The Alpine Decoy

by Mary Daheim

“Well,” I hedged, “that’s up to you. I’d love to have you come, of course. But if you’re returning to Fairbanks next year, you’ll need to save up.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Adam replied. “I’m thinking about transferring to Cal-Berkeley. They don’t have an archaeology major up here. Or is it anthropology?” As ever, Adam sounded vague on the subject of his future.

  “What’s wrong with the UDUB?” I demanded, referring to the University of Washington in Seattle which had been good enough for me.

  “There’s WAZZU, too,” Adam remarked. The nickname stood for Washington State University, some three hundred miles away in Pullman. “But I like the Bay Area. San Fran is cool.”

  San Fran was indeed cool. It was also home base for Adam’s father. I had mixed feelings about that. “Talk to Ben. He gives good advice.”

  To my mild surprise, Adam agreed. We talked some more, about his classes, which bored him, about his latest girlfriend, who thrilled him, about his part-time job with the state highway department, which fatigued him. He was still trying to convince me it would be terrific for him to stop off in Seattle and Alpine en route to Tuba City. I didn’t argue further; I’d be too glad to have my only son with me to squelch the idea.

  I had just hung up when Milo Dodge loped into my office. Since it was Thursday, the day after our weekly publication, I wasn’t as frantically engaged as usual. So far there had been only a dozen irate phone calls from readers. This week they pounced on two issues. One was Vida’s account of the perennially controversial Junior Miss Alpine competition. The other was my recent editorial devoted to resurfacing the county road that led out of town to the ranger station. It was pretty tame stuff, but some of our subscribers felt that any public work demanded new taxes. They weren’t entirely wrong.

  Milo is the sheriff of Skykomish County, and just because we are both single and share the same decade of birth, people often think we should be madly in love. We are not. Milo is involved with a potteress from Startup named Honoria Whitman who gets around in a wheelchair, courtesy of her late husband who once threw her down a flight of stairs. I am involved with my newspaper. Or so I like to tell myself.

  “People sure are dumb,” Milo declared as he settled his shambling body into one of the two chairs positioned on the opposite side of my desk. “Are you eating that salad?”

  “I sure am,” I retorted, stabbing at the lettuce with a plastic fork. “If you were so hungry, why didn’t you call? We could have gone out to lunch.”

  Milo scratched at something on his neck. “I thought about it, but we got a call from that new nurse at Dr. Flake’s. Some jerk is writing her threatening letters.”

  I swallowed quickly. “Marilynn Lewis? We were just talking about her this morning.”

  Milo’s long face grew longer. “She’s gotten three of them. Two are obviously from the same nutcase, but the third may be from somebody else.”

  “Antiblack?” I asked, polishing off the burger dip.

  Milo nodded. He is a few years older than I am, in his midforties, with graying sandy hair, hazel eyes, and a laconic manner that fools a lot of people. I am not one of them. “It’s to be expected. There haven’t been any minorities around Alpine since the Orientals worked the mines back before World War I. Oh, we get tourists who aren’t lily-white, but they don’t stick around, so the locals tolerate them. But this Lewis woman seems inclined to stay. Some of the reactionaries resent that.”

  “You’re right: they’re dumb.” I pushed the plastic container of salad at Milo. “Here, have some. I’m getting full.” It wasn’t exactly true, but bigotry has a way of taking the edge off my appetite. “Do you know who sent them?”

  Milo shook his head. “It could be anybody. Ms. Lewis isn’t all that upset, but after the third one, she felt she ought to notify us. I’m afraid we can’t do much about it.”

  I sat back and watched Milo finish my salad. Absently, he drank my Coke. Unconsciously, he gobbled up the last four milk chocolate Easter eggs I’d been saving for a month. I sighed.

  “It’s not a story,” Milo asserted, mistaking my reaction.

  “You mean ‘Sheriff Charged With Piggery’? Damn it, Milo, I’ve been keeping those chocolate eggs in the refrigerator since Easter.”

  “Oh.” Milo had the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You didn’t figure I came here to see about running something on those letters, did you?”

  I shook my head. “I assumed you came her to steal my lunch. It’s too bad, because I was thinking about asking you and Honoria to dinner tonight.”

