The Alpine Nemesis Page 7

  Then one day, after I had been in Alpine about a year, Tom showed up. Nothing had changed between us. Love doesn't go away, it merely gets shoved into the back of our emotional closets. Tom finally met Adam, and somewhat to my surprise, the two of them hit it off. Somewhat to my resentment, too: I thought I had done an excellent job of being two parents. But Adam wanted, needed, a father. Uncle Ben was a fair substitute, but he was rarely around for his nephew.

  Tom and I saw each other off and on over the next few years, but he remained loyal to Sandra. Oh, he made the occasional promise to leave her, but though she was unstable, her sensibilities were extraordinary. Just when I'd get my hopes up, Sandra would suffer a downturn. Filled with guilt, Tom would go back on his word to me. I expected it; I got used to it. So when Sandra overdosed, intentionally or accidentally, I finally glimpsed a future for Tom and me. I realized my reaction was callous, but my evil side kept whispering that Sandra had brought it on herself. She had been raised in wealth and luxury; she was spoiled and selfish. I always wondered if she'd married Tom with the intention of being a wife and mother. It seemed that a husband and children were merely adjuncts to her persona. The symptoms of mental problems struck me as attention-getting devices. She hadn't wanted to share the limelight, and eventually, she paid for her self-absorption with her life. I may have been uncharitable, but I truly believed that Sandra had a destructive personality. Maybe such a thing emanates from self-hatred more than self-love, yet the result is often the same, ending in self-destruction.

  But after Sandra's death, my long-awaited future was delayed by the birth of Tom's daughter's illegitimate child. My child's birth hadn't delayed anything as far as Tom was concerned. I had been alone, two thousand miles away in Mississippi. Tom and Sandra had been together in Seattle when their son was born a month after Adam.

  Now circumstances seemed to have changed. Tom appeared unencumbered. He'd asked me to marry him. I'd said yes—and then suffered qualms that didn't make much sense. Having waited most of my adult life for Tom Cavanaugh, suddenly I wasn't sure of what I wanted.

  It wasn't that I didn't want Tom. It wasn't that I would hate to move away. It was losing The Alpine Advocate that disturbed me. Maybe I'd married the newspaper instead of Tom. Maybe my commitment to my career was greater than my commitment to marriage. Maybe I was as crazy as Sandra Cavanaugh.

  The phone rang, rousing me from my reverie. It was Milo, saying that Cap Hartquist's attorney, Alfred Sven-sen, couldn't make it up to Alpine today. His bunions were acting up, and he was unable to drive. The arraignment would take place tomorrow.

  I added that sentence to my story and uttered a sigh of relief. The paper was almost ready to go to bed.

  I came out into the newsroom, where Kip MacDuff was talking to Leo Walsh. “Is everybody finished?” I asked.

  Scott said he had to go over his copy one more time. Leo made a thumbs-up gesture. Vida, however, was frowning.

  “In all this excitement,” she said, “I didn't get enough items for ‘Scene.’“

  Scene Around Town was Vida's pet, a three-inch front-page column made up of gossipy little items. It was, along with the obituaries—when we had any—the best-read part of the paper.

  “Didn't you get enough stuff with half the town out on Front Street, jabbering about the murders?” Leo asked.

  “I can't use those items individually,” Vida retorted. “All I'd have is a list of names.”

  Kip snapped his fingers. “I saw Ryan O'Toole driving a really hot Acura Integra last night. It's red and it has tinted windows, sun roof, the whole bit. I think it's his first car.”

  Vida made a face. “Jake and Betsy ought to know better than to buy a teenager a car like that. He'll get into a wreck, mark my words. And, I might add, they wouldn't be able to afford such things if they didn't overcharge for their meat and produce at the Grocery Basket.”

  Vida would, however, use the item. She typed it up

  swiftly. “Well? Who else has something? I need two more.”

  Scott handed me his hard copy, then turned to Vida. “I saw two real cute little kids pulling each other in a wagon on my way home from work, but I didn't recognize them.”

  “Where were they?” Vida asked.

