The Alpine Menace Read online

  “As far as I know,” I said. “I suppose I should have met this Spencer Fleetwood sooner.”

  Leo shrugged. “Why? You've covered the story. One feature interview's enough for a guy who's trying to steal our customer base.”

  “I don't see how he's going to survive,” I remarked. “Heck, I don't see how we're going to survive. There are seven thousand people in this county, and I'm not sure we can support a newspaper and a radio station. How's he going to pay staff?”

  “He isn't,” Leo replied, lighting another cigarette. “KSKY will be on the air from five until midnight, at least for starters. He'll handle most of the work, maybe use some kids from the community college as interns, and then buy those canned music programs, with a generic host.”

  “The locals won't like it if they find out their favorite announcer is from Philadelphia,” I noted.

  Leo shook his head. “There are shows produced in Seattle and Tacoma. Spence, or whatever he calls himself, can get people who know a mountain from a molehill.”

  I grimaced. “You aren't making me feel better.”

  Leo's green eyes crinkled at the corners. He was from Southern California, in his mid-fifties, divorced with grown kids, had overcome a problem with the bottle, and found a home at The Advocate. In other words, he was a middle-aged cliché, another loser who'd cut his losses.

  “I thought,” Leo said, his expression droll, “being a journalist, you searched for truth. The truth is, Spencer Fleetwood is a pain in the ass as far as we're concerned. Hell, he asked me if we wanted to exchange ads. You know, quid pro quo.”

  “Do we?”

  “Sure, unless you want to start a blood feud.”

  “No. There're enough feuds in Alpine as it is,” I said, watching Leo exhale and wondering how long I could stay off cigarettes this time. “Tuesday, noon, the ski lodge, right?”

  Leo stood up. “Right.”

  So why did I feel it was wrong?

  There were many things wrong with my life, though my car wasn't one of them. But that night, around five-thirty, as I walked out to the two-year-old champagne-colored Lexus parked at the curb, I suffered mixed emotions. The car was a semi-gift from my longtime lover and the father of my only son. Tom Cavanaugh had been in Alpine last December when a crank destroyed my darling Jaguar with a sledgehammer. Since Tom had been staying with me and his middle name is Guilt, he had offered to replace the Jag. I'd resisted. My finely honed independence wouldn't permit such a gift. I'd told Tom it made me feel like a kept woman. Tom had laughed and agreed to a loan arrangement, the terms of which I set down: I'd pay him fifty bucks a month until he married me. Considering how much even a used Lexus costs and Tom's ability to stall, I figured the car would be paid off about the time I was confined to a nursing home.

  Thus I wasn't entirely happy with our little agreement. I resented Tom's easy extravagance and my not-so-easy acquiescence. On the other hand, the Jag had been wrecked just before Christmas, and I was broke. The meager insurance money had made me feel a little better, because I'd turned the check over to Tom. But while he guided his daughter through the first stages of single motherhood in San Francisco, I fumed in Alpine. Tom had been a widower for over a year, and we had no definite plans for the future.

  The immediate future, however, was another matter and even more vexing. I eased the Lexus along the driveway to my little log house at the edge of the forest and just sat there. In the past few months I'd begun to dread going home. As I drummed my fingers on the pearl-gray steering wheel and watched a pair of crows flap their wings in one of the tall firs that stood behind my house, I found it ironic that I couldn't kill time by listening to the radio. Apparently, I was in some sort of dead zone. The signals from Everett and Seattle got through only on an irregular basis. I was as likely to pick up San Mateo or Spokane as to tune into a regional station. Because of the mountains, reception from out of town was unreliable for most Alpine residents. Which, I had to concede, made an ideal situation for Spencer Fleetwood and KSKY.

  Finally, I got out of the car, gritted my teeth, and went into the house. As usual, the living room was strewn with toys, baby clothes, dirty plastic dishes, and tabloid newspapers. Two Siamese cats batted a dirty disposable diaper between them. Amber Ramsey and her baby, Danny, were nowhere to be seen, but I could hear the TV blaring in my son Adam's old room.

