Alpine Hero

by Mary Daheim

  “Wow.” Jack rubbed at his dimpled chin. “It’s a good thing we don’t need that stuff anymore. The perp is dead.”

  “So’s Dodger,” I murmured. “I’m thinking that Trevor killed the cat and mailed it to the Marshalls.”

  Jack was now looking bewildered, but Vida was already nodding in agreement. “Exactly,” she said. “He was cunning, in a childlike way. If what Billy tells me is true, the poor wretched fellow never grew up. He remained the dependent little brother all his life. It’s sad, really.” Vida paused, as if in memory of Trevor’s twisted life.

  “He knew that Toby Popp was courting his sister. No, no,” Vida interrupted herself as she saw the question on my face, “I’ve no idea if Honoria was the woman who broke Toby’s heart before he married Jane Marshall. That doesn’t matter now, it’s just another side issue. As I was saying, Trevor knew about Toby, and no doubt Honoria told her brother that her wealthy swain’s former family was living in Alpine. It would spread suspicion around to mail the dead cat to the Marshalls. It was also the cruel kind of prank that a perverted, adolescent mind would invent. Trevor must have known that Honoria’s original intention was to come to the salon to talk with Laurie. I’m guessing, but I think Honoria was acting as an intermediary between Toby and the Marshall women. If Honoria actually married Toby, she wouldn’t want hard feelings. Imagine the demands Faye would have made if Honoria’s husband was a billionaire! Worse yet—from Trevor’s point of view—what if Honoria was driven to marry Toby to keep up with the blackmail payments? Trevor’s rival for his sister’s affections would be an extremely rich and powerful man.”

  “Martin Marshall,” I said suddenly, then smiled wryly at Vida. “He called Laurie about Honoria’s appointment. That’s why Laurie pretended to be even dopier than usual. Stella knew she’d received a call, so Laurie couldn’t deny it completely. But her stepfather must have wanted to talk to Honoria, probably to see if she could stop Toby from harassing the family.”

  Vida nodded. “I think so. Martin had probably seen Honoria arrive in town in her special car. There was work being done on those broken pipes right by the Clemans Building and City Hall. The job must have required Martin to be on hand with his heavy equipment, which is when he saw Honoria and the rest of them pull in. But Honoria didn’t go into the salon, so he called Laurie to find out what had happened. Later, after this Faye person was killed, Laurie didn’t want her stepfather implicated in any way, so she acted as if she didn’t know who called. Of course Martin’s concern had nothing to do with the crime. He was disturbed only about Toby.”

  “Another goofball,” Jack said under his breath.

  Vida ignored him. “By the way, I think I know what Toby meant in that ad he tried to place.”

  I was perplexed. “What was it?”

  Vida shot me a reproachful look. “We both saw it. ‘One down, one to go.’ It probably referred to the foundations at Index. Don’t you recall that the main house had been poured and framed, and that the secondary building was in progress? Toby may have been trying to get Laurie to move in with him. Or maybe he was merely bragging.”

  “You know, Vida,” I said with asperity, “you might have told me all of this earlier. My ideas were way behind yours. You cut me off from your theories and conjectures. That’s cheating.”

  Vida’s expression was innocent. “But it’s my story.”

  “You almost got me killed!” Forgetting my weariness, I grew angry. For the past week Vida had let me wander aimlessly through a morass of guesswork and side issues—Toby Popp’s eccentricities, the Marshalls’ fears, Becca’s rocky romance with Eric Forbes, a dead cat in a plain brown wrapper. Except for Dodger, none of those things had anything to do with the murder. If I’d had any inkling that Trevor was the killer, I’d never have gone to Startup.

  Or would I? Of course I would. Subconsciously, I had known who the killer was as soon as I saw the fading lights of the Burlington Northern caboose. But I hadn’t foreseen the danger. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that Trevor would fly back from Pacific Grove. I’d probably have gone right ahead and done what I did, maybe hoping to find some sort of evidence that would clinch the case for Milo.

  “You should have told Milo,” I muttered.

