Alpine Icon

by Mary Daheim

  Chapter Seventeen

  I GRIMACED INTO the receiver. “It could mean that she was murdered. Or that whoever brought her to the river left without her and somebody else came along. Before Richie Magruder, that is.”

  “Too complicated,” Vida declared. “Simple explanations are usually best. I've felt all along that Ursula's death wasn't accidental. The problem is that homicide by drowning is so difficult to ascertain. According to Buck, who encountered a similar situation when he was in the military, it's only detectable if there's evidence of a struggle. In that case, there was, and the killer was apprehended. I'm beginning to think Ursula's murderer will go free.”

  So was I. Except for that curious, eerie feeling I'd had while talking to Ed. I wasn't sure at the time what had caused the sensation, and I tried to explain it to Vida.

  “You felt strange while speaking with Ed?” Vida exclaimed. “1 should think so! Conversations with that ninny make me queasy. Everything is always about Ed.”

  “This was different.” I couldn't put my finger on what had set me off. “It was something he said, about Warren and his second wife, the one who died. Vida, are you sure she had leukemia?”

  Vida grew testy. “I told you, I know nothing about her.” The admission came hard. “Mrs. DeBee had no sense of news gathering. If Warren married someone from out of town—and in this case, out of county—she simply paid no attention. Our readers were ill informed until I came to work for The Advocate.”

  There was no bravado in Vida's tone, just a statement of fact. “It was Francine who told me,” I said. “I think it was Francine.”

  “If you have reason to doubt, we could check through the Times” Vida said, simmering down. “I assume she died in Seattle, though she may have returned to Monroe. Better yet, we could call the paper in Monroe. They would have posted a notice, since she was a local woman. The obituary might list cause of death, or name a charity associated with whatever disease she suffered from. If indeed it was a disease,” Vida added darkly. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

  “I guess.” I didn't like thinking it, though.

  “I know the present editor,” Vida said. “I'll call him tomorrow.”

  After I hung up, I tried Milo's number again. He still wasn't home, so I left a message. Now that I was off the phone with Vida, my fancy about Alexis Wells seemed foolish. Searching back through the exchange with Ed, I tried to recall what might have triggered my rush of anxiety. We had talked about Warren's bad luck with women, about his second wife's insurance, about the stepson, about the disposition of Ursula's estate. It was all tragic, but not exactly sinister.

  By nine o'clock, I'd given up on Milo. There was a movie on TV that seemed worth watching, so I settled in front of the set with a glass of Pepsi and my second cigarette of the day. I hadn't managed to quit smoking, but I'd definitely cut down. Before the first intermission, I was disenchanted with the plodding story line. Turning off the TV, I went into the kitchen to get more Pepsi.

  That was when I heard the noise.

  At first I thought it was coming from the bedroom, and that my intruder was back. I froze in front of the refrigerator, then realized that someone was knocking at the door, instead of using the bell. Maybe it was Milo.

  It was Murray Felton. In my surprise, I spilled Pepsi on the floor. After I let him in, Murray laughed, insisted on getting a towel from the bathroom, and finally sauntered over to my dark green armchair while I wiped up the puddle. I offered him his choice of beer or Pepsi, but he declined.

  “I came up here to give you some professional advice,” Murray said, making himself comfortable. “You've had a real human-interest story fall in your lap. Don't assign it to a staffer, write it yourself. It's all about opportunism, and how it doesn't always pay off.”

  I had thought at first that Murray was talking about Polly's vase. But now I realized he wasn't. The problem was that I didn't know what he meant. “Luce? Ursula? The town itself?”

  “No, no.” Murray shook his head, somewhat deflated by my obtuseness. “Warren Wells.” A small smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Here's a guy who hits middle age and is going nowhere. He's never been able to make it on his own. Finally he meets a rich babe who falls for him, and suddenly everything looks cool.” Murray paused, his eyes roaming to the open beams of the ceiling. “That meeting was no accident. You can take that to the bank. Warren and Ursula had known each other here in Alpine, when they were young. Maybe they had something going then, maybe not, but he went after her, like a hunter stalking a deer. Fast-forward to this summer: Ursula wants to move back to Alpine, maybe because she sees a new world to conquer, maybe because there's a buzz around Seattle about her late husband's malpractice fiasco. I don't know if Warren was hot to trot to Alpine, but he didn't have much choice—Ursula was used to getting her way, and she did. And that's when the wheels started falling off.” Murray fixed me with a wry smile. “Agreed?”

