The Alpine Winter

by Mary Daheim

“Keeping you safe is the priority.” He hugged me tighter. “The Nelson kids only know their contact as Mr. Hertz, so it’d help if you could think of something—anything—to give us a lead.”

  “Mr. Hertz? As in rental cars?”

  “The kids didn’t know. I doubt they can spell their own names.”

  “I don’t know anyone who hates me. How about religious bigots?”

  Milo adjusted the pillow behind his head. “Forty years ago, I could name dozens. I was still a kid during the Kennedy-Nixon presidential campaign. You wouldn’t believe the crap I heard about what’d happen if Kennedy got elected—from the pope moving to the White House to burning Prots in the old Alpine Market parking lot. When JFK got killed, some dinks cheered. That breed’s gone. People are more broad-minded since the college opened.”

  “Father Den, being black, and Dustin Fong, with his Chinese ancestry, helped pave the way. Vida tells tales about Protestant and Catholic animosity. So what went on with you and Ben at lunch?”

  “Oh …” He grimaced. “Your brother’s got a bug up his ass. Why,” he asked, making a sweeping gesture with his free hand, “is this a sin?”

  “We’re not married.”

  “You know I don’t like catch-and-release when I fish. I’d like it even less with you. We can fix that.”

  I stared at him. “Do you want to?”

  “Do you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “Hell, yes. Didn’t I ask you when you were in your dopey phase?”

  “You didn’t really ask,” I said. “You sort of alluded to the idea.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, I was gun-shy after the divorce. That was a long time ago. This is now. So what’s your answer?”

  “Yes.”

  The sheriff looked stunned. “God. That was easy.” He shook his head in apparent disbelief. “Hey, we’re engaged. Is this still a sin?”

  “Probably. I guess.”

  “Are you going to get all weepy about it?”

  “No. Adam likes you.”

  “Can he marry us?”

  “If you get your first marriage annulled. Didn’t Ben explain that?”

  “Ben kept going off track with theology and doctrine. He reminded me of suspects who talk all the way around the question so they can avoid a direct answer. All that does is piss me off.”

  I sighed. “That sounds like Ben. He’s already pissed me off.”

  “How do you get an annulment?”

  I covered my ears. “Stop. I can’t cope with all this. Someone’s trying to kill me, you want to marry me, I can’t stay in my house, I have no car, my brother’s mad at me—and you hit me with a door.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “You weren’t. You thought it served me right.”

  “It did.” He brushed strands of hair from my cheek. “You know the difference between me being an overbearing S.O.B. and giving a damn what happens to you?”

  “I’m starting to find out,” I said.

  “You should. Who’s taken care of Emma since you were … what? Twenty years old?”

  I stared into those earnest hazel eyes. “Nobody. Except me.”

  He nodded. “Your parents got killed. Your brother went off to be a priest. Cavanaugh walked on you. Then Adam stepped into Ben’s shoes and he took off, too. You’ve spent your whole adult life on your own. That’s okay, but that’s enough. Nobody should do that forever. I had to figure that out for myself, too.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve had my back from the start.”

  “Well … I tried, but I wasn’t too good at it in the beginning. I wasn’t used to being needed. Mulehide and the kids made that clear to me.”

  I smiled weakly. “And I thought you were never introspective.”

  Milo grimaced. “I have my moments. Especially when I’m fishing.”

  I kissed his cheek. “You amaze me sometimes. Like now. But we have to get up and eat—and think. Please turn on the heat.”

  “God,” he said, throwing off the covers and getting out of bed, “we get engaged and you’re already nagging me. It’s not that cold in here.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I muttered.

  Ten minutes later, I was scanning his fridge. “I should’ve brought leftovers. Do we really have to eat out of boxes?”

  Milo was making drinks. “What kind of box do you like? Red, green, or blue?”

  I grimaced. “How many Hungry Man dinners can you eat without brain damage?”

  “How come you’re wearing my bathrobe?”

  “Mine was too bulky to pack.”

