The Alpine Yeoman

by Mary Daheim

  “Jesus, Emma!” he cried, crossing the room in three long strides and flopping down to put his arm around me. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m just … upset.” I looked up at him, seeing the distress in his hazel eyes. “He didn’t touch me. He was just … an asshole.”

  Milo didn’t say anything. He leaned down to press his face against the top of my head for a moment. Then he just held me close and caressed my back. When he finally spoke, his voice was all business.

  “I have to go back to headquarters. You’re coming with me. I won’t leave you alone. Can you manage that?”

  “Okay. But …”

  He put a finger to my lips. “No buts. Those Nelsons are damned dangerous. Gould never got to talk to them today. They either weren’t home or they wouldn’t come to the door. I should’ve guessed that would happen. Besides, I busted your intruder, so I have to take your complaint.” He finally let go of me and stood up. “I’d tell you to take a swig of that booze, but I don’t want anybody to think you were under the influence. Or did you already guzzle a lot of wine at bridge club?”

  “I had one glass,” I asserted as Milo took my hands and brought me to my feet. “I nursed it all evening. Damnit, I don’t even know who this jerk is.”

  “I do,” the sheriff said as he walked to the door while I put on my jacket. “He had ID. His name is Vince Moro. Does that ring any bells?”

  TEN

  “VINCE MORO?” I REPEATED AS WE WENT OUTSIDE. “ISN’T he Wanda Johnson’s ex-husband?”

  “He sure as hell is,” Milo said, opening the Yukon’s passenger door for me. “You’re not going to throw up or something, are you?”

  I glared at him. “No. I think I’ve recovered from the shock of it all. But there’s a hell of a mess out in the carport.”

  Milo shook his head and closed the car door. “How,” he asked after he was behind the wheel and backing out of the driveway, “did you manage to get rid of him? He was covered in booze and broken glass when I ran him down before he got to the Nelson house.”

  “It was a long shot,” I admitted, “but it worked. Stupid people fall for stupid tricks.”

  “He fell, all right,” Milo said as he turned onto Fir. “I take it he didn’t break in. Why did you open the door in the first place?”

  I winced. “I almost didn’t. But it could’ve been Edna Mae or one of the Marsdens from next door or …” My voice trailed away.

  “We’re getting a new door with a bigger peephole you can see through,” the sheriff informed me. “You’ve had problems with the doorbell and the lock, too. You complain about my housekeeping, but your home maintenance sucks. Hell, I’ve done most of it for you over the years, but that was only because I wanted to sleep with you.”

  “Milo! That’s mean!”

  He laughed. “Hey, it worked. Don’t worry. I still want to sleep with you. You do the housework, I’ll do the maintenance. Maybe eventually we’ll get used to each other.”

  I leaned over and grabbed his arm. “You really are awful.”

  “And you really are an idiot,” he said, turning onto Front Street. “Don’t ever let anybody in when I’m not around.”

  “What if it’s Vida? She’ll only come to see me if you’re not around.”

  “That’s her problem, not mine.” Milo pulled into his usual parking spot. “Now I can let Fong go back on patrol.”

  “How come you showed up? I thought you were working the desk.”

  Milo looked at me as if I were about as goofy as I felt. “My wife calls 911, can’t tell Singer what’s going on, and I sit on my dead ass wondering what’s happened to her? I didn’t give a damn if a freaking fleet of state patrol cars showed up. It scared the hell out of me.”

  I lowered my eyes. “It scared me, too.”

  “It should.” Even with his face in shadow, I could see how stern he looked. “Damnit, Emma, how many times over the years have I warned you about being reckless? Okay,” he went on, seeing that I wanted to defend myself, “never mind that you didn’t go looking for trouble tonight—it came to you. But you sure as hell didn’t have to open the door.”

  I hung my head. “I’m sorry. Really.”

  He sighed. “Right.” My husband didn’t sound convinced as he opened his car door. “Can you get out without breaking your leg?”

  “Yes!” My remorse had turned into anger. I opened my door and was in the street before Milo loomed up on the other side of the Yukon.

