The Alpine Scandal (5 page)

“Some day,” Ben said after we’d ordered a cocktail, “I’d like to live on a boat. Monks can have their spartan cells and all that—not that they always do—but I think I’d find true solitude on a boat. A small boat, of course.”

“Where would you find your flock?” I asked. “On bigger boats?”

Ben shook his head. “No. I’d serve an island community like the San Juans. Maybe I can do that when I retire.”

Through the window, we saw a young couple walking up the pier. Maybe they’d been working on their own boat. Maybe they were dreaming about having one of the bigger, more splendid craft that lay at anchor about thirty yards away.

“The San Juans would be wonderful,” I said. “You’d be close.”

Ben didn’t say anything, but he smiled slightly.

We were comfortably silent for a moment or two, still staring outside. I hated having my brother go off again, probably for several months. Even though he didn’t say so, I sensed he dreaded it, too. A priest’s life is lonely. So was mine. There were times when I fought loneliness—for Ben, for Adam, and still, once in a great, sad, self-indulgent while, for Tom.

“Speaking of your flock,” I said, breaking the silence, “I saw one of your Della Croces today.”

“Oh?” Ben suddenly seemed wary. “Who?”

“The wife,” I said. “And the mother, I guess.”

My brother sipped his drink. “They’re not my Della Croces,” he retorted. “They’re Father Den’s.”

“You don’t have to get grumpy about it,” I snapped.

“I’m not grumpy.” He looked at me with the same brown eyes that I possess. “I’m not here long enough to get involved in town gossip. If you want to talk about the Della Croces, yak it up with Dennis Kelly.”

I waited until I was calmer. Even in middle age Ben and I had the ability to raise each other’s hackles. I resented the ever-present if subtle sense of superiority that he claimed by right of being two years older; he had no patience with the pesky little sister who constantly invented new ways to badger and annoy him.

“Did I mention that Elmer Nystrom may have been murdered?”

Ben was still staring at me. “Yes. You talked about that on the way over here. So?”

“So the Della Croces are the Nystroms’ next-door neighbors. That’s how I happened to see Mrs. Della Croce today. She came out on her front porch while Vida and I were at the house.”

“And,” Ben said, apparently not reluctant to rile me again, “you played the perfect ghoul and announced that Elmer had been butchered in his own backyard.”

“He wasn’t butchered,” I declared. “He may have been bashed to death. I’m a professional ghoul, by the way, and rarely perfect.”

“Okay, okay,” Ben said, and sighed. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
Yes, he did
. “But whatever’s bothering Mrs. Della Croce isn’t my business. She should talk to Kelly. She should also attend Mass regularly instead of four or five times a year.”

Maybe that was why the woman had looked familiar. Perhaps I’d noticed Mrs. Della Croce on one of her rare visits to St. Mildred’s. “I might do that,” I said.

Ben’s smile was sly. “Kelly may have his own ethics to shove in your face.”

“If whatever problem Mrs. Della Croce wanted to talk about when she phoned the rectory wasn’t under the seal of the confessional, Den will cooperate in a murder investigation,” I pointed out somewhat stiltedly.

Ben chuckled. “Dismount from that high horse and order some food,” he said. “I can tell when you’re hungry. You get ornery.”

My brother was right. I chose the yearling Quilcene Bay fried oysters; he went for the alderwood planked salmon. We spent the rest of the meal talking about things that wouldn’t evoke anger. What really bothered us, of course, was that we soon would be separated. Our family had dwindled to three: Ben, Adam, and me. Two celibate priests and a woman past the childbearing years meant we had only one another, and we were usually far apart. The years were flying by. There were far fewer of them that we could spend together.

Ben insisted on paying for dinner. “You’ve cooked for me on this trip; you fed me dozens of times when I was here for the six-month stint,” he argued.

I agreed to let him play host. I noticed he didn’t say how soon I might have a chance to repay him.

My cell phone rang while we were waiting for the return of his credit card. I was surprised to hear the sheriff’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Vida told me you’d gone to Everett with your brother,” Milo said, sounding uncharacteristically benign. “Have a nice dinner?”

“Very,” I replied, suddenly on guard. “What’s happening?” Milo wasn’t one to make casual phone calls.

He paused. “They’ve stuck us into tomorrow afternoon.”

“What?”

“SnoCo. The medical examiners. They won’t get around to Elmer until tomorrow afternoon. And that’s an optimistic prediction. A lot of people die this time of year after the holidays.”

This was bad news for Milo, and it wasn’t good for me, either. I had a deadline to meet.

