Alpine Hero

by Mary Daheim

  Praise for Mary Daheim

  and her Emma Lord mysteries

  THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

  “The lively ferment of life in a small Pacific Northwest town, with its convoluted genealogies and loyalties [and] its authentically quirky characters, combines with a baffling murder for an intriguing mystery novel.”

  —M. K. WREN

  THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

  “Editor-publisher Emma Lord finds out that running a small-town newspaper is worse than nutty—it’s downright dangerous. Readers will take great pleasure in Mary Daheim’s new mystery.”

  —CAROLYN G. HART

  THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

  “If you like cozy mysteries, you need to try Daheim’s Alpine series.… Recommended.”

  —The Snooper

  THE ALPINE DECOY

  “[A] fabulous series … Fine examples of the traditional, domestic mystery.”

  —Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

  By Mary Daheim

  Published by Ballantine Books:

  THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

  THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

  THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

  THE ALPINE DECOY

  THE ALPINE ESCAPE

  THE ALPINE FURY

  THE ALPINE GAMBLE

  THE ALPINE HERO

  Copyright © 1996 by Mary Daheim

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  http://www.randomhouse.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-96831

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55425-3

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  MY HAIR WAS three inches too long and my bank balance was thirty dollars short. I wasn’t due for a paycheck at The Alpine Advocate for another two days. As the newspaper’s editor and publisher, I could have given myself an advance. But that was cheating, which I despised. I’d done it once, with somebody else’s husband, and the price had been high. In this winter of my introspection, I’d finally closed that long-overdue account.

  Waiting to cross Front Street, I pondered my old sin and my new attitude. The affair twenty-three years ago had given me a son, a broken heart, and a skewed slant on love. The object of my blighted affection was currently separated from his certifiably crazy wife. But divorce wasn’t imminent. Waiting for Tom Cavanaugh to leave Sandra was like winning the lottery—there was always a chance, but the odds were terrible.

  My patience with Tom had run out. I’d finally exorcised him on New Year’s Eve. He’d called from San Francisco to tell me how much he loved me. I’d said that was nice. Tom was justifiably bewildered. I wished him a Happy New Year and hung up. Six weeks had passed, and I hadn’t heard from him again. Maybe he’d gotten the message.

  I had no regrets. I felt liberated, even exhilarated. On an overcast February day in Alpine, Washington, with four feet of snow covering the ground and a sharp wind blowing down from Mount Baldy, I felt buoyant. It didn’t bother me that the buildings along Front Street were small and drab, with piles of dirty snow hugging their facades. I ignored the jarring sound of a drill at the corner of Front and Second. All it meant to me was a two-inch story, about a frozen pipe across the street at City Hall. I could sniff the sweet cedar smoke from the sawmill and the heady aroma of chicken soup from the Venison Inn. As far as the eye could see on the main thoroughfare, there were no more than twenty vehicles in transit. With not quite four thousand residents, the town neither hustles nor bustles. While I often missed the city, Alpine’s quiet, arctic isolation suited my present mood just fine.

  The thought of submitting my unruly brown locks to the capable hands of Stella Magruder was very appealing. Heedlessly, I allowed a logging truck to fling slush on my boots. Recklessly, I crossed Front Street before one of its two traffic lights changed. Giddily, I entered Stella’s Styling Salon and greeted her assistant, Laurie, at the counter.

  Laurie is pretty, pleasant—and dumb as a rope. As usual, she couldn’t remember my name. This might be common in a busy metropolis, but Stella’s Styling is the only beauty parlor in town.

  “Emma Lord,” I said with a big smile. Nothing was going to shake me from my newly acquired sanguine state.

  “Umm.” Laurie scanned the appointment book. “Would that be a haircut or a facial?” Her bland blue eyes gazed beyond my left ear.

  The salon had recently begun offering facials. There were rumors that massage might follow. I kept smiling. “A haircut, with Stella. Two o’clock.”