  “It’s a good thing mine’s short or you’d trip and break something. Make pancakes. I didn’t get any this morning.” He came up behind me. “You make this dump look good,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and resting his chin on top of my head.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, turning my head just enough to look up at him. “Guess what? I found the link between Mitch and Andrews.”

  “The hell you did.” Milo let go of me. “And …?”

  Having condensed the story for Vida, it took only a couple of minutes to tell Milo—and I added the Yakima paper’s confirmation.

  “The jerk’s on a vendetta,” he said when I finished. “He wants to go dad-on-dad with Mitch. Maybe it took him this long to find Laskey.”

  A phone rang, probably the landline, since it didn’t sound like the sheriff’s cell. He grabbed the receiver off the counter. “Yeah?” Milo took his cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “The package arrived safely.” He shot me a quick look, the receiver under his chin, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. “No, it’s empty. Good work with the motels. How about the traffic stops?”

  I rummaged in the cupboards for pancake makings. No Bisquick, no Krusteaz, not even a bag of flour. Did Milo think I was a magician?

  “How long does it take Andy to find out where the money came from? … Skip that … tell him to get his ass in gear.… Yeah, I will.… Just do it … notify those troopers.… Screw it, it’s their job.” Milo slammed the receiver down on its base. “What did those morons do when I wasn’t here?”

  I picked up my drink. “Might I ask what they’re doing now?”

  He sat down at the kitchen table, which was partially covered with unopened mail and magazines. “They checked the motels and the ski lodge for anybody suspicious. Just ordinary citizens, unless you count Turk Durgan, who’s still at the lodge. The deputies are making traffic stops of all unknown vehicles. With this snow, there’s not many. Chains are being required, so the state patrol’s involved. Andy Cederberg is working on the electronic transfers into the Nelson kids’ account—and who set it up in the first place.” He shrugged. “That’s it, for now.”

  I’d sat down, too, though I’d had to move an REI catalog off the chair to do it. “What’s empty? What did you mean by a package?”

  “You.” He sipped some Scotch. “You don’t know zip.”

  “Oh. The cupboard’s got zip, too. You don’t have flour?”

  “Why would I? When was the last time I baked a cake?”

  “No pancakes for you.”

  He offered me a cigarette. I accepted. “I’ve got hamburger in the freezer,” he said. “What can you do with that?”

  “Make hamburgers?”

  “Sure.” Milo frowned. “There has to be somebody out there who doesn’t like you. If we rule out your priests as targets, this is personal.”

  “Are your deputies watching the Advocate?”

  Milo nodded. “I’ve got Ron Bjornson keeping an eye on it.”

  Ron, whose other job was college security, worked part-time for the sheriff as a handyman. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any potatoes.”

  “You mean that aren’t frozen?” He shook his head.

  “Frozen works.” I went to the freezer. “I need an ice pick to …”

  I recognized Milo’s cell ring. Even before he spoke, I knew there was trouble. He got up and moved out of the kitchen. I was about to fo
llow him, but decided that was a bad idea. Instead, I struggled to free a pound of hamburger, and after my fingers started turning numb, I dislodged half a bag of frozen fries. I’d turned the oven on when Milo came back to the kitchen. Judging from his expression, he was riled. I waited for him to take a swig of Scotch before asking what was wrong.

  “Freaking Mulehide,” he said in disgust.

  “Oh!” Somehow I was relieved. “What now?”

  “She wants me to send her and Tanya to Hawaii.”

  I laughed. Milo didn’t. “Why,” I said, “should you pay for that?”

  “Because I’m here, not there. ‘It’s the least you can do,’ ” he said in a grating imitation of his ex’s voice. “She sure picked a bad time to ask.” He polished off his Scotch. “I told her I’d think about it.”

  I put my arms around his neck. “I don’t want to go to Hawaii.”

  “Oh, Emma.” He held me tight. “What the hell did I do right?”

  “What you always do. You were persistent. Patient. Then you pounced.”

  He pulled away a bit. “Pounced?”

  “Dumb word,” I said. “We were always on guard. Scared. Afraid to really fall in love. Then we both let go. It changed everything.”

