Alpine Zen : An Emma Lord Mystery (9780804177481) (10 page)

“Oh God!” Spence exclaimed, no longer mellifluous. “What now? Never mind, I shall gird my loins. Got to dash off to do the hour-turn news. Not that I have much of it this morning.” He rang off.

I decided to pay Kay Burns a call. It was better than staying in my office, where only a tight-lipped Vida remained at her desk. But when I was halfway to the newsroom, she spoke to me.

“I'm writing about Miriam Lambrecht,” she announced as if she were handing out Order of the British Empire medals at Buckingham Palace. “She's not only a charming, well-bred woman, but extremely kind and friendly.” Vida turned her back to me and resumed typing.

In other words
, I thought, as I trudged out of the newsroom,
the opposite of me
.

RestHaven might have changed its mailing address, but after parking my Honda, I went through the main entrance, half-expecting to see an armed Sid Almquist in uniform barring my way. But access was effortless and the rotunda was unchanged. I went up to the main desk, asking for Kay. The solemn young Samoan woman told me she'd check with Ms.
Burns. While she spoke to Kay, I mentally added the receptionist to the list of ethnic possibilities for Mitch's proposed feature.

I was informed that Ms. Burns would see me. Did I know where her office was located? I didn't. She pointed to a door on the right at the rear of the rotunda. My footsteps echoed as I walked across what had once been called the Bronsky ballroom, but in reality was where the family played Ping-Pong on rainy days while waiting for a mammoth delivery from Itsa Bitsa Pizza.

Kay rose when I came into her comfortable office. “What a surprise, Emma!” she exclaimed. “I haven't seen you for over a month. Do sit. Coffee?” She pointed to a Starbucks Verismo model on a mahogany table.

I declined. “You might want to have some booze on hand to put in that coffeemaker after I tell you why I'm here.”

Kay, who was in her mid-fifties, but looked much younger, kept her composure. “Oh dear. What have I done?”

“It's what you haven't done,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “Both Spencer Fleetwood and I are frustrated over the lack of coverage we're allowed to have of RestHaven. Vida's upset, too, because all her requests for staff members to be on her radio program have been turned down. Even you refused, though you knew she wouldn't ask embarrassing or intrusive questions on the air.” In private was another matter, but of course I didn't say that.

“Well.” Kay ran a hand through the short black hair that was styled to set off her fine features. “In my own defense, I realized Vida probably would talk about not only my life since I came back to Alpine, but my earlier years before I moved away. Frankly, I wanted to avoid that. It wasn't a happy time for me with two failed marriages. Vida does have a way when
it comes to wringing information out of other people. It could've been embarrassing.”

“She has her methods,” I conceded, wondering if Vida had given her the third-degree before leaving Alpine. I almost had to agree with Kay's refusal to be interviewed. “I can see your point,” I continued, “but that doesn't explain the other three who bowed out. I know the reasons Farrell, Reed, and Hood told her, but it still seems uncooperative. As you must know, it isn't good PR. RestHaven is part of the community.”

Kay folded her hands and waited a moment before responding. “Let me explain the culture here,” she began, her blue eyes fixed on my face. “There's no mystery about the medical rehab section. At the moment, half the patients are local. Vida probably knows who they are. They'll recover from whatever problems they have and return to their lives. The addiction unit is very different. Some of the patients register under an alias. They want privacy. Surely you and Vida and Spencer understand that.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“The same holds true of the mental health ward,” Kay went on. “Let's be frank. While society is changing its attitude toward mental illness, it's still a very sensitive subject. Not only do the patients want to avoid being stigmatized, but so do their family members. Until mental illness sheds its taboo status, we must protect the people in our care.”

“I realize that,” I allowed, “but when Dr. Reed's husband escaped, keeping his identity—even his physical description—a secret was detrimental to finding him until it was too late. Nor was it fair to SkyCo's residents. They had no idea if the missing man was dangerous. That caused some panic, especially among parents and the elderly.”

Kay finally looked off toward a framed print of Marc Chagall's
Amoureux de Vence
. I was glad it wasn't Edvard Munch's
The Scream
.

“Let me give you an example,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “This morning a patient admitted herself, insisting on using a false name. She didn't want anyone—including her parents, whom she implied might be deceased—to find out she'd come here. She's ashamed. Frightened, too. How can we not respect her feelings? It would be barbarous of us to do otherwise.”

“That I understand,” I asserted. “But it's not what I'm talking about. Hiring Sid Almquist, for example,
is
news here. Good news, given what happened to him and Mary Jean before they left Alpine.”

Kay looked blank. “I don't know anything about that. I've only a vague recollection of Sid and none of Mary Jean.”

