The Alpine Fury Read online

  “Lasagna special’s damned good,” said Sheriff Milo Dodge. He spun a toothpick out of the corner of his wide mouth.

  “It’s left over from yesterday’s Sunday dinner special,” I retorted. “I saw it on the sign outside.”

  “I know,” Milo said. “I had it last night, too. Bob Lambrecht and I ate here after we got back from fishing.”

  Carla and Ginny were again absorbed in their misery. Casually I stepped across the aisle to a booth that had just been vacated. I asked Milo if he’d finished his lunch. He had, but was waiting for Honoria Whitman, his ladylove from Startup, a few miles west on Highway 2.

  “I took the day off,” Milo said, arranging his lanky frame across from me in the booth. “I’ve still got vacation time coming. If I don’t use it, I lose it. Honoria and I are going to Lake Wenatchee to have dinner at the Cougar Inn.”

  I nodded, approving both the choice of restaurant and Honoria. She and Milo had been seeing each other for over a year. I, however, hadn’t seen Honoria for several months.

  “How’s she doing?” I inquired, glancing at the menu I knew by heart.

  “Great.” Milo’s face didn’t match his words. His hazel eyes were fixed somewhere to the right of my shoulder as he ground away at the toothpick. “She got her wheelchair fixed.”

  I hadn’t known it was broken. The wheelchair was necessitated by Honoria’s late husband, who had pushed her down a flight of stairs in one of his more macho moods. Honoria’s brother had moods of his own, and in the course of one, had fatally shot his sister’s husband. The Whitman family saga wasn’t pretty, but somehow Honoria had emerged with soul, if not body, intact.

  “Anything new with Honoria’s pottery?” I asked, wishing Milo would stop twirling his toothpick. It was a new habit, and not very edifying. “Didn’t she have a big show in Everett last month?”

  “Huh?” He ran a hand through his graying sandy hair. “Oh, right. Good deal for her. She sold a bunch of brown stuff.”

  Milo’s interest in Honoria’s pottery was limited. I often wondered what they talked about. Fishing, maybe. It was always a safe topic with the sheriff. I returned to it, for reasons of my own.

  “You and Bob Lambrecht have any luck?” I posed the question after my waitress had poured coffee for both of us and allowed me to order a crab omelette.

  Milo’s long face grew longer. He’d finally dumped the toothpick and was fidgeting with the salt and pepper shakers. “No, just a couple of bumps. I felt sorry for Bob. He doesn’t get a chance to go fishing much. Price of success, I guess. And city living.” Milo shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe anyone would choose to live anywhere other than Alpine.

  “Bob’s still in town,” I remarked. “Are you going to hit the river again tomorrow?”

  Milo sipped his coffee. He had put the salt and pepper shakers aside, and now that we weren’t talking about Honoria, he seemed more relaxed. “No, Bob’s due back at work. He’ll drive home this afternoon, I guess.”

  “Really?” I widened my brown eyes, hoping to look guileless. “I would have thought he’d have gone home yesterday. Did he stay over on business?”

  The sheriff and I have no history of intimacy, yet we know each other well. Next to Vida, Milo is my best friend in Alpine. Thus, my efforts at subtlety are not always successful. Milo may seem obtuse—sometimes he is—but under that laconic exterior lurks the lawman’s keen perception of the human race. At least when he is on the job. Occasionally I get the impression that he removes his insight along with his uniform.

  Milo was in civvies, but my subterfuge failed anyway. “Jeez, Emma, why don’t you flat out ask me about Bob? He went to see Marv Petersen this morning. You’ve heard rumors about a Seattle bank coming in here.”

  “I have,” I admitted. “But they don’t make sense. Alpine isn’t that big, the economy’s down, and if the locals want to take their money elsewhere, they can go to four different banks between Sultan and Snohomish. I smell buyout, Milo. Am I right?”

  But Milo merely shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Bob and I didn’t talk business. He came up here to get away from all that corporate bullshit.”

  I tried to believe Milo. He seemed to have convinced himself. But Bob Lambrecht’s financial worries would intrigue Milo about as much as Honoria Whitman’s brown stuff. Both topics were beyond Milo’s usual range.

  Yet his square jaw had dropped a trifle. “A buyout? Hell, that would turn this town upside down!” Obviously the enormity of my suggestion was a little late sinking in.

