The Alpine Betrayal Page 16

“All that stuff on Loggerama was okay,” she announced, hopping around my office, “but I’ll bet anything that what readers remember most about that issue was Cody Graff dying. Downer. I’ve got this terrific idea to get a really romantic piece about Dani Marsh and Matt Tabor. Pictures, quotes, the whole nine yards. It’ll be like an antidote to death.” She looked suddenly wistful. “Gee, I wish I could call it that.”

  “Gee, I’m glad you can’t.” I gave her a baleful look. “But go ahead, see if you can get Dani and Matt to talk about their love life. They probably wouldn’t mind some positive publicity.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Hampton would like it,” said Carla, hopping around some more. “I just read in Premiere magazine that he’s financially troubled.” She stopped long enough to arch her thick black eyebrows at me.

  “Who isn’t?” I responded as the phone rang. Carla danced away, presumably to line up Dani and Matt with a cutout of Cupid. Putting the receiver to my ear, I was half-relieved, half-annoyed to hear Patti Marsh yelling at me.

  “Can’t you keep your mouth shut? Why don’t you just run my frigging bankbook in the paper? Everybody in town knows how much I put in my account yesterday! It’s nobody’s goddamned business, and I can’t even walk into the 7-Eleven without four people asking me how I struck it rich!”

  I waited for her to run down. “It wasn’t me, Patti. Hey, you’ve lived here all your life—you know how gossip travels around this town. Start with the teller, the bank manager, the rest of the customers who were there. And don’t forget Jack Blackwell. How do you feel today?”

  “Fine. And leave Jack out of this.” She had stopped shouting, but still sounded angry. “If I had any sense, I’d take that money and blow this town. Seattle, maybe, or some place on the Oregon Coast. I went there once with Ray. He liked the ocean.”

  It took me a minute to recall Ray Marsh, Patti’s ex-husband. “Is that where he ended up?”

  “Huh?” She sounded surprised at the question. “No.” Patti laughed, a harsh sound that jangled in my ear. “Ray. That’s funny.” She hung up.

  In the outer office, Ed Bronsky was trying to find a picture of a chicken in his clip art. “Whole-bodied fryers, eighty-nine cents a pound,” he said into the phone. “What about lettuce? I got a picture of lettuce.”

  Vida was late, and when she came in the door five minutes later I realized why: she had her grandson Roger in tow. I shuddered. The last time she had allowed Roger to spend the day with her at work he had sat on Ginny’s copy machine and made a Xerox of his rear end. It was a wonder Ed hadn’t tried to include it in his clip art.

  “Roger’s going to help me today,” Vida said with a big smile for her grandson, who was eyeing me as if I ought to be wearing a tall pointy hat and straddling a broom. “He’s going to organize my files.”

  I was speechless. Vida’s files consisted of five drawers stuffed with wedding invitations, birth and graduation announcements, death notices, recipes, gardening tips, household hints, and all manner of articles culled from other publications. She almost never referred to these wrinkled bits and pieces, but carried everything she—and her readers—needed to know inside her head.

  “Amy and Ted had to go to Vancouver for the weekend,” Vida explained, yanking out a drawer bulging with paper. “They left Roger with me. He has an eleven o’clock appointment with Doc Dewey, so we’ll be gone for about an hour. In fact,” she beamed at Roger, who had discovered my new cordless screwdriver and was trying to take Carla’s desk apart, “I’m treating him to lunch so we won’t be back until after one.”

  Two hours of peace, I reflected, then asked Roger to give me the screwdriver. To my amazement, he did. He even smiled. “Young Doc Dewey?” I asked as an afterthought.

  “No,” replied Vida, putting the drawer on the floor. “Doc Dewey Senior. He got back from Seattle late last night.” She gave me a meaningful glance. Obviously, Vida had some questions for Doc.

  Roger was ignoring Vida’s so-called file drawer. Instead, he had crawled under Ed’s desk. Ed was still on the phone, now trying to talk the Grocery Basket out of a double-truck ad. “Why go two pages when you’ve always done just one? People around here aren’t going to change to Safeway overnight. Alpiners are loyal. Hey!” Ed jumped, almost dropping the phone. He ducked under the desk. “Knock it off, Roger! I don’t want paste all over the floor. I’ll get stuck.”