  He still managed to get to the entrance before I did, but he paused to open one of the double doors for me. “Twit,” he said under his breath as we went inside.

  Dustin Fong was on the phone, but he hung up just as his boss was opening the half door that led behind the counter. “The perp’s locked up,” he said after greeting me. “Shall I go back out on patrol?”

  “Sure,” the sheriff replied. “Keep an eye on the Nelson house. They plan to party. When Blatt comes on duty, pass the word on to him.”

  “Yes, sir,” the ever-polite deputy replied. “Good night, Ms. Lord.”

  I shook my head as Dustin left. After eight years on the job, he still rarely addressed me as Emma. Since I retained my maiden name in my professional capacity, he wouldn’t dream of calling me Mrs. Dodge.

  Instead of going into his office, Milo sat down at Lori Cobb’s desk. “It’s after eleven. We might as well do this here. Do you want to fill out the complaint form or would you like to bang it out on the computer first? I know you screw up when you fill in any kind of form.”

  I glared at my aggravating better half. “Stop pissing me off or I’ll file a harassment complaint against you.”

  “You would,” he said, taking out his cigarettes and lighting up. “I’d offer you one, but we have a No Smoking sign in here.”

  “Then why don’t you arrest yourself?”

  Milo just looked at me and blew smoke in my face.

  “Give me a pen,” I demanded, “and I’ll fill out your stupid form.”

  “You haven’t got a pen?”

  “I don’t have my purse. I left it at home.”

  He leaned back in the chair and gazed at the ceiling. “Jesus. The rest of the Nelson mob may break in and steal it.”

  I spotted a pen on the counter and grabbed it. “Give me the frigging form.”

  Milo acquiesced. “You’re so damned ornery. Are you sure Moro wasn’t asking to borrow a cup of sugar and you threw him out the back door just for the hell of it?”

  “I’d like to throw you out the back door about now,” I snapped, starting to fill in my name and address. “Instead of Emma Lord Dodge, can I put Emma Lord Jackass instead?”

  “You could, but that would nullify the complaint.”

  Aware that I couldn’t rile the sheriff with an AK-47 when he was reining in his emotions, I complied without another word until I was finished. “There,” I said. “Satisfied?”

  He read through the form without comment until he’d finished. Too late, I realized I should’ve timed him.

  “Looks good,” he said. “Want to sit on my lap?”

  I opened my mouth to yell at him, but stopped. “Damn,” I said softly. “Why can’t I stay mad at you?”

  Milo glanced at his watch. “You did better than usual this time. You stayed mad for eleven minutes.”

  “Would you stop timing me?”

  “Can’t help it. I do it with my deputies. It takes Dwight Gould twenty minutes to fill out a simple two-car-accident report. It only takes Doe Jamison six. Sam Heppner’s almost as slow as Gould.” He grimaced. “Where the hell is Heppner?”

  “Where’s he from?” I asked. “I’ve never heard him—or you—talk about his background except that his sister lives in Sultan.”

  “Neither of them are from here,” Milo replied, moving the chair back so he could put his feet on the desk. “Ruth moved to Sultan twenty-odd years ago, when her husband, Phil, went to work for the state highway department. Ruth and Sam grew up in Eastern Washington
. Toppenish, I think. After Sam went into law enforcement, she suggested he move over here. He was my first hire as sheriff.”

  “But you and Sam have never been friends, right?”

  Milo shook his head. “I don’t want to be friends with my deputies. I’ve gone fishing a few times with both Sam and Dwight. In fact, I went hunting a couple of times with Sam. Sometimes one of them will play poker. But that’s different. Those aren’t the kind of situations where you sit around and talk much except about what you’re doing.”

  “Would it help to dig a little into Sam’s background?”

  “Oh … I thought about it, but as I mentioned before, I don’t want him to feel as if we’re snooping into his private life. Still, if he doesn’t show up by Monday, I might have to do some checking.” He frowned at me. “I suppose you’re already doing that.”

  “No,” I assured him. “I haven’t had time. Mitch doesn’t know Sam’s missing, as opposed to being on vacation.”

  “Vida might’ve found out from Bill Blatt.”