“Damn,” I said, glancing at Ben, who was watching me with curiosity. Suddenly I was curious, too. “How come you’re calling to tell me this?”

“Well…you’re in Everett, right? The head guy over there tonight is Brian McDonough. I hear he’s pretty religious. Catholic, I mean. I thought maybe if you and your brother stopped by…”

Priest in tow
. Milo must have been pretty desperate to ask such a favor. I wondered what had galvanized him into action. It wasn’t his usual style.

“You think Ben—who, I should tell you, is wearing his civvies and looks about as clerical as you do—can just show up, make the sign of the cross, and presto! SnoCo’s good Catholic McDonough will start carving Elmer up before our very eyes?”

“It can’t hurt.” Milo sounded strained.

“Okay.” I made a face at Ben. “We’ll try.”

“Thanks. I’ll let them know you’re coming. Remember,” Milo went on, “the morgue is at Paine Field. You need directions?”

I did, taking them down in the notebook I always carried in my purse. Ben and I left the restaurant five minutes later, headed back to the freeway. Paine Field was south of downtown, home not only to the county airport but to the Boeing Company—and the morgue. Milo knew how to approach it only coming from Alpine. It turned out to be a ten-mile detour from Anthony’s Homeport. I was no longer in a good mood by the time we arrived.

“This is stupid,” I declared as we got out of the car. “I’d like to know what Milo told the ME’s office when he let them know we were on our way—that Elmer had spoken from beyond, asking to convert?”

My brother didn’t say anything.

After identifying ourselves and proving we weren’t carrying concealed weapons, we were directed to the morgue by the guard on duty. I steeled myself as I entered the large, brightly lighted room with its accents of functional stainless steel and odors I had no wish to identify. Two bodies were being subjected to God only knows what kind of dissection. I didn’t look but followed Ben as we made our way to an office with a large window that looked not outside but back into the work area.

Brian McDonough was fiftyish, with thinning fair hair and a round, rubicund face. He looked up from his paperwork when Ben stood in the doorway while I hovered behind him.

“Father?” the ME said, taking off his rimless glasses and standing up. “Sheriff Dodge told me you were coming. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” Ben replied. “We’re here on a fool’s errand.”

McDonough looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

Ben shrugged. “Sheriff Dodge is under the misapprehension that my presence would expedite Elmer Nystrom’s autopsy. As a Protestant, he somehow thinks that all Catholics must be conspiring either against him or, in this case, for him. By the way, this is my sister, Emma.”

I stepped forward to shake hands with McDonough, wondering whether Milo had told the ME that I was the
Advocate
’s editor and publisher. I hoped the sheriff had been discreet. Very few public officials liked to have media types barging into their workplace.

McDonough put his glasses back on and eyed both of us with curiosity. “In other words, Dodge thinks I’ll move your SkyCo deceased up on the slice-and-dice list?”

Ben shrugged. “I guess so. You’d think he wouldn’t be so naïve.”

McDonough fingered his chin. “Did you know the dead man, Father?”

Ben shook his head. “Only by reputation. He seems to have been a very decent kind of guy, especially for somebody who worked for a car dealership. You know how that goes with repair bills.”

“Don’t I, though?” The ME groaned. “You wouldn’t believe what it cost the last time I went for an annual checkup on my SUV. They found more alleged problems than I could ever imagine. It came to over a grand. But what can you do?” He spread his hands helplessly.

“Nystrom wasn’t like that, I gather,” Ben said. “My sister here tells me everybody sang his praises.”

Cue Emma
. “That’s true,” I put in, discovering that I could talk, after all. Between Ben and Vida, I was feeling more and more like a finger puppet. “Elmer was honest—and kind, too.”

McDonough nodded thoughtfully. “So Dodge thinks there may have been foul play? That doesn’t sound right. I mean, why is it the good guys who get whacked?”

“A fair question,” Ben said, and left the query hanging in the air.

“Justice,” McDonough said. “Dodge is a good lawman. It’s not his fault he lives in a small county and doesn’t have any money behind him. God only knows—and I mean that literally—we could use more funding right here. SnoCo is growing like crazy.”

“Then we shouldn’t take up any more of your time,” Ben said, taking a backward step. “I can’t apologize for Dodge. He meant well.”

“Oh…” McDonough smiled sheepishly. “Why not? A couple of the cases we’ve got on the list are old coots whose families are a bunch of fussbudgets. Some people can’t grasp the idea that their parents or grandparents just die of old age. They have to know how and why. Well, they can wait. Tell Dodge I’ll have his report by noon tomorrow.” He held out his hand again. “And say a prayer for me, will you, Father? I could use it.”

