by Mary Daheim
He stuck one long leg out of the car. “I’ll manage. Anyway, my hostess swears she’s not much of a cook.”
“Oh.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you curious?”
I let out a hiss. “Sure I am. But I’ll be damned if I’ll ask.”
He braced himself on the steering wheel and leaned across the well between the bucket seats to kiss my cheek. “It’s Vida Runkel. Do you think she’ll try to seduce me?”
“Vida!” I gasped. “I hope so!”
It would be better than having her bombard Tom with a litany of embarrassing questions.
Chapter Thirteen
AMONG THE MESSAGES waiting for me was the voice of Milo Dodge, inviting me to dinner at the Venison Inn. “Catch a bite,” was the way he put it, “and have a look at your busted British car.” I felt as if I were playing a role in a French farce, where all the wrong people run off with one another.
Although I still wasn’t hungry after the monumental brunch, I called Milo back and told him I’d meet him at the restaurant at six-thirty. Even as we spoke, I snagged my panty hose on the leg of my chair. They were my last good pair, and I could have faked it by wearing slacks if the run hadn’t gone all the way from toe to hip.
Parker’s Drugs stayed open on Sunday until six. Originally owned by Durwood and Dot Parker, the store had been sold almost ten years ago to a young couple from Mount Vernon, Garth and Tara Wesley. They’d kept the name and remodeled the premises. Durwood had been a fine pharmacist but not much of a retailer. He retired about the same time he hit his first cow.
Tara was behind the counter when I breezed in at 5:55. No one else was around, and she was closing up the till, but she gave me a warm smile.
“Just ring up a three-pack of No Nonsense, petite to medium sheer reinforced nude toe,” I called out, racing to the rack.
“Will do,” Tara said, “but I’ve got to scan it first.”
I zipped up to the checkout stand. Tara was a pretty brunette, mid-thirties, the mother of two small children, and, like her husband, a registered pharmacist. “Sorry I cut it so close. It was a last-minute disaster.”
“That happens,” Tara said, still smiling. “You’re just the person I wanted to see. What’s happening with the murder? There hasn’t been a word on TV or in the weekend papers.”
I told her there wasn’t any substantive news. Sheriff Dodge was following up some leads, but he didn’t have any serious suspects.
“That’s scary,” Tara said, no longer smiling as she gave me my change and receipt. “What if it’s one of us?” Her big brown eyes widened with dread. “I’m always afraid of a holdup. Even in a small town, a drugstore is a sitting duck. Not the money so much as the drugs, I mean. That’s why we came here. Mount Vernon was getting too big. We wouldn’t have dreamed of going to Seattle or Everett or even Bellingham.” With one wary eye on the street and the other on the cash pouch, she started removing checks from the till. “I’m here a lot at night because Garth works days so I can take care of the kids. I don’t like being here alone.” She took out the cash and stuffed it into the pouch. “I heard Mark was killed around nine last Wednesday. I was working by myself, and you know, I had the funniest feeling.”
“Really?” Perfect hindsight always fascinates me.
Tara nodded twice. “I really did. It was so stormy. Nobody had come by in the last half hour. I had a mind to close up early and go home. Then Kent MacDuff stopped to pick up a prescription he’d had phoned in. I was sure glad I’d already made it up so I could get out of here.”
I tried not to act surprised. “Kent came in so late? He’s as bad as I am.”
Tara lifted one shoulder in an offhand manner. “He’d hurt his shoulder. For such a macho man, Kent’s a big baby. Unlike you, he didn’t apologize for coming in at closing time.”
“Jennifer said he was miserable,” I remarked, wondering why I was making excuses for Kent MacDuff. To emphasize my superior manners, I thanked Tara and asked if she wanted me to wait and go out the door with her.
She laughed, albeit nervously. “Oh, no. It’s only six. And there’s the sheriff. I feel reasonably safe with him around.”
Sure enough, Milo Dodge was just getting out of his four-wheel drive. I waved; he waved back. A minute later, I joined him on the sidewalk. “You’re early,” I said.
He was frowning, his shoulders hunched against the wind. “I stopped to see Gibb. He’s not home yet.” Milo’s hair blew back from his forehead, but that wasn’t what made his long face seem even longer. He was worried.