  “Right,” said Roger, emerging on all fours. “Hey, Grams, can I go down to the 7-Eleven and get a Slurpee? I’m bored.”

  Roger, with money in hand, went out the door just as Carla came in. There was a blight on her bounce. “They won’t do it,” she pouted. “They’re too busy filming.” She made it sound illegal.

  “Maybe later,” I soothed. “They’re supposed to wind up shooting in a few days. What about tonight?”

  Carla collapsed into her chair, sinking her elbows onto the desk. Something clattered to the floor. “Hey—the knob fell off my drawer! How’d that happen?”

  Vida didn’t look up from her typewriter, where she was now ripping away at a story. I took the cordless screwdriver over to Carla’s desk, searched for the screw, and put it back in. “Never mind,” I sighed, keeping one eye on Ed who, judging from the puce color of his face, was giving in to the Grocery Basket’s wild whim to go to two pages. “Carla, talk to Reid Hampton. If he needs publicity for this picture, he may be able to get Dani and Matt’s cooperation. You could get a wire story out of it. Hampton would have to like that.”

  Carla, however, was still pouting. “No. Dani was very obstinate. In fact, she was almost rude. Matt Tabor sneered. I think they’re both stuck up. And Dani seemed so nice! She’s a two-faced Hollywood snot!”

  Carla’s original idea had struck me as good copy, though I hadn’t been foaming at the mouth over it. Now, in the face of adversity, and with a building painted the color of egg yolk, I felt The Advocate should be treated with more respect.

  “I’ll see Reid Hampton,” I said. “They’re right down the street.” Putting on my publisher’s face, I headed out into the bright overbearing morning sun. The camera crew had advanced up Front Street to the Venison Inn, where the sidewalk was covered with fake snow. I had a frantic desire to cross the barricade and wallow in it. Instead I paused, watching Matt Tabor, in parka and ski goggles, approach the restaurant’s entrance.

  “Cut!” yelled Reid Hampton, who was aloft on a crane. “Matt, you’re not out for a morning stroll! The woman you love is inside with another man! Purpose, purpose, purpose! She’s yours! Claim her!”

  It took six more takes before Matt appeared to be full of purpose and ready to claim his ladylove. The shot, which couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds, was pronounced ready to go into the can. Several onlookers applauded. Feeling hot and sweaty, I waited for Reid Hampton to come down off his perch.

  “Emma! I was going to call you,” he said, ventilating his wide-open denim shirt with tugs of his hands. “How about dinner before we leave town?”

  I hesitated. “Saturday?” I suggested.

  “Damn!” He smacked a fist into his palm. “I can’t. I’m going into Seattle tomorrow to meet with some film lab people. I was thinking maybe Monday, if everything goes along on schedule.”

  I was about as anxious for a rematch with Reid Hampton as I was to get a tetanus shot, but I realized he might have some pieces of the murder puzzle tucked away inside his tawny mane. At the very least, there was probably a story in it. I should have taken notes the night we ate at the Café de Flore.

  Agreeing to the possibility of Monday, I tried to exhibit enthusiasm. I also tried to put the arm on him for Carla’s sake. “She’s been very much entranced by Dani and Matt,” I gushed. “I’m sure she’d do a wonderful article on them. She takes pretty good pictures, too.” That much was true, as long as she remembered to put film in the camera. And remove the lens cap.

  Hampton, momentarily distracted by a query from his assistant director, ran a hand through his thick tawny hair. “It
sounds good,” he said in his deep voice which was tinged with regret, “but Dani and Matt are very private people. This business with Dani’s ex, Dody? Tody? Cody, right?” He gave me a quick, brilliant smile. “It’s made her skittish. Understandably. Besides, I think she’s committed to People or Good Housekeeping or Esquire. Tell your little reporter we’ll send her some stills from this picture. Steamy clinches. Then she can do a memory piece, you know, ‘I Watched Dani and Matt Make Love in Alpine.’ That approach. Your readers will go nuts.”

  I had the impression that he thought they already were. Frustrated, I tried to think of an argument that would sway Reid Hampton. Glancing around the street, I realized that Dani wasn’t present. “Where’s your star?” I asked.

  Hampton looked puzzled, then nodded at Matt Tabor, who was complaining volubly to the assistant director about his ski boots. I gathered they hurt. “Matt’s right there. Isn’t he something? If only he could act!” Hampton caught himself. “I mean, if he’d only had formal training. He could be an American Olivier. You wait; he’ll be bigger than Gibson, Costner, Schwarzenegger.”

