The Alpine Fury

by Mary Daheim

  Vida’s shock was genuine, and mirrored my own. “The Alpine Advocate is scarcely a sensational tabloid,” she retorted. “It’s a most respectable weekly. You must have seen it.”

  Howard shrugged his broad shoulders. He was a beefy man in his mid-forties, not-quite-average height, and his light brown hair was thinning. Standing side by side, Susan was taller than her husband by an inch, spare of figure and plain of face. I suspected that Howard had learned from experience that character was more important than looks.

  “I’m lucky if I get The Everett Herald read every day,” he said. “I’ll be damned if I didn’t end up with my name in the Monday edition. They carried the story about Linda. Thank God it wasn’t on the front page.”

  The Herald is one of several area newspapers we receive at The Advocate. Because it’s a daily, and sometimes includes Skykomish County along with its home base of Snohomish County, quite a few people in Alpine subscribe. I’d noted the article about Linda’s death, which had stated that the body of a former Everett woman had been found near Alpine, that she was a possible homicide victim, and that the Skykomish sheriff was conducting an investigation with the cooperation of Snohomish County law enforcement personnel. The last sentence of the story noted that while living in Everett, Linda had been married to a local resident, Howard Lindahl.

  “I didn’t like it,” Howard said, looking pugnacious as he sat down in a deep blue recliner “It sounded as if I were the prime suspect.”

  “Oh, stick it, Howie,” said Susan. “The paper only used your name to let people know who Linda was when she lived here. You overreact.” With a long-legged stride, Susan headed for the kitchen.

  Howie was regarding Vida and me as if we were card-carrying members of the KGB. “I’m not telling you about any sex stuff. Or why we split. It’s disgusting how everybody wants to spill their guts these days.”

  I hastened to agree, then remembered to pick up my cue from Vida. “We’re more interested in what you can tell our readers about handling grief in this kind of situation.”

  “Grief?” Howard seemed surprised. “At the risk of sounding like I am the prime suspect, I can’t say I’m crying in my beer.” The words motivated Howard to call to Susan: “Suze—make that a beer for me.”

  “Were you surprised?” Vida’s hands were folded neatly in her lap. The derby had slipped down on her forehead, almost concealing her eyes and glasses.

  “Of course I was surprised.” Howard looked at Vida as if she were a mutant. “Weren’t you? I mean, do people go around expecting somebody they know to get killed?”

  Vida pushed the derby high on her forehead. “I was extremely surprised. I found the body.” The statement was only a small fib.

  Howard was obviously shaken. “No shit!” He glanced anxiously toward the kitchen, as if he needed the beer to bolster his fortitude. “That’s terrible! For you, I mean.”

  “Indeed it was.” Vida’s voice had turned wispy. I was afraid she was going to launch into Roger’s sensitivity, but she was forestalled when Susan entered the room, carrying a tray laden with glasses of wine and a bottle of beer.

  “Let’s not mislead anybody,” Susan said after she’d handed out the drinks. “Linda was a world-class pain in the butt. Even after the divorce, she gave Howie a bad time. She always would. That’s why we can’t honestly say we’re in mourning.”

  Howard registered mixed emotions. “It sounds hardhearted, doesn’t it?” His round face asked for understanding.

  Vida inclined her head. “It sounds like good sense. Who really wants to get involved in a custody fight? It’s so hard on the child.”

  Susan, who had sat down on an ottoman next to Howard, sprang to her feet. “Stop!” The wine in her glass sloshed over the rim. “Where’s Alison?” The whispered question was for her husband.

  “In her room?” Howard didn’t sound certain.

  Next to me on the davenport, I felt Vida’s elbow in my ribs. “Emma, you should talk to Alison. You have such a way with youngsters. Your Adam is so close to Alison’s age.”

  Vida knew she was off by ten years, but that didn’t matter. I knew she wanted me to interrogate Alison. I gave the Lindahls a self-deprecating look. “Do you mind?”

  Howard and Susan exchanged leery glances. “She’s pretty upset,” Susan finally said. “I’d better introduce you.”

  We went upstairs, following a pattern of bright spring-garden wallpaper and serviceable gray carpet. I could hear the bass from Alison’s boom box as soon as we reached the second landing.

