The Alpine Nemesis (7 page)

T
HE MILL WHISTLE
went off at precisely noon, just as we arrived at the sheriff's office. There were five hours to go before our regular Tuesday deadline. After Scott had taken down the entries in the police log—including Cap Hartquist's citation for groping Betsy O'Toole—I sent him off with a list of other stories to cover. Including, of course, Mayor Baugh's toilets. Meanwhile, I would stay on top of the developing homicide investigation.

Milo had shown up with the Hartquist arsenal, which consisted of a half-dozen handguns and almost twice as many rifles. The weapons had been hidden in various parts of the property—a fruit cupboard, an old icebox, the bathroom medicine cabinet, a fishing basket, a carton marked
RAT TRAPS.
Meanwhile, Dwight Gould had joined Dustin Fong up at the O'Neill place on Second Hill, collecting whatever evidence that could be found. No doubt there was a collection of guns there, too.

I was trying to organize my notes when Vida tromped into the sheriff's reception area.

“Well!” she exclaimed. “This has been quite a morning! Now tell me what I've missed. It's not quite fair that I've been relegated to the office for most of this.”

Bill Blatt was standing behind the curving reception desk, filling out some forms. “Bill,” I said, “can you bring your aunt up to speed on what's happened? It would be better coming from you. You're official.”

Bill's pink complexion darkened slightly. I knew he didn't want to be put on the spot, but better him than me. Kinship means so much to Vida, I thought, somewhat gleefully. Nor did I see why Bill should be let off the hook.

While Vida sucked in all the details like a high-powered vacuum cleaner, I asked Jack Mullins how the interrogation was going.

“They confessed,” Jack said with his mischievous grin. “But they swear it was self-defense. Given all the other hostilities between them and the O'Neills, they might be right.”

“But doesn't it appear that the Hartquists went to the O'Neill place?” I pointed out. “Isn't that where the shots were heard last night?”

“That doesn't mean that Cap and the boys went there to kill the O'Neills,” Jack answered, growing serious. “The O'Neills are as well armed as the Hartquists. Those crazy Irishmen might have fired first.”

It was certainly a possibility, though the shootings had appeared to be virtual assassinations. I said as much, then added that I found Cap's denial of the Conley killing credible.

“Me, too,” Jack agreed. “That poor guy has been dead for quite a while. But the Hartquists swear they didn't put Conley in the meat locker. In fact, they insist he wasn't there when they dumped off the O'Neills.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Last night,” Jack said. “Around eight.”

“Why? I mean, why put them in the locker?”

Jack shook his head. “They couldn't get hold of Al Driggers. Nobody was at the funeral home last night. The Hartquists didn't want the bodies to spoil. Don't try to make sense of it, Emma. They're all nuts.”

But I had to make sense of it. It wasn't just my own curiosity about what makes human beings tick, but my ob-

ligation to the public. I was attempting to find some kind of logic in what had happened when Vida plucked me by the sleeve of my cotton shirt.

“The Conleys,” she said. “Have they been notified?”

“Oh!” I'd forgotten about Brian's parents. “I don't think Milo's had time. Go ahead, I just spoke with Mrs. Conley yesterday, so it's not as if we're butting in. And let his girlfriend, Gina Whatever-her-name-is, know, too.”

Already armed with the numbers, Vida commandeered a phone from her nephew just as Milo came out of the interrogation room. “Jeez,” he uttered with a shake of his head. “It's like interviewing monkeys at the zoo.”

“What now?” I asked.

“They're sticking to their story,” Milo said, pouring himself a mug of what I've always considered the world's worst coffee. “The Hartquists swear they just happened to be driving by the O'Neill place last night when Stubby opened fire on them with a .22. They claim they kept going in their pickup, but had a flat about twenty yards down the road. They were afraid to stop to change the tire, so they went back to the O'Neill place, where Ozzie took out his gun and warned Stubby that if he shot at them again, they'd start shooting back. Stubby fired a second time, and the war was on.”

“Do you believe them?” I inquired.

“No,” Milo replied, lighting a cigarette in front of the No Smoking sign on the wall. “If that many shots had been fired, everybody within half a mile would've been on the alert. How many shots did you hear?”

I thought back to the previous evening. “Three,” I responded. “Maybe four. But not a fusillade.”

