The Alpine Obituary (27 page)

I hated it.

“It’s kind of bland,” Milo allowed. “Harder to keep clean, too.”

“It even smells different. The grease buildup is gone,” I complained, opening the new menus that consisted of four blue and white laminated plastic pages. “They’ve changed some of the entrees and raised the prices.”

“You can’t blame Fred and Opal for that,” Milo remarked. “They haven’t upped prices in years. All this new stuff has to be paid for.”

“They should have spent more and hired a good interior decorator,” I huffed. “I’ll bet Opal designed this herself.”

“We’ll get used to it,” Milo said, giving me a benevolent smile. “The last remodel was . . .” He was interrupted by his cell phone.

I watched the sheriff expectantly as he listened to the caller on the other end.

“No kidding . . . that’s a big break. Okay, I’ll be back in about thirty minutes. Thanks, Bill.”

“Well?” I said to Milo who looked pleased. “Is the news worth spreading?”

“Not yet,” the sheriff replied. “That was Bill Blatt, saying that a dentist in Monroe had matched the X-rays to the fire victim.”

“Not a local, then,” I said. “Why can’t you tell me now?”

“I can tell you,” Milo answered slowly, “but I don’t want the name to get out until I’ve talked to the family. If there is a family.”

“Who is he?”

“Some guy named Terry Woodson.” Milo picked up the menu again. “At least they still have cheeseburgers.”

“Terry Woodson?” I echoed. “That sounds familiar.” Milo looked up from the menu. “Yeah? You’re right, it does.”

I stared off into space, the space that was just to the left of Milo’s head. The crinkly old brown upholstery had far more character—not to mention tears and holes—than the gormless gray. I was so lost in thought that I jumped when Beverly Iverson spoke to me.

“How do you like it, Ms. Lord?” she asked, obviously well-pleased with her parents’ improvements to the family establishment.

“It’s . . . fresh. And lighter,” I said, hoping my smile wasn’t as phony as it felt.

“We’ve expanded the menu, too,” Beverly said, “with eight different burgers and several varieties of pasta. Would you like to hear our luncheon specials?”

I politely declined. So did Milo. Boring, in a rut, with no imagination, we both ordered our standard burgers, fries, and salad; coffee for the sheriff; Pepsi for me.

“You look distracted,” Milo remarked after Beverly had left. “What’s up?”

“That name,” I said. “Terry Woodson. I know it from somewhere. Think, Milo.”

Milo, however, shrugged. “It doesn’t ring any real bells with me. We’ll check to see if he had any priors. Maybe you remember his name from the log.”

Faintly, I heard my cell phone ring in my purse. As usual, I had trouble digging it out. I managed to catch the call on the fourth ring. The connection was bad, as it often is in Alpine where the mountains interfere with reception.

“Who?” I all but shouted, unable to make out more than a couple of words and a lot of crackle and zap.

“Max.” The single syllable came through. But the next words were mangled. I slipped out of the booth and moved to the rear of the restaurant. Max was still talking. “. . . next time.”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear most of what you said,” I told Max.

There was a pause on the other end. Maybe Max was rethinking what he’d said the first time. “I’m heading for Seattle. I called you at the office but they said you’d gone to lunch. I got your cell phone number. Can you hear me now?”

“Yes, much better.” I nodded at Heather Bardeen who was heading for the rest room. “How do you feel, Max?”

“Better. But foolish. I guess everything just came over me at once. I wanted to apologize and let you know that if you’ll let me, I’ll do better next time I’m in Alpine.”

“That’s okay, Max,” I said. “I understand.”

“Thank you. I realize it must have been embarrassing. I must ring off now, I’m approaching the 405 interchange to Seattle.”

I clicked off the phone and returned to the table. Beverly had delivered our beverages. Milo was smoking and studying the ceiling with its recessed lighting. I told him about Max’s call.

“Did he promise not to talk your ear off next time about his wife?” Milo asked with a wry expression.

