CHAPTER 24
Tale padre tale figlia.
Laughter filled the lodge quicker than the snow was falling outside.
All eyes were on Stephanie as she hunched over, her hands pressed onto her knees, her long, dyed-black hair covering her face so no one could tell if her laughter was genuine or rather a manufactured ploy to give her time to consider how to defend herself.
When she finally stood up, her right hand on her hip, her left brushing her hair and some tears out of her face and eyes, she did not look like someone who had just been accused of killing her boss, but more like someone who was still playing a hilarious, unexpected moment in her head.
“You have really been watching too many American TV shows,” Stephanie said, her Russian accent thick and defiant. “Are you trying to be that old lady mystery writer who solved murders every episode? Or maybe you think you and your family are those angel girls who worked for Mr. Charlie.”
“You can try to deflect and avoid the question, Stephanie or Stefania or whatever your name is,” Alberta said. “But the truth is you killed Pamela.”
“Did anyone see me do it?” Stephanie asked the group. When silence was her answer, she continued. “Is anyone here psychic? Did Pamela reach out from the great beyond and tell you it was me?”
“She didn’t have to,” Alberta said, her voice stronger than it had been in quite a while. “Because we investigated, we put the clues together, and came to one solution, that Max may have killed Dimitri, but Dimitri’s daughter is the one who killed Pamela.”
A flash of panic washed over Stephanie’s face. It didn’t last long, but something about the way Alberta spoke made Stephanie question if she was going to be able to talk her way out of this. So instead of searching for the right words to convince the others that she was innocent, she challenged Alberta to explain how she was guilty.
“Tell me, Alberta,” Stephanie said. “Why are you so certain that I killed Pamela when there are many other possible suspects right here in this room?”
Smiling, Alberta was delighted that Stephanie had tossed her the line so she could explain how she had come to her conclusion. Before she spoke she marveled at how all her life she had never sought the spotlight, and now, in the golden years of her life, she had become comfortable being the center of attention and even, she admitted to herself, enjoyed the glare of the light.
“It’s against Max’s nature to be violent,” Alberta said. “He may have murdered Dimitri, but it was a passive act, an act that he didn’t need to be present for, an act that required no physical contact whatsoever, which is completely the opposite of how Pamela was killed. Her murder was one of aggression, rage, even symbolism, none of that occupies Max’s mind.”
“That’s very insightful, Berta.”
Alberta didn’t turn around to thank Sloan directly, she merely smiled and glanced to the side to look at him. She would thank him for his support later, but she still wasn’t finished speaking to her audience.
“When we spoke with Galina, she spoke about Simi,” Alberta shared. “Jinx, do you remember what she said about him?”
Jinx pondered and tried to recall everything that Galina had said, acknowledging that there were many things she didn’t understand at the time. She replayed the conversation in her mind and stumbled upon the adjectives Galina used to describe Simi that Alberta was referring to.
“She said he was kind and gentle,” Jinx revealed. “And that she felt sorry for him.”
Beaming at her granddaughter, Alberta replied, “Molto bene.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Stephanie said, rolling her eyes in disdain. “People crack, people change, just because my mother, who by the way is an idiot, thinks Max was kind and gentle when he was younger doesn’t mean he stayed that way.”
“I hate to agree with the enemy, but she’s right,” Joyce reluctantly agreed. “We all thought Stephanie was this dowdy, socially awkward personal assistant, and she’s basically a Russian spy.”
“What do you think this is, some James Bond movie?” Stephanie snarked.
“Maybe not, but remember what happens in all those movies, Stephanie,” Sloan said. “The villain always gets caught in the end.”
“And because Max and I are Russian we’re the villains?” Stephanie cried.
“No, you two are the villains because you two are the only murderers in the room!”
Alberta’s uncharacteristic scream shocked everyone into silence. They were all watching her and stayed transfixed when she started walking slowly toward Stephanie. Jinx moved to follow her grandmother, but Freddy grabbed her arm to stop her, and Jinx understood it was time to let her grandmother walk the tightrope on her own. Although Jinx was worried for Alberta’s safety since she was dealing with a loose cannon in the likes of Stephanie, she knew that her grandmother had a bunch of loved ones right behind her as a safety net.
“If Max was going to kill Pamela, he would’ve poisoned her like he was going to poison me,” Alberta said, taking each step slow and deliberate, the soft heels of her shoes making a muffled sound that created an unexpected tension in the room. “He wouldn’t have slit her wrists and left her to die in an ice rink where she had seen her greatest triumph. Only someone much more devious and vindictive and vengeful could have done something like that. Only someone who was filled with so much hate that it flowed out of her skin like the scent of garlic after a good meal could kill Pamela in that way. And there’s only one person here who fits that description.”
