The Alpine Vengeance: An Emma Lord Mystery

by Mary Daheim

  “You don’t have to,” I said, “but I assume Greg isn’t paying his share of the mortgage.” Realizing I was overstepping the boundaries of etiquette, not to mention violating Denise’s privacy, I changed the subject. “Do you have other employment options when Ginny comes back to work?”

  “Options?” Denise gazed around my office, as if she might find an option or two hanging on the walls. “I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll take that new cosmetology course that my cousin’s teaching at the college.”

  It had slipped my mind that Linda Petersen’s daughter, Alison Lindahl, and Denise Petersen Jensen were related. “That might be a good idea,” I said. “Stella Magruder seems to have a fairly high turnover rate at her salon. So many of the girls who work there don’t stay long because they get married and have babies.” But not necessarily in that order, I thought to myself. And then realized I wasn’t one to criticize. I’d done the latter, but not the former—unfortunately.

  “Really? I never noticed. Somehow those girls at the salon all look kind of alike.” Denise ran a hand through her hair. “I should make an appointment to get my hair done before Christmas.”

  “Do you have a résumé?” I asked.

  Denise looked blank. “No. I mean, I just heard about the job here from Rick Erlandson this morning. Do you need one?”

  The question should’ve been, “Do I need one?” but I passed on saying so. “Do you have to give notice at the bank?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, Rick wouldn’t have told me about the job if he thought we’d have to go through a bunch of stuff before I could quit. He’s a nice guy. I think he understands.”

  And I understood that Rick probably couldn’t wait to see the back of Denise. I wanted to stall, but I was facing more than one deadline. “Tomorrow is Amanda’s last day. Could you spend at least part of it letting her show you the ropes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you start Wednesday?”

  “Sure.”

  I stood up. “Okay, let’s go out and talk to Amanda.”

  My part of the conversation was brief. I left the two women after less than a minute and returned to my cubbyhole. I was halfway through the maple-poaching editorial when Vida arrived just before three o’clock.

  “I can’t believe it,” she gasped. “Denise is out there in the front office with Amanda. Are you really going to hire that nitwit?”

  “Would you prefer Ed Bronsky?” I asked.

  Vida rocked on her heels. “Oh! Certainly not. But still …”

  “I know. I considered Carla, but I doubt she’d do it. It’d be a comedown not only from her college job, but as a reporter here. She’s got a family, too. We forget that Carla isn’t a fresh-faced youth anymore. She probably needs the time off from her college duties to regroup, especially for the holidays.”

  Vida sighed. “I suppose.” She shook her head before removing her hat, which now looked like a bunch of drowned birds. “Craig Laurentis is doing as well as can be expected. He’s had one transfusion and will get another later on. Meanwhile, Dr. Sung removed the bullet. Milo can tell you about that.”

  “Has Craig said anything about who shot him?”

  “No. He’s been sedated and will stay that way at least until this evening.” Vida studied her hat. “Dear me, I wonder if this will dry out.” She sighed again. “Did Denise mention a funeral for her father?”

  “No,” I replied, “and from what I gathered, she’s not terribly interested. She can come in tomorrow to learn the job and it sounds as if she’ll be ready to go to work on Wednesday.”

  “I’ll try to view that as good news,” Vida said. “About her working here, I mean. The bank will be shorthanded, but there are plenty of college students who’d like to earn extra money while they’re on break.”

  “True,” I agreed. “I’d thought of hiring a student, but with finals still to come, fall quarter isn’t officially over for another ten days. We’ll manage somehow with Denise.”

  “I must get busy,” Vida declared. “If you have anything for ‘Scene,’ let me know.”

  I promised I would. For a moment, I let myself slump in relief over the news that Craig’s condition wasn’t life-threatening. Then I remembered Donna Wickstrom had told me about his new painting. Maybe I’d stop by on my way home to see what it looked like. Ordinarily, it’d be an item for “Scene,” but with Craig appearing so prominently on page one, I decided we should probably save that bit for another issue.