“We all can,” Ben said. “Just don’t tell those non-Catholics how cliquish we really are.”

McDonough smiled broadly, revealing a slight gap between his front teeth. “It’s our little secret, Father.
Pax vobiscum
. Hey—I remember that much Latin, anyway.”

McDonough shook hands with both of us. He stood in the doorway as we made our exit. “I’ll get started right away,” he called after us. “Remember, news by noon.”

I could hardly forget.

Chapter Four

B
Y LATE
T
UESDAY
morning I still had to leave a big hole in the front page for the Nystrom story. Vida had written the obituary, and Scott had done an interview with the Nordby brothers as a sidebar. Skunk and Trout extolled Elmer’s virtues as a loyal, hardworking employee and “a true friend to Alpine’s General Motors customers.”

I asked Vida if she’d been in touch with Mrs. Nystrom or the son.

“No,” she replied. “I did call the Episcopal church but was told they hadn’t scheduled the funeral yet. I wrote ‘services pending’ at the end of my obituary. I can change that at the last minute if we hear anything before deadline.”

“That figures,” I said, going over to the coffeemaker and refilling my mug, “though the autopsy is supposed to be done by noon. I’ll check in with Milo before I go to lunch. At least he called to say he was grateful to Ben for moving things along.”

“Very shrewd of your brother,” Vida declared. “He understands human nature rather well. On the other hand, I’ve found Catholics
are
quite cliquish.”

I held my tongue. It was useless to argue with Vida about religion or politics or any other topic on which she held strong opinions. Since that included everything under the sun, I’d learned restraint long ago.

She wasn’t finished talking, however. “As for Elsie Overholt, she had some interesting gossip, though I don’t dare let her include it in her column or even allude to it in ‘Scene.’”

“What was it?” I asked, carrying my coffee mug over to her desk.

“Well, now,” Vida began, with her usual smug expression when dishing the dirt, “I mentioned to you how I couldn’t decipher what she’d written about Maud Dodd moving into the retirement home as of New Year’s Day. Of course she didn’t actually move on the first, it being a holiday, but settled in last Monday, the thirtieth.”

I nodded. “You said Elsie’s handwriting was spidery.”

“Correct. I
thought
she’d written ‘Maud couldn’t want to move out of her family home because of the fossil at Chuck.’ That made no sense, of course, but what she’d scrawled was, and I quote,” Vida continued, reading from Maud’s original submission, “‘Maud couldn’t
wait
to move out of her
familiar
home because of the
gossip
at
church
.’”

“Aha.” My interest meter registered high marks. “What was the gossip?”

Vida scowled at me. “I wish I knew. Elsie didn’t know, and Maud had company. I
will
find out, given time and opportunity.”

“Which church?” I asked.

“Trinity Episcopal,” Vida replied. “I’ll go to the source, that is, Maud. Regis and Edith Bartleby are far too holier-than-thou to reveal anything,” she added, referring to the Episcopal vicar and his wife.

Back in my cubbyhole I toyed with the idea of calling Dennis Kelly and asking him about the Della Croces. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was going beyond the call of journalism and being just plain nosy. The fact that the Della Croce family lived next door to the Nystroms wasn’t a good enough reason to pry into the private lives of my fellow parishioners. Father Den probably would cut me off as Ben had done, although my pastor would be more tactful than my brother.

Instead, I polished my editorial urging more funding for the sheriff’s department. Just before I shipped the finished piece off to Kip in the back shop, I called Milo.

“I’m beating your drum,” I told him. “By the end of this week you’re going to owe me big time, big guy. How about leaning on somebody to fix those potholes in front of my little log house?”

“What’s landed on your brain this time?” The sheriff sounded slightly less than enthusiastic.

I explained about the editorial I’d just written. “What more can I do?” I asked in a plaintive tone.

“I could tell you,” Milo responded in his slightly laconic voice, “but you’d say no.”

“You’re right.” I wasn’t in the mood to flirt, even over the phone. “Instead, I’ll say, ‘How about that autopsy report?’”

“Not in yet,” he replied. “It’s only ten to twelve.”

“Where are you having lunch?”

“You want to stalk me?”

“If need be. I have a deadline, remember?”

“Thought maybe I’d stick around in case McDonough or whoever called after twelve. Maybe I’ll send Lori over to the Burger Barn to pick up something.”

