Alpine Zen : An Emma Lord Mystery (9780804177481) (5 page)

I growled low in my throat and headed for the mall.

The line was long, and to my dismay, Vida's despised sister-in-law, Mary Lou Hinshaw Blatt, was in front of me. She, too, is a big woman, and just as opinionated. Also like Vida, she seems to have eyes in the back of her head.

“Hello, Emma,” she said, turning to stare down at me. “I drove by your house the other day. You certainly put a lot of work and
money
into the remodel. The newspaper must be raking it in.”

I felt the two twenties in my wallet might catch on fire. “Milo paid for all of it,” I said in sort of a squeak.

“Oh?” Mary Lou sidled up a place in the line. “I heard the sheriff was letting his daughter stay at his house in the Icicle Creek Development with my nephew Bill. I'm glad Lila put an end to that. It's reassuring to know one member of the Blatt family has good sense.”

The barb at Vida rankled, but I held my tongue. Luckily the line split in two as a second person showed up behind the counter. Mary Lou barged in front of a hapless dark-haired girl who looked like a college student. I stayed put. Ten minutes later, I entered the sheriff's headquarters where my husband was still working the front desk.

“Where'd everybody go?” I asked, glancing at receptionist Lori Cobb's empty chair.

“Lori's grandma had a stroke this morning,” Milo said. “The old girl's at least ninety. Maybe she misses her husband. He's been dead for six months.”

I began unloading the box with the bold brown PITS logo, an unfortunate acronym for an eatery. “I thought she was dating.”

“They broke up. Lori's grandma said the guy cheated on her—at Bingo.” Milo grabbed the corned beef sandwich. “Jack's at lunch, Dwight's on patrol, Doe Jamison and Sam Heppner are breaking up a fracas at RestHaven. Where are my pickles?”

“Your…
what
fracas?”

Milo didn't answer until he'd swallowed a big bite of sandwich. “The drug and booze rehab unit chief, Iain Farrell, called a few minutes ago. A couple of patients got into it. It's not the first time.”

I glared at the sheriff. “It's not? You've never informed
the press
about any such incidents.”

Milo found his damned pickles. “The set-tos were in the log.”

I was puzzled. “Then why didn't I notice? I always go over what Mitch takes down every day.”

“Let me check something.” Milo popped a couple of potato chips into his mouth and went to flip through the log on the counter. “I'll be damned,” he muttered. “You know we list only addresses with domestic disturbances that don't require a citation or an arrest. Those RestHaven bastards changed their address from River Road to Bonneville Way. They must be using the medical rehab center as the address instead of the main entrance. If the change is official, I wonder how much mail Marlowe Whipp has lost for them.”

“Not much more than he usually drops,” I murmured. “I've
never liked Farrell, but Woo seems like a good guy. I've only met him twice.”

“Right.” He shrugged and sat back down. “Maybe some of the nuts were getting loose and going through the mail in the lobby. They tend to give their patients some freedom, as long as the doors are locked.”

My mind flew back to February when a psych ward patient had escaped and died of a heart attack before he could be found. I glanced at my watch. It was five after one. “I should head for the office. Are you still stuck here in the front?”

“I am until Doe and Sam get back. Want to sit on my lap?”

“Are you insane?” I shot back, gathering up what was left of my sandwich and bag of chips. I'd already finished the Pepsi and dumped the can in the recycling bin. “We're a staid married couple now. Don't ruin our image.” I stood up. “By the way, does Tanya like working at the Icicle Creek Ranger Station?”

“So far,” Milo replied, also getting to his feet. “It's only been a little over a week.” He moved closer and cupped my chin with the hand that wasn't holding the pickle he'd finally found. Just as he leaned down to kiss me, Jack came through one of the double doors.

“Oops! Sorry, boss, didn't know you were…”

Milo's hand fell away from my chin and he almost dropped the pickle. “Damnit, Mullins, why aren't you at the dump site?”