  Alison’s dormer room wasn’t any messier than that of most twelve-year-olds, which is to say that it could be mistaken for Hiroshima after the A-bomb was dropped. I had frequently told Adam that if he wanted to live in a demolition zone, I would oblige by practicing a scorched-earth policy, and torch the place. Naturally, I never carried out my threats, and just as naturally, he had only recently begun to take pride in maintaining order. In natural law, that always occurs after the child has moved out from under the parent’s roof.

  Consequently, I stumbled over a pile of clothes, various CDs, magazines, books, cowboy boots, and a poster of Keanu Reeves. Alison reluctantly turned off her boom box and stared at me with hostile blue eyes. She was at that awkward age, when her genes hadn’t yet made up their mind if they were going to favor her mother’s statuesque good looks or her father’s short, stocky stature.

  “Talk to Ms. Lord,” Susan urged, her arms around the girl. “She wants to hear how you feel. About your … mother.” With a faintly guilty air, Susan danced over the obstacles on the floor and left the room.

  “Was that Soundgarden?” I inquired, having a nodding acquaintance via Adam with rock groups, especially the Seattle scene.

  “Yeah.” Alison wasn’t impressed by my effort to be cool. She had found a bare spot on her unmade bed and was sitting on her feet.

  I was forced to stand on mine. Resting my handbag on a six-inch stack of teen magazines, I tried to find some wall space that wasn’t covered with three-dimensional objects. Among the skills that a single parent acquires is the need for candor. When a child is raised by a mother and a father, one can tell white lies and let the other dish out the brutal truth. But raising a child alone puts the burden for everything on Mom. Or Dad, as the case may be. Long ago, I had found it simpler, if not always easier, to be frank with my son.

  “My friend from the newspaper in Alpine and your dad and stepmother are talking about your birth mother,” I said, leaning against a calendar that featured thoroughbred horses. “They don’t want to upset you. I’m the designated adult to keep you out of hearing range. How do you feel, Alison?”

  “Okay.” Her voice was as listless as her dark blonde hair. She seemed absorbed in what I guessed to be a hangnail on her right thumb.

  “Did you see your mother much?” I asked, deciding to sit on Keanu Reeves.

  “Not really.” Allison continued to avoid my eyes. I waited for her to elaborate. It’s another trick I learned from raising Adam. Children are so self-centered by nature that they must talk, especially about themselves. It’s just a matter of being patient.

  “She moved.” Alison finally made eye contact, if briefly. “You know that. She lived in Alpine.”

  “That’s right. She went to work for her father—your grandfather—at the bank. That kept her pretty busy.” I wasn’t making excuses for Linda Lindahl; I was trying to elicit an opinion from her daughter.

  “I guess.” Alison traced the hole in the knee of her blue jeans. Again I waited. “She took me school shopping at the Everett Mall.”

  “Oh?” I put warmth into my voice. “When was that? Just before school started in September?”

  “We started the last week of August.” She paused, then gave a toss of her long, lackluster hair. “That’s dumb. It’s still summer.”

  “It is dumb.” I was serious. “But summer really doesn’t end until the third week of September.”

  Alison made no comment. Then,
with an unwinding of pudgy arms and legs, she hopped off the bed. “Do you want to see my kilt skirt? Mom bought it for me at The Gap.”

  I assured her I’d be delighted. Alison rummaged in her closet, and to my amazement, the wine-colored skirt was actually on a hanger.

  “There’s a mock turtleneck and a white shirt that go with it,” she said, a note of vitality finally emerging in her voice. “I think the shirt’s in the wash.”

  “Nice,” I said, fingering the fabric. Female appreciation of clothes cuts across almost any barrier, including age. “You could go dark green with this.”

  Alison studied the kilt. “Yeah—I guess. But I’m saving my money for a rabbit.”

  I nodded. “They make good pets. I’m sorry about your gerbil.”

  Surprise showed in Alison’s blue eyes. “Luke Perry? You heard about him?”

  It took me a moment to realize that Alison apparently had named her pet for a prime-time TV hunk. It figured. My brother and I had owned a lizard named Elvis.

