The Alpine Decoy

by Mary Daheim

  “I’d rather have more privacy,” Shane said, his voice now a notch louder.

  “Well?” Libby sounded much closer. “For once, you decide.”

  There was a pause. “Let’s go,” Shane said. A moment later, I heard the faint click of the door.

  I waited only as long as I dared. Peeking into the hallway, I found it empty. Shane and Libby had gone down to the lobby. I hurried along the corridor and caught the elevator as it came back up. To my chagrin, it stopped at two on the way down. A middle-aged couple I’d seen around town got in, smiling and nodding.

  Fortunately, the trip wasn’t long enough to encourage conversation. They moved at a stroll; I raced out of the building ahead of them. Libby and Shane were just pulling away from the curb in a turquoise Pontiac compact. I hoped they didn’t see me head for the Jag two spaces down the street.

  Following someone in a small town like Alpine isn’t easy, especially in a semi-exotic foreign automobile. Surely Libby had noticed the Jaguar still parked outside of The Pines Village. On the other hand, I might bank on the mutual absorption of young lovers. As I followed the Pontiac down Alpine Way, I kept a block’s distance between us. There wasn’t much traffic at seven-thirty on a Sunday evening.

  Lulled into thinking Shane and Libby would go all the way down Alpine to Front, I was caught by surprise when they turned right onto Fir Street. This wasn’t a logical route to the Whistling Marmot. Indeed, this would lead us straight past the mobile-home park, a block of condos, and into my own neighborhood. It was still broad daylight. What would Libby and Shane think if they saw me in the rearview mirror and I didn’t pull into my driveway?

  But just before I reached the intersection at Fourth and Fir, I saw the Pontiac’s right turn signal go on. The car slowed as it turned into the Fifth Street cul-de-sac.

  My heart leapt. Shane and Libby weren’t going to the movies. It was too early, for one thing, a good two hours before the next showing of the feature film. From the balcony, I’d overheard them talking about privacy. Were they going to hide out in the cul-de-sac and make love? Given the recent discovery of a corpse there, it seemed like an odd choice.

  One thing was certain—having turned off Fir Street, there was nowhere else they could go. I pulled up in front of the unfinished construction near the corner and got out of the Jag. Feeling like a grade C detective in a grade B movie, I skulked through the tall ferns and flowering berry bushes that separated the construction site from the cul-de-sac.

  Shane and Libby had gotten out of the Pontiac. They were walking hand-in-hand toward the woods. What was their intention? I could hardly traipse after them and embarrass all three of us by interrupting a tryst. But I was still fearful of what could happen next. Heedless of my black slacks and gray blouse, I ran back through the brambles, racing for my car.

  I shot up Fir Street, turned onto First Hill Road, and sped all the way down to the Icicle Creek development where Milo lived in one of the older, more modest houses built in the tract. Fortunately, his home was also among the closest to Highway 187. I made the drive in under three minutes.

  Milo wasn’t up on his roof but he was down on his couch. There was no time to argue, I blurted. He must get in the Jag and come with me. Was he armed?

  Milo Dodge rarely moves in haste. His first reaction was to scratch himself under his T-shirt and yawn. I guessed he’d been taking a nap in front of the TV.

  “What’re you talking about, Emma?” he demanded in a cross voice. “I’m off duty.”

  I yelled; I nagged; I pushed; I shoved. In the end, we got into Milo’s Cherokee Chief. I drove. He put on a flannel shirt that was lying on the floor, loaded his Colt King Cobra .357 Magnum, sneezed twice, and muttered incoherently.

  “… bunch of bullshit … Shane Campbell … good kid, little slow … black troublemakers … Marlow Whipp? I must be nuts …”

  We’d reached the cul-de-sac. Shane’s Pontiac looked innocent with the setting sun gleaming off the metallic turquoise finish. As I’d feared, Shane and Libby were nowhere to be seen. Milo and I jumped down from the Cherokee Chief, heading up the makeshift trail that was actually a deer run.

  “Milo,” I whispered, after we’d gone about fifty yards into the forest, “should we not tromp?”

  “I don’t give a damn if I bellow,” Milo retorted. But in fact he began to watch his step, pausing to peer between the evergreens.

