Alpine Hero

by Mary Daheim

  “They’re not,” Vida retorted. “It would have been more likely for Dodger to try to follow Honoria. What was she planning to do with him during her absence?”

  Milo was eating hungrily, popping steak, fries, and toasted French bread into his mouth at once. “That woman in Gold Bar who makes stained glass—Paula Rubens. Honoria said she would have taken the cat.”

  I leaned closer to the sheriff. “Did you tell Honoria what happened?”

  Milo looked pained. “I had to. She was appalled. Shit!” He forked in more steak and bread.

  Vida gave a faint, reproachful shake of her head. “Did you ask her about the money order?”

  The sheriff was now attacking his neglected salad. “I did. That’s when I lost the connection.” Milo kept his long face straight, then narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t get a chance to ask about all those long-distance calls. But Dustin checked them out and they’re mostly art types or galleries or studios. Except,” he added with a sly expression, “for the one in Edmonds. It turns out that number belongs to Toby Popp.”

  The sheriff downed three fries at once. I almost swallowed my spoon. Vida looked like the cat that ate the canary. Except the cat was dead, the canary was alive, and it seemed to me that we had a viable suspect in Toby Popp. The only problem was that I didn’t know what crime the billionaire computer king had committed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  CARLA HAD MENTIONED that Toby Popp lived north of Seattle. The suburb of Edmonds is just across the King-Snohomish county line, on Puget Sound. It’s a relatively quiet area, with spectacular views of the water and the Olympic Mountains. If I were a computer king, I might want to live there, too—at least until my multimillion-dollar house in the forest was completed.

  Milo’s response to the obvious query of bringing Toby Popp in for questioning was ambivalent. He’d consider it, of course. He needed some grounds, other than a couple of phone calls. He’d never heard of Toby Popp until the last few days. But what he’d learned made Toby sound like some kind of god who probably had about two dozen six-figure lawyers at his beck and call. Unfamiliar with the rich and semifamous, the sheriff didn’t know how such wealth and power would affect an investigation, but he figured to come out on the short end.

  After that last remark, Vida excused herself to go to the ladies’ room to freshen up, as she put it. I didn’t just lean into Milo, I punched him in the arm.

  “Listen, kiddo,” I said, making sure my voice was low, “I’ve watched you interrogate witnesses. Nobody around here cows you. Are you going to let some computer nerd turn you into a wimp?”

  Wiping a dab of Roquefort dressing off his upper lip, Milo frowned at me. “What’s with you, Emma? When was I ever a wimp?”

  “About thirty seconds ago. You were waffling on Toby Popp. Don’t. He’s Laurie Marshall’s father, he’s more than a little weird, and for all we know, he and Kay Whitman may have had a torrid affair back in their California youth.”

  “Nerds aren’t torrid.” Milo tossed his rumpled napkin onto the table. “Okay, but I’ll bet anything this Popp character wanted to buy some pottery from Honoria for his snazzy new house.”

  The suggestion was plausible. Now that Toby was retired, perhaps he was broadening his horizons. Jane Marshall had mentioned a rare edition of poetry. Perhaps she knew or guessed that her former husband would spend some of his huge fortune on collectibles. Art was often a sound investment.

  Deciding not to badger Milo further, I reiterated my lament about Honoria’s lack of friends and neighbors. “There must be somebody she knew fairly well besides you in the area,” I said in a fretful voice. “Honoria lived in Startup for several years. Surely she got close to some of the people in the art community. What about the woman in Gold Bar with the stained glass?”

  “Paula Rubens.” Milo paused, chewed and swallowed before speaking again. “Oh, Honoria would talk about certain people from time to time—but not as if they were pals. Usually, they were Everett or Seattle types. I met some of them when she dragged me to those gallery deals. Face it, Emma—Honoria came up here to get away.”

  I could see Vida reentering the coffee shop. As usual, she recognized more of the diners than I did. Her return to the table was typical, a royal progress of greetings and exchanges.

  “Everybody needs friends,” I muttered, echoing my House & Home editor. A sudden thought struck my mind. I grabbed Milo’s arm just as he was putting his silverware down. “Hey, I just remembered something! When were those calls placed to Edmonds?”

  “Monday,” Milo answered. “And Thursday. Why?”

