The Alpine Betrayal

by Mary Daheim

  I wasn’t sure. “Then how did Cody get onto the road? If he’d been on that side of the car, he would have gone down the bank, too. And Durwood would never have thought he’d hit him.”

  Vida frowned. “If Cody acted so tipsy, there’s no way he could have driven. So to put him on the passenger side next to the road, they had to be coming from somewhere. But where? And why?”

  “We can’t be sure Dani was driving,” I objected. “An expensive eyeliner doesn’t prove she was in the Zimmer.”

  “It does if it’s hers.” Vida was once again combing the underbrush, without much success this time. “Let’s return it. Are they still up on Baldy?”

  “I don’t think so. They were going to film on Front Street today, remember?”

  Vida did, but pointed out that the movie company hadn’t been in evidence when we left the Advocate office at eight-thirty. “There was some action down by the taco place, but no lights or cameras,” she informed me, tramping back to the Jag.

  We decided to head for the ski lodge, which could be reached by taking the Burl Creek Road. Henry Bardeen’s attempt to enforce the film personnel’s screening process fell flat with Vida.

  “Who started this lodge, Henry?” she demanded, using her height and her hat to tower over the unfortunate manager. “Rufus Runkel, my father-in-law, that’s who. Where did your most glowing reference come from when you applied for this job, Henry? This old girl, that’s who. Now turn your back and pretend you never saw us. We’re going upstairs.”

  “Wait,” I hissed, trotting after Vida, who was already inside the small elevator. “How do you know which room Dani is in?”

  Vida gave me a patronizing look. “The FDR suite, what else? The old fool stayed here back in ’forty-two when he came West for the Grand Coulee Dam opening. Then that busybody wife of his came here in ’forty-three. What a pair! It’s a wonder this country didn’t lose the war. Or maybe it did.” She tromped out of the elevator on the fourth floor and headed down the hall to the last door, which was set in an alcove. Vida’s knock was anything but timid: It could have raised FDR’s ghost. If he’d had the nerve.

  But Dani Marsh didn’t respond. Vida tried again, then pressed her ear to the pine door. “It’s quiet,” she whispered. “Oh, well. We can wait.” She started retracing her steps down the hall.

  “We can’t wait forever,” I said to her back. “I’ve got to get to work. So do you.”

  Vida stopped so unexpectedly that I almost fell over her. She froze, then pointed to the room on our right. The words ALPINE SUITE were burnt into a slab of cedar. We could hear voices on the other side of the door. Or one voice, at least. Matt Tabor sounded very loud and extremely angry. Though the walls were thick and sturdy, we could catch snatches of his furious words:

  “… faithless as they come … You used me! … You don’t know the meaning of love! To think I cared about you so damned much….”

  Vida and I exchanged startled glances. Down the hall, the elevator opened. The young woman I’d seen with the script up at the location on Baldy now emerged carrying a big manila envelope. She gave us a curious glance.

  Undaunted, Vida yanked at the collar of my cotton blouse. “There! Now you’re presentable. Let’s go see Henry Bardeen.”

  The ruse apparently worked. The young woman walked off in the opposite direction. Vida and I made for the elevator. We were in luck, catching it before the doors closed all the way.

  “My, my,” said Vida, leaning against the frosted glass at the rear of the car, “true love isn’t running smoothly. Maybe it’s a mercy that Matt and Dani haven’t set a date for the wedding.”

  “Hollywood romances must be especially rough,” I remarked, though I would be willing to match my own true love against any of them. “All those egos and temptations and ambition.”

  “Ambition.” Vida breathed the word and gave me a puzzled look as we got out of the elevator. “Now that’s something I would never connect with Dani. Whatever else she was when she was growing up, ambition played no part in it.”

  We were in the lobby, where several guests were checking out at the front desk. Heather Bardeen was looking very professional this morning in her desk clerk’s navy blazer and silk crimson scarf.

  “We can check with Dani about the eyeliner later,” I said, looking at my watch. “It’s going on ten. The mail will be in any minute and Ginny will wonder what happened to us. If they’re going to film on Front Street, we may be able to catch Dani this afternoon.”

  Reluctantly, Vida agreed. But in the parking lot, she grabbed my arm. “We can catch Dani now,” she whispered in my ear. “Look!”