  I hadn’t noticed Carla and Ginny leave. Their table was now occupied by Scooter Hutchins of Hutchins Interiors and Decor. The overeager young man who joined Scooter was fondling a smart attaché case. A salesman, I figured, as Milo and I nodded at Scooter.

  “Hey! It’s after twelve-thirty!” Milo put a big hand over his watch as if hiding the time could change it. “Honoria should be out front. See you, Emma.” Clumsily he unfolded himself from the booth and loped away.

  I leaned to one side, trying to glimpse Honoria in her specially rigged car. But a pair of wide-bottomed Alpiners I knew only by sight were waddling down the aisle. My lunch arrived a minute later, and I turned my attention to food.

  But not all of my thoughts. A potential buyout of Alpine’s only bank was a much bigger story than Halloween vandalism or curtailed highway construction. Vida had set the stage with her “Scene Around Town” item. Could I follow through with a page-one lead for Wednesday? A call to Marvin Petersen was in order as soon as I got back to The Advocate.

  Marv wasn’t in. The polite but cool voice of Linda Lindahl delivered the message. I said I’d settle for Larry. If not the father, then the son. I doubted that they had secrets from each other, at least about the business.

  But Larry was unavailable, too. I began to suspect a conspiracy. In a last-ditch effort, I asked for Andy Cederberg. According to Linda, Andy was at the dentist. He had a root canal scheduled with Dr. Starr.

  I was dogged. Maybe Linda knew something. Marv Petersen probably shared bank secrets with his daughter as well as his son. Despite Linda’s aloof tone, I asked if she knew why Bob Lambrecht had stopped to see her father.

  “I didn’t talk with Mr. Lambrecht,” Linda said crisply. “Excuse me, Emma. I have a call on line two.”

  Thwarted, I hung up. It was one-thirty, and I had the rest of the afternoon and most of Tuesday to run down the story. Meanwhile, I studied Carla’s vandalism photos. Broken jack-o’-lanterns and splattered paint aren’t very dramatic, especially if similar shots have appeared the last three years in a row.

  Suffering from pique, I called Carla into the office. “Look, can you get a couple of crying kids looking at broken jack-o’-lanterns?” I shoved the contact sheet across my cluttered desk. “Nobody feels sorry for pumpkin pieces.”

  Carla was sullen. “They threw the broken parts into the garbage after I took these. Collection’s today.” A glint of satisfaction showed in my reporter’s eyes.

  “Then stage it. I can’t use these.” I made a sweeping gesture at the contact sheet. “The Alpine Mall spray-paint stuff isn’t any better. It’s just blobs on a building. Whoever did it missed the stores. That section is where the rest rooms and the offices are located. Couldn’t you find an overturned outhouse?”

  “What’s an outhouse?” Carla looked blank, not an uncommon expression.

  I sighed. “Never mind.” Picking up the pumpkin prints, I shook them at her. “Look, I’m sorry you and Dr. Flake broke up. I’m sorry Ginny’s mad at Rick. I’m sorry we all aren’t madly in love with Mr. Perfect. But that doesn’t excuse us from putting out a good newspaper. Go find some pathetic-looking kids and bust up another pumpkin. Get me something we can run at least on page three.”

  Still sullen, Carla rose from the chair on the opposite side of my desk. “I thought you told me that contrived news is no news.”

  I had. Long ago, in the dark ages of my novice publishing career and Carla’s apprenticeship, I had give
n her hell for staging the reactions of a couple whose eight-year-old son had driven their Ford Escort into a ditch. Maybe it was the silly grins on the parents’ faces or the beer cans they were clutching that had blown their credibility. The only thing the picture lacked was their insurance agent, producing a large check resembling a pro golf tour prize. The out-of-work family had made enough from the accident to move to Everett.

  “This isn’t the same,” I argued. “This is real—the effect of vandalism on the victims. Kids, in this case, who love their pumpkins.” I had trouble keeping a straight face.

  Carla didn’t. “Okay.” With slumped shoulders, she began her retreat to the newsroom.

  I called her back. Carla didn’t need more rejection in her life right now, and basically, she’s a good photographer. Her visual talents far exceed her verbal skills.