  Just before five, I went out to see Vida. Mitch and Leo had already left, Amanda had reported that her get-acquainted session with Denise had gone relatively well, and Kip was still in the back shop. I’d finished my editorial shortly after three, and had spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone talking to people in Olympia about how the state land commissioner’s office was dealing with tree poaching. After conversations with several well-meaning and seemingly intelligent staff personnel, I came away with only a few maybe-if-I-got-desperate quotes. Like our sheriff and the local rangers, they couldn’t add much more than I already knew. There had been some arrests made, along with a conviction or two, but the problem still existed.

  “You okay?” I asked Vida, leaning on her desk.

  She peered at me from behind her big orange-framed glasses. “Of course. I shouldn’t have gotten into such a state about Buck. You’re quite right. Men are very insensitive. But the thought of Roger joining the Marines is still worrisome. Perhaps he’ll change his mind.”

  “You don’t think it’d help him get some structure in his life?”

  “There are less dangerous ways,” she said. “As much as I hate the idea, he might do better in college if he went to a school outside of Alpine. Not a big city, of course—too much temptation for any young man—but Everett, perhaps, or Bellingham. The latter would be my first choice, because my daughter Meg and her family live there. That would help make him feel at home. Roger’s cousins are somewhat older, but he gets along with them when we’re all together.”

  “I thought Meg’s kids had moved away.”

  Vida nodded. “Temporarily,” she finally said in a detached tone. “One’s in graduate school at WSU in Pullman. The other is in Beijing, but only for a year. It’s a temporary assignment with one of those computer companies.”

  Meg and the third daughter, Beth, who lived in Tacoma, both had children who were older than Roger. From what I’d gathered over the years, the other grandchildren survived their cousin’s presence by exerting patience and tolerance.

  “I assume Roger will make his own decision,” I said, aware that Vida was probably in denial. “I’m off to Donna’s art gallery. By coincidence, Craig Laurentis has a new painting there.”

  Vida’s eyes sparked. “Indeed? Are you thinking of buying it?”

  “I haven’t even seen it,” I said, “but I’m curious. The works that I’ve seen have always shown an amazing job of capturing the area around here. Don’t you think Sky Autumn is special?”

  “It’s quite nice,” she allowed, “but I’ve always preferred pictures of flowers—with or without fruit. I feel that art appreciation is a matter of individual taste. At least Laurentis’s paintings are recognizable.”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Take care. It’s snowing, but not sticking.”

  Ten minutes later I was inside Donna’s small gallery on Front Street between Seventh and Eighth. She had a hard-and-fast rule at her day care. Any parents who hadn’t picked up their children before five o’clock were automatically assessed a twenty-five-dollar fine. Otherwise, she couldn’t open the gallery on time to serve her weekday-evening art lovers.

  So far, I was the only person on the premises besides Donna. She greeted me with a tired smile and an offer of hot chocolate. “I brought a thermos from home,” she said. “I always make it for the children when it snows, but it started too late in the afternoon for them to drink it all.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m anxious to see Craig’s new painting.”

>   Donna shook her head. “I could hardly believe it when I heard he’d been shot. Is there any further news?”

  “No,” I replied, “but what we do know is encouraging. I doubt there’ll be an update on his condition until tomorrow.”

  “I can’t imagine who’d do such a thing,” Donna said, going behind the counter. “Are people who poach trees armed and dangerous?”

  “It seems that this time they were,” I said. “Maybe they carry guns in case they encounter bears or other animals that might attack them. That would make some kind of sense, I guess.”

  “Maybe.” Donna bent down to wrestle with a three-by-five-foot package wrapped in wrinkled brown paper and tied with thick string. “To be honest, I haven’t seen the painting in a decent light. Craig dropped it off last night while we were gone. We didn’t get home from the late movie until after midnight, so I only took a quick look before rewrapping it to keep it safe from the children.” She carefully cut the string with scissors and then made a long slice through the paper. “I put cardboard around the canvas because of the weather.” She laughed, a light, tinkling sound like a little brass bell. “Craig’s a bit careless when it comes to his deliveries. Steve and I would’ve missed this one if he hadn’t hauled out the garbage after we got home.”

