The Alpine Menace

by Mary Daheim

  “What's this about Cousin Ronnie?” Ben demanded, the crackle in his voice more apparent than ever. “I haven't thought about him in thirty years.”

  I'd briefly mentioned in my message that I'd been trying to help get Ronnie out of jail. Since Danny was yelling his head off because he didn't want to surrender a big plastic toy that looked like an octopus wearing bells, I scampered into my bedroom.

  “You're a good kid,” Ben said after I'd given him the details. “Now I feel guilty for not being there to help him, too.” He paused and lowered his voice. Some of the crackling lost its snap. “You aren't on some kind of family-connection search, are you?”

  “Of course not,” I replied, still able to hear the leather-lunged Danny. “Ronnie contacted me. Why would you ask such a question?”

  This time the pause was longer. “I haven't mentioned this before, Sluggly,” he said, using his childhood nickname for me, “but I've felt a little guilty ever since Adam went into the seminary.”

  Amber was calling my name. She sounded desperate. “Hang on, Ben,” I interrupted, removing the cordless phone from my ear and rushing into the living room.

  Amber was trying to loosen Danny's grip from a box of fireplace matches that had somehow fallen off the mantel. He'd pried the lid open and was trying to stick one of the matches into his mouth. His anxious mother was hampered from rescuing him because—or so I gathered from her incoherent yips—she'd sat down in my new recliner and the footrest part had gone up instead of down. She was stuck in the chair.

  I snatched the matches away from Danny, put them out of harm's way, and gave the footrest a terrific yank. It came down. I shot Amber a look that said, “If you'd been picking up all this junk, you wouldn't have gotten stuck in the damned chair, you lazy little twerp.”

  “As you were saying?” I said to Ben with a sigh. “About guilt?”

  “Right,” my brother responded. “Let's face it, I was very pleased when Adam told me he wanted to become a priest. He said I'd been his inspiration. Naturally, I was flattered, not so much on a personal level, but that the idea of my own vocation and the way I was handling it had influenced him. It's hard to explain.”

  “You don't want to brag,” I said dryly. “Never mind, go on.”

  “Well—” He stopped to clear his throat. In the living room, Danny was crying again. “You know Adam's track record better than I do when it comes to choosing careers. Over time, he's wanted to be everything from an anthropologist to a circus clown.”

  “He was only twelve when he got that idea,” I put in.

  “But you know what I mean,” Ben continued. “He was off in every direction. I figured that maybe the vocation thing was just another wild hair.”

  “I guess not,” I said. “He's been in the seminary long enough now to know if being a priest is what he really wants.”

  “I agree.” Ben had grown very serious, almost formal. I could picture him counseling someone with a crisis in faith or a broken marriage. “And that's what makes me feel guilty. I've robbed you of your earthly immortality. Robbed myself, too, in a way.”

  A terrible crash resounded from the living room. I didn't want to interrupt Ben again, not when he was in such a solemn mood, so I ducked out of the bedroom to see what new horror had occurred.

  Danny had pulled the lace cloth off the dining-room table, and with it, a potted azalea I'd bought at Alpine Gardens the previous week. He was screaming his head off. Amber was nowhere in sight.

  I started running to the child, tripped over the plastic octopus, and fell flat on my face. The toy's little bells played a cheery tune. It should have been a dirge.

  “So,” Ben went on, “when you told me about Ronnie, I began to feel guilty all over again. I sense that you want grandchildren after all, and somehow, it's my fault you don't have them to jiggle on your knee.”

  It was my knee that hurt most. Amber appeared from the kitchen with a broom and a dustpan. I struggled to sit up. Danny began eating dirt from the potted azalea.

  “Shut up,” I said to Ben. “Don't ever mention the word grandchildren to me again.”

  Ronnie had a smaller bandage on his ear when I visited him Tuesday afternoon in jail. The first thing he asked about was Budweiser.

  I lied. “He's fine,” I said, relating how I'd gone to Pete and Jenny Chan's house. “The little boys are darling. Their own dog had been run over, so they're taking good care of Buddy.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. “They'll get attached,” Ronnie said, bowing his head. “They'll want to keep him.”

  “No, they'd prefer a snake,” I said, finally telling the truth.

