by Mary Daheim
Milo and Blackwell had a history. As the only mill owner in Alpine and now a county commissioner, Jack considered himself a big mover and shaker. The two men had been at odds since they were both in their twenties. Jack liked to throw his weight around, and even as a deputy, Milo hadn’t taken kindly to anyone who tried to bring him to heel. The relationship had been further fractured when Jack ran against Milo for sheriff—unsuccessfully—back when the job was an elected position.
“Since when did Blackwell get so softhearted?” I asked.
“I don’t think it’s that,” Milo replied. “I figure the SOB’s embarrassed. Oh, the brake tampering, the attempt to run him down, the shot that only tore his pants—he might’ve gone with that, but when Jennifer stabbed him in the back after he banged her for old times’ sake and then he went to sleep—that was too much. Especially since the moron didn’t even know he’d been stabbed and the wound got infected.”
I nodded. “That doesn’t make Jack look too swift. And even you have to admit he’s a shrewd businessman.”
“Oh, yeah,” Milo conceded, “the asshole is that. Will you write the story or hand it over to Laskey?”
“I’ll let him do it. I’d be tempted to turn it into a humor piece. Besides, Mitch gets touchy if he thinks I’m interfering with his beat.”
“He’s a prickly sort,” Milo said, taking a last swig of coffee before standing up and glancing over his shoulder. “Hey—there’s still nobody around. You want to close the door and pretend we’re in conference?”
“I have an editorial to write, Sheriff,” I said primly. “In fact, it’s the one where I announce Fuzzy’s reorganization plan.”
“Sounds like your readers will try to run you and Baugh out of town. Maybe I should assign a deputy to protect you. Too bad I can’t afford to do that.” He picked up his hat and started out the door.
“Hey!” I called after him. “Wait! What’s going on at the fish hatchery? Amanda got a strange call from Walt.”
“Oh.” Milo turned around and moved to the side of my desk. “I don’t know yet. Doe Jamison and Dwight Gould headed out there a few minutes before I went to the bank. Some problem with the hatchery’s wetlands.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Damnit, now that we’re married, why do I still have trouble keeping my hands off of you?”
I looked up at him, craning my neck to make up for the thirteen-inch difference in height. “We promised to not be … um … demonstrative in public now that we’re a sedate married couple. It isn’t good for our professional images.”
His hazel eyes sparked. “That doesn’t make sense. Now we’ve got legal grounds to make fools of ourselves.”
I leaned as far away from him as I could without tipping over. “That’s my point. Do we really want to look like a pair of idiots?”
His arms fell to his sides. “We’ve already done that.”
“For the first few years we hung out together, you hardly ever touched me. Dare I ask how you exercised such self-restraint?”
“It was tough. I thought if I made a move, I couldn’t stop and I’d scare you. We weren’t even dating. Oh, hell,” he muttered. “See you later, Emma.”
I smiled as I watched him stride through the newsroom. I was both happy and content. Yet I still regretted that it had taken me fifteen years to reach that state, when all along Milo Dodge had been right in front of me—and he’d always had my back. Emma Lord, bat-blind when it came to love. At least I woke up in time to become Emma Dodge.
I’d managed to produce three so-so paragraphs by the time Janie Engelman Borg Engelman showed up in my office looking for Vida.
“I think,” I said, “she’s at the retirement home. Can I help you?”
“Well …” Janie shifted from one foot to the other. “Not sure. I got a wedding picture for her. Of Fred and me. Even if it’s the second time.”
I was used to Janie’s choppy speech. “I think it’s fine. Congratulations. I’m glad you and Fred got back together.”
“Me and Fred, too. He got out of rehab. Before we married. Again.”
“I’m happy for both of you,” I said. I didn’t add that I was also happy for Milo. The Engelmans’ first union had broken up because of Fred’s weekend binges. He’d tried to cure himself by checking into the jail Friday nights and staying put until Monday mornings. The sheriff and his staff felt like babysitters. Janie’s rebound marriage to Mickey Borg had been rocky from the start. “Say,” I went on, “Ron Bjornson quit his handyman’s job at headquarters. Would Fred like to take it on when he’s not working at Blackwell Timber?”