  We had gone well beyond the site where Wesley Charles’s body had been found. However, there was still a trail of sorts, no doubt the same one that Tim Rafferty and Tiffany Eriks had followed from the Icicle Creek campground. As we climbed up higher on the mountainside, the underbrush gave way to tall cedars, fir, and hemlock. There was pine, too, and clumps of huckleberry and stands of fern. It was beautiful, yet menacing. The quiet overwhelmed us. We were also losing the light as the sun began to slide down behind the mountains.

  We reached the Forest Service trail, which ran in an east-west direction. Milo and I had no idea which way to go. Shane and Libby had almost a ten-minute head start. I was now certain that lovemaking wasn’t their object. If that had been the case, they would have stopped much farther down the hillside. Soft ferns and gentle earth would have been more conducive to romantic purposes. Apprehension made my heart pump faster.

  I was standing at Milo’s elbow while he stifled a sneeze. “Should we split up?” I whispered.

  He gave me a disdainful look. “You’re the one who wanted me to bring a sidearm. What’re you going to use? Your thumb?”

  Milo, of course, was right. The west-bound trail led to the ski lodge, more than a mile away. To the east lay the Tolberg farm and the Dithers Sisters’ horse ranch. The Tolberg property was nearest, perhaps only a couple of hundred yards away. I guessed that Shane and Libby would have taken the long route, in the direction of the lodge. Their chances of meeting anyone this time of night would be almost nil.

  Milo didn’t argue. We picked up the pace on the trail—the sheriff with his long, loping strides; I, virtually running to keep up. Within three minutes, we saw movement ahead of us: two figures were standing by a wooden footbridge that crosses Alpine Creek. The trail dips down to the bridge where the stream tumbles among moss-covered rocks, then takes a deep, dizzy plunge, and eventually joins Burl Creek just west of the mall. Flanked by tall ferns and dogtooth violets, it was a perfect sylvan setting.

  But now it was filled with menace. As we approached on tiptoe, we could see Libby’s back turned to us. She was at the edge of the trail, a step from the bridge. Beyond her, we could make out Shane’s head and the left side of his body. They appeared to be in earnest, even heated, conversation.

  “He’s going to push her off the bridge,” I breathed. “She’ll go right over the falls!”

  Milo quickened his step. I followed. Shane looked up and saw us. He shouted something I couldn’t hear. Libby craned her neck, then screamed. Shane lunged at her; they struggled, teetering at the edge of the bridge. We were within twenty feet of the pair, and now Milo was yelling at them to desist.

  Libby was strong: She had managed to break free from Shane, but to my horror, instead of fleeing the bridge, she pressed forward. Now it was Shane who appeared to be on the defensive. Milo had pulled his King Cobra Magnum.

  “Stop!” he shouted once more. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  It was not an empty threat. As Shane again grabbed Libby, Milo fired into the air. Then he dropped to one knee, the gun fixed on the battling couple.

  A second shot shattered the mountain’s natural peace. I jumped, then stared at Milo. He hadn’t budged, but was gaping at Shane and Libby. Shane had fallen onto the bridge, clutching his side. His head dangled over the edge. Libby whirled around, and I saw the gun in her hand. I uttered a little shriek; Milo swore.

  “Don’t do it!” he warned. “Drop it! Now!”

  Libby threw Milo one last defiant look. She didn’t drop the gun. Instead, she turned again and jumped. I could have sworn I heard her scream all
the way to Burl Creek.

  Chapter Seventeen

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT and Milo was sneezing his head off. He sat behind his desk with a bottle of Benadryl in one hand and an inhaler in the other. The fluorescent lights flickered above us. Carla and I were seated in the two visitors’ chairs while Peyton Flake lounged against a filing cabinet.

  “Shane’ll be up and around tomorrow,” Flake assured us for the third time. “Take your guilt trip somewhere else, guys. You did your best.”

  But neither Milo nor I was feeling very proud of ourselves. The sheriff had been unable to prevent Shane from getting shot and Libby Boyd from committing suicide. And I, the dreadful dunce, had picked out the wrong murderer.

  Or, at least, the wrong person who had killed Kelvin Greene and Wesley Charles. I could only console myself that I’d been partly right: Shane Campbell had indeed bludgeoned Jerome Cole with Marilynn Lewis’s ivory figurine. His motive had been gallant; perhaps he’d acted in self-defense. But what had followed was completely without honor and utterly indefensible.

