by Mary Daheim
“They . . .” Louie’s face crumpled and he shook his head.
“What were Tommy and Frances doing all this time?” Frank’s voice had taken on a frazzled, angry edge.
“Nothing.” Louie was shaking, fighting back tears.
Billy, unnerved by his cousin’s collapse, threw his arms around his father. “Papa! We hate those boys! They’re bad!”
Tom put a hand to his head. “I don’t know how bad they are unless you tell us what they did.”
Billy finally looked up at his father. “We can’t!”
“Why can’t you?” Tom asked sternly.
But neither boy would speak of what had gone on by the railroad trestle. It was only a half-hour later when Frank tucked in Frances that he gained an inkling of what the unspeakable might be.
“Guess what, Papa?” Frances said, her blue eyes wide. “I saw Vincent’s weewee.”
“What do you mean?” Frank spoke harshly, but immediately repented and lightly touched his four year-old’s cheek. “Tell Papa.”
“Vincent took off his pants,” Frances replied. “So did Jonas. Vincent’s got dots on his butt, like he has on his face.”
Frank didn’t ask any more questions that night. Nor did he look for Vincent.
Frank hoped his nephew would never come back.
Vincent never did.
Chapter Thirteen
I CAN’T RECALL a more embarrassing incident, not since I took a bathroom break during my first county commissioners’ meeting and returned with four feet of toilet paper attached to my right shoe.
Peter thought we should call 911. I hesitated, but he impressed upon me the liability of his parents in case there was something seriously wrong with Max.
“He didn’t eat mushrooms,” I said stupidly.
Peter was sufficiently distracted to ignore the remark. I was sufficiently discreet to keep my mouth shut and not say anything about the quantity of wine that Max had consumed in a short time. Peter ought to know. He’d poured each glass. It should dawn on him that Max had simply passed out.
Naturally, there were at least a half-dozen diners that I knew quite well: Clancy and Debra Barton, of Barton’s Bootery and St. Mildred’s Parish; high school coach Rip Ridley and his wife, Dixie; Cliff and Nancy Stuart who owned Stuart’s Stereo. All of them, along with several others, had gathered near the table where Max remained unconscious. Some of the staff had come over to see what was going on, but I didn’t spot Peter’s parents. The owners must have had the night off.
“Give the guy some air,” Coach Ridley shouted. “Get back everybody. It doesn’t look serious, but he still needs some space.”
Before blowing out his knee, Rip Ridley had played defensive tackle for two years with the Chicago Bears. The gawkers obeyed. At last Max twitched, raised his head a scant inch, and groaned.
Rip, accustomed to injured football players, leaned down to murmur something into Max’s ear. Slowly, Max raised his head. Two beans were stuck to his face, one on his forehead, the other in his beard.
“How do you feel?” Rip asked.
“Dizzy,” Max replied, then took in his surroundings. “Ohmigod!”
“Relax,” Rip urged. “Don’t try to get up. Help’s on the way.”
The sirens announced that help had already arrived. Purse in hand, I backpedaled in Peter’s direction. The irony of my situation wasn’t lost on me. I’d looked forward to this evening, hoping it might be a step out of the doldrums. Instead, it had turned into a mockery, and it looked as if I was going to pay for the privilege. “Let me settle up with you,” I said.
Peter still seemed taken aback by his customer’s collapse. “What? Oh—the bill. I’ll get it. What’s wrong with this guy anyway?”
“Stress,” I replied. “His father died very recently.”
“Oh.” With a last look at Max, Peter headed off to get the tab. I trailed behind him just as the medics and firefighters arrived.
Peter took some time to tote up our items. I steeled myself, aware that the total would be at least a hundred dollars. Dimly, I heard Max arguing with the emergency personnel. Apparently, he thought he was just fine. The EMTs didn’t agree.
The tab came to one hundred and thirty-nine dollars. With a twenty percent tip, that was a blow to my Visa account. I had just signed the charge-card slip when Milo Dodge entered the restaurant.
Max was still arguing. The sheriff, after giving a start when he recognized Max, ordered the medics to take him away in the ambulance. Max finally stopped his protests. I was glad. Frankly, he looked awful.
