Alpine Gamble

by Mary Daheim

  Carla seemed unconcerned. “Well, he said it. I've got notes.” With a toss of her long hair she sauntered over to her desk.

  “I know that,” I said with a sigh. “But all the same, Ridley's going to be mad. People often say things they'd rather not see in black and white. You have to use some discretion.”

  “Oh, pooh!” Carla snatched up a bottle of mineral water. “It was a banquet There were sixty people on hand. Rip didn't exactly whisper the quote to me in a dark alley.”

  Carla had a point, but so did I. It was a judgment call, and as the more experienced journalist, I felt I was right. I was also the boss. Neither factor seemed to impress my reporter.

  Two minutes later Rip Ridley was on the phone, barking in my ear. I could picture him wedged into the swivel chair in his small, chaotic office at the high school. Rip's burly body had been honed on a wheat ranch in the Palouse, and the former Washington State University linebacker now carried an extra thirty pounds. But his crew cut was still cropped close, if beginning to gray.

  “That was a joke'' he asserted. “Why didn't that dim-witted broad of yours put in the one I told about the rabbi, the priest, and the mailman? It brought down the house. Now everybody in town is going to think I'm some kind of bigot!”

  “Bigot?” It wasn't the word I would have chosen. “Look, Rip, Carla quoted what you said, right? It was supposed to be funny, so most readers will take it that way. How did the audience react?”

  There was a short pause. “They clapped.”

  They would, of course. Rip's listeners had agreed with him. And with his tone, which wasn't jocular, but sarcastic. “You weren't misquoted,” I went on, “you knew Carla was covering the banquet, and it was a public event. I think you're getting worked up for nothing.”

  “The hell I am,” Rip muttered. “It's one thing to be talking in front of a crowd that's having a good time, but it's something else to see what you said in print. It makes everything look so … serious''

  Rip Ridley was right, but I wouldn't admit it out loud. There are occasions when the power of the press is an embarrassment. Especially when you hold it in your hands and can't quite see through your fingers.

  “Do you want to write a letter?” I asked. “You know I'll print anything that's signed.”

  Rip hesitated again. “I'll talk to Dixie when I get home. She already called as soon as the paper hit the box. She was mad as hell.”

  Great, I thought, mouthing more soothing words before putting the phone down. Dixie Ridley would be at bridge club. So would Cal Vickers's wife, Charlene, and his sister, Vivian Phipps. As the clock ticked on I was growing more apprehensive. Even if Vida hadn't despised playing bridge, I couldn't have asked her to sub for me—one of the other regular members was her sister-in-law, Mary Lou Blatt. The two women weren't on speaking terms, for reasons that were as old as they were obscure.

  Edna Mae Dalrymple is the head librarian, and though she wasn't born in Alpine, she has lived in town for almost twenty years. Edna Mae is small and jittery, but conscientious in her personal as well as her professional life. Her house is only two blocks from mine, so Ichose to walk. Like most of the recent evenings, the clouds had finally lifted to provide a glimmer of late springtime. As I headed downhill on Fifth Street to Spruce, I could smell the fragrant evergreens and the sweet hint of sawdust from Alpine's last remaining shingle mill. Beverly Melville was wrong—gray skies and endless rain were trifles compared to noxious gas fumes and pervasive smog.

  The atmosphere inside Edna Mae's trim little bungalow was equivocal, however. I wasn't quite the last to arrive, but I sensed that the others had been talking about me before I came in. Despite Edna Mae's nervous aura, she sought to put me at ease by offering a glass of wine. It was a standard ritual at our get-togethers, and always involved the tight pulling of drapes, lest pass-ersby glimpse Alpine womanhood engaging in such vices as playing cards and drinking spirits.

  As usual, there were three tables. I began the evening with Mary Lou Blatt and the Dithers sisters. Connie and Judy owned a horse ranch on First Hill. They somehowlooked ageless, though I knew them to be in their late forties. Both were pudgy and had long horse faces. After that, describing them became difficult, because they were so painfully plain. I doubted that they'd ever used cosmetics or seen the inside of a beauty parlor. They smelled of horse, or maybe hay, and except when they grew excited, the sisters spoke in abbreviated fragments that were hard to translate. Naturally, they wore jeans and shirts and ponytails. I had heard that at funerals they wore black jeans. At weddings they wore new jeans. I couldn't imagine either of them in a dress.