  Vida and I had been in Startup on Wednesday. Toby Popp had been at the Index building site that same day. “What about Wednesday? Are you sure a call wasn’t made?”

  Milo didn’t think so. Judging from his indifferent expression, the topic didn’t intrigue him. My perverse nature surfaced, though in a righteous cause. I played my trump card, which should appeal to his male vanity.

  “You’d better look at Wednesday, after two o’clock.” I gave Milo an arch little smile. “A man called for Honoria while Vida and I were at her house. Mrs. Smith answered. When she told Honoria about the caller, Mrs. Smith referred to him as her daughter’s friend. Honoria indicated she’d talk to him later, so I assume the call was returned. Has it ever occurred to you that you might have had a rival whose name is Toby Popp?”

  Out in the ski-lodge parking lot, Vida praised me for my cunning. “I can’t think why we didn’t jump on that phone call sooner. Mrs. Smith sounded downright unctuous when she was talking to whoever it was.”

  We had taken my Jag from Vida’s house. Getting behind the wheel, I gave my House & Home editor a wry sideways look. “You mean she sounded the way you’d expect an ordinary middle-class woman to talk to a billionaire?”

  “Precisely.” Unused to the low roof of my car, Vida knocked her pillbox askew. “Awed by dollar signs. Moneybags dancing through her head. What I’d call the Fat Cat Syndrome. Of course, you might also interpret it as the way a mother might speak to her daughter’s suitor. Assuming, of course, that she approved of him.”

  “I don’t think Mrs. Smith is the type who’d disapprove of a billion dollars.” I put the car into gear, then drove out of the parking lot. Milo’s Cherokee Chief was somewhere on the road ahead of us. He had reluctantly agreed to let us go over the list of phone calls a second time.

  Crossing Burl Creek, Vida was muttering away. The “Fat Cat” reference had made her think of the late Dodger. “Fingerprints—Milo should have checked the parcel immediately. One couldn’t expect much off the wrapping paper, because it was handled by so many people, including me. But the box itself is another matter. Oh, dear—of course I touched it, too, and I’d removed my gloves. Still, I wonder if Milo …”

  “I’m sure he did,” I interjected, taking the alternate route into town, along Alpine Way. “Speaking of gloves, I’ll bet the cat killer wore them. Even if I didn’t care who knew I’d sent the thing, I wouldn’t want to touch poor Dodger with my bare hands.” Involuntarily, I shivered.

  Though Vida had attempted to right her hat, it now tilted in the opposite direction. “True. The heart of the matter is that we don’t know if there’s any connection between Dodger’s demise and Kay Whitman’s murder. Some people don’t care for cats. I certainly understand that—they’re such perverse, unfriendly, spoiled creatures. Dogs are more helpful, though I’m not fond of them, either.” Vida was still speaking more to herself than to me. “This Dodger calamity strikes me as the kind of cruel prank a youngster might dream up. But why would someone mail the cat from Sultan to the Marshalls?”

  We had arrived at the sheriff’s headquarters, where Milo waited at the door. After he led us into his office, the first thing I did was study the wall map of Skykomish County and the adjacent areas. I knew Highway 2 by heart, but maybe I felt that staring at the place names would provide inspiration.

  The town of Skykomish lies six miles west of Alpine. Coming dow
n through the Cascade foothills, three more minutes takes the traveler to Grotto, and another three to Baring. The turnoff into the secluded town of Index is about five miles farther. Then, heading onto flatter terrain, the distance between Gold Bar, Startup, and Sultan can be covered in a quarter of an hour. The last, more populated, eight-mile stretch goes into Monroe, a virtual gateway to Seattle’s suburbs. For those of us used to plying Highway 2, the ground was usually traversed quickly, with no annoying stoplights, arterials, or gridlock.

  It was the corridor along the Skykomish River between Index and Sultan that captured my attention. Sultan was by far the largest of the little towns that dotted the highway. Who was the mystery mailer living in that still sparsely inhabited stretch? Or had someone traveled that twenty-seven miles of road from Alpine to mail a dead cat?

  “This is stupid,” I said flatly. “Are we getting hung up on something that’s irrelevant?”

  Milo shrugged. “Probably.”