  “Look,” I said, hoping to sound encouraging, “you take great pictures as a rule. Much better than I do, even better than Vida. The problem we have this time of year is that so many of the photo opportunities are clichés. Pumpkins, turkeys, Santa Claus. Why don’t you take some extra rolls of film and just start shooting whatever looks interesting? Concentrate on angles and composition and lighting. You like to play around with that sort of thing. Don’t worry about whether your subjects seem to be newsworthy.”

  Carla didn’t appear soothed, but at least a spark of interest showed in her eyes. “Are you saying I need the practice?”

  “No, not in that sense. Let’s face it, Alpine doesn’t offer much drama from a pictorial point of view. Like most weeklies, we tend to run the obvious shots. But,” I went on, buttering up Carla in my most ingratiating manner, “with your eye, we can build a photo file to fall back on when there isn’t much else out there.”

  Carla actually preened a bit. “You mean artistic stuff, like photographers show in exhibitions?”

  “Well …” I wasn’t willing to push myself over the edge. “Let’s say imaginative, fresh, eye-catching. In terms of The Advocate, a shot of somebody pushing a grocery cart through Safeway is news, as long as we identify the shopper. It’s a visual version of Vida’s ‘Scene Around Town.’”

  Carla had definitely perked up, though I sensed her change of mood was fragile. “I’ll start with the mall,” she said. “With feet. Tired feet. Hurrying feet. Kids’ feet.”

  Pig’s feet, I thought, as Carla rushed off. I held my head, and was questioning my managerial skills when Leo Walsh hopped into the office.

  I cringed. “I thought Dr. Flake gave you crutches.”

  Leo collapsed into the chair Carla had vacated. “He did. I hate them. Hell, Emma, have you ever used crutches?”

  I had, after a bad sprain the previous year. It was an excruciating experience, but I’d managed to avoid missing work. I said as much. Leo was frankly admiring.

  “You must be better coordinated,” he remarked. It wasn’t true, of course. “You’re kind of small. That helps.”

  He was right about my size. At five foot four and a hundred and twenty-five pounds, I was in the featherweight division. Leo was just under six feet tall and probably weighed close to one-eighty. I gave him a quirky smile. “I didn’t much like the crutches, either. My armpits were bruised for a week.”

  Leo nodded. “There’s a knack. I don’t have it.” He extracted a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket and, as usual, made me wish I hadn’t given up smoking. “Say, babe, can you give me a ride home tonight?”

  I could. I would. I didn’t bother telling Leo to stop calling me babe. Or any other cutesy nickname. I couldn’t break him of the habit any more than I could get him to stop smoking. It seemed to me that Leo was lost somewhere in the 1940s.

  So was his apartment. The building was old, the manager was a drunk, the rent was bearable. Somehow, it all suited Leo. I wished it didn’t.

  “You know,” I began, feeling a bit embarrassed, “you ought to save for a house. Real estate is relatively cheap in Alpine. It’s because of the downturn in the timber industry.”

  Leo flicked imaginary tobacco off of his tongue. He was, after all, smoking filters. “Is that a hint that you’re keeping me on?”

  In agitation, I ran my fingers through the gamine cut that had grown shaggy over time and neglect. “You’ve brought in new revenue, Leo. I’m pleased. But you’ve got some personal problems that could affect your job performance.” I’d already had this talk with another staffer. Summoning courage, I eyed Leo head-on.

  He was unmoved. “Such as?”

  “Money.” I felt on safe ground there. “The Bank of Alpine is unhappy with your overdrafts. How do you feel about proxy banking?”

  Leo seemed relieved. “It sounds fine. What is it?”

  I explained as best I could. After some consideration, the concept seemed to please Leo. He said he could live with it. The faintly sly gleam in his eyes alarmed me, but his conclusion was gratifying. I hate conflict, and Leo had had plenty of it in recent years. I knew we were avoiding potential controversy, but that was all right. We’d bought time, and it suited us both.

  “I’ll take you to the bank before five,” I said. Maybe I could catch one of the Petersens in person.

  “Great.” Leo struggled to his feet—or foot, in this case. “Automatic everything? Like my rent and car payments and utilities?” I nodded; Leo let out a long sigh. “One less worry.”