  Carla was still shattered by her roommate’s treachery. “She seemed so nice!” Carla wailed. “She was always fussing over me and she never argued about expenses and she even vacuumed!”

  Peyton Flake moved away from the filing cabinet to rub Carla’s shoulders. “Hey, babe, get over it. The big thing is that you’re safe. Now you know why I called and asked you to come down to the hospital and help me file charts.”

  Leaning back in the modular plastic chair, Carla gave Flake a big-eyed, adoring gaze. “I just thought you wanted to be near me!” She giggled, though on a less jarring note than usual. Turning away from Flake, she looked at me. “But I still don’t get why you thought I was in danger.”

  Sadly, I shook my head. “I thought both you and Libby were in danger. And I didn’t want you around when I confronted Libby about Shane. I knew she wouldn’t discuss their relationship in front of a third person, even her roommate. I was panicky. There’d been too many murders, and it seemed to me that anybody connected to the Campbells could be next.”

  Milo wore his musing expression. “And Shane was next. Or was that because you put a scare into Libby?” His hazel eyes were watery as he waited for my reply.

  I gave a halfhearted nod. “When Libby found out I knew Shane had killed Jerome Cole, she panicked, too. She figured it was just a matter of time before somebody filled in the rest of the gaps and pinned the other two murders on her. Shane had to go—preferably as a suicide. He said she was trying to force him to jump off the bridge. She didn’t want to shoot him, just threaten him. The gun went off by accident, while they were struggling.”

  “Gosh.” Carla’s voice was faint. “How pathetic. Libby wanted to marry Shane so much. He was her first real chance at security. Oh, she didn’t talk about it often, but sometimes she’d let things slip. Like, having her own house and a family and belonging to somebody. I could cry, really, I could.”

  I didn’t blame Carla. I felt sort of weepy, too. Libby Boyd was a tragic figure, an unloved child who had been utterly ruthless in her search for safe harbor. Instead, she had wrecked several lives, including her own.

  But while I felt terrible pangs for Libby, I still had a need to exonerate myself. “So much pointed to Shane,” I persisted. “Not just with Jerome Cole’s death, but the other two, as well. The night that Jerome died, Marilynn and Winola went to Shane’s apartment. He wasn’t there. I suspect he’d gone to Marilynn’s and they’d crossed paths, but missed each other. He found Jerome, still ranting and raving. Shane, feeling obliged to defend Marilynn, got into a fight with Jerome and hit him with that carving. Shane doesn’t have much backbone—Libby told me that, and I believe her. He fled, and let Wesley Charles take the blame. Wesley came along later and picked up the murder weapon. Somewhere in there, Kelvin Greene showed up, probably to see Winola Prince. Kelvin recognized Shane from working together at Fred Meyer. He saw Shane leave, and put two and two together. That’s when he decided to make things interesting and blackmail Shane. When Shane feels better tomorrow, I imagine he’ll tell us he confided everything to Libby. She knew that Shane was falling for Marilynn—she didn’t want to lose him. Libby probably told him to go ahead and let Wesley Charles take the rap and to pay Kelvin off. But Kelvin kept coming back for more. Shane got the idea to sell those banned recordings. He must have used the money he made to pay off Kelvin. But he wanted to be done with blackmail so he quit his job and came back to Alpine. He could live more cheaply at home, and he needed all the money he could get. But it wasn’t that easy to shed Kelvin. He came up here to meet Shane and make even bigger demands.”

  Milo was trying to look enthused about my deductions. He was also trying to keep awake. “So Libby decided to call a halt,” he murmured.

  “Right,” I answered, also feeling weary. “To Libby, security was financial as well as social and emotional. She couldn’t stand seeing Shane drained of everything. I don’t know exactly what Kelvin did when he got to Alpine that Friday, but he probably asked a few questions and found out that Shane worked for his father at Alpine Appliance. Maybe he figured it wouldn’t be smart to head straight there. Lloyd Campbell might make trouble. But he knew Cyndi and tracked her down at the PUD. She probably told Kelvin to telephone Shane and arrange a meeting.”

  Peyton Flake was still standing behind Carla’s chair, his manner protective. “Did Cyndi know what was going on?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt it. She probably thought it had something to do with Marilynn. Cyndi was just the intermediary. She had no idea….”

  Milo’s phone rang, startling all of us. Even from across the desk, I could hear Vida’s voice shrilling in the receiver. Milo listened wordlessly, then said, “Oh, hell, why not. It’s on the way home.”

