The Alpine Decoy

by Mary Daheim

  Lloyd inclined his head, conceding the point. Before he could ask for my opinion, Jean returned from the kitchen. “We’re almost ready,” she said, a bit breathlessly. “Shane is watching the meat. Would anyone care for more sparkling cider?”

  “More?” Todd made a face. “Wendy and I haven’t had any. You got a beer? I’ve had a hell of a day.”

  Jean frowned at her son-in-law, but Lloyd got up from his recliner. “Believe it or not, Todd, I have a six-pack stashed away in the woodshed. I was saving it for a fishing trip.”

  Moments later, Todd Wilson was caressing his can of beer as if it were a family pet. His wife ignored him. His sister-in-law looked envious. Lloyd Campbell made another trip into the kitchen and disappeared. I wondered if he’d liberated a second beer for himself and was drinking it in the backyard.

  Our hostess could be seen through the French doors that separated the living room from the dining room. Jean had brought out two serving bowls; she returned with a bread basket; on the third trip, she carried a large platter.

  “Dinner,” she called, then went back into the kitchen.

  Wendy led us into the dining room with its solid oak table and chairs, a big breakfront jammed with china, and a buffet decorated with a pair of brass candlesticks and a bouquet of tulips.

  Swiftly, I counted the place settings. There were nine. Eight of us had already shown up. Marilynn Lewis was missing. Shane carried in a big bowl of salad; Jean brought a ladle for the gravy. We were still in the act of sitting down when we heard the sirens.

  Vida craned her neck in the direction of the double window that looked out onto Seventh Street. It was still broad daylight. “That’s the sheriff,” she said.

  Lloyd eased himself into his chair at the head of the table. “Probably a wreck out there at the four-way stop. Damned fools come tearing down First Hill Road and don’t bother to see if anybody’s coming off Highway 187. Kids, I’ll bet.” He passed the potatoes to Wendy on his left.

  Wendy pursed her lips. “We need a real traffic light there. We’ve had two assemblies on traffic safety already this year at the high school, but nobody listens. Drivers’ ed, yes—that works pretty well. But not everybody takes it …”

  Her voice trailed off as another siren sounded nearby. “Ambulance,” said Vida, taking the meat platter from Shane. Her eyes flickered around the table, lighting on the vacant chair between Cyndi and Todd. “Where’s Marilynn?”

  The question had been on my mind ever since we arrived half an hour earlier. Glances seemed to fly around the table: Lloyd at Jean, Jean at Shane, Shane at Cyndi, Cyndi at both Wendy and Todd.

  It was Shane who finally spoke. “She was going to be late. She said not to wait for her.”

  Wendy gave a little snort. “Well, we didn’t.” She spooned green beans onto her plate.

  The awkward lull that ensued was broken by Jean Campbell, who urged us not to skimp on the meat. “It isn’t often that flank steak’s on special, so I always get plenty of it. And I hate having leftovers. Lloyd won’t eat them.” She gave her husband a benevolent smile.

  The mood seemed to relax, though I noticed that Vida was leaning back in her chair, as if listening for further action from outside.

  Apparently, Lloyd also noticed her attitude. “You should have brought your camera, Vida. Front-page car crashes always get readers’ attention, I’ll bet.”

  But Vida shook her head. “Those sirens didn’t go all the way to the intersection. In fact, they didn’t even go past your house. It sounded to me as if they stopped a couple of blocks up Spruce.”

  Spruce was the next east-west artery, between Tyee and my own street, Fir. It went past the high school field before petering out at Highway 187 and First Hill Road. I felt a wave of uneasiness creep over me. I didn’t know why.

  No one argued with Vida’s pronouncement about the sirens, Instead, Wendy began to talk about the essays her American lit students had handed in that day. Her parents wore interested expressions; her siblings looked bored; her husband left the dining room, possibly searching for his father-in-law’s stash of beer.

  “They can’t get it through their heads that science fiction isn’t literature. Neither are romances or spy stories or those thrillers that make your hair stand on end.” Wendy was pontificating, using her fork for emphasis. “I’m not asking them to read Hawthorne or Henry James—I’d settle for Hemingway, even J. D. Salinger. I had one kid who turned in a paper on a comic book version of Call of the Wild!”

  Jean Campbell wore a look of concern. “Salinger? I remember when you and Shane and Cyndi read his book. It was awfully frank. I don’t think Hemingway is suitable, either. What’s wrong with Sir Walter Scott and Louisa May Alcott?”

