The Alpine Scandal (24 page)

The sheriff was tugging on his line. At first I thought he might have a fish on, but after the second or third pull, I realized he’d gotten snagged on the river bottom. As he struggled to free his line, he turned and saw me. I could tell he was scowling, so I didn’t say a word. At least another minute passed before the sheriff swore out loud as the line broke and dangled over the rolling current.

“Second leader I’ve lost today,” he called to me, wading toward the bank. “That’s the trouble with fishing here. Too much crap gets swept to the fork.”

“How about a coffee break?” I asked, holding out the paper cups and the bag with the muffins.

“How about telling me why you’re here?” Milo said, opening his tackle box.

“I was bored,” I said, setting my Starbucks offering on a flat rock. “I needed to get out and listen to the river without the sound of cars and trucks and jerks who don’t like my editorials.”

It was true. It was also a language that Milo understood. “I don’t know why you don’t do some fishing yourself,” the sheriff said, taking out a shiny green lure from his tackle box.

“I don’t have the patience anymore,” I said. “At least not for winter steelheading. And frankly, the rivers around here don’t produce like they used to. Any luck so far?”

He shook his head. “Not even a bump. The river’s off-color. I’ve lost three of these babies at five bucks a pop,” Milo complained, pointing to the lure. “I’m going to try one more shot and then pack it in.” He frowned as I took the muffins out of the paper bag. “They didn’t have bear claws?”

“Gee,” I said, handing him a muffin, “you must enjoy getting hauled off to the hospital. Have you got a crush on one of those bulky nurses?”

The sheriff sighed. “I’ll be glad to get this damned thing over with. Maybe I’ll schedule the surgery for early February.” He took the muffin and picked up the paper coffee cup. “We might have this Nystrom case wrapped up by then.”

“You think?” I sipped my latte, which had grown lukewarm. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Milo shook his head. “Nope. But without any real leads, I figure it’s a random thing. Somebody stole eggs from the henhouse. Maybe a chicken, too. We’re probably dealing with a nut job of some kind.” He shot me a sidelong glance. “Anything new with you?”

“About the case?” I shook my head. “Not really.”

“I meant in general.”

I figured it was Milo’s way of asking why I’d come to the fishing hole. “Not particularly.”

He didn’t say anything but sipped his latte and gazed out at the river. I assumed his curiosity about my arrival had been satisfied.

“I should head back to town,” I said.

The sheriff nodded once. “See you.”

He seemed detached, but I assumed his mind was back on his steelhead quest. I finished my muffin and collected our litter. Milo was still drinking from his cup as I turned to leave.

I stopped short when I saw Dustin Fong picking his way along the riverbank.

“Sheriff!” Dustin called. “We got trouble!”

Milo gulped down the last of his latte and scrunched the cup in his big hand. “What now?”

“Polly Nystrom,” Dustin said, stopping next to the gnarled roots of an uprooted cedar tree. “She called to say she was being attacked.”

Chapter Twenty

T
HE SHERIFF PICKED
up his fishing rod as carefully as he’d hold a baby. “Well?”

“Sam and I went over there, but she wouldn’t let us in,” Dustin explained, reverting to his usual calm, careful manner. “Carter wasn’t around as far as we could tell. Nick Della Croce came out of his house and said he’d heard a commotion but hadn’t seen anything. We finally got Polly to come to the door, but she refused to open it. She claimed her attackers were gone and said she’d wait for Carter.”

“Did Sam stay at the Nystrom place?” Milo asked, looking annoyed.

Dustin nodded. “I left him there to come get you. Your cell’s not working.”

Milo heaved a big sigh. “Just what I needed,” he muttered, starting to dismantle his rod. “Is the old bat nuts?”

“I don’t know,” Dustin replied. “There was no sign of forced entry that we could see—just some tire marks on the front lawn, like somebody drove over it.”

I finally spoke up: “Those marks weren’t there an hour ago,” I asserted. “I’d have noticed them. The Nystroms have a tidy yard, even this time of year.”