Lori Cobb was Milo’s new receptionist who had replaced the Alaska-bound Toni Andreas. Lori was also the granddaughter of one of our aged county commissioners as well as a recent graduate of Skykomish Community College. She seemed brighter than Toni, although not quite as decorative. Lori was a long, lean blond with plain features but a pleasant manner.

“Maybe I’ll wander down to join you,” I said.

“Fine. Bring your own grub.”

I told him I would and hung up immediately as the light on my phone flashed to indicate I had another call.

“Is this Bel Canto?” Rolf Fisher inquired. “I’ve got the tickets, if you’ve got the time.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ve never heard
Norma
in the flesh.”

“There’s usually plenty of that with bel canto singers,” Rolf said. “They need the padding to get through all those vocal gymnastics.”

“What night?” I asked, paging through my daily calendar.

“Saturday, the twenty-fifth,” he replied. “You’ll come Friday? We can have a leisurely dinner and then…a leisurely evening with my dog, Spree.”

“Sounds lovely,” I remarked. “Pray for rain.”

“Of course. I don’t want you getting stranded up in the mountains.” He paused. “Anything interesting in your next edition?”

I told him I wasn’t sure; we might have a big story developing. “What about you?” I asked. “Are you awaiting breaking news on the AP wire?”

“We always are,” Rolf said. “We play the waiting game. I’d like to get out in the field more, frankly. I miss the reporting part. I used to think I was too old for it, but I get stale on the desk.”

At that moment I saw Scott come into the newsroom. A strange idea popped into my head. “Do you mean that, or is it just the postholiday doldrums?”

“No,” Rolf insisted. “I’m serious. For once. I know—not my style.”

Leaning forward, I watched Scott take a brown paper bag out of his desk drawer. He removed a plastic bag containing a sandwich. I realized he’d been bringing his lunch to work more often since he’d gotten married. Maybe he couldn’t afford to eat out. If he and Tamara moved on, could I dare ask Rolf to work for the
Advocate
?

But how would he like brown-bagging it? How could he endure small-town life? How could he stand working for me? And how far might he go to become a reporter again? Probably not as far as Alpine. I dismissed my odd idea.

“I hate to tell you this,” Rolf said, “but I’m off to the Union Square Grill for lunch with an old college buddy. Advertising type, but decent all the same.”

“Wish I were there.”

“Where?”

“Never mind.” I rang off.

The Burger Barn was about as far from the Union Square Grill as any gourmand could imagine, but that was where I headed. I was forced to stand six-deep in line for takeout. Lori Cobb was being waited on at the counter, probably getting Milo’s standard cheeseburger, fries, and coffee. At least the coffee tasted better than what the sheriff’s office served. But now that I thought about it, I hadn’t tasted Lori’s attempts at coffee brewing. It had to be an improvement over the swill Toni had made.

Seven minutes later—I clocked it on my watch—I requested a hamburger dip au jus with fries and a pineapple malt. They were out of pineapple, so I asked for vanilla instead.

I was heading for the door when I saw Milo coming in.

“Changed my mind,” he said. “Changed my routine, too. I want a double bacon burger. I gave my order to Lori. She could use some meat on her bones.”

“What about McDonough?” I asked as Milo steered us toward a booth that had just emptied.

“Wait till we sit,” he said as a waitress began to bus the vacated table.

We waited. Finally I put down my takeout bag, complete with its red barn logo showing a cow going in the door and coming out as a hamburger on the other side.

“Well?” I said, unable to hide my impatience.

“I got the call right after I talked to you,” he replied, signaling for coffee. “Blow to the back of the head with something metal. Elmer’s skull was crushed. He probably died quick. Not much blood loss, no hemorrhaging, just a smallish cut from whatever he got hit with.”

“Which was…?”

Milo shrugged. “Farm or garden implement. Shovel, hoe, even a rake. Possibly a tool. I told Erskine that I didn’t see anything like that in the henhouse. McDonough had left after he’d performed the autopsy and put in his report. Bill Blatt and Dustin Fong went out there this morning to look around the rest of the place. They’ll be back as soon as they’ve had lunch at the Bourgettes’ diner.”

“Your deputies didn’t call anything in to you?”

Milo shook his head. “No. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t find something. In fact, they could have bagged a whole bunch of stuff. They wouldn’t know offhand what was a weapon and what wasn’t.”

I’d removed my food from the bag and brushed some hard roll crumbs off my lap. “Your official pronouncement?”

The sheriff munched on a couple of fries. “Possible homicide.”

