The Alpine Betrayal (19 page)

Again we were silent, the little ones providing a background of innocent vigor. Vida’s next question surprised me as well as Donna.

“Who did send the begonias?”

Donna stared at Vida. “Why—I don’t know. I was so stunned by the note that I never called Delphine.” She shook herself. “Isn’t that awful of me—somebody didn’t get a thank-you note.”

I looked at Vida. Judging from the flash of her eyes, she was thinking about something far more dreadful than a lapse of etiquette. But she didn’t say so to Donna. Maybe that was just as well.

There was a story in the dispute over the movie company’s alleged unauthorized cutting of Jack Blackwell’s trees. It wasn’t the kind of article I usually ran before formal charges or lawsuits were filed, but it gave me an excuse to talk to Blackwell. After taking care of the most urgent messages that had accumulated on my desk, I returned to the timber company. Filming was underway in the vicinity of the Lumberjack Motel. The bright lights seemed blinding in the middle of the afternoon. Even from a distance, they looked hot. As for
The Advocate
, its bright new coat of yellow paint was drying quickly in the August sun.

The same young woman who had told me Patti Marsh wasn’t in led the way into Jack Blackwell’s office. His desk was an oval of mahogany, highly polished and fairly tidy. A salmon, in the neighborhood of sixty pounds, was
mounted on one paneled wall, and a moose head stared blankly above a glass-fronted bookcase. The decor didn’t suit my taste, but in general, the room had more class than its owner.

Jack looked up from a computer printout. “No, I haven’t any idea when the logging ban will be lifted. The fire danger is still higher than a kite. I’m losing money hand over fist. And in the meantime, all those do-gooders in D.C. work overtime trying to figure out how to screw me and the rest of the timber industry.”

I sat down in a curved chair that matched the desk. “Actually, that isn’t why I’m here. I wanted to find out if you’re going to file a civil suit against the movie company for chopping down your trees.”

Blackwell’s forehead creased, and his thin mouth formed a firm, tight line. “I will if I have to, but I’m thinking criminal, not civil, charges. How’d you get wind of this?”

“I was at the Icicle Creek Tavern the other night,” I explained, feeling somewhat puzzled. “You and Reid Hampton had words, practically under my nose.”

Jack Blackwell made an angry gesture with one hand, sweeping the computer printout onto the floor. “I don’t mean that crap. I mean about the payoff. Has Patti been shooting her face off?”

Enlightenment was beginning to dawn. I decided to play it close to my chest. “It’s hard for her say much of anything, with her face so swollen.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but I took the chance that Blackwell wouldn’t know any better. “She sure made the people at the bank happy, though.”

“Goddamn!” Blackwell pounded his fist on the desk, rattling pens, a stapler, an ashtray. “That bitch! What kind of games is she playing now?”

Although I knew the question wasn’t meant for me, I hazarded an answer: “Why would the movie people make a check out to Patti and not to you or Blackwell Timber?”

Jack Blackwell turned an angry, baffled face on me. “That’s what I want to know. That Hampton is one real
dumb bastard. Patti’s not an officer of this company; she’s a secretary. And then she lies about it, the cheating little tramp!” He jackknifed out of his chair, whirling around and looking as if he were about to assault the stuffed salmon. “‘Get your own money, Jack,’ she told me, laughing in my face! ‘I got mine.’ Bullshit! Why does Reid Hampton owe
her
money? Those were
my
goddamned trees!”

“So you smacked her,” I said calmly. “I don’t imagine that got any money out of her.”

Blackwell was facing me again, his saturnine face dark with rage and frustration. It dawned on me that I might get smacked, too. “So what? She’s a thief!”

I got to my feet, forcing myself to remain casual. “Then you ought to tell Milo Dodge. Maybe you can get Patti
and
Reid Hampton arrested.”

Blackwell’s mouth twisted, not so much in anger, as in confusion. Maybe the idea hadn’t occurred to him. He stared at me as if I had become an ally. “You think so? Ah hell, I don’t want to put Patti in the slammer. She’ll pony up. I just don’t like her laughing in my face.”

“That can be annoying,” I allowed, inching toward the door. “Have you ever heard of friendly persuasion?”

