The Alpine Advocate Read online

  Carla’s cheeks had turned pink with excitement. “Should we put out a special edition?”

  The idea hadn’t crossed my mind. Although this was my first Alpine murder—if in fact that was what had happened—I knew the town didn’t have a blameless track record. A drunken, jealous husband had strangled his wife two years ago. A pair of loggers had gotten into a brawl only months before that, and one had beaten the other to death. And going back almost a decade, there had been the Claymore family, some four miles out of town, with a brooding, schizophrenic father who had shot his wife and six kids before turning the .22-caliber rifle on himself. Murder was no stranger to Alpine. I decided this event didn’t merit an extra.

  The phone rang before I could get out the door. To my surprise—and relief—it was Chris. I started to tell him about his cousin, but for once he launched into a monologue.

  “Hi, Mrs. Lord. This is Chris. Hey, thanks for picking me up and stuff.” His voice was perfectly natural. “I decided to split. Alpine isn’t my kind of place. I hitched a ride into Seattle. I’d like to see the city and maybe go on a ferryboat. Then I think I’ll head for L.A.”

  “Chris!” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice. “Wait—don’t go anywhere! Your cousin’s been killed!”

  “Huh?” He sounded understandably dumbfounded. “What did you say?”

  “It was Mark,” I said, clarifying my report. “Sheriff Dodge just called and said he’d been murdered.”

  Chris gave a short laugh. “That’s lame. I just saw Mark last night.”

  Fragments of song and verse about Yesterday and Tomorrow skipped through my agitated brain. “I guess it must have happened after you saw him,” I said somewhat stupidly. I took a deep breath; I had to convince him to stay put. “Chris, this probably sounds idiotic, but Sheriff Dodge would like to talk to you about Mark.”

  He hesitated. When he spoke again, a wary note had surfaced in his voice. “Why me? The whole family was there. Except Grandpa. They all know Mark a lot better than I do.” He made a strange, muffled noise. “Hey, this is weird! All things considered, I don’t ever want to see Alpine again.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I began, but an operator came on the line and told Chris his three minutes were up.

  “Got to go,” he said, and rang off.

  I stood by Ed’s desk, with the receiver in my hand. The city of Seattle was home to half a million people. I had no idea where Chris’s ride had dropped him off. I dialed the operator and asked if the last call made to The Advocate could be traced. She said no. So much, I thought, for modern communications technology.

  “Chris has gone to Seattle,” I told my staff. “If he calls again, find out where he is.”

  Ed looked mildly puzzled. “I thought you said he was in Seattle.”

  I clamped my mouth shut and left the office. We have no police chief in Alpine, since it’s an unincorporated town, despite the best efforts of civic-minded citizens to change the status. The mayor and the city council have been empowered through a charter allegedly drawn up during World War II in an air raid shelter under Mugs Ahoy. But when it comes to law enforcement, we rely upon the state police and the sheriff, which works out well enough since Alpine is the county seat. The Skykomish County Sheriff’s office is two blocks away, so despite the rain and my green suede shoes, I walked. I needed time to collect my thoughts. I couldn’t imagine why Mark had been murdered. A drug-crazed vagrant passing through, maybe. Or someone who had taken the discovery of gold seriously. Mark was no gem, but he didn’t seem like the type to inspire homicide. Of course there was always Heather Bardeen and her appointment with Doc Dewey Senior. Maybe her father had decided to take the notion of a shotgun wedding seriously.

  But why, I wondered, nodding vaguely at the handful of passersby I knew only by sight, did the sheriff want to question Chris Ramirez? Just because he happened to come to town the same day—or night—that Mark had gotten himself killed? I heard the morning freight whistling in the distance. Traffic was heavy on Alpine’s main street—by Alpine standards. There must have been at least a dozen cars. Life was going on, with or without Mark Doukas.

  Sheriff Milo Dodge was a big, shambling man, well over six feet, with broad shoulders and pale graying blond hair. He had a long face, sharp hazel eyes, and a square chin. In appearance, he was totally unlike his predecessor, Eeeny Moroni. But in terms of efficiency, he more than matched his mentor and was considered one of the best law enforcement officials in the state.

