The Alpine Fury

by Mary Daheim

  Milo scratched his graying temples. “I should have checked further into Larry’s alibi,” he admitted. “Andy’s seemed a little shaky, too, because I figured Reba would he for him. Denise didn’t remember the name of the movie she’d seen with Rick, let alone what time they got to the Whistling Marmot. As it turns out, Christie would have lied through her teeth to save her ass, and Troy would probably have gone right along with her.”

  “As indeed he did—all the way to Michigan.”

  Milo didn’t want to think about Christie Johnston’s flight from justice. Not yet, anyway. “What I couldn’t quite get into my head was the part about the map,” Milo confessed. No doubt he was as tired as I was, and his defenses were down. “How did you tie that in to Larry?”

  I sipped my drink and took a deep breath. My brain hadn’t yet turned as numb as my body. Adrenaline, Leo would say. “Denise brought us a memorial ad for Linda. Larry had attached a note. It appeared to be torn out of the same notebook that the map had come from. Same size, same paper, same dark pen—maybe the same printing. That’s a guess, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely. I keep a little spiral notebook with me. So do you. But neither of ours has the same kind of paper as the map and the memo. Both were better quality than what we get at the drugstore. I know my paper; it’s my business. A banker would have a nice notebook with nice paper. But would he leave it behind at the bank or take it with him? That’s what Vida and I were trying to find out last night.”

  “Larry had it with him in his briefcase. Your foray into the bank almost got you killed.” Milo looked severe.

  I, in turn, looked chastened. “Obstinacy. Righteousness. That’s what killed Linda. Even before Dan Ruggiero was sent to Alpine, she wanted to call in the state auditors. Along about Tuesday, Marv must have let Larry know what was going on. Marv had to—Larry was second-in-command. Larry acted as fast as he could, given the circumstances. He didn’t care what Dan Ruggiero found out—that could be kept under wraps, or so I think Larry figured. But Linda—she’d broadcast the news all over Alpine. Nailing Christie was her aim. And in doing so, Linda would bring Larry down with her.”

  Milo was now shaking his head. “No, no, Emma, you’re pushing it. Sure, Larry worked himself into a homicidal fit because his sister was going to blow the whistle on a crook. But that didn’t reflect on Larry himself.”

  “Yes, it did. Larry hired Christie. Either he never checked her references or he let her charm him into offering her the job. Whichever way it was, Marv would have had to sit back and reconsider his dynasty. Marv thought the world of Linda. I suspect he was already beginning to think that she should be the next president of the Bank of Alpine. Larry couldn’t live with that. So Linda had to die.”

  For a few moments, Milo sat with his elbows on the table, mulling over my hypothesis. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll tell you one thing—Linda and Larry never could stand each other, not even when they were kids.”

  I nodded. “It’s a family tradition. Marv and Elmer, Larry and Linda, Denise and her brothers. The Petersens may be one of Alpine’s most beloved families—except by each other.”

  “Weird.” Milo stifled a yawn. He pointed to his almost empty glass. “You want another one?”

  “Why not?” I was winding down, leveling off to a comfortable plateau where only the scrape on my left knee still hurt. “I’ll also have one of those.” I pointed to Milo’s cigarettes.

  “Hey!” Milo held the pack far out of my reach. “No, you don’t! What did you tell me about these things?”

  I gave Milo my sweetest smile. “Smoking will kill you. But then, so will drinking. And driving. And banking.”

  Reluctantly Milo punched the bottom of the pack and shot a cigarette in my direction. Then, with a huge sigh, he lighted it for me. I sat back and puffed, puffed, puffed.

  “What have you heard from Seattle about the Johnstons’ car?” I knew that Christie and Troy had dumped their Nissan off at a sales lot near the airport on Saturday. Milo had had it traced through the Department of Motor Vehicles.

  “It’s got some front-end and axle damage,” Milo said, after a nod to Oren Rhodes. “We can’t prove that Christie tried to run down Andy Cederberg—or Dan Ruggiero, as she mistakenly thought. We’ll settle for the charges we get from the state auditors. Of course, we’ll have to extradite her. If we can.”

