Alpine Hero (2 page)

Milo gave Jack Mullins a small shove. “Stop them. Don’t let Honoria or her brother in here. Damn!” With a sharp shake of his head, Milo turned back to Stella. “I’m going to have a look. You call Doc Dewey and get him
over here. Tell him to send an ambulance. They can go in the back way, right?”

Stella nodded. “The fire exit for the building is on Pine Street.”

“Right.” Milo’s long-legged stride took him through the salon. He passed me without so much as a glance. “Show me the room, Stella,” he ordered.

Becca was crying. She had sat down in one of the two chairs in the reception area and was hunched over like a child. Laurie regarded her coworker with mild dismay, but didn’t move. I forced myself to join Becca. Doing something other than thinking about the dead woman would help me regain my equilibrium. Only now did it dawn on me that this was a major news story. I had to become Emma Lord, journalist, instead of Emma Lord, twittering ninny.

At first I didn’t say anything, but merely patted Becca’s plump shoulder. Mentally, I was trying to place her. She wasn’t a newcomer, but she was a stranger to me. Vida had written a small article about Becca in early January. Rebecca Wolfe—the full name came back to me. She was an Alpine native, but had left town after high school. That was six or seven years ago, before my time. Vida had made some acerbic comment about Becca, but at the moment I couldn’t remember what it was.

Becca continued to sob. I reached for a box of tissues and handed it to her. She fumbled with a single sheet, then began to hiccup just as Edith Bartleby, the Episcopal vicar’s wife, entered the shop.

“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Bartleby, who was out of breath. “I’m late! I do hate tardiness, but there’s some sort of giant drill around the corner where I usually park. When people are late for communion service, I sometimes can’t help but feel disapproval—” Mrs. Bartleby
stopped, taking in the scene. “My goodness! Whatever’s happened? Is someone distraught over her haircut?”

Jack Mullins returned. I tried to see where Honoria and her escort had gone, but they’d disappeared. Two or three Alpiners had gathered on the sidewalk, however, apparently drawn by the unusual activity between the salon and the sheriff’s office.

Jack went directly to the vicar’s wife. “Mrs. Bartleby,” he said in an unusually meek voice, “you have to go outside. I’m sorry. There’s been an … accident.”

“An accident! Oh, my!” Mrs. Bartleby’s eyes grew very wide behind her rimless spectacles. “Nothing serious, I hope?” When there was no answer, she put a hand to the lapels of her drab brown raincoat. “Is it one of ours? Should I call Regis? Shall I …” Her high voice trailed off.

Stella had come back into the salon, without Milo. She rushed over to Mrs. Bartleby. “I’m afraid we’ll have to reschedule. Could you call us later today?”

Mrs. Bartleby had glimpsed Laurie, still standing by the shampoo bowl, wearing her bovine expression. “But Laurie looks … as usual. My appointment is with her. It’s a standing Monday. But of course you know that.” She gave Stella a gently reproving look. “The rest of the week is so …” Again, the words faded away.

Putting a firm hand on Mrs. Bartleby’s arm, Stella steered her out of the shop. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, Mrs. Bartleby.” Still soothing, Stella left her puzzled client outside just as a few flakes of snow began to fall.

“Laurie, start calling our three o’clocks,” Stella ordered, as she drew the shade on the door and turned the
CLOSED
sign to the street. “The rest of them, too, I suppose.” Her sixty-year-old face suddenly showed its age; even her usually firm body sagged. “Oh, my God, this is
awful!” Shielded now from onlookers, Stella collapsed in the chair next to Becca. I moved out of the way.

Becca’s tears had dwindled into sniveling. Laurie had wandered to the phone, but appeared to be having problems coping with the appointment book. Feeling useless, I paced around the display stand with its products that promised eternal youth, beauty, and hair to die for.

The fleeting phrase made me feel queasy all over again. But I had to keep in control. There was work to be done. I turned to Becca.

“Where were you? I mean, while your client was in the facial room alone?”

Becca looked at me with a blotchy face and reddened eyes. “I’d put the hydrating mask on, so I went down to the Burger Barn to get a Coke.” She stared at me as if I were a circus freak.

“Ms. Lord owns the newspaper,” Stella said, to give me credentials. “Do you remember Ms. Runkel?”

