by Mary Daheim
“Fingerprints?” I asked hopefully after tasting my Jack Daniel’s and water.
“Lots of those. Mostly Becca Wolfe’s.” Milo sighed into his Scotch. “We’ve got one thing, Emma, but it’s not much help.”
I gave Milo an interested look. “What’s that?”
“A towel.” Milo paused. “Stella didn’t find it until this afternoon when we let her go back into the salon so she could open up tomorrow. Jack Mullins and I should have noticed, but you women are always dyeing your hair and—”
“I don’t dye my hair,” I interrupted, shaking my shaggy brown locks.
“You know what I mean.” Milo seemed peeved, though more with himself than with me. “Anyway, Stella took the wet stuff out of the dryer this afternoon. She couldn’t do it Monday, because we told her not to go beyond the reception area, and the laundry room is in back. She noticed that one of the towels still had stains on it. Jack had glanced in the washer and dryer, but didn’t see anything odd. Stella said they always add bleach and let it soak before they start the wash cycle. According to her, this towel had to have been thrown in after the bleach process because it was still dirty. Dale Quick isn’t sure because he hasn’t run all his tests, but he thinks the stains are human blood.”
Milo and I both ordered a second drink. We finished our first ones while he theorized about the bloodstained towel. Wanting to avoid getting blood on his or her person, the killer had grabbed a towel, committed the murder, then thrown the towel into the washing machine, which was already turned on.
“I heard the washer and dryer,” I said, feeling a bit shaken. “They were both going just before I went into the facial room. The door was ajar.”
Milo grew thoughtful. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. That’s why I knew that door didn’t lead to the changing room.”
“I wonder if the killer heard you coming and that’s why the door was ajar.”
I shivered. It hadn’t occurred to me that Kay Whitman’s murderer might have been only a few feet away from me when I discovered the body. He or she might have been in one of the rest rooms, or the changing room, or even the laundry room itself.
There was no point in being terrified after the fact. “Did you ask Stella if she kept that door ajar? I would. The room must be very small, and the heat from the dryer might cause a fire hazard. That’s a very old building.”
“I’ll ask her tomorrow,” Milo said. “What I’d like to know is that if this perp used the towel as a shield, where did it come from? The laundry room, the facial room, or some other place?”
Sipping my second drink, I nodded. “I see your point. If the towel came from the laundry room, it would indicate that the killer knew his or her way around the building.”
“It could,” Milo allowed. “But Stella said Becca kept a stack of towels on a stand right by the door. We just have to make sure the stained one came from there.”
“Would Becca know? I mean, did she keep close count?” I waited for Milo’s answer while our salads arrived.
“I haven’t talked to her today,” Milo said, lavishly applying salt and pepper to the iceberg lettuce and small mound of shrimp. “We spent the morning back at the salon and interviewing potential witnesses.”
I thought of Ella Hinshaw, who would have been getting her blue rinse curled and furled when the murder occurred. She was deaf, but she certainly wasn’t blind. “Did anybody see anything odd?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” Milo responded. He’d raised his voice just enough to attract the attention of a young couple at the next table. Like most of the other diners, they were skiers visiting from out of town. Milo’s status as sheriff meant nothing to them. “There was a three-man work crew, fixing that busted pipe off Pine Street, but the damned drill is new and they were having problems, so they didn’t pay any attention to what was going on around them. Even Janet Driggers, who’s got an eagle eye along with a dirty mouth, didn’t see jack-squat from her angle at Sky Travel. She was helping some ski bum figure out how to get from here to Sun Valley for next to nothing.”
I considered telling Milo about the man who had come into The Advocate Monday evening asking to run a personal ad. But he hadn’t shown up Tuesday, and I knew how much Milo disliked speculation. Instead, I asked what kind of plans the family was making for Kay Whitman’s body.
Milo sighed, then wiped a dab of Roquefort dressing off his chin. “Honoria’s pretty annoyed with me about that. The autopsy should be done tomorrow, according to the folks over in Everett, but you never know. If they have a hot one come along in the next twenty-four hours, poor old Kay will stay in the freezer. Honoria wanted me to promise they could leave by tomorrow night.”
