The Alpine Advocate Read online

  WITHOUT CHRIS COMING to dinner, I wasn’t inclined to fry up a batch of chicken. I hate cooking for myself, though I’m fairly competent around a stove. I left the office at six, heading for the Venison Eat Inn and Take Out. Except for a new French restaurant ten miles down the highway, the inn had the best kitchen in the vicinity. I often ate alone, which I usually preferred. I brought the printout of The Advocate’s financial statement. The conversation with Ed had goaded me into a serious analysis.

  Unfortunately, I’m not very good at managing money. In the eighteen years I worked for The Oregonian, I succeeded in saving a grand total of $2,146.85. It was just enough to send Adam off to his first semester at the University of Hawaii.

  I ordered the broiled halibut cheeks and rechecked the columns of figures. The good news was that the holiday season was upon us; the bad news was that Ed would probably try to cancel Christmas.

  Over my green salad, I considered my personal finances. Out of Don’s $500,000, less taxes, I’d spent $200,000 on The Advocate and $30,000 for the used Jaguar. I’d sold my two-bedroom house in Portland for $145,000 and paid just under $100,000 for the stone and log cabin in Alpine. I’d paid off all my debts and still had a small nest egg. I certainly didn’t want to use it to keep The Advocate alive. Capitalism wasn’t supposed to work that way. But if Marius Vandeventer had updated his technology, he’d let the building run down. In heavy rain, the roof leaked. When the snow piled up, ice covered the inside of the windows. The floorboards in my office creaked ominously. The exterior and interior were badly in need of paint. I figured I was looking at an outlay of at least $25,000. Given our current hand-to-mouth existence, renovation wasn’t feasible.

  The halibut arrived, snow-white and tender, with just a dusting of charcoal on top. Should I pony up that twenty-five grand? Once I got Adam through school, he’d be on his own. Maybe. I knew a lot of parents who’d congratulated themselves at commencement and four years later were still providing free room and board. Or worse yet, had found their children on the doorstep with their children.

  I layered my baked potato with butter, sour cream, chives, and bacon bits. Luckily, gaining weight isn’t a problem for me. I have too much nervous energy, and I tend to burn off calories. It’s a good thing, because I consider physical exercise a deplorable waste of time. I could be eating instead.

  The Advocate’s spread sheets depressed me. Chris Ramirez’s hostility depressed me. Gibb Frazier’s comment about the increase in postal rates depressed me. Ed Bronksy’s negativism depressed me. Carla Steinmetz’s careless journalism depressed me. I should have ordered a drink. Instead, I ate like a pig and watched my fellow diners, which depressed me even more.

  There was Dr. Starr’s dental hygienist again, holding hands with her boyfriend. There was Harvey and Darlene Adcock, looking devoted after thirty years of marriage. There were the newlyweds whose wedding Vida had just written up. Two other couples I didn’t know sat at tables across the room.

  Couples. The world was geared to pairs, not singles. I cup up my potato skin and ate that, too. I’d never really been part of a couple. I’d been engaged. I’d borne a child. In the past twenty years, I’d had two more lovers and another fiancé. I wasn’t given to casual romance. I never loved anybody but Tom Cavanaugh.

  I met Tom when I was an intern on The Seattle Times and he was working the copy desk. I was twenty, he was twenty-seven, and we fell for each other like a ton of bricks. My plans to marry Don Cummings after we graduated from college evaporated. Tom talked about leaving his wife of five years. We were wildly, briefly happy. Then I got pregnant. So did Tom’s wife. He made a heart-wrenching choice and stayed with Sandra.

  I went to Mississippi to have my baby. My brother, Ben, had received his first assignment as a priest in the home missions along the delta. A capable black midwife with a seamless contralto voice delivered Adam, and the two of us struck out on our own.

  My parents had been killed in a car accident coming from Ben’s ordination the previous summer. I finished my degree at the University of Oregon, instead of at Washington, and took a job on The Oregonian. I’d stayed there until a year and a half ago when I inherited Don’s insurance money and realized I could fulfill my seemingly impossible dream of owning a weekly newspaper.