  The cats, Rheims and Rouen, abandoned the diaper and rushed to rub up against my ankles. Then they each let out that eerie cry that is the breed's call to dinner, among other things. No doubt they hadn't been fed all day. Grimly, I marched into the kitchen—another mess— and opened a fresh can of Friskies Mariner's Catch.

  “Poor babies,” I murmured, giving each a passing stroke before they got down to business at their dishes by the back door. I'd inherited the cats from a friend, and they were considerably cleaner than my so-called houseguest.

  “Amber!” I shouted, going into the little hall that leads to the two bedrooms and the bath, “can you turn that thing down and come out here?”

  The sound was lowered slightly, then Amber, carrying five-month-old Danny, wandered into the living room. “Hi,” she said without much enthusiasm. “You okay?”

  “No,” I declared, waving a hand at the debris. “Amber, how many times have I asked you to pick up after yourself and the baby?” Nag, nag. “This place is a wreck.” Nagging wasn't my style. “I really don't like coming home to more work after a day at the office.” Double and triple nag. I was turning into a battle-ax.

  “I was just going to do it,” she said, pouting a little. “Danny's been fussy today.”

  I regarded Danny with a skeptical eye. He looked perfectly happy to me, cheeks ruddy and fists waving mightily. He even laughed when I got closer. Danny was definitely a charmer.

  But his mother was not. With no place to stay, Amber and son had landed on my doorstep during a Christmas Eve snowstorm. A runaway at seventeen, Amber had been in search of her father, who had recently moved to Alpine. Dean Ramsey was the new county extension agent and had been in the midst of moving his second family from Oregon. He had promised to take Amber and the grandson in as soon as they were settled.

  Then, after New Year's, Amber's stepmother had decided to stay in Salem until the end of school in June. She and Dean didn't want to uproot their two adolescents until it was absolutely necessary. Consequently, Dean still hadn't bought a house, and I was stuck with Amber and Danny.

  “Here,” Amber said, thrusting Danny at me. “I'll pick up.”

  I took Danny and backed my way to the sofa. There was barely room to sit, but I was damned if I'd volunteer to clean up after Amber one more time. It had become a ritual—I'd come home, the house would be a mess, I'd chastise Amber, she'd repent, I'd feel sorry for her, then I'd do the work for her. Danny had been sleeping through the night since early March, he took at least one long nap a day, and since Amber obviously wasn't looking for a job, the least she could do was shoulder some of the responsibility in exchange for her free lodging. I wanted to be kind, I wanted to be charitable, but Amber Ramsey was driving me nuts.

  “Here's what we'll do,” I said, bouncing Danny on my knee. “You keep the house clean every day. I'll go on providing the food.” My gorge rose as I said the words. Amber qualified for food stamps, but I'd never benefited. I didn't know what she used them for, and I didn't ask. At least she wasn't trading them for drugs. As far as I could tell.

  “Okay,” Amber said, giving in so easily that my heart sank. “Does that include dishes?”

  “I have a dishwasher,” I retorted. “What's so hard?”

  Amber paused in putting the collection of tabloids in the basket on the hearth and pushed the dark blonde hair out of her eyes. “You said once you didn't like the way I loaded it.”

  “You have to have a system,” I said. “Just figure out where the plates go, the bowls, the glassware. It's not that difficult.”

  Amber gave me a truculent look. “You said I did something that mad
e the blades or whatever stop turning.”

  “You put a two-foot vase in the damned thing, Amber. The blades can't turn with anything that high in the way.”

  “Oh.” She returned to her tasks. “Shall I make your bed, too?”

  I looked askance. I didn't know that Amber had ever made the bed that had once belonged to my son. “No. I'll do that. Amber, don't put that dirty diaper in the fireplace.”

  She regarded me with wide blue eyes. “It's disposable.”

  “Not by fire. Where's the diaper pail?”

  “The cats got in it. I took it outside.”

  That didn't make much sense, but I didn't ask for an explanation. Danny went on bouncing.

  “Do cats really suck the breath?” Amber asked, her expression now worried.

  “What?”

  “You know—I heard they smell the milk on a baby's breath and then they try to get at it by sucking the breath out of the baby and killing him.”

  “I don't think that's true,” I replied as Danny seemed to rise on my knee and began emitting unpleasant odors. “I think your son needs changing.”

