The Alpine Pursuit (17 page)

Einar Rasmussen Jr. had been stabbed to death in the student union building that bore his name. The fledgling college had wanted to honor him for his generous donations. But despite the tragedy and the havoc it had raised with other Rasmussen family members, Thyra was tough as a bull cook’s steak. Somehow, she had managed to rebound.

“The old girl was gutsy, I’ll grant her that,” I remarked, tossing Fuzzy’s phone memo into the wastebasket. “What’s new on the homicide and missing persons front?”

Milo looked pained. “Not a hell of a lot. We checked with the car’s owner, who told us it’d been stolen sometime Friday, which makes sense.”

“Where was it stolen?” I asked.

“At the Alderwood Mall north of Seattle,” Milo replied. “The woman—her name’s Allison Burke—wasn’t in the Seattle directory because she lives a couple of miles past the city limits, in what’s now called Shoreline. Naturally, she’s mad as hell.”

“But doesn’t know who might have stolen the car?”

Milo gave me a withering look. “Hell, no. The Shoreline cops and the King County sheriff’s office are working on the case, but nobody expects much to come of it. As for our APB, it’s turned up a big fat zero except for the usual cranks, who say they saw a bushy-haired stranger sitting on a telephone pole or soaking in their bathtub.”

“You figure he’s left the area?”

Milo shrugged. “What else? He steals a car, goes for a joyride, runs off the road into the river, stops for a beer, and gets chased by the cops. Would you stick around and wait for the Welcome Wagon?”

I frowned. “Hold it, Milo. What if he’s the guy who showed up at the theater Friday night? As it turns out, Roger isn’t the only one who saw someone he didn’t recognize. And why would a car thief take a so-called sixty-mile joyride up Highway 2 during the dead of winter? Why turn off at Alpine? Wouldn’t you figure he had a purpose?”

The sheriff’s expression was droll. “He was running out of gas. The gauge registered on
E
.”

I shook my head. “It still doesn’t make sense. I think the driver came to Alpine for a purpose. Have you checked with King and Snohomish counties to see if someone matching that description has been reported as missing?”

Milo looked annoyed, as he always did when I hinted he might be derelict in his duties. “Hell, yes. There are at least two dozen young dark-haired white males missing from those highly populated counties. I doubt that our guy is among them. Let’s face it, he’s only been gone from wherever he belonged for two full days. If anybody cares enough to notice, they’d probably figure he’d taken off for the weekend.”

The sheriff had a point. “Okay,” I said with a sigh, “I’ll buy that. But if he’s got a job, his employer may want to know where he is.”

“For all we know,” Milo said, standing up, “he’s at work right now.”

I was silent for a moment. “He wasn’t in the car when it went over the bank, was he?”

“No.”

“Was he trying to ditch it or did he forget to set the hand brake?”

“How should I know?” Milo rubbed at the back of his head. “Jeez, Emma, quit playing detective. Don’t you have a newspaper to put out?”

I did. “Sorry,” I said halfheartedly. “I’m just trying to get things clear in my mind before I start writing. Having a corpse decorate the office has put me off my feed.”

Milo was backing out of my cubbyhole, lowering his head so that his Smokey the Bear hat didn’t get knocked off. He glanced over his shoulder. “That’ll do it to you.” He rapped his knuckles on the door frame. “See you around.”

I went back to work. Shortly before eleven o’clock, Spencer Fleetwood showed up. Instead of coming directly to see me, he stopped at Vida’s desk. I assumed he’d heard about Thyra. The next thing I knew, he had a microphone in front of my House & Home editor and appeared to be interviewing her. Grimacing, I started to get up, thought better of it, and pretended to be deeply absorbed in my weekly editorial.

Half an hour later, Spence was still there. Maybe it was a live hookup. Once again, I considered going into the newsroom, but Scott arrived with the proof sheets of the photos he’d taken over the weekend. There were some excellent shots of the near-flood, the damaged Mitsubishi that had gone into the river, the audience gathering for the play, but, alas, nothing after the final curtain. Sheepishly Scott admitted that he and Tamara had ducked out as the curtain fell. But somewhat to my chagrin, Scott had taken pictures of Thyra Rasmussen being loaded into Henry’s Town Car. One shot focused on legs encased in black cotton stockings and black shoes with silver buckles. Fittingly enough, she reminded me of the Wicked Witch from
The Wizard of Oz
.