  I thought of Warren and Francine. “I gather things didn't go as planned.”

  “It was a bad plan,” Murray declared. “They should have stayed in Seattle. Maybe it would have turned out differently. But I doubt it.” There was bite in his tone.

  “Warren might have felt his sporting-goods store would have less competition in Alpine,” I said somewhat dubiously. “Besides, real estate is cheaper here than in the city.”

  “Oh, sure.” Murray chuckled softly. “But you still need start-up money. Which Warren now doesn't have. In fact, what Warren has is zip, nada, the old goose egg, instead of the big nest egg. And that's why you have such a fascinating study of human nature that'll keep your readers glued to the page. This town has a loser's mentality; they would have liked to kill Warren if everything had gone thumbs-up for him. A triumphal return, the defector comes out on top, the jerk who walked out on his first wife and kid ends up with a rich wife and a house to die for. It wouldn't have played in this burg, Emma Lord. In some ways, Warren's lucky it folded. Disgruntled guys like Lucci and Vancich might have lynched him.”

  Bemused, I sat back against the cushions of my sofa. “So what you're saying is that I should write an article that'll make the rest of Alpine feel good. Warren's a loser just like the rest of you. Is that it?”

  Murray leaned forward in the armchair. “A bigger loser. The higher you climb, the harder you fall. That's the important part. He finally got what's coming to him.”

  I didn't respond immediately. Rather, I sipped my Pepsi and tried to understand Murray's angle. Oh, he had one, but it was small-minded and vindictive. Certainly it wasn't the tone I tried to set for The Advocate. While I considered a less damning way to write the story, Murray got up and strolled over to the mantel. Out of the corner of my eye, behind the sofa, he picked up a Wedgwood candy dish that had belonged to my mother.

  “Don't drop that,” I warned him, and was suddenly reminded of Roger's disaster with Polly's vase.

  And was suddenly reminded of Verb, talking about being reminded of another troublesome young boy. “Oh, my God!” I gasped.

  Murray turned, and I swiveled around on the sofa. “My mother's best friend bought that for her in London,” I said in a jagged voice. “I cherish it. My parents died young, in an automobile accident.”

  Carefully Murray replaced the candy dish. “It's safe. What's wrong?”

  “You haven't heard about Polly Patricelli's vase? I should have told you, it would have made a good story, a follow-up to …” My brain seemed to have stalled; I was having difficulty finding words. “I mean, it wasn't your station that carried the original feature on the vase. But you might have beat them with the news that the vase was broken Monday night.” I thought of my call to Murray's workplace. What had the brusque voice at the Seattle TV station barked when I'd asked for Murray? “Not here!” Did that mean not there at the moment—or not there at all?

  Murray had returned to the armchair but hadn't yet reseated himself. “It's old news now.” He shrugged, but his eyes remained fixed o
n me. “So what's up? You're acting kind of weird. Have you got something more than pop in that glass?”

  “No, no.” I laughed, a forced, unnatural sound. “No,” I repeated, making a valiant effort to get a grip on myself. “It's just that I'm sort of paranoid about that Wedgwood dish. My mother always wanted one so much, and she'd only had it a few months before she was killed. I wouldn't mind a drink, though. How about you?”

  My return to an apparently normal state seemed to satisfy Murray. “No, thanks. I've got another call to make. You will write that story, won't you?”

  “It's news,” I replied, trying to sound like a true muckraking professional. “You're right. Warren's failure will make people around here feel better about themselves. That's terribly important.”

  Murray looked relieved. “Okay. I'm off.” He started for the door. “Chenille bathrobes aren't sexy,” he said over his shoulder. “You're sexy, but the bathrobe kills it. I hope Dodge isn't stopping by tonight.”

  “Oh, but he is.” I smiled bravely. “The sheriff is an old-fashioned kind of guy. Victoria's Secret catalogs terrify him.”

  “I figured,” said Murray. He left.

