The Alpine Decoy

by Mary Daheim

  Bill Blatt looked as if it didn’t tell him much. But Sam Heppner slapped his hands together. “Mrs. Wilson isn’t just a teacher. She’s got other irons in the fire.”

  Vida nodded sagely. “I can only guess. But it would be wise to keep Marlow Whipp’s store under surveillance. If Milo Dodge wants to discuss it with me, please have him call.”

  Bill and Sam all but saluted. Gulping down their coffee, they hurried away. Vida was already typing up a storm. Calmly, I sat down in the chair next to her desk.

  “Well?”

  Vida didn’t look up. She rattled off four more lines on her battered upright, slamming the carriage back so hard that the machine shook. At last, she stopped and eyed me squarely:

  “It’s got to be drugs,” she said. “Pot, at least. Marlow Whipp is the middleman.”

  Her deductions made sense. Running drugs through the little grocery store would account for the Wilsons’ affluence and Marlow’s ability to stay in business. I had objections, however.

  “If there’s a widespread drug problem in this town, why haven’t we heard about it?” I objected.

  Vida didn’t dismiss my quibble out of hand. “There have been stories about certain young people with problems,” she pointed out. “The Nielsen boy. One of the Gustavsons. Jessie Lott’s granddaughter, though at the time, we assumed she went away to have a baby. Oh, if I thought about it, I could name a dozen in the past year or two. But parents often don’t know what to look for. Into denial, as they say. And the youngsters can be clever, I’m told.” Sadly she shook her head. “It’s a terrible thing to raise children these days. Much harder. I look at my grandchildren, and my heart goes out to my daughters and their husbands. Why, to think of Roger exposed to drugs!” Her face grew horrified. “What would become of him?”

  A vision of Roger, dealing crack out of a moving van came to mind. Roger, in a loud suit and a broad-brimmed hat with a big feather, cuddling two curvaceous cuties and clenching a cigar between his teeth. Roger, at the head of a long, polished table, giving orders for reprisals against the other dons and their families. Roger, hanging by his thumbs in a Turkish prison. I liked the last picture best.

  “Don’t worry, Vida,” I said in my most sanguine voice. “I’m sure Roger—and your other grandchildren—will turn out just fine.” The Turkish prison evolved into a scaffold with a large noose.

  Looking temporarily reassured, Vida returned to the matter at hand: “We don’t know how long this has been going on, of course. Except for buying the house in Icicle Creek, Todd and Wendy’s wealth seems to have accumulated quite recently. Until last autumn, their savings were modest. School started in September. So, perhaps, did Wendy’s drug sales. Thus, the Wilsons moved their growing hoard out of town to avoid suspicion.”

  “I gather you didn’t talk to Wendy herself this morning?”

  “No. She was in class.” Vida had turned pensive.

  I got out of the chair. “Let’s hope Milo follows through with the surveillance. It’s too bad he doesn’t have more personnel at his disposal.”

  Vida agreed. “If we’re right about this drug thing,” she said, causing me to stop in midstep, “how does it tie in with Kelvin Greene and Wesley Charles?”

  I swiveled around to face Vida. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? The part about Kelvin, I mean. He used drugs, he dealt them. Maybe he was Wendy’s connection.”

  “Or Todd’s.” Vida’s face froze. “Wendy may be the baglady or whatever it’s called. Emma, call Milo right now. If he can’t afford to have someone watch that store, we’ll volunteer.”

  “Vida!” I was aghast. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to disguise myself as a shrub and lurk across the street at the high school field. Neither are you. This is police work, not journalism.”

  Vida, however, remained firm. “It is, too. We’re after a story. Good heavens, Emma, didn’t you ever use a cover to get a story when you worked on The Oregonian?”

  I had, of course, on several occasions. Once, I’d masqueraded as a student at Reed College to check out rumors of sexual harassment by the faculty. Another time, I’d been a phony whiplash victim, trying to get the goods on a shady chiropractor. My most memorable guise was a shoplifter at Lloyd Center. The article was intended to show the public how severely criminals are treated, and thus, to prevent crime. I managed to walk off with over seven hundred dollars worth of merchandise from nine stores before I finally got caught. My arms and my feet ached so much that I was tempted to keep the stuff I’d stolen.