  “You sure they didn't eat him?” Ronnie looked suspicious.

  “Of course not,” I retorted. “I think they were having lasagna for dinner.”

  “Hunh.” The idea of Asian-Americans eating Italian food seemed to stump Ronnie. I felt like telling him that back in Alpine, Deputy Dustin Fong's favorite foods were chimichangas and quesadillas.

  Instead, I asked Ronnie about Darryl Lindholm.

  “You mean Kendra's real dad?” Ronnie's eyes shifted away from me. “Yeah, I met him once before he tried to buy me off. He acted like a big shot.”

  “Did he?” I remarked. “He's had kind of a terrible life.”

  “Right,” Ronnie said sarcastically. “He works for Microsoft. I'll bet he's loaded.”

  “I'm not talking about money,” I said, sounding testy. Ronnie's value system seemed to be skewed along with the rest of him. “His wife and children were killed in a car accident last year.”

  Ronnie blinked twice. “No kidding. That's rough.” The words didn't sound very sincere.

  “How did you happen to meet him the first time?” I asked. Interviewing Ronnie was like questioning a two-year-old. My patience was ebbing. I'd had better luck getting Danny Ramsey to spit out most of the dirt from my potted plant.

  “This Darryl character was with Carol one night about a month ago when I came home from work. I got bad vibes off that dude.”

  “They were talking, I assume?”

  “Yeah. Really talkin’. Like serious. Like maybe I should go sit out in the parking lot in my 4 × 4 and play fetch with Buddy.”

  “Did Carol ask you to leave?” I inquired.

  Ronnie shook his head. “Nope. I went and changed and got a beer and by that time Darryl was takin’ off. I guess he wanted to see Kendra, but she wasn't around.”

  “Is that the only time you met him until you talked to him at the Satellite Room?”

  “Right.” Again, Ronnie wasn't looking at me. He gave a single nod. “He pissed me off. He just struck me all wrong, that's all. Him and his big freakin’ bike. Who needs it?”

  “Did Carol ever talk about Darryl Lindholm?” I asked.

  “Nope.” The answer came too fast, especially for Ronnie.

  “Not regarding Kendra?”

  “Oh—maybe she said something about… I forget.” He stopped, then wagged a finger. “I know— ‘too little and too late.’ I suppose she meant his showin’ up.”

  “Do you know if he met Kendra?”

  “Nope.” This time the denial struck me as genuine. But I knew better. Mr. Rapp had told me so.

  “Did you ever meet Sam or Kathy Addison?”

  “Who're they?”

  “Kendra's adoptive parents.”

  “Nope.”

  I'd run out of questions for Ronnie. “Look,” I said, glancing at my watch, “I've got a two-thirty appointment with Detective Rojas. I want to find out why the homicide investigation was so sloppy. From what I've learned so far, the police did a poor job. They arrested you because you were the obvious suspect. There's no evidence against you, really. Maybeth Swafford's statement is worthless.”

  “Maybeth?” Ronnie showed a spark of interest. “Whad-daya mean?”

  I explained about the mistake in time, the probability of at least one and maybe two other visitors arriving before Carol was killed. “The police took her evid
ence verbatim,” I said. Then, seeing Ronnie's blank stare, I elaborated. “That is, they didn't dig enough to realize she was wrong. Or perhaps Maybeth was lying to make you look bad.”

  “Maybeth wouldn't do that,” Ronnie said. “We broke up, but she was cool about it.”

  Men. If a discarded woman didn't ram a shish-kebab skewer through them, everything was just fine. I'd not only run out of questions, I'd run out of patience.

  But Ronnie had one last question for me. “Why don't you get Buddy from those kids and take him with you? Then I'd know he's okay.”

  I'd already stood up. “I'll see,” I fibbed.

  Then, feeling a tug of guilt for the simplicity of my cousin, I walked away.

  I almost collided with Vida. “I've been given permission to see Ronnie, too,” she said, radiating triumph. “His aunt, you see. So concerned. So loving. So near death's door.”

  I was surprised, though I shouldn't have been.

  But not as surprised as Ronnie would be.

  I definitely felt sorry for him now.

  MAYBE MY SYMPATHY had been misplaced. After fifteen minutes Vida emerged with the swallows on her silk cloche wobbling up and down.