  Vida glanced at the deputy. “He wouldn’t have listened, would he, Jack? There was no evidence. I kept waiting for you people to have someone find the purse and the knife in the garbage.”

  “That’s easier said than done,” Jack admitted. “Some of that stuff from the Monday pickup was probably destroyed before Dodge gave the order.”

  “I must go,” Vida announced, getting to her feet. “I had to rush over here after Billy called. I haven’t yet cleared the table from my company.”

  After Vida closed the door behind her, Jack gave me a bemused look. “She’s something else, huh?”

  I nodded. “She sure is. Thank God.”

  Jack turned his attention back to the form he’d been filling out, but before he could phrase the next question, he heaved a big sigh. “I feel bad about the boss. Not just him having to kill Whitman, but this whole deal with his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend, I should say. I never liked her much, but then I never knew her.”

  “None of us did,” I said quietly. “Not even Milo.”

  “Maybe she’ll marry this Popp dude,” Jack mused. “He sounds pretty goofy, too. Arboria or Honoria or whatever her name is must like them that way. She sure stuck up for that crummy brother of hers.”

  “They had a very unusual bond.” The paper cup was empty; I leaned down to put it in Milo’s wastebasket. “Growing up, they must have felt as if the whole world was against them. Father figure in, father figure out. Mother absorbed in her matrimonial pursuits. I wonder if the other sister, Cassandra, felt the same way that Honoria and Trevor did, or if she cut herself out of the family circle early on.”

  “Talk about dysfunctional.” Jack shook his head. “I thought my relatives were weird. I guess I won’t say anything the next time my dad seals himself in the garage, or my sister cracks raw eggs on her head.”

  We returned to the paperwork. I kept expecting Milo to come into the office. He never did, and eventually, I headed home and went to bed. Alone.

  Ginny Burmeister Erlandson had many souvenirs, dozens of snapshots, and endless anecdotes about her Hawaiian honeymoon. The rest of us listened patiently for the first twenty minutes on Monday morning, but then the phones began to ring, and visitors started to descend upon The Advocate. We put on our work faces and got down to business.

  Carla caused the day’s first disruption. “You promised to open the back shop, Emma. I don’t see any sign of that happening. Now that Ginny’s back, I’ve got plenty of time to spare.”

  Across my desk, Carla’s olive skin was slightly flushed. She was right. I’d kept the back shop on the back burner.

  “I’ll call in a consultant this week,” I vowed, looking up from Leo’s new concept for Itsa Bitsa Pizza’s weekly ad. “Whoever it is will be able to tell us what we’ll need, what we can do, and how much profit we can expect. Then we can set some realistic deadlines. How does that sound?”

  Judging from Carla’s sullen expression, it sounded dubious. But she gave a nod of assent. “I’ll check with you Wednesday for a progress report.” Her words conveyed more threat than reminder.

  By four o’clock, Vida had finished three murder-related stories. The first was an overview of the case; the second was a feature, giving thumbnail sketches of the Whitmans, while trying to skirt legal entanglements. The third was her interview with me. Like all of Vida’s other straight news, it required a firm editorial hand to rid the prose of its House & Home style.

  Emma Lord, Alpine Advocate editor and publisher, headed for Monroe Sunday to purchase a few necessities for her upcoming trip to Arizona. Ms. Lord plans to visit her brother, Ben Lord, who is a Catholic priest in Tuba City, and her son, Adam Lord, a student at Arizona State University. While en route down Highway 2, Ms. Lord stopped off
at the home of Honoria Whitman, the well-known potteress, whose most recent award was the coveted …

  I had my work cut out for me.

  Just off the Money Creek Campground Road the Skykomish River rushes over big boulders where the steelhead rest before continuing upstream. The bank is littered with fallen trees, their roots sticking out of the water like skeletal remains. In winter, the river is often high and a murky white. It surges over the gravel bar, concealing the boulders and much of the underbrush that is caught on the bottom. But the experienced fisherman knows where the prey lurks, searching out the patches of slower water and working the hole carefully and quietly.

