by Mary Daheim
Mitch sighed. “Too many.”
Leaning on the desk had become painful. I straightened up. “Are we missing something?”
Mitch hit a couple of keys, apparently sending one of the photos to Kip in the back shop. “Such as?”
“I don’t know. I feel as if … well, there’s something about what’s happened in the past week or two that’s odd, even for Alpine.” I caught Mitch’s skeptical expression. “Trust me,” I said. “It’s not woman’s intuition.”
“Reporter’s intuition?” Mitch suggested. “You have a sense of small-town vagaries. To me, coming from Detroit, Alpine seems like the calm after the storm.”
“It’s not the tavern brawl or the truck going off the highway or even the loss of two lives in a very short time,” I said, feeling frustrated as I began pacing the newsroom. “Is there some elusive common thread?”
“Bad karma.” Mitch pushed his chair away from his desk. “It happens. You’re not expecting a third death, are you?”
“I’m not superstitious,” I said. “Oh, I know things often come in threes, but that’s because people expect them to and start counting.”
Mitch stood up to get a coffee refill. “An old Hollywood and showbiz myth, usually about three celebrities croaking within a few days.”
“Yes.” I paused by Leo’s desk, torn between loyalty to Betsy and professional responsibility. Mitch had written the news article about Mike’s fatal accident, and he’d also done the accompanying story on the vigil. I’d never dream of going public, but as the primary reporter, Mitch had to understand the background to avoid getting blindsided if the news leaked out from another source. I was still pondering when Vida made her entrance. If I confided in Mitch and not in Vida, she’d never forgive me. I decided to keep my mouth shut for now.
Vida, however, sniffed in the way she had of alerting people that There Was Something She Needed to Know. “You,” she said, confronting me, “look like the cat that ate the canary.”
It struck me that Vida was the cat and although I wasn’t a canary, I was definitely catnip. But I did my best to put her off. “I had lunch with Betsy. She’s fraying around the edges. Take a look at Mitch’s photos from the vigil for Mike.”
Vida was sidetracked, but I knew it wouldn’t take her long to return to the mainline. While she studied the pictures, I retreated to my cubbyhole. She didn’t resume her quest until a few minutes after two.
“I hope you had more luck with Betsy than I did with Marje,” she declared, settling into one of my visitors’ chairs. “My niece insists she has no idea what’s bothering Doc Dewey. Unfortunately, I believe her. Marje admitted that Betsy had an unscheduled appointment, though she didn’t know why. Did Betsy tell you anything we should know?”
I shook my head. Technically, my denial wasn’t a lie. Betsy didn’t want Mike’s drug habit made public. “She’s worn out,” I said, “from having the family lean on her. Did you see Mitch’s vigil pictures?”
“Very effective,” Vida responded. “I should’ve gone, but I …” Uncharacteristically, her voice trailed off.
I assumed she didn’t want to discuss Amy’s need for maternal comfort. “I didn’t see Roger with the younger set. Who did he go with?”
Vida’s quick, sharp glance jarred me. “I’m not sure.”
“Oh.” I kept my tone casual. “I saw some of his buddies, like Davin Rhodes and a couple of other kids, but he wasn’t with them.”
“Young people change,” Vida said, her gaze fixed not on me but on the topographic map of Skykomish County above my filing cabinet. “They have different interests, they grow apart.” She suddenly stood up. “Goodness, I must prepare for my program tomorrow night. Dr. Medved is my guest so I plan to ask him about special problems with pets this time of year. As a veterinarian, he’s probably heard some horrific Halloween tales about nasty children tormenting dogs and cats.” She hustled out of my office. To my surprise, Vida hadn’t pressed me further about my lunch with Betsy.
My phone rang; I picked it up on the second ring. “We need to talk,” Milo said.
I was startled. “Isn’t that a woman’s line?”
“Don’t be a wiseass. Have you got a few minutes to spare?”
“It’s deadline day,” I reminded the sheriff, “but we’re on schedule. So far. Unless, of course, you have breaking news.”
“I’ll break something if you don’t give me a straight answer,” he retorted. “Meet me by the river in back of the ICT.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“It’s not back yet?” Milo sounded irritated.
