by Mary Daheim
“Don’t ask,” I said.
Jack laughed, shook his head, and moved on.
The divers suddenly resurfaced and came ashore. They were talking to Milo and the state patrol captain. All four of them turned around to look at what seemed to be some kind of crane on a flatbed truck. I hadn’t seen it pull up.
“They’re going to get the car out,” Spence said in an unusually solemn tone. “I assume there’s no rush, so no need to pry open the doors. I should’ve guessed as much.”
“I wonder how long that will take?” I murmured.
“Maybe half an hour,” Mitch said. “I’ll stick around if you want to go back to the office.”
I was undecided. “Let me see if I can talk to Milo.”
Taking my time, I headed toward where the law enforcement group had gathered near the divers. After another minute or two had passed, the sheriff broke away and came over to where I was standing.
“What now?” he asked. “I’m not giving you any quotes.”
“Guess what? I don’t want one. All I want to know is how long it’ll be before they raise the car.”
“Depends.” He glanced at the river. “Could be days.”
I refrained from stamping my foot. “Come on, big guy. I’m up against a deadline.”
“Today?”
“Milo …”
He started to reach out to me, then stopped and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “I’m not sure. They have to set up. When that drug dealer let his car roll into the river a couple of years ago, it took close to an hour, but we had a snowstorm back then. If you’ve got a deadline, you might as well go back to the office. Mitch, too. I’ll call when they’re ready to bring up the car, okay?”
I smiled up at him. “Thanks … Sheriff.”
“No problem.” He turned around and walked away.
I relayed the message to Mitch. “I drove,” I told him. “My car’s at the diner.” I suddenly realized I couldn’t see Spence. “Where’d Mr. Radio go? Don’t tell me he’s interviewing the state patrol captain.”
“No,” Mitch said as we started walking across the bridge. “He decided to track down some of the locals who were watching the spectacle. Names make news, even on the radio.”
“Not a bad idea. I just hope Ed doesn’t offer himself.”
“Ed,” Mitch said under his breath. “He’s a character.”
“He is. Especially as Mr. Pig.” On that more jocular note, I got into my Honda and returned to the Advocate.
Amanda was agog when we arrived, asking a barrage of questions before she suddenly rushed off to the restroom. Both Leo and Vida were out, but Kip came into the newsroom to ask how soon we could post an update. I told him we were waiting to hear from the sheriff.
Only twenty minutes passed before Milo called. “I’ll make this quick. Two dead, driver and passenger, both from Centralia. Mickey Borg and Holly Gross. Details to follow. I’ve got work to do.” He hung up.
TWENTY-THREE
I WAS STUNNED. BUT I ALSO HAD WORK TO DO. I CALLED Mitch into my office and gave him the shocking news.
He was incredulous. “You mean the hooker from the trailer park standoff? And who’s this Borg guy? The name sounds familiar.”
I glanced into the newsroom. Vida was still gone, but Leo was back and on his phone. “Mickey was another of Holly’s customers and also the father of her two older kids. She’s been living in Centralia with her sister since she got out on bond. Mickey was in town recently and bought a Corvette from the Nordby Brothers.”
Mitch was still looking slightly dazed. “Are you going to write the story, or should I?”
I hesitated. Mitch didn’t know as much of the background as I did, but on the other hand, if there was more coming from the sheriff’s office about whatever Milo had learned from Yakima, maybe I should do that one and let my reporter take on the river tragedy. The priority, of course, was for Mitch to get photos. He took off as soon as I told him the story was his.
Fifteen minutes later, Vida exploded into the newsroom, shrieking her head off. Leo was so startled that he dropped his cigarette and had to pick it up before it burned a hole in his pants. I rushed out of my office, trying to figure out if Vida was having a fit.
But she was jubilant. “Crime does not pay! Justice has been served! God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world!”
I felt like saying that it depended upon your point of view. Or quoting Ben, who did not believe that God ran our lives from some heavenly computer. Life was, after all, about free will.
