A Crime for Christmas Read online

  Jackie eyed Carol in the rearview. “Probably shouldn’t be telling you folks all this. Some people say I’m a gossip, but I say I’m just a people person who likes to talk about the people I know. And I know everybody! Well, everybody in Prospect, at least.”

  “The Bosleys are the old owners?” I asked.

  “Yup. Mrs. Bosley’s family owned it for generations going all the way back to Prospect’s gold rush days, before tourists ever took to skiing up here. Miners, fur trappers, hunters, lots of trades lodged here before the ski resort became the big thing.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it’s been much of a big thing lately,” Carol said pointedly. “I heard the Grand Sky hasn’t been all that grand for a while.”

  Jackie nodded sadly. “Hard times. Mr. and Mrs. Bos just didn’t have the cash to keep up with the other resorts around here. Like Miss Garcia said, conglomerates have been buying up all the little guys and turning them into big guys, and that makes it hard for the leftover little guys to get by. But we’re all sure hoping Mr. A and Mr. G can change that! The Grand Sky was the place to be when I was a kid, and I’m just tickled pink to think it can be again.”

  The van zipped by the vast snow-covered mountain landscape as Jackie talked.

  “Did you break your foot skiing?” Grace asked timidly. They were the first words I’d heard her speak.

  Jackie guffawed like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “It would be a lot more glamorous if I did! I’d lie and say I broke it on one of the diamonds, but I’m a terrible liar. Truth is I dropped a log on my foot chopping wood for the big opening-night bonfire. It’s pretty much the least glam ski lodge accident ever! Luckily, our doctor on the hill, Doc Sherman, was there when it happened and was able to patch me up lickety-split.”

  “Doctor on the hill?” I asked.

  “Resorts usually have a doctor on-site,” Liz answered. “They keep a radio on them when they ski so they can triage accidents as soon as a skier goes down.”

  “Used to be, Doc Sherman would have to transport you all the way to the local hospital to do any real doctoring, but our new owners put in a state-of-the-art on-site clinic where he can handle just about any routine ski accident right there at the lodge.”

  The landscape suddenly changed from a narrow, twisty mountain road to a wide-open valley as the van reached the top of a steep hill and headed down the other side toward just about the cutest little ski town you’ve ever seen.

  “Welcome to Prospect, Montana!” Jackie announced.

  Looking at it from above as the van rolled down into the valley, you’d think you were staring at a picture-perfect Christmas card. A frontier-style main street with holiday decorations strung between the buildings over the road led straight through the center of town. The flat facades rising over the awnings of the quaint two- and three-story buildings were mostly all joined together like the Old West towns in movies and photographs. If it weren’t for the cars and a few traffic lights, you’d almost think you’d traveled back in time to a real prospecting town. Or a snow globe.

  With sun shining off the snow-covered rooftops and awnings, the town seemed to sparkle. Shining brightest in the distance a couple of miles beyond the end of Main Street was the Grand Sky Lodge’s mountaintop perch. The lodge itself looked tiny from so far away, but there was no way to miss the gleaming white slopes crisscrossing their way down the steep mountain above it.

  “Yes!” Brady said.

  “Come to mama!” Liz exclaimed, giving him a high five.

  “Whoo-hoo!” Kelly and Jimmy yelled, joining in the high-five fest as Grace shrank down in her seat.

  “Are they all that tall?” she asked meekly.

  “They better not be,” I said. “I’m going to be right beside you on the bunny slopes for the first day or two until I get the hang of things.”

  At the base of the mountain, not far from the lodge, was a small frozen lake. Steam rose into the sky from one end, which was where I guessed the hot springs advertised in the Grand Sky’s brochure must be.

  “I can see the Travel Bug cover now,” Carol said, practically drooling.

  “I’ll tell ya, I’m not as crazy about these cold winters as I used to be when I was y’all’s age, but this view never gets old,” Jackie shared as the van descended into the valley. “Your friend Jackie’s got her eye on trading in snow for sand and retiring to the Caribbean like the Bosleys did, but I sure will miss this seeing this when I go.”