“I don’t know about using these,” I said. “It might be bad taste.”

Scott shrugged. “Why are these shots any different from photos of people lying in their caskets? They get run all the time in the dailies.”

I allowed that that was true. “At least she isn’t under a house in Kansas and Henry Bardeen doesn’t look like a Munchkin,” I noted. “Thank God Vida isn’t standing over her making a victory sign.” I glanced out into the newsroom. Vida and Spence were both on their feet. Spence was putting his equipment away; Vida was donning her coat. They left together. An ominous feeling crept over me. I must have shivered, because Scott looked alarmed.

“You okay, Emma? Have you caught a chill?”

I attempted a smile. “I’m fine. Was Spence doing a remote broadcast?”

Scott made a face. “I’m afraid so. I thought about butting in, but since you stayed in your office, I figured it was okay.”

“It is. I can’t stop him from doing his job.”

For the next ten minutes, Scott and I marked our choices for the upcoming issue. We’d have plenty of photos, some of which required at least three columns by six inches for maximum effect. We’d need more advertising to support what undoubtedly would be an extra four pages. As soon as Scott left, I scanned the newsroom for Leo. He wasn’t there. It was going on noon, so maybe he’d left for lunch. Once again pushing the long bangs off my forehead, I decided to see if Stella Magruder would give me a quick trim.

The snow was still melting as I braved the slush to cross Front Street and walk two blocks to the Clemans Building, where Stella’s Styling Salon is located. Just before noon, the beauty parlor was deserted except for Stella herself and Janet Driggers, Al’s wife. Stella was putting the finishing touches on Janet when I arrived.

“Damn!” Janet cried when I came through the door. “I’m caught! Now everybody in Alpine will know I get my hair highlighted! Honest, Emma, I’ve always been a natural redhead. More or less.”

I grinned at Janet, who was never one to withhold her feelings or her often ribald thoughts.

Stella patted her own short curls, which were currently strawberry blond. “I did my own last week. Doesn’t this shade have more pep?”

“It’s nice,” I said, though I’d never colored my hair and was afraid that if I did it’d all fall out. “You both look good.”

Janet paused to admire herself in the hand mirror Stella had given her. “I’m hot, baby. Al had better watch out. I’m in a dominatrix mood. Bring on the heavy metal!”

I never wanted to know what went on in the Driggers bedroom. Al was so straitlaced and lifeless, he appeared to use his own embalming fluid. But Janet was wont to depict him as Super Stud.

She returned the mirror to Stella and eyed me with her usual lively curiosity. “I hear Vida took Thyra Whoozits out this morning. Did they actually exchange blows?”

I shook my head. “They had an argument, that’s all.”

“Damn!” Janet pounded the chair’s armrest. “Darlene Adcock told me that Edna Mae Dalrymple heard from Francine Wells that Vida tried to strangle the old bitch. Oops!” She put a hand over her mouth while mischief danced in her green eyes. “Sorry. Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But I’m told Thyra was a real horror story. It was probably because she wasn’t getting any.”

“She was close to a hundred,” I noted.

“So?” Janet allowed Stella to remove the salon’s protective cape from around her shoulders. “Hey, use it or lose it. That’s what I tell Al. Or,” she added in a lower voice, “in his case, find it or wind it.”

I didn’t want to know what she meant. In any case, she switched gears faster than a NASCAR driver. “And wouldn’t you know it?” Janet’s pretty face turned peevish as she brushed off a few stray hairs and rose from the chair. “Al and I didn’t make it to the play Friday night. Not that we haven’t seen enough corpses in our time. But we certainly missed some real excitement.”

“It wasn’t that exciting for the audience,” I pointed out. “Most of us didn’t realize what had happened until well after the curtain came down and about a third of the crowd had left. Does Al have the body?”

