The Alpine Vengeance: An Emma Lord Mystery

by Mary Daheim

  Then reality set in, like a knife to the heart. I struggled to sit up. “Spence?” I called shakily. “What’s happening?”

  He motioned for me to be quiet. “What did he look like?” Spence said into his cell, and waited for an answer from whoever was talking at the other end. “Okay, let me know when you see him … What? Oh. Can you give me his home number?”

  The ringing of my phone on the end table startled me. Still trembling, I twisted around to pick up the receiver on the third ring.

  “Emma,” Vida said, “have you heard the news?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound normal. “It’s very upsetting.”

  “Should we tell Kip?”

  “I think we should wait,” I replied.

  “What if Spencer gets it first?”

  I glanced at Spence, who was jotting something down in a small leather-encased notebook. “He already knows.”

  “How could he?” she demanded. “I only heard about it fifteen minutes ago. Did Doc call you?”

  “Doc?” I said, wondering if I wasn’t dreaming after all. “Why would Doc call me?”

  “Then who told you about JoAnne Petersen?”

  “JoAnne?” I echoed. “What about her?”

  “Really, Emma, you sound addled,” Vida declared. “What do you think I’m talking about? Buck and I had just arrived at the ski lodge for dinner. The early-bird special, you know. Doc and Nancy came in just ahead of us. Before they could look at a menu, he was called away. JoAnne apparently tried to kill herself with an overdose of sleeping pills.”

  I fell back on the cushion, incredulous. “Why?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Vida replied. “It’s a good thing she was staying with Olga. Being a nurse, she figured out what had happened. JoAnne took her cousin’s pills. Olga seldom uses them, but being on the night shift, she occasionally has trouble going to sleep when it’s light outside. I must go. Buck is ordering for both of us.”

  She rang off. It occurred to me that many of my recent phone calls had ended abruptly, a symptom of the last few days of stress and strain that had infected not only me but much of Alpine.

  Spence had also concluded his call. “What was that all about?”

  I told him as succinctly as I could.

  “That’s a strange turn of events,” he said. “Depression, maybe? Guilt for not visiting Larry? Feeling like a flop for having raised two boys who may hate each other and a daughter who’s a dimwit?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “How long was I out?”

  “Two, three minutes.” He shrugged. “You just sort of caved. You probably need to eat something.”

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Mia at KOMO,” Spence said, standing up and fiddling with the bandage on his nose. “This is beginning to itch. I asked her if anybody who looked like Milo had been spotted at the scene in Bellevue.”

  I pulled myself into a sitting position. “What did she say?”

  “She had to look at film they hadn’t shown on TV. There were some plainclothes guys mingling around with the cops, but she didn’t know if they were Bellevue or KingCo detectives or some other official presence, like doctors. John the Rookie was going home to recover from his first big-time reporting assignment, but she gave me his number. I’ll call him in a few minutes after he dries himself out.”

  “Have the cops gone through the house?”

  Spence scowled at me. “Searching for Milo’s bullet-ridden body? Come on, Emma, get real. Don’t you think somebody would’ve heard the shots?” He started into the hallway. “I’m going to try to do something about this damned bandage. It’s driving me nuts. I can’t even blow my nose. How am I supposed to get over this damned head cold? I’ve probably got a sinus infection by now.”

  “Tough,” I muttered as he went out of sight. Realizing that the receiver was still in my lap, I picked it up to set it in the cradle. That’s when I noticed my message light was on. It hadn’t occurred to me to check for missed calls after returning home. I dialed the number and code to retrieve my messages. There were three. The first had come in at four-forty, just after Spence and I had left for the hospital.

  “Hello, Emma dear,” Edna Mae Dalrymple chirped in her birdlike voice. “I’m calling to remind you that bridge club is moved to Thursday this week. Or did I tell you earlier? Maybe not, since I wasn’t sure until today. We have to change dates because Charlene Vickers and Janet Driggers have other engagements on Wednesday, and this time of year it’s so difficult to get substitutes. See you soon. Bye-bye.”

