The Alpine Menace

by Mary Daheim

  He had an extra chin and no neck, but his face was pleasant enough when he turned to stare. “Got enough room there, little lady?” he inquired.

  It wasn't a great opening line, but given the circumstances, it sufficed. “I'm good,” I said. “How would you like to be interviewed?”

  “Huh?” Butt Crack's broad face looked startled. “Like on TV?”

  “Not quite,” I replied. “I'm a newspaper reporter.”

  Butt Crack chuckled richly, then motioned at the bartender, a tall, reedy man with half glasses. “Hey, Jack. This little lady wants to put me in the paper. What do you think of that?”

  “I think she's crazy,” Jack shot back. “Humor her.”

  “I sure will.” With effort, Butt Crack turned to sit sideways on the bar stool. “What do you need? My opinion of the war in wherever it is? What I think of Clinton and those broads in the White House? Who's going to win the pennant?”

  “Let's start with a name,” I said, dutifully taking a pen and notepad from my handbag.

  Butt Crack grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth. “Avery. Rhymes with savory. Avery McMillan.” He reached out a big paw, clutched my hand, and almost sent me to an orthopedic surgeon.

  I tried not to flinch. “I'm Emma,” I said again, putting the mangled hand behind my back and wiggling my fingers to make sure they were still functioning. “I heard you're a friend of Ronnie Mallet's.”

  “Damn,” Avery said with a shake of his head. Up close, he looked as if he was in his early forties. There was a small scar etched in one eyebrow and another on his chin. Avery would have fit in nicely at the Icicle Creek Tavern. “Poor bastard,” he muttered. “Whatever he did to that Carol broad, she probably asked for it. She was one mean bitch. Excuse my language. I meant witch. They rhyme, see?”

  “Yes, I do,” I replied with a straight face. “Did Ronnie and Carol come here often?”

  “Quite a bit,” Avery replied as some of the other patrons began to edge closer. I figured the notebook was the drawing card. Most of the writing at Freddy's was probably done on cocktail napkins. “The last time they were here, about a month ago, Carol and that redheaded gal who used to go with Ronnie really got into it.” He turned to the bartender. “Hey, Jack, you had to throw those two broads out, right?”

  “You bet,” Jack said with a solemn nod. “They were busting up the glassware.”

  “Do you mean Maybeth?” I asked, beginning to think that the Icicle Creek Tavern had nothing on Freddy's.

  “Beth,” Avery said with emphasis. “Rhymes with…” He stopped and scratched his head. “Never mind.”

  “Were they fighting over Ronnie?” I asked, remembering to scribble a note or two.

  Avery glanced at Jack. “Was that what started it? Or was it something Beth's boyfriend said to Carol?”

  “Roy?” Jack responded. “I don't know. It was a real mess.”

  “Roy,” Avery repeated brightly. “Beth's Roy friend. Get it?”

  “Yes,” I said, and forced a smile.

  “I think that's right,” Avery went on. “It was Roy, only maybe he said something nasty to Ronnie. Anyway, the two girls got into it. Carol had a real bad temper, and you know what redheads are like. Va-va-vroom!” One hand shot up toward the ceiling, apparently in imitation of a rocket launch.

  The man called Morrie had gravitated to the bar.

  “Hey, Ave,” he said in a good-natured tone, “did I hear you bad-mouth redheads?” Morrie shook his own long carrot-colored locks.

  Avery laughed, the hearty chuckle that almost made him endearing. “How come nobody calls you ‘Red’? You know—rhymes with bed.” He leered and chuckled some more.

  “Because my two older brothers were both called Red,” Morrie answered with a smile. “Our mom never knew who'd come when she called.”

  Avery nodded as if this was one of the wisest statements he'd ever heard. “Can't blame her. Hey, the little lady's interviewing me about Ronnie and Carol. You jealous?” He nudged Morrie, who almost spilled some of the beer in the schooner he was holding.

  “I might be,” Morrie replied pleasantly. “What gives?”

  I decided to get to the point and looked at Jack to include him in the conversation. “I'm trying to find out if Ronnie has an alibi for the night of the murder. Did any of you see him two weeks ago Friday late in the evening?”