I wrinkled my brow at Milo. Of course he couldn’t see my brow because my bangs were so long that they covered my forehead almost to my eyes. “I thought Honoria’s relatives drove from California to Startup.”
“Yeah? Well, they’re flying back. Maybe somebody can retrieve the car later. They can’t haul Kay eight hundred miles in the trunk.” Milo speared the last shrimp on his plate and washed it down with Scotch.
“I hope you didn’t say that to Honoria,” I remarked dryly.
Milo started to look a trifle sheepish, then squared his shoulders and assumed an unusual air of bravado. “Hell, no. But I would if I’d thought of it. I can’t tippy-toe around Honoria just because she and I … well, just because.” Deflating, he mumbled into his glass.
I laughed. “Don’t act coy with me, Dodge. We’ve revealed all sorts of shocking secrets to each other in the past few months. Are you trying to tell me now that you and Honoria are still hitting the sheets? I thought not.”
“You’re right. We’re not. And don’t talk like that. It doesn’t sound like you.” Milo’s expression was full of reproach.
“Sorry.” If I hadn’t had two bourbons, I would have been embarrassed. I finished my own salad, then set the fork on the empty plate. “So I gather,” I finally said after a lengthy but not entirely uncomfortable silence, “that you hadn’t met her relatives until yesterday.”
“That’s right. I met her mother when I drove down to Startup this afternoon. Honoria brought her brother to see me while his wife was getting the facial. And getting herself killed,” he added on an ironic note.
I couldn’t help but wince. “What’s her mother like? Mrs. Smith, isn’t it? She must have remarried.”
“Often,” Milo replied. Again he paused, this time as the waitress whisked away our salad plates. “She seems like a nice woman, though. Honoria’s father left them when the three kids were small. He was a circus acrobat.”
“No kidding!” I laughed some more. “Did you know that before … this happened?”
Milo nodded as his meatballs and my salmon arrived. “He was never home much even while the Whitmans were still married. The circus wintered in Florida, which is where Honoria and her brother and sister were born. After the divorce, they moved to California. Ida married a guy in the Merchant Marine, a chef or a cook, and finally, some young guy, whose hobby was motorcycles. He got himself killed on I-80 outside of Oakland.”
“Gosh,” I murmured. “The family has had more trouble than I realized. It’s a marvel that Honoria is so stable and sensible.”
Forking up a meatball, Milo glanced across the linen-covered table. “Oh, yeah? That’s what I always thought, too. But not anymore. Fact is, I’m beginning to wonder if Honoria is all there.”
Milo seemed to swallow the meatball in one gulp. I gulped, too, but for a different reason. Slowly, but surely, it was dawning on me that Honoria Whitman wasn’t just a casual friend, but a complete stranger.
Chapter Five
MILO TURNED DOWN my offer of a nightcap. I was mildly disappointed, but it was almost ten, and he not only had to get up before six, but felt obligated to check in with his night deputies, Dwight Gould and Sam Heppner. The most romantic part of our Valentine date came when he slapped me on the back and said, “Good night, kid.”
I’d finally told him about Ed Bronsky’s comments. Milo had snorted. He figured that Fuzzy Baugh probably had made some crack over a second martini. I decided Milo was right, but Ed’s silly remarks still rankled.
The next morning I intended to relate Ed’s prattle to Vida, but she was in such a euphoric mood that I kept my mouth shut. The dinner in Everett had been “delightful.” The yacht club was “elegant.” Buck had been “so gallant.” I wanted to throw up. Vida was acting like a moonstruck teenager.
By noon, however, she’d pulled herself together. Maybe Leo had teased her, though I doubted that she’d confided in him about her date. As for Carla, she was too self-absorbed to notice anyone else’s aberrations.
We were still getting calls about the murder. The numbers would skyrocket as soon as The Advocate hit the streets and the carrier boxes. By that time Vida and I would be in Startup. Milo had informed us that Kay’s body couldn’t be released until Thursday. Snohomish County had had a double murder late Tuesday night. Our homicide was put on hold.
