The Alpine Nemesis (29 page)

“What?” Vida's gray eyes were huge as she put her
glasses back on. “How can he be? I saw him this morning.”

I explained Janet's anxiety, which Vida pooh-poohed. “Janet is a very emotional woman. She's overextended herself, trying to work at the funeral home and the travel agency. Ever since their two daughters moved away she's been at loose ends. What Janet needs is a hobby, not a job. Al makes a very nice income.”

It was clear that, for once, Vida had no thought except for her own family problems. And I had no wish to hear her ramble on in defense of Roger.

But there was one thing I had to say. “Meara says Roger knows the identity of her baby's father.”

“I should think so,” Vida said primly, then wagged a finger in my direction. “Make no mistake, I don't hold with all this promiscuity. But as you of all people know, love can overcome good sense.”

“I was twenty-one,” I said dryly. “Tom was twenty-eight.”

Vida stood up. “Really, Emma, you're being very difficult.”

“No, I'm not.” I stood up, too, my chair making an annoying scraping sound on the faux wood floor. “I'm trying to be objective about this. I'm a journalist, after all.”

Vida started for the back door, but turned to speak over her shoulder. “So am I.”

I didn't like parting on unpleasant terms with Vida, but she was being a mule. Halfway through eating a tuna fish sandwich and some sliced tomatoes, I had another visitor. Spencer Fleetwood arrived on my porch with a bouquet of small yellow orchids.

“Peace offering,” he said, thrusting the flowers at me before removing his sunglasses. “May I come in?”

“Okay,” I said, aware that I didn't sound very welcoming. “Why are you declaring peace?”

Spence gestured toward one of my side chairs. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” I said, both apprehensive and curious. I gazed at the orchids in my hand. The stems were encased in a glass tube filled with water. “Let me get a vase.” I picked up my half-eaten supper with my free hand and headed for the kitchen, then remembered my manners. “Can I bring you something?”

“Only goodwill,” Spence replied in his rich radio voice.

“Okay,” I said, returning to the living room and sitting on the sofa. “What's this all about?”

Spence gave me his off-center grin. He had nice white teeth, almost as fine as Scott Chamoud's. He also had a slightly beaklike nose, a long, sharp chin, and shrewd brown eyes that seemed just a little too close together. As usual, he was wearing a cashmere sweater—baby blue— and tailored slacks.

“You have a big advantage over me,” he said, the brown eyes glinting.

“Such as?”

“The sheriff.” Spence stretched out his long legs and settled back into the chair. Somehow, even on enemy turf he exuded an air that indicated he was in control.

I was annoyed, but tried not to show it. “You mean because I've known him for ten years?”

Spence nodded. “That, and the fact that you're a woman.”

Now I didn't try to hide my annoyance. “Are you insinuating that I use my so-called feminine wiles to get information from Milo Dodge?”

“No.” He paused for effect. I wondered if Spence had majored not in broadcasting but drama. “It's natural that a woman can get a man to open up. Conversational skills, let's say.”

That was better than accusing me of sleeping with the sheriff. And though I had, it had never made Milo reveal
any information he hadn't wanted me to know. Indeed, for some time after we broke up, he'd been uncooperative and recalcitrant.

“If you knew Milo just half as well as I do,” I said, sounding stilted even to myself, “you'd know that he's very cautious, very deliberate. Milo goes by the book. What do you think I know that you don't?”

Spence threw back his head and laughed. “Could I call you cunning?” he finally said, his brown eyes narrowing slightly.

“I don't think I've ever been called cunning,” I replied. “Just about everything else, though.”

Spence was now serious. “So have I. It comes with our jobs. Look,” he went on, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, “we both know we're operating in a limited market when it comes to advertising. As long as we stay in business, we'll fight and claw each other for every dollar we can get. But it's news I'm talking about, and there's where I have the advantage.”

“Of course,” I allowed. “So what's your point?”

“We're sitting on the biggest story to ever break in Alpine, right?”

“Maybe,” I said. “We've had a few others since I've been here, and I'm sure there were some big ones before I arrived. This isn't the first multiple homicide I've covered.”

Spence shook his head. “I'm not talking about the Hartquists knocking off the O'Neills. Not exactly. I'm talking about this weapons thing. Surely you've considered the implications?”