I had edged up behind Milo. As Max allowed himself to be assisted onto a gurney, I plucked at the sheriff ’s sleeve.
“Some dinner date, huh?” I whispered.
“Christ.” Milo looked down at me. “What’d he do? Drink himself stupid?”
“Kind of,” I admitted. “Of course he’s been under a strain.”
“You’re sure you didn’t poison him?”
“I felt like it,” I confessed. Seeing Milo’s puzzled expression, I shrugged. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Whose car did you come in?” he asked as Max was wheeled out of the restaurant.
“His,” I said. “Oh! I’ll get the keys so I can drive it back to town.”
“I’ll ask Sam Heppner to drive it,” Milo said, waving to Del Amundson, one of the medics. “I rode with Sam. We’ll take his patrol car back.”
Five minutes later, the logistics were straightened out. Milo and I were in the patrol car, following the ambulance. The medics didn’t use the siren or go beyond the speed limit. Obviously, they didn’t feel that Max was in any danger.
“So,” Milo said in amusement, “your big date was a washout.”
“A passout’s more like it,” I replied, and related how Max had dwelled on his late wife’s virtues until I’d wanted to scream. “Fifteen years later, he’s still wallowing in the loss of his perfect wife.” I turned to Milo. “God, am I doing that with Tom?”
Milo shrugged as he turned off Highway 2. “It’s only been fifteen months, not years.”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. Milo was no help. I changed the subject. “Why are you out cruising on a Sunday night?”
“Got another break in the fire case,” he said, guiding the patrol car across the bridge. “The National Forest Service chipped in with the news that somebody’s cut down three four-hundred-year-old cedar trees on the other side of Martin Creek.”
“What?” I was aghast. “You mean on public land?”
“Yep. Real giants, Western red cedars seven-feet in diameter.” Milo made a disgusted face. “They were cut less than a mile from where the fire started. It might tie in.”
“How? With what?”
“With the meth lab,” Milo said. “I heard about how these nuts illegally cut down old trees and sell them to support their habit as well as the meth labs. It’s been going on for quite awhile, and it’s almost impossible to police the forests. They’re too damned vast.”
“How do they get the trees out?” I asked as we drove along Front Street.
“They don’t take the whole tree,” Milo replied, pulling into a parking place by his headquarters. “Oh.” He paused with his hand on the ignition key. “Did you want to go home?”
“No,” I said, “I want to hear more about this. Tell me now, before we go inside and confusion reigns. Why don’t they take the entire tree?”
“They have to work fast,” Milo explained, “so they cut out the best parts, like choice chunks of meat. They load a truck and head off to a shingle mill. Or maybe some place that makes musical instruments. Cedar’s in demand for stuff like that. Anyway, they get four, five-hundred bucks for an average load. They’ve been doing it over on the Olympic Peninsula for years.”
“Good grief.” I stared out through the car window. It was well after seven, and getting dark. “So there’s some of the trees left on the ground? I should get Scott to take some photos.”
�
��That’s not all.”
“What?”
Milo put a cigarette in his mouth and rolled down the window on his side of the patrol car. “The firefighters have pin-pointed the starting place. Like I figured, it was the meth lab. It virtually blew up, probably with the victim in it.”
“An accident?”
Milo shrugged. “Maybe. It depends on how the guy died. We may never know. Tomorrow we’re going to try to match dental charts with dentists in SkyCo and the surrounding counties. It’ll take some time.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Not that I can think of,” Milo responded.
Despite the open window, the cigarette smoke was getting to me. Even in my smoking days—not that they appeared to be over yet—I never smoked in the car. The confines were too close, and it made me cough. I started to get out, then stopped.
“Maybe you should take me home,” I said. “Do you mind?”
“No, it’s a five-minute round trip.” Milo turned the ignition key.
“Wait.” I saw Milo look slightly exasperated. “Drop me off at the Frolands’. Please?”
“They were taking Max to the hospital,” Milo replied.
“Oh.” I should have realized that. I stared out the passenger window, thinking. Suddenly I realized that the car parked next to us belonged to Spencer Fleetwood. “What’s he doing here?” I asked, gesturing with my thumb.