“That's what I figured,” Milo said. “I didn't hear the shots at all, though I'm farther away. Besides, I went up there after the complaints about the noises came in, and I didn't see any sign of trouble. Everything was quiet.”

“What about the wounds?” I asked. “Were the O'Neills shot with rifles?”

“Rusty was,” Milo replied, “but at fairly close range. Stubby and Dusty were killed with handguns, also up close.”

I was surprised. “So maybe the O'Neills weren't even armed?”

“It's possible,” Milo said. “It seems they were caught off guard.”

“But the Hartquists say otherwise,” I remarked. They would, of course. “What else did they say?”

“Not much,” Milo responded with a sour look. “At least not much that makes sense. Cap claims they threw the bodies in the pickup, tossed a tarp over them, and drove around trying to figure out what to do next.”

“Why didn't they call Al Driggers?” I asked.

Milo gulped more coffee before replying. “Who knows? They say they drove by the funeral home and didn't see anybody around. So they got the bright idea of taking the bodies to the meat locker. They broke in, dumped Stubby, Rusty, and Dusty into the walk-in, and took off. They meant to call Al this morning, but they forgot.” Milo rolled his eyes.

“Gosh,” Scott said, “that's pretty incredible.”

“You bet,” Milo said. “But then the Hartquists are a pretty incredible bunch of jackasses.”

“So you've officially charged them with multiple homicide?” I asked.

Milo nodded. “We had to charge all of them, since they insist they don't know who shot who. And now they want a lawyer.”

” Court-appointed?”

“No. Somebody named Svensen from Snohomish,” Milo said. “He's some old coot Cap knows from way back when.”

“What about Brian Conley?” I asked.

Milo shrugged. “Doc figures he's been dead since March, about the time he was reported missing. I suppose he riled one of those mountain men up on the Ridge, and got himself stabbed to death. It happens.”

Unfortunately, Milo was right. Mountain men, hermits, recluses—they sought refuge from civilization in the vast forests of the Cascades, living in shacks, huts, abandoned cabins, and whatever other shelter they could find. Intruders, even innocent passersby, were met with hostility and occasionally death. Milo's predecessor, Eeeny Moroni, had told of finding human skulls decorating the fireplace mantel of one such hermit. Perhaps Brian Con-ley had been foolish enough to say a simple hello to a man who didn't want to socialize.

“You'll investigate, though,” I remarked.

Milo stubbed his cigarette out in a metal ashtray. “Sure. But I don't expect to find out much, not after all this time.”

I didn't blame the sheriff for his lack of enthusiasm. The trail was cold, in more ways than one.

“Goodness,” said Vida, who had just gotten off the phone. “How very odd.”

I turned in her direction. “What's that?”

“The Conleys were stunned, then relieved,” she said, looking puzzled. “I reached the girlfriend at work. Gina—Gina Ancich. After becoming semihysterical, she told me that Brian had always wanted his body buried in Ireland. What is all this silliness with being buried abroad? First Oscar Nyquist, now this Brian Conley. Tut!”

“Roots,” Toni Andreas put in. “People want to be connected with their past. One of my uncles was buried in the old country last year, one of those Greek isles. He'd retired to Arizona, but he missed the water and wanted to be buried by the sea.”

Vida looked askance. “It's absurd. I can't imagine being buried anywhere but here. The Alpine Cemetery is such a lovely place, up on the hill, above the river, the mountains around it, looking out over the town.”

Vida, no doubt, expected to be able to see the local goings-on even when she was six feet under. “Are the Conleys coming out?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

“Yes.” Vida adjusted her cartwheel straw hat with its pink and blue streamers. “They don't know exactly when. They have to make the travel arrangements. I gave them Father Kelly's number at the rectory in case they want to have a service here.”

“They told me they did,” I noted.

“They may have changed their minds,” Vida said, coming from behind the counter and into the reception area. “In fact, I got the impression that they planned to bury Brian in Penn Yan.” She frowned. “How odd. Perhaps they didn't know of their son's request.”

That was the least of my worries. I still needed to sort through the details of the Hartquist arrests. After Vida went on her way, I asked Milo when the arraignment would be held.

“As soon as that attorney from Snohomish gets up here,” the sheriff replied. “First, though, I'm going to have lunch. You want to come along, Emma?”

I hesitated. But after my earlier stomach bout, I felt as if I were running on empty. “Sure,” I said. “You can tell me what I may have missed so far.”