  “And Dani?” I spoke quietly, not quite sure what motivated me to ask.

  Reid Hampton stared, then broke into a huge smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Oh, Dani! She’s luminous! I’ve been in her corner all along. Major talent, major star. This is a breakthrough picture for both of them. If Blood doesn’t encourage Dani to go on, nothing ever will.”

  He turned away abruptly, his attention drawn by his cinematographer, who appeared to be verging on an aneurism. I waited for at least two minutes; then, as Matt Tabor started shouting about the inadequacies of wardrobe and the assistant director announced that the stunt man was missing, I gave up and headed back to The Advocate.

  I was startled to find Dani Marsh waiting for me, her cheeks stained with tears. Closing the door to my office, I sat down and offered Dani coffee. She declined.

  “I’m being persecuted,” she sniffed, using a Kleenex to wipe her eyes. “My mother warned me not to come back to Alpine. I should have listened.”

  “Who’s doing the persecuting?” I asked, noting that even with smeared makeup and reddened eyes, Dani still looked beautiful.

  “The sheriff. He came to see me this morning at the ski lodge, but I’d already gone down to Front Street to start shooting. Reid didn’t need me for a while, so I went over to Dodge’s office.” She gestured in the direction of Milo’s headquarters, two blocks away from The Advocate. “Why is he raking up the past? What has that got to do with Cody overdosing?” She was perilously close to shedding more tears.

  My initial reaction was to utter a disclaimer on her theory about Cody’s manner of death, but I didn’t see any point in arguing. Yet. “Did Sheriff Dodge ask you about Art Fremstad?”

  Dani shifted in the chair, obviously trying to compose herself. “Yes. I don’t know anything about Art. I mean, I knew him, I’d seen him around town, but he graduated from high school before I got there. The first time I really talked to him was … when … when he came to our place after I called for help.” The thick lashes dipped over the big brown eyes. Dani didn’t seem to be able to say the words out loud: when my baby died. I didn’t blame her.

  “Did the sheriff ask what Art did or said while he was at your house?”

  “It was a trailer, out where those new town houses are now. I don’t remember a thing,” Dani asserted, her voice cracking. “How could I? It was all so horrible!”

  Posing tough questions is part of my job. But I either lack the nerve or am too softhearted to always go for the jugular. My editor on The Oregonian used to tell me I was gutless. I preferred to think of myself as kind. But this was one of those nasty situations where I knew I had to seize the moment or very likely never know the truth.

  “Dani,” I began, keeping my voice firm and determined, “are you absolutely certain your baby died from SIDS?”

  Her head jerked up, the honey blond hair floating like a soft cloud around her shoulders. “Of course! What are you saying?” The agony was back in her eyes, her voice, every fiber of her body. “Why? Why? You, the sheriff, everybody … I can’t take this!” To prove her point, she flew out of the chair and ran from my office.

  Vida gaped from behind her desk, Ed stumbled on his way back from the coffeemaker, and Roger put the straw from his Slurpee up his nose.

  “What was that all about?” demanded Vida.

  I started to explain, but Vida suddenly noted the time. “Oh! It’s five to! We’re going to be late. Come along, Roger.”

  Roger expelled the straw into the coffee mug Carla had left on her desk. After grandmother and grandson left, I took the mug out to Ginny Burmeister who was in charge of coffee.

  “Roger’s a caution,” she remarked, finishing up the particulars for a new classified ad.

  “Actually, he seemed a little subdued today,” I said. “He hasn’t tried to set any fires or blow anybody up. For Roger, that’s good.” I paused, glancing at the list of classifieds Ginny had taken for the next issue. It wasn’t impressive, but that was typical for early August. Many people were on vacation, it was too soon for end-of-summer garage sales, and the housing market wouldn’t move for at least another week. “Say, Ginny, you don’t recall talking to Curtis Graff before he left Alpine five years ago, do you?”

  Ginny, in her conscientious manner, frowned in recollection. “I did, as a matter of fact. I ran into him one morning on my way to the Burger Barn. I bused tables there that summer. He said he was going to Ketchikan and get rich fishing.”

  “That’s it?”