While we were under less pressure on Wednesdays than any other day of the week, I still worked through my lunch hour. If Vida and I were going to be out of the office for a couple of hours, the least I could do was sort through my backed-up in-basket and think about next week’s editorial.
About ten minutes before we were to leave, I called Milo to see if he had any news for us. It wouldn’t appear in the paper for another week, but I didn’t want anything to slip between the cracks.
“I thought Vida was covering this story,” Milo said, sounding vaguely amused.
“She is, but I have to keep on top of things,” I responded, feeling defensive. “I am the editor and publisher.”
Milo didn’t quibble. “Okay, but don’t tell Vida I told you—I’ll have Bill call her when I hang up. Stella and Laurie didn’t leave the main part of the salon after one forty-five Monday. Stella was working on Ella Hinshaw, and Laurie had finished Charlene Vickers right around then.”
Charlene was married to Cal, the service-station owner. She and I belonged to the same bridge club. I considered her a reliable person.
“Charlene didn’t notice anything odd, like when she went back to change out of her smock?” I asked.
“She was gone before Kay Whitman arrived,” Milo answered. “The other news is that Stella insists the towel doesn’t belong to the salon. It’s white, it’s the right size, but when she gave it another look, she noticed that the brand was different from what they buy.”
“Hmm.” I grew silent, trying to imagine a would-be killer sneaking around town with a white towel. “This sounds like the murder was carefully planned.”
“You bet,” Milo agreed. “Dale Quick is in the lab right now. He’s found hair and he’s found fibers, but what would you expect in a beauty salon?”
“No sign of the weapon?”
“Nope.”
“Or the alligator purse?” My voice took on an edge. At dinner the previous night, I’d given Milo a hard time about neglecting to mention the handbag.
“Nope. It’s occurred to me that the purse was taken for a different reason than to make it look like a robbery. Don’t print this,” Milo cautioned, “but I’m wondering if the killer didn’t put the knife in the purse. According to Honoria, Kay’s bag was pretty big.”
I gnawed at my index finger. “That suggests a woman. Men—in Alpine, anyway—don’t carry purses around town.”
“They sure don’t take them into the Icicle Creek Tavern,” Milo agreed, referring to the loggers’ favorite local hangout. “Anyway, we’re searching the Clemans Building, a four-block radius between First and Fifth and Pine to the river. We’re having the garbage sifted, which is a pain in the ass, since Monday was pickup day—all day. Oh, yeah, we dragged the Sky from the UPS loading dock to the bridge. But we didn’t expect any luck there—the current’s too damned swift this time of year. If I wanted to get rid of a murder weapon, that’s where I’d pitch it.”
I didn’t ask about progress with the autopsy, which I knew was a sore point with Milo. He, more than anyone, resented having Snohomish County move him down the list of priorities. Urging him to have Bill Blatt call Vida right away, I hung up.
Ten minutes later I was riding in Vida’s Buick and listening to the same recital I’d heard from Milo. She agreed with his theory about the handbag.
“Examine the knives at Harvey’s Hardware,” she said, driving carefully along the recently plowed highway. “Most of the ones he sells are under a foot in length. A knife that size could be easily concealed in a woman’s purse.”
We were stuck behind a moving van that bore Idaho license plates. “That indicates a man,” I said, wondering why the thought hadn’t dawned on me earlier. “A woman would have had the knife in her own purse. She wouldn’t have needed to take Kay’s.”
Vida, however, wasn’t convinced. “What if she was stopped? She’d have to open her purse, and—bingo! There’s the bloodstained knife. She could throw Kay’s purse away. No, I think the killer could be of either sex. But where did the purse and the knife go?”
“Where did the towel come from?” I asked. Traveling west, we were now below snow level. The fitful flakes had been replaced by a steady rain on the Buick’s windshield.
Vida could merely speculate. “I carry a towel under the seat of this car. It was helpful when Roger used to get carsick.”
The mention of Vida’s eleven-year-old grandson made me feel a bit queasy. Roger was a terror, though Vida found him perfect. While I longed for him to grow up, I dreaded the thought of him as a teenager. If I had one wish for Roger, it was that he would go straight from pre-pubescence to midlife crisis. If I had a wish for myself, it would be to never lay eyes on the little wretch again.
