The Alpine Journey (6 page)

“We don't know,” I put in.

“I've seen photographs,” said Vida.

“Oh—that's right, I forgot.” Bill gave himself a little shake. “So she and this Damon kid—he's twenty-two or so—had something going this summer while he worked as a general handyman for one of the big motels along the beach. The investigating officers have sort of ruled him out as a suspect, because he's in law school at Willamette University in Salem and left Cannon Beach before the murder.”

Adjusting her glasses and her hat, Vida asked if the sheriff's department was making progress.

“Define progress,” Bill replied dryly. “You know about Gordon Imhoff leaving town?”

“Yes,” Vida said in a worried tone. “It seems an odd
thing to do. You said he wasn't living at home at the time his wife was killed?”

“That's right,” Bill said as the old collie settled next to me and began to nose around my shoes. “The shop that the Imhoffs owned has been closed. A part-timer tried to keep it going after Audrey died and Gordon took off, but she couldn't manage by herself, even when the place isn't real busy this time of year.”

I reached down to stroke the dog's head. “Do we get the impression that Gordon is the main suspect?”

Bill lifted one shoulder. “You always have to look at the spouse in cases like this, especially when the marriage is in trouble. We put out an APB, but so far, no luck.”

“Gordon could be anywhere,” Vida murmured. “Or nowhere.”

“What?” Bill leaned closer.

Vida regarded him with her most owlish expression. “I shouldn't have said that. But when one spouse has been killed and the other can't be found, it might mean—in certain cases—that they're both … dead.”

Bill suddenly looked grim. “It might. Or maybe it just means that Gordon Imhoff wishes he were.”

We had gotten the names of the investigating team from Bill Wigert, but neither officer was on duty until Monday. In an unusually quiet mood, Vida and I drove back to Seaside. It was well after noon, and we decided to stop for lunch. Vida, who is no cook under any circumstances, had served toast for breakfast. Five hours later I was famished.

“Oh, dear.” Vida sighed after we had been shown to a table at a busy restaurant called Dooger's. “I don't think they know what they're doing.”

“Who?” I asked in surprise. “The local sheriff?”

“Yes. Well, no.” With great care, Vida repinned her hat. “I'm sure they're competent, and much better equipped than Milo and his staff. But these people are working at a disadvantage. Cannon Beach is some distance from Astoria. They can't know the town the way that…” Her voice trailed off.

I couldn't resist grinning at her. “The way we know Alpine?”

“I suppose that's it. These Astorians, or whatever they call themselves, couldn't be expected to know a town so far away. Goodness, it would be like someone from Monroe trying to understand Alpine. It's simply not possible.” Vida looked as if she actually felt pity for the residents of Monroe, which, though it happened to be in another county, was the nearest town of any size along the Highway 2 corridor.

I also had an inkling of what was going on in Vida's brain. My initial reaction was that I didn't much like what she was thinking.

“I'm going to call Leo and tell him neither of us will be back tomorrow,” I said, hoping to deter her. “But we'll have to be at work Tuesday to get out this week's edition.”

Vida was looking not at me, but at a family of five preparing to leave. “My page is ready to go.”

I was irritated. Never in all the years that I'd been the official editor and publisher of
The Advocate
had Vida required the slightest reprimand or even nudge. Indeed, her deep feelings for both the paper and the town had sometimes caused her to nag me when she felt I wasn't putting forth my greatest effort. But now she seemed to be balking.

“You may have last-minute items,” I reminded her.
“You usually do, with stories that come in after the weekend.”

“Oh, pooh!” Vida exclaimed. “‘Grace Grundle served one of her terrible pumpkin pies to three other dotty old ladies who didn't know the difference and are still picking seeds out of their dentures.’ ‘Norm and Georgia Carlson entertained the So-and-Sos from Startup Saturday night, despite the fact that both couples have never liked each other since an unfortunate incident involving a giant dahlia at the Skykomish County Fair.’ ‘The Dithers sisters sat up with a sick horse who probably got that way because they allowed him to watch too much television with them.’” Pausing, Vida glared at me. I cringed, taking in the depth of her concern for the Imhoff tragedy. It wasn't like Vida to speak disparagingly of her news items. “There are times when news can wait,” she asserted. “Carta could handle those items, if she has room on my page. But I've always put family first, and I'm not changing this late in life. Have you—perchance—forgotten that I still have five days' vacation coming to me before the year is out?”