“I'm considering the facts at the moment,” I replied with a lift of my chin. “In some ways, I'm like Milo. I don't speculate in public.”

Spence gave me that off-center grin. “This isn't public. This is private. Or have you got the house bugged?”

“Of course not,” I retorted, wondering if he was actually serious. “But you're a journalist, too. Whatever I say is—”

“Off the record,” Spence interrupted. “Come on, Emma,” he prodded, using my Christian name for the first time that I could recall, “this story is bigger than both of us. Do you really think Dodge is going to figure it out?”

“He often does,” I replied in defense of Milo. “He takes his time, but he usually gets there.”

“With, I've heard, a great deal of help from you and Mrs. Runkel,” Spence asserted. “I haven't been in Alpine very long, but word gets out. You and that House and Home editor seem to go beyond the call of duty when it comes to crime.”

“You can't help but get involved with major stories in a small town,” I said. “Look—you're doing it yourself.”

“So I am.” Spence seemed amused. “Shall we consider the facts?”

I knew he was trying to trick me, but I could play that game, too. “All right. Just the facts. It's your idea, you start.”

Again, Spence leaned back in the chair. “The Brothers O'Neill are murdered in apparent gangland style by the Hartquist family.”

I held up a hand. “Why gangland?”

“They were all shot at close range,” Spence replied. “None of the Hartquists were wounded despite the fact that they claimed to have been shot at first. Wouldn't you say that the Hartquists must have come—probably by stealth—to the O'Neill house on Second Hill, barged in, and started shooting?”

It occurred to me that when Scott and I went through the house, we hadn't noticed any bullet holes. Nor had Milo mentioned them.

“No,” I said, aware that Spence's theory was a trap.

“No?” he repeated. “So you're saying that the shooting must have occurred outside.”

“That's a fact,” I said. “We were speaking only of facts. At least that's what the Hartquists implied at their arraignment.”

Spence nodded slowly, the slightly hooked nose reminding me of a bird. A kinder person might have described his profile as eaglelike; I was thinking more of a vulture. But Spence was right. There should have been some trace of bullets in the O'Neill house if the trio had been shot indoors.

“Let's conjecture for just a moment,” Spence said amiably. “The Hartquists arrive in their truck. They either fire a couple of shots into the air, or they call the O'Neills out. Maybe they say they just want to talk, consider a truce. In any event, the O'Neills come outside. They're probably armed, but not ready to start shooting.”

Spence's deep voice had fallen into its on-air mode, arresting, intimate, confidential. I half expected him to recall an encounter of his own with the neighborhood bully some forty years earlier. I also expected that eventually he could lull me to sleep.

“The Hartquists surprise them,” he continued. “I understand that the O'Neills' blood alcohol count was well above the legal limit.”

Damn. Milo hadn't mentioned that, and I hadn't thought to ask. Neither, I assumed, had Scott Chamoud. I felt like a bungling amateur. Worse yet, I had to admire Spence's thoroughness.

“The Hartquists get the O'Neills outside, maybe using some kind of ruse,” Spence recounted as if he could picture the sorry scene in his mind's eye. “Perhaps Cap and his boys are hiding in the shrubbery. That place on Second Hill isn't exactly a landscaper's delight. The O'Neills are confused, puzzled, and, as I mentioned, drunk. The Hartquists charge them and start shooting at close range. The
O'Neills fall, the Hartquists retrieve their victims' weapons, they load the dead men into their truck, and off they go to Alpine Meats. How am I doing?”

Pretty damned good, I thought, and hoped I was hiding my annoyance. “It's plausible,” I conceded. “But why?”

“Why kill them or why cart them off to the meat locker?”

“Both.”

Spence gave me a rueful look. “How else can a feud like that end except with annihilation? Hasn't it gone on for years, even across generations?”

“That's true,” I said. “It all started with Paddy O'Neill accidentally running over Cap Hartquist's goat. Until then, they'd been close friends.”

Spence gave a single nod. “Those things fester, especially in small towns. Macho stuff, family honor, the whole bit. Even in big cities relatives get into it over an inheritance, neighbors go after each other because a dog tore up the petunia bed. You can't isolate these incidents to only small towns.”

“I know,” I said. “But in cities, the aggrieved usually start by calling their lawyers.”

