The Alpine Nemesis

by Mary Daheim

  I hesitated. But after my earlier stomach bout, I felt as if I were running on empty. “Sure,” I said. “You can tell me what I may have missed so far.”

  We went across the street to the Burger Barn, where Milo was besieged with curious customers. He held up his big hands and announced he wasn't going to say anything until he'd downed a cheeseburger, fries, and three cups of coffee. Everyone looked disappointed, but they honored the sheriff's pronouncement.

  “I can't make mistakes on this story,” I said after we'd placed our orders. “What about the rest of the O'Neills? Has anybody tracked them down?”

  Toni Andreas had been given that task, Milo said. “The only ones that I know of around here are Mickey, Rusty's son, and Kathleen and Margaret, Stubby's daughters by his first wife. Mickey works for Blackwell Timber, so he's probably in the woods. Kathleen—Kathy, I guess—is living with some guy out by the fish hatchery. I'm not sure where Margaret—Peggy, she's called—is, but Toni said she saw her the other day at the Alpine Mall.”

  “You don't know where Lona and Meara are?” I asked.

  Milo shook his head. “I heard they moved to Everett or Marysville before Meara had the baby. Did anybody ever say who the father was?”

  “Not that I heard,” I said as our waitress delivered coffee for Milo and a Pepsi for me. “What about Brian? Who put his body in the locker? You may be able to find that much out anyway.”

  “Maybe.” Milo sipped his coffee. “If the Hartquists are telling the truth, then Conley was put there after they dumped the O'Neills. It could be—they broke into the place, they admit it. But what are the chances of anybody knowing that the bodies were there?”

  “What,” I said wryly, “are the chances of somebody else in Alpine driving around with another spare body? And how come Brian was in relatively good shape?”

  “Doc figures he'd been under the snow where the animals couldn't get to him.” Milo began rearranging the salt and pepper shakers—an old habit of his. “Brian was still partially frozen inside.”

  I was startled. “So he'd been found very recently?”

  “Probably sometime yesterday afternoon,” Milo said.

  I was thoughtful for a few moments, right up until Ed Bronsky banged into our booth. “Hey, hey, hey!” my former ad manager bellowed. “Caught you just in time, Emma. Hi there, Dodge. How's it going?” Ed didn't pause for an answer. “Got room on the front page?” he said to me. “I got a big one.”

  Yes, you do, Ed, I thought, and it's your big fat ego. “Why do you ask?”

  “Six weeks from Saturday,” Ed responded, beaming all over himself. “That's when Mr. Pig debuts on national television.”

  I managed not to groan aloud. Mr. Pig was a cable TV program loosely based on Ed's self-published rags-to-riches autobiography, Mr. Ed. I never really wanted to know how or why, but the book had been sold to a Hollywood producer who had turned the characters into an animated cartoon about a family of pigs.

  “I don't know if I can get it on page one,” I said. “It looks like we're going to be pretty full tomorrow. Did you see the special edition today?”

  “Special edition?” Ed's round face was mystified. “Is that what everybody was standing around reading? I thought it was some flyer for the summer solstice.”

  If a nuclear device exploded in the middle of Front Street, Ed was so self-absorbed that he wouldn't notice until he looked in the mirror and saw that he glowed in the dark.

  Milo was regarding Ed with a wry expression. “We had some excitement around here,” the sheriff said in that lazy drawl he reserved for the very young and the very stupid. “The Hartquists knocked off the O'Neills and dumped them in Barney Amundson's meat locker.”

  Ed evinced mild surprise. “Really? That's a shame.”

  “They found the missing snowboarder in there, too,” I put in, “but the Hartquists claim they didn't kill him.”

  “No kidding,” Ed said, squeezing his bulk next to me in the booth. “Gee, that would have been good for my book and the TV series. I keep thinking I should do a sequel. I'll try to remember that. You ordered yet?”

  We said we had. In fact, the waitress was on her way with our meal. Ed glanced at my burger and Milo's cheeseburger. “How about a couple of those and the super basket of fries, sweetheart?” he said to the waitress. Ever since Ed had sold his book to TV he called every female whose name eluded him “sweetheart.” I guess he thought it made him sound like Hollywood.

  “You know,” Ed said, putting both elbows on the table and forcing me even further into the corner, “I was thinking. The summer solstice deal is coming up pretty quick, and it might be smart of me to enter myself as a float.”