  Milo had already explained that the FBI wouldn’t get involved unless the proven amount of theft was over a certain figure. There were also some extradition technicalities between the states of Washington and Michigan. Maybe it had something to do with the Rose Bowl football rivalry. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t much care. Christie’s embezzlement seemed pretty tame compared to fratricide. I puffed some more.

  “What is this?” Vida was looming over our table. “Emma! Oh, Emma, you ought to be ashamed!”

  I looked at her through the thin spiral of smoke. “I am, Vida. Deeply. What are you doing in the bar?”

  “I …” Her eyes were still riveted on my cigarette. “I came in here to have a bit of supper. There was some clam casserole left over from the dish I made for Marv and Cathleen, but when I heated it for myself, it seemed a little … off. Anyway, I heard you two were back here, so after I finished my prime rib, I thought I’d say hello. Tsk, tsk.” Vida shook her head, the pink ears on her snow-bunny cap dancing. “You’re both utterly disreputable.”

  Milo pulled over a chair from the vacant table next to us. “Sit down, Vida. Have a drink.” The sheriff glanced at Oren Rhodes. “Emma and I are going to hell in a handcart anyway. We might as well get good and tight.”

  Oren, startled at seeing Vida anywhere but in the dining room, began to gush. “Something sweet, maybe, Mrs. Runkel? A nice liqueur, or a hot toddy or the first of our seasonal eggnogs …”

  Vida had her cheek propped on her gloved hand. “I don’t suppose,” she said with a doubtful expression, “that you could mix a Singapore sling?”

  Wednesday’s edition of The Alpine Advocate was stuffed—with both news and advertising. Larry Petersen’s arrest was a banner headline. Vida, bless her, had taken a picture of Milo reading Larry his rights in the middle of a snowstorm on Front Street. She had come out of the bank with Rick—and her camera—just after the sheriff cuffed his suspect. Fortunately, I was out of the picture, wallowing around in the snow on the sidewalk.

  In the lull between the delivery of our advance copies and the public’s reaction, I congratulated my staff on a productive workweek.

  Leo was pleased; Ginny was thoughtful; Vida was subdued; and Carla was wan, having made a valiant effort to return to the office after only a day’s absence. She might still have been ailing, if, according to Vida, Peyton Flake hadn’t made a house call to check on Carla’s condition.

  “I don’t get it,” Carla said, still mystified about the part her photos had played in solving the crime. “What did Big Mike Brockelman have to do with anything?”

  I was sitting in Vida’s visitor’s chair. “We knew Mike was seeing Linda on the sly,” I explained, avoiding eye contact with Leo on my immediate left. “When I saw his truck in Maple Lane in the first picture you took, he was sitting in the cab. In the second shot, on Alpine Way, the cab was empty. If he didn’t kill Linda, why did he move his truck and where did he go? The only explanation was that he saw someone else go into Linda’s condo first. It was her brother, Larry, but Mike might not recognize him. He probably figured that Linda already had a date. So Mike decided to change his dance card for the night. He drove around to the front of Parc Pines and spent the evening with Amanda Hanson, whose husband was out of town.”

  “You’re guessing, babe,” Leo said with an amused look.

  I shrugged. “Maybe it was Marisa Foxx. It sure wasn’t the guy Vida and I saw go into the sauna. I hope.”

  With a limp hand, Carla tossed her black hair over her shoulder. “I wish I’d seen Larry go into Parc Pines. Then I could testify at the trial. But what would I wear?”
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  “Your thinking cap,” Vida snapped. “If you’d had it on the night Linda was killed, you might have seen Larry. He must have had to walk from wherever he parked his car.”

  Carla’s hypothetical wardrobe was the least of my problems. I didn’t relish the thought of Larry Petersen’s trial. Judging from Vida’s unhappy demeanor, she didn’t, either. Having a member of one of Alpine’s first families on trial for killing his sister was going to be very difficult for local residents to swallow. Maybe, between the ineptitude of the prosecuting attorney, Emmett Swecker, and the onerous task of picking an unbiased jury, the trial would be moved to Snohomish County.

  It was Ginny who changed the subject. “Rick and I are going to dinner Friday night at Café de Flore.”

  “It’s very pricey,” Vida said.

  “I’ve never liked French food,” Leo remarked.