  But their taciturn manner prevented any volatile comments. As for Mary Lou, she was always reserved in my company, no doubt because she thought I'd carry tales back to her dreaded sister-in-law, Vida.

  Thus, the first hour passed without incident. The second started tranquilly, too. My partner was Vivian Vick-ers Phipps, whose daughter, Chaz, worked at the ski lodge. Our opponents were Edna Mae and Janet Driggers. Vivian enjoys chatting between hands, and Edna Mae is always anxious to please. Janet, of course, prefers to shock. For the most part we were all accustomed to her outrageous remarks.

  Vivian had just made a successful three no-trump bid when Janet dropped her first bombshell. “You hear all the rumors, Emma,” she said, shuffling the cards like a Las Vegas pro. “You must know the buzz around town regarding Stan Levine.” She wriggled her overplucked eyebrows. “Outraged husband. Guess who?”

  Edna Mae, as usual, looked shocked, though we all knew better. Vivian was annoyed. I was dubious. “Who?” I asked as Edna Mae dealt the cards with unsteady hands.

  “Who?” Janet was miffed. “I don't know who. Isn't why enough?”

  I shook my head. “Not for The Advocate, We don't print gossip.”

  “Yes, you do,” Janet shot back. “Look at that 'Scene' thing. It's all gossip. I saw Darla Puckett this afternoon at Stella's Styling Salon, and she insists she didn't drop a dozen eggs at Safeway. It was a pint of cottage cheese. She was one shelf over, next to the eggs. So that makes it untrue and mere gossip.” Janet tossed her freshly permed chestnut curls.

  “Darla must have been spotted from a distance,” I murmured. “Whoever saw her probably thought she was in eggs.”

  “It's gossip,” Janet repeated firmly.

  Edna Mae leaned into the table. “One club,” she said in a timorous voice.

  Vivian Phipps was smirking at Janet. “That would be an honest mistake.” She looked at her cards, and then at me. “One heart. Partner, I hate to say this, but there was another error in 'Scene' this week. Chaz says the guests at the ski lodge didn't get the wrong shoes back, they got the right shoes. But Boots hadn't cleaned them. In fact, they were dirtier than when they'd been left outside their rooms. But don't go printing that, because it might get Chaz in trouble with Henry Bardeen. He's already threatened to fire Tony Patricelli for not doing his job. Tony insists he's not at fault, but we all know what the Patricellis are.” Vivian gave the three of us a knowing look.

  “Two diamonds,” said Janet with a sharp glance at Vivian. “They're Italian, so what? The Patricellis had a bunch of kids and some of them got into trouble. Then those kids screwed like minks and had kids of their own. Including Tony, who seems okay to me. Cute, too, great butt. Hey, Emma, you're Catholic—do you use birth control? I bid two diamonds, by the way.”

  “I believe that individuals, including Catholics, cananswer only to their own consciences.” I sounded as prim as any celibate nun teaching first grade in a parochial school. 'Two hearts.”

  “Beating as one,” Janet interjected, unfazed by my prudish response. “Which reminds me, are you sure you haven't lined up a hot date for your weekend in San Francisco? Why waste the plane fare if you're not going to spend half the time in the sack? I tell you, that city is made for sexual pleasures.”

  Edna Mae blinked at me from behind her glasses. “You're going to San Francisco? How nice! When?”

>   I sighed, but smiled at Edna Mae. “This weekend. I've got meetings scheduled with newspaper people.” Okay, so Tom was a person, not a people. It was close enough to the truth. “I'm planning some changes for The Advocate, on the business side.”

  “Dear me!” Edna Mae exclaimed. “Changes for the better, I hope! I do hate change—especially for the sake of … change”

  “This would be to bring in more revenue,” I answered, still smiling, but sounding very businesslike. “As you may have noticed, we've been trying to take a more aggressive stance in the marketplace lately.”

  Janet chortled. “Like the match-and-mate ads? Look, you let people say things like plush, which means fat as a pregnant pig, and bantamweight, which means you could slip the guy into your purse, and slender, which translates as don't-bother-to-open-the-door-this-one-can-slide-under-it. How about using real measurements? That includes everything, especially for the guys.” Janet leered, then panted a bit for emphasis before gazing at her partner. “Well, Edna Mae? Are you going to bid or sit there and dream about peckers?”