  “Ah …” Scott looked up at the newsroom's low ceiling. “On Spruce, between Third and Fourth.”

  “How old?” Vida persisted.

  “Four and six, maybe?” Scott gave Vida a sheepish look. “The older one was a boy, the younger one was a girl. Both fair-haired.”

  “The Burleson children,” Vida said. “Axel and Dag-mar. The family moved here from Grotto two months ago. Their parents are renting but have been looking for a house to buy.” She rattled out the item on her upright. “Well? One more. Emma?”

  I felt as if I were being called on in school. I didn't know the answer, which made me cringe a bit. Before I could admit my ignorance, Ginny came through the door on her way to the rest room.

  “Toilets!” I cried, startling Ginny and causing the rest of the staff to stare at me. “Fuzzy Baugh and his toilets. I forgot to write it up as an article. He never dropped off the details.”

  “Typical of Fuzzy,” Vida remarked. “Such a dunderhead. What was he doing with his toilets? Though I certainly hate to ask.”

  I explained about Fuzzy's great innovation for Alpine. Vida nodded. “Since he's been remiss in supplying additional information, I'll put it in Scene. It'll serve him right to have only the briefest of mentions of his toilets since he's been so careless.”

  I also remembered to give Vida Ed's plan to ride in the

  summer solstice parade. Vida looked traumatized; she announced for perhaps the four hundredth time that Ed was the biggest ninny she'd ever met. Which was saying something, considering how many people Vida considered ninnies.

  We were done for the day. I felt euphoric. I shouldn't have. Four dead bodies were the source of my elation. Instead I should have been wreathed in sorrow. But beating Spencer Fleetwood on the homicide story was a professional coup. It was an unhappy fact of life that big news was often bad news.

  Kip was in the backshop; the paper had gone to press. I was gathering up my things in preparation for going home when the phone rang. I figured it was Fuzzy Baugh, finally delivering the details for his rest room story. Too bad, Fuzzy, I thought, you're too late.

  But it wasn't the mayor. “This is Mae Conley in Penn Yan,” Brian's mother said, her voice tremulous. “Ms. Lord?”

  “Yes,” I replied, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice. “I'm sorry if the discovery of Brian's body upset you.”

  “Well … it did and it didn't,” Mrs. Conley said. “I mean, Pat—my husband—says we should be relieved. Maybe he's right, I don't know. Anyway, we're having Brian shipped to Penn Yan. We have a family plot here.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It would only be painful for you to make the trip all the way to Washington State. Expensive, too.”

  “My, yes,” Mae Conley agreed. “Funerals are expensive enough, particularly when they're so unexpected. Thank heavens Brian had life insurance.”

  “Yes,” I repeated, not sure what else I could say. Mrs. Conley's remark struck me as rather inappropriate.

  “Thank you and Mrs. Bunkel for keeping us in-

  formed,” Mrs. Conley went on. “We appreciate the kindness.”

  “Of course.” It was pointless to correct Mrs. Con-ley. Vida needn't know she'd been misnamed. Over the years, Vida had been referred to as Mrs. Rumple, Mrs. Kunkel, Mrs. Fungus, and—my personal favorite—Mrs. Rumpus. “We'll keep you in our thoughts and prayers,” I said to Mrs. Conley.

  “How nice.” She thanked me again and rang off.

  “With a shake of my head, I turned out the lights and headed into the soft spring rain. My Lexus was parked on the diagonal in my usual spot at the curb. Even after more than a year, I felt a slight pang of guilt when I got into the expensive car. I was buying it from Tom for fifty dollars a month. He had been with me in
Alpine when my precious though aging Jaguar had been wrecked by vandals. He'd wanted to give me the car as a gift, but I'd refused the offer. I wasn't a kept woman, and I didn't want to feel like one.

  As soon as I got behind the wheel, I flipped on the radio. The five o'clock news had finished, and Spence— or a computer—was playing a trio of oldies-but-goodies. They would probably last until I got home. Old songs they might be, but after two of them, I realized I'd hated them thirty years ago and I hated them now. No more so-called goodies for me, I decided, and reached for the on-off button.