  I’m not myself at seven A.M., and my footgear isn’t suited for scrambling along snow-covered riverbanks. But Jack Mullins told me that if I wanted to find the sheriff, I’d better look for him by the big cedar snag near the campground. Milo was taking some time off after closing the Whitman case. It was normal, Jack said, that an officer who had fatally shot a civilian would go on leave.

  The sun was up when I reached the straight stretch of river about a hundred yards from Money Creek. I could see Milo standing knee-deep in the current, his back turned to me. At the river’s edge, I found a reasonably flat rock, brushed off an accumulation of new snow, and sat down. I knew better than to shout at the sheriff; any unusual noise could spook the fish.

  After about five minutes and as many casts, Milo turned just enough to see me. Under the bill of his hunting cap, he seemed to look puzzled. I shook my head and held up a hand, indicating that my presence wasn’t urgent. I might not be a steelheader, but I knew the drill. Milo had to fish out the hole before he could leave the river. I guessed that he’d arrived around five, at first light.

  It was chilly, but the snow had stopped the previous night. There was some wind, which felt raw. The air smelled of damp and cold. Icicles formed on the bank upstream that overhung the river. Behind me a crow called out from the evergreens, its cry urgent and shrill. I waited.

  Milo waded with the current, now abreast of the big cedar snag. He cast with great care, never taking his eyes off the line. I tucked my hands up into the sleeves of my duffel coat. And waited.

  Ten minutes must have passed. I could see the sun, a pale globe trying to break through the gray clouds. Milo worked the hole deliberately, cautiously, trying not to get hung up in the network of branches that lay hidden under the tumbling water.

  The river rushed by me, roaring in my ears. I respected its power, its danger, its unpredictability. Next year, this entire section of the Sky might be completely changed. A sudden torrent could take out the snags, wash away the banks, send new boulders hurtling through the chute. I settled my hood closer around my ears. And waited.

  Milo had something on his line. He moved the graphite rod this way and that, then jiggled it experimentally. I couldn’t hear him swear over the rush of the river, but I could tell he was angry. It was a snag, not a fish. With a sudden jerk, he freed the hook. It fluttered bare, the cluster of salmon eggs lost among the grasping branches. Milo reeled in and headed for dry land.

  “Any luck?” I called as he trod gingerly over the rocks. His feet must have been numb inside the high boots.

  “Not even a bump,” he replied, his breath coming out before him in wispy puffs. “The river’s too high. It’s off-color. I saw bear tracks upstream.”

  Standing up, I nodded. Those were all good reasons for not catching the elusive steelhead. But an empty creel doesn’t mean that the fisherman hasn’t had a good time.

  “What are you doing here?” the sheriff inquired, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his fishing vest.

  I tipped my head to one side, feeling strangely shy. “I never got to thank you for saving my life.”

  “Ah.” Milo offered me a cigarette. I took it. He flicked his lighter, first for me, then for himself. But he didn’t say anything more.

  “You did something wonderful—and terrible. Are you okay?” I peered up at him through a haze of blue smoke.

  “It stinks.” Milo started for the trail that led to the parking area.

  My Jag was parked next to his Cherokee Chief. Milo opened the rear door of his vehicle and began breaking down his rod. “You don’t just shoot somebody and walk away,” he said, not looking at me. “It doesn’t matter if the guy’s a homicidal perp. You can’t shrug it off.”

  “I know.” I bowed my head. “Frankly, I feel guilty. You did it for me.”

  Milo’s grin was lopsided, embarrassed, ironic. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t see who was inside with Trevor.”

  It had never occurred to me that even in the candlelight, the sheriff probably couldn’t identify the other person in the living room.

  “Damn,” I breathed. “And I thought you wanted to save me!”

  Milo eased the rod into a cloth case, then tied it shut. “Well, I did. I mean, I would, if I’d known it was you.”

  A sudden thought occurred to me. I plucked at the sleeve of Milo’s down jacket. “Hey—my car was parked there. You must have known it was me.”