Vida took notice of my presence and rushed to hug me. “It’s a miracle,” she enthused while I wondered if she’d broken a couple of my ribs. “All our troubles are over,” she went on, letting me go. “What do you wager that Holly had come here to take Dippy?”
I hadn’t thought about it, but she was probably right. “I’m very happy for you, Vida,” I said, and meant it. “I wonder if Holly’s sister will keep the other two children.”
“That doesn’t concern me,” Vida responded, going over to her desk and sitting down. “I already called Amy. I happened to have KSKY on as I was driving back from interviewing Marcella and Dan Thorstensen about their Thailand trip. Spencer announced it just minutes ago. I almost drove off the road.”
I remained standing by her desk. “Does Roger know?”
“Not yet. He’s on another assignment. I think.”
Leo got up to get a coffee refill. “Congratulations, Vida. Are you going to start speaking again to the sheriff, the judge, and the prosecutor?”
I wanted to kiss Leo for asking the question. But Vida frowned. “I’m not sure. We’d never have had to go through all of this had it not been for Holly getting out on bond.”
“But,” Leo said, “if she hadn’t, she’d still be alive and in jail. God works in mysterious ways.”
Vida gave him her most owlish expression. “That’s so. I hadn’t yet thought that through.”
Mitch returned, looking pleased with himself. He paused halfway to his desk, aware that something momentous was going on. Vida repeated her news. I wondered if she’d somehow finagle a way of putting it into the Advocate, at least in “Scene.” I flinched at the possibility: “Happy daddy Roger Hibbert has adorable Dippy all to himself,” or some such saccharine drivel. I’d delete it on the grounds that it was too self-serving for the great-grandmother who worked for the Advocate.
I returned to my office while Vida regaled Mitch with her big news. After a few minutes, he joined me to say he’d gotten some good shots.
“I focused on the car itself—a Corvette,” he said, showing me the pictures he’d taken. “The body removal was too grim.”
“Not for Vida,” I said quietly.
“Right.” Mitch looked askance. “Anyway, here’s a good one of Dodge watching the car being lowered onto the ground. Think he’ll mind? I know he doesn’t like having his picture taken for the paper, but the state patrol captain is next to him, so it speaks well for law enforcement in general. What do you think?”
Milo stood with his fists on his hips, the stance giving him an air of authority. The burly captain was a good four inches shorter and looked a bit like a bullfrog. “They both appear suitably somber,” I said. “And official.”
“I’ll go with that one, then. Have we got room for the divers? They always make good pictures even if they’re on dry land.”
“Fine. Good work. I’ll see when the sheriff’s available. I still haven’t heard the latest out of Yakima County. If you’re on overload, I’ll handle that one, okay?”
“Your call,” Mitch said, not sounding miffed for a change.
Lori Cobb told me to hold off. The boss was still dealing with the state patrol. She didn’t add that he was probably meaner than cat dirt, as Vida was sometimes prone to say when she was vexed.
I checked with Leo to see how our advertising was coming along. “Just a little over sixty-forty,” he said. “Good news of a sort. Did Amanda tell you
about that big classified ad Tiffany Rafferty is running?”
“No. I’ll ask her.”
Amanda had just gotten off the phone. “Tiffany came in person with it,” she said. “She’s a little weak in the writing skills department.”
“No kidding. I heard she’s working part-time at Parker’s Pharmacy, courtesy of her grandparents’ influence in being the original owners. She’s clerking, not dispensing prescriptions. She took over from Jessica Wesley, the current owners’ daughter, who’s attending the University of Washington at the Bothell campus.”
“Tiffany’s selling the sports memorabilia her late husband, Tim, collected,” Amanda explained. “Walt’s a huge baseball fan, so I hope he doesn’t read the ad. Leo told me that some of Tim’s items are worth a lot of money. We can’t afford stuff like that with a baby on the way and looking for a house. Tiffany got them appraised by a guy who was staying at the ski lodge a couple of months ago. You may recall he ran an ad in the paper. She sold a few items to him but saved the rest.”