  Avery shook his head. “I came in early after I got off work. I went home around eight.”

  Jack gave the bar a swipe with a damp towel. “Ronnie was here, though. He came in before nine, had a couple of beers, and said he was going on to the Satellite Room down the block.”

  “Do you think he'd been drinking before he got here?” I asked.

  Jack shrugged. “Could be. He wasn't drunk, though.”

  “I remember,” Morrie said. “He was alone. He seemed kind of down.”

  “That's right,” Jack agreed. “He was upset because his dog, Buddy, had gotten into a fight and come out the worse for wear. He'd had to take him to the vet's.”

  I remembered that when Ronnie had been arrested, he, too, had been suffering some wear and tear. “How were his spirits?” I inquired. “Did he look as if he'd had some kind of row?”

  The men all exchanged glances that bordered on smirks. “You bet,” Jack said with one of his solemn nods. “Poor Ronnie was all banged up. He didn't say anything, but my guess is that Carol went after him again.”

  “Again?” I feigned innocence.

  Avery chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound. “I said she was one mean… witch. She was always beating on Ronnie. Hell, she beat up Roy, too.”

  “Yeah,” Morrie put in. “I heard once that was what broke up her marriage to some guy a long time ago. She'd whale on him while he was asleep. Jeez, you hear all this crap about men beating women, but there's two sides to that story. Women can be ornery as hell. Ornerier, maybe. They don't need to be drunk to get mean.”

  A sudden silence fell over the little group. Jack smiled for the first time. “Present company excluded, naturally.”

  “No offense,” Avery hurriedly added.

  “None taken,” I said, smiling.

  I, however, was more reasonable than some members of my sex. A raven-haired Hispanic woman and a frosted blond begged to differ.

  “If men weren't such assholes, women wouldn't have to defend themselves,” the blond asserted.

  “That's not defending yourself,” Morrie retorted, “that's going on the offensive. It's different, Terri.”

  “It's bullshit,” the Hispanic woman snapped. “You men got to be so damned macho all the time. You think hitting women proves you got cojones. I spit on all of you.” She spat not on them, but on the floor, only an inch from my Joan & David suede shoes.

  “Knock it off, Nita,” said Morrie, still trying to be good-natured. “You're just pissed because that last loser of yours punched out a couple of teeth.”

  “Why shouldn't she be pissed?” demanded a tall black woman with imposing dreadlocks. “That's her whole point. You bastards always start it.”

  “Bullshit!” roared the older bald man who had been sitting with Morrie. “The only way you can get through to a woman is—”

  “Men are scum! Listen to what Larry did—”

  “Larry was on crack. He's okay the rest of the—”

  “I had one old lady who—”

  The argument was underway. I finished my beer, grabbed my cigarettes from the bar, and slipped away. Nobody seemed to notice.

  I could see the sign for the Satellite Room from Freddy's entrance. It was midway down the block, across the street. I was waiting for the light to change when Terri, the frosted blond, came running up to me.

  “You were asking about Ronnie?” she said, out of breath.

  “Right. Do you know him?”

  “Sure. Ronnie's a sweetheart. He didn't kill Carol.” She glanced over her shoulder, as if she expected someone to follow her outside. “The night Carol was murdered, I
sat with him for a while. She'd knocked him around, and he was really down.”

  “Do you remember when he got to Freddy's and when he left?”

  Terri nodded. “I showed up around eight-thirty. Ronnie was already there. He left a little before ten. He was going to the Satellite.” She pointed across the street. “He was meeting someone. It wasn't a date, it was sort of like business.”

  “Did he say who?”

  “No. I got the impression it was a man. But not a buddy.”

  “Did you tell the police about this?”

  Terri shook her head. “They never talked to me. I think they only talked to Jack, because he's the bartender. But Jack gets busy with his drink orders and doesn't always see what's going on. Unless there's trouble. He's good at spotting that.”

  Some noises were erupting from the vicinity of the bar. Terri whirled around. “I've got to go.”

  She dashed inside. I wondered if a full-fledged brawl was under way. Seattle and Alpine weren't so different after all.