  I shrugged. “If she has, she hasn’t mentioned it. Which would be most unlike her. I think Vida has some personal problems of her own. As usual, I suspect whatever it is probably relates to Roger.”

  “Damn that kid.” Milo put out his cigarette. “It’s quiet around here. Your intruder must have gone to sleep.”

  “What happens next with him?”

  “He can post bail tomorrow,” Milo said with a pained expression. “I didn’t know Moro was still around. I thought from what Deanna told Tanya, he’d gone back where he came from after walking out on Wanda, who’s gone back to using Johnson as her last name. As I recall, Moro moved here from Wenatchee.”

  Neither of us spoke for a few moments. “I wonder how he got hooked up with the Nelsons,” I finally said. “Maybe he’s a drifter and latches on to whatever currently unattached woman is available. With the Nelson males doing time, Laverne and her daughter-in-law may not be the type who can survive without a man for very long. I assume Moro didn’t break anything when he fell into what’s left of the carport.”

  “Fong asked if he wanted to see a doctor,” Milo replied. “He didn’t. The only thing he broke was our liquor bottles. He sure as hell was mad, though. He called you all sorts of names. Then he called me all sorts of other names. But I never let on you were Mrs. Dodge.”

  “He’ll find out from the complaint.”

  “Good. That should make him think twice about bothering you.” Abruptly, Milo swung his legs off the desk and leaned closer. “That does not mean you can let your guard down. You got that?”

  “Yes, big guy, I’ve got it. Frankly, I was terrified.”

  “You should’ve been.” He sat up straight again. “Dustman’s taking over the desk while Blatt goes on patrol. I’d better check on our prisoner. He’s the only one we’ve got here at the moment, thank God.”

  As soon as Milo went off to the cells, I stood up to stretch. I’d been sitting for most of the last five hours—except for the encounter with Vince Moro—and I needed to get my circulation flowing.

  Looking out onto Front Street, I could see almost nothing moving. Not a pedestrian in sight, and only two cars and a pickup drove by on this typical late weeknight in Alpine. It was so quiet that I felt as if I stepped outside, I could summon up the past, echoing across the Valley of the Sky from Alpine Baldy to Mount Sawyer. If I listened closely, maybe I could hear the buckers following the instructions of their chaser before a freshly cut tree’s choker noose was removed to send it to the holding pond. I’d learned the language of logging late, but it was magic on the old-timers’ tongues. Off-bearer. Splitter. Rigger. Setter. Tallyman. Edgerman. Vida could recite those titles of the trade as if they were poetry and attach names to each job. Clemans. Duell. Engstrom. Bassen. Napier. Jersey. Deveraux. Duffy. Rix. She knew them all, even if most had come and gone before her time. And be damned to the danger of working in the woods. The death whistle sometimes made its mournful cry, but Alpine’s early settlers were as strong as they were hardy, almost as mythic today as the Norse gods and goddesses in King Olav’s bar.

  “He’s out like a light,” Milo announced, making me jump before I turned around to look at him. “We still have almost half an hour to kill. You want to sit on my lap now?”

  “Uh … no. What if somebody shows up?”

  “They probably won’t, but Evan Singer may be ready to take off. He leaves a little early if the movie lets out before midnight. He still closes up the Whistling Marmot. That guy sure knows his movies. Maybe I should pay more attention and get caught up before I embarrass Tanya in public and admit that the last movie I saw on a real screen was Star Wars.”

  “I’m no better,” I said. “I saw Mystic River on TV and fell asleep.”

  The phone rang. Milo picked it up, and instead of his usual “Dodge here” response, he answered with “Skykomish Sheriff’s Department.” Then he grew quiet, looking resigned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Grundle,” he finally said. “If the Iversens’ dog’s barking, call them, not … Okay, since you’ve talked to … If the barking bothers your cats that much, call Jim Medved. He’s the vet.… Yes, I know you don’t want to bother …” He flinched as I heard a high-pitched voice at the other end of the line. Then silence. Milo slammed down the phone.

  “Grace Grundle with another complaint about her damned cats. She hung up on me. Are you sure you don’t want to sit on my lap?”

