Alpine Hero (32 page)

“She wasn’t remarkable.” Vida frowned into her apple juice. “Not a femme fatale.”

“God, no.” Stella laughed in a strained manner. “If she gained thirty pounds, she could have fit right into Alpine.”

Vida had assumed a pensive air. “Stella, you’re very aware of people. Earlier on, it occurred to me that a
woman—such as Honoria—wouldn’t make a facial appointment unless she really wanted one. But I’ve been thinking, and now I realize that she might do such a thing if she had another reason for coming to the salon. Can you think why Honoria would have wanted to do that?”

“I don’t know Honoria,” Stella said, picking up her highball glass, which she’d refilled with what looked like a screwdriver. “Do you mean she needed an excuse to talk to Becca?”

Vida nodded, in an uncharacteristically vague manner. “Or to you or Laurie. But she wouldn’t want to have her hair cut. Honoria has it done in Sultan, always the same style, very becoming. Women don’t switch hairdressers for fanciful reasons. That’s why I’m wondering if she didn’t have an ulterior motive for scheduling a facial. It wouldn’t alter her appearance, and she’d achieve her underlying goal.”

This was the first I’d heard of Vida’s idea. It made a certain amount of sense. Stella, however, was shaking her head. “I can’t think why Honoria Whitman would want to talk to me—or Laurie or Becca. The point is, she didn’t come at all. Kay—or whoever she was—came instead.”

“Exactly.” Vida was looking slightly smug. “Let’s conjecture that Honoria planned to come to Alpine alone. She made the Monday appointment on Saturday. Perhaps she thought her relatives would be gone after the weekend. Or perhaps she wanted to escape from them for a few hours. Houseguests can be trying, and Honoria is used to being alone. But on Monday, the company is still there. Trevor and this unknown woman insist on joining Honoria. Maybe the so-called sister-in-law announces she wants to come to the salon, too. Honoria’s meeting plans are upset. She doesn’t want to waste the opportunity, so she gives up the appointment, figuring she
can do it later, after her guests are gone. But whatever Honoria had in mind, she didn’t want her relatives to know about it. Especially, I would guess, not the alleged sister-in-law.”

Stella was smiling. “That’s very complicated, Vida. But I don’t know what you’re talking about. Becca and Laurie don’t know Honoria, either.”

Vida said no more. We seemed to have come up against a brick wall. “Did you ever figure out where the towel came from?” I asked Stella, deciding to get back to basics.

Stella couldn’t begin to guess. Vida and I drank our apple juice, then left our hostess to finish removing her nail polish.

“Rats,” Vida muttered as we walked back to my car. “I was hoping Stella would remember something—anything—that might indicate the victim didn’t actually claim to be Kay Whitman.”

“No, you didn’t,” I countered. “You wanted to see if she knew of any connection between Honoria and Laurie. Such as Toby Popp.”

“There is one, of course.” Vida’s profile was set. “It may go back to Honoria’s youth, or only six months ago. But it exists.”

The moon was now overhead, a white, bright wedge in the jet-black sky. I could still see the stars, dazzling in number, and beckoning as if they were within touching distance of Tonga Ridge.

“Let’s pack it in,” I suggested, hearing the tired note in my voice. “We’ll know more tomorrow when the real Kay Whitman gets here.”

“I wonder why she’s coming?” Vida ducked low to get into the Jag.

“Wouldn’t you?” Fastening my seat belt, I turned the ignition key. “If I’d been reported as having my throat
slit in Alliance, Nebraska, or Appleton, Wisconsin, I think I’d be curious enough to go to the source. For one thing, I’d be scared.”

“Y-e-s.” Vida drew the word out as she removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Oooooh! This is all such a mess! I wonder how Milo is doing with his alibis?”

“I’m not going to think about it anymore tonight,” I declared, heading past the high school, which stood dark and mute on its hill above Spruce Street. “I’m going to concentrate on seeing Adam and Ben in Arizona.”

Putting her glasses back on, Vida sighed. “Arizona! All that sun and dryness! I’ve never been there.”

“They have some kind of winter in the northern part where Ben is,” I said. “I think.”

“I should hope so.” Vida was looking out the window as we headed down Seventh toward her house. “What are you going to do?”

“About what?” Puzzled, I glanced at Vida before I turned left onto Tyee.

“Tommy. Are you really going to abandon him?”