“Not until five. Is five-fifteen soon enough?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “It’ll have to be.”
“Why can’t you pick me up?”
“Because I can’t.” He hung up as raised voices erupted in the newsroom. Now what? I wondered, getting up and recognizing Leo’s voice. He was coming toward me with a small, dark-haired woman right behind him. She was yapping away, apparently reproaching my ad manager. I didn’t recognize her at first. Vida had half risen out of her chair; Mitch stood by his desk.
“Emma,” Leo said, “you’ve met Janie Borg?”
I put out my hand. “It’s been a long time,” I said, smiling.
Janie took my hand and shook it in a tentative manner. I thought she looked relieved. “I’m upset,” she said, glancing at Leo. “Sorry, Mr. Walsh. Seeing Amanda out front upset me even more.”
“Forget it,” Leo said with his crooked grin. “You girls have a heart-to-heart, okay?” He patted Janie’s shoulder and winked at me before going to his desk. Mitch continued on his way to the back shop. Vida was scowling but reluctantly sat back down at her desk.
I closed my door. “Coffee or tea?” I asked before I sat down again.
“No. I’m fine.” She offered me the hint of a smile. Up close I could see that there was some gray in her short black hair, but she still retained the gamine-like air I recalled from the few times I’d seen her.
“What made you think Leo wouldn’t let you talk to me?” I inquired.
Janie’s dark eyes looked misty. “Because of Mickey.”
“Mickey?” I feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”
“The lawsuit. The parking lot collision. Holly.” She toyed with the silver chains of her necklace. “Mickey’s such a bastard. I shouldn’t have married him. I was on the rebound. From Fred. Poor Fred.”
“You’re not happy?”
She shook her head. “I’m miserable. I want out.”
“I understand you and Fred still have feelings for each other.”
“Oh, yes.” Janie smiled wistfully. “But I’m scared. It might be the same-old, same-old. With Fred.”
“Not if he spends his weekends in jail,” I pointed out, and wondered why Janie was telling me her troubles.
“True. But difficult. Weekends should be fun. Together.”
I was beginning to think that Janie’s staccato manner of speaking would be enough to drive anybody to drink. “I certainly don’t hold Mickey’s alleged witnessing of my car accident with Holly against you.”
“Good.” Her smile was more genuine, but she still kept fidgeting with the silver chains. “Will it be in the paper?”
“At this point,” I replied, “we’ll run only a brief mention of the incident in the weekly report from the sheriff’s log.”
Janie seemed relieved. “Good,” she repeated, letting go of the necklace and standing up. “I won’t say anything. For now. Thanks.”
“Wait,” I said sharply. “Say anything about what?”
Apparently I’d startled her. Janie had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. “Mickey.” Suddenly she burst out laughing and clapped her hands. “Yes,” she said. “Much better. Fred out, Mickey in. ’Bye.” Still amused, she opened the door and hurried through the newsroom.
“Well?” I said as Leo entered my cubbyhole. “Is Janie Borg nuts?”
“It could go either way,”
Leo replied. “I tried to keep her from bothering you. Frankly, I couldn’t figure out why she came here. I knew we were in trouble when she took one look at Amanda and started to spout a bunch of crap about the town sluts.”
“Meaning Amanda and Holly?”
Leo grinned. “I don’t think she meant Vida.”
“Or me, I trust.”
“Let’s assume that. Mitch told me about the pool cue that wasn’t used to kill De Muth. I stopped in this afternoon to double-check the new ad for the ICT. Spike Canby got the cue back while I was there.”
“And still didn’t recognize it?”
“He didn’t—or so he said—but Norene Anderson did.” Leo sat on the edge of my desk. “She was sure it came from the tavern’s rack because she used it to bust up a bees’ nest outside.”
“What did she do with it after bopping the bees?”
Leo’s expression was wry. “She didn’t know. Norene claims she doesn’t remember what happened after she got stung except for coming inside, taking a couple of allergy pills, and putting a mixture of baking soda and water on her arm. She was miserable for the rest of the evening, but toughed it out. It wasn’t until the next day that she saw Doc Dewey on an emergency basis. Her arm had swollen up so much that she hardly slept that night.”
