Bitter Alpine

by Mary Daheim

  “Shit, I can’t see how. I don’t think he ever lived in the Bay Area, just more up north in California. He left there…” She paused, apparently doing some basic math. “Thirty-five years ago, I guess. Jack doesn’t keep in touch with anybody down there, not at least as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Not even relatives or old friends?”

  Patti shook her head, which caused her to flinch. “He cut all his ties when he came north. Except for finding out that his first wife moved up here when that nut job place opened a year or so ago.”

  It took me a couple of beats to realize she was referring to RestHaven’s Jennifer Hood. I wondered if Patti knew Jack and Jennifer had reunited briefly, if unhappily. Their tryst had ended when Jennifer stabbed him in the back in apparent revenge for how he’d treated her during their days in Dunsmuir, California. The wound wasn’t serious, but Jack had spent two days in the hospital. He’d been too embarrassed to press charges.

  I tried to think of any other reason Rachel might have wanted to see Blackwell. “Is Jack hiring right now?”

  Patti shook her head. “He’s full up. He hasn’t taken on any new people except for some temporary gyppo loggers since he fired that punk who tried to shoot him.” She gestured at the tray. “Hand me that slop. I guess I should eat something.”

  Apparently, Patti didn’t know that Mickey O’Neill had escaped from prison. I didn’t enlighten her. She had enough to cope with and would find out when she read the Advocate tomorrow. If she read the newspaper. My recollection was that her reading material consisted of celebrity magazines.

  After helping her get settled with the tray, I stood up. “Take care of yourself, Patti. I’ll call tomorrow to see how you’re getting along.”

  She looked faintly surprised. “You do that, okay? This place is pretty lonesome.”

  I agreed that was how it tended to be in hospitals, and went on my way. Ruth Sharp gave me a curt nod as I passed her desk. I nodded back. When I got in the elevator, I wondered why Blackwell hadn’t come to visit Patti on his lunch hour. I realized there had been no flowers in her room. By the time I got to the parking area, the answer came to me—I’d always known that Jack only cared about Jack.

  But I still didn’t know why he’d beaten up Patti.

  * * *

  —

  I arrived back at the office a little after one, having ordered more takeout from the Venison Inn. The all-white-meat turkey sandwich seemed a bit dry, but I reminded myself it was probably better than anything Patti had under those steel lids on her hospital tray.

  I’d just finished eating when Leo poked his head in the doorway. “I followed through on Fleetwood’s rumor about Panera Bread. It’s a midwestern outfit, based in a suburb of St. Louis. They’ve only opened a handful so far in this state, usually in shopping malls. I’ll give Spence a heads-up so he doesn’t start any rumors.”

  “He won’t,” I said. “Just be grateful that he shares even rumors of possible advertisers with us. I stopped thinking of Spence as being our evil competitor after we started doing co-op ads. He’s kept his word. And you’ve been great about returning the favor.”

  Leo lifted his shaggy eyebrows. “All nine of them in the last year?”

  “Nine is better than none,” I reminded him. “I still shudder when I think how Ed Bronsky tried not to sell ads because it meant that dirty four-letter word—w-o-r-k—to him. I really thought the Advocate might go broke my first two, three years after I bought the paper.”

  Leo grinned. “Speaking of Ed, I ran into him at Cal’s Chevron this noon. The state won’t let him put up his billboard on Highway 2. I guess that stymies his idea of being Alpine’s spokesperson. Did he really believe that County Manager Blackwell would shell out big bucks for that?”

  “Ed believes many things, mostly about Ed. If Shirley hadn’t gotten that teaching job at the grade school, they’d starve. I’m waiting for him to put his two older kids to work. They’re both taking classes at Skykomish Community College, but I don’t think they have part-time jobs.”

  “The college does have some job openings for students. Don’t you read our classified and personals ads?” he asked in mock dismay.

  “Honestly? No.” I laughed. “Do you read my editorials?”

  Leo’s grin was faintly apologetic. “It depends.”

  “Touché. That’s what I figured.”

