The Alpine Menace

by Mary Daheim

  “I'm not sure,” I admitted. “One of them may be Kendra's adoptive father.” I decided not to mention that the other man could be Kendra's birth father. But I did ask if Maybeth or Roy had ever seen the bald biker when Kendra was there.

  “I don't think so,” Maybeth replied. “But then I'm not nosy like some of the neighbors.”

  I assumed she meant Henrietta. But perhaps there were other inquisitive tenants I hadn't met. After all, the remaining units might house some snoopy residents, too.

  I put the question to my hosts. Again, they exchanged glances. “The people in the upstairs units are all kind of standoffish,” Maybeth finally said. “The couple above us are real grouches. If we're partying and it gets noisy, they stomp on the floor and yell at us.”

  “The ones above Carol's are college students,” Roy put in. “They don't pay attention to anybody but themselves.”

  “That guy on the end,” Maybeth said, gesturing above and to her right, “smokes so much weed that he wouldn't notice if somebody drove a truck through the place. We call him Mr. Mellow.”

  “What about the woman with the kid?” Roy asked Maybeth. “I hardly ever see them.”

  “She's divorced,” Maybeth answered, stubbing out her cigarette in a big plastic ashtray. “She works, and the kid's either at school or in day care. They don't get home until seven or so, and then they probably crash and watch TV.”

  “What about 1-D?” I inquired.

  Both Maybeth and Roy swiveled to their left. “Oh,” Maybeth said. “Mr. Rapp. I forgot about him. He's so quiet.”

  “He's old and crippled,” Roy added. “He has to get around on a walker. I think that nurse in 1-A takes him to the store and the doctor sometimes.”

  “Is he deaf?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” Roy replied. “He never complains if we make noise.”

  Mr. Rapp might be deaf, but perhaps he wasn't blind. I decided to pay him a Sunday visit.

  Aldo Rapp was a small, hunched man with skin weathered like an old saddle, and very sharp brown eyes. He wore a hearing aid in each ear and was dressed in a shabby dark blue suit with a frayed white shirt and a tie that exhibited a couple of stains that might have been gravy. On the gnarled finger of his right hand was a ring with the largest diamond I'd ever seen. It had to be real, since the sparkling facets indicated it hadn't come out of a Cracker Jack box.

  Leaning on his walker, he regarded me with those keen brown eyes and smiled. “I'm waiting for my daughter to pick me up,” he said after I'd introduced myself. “She should be here soon, though she tends to be tardy. How can a civil engineer always be tardy? You'd think she'd get in trouble.”

  Mr. Rapp's living room was jammed with old but solid furniture. The walls were covered with photographs of racehorses, happy people standing in winners’ circles, and grimy jockeys holding the reins of handsome Thoroughbreds.

  “That's me,” he said, pointing to one of the pictures. “I was up on CallMeMister that day. We won the Mile out at Longacres. Would you believe I beat out Johnny Longden?”

  I grinned at Mr. Rapp. “That's wonderful. How long did you ride?”

  “Until I was fifty-six,” he replied, pushing the walker toward a big overstuffed chair with a matching ottoman. “Have a seat, my dear. It was a wonderful career, all over the country, but mostly on the coast and fifteen years at Longacres.” He held out his right hand. “Joe Gottstein gave me this ring. Do you remember him?”

  I did. Gottstein had been the heart and soul of Long-acres Racetrack. Both Joe and the track were gone now, but for half a century they had ruled Thoroughbred racing in the Pacific Northwest.

  We chatted briefly about the old days, and much as I hated to cut short Mr. Rapp's memories, I finally got to the point of my visit.

  “So”— Mr. Rapp twinkled, fingering his small chin— “you want to know what I think about Mrs. Stokes's murder.”

  “Or what you think about Mrs. Stokes,” I put in with a smile. “People who understand horses often understand people.”

  Mr. Rapp chuckled. “Let's say that Mrs. Stokes was a fractious filly. Handsome, in her way, but she needed a good rider. So to speak.” The brown eyes twinkled some more. “I have to admit, I'm not one to watch out the window. I'd rather read the newspapers and watch sports on T V. But my sight is good, very good, really. Though if I were standing in front of the bugle, I couldn't hear the call to the post without these.” He indicated the hearing aids as the diamond flashed on his finger.

