Retreat At Camel Lodge Part 9

This is the ninth part of a collaborative mystery tale, you can catch up on the previous parts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, & here.

Martin, Rosaria, and Denise began to head in the direction of the gunshot, skidding on the snow in their haste as they saw streaks of bright red contrasted starkly against the clean white snow. As they came across Leland's body, Martin threw his hand across Rosaria's eyes to shield her from the gore. As he turned them around, the fastest from the group at the lodge were reaching them. Martin attempted to block their view while he caught his breath.

"It's an awful nice scene folks, looks like someone was trampled by bison, you can see they've carried the blood up ahead on their hooves. Judging by the gun and thermos next to the body I guess it was Leland."

Armand narrowed his eyes at the others in suspicion.

"Who's to say he wasn't dead before the bisons and someone's covering their tracks? Why were you three out here anyway? When the gunshot woke us up you were already gone."

Rosaria's cheeks flushed with anger and she opened her mouth to respond but Denise cut in.

"Martin was feeling awful, look he's as pale as the snow, so we were trying to get to the road to get him to the hospital but given what's happened to poor Leland I think we should all go back and figure out our next steps together."

The group gave up what items of clothing they reasonably could to give Leland some dignity and then trudged reluctantly back to the lodge. Denise trailed at the back of the group and noticed Armand and Sondra exchanging panicked glances. Once they were back in the relative safety of the lodge, Guy went to the kitchen to see what he could find to warm everyone up. He managed to locate half a tin of questionable cocoa quite quickly but he dragged out the process when he heard frantic whispering through the vent. He was quite confident the female voice was Sondra but couldn't identify the male. He only caught a few words due to the low tone, 'agreement... if your father found out... ruined... a lot to lose.'

Once he'd stretched out the cocoa between the group, he brought them in with a flourish, "Et voil-". He was cut off by shock. Armand and Denise were in a heated argument next to the fire as Rosaria was pushing them apart. Considering they seemed to be two of the calmest of the group Guy was floored. He dropped the tray on a table, cocoa sloshing over the side and dripping gently onto the carpet. He rushed to help Rosaria keep the two apart.

"Mon dieu! What is the calamity?"

Armand began to poke his finger towards Denise, his voice raised and stuttering as though rejecting his swearing which was out of character. "This, this b-bitch was throwing something into the fire, and I saw my name on it! We know we're in here with a killer and she's trying to get rid of paperwork. It makes her look very suspicious!"

Denise's voice was also raised, "I've been trying to say, I printed off some emails before we came as I didn't know what the internet would be like and we don't need a few of these and as the fire was dying down I just threw them in."

Armand scoffed obnoxiously, "That's something a guilty person would say." This led to more commotion and screaming between the two. Sondra, still bitter over Denise's comment about her blouse, took the opportunity to grab at Denise's large paperwork file. She only managed to grab a couple of sheets before Denise roughly snatched it away.

"If they were just emails you weren't sure you needed why do you have financial details for Rosaria? She doesn't even work for KA!"

This time, Guy had to step in between Rosaria and Denise as Rosaria launched herself at Denise demanding answers. Before she could get them, the group was shocked into silence by a loud clatter. Mr. Lloyd had thrown the tray of cocoa onto the floor.

"You can solve these trivial arguments later. I need everyone's attention. I know who the killer is among you."

Stay tuned for the final installment.