  The second call, fifteen minutes later, was also from Edna Mae. “Oh, Emma, we forgot Thursday is Vida’s program. The change in dates, you know. And after her last show—well, we’re all agog. We’ve decided on Tuesday unless we wait to start after Cupboard. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Do you have Vida’s recipe for glögg? I called her, but she’s not home. Thank you, dear.”

  I sighed. Edna Mae and the rest of the bridge players hadn’t considered that Tuesdays were deadline night for me. If our current lead stories were still evolving by then, they’d have to find a sub for me.

  My ear was getting tired and my headache had only just begun to ebb. I took a deep breath before listening to the third and last message, logged at five-fourteen.

  “Where the hell are you?” Milo asked angrily. “Pick up the damned phone.” A pause. “I’m on my way to Harborview with Tanya. That sonuvabitch Buster shot her and then blew his own brains out. Don’t call back. I won’t be able to use my cell at the hospital.” I could hear raised voices in the background and a loud whirring noise. “I’m coming, dickhead, just hold—” The line went dead.

  I went limp with relief, dropping the receiver out of my hand onto the floor. Spence came into the living room. “Emma!” he shouted. “Good God, what now?”

  I couldn’t answer right away. Spence just stood there, looking aggravated. Fleetingly, I noticed that the bandage had been replaced by two large Band-Aids.

  “Milo’s alive,” I finally said. “He’s gone to Harborview with Tanya.”

  “Well.” Spence grinned, looking, if not yet sounding, more normal. He retrieved my phone from the floor and set it back in the cradle. “Didn’t I say he was alive and well and being his usual belligerent self?”

  “Milo’s not belligerent,” I said hotly, though realizing that whoever he’d called a “dickhead” was probably another law officer or a medic. If he hadn’t been extremely upset, he’d never have spoken that harshly.

  Spence touched his nose. “Huh. You could’ve fooled me.” He went to the coat closet and took out his parka. “In that case, you don’t need me anymore. My work here is done.”

  I was surprised. “You’re leaving?”

  “Hey—I’ve got a radio station to run. You know where to find me.” With that parting sally, he was out the door.

  For about five seconds, I was sorry to see him go. Then I realized that the bastard had used me. It was typical Spencer Fleetwood MO. He’d milked what he could get out of a story—my story, at that. I was so angry that I got up, locked the front door, went into the kitchen, and drank the rest of the brandy while I tried to think of how to handle the situation.

  It was six-fifteen. The usual quarter-hour newscast was over. Would Spence break into his regular canned programming with the story about Sheriff Dodge’s family disaster? In his place, I would. The only thing I could do about that was to have Kip put the news on our website. But I hesitated. This wasn’t just any news coverage, this was Milo’s private life. I’d once violated my ethics as a journalist by suppressing certain facts in a homicide story involving Vida. More recently, I’d handled Roger’s participation in the trailer park incident with kid gloves. But what came first? My responsibility to the newspaper or my concern for people I cared about deeply? Journalist or human being? The answer seemed easy, but it wasn’t, especially if Spence was going to broadcast the whole sordid mess over KSKY.

  Going back to the living
room, I turned on the radio. Due to my perverse nature and the semi-rivalry between the spoken and the printed word, I’m not a regular listener. The music was soft rock. After two songs, a presumably live female voice came on.

  “You’ve just heard Lionel Richie’s ‘My Love,’ the Mamas and the Papas’ classic ‘California Dreamin’,’ and the Little River Band performing ‘Cool Change.’ This is Bree Kendall, filling in for Spencer Fleetwood, with KSKY’s usual Saturday night soft rock, two hours of oldies, but always goodies, and easy on the ear. Now let’s hear from one of our local sponsors.”

  A commercial voiced by Spence for Nordby Brothers GM dealership followed. Now I knew why Spence and Bree were so chummy. If nothing else, Spence or even Bree should’ve informed us that she was working part-time at the station. It was worth a mention in Vida’s “Scene.”

