Requiem at Christmas — Melanie Jackson

Juliet Henry loved snow. Without snow there was no cross-country skiing. No skiing and there was no Christmas spirit, however feeble, to shine on the bleak winter. While others might scan the December skyline looking for the first Christmas lights in their neighborhood, or search the stores the principal Christmas tree to go up at the mall, or even to hear the first Christmas carol to grace the airwaves, each winter she waited for the weather reports and news of the first fat flakes falling in the mountains. This year the snow and two other events combined to make an alluring vacation and she looked forward both to skiing and attending the Requiem Mass written by her neighbor which was being performed at the Lake Tahoe Celtic Festival. But her plans go awry when she is stranded by a blizzard on a back road and finds herself the only the witness to a murder. Her woes are further compounded when the corpse disappears.