The Alpine Decoy (8 page)

I had a sudden urge to pour cold coffee over Milo.

  It’s rare that I have a weekend all to myself. News is made seven days a week. If Vida and Carla can’t cover events on Saturdays or Sundays, I take over. On this third weekend of May, the Lutheran church was holding its annual Spring Food and Fun Festival, which required Vida’s attendance. She was also going to Axel Swensen’s funeral in the morning. Carla was scheduled to take pictures of the high school baseball game between Alpine and Sultan. I assigned
myself the task of keeping tabs on Milo Dodge and the murder investigation.

Figuring that it would take Milo until midmorning to come up with anything substantial, I used the time to clean house. I was vacuuming the living room when I thought I heard the phone ring. I picked up the receiver just before the call was switched over to my answering machine.

My voice was breathless when I said hello; it didn’t get any better when I heard who was at the other end.

“Well, hello there, Emma,” said Tom Cavanaugh in his usual mellow tones. “I thought you might be outside working in your yard.”

“I should be,” I replied, sitting down with a plop on the chair next to my desk. “I’m housecleaning.” I giggled. I could have strangled myself.

“Adam called this morning,” Tom said. “He may be flying down to the Bay Area for a few days after school gets out.”

I stopped giggling. I felt my face take on a stern expression. I still wasn’t used to sharing Adam. “That’s up to him. He likes San Francisco.” I knew my voice had turned stiff.

“Most people do,” Tom said, sounding not quite as casual as usual. “I’ll be able to take some time off to show him around. He’d probably like to stay down at Fisherman’s Wharf again.”

I bit back the urge to ask why Tom didn’t invite him to bed down in one of what I assumed to be a plethora of spare rooms at the Cavanaugh mansion. Adam had not yet met his half siblings. I figured Tom hadn’t broken the news to them that he had another child.

“Adam finishes up just before the Memorial Day weekend,” I noted, trying to relax. “I expect you’ll have plenty of leeway before you head up here for the conference at Lake Chelan.”

“Definitely,” Tom assured me. “I don’t plan on coming until the day before it starts. Are you attending?”

Hearing the new formal note in his voice, I bristled. “I doubt it. It’s a busy time. Maybe I’ll send Ed Bronsky.”

The slight pause at the other end evoked a mental picture of Tom on the verge of delivering a flippant barb, but thinking
better of it. “Ed could use some helpful hints. Maybe he and I could have a drink together.”

“How thoughtful.” Now I’d sunk to sarcasm. I literally kicked myself. “I mean, it probably won’t do any good. Ed’s a mess.”

“Then why are you sending him?” Tom sounded reasonable, but I knew better.

“It’d make more sense to send Ginny Burmeister,” I replied, and realized that was true.

“The conference isn’t aimed at underlings, Emma.” Tom also could be stem.

“Well … I’ve got almost a week to think about it.” I shrugged, obviously for my own sake rather than Tom’s. It was time to move away from the hostile topic of the WNPA. “How’s everything going down there?”

“Terrific,” Tom answered. “The kids are fine, Sandra’s great, business is booming. How about Alpine?”

“Wonderful,” I replied. “I get to like this town more every day. The people are so warm and friendly, and after a rocky first quarter, the economy is really roaring now that spring is here.” I, too, could lie through my teeth.

“It sounds like you’ve found a real niche for yourself.” Tom’s voice held no expression. “I’ll have Adam call you when he gets here.
If
he gets here.”

“Thanks.” Wildly, I cast around for a way to keep Tom on the line while still saving face. “Are you flying up?” The question was idiotic. How else would a wealthy newspaper magnate cover the seven-hundred-plus miles between San Francisco and Alpine? “I mean, into Sea-Tac—or …?” Where? I didn’t have the foggiest idea if there was an airport at Lake Chelan. A real airport, as opposed to a landing field…. My brain was disintegrating before its time.

“I’m driving,” Tom replied, and I thought I caught the hint of amusement in his words. “I own a couple of weeklies in northern California and one in central Oregon. I haven’t called on any of them in almost a year. It should be a nice trip. I can do it in three days if my local folks don’t present me with any big problems.”

I thought of Tom, driving alone through the rolling farmland north of the Bay Area, on to the Siskiyou Mountains, and across the high desert country of central Oregon. He
was right—it would be a wonderful trip. It would be even better if I were with him….

“I miss Oregon,” I said. “It was home for almost twenty years.”

