Bitter Alpine

by Mary Daheim

  “I’m trying to lose some weight,” she explained. “All the walking I do on this job helps, but I’ve still got at least ten pounds to go. When I hit a hundred and thirty, I’ll take you up on your offer.”

  “It’s a deal. How would you feel about making your radio debut?”

  Liza looked startled. “You’ve gone multimedia without telling us?”

  I laughed a bit feebly. “No, no. Spencer Fleetwood—I don’t think you’ve met him—owns KSKY. He’d like to interview you in what was Vida’s Thursday-evening spot tomorrow night.” I went on to tactfully explain that our former House & Home editor had a family problem and wouldn’t be able to host her show. “Leo took his turn on the program a few years ago,” I added, omitting that Liza’s husband was not a Fleetwood fan.

  “Well…” Liza pressed her lips together. “Do you think I should?”

  “It’s good publicity for the paper, and more to the point, it gives you exposure as Vida’s replacement. If she decides to stop doing her show, you’d be a natural to fill the void. Assuming you’d want to, of course.”

  Liza pondered briefly. “I’ll ask Leo what he thinks, okay?” It was her turn to laugh. “I’m still adjusting to our reconciliation. As he puts it, we’re on our second honeymoon.”

  “Fair enough.” I was liking our new employee more every day.

  * * *

  —

  I decided to see if my husband would join me for lunch. The sidewalks had been cleared, but a few flakes were still drifting from the low gray clouds. Traffic moved at a slower pace than usual, though there was a lot of dirty slush left by the vehicles’ tires. I saw the Yukon parked in its usual place, so I assumed Milo was in his office.

  Lori Cobb told me he was indeed there but was a bit grumpy. I feigned disbelief. Jack Mullins, who had just come from the jail section of the building, gave me a sardonic grin.

  “Your old man’s giving Gould hell for coming back to work when he’s still obviously ailing,” Jack informed me. “I can’t figure out if the boss man’s worried about Dwight’s health or afraid of our brave deputy collapsing during a traffic stop and letting the perp get away.”

  “Dwight has no interests in life except his job and fishing,” I said. “Any sign of Mickey O’Neill and the Nelson girl?”

  Jack had sat down at his desk as Lori put on her jacket and headed outside, apparently for lunch. “No,” the deputy replied to my query. “We wonder if that means they never left town. If they’re not at that old dump his family owned on First Hill—and we checked, of course—where else would they be? The car hasn’t been sighted, either.”

  “Maybe they found another abandoned dump,” I suggested. “There are several around here on the edges of town, especially out on the Burl Creek Road. One or two of them might even have a garage.”

  “Dodge has De Groote checking…” Jack stopped as Milo and Dwight came out of the sheriff’s office.

  “Saddle up, Mullins,” Milo ordered. “You’re taking Gould’s place on highway patrol. I don’t want him having a relapse. He’ll take over on the desk.”

  Jack grimaced before he turned around to salute his boss. “Aye aye, sir. I hope I brought my mittens.” He grabbed his jacket, nodded at me, and went on his way.

  A wan-looking Deputy Gould eased his short, squat body into the vacated chair. He ignored my presence. That suited me just fine. Dwight always assumed I only visited his boss when I was short of grocery money.

  I stood up to address my husband. “Are you eating in or out?”

  “In,” he replied, approaching me and hauling out his wallet. “The usual. Make sure the bacon on the burger is crisp.”

  “Hold it!” I shrieked. “I don’t work here. Why didn’t you ask Lori to get your lunch? She just left. Call her at the Burger Barn and tell her to get your order—and mine. Do you want me to starve to death?”

  Milo had the grace to look chagrined. “Okay.” He glanced at the phone on Lori’s desk. “You call her. I don’t know what you want.”

  “Yes, you do,” I muttered, but not wanting to cause a domestic scene, I went over to Lori’s desk. Milo retreated to his office. I thought I saw Dwight sneer, probably at me. He respected his boss.