  “Oh,” Leo said, “I got a call a little while ago from some guy who wanted to know what was going on with the murder investigation. Alison must have been away from her desk, but I told him to call you or Mitch. He didn’t leave a name or number.”

  “Better he should call Mitch,” I murmured, glancing at my reporter’s vacant desk. “He’s the best reporter I’ve ever had, but the prima donna stuff gets annoying.”

  Leo patted my arm. “You had to put up with me when I started here and was still drinking too much. Liza thinks you should be canonized.”

  “I’d have to be dead to get the halo,” I pointed out. “By the way, was there anything weird or obscene in the personals this time around?”

  “No. All one hundred percent pure. Are you still smarting from the one before Christmas that had the typo?”

  “I think I’m over it,” I replied. But it would probably haunt me forever. The man who had submitted the personal ad had been very upset about his lack of success finding a woman who wasn’t after his money. In his apparent haste to finish the ad, he had declared that he was “no longer willing to be a sucker for gold diggers.” In our frenzy of putting the paper together the day after Christmas, none of us noticed that “sucker” had been spelled with an f. We’d received calls and letters until two days into the new year.

  Leo had started to turn around, but stopped. “Say, do you remember if there was any feedback about that personals ad back in early December about someone the writer was trying to track down?”

  I had to stop and think. The first week of December seemed like a long time ago. I couldn’t even remember the name, though I’d asked Vida, of course. She’d thought about it in her usual conscientious, Alpine-Encyclopedia way, but for once she’d come up empty. “No. Maybe whoever it was got an answer from someone who didn’t contact the person via the newspaper. Not knowing who placed it in the first place, I’m guessing it came from a local who was contacted in person or by phone.”

  Leo nodded. “Probably. Or it was a weird whim on the part of the person who placed the ad. The holidays are a great time for people to wallow in nostalgia.”

  I agreed, and Leo returned to his desk. It didn’t occur to me that the personals submission might return to haunt us.

  The heavy rain had some snow in it when I drove home. Approaching our driveway, I saw an old, beat-up Mazda parked on the street’s verge with its rear end abutting our property and almost blocking the driveway. Obviously, the driver was visiting my disreputable Nelson neighbors. Not wanting to take any chances, I slowed down to see if I could spot anyone lurking around our cozy log cabin or in the garage. To my relief, there was no sign of an intruder, so I pulled off the street, drove up the driveway, and parked the Honda in its usual spot.

  I had dinner started by the time Milo arrived twenty minutes later. “Snow’s coming down harder now,” he said after kissing me. “I checked the weather and we could get three, four inches tonight. I hope everybody stays home. Then I can, too.”

  “Maybe the Nelson women’s company will take off,” I said, getting down the liquor bottles. “They’re crazy enough to party on a weeknight.”

  Milo scowled at me. “What company?”

  “Whoever owns the beater that was parked so close to…” I paused, seeing my husband’s puzzled expression. “I know it’s dark, but didn’t you notice that old Mazda?”

  He shook his head. “There was no car out there.”

  “Oh.” I shrugged. “Whoev
er it was must’ve left. Do you want to change before we have our drinks?”

  “No. I’m waiting on the weather. I may get called out. De Groote’s on duty this evening, but I want to keep her in town. She doesn’t have the experience to chase speeders on Highway 2 in snow. We’re shorthanded. If it gets bad, I’ve got to be ready to roll.”

  I managed to suppress the urge to say that De Groote should learn to get used to it. We took our drinks into the living room, though I paused to peek around the picture window’s drapes, which I’d closed after coming home. “It is a lot thicker. The grass is already almost covered. Maybe I should tell Kip to post late-breaking weather warnings.”

  Milo looked up from the TV sports listings he’d been studying. “Like what? ‘It’s snowing really hard’? I think most of the folks who live in SkyCo can figure that out for themselves.”

  “Funny sheriff,” I muttered, and flopped down on the sofa. “I did my good deed today and saw Patti Marsh at the hospital.”

  “How gruesome was it?” he asked—and, to my dismay, he lighted a cigarette.

