The Alpine Betrayal

by Mary Daheim

  “What?” asked Milo.

  “Whatever. I can stop at the Grocery Basket on the way home.” It occurred to me that after this weekend’s grand opening, I could stop at Safeway. Maybe they wouldn’t have gray meat.

  “I feel like chops,” said Milo.

  “Pork or lamb?”

  “Lamb. Wait—which one is the real little kind?”

  “Lamb.” I winced. According to the Grocery Basket’s ad, which even now lay before me in the new edition of The Advocate, pork chops were on special. Lamb would cost me about three times as much. “Say, Milo—who is Curtis Graff? I meant to ask Vida, but I forgot.”

  “Curtis? He’s the older Graff kid. You know, Cody’s brother. I think he went to Alaska.” In the background, voices erupted. Milo apparently had visitors. “I’ve got to go, Emma. Mrs. Whipp just broke her Mixmaster over Mr. Whipp’s head up at the retirement home. See you around eight.”

  The Whipps had recently celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary at the VFW Hall. Vida’s account had omitted the part about Mr. Whipp trying to drown Mrs. Whipp in the punch bowl.

  Maybe it was just as well that Milo and I weren’t madly in love.

  Ten minutes later, I was about to head for the Grocery Basket when Carla and Ginny Burmeister flew into my office. To my amazement, Carta’s eyes were red-rimmed and Ginny was showing signs of deep distress.

  “Carla’s poisoned,” Ginny declared, her usual composure in disarray. A tail, thin girl whose thick auburn hair was her best feature, Ginny was an ardent adherent of order and routine. Carla was adroit at ruining both. “Look!” Ginny grabbed Carla’s left arm and thrust it at me as if it were a haunch of meat. Irreverently, I wondered how much it would cost a pound at the Grocery Basket.

  “It’s that bee,” gasped Carla. “I must be allergic.”

  Sure enough, Carla’s forearm was flaming red and swollen twice its normal size. Lightly, I touched the bright flesh. “It’s hot, all right. Have you ever been stung before?”

  “Sure,” gulped Carla. “Lots. At least when I was little.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a bee,” I said, flipping through my Rolodex for Doc Dewey’s number. “It may have been a wasp or a yellowjacket, especially at that elevation.”

  To my relief, Marje Blatt answered. Obviously, at least one of the Deweys was still around. Young Doc was at the hospital, waiting for Mr. Whipp and his concussion, but Doc Senior was just getting ready to go home. Could we come right away?

  We could and did, all three of us jamming into the Jaguar. Carla moaned a lot as we drove the four blocks from the newspaper to the medical-dental clinic. Since Alpine is built on a sidehill, most of the streets going away from the downtown area are fairly steep. I geared down as I approached the intersection at Third and Cedar; a logging truck, minus its rig, had the right of way and was going much too fast for town driving. BLACKWELL TIMBER was painted in bold black letters on the cab’s door. I recognized Jack Blackwell in the driver’s seat, with Patti Marsh at his side. From this angle, Patti didn’t look much like her famous daughter. One of these days maybe I’d get a close-up in good light.

  I hadn’t seen Doc Dewey Senior since the high school commencement exercises in June. He had always been a small but robust man of about seventy, with a brusque bedside manner masking a gentle soul. Yet as I watched him tend to Carla, he looked as if he had shrunk. His white hair seemed more sparse and the sparkle had gone out of his blue eyes. Doc’s expertise was intact, however, as he administered a shot of adrenaline to Carla.

  “Yellowjacket, that’s my guess,” Doc Dewey announced while Carla flinched and moaned some more. “I’ll write you a prescription for an antihistamine. Don’t cheat on it, girlie.”

  Doc, whose first name was Cecil, always referred to female patients, regardless of age, as girlie. Males were addressed as young man. I wasn’t sure if there was sexism involved, since his overriding attitude was that all his patients were idiots, regardless of gender.

  Doc was at his desk, scribbling away. “Where’d you get that, girlie?” he asked, looking back at Carla over his glasses.

  Breathlessly, Carla explained. “I didn’t notice much at the time,” she concluded. “I was so caught up in the cinematic experience.”

  “The what?” Doc had gotten to his feet and was looking at Carla as if she were delirious. “You mean those Hollywood people?” He all but spat. “Stupid, just stupid! Dani ought to know better than to come back to Alpine. What’s that poor girlie thinking of?”