  Which, I must admit, was the main reason I was disturbed over his desire to question Chris. Milo Dodge didn’t act precipitously. His intentions sounded serious.

  Dodge looked up from the paperwork strewn all over the desk. His office was finished in knotty pine and a thirty pound steelhead was mounted over his filing cabinet. He stood up and proffered his hand, which was long and strong. I winced a little as he ground my bones together.

  “Where’s the kid, Emma?” he asked without preamble.

  “Seattle,” I replied, knowing it was useless to try to hide the fact since Vida Runkel had probably spread the word in the five minutes since I’d left the office. I saw the speculative look in Dodge’s hazel eyes and lifted my sore hand. “I don’t know where. He had to hang up before he could tell me.”

  “Damn.” Dodge sat down, making his faux leather chair creak. “Emma—this is urgent. A dead Doukas isn’t just another stiff. You know that. Now I suppose I have to call the SPD and King County and the State Patrol. Couldn’t you have kept an eye on the kid?”

  “I can’t keep an eye on my own,” I confessed, sitting in the chair across the desk from Dodge. “Chris Ramirez was a guest. He’s twenty years old. And how the hell was I to know he’d get involved in a murder case?”

  Dodge picked up a roll of mints, offered me one, which I declined, and turned the package around in his fingers. “I’ve known you for a little over a year,” he said thoughtfully. The hazel eyes fixed on my face. “How well do you know this boy?”

  I lifted my shoulders. “I’ve met him a couple of times when I was in Honolulu with Adam.”

  He popped a mint in his mouth. “Are Chris and Adam pretty tight?”

  “Yes.” As far as I could tell, they were best friends. Adam is more gregarious than I am. He knows a lot of other students. But like me, he doesn’t form close attachments easily. “He and Chris were roommates last year.”

  The door opened and Jack Mullins, one of Dodge’s deputies, poked his shaggy red head inside. “You want to see Doc Dewey now, Sheriff?”

  Dodge waved a hand. “In a minute.” Mullins left. Milo turned back to me. “Old Doc Dewey’s still the coroner, you know.”

  I did, of course. He was waiting until the next election to turn over the duties to his son. I was beginning to get my thoughts back in order. My presence in the sheriff’s office wasn’t confined to my roles as Chris’s hostess and the mother of Chris’s friend. But before I could start playing journalist, Dodge asked me a question:

  “What do you make of Chris, Emma?”

  “I told you, I don’t know him very well.” I searched my brain for any help from Adam. But twenty-year-old men aren’t into character analysis, at least not into articulating the subject. “He seemed nice enough. Quiet, polite. He hadn’t declared a major, so I don’t know what kind of ambitions or interests he has. Adam mentioned that he had a bike.” I gave another little shrug. “A motorcycle, I mean. His mother bought it for him.” I paused, watching Dodge’s mobile face take in my scant information. Clearly, he wasn’t satisfied. “Look, Milo,” I said, going on the offensive, “I need the facts. All I know is that Mark is dead and you want to question Chris. What actually happened?”

  Milo leaned back in the chair and put his feet on the desk. His cowboy boots, which had recently been resoled, reached almost halfway across the littered surface. “You don’t publish again until next Wednesday. What’s the rush?”

  “The outside media, for one thing,” I replied. “
The Seattle and Everett papers will be interested. So will the TV and radio stations. You said it—the Doukas family is rich enough and venerable enough to make news outside of Alpine.”

  Dodge looked pained. “I don’t want a bunch of reporters nosing around town.”

  I gave him a flinty smile. “Then give me the story. I can be the media contact and save them all a trip.”

  Dodge cracked the mint with his teeth and swung his feet back onto the floor. He picked up a sheaf of papers and scanned them rapidly. “I got a call last night from Mark Doukas asking me to meet him up at Mineshaft Number Three at nine o’clock. I didn’t take the call personally, because I was at an all-day meeting and a dinner in Monroe. I got to the mine right on the dot, and Eeeny Moroni was already there. It seems that Mark had called him, too.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk and adjusting the expansion band of his watch. The hazel eyes were shadowy, and it dawned on me that unlike his counterparts in Portland’s Multnomah County, dead bodies weren’t a common occurrence for Milo. Especially bodies he was used to seeing on Front Street or in the bar at the Venison Inn.