Becca did. Everyone remembered Ms. Runkel. Vida is a big woman, in many ways. At sixty-plus, she is tall, broad-shouldered, and full-busted. Her commanding presence has been known to make grown men weep and strong women cringe. Alfred Cobb, one of our three county commissioners and a Purple Heart hero of World War II, once said of her that “I’d sure as hell rather get run down by Vida’s Buick than get hit by her hooters. If she’d been with me at Bastogne, we could have taken out a Panzer division between us.” I love Vida dearly, but upon occasion, she still overwhelms me.

“Ms. Lord works for her,” Stella said, then realized her slip, and flushed. “I mean, Ms. Runkel works for Ms. Lord.” The mistake was easy to make. Sometimes I couldn’t tell the difference, either.

“Oh—right.” Becca managed to come up with a ghost of a smile. “The mask takes fifteen minutes,” she
explained. “I always leave the room, because my clients need the quiet time to relax and maybe even nap. Stella doesn’t mind if I run out to get pop or something from the Upper Crust Bakery.” There was a defensive note in Becca’s voice as she looked at her employer for confirmation.

“That’s right,” Stella asserted as a siren wailed in the distance. “Becca doesn’t always take a regular lunch break. She’s already built up quite a clientele, since we’re the only salon offering facials from here to Sultan.”

In a way, I was surprised by Becca’s success. Alpine’s economy was still in a slump. As a typical Northwest logging community, the environmentalists had had their way with the timber industry. The result was out-of-work loggers, impoverished families, and an impending sense of doom. Federal programs had been offered to retrain the displaced workers, but logging is a vocation almost as ingrained as a religious calling. By the 1990s, fourth- and fifth-generation woodsmen found themselves not only without a job, but torn from tradition. The only bright spot on the horizon was the proposed construction of a community college.

“So the original appointment was made for Honoria Whitman?” I asked, discreetly taking a notebook out of my purse. Somewhere, in the rear of the building, I could hear a series of noises. Doc Dewey and the ambulance had probably arrived.

Stella answered for Becca. “That’s right. Honoria called this morning. She doesn’t usually come here, you know. It’s easier for her to go to Sultan or even Monroe to get her hair cut. But she wanted to try the facial.”

Honoria’s choice struck me as odd. It was likely that her regular hairdresser, either in Sultan or Monroe,
would provide facials. Why drive an extra twenty miles to Alpine?

I was about to ask that question when the front door to Stella’s Styling Salon shook, rattled, and rolled. Stella, Becca and I all jumped. Even Laurie, who was still trying to cope with the appointments, seemed startled.

The glass in the door threatened to shatter. Stella was on her feet, but before she could reach the front of the salon, a voice reverberated from outside.

“Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo-hoo! Are you there? Open up, please! It’s me—Vida Runkel!”

Stella obeyed. She could hardly do otherwise. My House & Home editor had spoken, and in Alpine, her word was law.

“Half the town is outside, gawking and freezing to death,” Vida declared after we had informed her what was going on. Not that she needed informing—having heard the ambulance siren, Vida had rushed to the sheriff’s office. Bill Blatt, another deputy who is also her nephew, had sketchily filled her in. “Really, people are such ghouls! From what I hear, this poor dead woman isn’t even from Alpine!” Vida made it sound as if the death of a nonresident couldn’t possibly count in any official census.

“It’s Honoria’s sister-in-law,” I said, surprising myself with the note of apology in my voice.

Vida bristled. “I didn’t know Honoria had a sister-in-law! Really, now! Why is she so secretive? Is it because she’s from California?”

“Her brother’s here, too,” I noted. “Did you see them at the sheriff’s office?”

Under the brim of her blue derby, Vida rolled her eyes. “They’re being held incommunicado. Jack Mullins sent them into Milo’s office until all this is sorted out.” She
lowered her voice and shot me a conspiratorial look. “Is this the brother who was in jail for you-know-what?”

I blinked. “I don’t know. Honoria could have ten brothers. Whoever it is must be visiting. I haven’t heard anything about it from Milo.”

Vida snorted. “Maybe Milo didn’t know. He and Honoria haven’t been quite as cozy as they used to be. Or so I’ve been led to believe.” From behind her big tortoiseshell framed glasses, Vida gave me her gimlet eye.

I felt the color rise in my cheeks. “The romance is a little rocky,” I admitted.

There was no opportunity for Vida to expand on her remark. Jack Mullins reappeared from the rear of the salon. He was looking official—until he saw Vida. I knew he was about to ask her how she had gotten inside the shop. But of course he thought better of it, and zeroed in on Stella.