  I couldn't help it—I was drinking my Pepsi, I choked, and I spewed soda all over Milo's shirt. The sheriff jumped a bit, brushed himself off, but didn't take his eyes off Ed. “How do you mean, a float?” Milo asked with a perfectly straight face.

  “You know,” Ed said eagerly as he accepted a cup of coffee from our waitress, “as a promotional tool for the TV series. Shirley and the kids and I could ride on it, maybe decorate it like a farm. A little silo, a barn, a pigsty. Have it pulled by a tractor. We could borrow one from the Overholts or one of the other farmers around here. Then,” Ed continued, gathering momentum even as he swiped four of my French fries, “we could maybe dress up like pigs.”

  Who needs to dress up? I thought nastily. Ed, Shirley, and their brood were porcine by nature.

  “I still belong to the chamber of commerce,” Ed went on. “I mean, how could I not? Between all my experience in advertising and now in high finance, it wouldn't be right to quit.”

  “Certainly not,” I intoned, not daring to look at Milo, who I knew was trying as hard as I was to contain hoots of laughter. In my own case, the events of the morning had shredded my emotions. I felt positively giddy. Ed had been the most morose, the laziest, the least creative advertising manager imaginable. I'd been on the verge of firing him several times after I bought the Advocate from Marius Vandeventer. But I always felt sorry for Ed. He had a growing family to support—growing in all sorts of directions. As for his involvement with “high finance,” the large inheritance he'd received from an aunt was, fortunately, managed by a professional in Everett. Ed didn't have to lift a pudgy finger.

  “You'd better get on with it for the parade,” Milo commented. “Scooter Hutchins is the chairman this year.”

  “I know,” Ed said in a tone that indicated he knew just about everything. “Scooter's good people. He won't mind an addition to the spectacle.”

  Scooter probably wouldn't, since the so-called spectacle consisted mainly of a couple of logging rigs, an old flatbed truck carrying the county commissioners, the high school band, Miss Alpine in a borrowed Corvette from the Nordby brothers' dealership, a U.S. Postal Service van, a half-dozen pickups decorated with plastic flowers and palm leaves, Mayor Baugh riding in his 1990 Cadillac convertible, and a lot of people wearing balloon animals on their heads.

  Ed's cheeseburger and hamburger arrived. He looked dismayed. “Sweetheart,” he said in a plaintive voice to the waitress, “I ordered a couple of each of these.”

  “Oh.” The young woman's blue eyes widened. “Sorry,” she murmured, and skittered back to the kitchen.

  Milo took advantage of Ed's filling his face to return to the subject of the homicides. “So Conley's girlfriend will be in town tomorrow?”

  “That's what Vida told me,” I said.

  “I don't suppose she'd have any ideas about somebody who might want to whack her boyfriend.”

  “Other than a recluse?” I shrugged. “Doubtful. Do you remember where he worked?”

  “The Irish consulate in Seattle,” Milo replied. “I think the girlfriend works there, too.”

  “Poor guy,” I said, trying to ignore the chomping and slurping noises Ed was making next to me. “I got the impression Brian was by himself. That's always foolish in the mountains.”

  “The forest ranger
s around here are recommending that anybody going hiking or cross-country skiing or whatever should take along a cell phone,” Milo said, finishing his meal and lighting a cigarette. “You never know what's going to happen: a sudden storm, an avalanche, a bear—or just plain falling down and breaking a leg.”

  “Did Doc notice any broken bones on Brian?” I inquired, wishing as I often did that I hadn't quit smoking. Again.

  Milo shook his head. “He hadn't done a complete autopsy,” he explained as the waitress refilled his coffee mug.

  “Say,” Ed interrupted, hamburger juice running down his chin, “I'll take the rest of my order to go, okay, sweetheart? I'll pick it up at the counter.” He turned from the waitress to look at each of us. “I've got to run if I want to catch Scooter. I can eat in the Mercedes.”

  Ed could eat inside an erupting volcano. I'd seen the interior of Ed's luxury car—Shirley had a Mercedes, too—and it was littered with fast-food wrappers, paper bags, and empty soda cans.

  “See you later, Ed,” I said as our uninvited companion grunted his way out of the booth and waddled over to the service counter where his order to go was waiting.