  In a specially reserved slot next to the lodge, Dani Marsh was getting out of a brand-new Lexus. She had obviously just arrived. My jaw dropped; Vida stared over the rims of her glasses. Then she charged after her prey.

  “Dani! Yoo-hoo! Over here!” Vida waved her fedora.

  Dani squinted at us against the sun, then smiled pleasantly. “Yes?” She was obviously in a hurry.

  Vida whipped around the other parked cars like a halfback breaking tackles. “Here, Dani,” she said, handing over the eyeliner. “We found this.”

  Dani glanced down at the proffered object. “Oh! Thank you. I was wondering what I’d done with it.” She gave Vida her dazzling smile.

  I had moved a few steps so that I could see both of the women’s profiles. Vida was gazing down at Dani, the tortoiseshell glasses catching the sun. “You lost it out by the turnoff to the Burl Creek Road.”

  Dani blinked a couple of times. “Oh? That’s odd—I thought I lent it to my mother.” She took the eyeliner and dropped it in her Sharif handbag. “I’m glad to get it back. I always prefer using my own cosmetics, rather than the makeup crew’s.” The smile remained fixed as she turned to head into the ski lodge.

  Vida was standing with her hands on her hips. “Well, if that doesn’t beat all!”

  I had sidled up next to her. “Yes?”

  Vida looked down her nose at me. “Dani and Patti trading makeup? Punches would be more like it. And who was Matt Tabor quarreling with, if not Dani Marsh? What’s going on here?”

  I hadn’t the slightest idea. My only hope was that Milo Dodge had a better grasp of the investigation than we did.

  But, unfortunately, that was not so.

  Chapter Eleven

  CARLA HAD GONE in to see young Doc Dewey and find out if she needed a refill on her antihistamine. She didn’t, but when she got back from the clinic, her dark eyes were huge and her cheeks were flushed.

  “Patti Marsh was there, all black and blue,” gasped Carla, leaning on Vida’s desk. “She said she’d fallen off her porch.”

  I was standing in the doorway to my office, holding the mail that Ginny Burmeister had just brought in. “Porch or perch?” I responded. “Or neither one?”

  Carla nodded vigorously. Vida sniffed. “Jack Blackwell. He probably beat her up. I’d guess it wasn’t the first time.”

  “Creep,” remarked Ginny, who was dumping Ed’s mail in his already overflowing in-basket. “Maybe that’s why his first wife left him.”

  Irrationally, I felt a twinge of guilt. “It must have happened last night, after I left Patti’s. Jack seemed okay, and Patti was practically on her ear.”

  But Carla shook her head, long black hair swinging over her shoulders. “No, it was this morning, I’m sure. She had a cut over her eye, and it was still bleeding.”

  “Men!” huffed Vida, glancing at Ed’s vacant chair as if he were responsible for the entire sex. “I’ve been tempted to deck Patti a few times myself, but that’s different. I’m a woman.”

  “Now Vida,” Ginny began, “violence doesn’t have a gender. You really shouldn’t say things like that.”

  Vida had turned back to her typewriter. She veered around in her chair, giving Ginny a vexed look. “Hush! I’m old enough to be your grandmother! Do you want to get spanked?” The typewriter rattled and shook as Vida launched into her latest art
icle. Before any of the rest of us could say anything further, a knob flew off, a couple of screws clattered to the floor, and Vida’s typewriter was dead in the water. “Oh, blast!” she cried. “Now what?”

  “Vida,” I began, tossing the mail onto my desk and reentering the news office, “it’s time to upgrade yourself. Let’s go buy you a word processor.”

  “No!” Vida recoiled as if I’d threatened to burn her at the stake. “It just needs fixing, that’s all!” She groped with one foot, retrieving the knob. “Get me a screwdriver. I can do it myself.”

  “Ed borrowed it to fix his front door,” said Ginny. “That was three weeks ago.”

  “Great,” I muttered. Ed had a habit of borrowing items from the office and never returning them. “I’ll run over to the hardware store and get another one.”

  “I can go,” offered Ginny.

  “You need to answer the phones,” I said, already halfway to the door. “It’s Thursday. I don’t want to talk to every crackpot with a complaint about the latest edition of the paper.”