I shook my head. “No. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Or maybe he’ll switch the subject to his sister, Lynn. You made her sound like a teenaged queen.”

“That’s because I had a crush on her,” Milo said. “Hell, she
was
a queen, the homecoming queen. But I’d graduated by then. Anyway, I never had a chance with . . .” He stopped and frowned. “You’re right,” he said, sitting up straight. “I remember now. The name of the guy who went with Lynn after she dumped the Foster kid was Terry Woodson.”

“Of course!” I locked gazes with Milo. “That’s why I know the name. He was mentioned in the article about the accident that killed Lynn.”

Putting out his cigarette, Milo’s long face looked incredulous. “Jeez, life’s weird, huh? I mean, Terry Woodson was the most wholesome, all-American good-looking guy you could imagine. And he ends up getting burned to death in a meth lab. I’ll be damned.”

“That was over thirty years ago,” I pointed out. “You said yourself the other day you’d changed so much that I wouldn’t know you.”

Milo didn’t argue. “I wonder if his folks are still around in Monroe.” Suddenly looking impatient, the sheriff’s eyes shot over to the service counter. “Are those our orders waiting under the damned warming lights?”

I had to laugh. At least six orders sat on the counter. Despite the new menu, it appeared that the old customers still wanted their burgers and fries. “Could be,” I said.

“Beverly better hustle her butt over here,” Milo grumbled as she popped up an aisle away. “Hey!” The sheriff waved a long arm to catch her attention.

The indecision that had been nagging me since joining Milo for lunch now came to the forefront of my mind. Maybe if I hadn’t been angry with Marsha Foster-Klein for her lack of manners and roughshod attitude, I would have kept my mouth shut. I suppose I wanted to retaliate in some way. As soon as our meals arrived, I told Milo about the letter and the photo.

“Jesus,” he said when I’d finished. “You and Vida think Jack Froland mailed that stuff just before he died?”

“We do,” I replied. “Vida compared the handwriting. It certainly looks like Jack’s.”

Milo shrugged. “Jack Froland was pretty despondent awhile back. Maybe he wrote a bunch of letters like that to public officials. You know—to make other people feel bad, too.”

I gave Milo a sideways look. “He may have written at least one other. Spencer Fleetwood told me he’d gotten one like it. He volunteered the information. I didn’t tell him about Marsha.”

Milo shrugged again, then reached for the catsup. “See? It’s a wonder you and I didn’t get one. Poor old Jack was on the peck.”

All the time that Vida and I had invested in Marsha’s letter seemed to have been wasted. “If that’s the case,” I grumbled, “he wasn’t much of a letter writer.”

“Oh?” Milo was amused. “You’re just pissed because you didn’t get a letter. Maybe Jack wrote his own obituary notice. At least that showed some imagination. I thought ‘Come see Jack-in-the-box’ was pretty damned funny.”

“Not to mention in poor taste,” I retorted. But Milo’s comment made me think. “I wonder—who did write that notice?”

“June, I suppose,” Milo said, dipping a couple of fat French fries into the catsup.

“No.” I shook my head. “Not June. She has neither the wit nor the imagination. Max—despite his propensity for passing out in public places—wouldn’t have turned in anything so crass. Not to mention that the phrasing wasn’t exactly impeccable.”

“You said the handwriting on the judge’s letter was Jack’s,” Milo pointed out.

“That’s true. But someone else may have told him what to write.”

Milo pushed his empty plate aside and nodded to Beverly who was across the aisle waiting on a couple who looked like tourists. “That could be. What difference does it make? Do you still think Jack may have been poisoned on purpose?”

I sighed. “Not really. Unless it was June, performing a mercy killing. It just seems strange that after so many years of foraging, Jack and June would make such a terrible mistake and pick the wrong kind of mushrooms.”

Beverly handed us separate checks. “Did I hear you say mushrooms?” she asked in her chirpy little voice. “You should try our new mushroom burger next time. It’s unbelievable.”

“Magic mushrooms, huh?” Milo gave Beverly his lopsided grin.

