The Alpine Menace (23 page)

“Sorry,” he said in a deep voice as he put the phone down. “You miss a day, and it feels like you have to make up for two. Now, which of you is Ms. Lord?”

I put out my hand, which was enfolded in a paw about the size of a grizzly bear's. His grip was gentle, however.

“I'm Emma, Ronnie Mallett's cousin,” I said. “This is my associate, Vida Runkel.”

Vida arched an eyebrow at the word
associate
, but merely smiled as she, too, shook Rojas's hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Rojas. Are you related to the Rojases who own a chicken farm near Sultan?”

The detective confessed that he wasn't, no doubt a major disappointment to Vida.

Not wanting to waste time, I stated my concerns about Ronnie's incarceration and my doubts about his guilt. Then I zeroed in on Maybeth Swafford's confused statement and the alibis that I'd gotten on Ronnie's behalf from the two bars on Greenwood Avenue.

Tony Rojas listened in silence, though his expression remained unchanged. When I'd finished, he picked up a ballpoint pen and began doodling on a notepad. Any optimism I possessed faded when I saw that he was drawing small nooses.

“I understand why you're upset,” Rojas said in his calm, deep voice. “It's always hard for family members to accept that one of their own can commit a violent act. But,” he added with an ironic little smile, “it happens all the time. The worst part is that the violence is usually directed at another family member.”

“What about the alibis?” I asked. “Honey, the bartender at the Satellite Room, seemed very sure about the time. I understand you never questioned her. She said that Ronnie was there with another man.”

A flicker of interest showed in Rojas's dark eyes. “Did Ronnie tell you who he was?”

I shifted in the uncomfortable metal chair. “Yes. It was Darryl Lindholm.” Wanting to get Rojas's reaction, I didn't elaborate.

This time the blank expression on his face indicated ignorance, not reserve. But he said nothing, which turned out to be a mistake.

“What did Darryl have to say for himself when you interviewed him?” Vida demanded, fists on hips.

Rojas, who had been ignoring Vida, must have taken her silence for shyness, which made me question his per-ceptiveness. “I beg your pardon, Ms. Punkel?”

“It's
Runkel… Mrs
. Runkel,” Vida burst out, causing heads to turn in the squad room. “See here, young man, it seems to me that you've conducted a most cursory—I might even say sloppy—investigation. My nephew Billy is a deputy sheriff, and if I ever thought he'd been so slapdash, I'd certainly take him to task. Now, it's about time you reopened this case and did your homework. Otherwise, Emma and I shall be forced to write an exposé in
The Alpine Advocate
and send copies to the wire services. I suspect you and your superiors wouldn't like that.”

Tony Rojas looked as if he didn't like Vida very much, either. “You're out of line,” he declared, tossing his ballpoint pen aside. “We conducted this investigation by the book. Ronnie Mallett couldn't provide an alibi for himself, he'd been drinking, and he'd obviously been in a fight. So had Carol Stokes. They'd been heard quarreling, and she was found strangled a couple of hours later. We turned up no other suspects, found no one to alibi Mallett, and frankly, he didn't protest his innocence very convincingly. In my book, that's an open-and-shut case.”

“He doesn't do anything convincingly,” I put in. “Furthermore, his public defender is inexperienced. I understand that you're overworked and underpaid, but who isn't? All I'm asking is that you check out the woman named Terri from Freddy's Bar, and Honey, the bartender at the Satellite Room. Oh, and Maybeth Swaf-ford. She has an ax to grind with Ronnie, and may have lied about when he left the apartment.”

Rojas's electric gaze was chilling. “That's all, huh? What do you suggest I do about the drive-by last night in Rainier Valley and the ax murder in Belltown? Or the shooting that left three people dead, including two little kids, on Beacon Hill? Get over yourself, Ms. Lord. If my partner and I can squeeze ten minutes out of the end of our shift, we might do some checking. Otherwise, it's all up to a jury.”

I sensed that Vida was about to unleash another diatribe. But I didn't want to leave empty-handed. Before she could speak, I leaned across her and held out a beseeching hand to the detective.

“Tell me this much,” I said, humbling myself. “Have you considered—even briefly—anyone else as a suspect in this case?”

“No,” Rojas said bluntly. “Why should we?”