  “You’ll have to eat snails,” Carla put in.

  Obviously Ginny didn’t care if she had to eat dirt. Rising from the chair, I meandered into my office. The irate phone calls would start soon. I sat down at my desk and lighted a cigarette from the pack I’d bought that morning at Safeway.

  Ginny and Rick seemed to be reconciled. Carla was at least speaking to Peyton Flake again. Milo and Honoria had plans to drive to Bothell and have dinner at the Nieuw Amsterdam. Trying Dutch food was another concession that Milo was making to prove to Honoria that he wasn’t just another narrow-minded, small-town guy.

  “Unbelievable.” It was Leo, standing in the doorway. “I thought you had more character, babe. How long have you been off those things?”

  “Too long,” I replied rebelliously. “I’ll quit again on New Year’s Day.” Noting Leo’s skeptical expression as he sat down in one of my visitor’s chairs, I gave him a haughty look. “I will. I did it before, I’ll do it again.”

  “Sure.” Leo’s face changed, sagging a bit with his brown eyes vacantly staring beyond my right shoulder. “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what? Smoking?”

  He gave a little grunt. “Maybe that, too. But I’ve been a real dickhead.”

  “How so?”

  “Ohhh …” He leaned back in the chair and reached around to close my door. “Before you invited me to dinner, I kept wanting to ask you out on a real date. I’d call and you’d answer and then I’d chicken out. I knew how you felt about fraternization.”

  The hang-ups came to mind at once. I realized that I hadn’t had any since I’d cooked dinner for Leo. “That’s okay. I thought it was kids.”

  The lines in Leo’s face grew deeper. “You were right. A fifty-year-old kid. Maybe that’s what my ex meant. I never grew up.”

  “Most of us don’t.” I grimaced, thinking of Tom, and how only the capture of a killer had kept me from dwelling on the possibility of his divorce.

  Leo gave another grunt, this time of agreement. “Maybe. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mean to push. I think you’re a doll, but I really understand why you don’t want to turn the office into a playpen.”

  “Oh. I see.” I did, of course, but some perverse part of me wanted Leo to persevere. Or something. Maybe I merely wanted to be flattered. “Okay,” I said lightly. “Then why don’t we make Coffee Toss Two a group event? How about that Thanksgiving invitation? If Honoria doesn’t go to Carmel, she and Milo will be there, along with my brother and my son and Carla and her roommate, Marilynn, and maybe Father Den from church.”

  Leo lifted his burnished eyebrows. “It sounds like an all-star cast. How many?” Before I could answer, Leo was ticking off the guest list on his fingers. “Ten, if I come. Would you mind making it eleven?”

  “Huh? No, that’s fine. I’ve already ordered a twenty-eight-pound turkey.” I tried to act nonchalant. “Who are you bringing?”

  Leo grinned, but sheepishly. “Delphine Corson. We’ve sort of been seeing each other for a while.”

  I should have known. Leo had been expecting to hear from Delphine when I called on Saturday. Leo had mentioned that the flu was going round, and I knew that Delphine had come down with it. Leo had been given a ride to work the day after his accident by Delphine. Leo had ordered the roses for Linda’s funeral not because he’d been seeing her but to impress Delphine. Leo’s expensive potted chrysanthemum wasn’t meant merely to placate me but to …

  “Sure,” I said, hoping the pause hadn’t been too lengthy. “Delphine’s fun. Bring her along.”

  “Great.” Leo stood up and slapped my desk. “She’s got family here, but she says their holiday get-togethers are always a disaster. They fight a lot.”

  “How very Alpine,” I said, but it was under my breath, and Leo had already strolled out of my office. The phone rang while I was still shaking my head.

  “Larry voted for Bush,” said the voice in my ear. “Serves him right. I’ll bet he called Linda and told her to come up to our place to get together.”

  “Probably,” I said to Elmer Petersen. It made sense. It gave Linda a reason to be on the Icicle Creek Road.

  “I never liked Larry. I never liked Linda much, either. Marv’s kids were as stuck on themselves as he is. But I think Linda voted for Clinton.”