“Vida.” My sigh turned into a groan. I couldn’t understand why my usually sensible House & Home editor seemed determined to keep me tied to Tom Cavanaugh. Sometimes I wondered if she’d had an early love who’d gotten away. Maybe Vida had secret regrets. “I can’t abandon what I never had. Twenty-three years ago, Tom abandoned
me
. This isn’t revenge, it’s common sense, the kind you admire so much. Tom’s got grown kids, plenty of friends, business associates, and most of all, a wife. He doesn’t need me.” I’d pulled into Vida’s driveway. “Not really.”

“I see.” Vida was staring straight ahead. “Yes. I suppose I do. You’re quite serious. Well now.” She picked up her purse and held on to her green toque. “The important
thing, I think, isn’t what you’re running away
from
. It’s what you’re running
to
. Good night, Emma.”

The porch light was on. I could see Vida walk up the stairs and across the porch. She bent down to unlock the door, then stepped inside. The light went off.

I was left with the moon and the stars and a strange sense of liberation.

I’d felt that way Monday; it didn’t last.

Maybe this time would be different.

A
RMED WITH A
sugar doughnut and a paper cup of coffee, I cornered Father Den after Sunday Mass. Maneuvering him to one end of the school hall where St. Mildred’s Altar Guild hosted its weekly postliturgical social hour, I unloaded about Ed Bronsky. Tact and subterfuge were unnecessary. In the past two years I’d become friendly with our pastor, not only through the usual parish channels, but because Dennis Kelly and my brother had grown close. Den and Ben shared more than a religious vocation: they were near in age, they enjoyed sports, they had some favorite authors in common, and they both had a sense of humor. I could be candid with Father Den.

He, in turn, allowed that there were opportunities galore for Ed. “We’ll talk him into being St. Mildred’s angel,” Den said with his infectious grin. “An angel, as in Broadway show angels. He’s got the time and money to back this parish. Let’s see if he’s willing to put both of them where his mouth is.”

Hatching what I hoped would be a small coup buoyed me through the first half of the day. But after I’d read the Sunday paper, written a couple of letters, and given up on a best-seller somebody had recommended, I began to feel edgy. Vida was entertaining her daughter and family from Bellingham. Leo was probably with Delphine
Corson. And Milo was either working or had gone fishing. Of course it wasn’t ideal weather for a masochistic steelheader: the sky was almost clear, the temperature had risen into the high forties, and there wasn’t much wind. With the misery quotient so low, Milo might have decided that an outing wasn’t worth it. At best, steelhead were elusive. Some fishermen waited ten years before landing the first one. They spent the next five years talking about it, which would be about the same amount of time that would pass before they caught another fish. In the world of sportsmen, they were a strange breed, as exotic as their prey, but more numerous.

Since it was almost three, Milo should have gotten back. The sheriff liked to hit his favorite holes at first light. I tried the office first.

Jack Mullins answered. “Dodge went into Seattle,” he said. “That Whitman woman called this morning to say she was staying with friends. The sheriff didn’t want to wait until tomorrow, and he figured he could save her a trip up here.”

I was disappointed. Meeting the real Kay Whitman—if indeed that was who she was—had intrigued me. “Have Milo call me when he gets back.” I thanked Jack and hung up.

Ten minutes later I was in my car. Maybe I’d drive down to see Paula Rubens. Waiting at the railroad crossing for the Burlington Northern to pass, I wondered if I should call her first. I wasn’t keen on drop-in company, though in a small, informal town like Alpine, it was hard to avoid. I could phone her from Skykomish.

I watched the freight cars rumble by. Many were ghosts from the past—the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Ashley, Drew & Northern, Milwaukee Road, Rio Grande, City of Prineville
Railway, and of course the more contemporary green of Burlington Northern. Like most Americans of a certain age, I am fascinated by trains. At night, when I’m going to sleep, I can hear the whistle in the darkness, and the slowing of the locomotives as they start the steep ascent through the eight-mile Cascade Tunnel. I am comforted, though whether it is because I could jump aboard and be somewhere else in a few short hours, or because the railroad evokes so much of this country’s history, I don’t know. Nor do I care. The siren call of the whistle can lead us into the unknown, without a preordained destination. Trains connect us with more than just place names. Maybe, as I sat waiting in the Jag, I was driving off into some great void, hoping that the excursion would open my mind to a killer’s identity.