  “Honoria’s in Seattle until Sunday,” Milo replied. “There’s some kind of ceramic and pottery show at the Center. I could come, though.”

  Not having been serious about the dinner invitation, I found myself hoisted with my own petard. I surrendered with good grace. “You’re right,” I agreed as Milo eased himself onto his feet. “It’s not a story.”

  Milo nodded. “The letters’ll go away. People’ll get used to having a black person around. I guess she’s a pretty good nurse.”

  “She’ll offer Alpine a positive image of African-Americans,” I said, wondering if Carla had any twisters left over. It was unlikely, since Ed had returned from breakfast and stuffed himself at Carta’s expense. “I’m glad she’s here. With so many commuters from Everett and even Seattle, it’s about time we got some racial mix.”

  Milo inclined his head. Somehow, I wished he’d given me a vigorous nod instead.

  Ed Bronsky was trying to explain why we didn’t need to publish a special section on the new bowling alley. I saw the event as an occasion for various Alpine merchants and organizations to take out ads congratulating the Erdahl family on opening Alpine’s Fast Lanes; Ed saw it as a nuisance.

  “Do you know how long it takes me to lay out a four-page insert?” Ed looked as if he was first oarsman on a Roman slave galley.

  “Actually, Ed,” I persisted, “Ginny gives you all kinds of help. If we get enough ads, we could actually turn a profit for the first week of June.”

  Ed’s heavy face fell at the sound of an obscenity like profit. He was about my age, not quite medium height, wide of shoulder, and broad of beam. The only person I knew who had a worse shape than Ed was his wife, Shirley.

  As if on cue, Ginny Burmeister entered the news office. She expressed mild enthusiasm over the proposed insert, which was about as excited as Ginny ever gets. Ed didn’t take kindly to her positive stance.

  “You’re still young, Ginny,” he said in his lugubrious voice. “You can stand hard work and long hours. You don’t have to go out and beat your feet on the sidewalks, hustling every day.”

  “Like who?” Vida looked up from proofing the obituary of ninety-three-year-old Axel Swensen, who had worked the big cut-off saw in the original Alpine mill. “Ed, the last time you hustled was when Carla cut Ginny’s birthday cake. You slipped in a puddle of punch and landed right in the frosting. Carla took a picture to prove it, but as usual, she forgot to load her camera.”

  It was going on five. I didn’t feel like listening to my staff wrangle anymore for the day. “We’re going to do the insert, and that’s that,” I declared firmly. “You know, Ed, maybe it’s time you rethought your career. I sometimes get the impression you don’t really like advertising.”

  Even as the words tumbled out of my mouth, I regretted them. I rarely took a staff member to task, and when I did, it was always in private. I was dismayed as I watched Ed redden and seem to creep inside the collar of his rumpled raincoat.

  “I love advertising,” he protested. “My father was a salesman for John Deere. It’s in my blood. Free enterprise, the American way, the whole idea of commerce—why, I wouldn’t know how to do anything else!”

  I didn’t doubt that for a minute. But I refrained from saying so. “Then try changing your attitude,” I said, making my voice sound less harsh. “You give the wrong impression. It’s very frustrating for me sometimes.” I smiled, if a bit fee
bly.

  Seemingly placated, Ed rummaged around his desk, made incoherent noises about pursuing the insert idea, and then left. Twenty minutes early. Ginny returned to the front office to finish her daily chores, and Vida announced she was heading home, too. In her case, I didn’t mind. I knew she had to cover a party up at the ski lodge that night. One of the county commissioners was retiring due to ill health or perennial intoxication, or both.

  Just as Vida left, Carla returned, holding her head. “My ear is hurting again. I went over to the high school to interview the music teacher about the Methodist Church’s ban on rap recordings, and I got the most awful stabbing pains. Do you think I should see Dr. Flake before he leaves for the day?’

  I advised her to go. “Are you sure the music teacher didn’t make you listen to some of those recordings?” I asked dryly.

  Carla didn’t find my remark amusing. “Are you kidding? The Methodists—and some of the other churches, too—are making sure Platters on the Sky won’t carry any of the recordings with those stupid explicit-lyrics stickers on them. Whatever happened to free speech and all those amendments? Ouch!” Carla grabbed her ear.