  “Milo!” I screeched. “How many have you smoked today?”

  “Four, counting this one.” He exhaled and had the gall to form a smoke ring. “Now tell me about Patti.”

  I did, and by the time I’d wrapped up the account of my visit, he’d finished his cigarette. “So,” my aggravating husband said, “it sounds as if she still won’t turn Blackwell in. He’s going to have to kill her before we can nail the bastard. Speaking of jerks who beat up women, who’s living in the Nelson house these days? I know that Doyle and the oldest son are still in the slammer for the tree-poaching on Blackwell’s timber parcel. The two younger ones got off too easy for trying to set this place on fire. Nelson and the older kid won’t be released until early spring, but I can’t picture LaVerne going very long without a man. I haven’t seen any sign of the daughter-in-law and the little tyke, though.”

  “Sofia and the baby, Chloe—a toddler by now—are still there as far as I know. I wondered for a while if they’d moved in with their relatives in Index, but I noticed after the big maple trees lost their leaves that I could see a light on over there after dark.”

  “They must get by on welfare,” Milo remarked. “Unless they’re hooking. But we’d see more cars parked on the verge like the one you saw tonight. They have no garage or even a driveway. That pickup and the old Nova take up all the open space.”

  I agreed, and stood up. “I think dinner’s ready. Give me three minutes to dish up.”

  Milo nodded and returned to perusing the sports listings. I’d just gone into the kitchen when I heard the faint sound of a siren. By the time I’d poured the water out of the kettle that held the potatoes, I realized there were at least two sirens and they were coming closer. And closer.

  I set the kettle down on the counter and poked my head into the living room. Milo was on his cell but getting to his feet.

  “Right,” he said in a rueful voice. “I’ll meet you there, Sam.”

  “Where?” I asked, a little breathless as he put on his regulation jacket.

  “The frigging neighbors. Who else? Mickey O’Neill was in that Mazda. He beat the crap out of LaVerne and kidnapped Sofia. That’s the second time he’s hauled her off. Put dinner on hold.” He slammed out of the house.

  I was left holding the potatoes.

  Chapter 13

  As the local newspaper publisher, it didn’t seem right that I should be standing in the kitchen with a bunch of boiled spuds. But I didn’t have much choice. Sheriff Go-by-the-Book would kick my butt out of the Nelson house faster than I could say “Who? What? Where? When? and Why?”

  I was not without resources, however. I set the kettle on the counter and called Mitch. He answered after four rings. But my reporter’s reaction was initially discouraging.

  “Damn, Emma, Brenda and I just started dinner. She’s better and felt like she could eat something. Aren’t those Nelsons your neighbors?”

  “Define neighbors,” I said through gritted teeth. “At any rate, the sheriff is overly protective of his wife.”

  “Well…” Mitch paused, and I realized that he was speaking for Brenda’s benefit and not mine. “If I have to, I’ll see what I can do.” He rang off.

  I was tempted to go outside and try to peer through the bushes, but the snow was really coming down. When I opened the back door—which had been added when we remodeled the previous year—I checked the thermometer that had moved outside after the garage was enclosed. It was twenty-eight degrees. My nose for news was suddenly dulled, and I quickly closed the door before it got frostbitten. Milo would—I hoped—fill me in unless he pulled one of his I-can’t-tell-you-because-it’s-part-of-an-ongoing-investigation bits on me.

  Unfortunately, there was no way I could keep my eye on the Nelson property from inside the house. There were no windows to the west except for the one that looked into the garage. Worse yet, I was getting hungry, but I wouldn’t eat until Milo was finished with whatever mayhem was going on next door. What I could do was call Kip to tell him to hold open some space on the Advocate’s front page.

  Kip’s reaction was predictable. “The wild Irishman and your no-class neighbors? You and Dodge should build a wall between your house and the Nelsons’.”

  “We’d prefer they left town—permanently,” I replied. “Move the story about the upcoming college play production to page three. It’s not opening until mid-February. If we’re still too tight, we can save it for next week.”