The boxcars rattled and clattered along the tracks as the warning signal flashed and clanged. Four cars were empty, a waste I always wondered about while watching trains pass. Maybe they’d been unloaded at an earlier stop; but why not send them off to a sideline? Or maybe they were going to take on freight somewhere farther along the route. My idle musings made the time pass faster. Maybe … a fragmentary thought flitted through my brain and was lost.

The caboose, or crummy, as it’s locally known, disappeared past Alpine’s tiny smoke-smudged brick station. A moment later I crossed the tracks, then the river, and headed for the highway.

Sunday cross-state traffic was fairly heavy, especially with returning skiers. I decided not to turn off the road at Skykomish or Index, but to wait until I got to Gold Bar Gas. That way, if Paula wasn’t home, I’d be close enough to Monroe to head for the strip malls and do some shopping. Travel items were on my mental list,
mostly toiletries and panty hose. I didn’t want to waste the trip.

It was exactly four o’clock when I pulled into the service station to use the phone. Paula answered on the third ring. She sounded surprised to hear from me.

“Emma! I figured you’d forget I existed! What’s up? Do you want to grill me again?”

“Not really. Although,” I added, “I’ve got some interesting news about the victim. I stopped here in Gold Bar for gas and I thought if you weren’t busy, I’d … ah … drop in for a couple of minutes.”

The pause at the other end unsettled me. “Oh, damn all, Emma!” Paula finally exclaimed. “It sounds great, but I’m in the middle of something. You ever work with glass?”

I said I hadn’t, not in the way she meant, anyway. Paula mentioned temperatures and textures and other things I didn’t understand. “How about Tuesday night? You could come for dinner.”

Trying not to feel another surge of disappointment, I told Paula I’d rather do dinner on Wednesday, since Tuesday was our deadline. That didn’t work for Paula; we compromised on Thursday. Like a sulky child, I withheld my information about Kay Whitman. If Paula wouldn’t see me now, she could wait to read about it in
The Advocate.

Back inside the Jag, I pulled out onto Highway 2. Suddenly driving the sixteen additional miles to Monroe didn’t seem very appealing. There wasn’t anything in the stores there that I couldn’t buy at Parker’s Pharmacy in Alpine. At the next turnoff, I’d reverse my tracks and head back home.

Ironically, the next turnoff was Honoria’s drive. Going off the highway, I geared down and let the car creep among the trees. The vine maples’ bare branches formed
an arch over the narrow, rutted road. As the sun started to set somewhere out over Puget Sound, clouds moved in. No doubt there was rain coming, maybe even snow at the higher elevations.

Honoria’s house wore a curious, lifeless look. I stopped where the drive broadened into a wider paved track that led to her empty carport. But the carport shouldn’t be empty. Trevor and Mrs. Smith and the ersatz Kay had arrived by car; Honoria had her specially rigged model; Trevor had flown back to Pacific Grove with the body. Honoria had told Vida and me that she and her mother were going to drive Trevor’s van. Not wanting to make the long return trip without her own car, Honoria would fly home.

That was it. Honoria must have left her car at the Sea-Tac airport. I nodded in agreement with my rationale.

But I was still uneasy. Getting out of the Jag, I walked up the path to Honoria’s porch. Everything was as I remembered it, with the covered summer furniture and barbecue, and the storm door installed in place of the summer screen. Everything, that is, except Dodger. On other occasions, he’d been there to greet me, a surly presence who seemed to resent my intrusion. I missed him anyway.

The melancholy I’d sensed upon first seeing the house now returned as I tried to peer through the front windows. Honoria had pulled the drapes, obscuring all but a sliver of view. I left the porch and went around to the back. There, I could see through a small window that looked into the kitchen.

It was tidy. Too tidy, I decided. I jiggled the window sash. Nothing happened, except that I broke a fingernail. It looked as if the window was an original, unlike the large sheets of glass that Honoria had installed at the front of the house. Pressing my face against one of the
four rectangular panes, I saw a simple hook and eye. The window should swing inwards. I gave the sash a hard shove.

The bottom pane cracked. Feeling guilty, I bit my lower lip. But instead of cutting my losses and going away to mind my own business, I tapped the broken glass. It fell onto the kitchen floor.

News
was
my business, I argued, feeling the need to placate my conscience. Maybe I could find the family photos Vida wanted to run in the next edition. Cautiously, I reached inside and lifted the hook. The window swung open. With the aid of a chopping block I found near the woodpile, I hoisted myself through the opening.