  Back in my office, I made a note to write an editorial on censorship. I also made a quick grocery list. Milo was strictly a meat-and-potatoes man so I jotted down rib steak, which I knew was on special at the Grocery Basket, the fixings for a Caesar salad, and a bottle of red wine. I’d make my own french fries and pick up dessert at the Upper Crust.

  The phone rang just as I was debating whether or not I should wear my damaged linen jacket. Milo Dodge’s laconic voice was on the other end of the line.

  “I may be late,” he said. “Closer to eight than seven.”

  “That’s fine,” I assured him. “I have to shop and cook first.” I could have been ready for Milo by seven o’clock, but if he came later I wouldn’t have to rush. I might even have time to check the mail and phone messages at home.

  Milo, however, didn’t hear my reply. He was off the line, speaking to one of his deputies. I thought I recognized the usually chipper voice of Jack Mullins. Except Jack didn’t sound so chipper.

  “What’s that, Emma?” Milo said into the phone. “Sorry, I got interrupted.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, exchanging my role as hostess for that of journalist.

  Milo let out a groan. “More dumb stunts. It’s just as well I don’t say anything. You might be tempted to run it in the paper.”

  The sheriff of Skykomish County knows better than to pull that line on me. All I had to do was walk down the street to his office and check over the daily log. “Okay, Milo,” I sighed, “what happened?”

  He hesitated, then gave in. “It’s our new nurse. She got a little surprise in the mail today.” Again, he paused, and I could picture his long face grimacing. “Somebody sent her a black crow. Dead. Now that’s pretty ugly, Emma.”

  It sure was. But could it be news? I was afraid so. Nevertheless, I made a judgment. “I’m not running that,” I said, on a note of outrage.

  “Good,” Milo said. “But it could get worse.”

  I sighed again. Milo was right. It could, and it did.

  Chapter Two

  HALFWAY DOWN AISLE 2-A at the Grocery Basket, I realized that Carla might be about to make one of her classic journalism mistakes. Having gone to see Peyton Flake, she would probably hear the story of Marilynn Lewis and the dead crow. It was likely that my eager young reporter would grill the new nurse about her experience. While I could easily veto the article before it got into print, I felt it was equally important to spare Marilynn the embarrassment of Carla’s questions.

  Tossing salad oil and anchovies into the cart with the rest of my groceries, I raced to the checkout stand. I cut short the usual pleasantries with fellow shoppers, the checker, and the courtesy clerk. Five minutes later, I was at the clinic where Nancy Dewey was closing the office for the day.

  Young Doc Dewey’s wife was closer to fifty than forty, but well preserved, mainly due to good bones and fine gray eyes that retained a youthful sparkle. She had helped put Gerald Dewey through medical school by working at the University Book Store in Seattle. Now that her two children were raised and married, Nancy Dewey filled her leisure hours by alternating as a backup at her husband’s clinic and as a salesperson at her father’s stereo store at the Alpine Mall.

  “You looking for Carla?” she asked, with a smile that was a trifle pinched.

  I said I was. Carla, however, was in the back, being examined by Peyton Flake. She wouldn’t be long, Nancy assured me.

  I leaned on the counter that separated the receptionist’s station from the waiting room. “Is Marilynn Lewis still here? I haven’t officially met her.” I tried to keep my expression bland.

  Nancy Dewey gave me a sharp look. My attempts at subterfuge almost always fail. “She went home about an hour ago.” Nancy paused, apparently waiting for me to blurt out the real reason for my visit.

  I capitulated. “Was she upset?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” Nancy gave the day calendar an angry flip to the next page. “Imagine, the gall of some people! Oh, I know we’ve got plenty of rednecks and bigots in this town. But to go out of your way to make somebody miserable—that takes a real mean streak. We had four patients waiting when Marilynn opened that blasted box.”

  As usual, I mentally calculated how long it would take the four onlookers to pass the news around Alpine. Whatever the time frame, the gossip mill would work faster—and more efficiently—than we could at The Advocate. Maybe my concern about sparing Marilynn embarrassment was in vain.