  “The smokers’ grocery.” It was Vida who spoke, tapping her fingers on the linen tablecloth.

  Everyone, including Todd, who had returned from the kitchen beerless, stared at Vida.

  “The what?” asked Jean, diverted from her diatribe against immoral literature.

  “That little store across from the high school,” Vida explained. “You know, where the students go to smoke. And do heaven knows what else these days.” Her face puckered in disapproval.

  Wendy buttered a chunk of sourdough bread. “They don’t go there anymore except to buy candy and pop. After old Mr. Whipp retired, his son cleaned the place up. That’s probably why he’s going broke.”

  Shane was looking out the window, though there was nothing to see except the backyard and a large blue house across the alley. Dark clouds were moving in over the mountains. Our fine spring weather seemed about to break. “Do you suppose the store got robbed?” Shane asked in an apprehensive voice.

  Lloyd Campbell chuckled. “You’ve spent too much time in Seattle, son. We haven’t had a real robbery in Alpine since the 7-Eleven got held up three years ago. Even then, the robbers were from Everett.”

  “A robber wouldn’t get much from Marlow Whipp,” Wendy asserted with authority. “I go in there once in a while to buy gum or a can of diet pop, and there’s never anybody around. I’d guess he loses as much to the kids who shoplift as he makes off the ones who pay.”

  Jean Campbell was pressing more food on all of us. Her forehead creased as she offered Vida a second chance at the potatoes. “I hope Marlow hasn’t had a heart attack. He’s not a kid anymore. We went to school together. He was always nice, rather quiet, and not much of a scholar. He couldn’t spell, and he was even worse at math. I wonder how he manages to keep his accounts straight.”

  “Math!” Vida sniffed. “As I recall, Marlow flunked shop twice. No mechanical aptitude. Still, he may be dumb as a bag of sawdust, but he comes from sturdy stock. His parents are still alive and kicking. Reva Whipp got a new knee this morning, and she’s well over eighty.”

  “Vida and I were in school together,” said Lloyd Campbell, giving me a wink. “Of course she was a couple of years ahead of me.”

  “Light-years,” snapped Vida, “in more ways than one.”

  Everyone laughed, though not without a trace of awkwardness. The Campbell family wasn’t as accustomed as I was to Vida’s tart tongue.

  We all grew silent as the front door opened. My eyes watched the doorway into the long hall that led from the living room, past the dining room, and on into the kitchen. A moment later, a dream came walking out of Africa. Shane Campbell looked as if he were awed by the sight, and I couldn’t blame him. Marilynn Lewis wasn’t merely young, slim, and pretty, as Carla had mentioned. She was dazzling, with classic high cheekbones, wide-set limpid brown eyes, and sculpted features that might have adorned royalty from Ethiopia. I thought of the Queen of Sheba, of Aïda, of all the goddesses I’d seen portrayed in African art exhibits over the years. She moved with grace; she dominated the room. Yet it struck me that she was scared to death.

  “I’m so sorry,” she apologized breathlessly, pushing her heavy dark hair away from her face. “I had to look at an apartment in that building across from the clinic.” She sa
t down between Cyndi and Todd.

  Lloyd introduced Vida and me to Marilynn Lewis. Her smile was charming, if tremulous. Jean urged her to eat, then asked if she liked the apartment.

  Marilynn frowned as she speared a slice of London broil. “It’s an old building, you know, but it’s certainly convenient since I don’t have a car. I told the manager I’d consider it.” She kept her brown eyes on her plate.

  Vida finally leaned forward in her chair. “The manager? Isn’t that Dolph Terrill? He’s a nincompoop, Marilynn. Don’t agree to his first offer. He won’t remember what he said, and it will be too expensive anyway. Dolph doesn’t do a thing to keep that place up. He’s lazy and drinks too much.”

  Over the bowl of green beans, Marilynn gave Vida a shy, nervous look. “Mr. Terrill drinks? Maybe that’s why he seemed … odd.”

  “Odd!” Vida tossed her head, almost losing her straw hat in the process. “Pay no attention to anything he says. There aren’t that many apartments available in Alpine, so you have to take what you can get, but you don’t have to take it at Dolph Terrill’s first price. Do you want me to talk sense into him?”

  Marilynn’s face relaxed a bit. It was clear that she was surprised by Vida’s offer. “That’s awfully nice of you, Mrs…. Runkel, is it? You know Mr. Terrill well?”

