The Alpine Pursuit (12 page)

Scott didn’t sound pleased, but he agreed to break up his Sunday afternoon for the sake of our readership. I left Kip to lock up and plodded down the street to the Venison Inn.

Milo was already eating a waffle, eggs, and sausage. “Take a seat,” he said after swallowing a mouthful of food. “I was too damned hungry to wait.”

“That’s okay,” I assured him, not bothering to look at the menu. “How are the interviews going?”

Milo stared at me. “What interviews? I told you, I only got up a little after ten.”

“Lucky you,” I remarked as a waitress approached to take my order. “I’ve accomplished many things already today,” I added after the waitress left. “I feel very virtuous. Who’s left on your list?”

“Mostly students,” Milo replied. “Don’t worry, I’m not dragging my feet. For one thing, old Thyra keeps calling the office to nag us. She even called me at home before I left this morning. She’s a real pain in the butt.”

“Is she still at the ski lodge?”

Milo shook his head. “Probably not. They were going to try to get back to Snohomish. As long as they chain up they should be fine.”

“Explain something to me,” I said, picking up the mug of coffee that the waitress had just poured. “Where did the real bullets come from? Were they Jim’s?”

Milo shook his head again. “The gun belonged to his dad, who died about four years ago. Moose Medved—his real name was Marvin or Mervin or something like that—had served as an MP in World War Two. He’d guarded German prisoners in Europe, and he brought back his own gun—the .38—and a couple of Lugers he’d gotten from the Germans. Jim inherited them after Moose died, but he’s no gun fancier. On the other hand, he felt he should keep the ones that’d belonged to his dad. If there was ammo with the .38, he didn’t save it. Jim swears the gun wasn’t loaded when he brought it to the performance. They’d used a water pistol in the rehearsals.”

I didn’t speak until after the waitress delivered my pancakes, eggs, and hamburger steak. “Did anyone know what kind of gun Jim was bringing?”

“Oh, yeah,” Milo said, pouring more syrup on his waffle. “Jim knew the German guns were Lugers, but he didn’t remember offhand what the American gun was. Rip Ridley gave him a bad time about that, so before Jim came to the next rehearsal, he checked. He told everybody who was around at the time that it was a Smith & Wesson .38 special.”

“That was when?” I asked.

“About three weeks ago, a couple of days after they started rehearsing.”

I grew thoughtful as I ate my pancakes. “So if someone had planned to turn the gun into a lethal weapon, they had plenty of time to prepare.”

“Right.” Milo added extra salt and pepper to what was left of his eggs. Then, while I tried not to wince, he doused his sausage with more catsup. “It’s too damned bad that Talliaferro didn’t let them use his starter pistol. Hell, Rip should have gotten one from the high school. Nobody’s turning out for track in this weather.”

“Who got the blanks that were supposed to be used?”

“Destiny. She bought them at Harvey’s Hardware last week.”

I grew silent again, staring at the Venison Inn’s refurbished gray walls. The place had lost its character since the remodeling in the fall. It was clean but bland. “Who was supposed to load the blanks?”

“Boots Overholt,” Milo answered after eating the last bite of waffle. “He says he did, before the play started.”

“I really don’t know Boots,” I admitted. “He was just a kid when I moved here. I know his dad, Ellsworth, and I’ve driven past their farm a million times. I didn’t even recognize Boots when I saw him at the theater.”

Milo nodded toward the door. “Here’s your big chance. Boots just came in.” The sheriff waved a hand, summoning Boots to our table. “His real name is Gregory,” Milo murmured as his cell phone went off.

By the time Boots reached us, Milo was answering his call. The fair-haired young man looked at me in an uncertain way. I guess he didn’t recognize me any more than I’d recognized him.

“Hi,” I said, putting out a hand. “I’m Emma Lord, otherwise known as the newspaper witch.”

Boots deferentially shook my hand. I half expected him to tug at his forelock and say, “Ah, shucks, ma’am.” Instead, he smiled shyly and allowed that it was nice to meet me.

With an irritated expression, Milo clicked off the phone and started to get out of the booth. “Excuse me. That was Thyra Rasmussen. She’s still at the ski lodge, raising hell. She wants to see me. I’d better go. I’ll get my bill up front.”

“Have a seat,” I said to Boots when Milo had stalked away. “Are you taking a break from the sandbags?”