  Ginny, who had been holding Carla’s hand, eyed Doc curiously. “What do you mean, Doc? Carla says she’s very sweet.”

  Doc made a whistling sound through the excellent dentures constructed for him by his fellow tenant, Dr. Starr. “Never mind. Let’s just say some things are better left alone. It would take God Almighty Himself to sort out that mess, though it makes a body feel guilty not to lend a hand. Here, take this over to Parker’s Pharmacy. They don’t close until nine.” He thrust the prescription not at Carla, but at Ginny. I guessed that Doc knew instinctively which of them was more reliable.

  At the moment, I wished I knew what Doc was talking about. It seemed to me that Carla was right—Dani Marsh was a very genuine, pleasant person. But a lot of Alpiners didn’t seem to agree. Maybe Dani was acting. It was, after all, her profession. In the two weeks that she would be in Alpine, I might be able to find out what the real Dani Marsh was like.

  It didn’t occur to me then that there might be reasons why I wouldn’t want to know.

  Chapter Four

  EXCEPT FOR AN occasional Clint Eastwood video, I don’t think Milo Dodge has seen a movie since his wife left him for another man. The location shooting up at Baldy held no fascination for the sheriff of Skykomish County. Milo loved his lamb chops, but he wasn’t much interested in the return of Dani Marsh.

  “She was in school with one of my kids. I think,” he added a bit doubtfully.

  If Milo was right, Dani had probably been a classmate of his oldest daughter, Tanya. I’d met only one of his three children—Brandon, who had spent most of July with Milo before going to Bellevue to stay with his mother and her second husband. Tanya lived in Seattle with an aspiring sculptor Milo referred to as Flake Nuts. The youngest of the Dodge offspring was still in high school. Milo usually went to Bellevue once a month to see her and to avoid Old Mulehide, the mother of his brood.

  “Dani’s twenty-four, according to her press release.” I noted, shoveling out more green beans for Milo. “Tanya’s the same age, right?”

  “I guess so,” Milo replied vaguely. Birthdays were more of a mystery to the sheriff than was the criminal mind. He was polishing off his third lamb chop and eyeing the empty platter wistfully. A big, shambling man with sandy hair and hazel eyes, Milo Dodge did a pretty good imitation of a bottomless pit.

  Since dessert didn’t exist, I offered him more bread. Obviously, I wasn’t going to get anywhere interrogating him about Dani Marsh. Vida, as usual, would have to be my primary source. I changed the subject to Loggerama and saw Milo’s long face grow longer.

  “Let’s just hope we don’t get a bunch of tourists overrunning the town,” he said, slapping much butter and a lot of jelly onto his bread. “The ski lodge is already full, what with the movie people staying there, and both motels have been booked for a month. I wish they’d hurry the hotel renovation along. We could use some extra space in the summers.”

  Milo referred to the restoration of the old Alpine Hotel, which until this past winter had housed a few elderly tenants and an occasional transient who could afford the twenty dollar minimum. A California consortium had bought the property, however, with intentions of restoring it to its former Edwardian glory. They were taking their time about it, perhaps somewhat daunted by the discovery that the hotel’s glory days were a figment of some glib realtor’s imagination. The Alpine Hotel had never been anything more than a boarding house with a lobby.

  “I’d like to have a lot more than five depu
ties,” Milo grumbled. “I’m thinking of scouting around for some volunteers.”

  “What are you expecting? A riot at the base of the Carl Clemans statue?” My tone was dour; old Carl was not likely to incite pandemonium. As the town’s founder and owner of the original mill, he was always described as a benevolent, if shrewd, human being. “This will be my third Loggerama. I don’t recall any big problems the last two years.”

  Milo’s plate was now bare, except for three bones. I halfway expected he’d grind them up with his teeth. Pushing away from the table, he stretched out his long legs. “Maybe I’m just nervous because I’ve got an election coming up this fall. I hear that Averill Fairbanks is thinking of running against me.”

  I got up to fetch the coffeepot. “Averill is gaga. He reports a UFO sighting about once a month. Nobody would take him seriously.”

  “That’s not necessarily so. Crazy Eights Neffel runs for the legislature every two years, and even though he’s certifiable, he’s never gotten less than ten percent of the vote in this district. Back in ’64, Dolph Swecker ran his goat for city council and beat A. J. Iverson by thirty votes.”