  Ginny was still frowning. “I think so. He seemed kind of nervous. No, not nervous, just ill at ease. I remember, because I’d had that crush on him and he’d been broken up with Laurie Vickers for a while. So I suddenly thought, hey, what if after all this time Curtis has a crush on me? But he didn’t. I suppose he was just in a hurry, getting everything ready to leave for Alaska. He took off kind of quick. I mean, one day he was here, and the next day, he was gone. Almost.”

  “He didn’t mention anything about Cody and Dani Graff’s baby?”

  “No.” Ginny slowly shook her head. “No, though it had to be on his mind. It was certainly on everybody else’s since it had just happened.”

  “Did he bring up his brother?” I marveled at the lack of curiosity Ginny displayed at my questioning. But Ginny has absolutely no imagination.

  “No. All he said was what I told you. At least that’s all I remember.” She looked faintly apologetic.

  I was considering a tactful explanation for my inquisitiveness when Vida stormed into the front office. Her car wouldn’t start; could I drive them up to the clinic?

  Doc Dewey’s office was only four blocks away. Vida was a notorious walker. She saw the puzzlement on my face and made an exasperated gesture. “Roger doesn’t feel like hoofing it. Please, Emma, we’re going to be late.”

  I didn’t argue, though I knew that Roger had already hiked twice the distance and back to the 7-Eleven to get his Slurpee. But Roger was looking mulish and Vida was growing frantic. We hurried to the Jaguar, which Roger appraised with an expert eye.

  “Buff,” he said, presumably in approval, and scrambled into the backseat.

  Ten minutes later I returned to the office, having agreed to collect Vida and Roger at eleven-thirty. I called Milo to ask about his interview with Dani Marsh, but he was out. For a long time, I sat with my arms folded on my desk, trying to figure out why so many people were still denying that Cody Graff had been murdered. And why Dani Marsh had become so distraught over my suggestion that her baby hadn’t died of SIDS.

  My reverie was broken by the telephone. It was Milo. Curtis Graff had returned to Alpine. He was staying with Patti Marsh.

  “I think he stayed with her before,” said Milo. “Hey, Emma, why do I feel as if I’m running around like a hamster in a big maze?”

  “Swell,” I responded. “You’re supposed to know all the tricks of the h
omicide trade. I already feel as if I’ve got the second female lead in a B movie. Milo, do you or do you not think Cody Graff may have killed little Scarlett?”

  I heard Milo suck in his breath before he answered. “Why don’t you ask his brother? Curtis is just pulling up in front of your cute yellow building. I saw him drive by in Patti’s car.”

  But Curtis wasn’t calling on me. When I got outside, he was at the barricade, talking to Matt Tabor. Neither man looked very happy, and before I could make up my mind about approaching them, they disappeared inside the Venison Inn.

  Just as well, I thought: it was smack on eleven-thirty. I drove up to the clinic and parked across the street by the gift shop. Marje Blatt was behind the desk, her face thinner and her uniform less crisp.

  “Doc’s running late,” she said without preamble. “Aunt Vida and Roger will be out in a few minutes.”

  I sat down in one of the venerable chairs that had served two generations of Dewey patients. The only other person in the waiting room was an elderly man with a cane who was reading a well-thumbed copy of Business Week.

  “How are you doing, Marje?” I asked infusing my voice with sympathy.

  Marje looked up from her appointment book. “Okay. How are you?”

  Somehow, it didn’t seem an appropriate rejoinder. “Have you talked to Cody’s parents?” I wasn’t letting Marje off the hook, though I knew she must have already been thoroughly grilled by Vida.

  “Only on Sunday.” She set the appointment book aside and scooted her chair over to a tall metal filing cabinet. “Curtis says they’re doing okay. Considering.”

  The elderly man wore a hearing aid. I wondered if it was turned off; he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us. I got up and walked over to the reception desk, lowering my voice.

  “Marje, did you have any premonition about Cody?”

  She glanced up from the open file drawer. It was as neat as her aunt’s was untidy. “No. Why should I?” Marje flipped through the folders, pulling a chart. “Look,” she said, meeting my gaze head-on, “you and Aunt Vida get a kick out of playing detective. Cody had his faults, like everybody else. Maybe he had more than I knew about—we never lived together. He was moody, he could fly off the handle. I don’t like ups and downs. So I thought some medication might make him more steady. That’s what you really want in a husband, isn’t it?”