Spence waved a hand, flashing his expensive watch. “You know what I mean. The feud had to end this way. Maybe it'll be a lesson for the younger generation.”

“Maybe.” As far as I knew, the Hartquist and O'Neill youths had never gone much further than exchanges of nasty words. Then I thought of Mickey O'Neill. He was the only male descendant on either side of the feuding families. That was just as well. “So far there's been no retaliation,” I added hopefully. “But why the warehouse?”

Spence shrugged. “Some kind of statement? Dead meat? It's over? I'm not a mind reader. You seem like an intuitive sort of person. What do you think?”

I suppose I should have been flattered. Instead, I became mulish. “I only know what the Hartquists said
they did. I don't think any of them are into symbolism. They took the easy way out.”

“Why not leave the bodies up on Second Hill? They were bound to be found,” Spence pointed out.

“Maybe the Hartquists were almost as drunk as the O'Neills,” I said. “Maybe they panicked.” For all I knew, the crazy clan might have wanted to put their victims on a summer solstice float.

“Okay.” Spence gave me another grin. “Back to the facts. Rocket launchers and other weaponry, the heavy stuff stolen from the Everett naval station. To what purpose?”

“To sell it?” I replied. “What else?”

“To whom?”

“I don't know. Who's buying?”

“It's a hot market out there,” Spence said. “Lots of people are buying arms, legally and illegally. The whole Middle East. Africa. Central and South America. You name it.”

“I considered the IRA,” I confessed, “but haven't they declared a truce?”

Spence shrugged. “It's not holding very well.”

“Stupid,” I remarked. “The Irish can't get along in the old country; you put a Catholic family and a Protestant family together in Ireland, and too often they want to kill each other. You set them down in Alpine, and they get along just fine.”

“It's history, it's oppression, it's in the old sod,” Spence responded. “Have you been to Ireland?”

“No,” I admitted. “When I was in Europe years ago, I missed Ireland. I'm not Irish.”

Spence chuckled, a rich, rolling sound that no doubt endeared him to his listeners. “That often doesn't keep Americans from visiting the Emerald Isle. And may I point out that the Hartquists and the O'Neills seem to have revived an ancient Viking-and-Gael animosity?”

Maybe he had a point. But I was growing anxious for my guest to leave. So far, I'd learned only that the O'Neills were drunk at the time of the shooting. That wasn't news; their enemies probably were, too. Besides, the Hartquists had said at their arraignment that the shooting had taken place outside the O'Neill house. Whether the rest of their story was an exaggeration or even a lie would come out in the trial. As for the arms cache, Spence had merely added a few potential buyers to my mental list.

“One more thing,” Spence said as if he could read my mind, “why was Brian Conley's body removed from his casket?”

“Honestly,” I replied, “I've no idea.”

Spence pointed a finger at me. “Think about it. Why are the Conleys threatening to sue Al Driggers and a bunch of other people?”

“Because they're crazed with grief?” I said. “I don't blame them, they have to focus their sense of loss on something or somebody, since the killer hasn't been identified. Besides, you can't criticize them for being upset over what in effect is a double loss.”

“But an intriguing one,” Spence remarked, looking rather smug. “For instance—why did the Conleys receive their son's recently issued passport just yesterday?”

I couldn't hide my surprise. “How do you know?”

“Because,” he answered easily, “I spoke with Mrs. Conley on the phone. I discovered you'd gotten pretty chummy with her since Brian's body was found. How could I let the
Advocate
get one up on KSKY?”

“She called you?” I demanded.

“I called her. Although she did say she'd tried to reach the radio station a couple of times but couldn't get through to me. She may have dialed wrong.” He shrugged.

“So what about a passport?” I asked, still irked. “Has this information been broadcast?”

“No.” Spence's expression was still self-satisfied, maybe because he had a scoop, maybe because he enjoyed getting me rattled. “I'm in no rush, since you've already gone to press for the week. The outside media dropped the Conley story within twenty-four hours. Oh, I think one of the metropolitan dailies and maybe a couple of radio and TV stations picked up the bit about the empty coffin. The Hartquist-O'Neill shoot-out didn't get that much coverage, either. But now I hear the big city boys and girls are snooping around the naval station at Everett. The
Herald
over there certainly will be on top of the arms theft.”