I decided to forget about stopping in the rest room to change my panty hose. Milo was in no mood to notice. “Do you think he’s still in Snohomish?” I asked as we headed for the Venison Inn.
“No.” Milo opened the door. He didn’t speak to me again until after the hostess had greeted us and provided a table with a view of Front Street. I felt like a window display. “I checked. He finished the moving job about five yesterday and told the people he was working for that he had to go meet a steelhead.”
“Maybe he caught one,” I remarked, hoping to strike a light note. Steelheaders are a rare breed, inclined to suffer any hardship to catch their elusive prey.
Milo wasn’t amused. “Even if he had, he’d be back by now. I sent Bill Blatt and Jack Mullins looking for him. I don’t like this, Emma.”
I debated about telling Milo what Mary Lou Blatt had said about Gibb Frazier at bridge club. I decided to hold back. “You think something’s happened to Gibb?”
Impatiently, Milo pushed the unruly hair off his forehead. “I don’t know. Gibb hated Mark’s guts, but I wouldn’t figure him for a murderer. Unless he got really pissed off.”
Which, I reflected grimly, Gibb had a right to do. Next to Chris, Gibb was my least favorite suspect. Despite his rough edges, I liked him well enough, and he was my employee. I owed him a certain amount of loyalty.
Milo ordered Scotch; I opted for root beer. This was my day of total abstinence. Across the restaurant, the hostess was seating Jennifer and Kent MacDuff. Their arrival gave me the opportunity to change the subject.
“Kent’s alibi won’t wash,” I said, trying not to look smug.
Milo stared at me. “How come?”
I explained about Kent’s nine o’clock visit to the drugstore.
Milo looked thoughtful. “Kent never mentioned that. I suppose he was afraid to.” He glanced over at Kent, who was haranguing their waitress while Jennifer hid behind her long blond hair. “But if Kent doesn’t have an alibi, neither does Jennifer. They were supposed to be home together.”
“True.” I liked the idea of an alibiless Kent MacDuff. I wasn’t as keen on the same status for his wife. But I was reminded of Phoebe. “According to Edna Mae Dalrymple, Phoebe was driving around downtown Wednesday night.”
Milo’s ears pricked up, like a hound on the scent. “What time?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “During the windstorm, though. She got Franchie Wells’s paint on her car.”
The notepad came out. Milo wrote swiftly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Kent MacDuff was on his feet, heading our way. So were the drinks.
“Hey, Sheriff,” called Kent, oblivious to the stares from the other diners, “what’s new with your dragnet for cousin Chris?”
Milo looked annoyed. “Nothing yet. That takes time.”
Kent was blocking the waitress’s path. She tried to get around him; he refused to budge. “Hell!” Kent waved an arm, narrowly missing the waitress. “Chris could kill ten other people while you guys screw around. Neeny’s about to blow up. You’d better get Chris back here before the funeral tomorrow.”
The chilly stare Milo gave Kent would have turned a more sensitive man to stone. “You’d better get your butt down to my office first thing tomorrow morning. Your wife, too.”
“What?” Kent bellowed as more heads turned. The waitress executed as neat a step as I’ve ev
er seen outside of a chorus line and deposited our drinks. “We’ve got to leave early for Seattle. Are you nuts?”
Milo was unmoved. “Then show up as soon as you get back. I’ve got some questions for both of you.”
“Oh, bull!” exclaimed Kent. He started to bluster but apparently realized the sheriff wasn’t going to relent. “It may be pretty damned late,” said Kent. “I hope you like overtime.”
Milo shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
Still belligerent, Kent wheeled away. Jennifer had been watching from over the top of her menu. Her blue eyes looked terrified.
“Dink,” muttered Milo, taking a big swig of Scotch. “Why didn’t somebody whack him?”
Before I could make a suitable rejoinder, Milo’s beeper went off. He excused himself and went to the pay phone outside the rest rooms. I drank root beer and tried to avoid watching Kent and Jennifer MacDuff argue. Why weren’t they with Simon and Cece? This must be a terrible night for the bereaved parents, with their son’s funeral only hours away. Maybe the other Doukases had gathered at Neeny’s. I hoped so. Even the most aggravating of families should cling together in a crisis.