  “Really, Janet!” Edna Mae blushed furiously. “I've quite lost track of the bidding.” She turned to me. 'Two spades? Oh—two hearts! I'll bid three peckers. No! No!I mean clubsl That is … oh, dear!” Edna Mae's glasses fell off.

  Somehow, we got through the rubber, though nobody dared mention the word, lest it set Janet off again. At the last table, I was partnered with Charlene Vickers, while Francine Wells and Dixie Ridley opposed us. I hadn't looked forward to facing Dixie, but she didn't bring up her husband's quote in the sports banquet article. On the other hand, she was very cool to me. It wasn't until we were leaving that Dixie took me aside.

  “You must print a retraction,” she said solemnly. “Rip and I discussed it over dinner tonight, and we feel he can't let that statement stand. Already he senses that people are looking at him in a strange way. Suspiciously, you know. That won't do for a public figure like a football coach.”

  In Alpine, Rip Ridley could be defined as a public figure. That was unarguable. But I thought he was imagining the suspicion. It was too much of a stretch to take his basically harmless remark about Californians and turn it into a motive for murder. Except, perhaps, in Alpine.

  “Look, Dixie,” I said, trying to be friendly as well as reasonable, “we can't retract the quote, because Rip said it. Sixty people heard him, including my reporter. It would be better if he wrote a letter as I suggested to him on the phone this afternoon. He could expand on his comments and make a real statement, maybe even talk about the direction he wants for the high school athletic program. There's a growing sense of dissatisfaction about education in general. I'm sure Rip has plenty of good ideas we could publish in The Advocate.”

  Dixie's heart-shaped face grew uncertain. “Well … Rip certainly has opinions. But we don't like being under scrutiny. Even tonight I felt certain persons were watching me as if I were married to a Mafia don orsomething.” She let her eyes flicker over the Dithers sisters, who were putting on their denim jackets and saying goodbye to Edna Mae.

  'Tell me about it,” Charlene Vickers said under her breath. She had sidled up to the two of us and was shaking her head. “Cal says some of his regular customers have been avoiding him the last couple of days and going to Gas 'n Go at Icicle Creek instead.”

  “Exactly.” Dixie nodded vigorously. “It's contagious. Did you see how Linda avoided me tonight?” She nodded in the direction of Linda Grant, the high school women's RE. teacher. “She cut Rip dead in the parking lot this afternoon.”

  Though I don't know Linda well, she has always struck me as more broad-minded than most. But she does tend to be preoccupied. “Maybe she didn't see him,” I said.

  “Maybe she should mind her own business,” Dixie snapped. “If Jack Mullins was nosing around yesterday to find out if any of Rip's students came to school with hangovers, he should have asked Linda the same question. And having Jack at the high school hasn't helped. Now everyone will think he really came to question Rip about the murder.”

  Charlene was also indignant. “Bill Blatt stopped in to see Cal today. Now if that isn't enough to scare customers away, I don't know what is.”

  “Did you see the way Francine Wells acted when we were partners?” Dixie asked in a whisper. “She hardly spoke to me, except to bid, and even then she passed at three spades when I opened with two. Now I'm glad I returned that Maggie London silk blouse. And to think she practically accused me of wearing it!”

  I seemed to recall seeing Dixie in the red and black blouse at least twice, but it was best not to mention the fact. I had been slowly edging away, trying to reachEdna Mae. “Urge Rip to write a letter,” I said in a confidential tone to Dixie. “I promise to run it next week.”

  Dixie glared at me, and Charlene's expression was unusually aloof. It wasn't my fault that Stan Levine had gotten himself shot on Spark Plug Mountain. But as so often happens, the messenger got blamed for the message. I grabbed my jacket, thanked Edna Mae, and would have run all the way home if it hadn't been uphill.

  At that, I was slightly winded when I arrived. I had to quit the damned cigarettes again. No one smokes at bridge club because Mary Lou Blatt and the Dithers sisters claim to be allergic. Thus, I hadn't been tempted during the course of the evening. Now I picked up the half-empty pack I'd left on the coffee table and started to crumple it. The telephone interrupted my virtuous intentions.