I stood up, smiling ironically. “Kay, I hate to say this, but I think we're deadlocked on this issue. Mitch Laskey has been asking for months about the groundbreaking for the Alzheimer's wing. We understood that would happen in the early spring. Now we're into summer and still no date's been set. Is it going to happen or has the idea been shelved?”

Kay looked pained. “The architect, Scott Melville, hasn't yet finalized his plans. That is, the input from our administrators is still being evaluated. There is some concern about those power lines that would go right over the proposed site. Aesthetic and emotional impact on both patients and staff, you see. This isn't for publication, but we might have to add on out back instead of to the east.”

I nodded. “I only hope that when it comes to this kind of news that doesn't violate patient privacy, RestHaven will be more forthcoming.”

Kay had also gotten to her feet. “I hope we can do that,” she said quietly. “I don't want you, Vida, and Spencer to be
angry with me.” She smiled. “I like Spencer very much. He's a charming man. And I know you mean well. By the way, what did happen to poor Sid before he left town?”

My smile widened. “I can't tell you that. I'm protecting his personal and professional privacy.”

—

I felt smug as I walked out into the rotunda. But I was also curious, a natural condition for me. I wondered if the young woman who had admitted herself was Ren Rawlings. My musings were interrupted as I neared the exit and saw Iain Farrell come out of his office. He took one look at me and went back inside, closing the door behind him.

That made me more than curious. Now I was also suspicious. Maybe Farrell was afraid I'd ask embarrassing questions. Or maybe he was just afraid of something I couldn't guess.

B
ack at the office, I forced myself to flip through early 1980s'
Advocate
s. By then, the counterculture hippies had morphed into the pro-environmental yippies. During my tenure with the
Oregonian
, my beat had mainly involved human-interest features in the TriMet area around Portland—Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties. I'd rarely been assigned to hard news during my later years on the paper. The big environmental headlines in the eighties came out of the Willamette National Forest, where anti-logging protesters allegedly used vicious tactics that went beyond tree hugging. Ultimately, the protesters won out, creating economic devastation for the timber industry. Oregon's Lane County had never quite recovered.

The
Advocate
's environmental coverage picked up dramatically as the movement invaded western Washington. By 1985, Vandeventer was practically apoplectic in his editorials. He almost went over the edge vilifying three of the protesters by name, all from the Seattle area. Their gravest sin was putting a clown mask on Carl Clemans's statue in Old Mill Park. I guessed that Marius had lost his sense of humor. From what I'd heard of Mr. Clemans, he enjoyed a good laugh, even at his own expense.

Halfway through 1984, I surrendered. Vida had been on
the paper for almost four years. If Kassia Arthur had ever made news in Alpine, she would have remembered her. Still, that postcard nagged at me.

I looked up to see Kip in the doorway. “Hey,” he said with a grin, “I'm all the way up to 1967 putting the back issues on discs. Do you want me to rush the job?”

“No,” I replied. “Save it for your spare time.”

He nodded before glancing over his shoulder into the empty newsroom. “I wanted to make sure Vida wasn't here,” he said, no longer grinning. “She turned in a weird story about the new bank president's wife a few minutes ago. You always go over her copy, right?”

“I do, but I rarely make major changes. She does have her own chatty style, and even if it's not always good journalism writing, readers seem to like it. What do you mean by ‘weird'?”

Kip frowned. “It's hard to explain, except that it's…kind of personal. I'll zap it to you now.” He left for the back shop.

I had a feeling I knew what Kip meant. Two minutes later, the House & Home–page feature appeared on my monitor. The opening graf was fine, at least for Vida's homey style. But after a quote from Miriam Lambrecht saying how happy she and Bob were to be moving to his hometown, the piece started to go downhill.

“Miriam is a delightful woman,” Vida wrote, “who will be a welcome addition to the community, particularly among her peer group. It's so refreshing to be in the company of a wife and mother who feels no need to be in the workplace, where she can flaunt her authority over employees who are helping put food on her table.”

There was more in little snippets, such as Miriam being the kind of person “who one feels can be a true and loyal friend,” and of course an endorsement of the entire Lambrecht family as members of the Presbyterian Church, “to which she will
bring her selfless attitude and tireless efforts on behalf of those less fortunate.”

I raced off to the back shop. “That second graf's out,” I told Kip. “I can defend the editing on the grounds that it insults Betsy O'Toole, Janet Driggers, some of the college faculty, and several other women who have families as well as employees. I don't care if Vida blows up and lands out on Front Street. The rest of the article can stay, even if it's a bit much.”

Kip's laugh was ironic. “The Lutherans won't like the church bit.”

“Neither will the other churches,” I said, “but they can write letters, send emails, or call her on the phone to bitch.”

