The Alpine Menace (32 page)

“Yes,” Vida began, then stopped as Tony Rojas came out from 1-A, Henrietta's unit.

“You again?” he said, obviously not pleased.

Vida's arm shot out in the direction of 1-C. “Have you interrogated the occupants in this apartment?”

“Why do you ask?” There was a weary note in Rojas's voice.

“Ms. Swafford knows more than she's letting on,” Vida retorted, jerking away the envelope I'd managed to hold on to despite my tumble. “Here, ask her about this. It was sent to the adoptive parents of Carol Stokes's daughter.”

Rojas eyed the envelope dubiously. “So? Maybe the Swafford woman knows the Addisons.”

“She doesn't.” Vida actually stamped her foot. “That is, not in a social context. I'm quite certain this has something to do with Carol's murder. Maybeth Swafford is absolutely terrified. I'm sure she believes she'll be the next victim.”

“Really.” Rojas put the envelope in his inside pocket. Apparently, he didn't think it was serious evidence or he would have been more careful. “Where'd you get this anyway?”

I explained.

Rojas slapped his hand against his forehead. “Christ! Who
are
you? Hanging out in alleys and going through the garbage—aren't you two a little old for Nancy Drew?”

“I told you,” I said between clenched teeth, “I'm trying to help clear my cousin of a murder charge. What's so weird about that?”

Rojas sighed. “Ever hear of private detectives? That's what most people do when they want a secondary investigation. All this amateur sleuthing crap can get you into big trouble.”

I feigned contrition, which wasn't too difficult since
my knees hurt like hell and I felt sorry for myself. “You're right, but somebody had to help Ronnie. He's pretty much alone in the world. Are you going to talk to May-beth and her boyfriend?”

Rojas glanced at the door to 1-C. “I stopped by there about an hour ago, but nobody answered.” He paused, perhaps trying to figure out if I was a serious menace or just a bumbling idiot. “Yeah, I'll talk to them.”

“You better hurry,” Vida put in. “They're moving out. That's how frightened Maybeth is.”

“Hunh.” Rojas glanced at 1-C again. “Okay, if it makes you feel any better, I'll go talk to them now.”

We stood on the walkway while the detective buzzed Maybeth and Roy. Nothing happened. Rojas buzzed again. Still nothing. Then he hammered on the door and shouted, “Police!”

From where we were standing, I couldn't hear what was being said from inside the apartment. Rojas could, though, because he was leaning down, listening through the door.

“If that's the way you want it,” he said at last, “that's the way we'll do it.” Rojas started back down the walk. “The guy in there says no dice unless we come back with a warrant.”

“Why,” Vida demanded, “don't you arrest him for withholding evidence?”

Rojas laughed and tapped his suit jacket where the envelope reposed. “On this? Not a prayer. Still, I want to ask them some questions, even though I don't think they were around today when the murder occurred.”

“They weren't,” I said, then added, “that I know of.”

Rojas gave single nod. “Okay. Now run along. And stay out of trouble. We're handling this just fine.”

I didn't ask him why Ronnie was still in jail.

* * *

I'd turned to leave when Vida let out a sudden yelp. “Oh! I forgot my asthma medicine!” She caught Rojas by the sleeve. “Do you mind? I believe I left it in Henrietta's bathroom.”

Rojas grimaced. “What does it look like?”

“It's blue,” she said. “No, it's green. Or did the doctor give me the maroon one this time? My, my—I'm not sure.”

“
What
is it?” Rojas asked, impatience showing on his face. “Pills? A bottle?”

“No,” Vida responded vaguely. “It's one of those… oh, you must know what I mean.” She made some indecipherable gestures with her hands. “It's a whatchamacallit.”

I watched the little scene with amusement, knowing that Vida didn't have asthma and therefore didn't have any asthma medicine. Finally, Rojas relented.

“I'll have to go in with you,” he said, then held up a hand to me. “Stay put. This can't take long. I've got personnel working inside.”

I nodded assent, then heard a diffident Vida ask if she might use the bathroom while she was there. “So awkward,” she remarked. “So embarrassing to have to ask.”

Less than five minutes later Vida emerged, looking a trifle smug.

“Well?” I said. “Are you still wheezing?”

“I'd be chortling if I thought I'd found anything worthwhile,” she said, the smugness gone. “All I could manage was to slip from the bathroom to the bedroom and snatch an address book and a photo album.”