Blackwell wasn’t impressed by the suggestion. “Patti’s already friendly enough. She can wear a man out. Are you saying she’s too friendly with that Hampton prick?”

I wasn’t, but it was a thought. Yet it didn’t ring true. Or did it? Vida was right—you never really knew what went on in other people’s heads. “She hardly knows him,” I said, aware that the remark didn’t necessarily exonerate Patti.

“Oh, yeah?” countered Blackwell. “He’s been over to her place a couple of times. And she sure as hell knows him well enough to get fifty grand out of him.”

That, I thought, was well enough for me.

Milo was going to bring Honoria Whitman over for a drink after dinner. I had issued the invitation when I checked in with Milo before I left the office. There was nothing new to report on the investigation, he told me, but
they were working on the source of the Haloperidol. They were also trying to prove that Dani Marsh and Cody Graff were in the Zimmer at the time of his death. Dani had been unreachable all afternoon, because she was filming on Front Street. Milo would try to see her before he brought Honoria to my place.

But Milo showed up alone. Honoria had unexpected company from Carmel, old friends touring Washington State. I had to smirk. A recent arrival, and already Honoria was suffering from a virulent Pacific Northwest disease: the surprise guest with a complete ignorance of the motel and hotel industry. I hadn’t had anybody drop in for three months, except for my brother, who had spent a week with me in June. Ben had come to visit before going on to his new assignment as a parish priest in northern Arizona. After over twenty years in the home missions of Mississippi, he was feeling both sad about leaving the people he loved and excited at the prospect of working with the Navajos. Ben wasn’t company; he was my other self.

Milo entered my house looking downhearted. “Honoria asked me to drive down and have dinner with her and this other couple, but I was too beat to go all the way into Startup. You got any Scotch, Emma?”

“You’re the only one who drinks it here,” I said, going to the bottom shelf of the bookcase where I kept my limited liquor supply. “Why don’t you just strap it to your leg?”

Milo didn’t respond to my feeble effort at humor. “I might as well resign,” he said in a doleful voice. “If I don’t arrest somebody pretty soon, my chances of getting reelected are down the drain.”

“Oh, shut up, Milo,” I said testily. “Here, have a drink. Shall I make some popcorn?”

Milo brightened. I was heading for the kitchen when a voice trumpeted from the porch. It was Vida. “Well.” She stalked into the living room, wearing her gardening clothes, which consisted of red culottes and a white blouse. “Here you are. Where’s Delphine?”

Milo and I both stared. “Delphine Corson?” I finally said, sounding stupid.

Vida threw her floppy pink hat onto the sofa. “Yes, yes, Delphine Corson. She was going to come over and tell us who delivered those blasted begonias. She had to go through her records. The woman isn’t computerized.”

“Neither are you, Vida.” I couldn’t resist the barb.

“Never mind,” said Vida, going to the phone and punching in a series of numbers.

Milo clutched his Scotch as if it were an antidote. “What’s all this about?”

I explained while Vida talked to Delphine. Vida finished first. “She just found it. I was right—Cody Graff delivered those flowers to the Fremstad house. He volunteered. In fact, he paid for them.”

“How did he get in?” I asked.

Vida plopped down on the sofa next to Milo, narrowly missing her hat. “The door wasn’t locked, I suppose. This isn’t the big city, Emma. Especially five years ago.” She looked very smug.

Milo, however, was still looking mystified. “Will you two please tell me—”

“Yes, yes, just pay attention,” said Vida. “Really, Milo, you ought to have been more aware five years ago. Do you want some idiot like Averill Fairbanks to beat you when the primary election comes ’round next month?”

Milo groaned. Vida ignored him and continued: “I’m betting dollars to doughnuts that Art Fremstad didn’t commit suicide. Nobody ever thought he did. Cody Graff brought those begonias over to Art and Donna’s house during the funeral, when he knew no one would be around. He also left a phony suicide note. It was typewritten, badly worded, not up to Art’s style, in my opinion. And how hard is it to sign a name like
Art?”

Milo’s face was working in an effort at comprehension. “But … Vida, why?”