  “Maybe so.” The lights on my phone were now all glowing. The Advocate had hit the streets, or at least the delivery boxes of Alpine. “Excuse me, Elmer, I’ve got to—”

  “It was him, you know.” Elmer sounded unusually sanguine.

  “Yes, it was Larry—”

  “Not Larry.” Elmer now sounded cantankerous. “I’m not talking about now, I’m talking about then. My father told me. It was back in 1932, when he still thought I was going to take over for him at the bank.”

  I had no idea what Elmer was jabbering about. “Excuse me, I—”

  “Oh, he was a great one for the ladies, along with the gambling. A real rascal. The family was always in debt up to their snooty eyeballs. His missus wouldn’t let on. Then he hit a lucky streak. Not that it lasted, but it bailed them out for a while. In fact, it was too good to be true, at least in terms of explaining to his wife where all the money came from, so he put it into the bank. My father was happy; so was Carl Clemans and the rest of them. They needed the capital. Lucky, too, that FDR came along and kept the country going.”

  It had finally occurred to me that Elmer was talking about the silent partner who had helped found the Bank of Alpine. “Who was it, Mr. Petersen?” I asked, keeping my voice bland.

  “Who?” Elmer chortled. “Earl Ennis Blatt, that’s who. Vida’s old man. How do you put up with that Runkel woman? She drives me nuts.”

  A week later, life at the office had calmed down considerably. Because we had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, I gave everybody, including me, Wednesday afternoon off. Adam and Ben were flying into Sea-Tac at six-ten. They planned to rent a car and drive to Alpine. Meanwhile, I had to run a dozen errands, which included a big stop at the Grocery Basket. It was almost five when I got home.

  I checked the answering machine, but there were no messages. None of my guests had called to cancel. Adam and Ben must be on schedule. I hadn’t heard from Tom since his call ten days earlier. He was probably caught up in preparing for the farce that would be the Cavanaugh Thanksgiving dinner. I guessed it would be catered, or that they’d eat out in an elegant San Francisco restaurant. Sandra hadn’t been much of a cook even in the days before she boiled her purse in the soup kettle.

  Next, I put away the groceries. I could barely squeeze the huge turkey onto the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. But its plump presence made me smile. I liked the idea of big holiday gatherings. It would have been even better if Vida could have joined us, but naturally, she preferred spending the day with her three daughters and their families. Maybe some of Roger’s cousins would truss him up and roast him on a slow-turning spit.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have such evil thoughts about Roger. Instead, I should think kindly on the shattered Petersens. Linda was dead; Larry was in jail. They’d never share Thanksgiving again with
their family.

  But as far as I could tell, the Petersens’ holidays had never been happy. The facade was there, but like so many of Alpine’s secrets, the reality was ugly, and filled with rancor.

  Finally I made myself a ham sandwich and sat down to look at The Advocate, which I hadn’t yet seen in print. Leafing through the Thanksgiving special edition, I felt a surge of pride. The front page had a follow-up story on the Petersen murder, the second lead was the state auditors’ request that criminal charges be filed against Christie Johnston, and our third big article featured interviews with the county commissioners regarding the proposed bond issue. There were plenty of ads, too, including a two-column-by-six-inch Buddy Bayard studio portrait of the munificent Ed Bronsky family, wishing that everybody in Alpine would get stuffed for Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if Ed meant what he said, but he was smiling in the picture.

  At last I came to Vida’s “Scene Around Town,” which I hadn’t yet read this week, and which she had proofed herself:

  Rick Erlandson and Ginny Burmeister holding hands at Sunday’s turkey shoot at the Overholt farm … Durwood Parker spotted on a snowboard coming down Sixth Street and making an unscheduled stop under a mailbox between Cedar and Cascade … Deputy Sam Heppner, on a well-deserved day off, displaying the eleven-pound steelhead he caught in the Tye River Monday … Darla Puckett’s lips were sealed when fellow members of the Burl Creek Thimble Club tried to get her to reveal her mouthwatering pecan pie recipe…. That’s newcomer Amanda Hanson waiting on the organized early birds who are already mailing off their Christmas parcels at the post office…. Elmer Petersen suffering from scratches in a fight with his pretty Persian, Mamie Eisenhower. Did the cat get your tongue, Elmer? It should have….