The Alpine Traitor

by Mary Daheim

  “Um…” I hadn’t expected the offer. “No. I mean, that’s really kind of you, but—”

  “Stop,” he interjected. “I’d only be a distraction, right? And the sheriff might arrest me for obstructing justice. I also must admit I rather like the idea of a pleasant cruise on a night in June complete with adult beverages, delectable hors d’oeuvres, and nubile young ladies. You run along now and track down that ruthless killer.”

  Rolf hung up.

  To hell with him—and Milo, and even Tom, who had fathered two of the vipers who seemed hell-bent on ruining my life. To make matters worse, I was still hungry. Deciding to go home and forage in the kitchen, I turned on the ignition and was about to pull away from the curb when I saw Vida’s white Buick slowing down in front of me. If my guess was right, she’d been summoned by the sheriff. I shut off the engine and got out of my Honda.

  Vida had found a space two cars down from where I’d parked. I waited on the sidewalk for her to exit the Buick. It didn’t take long. Vida virtually erupted from her car, looking aggravated.

  “I don’t see why I couldn’t talk to Milo over the phone,” she declared as I approached her. “I was just sitting down to dinner with my sister-in-law when he called on my cell phone and insisted I come in to be interviewed. Ella may be addled, but she cooks rather well and had made a lovely chicken and mushroom casserole.” She suddenly peered at me from under the brim of her orange straw hat. “I thought you’d gone to Seattle.”

  “I got as far as Sultan,” I said and explained how Milo had called me.

  “My, my,” she said with a shake of her head. “So you had no idea about this Platte person before you left. How irksome. You must be wild.”

  “I am,” I admitted. “Milo’s being a real jerk about this.”

  “Yes.” Vida grimaced. “The worst of it is, I’ve nothing to tell him. Imagine! For all I know, Dylan Platte could have been murdered while Leo and I were at the motel. Wouldn’t that beat all?”

  I could sympathize with Vida for having missed out on being a virtual eyewitness to a homicide. My House & Home editor despised not being in the know, regardless of how horrific the occasion might be. No doubt she was also frustrated because she had nothing to add to the sheriff’s small store of knowledge.

  “I assume you’re still going to Seattle,” Vida said, moving toward the entrance to the sheriff’s headquarters.

  I shook my head. “I feel I should stay in Alpine.”

  “Very wise,” she noted. Of course she’d have said the same thing if Alpine had suddenly become a nuclear waste site. Leaving—or as she’d phrase it, abandoning the town—for any reason was tantamount to treason. “I’ll call you when I get done with Milo’s silly interview. Oh—and after I finally eat my dinner with Ella. She’ll warm it up for me, of course. Unless,” Vida added with a frown, “she puts it in the dishwasher instead of the oven like she did the last time I was there and arrived a bit late.”

  I had to smile. “Good luck with everything. By the way,” I called just before she opened the door, “any sighting of what’s-her-name at the condo?”

  Vida turned around and came a few steps closer. “Ginger. Ginger Roth. No. And that’s rather peculiar. Granted, Ella isn’t always the noticing kind—cataracts, too, I think—but she insists she’s never seen this Ginger or her husband. You did say she was a good-looking blonde, didn’t you?”

  “I did. She’d be hard to miss, even with cataracts.”

  Vida shrugged. “I suppose it’s because Ella is Ella, and has very little curiosity. That can’t be helped.” She paused. “But it does strike me as odd.”

  “If Ginger really wants to talk to me about the newspaper business on behalf of her friend, she’ll show up eventually,” I said. “Do you know if Curtis tried to reach her or the husband?”

  “He claimed he did, but had no success.” She made a face. “I doubt he tried. So lacking in diligence.” Vida disappeared behind the sheriff’s double doors.

  Her disappearing act was normal.

  Ginger Roth’s was not.

  FIVE

  I FINALLY CONNECTED WITH MY BROTHER IN BALTIMORE JUST before nine o’clock Pacific daylight time. “This call better be important,” Ben warned me. “It’s midnight, and I’m dead tired. These conferences are damned draining. My lack of humility and patience are appalling in a priest.”

  “So’s your lack of charity,” I said. “You know I wouldn’t bother you this time of night when you’ve had a long day unless it was urgent.”

  “Okay.” There was a pause. I imagined my brother had stretched out on his hotel bed and was steeling himself for a crisis. “I know it’s nothing really terrible,” he said before I could speak again, “because you sound relatively calm. Therefore, I’ll eliminate Adam being eaten by a polar bear or you burning down your little log cabin in the woods. Talk. I may be able to stay awake for at least five minutes.”

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “It all started when Ed Bronsky—”

  “Stop. I’m in no mood for an Ed Bronsky anecdote.”

  “He sold his villa to Tom’s daughter and her husband.”

  “I’m in no mood to hear about somebody sufficiently stupid to buy that ostentatious dump.”