“You aren’t sure?”

He shrugged. “It could be an accident. But a pretty freaky one. Whatever bashed in Elmer’s head was metal. Steel, to be exact. If there wasn’t any sign of the weapon—if you want to call it that—inside the chicken house, then it’d be pretty weird if Elmer had banged into the thing outdoors and come all the way back inside.”

I agreed. “But ‘possible homicide’ is a bit weak.”

“You want headlines? Why don’t you just run a big skull and crossbones on the front page?”

“I like that,” I said.

“You would.”

I ignored the sarcasm. “Estimated time of death?”

“Seven-fifteen, seven-thirty yesterday morning. That’s when Elmer usually went out to the henhouse before he headed for work.”

“Nobody saw or heard anything?”

Milo shot me a dirty look. “We only found out we had a homicide on our hands about five minutes ago. Anyway, you know damned well I wouldn’t tell you any details so soon in the investigation. Go with the facts. You’ve got enough for your front page.”

I feigned typing on the Formica countertop. “‘Sheriff Dodge has no suspects, no motives, no weapon, no understanding of the public’s need to know.’”

“You’re a pain in the ass, Emma.” He sipped more coffee.

I knew that—at least as far as Milo was concerned. There was certainly a big story in the bare bones of the case. If murder wasn’t sensational enough, Elmer Nystrom apparently had been well liked, well known, and well respected. I shut up and resumed eating.

It’s a wonder my lunch stayed down. I’d barely finished when I saw Spencer Fleetwood stroll into the Burger Barn. The sheriff had already gotten his bill and was getting out of the booth when Spence spotted him.

“The lovely Lori told me you were here with the equally lovely Emma,” Spence said to Milo, having the gall to wink at me. “I just got in town about an hour ago. Rey Fernandez told me something was afoot.”

“We’re working on it,” Milo said, putting on his regulation jacket. “We can talk later.” He squeezed past Spence and loped toward the entrance.

“I think,” my nemesis said, “I’ve just been given the brush-off.”

“I do believe you’re right,” I said, digging into my purse for my wallet. I’d get my own bill from our waitress and hightail it out of Spence’s purview.

But Mr. Radio wasn’t going to make it easy for me. He had the nerve to slide into the booth beside me. I was trapped.

“What’s this about Nystrom?” he murmured in that mellifluous voice so familiar to KSKY’s listeners. “Do I sense foul play or a nasty accident with the chickens?”

While I was grateful to Milo for stalling Spence, I knew that the story would break over the radio before we could go to press. Elmer’s death was a matter of public record, as was the medical examiner’s report. But that didn’t mean I had to offer up the facts on one of the Burger Barn’s serviceable white platters.

“Did you have a nice trip?” I inquired in my sweetest tone.

“Very,” Spence replied. “Maui, Kauai. Very nice this time of year.”

“I’ve never been to Hawaii,” I said, trying to avoid looking at Spence’s hawklike profile. Adam had gone to school there for a short time, but his impoverished mother had never made it to the island paradise.

“No? You should go. It’s a great vacation spot.” Spence reached in front of me to remove one of the plastic-covered menus from behind the napkin holder. “Of course, it can get crowded, especially at Kaanapali Beach. I did get in some golf there, though. Wonderful course—Robert Trent Jones design. But Kauai isn’t quite as popular. Next time I’ll try Molokai. It’s getting to be quite a destination place.”

“What’d they do with the lepers?” I asked.

“That’s not worthy of you,” Spence said, glancing at the menu. “Same old, same old.” He sighed. “Really good seafood, too. You ought to treat yourself. I mean it. You can go on and on about how much you like the rain, but you’ve got to admit that gray skies for six months in a row can get you down.”

“No, they don’t.”

Spence chuckled. “You’re a hard case, Emma Lord.” He turned as the waitress, a strawberry blonde named Bunny—or so her name tag stated—came to give me my bill and take Spence’s order. “I’ll have the cold turkey sandwich on multigrain bread, lettuce, tomato, mayo, sprouts. All white meat,” Spence informed Bunny. “Black coffee and maybe a slice of the apple pie if it’s really good today.” He dropped his voice. “Is it, Bunny?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bunny replied. “It’s great.”

He offered her his most ingratiating smile. “I trust your sound judgment, Bunny. Thanks.”

Giggling, Bunny hopped away.

“Move it,” I said to Spence. “I have to get back to work.”

“Deadline day, right?” Spence didn’t budge. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me why I should hire Ed Bronsky.”