  But this was different. This was Alpine, not Portland, and I had to maintain my dignity. So did Vida. I called Milo immediately.

  “Yeah, yeah, I already heard Vida’s idea from her nephew,” Milo said in an impatient voice. “Forget it. Surveillance! That’s for law enforcement bodies with staff to spare. If we want to check out Marlow Whipp, we’ll get a search warrant.”

  “So do it,” I suggested.

  “On what grounds? That Wendy Wilson’s a shitty teacher and chews gum she buys from Marlow Whipp? Listen, Emma, old Mr. and Mrs. Whipp ran that store for fifty years. They saved every dime. Vida should know that. Maybe they invested their money. Marlow lives in the family house, and the old folks are in the Lutheran retirement home. Marlow’s wife gives piano lessons, their daughter lives in Wenatchee, and their son’s a meter reader for the PUD. Now how respectable can you get?”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that the Whipp grandson was a meter reader. Until now, however, I’d never made the connection between Frankie Whipp and Todd Wilson. Maybe there wasn’t any, except for their employer. Maybe it was just another of Alpine’s coincidences.

  Vida mulled over Milo’s response. “He’s right, in his way,” she allowed, then heaved a huge sigh. “All the same, there’s something very peculiar going on between Marlow and the Wilsons. Maybe I should pay a call on Marlow’s mother at the hospital. She’s still recovering from knee surgery, you know.”

  Vaguely, I recalled that Peyton Flake had done a knee replacement on Mrs. Whipp the previous week. “Give it a try,” I said, not sounding very hopeful. A glance at the clock told me it was going on noon. Carla still hadn’t returned from Buddy Bayard’s Picture-Perfect Photography Studio. “Where is Carla now? Did she go on a story?”

  Vida was typing again. “Just a minute. I’m adding a couple of items to ‘Scene Around Town.’ Mrs. Whipp and her knee. The Wilsons’ vacation trip.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “Scene” was Vida’s weekly gossip column, filled with snippets of local happenings. Often, they could be expanded into feature stories. Even though we buried the column on an inside page, I’d been told it was the best-read item in the paper, right up there with the obituaries. People loved to see their names in print. Readers supplied at least half of the material, usually with gleeful reports over the phone. But during a slow news week, Vida had to scratch to fill the column: “Carrie Starr seen browsing in the cereal section at Safeway …” “Henry Bardeen’s car parked two spaces down from his usual spot at the ski lodge …” “Polly Patricelli sporting a new bandanna and crossing Third Street with a sprightly step …” Such were the meaty bits that made Alpiners sit up and take notice—of themselves, caught unawares, and suddenly thrust into the limelight.

  Vida was finished. She had no idea where Carla had gone. “It’s lunchtime,” she said calmly. “Maybe she’s meeting her heartthrob.”

  “Dr. Flake?” I rolled my eyes. “If so, this romance is really heating up. They’re going to dinner in Seattle tonight.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. With Ginny and Rick Erlandson. They’ll have a nice time, but it won’t be romantic. Not with all four of them.” Vida’s expression turned puckish. “Speaking of which, I forgot an item for ‘Scene.’” She poised her fingers over the keyboard. “‘Sheriff Dodge seen kissing Publisher Lord at murder site. Do we hear wedding bells chime?’ Now there’s some news!” She made as if to start typing.

  “Stop!” I yelled, just as Carla came through t
he door. Vida smirked. Carla stared.

  “What’s happening now?” she asked, sounding resigned.

  I moved in front of Vida’s desk. “Nothing. Where were you? I thought you’d been stolen by Gypsies.”

  Carla leaned sideways, the better to see Vida. “I was on a stakeout. It was Vida’s idea.”

  “Now, now,” said Vida, also leaning around me. “I merely mentioned the idea. Well? Did you see anything?”

  With an impatient step, Carla walked over to her desk. “Hardly. I stayed there, parked by the stupid football field, for an hour. Nine kids—nobody I recognized—went into the store. All but three came out with soft drinks. Two of the others were carrying little bags. One of them didn’t seem to have anything, which meant he probably bought cigarettes.”

  “Hmmmm.” Vida mused a bit, rocking back and forth in her chair. “Little bags. Drugs.” Her head snapped up. “That’s it? No adults? No car traffic?”

