Too Rich and Too Dead (15 page)

She wasn't sure whether to be amused by their shared Mother Hen complex or upset that neither of them seemed to think she was capable of taking care of herself.

“I'm fine, Trevor,” she told him in the same even
voice in which she'd just assured her daughter the exact same thing.

“But the headlines are full of Carly Berman's murder!” Trevor exclaimed. “What's going on out there? Did you see her? Have you two talked?”

“I was scheduled to interview her on Thursday, but I called her as soon as I got in and she invited me to dinner at her house last night.” Mallory hoped her admission wasn't fueling his concerns. “Then I went to a presentation she gave in town, pushing the youth serum she invented. But I went back to the hotel right afterward. That was the last I heard of her until I turned on the news this morning.”

“Just promise me you'll be okay.” He hesitated before adding, “After all, the whole reason you're out there in Colorado is that you're working on an assignment for the magazine. That means I feel responsible, both personally and professionally.”

“I'm fine,” she told him one more time. “But I'm afraid I really have to get off the phone. There's something I have to do right now.”

“Nothing dangerous, right?” Trevor asked anxiously.

She laughed, hoping he wouldn't notice how fake her merriment was. “I promise, it's nothing more terrifying than going out for lunch.”

Mallory didn't see any reason to mention that there was something a bit out of the ordinary on the menu: a side order of espionage.

W
hat does one wear when playing Mata Hari? Mallory wondered as she stared at the sparse contents of her hotel room closet.

A large hat, she decided. Not that she'd thought to pack anything along those lines. Still, the one certainty about Aspen was that it offered just about anything money could buy. Especially a
lot
of money.

So after she surreptitiously sidled up to the front desk to ask the clerk to make her a lunch reservation—same time, same place as Sylvie's—Mallory's next stop was the drugstore next door to the Hotel Jerome. Just from walking by Carl's Pharmacy a few times, she had ascertained that it was one of those magical emporia that sold everything from sunblock to Aspen T-shirts to wine.

Sure enough, she'd barely stepped inside and
cased the joint before she spotted a display of hats, right at the edge of the art supplies aisle. While the assortment wasn't huge, what it lacked in numbers it more than made up for in diversity. She considered a red Polarfleece stocking cap with a whimsical tassel, a woolen ski hat that looked as if it had been knitted by someone who knew how to yodel, and a straw hat suitable for members of a barbershop quartet.

But it was the floppy purple felt hat with a brim wide enough to dip fetchingly over the wearer's eyes that she grabbed. It was perfect for her mission, a
chapeau
that might have stuck out anywhere else but somehow suited Aspen. It was so perfect, in fact, that she carried it over to the cash register without bothering to glance at the price tag—and then didn't even bat an eyelash when it came time to hand over her MasterCard.

Her next challenge was getting to the Pine Creek Cookhouse before Sylvie and her mysterious lunch date arrived. Mallory hurried to her rental car, spread out the map on the seat beside her, and headed for the hills—literally.

She began her trip by winding along the same mountain road that she knew led to both Cass-Ber and Tavaci Springs. She bit her lip as she passed the barely noticeable dirt road that meandered toward the Bermans’ house.

This is the reason I'm doing this in the first place, she reminded herself. To find out who
really
killed poor Carly.

Her determination stronger than ever, she continued on for a few more miles, too fixated on trying to make
good time to appreciate the scenery. She finally spotted a parking lot up ahead, right where the road ended. In case there was any question as to whether she'd arrived at her destination, a big white sign reading Pine Creek Cookhouse stood at the side of the road.

Mallory pulled into a parking space and turned off the ignition.

“Here goes,” she muttered.

With the help of the rear view mirror, she pulled the purple felt hat down over her ears and tucked her hair underneath it. Then she trudged up a small hill to the wooden shack that appeared to be the rendezvous point.

Inside, half a dozen people sat on the built-in wooden benches lining the walls. She presumed that, like her, they were waiting to take a ridiculously outdated mode of transportation up into the mountains to enjoy trendy, up-to-date foods.

Anxiously she checked each face, hoping none of them would turn out to be Sylvie Snowdon's. She was relieved to see that, instead, she was sharing the small space inside the ramshackle building with what appeared to be a honeymoon couple who couldn't keep their hands off each other and a family consisting of a mother, a father, a surly teenage girl seeking refuge from her parents with an iPod, and an equally surly teenage boy trying to achieve the same goal with a Game Boy.

For a fleeting moment, Mallory wished that Amanda and Jordan were with her. Then she remembered that her children were busy with their own lives.

Besides, she thought with amusement, Amanda is probably thinking about me right now, agonizing over how her poor helpless mother is faring in this cold, cruel world.

Just as well she doesn't know that at the moment, said mother is attempting to conceal her identity with a drugstore hat as she throws herself into investigating a murder as if someone's life depended on it.

Which, of course, it did.

“Hi, everybody,” a young man who could have been Dusty Raines's little brother greeted the group as he sashayed into the wooden hut. “All set to take a ride up to Pine Creek?”

He checked out the teenage girl, who emerged from her musical haze long enough to reciprocate. When no sparks flew, the dude instructed, “Then follow me.”

The seven of them dutifully tromped after their mountain guide, their feet crunching against the thin layer of half-melted snow that still covered the ground. A few hundred feet away stood a boxy wooden sleigh with two horses hitched in front.

Mallory stayed behind to take some photos. But it turned out she wasn't alone in wanting to capture the moment. In fact, so many cameras were flashing as the honeymooners and the family of four took pictures that it looked as if Michael Jackson had just put in a surprise appearance.