  “Ed,” Milo sighed. “Ed.”

  “I think I liked him better when he was morose,” I said as the waitress returned with our bill.

  “My treat this time,” Milo said, picking up the small slip of paper. He glanced at it, stared, then called to the waitress who was across the aisle waiting on an elderly couple I didn't recognize. “Hey, this must be the wrong bill. It's for over forty bucks.”

  The waitress came to the booth and scrutinized the tab. “No,” she said slowly, “this is right.” She gestured at the departing bulk of Ed Bronsky, who had just gone out the door. “For all of three of you, it comes to—”

  “Never mind.” Milo sighed, then added, “Ed.”

  Vida supplied me with some fragmentary quotes from both the Conleys and Gina Ancich that I could use in my lead story. Scott had reinterviewed Wes Amundson, who was Barney's younger brother and, by coincidence, the park ranger who had been our source when Brian had disappeared.

  Wes, a taller, leaner version of Barney, stopped in to see me after talking to Scott. He was on duty, and the rain that had started during the noon hour dampened his regulation brown shirt.

  “That's something about that Conley,” he said. “Who the heck do you think found him and brought him down here?”

  “I was hoping you'd have a clue,” I replied. “Apparently it happened yesterday. Have you got anybody on the list of people who went up Tonga Ridge?”

  Wes's craggy face, which always looked as if it needed a shave, grew blank. “Just a couple from California. You know how it is—hikers are supposed to sign in at the ranger station this time of year, but often as not, they don't. The locals never do, unless it's dead of winter. Besides, it's early in the season. Some of the lakes up there

  are still snowed in and will be for a couple of weeks at least.”

  I nodded. “How's Barney doing? I really never got a chance to talk to him this morning.” An oversight, certainly, but Spence had monopolized the warehouse owner.

  “He's okay,” Wes responded. “The new doctor checked him out. Barney's had some trouble with high blood pressure, you know.”

  The new doctor was a young man from Hawaii named Elvis Sung. He had studied medicine at UCLA, completed his residency in San Diego, and interned in Santa Barbara. Having declared himself sick of sun, Dr. Sung had accepted a position in Alpine. So far, there had been no complaints, either from his new patients or from him. He seemed very competent, and, for the most part, it had been a damp, cool spring.

  “As I recall, Brian Conley didn't go near the ski lodge,” I remarked.

  “No,” Wes replied. “He took the trail from the Icicle Creek ranger station.”

  “No one in town remembered seeing him,” I said. “His SUV was left in the ranger station's parking lot, but Milo never found anything of interest inside.”

  “I was with the sheriff when he checked it out,” Wes said, standing up and going over to my U.S. Forest Service map on the far wall. “I'd sure like to know where Conley was found. We combed that whole area for him back in March,” he said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand.”

  “You're certain he went in by himself?” I asked.

  “He signed in alone,” Wes said. “But you never know. People are darned funny. Sometimes one will register and the other one will say to heck with it.”

  “Especially,” I remarked, “if they don't want anyone to know they've gone with someone else.”

  Wes gave me a wry grin. “You mean like somebody else's wife or girlfriend?” “Like that,” I said. But I was thinking more along the lines of a killer.

  GINNY ERLANDSON HAD been so busy out front that she hadn't had a chance to tell me about Spencer Fleetwood's news broadcasts. “You really should turn on the radio,” she urged in her most serious manner. “Spence is doing on-the-spot coverage all over town. He's hardly played any music at all.”

  “Damn,” I breathed, and glared at my little portable radio. I'd received it as a high school graduation gift. It had been a friend to me at night while I was studying for college exams, a comfort while I awaited the birth of Adam, a source of calm enjoyment on warm summer evenings when it brought me baseball games from faraway places such as Cleveland, Chicago, and New York. Though it was often full of static, and sometimes faded in and out, I relied on my little radio for companionship. But lately it had betrayed me. I might not receive the Seattle or Everett stations loud and clear, but I could always get KSKY.

  “I'll listen in,” I said, and thanked Ginny for the suggestion.

  The station was on a commercial break, with Spence using a high-pitched, racketing voice to extol the wonders of the hottest new releases at Platters in the Sky. He did most of the local commercials himself, though occasionally he used Tim Rafferty or a college student to lend some variety.