Boots looked as if he felt unworthy of taking the place vacated by the sheriff, but after a moment’s hesitation he sat down. “Yes. They told us the stuff from Monroe wouldn’t get here until around one. It’s just a little after noon now, so I thought I’d get something to eat. I’ve been out on the river since six.” He spoke rapidly, nervously twisting his hands on the table. When the waitress returned, he asked for the special. I suspected he had no idea what it was, but he’d ordered it because he didn’t want to have to concentrate.

“Hey,” I said softly, “I’m not here on business. Don’t worry about what you say to me. It’s off-the-record.”

Boots seemed puzzled. “How do you mean?”

He might be a farm boy, but I thought he must watch TV. “It means that whatever we talk about isn’t going to be printed in the paper.” I smiled in reassurance. “But of course I’m curious about the shooting Friday night.”

Boots winced and looked away. “I feel like it’s all my fault.”

I pushed my empty plate away. “From what I’ve heard, it’s not. You weren’t expected to guard that prop box with your life, were you?”

“I couldn’t,” Boots said with a helpless expression. “During intermission especially, I had to check stuff onstage. You know . . . like making sure Mr. Bronsky had food on his plate.”

Maybe there was some way that Milo could arrest Ed as an accessory in the death of Hans Berenger. But I put such evil thoughts aside and asked instead when Boots thought someone might have had unobserved access to the prop box.

“Unobserved?” Boots stared at me with dark blue eyes. “You mean nobody could see what was happening with the box?”

I nodded. “It wouldn’t take a pro more than a few seconds to remove the blanks and substitute real bullets. Even someone not used to guns could work pretty fast. I’ll bet it didn’t take you long to put in the blanks.”

“No. No, it didn’t.” Boots shook his head. “I guess somebody might be able to do that without being noticed. We had a real zoo backstage. The spotlights weren’t always following the right actors, some of the people were having trouble remembering their lines, a couple of pieces of stage furniture weren’t in the right places, the blocking—or whatever you call moving around onstage—was wrong, Mr. Berenger didn’t have all his kitchen props, Professor Parsons was afraid the pulleys wouldn’t work when Reverend Poole came down from heaven. It was crazy.”

His rapid-fire recital went by me so fast that I could barely sort out the incidents. One remained fixed in my mind. “What happened to Hans’s kitchen props?”

Boots paused to examine the special that had just been placed before him. It was a huge omelet with mushrooms peeking out, Swiss cheese oozing onto the plate, and an occasional chive. The toast and hashed browns were on separate plates. Boots seemed overwhelmed.

“Gosh,” he said. “I thought I’d get ham and eggs.”

“Maybe there’s ham in the omelet,” I pointed out. “You’ve certainly got eggs.”

“Yeah.” He uttered a nervous little laugh. “Oh, well.”

“The kitchen props?” I urged.

Boots had taken his first bite of omelet. He chewed slowly before nodding approval. “This is good. I don’t think there’s any ham, though.”

I smiled and waited for the answer to my question. If Boots remembered what it was.

He did. “The kitchen part of the set was supposed to have three frying pans, and there was only one. He didn’t have enough coffee mugs, either. I don’t know where they went.”

That struck me as the least of the evening’s problems. “Did you help Nat Cardenas with his holster and gun?”

“Nope. He said he could do it himself. I kind of kept my distance from him the whole time. He’s kind of standoffish.”

Nat, of course, would be guarding his dignity. “Did you see anyone backstage who didn’t belong there?”

“Nope,” Boots repeated. “I know most of the stagehands and techs. I have classes with them. That’s how we all got to help with the play—it was required as part of the course. We take drama from Professor Parsons.”

“Someone mentioned seeing a bushy-haired stranger,” I remarked.

Boots, who was chewing on toast, shook his head. “ ’Course,” he said after he’d swallowed, “there could’ve been somebody. Like I told you, the place was a zoo, especially between acts.” He paused. “There was the dog.”

“The dog?” I echoed.

Boots nodded again. “Dodo. Dr. Medved’s dog. If Dr. Medved was doing something else, he couldn’t watch the dog. Don’t get me wrong, Dodo’s pretty well behaved. Professor Bhuj tried to keep an eye on him, since he was supposed to be her dog—in the play, I mean—but she had other stuff to do, too. Hey!” Boots became animated. “There she is now!” He waved enthusiastically.