Milo returned, looking downright dismal.
“What’s wrong?” I asked brightly. “Did Durwood Parker mow down a herd of sheep?”
The sheriff didn’t sit, but drained his Scotch in a gulp. “No.” He drew a five-dollar bill out of his wallet and put it on the table, avoiding my stare. “Gibb Frazier’s dead.
Somebody shot him. I’ve got to go, Emma. Sorry.”
* * *
After arguing all the way back to Milo’s car, he finally relented and let me come with him. Out on the highway, he explained what had happened.
“Billy and Jack didn’t find him. They were staying in our jurisdiction, this side of the Snohomish-Skykomish County line. But down by Gold Bar, some gun freaks stumbled across Gibb this morning in a gravel pit where they practice shooting. He didn’t have any I.D., but somebody at the morgue in Everett recognized him.”
I was still suffering from a mild case of shock. “I don’t get it. Why would anybody kill Gibb?” My teeth were chattering, and my feet beat a tattoo on the floor of Milo’s Cherokee Chief. It was his own car, and he’d had to put his temporary flashing lights on top of it before we left town.
Milo didn’t have any answers, either. We covered the next fifteen miles in silence, whisking past the Sunday drivers heading for home. Outside of Gold Bar, Milo slowed down. “Over there, across the river—that’s Reiter Ponds, a big fishing hole. Back off the road is the gravel pit.”
It was dark; I couldn’t see a thing. I knew about Reiter, though. Half of Alpine always seemed to be asking if there was any action there.
Milo accelerated. “The Snohomish County Medical Examiner said Gibb had been dead for at least twelve hours when they found him this morning around eleven.”
“Poor Gibb.” I held my head and tried to regain my composure. “Did he have any relatives? He never mentioned them.”
“His wife died of leukemia almost twenty years ago. There was a boy about my age. He got married and moved to California—or was it the other way around? I forget.” Milo was sailing past Startup, Sultan, the turnoff to Monroe. “Gibb and his son were never close, not even after Ruth died. There was a sister, too, but she moved to Portland a long time ago. I think Gibb went to see her when the spirit moved him, but she never came back to Alpine.”
A lot of people seemed to leave and never come back. Was nothing left for them in their old hometown? Or, having moved on and maybe up, did they want to keep their roots well buried? I didn’t know. But one thing I was sure of: I wished Chris Ramirez hadn’t come back. And that Gibb Frazier’s return to Alpine didn’t have to be in a body bag.
The Snohomish County Coroner’s office is fairly new but suitably drab, with metal and vinyl chairs, steel gray filing cabinets, and a framed front page of the Everett Daily Herald’s account of the 1916 I.W.W. massacre. The deputy coroner was anything but drab, however. A squat, rosy-cheeked cherub of a man, Neal Doke looked like he should be wearing a monk’s robe instead of a white lab coat. Even his brown hair was balding like a tonsure.
Introductions were made, condolences were given, chairs were offered. Doke asked if we’d like to see the body. Milo said yes; I said no. I waited alone with a cup of weak coffee and the grisly reminder of what had happened to the radical Wobblies who tried to land in the Everett harbor seventy-five years ago.
Milo returned looking grim. He laid a hand on my shoulder, maybe for support as much as comfort. “It’s Gibb, all right. Damn. I’m sorry, Emma.”
“Me, too.” I hate tears, and though I mourned Gibb, the loss didn’t devastate me. More to the point, I was stunned and angered. Two deaths in less than a week were grounds for outrage.
Neal Doke was at his desk, leafing through papers. Jack Mullins and Billy Blatt had joined us. “Okay,” said Doke, sounding too perky for the occasion. “Healthy white male, age fifty-eight, left leg amputated above the knee, small scars on forehead, both arms, left thigh, abdomen, etc. Time of death, approximately between five and eight P.M., Saturday, September twenty-eighth. Shot in chest, bullet passing through body, missing ribs. Probably from a distance of twenty feet, but that’s guesswork.” He looked up from his paperwork. “I did an autopsy on a giraffe once. Hell of a thing.”
None of us commented, though it was clear from Neal Doke’s expectant face that he had hopes of being asked. “I take it you didn’t find the bullet?” Milo inquired, stony-faced.