  Spence came on live, dropping down a few decibels and sounding deadly earnest. “I'm reporting directly from Alpine Memorial Hospital,” he intoned, “where I'm speaking with Debbie Murchison, registered nurse. What's the latest on the autopsy of Brian Conley's body, Nurse Murchison?”

  “Dr. Dewey just finished,” Debbie said in her youthful voice. “He went to lunch, so I haven't had a chance to speak with him. I think he's at the Venison Inn.”

  There was a scant second of dead air, apparently while Spence considered his options. “Then that's where KSKY is headed. Thank you, Nurse Murchison. Now for a word from one of our fine sponsors.”

  I called Milo. “What did Doc say about the autopsy?” I asked. “I hear he's all done.”

  “I've got it right here,” Milo replied. “Doc dropped it off on his way to lunch. There's not much of interest, all the usual gobbledygook. Conley probably died about three hours after his last meal, so he wasn't up on the ridge for very long before he met somebody with a knife.”

  “The stab wound was the cause of death?” I asked.

  “Right,” Milo said. “Two stab wounds, in fact. The body was probably hidden someplace, in a cave, maybe. There were bits of evergreen needles and dirt and other debris you'd find in a sheltered place. I'm guessing that he wasn't up that far on the mountain. Of course, snow-boarders don't go up too high as a rule.”

  “But high enough that he got frozen in later, right?”

  “Right. We had that big storm in March, remember?”

  I did remember. Alpine had gotten over a foot of snow, and I was sure that all my bulbs were dead before they could even peek out of the ground. “What about the snowboard itself?” I inquired.

  “No sign of it,” Milo replied. “No sign of a tussle, either. Conley must have been taken by surprise.”

  “Are you suggesting he knew his killer?” I asked.

  “No,” Milo responded. “Just that he didn't expect to be attacked. He was stabbed in the back, remember? There could be two scenarios: He was talking t
o somebody, turned around, and the killer struck. Or it's possible that he never saw his murderer. Somebody could have sneaked up behind him. Conley was wearing ear-muffs, so he might not have heard someone approach. Either way, there wasn't a struggle.”

  “Poor guy.” I sighed. “Out for a nice day in the mountains—it was fairly nice that weekend, as I recall— and he ends up dead.”

  “I know.” Milo sounded solemn. “I wish I knew why.”

  “And who,” I noted.

  “Definitely who,” Milo said, suddenly sounding tired. “It's a tough one. By the way, Doc's sending the body over to Driggers Funeral Home. Al came down with the flu this morning, but his assistant Dan Peebles is in charge for now.”

  I couldn't resist asking, “And how is Dan's mother?”

  “Tara?” Milo's tone lightened. “Good. We're thinking of driving over to Lake Chelan weekend after next.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “You should have good weather over there.” June could be wet and chilly on the western slope of the Cascades, but sun and warm weather were almost guaranteed on the other side of the pass. And I meant what I said to Milo—I wished him nothing but the best with Tara Peebles. She seemed like a nice, sensible woman, a widow who had been left to raise two sons, Dan and Don. Last winter they'd moved to Alpine from Seattle, fed up with traffic and soaring real estate prices. Dan was the elder of the two boys; Don was in the navy, fortuitously posted to the naval station in Everett. Tara had found part-time work at Mountain View Gardens, the local nursery. Milo said she had a green thumb.

  After hanging up, I mused briefly on the renewed friendship between Milo and me. It had been a tough two years, first with Milo angry and hurt by our breakup, then with my resentment of his romance with Jeannie Clay, who was young enough to be his daughter. Now Milo had Tara, and I had Tom. If I wanted him.

  Which I did, I always had. I was still attending the University of Washington when I met Tom. He was an editor on the city desk at the Seattle Times, and I was an intern. We had fallen hopelessly in love, and I had gotten pregnant with Adam. But there was an obstacle—Tom's emotionally fragile wife, who was also expecting a child. My lover's decision to stay with Sandra Cavanaugh was both admirable and awful. Some might laud Tom as a hero, others would damn him as a heel. At the time, I chose the latter point of view. I quit the university and moved to the Mississippi delta town where my brother, Ben, was serving in the home missions. Adam was born there, and I moved back to the West Coast, enrolling at the University of Oregon to finish my degree. I had no contact with Tom Cavanaugh for eighteen years. It was my choice. He had abandoned me, and I refused to let him see the son I had borne him.