  “Go ahead,” Amber said blithely. “I trust you.”

  I was saved by the bell, which rang on my phone. Wedging Danny between my hip and the back of the sofa, I turned to grab the receiver.

  “Hi, Emma,” said a vaguely familiar voice. “It's me. Your cousin Ronnie.”

  Great. Why not the Green River Killer, asking me out for drinks?

  “They let me call you, 'cause you're my next of kin.”

  Great. Really, really great. “What's happened?” I felt compelled to ask.

  “I remembered where I was when Carol got killed.”

  Great, great, great. “Good,” I said. “Did you tell your attorney?”

  “Yeah, and he said you should come down as soon as you can to help me out. See, he needs a witness.”

  “A witness to… what?” Danny was trying to escape. Rheims and Rouen had finished dinner and were sitting at my feet. Amber was studying each toy in turn before she put it away in a big plastic basket.

  “To where I was,” Ronnie replied, sounding as if I were the one being unreasonable.

  “You mean… I'm supposed to find this witness?”

  “Right. You got it. When can you get here?”

  Never? “I don't know, Ronnie. Tomorrow is our deadline for the Wednesday edition. This is Holy Week, and I sort of lie low…” I stopped. Ronnie probably didn't know Holy Week from Hell Week. “Really, I've no—”

  Ronnie was laughing. “My dance card's open. How about Friday? Hey, got to go.” His voice suddenly grew strained. “There's a very big, very… nice dude who wants to use the phone. See you soon.”

  I picked up Danny just before he squirmed off the sofa. I held him at arm's length. I wished I could keep my cousin much farther away.

  SHERIFF MILO DODGE was in love, and it galled me. On this mild Tuesday morning in April, his smile was as bright as the daffodils that bloomed in the concrete planters along Front Street. There was spring in the air and spring in his step. I wanted to avoid him, but I couldn't.

  “Emma!” he called, arms outstretched even though he knew damned well I wouldn't hug him. “What's new?”

  “Whatever it is, you'll read all about it in tomorrow's Advocate,” I responded, hoping I didn't sound as sour as I felt.

  “I hear Dean Ramsey's finally found a house,” the sheriff said, hands now stuffed in the pockets of his regulation jacket. “He made an offer on the McNamara place across the street from me. The McNamaras are moving to Tacoma.”

  I barely knew the McNamaras, who hadn't stayed long in Alpine, but the news was too good to be true. “Are you sure? Amber hasn't said anything about it.”

  “I just heard it this morning, before I went to work.” Milo was looking over my head, apparently drinking in the soft April air and loving life. “Man, it feels like spring, doesn't it?” He actually sniffed.

  “It feels like rain,” I said, resorting to my usual perverse-ness. It's the seventh of April. Unpredictable weather. Thunder-and-lightning weather. Earthquake weather.”

  Milo chuckled and regarded me with his hazel eyes. “You don't seem very cheerful this morning. How come?”

  Dense. The man wasn't stupid, but he sure was dense. Had it occurred to him that since he'd found a new love, I might feel at least a little irked by his uncharacteristically buoyant mood? I had been the one to call a halt to our relationship, hoping we could still be friends. It hadn't worked, not until Milo fell head over heels for Jeannie Clay, Dr. Starr's dental assistant. Maybe I would've been happier for him if Jeannie hadn't been young enough to be his daughter.

  “I'm not very cheerful,” I admitted, waving at a couple of fellow parishioners from St. Mildred's as they honked and passed on by. I glanced at the courthouse clock down the street. It was almost noon. “You want to eat?”

  Milo shook his head. “I can't.” Something close to regret passed across his long, homely face. “I've got to meet Jeannie at Harvey's Hardware. She wants to show me the new ten-speed she's looking at.”

  And a Barbie doll and a Muffy VanderBear, I thought nastily. My reaction was not only mean, but unfair. Jeannie Clay was a very nice young woman, probably not that far from thirty. The trouble was, I wasn't that far from fifty.

  “Then I'll catch you later,” I said, starting to turn away.

  Milo put out a big hand. “Emma—are you pissed?”