  I was checking for Lori’s cell number when I heard a distant siren, probably out on Highway 2. Snow had started to fall, which meant there was probably an accident and the state patrol was on the scene. Finding Lori’s number, I dialed it—and a nearby phone rang. I looked down at her desk, heard the ringing again, and saw her cell peeking out from under a letter from the state fish and game department. Milo’s door was ajar, so I opened it all the way to tell him I’d fetch our lunches in person. He was on the phone, looking grim and motioning for me to come in. “I’m on my way,” he said to whoever was at the other end. “Yes, the ambulance should get there before I do. See you at the scene.” He rang off.

  “What scene?” I asked as he grabbed his jacket and hat before almost pushing me out of the way to get through the door.

  “The scene near Baring where Vida wrecked her Buick. She’s on her way to the hospital. You’d better be there to meet her. It sounds as if she’s in a bad way.”

  I suddenly felt bad, too. And scared. But Vida was indomitable.

  Wasn’t she?

  All I could do was silently pray as I rushed out of the sheriff’s headquarters—and then realized I didn’t have a car.

  Chapter 15

  I had no choice but to walk uphill to the hospital. Fortunately, the sidewalk had been cleared and the snow was still only a few lazy flakes. Better yet, there was almost no wind.

  But my hand was shaking when I opened the heavy glass door. The last sound that I heard before I went inside was of a siren as an ambulance approached the emergency entrance on Third Street. I paused, seeing Jenny Bjornson behind the main desk. I knew Jenny and her parents fairly well. Just after Christmas, Vida had noted in “Scene” that Jenny had gotten engaged to a young man from Startup. I had to press my lips together to avoid revealing any sign of my worst fears.

  Jenny was on the phone. When she saw me, her blue eyes widened. When she hung up, she said, “You already heard about Mrs. Runkel?”

  I nodded. “I was at the sheriff’s office when the call came in,” I replied. “Did the ambulance attendant give you any information?”

  Jenny shook her head. “They never do, really, unless they need a crash cart when the ambulance pulls in. I probably won’t hear anything about her status until they put her in a room. Did you know her daughter was admitted just an hour or two ago?”

  “Yes. I wonder if they can put Mrs. Runkel and Mrs. Hibbert in the same room.”

  Jenny grimaced. “That doesn’t always work so well. Mrs. Lila Blatt and Mrs. Mary Lou Blatt—Mrs. Runkel’s sisters-in-law—were in the same room a year or so ago. They didn’t get along very well at all.”

  I recalled the incident. Lila had slammed a walker into Mary Lou’s ankle cast. Mary Lou had retaliated by pouring the water out of a bouquet Lila’s son Bill had sent her and then throwing the flowers out the window. Vida couldn’t stand either of them and had gloated for days.

  “Is Amy Hibbert in a private room?”

  “Let me check,” Jenny said, turning to her computer monitor. “No, she has a roommate, Mary Smith. I believe she’s an older woman who lives farther down Highway 2. Mrs. Smith was admitted Tuesday night. Her husband is here somewhere. His first name is John. Should we believe that?”

  I shrugged. “There could be a dozen Mary and John Smiths in Skykomish and Snohomish Counties. You must have a lot of patients here now,” I remarked.

  Jenny shrugged. “It’s that time of year. We always get overloaded right after the holidays, especially with elderly people. We only have one vacancy left for a woman. If we get any more female patients, we’ll have to send them to the hospital in Monroe. M
rs. Runkel will be put in with Mrs. Marsh after her condition is evaluated.”

  I felt as if a load of TNT had exploded in my head. I didn’t want to think about how Vida would react to rooming with Patti Marsh. But then I didn’t want to think about Vida having to be hospitalized in the first place. Of course, I had to; that’s why I had come. I posed a question to Jenny. “How soon will you know anything about Mrs. Runkel’s condition?”

  Jenny looked again at her monitor. “I’m not sure. Doc Dewey is still finishing some minor surgery and Dr. Sung is across the street at the clinic. The new medic, Janos Kadar, will see to Mrs. Runkel. He’s very good, according to both of our doctors.”

  I caught a defensive note in Jenny’s voice. Maybe Kadar was a medical genius, but I could only imagine Vida’s reaction. She respected Doc Dewey—or Young Doc, as he was known before his venerable father, Cecil, passed away a couple of years after I arrived in Alpine. But Vida always believed the son was not quite as sterling as his father, Old Doc.