Doke waved a pudgy hand. “Hell, no. That gravel pit is full of bullets, from all the gun people practicing. Oh, our deputies will come up with it eventually, but it’ll take time.”
As a journalist, I felt obliged to say something. Anything. “How will you know it’s the bullet that killed Gibb?”
Doke was unwrapping a package of Ding Dongs. “It’ll have blood on it. My guess is that the gun was a thirty-eight.” He bit into one of the Ding Dongs. “Just a guess, mind you,” he said with his mouth full. “You folks ever get any poison victims? I had one last year, woman from Mukilteo did her husband in with bleach. He must have been a real idiot.” Doke shook his head and kept chewing.
We left as soon as Milo had called Al Driggers and asked him to drive the funeral hearse over to Everett. Billy Blatt and Jack Mullins finished filling out some forms, then took off in their sheriff’s car. Milo and I stood outside of the county building and noticed that Everett didn’t smell as bad as usual. Over the years, the paper mills have given the city an unfortunate reputation.
“You hungry?” Milo asked, zipping his down vest over his plaid shirt.
“I never was,” I said. “I’m sure not now.”
He gazed up at the dark sky that had grown partially overcast. “I feel like a jerk.”
I looked up at him, the graying blond hair falling over his forehead, the long face glum, the hazel eyes shadowy. “Why?”
He kicked at a candy bar wrapper on the sidewalk. “Hell, this is my first real homicide. Two of them, goddamn it, and I’m getting nowhere fast. I’ve got an election coming up next year. The citizens of Alpine will burn my butt if I don’t find the killer.”
Casually, I linked my arm through his. “Oh, come on, Milo, it’s only been four days since Mark was murdered. The poor guy isn’t even buried yet. Let’s go have a cup of coffee.”
Traffic was heavy on Wall Street for a Sunday night. Milo scowled at the cars, as if he disapproved of so much coming and going. He gave a tug and pulled me along the sidewalk. “Come on, Emma, let’s go home.”
We did, driving in virtual silence along the black ribbon of highway. He didn’t use the flashing lights on the way back but managed to exceed the speed limit most of the time.
“What happened to Gibb’s I.D.?” I finally asked, somewhere east of Index.
“Damned if I know.” Milo passed a big truck with British Columbia plates. “Maybe whoever killed him didn’t want his iden
tity known right away.”
“Where’s his truck?” I braced myself as Milo passed an R.V. from California.
“We’ll find it,” said Milo. “That’s hard to hide.”
I kept quiet for a while, trying to figure out any connection between Mark Doukas and Gibb Frazier. It was possible that the two men weren’t killed by the same person. The weapons had been different. Yet I didn’t really believe we had two murderers on the loose. I was about to spring a theory on Milo when he spoke:
“Who’s the guy, Emma?”
I blinked. “What guy?”
“The big city type staying up at the lodge.” Milo kept his eyes on the road.
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “He’s a newspaper investor. He also gives advice.” I felt the color rising in my face and was glad Milo wasn’t watching me.
“You need advice?” Milo’s voice was a little too casual.
“Of course I do. This is a tricky business. Marius Vandeventer was sort of old-fashioned. And Ed Bronsky isn’t exactly a ball of advertising fire. I can use some help in terms of increasing revenues, expanding circulation, new marketing approaches. …” And making an ass of myself by babbling like an idiot, I thought. “It’s very complicated.” After that I lapsed into silence.
So did Milo, at least for the next five minutes. When he spoke again, he glanced over at me. “He’s a good-looking guy.”
“He’s been very successful.” I’d had time to regain my poise. My voice sounded natural. “The newspaper broker I bought The Advocate through recommended calling in a consultant.” It wasn’t exactly the strict truth, but it was close. “Listen, Milo,” I went on, changing the subject as he swung out from behind a timorous driver in an old Honda, “you’ve got to open up that mineshaft. Why not do it tomorrow during the funeral when Neeny’s not there?”
He shot another look in my direction. “I won’t be there either. I’m going to the funeral, remember?”
“Oh. I forgot.” I had. The conversation about Tom Cavanaugh had rattled me. I cringed as Milo took the Alpine turnoff too sharply. “Couldn’t your deputies do it?”