The Alpine Betrayal (12 page)

Monday was a wild day at work. We were going to have another jam-packed issue, but this week we wouldn’t have the extra Loggerama ads to support so many pages. I decided to hold off writing the story about Cody’s death until we got the autopsy report. I hoped it would come in before our late Tuesday deadline. I also chose not to run anything about the axe incident. Now that Cody was dead and couldn’t defend himself, it didn’t seem right to carry an article that would, by its very existence, imply that he’d been trying to injure his ex-wife or her companions.

Meanwhile, Durwood no longer languished in jail. Dot had posted bond and taken him home in the early afternoon. I didn’t talk to Milo all day, since I was too busy putting the paper together. Vida, however, had stopped in at the sheriff’s office and said that he had told her he hoped the autopsy would be completed before five o’clock. Meanwhile, Cody’s parents were at the Lumberjack Motel, waiting for the body to be released. Curtis Graff was with them.

Out on Front Street, a small crew of city employees and several merchants were dismantling the Loggerama decorations. Down came the bunting, the banners, and the bigger-than-life-sized model of a woodsman that Fuzzy Baugh insisted on referring to as “an erection.” I don’t think the mayor ever stops to listen to what he’s saying, but I suppose that’s all right, because none of the rest of us do either. Fuzzy, in his native New Orleans fashion, does tend to run on.

Hot, tired, and feeling a headache coming on, I drove home shortly before six. This time, the mail held no surprises. But it reminded me that I had yet to deal with Tom Cavanaugh’s letter. Tomorrow night, perhaps, I told myself as I fell onto the sofa and kicked off my shoes. I needed one more day to recover from the rigors of Loggerama.

I was in the kitchen cleaning up from my meager supper of creamed shrimp on toast when the phone rang. It was Milo Dodge.

“We got the autopsy report from Everett about an hour ago,” he said, sounding as weary as I felt. “It’s the damnedest thing you ever heard.”

“So what am I hearing?” My voice was a little breathless.

Milo cleared his throat. “Cody Graff had been dead for several hours by the time Durwood hit him. The extent of rigor—” He stopped, obviously reading his notes. “Anyway, we’ll have to dismiss the charges against Durwood.” Milo sounded almost sorry. I’m sure he had visions of Durwood immediately leaping into his old beater and wiping out a whole herd of cows.

“Go on,” I urged. “Who did run over him?”

“Nobody,” replied Milo. “The medical examiner says he didn’t die from getting hit by a car. Cody Graff was murdered. Somebody poisoned the poor bastard. What do you think of that?”

M
ILO AND
I were having drinks at the Venison Eat Inn and Take Out. We were both relieved to note that most of the tourists had departed from Alpine, leaving our streets and restaurants and shops back under our control. Even though Pacific Northwest politicians and Chamber of Commerce types may work hard to promote tourism and thus beef up the economy, the truth is that most people, merchants included, aren’t fond of visitors. Worse yet, some of the tourists may decide to move in. Growth is not good. Money is suspect. Space is much better.

“What kind of poison?” I asked after the cocktail waitress had glided away. I didn’t want her to think I was talking about the Venison Inn’s beverages.

“Haloperidol,” said Milo, emphasizing each syllable. “A central nervous system depressant. It’s especially lethal with alcohol. It also produces symptoms that are very similar to drunkenness. Marje Blatt insisted that Cody had only two beers when I told him he ought to go home. They’d had an early supper at the Loggerama fast food stand in Old Mill Park because Cody was hungry from all that action with the axe at the high school field. Then they went to see some of the Miss Alpine competition. They got to the Icicle Creek Tavern about half an hour or forty-five minutes before I did.”

“So how did he ingest this stuff?” I asked, reconstructing Marje’s account of their evening to see if it made sense. As far as I could tell, it did. If she wasn’t lying.

“The M.E. in Everett says it was probably in the beer.
Marje says they ate around five-thirty. If it had been in Cody’s food or his coffee, it would have started to act much sooner, maybe even by six o’clock. There’s no sign that he had anything to eat or drink after he left the Icicle Creek Tavern shortly before ten. Maybe Marje was right about how much—or how little—he had to drink. I just thought she was covering for him.”

“How long does this stuff usually take to act?” I asked, unable to keep from looking at my bourbon without a certain amount of suspicion.

“That depends, according to the M.E. If Cody had been some old guy in poor health and was drinking shots of gin, he could have been a goner within fifteen minutes. But Cody was young and in good shape. He’d only had a couple of beers. The M.E. says it might take up to two hours before he died.”