I had. Vida usually reserves those five days for Thanksgiving and Christmas. As usual, she had me beat.

“Okay,” I said, picking up the menu. “But I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow night,” Vida put in, now looking smug.

“No. It's a long drive, I'll have to rent another car, and I don't want to pull in at midnight.” My face set. “I'll leave around noon.”

“As you please.” Vida perused the menu. “I should think they'd have lovely clam chowder. That and a small shrimp salad.” She set the menu down in front of her, lining it up perfectly between the pieces of her table setting.
“You should have kept the other car. We're going to have to split up.”

Caught in a dilemma between halibut and chips and a crab Louis, I slapped my menu down in exasperation. “What are you talking about?”

Vida gave a shrug of her wide shoulders. “We'll waste time working together. I'll make a list of people we should interview, and we'll divvy it up between us. Actually, we don't need a list. I'll take the family. You talk to the rest.”

“The rest of what?” Now I was definitely cranky as well as hungry. “Vida, we aren't detectives. Anytime that we've been involved in a murder investigation, it's because we were working on the story. This is different, this is another state, another town. These people may be related to you in some tenuous way, but it's rot our problem. Until now, you didn't even know that most of them existed.”

Under the swooping brim of her hat, Vida's face was without expression. “If memory serves, you helped your friend Mavis's daughter solve a murder case in Port Angeles.”

“It wasn't a case,” I argued, recalling how Jackie and Paul Melcher and I had dug into the past to solve a family mystery. “The victim had been dead for almost ninety years.”

“Since it was Mavis's daughter, it
would
be different.” Vida's mouth was so pursed that her lips had practically disappeared.

So
, I thought,
that's what this is all about?
Did Vida actually feel a rivalry between herself and Mavis?

I didn't dare mention my suspicion out loud. Nor did I have the opportunity. Vida had unpursed her lips and was speaking again.

“How would you feel if it were your family? Would you simply walk away if you thought your kin might be suspected of murder?”

In defeat, I sighed. “Okay, I'll do what I can while I'm still here. Who do I contact?”

Reaching into her purse, Vida pulled out a slip of paper she had torn from a pad at the Ecola Creek Lodge. Obviously, she had been thinking ahead. I wished I'd known that when I'd turned in the rental car.

“I jotted down a couple of names,” she said, shoving the paper in my direction. “You should talk to the neighbors on the south side, the Skellys, John and Marie. The other house next door is vacant—the people who own it come down only in the summer. You might try getting this girlfriend of Derek's to be more forthcoming. Dolores Something-or-other. And now that we've learned more information from your old friend Bill, you should contact the Damon boy in Salem, and also try to find out how far along the divorce plans had gone. Oh, yes—don't forget the woman who worked part-time at the Jaded Eye. I'll get her name from the children.”

My head was spinning so fast that I could hardly give my order to the waitress; I ended up asking for the same thing as Vida.

“We'll start by introducing you to the family, just so that you get some background,” Vida declared, her strong features now animated.

“Fine,” I said in a weak voice. My mind, or what was left of it, was elsewhere, wondering if I could work some kind of deal on the car rental. As it stood, I'd had to pay a drop-off charge.

“Excuse me, Vida,” I said, interrupting what had started as another set of instructions, “I'm going to call the car place. I'll be right back.”

The green Ford Taurus had already been rented. There was nothing the agency could do except give me their low, low weekend rate, which I suspected wasn't that low despite the fact that I was doing them a favor: the Plymouth Neon they gave me had Washington plates, and in effect, I was returning it for them. Despite their smiling reassurances, I felt I'd gotten screwed.

Our salads had been delivered during my absence. “This is excellent,” Vida said, gesturing with her fork. “Don't dawdle. We haven't a minute to spare.”

I was inclined to take my time. This was supposed to be a mini-vacation. But Vida had decided otherwise, and as usual, I obeyed.

For once, I should have rebelled, eaten a leisurely lunch, picked up the rental car, and driven home.

But of course I didn't.