I remembered that Tiffany had been seen at the ski lodge back in February with a man who was dubbed a mysterious stranger, probably because nobody recognized him.
“I hope she does well by all that,” I said. “Tiffany’s had a rough life, especially recently.”
Amanda nodded. “I hope she finds a man to take care of her. In some ways she reminds me of me when I was younger—and dumber.”
“You were never dumb,” I said. “How about ‘flighty’?”
“That’s good.” She struggled out of her chair. “It’s time to make another flight to the restroom.” And off she went.
By three o’clock, I was getting antsy. Not only was Mitch unable to finish his story about the river deaths without official confirmation of what had led to the tragedy, but I couldn’t start on the information Milo had gotten from Yakima. I switched on KSKY for the hour-turn news. Spence was repeating what we already knew, so he was still in the dark as well.
As I turned off the radio, Leo stepped into my office. “I just got a picture of the Kiwanis Club at the Mariners game. Have we got room?”
I looked at the more than two dozen smiling faces, all of whom I recognized. “It’ll have to go inside,” I said. “See what Kip can do. We don’t want to diss our advertisers.”
“The M’s lost. But according to Harvey Adcock, they had a great time. I watched part of the game—Cleveland’s pitching did them in.”
I nodded. “Milo and I missed it. We’re not optimistic.”
“Early days, as they say. It’s only the third week of April.” He looked at the picture. “Cal Vickers’s hairline is moving faster than the M’s infielders. I hadn’t noticed that in person.”
“He usually wears a cap at the gas station,” I said.
Leo chuckled and headed to the back shop. I reached for the phone—and stopped. It’s a funny thing about words and how people say them. We hear what we expect to hear, but sometimes we miss what the speaker intended to convey. Maybe because I write to earn my living I’m more conscious of nuance, even after the fact. I thought back to over a week ago and my conversation with Janie Engelman. Suddenly I had an insight. I didn’t feel enlightened as much as appalled.
It was going on four when Milo called me. I left immediately to go down to his office. The clouds had lifted, though the sun was skittish, as befit an April afternoon. Traffic on Front Street was back to normal. There were no state patrol cars outside of the sheriff’s headquarters. It looked like an ordinary day in Alpine. Except, of course, that it wasn’t.
Spence pulled up in his Beamer just as I got to the double doors. I waited for him, not in the mood to bother being annoyed by his presence.
“Allow me, madam,” he said, opening one of the double doors for me.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
Dustin Fong and Lori Cobb were the only ones in the front office. They both looked tired but greeted us in their usual polite manner. “Go right in,” Lori said. “He’s waiting for you.”
Spence’s gallantry was still in place as he opened the swinging door in the counter to let me go first. I walked woodenly into the sheriff’s office, where Milo sat with a lighted cigarette and a weary expression. None of us spoke until after Spence and I had parked ourselves in the two visitor chairs.
“Okay,” my husband said. “Here’s how this played out. The rumors about high school hookers turn out to be true. I got a tip the other night when a woman named Dawn Harrison came to see me after hours.” He paused to look at me. “She asked for Heppner first because he was the only law enforcement person she knew by name. Sam was the one who cuffed her sister, Holly Gross, after the trailer park standoff.”
Spence eyed me suspiciously. I knew what he was thinking. “I wasn’t at the meeting,” I said. “The sheriff made me leave the house.”
“Sorry,” Spence murmured before turning back to Milo. “You do go by the book, Sheriff.”
“You bet your ass I do,” Milo shot back. But he said it quietly. “The Lewis County sheriff contacted me to say they knew who was procuring if not actually running the girls. It was, as you’ve probably guessed, Mickey Borg and Holly Gross. It seems Holly not only couldn’t go straight but had to get back in the game. The state was brought in yesterday. Before they could gather enough evidence, they got word from Mrs. Harrison that Holly and Mickey were coming up here to collect Holly’s son by Roger Hibbert.” Milo paused to put out his cigarette just as Spence lighted up one of his Balkan Sobranies.
I finally found my voice. “The state patrol chased them all the way from Centralia?”