  Vida was already seated, going over the complete list of phone calls to and from Honoria’s house for the past week. My House & Home editor let out a little yelp before Milo or I could speculate further.

  “Here!” She thrust the computerized list in front of me. “Three-oh-three, Monday afternoon, the thirteenth. Someone called Toby Popp’s number in Edmonds.”

  Milo came around from behind his desk to hang over my shoulder. “So?”

  “Think, Milo,” Vida urged. “This call was placed while Honoria and Trevor were in Alpine.”

  Having always considered Milo to be slower on the uptake than I am, it was humbling to realize that at first, neither of us understood what Vida was saying. She was beginning to look peeved when we both stumbled into comprehension.

  “Popp has an alibi for Kay Whitman’s murder,” Milo finally said with a faint nod.

  Ironically, I was the one who wasn’t willing to leap to any such conclusion. “We don’t know that he actually answered the Monday-afternoon call. What we do know is that Monday evening, Toby Popp was in Alpine. He came into The Advocate and talked to Leo Walsh.”

  Vida had reclaimed the list of phone calls, turning it over. “Goodness!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t realize there was anything on the back. These are the incoming toll calls. Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, Portland, Vancouver, BC.” She tapped the page with her index finger. “What’s this queer number? It says Index, but it’s the wrong prefix.”

  Milo leaned across his desk. “That’s a cell phone. The call was placed at two-oh-three Wednesday.”

  “Well now!” Vida was exultant. “We were at Honoria’s then. She received a call that Mrs. Smith took. Who would have a cellular phone in Index except Toby Popp?”

  I hadn’t been able to convince Milo that Toby was panting after Honoria, and apparently Vida wasn’t going to have much better luck. “It’s possible,” Milo allowed. “We’ll check it out. But these days all sorts of people have cell phones around here, especially the logging crews. I still say Toby’s in the art market.”

  “A simple question will do,” Vida said, looking prim. “Ask Honoria.”

  Milo shrugged again, then ambled over to his phone. As usual, his desk was in disarray, as chaotic as my own. Still, he found what he was looking for almost at once—a pale green Post-it note with a phone number. I sat down next to Vida while the sheriff dialed.

  Neither Honoria nor her mother was in at the Grants Pass motel. Leaving a message, Milo hung up and turned to us with a wry expression.

  “They’re probably out to dinner. Honoria knows she can call me late.”

  The sense of intimacy in Milo’s comment was unsettling, at least from a professional point of view. I tried to glance at Vida to see how she was reacting, but my House & Home editor was fingering her strong chin and gazing at the ceiling.

  “Milo,” she said in a musing voice that fooled nobody, including herself, “I trust you’ve contacted people who know the Whitmans in Pacific Grove.”

  “I put Sam Heppner on that,” Milo answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “He’s tracked down some neighbors. None of them were home during the day, but he reached a couple last night.”

  “And?” Vida sounded expectant.

  Milo made what I could only consider a slight grimace. “They weren’t much help. Trevor and Kay live in a condo. Nobody sees their neighbors unless they show up at the monthly owners meeting. The Whitmans didn’t do that. But then they’ve only been there about six months.”

  Vida looked disgruntled, then brightened. “Is that because Trevor got out of prison about then?”

  “Trevor was released in May of last year.” Again, Milo showed no emotion. “He’d served ten years of a twenty-year sentence for second-degree homicide. He was convicted in eighty-three, there were appeals, given the special circumstances of the crime, and he finally was put away in April of ’eighty-four. Trevor was sent to Soledad, which was pretty convenient for Kay and Mrs. Smith. It’s not that far from Pacific Grove.”

  As Vida sat next to me looking thoughtful, I posed a question: “Did the neighbors know that Trevor was an ex-con?”

  Milo shook his head. “Sam says they didn’t. In fact, they still don’t. Hell, it’s not like he was some sex offender. The guy’s entitled to his privacy.”

  I sensed that Milo was working hard to walk the fine line between his job and his concern for Honoria’s family. As Skykomish County’s chief law-enforcement officer, the sheriff not only knew most of the perps and their families, but in one recent case, he’d been related to some of them. Milo, with his natural tunnel vision, had managed to keep justice in his sights while putting kinship aside. He searched for the truth, which he called “facts,” and any side issues were dismissed as irrelevant. But this case was different. To my knowledge, this was the first time that Milo had been sleeping with the enemy.

