Alpine Hero Page 9

  I kept the pleasant expression pasted on my face. “Oh? Then maybe you could tell us who owns this property so that we can talk to them. It’s so big that I assume it must be a new business. That’s news in this part of the world.”

  The man’s features loosened just a fraction. “I own the property. It’s not a business. It’s my house.” He nodded curtly at the second foundation. “There, by the river. They’re pouring for the garage and workshop now. If you want to know any more, you can contact me by E-mail.”

  We didn’t have E-mail at The Advocate. Not yet, anyway. No doubt we’d get it along with other state-of-the-art innovations when—and if—I actually converted the back shop.

  “How about the U.S. mail?” I suggested. “I’d be glad to do that, if you’ll give me your name and address.”

  This time the man actually recoiled. “My name? You don’t know my name?”

  Vida couldn’t stand being left out. “We certainly don’t. We thought you were in concrete.”

  The man began to laugh. And laugh and laugh. Vida and I stared at each other. Finally, he stopped, literally holding his sides.

  “I can’t believe it! That’s hilarious! I’m Toby Popp!”

  We still didn’t know who he was. When I said as much, Toby stopped laughing. He was incredulous. “Then why are you here?”

  Vida waved a gloved hand at the foundations. “Because of these,” she said testily. “Any structure of this size around here is news, especially if an Alpine contractor is involved. Emma already told you that, Mister … Popp.”

  “Well, now you know.” Toby’s mirth had faded. He was again looking stern. “You’d better leave.”

  “Certainly,” Vida said, turning away.

  “Thanks, anyway,” I said, trying not to sink into the mire.

  Back on the gravel road, Vida demanded to know who Toby Popp was. I didn’t hear her at first, because a second cement truck was now growling away.

  “I’ve no idea,” I replied. “A rock star? A TV personality? A psychopath?”

  “He’s not from around here,” Vida asserted. “There’ve never been any Popps in Skykomish or east Snohomish counties.” Her tone dismissed Toby Popp. I decided to do the same, except for having Carla check with Nyquist Construction so that we could run a small article. Their client seemed of no importance, except that he was bringing much-needed dollars into Alpine. I, too, put Toby Popp out of my mind.

  That was foolish.

  Chapter Six

  WE DIDN’T GET back to Alpine until just before five o’clock. Carla had left, though Leo was still at his desk, going over some of the Presidents’ Day ads. As expected, the phone messages had piled up, most of them in reference to the murder at Stella’s.

  “Vida,” I asked as my House & Home editor sorted through her own calls, “you must know Stella fairly well. Is there anything in her background that might link her to Kay Whitman?”

  Vida shot me a triumphant look. “So you’ve been thinking about what I said. That’s progress. Perhaps.” But she turned rueful. “Stella’s life is an open book. The only connection might be through Becca. You see,” she added in apology, “I don’t know much about Becca’s life outside of Alpine.”

  Leo glanced up from his ad copy. “Jeez! There’s something you don’t know, Duchess? I thought you had everything filed away inside that awe-inspiring head of yours!”

  “Go to the dickens, Leo,” Vida said with dignity. “I do know that in high school Becca was seeing a very nasty young man from Skykomish.” She pointedly ignored Leo, and spoke directly to me. “He was involved in all sorts of unfortunate activities, including a motorcycle gang. That’s when Stella became involved. She’s always pitched in to help young people with problems.”

  I was well aware of Stella Magruder’s compassion for troubled youth. It was said that she had saved many a teenager from getting in too deep. Apparently, Becca Wolfe was one of them.

  “When Becca graduated—barely,” Vida went on, “Stella advised her to leave Alpine. Imagine! That was a very daring idea.” I kept a straight face, knowing that many adolescents couldn’t wait to head for the Big City. “Becca moved away, with her parents’ blessing. They simply couldn’t handle the girl. Later, I heard she married. Then it seemed that the groom wasn’t much better than the biker from Skykomish. That happens so often—young women making the wrong choices, over and over again.”