  “You're lucky,” I remarked. “If I had a choice, I'd rather be deaf than blind.”

  Mr. Rapp chuckled again. “Yes, what was it W. C. Fields said when the doctor told him that if he didn't quit drinking, he'd go deaf? I believe he insisted that what he was drinking was much better than what he was hearing. There's a lot of truth to that.”

  “Did you know Carol Stokes very well?” I inquired.

  “Not really,” Mr. Rapp responded. “She wasn't the friendly sort. At least not with old coots like me. She did have the men friends, though, including your cousin. Ronnie, is it? He seemed like a nice soul, but what you might call lackadaisical. No ambition, perhaps?”

  “No,” I said dryly. “Ronnie's not ambitious.”

  “One thing I do recall,” Mr. Rapp went on. “It got quite warm a few weeks ago—false spring, I call it—and I stepped outside one evening for a breath of fresh air. This apartment gets very close, you see. You can only open the bedroom and bathroom windows. In any event, Mrs.

  Stokes was in front of her unit with the young woman Henrietta Altdorf said was her daughter. A pretty thing, with long, lovely red-gold hair. There was a man with them, nice looking with a bald head. Like Jay Buhner, the baseball player. Do you know him?”

  I nodded. I was a fan of Buhner's, the Mariners’ longtime right fielder.

  “It was uncanny,” Mr. Rapp said. “Somehow I sensed intimacy among all three of them, as if they trusted and liked one another. I couldn't help but wonder if the bald man was the girl's father. Bloodlines tell, you see. Then he took her off for a ride on his motorcycle. It struck me then that they were like one happy family. For some reason, it made me both happy and sad.”

  “He may be her father,” I said. “Kendra—the daughter—was born out of wedlock. I'm told that her birth father has been calling on her birth mother. Carol, that is.”

  “I see.” Mr. Rapp grew silent. A tap on the door brought him out of his reverie. “That will be Belle,” he said, struggling to get out of the chair. “You'd like Belle. She's a fine young woman. Like you.”

  I was touched. In fact, I had grown rather fond of Mr. Rapp in a very short time. Shuffling to the door on his walker, he paused before letting his daughter in.

  “I really can't tell you anything about the night Mrs. Stokes was murdered. I didn't hear a thing. I was watching pro basketball. But,” he went on as he turned the knob, “whoever killed her must have hated her very much. That wasn't Ronnie. Your cousin is like some of the horses I've ridden—they're lovers, not fighters. And they rarely finish in the money.”

  I CONTEMPLATED MY next move while eating a late lunch at a broiler in Ballard. It hadn't been easy to find a modest restaurant that was open on a holiday. The larger, more expensive eateries were out of the question because they'd be jammed with Easter brunch patrons. I contented myself with salad, hamburger steak smothered in mushroom gravy, and french fries. I felt like a martyr, sacrificing myself to a noble cause. Then I thought of Ronnie, lying in the jail infirmary, maybe eating thin gruel with tepid water on the side.

  The broiler was crowded. I found myself at a small table surveying the clientele, which was mostly older folks who probably lived nearby. Traditionally, Ballard has been home to Seattle's Scandinavian community, but that has changed, too. I spotted a few Asian faces, two African-Americans, and a Filipino family. The city, which is made up of distinct neighborhoods, has been in a state of flux for the past two decades. Even the Norse Home, where Olive Nerstad lives, i
sn't in Ballard, but overlooks it.

  There were two people in Carol's life that I hadn't yet met. Both were men, both were bald. I wondered if Sam Addison had come home for Easter. It would be an appropriate time for a reconciliation attempt.

  The restaurant was directly across the ship canal from Magnolia. Perhaps I should cruise by Darryl Lindholm's place. There was a chance he might have gotten back from wherever he'd been when I telephoned him.

  The person I wanted to talk to most was Kendra Ad-dison. I felt that she held the key to the mystery. Not that she realized she knew it, perhaps, but it seemed possible that her reunion with Carol had somehow triggered the events that led up to the murder. If nothing else, Kendra would know more than anyone about the other people in her birth mother's life.

  Except, of course, for Ronnie. He knew, but questioning him was like squeezing toothpaste from an almost empty tube. I studied the Cheez-Its that topped my green salad and wished that Vida was available for advice.