Alberta stopped moving and was an inch in front of Stephanie who was equally immobile, her body frozen, her face a mask. Her eyes, however, were struggling to remain focused on Alberta and were darting around, twitching, and altogether betraying the steely, unaffected persona she was so valiantly trying to convey.
“And that one person is you.”
Like a lemming at the edge of a cliff, like a hungry vulture hovering over a gazelle in its final moments before death, Stephanie had no other choice and so she finally told the truth.
“Yes! I killed Pamela and with that one act I proved I’m more of a man than Max will ever be!” Stephanie wailed. “He took the easy way out when he poisoned my father! He killed like the coward he’s always been! You, Max, are nothing but a trus!”
Freddy leaned over to Sloan and whispered, “I’m guessing that means coward in Russian, right?”
Sloan frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “I can barely understand the conversation when it’s in Italian, you think I can translate Russian too?”
“Yes, Max is a coward, always was and always will be,” Stephanie sneered. “He’s nothing more than a scared little boy that all I had to do when he saw me here was threaten him, tell him that I would expose him for the lying murderer he was if he ever told anyone that we had already met on the cruise ship. and instantly he kept quiet, afraid to tell a soul.”
“I can’t believe you went along with her, Max,” Cathy proclaimed. “Letting her fool all of us just to protect yourself.”
Cathy looked at Max, but he could only hold her gaze for a moment before directing his eyes toward the floor.
“What choice did he have,” Stephanie asked. “He knew I was on the cruise, he didn’t know I was Dimitri’s daughter—like I said, my father had enemies so we didn’t advertise to the world that we were family. But Max did know I was the one person who was convinced he poisoned my father. So when we met here, I told him I would keep his secret if he kept mine.”
“So many lies, Max,” Cathy said in shock. “So many unnecessary lies.”
“Necessity is the twisted mother of lying,” Stephanie said. “Without lies we would all have to face the truth, and who here is capable of doing that?”
“You’d be surprised, Stephanie,” Alberta asserted.
“Why don’t you tell us your truth?” Jinx dared. “We know why Max killed Dimitri, but why did you kill Pamela?”
“The oldest reason in the book,” Stephanie replied. “Revenge.”
“That might be an old reason, but in this case it doesn’t make sense,” Alberta said. “Pamela didn’t kill your father, Max did. If you wanted revenge, why didn’t you kill Max instead?”
“You really are so American, so blunt, so obvious, no sense of poetry or karma,” Stephanie ruminated. “You people in this country love to throw that word around, but you have no idea what it means.”
“You’re wrong, Stephanie, I do know what it means,” Alberta admitted. “I just didn’t know karma could be so cruel. You killed Pamela to deny Max the object of his affection, the love of his life. You killed an innocent woman to get revenge for Max taking away the love of your life, your father.”
Eyes widening, Stephanie’s smile grew so she looked like a delighted young woman instead of a coldhearted killer. “And now, Alberta Ferrara Scaglione, I think you’re an honorary Russian.”
“But still a very proud Italian,” Alberta said. “Because as an added bonus you got rid of the boss who you had grown to hate.”
“And once again I’m lost,” Freddy opined.
“This one I know,” Sloan assured. “Alberta told Stephanie that she killed two birds with one stone.”
“You know something, Sloan,” Freddy confided. “The more I see Mrs. Scaglione in action the more I like her.”
Trying to hide his growing grin, Sloan nodded. “So do I.”
“It seems that you embrace your heritage as warmly as I do mine,” Stephanie observed. “Your Italian roots cling to you like a vine.”
“Or in your case a noose,” Jinx added.
“You think I’m going to pay for what I’ve done?” Stephanie questioned.
“With your life!” Jinx shouted.
“Hold on!” Joyce shouted. “We’ve figured out the motive, but before we move on to the prosecution phase, I need to know about the execution of the crime itself. How in the world did you pull this murder off, Stephanie?”
Grinning, Stephanie looked like she was just asked to the prom and not questioned to explain how she committed murder. Still, when she spoke she was beaming with pride.
“With planning, determination, and a little bit of luck,” she said. “I knew all along I was going to use a skate blade to slice Pamela’s wrists. I mean, it was beautifully symbolic. Skating is what linked Pamela to Dimitri and Max, it was her life for better or worse. Originally I was going to sneak in her room and kill her in her sleep, but really, that’s so boring, isn’t it? No sense of danger, no thrill. I mean, if you’re going to take a life you might as well take yourself for a ride. Am I right? It wasn’t until I saw Pamela practicing on the rink in the sunshine and with Lake Ariel and the mountains as the most gorgeous backdrop that I knew Pamela Gregory needed to die on the ice because it was on the ice where she was born.”