“To do what?” Janet’s fine eyebrows went up.

I rarely found Janet’s bawdy remarks annoying, but for once I had to rein in my impatience. “You know what I mean. Who’s handling the arrangements?”

Janet’s very sharp. She sensed my exasperation and grew serious. “Not yet. The M.E. in Everett is supposed to release Hans this afternoon. As usual, they had a busy weekend. The weather took out a lot of people over in SnoCo.”

“So Hans will be sent back here?” I asked.

Janet shrugged. “I suppose. Frankly, nobody’s officially contacted Al yet.”

Stella, who’d been sweeping up Janet’s clipped tresses, leaned on her broom. “I thought maybe Rita Patricelli would be in charge. Weren’t they pretty tight at one point?”

“We haven’t heard from Rita,” Janet said as she slipped into her all-weather coat. “She’s a flake, if you ask me. She tried to talk Al into some kind of co-op ad under the heading of Services—right next to Estate Planning and Roto-Rooter.”

I assumed Janet referred to the advertising package Spence had proposed to the chamber. But it was Stella who’d caught my attention. “What,” I asked her, “do you mean by ‘tight at one point’? Had they broken up recently?”

Stella put the broom aside and accepted Janet’s credit card. “I did Rita’s hair for the play. She wanted what she called a ‘waitress cut’—whatever that is. Anyway, I gathered she and Hans were on the outs. It had something to do with an investment he was making.”

I waited for Stella and Janet to complete their transaction. After Janet had left with a breezy “Keep on truckin’—or something like that!” I indicated my shrubby bangs.

“Just a trim,” I said. “I may let the rest of it grow.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Stella said but proceeded to oblige my latest coiffure whim.

“I’m sleuthing,” I confessed. “Did Hans’s investment involve buying some property west of town?”

“I think so,” Stella replied, critically eyeing my image in the mirror. “Frankly, I don’t always listen to my clients when they ramble on about their personal lives. I’m getting too old to hold everybody’s hand. I learned way back that if you give advice, they don’t really want it. They just want to natter on about their problems. So I keep my mouth shut and sometimes my ears, too.” She cut off a good half inch of hair.

“More,” I said. “My hair grows so fast.”

“Besides,” Stella continued, “I was so busy last week, helping with the makeup and hair for the play. Frankly, I’m still beat. If we weren’t shorthanded on Mondays, I wouldn’t have come in today.”

Taking my cue from Stella, I was only half listening. It sounded to me as if the breakup—if that’s what it was—had happened last week. That made sense. Rita and Hans had still been seeing each other when the play was cast. Hans must have made his offer on the Krueger property in the last few days. If there’d been no activity for almost three months and he’d outbid Fuzzy Baugh, I would’ve expected the Kruegers to snap up Hans’s proposal. And since the romantic breakup was so recent, it’d account for Rita’s distress. Regrets, perhaps, or guilt. Maybe even genuine sorrow.

But I sensed that Stella was a dead end as far as Rita and Hans were concerned. “I don’t suppose,” I said in a musing tone, “that you heard anything at the theater that might indicate somebody had it in for Hans.”

“Ha!” Stella grinned at our images. “How about everybody?”

I stared at Stella’s reflection. “Really?”

“Pretty much.” She went back to work, fluffing up the rest of my hair. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

Stella stood back to admire her work, then gave me the hand mirror. “About the death threats,” she said. “Hans had received at least two in the months before he was shot.”

ELEVEN

“You’re not kidding, are you?” I said to Stella.

She shook her head. “I heard it from Tamara Rostova. You know, Scott’s girlfriend.”

“Yes, of course.” I pronounced myself improved, if not in appearance, at least in vision. “What did Tamara say?”