I shuddered. “Poor Cody. But how on earth did he end up dead by the Burl Creek Road?”

Milo lifted his shoulders and hoisted his Scotch. “Nobody’s come forward to say they carted him off. What I’m trying to figure out is why somebody would poison him, then drive him off and dump him on the road. It’s crazy.”

“Marje doesn’t know anything, I take it?”

“No. She said it was just after ten when they got to his apartment. There’s no elevator, so she had to help him up the stairs to the second floor. She left him on the couch.”

“Had he passed out?” I asked.

“No. She said he was muttering about his brother Curtis, and Dani, and Matt Tabor. He was sort of incoherent, but still conscious.” Milo nodded to a young couple I knew only from seeing them at church. They sat down at a table near the unlighted fireplace. I gave a little wave. It wouldn’t hurt for me to help Milo woo his constituents.

“Where would anybody get that …” I reached down for my purse and took out a notepad. “Spell it, will you Milo?”

He did, and I jotted the unfamiliar word down. Haloperidol. I’d never heard of it. I repeated my question.

Milo gave a wry little laugh. “Five, six years ago, Durwood
would have been the prime suspect, being a pharmacist. But nowadays, who knows where drugs, legal and otherwise, come from around here? The only thing I can say for sure is that somebody planned ahead.”

“Premeditated,” I murmured. It was an ugly thought. “Why? Who? And how?”

Milo’s smile became more genuine. “Ever the reporter, huh, Emma? I sure as hell don’t know who or why. But how? If it was in his beer, somebody slipped it to him when nobody was looking. Even Marje couldn’t be watching every minute. Unless,” he added, the smile fading, “it was Marje who did it.”

My eyes widened at Milo. “Marje? No, that’s crazy. If she wanted to get rid of Cody, all she had to do was break the engagement. Besides, I think she genuinely loved the guy.”

Milo nodded. “Could be. But there was so much commotion going on that anybody could have dumped this stuff into his schooner. It can come in several forms, including a syrup. Cody wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He liked to guzzle. And frankly, if something tasted funny at the Icicle Creek Tavern, I’m not sure I’d notice. I’d half expect to find a trace of ugly in my brew.”

Milo was only half-kidding. I mulled over his words, then had a sudden flashback. “Hey, Milo—Cody had
three
beers the other night. He got another one after you warned him off. Would that make the poison work faster?”

Milo said it probably would. But he cautioned that the M.E. was cagey about fixing the time of death. “Somewhere between ten and midnight is as close as he’ll come.”

Somebody had seen Cody during those two hours. But it suddenly dawned on me that that mysterious blank face didn’t necessarily belong to the killer.

Selfishly, I wished the autopsy hadn’t been concluded so soon. The old-fashioned concept of a newspaper
scoop
had all but died out with the advent of the electronic media. In a small town like Alpine, a scoop had never had a chance: the grapevine was always faster and more effective. Everybody
from Burl Creek to Stump Hill would know that Cody Graff had been poisoned before we could get the paper to Monroe to be printed.

I spent most of Tuesday tying up loose ends. I wrote the story of Cody’s death, careful to stick to the facts and quote strictly from Milo and the Snohomish County Medical Examiner. For the time being, I avoided contacting Cody’s parents, his brother, or his ex-wife. Their comments could come later, for next week’s edition, when I had more room and the sheriff had more results.

Vida did the obituary, noting that the funeral was set for Thursday. It would not be held in Alpine, but up at Friday Harbor, with burial in the cemetery on the San Juan Islands.

“Marje thinks that’s a shame,” said Vida, yanking the article out of her typewriter. “She said she thought Cody would want to be buried here, next to his baby. But I suppose his folks have a plot up at Friday Harbor.”

I looked up from the headline Carla had written about the wet T-shirt contest. I hadn’t seen it until just now and was dismayed:
NO FALSE FRONT FOR
ADVOCATE
ENTRY; RUNKEL BUSTS UP COMPETITION
. It wouldn’t do. What had become of Carla’s high-minded principles?

RUNKEL WINS T-SHIRT CONTEST; ASKS BOOKS FOR BEER.
My revision was deadly dull, but it would keep Vida from blowing up—and prevent a stack of letters from irate readers.

“Is Marje going to attend the funeral?” I inquired.