“Take a vacation down there,” Tom suggested, his voice again casual before it dropped an octave: “Give yourself a break, Emma. Life’s too short.”

“I know.” I sounded wispy.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you, kid.”

“Right. Bye.”

He’d see me
. Did Tom mean that literally? I hoped so. I thought not. I kicked myself again.

  “She’s lying,” Milo Dodge stated flatly. “I’d bet my badge that Marilynn Lewis knew Kelvin Greene.”

I grimaced at Milo over my schooner of beer. The sheriff was officially off duty, and therefore entitled to drink himself stupid, if he wanted to. Fortunately, Milo doesn’t do that very often. “You’re jumping to conclusions,” I said in a peevish voice. “Good grief, Milo, there are thousands of African-Americans in Seattle. They don’t all know each other. Why
should
Marilynn know this Kelvin Greene?”

Milo stifled a sneeze, then waved in a vague manner at a couple of workmen in overalls who had just entered Mugs Ahoy. “Why should Kelvin Greene come to Alpine? Face it, Emma, when was the last time a black guy came here without a backpack or a wife and kiddies? We get tourists, campers, hikers, skiers—maybe somebody on business from the state. But casual visitors who are black? I don’t recall a one.”

I wasn’t convinced. But neither would I argue further with Milo. My eyes scanned the gloomy interior of Mugs Ahoy, where a dozen customers sat at tired tables drinking domestic beer and watching an NBA play-off game. An early Saturday afternoon doesn’t bring out the best of the tavern’s atmosphere. The truth is, there isn’t any. But Milo had been thirsty. Autopsies, he said, had that effect on him.

“Tell me about the bullet,” I said. Seeing Milo give me a quizzical look, I elaborated. “You know what I mean—the ballistics stuff. Where was he shot? With what? Where and when?”

Milo ran a big hand through his graying sandy hair. “Hell, Emma, this isn’t television. We don’t have any lab reports yet. Monday, I expect.” He signaled to the owner, Abe Loomis, to bring another round.

Milo’s beeper went off before Abe could draw our new schooners. “Damn,” the sheriff muttered, waving at Abe to desist. As Milo headed for the wooden phone booth next to the rest rooms, I contemplated the decor. A generous soul might have called it minimalist; I opted for cheap. Most of the art was neon beer signs, touting local brands, including a couple of microbreweries. Two fading photographs of Alpine’s early logging days hung on each side of the mirror behind the bar. A rack of elk antlers dipped crookedly over the entryway to the telephone and rest rooms. The most unusual item was on the far wall by the booths: a crosscut saw had been painted in oils, showing a tranquil mountain valley, complete with sparkling stream, cozy cabin, and a prancing pony. If such a place existed around Alpine, I’d never seen it. But the thought was nice—for a saw painting.

Milo returned at a faster gait than his usual lope. He was wiping his nose and didn’t look pleased. “Your ace reporter has a hot tip. Do you want to tag along?”

“Carla? About what?” I grabbed my handbag as Milo tossed a five-dollar bill onto the grooved table.

“Not Carla. Vida.” Milo gave Abe Loomis a semisalute.

“Vida’s my House & Home editor,” I asserted, racing to keep up with the sheriff’s long strides. “Really, Milo, you ought to know the difference by …”

But Milo wasn’t listening. His Cherokee Chief was parked outside in the loading zone. The afternoon was sunny and warm, with only a faint breeze stirring the curtains in the open windows of the apartment house across the street. It was, I knew, the building Marilynn Lewis had visited the previous evening. Filling the block, the Alpine Arms was four stories of sturdy, if unimaginative, brick. I guessed it was probably put up shortly after World War?.

“Where
is
Vida?” I demanded after we were heading east on Pine Street, past the Baptist and Methodist churches, past John Engstrom Memorial Park, and past the golden arches of McDonald’s. Above the town, Baldy was still
covered with snow, as if to remind us that here among the mountains, we were never far from winter.

“Vida called from the funeral reception at the Lutheran church, but she said to meet her at the cemetery.” Milo braked for the arterial at Pine and Highway 187. “She’d better not be having one of her harebrained ideas.”

“Vida’s ideas are never harebrained,” I countered. “She merely thinks beyond the ordinary.”