“She went short a couple of weeks ago,” Stella said, once again wielding the broom. “I tried to talk her out of it—she has such gorgeous raven hair. It’s the real deal, no tint, no dye, no color of any kind except what God gave her. But she was tired of dealing with it. Anyway, she told me that Hans has—had—his office across from hers and one afternoon she heard him let out a terrible groan. That made my ears prick up. No personal woes for Tamara, just juicy gossip. She thought Hans was sick, and ran to see what was wrong. Tamara said he collected himself right away, but she said he looked really queer and his face had turned white. He seemed anxious to get rid of her. She noticed he had what looked like a letter on his desk that he tried to cover with his hands. Tamara’s farsighted. She could see just a few words on the sheet of paper—’You are going to DIE Friday.’
DIE
was in capital letters, so it was hard to miss. She did her best to get him to open up, but he got really rude and told her to mind her own business. She finally left and he locked the door behind her.”

“Has Tamara told the sheriff this?” I inquired, now on my feet.

Stella shrugged. “I don’t know. What’s more to the point, why didn’t Hans tell the sheriff? Or did he?”

“Not that I know of,” I said, aware that Milo didn’t always share his information with me. More to the point, I wondered if Tamara had told Scott. “You said two death threats. What about the other one?”

We had progressed to the front desk. “That one I heard about from Clea Bhuj. Now there’s another woman with wonderful black hair. She keeps it long but needs an occasional trim. Clea mentioned a faculty party during the holidays where—you’ll
never
guess who this was—Justine Cardenas was overheard to say that Hans would die first before she’d . . . allow something-or-other.”

“Justine?” I wouldn’t have guessed it. “That
is
incredible. Justine is one of the most self-controlled women I’ve ever met.”

“I guess something riled her up,” Stella said, refusing the five-dollar bill I proffered for the trim. “I’ll clip you next time. Ha-ha. Clea also mentioned that the party got a little tense after that and pretty soon everyone went home.”

“Where was the festive gathering?” I asked.

“At the Cardenas house in The Pines.” Stella was putting on her coat. “You want to grab a bite with me at the Burger Barn?”

I was tempted but suddenly discovered I craved a very rare beef dip sandwich from the Venison Inn. The Burger Barn didn’t serve them. “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m headed in the other direction.”

We parted ways at Third and Front, where she went on to the Burger Barn and I crossed the street to the Venison Inn. Since the restaurant’s renovation, the owners had installed a hostess for the lunch and dinner hours. Sunny Rhodes, part-time Avon lady and wife of the evening shift’s bartender, greeted me with her glued-on sunny smile.

“I’m not sure I have a table for one,” she said, still smiling despite the crease in her high forehead. “We’re really busy today. I guess everybody wanted to eat out after the bad weather over the weekend. Would you mind sitting in the bar?”

“No,” I replied. “That’s fine.” Briefly I considered confronting her about the
Advocate
’s policy regarding her son, Davin, and his bike accident. But all I could think of was rare beef.

Sunny’s smile had turned mischievous. “Tip me five bucks and I’ll find you a good spot for the floor show.”

“The last floor show I saw in here was Jake and Betsy O’Toole arguing over the dent she put in their new Chrysler,” I remarked. The owner of the Grocery Basket and his wife were famous for their public feuds, which had little effect on their devotion to each other. Quarreling for the O’Tooles seemed to be some kind of ritual, even a variation of lovemaking.

Sunny handed me a menu and sent me on my way. Halfway through the restaurant I saw Vida and Spence sitting at a window table. I considered going over to greet them, but I thought better of it. They seemed like an odd couple. I wondered what was going on between them. To add to my astonishment, Milo was sitting in a back booth with Destiny Parsons. I felt like the odd woman out as I walked into the bar’s comparative darkness.

But not for long. Leo was sitting at a small table eating a pork sandwich and reading
Sports Weekly
. Automatically I looked to see if he had a cocktail glass. Years ago, Leo’s personal problems had been caused by alcohol. Though he had quit his heavy drinking after he came to work for me, I still fretted over the possibility that one day he’d again free-fall off the wagon.

But Leo had only a small glass of beer on the table.

“May I?” I asked, giving him a slight start.

“Hey . . . sure. Take a seat.” He folded the paper and slipped it under his chair. “You get frozen out of the dining room, too?”

I said I did.

“What’s up with Vida and Mr. Radio?” Leo inquired.

“Good question,” I said, putting the menu aside, since I already knew what I wanted. “Were you in the newsroom when Spence did the remote interview with Vida about an hour ago?”