Alberta winced, not because Stephanie’s words and tone were so callous and unfeeling, but because Vinny said the same thing. Where the hell was he? Before she could contemplate Vinny’s disappearance further, Stephanie continued.
“But how to kill someone in daylight when they could fight back?” Stephanie posed. “When they’re not capable of fighting back.”
“You drugged her!” Jinx cried.
“Maybe you’re not so stupid after all, Jinxie,” Stephanie admitted. “The night before she was going to skate her routine, I added special ingredients to her protein shake. It was her habit, each night she’d make a shake, put it in the fridge, and drink it in the morning. She didn’t disappoint.”
“That’s when we saw you sneak out of your room,” Joyce said. “We thought it was to go on a rendezvous.”
“It was,” Stephanie said. “With fate. By the time I got on the ice, without my skates of course so I wouldn’t leave a trace that someone else was on the ice with her, she was already groggy and was having trouble standing up.”
“Poor thing must’ve been terrified,” Joyce said.
“Let’s hope so, Joyce!” Stephanie shrieked. “Seriously, that was the whole point. How do you think my father felt in the final moments of his life? When he realized the man he regarded as a son betrayed him?”
“Excuse me, why didn’t Pamela scream?” Jinx asked. “We were all just a few feet away.”
“Oh, Pamela did try to scream, but the poison I used makes it really hard to breathe and does some kind of damage to the vocal cords,” Stephanie explained. “So as she was wobbling on her skates trying to stop the blood from gushing out of her wrists, all she could muster was a tiny, strangled, ‘Help, help me.’ ”
Abruptly Stephanie stopped talking and was overtaken by laughter. “So pathetic. I wish she lasted a little longer before she collapsed, it was really entertaining. I also lucked out that Patrick was working in the shed so he didn’t hear anything. And that Charlie sucks at his job and showed up late.”
“I got a note from Pamela telling me not to arrive until the routine started and not a second before or else she’d—”
“Rip out your heart and take a photograph of it?” Stephanie said, finishing his sentence.
“How’d you know that?” Charlie cried.
“Who do you think wrote the note, you imbecile?” Stephanie replied.
“But Pamela was innocent,” Cathy said.
“Pamela was guilty as hell!” Stephanie screamed. “She is the reason my father is dead.”
“Your father set this in motion all by himself,” Cathy shouted. “I should know better than anyone.”
Once again Stephanie smiled broadly. “I know that you hated my father. I’m so glad it was your skate I used to kill that narcissistic, evil witch. Seriously, other than Max does anyone here really care that Pamela Gregory is dead?”
Alberta couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “To think that I held you in my arms to comfort you after Pamela’s body was found.”
“I’m not a bad actress,” Stephanie quipped. “I might have stumbled upon my true calling after all.”
“Starring in the prison follies maybe,” Jinx said.
Showing no signs of nervousness or anxiety now that she had confessed to premeditated murder, Stephanie surveyed the room and declared, “You underestimated me before, don’t underestimate me now. I promise you I’ll get away with this.”
“Remember, tale padre tale figlia,” Alberta said. “Like father like daughter.”
“What do you mean, Gram?”
“Two things actually,” Alberta stated. “Dimitri destroyed Max’s life by using Pamela as a pawn, and Stephanie did the very same thing.”
“And the other thing?”
“Dimitri paid for his deceitful actions with his life and so will Stephanie.”
Any type of prosecution, retribution, or persecution would have to wait thanks to Helen’s interruption.
“Max did it!” Helen shouted, running into the main room from Patrick’s bedroom. “Patrick is awake and he said Max is the one who knocked him out and put him on the Zamboni all because they’re both in love with dead Pamela!”
When no one reacted in shock, disbelief, or any emotion whatsoever, Helen wasn’t entirely sure if anyone had heard her.
“Are you all stunods?” Helen cried. “I just explained what happened to Patrick, in his own words. Because he’s awake!”
Finally she got a response, but still not the kind she was expecting.
“He’s awake?” Cathy cried, running out of the room and to her brother.
“That’s it?” Helen whined. “Nobody else cares that I solved the mystery?”
“Sorry, Helen, we already figured that out,” Alberta confessed. “But thanks so much for letting us all know that I was right.”
“What else happened while I was sitting vigil?” Helen asked.
“Stephanie confessed to killing Pamela,” Jinx announced.
“That I did not expect,” Helen declared. “Good work, ladies. I guess the only thing left to do is to call the police.”
And yet again Helen said the wrong thing.