“I thought I'd check in to tell you I was on my way,” Jack said. “I have to get my cruiser to meet Dwight out there because…”

I left them to the rest of their exchange. I could've sworn that Jack's twinkling eyes gave him away. He'd probably seen us through the glass in the door. Mullins might be the flakiest
of the deputies, but he was probably the smartest and had a puckish sense of humor.

As soon as I got back to work I called the hospital to ask if Amanda was still there. She was, and answered on the first ring. “Oh, Emma,” she said, after I offered congratulations, “she is the sweetest thing! Walt just left for the fish hatchery, but we had her in the room for over an hour.”

“Are you going home today?” I inquired. Vida would want to know—if she hadn't already been informed by one of her numerous sources.

“No, not until tomorrow,” Amanda replied. “I didn't get settled into bed until almost two last night. But she's worth it.”

I was smiling into the phone. “Have you picked out a name?”

“Yes.” Amanda paused. “Emma.”

“What?” I said. “I'm still here.”

She burst out laughing. “That's her name, after you. If you hadn't helped me get my head straight last fall, she wouldn't exist.”

“Oh, Amanda!” I was stunned. “I almost fired you!”

“That was part of it,” Amanda said seriously. “I admired you for raising a son on your own. When you told me about his father and how he was stuck with his disturbed wife and after she OD'd, you planned to get married, but he got killed…well, I thought you were heroic. So did Walt. But we don't have a middle name. We thought about our mothers' names, but Emma Linda and Emma Barbara don't go together. Besides, the name we didn't use would make the other mother feel bad.”

I was so overcome by Amanda's kind words that I didn't take in all of what she'd said. “You almost made me cry,” I declared. “I'm going to kId's cOrNEr after work and buy whatever you need most. What is it?”

“A house,” Amanda retorted—and laughed again. “We're pretty well set after the shower you and Vida gave earlier this month. Disposable diapers come to mind. You can never have too many.”

“Done,” I said. “I'll wait to deliver them after you get home. I'd come to see you now, but it's Tuesday and I may have to play bridge tonight.”

“That's fine,” Amanda assured me. “Ah! Here comes Vida.”

We rang off. I wondered if I should call Edna Mae to see if I had to fill in for Rosemary Bourgette. Then it dawned on me that I ought to find out more about the writer our prosecutor was dating. That might be a feature story for next week. Rosemary, however, was in court, but would get back to me. I called Edna Mae next to ask if she'd found another sub. She hadn't. I suggested trying Rosemary's mother, Mary Jane, who often filled in for absentees. Edna Mae hadn't, but would inquire after she coaxed Crazy Eights Neffel off the top shelf of the Humor section. She obviously didn't find anything funny about our local loony.

Around two-thirty, Milo called before either Rosemary or Edna Mae did. “Okay, you're half right, my little smart-ass. Gould and Mullins found a body at the dump site.”

I practically leaped out of my chair. “You see? My hunch paid off.” I paused. “What do you mean, half right?”

“It's not Myrtle,” he replied. “As I remember, the old girl wasn't six feet tall, and she sure as hell wasn't a man. Got to go.” He hung up on me. Again.

I
tore out through the newsroom to look down Front Street at the sheriff's headquarters. The black Yukon wasn't as easy to spot as Milo's previous vehicle, a red Grand Cherokee. But the new SUV was big, and I saw it pulling away from the curb. If the sheriff was going to the dump site, so was I. Mitch was at the hardware store, interviewing Harvey Adcock, who was in charge of the civic fireworks display. That wouldn't take long. I'd call my reporter after I got to the dump and assure him there was a definite photo op. My expertise with a camera was limited to asking which way to point the blasted thing.

Just to prove how inept I am with any kind of mechanism, my car was overwarm. I hadn't thought to leave any windows partly rolled down. The morning's balminess had lulled me into self-defeating inertia. Thus, once I got out of the commercial area and hit the Burl Creek Road, I drove very fast. I wasn't afraid of getting a ticket. The sheriff and all the on-duty deputies were at the dump site or back at headquarters. I slowed down only when I got behind a rusting white pickup truck.