  “How was Mitch Harmon killed?” I asked, my voice unnaturally quiet.

  Milo didn’t flinch or otherwise betray any emotion. “He was shot through the head and chest with Trevor’s forty-five automatic. He’d served a hitch in ’Nam. Honoria said that her brother had warned Harmon more than once. After the … accident, Trevor tracked down Harmon and shot him.” At last, Milo made a face, though I presumed it was more in disgust over Mitch Harmon’s abuse than Trevor Whitman’s retaliation. Sometimes it was hard to know who to root for.

  “Did Trevor work?” I inquired, increasingly aware of how little I really knew about the Whitman family.

  “Sure,” Milo answered, sounding as if he were giving references for Trevor Whitman. “He repairs air-conditioning equipment for a firm that’s based in Sacramento. He’s been with them since last July. His supervisor has nothing but praise for him.”

  “And Kay?” I inquired. “Did she work?”

  Milo shifted in his chair. “Yeah, she did, but not recently. Actually, Honoria had mentioned that to me earlier. Kay tutored kids in math. She’d taught at one time, but she got burned out. When Trevor got out of jail, Kay decided to kick back for a while. They wanted to do some traveling, like coming up here. Trevor hadn’t used any sick leave or vacation days since he started work last summer, so he had two weeks coming. He’s due back on the job Monday, but that’s the day of the memorial service.”

  Vida had been unnaturally quiet; now she turned her pensive expression on Milo. “A young and reasonably attractive woman—I imagine Kay was attractive, though I never met her—is left alone for ten years. Oh, I assume there were conjugal visits, but still …” She let the sentence trail off as her questioning gaze took in both Milo and me.

  While I knew what Vida was suggesting, her train of thought triggered a different idea in my brain. “That’s what we need for the Wednesday edition—a picture of Kay. I never thought to ask Honoria or Trevor for one when we were in Startup.” I trotted out my most winsome look for Milo. “When you talk to Honoria, could you ask her to overnight a photo to us after she gets to Pacific Grove? We’ll reimburse her for the cost.”

 
; Milo lifted only one shoulder this time. “Sure, why not?”

  “Get two,” Vida put in. “One with Trevor, or, if possible, a grouping—Kay, Trevor, Honoria, and the mother. Oh! I almost forgot—if Honoria can’t manage it, ask permission for us to use something from her house in Startup.”

  Milo’s subservience faded. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said with an amiable shake of his head. “You two aren’t getting into Honoria’s place. Hell, we haven’t searched it either.”

  “You haven’t?” Vida was horrified.

  “Why should we?” Milo was still complaisant. “It’s not a crime scene, and for now, none of the people who were at that house are suspects.”

  I saw Vida’s jaw tense, and knew what she was thinking. My own thoughts were scattered. Honoria and Trevor had alibis for the crime. Depending on when the murder had actually been committed, they were either at Alpine Medical or with the sheriff himself. As for Mrs. Smith, she had been in Startup. Or so she claimed.

  “Let me see that phone list again,” I said. Gluing my eyes on the Monday-afternoon calls, I found only the calls to Toby Popp’s number in Edmonds and the funeral home in Pacific Grove.

  “Did Toby and Mrs. Smith connect?” I wondered out loud, then turned to Milo. “If Mrs. Smith can prove she made that call and talked to Toby, neither of them could have been in Alpine, murdering Kay Whitman.”

  “I never thought they did,” Milo remarked a trifle grimly. “I’m not checking Toby Popp’s calls. There’s an easier way—asking Mrs. Smith if she talked to him Monday afternoon. That establishes alibis for both her and Popp. I’d like to erase that software guy from the picture.”

  “In more ways than one,” Vida murmured.

  Milo heard the comment and glared. “This isn’t a love triangle,” he growled. “Listen up, if Toby Popp’s name is dragged into this homicide investigation, the media will be all over Alpine. Maybe he mailed a dead cat to his ex-wife—that’s not my problem. Jane Marshall hasn’t filed any complaints, she didn’t even open the damned box. But tie this rich bird into a murder, and we’ve all got more than we bargained for. You read me?” The hazel eyes glinted as Milo stared first at Vida, and then at me.