Milo didn’t reply. Two minutes later, we were winding up the cemetery road. Alpine’s dead are buried as they lived, on a hillside. The older section, with its elaborate granite tombstones and marble monuments, is located next to the laurel hedge that separates the graveyard from the highway. Here lie the miners, the millworkers, the movers and shakers who founded the town. Farther up are their children, with more modest markers, and a few American flags to commemorate the veterans from two World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. High on the hill are the new burial sites for those who came to Alpine in the Age of Aquarius, and found not Paradise, but a long commute to Everett. To my surprise, it was here that Axel Swensen had been laid to rest.

Attired in a black nylon swing coat and a wide-brimmed black straw hat, Vida stood under a green canopy next to the freshly turned mound of earth. Sprays of flowers covered the ground. Vida was reading the enclosure cards.

“The Gustavsons,” she murmured. “That would be Harold and Tessa. Duane and Evelyn Gustavson didn’t know Axel that well.” The Gustavsons, as I was aware, were somehow related to Vida. “Erdahls—lovely glads. The Petersens sent a wreath.” Briskly, she straightened up. “Delphine Corson did very well off of old Axel,” Vida noted, referring to the local florist and owner of Posies Unlimited. She saw my curious gaze and, as often is the case with Vida, read my mind. “Axel outlived everybody in his family. They ran out of room in the original plot. That’s why he’s up here.”

“Right, right,” Milo said, with a trace of impatience. “Now what’s your big news, Vida? Emma and I left a couple of tall cold ones to haul our butts over here.”

Vida pursed her lips. “Really, Milo, sometimes you’re
very crude. I happen to know that Emma isn’t all that fond of beer.”

It was true. I would have preferred a large turkey sandwich with a side of potato salad. But sometimes I have to make great sacrifices for my career in journalism. Trying not to smile, I watched Vida give Milo one last glare, then stalk over to the canopy’s edge and stand by a stone marker with raised brass letters.

“Art Fremstad,” Vida said, now gazing somberly at Milo. “Your late deputy.”

Milo reached for his hat, realized he wasn’t wearing one, and took off his sunglasses instead. “Poor Art.” He stared down at the grave. Deputy Fremstad had met a violent end six years ago. He had not yet turned thirty.

Standing next to Vida, I said a silent prayer. And waited for Milo to speak. Or for Vida to make her point. The spring breeze caused Vida’s lightweight coat to flutter around her thighs. She held onto her hat with one hand, then pointed at the marker with the other.

“Well? Don’t you see it?”

Milo did. He bent down, peering at the headstone. I took a couple of steps to look over his shoulder. “What is it?” I asked, afraid that I could guess. “Blood?”

Vida jerked her head in assent. “I should think so. You’ll need a scraping, Milo.”

The sheriff bolted upright, his rear end banging into my hip in the process. “Of course I will! Damn it, Vida, you act as if I don’t know my own business! Sorry, Emma.” He gave me an apologetic look.

But I had turned to Vida. “Hold it—are you saying you think Kelvin Greene was shot here at the cemetery? Why?”

Vida shrugged. “I’m guessing, naturally. But the man must have been shot somewhere in the vicinity. He couldn’t run very far with a bullet in his head. Where else?” Vida swept a hand at our surroundings: All I could see was the cemetery, but beyond the far reaches of the laurel hedge on the south was the high school, the football field, the track, and the handsome older homes that included the Campbell residence. To the east, the Icicle Creek development lay on the other side of Highway 187. North, across Cedar Street, was a neighborhood of more modest houses. The cemetery
was a good guess, but it wasn’t the only possibility. I said as much.

“The track and the football field are right across the street from Marlow Whipp’s store. The shooting might have taken place there.”

Vida shook her head. “No, no. Coach Ridley had his track team practicing until early evening, remember? I heard Carla mention it.” She turned to Milo. “I assume you’ve spoken to Coach. Did he or any of the athletes see anything unusual?”

Milo didn’t meet Vida’s unblinking gaze. “They were just leaving when I got there. Bill and Dwight had shooed most of them away.” His voice was a bit of a mumble.

“You really ought to ask Coach,” Vida declared, giving Milo another disapproving look. “Honestly, I feel you’re dragging your feet on this, Milo. If the rest of us can work on a weekend, why not you?”

Vida’s reproach clearly stung. “Hell, I’ve worked more weekends than anybody else in Skykomish County! I can’t make miracles. We need the lab work before we can start coming to any conclusions. It isn’t as if this is Mayor Baugh or one of the county commissioners. The dead guy’s a stranger, maybe a drifter, certainly a small-time perp. Do you see anybody marching on my office to demand that we make an immediate arrest?”