I was beginning to feel as if I were in a play, too. Names were dropped; people appeared. Of course it wasn’t that strange, given that most of the town’s residents had been holed up inside the previous day. Only three restaurants in Alpine served a full breakfast, unless you counted McDonald’s Egg McMuffins or Starbucks’ pastry.

Clea Bhuj came down the aisle, wearing a self-possessed smile and a fur-trimmed parka. I’d met her a few times and always marveled at her delicate dark beauty. Her parents had emigrated from Bombay shortly after their marriage. Clea had been born and raised in California.

“Ms. Lord,” Clea said, holding out a gloved hand to me. “How nice. I haven’t seen you in months.” She turned to Boots, leaned down, and brushed his cheek with a kiss. “May I?” Clea pointed to the space next to the young man.

“Please!” Boots had bumped his legs on the table as he tried to stand like a gentleman. He blushed but kept smiling and gazed adoringly at Professor Bhuj.

“I couldn’t stand staying indoors another minute,” Clea announced, flipping back the parka’s fur-lined hood. “Ordinarily, I would have left town for the weekend, but I couldn’t because of the weather.”

I wasn’t sure if it was tactful to bring up the subject of a husband, but I did anyway, if in a veiled manner. “I understand you commute to Everett,” I said.

“Usually,” Clea replied, apparently at ease with my comment. “Sometimes Allan comes here.” She smiled again. “He’s my husband. He works for the port in Everett.”

“Yes,” I said. “I heard something about your commute the other day. It’s a pain during the winter, isn’t it?”

Clea sighed as Boots helped her out of the parka. “It is. But I guess it could be worse. I understand the last two winters haven’t been so severe in Alpine. Until now. I hope the river doesn’t flood. That could be awful.” She patted Boots’s arm. “I think it’s terrific that you and some of the other students have volunteered to help. Whose idea was it?”

“Um . . .” Boots was blushing anew. “President Cardenas called a bunch of us.”

“And you responded.” Clea smiled some more. She had the whitest, most perfect teeth I’d ever seen. If she hadn’t seemed so pleasant, I would have hated her. “That’s very brave. You never know when the river will rise.”

“Gosh, no,” Boots said, frowning. “When I was a kid, I saw it come all of a sudden in a big roar through the valley. Our whole farm was flooded.”

Clea nodded. “That’s what I mean. Rivers are unpredictable.” She turned to me. “It must be frustrating, Ms. Lord. The paper coming out on Wednesdays means you can’t always get on top of breaking news.”

I couldn’t help but utter a lame little laugh. “How right you are. Unfortunately, most people in Alpine don’t realize that we even have a deadline. For example, they’ll bring stories in on a Thursday that just have to be in the paper for the weekend.”

Clea nodded in sympathy. “It shouldn’t be that hard to understand when they get the paper only once a week. It’s doubly hard for the students.
The Iron Goat
comes out every two weeks. Believe me, I’ve had to let Carla Talliaferro cry on my shoulder many times, between stories the paper has missed and . . . other problems.”

I could well imagine some of the “problems” Carla had had as adviser to the college newspaper, beginning with its name. Since the high school nickname was the Buckers, some of the students had thought they should keep the logging tradition and call the paper
The Sawyer
. But the more environmentally inclined, particularly among the faculty, had asserted that the name was inappropriate. There had been much debate, spilling over into the town. Timber industry people had picketed the school for a week, but finally a compromise was reached with
The Iron Goat
, a tribute to the nickname for the Great Northern Railroad, the forerunner of our current freight and Amtrak trains.

“I know about some of the situations Carla’s encountered,” I said. “Of course, being a faculty adviser isn’t easy.”

“Sometimes not,” Clea allowed. “I do get to hear my share of complaints as head of Humanities. Carla, of course, is in our department. She’s so vivacious. She must have been a joy to have on the
Advocate
.”

If “joy” was running a picture of Reverend Poole upside down or stating that the people Doc Dewey performed autopsies on “were usually dead,” then joy had abounded during Carla’s tenure at the paper. Thus, I merely smiled and remarked how nice it was that with a young son Carla could work part-time on campus with her husband, Ryan.

“That’s true,” said Clea, her perfect mouth turning down. “I wish I had that kind of situation. But,” she added with another pat for Boots, “there are plenty of compensations. Especially the students.”

I put on my most sympathetic face. “How are you holding up, Clea? May I call you that?” I was at sea about whether to call her Professor or Doctor or Your Royal Highness.