  “It could use a paint job,” Carol muttered a few minutes later as the van hit Main Street.

  The town was still supercute up close, but you could tell from the chipped paint and a couple of boarded-up storefronts that some of the buildings had seen better days.

  “Mr. A has big plans to help renovate the town, too, once the new lodge takes off,” Jackie said. “He says having a topflight green ski resort is going to make us an ecotourism hot spot and turn Prospect back into a winter sports paradise.”

  “What’s going on there?” Liz pointed to a large crowd of angry-looking people holding signs gathered at the end of the street, spilling into the road and blocking traffic. “Some kind of holiday parade?”

  “Um, not exactly,” Jackie said, her voice a little less cheery than usual.

  “It looks like some kind of protest,” Brady commented as we got close enough to read some of the signs being waved by the protesters.

  SAVE OUR MOUNTAIN . . .

  PEOPLE OVER PROFITS . . .

  THERE IS NO PLANET B . . .

  STOP THE PIPELINE . . .

  OIL SPILLS KILL . . . This last one had drawings of dead fish with Xs for eyes and a kitchen sink with a poison symbol dripping out of it.

  Traffic had come to a halt and people were honking. Some of them gave thumbs-up to show their support for the protesters. Others screamed out their windows for the people to get out of the way.

  Protesters weren’t the only people gathering along Main Street, though. A row of police officers in full riot gear were lined up on the other side of the street, guarding the Prospect town hall. More officers were escorting a group of men and women in a mixture of business attire and ski wear out of the building and shielding them from jeering protesters.

  At least one of the men didn’t look like he needed the extra protection, though. He had on a perfectly tailored pin-striped designer overcoat that was a lot more Wall Street than Main Street. The expensive coat was accessorized by a silk scarf—and two hulking bodyguards of his own.

  Most of the others exiting the building looked less conspicuous, including one man I recognized from his picture as Montana state representative Grant Alexander, aka Archie’s real estate partner and co-owner of the Big Sky Lodge.

  Carol had her phone out and was eagerly snapping pictures through the window, a sly smile on her face. “Looks like trouble in paradise to me.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Real Winter Wonderland

  SOME OF THE CHEER DRAINED out of Jackie as she drove past the protest.

  “All the land for miles surrounding the mountain that wasn’t owned by the lodge or town folks used to be a protected wilderness preserve. Some of the most beautiful country you’ve ever seen, and the state had promised to keep it that way forever. . . .” Jackie frowned. “Until last year, when the government opened it up to oil and gas exploration. Next thing you knew, we had all these Big Oil vultures circling so they could build a new pipeline to move their crude oil right through our valley on its way south from Canada.”

  Jackie shook her head in dismay at the town hall. But somehow even sad Jackie still managed to sound chipper.

  Liz didn’t, though. “There’s not that much pristine nature left. Why are people determined to destroy it? How many oil spills do there have to be before we stop letting them do this?”

  Oil pipelines and the controversies they caused had been big news recently. There were already thousands and thousands of miles of pipes transporting oil and natural gas all over the count
ry, and constructing new ones caused all kinds of environmental risks, especially if anything ever went wrong. And not just to plants and animals, either, which was bad enough, but also to the people who depended on water and soil that could become polluted if there were ever a leak.

  “Can’t the town stop it?” I asked.

  “The town wants it!” Jackie said. “Or at least enough people do that the town council voted to approve it. That’s some of them leaving the hall now, along with the oil fat cats and poor Mr. G.”

  “Grant Alexander is supporting the pipeline?” I asked incredulously. The co-owner of an eco-resort supporting an oil pipeline would be like . . . like . . . well, something really bad that I couldn’t even think of because it made me so mad!

  “Mr. G is just caught in the middle. Literally!” Jackie exclaimed. “A sliver of the land the pipeline needs cuts right across the edge of Grand Sky’s property. Construction would have started already if Mr. A and Mr. L hadn’t refused to lease it to them. A ski lodge with a big ugly ol’ oil pipeline running through it wouldn’t be much of an eco-resort, would it?” Jackie’s grin was back. “I happen to agree with them, but not all the town folks feel the same. The lodge isn’t just standing in the way of the pipeline. The pipeline company is promising a lot of folks good money, and truth is, a lot of them could use it. There’s supposed to be all kinds of construction jobs, and some of our neighbors could lose a pretty penny on land leases if the pipeline has to go somewhere else, Dino Bosley and our esteemed sheriff included.”