“Not now,” Dustin said. “There’s some old tin cans and broken plates out front.” He frowned. “You’re right—that’s not like them.”

The idea I’d had while rooting around in Adam’s closet suddenly came back to me. It burst full-blown inside my brain, but it was too off-the-wall to mention. Milo would disparage my notion, and I’d feel like a fool. Still, a sense of urgency overpowered me.

“This is serious stuff,” I said.

Both men stared at me—Dustin curious, Milo skeptical.

“Like how?” the sheriff asked, placing the rod in its case.

“Polly must know who came to her house and drove over the lawn and—” I stopped, noticing that Milo wasn’t listening. He had his back to me and was collecting his gear. “Fine,” I said sharply. Turning around, I moved past Dustin and made my way as fast as I could along the obstacle-covered riverbank.

When I reached my car, I saw that Dustin’s cruiser was barring my way. Frustrated, I got behind the Honda’s wheel to see if I could maneuver around the other vehicle by reversing into the ferns and salmonberry vines alongside the road.

But the ground was too soft from all the rain, and after the first couple of feet in reverse, I knew I’d get stuck. I sat in the car, anxiously tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. Only a couple of minutes passed before I saw the deputy coming up from the river.

“I’m leaving,” Dustin shouted. “Sorry.”

I watched him in the rearview mirror. He got into the cruiser just as Milo appeared, carrying his fishing gear. He set his belongings down by the Grand Cherokee and loped over to my car, motioning for me to roll down the window.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

I almost didn’t tell him. But candor and common sense forced the words out of my mouth. “To the Pikes’,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because…I want to talk to them,” I replied. I couldn’t explain my foreboding. The sheriff wouldn’t understand.

“Go ahead,” Milo said, and shrugged.

Dustin had reversed into the turnaround by the Burl Creek Road. He drove off toward town. I did the same and had to be careful to keep my foot off the gas pedal so that I wasn’t tailgating him. The deputy didn’t seem to be in any hurry, but I was.

Ethel and Bickford Pike’s house was modest, a four-room bungalow some fifty or more years old where they had raised their only child, a son named Terry who lived in Orlando with his wife and children. It occurred to me that like the Nystroms and the Della Croces, they were another set of parents with a single offspring.

There was still no sign of Pike’s battered pickup. The small front yard was choked with dandelions, thistles, moss, and an occasional patch of long grass. I couldn’t remember if Ethel and her husband had a second car. I hesitated, then steeled my nerve and got out of the Honda. I walked along the rutted dirt driveway, avoiding puddles that had not dried up from the last rainfall. The dilapidated garage was closed, but there was a window on one side. I went up to it and tried to peer in through the grime and cobwebs. It appeared to be a storage area, probably for all the junk Pike collected.

Going around to the other side, I saw an old rusted-out Pontiac up on blocks with its wheels missing. It stood derelict under the bare branches of a sickly apple tree. How fitting, for people like the Pikes had no place to go and no way to get there. Their wheels had fallen off long ago; their hearts—their engines—had worn out. That was true, too, in a different way of the Nystroms, but they had a facade, eloquently expressed by Carter’s bright and shiny new Corvette.

There was no point knocking on the door. I knew the Pikes weren’t home—an inappropriate word for their house. It seemed more like a prison, made off-limits to others by all the junk that might as well have been iron bars. I started back to my car as Milo pulled up on the edge of the road.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, opening the door on the driver’s side but remaining behind the wheel.

I stood in the driveway with my hands shoved into the pockets of my car coat. “I’m not sure,” I said. “What’s going on with Polly Nystrom?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Nuisance stuff, nothing serious. I’m on my way there now. Dustin’s up ahead.” Milo gestured down the road.

“I know,” I said, my voice sounding hollow. “Sam Heppner’s there, too.”

“Right.” Milo paused. “Come on, Emma. Get moving.”

“Okay.” I opened the car door, but before I could get in, I heard Milo’s cell phone ring. And then I heard him swear.