  I glanced back into the little dining room to see if Milo was joking. He didn’t look like it. Small towns are strange places, hell-bent on preserving their individuality. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find that the goat had been impeached for embezzling. It wouldn’t be any stranger than the man up on Burl Creek Road who had gone through a wedding ceremony last May with a deer named Cora.

  “I wouldn’t worry about Averill,” I said, pouring us both more coffee. It was beginning to cool off inside the house. I had both doors open and several of the windows, too. My two-bedroom home is built of logs at the edge of the forest. Tonight, no breeze stirred the tall evergreens, but their sheltering branches helped protect me from the sun. Feeling guilty over the lack of dessert, I suggested a brandy with coffee. Milo looked at his watch.

  “Better not, Emma,” he said. “It’s after nine. I’ve got to be up at the crack of dawn to help with the parade route.”

  “What do you mean, parade route? They start at one end of Front Street and stop at the other. This isn’t Macy’s Thanksgiving extravaganza, you know.”

  Milo took three quick gulps of coffee and stood up. “All the same, I’d better run.” He avoided my gaze. “Did I have a jacket?”

  “In eighty-five degree weather?” I was following him into the living room. “Gosh, Milo, you’re jumpy tonight. You shouldn’t let Loggerama get to you. It’s supposed to be fun.” Casually, I placed a hand on his arm. Maybe it really was the upcoming election that was bothering him. But Milo was already finishing his second term. I hadn’t been in Alpine when he’d run for office before, but I knew he’d won handily. “Who is it?” I asked, looking up at him. Surely there had to be another, more credible candidate in the offing than Averill Fairbanks and his UFOs.

  Milo’s reply rocked me: “Honoria Whitman. She’s a potteress in Startup.” Milo was looking miserable as he put a big hand over mine. “I meant to tell you about her, Emma, but I didn’t have the nerve.”

  I was gaping at him. “A potteress? You mean you’re seeing someone?” My voice sounded shrill. I pulled my hand away and stepped back.

  Milo swallowed hard. “I met her last June when I was fishing down on the Skykomish River. She owns a place just off the back road that hooks up into the Sultan Basin. I guess she’s been there about a year, up from California.”

  “California!” It figured. Even though I knew all Californians didn’t have horns and forked tails, I wasn’t reassured. The Pacific Northwest had been invaded by Californians for the last two decades, jamming our cities, crowding our highways, polluting our air, and even daring to introduce a work ethic. Honoria Whitman, with her crude clay pots and organic compost heap, was no doubt lounging around in Startup wearing flowing ethnic garments and hoping to improve the lot of the pitiful natives.

  “Your private life is your own business,” I told Milo frostily. My brown eyes shot daggers. “Are you bringing Honoria to Loggerama, or would she find it too vulgar?”

  “I told you: I’m working the whole damned time,” Milo replied, his annoyance as plain as my own. “In fact, this might be the only night I’ll be able to see her until Loggerama is over.”

  “Then,” I demanded, as he edged toward the door and I stalked him with arms folded across my breast, “why the hell didn’t you have her feed you? Or don’t you like Tofu Helper?”

  Milo gazed at the beamed ceiling. “Wednesday nights Honoria teaches a class in pottery at Everett Junior College. She doesn’t get home until almost ten.” He seemed to be talking through gritted teeth.

  My rational self told me to calm down. There was no reason for me to be angry with Milo. His private life was indeed his own. We had never exchanged so much as a kiss. Why then did I feel betrayed? Was it only my ego and not my heart which was wounded?

  I threw up my hands. “It must be the lamp chops,” I confessed sheepishly. “They set me back fourteen bucks. If you’d asked for hot dogs, I’d have told you to bring Honoria along.”

  Milo appeared partially convinced. Or else he was just anxious to make his peace and be gone. “You’d like her, Emma. She’s very soothing company.”

  On drugs was the evil thought that flickered through my mind. But I tried to smile. “Go on, have a good time. I’ll see you at the Loggerama kickoff banquet tomorrow night.”

  If Milo hadn’t already been wearing his cotton sports shirt open at the neck, I swear he would have run his finger inside his collar. Instead, he gave me a lopsided grin and an awkward wave, then loped out the front door. With a sigh, I went out on the porch, conscious as ever of the fresh scent of pine on the clear mountain air. Milo was climbing into his Cherokee Chief. He was a nice man, and I ought to wish him well. Certainly he wasn’t the sort I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. He was too rough around the edges, too small-town in his outlook, too anti-intellectual and too unsophisticated.