  “Certainly,” Vida replied. “I used to baby-sit him. He was a horror even then. You wouldn’t believe what I caught him doing to the family collie. Her name was Venus. Do I need to say more?” Vida’s gray-eyed gaze ran darkly around the table. Everyone but Todd looked away.

  “Say, Marilynn,” Lloyd put in to mercifully change the subject, “you didn’t happen to walk home on Spruce Street, did you?”

  Marilynn frowned some more. “No, I came up Tyee. Spruce is the next block over, isn’t it? That would have been out of my way.”

  “Of course it would,” Lloyd replied in his genial voice. “I just wondered. We think there’s been some kind of ruckus over on Spruce. Sirens and such. You hear them?”

  Marilynn considered. “Maybe. I heard the train whistling. I don’t remember. I was thinking about the apartment.”

  Vida got to her feet, straightening her straw hat in the process. “Excuse me. I can’t stand it another minute. I’m going over to Spruce and see what’s going on.” She glared at me in reproach. “Newspaper people have to keep abreast of current events. They owe it to their readers. Are you coming, Emma?”

  Not for the first time did I feel as if our roles were reversed. I might be the editor and publisher, but Vida was the heart and soul of The Alpine Advocate. Her nose for news was as great as her natural curiosity. Indeed, they walked arm-in-arm through the streets of Alpine. Feeling rebuked, I also got to my feet.

  “Vida’s right,” I said in an apologetic voice. “We ought to at least check out what’s happening. We’ll be right back.”

  Jean Campbell’s voice floated behind us: “I’ll hold off on dessert. It’s cherry cheesecake.”

  Going down the front walk, Vida announced that it would be faster to go on foot than to take my car. The threat of rain didn’t deter her in the least. “Unless I’m crazy, those sirens stopped less than two blocks away.” She marched ahead of me in her splayfooted manner. “They haven’t left yet. If they had, we’d have heard the sirens again.”

  As usual, Vida was right. The city’s only ambulance, along with one of the four county sheriff’s cars, was parked in front of the Spruce Street Grocery. I also recognized Milo Dodge’s Cherokee Chief. Whatever had happened was important enough to take the sheriff away from his official off-duty hours.

  Marlow Whipp was out on the sidewalk, talking earnestly with Milo and Deputy Bill Blatt, Vida’s nephew. Several neighbors were also there, exchanging apprehensive remarks. At least a dozen perspiring teenagers carrying track shoes were craning for a better look. Vida was heading straight for Bill Blatt when the ambulance attendants and another deputy, Dwight Gould, emerged from the little grocery story with a stretcher. It was covered with black canvas. I suppressed a small groan.

  Milo saw us, but kept talking to Bill Blatt and Marlow Whipp. Vida, however, was undaunted.

  “Well?” she demanded, seizing her nephew by the collar of his regulation jacket. “What happened? Who’s that?” She gestured at the covered stretcher, which was now being wheeled past us to the ambulance.

  It was Marlow who answered, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I never saw him before. I swear it.” Marlow Whipp was a small man, in his midfifties, with faded brown hair and protuberant blue eyes, which now appeared dazed. “He came into the store, tried to say something, and collapsed. Honest to God!”

  Milo Dodge put a hand on Marlow’s shoulder. “It’s okay, relax. Go inside and sit down. But don’t touch anything.” Realizing the ambiguity of his words, Milo grabbed Marlow more firmly. “On second thought, Dwight’ll drive you down to the office. We’ll get a statement and make you some coffee.”

  The ambulance doors were closed; Marlow Whipp was led away by Dwight Gould. With an apologetic look for his aunt, Bill Blatt followed his fellow deputy to the squad car. Milo Dodge pulled out a red bandanna handkerchief and blew his nose.

  “Damned allergies,” he muttered, as the first drops of rain began to fall. “Doc Dewey says it’s the cottonwoods. I never used to have any problems.”

  “Your system changes every seven years,” Vida responded, somewhat crossly. “Now what on earth’s going on, Milo? Was that person dead?”

  The ambulance pulled away from the curb, but at legal speed. The siren didn’t go on; the lights didn’t flash. Vida’s question was answered. Several of the onlookers shook their heads. Most of the high school athletes began to drift away.