“Oh, Milo!” Vida gave him a little kick with her blue canvas shoes. “Because Cody killed Art, that’s why!”

It took another Scotch and a lot of fast talking by Vida to convince Milo that Art Fremstad had died at the hands of Cody Graff.

“Of course you can’t prove it,” huffed Vida. “And what good would it do if you could? Cody’s dead, too. The important thing is to figure out
why
Cody killed your deputy.”

In his usual deliberate, thorough manner, Milo was sifting through the possibilities. “Cody must have asked Art to meet him near Alpine Falls. Somehow, he must have caught him by surprise—hit him over the head maybe. There was a blow to the skull, but at the time we figured it was from jumping off the cliff and hitting those big rocks. We checked for tire tracks, but there were too many—plenty of tourists stop there in the summer.” With a somber expression, Milo made some notes on a little pad. “Damn it! This is really terrible. Why would Cody kill poor Art?”

Vida took a big gulp of her ice water. “If we knew why Cody killed Art, we might know who killed Cody.” Her eyes were hard, like those of a canny gray wolf catching the scent. “Get up,” she snapped at Milo. “We’ve got things to do and people to see.”

Milo looked up at Vida, abashed by her command. “It’s after eight o’clock, I’ve had two drinks, I don’t want to go around smelling like a distillery. I’m running for office.”

“Oooooh!” Vida waved her floppy hat. “You’re running away from a five-year crime wave, you idiot! All right, all right.” She turned to me. “We’ll go, Emma. Get your shoes on. Really, how you girls can go around barefoot without ruining your arches …”

Having both been chastened by Vida, Milo and I decided he should take his Scotch-tainted breath to his office and look up the official reports of Art Fremstad’s death while Vida and I called on Dani Marsh.

But Dani wasn’t at the ski lodge. Henry Bardeen claimed he didn’t know where she’d gone, but that Reid Hampton
did. Hampton, however, wasn’t around either, having driven over to Lake Wenatchee for dinner at the Cougar Inn.

Vida announced that we were stuck with Patti Marsh. “There’s nobody else,” she explained as we headed back into town. “Curtis Graff is still up in the San Juans, Doc Dewey is in Seattle, and no Dani.” She sighed. “Poor Marje.”

The remark caught me off guard. “Marje?”

“Of course. She almost married a murderer. And I thought she had more sense.” Vida shook her head sadly. “Well, she’s out of it now.”

Is she?
I wondered. But I wasn’t sure what I meant. It wouldn’t be tactful to mention to Vida that her niece was embroiled in an ugly murder investigation. But Vida, of all people, knew that. At the arterial on Alpine Way, I shot Vida a sidelong glance. Her expression was inscrutable. That wasn’t like Vida.

To my relief, there was no sign of Jack Blackwell’s presence at Patti Marsh’s house. I steeled myself for another foray into that stuffy, dismal dwelling, which seemed so rife with bitterness.

But Patti wasn’t home. Her car was parked in the driveway, but the house was dark. We figured she might be watching TV with the lights off, since the sun had set only a few minutes earlier. I fought down an ominous feeling as Vida and I descended the three steps from the front porch.

“She may be with Dani,” Vida said in an uncharacteristically uncertain voice.

“Should we get Milo to check?”

Vida stood in the middle of the overgrown cement path. “Yes. Let’s do that.” She turned around, once again animated. “We’ll help him.”

“Vida, he’d need a warrant for us to go snooping through Patti’s place.”

Vida wasn’t concerned with the niceties of a warrant. We drove downtown, where we found Milo in his office, drinking instant coffee and going through a file folder. We expressed our apprehension about Patti. To Vida’s chagrin,
Milo said he’d send his deputy, Jack Mullins, to check out the situation.

“She’s probably out drinking with Jack Blackwell,” said Milo. “Let’s piece this together. Vida, you’ve got a memory like an elephant. Help me out.”

The one window in Milo’s office was open halfway, its screen dotted with moths seeking the light. The overhead tube fixtures made all three of us look as if we had jaundice. A big fan stood on the floor, whirring around at low speed. Vida and I sat down in front of Milo’s desk. He picked up a sheet of paper on which he’d made some notes.