  “My!” she exclaimed. “Your cousin is a bit dense. All I could get out of him was that he didn't do it, and he can't think who did, unless it was Darryl Lindholm.”

  As we waited for the elevator, I frowned at Vida. “Ronnie didn't tell me that. Did he have a reason other than bad vibes?”

  “He thought Darryl wanted revenge,” Vida replied.

  “For what?”

  We stepped into the elevator, which was crowded with police personnel, office workers, and at least two obvious perps. Vida stared straight ahead and whispered through taut lips:

  “Betrayal.”

  “With whom?”

  “Ronnie.”

  “Huh?” We'd reached the floor that would lead us to the detectives’ offices. “That's nuts,” I declared as we exited the elevator.

  “Of course,” Vida replied at her normal decibel level. “But it raises a pertinent question. Why did Darryl try to buy Ronnie off?”

  “I never got the chance to ask Darryl before he threw me out,” I said as we approached the main desk. “It might indicate that he was serious about getting back with Carol.”

  Vida nodded. “But in that case why would Darryl kill her? And was her murder really premeditated?”

  I shot her a curious glance before giving my name to a ruddy-cheeked blond behind the wide desk. We were directed to go down the hall and turn to our right.

  “What do you mean?” I asked as we passed a couple of men in plain clothes who had cop written all over them.

  “Who might be carrying around a length of drapery cord? In a pocket, a purse, a shopping bag.”

  I made a face at Vida. “When was the last time you stuffed a drapery cord in your handbag?”

  “February fourth,” Vida responded. “My mother's birthday. I took it to the cemetery to tie up a big chrysanthemum I was putting on her grave. As you recall, we'd had so much wind last winter. I didn't want the pot blowing over, so I tied it to my parents’ tombstone.”

  I laughed so hard that a white-coated woman who was passing by stopped to stare. Thinking she might be the prison psychiatrist, I sobered up fast. But Vida had an answer for everything. I hoped Tony Rojas would have some answers for me, too. A petite, pretty Filipino woman pointed the detective out to me. He was sitting at the second desk on the left, a telephone cradled between his shoulder and his ear.

  Rojas gestured for us to get another chair so that we could both sit down beside his desk. Even seated, I could tell he was a big, shambling man with a drooping black mustache and electric-brown eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said in a deep voice as he put the phone down. “You miss a day, and it feels like you have to make up for two. Now, which of you is Ms. Lord?”

  I put out my hand, which was enfolded in a paw about the size of a grizzly bear's. His grip was gentle, however.

  “I'm Emma, Ronnie Mallett's cousin,” I said. “This is my associate, Vida Runkel.”

  Vida arched an eyebrow at the word associate, but merely smiled as she, too, shook Rojas's hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Rojas. Are you related to the Rojases who own a chicken farm near Sultan?”

  The detective confessed that he wasn't, no doubt a major disappointment to Vida.

  Not wanting to waste time, I stated my concerns about Ronnie's incarceration and my doubts about his guilt. Then I zeroed in on Maybeth Swafford's confused statement and the alibis that I'd gotten on Ronnie's behalf from the two bars on Greenwood Avenue.

  Tony Rojas listened in silence, though his expression remained unchanged. When I'd finished, he picked up a ballpoint pen and began doodling on a notepad. Any optimism I possessed faded when I saw that he was drawing small nooses.

  “I understand why you're upset,” Rojas said in his calm, deep voice. “It's always hard for family members to accept that one of their own can commit a violent act. But,” he added with an ironic little smile, “it happens all the time. The worst part is that the violence is usually directed at another family member.”

  “What about the alibis?” I asked. “Honey, the bartender at the Satellite Room, seemed very sure about the time. I understand you never questioned her. She said that Ronnie was there with another man.”

  A flicker of interest showed in Rojas's dark eyes. “Did Ronnie tell you who he was?”

  I shifted in the uncomfortable metal chair. “Yes. It was Darryl Lindholm.” Wanting to get Rojas's reaction, I didn't elaborate.

  This time the blank expression on his face indicated ignorance, not reserve. But he said nothing, which turned out to be a mistake.

  “What did Darryl have to say for himself when you interviewed him?” Vida demanded, fists on hips.