“You couldn't fit a metal box or a file folder into your purse,” I said with a smile. “You were lucky to have gotten what you did. I'd have thought the police would have confiscated the address book.”

“Not yet,” Vida said as we reached the Lexus.

Just in case Rojas might have discovered the missing
items, I moved the car around the corner. Vida was flipping through the address book first.

“Drat,” she said. “This is an old book. These phone numbers still have prefixes with letters, like
LA
and
SU
. The police must have taken Henrietta's more recent one.”

“What about the album?” I asked.

“It's fairly full, unlike Carol's,” she said, “though of course there may have been others we never got to see at her apartment. Henrietta was more organized. These first pictures seem to go way back. Many of them are tourist sites, just like the ones on her walls. Victoria, Mount Rainier, the Olympics, the ocean. Here's a nice-looking young man on a horse. Perhaps that's one of her husbands. Henrietta must have taken most of these, since she's not in them. Ah! Here's a group shot of nurses, no doubt a graduating class. They wore uniforms then. How nice.”

“Doc Dewey still has his nurses wear uniforms,” I pointed out.

“No caps, though,” Vida said. “No smart navy-blue capes with red lining. Such a shame, all this casual… What's this?”

“Where?” I leaned over to look. In between photos of Grouse Mountain and Grand Coulee Dam was a picture of Kendra Addison. “I'll be darned,” I said. “How did that get in here?”

Vida didn't answer right away. “It's not Kendra,” she finally said through stiff lips. “See here, she's wearing what we used to call Capri pants and her hair is much more stylized. Bouffant, really.”

Jarred, I sat up straight. “Then who is it?” I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.

Vida, however, didn't say anything. She continued to page through the album. “Here,” she said, still sounding tense, “could this be Henrietta?”

It was a picture of a young woman with a baby. She was pretty, with short red-gold hair and a plumpish figure. “It might be,” I said. “Take another look at that nurses’ graduation picture.”

We spotted Henrietta Altdorf in the second row. She was thinner and younger than in the picture with the baby. But she definitely looked like the girl in the Capri pants—which meant that she bore a startling resemblance to Kendra Addison.

Vida announced that we had to track down Dr. Fitzgerald. We drove up Greenwood to Holman Road and found a service station with a telephone directory that hadn't been stolen or torn to shreds. Dr. Philip Fitzgerald's clinic was just off Market Street in Ballard; his residence was out in North Beach, about a ten-minute drive from where we were now parked.

“I'll call first,” I said.

“Let me,” Vida urged. “I'm more in his age group.”

I wasn't sure what that had to do with interviewing Dr. Fitzgerald, but it seemed to work. Vida returned from the pay phone looking pleased with herself.

“He remembered Olive Nerstad.” She beamed. “Such a kindly sounding man. He'd love to see us.”

That was probably an overstatement, but we drove off under a spring sky that was beginning to cloud over. The Fitzgerald house, a well-kept Colonial with twin sets of pillars along the full front porch, was at the bottom of a hill, with a view of Puget Sound.

The doctor met us at the door. He looked about seventy and was wearing a black cardigan over a pale blue shirt and gray flannel slacks.

“Come in, ladies,” he said, almost sounding as if he were indeed glad to see us. “We were very sorry to hear about poor Henrietta. I saw her not long ago, when Mr. Rapp had a fall in his kitchen.”

“It's a terrible thing,” Vida murmured. “She seemed like a very fine woman.”

“She was, as I recall,” Dr. Fitzgerald said, leading us down a hallway carpeted with an Oriental runner. “A good nurse. Of course it's been twenty years since we worked together.” He paused at an open door. “My wife put the teakettle on. I hope you approve.”

“Certainly,” Vida said with her toothy smile. “Hot tea is always an excellent idea.”

The doctor shoved his wire-rimmed spectacles up on his nose and led us into his comfortable study. The shelves were lined with medical tomes on one side, fiction and mostly travel books on the other.

“We live in violent times,” Dr. Fitzgerald said in a heavy voice. “Do sit. Myra will be along shortly with the tea.”

“As I explained on the phone,” Vida began, “Emma and I met Henrietta while researching the earlier murder of Carol Nerstad Stokes. Our newspaper,
The Alpine Advocate
, is planning a special section on what happens when young people move to the city. Rarely is it anything good, and Carol is a case in point.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.
Our
newspaper? The worst part was that Vida might not be lying. Maybe she really did plan to do such a piece. I foresaw trouble brewing back at
The Advocate
.