Janie’s gamine face brightened. “He might. We could use the money. Mickey cleaned me out. Of my small savings. And TV.”
“I’ll mention it to Milo,” I said. “I heard Mickey left town.”
Janie’s brown eyes darted from side to side as if she expected her ex to come through my walls. “Hard to say. About Mickey.”
Hard to listen to Janie, I thought. But I smiled. “You can forget Mickey now. Didn’t he sell the Icicle Creek Gas ’N Go to a Gustavson?”
Janie nodded. “He kept the money. For himself.”
“I suppose he would, if the divorce was final.”
“It wasn’t.” She scowled. “Typical Mickey. Selfish. I asked him to give the TV back. Fred likes to watch baseball. Mickey said no, Fred can listen to the Mariners on the radio. At noon our time. In Chicago. I told him Fred wants to see it. Not just hear it. Mickey didn’t care. Fred still wants a TV. Maybe we can. With extra money.”
“The main thing,” I pointed out, “is you’re back with Fred and rid of Mickey. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Janie smiled faintly. “I hope not. Maybe he’s gone by now. For good.” She wandered out of my office.
But we hadn’t heard the end of Mickey for good—or for bad.
TWO
I WAS DELETING ALL THREE PARAGRAPHS OF MY FEEBLE EDITORIAL when Amanda poked her head in. “Have you heard anything about the hatchery yet? I saw Dodge come in, but I was in the back shop when he left. Walt hasn’t called again.”
I shook my head. “Milo sent his deputies to check it out. He didn’t seem very excited about it.”
Amanda looked bemused. “I’ve never seen the sheriff get excited about anything.” She winced. “I mean, he seems … ah …”
I laughed. “Never mind. On the job, he’s usually unflappable. Excitability doesn’t become a law enforcement officer. I’ll call him when I think he’s heard back from Gould and Jamison. He did mention that it had something to do with the wetlands.”
Amanda frowned. “The wetlands? What could happen unless they dried up? But it’s raining.”
“It could be vandalism, I suppose. Mitch told me the Big Toy at Old Mill Park had gotten trashed over the weekend. The schools are on spring break, and that always means trouble.”
“You’re right. That didn’t occur to me.” She put a hand on her bulging abdomen. “After so many years of thinking we’d never have our own baby, it still seems like a miracle. It’s hard to believe that keeping track of school schedules will be important five years from now.”
The idea obviously cheered her. She was smiling as she headed to the front office. Last fall, the Hanson marriage was rocky, with each blaming the other for their childless state. Then, as they considered adoption, Mother Nature stepped in.
Our conversation reminded me to call Viv Marsden to see if she knew what was going on at her husband’s hatchery. But Viv wasn’t home. I didn’t bother to leave her a message. Milo would find out soon enough. Whether or not he’d remember to call me was another matter. Marriage had not changed the sheriff’s concept of what was news.
Ten minutes and two more dull editorial starts later, I lectured myself: This isn’t the Queen’s Speech. Stop pussyfooting around the issue. No, Skykomish County readers don’t like change. Yes, they prefer keeping their money in their pockets. Just say so off the top and go from there.
“Keep the
change. Make the change. This is what Mayor Fuzzy Baugh is asking of SkyCo residents. Change is good when it costs less than the status quo.” The writing didn’t sparkle, but it might get readers’ attention. I gathered steam and kept typing. I was almost done when Vida returned from wherever she’d been for the past hour and a half.
“I managed to reach a rapprochement with Maud,” she declared, sitting down in one of my visitor chairs. “I told her that featuring any of those old fools who can stand upright and possibly even move on a dance floor spoke well for the retirement home, especially for the smug and overbearing Lutherans who run it.”
I grimaced. “Your exact words?”
“Of course not.” Vida removed the bowler and fluffed up her unruly gray curls. “But that was the gist of it. If I could’ve told her what I really think—which is that the Presbyterians could run a much better facility and in a more thrifty manner. Of course the Lutherans are in the majority, so it can’t be helped. At least we finally have a new permanent minister at our church. I do wish he hadn’t come from Castle Rock. It’ll take him some time to get to know everybody.”