“Because,” I replied, trying to look intimidating and aware that with my short chin and pug nose, the attempt usually made me look like a grumpy Pekingese, “there are several of them. What would you say if I told you that Darryl Lindholm had a very good reason to strangle Carol Stokes?”

Rojas looked as if he were trying to control a smile, no doubt of derision. “I'd say, ‘Who the hell is Darryl Lindholm?’ ”

“That,” I said, standing up and trying to muster some dignity, “is exactly what I figured.”

Somewhat to my surprise, Vida didn't have a last word. She also stomped out of the squad room, ignoring the stares and a couple of titters from Rojas's fellow detectives.

“Buffoons,” she muttered as we headed for the elevator. Then she turned to me with a curious expression. “Why Darryl Lindholm?”

“Because it suddenly occurred to me that Ronnie
might be right,” I replied. “Darryl may have had a motive for killing Carol. What if she didn't want him horning in on her relationship with Kendra?”

“I thought Mr. Rapp told you that the three of them looked happy,” Vida remarked as the elevator arrived.

This time we were the only occupants except for a hel-meted messenger. “He did say that,” I replied. “But maybe he misread the scene. Or, just because they weren't all trying to kill each other, he mistook cordiality for intimacy.”

The sun was trying to come out when we left the municipal complex. I'd agreed to meet Alvin Sternoff at his condo in Belltown. He was working at home because, as he'd explained, it was quieter, and he had a lot of catching up to do.

“I don't have so many interruptions here,” he elaborated as Vida and I were ushered into his first-floor condo not far from Seattle Center and our motel. The apartment building had been converted some ten years earlier. If the rooms had been small to begin with, the ones occupied by Alvin seemed claustrophobic. Like his office, there were legal tomes, files, briefs, and other job-related items piled around the living room. I decided that in another six months Alvin would have to tunnel his way to reach the computer.

Even though my memory needed no jogging, I'd made notes of the particulars I wanted Alvin to check. Maybe if I read them off, he'd take me more seriously.

“Alibis, huh?” Alvin scratched his head. “They're a funny thing. You get somebody—say this Terri person— on the stand, and she swears she saw Ronnie in the bar at eight-thirty. Then the prosecutor calls a witness—let's say a roommate—who testifies that Terri didn't leave home until a quarter to nine. Or Honey, the bartender. They go after her to see if she's working off the bar clock—it's always set ahead because of closing time, you
know—or her watch. And if it was a Friday, wouldn't she be too busy to notice much of anything?” Alvin shook his head. “Alibis are tough to prove, easy to disprove.”

“That's not the point, Alvin,” I said, thinking that he was the perfect attorney for Ronnie. Both seemed to prefer accepting defeat to risking victory.

“I'm thinking about an insanity plea,” Alvin said. “I'd like to get Ronnie evaluated by a psychiatrist.”

See if you can get a two-for-one examination, I thought. You're both nuts.

“I don't see the point,” I said. “He didn't do it.”

Alvin gave me a pitying look. “But we can't prove it.”

“Yes, we can.” If I'd had a piece of drapery cord, I might have used it on Alvin. “Just pay attention and—”

Alvin held up his hands. “Look, Ms. Lord, Mrs. Runkel, I'm not trying to upset you. Ronnie's been charged with Carol's murder. He's going to make a poor impression on the witness stand. Even if I put him in an Armani suit, he'd still look like a loser. All this alibi stuff is worthless.”

Vida, who had been remarkably silent, leaned forward, the swallows in her hat looking as if they were about to dive-bomb Alvin's desk. “See here, what about reasonable doubt? Isn't that all you have to do to get the jury to bring in a not-guilty verdict?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, then? What's so difficult?”

Alvin threw his hands up in the air. “The reasonable doubt. Where is it? What is it? I don't have one.”

“What about the witnesses? The alibi?” Vida demanded.

“I already told you, they're flimsy,” Alvin responded in a weary voice. “Hey, I don't want to lose my first homicide case.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Do you honestly believe Ronnie killed Carol?”

Alvin's boyish face became miserable. “I don't know.”

“That,” I said, rising from the chair, “is an easy out. For you.”

Vida and I left.

Kendra had mentioned that she worked at a QFC grocery store, a big chain with outlets in almost every Seattle neighborhood. From the time frame she'd given me about the night of the murder and judging from the location of her family home, I guessed that she was probably employed at one of three locations: on Forty-fifth Street near her parents’ house, off Roosevelt Way south of her apartment, or possibly the store in Ballard, a block from where I'd had lunch on Easter Sunday.