  I’d stopped dreaming about being half of a couple a long time ago. My last romance was with a twice-divorced professor of philosophy from Reed College who was brilliant, charming, and so claustrophobic that he wouldn’t even go to the movies. We went on so many picnics that I developed a phobia of my own—to potato salad. We split up in January of 1987 after I caught pneumonia from eating lunch in a hailstorm.

  My depression lifted with the presentation of the dessert menu. Either I am very shallow or I have great resilience. Whichever it may be, cheesecake restores me. I was polishing off the last bite when Eeeny Moroni came into the restaurant.

  “Emma, mio cor!” Not wanting to show favoritism, he gave the hostess a slap on the backside before gliding up to my table. Eeeny Moroni was light on his feet for an older man and reputed to be the best dancer in Alpine, though Vida insisted it was only because he’d taken professional lessons in his youth. “I thought you had a date with a younger man,” said Eeeny, sitting down in the vacant chair opposite me. “Was that Chris Ramirez I saw outside of the Burger Barn with Simon?”

  “Probably. Dark, not quite six feet, denim jacket, and baseball cap?” Given Eeeny’s lousy eyesight, I marveled that he could tell Chris from Vida. Except, of course, that Vida would have worn the baseball cap backward.

  “That was him.” Eeeny nodded. “I kept my distance. They seemed deep in conversation. So where’s the kid now?”

  “He’s safe in the bosom of his family,” I said as Eeeny stared unabashedly at my bosom. “Simon and Cece asked him to dinner.”

  Eeeny scowled. “Simon’s going to make Neeny mad.” He paused, accepting a menu from the waitress and offering her his body. She laughed mechanically and recommended the Idaho trout. Eeeny adjusted his thick glasses and squinted at the entrées. “That Chris is just going to cause trouble, Emma,” he continued, back to serious matters. “It was bad with Hector, for the whole Doukas tribe. It almost broke Hazel’s heart. I can’t tell you how many times she tried to go to Hawaii to see Margaret and that kid.”

  “Why didn’t she do it?”

  Eeeny looked at me as if I were dense. “Neeny wouldn’t let her. That’s why.”

  “Hazel Doukas must have been a wimp,” I declared, trying in vain to imagine my own independent-minded mother knuckling under to my father in similar circumstances. Then I remembered the concessions I’d made to Neeny that very afternoon and gave Hazel a little mental slack.

  Eeeny Moroni ordered cracked crab and a half bottle of Chardonnay. I excused myself, recalling that after a few drinks Eeeny’s amorous words could turn into lecherous deeds. I’m not much of a flirt.

  I got home just after seven, still stewing over The Advocate’s finances. The wind was up, making the stately evergreens sway and rattling the lid on my garbage can. I changed clothes, looked through The Seattle Times, heard somebody’s dog howl at the brewing storm, and winced as the electricity flickered several times. I needed some business advice, so I called Dave Grogan, the newspaper broker who had handled the deal between Marius and me. He lived about a hundred miles away, in a small town not far from the ocean. After listening patiently to my tale of woe, he advised caution.

  “You aren’t going broke yet, Emma,” he noted in his kindly voice. “Your repairs can wait. Take a look at those ledgers in January. Even Ed can’t wipe out the Christmas spirit single-handedly.”

  “He’ll probably try, though,” I said, sounding almost as gloomy as Ed.

  Dave Grogan, who knew virtually every small daily and weekly newspaper in western Washington inside and out, chuckled. “Have you ever considered that Ed may be using reverse psychology?”

  “No,” I said bluntly. “And if he is, I don’t think it�
�s working.” I sighed. “I’m probably overreacting. But I want to make a go of this so much.”

  Dave paused, and I could hear the shuffling of papers over the miles. “You’ve got several options, Emma. One thing you might mull over is a partnership.”

  “No.” I was emphatic. “The big attraction for me—or at least part of it—is being my own boss. I’m awfully independent, Dave.”

  “I don’t mean an editor-publisher relationship per se,” Dave said in his mild manner. “I’m talking about the kind of setup where a—I guess you could say silent partner—has a financial interest in the paper but no hands-on control. I’ve got a couple of people looking for that sort of a deal right now. They want an investment, but they don’t want to get actively involved in the operation or else they don’t want to live in a small town.”

  I frowned into the receiver. “What’s the payoff?”