“Well . . .” Beverly’s fair skin turned pink. “Not those kind. But they’re really incredible mushrooms. We get them all the way from Tacoma.”

Innocently, I smiled at Beverly. “You don’t pick the local ones?”

Beverly shook her head. “They’re too seasonal. And tricky. Some of them are poisonous. In fact,” she leaned closer and spoke in a whisper. “I heard that Uncle Jack— Uncle Jack Froland, I mean—ate some just before he died and they killed him. Isn’t that awful?”

“Who told you that?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“My dad,” Beverly replied, still whispering. “He heard it from Uncle Fred who found out just today after he and Aunt Opal got back from vacation. I think Uncle Max told him.”

Apparently, Beverly hadn’t made the connection between Max’s information and its source, who was sitting right in front of her with a toothpick in his mouth.

“But,” Beverly went on, “my mom says it’s a good thing. This way, Uncle Jack—Uncle Jack Froland—didn’t have to suffer any more.”

“True,” I said. “Uncle Jack”—I omitted the clarification between the two Jacks—“is at peace.”

“Yes,” Beverly said, then turned as the tourists summoned her back over to their booth.

When she was out of hearing range, I spoke softly to Milo. “The grapevine runneth. But I had a thought.”

“Which is?” Milo inquired, putting a dollar bill and two quarters down for Beverly’s tip.

“Magic mushrooms,” I said, digging into my wallet to pay my share. “If Terry Woodson was a doper, wouldn’t he enjoy a magic mushroom now and then?”

“Maybe.” Milo stood up, obviously anxious to be on his way. “So what?”

“Well . . .” I paused as I got out of the booth. “I don’t know,” I admitted as Milo put a paw in the middle of my back to hustle me down the aisle. “I guess I was having a little fantasy.”

“Save it for one of your editorials,” Milo retorted.

We paid our bills, then exited into bright sunlight. I made the sheriff promise to let me know what he found out about Terry Woodson. “Survivors, especially,” I said, hurrying to catch up with his long stride. “I might interview them.”

Milo didn’t respond. He was already loping past the
Advocate
entrance while I trailed behind.

Vida was at her desk, nibbling on those infernal carrot and celery sticks. “I hear they’ve identified the fire victim,” she said before I could get all the way inside the newsroom. “Billy told me a few minutes ago.”

I gave Vida a dubious look. “How long did you have to hold your poor nephew’s head underwater?”

Vida looked askance. “He volunteered, of course. I just happened to stop in at the sheriff’s office on my way back from the bank.”

I stood in front of Vida’s desk. “I suppose,” I said with a touch of sarcasm, “you’ve already spoken with Terry Woodson’s surviving kin.”

“Of course.” She peered at me from behind her big glasses. “Terry Woodson’s mother, Irma, is in a nursing home in Monroe. Her brain is completely gone, from drink, I gather. Her liver’s not far behind. Terry’s father—his name was Elmer—died last spring, but after he and Irma divorced twenty-five years or so ago, he remarried. The second wife’s name is Lorena. She’s somewhat younger and seemingly sober. I got all this information from her. A pleasant woman, if somewhat dim.”

I absorbed all this data with what was no doubt a slightly stunned expression. “Did Mrs. Woodson tell you how her stepson went wrong?”

“Yes.” Vida didn’t bother to hide a smug expression. “He was led astray by another youth. It was what caused the breakup of Elmer Woodson’s first marriage. Terry got mixed up with drugs. So typical, so foolish. He led what Lorena Woodson called an ‘alternate lifestyle.’ Indeed.” Vida made a face. “He left home, wandered about, returned—a pattern oft repeated. Finally, he ended up living in the woods. Lorena didn’t know where. It was too late to care, as she put it. And Terry still let this other fellow hold a heavy influence over him.”

I could tell from the sly look in Vida’s eyes that she was holding something back.

I had to ask. “Okay—who’s the evil genius?”

The smug look turned downright catlike. “Zeke Foster-Klein. Now isn’t that interesting?”