“I didn't know this Carol person,” Dr. Fitzgerald put in, “though I was aware of her death. Mr. Rapp told me about it.”

Vida nodded. “Such a sweet little man.”

We were interrupted by the arrival of Myra Fitzgerald, bearing a very large silver tray. Fortunately, she was a stalwart-looking woman with iron-gray hair and a jutting jaw. The doctor introduced us, and Myra put on a sympathetic face.

“Honestly, you never know who's next, do you?” she
said, setting cups on saucers and pouring tea. “I baked today. One of our neighbors was attacked just down the street a while ago. Sugar cookies and some lemon bars. We had a break-in here just a year ago. I get in this mood every so often, for no reason, to bake up a storm. My sister-in-law's cousin was mugged over by the Ballard Locks last October. Does anyone take lemon?”

We accepted both tea and cookies. I discovered I was starving; we hadn't yet had dinner, and it was almost seven-thirty.

“I don't think you ever met Henrietta when she worked at the clinic,” Dr. Fitzgerald said to his wife.

Myra shook her head. “No, I was too busy with my guild work in those days. Now it's grandchildren. Are you sure you don't need lemon?”

“Henrietta actually worked for Dr. McFarland, didn't she?” Vida asked, after assuring our hostess that lemon was superfluous.

Dr. Fitzgerald looked grave. “Yes, that's so. He was an OB-GYN. We had other doctors in the clinic besides myself back then, an internist and two general practitioners. I was one of the GPs. Now there are eight of us, but the rest are all specialists. That's how it goes in medicine these days. No one wants to be a jack-of-all-trades.”

“It's the money,” Myra put in. “Specialists can charge more. Of course medical care in this country is going downhill. It's a disgrace. Say, I've got a loaf of pumpkin bread in the freezer. Should I thaw it out?”

We thanked Myra, but declined. “Dr. McFarland handled adoptions,” I said. “Do you remember anything about the baby that a Mr. and Mrs. Addison got through the clinic while Henrietta was working there?”

Again, Dr. Fitzgerald pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Not particularly. Henrietta only worked at the clinic for about three years. I borrowed her a few times when my own nurse was ill or on vacation, but I really didn't know
her all that well. I don't recall the Addisons. They may have gone to the other GP.”

“There was something peculiar about Henrietta,” Myra said. “What was it, Phil? Didn't she leave under a cloud?”

Dr. Fitzgerald frowned. “There
was
something odd about that. Of course, Dr. McFarland could be… difficult.”

“Yes,” I said, “Henrietta mentioned something like that.”

“She did?” Dr. Fitzgerald looked startled.

As usual, Vida was quicker on the uptake than I was. “Shocking, really. But I suppose one shouldn't be surprised.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I guessed that she didn't, either. Vida was on a fishing trip that went beyond Henrietta's complaints about Dr. Fitzgerald's tightfisted ways, including his refusal to provide medical insurance.

“It's not an uncommon problem in the medical profession,” Dr. Fitzgerald said with a sigh. “So much pressure, so much stress—and the drugs are readily available. Luckily, Barney—Dr. McFarland—went through treatment not long after Henrietta left. He stayed clean for the rest of his life, as far as I know.”

The account had taken an unexpected turn, one that I couldn't see helped us much as far as Carol Stokes and Henrietta Altdorf were concerned.

“I always wondered,” Myra remarked, “if Henrietta wasn't blackmailing him. Maybe that was why I felt she left under a cloud. What do you really think, Phil?” She paused and waved a lemon bar. “Do you think these are too tart? I should have used more sugar, but you know what recipes are these days. Does anybody kitchen-test anymore?”

“Dubious,” said Vida, who regularly complained that many of the recipes she received through the mail had to be inedible.

“Blackmail?” Dr. Fitzgerald was looking bemused. “Myra, sometimes you have a very wicked mind. I shouldn't think blackmail was involved, though. Dr. Mc-Farland's habit was no secret at the clinic. His patients, of course, were another matter. Still… ”

“You've always been poor at bringing home office gossip,” Myra said in reproach. “All that doctor-patient confidentiality.” She turned to Vida and me. “Don't you think he could at least confide in his wife?”

“I should hope so,” Vida said, no doubt having in mind the thumbscrews she regularly applied to her niece Marje Blatt, who worked for Doc Dewey.