  The Satellite Room was in a restaurant that was a cut above Freddy's. Most of the diners seemed to be sober. I could almost imagine that the menu featured more than rib-eye steak.

  The bar had been around in its present incarnation for a long time. The neon satellites looked like they came from the space-race era. There were plenty of customers, however, and I had to adjust my eyes to the dimness before I could find an empty table. Then, just as I was about to sit down, I decided to go straight to the bar itself.

  A buxom woman about my age was on duty, her dyed platinum hair pulled back in a not-so-tidy chignon and her face heavily made up to cover old acne scars.

  “What'll it be, honey?” she asked in a husky voice.

  Wisdom dictated that I should stick to beer, so this time I got exotic and ordered a Heineken. Then I introduced myself, explaining what I wanted to know about Ronnie's presence in the Satellite Room on the night of the murder.

  “Ronnie.” The name slipped like Jell-O from the bartender's red lips. “I'm Honey, by the way.” She put out a hand. “Nice to meet you. You don't look like Ronnie's cousin. Is he the family black sheep?”

  “Sort of,” I admitted. “At least he's the only one who's been charged with homicide.”

  Honey smiled. “Well, he was here that night. He came in a little after ten, I think. He had a shot of bourbon here at the bar”— she nodded toward the end where the cash register sat— “and then some guy came in to join him and they sat at a table over there by the Sputnik. They got into something really deep—I've never seen Ronnie so serious. He only had one more drink before the other guy left about eleven-thirty. I served Ronnie one more, then he took off a little after midnight.”

  “Did the police question you?” I asked.

  Honey shook her head. “They came in on a Tuesday when I was off. They never came back. Walt—he's the other bartender—couldn't tell them anything.”

  I did some calculations in my head. Ronnie's alibi was solid from eight-thirty on. According to Terri, he'd arrived at Freddy's even earlier, which was well before Maybeth said she'd heard him slam out of the apartment. Either Maybeth was wrong about the time, or someone else had been with Carol after Ronnie left, but possibly before she was killed. Kendra had found the body around ten-thirty, while Ronnie was drinking in the Satellite Room.

  “What about the other guy?” I asked after Honey had filled several orders from the cocktail waitress. “Did you recognize him?”

  “No, he wasn't a regular.” Honey paused to re-pin some of the platinum strands that had fallen into her eyes. “He was a big guy around forty, bald, broad-shouldered. He didn't look like a drinker, though he had a Scotch and soda. He paid for his own, by the way. I remember, because he didn't leave a tip.” She made a comical face.

  My brain did some more quick work. The man's description fit Sam Addison. But then it probably fit several thousand men in Seattle.

  “Did Ronnie and Mr. Cheap argue? Or were they friendly?”

  Honey nodded at someone across the room, presumably a thirsty customer. “Serious. They were both serious.” She picked up a glass, filled it with ice, then squirted what looked like bourbon from the drink dispenser. “Excuse me, Mel needs a refill.”

  I'd learned what I was seeking, and maybe a little bit more. Leaving a five-dollar tip and a half-empty glass, I exited the Satellite Room. If Sam Addison—or anybody else—had met Ronnie in the bar, why hadn't my dim-bulb cousin mentioned it? And if it was Sam Addison, why had they engaged in an earnest conversation?

  As I got into the Lexus, it dawned on me that there could be another suspect in the case. If Sam Addison had been with Ronnie around ten-thirty or eleven, he'd also been near the murder scene. But off the top of my head, I couldn't think why Sam would kill Carol.

  I decided to sleep on it.

  Easter Mass at St. James Cathedral was standing room only. I ended up near one of the exits, craning to see the altar, which had been repositioned in the middle of the church. At five-foot-four, I couldn't see much more than the occasional bobbing of heads. The music was lovely, however, a far cry from Annie Jeanne Dupré torturing the ancient organ at St. Mildred's.

  The weather, however, was another matter. Clouds had rolled in and the wind was blowing from the west as I drove the short distance to the city jail. At a stoplight, I checked my messages on the cell phone. I thought Vida might have called, but there was no word from her. Instead, a terse male voice informed me that there had been an emergency regarding my cousin, one Ronald Mallett. Could I contact the jail as soon as possible?