  We gazed at him in curiosity. “Vida got your note, Emma,” Milo said, heaving himself to his feet. “She’s put the teakettle on. Let’s go.”

  Vida doesn’t believe in answering machines. She also doesn’t believe in being kept in the dark. Consequently, I had insisted that after leaving the hospital, we should swing by Vida’s house and put a note on her door in case she came home from Bellingham before morning.

  Carla and Peyton Flake declined Vida’s invitation, however. “I’ll take Carla home,” Flake told us in the sheriff’s reception area. He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Seems to me she can use a new roommate, at least temporarily.” They started out the door. “But I don’t vacuum, babe. I won’t even dust.”

  “Oh, Peyts,” said Carla. And she giggled.

  By one A.M., Vida was almost filled in. Refreshing our teacups, she nodded sagely. “Yes, yes, the psychology was there all along. I can’t believe I missed it. Especially the part about the wristwatch. I ran into Libby at the mall the day after the murder and never noticed her bare arm. My eyes must be going.”

  “I missed that, too,” I admitted. “What really misled me was Ed and the Alpine Appliance van. He had mentioned following it up First Hill Road that Friday, thinking it was Lloyd Campbell and that he could apologize for screwing up the co-op ad. When he got there, Ed said Lloyd was gone. But it wasn’t Lloyd—it was Shane, delivering the Tolbergs’ stove. I forgot all about that until this morning—yesterday morning—after Mass when Ed was doing his eager-beaver bit with the Catholic merchants. I remembered that the Tolbergs’ new gas range was what made Shane late getting home that Friday. The Tolberg farm is right across from the high school. It’s secluded up there, with the Dithers Sisters’ horse ranch across the road. Maybe he met Libby to rendezvous over the meeting with Kelvin. Whatever, he left the van, not wanting it seen parked by the cemetery where he was going to meet Kelvin. It was still there the next morning. Betsy O’Toole saw it on her way to the Grocery Basket. She thought the Campbells had taken to working on Saturdays, but I knew better. By chance, Lloyd and I had talked about a six-day week earlier. Naturally, when Betsy mentioned seeing the van, I suspected the worst of Shane.”

  “Bucker Swede
,” Milo said doggedly. “That was a forest ranger’s hat. Why did you think it had been put in Shane’s van?”

  I suspect my expression was as foolish as I felt. “I’d never seen Libby wear an official hat with her uniform. I figured she’d lost it in Shane’s van while they surrendered to a fit of passion. The Alpine Appliance van had been parked by the high school, too—it just wasn’t in the same place as Libby’s truck. The pranksters could have put Bucker there just as easily. As I said, once I got on the right track, I kept going. I never noticed the detour sign that pointed to Libby Boyd. I think that must be what they call linear thinking.”

  Vida passed Milo a tiny English bone-china pitcher of cream, which he sloshed into his cup. Tea was not Milo’s beverage of choice. “Now, Emma,” Vida said sternly, “don’t punish yourself. It’s very late, and I’ve had a long drive, almost from the Canadian border. Did Shane meet Kelvin at the cemetery or not?”

  Feeling rebuked, I nodded quickly. “Yes, I’m sure he did. I suspect Kelvin pulled his gun. Shane was—is—a bit of a coward. He wouldn’t have fought Kelvin for it. Only a strong emotion like self-defense could goad Shane into violence. He struggled with Kelvin to protect himself. And tonight, with Libby, because she wanted him to die.”

  “Such irony.” Vida looked disapproving. “First, Libby risks everything to keep Shane, then she tries to kill him. The primary instinct is always survival. My, my.”

  Milo drooped in Vida’s maplewood kitchen chair. “No guts, no glory,” he murmured.

  I didn’t agree. “Oh, Libby had guts. Having been alerted by Shane, Libby showed up, pulled her own gun—which Milo thinks is the same one that killed Wesley Charles—disarmed Kelvin, and shot him with his own weapon, then dumped it in the grave, losing her broken watch in the process. Shane may have run off by then. Remember, he was torn between his fading feelings for Libby and the awakening love for Marilynn. Having killed Jerome Cole, Shane was already in a terrible state of conscience. Given his lack of spine, flight would have suited his personality. Shane might never have been sure that Libby killed Kelvin.”