  Harvey Adcock’s Hardware and Sporting Goods Store was only a block and a half away, and coincidentally in the same building as the local florist. I hurried up Front Street, trying to pretend that at eleven o’clock in the morning it wasn’t already stifling. Compared with the previous week, the tempo of the town seemed to have slowed to a snail’s pace.

  Across the street, a middle-aged couple looked longingly at the Whistling Marmot movie theatre’s air-conditioning sign. In the next block, three teenagers stood close together in the shade of the Venison Inn’s entrance. At the corner of Fifth Street, the bookstore’s cat had decamped from its usual place in the front window to sit among the leafy greenery of a sidewalk planter. The air, which in other seasons smells of evergreens and damp and woodsmoke, was tinged with gasoline fumes and cooking grease. The smokestacks at the mill were moribund; the ski lodge catered only to the traveler. In summer, there was a fallow feeling to Alpine, despite the number of tourists and the presence of the movie company. It was as if we were on hold, waiting for the rain and the real business of the community to begin anew.

  Harvey’s store, with its high ceilings and two separate showrooms, seemed cool by comparison to the outdoors. He was behind the counter, sorting faucets. His pixie-like face brightened when he saw me.

  “Emma! What broke?”

  I explained, asking him for a cordless screwdriver, just like the one I had at home. Ed would probably walk off with it eventually, but I might as well facilitate matters for now.

  “Regular or bendable?” asked Harvey, coming around the counter to a display rack on the other side of the store.

  “They bend now, too?” I was impressed. “Sure, why not?”

  Harvey sprinted back behind the counter, ringing up the sale. “That’s $43.27, with tax.”

  My jaw dropped. I had only twenty-five dollars in cash, about twice that much in my checking account, which hadn’t been balanced in two weeks, and payday wasn’t until tomorrow. I dug into my wallet for my emergency fund, a hundred dollar bill I kept tucked away for dire necessities. Like bendable cordless screwdrivers.

  “Can you change this?” I asked, almost hoping Harvey couldn’t and thus I would be let off the hook. An ordinary screwdriver probably went for under five bucks.

  “Sure can,” said Harvey cheerfully. “I went to the bank when they opened at nine-thirty.” He took my hundred; I hoped he didn’t notice how my hand lingered on the bill. “There I was waiting for them to open up, and who comes along but Patti Marsh, sassy as you please.” The cash register jingled and Harvey made change. “She must have won the lottery.”

  I frowned at Harvey as he counted the money into my hand. “What do you mean?”

  Harvey’s pointed little ears seemed to move up and down. “What? I mean she was pleased with herself. She had a big deposit, or so I gathered standing next to her in the bank. You should have heard her and that MacAvoy kid carry on! ‘Shall I get a gunny sack for it, Mrs. Marsh?’ he asked her. They were laughing themselves sick. Of course Richie MacAvoy is new at the teller’s job and probably should be a mite more discreet.”

  “Wait a minute, Harvey,” I said, leaning on the counter and lowering my voice as an elderly man I didn’t recognize ambled into the store. “Patti Marsh was just treated by young Doc Dewey for … cuts and abrasions,” I said quickly, not sure I should spread gossip any faster than the rest of Alpine. “How did she look?”

  Harvey gave a shrug of his slender shoulders. “Fine. You know Patti—lots of goo on her face, even in the morning. I suppose she was on break from work.”

  From work at Blackwell Timber, I thought to myself. “Well.” I tried to act unconcerned. “She must have taken that spill after she went to the bank.”

  “Maybe so.” Harvey was handing me the paper bag with the screwdriver, but he was looking at the elderly man who was bringing a box of washers up to the counter. “Hi, Marco. What’ve you got?”

  Thanking Harvey Adcock, I left the store and scooted around the corner to Posies Unlimited. The owner, Delphine Corson, was a flabby blonde of fifty with high color and a low neckline. She greeted me with a throaty laugh.

  “You’re too late,” she announced, slapping the empty plant stand next to the refrigerated case. “I can’t get any more flowers up to the San Juans in time for the funeral, not even by wire or phone.”

  To my dismay, I realized that while Cody Graff’s death was never far from my mind, I had completely forgotten about his services, which were scheduled for today. Hastily, I explained that I didn’t know the family and had only met Cody a couple of times.