  As soon as I saw the red Mazda Miata pull away from the spot by my mailbox, I called the sheriff's office. Where the hell was Milo? I demanded. According to Jack Mullins, he should be home. He'd worked late, held hostage by yet another domestic flare-up, out by Cass Pond.

  Sure enough, Milo answered on the first ring. “Sorry, Emma,” he apologized. “I just got home. You don't have a spare steak, do you? I'm starved.”

  Instead of a steak, I offered Milo specific instructions. He balked at first, as I knew he would, then listened with mounting interest. By the time I'd finished, he'd agreed to follow my instincts. Prevention, after all, was the first rule of law enforcement.

  For the next minute I sat with my head in my hands, wondering what hath Emma wrought? Then I called Vida. She shushed me after less than ten seconds, and said she'd be right over.

  She was, arriving at two minutes to ten, just as I finished dressing. “Now—what is this?” she demanded, adjusting her very ugly purple turban.

  “I'm not sure,” I admitted. “It's about Warren and Verb and Murray Felton.”

  From under the folds of the turban, Vida stared. “Who on earth is Murray Felton?”

  I'd forgotten that I hadn't told Vida about Murray. “I'll explain on the way,” I said. “I think we should drive over to The Pines.”

  Vida didn't ask why, though she insisted we take her Buick. Five minutes later, we were approaching Ursula Randall's house. There was no sign of the sheriff. I cursed under my breath, and was reproved by Vida. She had now been sketchily filled in on Murray and hadn't yet had time to condemn me for my alleged oversight in not informing her sooner.

  “Should we wait for Milo?” she asked, peering through the windshield.

  “I don't know that we can,” I said in an anxious voice.

  Vida displayed what was reasonable caution under the circumstances. “But this could be an explosive situation, could it not?”

  Grimly I patted my purse. “We aren't without resources,” I said darkly.

  “Oh, good grief!” Vida was aghast. “Don't tell me you've done something stupid! Do you have a weapon in there?”

  “Yes.” I opened the car door. “Let's go. If nothing else, we can create a diversion.”

  Vida, however, protested. “I absolutely refuse to let you fire a gun.” She grabbed the purse and put it in her lap. “You'll shoot me or yourself. When was the last time you fired a pistol or a revolver or whatever you have in there?”

  “Vida …” I tried to wrestle the purse away from her, but she held firm. “Look, my father taught me how to shoot—”

  “Twenty years ago? Thirty is more like it.” Vida's face was set. “You've always claimed to have no knowledge of firearms. My experience is more recent. I had to use Ernest's thirty-eight to scare off a cougar two years ago. The wretched animal was trying to get at my bird feeder. Perhaps you remember the incident. Now, let's sit here quietly and wait for Milo.”

  “We can't,” I insisted. “Really, Vida, a life may hang in the balance.”

  Vida rolled her eyes. “Oh, good grief!” she repeated. “This sounds so dramatic! How could anyone I don't know get into such a mess in Alpine?”

  Having thus categorized Murray as negligible, Vida got out of the Buick, which she had parked on the main road, presumably to give Milo free access to the driveway. While she might fear for our safety, I knew that nothing could deter Vida from finding out what was going on inside the handsome house that now apparently belonged to Jake and Buzzy O'Toole. The neighborhood seemed very quiet, yet I sensed that the air of serenity was deceptive. The red Miata was pulled up by the double garage, which I assumed housed Ursula's Lexus and Warren's BMW Z3.

  We approached silently, heading straight for the front door until Vida veered off and tiptoed toward the big arched window in the living room. The recently planted shrubs offered a minimum of hiding places, but Vida managed to duck behind a rhododendron. I sidled up to her, not daring to look through the glass. But Murray Felton was shouting, and I knew his target was Warren Wells.

  “You're back to selling tennis balls and salmon eggs, asshole! I hope you have to stand behind some crummy counter in a two-bit store peddling ammo until you're ninety!”

  I heard Vida make a clucking noise with her tongue, but Warren's reply was muffled. Through the glossy oval leaves of the rhododendron, I couldn't see Murray, but I could make out Warren's profile. He seemed abject, but I might have been wrong.

  “Put a fork in it, Wells!” Murray shouted. “You're done.”