We went across the street to the Burger Barn, where Milo was besieged with curious customers. He held up his big hands and announced he wasn't going to say anything until he'd downed a cheeseburger, fries, and three cups of coffee. Everyone looked disappointed, but they honored the sheriff's pronouncement.

“I can't make mistakes on this story,” I said after we'd placed our orders. “What about the rest of the O'Neills? Has anybody tracked them down?”

Toni Andreas had been given that task, Milo said. “The only ones that I know of around here are Mickey, Rusty's son, and Kathleen and Margaret, Stubby's daughters by his first wife. Mickey works for Blackwell Timber, so he's probably in the woods. Kathleen—Kathy, I guess—is living with some guy out by the fish hatchery. I'm not sure where Margaret—Peggy, she's called—is, but Toni said she saw her the other day at the Alpine Mall.”

“You don't know where Lona and Meara are?” I asked.

Milo shook his head. “I heard they moved to Everett or Marysville before Meara had the baby. Did anybody ever say who the father was?”

“Not that I heard,” I said as our waitress delivered coffee for Milo and a Pepsi for me. “What about Brian? Who put his body in the locker? You may be able to find that much out anyway.”

“Maybe.” Milo sipped his coffee. “If the Hartquists are telling the truth, then Conley was put there after they dumped the O'Neills. It could be—they broke into the place, they admit it. But what are the chances of anybody knowing that the bodies were there?”

“What,” I said wryly, “are the chances of somebody else in Alpine driving around with another spare body? And how come Brian was in relatively good shape?”

“Doc figures he'd been under the snow where the animals couldn't get to him.” Milo began rearranging the salt and pepper shakers—an old habit of his. “Brian was still partially frozen inside.”

I was startled. “So he'd been found very recently?”

“Probably sometime yesterday afternoon,” Milo said.

I was thoughtful for a few moments, right up until Ed
Bronsky banged into our booth. “Hey, hey, hey!” my former ad manager bellowed. “Caught you just in time, Emma. Hi there, Dodge. How's it going?” Ed didn't pause for an answer. “Got room on the front page?” he said to me. “I got a big one.”

Yes, you do, Ed, I thought, and it's your big fat ego. “Why do you ask?”

“Six weeks from Saturday,” Ed responded, beaming all over himself. “That's when
Mr. Pig
debuts on national television.”

I managed not to groan aloud.
Mr. Pig
was a cable TV program loosely based on Ed's self-published rags-to-riches autobiography,
Mr. Ed.
I never really wanted to know how or why, but the book had been sold to a Hollywood producer who had turned the characters into an animated cartoon about a family of pigs.

“I don't know if I can get it on page one,” I said. “It looks like we're going to be pretty full tomorrow. Did you see the special edition today?”

“Special edition?” Ed's round face was mystified. “Is that what everybody was standing around reading? I thought it was some flyer for the summer solstice.”

If a nuclear device exploded in the middle of Front Street, Ed was so self-absorbed that he wouldn't notice until he looked in the mirror and saw that he glowed in the dark.

Milo was regarding Ed with a wry expression. “We had some excitement around here,” the sheriff said in that lazy drawl he reserved for the very young and the very stupid. “The Hartquists knocked off the O'Neills and dumped them in Barney Amundson's meat locker.”

Ed evinced mild surprise. “Really? That's a shame.”

“They found the missing snowboarder in there, too,” I put in, “but the Hartquists claim they didn't kill him.”

“No kidding,” Ed said, squeezing his bulk next to me
in the booth. “Gee, that would have been good for my book and the TV series. I keep thinking I should do a sequel. I'll try to remember that. You ordered yet?”

We said we had. In fact, the waitress was on her way with our meal. Ed glanced at my burger and Milo's cheeseburger. “How about a couple of those and the super basket of fries, sweetheart?” he said to the waitress. Ever since Ed had sold his book to TV he called every female whose name eluded him “sweetheart.” I guess he thought it made him sound like Hollywood.

“You know,” Ed said, putting both elbows on the table and forcing me even further into the corner, “I was thinking. The summer solstice deal is coming up pretty quick, and it might be smart of me to enter myself as a float.”

I couldn't help it—I was drinking my Pepsi, I choked, and I spewed soda all over Milo's shirt. The sheriff jumped a bit, brushed himself off, but didn't take his eyes off Ed. “How do you mean, a float?” Milo asked with a perfectly straight face.