  Before I could hit it, the music stopped, and Spence's voice filled the car.

  “In a startling new development in the Alpine Meats tragedy, KSKY has just learned the identity of the person who found Brian Conley's body on Tonga Ridge. Live and direct from our studio, here is KSKY's Tim Raf-ferty to tell us exactly how the gruesome discovery was made.”

  Damn. I couldn't believe it. I'd been scooped again. But the worst was yet to come:

  “This is Tim Rafferty reporting for radio station KSKY in Alpine. This has been a very difficult day for me, both as a lifelong resident of the town and as a radio personality.”

  Personality? The only personality Tim had developed over the years had been by tending bar in various local watering holes. He could listen, I'd give him that much, but so could a cedar stump.

  “After some serious conversations with Spencer Fleet-wood, the owner and the voice of KSKY, I came to the conclusion that I had to take a bold step and acknowledge that I was the person who found the late Brian Conley on Tonga Ridge.”

  Double damn. Was it true? Or was this some publicity stunt on Spencer's part? I wouldn't put it past him.

  “After work yesterday—Monday—I went for a hike with my girlfriend, Tiffany Eriks. We took off about six o'clock on the Icicle Creek trail and then cut off on the spur to Spark Plug Lake. We got to Little Plug Lake first, and decided to rest for a while. There was still snow on the ground in most places and the sun had gone behind the clouds. Sure enough, it started to rain.”

  I had reached my house, where I pulled into the carport and remained riveted to the radio.

  “It came down pretty hard, so we looked for some shelter and found a place under a ledge about ten yards from Little Plug.” Tim paused, apparently for dramatic effect. “That's when we found Brian Conley.” Another pause. “Naturally, we were shocked. We didn't know for sure who it was, but I guessed that maybe it was the missing snowboarder. It kept on raining for at least a half hour, which meant that it was getting darker up on the Ridge—darker than it usually does this time of year. Finally, it let up and we decided to get Conley out of there.

  Between the two of us—and I have to thank Tiffany for being so brave and strong—we got the body back down to the ranger station. Nobody was around, so we put it—him—in my Jeep and started for town. We were coming down Second Hill when we saw a pickup ahead of us. Whoever was driving was kind of erratic. We were curious, so we followed them.”

  Until those last words, I'd believed Tim Rafferty. But his tale had taken a suspicious turn.

  “The rain let up when we turned off Highway 187 onto Railroad Avenue,” Tim continued. “But the Am-trak passenger train was coming through town, heading east. The red lights were flashing, so we prepared to stop. But the driver of the pickup gunned the engine and sailed right over the tracks. The train barely missed them. It really jarred me to see something like that, especially when we had a dead body in the Jeep. I was pretty shaken up by then.” A pause for breath. “Anyway, Tiffany and I figured we'd lost whoever we'd been following, but after the train had gone by, we had to turn left anyway, and sure enough, the pickup had stopped at Alpine Meats.”

  He paused again. “I'll continue with my story after this word from one of our sponsors. To my amazement, the commercial featured Alpine Meats, a cheery little jingle that went something like, “Fresh meat / is good to eat / when you look for treats / try our special Alpine Meats.” End of jingle, followed by Spence doing the straight lines: “Our butchers keep our locker full of fine cuts for every taste bud, with deliveries made daily. So when you think meat, you know what brand to eat. That's Alpine Meats, wholesalers to your favorite store, special discounts for bulk buyers.”

  “While I reeled a bit in the driver's seat, Tim took up his tale:

  “It was almost dark by then, going on nine o'clock. Tiffany and I parked by the Nordby Brothers used car lot half a block away. We still weren't sure who was in the pickup, even after two of the men got out. They had some kind of tool, a crowbar, I think, and they used it to break into Alpine Meats. Then we saw the men start hauling big bundles out of the back of the pickup. When they moved away from the truck, we saw—to our horror— that they were people. Tiffany wanted to leave, and I couldn't blame her. This was turning into the scariest night of our lives. We were utterly paralyzed while we watched the two men carry the dead bodies—they seemed to be dead bodies because they were limp and didn't move—into the meat warehouse. The third man stayed in the truck the whole time. The whole thing didn't take more than five minutes, though it seemed like forever. After they drove away, Tiffany and I just sat there for I don't know how long, still unable to move or speak.”