I crossed the old Burl Creek wooden bridge, which badly needed reinforcement—if only the county could afford it. Our earlier breeze had blown itself out somewhere in the vicinity of
Spark Plug Mountain. The cottonwood trees alongside the road stood motionless; the air coming through my open windows offered no comfort. Roy and Bebe Everson's house was on my right, though I didn't notice any sign of life. He'd be at the post office and his wife apparently wasn't around. I slowed down to pull in behind Milo's Yukon and the two cruisers. Before getting out of the car, I called Mitch. He'd just gotten back from the hardware store and would be on his way immediately.

Dwight Gould was standing at the edge of the road. He saw me, but didn't speak until I was a couple of yards away. “Damned gawkers,” he grumbled. “You'd think we'd dug up a treasure chest. Hell! Here comes another one.” He motioned for the midsized sedan to move on.

I did the same, seeing Milo and Jack jawing by a big mound of dirt. I picked my way through the junk that people had randomly discarded. The official county dump was out of town, where River Road ended. West SkyCo residents found it easier to toss their unwanted items on the vacant lot after the original owner had abandoned the property.

As I got closer, I heard Carroll Creek gurgling just beyond the dump. A blanket lay on the ground, probably covering the hole Dwight and Jack had dug. Being squeamish, I thought that was just as well. “What's going on?” I asked as Milo finally noticed my arrival.

“We're waiting for the ambulance,” he replied. “They're up at the ski lodge. A guest keeled over in the lobby.”

I gestured at the blanket. “You need an ambulance here because the body's not really dead?”

Milo removed his sunglasses and shot me a withering look. “I don't want the stiff going to pieces on us. Literally. We have to try to ID him.”

“Are you sure it's a man?” I asked. “Some women are six feet tall.”

“We've got evidence to the contrary,” he said, wearing the impenetrable mask even I couldn't rip off.

Jack chuckled. “Give it up, Emma, unless you're going to drug him at home tonight.”

I glared at the deputy. “As if. I don't suppose Sheriff Go-by-the-Book will let me say he thinks it's a man?”

“
Possibly
male,” Milo said, looking beyond me to the road. “Is that Laskey's car?”

I turned around to see the Taurus pull up in front of the first cruiser. “Yes. He's here to take pictures of your blanket. I don't suppose you can give me an estimate of how long whoever this is has been dead.”

“Nope,” the sheriff responded, stepping away from the hole. “You do the picture honors, Mullins.”

“Sure, boss,” Jack said. “I can show it to Nina to prove I actually do something besides loaf on the job.”

“That won't prove it to me,” his boss drawled.

Mitch nodded to Milo and Jack, but approached me first. “How gruesome is it in terms of our readers' sensibilities?”

“Don't ask me,” I replied. “I haven't looked. I'm at the top of the list for getting queasy over…remains.”

Mitch laughed. “I'm from Detroit. I've seen it all. I'll ask Dodge.”

Warily, I watched my reporter and my husband. They weren't on the best of terms. Mitch hadn't liked Milo's attitude in the aftermath of Troy's escape from prison in December. The young man had come down with pneumonia and been brought to Alpine Hospital. State law enforcement officials had intervened, ordering the patient's removal to the infirmary at the Monroe Correctional Complex. Milo had to comply, but Mitch felt the rules should have been bent—that happened
sometimes in Detroit. I'd told him this was Alpine and Sheriff Dodge didn't bend rules. My reporter hadn't been happy with me, either.

“Skeleton,” Mitch called out. “Think Halloween, not Fourth of July.”

I hesitated, then looked at Milo. He was still doing his impassive sheriff bit. “Okay,” I said, “I'll see for myself.” I covered the twenty feet to the hole and pretended I wasn't bothered by looking at the…remains.