  But even more than what he was, there was what he wasn’t: Milo Dodge wasn’t Tom Cavanaugh, and that was that.

  Front Street was lined with bunting and banners, looking more festive than the Fourth of July, more colorful than Christmas. Just as Milo had feared, tourists were beginning to arrive in Alpine. Traffic on Front Street was unusually heavy, which meant there were cars in both lanes. I made a mental note to have Carla do a story on the visitors, with perhaps two or three interviews included.

  Having walked to work, as I often did in the summer, I greeted Ginny Burmeister, who informed me that Carla wasn’t coming in. The yellowjacket sting was less swollen, but the reaction had upset her stomach. She hoped to be back to work tomorrow.

  Vida hadn’t yet arrived, and Ed was at a Kiwanis breakfast meeting. I went into my editorial office and made a haphazard attempt to clear my desk. Among the leftovers from this week’s edition were several glossy photos of the movie crew—Dani Marsh, Matt Tabor, even Reid Hampton. I started to pitch them into the wastebasket, but it occurred to me that there might be some fans around town who’d appreciate having the pictures as souvenirs. I left them to one side, then sorted through the notes Ginny had left on my desk. As always on a Thursday, there were repercussions from the previous day’s paper. Several people had responded—unfavorably—to my article on the danger of flooding caused by clear-cutting timber. Never mind that I’d tried to balance the piece. In a town that leaned on lumber for much of its economic stability, it was hard to present any other point of view.

  Most of the criticism, however, had to do with the historical pieces we had run in the special Loggerama section. The turn-of-the-century silver mines had been worked by Chinese, not Japanese. The Japanese and possibly some Koreans had worked on the Great Northern Railroad because the Chinese had been excluded by a federal act in 1882. That, asserted Grace Grundle, was why Alpine had originally been named Nippon. The largest steelhead ever caught in the Skykomish River was thirty-two pounds, t
hree ounces, not thirty-three pounds, two ounces. And the year was 1925, not 1924, insisted Vida’s eldest brother, Ralph Blatt. The correct spelling of the name of the Norwegian emigrant who had helped Rufus Runkel found the ski lodge was Olav Lanritsen, with just one n, not two, said Henry Bardeen, the current resort manager.

  No matter how certain a reader may be, it doesn’t pay to accept criticism on faith alone. I would check and recheck each correction. I never ran a retraction, never suppressed a story, never allowed anyone to censor the news—but I always owned up to mistakes.

  I was verifying the spelling of Olav the Obese’s surname when I heard the newsroom door open. Vida, I thought, without looking up. But it was Patti Marsh, tramping purposefully toward my inner sanctum.

  “You bitch!” she flared, leaning on my desk and showing her teeth like a she-wolf. “You defamed me! I’ll sue your butt off!”

  Being threatened by furious readers wasn’t a novelty to me. Usually, however, they resorted to the telephone, being timid about facing me in person. But Patti Marsh was bold as brass tacks, glaring at me from about three feet away.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, turning slightly in my swivel chair and staring right back.

  She jabbed at a copy of The Advocate that lay on my desk. “That’s the problem, right there on page four! You said my husband left me! That’s a lie, I threw the bastard out! Nobody leaves Patti Erskine Marsh!”

  Calmly, I pulled the paper out from under her hand and opened it to the offending page. I read Vida’s copy aloud:

  “‘When Dani was less than a year old, her father left Alpine. Patti Marsh raised her only daughter alone, working at the Loggers’ Café. After Dani’s graduation from Alpine High School in 1985, she married …’” I stopped and shrugged. “Excuse me, Ms. Marsh, it doesn’t say he left you; it says he left Alpine. That’s not exactly the same.”

  “The hell it isn’t!” Patti Marsh waved a sunburned arm in repudiation. Up close, in the daylight, I could see a faint resemblance to Dani. The brown eyes were similar; so was the aquiline nose. But the bad perm and the tinted blond hair didn’t do much to enhance her features. I judged her to be about my age, but there was a lot more mileage in her face than mine. She was short, like her daughter, but carried an extra twenty pounds. The polka dot halter top and the skintight white pants showed that most of the added weight was well-distributed. It was too bad that her head seemed to be empty.