  “No,” I lied. “Why should I be? After we broke up, I always hoped you'd find somebody else.” But not a bouncy blond with a twenty-four-inch waist who could be my daughter.

  “Good,” Milo said, taking the easy, masculine way out. “One of these days, we'll have lunch or drinks, okay?”

  “Sure.” I forced a smile. “Next week, maybe. After Easter.”

  The sheriff's lighthearted mood was restored. I crossed the street, headed for the Burger Barn. Carla Steinmetz Talliaferro was coming from the opposite direction, wheeling her four-month-old son, Omar, in a dark blue pram that looked as if it should have had an English nanny at the helm.

  I greeted my ex-reporter with a warmth I hadn't always felt when she was working for me. Carla had been diligent, but disorganized and not always accurate. In fact, she had been a bit of a ditz. Now, as a wife and mother as well as the adviser to the student newspaper at the community college, she seemed to have acquired some sense of maturity. Or at least some sense, as Vida would say.

  “Omar's crabby today,” she announced, the April breeze blowing her long black hair around her shoulders. “I think he's getting his first tooth.”

  I looked down at Omar Talliaferro, who was as dark as Danny Ramsey was fair. “He seems happy now,” I noted.

  “That's because I'm wheeling him all over town,” Carla said with a martyred air. “He likes to be driven in the car, too. Ryan and I are afraid he's getting spoiled.”

  “That happens,” I said, recalling how I'd doted on Adam, some twenty-six years earlier. Unlike Omar, Adam hadn't had a father in the vicinity. I felt I had to make it up to him because Tom Cavanaugh was still married to his neurotic wife, Sandra. “Are you and Ryan and the baby still coming for Easter dinner at my house?”

  Carla's hand flew to her cheek. “Gosh! I forgot to tell you, Emma. We can't. Ryan's folks are driving over from Spokane. They can't get enough of Omar.”

  “That's okay, Carla. Leo and Vida will be there. Scott's having dinner with Kip,” I said, referring to Kip Mac-Duff, who kept our plant operations running smoothly.

  “I think Kip has a young lady he wants to introduce to Scott.”

  “One of Kip's castoffs?” Carla said skeptically. “Scott's an incredible hunk. He can do better than that.”

  I agreed. Scott might not be able to tell time, but his good looks and writing ability were a welcome addition to the newsroom. I parted with Carla and little Omar, heading for the Burger Barn. In recent months, babies seemed to be a new part of my life. It was a b
ittersweet thought. Adam was in St. Paul, studying to be a priest. My dreams of becoming a grandmother were dead. Maybe that was just as well. Having Danny Ramsey around the house had undermined my maternal longings.

  The rest of the day was hectic, as Tuesdays always were. We sent the paper to Kip in the back shop at five-ten. As usual, Scott was late with his front-page story, which called for a special election in June on the location of the new bridge over the Skykomish River. The original choice had been at the east end of town, near Icicle Creek, but after the college was built, there'd been a push to move the site to the west end, by Burl Creek and the campus. The county commissioners had dithered so long that unless the citizenry acted, the bridge wouldn't be needed because we'd all be whizzing around in space capsules.

  That night, I asked Amber—who had exerted some effort at housework—if she knew that her father had made an offer on the McNamara house. She was vague about it, adding that she'd probably hear more when she accompanied Dean to Salem for the Easter weekend.

  Wednesday was always our brief lull, which was broken after The Advocate hit the streets and the mailboxes. The phone calls would start after three-thirty, when our readership had had time to digest my editorials and call in to tell me that I was a two-headed Nazi/Communist/atheist/ pope-kissing moron.

  Around nine-thirty that evening, after returning from Holy Thursday liturgy at St. Mildred's, I was planning my Easter menu when the phone rang. I froze, wondering if Ronnie Mallett was on my trail again. Then, with a sigh of resignation, I picked up the receiver.

  It was Leo Walsh, sending his regrets for Sunday. “I'm leaving for Seattle in just a few minutes,” he explained. “My son Brian and his wife are in town for the weekend. Instead of Monday, I'll take tomorrow off for my Easter break, okay?”

  Unlike Scott, Leo never missed a deadline. Besides, I was happy for him that he and his three grown children had finally reconciled after his divorce.