“Sheriff Dodge is still with Doc and the body,” Jack said, running a hand through his short red hair. “We’ve got quite a crowd out back on Pine Street, including Janet Driggers, who is yelling her head off.”

Janet was the wife of the local undertaker. A brassy, ribald woman, she worked part-time at Sky Travel, which was also located in the Clemans Building. I marveled that she, too, hadn’t tried to barge through Stella’s front door.

“So,” Jack went on, “would you prefer to come over to the sheriff’s office, or stay here?”

Stella drew back in the chair. “For what?”

“Questioning,” Jack replied. Seeing Stella bridle, he offered her a placating smile. “It’s just routine. We have to take statements. You, too, Emma,” he added, glancing in my direction.

Stella sighed, then heaved herself out of the chair. “All
right. I’d rather do it across the street. Laurie, are you finished with your calls?”

Laurie wasn’t. She couldn’t reach Dot Parker or Lois Hutchins. Neither had answering machines. What should she do? Her helplessness was almost touching.

Stella ruffled her dyed blond locks with an agitated hand. “Try again from the sheriff’s. Let’s get this over with. I want to go home and have about four martinis.”

“I don’t drink martinis,” Laurie protested.

“I don’t care,” Stella said abruptly. “Good God, what’s Richie going to think?”

Among other things, Richie Magruder was Stella’s husband and the deputy mayor. The latter title was mostly honorary, except when the real mayor, Fuzzy Baugh, was out of town or suffering from a heart attack or in the bag. Dutifully, I followed Stella and Jack out of the salon. The snow was now coming down hard, which was just as well, because it apparently had sent most of the curious onlookers scurrying for cover.

We trudged across Front Street, with Becca and Laurie bringing up the rear. Once inside the sheriff’s office, Jack turned to Vida.

“Ah … Ms. Runkel, we don’t need to question you. You weren’t involved in finding the body or on the premises at the time of the murder.”

Vida nodded sagely. “So it is murder, then?” She nodded again.

“What I’m saying,” Jack went on after clearing his throat, “is that … well … you don’t need to be here.”

Vida smiled blandly. “But I do. This is news.”

“Emma—Ms. Lord—is already here,” Jack pointed out.

Vida’s smile was ingenuous. “Of course she is. But she can’t be objective.” Her gray eyes raked Jack, then landed on me. “She found the body. She could be a
suspect. I’ll be handling this story.” Her smile turned into a simper. “Isn’t that right, Ms. Lord?”

Even I never argued with Vida.

The previous year, Skykomish County had passed a bond issue for renovations to the sheriff’s office, along with additional equipment and a much-needed deputy. While I had aggressively pushed the proposition from its inception, I hadn’t been optimistic. There were too many families living in borderline poverty and too much concern over jobs to squeeze extra monies out of the tax-payers. But local residents had risen to the occasion and voted yes in a close election. Construction had begun in May, with completion by September 1. The usual delays and obstacles had pushed the date to mid-November. Now Milo Dodge had expanded office space, more secure jail facilities, an updated computer system, a full-time receptionist, and the extra deputy. Dustin Fong had joined the Skykomish force the previous spring, and was slowly but surely easing into the job. As an emigré from Seattle, he was considered a bit strange; as an Asian-American, he was definitely labeled exotic. But like all nonnative Alpiners, including me, he would try to meld with the rest of the community. So far, he seemed to be achieving his goal with quiet determination.

Dustin had been given the task of keeping Honoria Whitman and her brother from going nuts. While they awaited official news, the duo had stayed in Milo’s office, drinking coffee and asking unanswerable questions. By the time the rest of us arrived from Stella’s Styling Salon, the Whitmans had guessed the worst. They knew something terrible had happened to Kay, but they weren’t sure what or how or why.

The salon group was taken one by one into the sheriff’s new interrogation room. This was a more
formal, officially intimidating area, but it didn’t spare us from Milo’s swill-like coffee. I passed. The truth was, like Stella, I would have preferred a drink. Or at least a soda from the Burger Barn. I’ve never understood Americans’ dependence on coffee or the British reliance on tea in times of crisis. Installing a brandy machine would be more helpful.

Having discovered the body, I was the first to be questioned. Jack Mullins had been assigned to the task, at least temporarily. We hadn’t gotten past the time of my appointment when Milo entered the room. He looked disconcerted and immediately lighted a cigarette. Jack made his exit, with a self-deprecating nod for me.