  I felt my face stiffen. I hadn’t fallen into that particular trap. Instead, I’d clung to the same man for over twenty years. Maybe we all went to extremes when it came to mating. For some women, love had to be found, tested, lost, and found again. The cycle never stopped. Not being in love, or in the act of pursuing it, was tantamount to death. I, however, had found love early. The man I’d chosen had been both dangerous and safe. He had cast me adrift, which frightened as well as suited me. I’d never had to make promises I couldn’t keep; there was no need to search for a new love. Until now.

  “Anyway,” Vida continued, “Becca divorced him, attended beauty school in Seattle, and returned to Alpine. I gleaned that much from the brief interview I did with her in January when she went to work for Stella.”

  “It’s a weak link,” I admitted.

  Leo was on his feet. “Weak? It doesn’t exist. You two are pushing it.”

  Vida’s gaze was filled with disdain. “We didn’t ask for your opinion.”

  “It’s still free.” Leo was putting on his raincoat. “If you’re trying to tie this Whitman broad into the locals, dig into her past first. I used to work with a guy out in the San Fernando Valley who retired to Carmel. You want me to call him tonight?”

  I thought it was a good idea. The offer also seemed to smooth Vida’s ruffled feathers. “By all means,” she said, gathering up her belongings. “Assuming, of course, this chum of yours is in the know.”

  Leo shrugged. “He’s got contacts. Carmel’s just south of Pacific Grove. Jake’s bored spitless these days. He’ll probably be glad to have something to do.”

  After Leo was gone, Vida heaved a great sigh. “I wish I had kinfolk in Carmel. They’d know something. Do you realize that I have only three California addresses on my Christmas-card list? None of them are in that part of the state.” My House & Home editor sounded as if she were owning up to one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

  I grinned at Vida. “That’s okay. I thought of something just now while Leo was talking about his former colleague. Remember the environmentalist who stayed with Honoria last spring? She and Honoria went way back. Why don’t we call her?” Proud of my brainstorm, I kept grinning.

  Vida, however, was stalking across the room to the door. “I already did. The environmentalist moved to Brazil to save the rain forests. Good night, Emma.”

  Deflated, I wandered into my office. The phone calls could wait until morning. My editorial for next week was already outlined. I’d decided to write about the proposed sale of timberlands that had been charred in the previous summer’s devastating fires. The blazes had roared through three of eastern Washington’s national forests, and federal officials were still debating how to offer salvage logging. Supposedly, parcels of timber that hadn’t been seriously harmed by the fires would be put up for bid. The plan was controversial, with the environmentalists arguing that the once-protected areas should stay that way. Timber-industry leaders couldn’t agree whether the selected trees would be worth the effort. My point was that the government was dragging its feet.

  I was doing the same thing. My buoyant mood of two days earlier had changed into listlessness. Maybe I was suffering from frustration over the seemingly fruitless interview at Honoria’s house. Or perhaps the slow drive back to Alpine had dampened whatever enthusiasm I had left for the remainder of the day. I couldn’t force myself to make up my mind whether to grocery-shop or eat at the Venison Inn.

  The phone rang. It was after five-thirty, too late for anyone to expect an answer. I let it ring twice more, then noticed that the call was coming in on my
direct line. I grabbed the receiver before the answering machine switched on.

  “Mom—how come you’re still at work?” Adam demanded. “Don’t you usually cut out early on Wednesdays?”

  I was surprised that Adam remembered any details of my job schedule. “Vida and I had to go down to Startup. What’s happening in Tempe?”

  “Not enough,” Adam replied in an unusually mournful voice. “Just like everywhere else. People are indifferent. They don’t care. You know what’s wrong with the world? Selfishness. Everybody’s too inner-directed.”

  I sucked in my breath. How had my son come to this conclusion when he, too, was guilty? Given his youth and my doting maternal instincts, Adam was in the vanguard of contemporary self-absorption.

  “Selfish, yes,” I agreed. “But some of it’s fear. What gave you this sudden insight?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” Adam sounded world-weary. “It’s been sinking in for a long time, maybe starting with the Navajo. The Hopi, too. Uncle Ben knows what I’m talking about.”