“Meet you there,” he said. Or something like that. I wasn’t close enough to catch the exact words. He slammed the Grand Cherokee’s door shut and started the engine.

I hurried to follow him. He was heading toward town but took a left about a hundred yards from the Pike property. As I twisted the wheel to make the turn, I realized we were by Bebe and Roy Everson’s house. In a blur, I saw them standing by the split-rail fence that separated their yard from the dirt track on which I was now traveling. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I had a sickening feeling that I knew why.

The winding road led to Burl Creek, just a short way from Cass Pond. I could see that it had been used by locals as a dumping ground. Car parts, kitchen appliances, garbage, and even an old toilet were heaped in piles and strewn about the small clearing. A
NO DUMPING
sign had been riddled with bullets.

But none of this rubbish riveted my attention like the old Silverado pickup truck parked at the edge of the creek. Milo had gotten out of the Grand Cherokee and drawn his sidearm. He approached the pickup slowly. If he knew I’d followed him, he didn’t turn around to look in my direction. Even I had sense enough to stay in my car.

With dread, I watched him peer into one side of the pickup’s cab and then into the other. He put his gun away and opened the door on the driver’s side. I held my breath as Milo leaned inside for no more than a minute, though it seemed like forever.

Finally he turned to look my way. Shaking his head, the sheriff came up to the Honda. I rolled down my window.

“They’re both dead.” Milo bit his lip. “Ethel and Pike. Shotgun on the pickup’s floor. Poor old coots.”

I cleared my throat. “Murder-suicide.” It wasn’t even a question. The Pikes had chosen well for the site of their deaths. No doubt they’d seen themselves as old, useless, and broken, just like the rest of the trash at the dump area.

The sheriff nodded at me before looking over his shoulder. “Here come Dustin and Sam. Go back to town, Emma. I’ll see you at my office.”

I passed the police cruiser on my way back to the Burl Creek Road. It’d take Milo and his deputies quite a while to accomplish their pathetic task. I didn’t go to the sheriff’s office but kept driving along Front Street until I got to Sixth and turned up the hill to Vida’s house on Tyee. I didn’t know if she was home, but for now I couldn’t be alone.

With relief, I saw her in the front yard, energetically chopping off branches from a leggy forsythia bush. She looked around when she heard the car pull up.

“Emma!” she cried. “How nice! I was about to go inside for a bite of lunch.” Seeing my stricken expression, she put a hand to her cheek. “Oh, no! What is it?”

“Wait until we get in the house,” I said.

Once we were in the kitchen, Vida immediately put the teakettle on. “So.” She sat down opposite me at the kitchen table. “What’s happened? You’re quite pale.”

“Ethel and Bickford Pike are dead.”

Vida sucked in her breath. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed after a long pause.
“Oh, my!”
she repeated more softly. “How?”

I admitted I wasn’t sure. “I assume Pike shot Ethel and then himself. Pike must have been the only person in Alpine who didn’t like Elmer.”

“The junk,” Vida murmured. She didn’t seem shocked, only surprised. Maybe she, too, had guessed that Pike had killed Elmer. “Those so-called collectibles that fell off of his truck would’ve annoyed Elmer no end. He headed up the Kiwanis Club’s litter collection along a section of the Icicle Creek Road. Tsk, tsk. Such a tidy man.”

“Pike may have scavenged—or collected, as he’d put it—more than junk. Pilfering must have become second nature to him. I’ll bet he’d been stealing eggs—and probably that missing chicken—for some time.” I shook my head. “Elmer caught Pike that morning in the henhouse. He probably threatened Pike with calling the sheriff. Maybe the two men got physical. Pike simply reacted and whacked Elmer with whatever was at hand.”

Vida nodded. “Being a simple man, committing a simple crime.”

“But not really simple,” I pointed out. “People, even the Pikes of this world, are very complex.”