Milo looked around me. “Is that Fleetwood’s Beamer? He probably picked up the 911 call on his scanner.”
“Rats!” Scooped again, and on my own date. Not to mention that he’d probably put the fire and the tree-cutting stories on the hour-turn news. “I suppose Spence has already heard the latest.”
“That can’t be helped,” Milo said. “It’s a matter of record. Sorry.”
“On second thought,” I said, “take me to the Froland house anyway. Vida’s staying with June. I’ll get a ride home from her when she leaves.”
Milo started to scowl at me, then chuckled. “You’re avoiding Fleetwood? I thought the two of you might have something going. Dinner at the ski lodge? A candlelit table for two?”
“All the tables in the ski lodge bar have candles,” I shot back, “as you damned well know. As far as a romantic evening with Spence is concerned, they might as well have floodlighted the place.”
The sheriff pulled out onto Front Street. “Fleetwood seems okay to me,” he remarked. “You make him out be some kind of monster because he’s the competition.”
“Of course,” I said. “But actually, we’re going to try to pool our resources and come up with some promotions and ad campaigns that’ll benefit both of us. That’s why we had dinner the other night.”
“I can’t say I really like him,” Milo said as we passed by the newspaper office and the Whistling Marmot Movie Theatre. “He’s not my kind of guy. Too slick. But maybe that’s not all his fault. He reminds me of somebody I knew when I was in high school.”
“Who was that?” I asked idly.
Milo didn’t answer right away. “Come to think of it, he wasn’t a Bucker, he was from another high school. I knew him from 4-H Club when we had regional meetings with other students.”
We’d gone by Harvey’s Hardware and Francine’s Fine Apparel. Milo turned right on Sixth, heading up the hill to Spruce. “What did the guy do?” I inquired. “Ruin your egg-hatching project?”
“City girls,” he sneered. “You don’t know dick about 4-H. Everybody joined it in high school. What did you do for activities? Hustle bums in Pioneer Square bars?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I went to a Catholic school,” I said primly. “We dispensed Christian charity and beat the crap out of the public schools in sports. Say,” I said, recalling something Milo had mentioned earlier in the day, “did Sam and Dwight find anything at the Froland house?”
“You mean in the kitchen?” Milo shook his head. “Somebody’d already cleaned out the fridge. Go figure.”
John Engstrom Park, honoring one of Alpine’s early mill superintendents, was dark, but the lights were on in the houses that marched up the face of Tonga Ridge. Milo turned the corner and pulled up alongside Vida’s Buick.
As I started for the house, the sheriff called after me: “Tell Vida she needs a search warrant if she’s going through the Frolands’ closets and cupboards.”
“Ha!” I kept walking toward the door.
Vida let me in. “June’s sleeping,” she said, with a finger to her lips. “Where’s Max?” She stepped out onto the porch, rubbernecking around the street. “Is that a sheriff’s car? What’s going on?”
I explained. Vida was appalled.
“Haven’t I often warned against hard liquor?”
“It wasn’t hard liquor,” I countered as we moved into the Froland living room. “It was wine. I was the one drinking the hard stuff.”
“It’s still alcohol,” Vida huffed. “How very embarrassing. For you both.” She plopped down on an old brown-and-white plaid sofa. “So Max was taken to the ER?”
“Best place for him,” I said. “How’s June when she’s not asleep?”
“Addled,” Vida replied. A sly look surfaced in her gray eyes. “It’s certain. Jack Froland wrote that letter to Judge Marsha.”
“No kidding!” Despite our earlier suspicions, I was surprised. “You’re sure?”
“Oh, yes. I found the stationery as well as samples of Jack’s handwriting. Marsha should relax now. I questioned June discreetly to find out if she knew anything about the letter. She not only didn’t know who Marsha is, she thought Judge Penguin was still on the bench.”
I considered the ramifications of Jack Froland’s threatening letter. “Did you ask June about the picture of the rope?”