  Anxiously I glanced toward the road. There was still no sign of Milo. Had Jack Mullins thought I was kidding? That was the trouble with romancing the sheriff: his colleagues stopped taking you seriously.

  Vida leaned toward me. “The bedroom window,” she whispered. “It must open from the outside. Do you think… ?”

  The mental image of Vida and me crawling through the window into Ursula's boudoir was ludicrous. “Why don't we ring the bell?” I whispered back.

  But for once, Vida seemed to have abandoned her usual blunderbuss tactics. “Hmm … I don't know …” She peered through the shrubbery. “Drat, I can't hear Warren. Ah! He's moving. Maybe this Murray person is leaving.”

  The Murray person wasn't going anywhere, judging by the gun that Warren had pulled out from somewhere that I couldn't see. Vida and I both froze behind the bush. But we could now hear Warren, who had raised his voice.

  “You've ruined everything! You always did! You were nothing but a little shit from the get-go!”

  “You killed her, you bastard!” Murray yelled back. “You're weak, you're cruel, you're nothing but a worthless prick!”

  Even in the shadows, I could see that Vida's face showed alarm. “We can't let Warren shoot that foul-mouthed man! What shall we do?” She saw me glance down at my purse. “Not that! Don't you dare, Emma!”

  “I wasn't really—” My words were cut off as Murray dove for Warren. The two men went down and out of sight. Vida and I stared at each other, then both galloped off to the double doors. The melodious chime sounded just as we heard the shot. Vida pulled on the brass handle, but the doors were locked. A stunning silence ensued, broken only by the approach of Milo's Cherokee Chief.

  I started to wave as he drove up to the house, but turned sharply when the front door swung open. A trembling Warren Wells stood before us. There was blood on his pale blue sport shirt, and he just stared, speechless. Then he saw Milo striding up to the porch, and passed out at Vida's feet.

  “What the hell … ?” Milo glanced from Warren's recumbent figure to me. I had knelt down to make sure that the blood wasn't coming from Warren. Vida apparently had noted as much, and had already stepped over the unconscious man to go inside the house.

  “Warren may have shot his stepson,” I gasped. “I think it was self-defense.
Get an ambulance. Murray may still be alive.”

  “Murray?” Milo stopped in mid-step, obviously dumbfounded. “You mean that smart-ass TV reporter?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, I'm not sure he is a TV reporter.” I, too, was shaking. “Go. Get help. Vida's inside with Murray. I'll stay with Warren.” I had no desire to see what carnage had been wrought in the living room.

  The sheriff jumped over Warren and disappeared. I could hear him talking to Vida. Murray wasn't dead, but she believed that the wound to his chest was serious. A moment later I heard Milo barking orders over his cell phone. Next to my knees, Warren stirred.

  “It's okay,” I said softly. “Milo's here, he'll take care of everything.”

  Warren made an attempt to roll over and look at me. “I didn't mean to … but he jumped me.” Letting out a long, agonized sigh, he let me help him sit up. “Murray was about the worst kid I ever met. Why did he have to belong to Alexis?”

  “She probably spoiled him,” I said, thinking not only of Roger, but of my own sometimes wayward son, Adam.

  Warren sat on the porch with his head on his knees. “I left Alicia for him. My bright, beautiful daughter— Murray's right, I'm a prick.” He peered out at me over his hunched shoulder. “Can you call Francine?”

  “Sure,” I replied, hearing the wail of the ambulance siren in the distance. “Is Alicia still with her?”

  “Yes.” Warren rubbed at his temples. “We still have a lot to talk through It didn't turn out to be much of a Labor Day vacation for Alicia.”

  It hadn't turned out to be much of a holiday for several people in Alpine. The ambulance came up alongside Milo's Cherokee Chief. I recognized the drivers, though I could never remember their names. They went straight for Warren, but I waved them off.

  “The wounded man's inside,” I said as Warren and I both got to our feet.

  “I need a drink,” Warren muttered, still rubbing his head.

  It sounded like a good idea to me. But mixing cocktails at the baroque bar would be in poor taste until Murray Felton was removed from the living room. “Let's walk a bit in the garden,” I suggested. “You can tell me about your stepson.”