WHEN
STUDYING
THE current crop of teenagers, I always marvel that I was ever their age. Generally, they seem better looking, more sophisticated, and yet infinitely dopier than I remember being during my own adolescence. I'm aware that even in small towns such as Alpine and Cannon Beach, they face far greater and more complicated temptations than I experienced in a big city like Seattle. Still, I would love to endow them with a sprinkling of wisdom or, as Vida would put it, “good sense.”

Derek Imhoff was a gawky six-footer with long sandy-brown hair and somewhat sly brown eyes who lounged on the sofa in such a sprawling, peremptory manner that there wasn't room for anyone else. Stacie, who had blonde hair cascading down her back and wide-set green eyes, most resembled a photograph of her mother that stood on a table made out of a barrel. At fourteen, Molly was still in that nebulous formative stage, not quite full-grown, with features that looked as if they'd been sketched in and shoulder-length auburn hair.

Vida had wasted no time interrogating the youngsters about their parents' estrangement. “You should have told your aunt Vida,” she scolded as we sat in the Imhoff living room. The house was a one-story affair, probably a beach cottage that had been added onto over time. There
was a good deal of clutter, not just from the absence of mother and father, but, I suspected, from the family's apparent avocation for collecting all manner of flora, fauna, objets d'art, and junk. Dozens of seashells, Japanese floats, rock-filled bottles, and pieces of driftwood mingled with copper etchings, metal sculptures, myrtle-wood bowls, novelty clocks, and various types of glassware, pottery, and knickknacks. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase was jammed with volumes, both old and new. Sand speckled the floor, and the entire house smeiled like the sea.

“It's no big deal,” Derek asserted, his chin resting on his chest. “I mean, it's not like they were divorced yet.”

“Besides,” Stacie chimed in, her voice defensive, almost hostile, “so what? Like it's so weird for parents to split up these days?”

“It
is
weird.” The words, which were no more than a whisper and something like a sigh, came from Molly. She sat on a big satin pillow, entwining her auburn hair in her plump fingers.

“Oh,” Derek said, aiming a kick in his youngest sister's direction, “what do you know? You're just a kid.”

“I don't care,” Molly retorted. “I think it's weird they'd get a divorce. They'd been married for a zillion years. I still think it was just a … you know, like a … um…”

Vida supplied the phrase. “Passing fancy?”

Molly didn't seem to recognize it. “Huh? You mean…?” Her muffinlike face puckered in thought. “Yeah, right, maybe.”

“That can happen,” Vida said in a reasonable tone. “People reach a point in their lives where they feel frustrated or thwarted. Instead of going inside themselves to
solve the problem, they strike out at their spouse.” She winced, aware that the choice of words was unfortunate under the circumstances. “You always hurt the one you love,” she added hurriedly, though the amendment was actually worse.

No one responded to the ill-phrased platitudes. Perhaps the Imhoff kids were as callous as they sounded. Maybe they were numb. As the youngest, Molly seemed the most sensitive, or perhaps she was merely more impressionable.

The silence dragged on. Through the big living-room window, I could see the ocean and the beach. The afternoon was bright and beautiful, bringing out off-season visitors and local residents. A steady stream, including people on horseback, passed over the sands. To my right, I could see the big outcropping known as Haystack Rock, a name that aptly described its bulky, conical appearance. Smaller rocks jutted up from the incoming tide, surrounding Haystack like attendants awaiting their master's whim.

“They fought a lot.” Stacie volunteered the information, her lower lip fixed in what appeared to be a permanent pout. “Always.”

“No, they didn't,” Molly countered, stamping one bare foot. “It was just lately, like since Christmas.”

“Since Mom wanted to move,” Derek put in.

Stacie shrugged. “Whatever. Butt out, Molly.”

Vida, who had assumed a seat in a straight-backed chair that might have been authentic Jacobean or early Levitz, leaned forward in a confidential manner. “Your mother wanted to leave Cannon Beach?”

“Right.” Derek's response was almost snide.

“She never liked it here,” Stacie added, picking up a
bottle of nail polish from a bookcase ledge. “Mom wanted to live in a big city again.”

“Again?” I said, and then remembered that Vida had told me how Audrey had met Gordon in San Francisco. “Did she want to go back to the Bay Area?”