“She doesn’t know yet,” Vida replied, looking up from the finished version of her House & Home page. “With Doc Dewey Senior gone, there’s not as much for her to do, but young Doc has been so busy she may have to help cover. They only have the two nurses and Marje at the clinic, you know.”

I did. But it seemed strange that Marje wouldn’t attend Cody’s services. Of course, it wasn’t easy to get up to the San Juans this time of year. “How’s she taking it?” I asked.

Vida handed her completed page over to me. “Oh—she’s upset, of course. But Marje isn’t an emotional type. Crying
her eyes out won’t bring Cody back. Maybe she hasn’t taken it all in yet. She certainly refuses to consider that Cody was murdered.”

“Really?” Milo had officially announced that Cody Graff’s death had been caused by foul play. Luckily, the sheriff hadn’t made a formal announcement of accidental death. Otherwise, he would have to go through all the legal rigmarole regarding corpus delicti. Perhaps he had also saved himself from getting sued by Durwood Parker. Milo had a right to throw Durwood in jail just for breaking the thirty-day ban on driving.

Vida was pushing up the window above her desk. The midday heat was bringing unwelcome humidity. “Marje insists that nobody would want to kill Cody.” Vida brushed tendrils of damp gray hair off her high forehead. “I suppose she has a point. I have to admit I’m flummoxed over this whole mess.”

So was I. Worse yet, I had the feeling that Milo Dodge was as baffled as we were. If Cody Graff had been poisoned at the Icicle Creek Tavern, Milo and I had both been eyewitnesses. Yet neither of us had seen anything suspicious. Milo probably would question everybody he could find who had been in the tavern Saturday night, but it was doubtful that they would be able to shed any light on the matter. Not only had there been too much confusion, but many of the patrons probably had been too far gone with drink to be observant or reliable witnesses.

Vida was sorting through some handouts on late summer garden care. She uttered a contemptuous snort and dumped the whole batch into her wastebasket. “What do these promotional people think we are,
idiots?
Who wouldn’t know when to cut back old growth and prune fruit trees?” Vida wasn’t the best gardener in town; she worked only in spurts, but with great energy. Still, she was knowledgeable. I was about to ask her when I should put in my spring bulbs, but she had already moved on to another topic: “You never told me about your date.” There was a hint of reproof in her tone.

“Some date.” I made a deprecating gesture. “At least the food was good.”

“Reid Hampton’s not your type. Shallow. Pretentious. Stuck on himself.” Vida was dead-on.

I decided to get her opinion of Milo’s new friend. “What did you think of Honoria Whitman?”

“Pleasant. Smart. Dull. Milo needs somebody with more pep.”

“She’s very gutsy,” I pointed out.

Vida pushed her glasses back on her nose and frowned at me. “What has courage got to do with
pep!
Milo does his job well enough, but he’s on cruise control when it comes to his personal life. If you ask me, that’s what went wrong with his first marriage. It’s too bad you’re so hung up on Tommy.”

I winced for various reasons: Vida had met Tom Cavanaugh on his visit to Alpine the previous autumn. She had liked him a lot. She also knew the rest of the story, and passed no judgment on either of us. But she was the only person I knew who ever called him Tommy.

I was going to tell her about Tom’s letter when Marje Blatt walked into the newsroom. Marje’s piquant face was sunburned, yet somehow lifeless. Her white uniform didn’t seem quite so crisp. The bright blue eyes had lost their luster. Yet there was no indication she had been crying. Marje said hello to me, then went straight to the point:

“Aunt Vida, have you had lunch?”

Aunt Vida had, varying her customary diet lunch with Rye Krisp instead of cottage cheese. “Yes, it’s after one. But if you want company …” Vida was already springing toward the door.

I wanted to talk to Marje, too, but I couldn’t intrude. Besides, the fish and chips basket I’d brought over from the Burger Barn would do me until dinner. Unlike Vida, I wouldn’t be able to sit down and consume an entire meal with all the trimmings.

Instead, I finished working on the paper, then gave Milo a call, using the need to find out if there had been any further
developments as my excuse for bothering him. We wouldn’t want to send
The Advocate
off to Monroe without the latest news.

“There’s nothing new,” admitted Milo, unhappily. “Our forensics guy is checking fibers and such. We’ve been talking to some of the other customers who were at the tavern Saturday night. Janet Driggers says Cody probably poisoned himself, but that’s only because she and AI are miffed that the funeral is being held up at Friday Harbor—Al won’t get his usual fat undertaking fee. Cal Vickers said something kind of interesting, though.”