  “He got a tumor,” Alison said, tossing the kilted skirt on the floor with the rest of the clothes. “We gave him medicine, but he died anyway. My folks didn’t want to spend two hundred dollars on chemotherapy.”

  “It might not have worked.” It was a guess. My interest wasn’t piqued by Luke Perry the Gerbil, but by Alison’s reference to “my folks.” I assumed she didn’t mean Linda.

  “The vet said he’d only live another year anyway,” Alison remarked in a doleful voice. She twisted a strand of hair and fell back onto the bed. “I’d really like my own horse. But my folks say we can’t afford it.”

  “It’s an expense,” I allowed, and before I could elaborate, Alison burst into tears.

  I staggered across the piles to put a hand on her arm. “What’s wrong, honey?” The obvious answer made me feel foolish.

  “My mom wasn’t bad!” The words were thick and muddled, but they hit me like a whip. “She had needs! She wanted a life of her own! Why did she leave me?”

  My shoulders slumped. I wasn’t sure what Alison meant by the question. “You mean … after the divorce?”

  But Alison was crying convulsively, her face buried in her hands. Kneeling next to the bed, I patted her and waited. Over the years, I’ve covered many stories involving parents and children. No matter how indifferent, how selfish, how cruel the mother, there is a bond that no amount of evil can break. Children love their mothers in a way that defies reason. It’s both reassuring and terrifying.

  Alison was saying something, but the words were incoherent. She was bordering on hysterics. I gave her arm a sharp little shake. At last, she pushed the long hair off her face and looked at me.

  “He didn’t do it,” she declared, the tears still streaming down her face. “I don’t care about the map. He didn’t do it.”

  My fingers pressed into Alison’s arm. I was mystified. “Who didn’t do what?” I asked, afraid that she was about to go off the deep end.

  The bedroom door was flung open. Susan Lindahl wore a frightened expression. “What’s going on here?” she asked, her tone sharpened by fear.

  In what seemed like one blurred motion, Alison jumped off the bed, flew across the room, and shut herself in the closet.

  Chapter Nine

  ALL THE WAY downstairs and into the living room, Susan Lindahl was apologetic. “Alison is suffering from a lot of conflicting emotions. I work in Human Resources for the City of Everett, so I get my share of lives in chaos. We can’t expect much else from Alison right now. Linda is going to become a saint before Alison resolves her feelings about her birth mother.”

  We had reached the open archway that led to the living room. I could hear Vida commiserating with Howard. The snatches of conversation indicated that they were talking about Linda’s maternal inadequacies.

  “It’s understandable,” I remarked. “It must be hard on you in particular. By definition, stepmothers have a lousy image.”

  Susan’s smile was wry. “You bet. But I knew what I was getting into. The bad part—no, it’s the good part, really—is that I can’t have children of my own. That’s let me throw myself full bore into the role of mother. At least Alison doesn’t have to worry about competing with my, quote, real children.” Susan made quotation marks with her fingers.

  Vida was on her feet. “We really shouldn’t bother these nice people any longer,” she declared, sounding reproachful. “Besides, if it snows in the pass, we ought to be heading home. It’s going on nine.”

  Clearly Howie wasn’t going to coax us into lingering. He had scrambled to his feet and was handing Vida her purse.

  “Now, don’t go printing something personal,” he warned. “I kept out of Linda’s private life after the divorce. Alison is my only concern.”

  Vida nodded. “I understand completely. Very difficult, these custody battles. And so disturbing to the children. Your stance is admirable, Howie. I’m glad you won’t end up in court.”

  As Vida turned toward the front door, I realized that Howie hadn’t handed me my purse. Next, I realized that he couldn’t: It was still upstairs in Alison’s room.

  Making apologies, I hurried up the stairs and knocked on Alison’s door. It seemed to take forever before she peeked out into the hall. I asked her to fetch my purse. She disappeared for about fifteen seconds, then opened the door wide.

  “Here,” she said, with red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks. “I’m sorry I was such a butt.”

  I gave her an encouraging smile. “Being a butt is being human. Don’t worry about it.”

  Turning away, I was startled by the tug on my raincoat. Alison was fixing me with helpless, hopeless blue eyes. “Look,” she said in less than a whisper.