  I laughed. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s almost time to go home. But for some reason, your latest offer reminds me of when I was dithering about marrying Tom and came to ask for your advice.”

  Milo chuckled. “You were afraid he’d make you give up the Advocate and move to San Francisco.”

  “Right. You suggested I ask if he was willing to move to Alpine—and he was. But before you and I even started talking, I realized I could solve the problem by leaping across your desk and landing in your arms, where I always felt so safe. Why didn’t I do that?”

  My husband looked stunned. “You’re serious?”

  “Yes,” I said sheepishly. “How dumb was that?”

  “The not leaping part?” He saw me nod. “You were fixated on the guy. Nothing I could ever do—or did—could change that.”

  “True,” I admitted. “It took him getting killed to destroy my dream. Or delusion. Even then, I had trouble realizing I’d been a fool. But he was my son’s father, and Adam wanted to see his parents married. Of course he didn’t know Tom was involved with Irish gunrunners. Acknowledging that he was a criminal wasn’t easy, either.”

  “Hell, Cavanaugh thought he was shelling out money for a worthy cause,” Milo said. “Misguided, but I figure he needed something all those years to keep from letting his nutty wife make him as crazy as she was. Ah!” he said, standing up. “Here’s Fong, with Blatt right behind him. We’re out of here.”

  But we weren’t.

  “Sir,” Dustin said, “do you want me to stick around to process the ATV we found out by Anthracite Creek?”

  Milo hesitated. “You’re expecting overtime?”

  “No,” Dustin replied. “But we’re shorthanded, so I thought if Bill and I had time, we could do it now when it’s quiet.”

  “Oh, hell,” the sheriff said. “Mullins is already getting his extra buck-fifty an hour for this evening. I checked it out while I was here, but go ahead, finish the job.” He grabbed my arm and we were finally out the door.

  “Tell me about that ATV,” I said after we were in the Yukon. “Between bridge club and the nasty Mr. Moro, I forgot it had been impounded. Did you say it was found by Anthracite Creek? That’s way beyond Alpine Falls and Cass Pond.”

  “Some college kids found it.” Milo paused to eyeball an older Chev that had made a California stop at the arterial on the corner of Fourth and Front. “Damned teen drivers. They shouldn’t be out this late, even if it is spring break.”

  “Are you going to bust them?”

  He shook his head. “If they keep cruising,
Blatt can nail them. I’m off the clock. What did you … oh, the ATV. Yeah, it was less than fifty yards off of Highway 2. A road goes off almost across from the Skykomish Ranger Station. You know where it is, right by the landing strip.”

  “It’s not really all that far away from where the body was found,” I said as we climbed the steep hill up to Fir. “Do you think the victim could’ve driven it?”

  “That should be easy enough to find out after we compare any DNA with the vic’s. I can’t release the body anyway until somebody claims it.” Milo had turned the corner by Edna Mae’s house, which was now dark. He glanced at me. “The scene of your recent bridge bash. I suppose you grilled whichever faculty members were there.”

  “I tried,” I said. “It’s not easy because they’re serious about their cards. But I did find out that Erin Johnson’s boyfriend’s name is Rick Morris. Linda Grant condescended to tell me that much.” Just for the hell of it, I shot Milo a sidelong glance to see how he reacted to her name.

  “Interesting,” he said, pulling into the driveway. “If he’s not another high school kid, Erin must’ve talked about him a lot at school. Maybe we should be interviewing more of the faculty instead of the students. But at least we can now check him out at the college. Are you going to get out, or do I have to carry you?”

  My dropping of Linda’s name had no apparent effect on Milo. Maybe they’d never been a hot duo. Maybe it was so long ago that he’d forgotten. Maybe I was nuts.

  I got out of the SUV and went into the house with my husband. Suddenly my log cabin felt like home again.

  ELEVEN

  MILO AND I BOTH CRASHED IMMEDIATELY UPON ARRIVAL. He’d put in over a sixteen-hour day, and I was tapped physically, mentally, and emotionally. I awoke to sunlight seeping through the window shades, the nearby sound of hammering, and the faint smell of bacon. I rolled over to look at the clock. It was 9:08.