  So did Mother Emma. But a parent’s opinions are rarely worth more than five cents on the dollar. “You’ve talked to Ben lately?”

  “He called me a week or two ago about those family pictures,” Adam responded, still solemn. “I was in the middle of making out my class schedule for next term. He advised me to take a lot of sociology and philosophy. That way, I can work with the Inner Person. Otherwise, change is useless.”

  I hesitated before asking the obvious: “Did Ben suggest beginning with you?”

  Adam’s laugh was patronizing. “He’s always told me that. I made up a slogan. I’ve got it on the wall of my dorm. ‘It all starts with I.’ ” Taking my silence for lack of comprehension, Adam went on, somewhat impatiently. “The word it—that begins with an i. Which means that if a person is going to make a difference—”

  “I get it,” I said. “Ben’s right. You’re right. But how do you intend to go about changing the world?”

  “Mom,” Adam said in his familiar tone of exasperation, “you’re out of it. Change is made in ways that seem small, even unimportant. You have to go one-on-one with other people. That’s why I want to be a social worker.”

  For the past few months Adam had been digressing from his previous goal, which was to become an anthropologist or an archaeologist, whichever was easier to spell on a résumé. He had spent two summers working the Anasazi digs with Ben, which had inspired my son to live in the past. That had been fine with me, as long as he worked at preparing for the future. Social work didn’t seem to suit him.

  “How many credits do you need to graduate in social work?” I inquired.

  “Graduate?” Adam now sounded vague. “I don’t know why a diploma is such a big deal. It’s understanding and experience and compassion that mean the most when you work with people. Getting a so-called degree will take forever. I figured that after this next term I’d quit school and start doing something. Think of all the people I could be helping instead of staring at a computer screen or listening to some disorganized prof drone on about theories.”

  Whatever appetite I’d had earlier now turned into a knot in my stomach. “Adam, you’ve gone to three different universities, all at great expense. You’ve finished the basic requirements for most degrees. You’ve spent two years at ASU. Surely you can’t need more than thirty or forty credits to graduate. Another year or so won’t make that much difference to civilization as we know it.”

  “You don’t sense the urgency,” Adam asserted, still condescending. “If you hung out with Uncle Ben the way I’ve done the last couple of summers—”

  “What does Uncle Ben say about this latest scheme of yours?” I interrupted.

  “It’s not a scheme. It’s a blueprint.” Adam paused, then lowered his voice. “I haven’t told him yet.”

  Deciding that Ben might have more influence on Adam than I would, and realizing from twenty-two years of experience that it was pointless to argue, I tried to relax.

  “Talk it over with him when you’re in Tuba City for Easter break,” I said. Then, because a mother never can resist giving unwelcome advice: “Meanwhile don’t do anything … precipitous.” I’d almost said “dumb.” “That degree is your ticket to helping more people in better ways than you could do otherwise.”

  There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. Maybe my son was actually thinking about what I’d just said. But when Adam spoke again, he had gone off in a different direction.

  “Are you pissed because you think my father wouldn’t fork over any more travel money if I was out of school?”

  Tom had been providing Adam’s transportation for the past three years. He and my son—our son—had never met until Adam was in college. In my war of independence, I’d kept them apart. I had gone for twenty years without any contact with Tom. Then, after we met again and eventually ended up back in bed, we had discovered that time hadn’t diminished our passion. In the meantime I’d let Tom get acquainted with our now-grown child. The two had seemed to forge a tentative bond. If Adam thought about it at all, he probably figured that Tom and I were nothing more than friends. We were no longer even that. I hadn’t told Adam that I had again excised his father from my life.

  Nor would I tell him now. I’d already uttered words he’d rather not hear. “I’m not concerned about your father’s contributions,” I said stiffly. “We got along before he made them, we can get along without them again. But I suspect he’d like to see you finish college.”

  “Do his other kids have degrees?” It was the first time I’d ever heard Adam refer to Tom’s two children by Sandra.

  “Not yet,” I hedged. Tom’s daughter, Kelsey, was threatening to quit Mills College to become an actress. The last I heard, his son, Graham, was finishing at USC.