  “I take it your kids were with you?”

  Donna shook her head. “Our oldest, Karen, is nineteen. Can you believe that?”

  I could, though I hadn’t thought about it. Karen wasn’t Steve’s daughter, but from Donna’s first marriage, to Deputy Art Fremstad, who had been killed in the line of duty before I moved to Alpine. “I’m not sure I’d recognize Karen,” I admitted. “I assume she doesn’t want to help with the day care.”

  Donna had gotten down to the cardboard. “Not after all the babysitting she’s done for us in the past few years. Anyway, she’s a sophomore at the UW this year. She came home for the Thanksgiving holiday and stayed over last night because she had a late class today. We bought her a decent old car when she started college.”

  After removing two layers of cardboard, Donna revealed the painting. “Well? What do you think?”

  I was stunned. “It’s … different.”

  Donna stepped back for a longer look. “It is, but Craig’s not the kind of artist who stays with the same old thing. That’s good. It means he’s still trying different ways to express himself.” She turned to me. “You don’t like it?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Admittedly, I’d seen only a few of Craig’s paintings, and while this was also a forest scene, it wasn’t as realistic or as compelling. The colors were very dark, while the bare tree branches seemed distorted. If there was undergrowth, such as ferns, salal, or Oregon grape, I couldn’t see their greenery. Even the jagged patches of sky were a murky shade of blue bordering on purple. The only bright spots were touches of gold on the ground, as if somehow the sun had broken through the clouds. Maybe it was a reflected sunset, maybe it was just a couple of blobs. Whatever the painting’s statement was meant to convey eluded me.

  I shrugged. “I’m not an art expert. It may be amazing to someone who understands painting, but it sort of throws me for a loop.”

  “You probably need to study it more closely,” Donna said. “As I mentioned, I recognized that Craig was going in a different direction. But that can be a very good thing.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t tell you about this as a sales pitch. I just thought you’d like to see it.”

  “Oh, I do. He’s very talented. Maybe it was rushed.”

  “No,” Donna said, “I can tell it wasn’t because of the paint layers. He worked on this for a long time. Not consistently, but whenever the mood struck him. He put a lot of himself in it, I think. It has a certain brooding quality. Maybe it shows something about why he chose his unusual lifestyle. That’s just a guess, but do you see what I mean?”

  “Maybe. I guess I’d have to reflect on that.”

  “I’ll do the same,” Donna said. “I like to understand an artist’s motivation. It’s not easy, and I’m probably wrong when I come up with a theory, but it makes me feel less like a dilettante.”

  “You do very well when it comes to your selections,” I said. “I see you have some new vases. Who did those? I like the sort of shimmering shafts of … what?”

  “Mother-of-pearl—real oyster shells,” Donna explained. “They sort of swoop and swirl among the brighter colors. An eighty-year-old woman in Hoquiam does them. She only started working in this medium a couple of years ago.”

  “Nice,” I said. “I wonder if my old pal Mavis down in Portland would like one for a Christmas present.”

  “Let me know,” Donna said, scrunching up the used wrapping paper. “They run twenty to fifty dollars. I’ve got those four left. I sold two over the weekend.”

  I told her I’d mull a bit, and on that note I thanked Donna and took my leave. The wet snow was still coming down, but I’d parked just around the corner. I only needed to turn on my wipers to clear the windshield. It was almost six when I pulled into my carport. Every winter I promised myself I’d have a real garage built, but I never got around to it. Procrastination sometimes seems like my middle name. Maybe I’m that way because in my work life, I’m always up against deadlines.