  Milo stuffed the handkerchief back in the pocket of his tan pants. “The deceased wasn’t a local,” he said in his laconic voice. “According to Marlow Whipp, he came into the grocery store just before closing, about five to seven. He tried to say something, and then collapsed.” Never a fast talker, Milo slowed to a snail’s pace. The little cluster of neighbors drew closer. “His name is Kelvin Greene, from Seattle. He was twenty-seven years old and lived somewhere out in the Rainier Valley area. It looks as if he was shot in the head.” Milo’s long face wore a disgusted look. “Marlow called us. Marlow swears he didn’t shoot him, though he keeps a gun under the counter. Kelvin died before the ambulance could get here. He was black. Any more questions, or can I get the hell out of here and do my job?”

  Chapter Four

  VIDA AND I were torn. We both felt the professional urge to follow Milo to his office, but we had to consider our social obligations, too. We reasoned that since the paper wasn’t due out again until Wednesday and the sheriff would prefer that we make ourselves scarce until he had control of this latest tragedy, we might as well go back to the Campbells’ and eat dessert.

  “When in doubt, eat cheesecake,” Vida asserted as we briskly walked away from Marlow Whipp’s little store. Though her words were flippant, her face was grim.

  The rain was coming down quite hard by the time we reached our destination. Jean Campbell, looking worried, met us at the door. “What’s happening?” she asked as we shook off raindrops and stamped our feet on the welcome mat.

  “There’s been a shooting,” Vida replied, heading for the dining room. She paused at the foot of the table by Jean’s vacant chair. Her gray eyes skimmed the other diners. Perhaps I imagined that her glance lingered just a trifle over-long on Marilynn Lewis. “It’s no one we know. We might as well enjoy that delicious cheesecake.”

  We did, though naturally the others pressed us for details. As ever, Vida was regarded as the source of all knowledge. Only Marilynn, another outsider, fixed her curious gaze on me.

  “I thought small towns were supposed to be quiet,” she murmured at me behind Cyndi’s back. “Does this kind of violence happen very often?”

  Vida had honed her hearing on whispered comments during roll call at social clubs, on discreet remarks
four rows away at high school band concerts, on breathless seduction attempts at cocktail parties. Even across the table, her keen ears caught Marilynn’s words. Vida shot me a warning glance.

  “Well,” I mumbled, “Alpine has its share of … problems. People are people, after all. Sometimes they go haywire.”

  Marilynn’s beautiful face remained troubled. “But who was killed? I mean, if it’s no one we know, it’s still somebody.”

  Vida turned away from her tête-à-tête with Shane. “The sheriff will release the name of the victim in due course. Right now, he doesn’t know any details. That’s why Emma and I came back here.” She shrugged her wide shoulders. “There’s no real news yet.”

  At the other end of the table, Lloyd Campbell was passing sugar and cream for coffee. “That’s the trouble—we push for growth to pump up the economy, but when newcomers move in, there’s often trouble. It seems to me we don’t know what we’re asking for.”

  “Lloyd!” Jean’s voice was low and sharp. Her eyes darted in Marilynn’s direction.

  Lloyd blanched. “Oh, good Godfrey, Jean, you know I don’t mean Marilynn here. Or Emma,” he added, smiling sheepishly at both of us. My inclusion, I felt, was a nice touch. Consciously or otherwise, it was as if Lloyd were making the point that strangers come in all hues. “I mean all the riffraff that drifts in and out of a town like Alpine. It always has. Look how the hoboes used to ride the rails through here in the Twenties and Thirties.”

  “Goodness,” Jean laughed, her manner a bit stilted, “that was before my time! Speak for yourself, Lloyd.”

  “I remember,” Vida declared. “I was a small child during the Depression, but I certainly recall how my father and some of the other men kept an eye out for any vacant buildings where the hoboes might move in and start a fire. We were always so afraid of fire—especially in the forest. There just wasn’t the means to fight a blaze in those days.”

  The conversation eased forward along the lines of danger, progress, and rumors of a new bond issue to increase the size of Skykomish County’s emergency facilities. By the time we had finished dessert and moved back into the living room, we were once again on safe ground. Wendy had resumed airing her complaints about teenage illiteracy; Lloyd expounded on the wonders of high-definition TV, which he insisted was just around the corner; Cyndi critiqued the romantic comedy playing at the Whistling Marmot Movie Theatre; Todd asked Shane if he’d like to go fly-fishing on Sunday up at Surprise Lake; Jean and Vida discussed Pastor Purebeck’s stance on marital infidelity that, happily, did not include any hanky-panky on their minister’s part, but did display a surprisingly broad-minded attitude. At least for a Presbyterian. Or so it seemed to me. But then I had my own set of prejudices.