  Jackie nodded out the window at the police in riot gear as the van passed.

  “That must be a tough position for Mr. Alexander to be in as both a state representative and a business owner,” I observed.

  “It’ll lose him some votes and win him others, but I don’t envy him. He’s got a lot of grumpier-than-usual constituents who want this deal done, both in Prospect and across the district.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “Now I’m not one to spread rumors, but I heard they’ve both received death threats!”

  The words gave me shivers, and from the gasps in the row behind me, everyone else had them too. I had the impression that Carol’s were more excited than shocked, though. I saw her eagerly take notes in the seat beside me. I wasn’t sure this was the type of publicity Archie was hoping for when he invited a writer from Travel Bug.

  I turned to watch the protest grow smaller behind us as we left town and headed uphill toward the lodge. Detecting teaches you to be objective and not jump to conclusions until you have all the facts, but it was hard not to root for the Prospect pipeline protesters. There was even a small group of what looked like high school students right at the front, taking a stand for something they believed in. Two guys held up a peculiar banner that read GECCOS AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING. I had no idea what “Geccos” were, except maybe a misspelled type of lizard. One of the guys had brown hair and the other blond, and they looked oddly familiar, although I couldn’t quite place them.

  Jackie’s perky voice drew my attention back to the view in front of us.

  “We’re almost there!” she said.

  The Grand Sky grew larger ahead of us. It had the feel of a quintessential Western log hunting lodge. Except way bigger. The main lodge itself was two stories tall, with towering glass windows in front. Breezeways connected it to smaller lodges on either side in a horseshoe shape, and there were a bunch of log buildings of different sizes laid out on the hill below it like a little log cabin village. You could tell the main lodge in the center was the oldest, but it had been beautifully restored, and all the other structures were built in the same Old West log cabin style.

  Steam rose from the hot springs near the lake off to the side, and a wall of evergreen hedges strung with Christmas decorations framed either side of the lodge’s arched gates. As we drove through, you could see the tiny-looking skiers congregating at the base of the slopes just above the lodge and riding the ski lifts up to the top.

  “The conditions look perfect, and no one’s even laid down any tracks yet!” Liz proclaimed.

  “Nope!” replied Jackie. “Mr. A wanted to make sure you guys were some of the first! Speaking of which . . .” She glanced at the dashboard clock. “The opening ceremony starts in less than an hour!”

  Jackie slammed on the accelerator, rocketing the van up the hill to the front of the lodge. Well, at least as fast as a hybrid van could rocket, and without endangering anyone, anyway!

  “Now, normally I’d give you folks a whole spiel on the lodge’s history and where everything is, but I have strict orders to make sure Liz is suited up in time for the ceremonial first run.” Jackie climbed out of the van and limped over to the cargo doors, jingling and talking nonstop as she went. “We’re going to send a skier or a snowboarder down every single slope at the same time while a drone films it all! And Miss Garcia gets to go down our steepest double black diamond! It’s not every day we get a multiple gold medalist staying with us!”

  “Yes!” Liz pumped her fist.

  “Can I send my drone up to film it too?” asked Brady.

  Jackie winked. “It’s your drone Mr. A planned to use to shoot everything. He wanted to surprise you guys with the news himself, but your plane’s late arrival has had to rush the plan along.”

  “No problem! This is going to be awesome,” Brady replied.

  “Grab your gear and follow me to the locker rooms,” Jackie said, then turned to me and Carol. “Mr. A wasn’t sure if you guys would have your own gear, so he’s got the rental shop on call with our best kits waiting. He didn’t want to put you on the spot, so you can watch the first run from the top and then pick whichever trail you want when you’re ready. Ooh! We’re all so excited to have you write about our big reopening, Miss Fremont! Do you think you could interview me?”