  Sorting through her mail, Carla shook her head. “No cars. One adult, a white male in his seventies, bought a P-I. Oh, Shane Campbell pulled up in his Alpine Appliance van. He took a big box into the store and came out about five minutes later.”

  Vida was on the alert. She gave me a quick glance. “Shane? Could you see what was in the box?”

  Carla shot Vida a rebellious look. “Do I have X-ray vision? It was a box—like this.” Carla framed a two-foot-square piece of space with her hands. “It had writing on it. Script letters, starting with an M. I couldn’t read the rest of it from across the street.”

  I gazed at Vida. I couldn’t resist. “M for morphine?”

  Vida pursed her lips. “M for moron. Emma, you’re not taking this seriously.” She glared at Carla. “Neither are you, young lady.”

  Carla had moved on to her phone messages. She started punching numbers into her phone. “Vida, you’re crazy. Hello, is this the Baptist Church? May I please speak to Reverend Poole?” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “The censorship thing. The Baptists have joined the Methodists and the Pentecostals and both our Mormons.”

  I laughed, a bit lamely. Vida, however, was looking grim. In retrospect, she was right and I was wrong. But at the time, neither of us knew why.

  Chapter Twelve

  MAYOR FUZZY BAUGH’S voice had dripped Southern syrup when he’d called to ask me to confer with him over my L.I.D. editorial. A native of Louisiana, Fuzzy had lived in Alpine for going on forty years. By rights, he should have lost his accent, but he resurrected it when he wanted to get his way. This was one of those occasions. The mayor didn’t feel the time was right to suggest a bond issue for civic improvements. There were too many people out of work in Alpine. We needed jobs, not sidewalks. It was up to me to prove that building sidewalks could create jobs. Knowing how hard-headed Fuzzy could be under that soft, gallant exterior, I figured I was whipped before I walked into his office.

  Before I reached city hall three blocks away on Front Street, I spotted Shane Campbell. His van was parked by the Clemans Building, and he was wheeling a dolly along the sidewalk.

  At a trot, I called to him. He stopped, a hand on the dolly. Passing the Upper Crust Bakery, Daley’s Cobbler Shop, Alpine Ski Hut, and Stella’s Styling Salon, I struggled to come up with a conversational gambit. By the time I caught up with Shane, I’d concocted a reasonable excuse.

  “Shane!” My smile was a mile wide and probably twice as phony. “Do you carry thirty-cup coffeemakers?”

  Shane Campbell considered the question carefully. “I’m not sure if we have any in stock, but we could order one.”

  My relief was exaggerated. “Great! Ours has been acting up. I don’t know if it’d be cheaper to fix it or get a new one. What do you think?”

  Shane gave a slight lift to his shoulders under his official Alpine Appliance jacket. “I can get our repairman to take a look. I’m no expert myself.”

  “Great,” I repeated, wildly searching for a path to Marlow Whipp’s grocery store. “The coffeemaker is pretty old. Marius Vandeventer probably bought it ten years ago.”

  Shane ran a hand through his fair hair. “Gosh, that could be a parts problem. We’d have to send to Seattle, and they might not even have it. Even if they do, it could take a couple of weeks.”

  I gaped at Shane as if he’d just told me the world was going to end in ten minutes. “Oh! Well—we can’t go without the coffeemaker that long…. Of course, it still works. But Ginny and Carla have trouble getting it going in the morning….” My voice trailed off as I frantically sought an opening to inquire about Shane’s visit to Marlow.

  “If you order a new one,” Shane said in his quiet, bland voice, “we can UPS it up here in two days. Overnight, if you want to pay the extra delivery charge.”

  “Ah!” I exclaimed, as if deliverance were at hand. The world wasn’t going to end after all.

  “It’s not cheap,” he went on. “We just got a milk steamer for Marlow Whipp’s new espresso machine, and he wouldn’t put out the extra twenty bucks to hurry it along. It took a week to get here because it had to come out of a warehouse in California.”

  “Oh.” The disappointment in my voice had nothing to do with Marlow’s tightfisted attitude. “A milk steamer? What kind?”

  Shane screwed up his face in the effort of recall. “Melitta. He wanted me to set it up, but as I said, I’m no technician.”

  Feeling silly, I gave Shane a half-baked smile. “Okay, thanks. I’ll see how it goes Monday. If it’s still balky, I’ll call you or your dad.”