  “For them? Money. That type of person is usually willing to sink a pretty good-sized amount of cash into expansion. Generally, they’re interested in suburban weeklies, where the growth potential is obvious. But once in awhile you find someone who’s a bit more adventuresome. Or farsighted.”

  I hesitated. “It’s a thought.” My ears caught the sound of a car outside. “I’ll take your advice and hang tight until after the first of the year. If conditions look grim, maybe you can find me a pigeon.” The car drove off; no one came to my door. A false alarm, I decided, figuring it was too early for Chris to come back anyway.

  “I’ve got one right now,” Dave said, accompanied by the sound of more paper shifting. “He’s an old newspaper hand whose wife came into a lot of money a few years ago. He’s bought into three weeklies in eastern Washington, four in Montana, one in Idaho, and has a deal in the making up in British Columbia.”

  I was impressed. “Who is this moneybags?”

  At the other end, Dave’s wife was calling to him. “What?” he said, momentarily distracted. “Oh, he used to work for The Times, ’way back. His name’s Tom Cavanaugh.”

  By midnight, I was ready to give up waiting for Chris. Maybe he’d changed his mind and decided to stay with his relatives after all. It wouldn’t be unusual for a kid that age not to call. Adam had always thought my rules about checking in with old Mom were arcane—and weird.

  Besides, I was beat. It had been a busy, exceptionally long day. I marveled that I’d kept awake all evening, and figured I probably would have nodded off hours ago if it hadn’t been for the jolt from Dave Grogan.

  All I knew about Tom Cavanaugh was that he’d stayed on at The Times for another five years, had a second child with Sandra, and then moved to Los Angeles. After that, his history was a blank—except for a chance remark three years ago at a Sigma Delta Chi Journalism Awards banquet when a retired city editor had mentioned Tom’s name, and added, “Poor guy.” I pretended I didn’t care and failed to ask for amplification. Of course I’d kicked myself ever since.

  But poor apparently didn’t describe Tom’s financial state. I recalled that Sandra Cavanaugh came from a wealthy Bay Area family, and it would follow that she would end up rich in the wake of her parents’ demise. So would Tom, since it appeared the couple had remained together. Good for them, I reflected grimly. I hoped Sandra had turned out to be every bit of the ditz she seemed to be. My better nature doesn’t always win.

  My back and my head both ached as I pushed the last of the logs into the cavernous stone fireplace. It dominated the room and provided enough space to roast a small ox. The wind was blowing down the chimney, sending the sparks flying against the smoke-blackened stones. I still had the poker in my hand when Chris came through the door. I must have looked menacing, because he actually jumped.

  “I thought you’d be in bed,” he said, his face not so much sullen as it was wary. His dark hair was wind-blown, and I suspected he hadn’t shaved since yesterday morning in Honolulu.

  “Almost,” I admitted, setting the poker back in place. “How was dinner?”

  Chris shrugged out of his jacket, which I noticed had suddenly turned from denim into leather. “Fine. They had steak.”

  “Were all your relatives there?” I had moved to the door to put the chain on for the night, a habit of my city days in Portland.

  Chris was ambling around the living room, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. “Some of them.”

  I could see this was going to be the usual tooth extraction sort of conversation I had grown accustomed to with most of Adam’s friends and occasionally with Adam himself. “Not Neeny?”

  “No.” He had his back to me, apparently admiring a Monet print hanging above my recently reupholstered sofa.

  I picked the leather jacket off the back of the rocker where he’d thrown it. “Where’d you get this?” I asked, trying not to sound like an inquisitor.

  “Huh?” He shifted his weight, turning slightly to glance at me. His wiry frame seemed tense. “Oh, it’s Mark’s. He couldn’t find it when he went out so he borrowed mine. Then I had to borrow his because it was so windy and stuff. I’ll take his back tomorrow.”

  The explanation made as much sense as anything else at the end of a long, tiring day. I surrendered on eliciting further information from Chris. Maybe he’d talk more over ham and eggs at breakfast.

  “I’m going to bed. Is there anything you need?” I inquired.

  “No. Thanks,” he added as an afterthought. His back was still turned. Maybe he was crazy about Monet. Certainly he was absorbed in something I couldn’t fathom. His relatives, probably—seeing them again after all these years must have been a traumatic experience.