  “Where've you been?” Milo sounded querulous. “I've left three messages on your damned machine.”

  I glanced at the glowing red number, which actually registered five. “I was out,” I said abruptly. Suddenly my male acquaintances seemed far too interested in my whereabouts. “What do you want?”

  “It's too bad you published today,” Milo said, still sounding irascible. “You missed getting a big story.”

  “About what?” Suddenly I was excited. As I fumbled around to take out a slightly bent cigarette, I heard voices in the background. It was almost ten-thirty; Milo must have still been at work.

  “We got a print off the Chee-tos bag,” Milo said. “You know how we got prints from several leading citizens a few months ago to push our program with the schools?”

  I remembered. Skykomish County had launched a campaign to fingerprint all children fifteen and under. The goal wasn't to nail future delinquents, but to helpin case the youngsters were kidnapped, especially by parents involved in custody battles.

  “So?” I clicked the lighter, managing to miss the cigarette on the first try.

  “The print on the bag matched Henry Bardeen's,” Milo said, now downright unhappy. “We've brought him in for questioning.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  HENRY BARDEEN STRUCK me as an unlikely suspect. Milo agreed, but insisted that Henry had to be considered “a person of interest.” Not only were his prints on the discarded bag at the murder site, but he had the most clear-cut of motives. The hot springs would definitely compete with the ski lodge.

  “What about an alibi for Monday morning?” I asked Milo.

  “Henry swears he was in his office, going over the books. He usually does it the first of the month, but he got behind because of the three-day Memorial weekend.” Milo emitted a weary sigh. “I don't like this one damned bit. But I have to follow procedure. If Henry can come up with a witness who saw him Monday at intervals of an hour, I'd let him go right now.”

  “Can't he? What about Heather?” I was now half-lying on the sofa, my shoes off, the cigarette down to the filter. “Or the rest of the staff. They must have seen him come and go.”

  “But they didn't,” Milo replied doggedly. “He asked not to be disturbed. So he wasn't. Not even phone calls. Heather collected the messages.”

  “How is he?” I tried to envision the dour ski lodge manager in custody. If Henry were innocent, he'd be outraged. He was a man who stood on his dignity and his reputation. The toupee enhanced neither, but was evidenceof concern for his image, as well as a certain am
ount of vanity.

  “… than flabbergasted,” Milo was saying. Consumed by my own thoughts, Fd missed the first part of the sheriff's response. “Look, Emma, Fve got to go. But I didn't want you to hear about this secondhand and come in tomorrow morning ready to clobber me with a baseball bat. Okay?”

  It wasn't okay, but I hung up anyway. Then I called Vida. She usually stayed up until around eleven. I wasn't surprised that she already knew about Henry's detention.

  “Billy phoned me and then I tried to reach you,” she said, sounding agitated. “I called twice, but you weren't home yet from Edna Mae's.”

  That accounted for the other two phone messages on the machine. “What do you think?” I asked, wishing my brain wasn't falling asleep ahead of my body.

  “Oooooh,” groaned Vida, and I could see her rubbing frantically at her eyes, “I think there's something very wrong here. Henry would never shoot anyone. He lacks gumption. But don't ask me how his prints got on that wrapper. The only explanation that comes to mind is that Henry didn't shoot Stan Levine, but he did go up to the hot springs that night to destroy incriminating evidence.”

  I sat up on the sofa. “You mean he's covering for someone?”

  “That would have to be it.” Vida's tone became fretful. “The only person I could imagine him doing such a thing for is Heather.”

  Henry's wife had died of leukemia shortly before I arrived in Alpine. If Henry had courted any women since becoming a widower, Vida didn't know about it. Which, I figured, meant he practiced abstinence.

  “Heather,” I said slowly. “Do you honestly see her going up to the springs and shooting Stan Levine?”

  “Well, no.” Vida hesitated, then lowered her voice. Maybe she thought her canary, Cupcake, was eavesdropping. 'There are just the two of them since Doris died. Henry was raised in Everett, and there was an older brother, but he was a career man in the Air Force. For all I know, they've lost touch over the years. Henry's not what I'd call a very warm sort of man. But he dotes on Heather, and it seems that the feeling is mutual. It's amazing what people will do for one another when they feel isolated from the rest of the world.”