  I came inside through the kitchen door that leads from the carport, flipped on the lights, and went into the living room. Before taking my coat off, I gazed at Sky Autumn above the sofa. It was as mesmerizing as ever. I studied the details more closely than usual—the graceful bending branches of vine maples, with their silvery bark; broken twigs trapped in the water between rocks, looking anxious to move on; dark, dense forest in the background, with the slim gray trunks and a few brown leaves still clinging to the alders; the merest hint of patchy blue and white sky—it was autumn, a season of both sun and rain, of death on the ground and rebirth underneath.

  This was definitely more appealing than Craig’s most recent work. It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t asked Donna what it was called. I took off my coat, went out to the kitchen to pour a Pepsi, grabbed a package of Gulf prawns from the freezer, and returned to the living room to call the gallery. Before I could dial the number, I discovered I had two phone messages. The first was from a charity with a name I didn’t recognize, so I erased it and listened to the second call.

  “It’s almost five-thirty,” Milo said. “If you want me to stop by, call before six. Otherwise, I’m going out to wrap my pipes.”

  It was now ten after six. I didn’t know if I was more annoyed with Milo—or with myself. I’d forgotten his suggestion to “fill me in.” On the other hand, how long would it take the sheriff to wrap his damned pipes? His house in the Icicle Creek development wasn’t that much bigger than mine. Furthermore, he always took his cell with him—except when he was fishing. I knew Milo was miffed by my lack of enthusiasm for his offer, but he didn’t usually play games. I pondered calling him anyway, but the phone rang before I could punch in his number.

  “There you are,” Vida said. “I thought you might be negotiating a price on that new picture.”

  “No,” I replied, “but I did see it. It’s not what I expected.”

  “You mean it’s all squares and circles and cubes and clowns?”

  I wasn’t sure what Vida was talking about, unless it was some oblique reference to Picasso. “No,” I repeated. “But it’s quite different from Craig’s usual work. It’s still a landscape, though. I didn’t particularly care for it.”

  “Just as well.” She didn’t pause for breath. “There won’t be a funeral for Larry Petersen. Al Driggers called me right after I got home. He’d heard from JoAnne, and even though she divorced Larry after he went to prison, she’s apparently still in charge of his estate. A guardianship, perhaps. She told Al that the family—I assume that means the three children, Denise, Cole, and Frankie—agree with her. She does want his cremated remains put in the mausoleum here. Apparently, and this is according to Al, she felt the Petersens should be together.
”

  “But no service of any kind?”

  “Only immediate family. However, it will be a few days before the remains are sent here. There’s an autopsy, which I gather is not unusual when someone dies in prison, especially if the deceased is fairly young and not in obvious poor health. Al says it has to do with some kind of government regulations, no doubt to avoid lawsuits.”

  “That’s understandable,” I said. “So you’ll write the obit?”

  “Of course,” Vida replied. “It will be tricky, though. Still, everyone around here knows the background. Tact and taste are required.”

  “You’ll do it just fine,” I said.

  “I must cover Cupcake. He doesn’t like snow, and I’m always afraid he’ll catch a cold. I’d miss his singing.”

  I rang off so Vida could take care of her canary. After running the frozen prawns under hot water, I changed my mind about calling Milo. The lonely holiday had given me an attack of perversity, a not uncommon condition. I was still feeling sorry for myself, and because I despise people who wallow in self-pity, I’d inflict more misery as punishment for behaving so childishly. It made no sense, but I’d do it anyway. That’s why the condition is perverse.

  I called Donna instead. She answered on the third ring. I asked her the name of Craig’s new painting.

  “His attached note says Forest Watch, though it doesn’t really fit the painting,” Donna said. “I’m not sure what he means. In fact, he crossed out something that I can barely read. I think it says Forest Leg or Forest Log. Does that sound right to you?”

  I thought for a moment. “Not really. As I recall, his titles are usually self-explanatory.”

  “Well … it must mean something to him,” Donna said. “I wish I could actually speak with him about his work, but he’s too antisocial. Of course he’s not the only one who doesn’t like to discuss his or her creativity. It’s so personal. And then,” she added with a little laugh, “there are the ones who won’t shut up. I thought that since you’re a writer, maybe you’d have an idea of what the title meant.”