  “Okay,” I said, taking him at his word.

  It wasn’t the first mistake I ever made, but it was one of the worst.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised that Chris wasn’t around when I got up at seven the next morning. I still felt a bit groggy, and it was raining like mad, a dark, wet September morning that could drain all but the hardiest native of enthusiasm for a new day.

  Chris had slept in his bed—or maybe Adam really hadn’t made it before he’d gone to Hawaii at the end of August. I didn’t snoop in my son’s room while he was away. I couldn’t bear to; the disarray gave me the twitch. As long as there were no overpowering aromas and nothing slithered out from under the door, I figured everything else could wait until the Thanksgiving break.

  Instead of ham and eggs, I ate two shredded wheat biscuits and drank a cup of coffee. By ten to eight, there was no sign of Chris, and I had to be on my way to the office. To my surprise, the Jag was parked in the carport. Deferring to the downpour and my new green suede shoes, I drove to The Advocate.

  Ginny was in the front office, efficiently typing up the end-of-month statements. No one else had arrived yet. Carla was chronically late, Ed breakfasted with the Chamber on Thursdays, and Vida usually didn’t come in until eight-thirty. I put the coffee on, checked the answering machine, and went over some notes I’d made on next week’s editorial calling for the resurfacing of County Road 187 between Icicle Creek and the ranger station.

  By the time Vida got in, I’d taken four phone calls, including two subscribers who were dead set against the public swimming pool, one who was for it, and a woman named Hilda Schmidt who wanted to take out a classified ad to sell her exercise bicycle. Instead of referring her to Ginny, I took the ad myself and felt like cheering her on.

  I went out into the editorial office to greet Vida. She was shining her glasses and looking sly. I recognized that expression. “What’s new?”

  Vida stuck her glasses back on her nose but retained the smug look. “Phoebe Pratt did leave town—but only for a couple of days. Darlene Adcock says she went to Seattle to see an eye specialist. If she ever gets her vision fixed, she’ll see how homely Neeny is and dump him.”

  “Not with all his money.” I parked myself on Carla’s desk.

  “True,” Vida conceded. “Phoebe always was one for the main chance.” She rummaged around in her enormous purse and pulled out a tarni
shed gold compact. Flipping it open, she applied powder on a hit-and-miss basis. “According to Bill the Butcher, Cece Doukas bought enough New York steaks—not on sale—for six.” She cocked her head to one side, the overhead light bouncing off her glasses. “Who do you think? Cece, Simon, Mark, Jennifer, Kent—and your Chris? No Neeny, right?”

  “Right so far,” I agreed. “Except I didn’t know Jennifer and Kent MacDuff were there.”

  Vida sniffed at my ignorance. “Of course they were. Dot Parker saw them from her driveway. She was on her way to pick up Durwood. He fell off the barstool at Mugs Ahoy again.” She paused to smear on bright pink lipstick. “Last but not least, Heather Bardeen has an appointment with Doc Dewey this afternoon. The senior Dewey,” she added with a knowing look.

  Since Dewey the son had been the recipient of Dewey the father’s practice, with the exception of maternity cases and a few stubborn patients who refused to be tended by a young whippersnapper, Vida’s meaning was clear: Heather must be pregnant. Or thought she was.

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked, fascinated as always by Vida’s sources.

  She gave a careless shrug, powder flying from the ruffled, wrinkled collar of her blue blouse. “Marje Blatt. My niece. She works for old Doc Dewey.” Vida obviously thought I had a faulty memory.

  She was right. “I forgot.” The phone rang, and I grinned at Vida as I reached to answer it. I stopped grinning immediately. It was Sheriff Milo Dodge. Mark Doukas had been murdered—and Christopher Albert Ramirez was wanted for questioning.

  Chapter Five

  ED AND CARLA entered the office just as I hung up the phone. I was in virtual shock. I stared at them open-mouthed, while they stared back. I’d had to ask Milo four times if he meant Mark Doukas rather than Neeny. He insisted he did. There was no mistaking the grandson for the grandfather.

  “I’ve got to go down to the sheriff’s office,” I announced, pulling myself together and grabbing my hand-bag and raincoat.