“Are you going to tell her what you're doing?” Kip asked.

“No,” I replied. “I've edited Vida's copy before, especially when she does news stories. I don't recall her ever complaining.”

“Maybe she never reads the articles after they appear in the paper.”

I shrugged. “That's possible. I suspect Vandeventer may not have edited her copy. Judging from some of the articles he wrote, he didn't edit his own.” I gave Kip a forlorn smile before returning to my office.

A few minutes later, I saw Mitch enter the newsroom. I went to his desk, waiting for him to pour some coffee. As soon as he sat down, I reeled off more ethnic possibilities for his roots feature.

“Diversity,” he murmured. “Not exactly Alpine's middle name, but it's a start. By the way, the Ren bird has flown the coop. She checked out of the ski lodge early this morning. Is that story a dead end?”

I winced. Should I mention the new patient at RestHaven? Kay Burns hadn't named names nor had she sworn me to secrecy. From a personal point of view, I no longer had Vida to
co-speculate about odd occurrences in Alpine. Thus, I confided my conjecture about Ren.

Mitch was on the scent. I gave him a thumbs-up sign and was about to go back to my office when Jack Blackwell stormed into the newsroom. He glanced at Leo's vacant place, glared at my reporter, and headed in my direction as if he intended to mow me down. I held my ground. “What now?” I asked as he stopped a mere two feet away.

“You and Baugh should be run out of town,” Black Jack declared, shaking a fist. “How does that senile old bastard have the nerve to ask for a vote on reorganizing the county's government? If that's your idea, think again, you silly little tramp!”

“Hey!” Mitch called out sharply. “You ever heard of free speech?”

I didn't know whether to be more surprised by Jack's outburst or Mitch's defense. They were both six-footers, but the mill owner carried another twenty pounds and was in decent shape for being close to sixty.

Blackwell whirled around to face my reporter, who had gotten to his feet. “Keep out of this, Laskey,” he snarled, his dark, saturnine features making him look every inch the villain. “You work for her, you're just a stooge like Walsh.” He snapped around to face me again. “Where is that son of a bitch? I want my money back for that ad!”

I'd stepped a few feet away from him. “You're out of line,” I said, relieved that I sounded so self-assured. “Would you rather I wrote an editorial about you being an asshole who beats up women?”

Jack slashed at the air with his hand. “I'd sue your fancy little ass off! And don't try to threaten me with Dodge. Everybody in town knows that bastard's been screwing you for years. You're the two biggest hypocrites in Skykomish County.”

The only thing bigger than Blackwell's mouth was his ego. He was so self-absorbed that up until recently he hadn't known Milo and I had ever dated. I waited for a moment, then held out my left hand with the gold band and its twin circlets of tiny diamonds. “That's
Mrs
. Dodge to you, Blackwell. When are you going to make an honest woman of Patti Marsh?” I jerked my hand away from his curious eyes. “Who's the real hypocrite now?” I demanded. “Get out before I call the sheriff and every damned deputy he's got on duty.”

If Jack's scorching black eyes could have killed, Mitch would've had to call Al Driggers to take me away. But the jerk wasn't giving in—not quite. “You and Dodge haven't heard the last of me,” he declared, striding out of the newsroom. “I run the county commissioners. I'm his boss, and don't you and that antique of a mayor forget it!”

“Good God!” Mitch gasped as if he hadn't exhaled for at least a minute. “What got into him? Blackwell's all business whenever I've dealt with him. I thought that full-page ad was great PR.”

I flopped down in Mitch's visitor chair. “It was. It is.” I shook myself. “That can't be the real problem. I don't get it.” I smiled weakly at my reporter. “Thanks for defending me. He might've slugged you.”

Mitch shrugged. “You think I covered my crime beat in Detroit without knowing martial arts? Self-defense is practically a requirement for Motor City reporters—including the ones on the women's page.”

I laughed. “I didn't know that. Was it included in the résumé you gave—” I stopped, seeing Alison hurry into the newsroom.

“You're both okay?” she asked, her blue eyes wide. “I could hear most of that. I almost called the sheriff!”

“No need for that,” I said. “Mitch is my secret weapon. Or
so I just found out. You grew up mostly in Everett, so you don't know Black Jack's reputation other than as a law-abiding mill owner.”

Alison looked askance. “I heard you say he beats up women. Why don't they report him?”

“His longtime girlfriend and favorite punching bag, Patti Marsh, apparently loves the guy,” I said, trying to explain the unexplainable. “The rest have been short-timers or got back at him in other ways.”