  Miraculously, Laurie found my name. “Ms. Lord,” she said, with doubt in her wispy voice. Reaching under the counter, she handed me a black smock. “You can change next to the facial room. It’s in the back, by the rest room. Okay?” Laurie sounded as if it probably weren’t.

  The smock-changing routine was new, along with the facials. Vaguely, I recalled where the rest room was located. As I passed by the two workstations, Stella’s reflection smiled at me in the big mirror that covered most of the wall. She was putting the finishing touches on an elderly woman I’d met somewhere around town. The blue rinse bordered on the garish, but the soft curls looked nice.

  “Hi, Emma,” Stella said in greeting. “I thought you’d died. You should have been in here before the end of January. Now I’ll have to get out the hedge clippers.” She laughed, a husky, happy sound that followed me through the door that led to the salon’s nether parts.

  The rest room was clearly marked. But there were four other doors. One of them was ajar, but I could hear the swishing sound of a washer and the hum of a dryer. I remembered that this was the salon’s laundry and linen room. Uncertain as to which was the changing area, I opened the door opposite the rest room.

  I’d made a mistake. This was the facial room. It was lighted only by a pair of thick aromatic candles. A woman was lying on the table, swathed in a sheet and a couple of towels. Her face was covered with dark green cream, and there were cotton pads over her eyes. I intended to apologize for the intrusion. But before my brain could connect with my voice, I saw that the woman’s throat had been cut from ear to ear. There was no doubt that she was dead.

  I screamed.

  My sanguine mood was shattered.

  * * *

  Stella was the first to hear me. She rushed into the dimly lighted corridor gripping a comb. My initial reaction was that it was a weapon, and Stella was going to stab me. I screamed again, took in the alarm on her face, and tried to calm down.

  “The woman in there is dead,” I said, gulping and gesturing. “Her throat’s been cut.” My unsteady legs forced me to lean against the wall next to the facial-room door.

  Stella visibly steeled herself, then pushed the door all the way open. Dropping the comb, she put both hands over her mouth to stifle a cry. Laurie appeared at that moment, along with a dark-haired young woman I didn’t recognize. Stella whirled, grabbed her assistants by their shoulders, and spun them back down the narrow corridor.

  “Becca! Call the
sheriff!” Stella gave herself a shake. “Better yet, run over and get him or whoever’s there. Hurry!”

  The Skykomish County Sheriff’s Office was almost directly across the street from the Clemans Building, which houses the salon. Becca, who I knew only by sight, now hurried away. Laurie stood dumbly by the rest-room door, watching her employer with uncomprehending blue eyes.

  “Let’s go back into the salon,” Stella said, firmly closing the door on the dead woman. “I don’t want to see that again.”

  Still shaking, I followed Stella and Laurie. The bright lights of the main salon hurt my eyes. Indeed, I seemed to hurt all over.

  “Who is it?” I finally breathed as I half fell into the vacant chair at Laurie’s station.

  Before I could get an answer from Stella, she saw her Blue Rinse waiting patiently at the front counter. I suddenly remembered that the woman’s name was Ella Hinshaw. She was a shirttail relation of my House & Home editor, Vida Runkel. Ella was about seventy, and deaf as a post. It appeared that she hadn’t heard my screams, though she was eyeing all three of us with curiosity.

  Stella arrived at the counter. It sounded as if she was trying to get rid of Ella before the sheriff arrived. Laurie was leaning against the shampoo bowl, looking bewildered.

  “Who was it?” I hissed at her.

  Laurie turned her wheat-colored head in my direction. Every time I saw her, both her style and shade were different. “Ms. Whitman,” she said in a hushed voice. “You know—that woman from Startup.”

  I knew Honoria Whitman very well. She and Sheriff Milo Dodge had been seeing each other for about three years. Honoria lived twenty-five miles west of Alpine in a converted summer cottage off Highway 2. She was a potter who was confined to a wheelchair. I admired her courage and her independence. I liked her, but was sometimes put off by what I considered a faintly patronizing manner. Laurie’s words caused me to start shaking all over again.