  He smiled. “I tried to treat you like … a lady. Mulehide was so cold you could’ve chilled beer on her butt. She acted like she was made of glass. She wasn’t, even before she put on thirty pounds. You’re kind of little.” He circled my wrist with his thumb and index finger. “Itty-bitty bones. I was afraid you’d break.”

  The cell rang against my ear, since it was in his shirt pocket.

  “Now what?” Milo growled, after letting me go and answering. “What does that mean?” he asked, getting a refill for his drink. “Run that by me again.… What about the post office? Somebody collects the mail.” He checked his watch. “Right, it’s after seven. Thanks, Andy.”

  I punched the microwave’s defrost button for the hamburger and stubbed out my cigarette. “What?”

  “The transfers were made from an account with a PO box in Kirkland,” Milo said, sitting down again. “The box belongs to Main Cure, LLC. I thought Andy said ‘manicure,’ but he spelled it. He figures it’s some quack medical outfit. Not listed in any directory he’s checked.”

  I sat down, too. “There’s lots of those alternative medicine places.”

  Milo stroked his long chin. “Andy’s finding out if anybody at the post office knows who uses the box.” He grew thoughtful. “You sure about Tom’s kids being okay with Adam’s inheritance?”

  “They didn’t want the responsibility. I heard later that although Tom’s revised will was lost and his lawyer had been killed, there were people in the firm who’d take an oath that Tom made a new one.”

  “Do you hear from his kids?”

  “No. I’m the stepmother who never was.”

  Milo put his hand on mine. “Just as well.”

  I nodded. “I still feel sorry for them, especially Kelsey. She seems to have some of Sandra’s unbalanced chemistry.”

  Milo shook his head. “Parents can screw them up, even when it’s not lousy genes.” He stood up. “I’d better make rounds.”

  My eyes widened. “Where are you going?”

  “Just around the house. Don’t worry. I’ll be armed.”

  But I did worry even as I made another foray into the freezer and found some frozen string beans. By the time the hamburger had thawed and the oven had reached four hundred degrees, the sheriff returned.

  “Three inches out there and still coming down,” he said, taking off his all-weather jacket. “No footprints. Relax.”

  “I need another drink, too,” I said. “I’m shaky. Everything hit me when you went outside. How do we know if Adam and Ben are okay?”

  “We’d know if they weren’t. My deputies aren’t total dopes.”

  “Who knows I’m here?”

  “Dwight.”

  “Where does everybody think I am?”

  “At the rectory with the priests.”

  “Where do the priests think I am?”

  “With Dwight at headquarters.”

  I made a face. “That would be awful. Where are your prisoners?”

  “In their cells. Evan Singer and Beth Rafferty are there, too,” he said, referring to the 911 operators who usually worked in a back room.

  “You’ve pulled out all the stops. That’s scary. What,” I asked, flipping a hamburger, “will I do about the paper? Can I charge my cell?”

  “Sure, but don’t use it tonight,” he said, looking up from his copy of the Advocate. “You’re incommunicado.”

  “Great. How can I help you if I can’t make calls?”

  “Unlike your home phone, which comes up as ‘E. M. Lord,’ your cell says ‘Alpine Advocate.’ You want somebody to take a shot at Vida?”

  “But I’d only call people I know.”

  “You might dial wrong. How often have you tried to call me when you were in a tizzy and ended up with the dry cleaners?”

  “I never called the cleaners by mistake.”

  “Whatever. Your staff can cope. You’ve been away before.” Milo was quiet as I removed the fries from the oven. “Nothing from Laskey?”

  “Leo talked to him. They checked out of their motel. Brenda’s a wreck, so they’ll go where she can get help.” I dished up the food.

  “Why now?” Milo asked after eating some hamburger. “It shouldn’t have taken a guy like Andrews all this time to track down Laskey, especially if he’s got a PI on his tail. Something set him off.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “Christmas?”

  Milo looked thoughtful as he ate some beans. “No. It’s been what—at least one other Christmas since the accident? Andrews could’ve jumped on a plane, flown to Detroit, and kicked Laskey’s ass then. Or he could’ve gone to Yakima for the hearing. I checked Troy’s file this afternoon after everything cooled down. There were plenty of chances for Andrews to go after both Mitch and Troy. It’s why now that bothers me.”