  With gloom to match the skies, I parked the car and hurried to the reception area. A plump black woman with very short hair was on duty. She checked my ID, then became less officious.

  “Your cousin Ronnie tried to kill himself last night,” she said in a low voice. “He's in the infirmary.”

  My knees sagged. I scarcely knew my cousin, but the news had the power to unsettle me. “How? By hanging?”

  “No,” the woman replied. “He stabbed himself through the ear with a fork.”

  “A fork?” My voice was incredulous.

  “Yes.” The woman remained very serious, though I suspected it took some effort. “The forks here have three tines. Apparently, he broke off the ones on each side and rammed the rest of the fork into his ear.”

  In almost thirty years of journalism, I'd never heard of anyone using a fork to commit suicide. There had been a surgeon in Portland who had tried to drown himself in the Willamette River, but had waded back to shore when he discovered the water was extremely cold and he was afraid he'd catch pneumonia. One of the Gustavsons in Alpine had eaten chokecherries, but they were so bitter that before he poisoned himself, he threw up all over his suicide note. And then there was Milo's ex-brother-in-law who had hit himself over the head with a ball-peen hammer, but had fallen unconscious long before he was dead.

  A fork, however, seemed like a means of destruction suited to Ronnie. So did his failure to do himself in.

  “How is he?” I asked, my nerves beginning to steady.

  “He punctured an eardrum,” the woman replied, allowing herself a small smile. “He may suffer some hearing loss. Would you like to see him?”

  “Of course.”

  She gave me directions to the infirmary, which was on another floor. Ronnie was in a large ward with perhaps another half-dozen patients. He had a big bandage on his head, an IV in his hand, and appeared to be asleep.

  There was no visitors’ chair, though a stone-faced guard stood at the end of the bed. I nodded at the man; he acknowledged me with a flicker of his eyelids.

  “Ronnie?” I said softly.

  No answer. I tried again.

  Ronnie's eyes fluttered open. “Huh?” He grimaced as he tried to focus on me. “Emma?”

  “Yes. How do you feel?”

  “Crappy.” He closed his eyes.

  “Why did you pull such a stunt?” I asked, unable to keep the anger out of m
y voice.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know you didn't kill Carol. I've got your alibi virtually established.”

  “Big deal.” He moved awkwardly in the bed, one hand at the bandage by his right ear. The guard scarcely blinked. Maybe he wasn't real, just a cardboard cutout with battery-operated features.

  “Don't you care?” I demanded. “Isn't that what you asked me to do? Why else am I here?”

  He groaned a bit, then opened his eyes again and made a feeble effort to sit up. “My head sounds like there's a Harley in it. Can I have some water?”

  I held the plastic carafe for him while he drank through the straw in fits and starts. “Tomorrow morning,” I said, “I'm going to see Detective Rojas and tell him what I've found out. We'll see if they can drop the charges. Wouldn't you like to get out of here?”

  Ronnie took one last sip, then pushed the carafe away. “Did you get Buddy from those Chinamen?” he asked, ignoring my question.

  “Not yet,” I admitted. “Buddy's fine. Mr. Chan's grandchildren love him.”

  Ronnie looked dubious. “You sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, not telling him that the children's affection could be an obstacle to Buddy's return. “Buddy's safe and sound in Lake City.”

  “Know what we did last year?” Ronnie's voice brightened slightly. “Me 'n’ Buddy went to one of those Easter egg hunts for little kids. I let Buddy help the kids find eggs. They were all blind, see, so Buddy'd sniff out the eggs before the beeper things could go off so the kids'd hear where they were. Buddy was great. The kids loved him.”

  “Buddy sounds like a wonderful dog,” I said. “Ronnie, you have to tell me something. Who did you meet at the Satellite Room the night of the murder?”

  What little color there was in Ronnie's face drained away. “How'd you know about that?”

  “I've been investigating, remember? Isn't that what you wanted me to do?”

  Ronnie winced. “Yeah, yeah, but… Does it matter?”

  “Does what matter?” I was getting impatient.

  “Who I met?”

  “Yes,” I said emphatically. “It matters a great deal. Who was it?”