What Vida meant was that it would take him some time to get to know everything about everybody. According to her, the longtime minster, James Purebeck, had not been reluctant to preach about sins that members of his congregation had recently committed. Naturally, Vida knew enough about her fellow Presbyterians to identify who had committed them. But Pastor Purebeck had disgraced himself six months ago by running off to Mukilteo with Daisy McFee, who, according to Vida, had loose morals and had lived in Alpine for only a short time. In my House & Home editor’s eyes, it was hard to tell which was the more serious transgression.
“Pastor McClelland is fairly young, isn’t he?” I said.
“Late thirties,” Vida replied. “Or course Pastor Purebeck wasn’t much older when he came here.” She couldn’t hide her disgust. “Maturity apparently only aged his exterior, rather than improving his character.”
“I believe you wrote that Kenneth McClelland has a wife and two children,” I said to allay further criticism of Purebeck.
“Yes. They’ve moved into the house next to the church where the Purebecks lived. Of course, it’s owned by the Presbyterians.” She heaved a sigh, her imposing bust straining at the orange-and-blue striped blouse she wore under a black vest. “I noticed Janie Engelman dropped off her latest wedding picture. I wonder where Mickey Borg has gone.”
“I don’t,” I said. “He’s a jerk.” The words were out of my mouth before I remembered that Mickey had fathered the first two of Holly Gross’s three children. Or so Vida had told me when she’d revealed that the third and youngest one belonged to Roger. “By the way,” I said hastily, to change the subject, “Father Kelly announced at Mass yesterday that he’ll be gone this week to visit family in Houston. We’ll have a sub from Monroe. You might want to use that on your page or in ‘Scene.’ ”
“Houston!” Vida shook her head. “Can you imagine living in a huge place like that? So many hurricanes and Enron and heat!”
“Ben’s in El Paso,” I said. “He’s working with the immigrants.”
“El Paso.” Vida spoke the city’s name as if it were a new disease she’d just discovered. “Really, now. I can’t imagine it’s a very nice place. But I realize that priests must go where they’re sent. Has your brother any news of it?”
“He’s only been there since the start of Holy Week,” I said. “Not yet a full month.”
Vida got up from her chair. “He’s served in other peculiar areas. I suppose he’s used to it.” She exited my office in her splay-footed manner.
I decided I’d given Milo enough time to find out what was going on at the hatchery. I dialed his number, but Deputy Sam Heppner answered.
“Dodge isn’t here. Call back after lunch.” He hung up.
Sam is even more churlish than Dwight Gould when it comes to dealing with women. At least Dwight had finally shown his human side by having a brief encounter with his ex-wife, back in February. I assumed it was brief, though for all I knew, Dwight and Kay Whitman Burns, RestHaven’s PR person, were whiling away their off-hours in each other’s arms. Dwight wasn’t inclined to discuss his personal life, even when he didn’t have one, so I doubted he’d talk about it now.
It was after eleven-thirty when Mitch returned from his interview with Fuzzy Baugh. “I can’t quite figure that guy out,” my reporter said, refilling his coffee mug. “Most of the time he puts on that Louisiana accent and talks drivel, but then he comes up with something kind of shrewd. I think I got a couple of good quotes from him.”
“That’s more than I’ve had on some occasions over the years,” I admitted. “But the reorganization idea is good. I’ve wondered if his wife, Irene, came up with it. She always seems savvier than her husband. Still, when Fuzzy and I’ve discussed it, he makes perfect sense.”
“It’s a sound proposal,” Mitch said. “Why wasn’t Alpine incorporated way back when?”
“It was started as a company town by the original mill owner, Carl Clemans, in 1910. Over time, telegraph and railroad employees, along with other related types of workers, moved here. When Mr. Clemans closed the mill in 1929, it appeared the town might wither away. There was no year-round access except by train. But Vida’s future father-in-law, Rufus Runkel, and another man, whose name I recall only as Olav the Obese, decided to start a ski operation. The sport was just coming into its own. They saved Alpine from extinction.”