The phone rang in the front office before Alison could respond. She rushed off as I got to my feet. Mitch had finished his coffee, announcing he was headed for RestHaven. He almost collided with Alison, who was in the doorway, telling me that the sheriff was on the phone. I scurried back to my desk to take the call.

“News?” I inquired brightly.

“Not for you,” Milo replied. “I should be talking to Laskey, right?”

“He just left. I'm the editor, remember?”

“Oh, right.” My husband sounded beleaguered. “As far as the autopsy wizards in Everett can tell, the dead guy died of natural causes. That doesn't mean he did, though.”

I made a face. “So what's your official statement, Sheriff?”

“Damned if I know,” he said. “Make one up.”

“I can't do that,” I retorted. “Come on, give me some real information. How long has he been dead? How old was he when he died?”

There was a pause. I suspected Milo was studying the official ME report. “Three to six years, with the recent warmer winters hurrying decomposition. Age between forty-five and fifty. Caucasian, fair-haired, original but discolored teeth with some dental work, evidence of a broken ankle before he was twelve, broken arm in his twenties. No tattoos.”

“That's pretty thorough,” I said, “but you went too fast—wait. You're kidding about the tattoos, right?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to see if you were still alert.” Milo yawned in my ear. “I'd meet you for lunch, but I can't.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Tanya got to me first,” he replied. “God, I hope she isn't breaking up with Blatt. I haven't seen much of him today. He's out on patrol. I'm going to hang up on you now.”

“Wait—have we reached a new plateau in our relationship that you're announcing a hang-up in advance?”

“Huh?” Milo sounded faintly startled. “No. Maybe I'm waiting for you to tell me what you're going to post on your news site. We've gotten only four calls from locals who think it could be somebody they knew who disappeared five to twenty years ago. None of the missing males were from SkyCo, though. Oh—Averill Fairbanks stopped by to say it was an alien named Leroy from the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Mullins told Averill he was right—he'd seen Leroy go into the Icicle Creek Tavern in April of 1999. Now don't you wish I
had
hung up on you?”

I laughed. “Can I put the ME's findings on the site?”

“Hell, yes. Isn't that what you wanted to know in the first place?”

He rang off before I could answer.

—

Five minutes later, I left for the courthouse. Maybe Blackwell was ahead of me, on his way to berate Fuzzy Baugh. The clock in the faded redbrick tower stood at twenty to twelve. As I reached the top of the stone steps, Rosemary Bourgette emerged through one of the swinging double doors.

“Emma!” she cried, beaming at me. “Des is making me dinner
tomorrow night at his place.” Her eyes rolled heavenward, blinking at the bright sun. “I wonder how well he can cook. He mentioned pasta. Does that mean spaghetti?”

“Let's hope not,” I said. “I call that survival food. It's a far cry from Le Gourmand. But it's definitely another date.”

“I need date-worthy summer clothes,” Rosemary declared. “I'm off to see if Francine Wells has anything at her Fabulous Fourth summer sale. Wish me luck.”

I complied and waved her off. It'd been awhile since I'd shopped for clothes. Except for buying a new winter parka on sale in the late fall, I hadn't splurged on my wardrobe in a long time. Maybe I should check out the sale. On the other hand, I was already beginning to sweat. Besides, unlike Rosemary, I had a husband. What I really needed was more bath towels. On that practical note, I walked toward the mayor's office and announced my arrival to his secretary, Bobbi Olson.

“He'll see you,” she informed me with a dour expression. “He locked himself in his office when I told him Jack Blackwell showed up a couple of minutes ago. What's up with
that
?”

“Jack's being a jackass,” I said. “Where'd he go?”

Bobbi shrugged. “Out the back way.”

She buzzed the mayor. A moment later, Fuzzy stood—a bit stooped of late—in the doorway, smiling benignly. “A welcome sight for these tired old eyes,” he asserted with a touch of the Bayou in his voice. The mayor bowed slightly as he ushered me inside and closed the door. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Black Jack,” I replied, sitting down in the comfortably cushioned chair across the mahogany desk from the mayor's even more luxurious model. “I assume you barred the door to him.”

Fuzzy chuckled. “Valor is more difficult than discretion in
my advanced years. Commissioner Blackwell did not take kindly to my proposal of abolishing his county job. May I hazard a guess that you've already suffered his wrath?”

I nodded. “When will you call for the special election?”

“At the Fourth of July picnic,” the mayor responded. “What patriotic citizen could object? I'm content to surrender my own position. Surely Jack would like to unburden himself of his frustrating government duties. It can't be easy, given that the two other commissioners are so elderly and no longer capable of making sound decisions for our fine county.” The faded blue eyes held a hint of life. “A stroke of genius on your part, my dear, to run the flag picture on the front page of the special edition.”