What I saw wasn't as bad as I feared, but wasn't as good as I hoped. The skull still had some fair hair attached and the skeleton wore rotted clothes. I noted what was left of a blue denim shirt and jeans. The brown leather boots and wide leather belt were decaying, but the silver buckle was in fairly good shape. I was uncertain about running the photo. A partially clothed skeleton was more gruesome than one that was unadorned. I said as much to Mitch.

He shrugged. “I don't have a problem with it.”

I appealed to Milo, Jack, and Dwight, who had left his post by the road. “What do you guys think?” I asked.

“Nina will throw up and faint,” Jack replied. “After she recovers from seeing my picture, she won't mind the stiff.”

“I've got no problem,” Dwight put in.

Jack narrowed his eyes at his fellow deputy. “Of course not. You aren't married to my wife.”

“Cut the crap,” Milo ordered. “I say go with it. There's the one-in-a-million chance that a local might recognize something about the stiff that'd help ID him.” He looked out to the road. “Here's the ambulance. And Fleetwood. Damn. I want all you media people out of here. Now.”

I didn't argue. Mitch and I met Mr. Radio by his BMW. “You're late,” I said, mustering a wry smile. “I helped find the body.”

Spencer Fleetwood rarely evinces surprise, but he did now. “Good grief, woman, has the missing Mrs. Myrtle been found?” His dark eyes glanced at the adjacent Everson property. “Where are the relatives?”

I stopped smiling. “It's not Myrtle. It's a man. I was wrong about Myrtle, okay? Where were you? Your station is just down the road.”

“I was wooing advertisers along the Highway 2 corridor,” Spence replied self-righteously. “One or two of them may be willing to go co-op with the
Advocate
. I assume you got the jump on me by using feminine wiles to coax your favorite bear.”

I paused before answering, realizing that Mitch had withdrawn from the encounter between Mr. KSKY and Ms.
Advocate
. My reporter was heading for his Taurus, no doubt anxious to get the photo to Kip. There were pictorial changes to make and news copy to write.

“I have no feminine wiles, as Milo has been telling me for sixteen years,” I said. “But I can nag. I've been trying to get him to dig up the dump site since early spring.”

Spence nodded absently, his gaze fixed on medics Del Amundson and Vic Thorstensen, who were talking to Milo. “This may take some time,” Mr. Radio murmured. “In the interest of cordial relations and advertising revenue, would you share what you've gleaned here?”

I decided not to be perverse, which I often am by nature. “The sheriff isn't in a talkative mood. Big surprise. All I know is that it's probably—and I quote—male. He's been reduced to a skeletal state.”

Spence stroked his hawklike nose. “So decomposition may've taken awhile. Well.” He sighed. “I suppose I should do a remote.”

“Touché,” I muttered. “I'll go put out the dinosaur of a newspaper.”

I trudged to my Honda, realizing I'd started to perspire. How could it have gotten so much warmer and I hadn't noticed? Maybe, I thought, it was the dead man, lying for who knew how long in that deep, cold grave at the dump site. There was no dignity in that. Despite what misguided optimists tell us, there is nothing dignified about death.

—

I'd given Mitch a thumbs-up on the story, which we'd squeeze onto page one. The picture would go inside to keep us from looking too ghoulish. The cut-line would ask that any information about the dead man be reported to the Skykomish County sheriff. As for details, we were on hold until Milo returned to his office.

In the pressure of deadline and breaking news, I'd forgotten to find out if Ren Rawlings had been released from the hospital. By good fortune, Julie Canby answered the patient floor phone.

“She hasn't been discharged,” Julie told me. “Doc Dewey doesn't have the final test results and Ms. Rawlings seems unsteady on her feet.”

I tried to translate Julie's discreet comment. “Is she disoriented?”

“Well…somewhat. Do you know her very well?”

I explained my brief acquaintance with the patient.

“That's odd,” Julie said. “She is running a low-grade temperature. That, along with thirst, sounds as if she might have contracted some sort of fever, but that should've showed up in the first tests.”

