“Mike, there aren’t that many travelers out here—a family of cannibals would starve pretty quickly,” Thor told him.
“They’re still weird!” Mike said.
He’d been to the toolshed and around the Alaska Hut with the couple while Thor had interviewed the others.
Although the police and forensic crews had been scouring the island, the how of the crime here remained a mystery. No weapon could be found; no hiding place. Of course, with not much blood at the site of the body, Thor hadn’t needed the medical examiner to tell him that Amelia Carson had been killed elsewhere, and brought to be left in the snow for discovery. But how had the killer gotten her there—and gotten away—without being seen?
Unless he was among those in the house.
Ralph Martini, Larry Hepburn and Simon Green vouched for one another; they had come to the island together.
Thor had found Clara Avery running through the snow himself.
That left the film crew—unless the three actors had gone crazy and started chopping people up together, a scenario that seemed unlikely.
And then there were... Mr. and Mrs. Crowley.
According to Ralph, Larry and Simon, the first people they had seen were the film crew, when they had—screaming bloody murder over what they had discovered at the Mansion—run into the Alaska Hut. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Crowley had been in on what was going on.
Of course. The film crew had signed saying that they would make sure every last piece of fake blood was cleaned up, every bit of fabrication was taken away and the Mansion was left as it had been.
But the members of the film crew had arrived at the Alaska Hut at different times. And no one had seen Mr. or Mrs. Crowley until they’d been there at least twenty minutes or so.
Now Mrs. Magda Crowley sat across from him. She looked stiff and dignified, wiry and fit in jeans and a turtleneck sweater, and still—as Mike had commented—somewhat reminiscent of American Gothic.
“Mrs. Crowley, you’re aware of the dead woman found in the snow, of course.”
“Of course,” she said humorlessly. “My husband and I are older—we’re not deaf or stupid.”
Touché.
“Where have you been all morning? You’re not deaf or stupid so you must know that since you live here, you definitely fall into the suspect range,” Thor said flatly.
Jackson cleared his throat.
But Magda Crowley seemed to like his tone.
“Working, Agent Erikson. Preparing meals. Justin and I live up at the main house, but we came out here early—about five forty-five this morning. We were to leave the house—my pleasure, with the way those film people rigged it up yesterday!—so that it was prepared for the people to come in and see all that fake blood and gory stuff. Justin and I have been in this house since that early hour. We made sure this place was fitting for more filming, for meals. We freshened the bedrooms, we cleaned and prepared. Period. That’s it. Those film people showed up one by one, and then they laughed their asses off waiting for those actor boys to come screaming through the snow. Got to admit, they were kind of anxious when Miss Fontaine and the hostess didn’t come over with the boys. After they all laughed at scaring the actors so badly, they started to argue about whether or not to head over to the Mansion, but someone said something about waiting for Clara to show up and that’s where everything was when I started to hear the commotion going on. You’d showed up with that Clara girl and that was the first I knew that anything whatsoever had gone wrong.”
“You and Mr. Crowley were together all the time?” Jackson asked.
“What? Joined at the hip? No. I was making biscuits. He was making beds,” Magda Crowley said, looking from Jackson to Thor. “Good cop, bad cop?” she asked.
“We’re not cops,” Jackson said.
“That’s right...you’re federal men. Well, you know, this is Alaska,” she said.
“I do. I’m from Alaska, Mrs. Crowley,” Thor told her.
“You ought to be out there finding out what happened to that poor woman, not in here, hammering at hardworking folks!” Magda told him. She wagged a finger at Thor. “I could see something like this coming. I could. All this reality! People sitting in front of the boob tube watching other people behave badly. It’s horrible—just horrible. I’m darned sorry that people were killed, but am I surprised? Hell, no! It was a matter of time.”
“You didn’t see or hear anything unusual?” Thor asked.
“What the hell would you call unusual? If I’d walked by that poor girl I’d have just kept on going—you saw what they did to the Mansion, right?”
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Crowley. If you think of anything...if you see anything suspicious or can help us in any way—”
“It will help a hell of a lot if everyone just gets off the island!” she said. She stood up and started out. “I guess you want my husband now?”