  Stella had gotten rid of Ella Hinshaw. Watching the sheriff’s office through the front door, Stella spoke sharply to Laurie: “Did you say that was Honoria Whitman?” Stella’s usually husky voice was thin and strained. “Good God, Laurie, it’s not her—it’s Kay Whitman, Honoria’s sister-in-law.”

  I felt dizzy with relief. I’d never heard of Kay Whitman; I vaguely recalled that Honoria had a sister-in-law. The only reason I knew that much was because the brother had killed the husband who had pushed Honoria down a flight of stairs and turned her into a cripple. After putting my head between my knees, I looked up to see Milo Dodge loping into the salon with Becca and Deputy Jack Mullins right behind him.

  “Okay,” Milo said, his usually laconic voice a trifle loud and fraught with authority. “What do we have here?” One hand was at his sidearm.

  Stella took command, her full-figured body positioned in the middle of the salon where the reception area ended and the workstations began. “Emma went into the facial room by mistake. She found our client with her throat cut. It’s true. I saw her myself. She’s dead.”

  “Who is she?” Milo asked with a swift, reproachful glance at Becca. “This one couldn’t remember her name.”

  “She was new,” Becca began in an apologetic voice. Becca was new, too, at least to me. Stella seemed to have surrounded herself with employees who didn’t know their clients, dead or alive. “In fact, she wasn’t—”

  Milo cut Becca off with a slashing motion of his hand. “Who is it, Stella?”

  Stella was keeping her composure remarkably well, though she was pale under her carefully applied makeup. Still, she swallowed hard before answering. “Kay Whitman. She took Honoria’s appointment.”

  Now the color drained from Milo’s long face. He turned jerkily, staring out into Front Street. I had finally managed to get out of the chair and had edged close enough to see through the window. Sure enough, Honoria and her wheelchair were being pushed out of the sheriff’s office by a man I didn’t recognize. They appeared to be heading toward the Clemans Building.

  Milo gave Jack Mullins a small shove. “Stop them. Don’t let Honoria or her brother in here. Damn!” With a sharp shake of his head, Milo turned back to Stella. “I’m going to have a look. You call Doc Dewey and get him over here. Tell him to send an ambulance. They can go in the back way, right?”

  Stella nodded. “The fire exit for the building is on Pine Street.”

  “Right.” Milo’s long-legged stride took him through the salon. He passed me without so much as a glance. “Show me the room, Stella,” he ordered.

  Becca was crying. She had sat down in one of the two chairs in the reception area and was hunched over like a child. Laurie regarded her coworker with mild dismay, but didn’t move. I forced myself to join Becca. Doing something other than thinking about the dead woman would help me regain my equilibrium. Only now did it dawn on me that this was a major news story. I had to become Emma Lord, journalist, instead of Emma Lord, twittering ninny.

  At first I didn’t say anything, but merely patted Becca’s plump shoulder. Mentally, I was trying to place her. She wasn’t a newcomer, but she was a stranger to me. Vida had written a small article about Becca in early January. Rebecca Wolfe—the full name came back to me. She was an Alpine native, but had left town after high school. That was six or seven years ago, before my time. Vida had made some acerbic comment about Becca, but at the moment I couldn’t remember what it was.

  Becca continued to sob. I reached for a box of tissues and handed it to her. She fumbled with a single sheet, then began to hiccup just as Edith Bartleby, the Episcopal vicar’s wife, entered the shop.

  “Oh, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Bartleby, who was out of breath. “I’m late! I do hate tardiness, but there’s some sort of giant drill around the corner where I usually park. When people are late for communion service, I sometimes can’t help but feel disapproval—” Mrs. Bartleby stopped, taking in the scene. “My goodness! Whatever’s happened? Is someone distraught over her haircut?”

  Jack Mullins returned. I tried to see where Honoria and her escort had gone, but they’d disappeared. Two or three Alpiners had gathered on the sidewalk, however, apparently drawn by the unusual activity between the salon and the sheriff’s office.