“Howdy, folks.” The driver, a Burl Ives look-alike, greeted them after the group members had stepped up into the sleigh one by one. “Welcome to the Pine Creek Cookhouse. Before we git on our way, lemme
tell you about the three rules we got here. Number one, keep your hands inside the sleigh. Number two, enjoy the scenery. And number three, if you feel like tipping, give it to me, not the horses.”

The group laughed politely. At least those members who weren't too absorbed by technology to tune into what was actually going on around them.

As the horses began chugging up the hill, Mallory sat back in her seat and decided to do her best to follow Rule Number Two.

Might as well enjoy the ride, she thought.

Not that she wasn't as concerned about Harriet as she'd been since she'd gotten her frantic phone call. It was just that she wasn't about to forget that the main reason she was here was to write a travel article. The last thing she wanted to do was let down her editor.

Especially since she'd been hoping to find time to come to the Pine Creek Cookhouse ever since she'd first read about it. It had sounded like a great spot to include in her article, since even people who didn't ski were likely to enjoy a ride up a snow-covered mountain in a horse-drawn sleigh.

She'd also checked out the menu on the restaurant's Web site. The offerings sounded like suitably Colorado-style fare, especially the Jack Daniel's– marinated caribou and the wild game kebab.

But for the moment, she concentrated on breathing in the exhilaratingly fresh mountain air as she was hauled uphill by two of the strongest horses she'd ever encountered. The sun smiled down from high in the sky, its golden rays glistening on the snow.
The air was scented by the smell of pine, and the bells around the horses’ necks jingled merrily.

Once again, Mallory found herself missing her children. She was overcome with a yearning to bring them here, at least until she reminded herself that they weren't kids anymore. Like the two teenagers she'd just been observing, they were at that awkward age when their main concern was acting grown up. It would be another decade or two before they could go back to savoring the same simple pleasures that children were so good at appreciating.

The ride wasn't long, and they reached their destination before she'd had enough of taking in the pristine countryside and listening to the crunch of horses’ hooves against ice-covered snow. Like so many other buildings in Aspen, the restaurant was made of wood. Only this time, the façade went whole hog in recapturing the spirit of Colorado, since the building was actually a log cabin.

But this being Aspen, it wasn't the type of log cabin the early settlers had
really
lived in. This was an architect's fantasy of what a log cabin could be, given unlimited resources and modern-day building equipment. A series of peaked roofs jutted up, echoing the silhouette of the mountains behind them. Below each were large windows, some overlooking a deck area that allowed for al fresco dining.

The same decorating theme—wood as far as the eye could see—was incorporated into the interior as well. In fact, if knotty pine was capable of causing an allergic reaction, Mallory figured, she'd be having
a mighty hard time breathing right about now. Everything inside the Pine Creek Cookhouse was made of knot-covered wood that looked like an illustration in a book of Grimms fairy tales: the walls, ceiling, beams, columns, and even the tables and chairs. While the two rows of chandeliers that illuminated the dining room weren't made of wood, they had been fashioned from the next best thing: antlers.

I sure hope there aren't any termites in Aspen, Mallory thought as she smiled at the hostess heading in her direction.

“One?” the hostess asked pleasantly.

“That's right,” Mallory said, noticing that the other two groups who had come up the mountain with her had already been seated.

“Anyplace in particular you'd like to sit?”

The most discreet seat in the house, Mallory thought.

She did a quick survey of the restaurant and spotted a table in the corner. Not only was it out of the way, it also happened to be shielded by one of the thick wooden columns.

“How about that one?” she asked.

“Right this way,” the hostess said.

As soon as she sat down, Mallory checked her watch. According to her calculations, Sylvie would be coming up the mountain on the very next commuter sleigh. That meant she still had a few minutes to jot down some notes.

“Pine Creek Cookhouse,” she wrote at the top of a clean page in her notebook. “Horse-drawn sleigh. Mountain views. Friendly staff. KNOTTY PINE!!!”

The sound of animated voices and raucous laughter caused her to glance up. A new group was filing in through the front door, their pink cheeks and bright eyes a sure sign that they had just had the total sleigh experience.

One of the first people she spotted in the crowd was Sylvie, dressed in a blindingly white ski jacket and fur boots that made her look as if she'd mugged Sasquatch.

But it wasn't the woman's fashion statement she was interested in. It was her lunch date.

Mallory's heartbeat quickened as she peered out from under the brim of her hat, anxious to see who Sylvie had brought to the most secluded restaurant she could find.

When her eyes zeroed in on another familiar face in the crowd, she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping.

Harriet!

Mallory was so startled that it took a few seconds for cogent thoughts to begin forming in her head. Once they did, they swirled around so fast and furious she could barely reign them in.

What on earth is Harriet doing here—with Sylvie, no less? Is it possible that the police let her go and she didn't even bother to
tell
me? Even though I'm the one person she claimed she trusted enough to call upon for help in her darkest hour, the person she begged to get her off the hook by finding the real killer… the person she'd insisted was the only one she knew in Aspen who could help her?

But instead of calling
her
, it appeared that Harriet
had decided to go out for lunch with someone else. Sylvie, no less, a woman she had spoken about so bitterly that frogs and spiders had practically leaped out of her mouth. Mallory could still hear the venom in Harriet's voice as she referred to Silvie as “vile.”

Yet with her very own eyes Mallory could see that the two of them were not only meeting at the most private, tucked-away eatery in town, they were laughing together as if they were the best of friends.