  The piece of paper had been torn from a small spiral notebook. At first, it made no sense. Then, as I studied the squiggles and lines and numbers, I realized what it meant: The felt-pen markings were a map of sorts, showing Highway 187 from the bridge over the Skykomish River to the ranger station cutoff. And there, just past the Petersen farm, was an X. It didn’t take a Michelin guidebook genius to figure out that it marked the clearing where Linda Lindahl was killed.

  “Where’d you get this?” I demanded in a voice almost as inaudible as Alison’s.

  The girl swallowed hard. “In the magazine rack. One of my chores for this week was to clean it out. It was stuck in between some Sports Illustrateds and Home-Crafters.” The blue eyes were pleading. “It’s not important, is it? I mean, you’re a reporter; you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

  “Sure.” I prayed that my smile was reassuring. But even as I pocketed the piece of paper, I had a sinking feeling. And if I was dismayed, I could only imagine how sick at heart Alison must be.

  “… wanted joint custody just to be perverse.” Vida made the turn onto the highway that crossed Ebey Slough and eventually led to the Stevens Pass corridor.

  I hadn’t been paying strict attention. Alison’s piece of paper was burning a hole in the pocket of my raincoat. “Joint custody?” I said, somewhat vaguely.

  Vida gunned the big Buick. “Isn’t that what I said? Linda got the bee in her bonnet last summer. She took Alison school shopping and let her buy all sorts of things at The Gap and Nordstrom’s Brass Plum. Until then, she had only visitational rights, once a month. That was part of the divorce decree, which, according to Howie, was agreeable to both of them. But last August, Linda changed her mind. She wanted Alison every other weekend and for the summers. Howie and Susan fought it. A hearing was scheduled in Everett for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.”

  The little map seemed to burn my hip. “Did Alison know?”

  Vida headed up the hill that led to Snohomish. “No. They didn’t intend to tell her until after the hearing. If the judge ruled in their favor, they’d decided to leave well enough alone. Why tell the poor child? If not, then Alison would have to know. But they planned to wait until after Thanksgiving anyway.”

  We had bypassed Snohomish on the Highway 2 cutoff before I
told Vida about the piece of paper. She almost lost control of the car.

  “What? In the magazine rack? Oh, Emma, that’s peculiar! I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

  Neither did I. “Did you ferret out any information about Howard’s alibi?”

  Vida was gripping the wheel with tightly clenched hands. “Only in a vague sort of way. Howard and Susan both stuck by their story about Dick Johnson. Howard said he’d never heard of the man, but that meant nothing—he often got calls from people who’d been referred to him by a second or even a third party.”

  We drove in silence from Monroe to Sultan. Somewhere beyond Gold Bar, I mused aloud that Milo Dodge should see the hand-drawn map.

  “I don’t like it,” Vida said again, clicking her windshield wipers to a higher setting. As we climbed in altitude, there was snow mixed in with the rain.

  “We can’t conceal evidence,” I pointed out.

  “Define evidence.” Vida’s tone was terse. “How long was that piece of paper in the magazine rack? Is it in Howard’s handwriting? Or Susan’s? How did Alison know it was where her mother was killed?”

  The last question made my spine tingle. “You aren’t suggesting that Alison …?” I let the query die. “The girl would know. It would be important to her. Children are like that.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose.” Having raised three daughters, Vida understood female adolescents as well as anybody. Which isn’t saying much.

  “Maybe it was for a hike or a fishing trip or camping out.” I, too, found myself making excuses for the Howard Lindahls.

  “It could be any of those things,” Vida agreed as big wet flakes of snow splattered the windshield. “We mustn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “The custody fight provides a motive,” I said as we crossed the county line.

  “Only if Howard and Susan lost.” Vida slowed the car to forty miles an hour, keeping a lengthy space between the Buick and the van in front of us.

  “I think they would have lost,” I said after a long pause. Now, as we made one of several crossings over the Skykomish River, the rain had turned completely to snow. “It sounds as if Linda voluntarily surrendered custody at the time of the divorce. That being the case, there wouldn’t be much reason to deny her request.”