  “Okay,” I finally said, realizing I’d come on a fool’s errand. I was, however, grateful for Jenny’s candor. Unlike big cities, small towns are more willing to share information. The assumption is that everybody knows everybody else, at least in some tenuous way. “Can you call me when you know her condition and when I can see her?”

  Jenny assured me she would. I headed out the way I had come, noting that the snow was now coming down harder again. The sidewalk was already covered and I couldn’t see the sheriff’s office until I was more than halfway down. By the time I got to Front Street, Milo was just pulling into his regular spot. I called to him, but two empty school buses going by drowned me out. When I finally got inside headquarters, Dwight seemed pleased to tell me that his boss had gone to lunch.

  “At the Burger Barn?” I asked.

  “Could be,” Dwight replied, always preferring to give me bad news or no news at all. He resumed reading what looked like another domestic abuse complaint. Maybe that’s how he got some laughs. Not that I’d ever heard Dwight laugh. I’d rarely ever seen him smile.

  I found Milo already parked in a booth. He was taking out a pack of cigarettes when he saw me. “Where’d you come from?” he asked.

  “The hospital,” I replied. “Why are you breaking the law by smoking?”

  “Because,” he began after lighting the cigarette, “I have to. If you’ve been at the hospital, you know Vida’s pretty banged up. She may drive me crazy sometimes, but I still kind of like her.”

  “Don’t we all?” I said softly. “I didn’t learn anything other than that her condition isn’t very good. Have you got any details?”

  “Not much.” Milo paused as the waitress, whose name I recalled was Clea, arrived to take our orders. He asked her to bring an extra small plate. Having worked at the Burger Barn for over a year, Clea didn’t need to ask why, though the slight twitch in her expression registered disapproval. “Candy-ass,” Milo muttered. “Fong caught her with some guy in the library parking lot a month or two ago. He wore a wedding ring.”

  “What did Dustin do?”

  “He told them to get the hell out of there.” Milo chuckled. “They did. Dustman’s a serious reader. He worried that if he busted the guy for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, it’d upset Edna Mae Dalrymple, who might cancel his library card. Clea’s a month shy of eighteen. He didn’t recognize the jerk, but noticed a Skykomish County map and a briefcase under the dashboard.”

  “The old traveling salesman joke,” I noted. “Tell me about Vida.”

  Our salads arrived—along with the extra plate my husband had requested for his ashtray. I tried not to stare at Clea, who suddenly looked seventeen going on thirty.

  Milo put out his cigarette. “I don’t know all that much. I had only a minute or so with Del Amundson before he had to take the wheel of the ambulance. Vida was already inside. Del thought she might have a broken foot and maybe a broken arm, but he was more worried about internal injuries from the steering wheel. It got jammed into Vida’s chest when she went off the road and hit a big cedar tree. The Buick’s probably toast.”

  The rest of our orders arrived. I managed to smile at Clea and thank her. She acknowledged me with a curt nod. Apparently we didn’t look like big spenders. I turned back to Milo. “I’m leaving work early and going up to the hospital again. Can you pick me up at the main entrance around five-fifteen?”

  “I’ll try,” he said. “How long has it been since we went to see Vida there after she got shot by the lunatic who killed his parents and almost offed you?”

  I shuddered at the memory. “Six, seven years? Maybe more.” We both went silent for almost a minute, focusing on our food, even though my appetite had waned. “Any news on Mickey O’Neill and Sofia Nelson?”

  Milo shook his head. “No. The APB hasn’t turned up anything. They may’ve tried to go off on one of the logging roads around here, but they wouldn’t get far with all the snow. I’d call in a copter from Paine Field, but it’s coming down too thick now. I just hope it lets up before dark.”

  “I worry about Sofia. If she’s a hostage, I doubt she’s a willing one. She may be a twit, but I wouldn’t want anything awful to happen to her.”

  “Marrying a Nelson is pretty damned awful,” Milo declared. “Where did Sofia come from? I checked her maiden name. She was a Doukas, but no close relation I could find to that pain-in-the-ass Simon.”