  Bree was back. “Don’t forget, KSKY is always local, all the time. Our next trio of oh-so-soft rock starts with Paul McCartney and Wings, doing ‘With a Little’ …”

  I turned Bree, Paul, and Wings down low. Nothing about breaking news. Maybe Spence hadn’t finished putting together his hot news item for Bree to read. I couldn’t imagine his vanity would permit him to do it live in his current stuffed-up vocal state. Or maybe he was checking on the JoAnne Petersen attempted suicide. I tried to put my wrath aside and think through the occurrences of the last hour or more. It was frustrating. I didn’t have Vida to lean on; she was too busy eating dinner with Buck at the ski lodge. My best bet was Mitch Laskey. Somehow, the obvious had eluded me. I wondered what had caused my brain to misfire. Then I wondered why I was wondering—I knew why, and cursed myself for behaving like an adolescent idiot. It had been a long time since I’d let my heart rule my head.

  “Mitch,” I said when he answered the phone, “are you in the middle of dinner?”

  “Not yet,” he replied, “but Brenda’s in the middle of the kitchen, thinking about it. Is Alpine being attacked by some of Averill Fairbanks’s aliens?”

  “Not that simple,” I said. “Could you meet me at the office? I need your brain for half an hour.”

  “It’ll take Brenda that long to find her recipe,” Mitch said. “She’s been weaving all day, trying to fill Christmas orders. As soon as I find my brain, I’m on my way.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you there.”

  I rang Kip next, but he didn’t pick up. I left a message for him to call me on my cell. Before putting on my coat, I upped the radio’s volume. KSKY was still playing music. I could listen to it in the car on my way to the Advocate.

  Seven minutes, two commercials, and half of Men at Work’s “Down Under” later, I parked the Honda and unlocked the Advocate’s front door. I’d just turned on the lights in the newsroom when Mitch arrived. “What’s up?” he asked, shrugging out of his all-weather jacket.

  “Have you watched the news on TV today?” I asked.

  “I flipped to CNN a few times between football games,” he replied. “Did I miss something?”

  “I meant the local news—Bellevue, that is.”

  “No. In fact, Brenda and I’ve only been to Bellevue twice since we moved out here. What’s going on there and why should we care?”

  I’d sat down at Leo’s desk. Mitch joined me in my ad manager’s visitor’s chair. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “The beginning usually works for me. You know—who, what, when, why, and how.”

  Mitch’s laid-back style soothed me. “I’ll have to give you some background first,” I said, and launched into the wreckage of Milo’s marriage and divorce. “Until the past month or two, he hasn’t had a lot of contact with his ex or even his kids, but today he got a call from Tricia about a serious domestic crisis involving his daughter, Tanya, and her fiancé. Milo had to go to Bellevue to help her sort it out. It turned out to be even worse than—” My cell rang. “I’d better take this. Sorry.” I answered with my name, and was surprised to hear the agitated voice of Reba Cederberg on the other end of the line.

  “Emma, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, “but I can’t get hold of Vida, and I have to talk to her. Do you know where she is?”

  “Yes, Reba,” I said, hoping Mitch recognized the name. “She’s having dinner at the ski lodge. It’s the one occasion when she ignores a call. Vida feels strongly about observing phone etiquette in public. You should be able to reach her at home in about an hour. Is there anything I can do? You sound upset.”

  “Oh, I am,” Reba said. “An hour? Oh, dear. Well … maybe I’ll have to wait. Or … I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should call the police.”

  I’d scribbled a note for Mitch to turn on KSKY. “Where’s Andy?” I asked as my reporter got up and went over to his desk.

  “He’s here, but he doesn’t know what to do, either. Just a minute.”

  Reba apparently muffled the receiver with her hand. I could hear voices but not what was being said at the other end of the line. Mitch had turned on KSKY, shrugging and giving me a questioning look as a band I didn’t recognize played a song I didn’t know. Somehow it seemed like a metaphor for what was going on with the call from Reba.

  “It’s my sister-in-law, Diane, Greg’s mother,” Reba said. “She just phoned from Palm Desert. Greg’s in terrible trouble. We don’t know how to help him out of this mess.”

  I motioned for Mitch to pick up his phone. “You mean about Greg skipping town after you posted bail?” I asked, raising my voice to keep Reba from hearing the sound of the second phone connecting to the line.