  Jack went directly to the vicar’s wife. “Mrs. Bartleby,” he said in an unusually meek voice, “you have to go outside. I’m sorry. There’s been an … accident.”

  “An accident! Oh, my!” Mrs. Bartleby’s eyes grew very wide behind her rimless spectacles. “Nothing serious, I hope?” When there was no answer, she put a hand to the lapels of her drab brown raincoat. “Is it one of ours? Should I call Regis? Shall I …” Her high voice trailed off.

  Stella had come back into the salon, without Milo. She rushed over to Mrs. Bartleby. “I’m afraid we’ll have to reschedule. Could you call us later today?”

  Mrs. Bartleby had glimpsed Laurie, still standing by the shampoo bowl, wearing her bovine expression. “But Laurie looks … as usual. My appointment is with her. It’s a standing Monday. But of course you know that.” She gave Stella a gently reproving look. “The rest of the week is so …” Again, the words faded away.

  Putting a firm hand on Mrs. Bartleby’s arm, Stella steered her out of the shop. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, Mrs. Bartleby.” Still soothing, Stella left her puzzled client outside just as a few flakes of snow began to fall.

  “Laurie, start calling our three o’clocks,” Stella ordered, as she drew the shade on the door and turned the CLOSED sign to the street. “The rest of them, too, I suppose.” Her sixty-year-old face suddenly showed its age; even her usually firm body sagged. “Oh, my God, this is awful!” Shielded now from onlookers, Stella collapsed in the chair next to Becca. I moved out of the way.

  Becca’s tears had dwindled into sniveling. Laurie had wandered to the phone, but appeared to be having problems coping with the appointment book. Feeling useless, I paced around the display stand with its products that promised eternal youth, beauty, and hair to die for.

  The
fleeting phrase made me feel queasy all over again. But I had to keep in control. There was work to be done. I turned to Becca.

  “Where were you? I mean, while your client was in the facial room alone?”

  Becca looked at me with a blotchy face and reddened eyes. “I’d put the hydrating mask on, so I went down to the Burger Barn to get a Coke.” She stared at me as if I were a circus freak.

  “Ms. Lord owns the newspaper,” Stella said, to give me credentials. “Do you remember Ms. Runkel?”

  Becca did. Everyone remembered Ms. Runkel. Vida is a big woman, in many ways. At sixty-plus, she is tall, broad-shouldered, and full-busted. Her commanding presence has been known to make grown men weep and strong women cringe. Alfred Cobb, one of our three county commissioners and a Purple Heart hero of World War II, once said of her that “I’d sure as hell rather get run down by Vida’s Buick than get hit by her hooters. If she’d been with me at Bastogne, we could have taken out a Panzer division between us.” I love Vida dearly, but upon occasion, she still overwhelms me.

  “Ms. Lord works for her,” Stella said, then realized her slip, and flushed. “I mean, Ms. Runkel works for Ms. Lord.” The mistake was easy to make. Sometimes I couldn’t tell the difference, either.

  “Oh—right.” Becca managed to come up with a ghost of a smile. “The mask takes fifteen minutes,” she explained. “I always leave the room, because my clients need the quiet time to relax and maybe even nap. Stella doesn’t mind if I run out to get pop or something from the Upper Crust Bakery.” There was a defensive note in Becca’s voice as she looked at her employer for confirmation.

  “That’s right,” Stella asserted as a siren wailed in the distance. “Becca doesn’t always take a regular lunch break. She’s already built up quite a clientele, since we’re the only salon offering facials from here to Sultan.”

  In a way, I was surprised by Becca’s success. Alpine’s economy was still in a slump. As a typical Northwest logging community, the environmentalists had had their way with the timber industry. The result was out-of-work loggers, impoverished families, and an impending sense of doom. Federal programs had been offered to retrain the displaced workers, but logging is a vocation almost as ingrained as a religious calling. By the 1990s, fourth- and fifth-generation woodsmen found themselves not only without a job, but torn from tradition. The only bright spot on the horizon was the proposed construction of a community college.