  I almost sneered at the mention of the retired attorney’s name. When I met him a little over a year after I came to Alpine, his son had just been murdered. I was sympathetic, but Simon had added to the Doukas family’s wealth by becoming the first homegrown attorney in town. He took me aside and insisted I ditch the homicide story. It was when I refused that he’d called me a whore. I hadn’t spoken to him since.

  “We know there aren’t any others left here in town,” I said. “Simon and Cecelia’s other two kids moved away. Simon’s father, Neeny, married that woman he’d been living with and they retired to Palm Springs. He died a few years ago. Vida—unwillingly—ran his obit in the paper. There were still some Doukases living west of town on the river where Vida got shot when she was investigating the Rasmussen murder.”

  “Right.” Milo’s expression was wry. “And then you went there and almost got yourself killed.”

  I grimaced at the memory. “Journalists sometimes have to put themselves at risk. Are those Doukases still there?”

  “No,” Milo replied. “Doe took a call from there last summer about a possible prowler, but it was a false alarm. I think the name was Ferguson.” His cell went off. I heard Dwight’s gruff voice at the other end. The state patrol had sent a detailed report of Vida’s accident to SkyCo’s law enforcement headquarters. “Damn,” Milo muttered after disconnecting. “I was thinking about having some pie for dessert.”

  I narrowed my eyes at my husband. “You don’t need pie for dessert at lunch.”

  “Hey,” Milo said, getting out his wallet, “I haven’t gained any weight since we got married. I’m still around two twenty-five. I work out, you know.”

  “Stay that way. I don’t want you looking like Ed Bronsky.”

  Milo gave me a dirty look. “I should make you pay for lunch, but you’re always broke.” He slapped down three $1 bills for Clea’s tip. We parted ways outside of the Burger Barn. As usual, the sheriff jaywalked across Front Street to his headquarters.

  Shortly after I returned to my office, Leo told me Liza was willing to fill in for Vida on Cupboard. He’d also called the hospital, but Vida was still being treated in the ER. “Helluva thing,” he remarked with a shake of his head. “I always figured the Duchess was invincible.”

  Our ad manager had given Vida the nickname years ago. She’d claimed to hate it, but we suspected otherwise. I told Leo I was going to try to see her at the end of the workday.

  He looked skep
tical. “I wouldn’t. If Vida’s in a bad way, she won’t want to see anybody. You know how much pride she has.”

  “True.” I paused. “But I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t make the effort. Maybe I’ll call Doc Dewey to ask what he thinks.”

  Doc proved unreachable, which was no surprise. The receptionist at the clinic, Marje Blatt, Vida’s niece, could only tell me that Doc was still attending her aunt.

  “It’s awful,” Marje declared, her usual dry tone an octave higher with a touch of tremolo. “What was she doing down by Baring? Was she on an assignment?”

  I decided not to mention her aunt’s decision to withdraw from her contributions to the Advocate or the fainting spell. “No. Is there anybody she might’ve been visiting around there?”

  “I don’t think so,” Marje said after a pause. “I haven’t talked to her for a few days. Did she seem to be feeling okay?”

  I hedged. “Your aunt is getting older. We can’t expect her always to be at the top of her game. I don’t mean to say she’s failing, but it’s natural for her to slow down a bit.”

  “I suppose.” Marje didn’t sound convinced, and I didn’t blame her. “I hope Doc comes back to the clinic before he leaves for the day. Maybe I can find out more from him. If I do, I’ll let you know. It’ll be after five. What time do you get home?”

  I’d already decided not to go up to the hospital. “By five-thirty. If you learn anything sooner, call me at the office.” Marje said she would and rang off.

  I tried to focus on story ideas for our next special edition, but my brain seemed to have withered. Ten minutes later I saw Buck Bardeen striding through the empty newsroom.

  “Emma,” the retired Air Force colonel said in a tone that suggested I should salute him, “have you any news of Vida?”

  I invited him to sit down. While he settled his tall, imposing self into a visitor chair, I told him what little I’d found out. When I finished, he frowned. “Very worrisome,” he murmured, running a hand over his bald head. “You really have no idea why she drove to that part of the highway?”