Guilt tugged at me. “I feel I should call on her, but we're up
against deadline and I may have to play bridge tonight. Poor Ren doesn't know anybody here in town.”

“Oh yes, she does,” Julie said with a smile in her voice. “Mrs. Runkel visited with her for half an hour. Got to go over charts. It's time to change shifts. Take care, Emma.”

I looked out into the newsroom. Vida was at her desk. She must have come in while I was on the phone. I hurried to plunk myself in her visitor chair. “Well?” I asked. “Did you interview every hospital patient?”

My House & Home editor took me seriously. “Not quite. Hortense Cobb is still in the ICU. Amanda was the only one in maternity and two of the ward patients were unconscious. Or seemed to be. I did drop in on my niece Lynette Blatt—kidney stones, so painful—and Darla Puckett—hernia repair from a previous surgery, no doubt the removal of her brain, which she hasn't used in years anyway.” Vida paused for breath.

“You left out Ren Rawlings,” I gently reproached her.

Vida scowled. “I was saving her for last. She's definitely unhinged. I'm not surprised her mother was a hippie. Though with that old postcard, I did think back to who might've been considered a hippie in Alpine thirty or more years ago. Frankly, there weren't many. People here have too much good sense.”

“But there were
some
hippies?” I prodded.

Vida made a dismissive gesture. “Pretend types, really. The young following a fad they saw on TV. There was the drama group that tried to put together a performance, but burned down the Little Theatre instead. They scurried away in disgrace. That was just before the environmentalists began to make a fuss, but they came from out of town.”

I pointed out that Ren's mother might've been among them. Vida allowed for the possibility. “Most of those people came
to protest and then moved on,” she explained. “If Kassia Arthur had stayed here, I'd have heard about it.”

That was indisputable. Vida knew everybody who had spent more than a week in Alpine. I was surprised she wasn't on a first-name basis with all the college students. Of course, 80 percent of them were from Skykomish County, so she had a good start.

“So why,” I inquired, “do you think Ren's unhinged?”

Vida adjusted her glasses. “ ‘Unfocused' may be a kinder description, though she is very skittish. It's difficult to get direct answers. I asked four times if she knew what her mother looked like, before she finally admitted she had no idea. There were some sketches, but only of vague landscapes. I suggested the poems might include personal, even physical allusions. That made Ren think. A pity she didn't bring them with her. I wrote down phrases she remembered.” Vida paused, rummaging in her purse. She rarely took notes. Her memory was phenomenal, with more room than a computer chip. She removed a wrinkled Venison Inn napkin, which I assumed was the only thing she had for jotting down Ren's recollections. “Hair,” Vida began. “Quote, ‘raven wing strands.' I should add that the strands were on a man's bare thigh.” She quoted again. “ ‘Cerulean reflected back at me, pure as the heaven that'—whatever. Kassia's eyes, perhaps. There was also an alabaster mention, which might have been her skin.”

“Ren's fair-haired and blue-eyed,” I said, “but her skin isn't pale.”

“All that California sun.” Vida made a face. “Impossible to tell what kind of complexion people from there really have. Imagine living every day with heat and no rain.”

My expression was sardonic. “I don't have to imagine it right now.”

Vida bridled. “You know what I mean. This weather won't last.”

It was pointless to argue. “Did Ren say anything else of interest?”

“Only that she knew her mother was murdered,” Vida responded. “I pressed her as to why she was so sure, but she had nothing to support her suspicions. She simply
felt
it. Whatever
that
means.” Vida ruefully shook her head, the gray curls bobbing under the sponges.

I stood up. “I forgot to ask—did you see Amanda and Walt's baby?”

“Yes, but she was asleep in the nursery,” Vida replied. “Still a bit red in the face, spiky dark hair, very difficult to tell much about features. Like most new parents, Amanda insists she and Walt can discern resemblances going back three generations on both sides. Ridiculous.”