The closest of the three was on Forty-fifth. Vida and I arrived there just after four o'clock. In my youth, the store had been Food Giant, a mecca for the working-class residents of Wallingford, Fremont, and Green Lake. But again, change had swept away another landmark. A younger generation had moved in, with many of the newcomers connected to the University of Washington, a mile and a half away. The shelves and bins of the Forty-fifth Street QFC catered to health-conscious, organic-only, natural-food lovers.

The front-end manager had never heard of Kendra Addison. Vida was shaking her head at the organic artichokes when I spotted Kathy Addison entering the store.

“Well, well,” Vida murmured. “Don't tell me she buys beans in bulk.”

“She's all yours,” I said, ducking back into the produce section. “Kathy and I don't get along.”

Vida marched up to the front and grabbed a grocery cart just as Kathy wheeled away toward the deli department. I followed at a discreet distance, seemingly absorbed in a soda-pop display.

Conversation was initiated by Vida in front of fruit
salads. Kathy seemed amiable. I wondered what spiel Vida was giving her as they headed for fish and meat.

Fifteen minutes later Vida was going through the express lane, having purchased toothpaste, bunion pads, and two cans of Ajax.

“I had to get something,” she announced when I met her out at the car. “Otherwise, she'd have been suspicious.”

“She wasn't?” I asked.

“Heavens, no. I started out by mentioning how hard it is to cook for one person. Especially when your husband is no longer with you and your daughters have moved out.” Vida simpered a bit as we started off into heavy traffic on Forty-fifth.

“Kathy fell for that?”

“It's true,” Vida asserted. “In a way. Kathy told me she knew exactly what I meant, then I said that in my case, it was even more difficult because my granddaughter was adopted, and I'd never been sure if she felt accepted by me. I blamed myself, of course, for being inadequate. Kathy said it wasn't my fault, it was one of the problems of adoption. An adopted child should be grateful for having been placed in a loving family.”

“Did she admit she had an adopted daughter?” I asked, turning off onto Meridian Avenue to avoid the crosstown traffic.

“Yes,” Vida responded. “She bragged about how she and her husband had treated Kendra—yes, she mentioned her by name—as if she were their own. Now, how do you do that when she's not? You love a child because you're the parent. You shouldn't pretend, as if there's shame in adoption.”

“What else did she say?” I asked, stopping at the Fiftieth Street light. The old Good Shepherd Home still stood on the block to my left, but it was no longer a refuge for wayward girls; now it was a community center. Another change. Ben couldn't threaten me anymore with
being sent there to get thumped by the nuns and eat un-salted potato soup.

“Kathy mentioned what a lovely home they'd provided for Kendra,” Vida said, “with every advantage. The main advantage seemed to be Kathy herself. She sacrificed everything for Kendra, including her career.”

“Which was?” I inquired.

“An interior decorator,” Vida replied, “which explains the house you described. Unfortunately, she got off on a tangent regarding color schemes and fabrics and such. I finally lost her in feminine hygiene.”

“She didn't seem angry with Kendra for moving out?”

“No. She insisted that young people should try their wings.” Vida paused, her head swiveling. “Where are we going?”

“To the QFC on Roosevelt,” I answered.

“Good,” said Vida. “That's the one where Kendra works. Kathy told me that, too.”

I shot Vida an admiring glance. “It's too bad we can't figure out a way to arrange another chat between you and Kathy.”

“But we can,” Vida replied as we passed the entrance to I-5 and kept heading east. “She gave me her phone number.”

My admiration soared. “How did you manage that?”

“I humbled myself and asked for her advice,” Vida replied complacently. “I told her that my granddaughter was a teenager, such a difficult age, and I was afraid that since her parents had moved her to another city and a different school, she might be tempted to drop out in her senior year. Kathy said that although that had never been a problem with Kendra, she—Kathy, of course—could certainly counsel me on how I might help my granddaughter and her parents weather the storm.”

I had to wait to turn left on Fifteenth Avenue, since Roosevelt is one way in this part of its north-south
direction. While I waited for traffic to clear in the opposite lane, I glanced in the rearview mirror. There was no sign of the black Ford Taurus. Happily, I hadn't noticed anyone following us since our return to Seattle.