  Shane made appropriate noises of agreement. I stalked past the Clemans Building. The red brick facade of the county courthouse and city hall loomed across Second Street. Fuzzy Baugh awaited, in all his civic splendor. Shane Campbell had delivered a milk steamer to Marlow Whipp. Vida and I were grasping at straws. For once, it seemed that Carla Steinmetz wasn’t as dizzy as her coworkers.

  Unless, I suddenly thought, as I walked through the echoing granite-and-marble lobby of city hall, there was something else in that box. An innocent milk steamer from a reputable company like Melitta would make a perfect cover for running drugs.

  Again, I didn’t know what was really perking in Alpine.

  Carla wanted to leave early to prepare for her big date in Seattle. Ginny hinted that if Carla left to get ready, she should do the same. Ed, claiming exhaustion and a leaky bathroom faucet at home, took off at four. Vida had to hurry home and fix dinner for “just us girls.” By four-fifteen, I was alone in the office, writing up Fuzzy Baugh’s interview about why this would not be a good year to call for a special election on a L.I.D. bond issue. I had lost an editorial battle, but gained a lead story for the coming week.

  Even in retrospect, Fuzzy’s drawling comments bored me. I had no quarrel with his rationale, nor did I resent his refutation of my arguments. Rather, it was his penchant for using phrases such as “In the public interest …;” “To take a longer view …;” and “Matters that weigh heavily upon the mayor’s mind …” He had had no comment on his wife’s alleged sighting of gang members at the Alpine Mall. Thus, I had no invasion story. I was glad.

  I wrapped up the L.I.D. piece in under ten minutes. It was not quite four-thirty. Who would drop by or call at such a late hour on a Friday in May? The rain had stopped during the night, the clouds had blown away by early afternoon, and the office felt stuffy. On an inspiration, I called Stella’s Styling Salon. I didn’t have much hope of getting an appointment, but Stella herself answered. She was willing to stay late if I could come over right away.

  Stella Magruder is a bubbly woman with gleaming gold locks and a wicked walk. She is close to sixty, looks fifty, and carries her extra twenty pounds with pride. “No man,” she once told me, “wants to worry about finding his woman in the dark. My Richie tells me he’d rather have ample than a sample.” With four grown children of her own, Stella has had plenty of experience being a mother. She also has been rumored to have counseled other people’s offspring over the years when their parents and profes
sionals failed them.

  “A gamine cut?” she asked, gazing at our reflections in the big mirror. “Show me, in a picture.”

  It didn’t take long to find the right look in a hair styling magazine. Stella studied the photograph. It would work, she said, but I’d lose most of my permanent.

  “I don’t care,” I replied. “If I like it, I’ll keep it short. I promise.”

  Stella made a face. “You always go at least three weeks too long. You’re too busy, Emma. You don’t take time for yourself.”

  “Single moms get used to that,” I answered lightly.

  Stella made a disapproving noise in her throat as she began shampooing my hair. “Your son’s away at school. He doesn’t demand that much of your time, sweetie. You got in the habit of shortchanging yourself when he was younger, but now Adam’s all grown up. Pamper yourself a little.”

  “I am,” I countered, staring up at the ceiling with my head in the washbowl. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Stella rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, and dried her hands. “Hold on—I’ve got a foil job to check. See you back at my station.” Hips swaying, she went into the adjoining room. As I wandered back to Stella’s domain, I saw Cyndi Campbell looking like a space cadet, with her head full of silvery tissues. Stella was examining a strand of Cyndi’s hair. She pronounced her client ready, then propelled her over to the chair next to mine.

  “I’ll get Laurie to take these out,” Stella announced, gesturing to her lion-maned associate who was heading for the laundry area with a load of dirty towels.

  Cyndi greeted me with a languid wave. “I’m playing hooky from the PUD,” she said, then offered a quirky smile. “It’s okay if your brother-in-law is your boss.”

  I smiled back. “How are you all going to get along without Todd while he’s gone for a month?”

  Cyndi’s smile disappeared. Laurie started removing the foils. “It won’t be easy. I think it’s selfish of Todd to take off for so long. If you ask me, it’s Wendy’s brainstorm. She gets some big ideas. It’s time she got her head together and had a baby or something.”