Leo’s version of Norene’s account matched what I already knew. “Maybe she couldn’t sleep because one of the customers got killed.” A salient omission dawned on me. “Do you know when she got stung?”
“I gathered it was an hour or so before the brawl started,” Leo said after a pause. “She mentioned still being groggy when Berentsen and De Muth went at it.”
I nodded. “It sounds as if she left the cue outside. If I’d taken some whacks at a bees’ nest, I would’ve run away as fast as I could. The pool cue would be excess baggage.”
“So you’re thinking …” Leo stopped as Vida entered my office.
“You two seem very involved in a discussion,” she said. “Would I be wrong in suspecting that it pertains to the ICT tragedy?”
“How did you guess, Duchess?” Leo’s manner was droll.
“It’s deadline, so we have to make sure there are no loose ends,” Vida replied. “Shouldn’t Mitch be involved?”
I shrugged. “His coverage is fine. We can only deal in facts.”
“So,” Vida asked, “are the facts consistent with hearsay and unsubstantiated quotes from witnesses?”
Leo and I exchanged glances. “That depends,” I finally said. “Is Mitch still in the back shop?”
Vida looked into the newsroom. “He just came out. Do you want him in here?”
I told her I did. Leo smiled. “Is this an impromptu staff meeting?”
“More like brainstorming,” I said. “Kip’s got a full plate putting the paper together, and I certainly don’t want Amanda in here.”
I paused as Mitch sauntered in. “Is this somebody’s birthday,” my reporter asked, “or are we all fired?”
Vida sat down in one of the spare chairs. Leo deferred to Mitch for possession of the other visitor’s spot. “I’m not a news-hound,” he said to Mitch. “In fact,” he went on, turning to me, “am I needed?”
“Yes,” I assured him. “You know a lot about this story, not to mention the people involved.”
Leo nodded. “I’m Mr. Glad Hand, sucking up to possible revenue providers, no matter how irrational and impossible they may be.” He slid off the desk and moved over by one of my filing cabinets.
“Mitch,” I began, “do you have hard copy on all the statements that the sheriff and his deputies took?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Mullins let me make copies. Shall I get them?”
I pondered the question. “Later, maybe, to compare notes with the official statements. It won’t be easy since so much of what the rest of us heard wasn’t taken down in writing.”
Vida lifted her chin. “I recall everything that was told to me.”
I smiled. “I know. You don’t need notes or a tape recorder. But the rest of us do, and much of what we heard was off the cuff.”
My three staff members looked at one another and then at me. Leo was the first to speak. “What’s the point?”
“Omissions and contradictions.” I turned to Mitch. “You must’ve covered courtrooms in your time.”
“Oh, yes. My first beat included circuit court cases, mostly of a criminal nature. I thought it’d be interesting, even exciting. I fell asleep twice before noon on the second day of my first case, an armed robbery involving fatalities. Voir dire is a good cure for insomniacs.”
I nodded. “I had the same experience at The Oregonian.” I noticed that Vida and Leo looked as if they were growing impatient. “I’m not satisfied with this homicide being so cut and dried. First, the weapon was never found, and yet everybody agrees it was a pool cue. Second, none of the cues showed any signs of being used on De Muth. Third, the cue found by those college kids had been in the river—or the creek—too long to offer any forensic evidence. Do you follow me?”
“In other words,” Vida said, “that was the lethal cue.”
Mitch seemed skeptical. “Why do you say that?”
Vida bridled at the question. “Isn’t it obvious? If De Muth was actually killed with a pool cue, it had to be the one that showed up later. Somehow it was removed from the tavern and thrown in the river.”
Mitch started to respond, but Leo spoke first. “Nobody could’ve walked out of the ICT with a pool cue and not be noticed. They’re hard to hide up your sleeve.”
“That’s my point,” I said. “Norene was stung before the brawl.”
Vida looked pensive. “Why would a pool cue be outside?”