“Yes,” Vida replied. “She had no idea, not even when I reminded her that a similar photo was in one of the family albums. Really, Emma, the woman is a nitwit. I’ve always said as much.”
“At least we can get Marsha off our backs,” I said. “I don’t suppose June mentioned who might have poisoned Jack.”
Vida sniffed. “June refused to discuss how Jack died.”
Again, I was silent for a few moments. “This doesn’t make sense. For some bizarre reason, Jack sends a threatening letter to Marsha about her past. Jack dies a few days later, allegedly poisoned by someone, possibly by his own hand. Regret?”
“Hardly,” Vida retorted. “Jack Froland wasn’t smart enough to have regrets.”
“If,” I suggested, “Marsha actually knew who sent the letter and the reason for it, she’d have a motive for killing Jack.”
“Nonsense,” Vida snapped. “Marsha wouldn’t have come to you if she knew the writer’s identity. Furthermore, she doesn’t know the Frolands, shirttail relations or not.”
I admitted I was grasping at straws.
Vida’s silence seemed to signal agreement. I started relating Milo’s news about the fire and the hacking down of the ancient cedars. June’s cries for Vida interrupted me in the middle of explaining how the perps disposed of the felled trees’ choicest wood.
As Vida tromped into the bedroom, I trailed along behind her. June took one look at me and scowled. “Where’s Max?”
Vida answered for me. “Max has been delayed, June dear. Look, Emma Lord came to see you. Isn’t that nice?” Vida shoved me toward the bed and exited the room just as the phone rang. I’ll get that,” she called.
“Busybody,” June murmured, then cocked an eye at me. “Aren’t you the one Max was taking to dinner tonight? Why isn’t he here? I don’t believe a word that Runkel woman says.”
Truth seemed my best ally. “Max had a . . . little dizzy spell at the restaurant. He’s having Doc Dewey check on him.”
The scowl deepened on June’s pudgy face. “You went to that fancy French place out on the highway, didn’t you? Serves Max right. Too rich. He took us there once. I didn’t know what I was eating half the time. And the prices!” June fanned herself with one hand. “Jack said he
could have bought a whole cow for what Max paid for dinner.”
I felt like saying that I could have bought at least a hoof or two for what I’d paid for dinner. But I kept my mouth shut.
“Where is she?” June leaned forward in the bed. “What’s she doing now in my house now? Who called?”
Vida reappeared like a genie let out of a bottle. “Max will be home shortly. He . . .”
“How’s his stomach?” I interrupted.
“His . . . ? Well,” Vida said, catching on, “Dr. Sung told him he should probably eat bland foods for a day or two.”
“Dr. Sung?” echoed June. “That Chinaman? What does he know!”
“He knows,” Vida said clearly, “that he’s not a Chinaman. He’s from Hawaii. I believe he’s mainly Korean.”
June threw up her hands. “Korean! What difference does it make?”
I heard the knock on the door first and beat Vida to see who was outside. It was Sam Heppner, who’d returned the Taurus and was holding Max’s car keys.
“He needs an oil change,” Sam said, dropping the keys in my hand. The deputy, in typical taciturn fashion, tipped his regulation hat and left.
When I returned to the bedroom, Vida and June were arguing about what constituted a bland diet.
“Jell-o!” June exclaimed. “Max wouldn’t eat Jell-o when he was a kid. Why would he eat it now? Jack was supposed to be on a bland diet for a while a couple of months ago. I gave him chicken noodle soup one night and he poured it down the sink. Stopped up the drain, and we had to call the plumber.”
“You certainly don’t have much in your refrigerator,” Vida shot back. “It’s empty. I hope you have cans of soup for Max.”
“What do you mean, the fridge’s empty?” June demanded. “That’s crazy. It wasn’t the last time I looked.”
Vida gave June her gimlet eye. “Which was when?”
June seemed taken aback. “Well. Let me think. I’ve been off my feet the last few days. A week ago, maybe? The night Jack died?”
“That’s over a week,” Vida noted with an expression of disapproval. “Isn’t it time you were up and doing?”
“I’m not well,” June asserted with a pout. “It’s my nerves. They’re shot. I don’t see how Max can leave me so soon.”