Leo shook his head. “I was out hustling, earning my keep, raking in revenue.”

“Which reminds me,” I said before launching into our need to support four extra pages.

Leo liked the idea of the co-op ads. “The only problem is, we already do them. The churches, the home services, the real estate. Spence’s concept is only an expansion that, I gather, he hasn’t been able to sell. We couldn’t do it, either. You can only stretch so far.”

I hadn’t quite thought it through. “You’re right,” I agreed. “But we still need more advertising this week. And yes, I know it’s short notice. But what about weather-related products? There must be burst pipes and basement floods and—”

“I’m all over it,” Leo interrupted as the waitress came to take my order. “I can’t guarantee four pages’ worth, but I’ll try.”

I knew he would. “Thanks, Leo.” I smiled kindly at my ad manager. “Do you ever get tired of badgering the same old advertisers in the same old town for the same old paper?”

The lines in Leo’s leathery face grew deeper. “Sure. Don’t you? Same people, same kinds of stories, same type of editorials. Same crackpots. I’m getting closer to retirement—if I want to. You’re lagging a few years behind me. Why are you still here?”

I sighed. “I think about it sometimes. Maybe I’m afraid to change.”

Leo finished his entrée. “You made a big change thirteen years ago. That took guts.”

If it hadn’t been for the unexpected windfall I’d received when my long-ago ex-fiancé died and left me a quarter of a million dollars from his Boeing life insurance policy I probably wouldn’t have made any changes, let alone moved out of Portland. Don and I had parted ways in college and hadn’t been in touch since. When his wife, Ruth, discovered I would get his benefits, she was furious. I didn’t blame her. But Don, who had been a highly creative think-tank guy, never paid much attention to life’s little details. Such as deleting my name as beneficiary. Luckily, Ruth had inherited a nice nest egg from Boeing stock and hadn’t been left destitute. They’d had two children and she later married a dentist. I didn’t feel guilty about using the insurance money to buy the
Advocate
. Had it not been for that fluke, I probably would still be at
The Oregonian
, covering Portland news and writing what an editor had once described as “sprightly features.”

“You’re not a small-town girl,” Leo pointed out as he lighted a cigarette.

“You’re not a small-town guy,” I retorted. “You’re from L.A.”

Leo gave me his off-center grin. “Why do you think I’m not there anymore? I mean, besides the obvious, which is that Tom Cavanaugh recommended me for the job as my last chance to crawl out of the gutter. I’ve always felt it was L.A. that drove me to drink. After I hit thirty, I wasn’t up to the pace. One thing led to another. . . .” He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “You saved me, babe. I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” I replied. “You saved yourself.”

He shrugged. “Whatever. I wouldn’t recommend that you move to L.A.—but your old hometown of Seattle seems like the right place for you. You miss it, don’t you?”

“Yes. But it’s been thirty years since I lived there. It’s changed. Maybe I have, too.”

He exhaled and shrugged again. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“You didn’t,” I said, pausing as my food arrived. “I did. Maybe it’s all rhetorical. We’re both still here.”

There was an unusual glint in Leo’s brown eyes. “Yes. Does that give you a clue to the answer?”

The question put me off. “How do you mean?”

“Never mind.” He laughed. “Gotta run,” he said, digging into his pocket for his wallet. “Must save paper, must make revenue, must hold local merchants’ heads underwater.”

When I returned to the office just after one, it wasn’t Leo who was uppermost in my mind. Vida was acting strange. She was pleasant but in a bogus kind of way. Her attitude was not unlike her manner when interviewing people she considered fools and nitwits, which covered most of Alpine’s residents. She even hummed.

I asked about her lunch with Spence. “Interesting,” she replied, and hummed a bit.

“In what way?” I prodded.

“In many ways,” she said, making crop marks on a photo of Darlene and Harvey Adcock, who had recently spent two weeks in Palm Springs. “Perhaps I’ve underestimated his professionalism.”

I pressed on. “Why is that?”

“Oh . . .” She stared up at the small window above her desk. “Just generally.” She hummed some more.