“At the ICT?” Mitch laughed. “Why not? Or maybe it wasn’t. Somebody could’ve used it earlier and left it by the rear door. That’s only a few feet from the pool table.”
“There’s another thing,” I said. “Did anybody at any time say they actually saw Clive hit De Muth with a cue?”
A long pause ensued.
Mitch spoke first. “Clive confessed.” He leaned forward, pointing at my monitor. “Pull up the story I did last week. Check the wording. It’s an indirect quote, but it’s from Clive’s official statement.”
I get flustered when anyone watches me use my computer. Fortunately, my staffers kept quiet while I first highlighted Maud Dodd’s senior citizen column with its MAUD file name instead of MUTH for the tavern death. Then I almost hit Delete instead of Save. Finally, I managed to get Mitch’s story on the screen.
“Here’s your indirect quote from Clive Berentsen,” I said, moving the monitor so that we could all see it.
Leo leaned over Mitch’s shoulder and read aloud: “‘Berentsen admitted that he got into an argument with De Muth and tempers flared. During the brief exchange of blows, Berentsen stated that he swung a pool cue in self-defense, and that was when the victim fell to the floor. Stunned witnesses didn’t immediately realize that De Muth was dead. When he became unresponsive, tavern owner Spike Canby called 911 to summon the sheriff and medics.’”
Mitch was grimacing. “I should’ve caught that,” he murmured. “That’s slipshod reporting.”
I offered him a commiserating look. “So should I.”
“And,” Leo put in, “so should Dodge and his deputies.”
Vida disagreed. “Slipshod, no, careful, yes,” she told Mitch. “You wrote that as you understood it. Unless Clive or one of the witnesses swore up and down that he actually hit De Muth, you couldn’t do otherwise. Did you talk to Clive in person or is this information taken from the statement?”
“From the statement,” Mitch replied, “which was given to Dodge. I wanted to see Berentsen, but he refused to see me. Once he was arrested, he didn’t want any visitors.”
I appreciated Clive’s feelings at the time. “I talked to him later,” I said. “I think Jica Weaver did, too. When I saw him he was still blaming himself for killing De Muth. But,” I continued, aware that dead
line was approaching, “the question is, What do we do now? We have to find out if anybody actually saw Clive hit De Muth with the pool cue.”
Leo stepped back from my desk. “Is he covering for somebody?”
“Maybe,” I said, “but I don’t know who. The only one I can think of that he’d want to protect is Jica, and she was outside when the brawl started. Everybody agrees to that.”
“A simple yes or no from Clive would do it,” Mitch said, still looking chagrined. “I can talk to him right now and ask if he remembers the cue hitting De Muth’s head. If Clive didn’t land that blow, somebody else did. Doc Dewey’s preliminary findings suggested that the lethal whack could’ve been with a pool cue. The SnoCo ME didn’t say otherwise.”
“Do it,” I said. “In fact,” I went on, standing up, “I’ll go with you.”
Mitch looked wary. “You don’t trust me?”
“Of course I do. But I want to hear Dodge’s version of his interview with Clive.” I put on my jacket and grabbed my purse. “Let’s go.”
Vida looked miffed. “I suppose,” she said to me in a voice that bordered on sarcasm, “you don’t believe that I should talk to my nephew Billy to make sure he hasn’t omitted something that might be helpful.”
I didn’t dare hesitate. “Sure. Come along.” I glanced at Leo.
“I’m out,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I’ve never tried to get Dodge to advertise for perps. He’s got limited vacancies, the food stinks, and I understand his coffee is barely drinkable.”
I patted Leo’s shoulder as I went out the door. “It’s improved since Lori Cobb took the receptionist’s job. Hold down the fort. And make sure Kip’s not having a nervous breakdown.”
“Aye, aye, Commander.” Leo stood at attention as we left.
Amanda didn’t bother to look up when we went through the front office. Just outside, I stopped. “Don’t wait for me,” I said to Vida and Mitch. “Amanda never really told us what she saw.”
Mitch paused in his step but Vida kept going, charging along Front Street like a water buffalo gone berserk. A light rain was beginning to fall as dark clouds settled in over the town. I went back inside and confronted my temporary hire.