  Then I pretended I was Kendra. It was hard to slip into the mind of an eighteen-year-old, fresh out of high school and full of herself. In the last year she'd faced two major life changes: high-school graduation and finding her birth mother. From what I'd seen of her, she seemed willful, confident, even arrogant. In some ways her background was similar to mine. We'd grown up in the same part of the city; we were solid middle class. But Kendra was burdened with something that I'd never had to think about. She'd been adopted, and apparently had wanted to meet her birth mother for years. Perhaps she'd harbored feelings of rejection. She may have been angry at Carol Nerstad Stokes for giving her away. A different beginning and a whole generation separated us. I couldn't assume her persona.

  At Kendra's age, I'd started college and was still living at home. Ben was in the seminary, not the same one Adam was attending now in St. Paul, but north of Lake City at St. Edward's. That, too, had changed. Due to the shortage of vocations, the seminary had been closed. The last I heard, it had been turned into the Kenmore community center.

  I had changed, too, of course, but sometimes I didn't know how. The visible signs of age were apparent, though there was no gray in my brown hair yet, and only a slight sagging of the jawline revealed that I was staring at fifty in the not-too-distant future. Inside was another matter. I was more cynical, more private, more independent.

  That was not true. I had always been cynical, private, and independent. Maybe I was the only thing in Seattle that hadn't changed. The thought was depressing. I ate my salad and decided to call Kendra.

  She wasn't home. I went out to the parking lot in the rain, but, to my annoyance, I couldn't unlock the car door. There is only one key to the Lexus, and it serves for the doors, the trunk, and the ignition. I went around to the other side to try the passenger door. That was when I realized that, once again, I was trying to get into the wrong car. This was a champagne-colored Toyota Avalon, slightly smaller, but basically the same design. The Lexus was two spaces down, on the other side of a black Ford Taurus.

  Cursing myself for not paying closer attention, I headed for Green Lake. Maybe the picture of the Ad-disons I'd painted earlier wasn't as grim as I'd imagined. They might be seated around the mahogany dining-room table, feasting on roast duck. They wouldn't welcome my intrusion, but I was running out of time. I sensed that Alvin Sternoff needed more than alibis from bar patrons to file a motion for dismissal. If nothing else, Alvin needed to get organized.

  As I looked for a parking space on Ashworth, I saw a small U-Haul truck parked in front of the Addison house. The man I recognized as Sam Addison was on the front porch, struggling with a worn blue recliner. Finding a space two doors down, I pulled into the curb, then waited for a black Taurus to pass before I got out of the car. The Taurus, which had been traveling slowly, suddenly picked up speed and tore off down the street. Impatient soul, I thought as I got out of the car, and slowly approached the Addison house. It seemed smart to wait until Sam got the chair down to the truck.

  He finally made it, though he was out of breath and looking tired.

  “Hi,” I said in my friendliest voice. “That looks like an awful job for an Easter Sunday.”

  “You were expecting the rabbit to carry it?” Sam retorted with a scowl. “Maybe I should have hired some baby ducks.”

  “Maybe I should introduce myself,” I said, keeping the smile fixed in place and holding out my hand. “I'm Emma Lord. You must be Sam Addison.”

  “Who do I look like? Harrison Ford?” He waved off my attempt to shake hands. “I'm all sweaty. Are you a friend of Kathy's?”

  “No,” I replied. “Kathy doesn't like me.” Maybe the admission would ingratiate me with Kathy's estranged husband.

  “She doesn't like me, either,” Sam replied, taking a handkerchief out of the back pocket of his chinos and mopping his bald head. “That's why I'm moving instead of watching the NBA on TV like you're supposed to do on Easter. Hell, it's raining, too. Wouldn't you know it? What next, an earthquake?”

  “April is the month for earthquakes around here,” I remarked. “Where are you going?”

  “Korea. Argentina. Liechtenstein. Who knows? Who cares? Not her.” He jerked his head in the direction of the house, then turned back to stare at me. “Who'd you say you were? Irmgaard Something-or-Other?”

  I repeated my name. Slowly. “I'm Ronnie Mallett's cousin.”

  “Who's he? I know a Donnie Hammer, but no Ronnie Mallett. Damn, I should've called Donnie. He could've helped me move.”

  My smile had withered. “Ronnie Mallett has been charged with murdering Carol Stokes, your daughter's birth mother.”