  Rojas, who had been ignoring Vida, must have taken her silence for shyness, which made me question his per-ceptiveness. “I beg your pardon, Ms. Punkel?”

  “It's Runkel… Mrs. Runkel,” Vida burst out, causing heads to turn in the squad room. “See here, young man, it seems to me that you've conducted a most cursory—I might even say sloppy—investigation. My nephew Billy is a deputy sheriff, and if I ever thought he'd been so slapdash, I'd certainly take him to task. Now, it's about time you reopened this case and did your homework. Otherwise, Emma and I shall be forced to write an exposé in The Alpine Advocate and send copies to the wire services. I suspect you and your superiors wouldn't like that.”

  Tony Rojas looked as if he didn't like Vida very much, either. “You're out of line,” he declared, tossing his ballpoint pen aside. “We conducted this investigation by the book. Ronnie Mallett couldn't provide an alibi for himself, he'd been drinking, and he'd obviously been in a fight. So had Carol Stokes. They'd been heard quarreling, and she was found strangled a couple of hours later. We turned up no other suspects, found no one to alibi Mallett, and frankly, he didn't protest his innocence very convincingly. In my book, that's an open-and-shut case.”

  “He doesn't do anything convincingly,” I put in. “Furthermore, his public defender is inexperienced. I understand that you're overworked and underpaid, but who isn't? All I'm asking is that you check out the woman named Terri from Freddy's Bar, and Honey, the bartender at the Satellite Room. Oh, and Maybeth Swaf-ford. She has an ax to grind with Ronnie, and may have lied about when he left the apartment.”

  Rojas's electric gaze was chilling. “That's all, huh? What do you suggest I do about the drive-by last night in Rainier Valley and the ax murder in Belltown? Or the shooting that left three people dead, including two little kids, on Beacon Hill? Get over yourself, Ms. Lord. If my partner and I can squeeze ten minutes out of the end of our shift, we might do some checking. Otherwise, it's all up to a jury.”

  I sensed that Vida was about to unleash another diatribe. But I didn't want to leave empty-handed. Before she could speak, I leaned across her and held out a beseeching hand to the detective.
<
br />   “Tell me this much,” I said, humbling myself. “Have you considered—even briefly—anyone else as a suspect in this case?”

  “No,” Rojas said bluntly. “Why should we?”

  “Because,” I replied, trying to look intimidating and aware that with my short chin and pug nose, the attempt usually made me look like a grumpy Pekingese, “there are several of them. What would you say if I told you that Darryl Lindholm had a very good reason to strangle Carol Stokes?”

  Rojas looked as if he were trying to control a smile, no doubt of derision. “I'd say, ‘Who the hell is Darryl Lindholm?’ ”

  “That,” I said, standing up and trying to muster some dignity, “is exactly what I figured.”

  Somewhat to my surprise, Vida didn't have a last word. She also stomped out of the squad room, ignoring the stares and a couple of titters from Rojas's fellow detectives.

  “Buffoons,” she muttered as we headed for the elevator. Then she turned to me with a curious expression. “Why Darryl Lindholm?”

  “Because it suddenly occurred to me that Ronnie might be right,” I replied. “Darryl may have had a motive for killing Carol. What if she didn't want him horning in on her relationship with Kendra?”

  “I thought Mr. Rapp told you that the three of them looked happy,” Vida remarked as the elevator arrived.

  This time we were the only occupants except for a hel-meted messenger. “He did say that,” I replied. “But maybe he misread the scene. Or, just because they weren't all trying to kill each other, he mistook cordiality for intimacy.”

  The sun was trying to come out when we left the municipal complex. I'd agreed to meet Alvin Sternoff at his condo in Belltown. He was working at home because, as he'd explained, it was quieter, and he had a lot of catching up to do.

  “I don't have so many interruptions here,” he elaborated as Vida and I were ushered into his first-floor condo not far from Seattle Center and our motel. The apartment building had been converted some ten years earlier. If the rooms had been small to begin with, the ones occupied by Alvin seemed claustrophobic. Like his office, there were legal tomes, files, briefs, and other job-related items piled around the living room. I decided that in another six months Alvin would have to tunnel his way to reach the computer.