I gave up. As falsely chipper as she seemed, it was better than the callousness and hostility she’d exhibited in the morning. But neither mood was the real Vida. I tried not to worry about that, either.

Instead, I stewed over Milo’s apparent brick wall in the murder investigation. I wanted to bring up the alleged death threats, but I’d already insinuated that I didn’t think he was covering all the bases. Finally, at a little after four, I walked down the street to call on him.

The sheriff had just returned from the barbershop. When Jack Mullins admitted me, Milo was using the reflection on his computer monitor to guide a comb through his freshly cut hair.

“Am I getting bald?” he asked, not looking up.

“Definitely,” I said.

He looked up to stare at me. “Really? Can you tell?”

I sat down in his visitor’s chair. “Ask the barber. He’d know.”

“I already did. He said I wasn’t.” Milo scowled. “Maybe he just wanted to make me feel good.”

I laughed. “You’re not getting bald. I was kidding. You’re going gray, but you’re entitled to do that.”

“Jeez.” His broad shoulders slumped. “You scared me.” He looked back at the screen. “Do you think it’s too short?”

“Too short for what?” It wasn’t like Milo to be concerned with his appearance. I wondered if Destiny Parsons was the cause for his about-face.

“Come on, Emma.” Milo was getting exasperated. “I’m serious.”

“You look fine. It’s the same haircut you’ve had ever since I met you. Why the big fuss?”

Milo shrugged. “No reason. I just wondered. So many guys my age have lost most of their hair.”

“Then you’re lucky,” I pointed out. As Milo put his comb away, enlightenment dawned. “If there was a reason, would it be Destiny Parsons?”

The sheriff looked affronted. “Of course not. Why would it be?”

“You two looked very cozy today at the Venison Inn.”

The sheriff gazed into his coffee mug, then poured the dregs in a potted fern that his receptionist, Toni Andreas, had given him for Christmas. “I happened to run into Destiny at the restaurant. I figured maybe she’d open up more about the murder in a more casual setting.”

“Did she?”

“Not really,” Milo admitted. “I guess she’s told me everything she knows.”

“Including the death threats Hans got?”

Milo’s hazel eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“What I just said. Death threats. Two of them.” I leaned back in the chair, feeling smug. “One written, one verbal. Didn’t Hans report them to you?” I asked in an innocent voice.

Angrily the sheriff used his long legs to push himself and his chair back from the desk. “Goddamn it, Emma, you’d better not be giving me a wild-assed tale you overheard from some moron like Crazy Eights Neffel.”

Since Crazy Eights was the town’s premier nut job, Milo knew darned well I wouldn’t believe Crazy Eights if he told me I was Emma Lord. “I’m not kidding this time,” I said in my most severe tone, and had to bite my tongue to keep from admitting that I’d heard it at the beauty parlor. In Milo’s opinion, that would be almost as bad as quoting Crazy Eights. “Admittedly, I learned about the threats secondhand. But the first one came from Tamara Rostova. The second, from Clea Bhuj.”

Milo’s face grew dark. “Neither of them said anything of the sort to me.” He paused. “Come to think of it, I didn’t interview Tamara. She wasn’t part of the play.”

“No, she wasn’t,” I allowed. “But Clea was.”

“Then why didn’t she tell me that Hans’s life had been threatened?” Milo demanded.

“I can only guess,” I said, and went on to explain that Justine Cardenas had made the threat at a faculty Christmas party. “Since it was Justine and she’s the boss’s wife, I suspect Clea was intimidated. It was probably one of those threats that people say and don’t really mean. The letter that Tamara saw was another matter.”

Milo sighed heavily after I finished my full recital. “I suppose Berenger destroyed the letter Tamara saw. I wonder if that was the only one he got.”

“It must have been delivered to him at the college,” I said. “It could have come in the interoffice mail. I thought maybe Destiny had confided in you.”

The remark obviously stung Milo, but he didn’t jump me for it. Instead, he thought for a moment before responding. “Destiny might not have overheard Justine at the party. And I don’t see how she’d know about the letter. That seems to be Tamara’s dirty little secret.”