  “He should've murdered her other mother,” Sam asserted. “I'd have sent him a thank-you note. What do you want? Oh, hell, come inside. It's wetter than a well digger's ass out here. Kathy's gone for the day, which is why I'm here. She went to have dinner with her parents, Fang and Mrs. Fang. They roast kittens for family feasts.”

  The living and dining rooms looked undisturbed. Whatever Sam was taking out of the house had probably come from the basement, a rec room, a TV retreat. The faded recliner certainly didn't look like one of Kathy Ad-dison's cherished pieces.

  “Let's sit in the kitchen,” Sam said. “I feel out of place in that damned sanctuary of Kathy's. Why does she buy something new every week? Does she get off on delivery trucks? Is she screwing the UPS driver?” He stopped for breath, then answered his own question. “I should be so lucky. If I ever caught her playing around, it'd be with a nineteenth century Portuguese armoire. You want a drink? Coffee? Tea? Drano?”

  I declined, though Sam got some bottled water out of the fridge. We were seated across from each other at a marble-topped breakfast counter. “Twenty-four years of marriage, now this,” Sam said, shaking his head. “No, not ‘now this’— it's been the same way for the past six years, ever since Kathy took some freaking interior design course and turned into Martha Freaking Stewart. I make good money at Boeing, my job's safe there, but I'm not Bill Freaking Gates. She's put us in debt up to our eyeballs with her latest redecoration. What was wrong with the French Provincial stuff? What was bad about blue and white and yellow? What's good about white and white and a dash of rose? You can't walk on the rugs, you can't sit on the chairs, you can't put your feet up. I've had it. I'm out of here.”

  He stopped and stared at me again. “I know you. I've seen you somewhere.” Sam put up a hand. “Don't tell me. I'll remember. I never forget a face. Ah—you came by the other night with a woman wearing a funny hat. She wanted to go to the zoo. Is she nuts or is she your mother?”

  “Neither,” I said with a smile. “She works with me on the newspaper in Alpine.”

  Sam's gray eyes bulged. “You're a reporter? This is an interview? Will I get sued if I say something?”

  “This is personal,” I said, becoming serious. “I'm trying to help Ronnie, my cousin. I'm certain he's been unjustly accused. Have you ever met him?”

  “Ronnie? No. Should I? Back up, where do
es he fit in? Could he help me move?”

  “He's in jail,” I explained, “which is why I'm here. Your wife wasn't very helpful when I stopped by the other day.”

  Sam's hands shot up in the air, almost touching the copper kettles that hung from sturdy hooks. “Surprise! Kathy being a pain in the ass! Put that in a headline, honey!”

  I managed to relate Ronnie's story—and Carol's—to Sam without further interruption. The flavored water seemed to soothe him. Or maybe he was simply worn-out.

  “I'm asking if you know anything about Carol besides the fact that she's your daughter's birth mother,” I said in conclusion.

  A muscle tightened along Sam's jaw. “What's to know? Ever since Kendra got to be a teenager, she got this obsession with finding out why she'd been put out for adoption. The only way you can do that is to jump through about a thousand hoops and hope the birth mother cooperates.”

  “Did you and Kathy encourage Kendra?” I inquired.

  “Well…” Sam rubbed at his bald head. “Let's say we didn't discourage her. Frankly, I thought she'd get over the idea by the time she was eighteen and could legally make the inquiries.”

  “But she didn't,” I remarked.

  Sam shook his head. “Kendra's very strong-minded. The last straw was when she was a senior in high school and they did some genealogy project. Kathy told her to use our ancestry, it was just an assignment, and nobody's business. Kendra refused. She wanted to know her own background. A few months back, after her birthday, she went ahead and initiated her request.”

  “You and Kathy didn't object?”

  “I did,” Sam replied. “I thought she was looking for trouble. For once, Kathy kept her mouth shut. She believed that Kendra's discovery would make her more grateful for being adopted by us.”

  “Did it?” I asked, though I could guess the answer.

  “Not exactly,” Sam replied with a wry expression. “Carol Stokes was from another world. Oh, she probably was a decent person, just unlucky. Let's face it, any young girl who gets knocked up and then has the guy run out on her is off to a bad start. Especially in a small town, which I heard is where she came from.”