  Carol chuckled. “I think I just did.”

  Jackie looked a little confused but beamed nonetheless. “Okay, then! Let’s hit the slopes!”

  We were in a rush, so I didn’t get to linger, but the lodge was just as impressive on the inside. There were tons of exposed logs and stone, big, bright windows, comfy-looking dark leather furniture, and cozy fireplaces. And Christmas trees! There was a tree and a menorah in just about every space we walked through. There was no mistaking what season it was.

  The walls were decorated with a mixture of antique skiing, hunting, fishing, fur-trapping, and mining memorabilia from the lodge’s past. A lot of care had obviously been taken to preserve a real sense of local Montana history; it was almost like a frontier museum you could live in. Just a lot more luxurious than the real frontier was, thankfully.

  Stepping from the lodge itself into the state-of-the-art Grand Sky Ski Shop & Demo Center behind it was like stepping from the early 1900s back into the twenty-first century. The center was as modern as the rest of the lodge’s decor was historical. The amount of equipment was overwhelming. I never would have known where to even begin picking out the right gear on my own.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to. The manager had a full package already selected for me and ready to go, just like Jackie promised. Skis, poles, boots, a helmet, goggles, gloves, and a super-warm-looking ski pants/jacket combo stitched with the Grand Sky logo. They even had sunscreen for the little bit of skin I still had exposed once I was suited up. It might seem weird to worry about getting sunburn in the snow, but when the sun’s out, all that snow acts like a giant reflector. Without the goggles’ reflective lenses and the sunscreen, I might go snow-blind and turn red as a lobster!

  Liz had already headed for the slopes by the time Carol and I were suited up. Jackie saw us off at the door.

  “Sorry I won’t be joining you,” she said, jingling the little bells on her walking boot as explanation. “Have fun! I’ll see you in the ski lounge for hot chocolate when you’re done!”

  The view from the ski lift was breathtaking. The mountain rose above me, and looking behind us, you could see the whole lodge and clear across the entire valley and
the town of Prospect a few miles below. I remembered I wasn’t just looking at Montana—I could see into Wyoming, too. According to the brochure, the lodge was perfectly perched so you could actually ski from one state into the other if you wanted.

  The mountain itself was covered with snow-dusted pine trees anywhere there wasn’t a ski slope. I could even see Brady’s drone zipping by overhead. I gave a big grin and waved, wondering whether the camera could see me.

  From way up here, I could tell that the wall of evergreen hedges framing the lodge’s entry gates was actually the edge of a huge, intricate maze made out of trimmed hedges. I’d seen one that looked a lot like it at a mountain resort in The Shining, one of George’s favorite movies. Watching that had been a huge mistake. Give me a real-life bad guy over a scary horror-movie bad guy any day! Anyway, what I learned from The Shining is basically, never go into a maze of hedges unless you want to get lost and possibly chopped up by an ax murderer. So, yeah, I probably wouldn’t be going in there during my stay at the Grand Sky Lodge.

  A crowd of people was gathered when I reached the top of the ski lift. This one ended midway up the mountain on a relatively flat area, where a few of the trails intersected and continued down the mountain. Other lifts brought you higher up to the more advanced slopes.

  I looked around at the dramatic landscape, relieved that I wasn’t part of the inaugural first run. I hadn’t been on a pair of skis for a while and figured it would be good just to watch for a bit to refresh my memory before slowly making my way down one of these easier trails.

  “There she is!” a familiar voice called.

  I turned around to see a middle-aged man with a handsome, boyish face and a slightly goofy grin waving me over to a spot in the center where a large group of skiers had gathered.

  “Hi, Archie!” I called, scooting myself over to him with my ski poles. “Thanks so much for inviting us. This place is fantastic!”

  “It’s my pleasure, Nancy! I really can’t thank you or your dad enough. If it hadn’t been for your detective work and your dad’s legal skills, we might have been trapped in that contract. And then who knows where we’d be? Hey, where is Carson?” he asked, looking around for my dad. “I have some exciting conservation plans for the lodge I’d like to get his legal advice on while he’s here.”