  “What did she do with it? The box, I mean. And the crow,” I added, as an afterthought.

  Nancy switched the phone to the answering service before she replied. “I made her give box and bird to the sheriff. No return address, of course, and the handwriting was crude. A local postmark, but sufficient stamps so that it wouldn’t have to go across the post office counter. Cowardly, as you might expect.” Her fine eyes snapped with anger.

  Sadly, I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say. It was doubtful that Marilynn Lewis had ever experienced such an insult in Seattle. Not that there weren’t bigots in the Big City, but Marilynn wouldn’t be singled out. In Alpine, it was different. She was, in effect, a pioneer. She must have realized that when she moved to town. I said as much to Nancy Dewey.

  Nancy shrugged. “I suppose she was prepared for the worst, but she probably expected better. You know how most people are: eternal optimists.” It was clear from Nancy’s tone that life had taught her otherwise. She leaned across the counter, lowering her voice as if the waiting room were filled with eager listeners. “Gerry wasn’t crazy about the hiring. In fact, Flake didn’t tell him Marilynn was black. He interviewed her in Seattle, so my husband never saw her until she showed up for work.”

  I hated to ask the question, but I couldn’t avoid it. “And Gerry was upset?”

  “Oh, no!” Nancy shook her head with vigor. “Not for himself, that is. Heck, Gerry had a black roommate in college. It was the Sixties, for heavens’ sake! But that’s the point, Emma—people like Gerry, who’ve lived away from Alpine, usually aren’t prejudiced. Unfortunately, most of the locals have spent ninety-nine percent of their lives in Skykomish County. Then there are the newcomers who moved up here to get away from urban problems. That combination makes up our practice. I can’t blame Gerry for worrying about local reactions.”

  “He should only worry about Marilynn’s qualifications as a nurse,” I noted in my primmest voice.

  Nancy nodded. “Which are excellent. Though,” she added, “it’s mostly hospital experience. Orthopedics and emergency room. But if you can handle the E.R., you can do anything.”

  Carla came out from the examining room area with Peyton Flake at her heels. My staff reporter is barely five feet tall; Flake is six-four. They made an odd pair. Carta’s long black hair fell over her shoulders, while Flake’s wavy brown locks were held back in a ponytail. As
ever, his professional attire was more than casual. It was almost disreputable. His blue jeans were ragged at the cuffs, his flannel shirt was rumpled, and the white coat he wore in deference to Gerald Dewey needed both cleaning and pressing.

  “Bastards,” said Flake, yanking the stethoscope from around his neck. “If I find out who did that to Marilynn, I’ll kill the sons-of-bitches.” He wheeled on Nancy who was coming out of the receptionist’s area. “I’ve already told your husband that if this crap keeps up, I’m quitting. I won’t live in a lame-assed town where people aren’t treated like people.”

  Nancy Dewey didn’t even blink. I gathered she was accustomed to Peyton Flake’s outbursts. “You’ve got surgery at eight tomorrow,” she said calmly. “Mrs. Whipp, knee replacement.”

  Flake’s face fell. “I’ve never done a knee. Oh, well.” He shrugged and went out the door.

  Carla was staring at me. “What are you doing here? I’ve got to go to the pharmacy and get some antibiotics.”

  I asked her if she’d seen Marilynn, but the nurse had left before Carla arrived. Relieved, I bade Nancy Dewey good night and accompanied Carla outside. As it turned out, Carla didn’t know anything about the dead crow. No surprise there—my reporter is often the last to know anything. She expressed dismay, but in a detached sort of way. It was obvious that Carla’s priority was her aching ear. I watched her hurry across Pine Street and head for Parker’s Pharmacy two blocks away, between Third and Fourth on Front.

  Coincidences in Alpine often aren’t very remarkable. With only four thousand people, it isn’t unusual to run into somebody you’ve just been talking about. Or at least to meet up with one of their cousins. In this case, it was an Alpine Appliance van parked across the street at the community hospital. A young man with straw-colored hair was coming out of the emergency entrance as I unlocked the door to my green Jaguar. I wondered if he might be Shane Campbell, whose parents were providing board and room for Marilynn Lewis.

  I used my guise as journalist to find out. “Equipment problems?” I shouted.