Vida was still talking about her towel. Even after dear little Roger stopped puking on her upholstery, she had kept a towel in the car for unexpected spills. Her daughter, Meg, always carried two towels. Meg wasn’t the mother of Roger, but perhaps some of her own offspring were inclined to motion sickness. Darla Puckett was never without a beach towel, due to her advanced age and frequent incontinence. As for Grace Grundle …
“Stop!” I cried. “I get the point. Lots of people carry lots of towels. I use rags, and they’re in the trunk.” Or boot, I thought absently, since I owned a Jag. “Why white?” I asked suddenly.
“Why not?” Vida frowned, but kept her eyes on the road.
“I don’t own any white towels,” I pointed out. “These days, everybody has colors. Solids, stripes, patterns—but no whites. They’re boring and they’re too hard to keep up unless you bleach them like Stella does.”
“I have two sets of white towels,” Vida said. “One is monogrammed.”
I stopped arguing. I was still convinced that most households didn’t use white towels. Motels, hotels, restaurants, hospitals—and beauty salons—had white towels. The point seemed small, but it bothered me. Milo, of course, would scoff.
We had passed Gold Bar. The thick stands of western red cedar, Douglas fir, Pacific silver fir, and western hemlock now gave way to cottonwood and vine maples, stripped bare by autumn winds. Turning off onto the unpaved road that led to Honoria’s house, I noted a few patches of dirty snow tucked in the shade of heavy underbrush. The creek that in summer moved at a sluggish pace was now recklessly coursing through the property, making its way to the Skykomish River on the other side of the highway.
A blue plume of smoke spiraled out of Honoria’s tin chimney. The wide porch, which Honoria called a veranda, looked deserted except for the covered summer furniture that was stored at one end. A gently sloping ramp led from the paved path to the front door. It had been several months since I’d seen the converted cabin in daylight. The rich brown shakes had weathered, turning a dark, streaked gray.
Honoria’s Nissan was parked in the carport. A Dodge Caravan with California plates stood in a small clearing by the house. I assumed the vehicle belonged to Trevor Whitman.
Vida had called ahead, so Honoria was expecting us. That didn’t mean that she was pleased by our visit, however. Given the circumstances, I couldn’t blame her.
“There’s fresh coffee,” she said as we entered the small but comfortable living room with its adroitly placed examples of Honoria’s pottery and that of other Pacific Northwest craftsmen. Honoria’s throaty voice sounded peevish and her gray eyes didn’t convey their usual serenity.
Trevor, who had come to the door with Honoria, was now standing by a wire-and-wicker chair that had been made by one of his sister’s artisan friends. A woman about Vida’s age stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Honoria introduced her as Ida Smith. Honoria and Trevor’s mother crossed the room to shake our hands.
We offered condolences, which Mrs. Smith accepted with a brave smile. Her much-married reputation hadn’t prepared me for the real woman: Ida Frickey Whitman Smith was about my height, a trifle overweight, with clear blue eyes that were framed by huge white-rimmed glasses on a chain. Her short white hair was highlighted by a streak of jet black that started at the side part and rippled to the flip that rested against her left cheek. She wore a minimum of makeup, and despite the well-earned wrinkles, she was still pretty in an ordinary, if self-conscious manner.
Vida and I seated ourselves on the genuine leather couch. Honoria’s cat, Dodger, meandered over from his place on the braided rug by the Franklin stove. He sniffed at Vida’s boots, then rubbed his head against her ankles. Vida pulled away, giving the cat a disapproving look. She isn’t fond of animals.
Mrs. Smith had retreated into the kitchen, presumably to fetch the coffee. Honoria allowed Trevor to move her between the couch and the wire-and-wicker chair.
Honoria let out a long sigh as she adjusted the striped serape that cushioned her back. “I’ll be so glad to have my own wheelchair again. It’s terribly inconvenient having to depend on other people. I despise that. Besides, this rental doesn’t really fit me. But every so often, there’s a problem, just like a car. You think you’ve got one thing fixed, and a few days later something else goes wrong.”