“Oh, yes. They—we—all have our opportunity to be part of humanity despite our troubles and tragedies.” Vida gazed up at Cupcake, who was honing his beak on a cuttlebone. “Of course the Pikes were lonely, but they could have been otherwise. Strange,” she mused, removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes with less than her usual zest, “that Ethel complained about so many things—except what truly bothered her. Their only child thousands of miles away in Florida, hardly any other family close to them unless you count Pike’s sister, and they fought like cats and dogs. I suppose Pike took the easy way out by killing himself and Ethel.”

“Well…it doesn’t seem right. Oh,” I went on, “I know that loneliness is like a cancer and can eat at you until—”

Vida interrupted me with a shake of her head. “I don’t mean just that, or even being arrested. “I’m talking about actual cancer. It wasn’t bronchitis that Pike had. I called Marje Blatt last night after I got home from your house. She confided—bless her—that Pike was dying. Marje and Doc Dewey were worried about what would happen to Ethel because of her diabetes. She was beginning to lose the feeling in her feet. That’s why she limped so badly. Marje and I talked about what would happen to Ethel after Pike died.”

“She could’ve gone into a nursing home,” I said.

“Not Ethel!” Vida smiled grimly. “Too proud, too ornery.” Her smile softened. “She could be a pill, but I rather liked her.”

I’d never have guessed it.

“You know,” Vida said, as the teakettle whistled, “some people can’t bear to live alone.” She stood up and went to the stove. “The rest of us put one foot ahead of the other and keep going.”

“So,” Milo said to me later that afternoon when I reached the sheriff’s office, “what put you on to the Pikes?”

I leaned back in the visitor’s chair. Scott was out front, talking to Dustin and Sam. I’d decided to let my reporter wrap up the story. He needed the experience, and I was tired—tired, I suppose, of having had too much experience.

“It was that Elvis album,” I said.

“What Elvis album?” he asked.

I explained about how Gloria Della Croce had found it by the road. “All along, I kept thinking that Elmer couldn’t have been liked by everybody. Nobody is, not even saints. What would make someone dislike him? His apparent perfection, for one thing. Elmer was helpful, kind, and tidy. He embodied so many American virtues. But he also chastised people when they didn’t live up to the high standards he’d set for himself. Ethel mentioned Pike’s truck once, but she called it a ‘Silvery’ something-or-other. It didn’t dawn on me that it was a Chevrolet brand, a Silverado. It was an old beat-up thing, and I can imagine that Elmer and Pike had gone head-to-head over that truck for many years.”

“But it still ran,” Milo pointed out. “Maybe Pike worked on it himself.”

I nodded. “He probably did. He was handy, according to Ethel.” I smiled faintly at the memory. “I can imagine how annoyed Elmer—and Polly, who is a terrible complainer—could get when Pike would go by in his rattle-trap truck and stuff would fall off all over the place. I suppose half the time Pike didn’t know it and wouldn’t bother to collect it. It may have seemed like a minor feud to everybody else, but it was very serious to someone like Pike, who must have seen Elmer as the ideal family patriarch. But that was only the facade. The reality was quite different in terms of the Nystroms themselves.”

“Reality.” Milo shook his head. “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.” I traced a groove in Milo’s desk with my fingernail. “There’s no happy ending for most of the people involved.”

“Bunch of screwed-up lives,” the sheriff remarked.

“Whose isn’t?”

Milo shrugged. “Dustin and Sam should’ve guessed Pike and Ethel were up to something when they scared the hell out of Polly by dumping more crap on her lawn. It’s a good thing Roy and Bebe Everson called in about the gunshots. They’d seen the Pikes go by in the pickup and thought they were either dumping stuff or salvaging it. I guess Pike went down to that site fairly often. They heard the shots and got worried when the truck didn’t show up in the next half hour.”

I rose to my feet. “I’d better go home.”

“Yeah. I’ve got paperwork to finish up. Hey, thanks for the coffee and that damned muffin.”

I swiveled around with my hand on the doorknob. “Oh, sure. Emma’s fast-food delivery service.”