  “Oh!” I said, still wondering why my brain seemed to be sputtering. “That medal Troy had doesn’t belong to Gus. Gus dropped his in some pizza sauce.”

  Milo paused with a forkful of hamburger halfway to his mouth. “No shit. Is this another one of your theories?”

  “No,” I shot back, and told him about Davin Rhodes and the pizza.

  “That,” he said, “is still a theory. But it’s not a bad one. Verify it.”

  I looked at him blankly. “How? Mail him a letter?”

  “Mullins can do it,” he said begrudgingly. “He knows what he’s talking about. He didn’t let Rita see it, just to give her a bad time. I’ll call him.” Milo had polished off his dinner. He stood up and stretched before going into the other room.

  I was still eating. The call took less than a minute. “You didn’t move,” he said. “Amazing. I guess I won’t have to put a bell on you.”

  I gave him a dirty look. “Cut the crap and call Monroe. Ask for a Samoan guard. He and Troy were tight. Find out about an older inmate who befriended Troy.”

  “Who’s in charge here? We get engaged and you take over my house and job?”

  “You asked me to help.”

  He sighed. “My contact list is in my workroom. I’ll do it now.”

  Before he left the kitchen, I cleared the table and opened the dishwasher. “When was the last time you ran this?”

  “How should I know? I don’t wash boxes.”

  “I don’t believe I’m in danger,” I snapped. “You only brought me here because you want a cook, a housekeeper, and a hooker. If I had my boots, I’d walk home.”

  “You’d fall over your own feet and …” He stared in disbelief. “You didn’t bring boots?”

  “I forgot. You rushed me.”

  “I should keep you on a leash.”

  “Boots!” I cried. “I forgot that, too!” I grabbed Milo by his shirt and told him about the hiking boots that Roy had bro
ught to Amer Wasco. “Vida’s dropping them off at your office this evening. They’re from REI. Being a co-op, they’d have a record of who bought them.”

  Milo looked pained. “I think I like it better when you forget stuff.”

  “I’m not done,” I said sheepishly, before telling him about Kiefer Madison and the attempted airplane theft during the two days Troy had been at large the first time. “In fact, that moron Curtis Mayne didn’t include the APB in his report of the log.”

  Milo grimaced. “The little jerk probably never checked it.”

  I didn’t argue. “Anyway, Kiefer told security he was doing it for a friend, so maybe he was going to fly Troy to see Libby at Gonzaga.”

  “I think,” the sheriff said wearily, “you’ve gone a theory too far.” But he headed off to his workroom.

  Knowing that Milo kept his personal area downstairs as orderly as the rest of the house was messy, I wasn’t surprised to see him return in a little over five minutes.

  “I called Monroe. The Samoan’s there—Johnny Malifia. He’ll get back to me. Let’s finish our drinks in the living room and talk suspects.”

  We sat on the sofa. “You can’t come up with an enemy around here,” he said. “What about outsiders? That’s why I asked about the Cavanaugh kids. You nixed them. Where else do we look?”

  “I didn’t make enemies in Portland. My beat was fairly tame.”

  “Too far back. So are the nuts with ties to Cavanaugh’s killer. Damn it, Emma, you’re usually pretty good at figuring things out. Can you pretend you’re not involved and get your brain in gear? I have to be honest. I am—as you like to say—baffled.”

  “So am I.”

  He scowled at me. “See? You’re part of the puzzle. You don’t have perspective. It’s why you walk into walls and trip over roots. You think outside of yourself. Your mind races all over the place. Focus on you.”

  I must have looked stupid. Milo removed his arm from around my shoulders and settled back against the sofa. “I’m not kidding. No more fun stuff for us.” He grimaced. “Everything’s off limits until you get your addled head working again. Mine too. You distract me.”

  I blinked, realizing I wasn’t looking at my lover, but the sheriff. Milo, or whoever he was, was right. I had lost focus. So had he.

  I glanced at my watch. It was just seven o’clock. I gasped. “Vida!” I cried. “Turn on the radio!”