  Milo still avoided my eyes. “I didn’t see your car. I saw Trevor’s van. It blocked out your Jag. I went off the drive, through the trees, just in case he was watching for me. Then I saw that broken window out back, and figured he’d gone inside that way. But it was kind of small for me to get through, so I decided to take out one of the picture windows in the front.” As he spoke in his not-quite-so-laconic voice, Milo slid the rod in a rack, checked his bait box, and got his walking boots out of the Chief.

  My guilt began to lift, but it was replaced by a hollow feeling. Milo hadn’t shot Trevor Whitman for my sake. I had been a cipher, a mere symbol of the Endangered Civilian. Trevor had been armed and dangerous. As usual, Milo had gone by the book, and it wasn’t a romance novel.

  “Oh, well,” I said, more to myself than to Milo.

  He was pulling off his hip boots. “I’m glad Honoria isn’t coming back,” he said, the remark seemingly from out of nowhere. “Whatever we had got lost the other day.”

  “You mean the murder?” A few snowflakes were beginning to drift down. The sun had retreated from its battle with the clouds.

  Milo shook his head. “I mean the other night at your house.” Finally, the hazel eyes rested on my face.

  “Oh.” I tipped my head to one side. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  Milo gently cuffed my chin with his fist. “Hell, no! What do you think has kept me on an even keel the past couple of days?”

  “How would I know? I haven’t seen you since we were in Startup.”

  “You know something?” Milo said, gazing up at the ominous sky. “I like talking to you, Emma. You say things. Real things, not made-up conversation. Honoria always wanted to talk about topics.”

  I knew what Milo meant. Perhaps our romance, if that’s what it was, lived in our verbal exchanges. It wasn’t sexual sparring, which is filled with taunts, teasing, and provocative innuendos. Milo and I talked because we liked and trusted each other. Intimacy was grousing about our jobs, worrying over our kids, asking for lamb chops, and pointing out mustard on chins. We were comfortable together; we enjoyed each other’s company.

  “Will we ruin everything if we … ah … move to another level?” I asked in a small voice. Already it seemed that the specter of sex made me tongue-tied.

  Milo was arranging my hood over my inelegant haircut. “Could be. It happens. But how else will we know?”

  “Know what?”

  “You know.” He brushed my forehead with his lips.

  “I know.” For just an instant I pressed my face against his chest. Solid. Trustworthy. Reliable. Strong. My catalogue of Milo’s virtues made him sound like a used car. Maybe that’s what we all were—somebody else’s discards, somebody else’s newfound delight.

  “You had breakfast?” he asked.

  “No. The Venison Inn?”

  Milo sighed. “Sure, why not? I’ve got to face the folks eventually.”

 
; “They think you’re a hero, Milo.”

  “Bull. They don’t know shit about heroes.”

  Maybe not. But I did.

  In Alpine, murder always seems to occur in alphabetical order …

  THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

  THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

  THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

  THE ALPINE DECOY

  THE ALPINE ESCAPE

  THE ALPINE FURY

  THE ALPINE GAMBLE

  THE ALPINE HERO

  … and you can be sure Emma Lord, editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, is there to report every detail.

  THE EMMA LORD MYSTERIES

  by Mary Daheim

  Published by Ballantine Books.

  Available wherever books are sold.

  READ ALL ABOUT IT!

  The Alpine Advocate

  Novels by Mary Daheim

  THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

  As editor-publisher of The Alpine Advocate, Emma Lord is always in search of a good story. But when Mark Doukas, heir to the richest old man in town, is murdered, Emma gets more than she bargained for.

  THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

  Dani Marsh—former Alpine resident, now Hollywood star—returns to Alpine for some location shooting in the Cascade Mountains, only to become embroiled in the murder of her ex-husband. Once again, Emma Lord’s nose for a story leads her straight into trouble.

  THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

  It’s Christmastime in Alpine, and that means snow, carolers, Christmas trees … and murder. The discovery of one woman’s leg and another woman’s nude, half-frozen body in the lake leads Emma Lord and her House & Home editor, Vida, into a deadly holiday.