Milo shook his head. “It started out on Highway 522 outside of Monroe when Borg picked up speed and a state trooper went after him. That Vette was doing over ninety most of the way. Outside of Sultan the trooper called in the plate number. That’s when it turned into more than chasing down a speeder.”
“Christ,” Spence said softly. “That’s some incredible driving on Highway 2.”
“Why,” I wondered out loud, “didn’t they keep going and try to elude the cops?”
Milo regarded me with an ironic expression. “I’m guessing, which you both know damned well that I hate, but Holly was probably obsessed about getting the kid back. It was worth a speeding ticket to her. They had no way of knowing that the law was on to them for procurement. Frankly, I suspect—as does the state patrol—they’ve been running the girls, too. Mickey had plenty of money to throw around. He had his own place down there in Morton, a few miles out of Centralia.”
A former logging town that began with an M. I recalled Wanda Johnson saying that was where her daughter was living with her boyfriend. If he was still around. Unless, I thought, the boyfriend was involved with prostitution.
“So,” Milo said, leaning back in his chair, “that’s about it. The state and Lewis County will take over from here. We just happened to get caught in the middle.”
Spence checked his watch. “In that case, Sheriff, I’m off to do an expanded broadcast on the hour turn at four.” He stood up. “Are you coming, Emma?”
“No. I’m waiting for Mitch.” It was a lie, but I didn’t care.
“Oh. Aren’t you going to rush to put this online?”
“Go away, Spence. I’ll have all the details in the Advocate. I’ve got a date with a deadline.”
“Of course.” He nodded at Milo and departed.
“Well?” the sheriff said after Spence had left the premises.
“You were going to tell me what you heard from Yakima.”
“So I was.” He offered me a cigarette, and I took it after asking him to light it for me. “Mr. and Mrs. Dobles have gone south,” Milo said, looking slightly more relaxed. “Not only was Dobles Joe’s stepdad, but he helped get him his job—as a federal agent working vice.”
“A fruit inspector has that much clout?”
“Like Fernandez, he works undercover for the Feds. Dobles owns his own company, inherited from his father. They make farm equipmen
t. The guy’s versatile. Why wouldn’t he give his stepson a leg up?”
“Were they both here because of Borg’s hooker ring?”
“Yakima says that’s why Joe was here. Dobles had been at the federal courthouse in Seattle and thought he’d meet Joe while they were in the same area. They were supposed to have a late lunch Monday at the Cascadia in Skykomish. But Joe never showed because he was dead. Dobles didn’t know that, so he headed for Wenatchee, figuring his stepson was working a case.”
“But he got run off the road,” I said. “What will happen to the girls who got lured into the hooking?”
Milo sighed. “We’ll get names of locals tomorrow. I hope there’s no more than Samantha Ellison and Erin Johnson.”
“Both Pedersen girls are missing,” I said and related what Vida had told me.
“Damn.” Milo slapped his hand on the desk. “I’ve been checking some of those so-called dating sites on the Internet. What’s with these kids who fall for that? When I think about Tanya or Mike doing anything like that, I … well, I can’t even think about it.”
“Then don’t. They’re both a little old for that sort of thing now.”
“Right.” He lighted a cigarette for himself. “You look kind of odd. Do you feel okay?”
“Yes, really. I just had a weird idea a while ago. Maybe I need to think about it. It’s been a crazy day.”
“That’s an understatement. One good thing—other than busting the hooker ring—is that Mickey didn’t kill anybody else on his wild ride.”
I bit my lip. Maybe I should get the weird idea out of my system. “Maybe not today. But he killed Joe Fernandez.”
Milo stared at me as if my hair were on fire. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Mickey was in town Sunday. I don’t know how he got to Monroe unless he ditched his own car and stole the one you’ve got in impound. Did you check for prints?”
“Yeah, but we didn’t find a match in the system. As far as I know, Mickey’s never been busted, at least not in this state. He’s been one slippery dude, though. You may be right about him selling drugs out of the mini-mart. How do you know he was here when Joe was killed?”