  Delphine moved with a graceless tread to the bench, where she was arranging red and yellow roses in a wicker basket. “It’s mostly friends of his parents who’ve sent flowers,” she said. “I don’t think Cody had a lot of pals.” She picked up a handful of maidenhair fern and clipped an inch off the stems. “Funny, though—you’d think his fiancée would have had me do a spray for his casket.”

  “Marje?” I fanned myself with my hand. It was very warm in the small shop, and the heady scent of flowers was almost overpowering. “Maybe she had something sent from Friday Harbor.”

  “Oh, no,” said Delphine with certainty. “The Blatts always use me. Marje had already been in to discuss the flowers for her wedding. That’s off now, so there goes a nice chunk of change. She wanted four hundred gardenias.”

  I didn’t comment on the canceled ceremony or Delphine’s unrealized profits. Instead, I steered the conversation back to the Graffs. “I gather Curtis was in the other day. Those tiger lilies were gorgeous.”

  Delphine plucked out a red rose that wasn’t up to snuff and put it in her cleavage. “Curtis? The older Graff kid? Oh, right, he’s back from Alaska. He sure had lousy timing. Isn’t your kid in Ketchikan, too?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to get sidetracked. “I couldn’t figure out why Curtis was taking flowers to Patti Marsh. What’s the connection?”

  My blatant probing didn’t seem to bother Delphine. That’s one advantage of being a journalist: other people figure you have a right to know. It rarely occurs to them that you may be just plain nosy.

  Delphine gazed at me with cornflower blue eyes. “It was July 30.”

  My face must have been a blank. “So?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Delphine with a little grimace. “I forgot. You’re a newcomer.”

  I had the feeling that I would still be a newcomer if I stayed in Alpine until I died. Native Alpiners were not only wary of strangers, but were loath to embrace anyone who hadn’t spent at least a couple of decades in their town.

  Delphine had finished with the arrangement and was gathering up leftover leaves and stems. “Five years ago on July 30, the Graff baby died. Curtis was taking a bouquet to Grandma Patti. Nice of him, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  Delphine shrugged. “Considering that he’s been gone for so long. And that
he and Cody were on the outs. As for Dani, I don’t know—it seems to me he should have taken her a bouquet, too. I suggested it, but he didn’t seem to hear me. So I lost a fifteen dollar sale on that one.” She looked disappointed.

  “What about Cody? Did he buy flowers, too?”

  “He never has, not in all the years since little Scarlett died.” Disapproval was etched on Delphine’s face, though I couldn’t tell whether it was motivated by Cody’s lack of sentiment or the loss of another order.

  “Say, Delphine,” I said, suddenly reminded of another tragedy, “do you remember when Art Fremstad killed himself?”

  Delphine’s heavy jowls sagged. “You bet. What a nice guy. Talk about flowers! I made enough off of that one to send myself to Palm Springs for a week! I even had to hire extra help to deliver. Poor Art. Poor Donna.”

  I assumed Donna was Art’s widow. “Did she remarry?”

  “Yeah, about two years ago. You know Steve Wickstrom from the high school? Trig and geometry teacher.”

  I remembered seeing Steve and Donna Wickstrom at the Icicle Creek Tavern with Coach Ridley and his wife. In the spring, Carla had done a piece about Steve’s contribution to a math text. She’d called him Stove. Carla’s proofreading wasn’t any better than her typing.

  Thanking Delphine for her time, I started to leave but felt her blue eyes boring into my back. “Oh,” I said a trifle giddily, “I forgot. I wanted to get a bouquet.” I cast around the flower shop. Everything looked as if it would cost at least twenty dollars a dozen. “Or maybe a plant. Yes, how about a nice cyclamen?”

  With a grunt, Delphine bent down and picked up a bright pink specimen. “This is a beauty. That’ll be $17.58 with tax. After it finishes blooming, keep it in the dark.”

  That figured, I thought to myself. We all seemed to be in the dark when it came to Cody Graff’s death. But I was the only one who was going broke. If I hurried, maybe I could still get back to the office while I had enough money for lunch.

  But as I carted the plant and the cordless screwdriver over to The Advocate, I decided I could put the cyclamen to good use. The Jaguar was parked around the corner. I jumped in and drove the five blocks down Railroad Avenue to Blackwell Timber.