  “Eeeny was having a fit,” Dodge continued in a quiet voice. “He’d found Mark with his head bashed in. He was lying near the old mineshaft. He was still warm. I doubt if he’d been dead for more than a few minutes.”

  I cringed a bit and allowed for an appropriate moment of silence. Dodge was now fidgeting with a small figure of a spotted owl around whose neck hung a sign: EAT ME—I’M YOURS. Logging humor often eludes me; any kind of humor was hard to come by at the moment. The significance of Dodge’s words struck me: “His head was bashed in? How?”

  Milo’s gaze shifted to the opposite wall that was covered with maps of the county. “We aren’t sure yet.”

  “But he was … uh, clobbered, right?”

  “Right.” Dodge stood up; he seemed to loom over me. “Emma, I’ve got to see Doc Dewey. I’ll give you more later, okay? Meanwhile, you help us locate Chris. Deal?” He extended his hand.

  I kept mine in my lap. I also remained seated. “Not until I know why you want to speak to him.”

  The pained expression returned. Milo Dodge knew I could be stubborn. On at least two occasions, he had compared me to his ex-wife, Tricia, whose nickname was Old Mulehide. In a perverse way, I was flattered. Generally, however, we got along, engaging in the symbiotic relationship that is inherent between the press and law enforcement. “You can keep your mouth shut,” Milo conceded, more to himself than to me.

  “It’s part of the job description.”

  He nodded. “Right.” He sighed, leaning one hand against the wall next to the steelhead’s snout. “Chris Ramirez was going around town yesterday trying to buy a gun. He couldn’t, of course, having just arrived in this state. But he didn’t ask about a hunting license. So what should we make of that, Emma?”

  “Not much,” I answered. “Mark wasn’t shot, was he?”

  He eyed me with a smirk. “And if Chris wanted to whack somebody, he didn’t have a gun. Mark and Chris had a big argument at dinner last night, according to Kent MacDuff.” Suddenly, Dodge swung around the desk and stood next to my chair. He was definitely looming now. “Why did you keep asking me if I meant it was Neeny who’d gotten killed?”

  The sheriff had caught me off-guard. Fleetingly, I wondered if this was a ploy he reserved for interrogation. “Because he’s old,” I said, hoping I hadn’t missed more than one beat. I stared up at him with my best brown-eyed look of innocence. “I thought there might have been a mistake. Maybe Neeny had simply had a heart attack and somebody had jumped to conclusions.”

  Dodge cocked his head to one side. “Not bad,” he remarked with a wry smile.

  “Well?” I stood up rather awkwardly. “Are you absolutely certain Mark didn’t fall?”

  The wry expression intensified. “Oh, yes, we’re sure of that.”

  “I still think you’re nuts trying to direct suspicion at Chris. He didn’t even know Mark.”

  Dodge ignored the comment. “What time did Chris get home last night?”

  Damn, I thought. I was in the dark about so much when it came to Chris Ramirez. To make matters worse, I wasn’t entirely certain why I was so eager to defend him. Except that he was Adam’s friend, and a mother hates to admit her kid has lousy judgment when it comes to people. “Midnight,” I answered weakly.

  Dodge nodded. “He left Simon and Cece’s a little before eight-thirty. I don’t suppose he told you where he was for the rest of the evening?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  For a long moment, Dodge was silent. At last, he loped toward the door and opened it. “Get him back here, Emma. Otherwise, I’ll have to send out an APB.”

  I hoisted my handbag over my shoulder. “Then do it PDQ. I don’t expect to see him again. He’s going to California.”

  The hazel eyes bore down on me. “Like hell he is,” Dodge said.

  I brushed past him. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

  “That’s fine,” the sheriff said to my back. “But don’t call me dumb. I’m not.”

  I didn’t reply. I already knew that.

  I took Vida with me to the murder site. Carla had begged to come along, but this was a tricky story, dealing with the most powerful family in the county. Vida might have the tact of a bull elephant, but she knew the cast of characters, and they knew her. In a small town, that was crucial.