  Pause. Muffled clearing of throat away from the microphone. I wished I had a cigarette.

  “We panicked,” Tim declared in a heavy voice. “It was the wrong thing to do, but our nerves were shot. We took Brian Conley's body out of the Jeep and carried it into the warehouse. Then we saw those other bodies in the meat locker. We recognized the O'Neills. It was a terrible sight. We left Brian Conley's body there, knowing it would be found with the others. Then we went home and collapsed. I must apologize to the citizenry of Alpine, to Brian Conley's family, and to the owner of radio station KSKY, my good buddy, Spencer Fleetwood. Maybe I behaved in a cowardly fashion, but for any of you out there in radioland who have ever come across a corpse, you know how disturbing that can be.”

  Yeah, right, all six people in Skykomish County who happened to have stumbled over a body. Tim sounded like an idiot. More alarming, he sounded like a liar.

  “So thanks for listening,” Tim concluded. “And thanks to Spencer Fleetwood for allowing me to get this off my chest over the air. Tiffany thanks you, too. This is Tim Rafferty, live and direct from the studios of KSKY.”

  I waited to see how Spence would follow up this startling story. But after a canned commercial for Safeway, Spence merely thanked Tim for his heartrending revelation and added, “Remember, you heard the news first on KSKY—every day, every hour, every minute of late-breaking local, national, and international events.”

  As soon as I got in the house, I called Milo at his office. He was still there, as I had hoped he would be.

  “Did you hear Tim Rafferty on the radio just now?” I asked, slightly breathless.

  “No,” Milo replied. “When do I have time to listen to the radio around here?”

  “Tim says he found Brian Conley up on the Ridge,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Tim also said he was so panicked that he put Brian in the meat locker with the O'Neills. Whom, I might add, he had followed down from Second Hill.”

  “The O'Neills drove to Alpine Meats?” Milo sounded bewildered.

  “No, no,” I clarified. “The Hartquists were driving the O'Neills. At least I guess it was the Hartquists. I don't think Tim ever identified them on the air.”

  “Sweet Christ.” Milo went silent for a moment. “This was on the radio just now?”

  “Yes,” I responded. “I sat out in the car to listen to the end of it. I came in and called you right away.”

  “Damn.” Milo sounded angry. “I'd better get over to KSKY right now. I'll have to call Tara and tell her I'll be late. She's making me her special veal dish tonight.”

  “Yum,” I said. “Will you let me know what you find out from Tim?”

  “I'll try,” Milo said. “You don't need it r
ight away, do you? I mean, it must be too late to make the paper.” The sheriff didn't need to remind me.

  I SAT BY the phone. I was in a quandary. If Tim Rafferty had worked for anyone in the world except Spencer Fleetwood, I would have been off like a shot to interview him. But I wasn't going to show up at KSKY like some poor beggar asking for alms. I'd have to rely on Milo for now, and catch Tim later, away from the station. Since going to work for Spence, Tim only moonlighted occasionally at the Venison Inn. I wasn't sure how he got by, because I was convinced that Spence paid him in gift certificates and coupons from the local merchants who advertised on the radio station. Then again, I'd heard that Tim was e-trading on the Internet, so maybe he was cleaning up in the stock market.

  I had to alert my staff, however. I called Scott first, but he wasn't home yet. Perhaps he was romancing Ta-mara Rostova. Then I phoned Vida, not because she was second in importance, but because I knew the call to her would take some time.

  Vida claims she never listens to KSKY, but I know better. She would never reject a news source, even from an archrival. There isn't much that Vida misses, but just in case, she tunes in to Spence's station. This is a fact, because at least twice she has caught him in mistakes. Unable to contain her glee, Vida had to pass these erroneous bits of news on to me.

  “I heard all but the very start,” Vida said in an excited voice. “What did I miss?”