off on one of her tangents. “But we digress. Frank
used to be in partnership with the previous owners of
Mountain Goat Lodge. He and Rudy go back to Korea. Rudy
seems like an odd duck, and I can’t help but wonder if Frank
didn’t get him the job up here. If so, Rudy’s in his debt. I
also wonder if Rudy knew about Barry Newcombe but kept
his mouth shut. It wouldn’t surprise me if Rudy Mannheimer
helped hide Barry’s body. Still, I don’t
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think it will be easy to get Rudy to open up.”
“Barry,” Ava murmured. “It’s strange how we keep forgetting him.”
“Not really,” Judith said with a touch of irony. “Barry
wasn’t in upper management. That made him a nonperson.
But last year when he was hired as caterer, this whole series
of tragic events was set in motion. Barry must have swiped
Andrea’s private personnel files. I’ve no idea what he intended to do with them—blackmail, perhaps? Or just a bit of
clout to get some financial support to start his own catering
business?”
“I don’t know.” Ava’s response seemed candid. “I wasn’t
lying when I said I didn’t know Barry very well.”
“Whatever the reason,” Judith continued, “it was a terrible
mistake on his part. He must have told Frank, who looked
at the files and saw certain things that could never be made
public. Barry might not have recognized their significance,
but Frank did, especially the part—which has turned up
missing—about using Patrice’s personal funds to help set up
the company. Leon Mooney knew all about it, he had to as
chief financial officer, and no doubt altered the books under
duress. But Barry had signed his own death warrant. Everyone knew he was a notorious gossip and wouldn’t hesitate
to barter his juicy tidbits. Unlike Andrea and Leon and the
rest of you, Barry couldn’t be manipulated by threats of losing a prestigious position. So Frank killed Barry and hid his
body by the creek. He also hid the files there.”
Renie’s head swiveled. “What? You never told me that!”
Judith gave her cousin an apologetic look. “Sorry. It didn’t
dawn on me until you mentioned that I should piddle in the
library wastebasket. Then I remembered you found an empty
plastic garbage bag in Andrea’s wastebasket. Why would
she have such a thing? It was incongruous. Andrea wasn’t
the type to carry her belongings in a garbage bag. But more
to the point—why had we uncovered Barry’s
258 / Mary Daheim
body so easily? The answer had to be because someone had
already been rooting around in the snow by the ice cave.
Frank had disturbed the hiding place earlier in the day when
he went to retrieve the files.” Judith gazed at Ava. “But you
already knew that. That’s why Frank tried to strangle you.”
Ava nodded. “I saw him go out to the creek. I couldn’t
figure out what he was doing, so I followed him partway.
He was digging around in the snow, and then he had
something in his hands—the garbage bag—and I kept
watching while he tried to cover up the place where he’d
been searching. Suddenly I had this sinking feeling. Since
we’d only arrived an hour earlier, I knew whatever Frank
had found must have been there much longer. Like from last
year. I thought about Barry, and after our afternoon meeting,
I confronted Frank. That’s when he tried to kill me.”
Renie looked stunned. “That was terribly risky, Ava. Why
didn’t you wait until you were back in town?”
Ava’s fingers twisted around the juice can. “I don’t know.
I felt compelled to act. Maybe I thought Frank would confess
and turn himself in and that would be that. In retrospect, it
was a very stupid thing to do.”
“You’re right.” Renie grew thoughtful. “I suppose Frank
originally intended to leave the files there with the body, but
realized he could use them against the others. That’s why
there were no entries for an entire year.”
“That’s right,” Judith agreed. “Those files took on a life of
their own. I suspect Frank planted them in Andrea’s room
after he killed her. Then Nadia stole them—or Frank did
later. Either way, they were meant to be found. Ward and
Leon’s vacancies on the board would have to be filled,
probably by Gene—and you.” Judith inclined her head at
Ava.
Ava gingerly touched the bruises on her neck. “So any dirt
about us could be used to coerce us into changing the bylaws. And Leon was killed because he knew how Frank had
bankrolled the company. But Ward…He was so loyal
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to Frank. Surely he’d have gone along with Frank’s wishes
not to retire.”
Judith offered Ava a sad little smile. “Maybe so. But Frank
had promised you Ward’s job. Ward had to go.”
In distress, Ava ran her fingers through her long black
hair. “That’s what I was afraid of. Everything suddenly
crashed in on me this afternoon. I couldn’t work for a murderer. And I felt guilty, too. You’re right—Ward’s blood is
on my hands.”
“You put your career ahead of justice,” Renie said quietly.
“I’m afraid it’s true—lives might have been saved if you’d
acted sooner.”
Ava dropped her hands into her lap. “It’s like tunnel vision
up there on the executive floor. They talk about career
pathing. It’s literal. You travel down that path and you never
look left or right. All you see is that title or that salary or
those perks at the end of the tunnel. Nothing else matters.
It’s horrible when you stop to think about it.”
A silence followed, as Ava wrestled with her special
demons. Renie finally spoke up, breaking the tension. “What
about Andrea? Why kill her?”
“Because,” Judith said, “she not only knew he’d fleeced
Mrs. Killegrew, but that Leon had been forced to juggle the
books. There was a missing page in her private files that
followed a discussion of an independent audit. I suspect that
page—which Frank destroyed—contained incriminating information about Frank’s financial dealings. He burned that
page—probably along with Leon’s own records—in Leon’s
room. He couldn’t do it right after he killed Leon in the kitchen because Andrea was waiting in Leon’s room. When we
noticed the fire in the grate this afternoon, at first we thought
the entire set of folders had been destroyed. Then we realized
there weren’t enough ashes. So what else had to go? The
phrase Mooney’s money came to mind. Someone had mentioned it, and it stuck. Money is always a serious motive
when it comes to murder. It dawned on me that the real
financial records had been burned, as op- 260 / Mary Daheim
posed to the fraudulent ones that Leon had been forced to
make public.”
“Good grief.” Ava had paled and was holding her head.
“How did Frank think he could get away with it?”
Judith uttered a bitter little laugh. “Frank thought he could
get away with anything. His corner office mentality made
him believe he was different from other people, that he was
above the law, that he could do anything he wanted because
he was a CEO. Oh, I realize not all powerful people go on