  “Got it,” Kip said. “Will Mitch come here or send it from home?”

  “No clue.” I heard the signal that another call was coming through and told Kip I’d better take it. It might be Milo giving me a heads-up.

  I was wrong. It was Viv Marsden, my neighbor to the east. “What’s going on, Emma? Val and I heard the sirens, and they were so close that we wondered if you had a problem. It’s snowing so hard that we can’t see beyond the fence between us. In fact, we can’t see the fence.”

  “It’s the Nelson gang,” I informed her, and related the bare facts.

  Viv groaned. “They’ve been nothing but trouble since they moved in. I remember when they showed up about five years before you came here. The house had been vacant until then. We never did know who lived there before the Nelsons moved in. For all I know, that bunch may be squatters.”

  “That’s possible,” I allowed. “Remember that old house down the other way that had been abandoned in the eighties? I heard that squatters took it over and managed to burn it to the ground.”

  “I vaguely recall that,” Viv said. “Val had just been transferred here by the state fisheries department. We lived in the Clemans Apartments for over a year before we bought this house. We never did know the family that used your log cabin when they came up here to ski in the winter. They spent all their time on the slopes.”

  Before I could respond, I heard a siren close by. “That sounds like LaVerne’s going to the hospital. I’ll update you after I hear from Milo.”

  I’d barely set the phone down when there was a knock at the front door. Checking through the peephole, I saw Mitch shaking snow off the overcoat that had served him well in frigid Detroit winters when he worked for The Free Press. Instead of the black fedora he wore on rainy days, his gray hair was covered by a navy-blue cap Brenda had made on her loom. When his wife wasn’t ailing, she made a living as a weaver.

  Mitch declined my offer of a chair. “I’ve got to go home, so I’ll write the story from there, but I wanted to give you a heads-up. The sheriff is leaving for headquarters to file his report.”

  I noticed that Mitch didn’t call Milo by name, an indication that his ill will toward my husband was still intact. “What about LaVerne?” I asked.

  “Broken nose, a couple of loose teeth, a sprained arm, and possible internal injuries,” Mitch repli
ed. “Or so Heppner informed me.”

  In other words, Mitch hadn’t talked to Milo. “Nothing about Mickey O’Neill and Sofia? What about poor little Chloe?”

  “You mean the little kid?” Mitch saw me nod. “She’s fine and will be taken to the Children’s Protective Services shelter in the courthouse. No clue about O’Neill and the Nelson daughter-in-law.”

  I nodded. “Not surprising.” I considered mentioning that Mickey had probably taken Sofia to the ramshackle O’Neill home on First Hill, but decided to let my reporter figure that out for himself. It was his story, after all. “Thanks, Mitch, I appreciate you bringing me up to speed.”

  “No problem. See you tomorrow, Emma.”

  I stood in the doorway, watching him disappear into the snow. It was still coming down so hard that I could only see the first few footprints he left behind him. Maybe that was just as well. It meant I couldn’t see anything beyond the edge of our driveway. The Nelson house might not have existed. Except for little Chloe, I wished it never had.

  I immediately called the Marsdens and brought them up to speed. “It’s not fair that we can’t watch this in real time,” Val said. “Has Fleetwood shown up to do a live broadcast?”

  “Maybe,” I replied. “He’s got a police scanner. I’ve only got the sheriff and he’s not back yet.”

  Val chuckled. “One more reason we’re glad you married Dodge. We don’t always have to wait for Fleetwood’s breaking news. Stay warm. I think we’re really in for it tonight.”

  Reluctantly, I tuned in to KSKY on the radio in the living room. Spence’s engineer was playing country-western classics. Merle Haggard was finishing up “Working Man’s Blues,” followed by Dolly Parton’s “If I Needed You” and Waylon Jennings’s “Lonesome, Ornery and Mean.” I was starting to feel a little ornery, too, when the songs were followed by Spence’s recorded sixty-second ad for Stuart’s Sound, our local retail source for all things musical. But then came Mr. Radio, live and direct.