  I noted, however, that Leo didn’t look particularly carefree as he hopped out of my office. I felt uneasy. I often did. The optimists say that when a door closes, another always opens. Maybe, but the corollary is that while sweeping out old troubles, another batch blows in. There were definite trade-offs in the Ed-Leo exchange. And then there was the lovelorn pair on the distaff side. I tried to bury myself in The Advocate for the rest of the afternoon. Work is always my best solace.

  At a quarter to five, I ushered Leo into my car. The ice had long since melted, but heavy dark clouds hung low over the mountains. The temperature hovered just above freezing. There was still snow in the area weather forecast.

  Leo had wanted to hop the half block to the bank, but I insisted he ride. I pulled the Jag into a loading zone by the entrance and left a note on the windshield for Milo’s deputies.

  Larry Petersen was standing by the mahogany rail, chatting with Cal Vickers, owner of the local Texaco station. As might be predicted, Cal had had a banner day, between his garage and his towing service. I made a mental note to call him in the morning to get a quote about winterizing vehicles. Maybe Cal would take out a bigger ad.

  Larry seemed delighted to see Leo. After commiserating about the sprain, the two men retreated to Larry’s desk. I fixated on the frosted-glass door to Marv Petersen’s office. Andy Cederberg told me that the boss had gone home.

  “He’s sniffing retirement,” Andy said with a lopsided grin. I remembered that he’d endured a root canal earlier in the afternoon. Apparently the novocaine hadn’t yet worn off. “It’s too cold for golf. Maybe he went fishing. Marv’s got a hole he likes to hit on Icicle Creek.”

  In summer, Icicle Creek didn’t have enough water for guppies. The stream ran off the face of Mount Sawyer, tumbled past abandoned silver mines, zigzagged through the campground, then bisected the housing development of the same name before losing its identity in the north fork of the Skykomish River. Depending upon the amount of rainfall and the snowpack, the creek could swell in autumn, winter, and fall. It had even been known to flood, scattering early campers and alarming residents in the development. But I doubted very much if there were any fish in Icicle Creek. I said so to Andy Cederberg.

  He was still grinning. “You may be right. But as I mentioned, old Marv smells retirement. He’s only got a little over a year to go before he turns sixty-five.”

  I flashed a smile, though I was growing impatient. “How’s the tooth?” I asked. I might as well make conversation. I had to kill time while Leo got his financial affairs in order.

  Andy’s grin disappeared. He put a thin hand to his
thin face and scowled. “Gosh, I don’t know yet. But it took Dr. Starr almost an hour to drill the thing. I’ve got a temporary in now.”

  I made sympathetic noises. Andy, who was still under forty, looked older. Because he was so thin, he also looked taller than what I judged to be just over six feet. His father, Kermit, was known as Stilts, being the same height as his son and never having weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds. However, the Cederberg women were all heavy, including Andy’s wife, Reba, who taught at Alpine Middle School and was dubbed Miz Cederbutt by most of her students.

  Andy basked in my sympathy. He had taken off his wire-rimmed spectacles and had opened his mouth to show me his temporary tooth. I admired it and clucked some more. Leo was still engaged in earnest conversation with Larry Petersen. I decided to take the plunge and ask Andy about Bob Lambrecht. After all, Andy was the bank’s manager; he should be in the know.

  But he claimed he wasn’t. “Gee, I think it was just a courtesy call, Emma.” Andy put his glasses back on, carefully adjusting them on the bridge of his thin, almost delicate nose. “Bob grew up here. He’s an old chum of Milo’s. He probably stopped in to see how we were doing. Nostalgia, you know. Hometown stuff.”

  I felt like a dunce. For the first time, I realized I should have interviewed Bob Lambrecht. He was an outstanding example of Local Boy Makes Good. In fact, I didn’t know of anyone else from Alpine who had risen as high in the world of commerce. I would call him at his Seattle office in the morning. A phone interview would have to suffice. We didn’t have a current mug shot, but maybe Vida could dig something out of our disorganized photo morgue.

  Christie Johnston was at the double doors, allowing the last customer, Betsy O’Toole, into the bank. Then the shades were drawn and the CLOSED sign was hung out. Betsy, whose husband, Jake, owns the Grocery Basket, waved to me.

  “See you in church?” she called.

  I nodded. November first wasn’t only payday; in the liturgical calendar, it was also All Saints’ Day. I hadn’t taken time to attend the morning Mass, so I planned on going to the seven P.M. service.