  “He won’t care,” Adam said easily. “He’s told me that I should be whatever I want. He’s not a dictator.”

  The implication was clear. Mom was the Black Hat. “You can be a bricklayer or a dentist or a warlock, if that’s what you want. But you’d damned well better do it with a diploma in your hip pocket.”

  The vigor in my voice must have made a dent on Adam. “I’ll talk it over with Uncle Ben at Easter,” he mumbled, not sounding happy at the prospect.

  “Good,” I said, tempering my tone. “How’s it going otherwise?”

  It was going, sort of. There was yet another new girl, whose name I didn’t bother to file in my brain. Classes were hard, and most of the instructors were boring. The roommate that he’d acquired in the fall had turned out to be a drug user and had left the campus the previous week. Without asking for money, clothes, or other merchandise, Adam finally rang off. He sounded glum, and that made me unhappy.

  I’d call him back tomorrow night; maybe I’d insist that he come home for Easter. But that would disappoint Ben, who couldn’t desert his parishioners during Holy Week. My brother and I were lucky to get together twice a year.

  My spirits plunged still deeper. On weary legs, I finally left the office. The Jag had sat too long in the cold weather. It didn’t want to start. Given my mood, I could empathize.

  I went back into the office to call Cal Vickers and ask for a tow. Fortunately, he was still open. Alpine’s merchants are whimsical when it comes to keeping hours. Cal said he’d be there in about ten minutes. It was six straight up, and he was about to close. He offered to give me a ride home in the tow truck.

  I killed five minutes by trying to balance my checkbook. It had been payday, and I’d gone to the bank in the morning, but forgotten to enter my deposit. Grimly, I wondered how much the car repair would cost. There were only two other Jaguars in Skykomish County. I doubted that Cal would have parts, if they were needed. Usually, they were.

  It was still snowing when I went outside to stand beside my precious, if aggravating, car. Traffic on Front Street had begun to dwindle. Most of the shops and businesses were closed. I glanced down the street toward the sheriff’s office, but saw no sign
of Milo’s Cherokee Chief.

  My teeth were beginning to chatter when Ed Bronsky pulled up in his Mercedes. “Emma!” he called. “Got a minute?”

  “No,” I shouted back. “I’m waiting for a tow from Cal.”

  “Then you’ve got more than a minute.” Ed backed into the space usually reserved for Vida. He got out of the car, walking slightly pigeon-toed in his hand-tooled leather boots. “I’ve been thinking since we talked yesterday at Buddy’s studio. Ever realize how you can be too close to see something for what it really is?”

  “Don’t start that again, Ed,” I warned. “I’m not responsible for anything in this town except myself and The Advocate. Nobody in their right mind could accuse me of—”

  “No, no, no.” Ed waved his gloved hand. “I don’t mean the murders. You’re going to have to fend for yourself when it comes to—”

  It was Ed’s turn to be interrupted. Cal was slowing down in the middle of the street, amber lights flashing on top of his tow truck.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said with a toothy smile for Ed.

  “Wait.” Ed’s voice conveyed his recently acquired self-confidence. Money, especially unearned, often bestows imagined attributes that are taken seriously by both the beneficiary and the beholder. “What are you doing for dinner?” Ed inquired. “Shirley’s putting on one of her gourmet meals. An extra mouth won’t matter.”

  As far as I knew, Shirley Bronsky’s idea of gourmet cooking was roasting hot dogs on an imported fire poker. Going to the grocery store suddenly held enormous appeal. Except, of course, that I couldn’t get there and back under my own power.

  Cal had gotten out of his truck. Apparently, he’d heard the last part of my conversation with Ed. “Let’s see if I can start this thing. Maybe you flooded the engine.”

  I brushed snowflakes from my eyelashes while Cal slid inside the Jag and Ed drummed his fingers on the Mercedes’s ice-blue hood.

  “Nope,” Cal announced, getting out of my car. “Dead as a doornail. Go ahead, Emma. I won’t be able to look at your Jag until morning anyway. I’ll take it over to the station now and call you before noon.”