  “Not just that,” Reba replied. “It’s such a mess. Diane’s beside herself. She’s afraid that Greg’s on his way to Palm Desert, and that means he’s jumping bail. That’s bad enough, but what’s more disturbing is he … well, he’s done something very foolish. His intentions were well meant, I think. Still, it was unfair of him to involve innocent people.”

  I exchanged beleaguered looks with Mitch, who’d turned the radio down so he could hear the phone conversation. I tried to prod Reba. “Can you tell me what he did?”

  She began to cry. My headache was coming back. Mitch was holding the phone away from his ear and leaning back in his chair so far that I thought he’d tip over. I could hear a phone ringing somewhere, but it wasn’t in the newsroom. The front office? My cubbyhole? The back shop? The ringing stopped. Reba’s sobs had grown fainter. I heard Andy’s voice in the background. The ringing must have been another phone at the Cederberg house.

  “What’s happening?” I said softly to Mitch.

  He’d straightened up in the chair. “Maybe they forgot to disconnect the call to you.”

  We both sat in silence for at least a minute. I could still hear Andy’s voice, though his words weren’t audible. Suddenly a high-pitched howl assaulted my ear. I cringed; Mitch grimaced. It had to be Reba. But it was Andy who spoke into the phone. “Emma?” He’d raised his voice to be heard over Reba’s fresh outburst of sobs. “Can we call you later? We have to go to the hospital.”

  Why not? I thought. Everybody else is going there these days. “You mean Reba’s collapsed?”

  “No,” Andy said, his voice suddenly breaking. “JoAnne Petersen just died.”

  TWENTY

  I THINK,” MITCH SAID DRYLY, “YOU’D BETTER FILL ME IN ON the rest of the story while we go to the hospital.”

  “We won’t have time,” I said, trying to collect myself from the latest shock. “In fact, let’s not go to the hospital. We’ve got some work to do here instead.”

  “In that case,” Mitch said, “shall I make coffee?”

  “I will. I don’t know if Alison cleaned out the coffeemaker Friday.”

  Mitch had gotten to his feet. “I’ll do it. You look tired, Emma. Bad night before what I assume was a bad day?”

  “Both Vida and I’ve had a touch of flu,” I said.

  “It’s that time of year,” Mitch remarked, inspecting the coffeemaker. “Clean as a whistle. Too bad Alison can’t stick around instead of Denise. Or is Ginny co
ming back Monday?”

  “I don’t even want to think about that mess right now,” I said, letting Mitch perform the coffee duty. “I don’t even remember where I left off. Can you turn that radio up a bit?”

  “You got a thing for nostalgia?” he asked. “What about going back even further for some Motown Sound?”

  “I’m waiting to see what Spence is up to,” I said. “I’ll tell you why.”

  Ten minutes later, I’d finished recounting not only Milo’s saga, but Craig’s fruitless attempt to convey something he felt was important about his new painting. Almost out of breath, I ended with JoAnne’s apparently successful suicide. As ever, Mitch was a good listener, asking questions and making comments only when necessary, skills he’d honed during his career with the Detroit Free Press.

  “Hmm,” he murmured when I’d finished. “Let’s see—two dead, two wounded—I’m counting Laurentis being back in the hospital—and a bail-jumping poacher with an unspeakable secret. Not bad for a weekend, Emma. Even in Detroit, I didn’t usually get that much on my plate in less than twenty-four hours. That doesn’t mean it didn’t all happen—we just had a bigger staff. No wonder you look tired.”

  I admitted I’d probably left something out. “My head not only aches, it’s spinning. And I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with Spence breaking all this on the radio.”

  “I wonder why he hasn’t.” He glanced at the radio. “We missed the news recap at seven while we were listening to Reba go ballistic.”

  I’d lost track of time. “Damn. You’re right. But if Spence broke the story about Milo and the Bellevue catastrophe, it would’ve taken more than the usual five-minute news segment that always includes sports, weather, and traffic conditions.”

  “What’s holding Spence back, I wonder?”

  I had omitted something, but that was intentional. I was not going to mention that the sheriff had sent Mr. Radio to the ER. For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe Spence had decided discretion was the better part of valor. He only had one nose. He probably didn’t want the sheriff to go for his golden throat the next time.