  It was a mile from The Advocate to Mineshaft Number Three, just off the county road that wound up through the foothills to the ranger station and Icicle Creek Camp Ground. The wind had blown itself out against the mountains, and the rain was coming down in a straight, steady drizzle. In the older residential section of frame houses on the edge of downtown, smoke spiraled out of chimneys and many of the lights were on. Russet leaves drifted into gardens that still sported dahlias, roses, chrysanmemums, and marigolds. Yet the splashes of color in the gray morning seemed more brave than bright.

  I followed the curve of the road past a tract of newer homes, mostly split level, almost all with some sort of recreational vehicle parked in the driveway or the two-car garage. These Apliners were outdoor people who spent their leisure time fishing and hunting, hiking and camping. I, too, have been known to do a little stream fishing. Unfortunately, since arriving in Alpine, all I’ve had to show for it are two small rainbow trout and an extremely ugly bull-head. Even this far from the urban center, I’m told the halcyon days of trout fishing are over.

  At the edge of town, on the sidehill, the cemetery crept up into the evergreens. I glanced that way, thinking of the new grave that soon would be dug, no doubt near the final resting place of Hazel Doukas, Neeny’s wife.

  “Did Mark have any enemies?” I asked Vida, who would know if anyone did.

  She was sewing a button on the cuff of her blouse, no easy task considering the ruts and curves in the road. “Dozens. He was a twerp.”

  Up ahead on the jutting bluff known as First Hill, I saw Neeny Doukas’s big house, all gray stone and dark stucco, with a massive front porch. It stood on a full acre and was reached by a switchback driveway that wound above Icicle Creek and the woods around Mineshaft Number Three.

  “I mean, real enemies,” I said, slowing for the left-hand turn to the mine.

  “Oh.” Vida bit the thread. “Well, no. He’s gotten into oodles of fights, usually when he’s been drinking. But they don’t count. He’s never worked much, so he hasn’t put a crimp in anybody’s career. There have been a slew of girls, but most of them have dumped him, instead of the other way around. He had a bona-fide feud going with Josh Adcock, Harvey and Darlene’s oldest boy, but Josh has a Fulbright to Cal Tech, so he’s not around. Their quarrel had something to do with a high school football game. Mark fumbled one of Josh’s handoffs in the league championship.”

  Alpine’s grudges still amazed me. Mark Doukas and Josh Adcock had graduated from high school at least eight years earlier. Forgiving and forgetting weren’t small-town
virtues.

  The mine was only about twenty feet from the main road, just off the turn into Neeny’s long driveway. I pulled over when I saw two sheriff’s cars and a van barring the way. A half-dozen men were scrutinizing an area roped off by yellow and black crime scene tape.

  “In other words,” I said to Vida as I turned off the engine, “you don’t have a favorite suspect.”

  Vida shrugged. “Not off the top of my head.”

  “Gibb didn’t like him,” I noted, recalling the venom our driver had exhibited the previous day. “How come?”

  For once, Vida didn’t have a ready answer. “Oh—lack of respect, maybe. Gibb needs respect, especially since he lost that leg.” She took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes, always a sure sign that she was either agitated or lost in rumination. “There was something about a hermit’s cache years ago. You know the sort of thing around this part of the country—abandoned shacks or cabins in the woods where recluses hole up.”

  I did. Often, they would bury their belongings, especially money. In the modern era, Sunday prospectors would trot out their Geiger counters and go in search of buried treasure. Once in a great while, somebody got lucky and actually found some.

  “Anyway, there was a story around town about—oh, ten years ago, I guess—that Mark and Gibb got into a fight over some valuable coins one of them had dug up. Mark was just a teenager then, but he was always pigheaded. Then again, so is Gibb. I think they split the loot down the middle.” She replaced her eyeglasses and stared out the car window. “I suppose Gibb has never forgiven Mark. But he wouldn’t have waited this long to kill him.”

  I had to agree. “So who do you think murdered Mark?”

  “Well.” Vida buttoned up her serviceable brown wool tweed coat. “I’d say Chris Ramirez is as good a pick as anyone.”

  There was no arguing with Vida. There never was. “Are you getting out?” I asked.

  Always game, Vida unwound herself from the front seat. We tramped across the muddy, leaf-strewn ground, careful to avoid branches that had blown down in last night’s wind. My green shoes were a mess.