Mitch looked grim. “I can understand how a small town could disappear without jobs. The news I hear out of Detroit is damned gloomy with all the problems in the auto industry. Maybe Brenda and I got out just in time. God knows newspapers everywhere are shrinking or going out of business.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I said. “The Oregon Journal—Portland’s afternoon daily—went out of business nine years before I quit The Oregonian to move to Alpine. I wonder how long we can hold out, but our relative isolation helps.”
Mitch nodded. “It’s weird after Detroit. People here don’t seem to care much about what happens in the wider world. I suppose it’s being surrounded by all the mountains and so far from a big city. I’ll work through the lunch hour on Baugh’s article. I’ve still got a couple of features to finish, and I have to cover the county commissioners tonight. I’m glad they switched their meetings from Tuesday to Monday. When they nattered on, as they often do, it made things tight for deadline.”
“I agree,” I said. “It’s just as well they won’t see my editorial and the mayor’s comments before they meet. Take a look at what I wrote about Fuzzy’s plan, to see if it works with your interview. Oh—by the way, Jack Blackwell dropped charges against Jennifer Hood. The news came in after you’d been at the sheriff’s headquarters.”
Mitch made a face. “She tries to kill the guy four times and he lets her get away with it?”
“Jack’s holed up, licking his wounds. Besides, he probably doesn’t want Jennifer telling everybody how badly he treats the women in his life. Patti Marsh has taken him back—again.”
My reporter shook his head in apparent dismay over the folly of females who stood by their men no matter how many times they’d ended up in the ER. I, too, had wondered about that phenomenon over the years. Doc Dewey had told me recently that he felt such abusers and the abused needed each other. He claimed both had low self-esteem. I still wasn’t sure if I bought into his theory, but Young Doc, as he was known, often channeled the wisdom of his late father, Old Doc Dewey.
It was going on noon. I wondered if Milo was free for lunch. Vida had already left, and Leo was out making his rounds. I planned on heading for the Burger Barn, which was catty-corner from the sheriff’s office, so I decided to see if he could join me.
The rain had almost stopped by the time I started the block-and-a-half walk to headquarters. I sniffed the fresh mountain air and looked up at Alpine Baldy, where the clouds still lingered below the five-thousand-foot level. T
he noon whistle blew at Blackwell Timber just as I entered Milo’s lair.
The receptionist, Lori Cobb, greeted me with a friendly smile. Deputy Sam Heppner looked as if I’d been ringing a bell to announce that I had plague. I didn’t see any sign of Tanya—or her father.
“Did your boss take his daughter to lunch?” I asked Lori.
She shook her head. “Tanya went to the mall. Dodge is still at the hatchery with Dwight and Doe. Mr. Fleetwood was just here, and I think he went out there to see what was going on. It’s close to his radio station, but he didn’t know anything about it.”
I decided to ignore my growling stomach. If my archrival had gone to the hatchery, I’d go there, too. I had no intention of letting Spencer Fleetwood force my husband to help his wife get scooped.
“Thanks, Lori,” I said. “Maybe it’s worth a trip for me, too. I don’t suppose the sheriff or his deputies have let the rest of you know what’s going on?”
Sam moved closer to me from behind the reception area’s curving counter. “If they did, it’s not for publication,” he snarled.
“That’s not for you to decide, Deputy.” I swiveled around, narrowly missing a cardboard box in front of the counter. Flouncing out the door, I almost collided with a man whose first name I recalled as Gus. I all but ran back down the street to my aging Honda, impervious to the wind that had suddenly picked up and the rumbling of a freight train going through town on the other side of the Advocate office. At least I didn’t have to cross the tracks to get to the hatchery.
It took me less than ten minutes to drive along Front Street, take a jog onto the Burl Creek Road, go by the modest homes sprinkled along the route, then pass KSKY’s cinder-block studio and Skykomish Community College’s campus. Entering a dense stand of third-growth forest, I crossed Burl Creek—and finally reached the hatchery, just east of the fork in the Tye and Foss Rivers.
I spotted a SkyCo cruiser, Milo’s black Yukon SUV, and Spence’s Beamer in the parking lot. I couldn’t see any activity around the main building, the wetlands area, or the ponds, which were partially visible behind some steel sheds. I parked my car and headed for the entrance. The small lobby was empty. I hadn’t been inside the hatchery in years. I wasn’t sure which way to go.