  I gritted my teeth before speaking again. “Tom’s kids want me to sell the Advocate, and his son-in-law was murdered at a motel here in Alpine today.”

  Silence. Then, finally, “Well. That is kind of disturbing. I assume you’re going to ask me to give you absolution for whacking the guy.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “That’s what they all say.” Ben cleared his throat, and I had visions of him sitting up and attempting to focus on my problem. “Have you got a favorite suspect?”

  “No,” I replied. “I never met this Dylan Platte. I only talked to him on the phone. His wife is Kelsey Cavanaugh. She’s still in California. At least I assume that’s where she is. Dylan was flying back there Sunday after he inspected Ed’s house.”

  “You say he was killed at a motel? Was he robbed?”

  “No,” I answered. “Milo would’ve told me if that were the case.”

  “That doesn’t rule out a random killing, though,” Ben pointed out. “Botched robbery attempt, a prostitute, a hitchhiker he’d picked up.”

  “That’s possible,” I allowed. “The sheriff keeps his own counsel until he’s certain about what may or may not have happened. You know he hates any kind of speculation.”

  “That’s smart,” Ben replied, “though it’s hard on somebody like you, who has an imagination.”

  I wasn’t sure if Ben was teasing, so I ignored the comment. “The other mystery is why Dylan and Kelsey wanted to buy Ed’s villa.”

  “They’d have to live somewhere,” Ben noted. “I suppose that kind of flashy style might appeal to Californians. Do they have kids?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Frankly, I haven’t thought much about them over the past few years. I’d feel very awkward about dealing with them in any case, but especially now that Dylan’s been killed in the same town where Tom died. It’s…eerie.”

  Ben knew better than to make some flippant remark about violence in Alpine. Skykomish County barely averaged one homicide a year among its more than seven thousand residents. The downside was that my job as editor and publisher put me on the front line of any murder investigation, not to mention on the front page of the Advocate.

  “I understand your reluctance to deal with the Cavanaugh brood,” Ben said. “It’d be helpful if Adam was in Alpine. He’s part of their peer group, and I assume the Cavanaughs were raised Catholic.”

  “I can’t ask Adam to leave his flock in Alaska and help Mom out of a jam,” I declared. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Not usually,” Ben said, “but the situation is strange, to say the least. In fact, your coverage of this crime leaves you wide open to all sorts of conflicts of interest.”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I suppose it
could,” I replied glumly. “Not to mention that I doubt Kelsey and Graham have any warm and fuzzy thoughts about me.”

  “My point,” Ben said, and I heard him yawn. “Call Adam. See what he thinks. With that crazy radio delay, you’ll each have time to consider the other’s words. Do it now. It’s early evening there, isn’t it?”

  “Evening goes on forever in St. Mary’s Igloo this time of year,” I said. “Okay, maybe I will. Or could you ask him?”

  “I’m not his mother. Love and prayers,” Ben said and yawned again.

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “That was cowardly of me. Sorry.”

  Ben didn’t respond. I waited for several seconds before I realized I could hear snoring in the background. My problems might keep me awake, but it seemed they’d put my brother to sleep.

  I hung up but stayed on the sofa, watching through the front window as twilight descended over the mountains. It never quite got dark this time of year where Adam lived. Endless days during summer, endless nights in winter. I wouldn’t like that. But Adam didn’t seem to mind. I marveled at his maturity, which I had thought would never come—and when it did, he decided to be a priest. I still sometimes found that hard to believe. There had never been the slightest thing about my son that led me to consider he might be harboring a vocation. How little, I thought, we knew about the people closest to us.

  After fifteen minutes of rumination, I decided against calling Adam. As much as I wanted to hear his voice, my news was not the sort to deliver over a flawed telephone hookup. I’d e-mail him instead.

  It took me another five minutes to figure out how to explain what had happened. “Dear Adam,” I finally typed, “I had a very strange day. Don’t worry—I’m fine, but around noon I got a phone call from…”

  I brought him up to date on all the information I had except for the bracelet and the enclosed note. I couldn’t explain that to myself, let alone to Ben—or Adam. After mentioning that I’d talked to Ben, I stopped, fingers poised above my laptop’s keys. Should I suggest—even hint—that Adam come to Alpine?

  No. That wouldn’t be fair. I didn’t want to be a burden on his conscience.

  It strikes me as strange that Kelsey and Graham want to buy the Advocate, and even stranger that Dylan and Kelsey are moving here, where her father died. I would think they’d avoid the place. Yes, dearest Adam, I realize that Tom was your father as well, but you lived here long before your crazy parents reunited. I’m not sure I’ll know how to deal with Kelsey and Graham if, in fact, they do come to Alpine as a result of Dylan’s murder. Will sign off for now and try to sort out my feelings. As I mentioned, it’s been a really odd and upsetting day.

  I frowned at the screen. Of course I realized I’d sown the seeds of my maternal martyrdom in Adam’s mind. But I couldn’t keep this type of secret from my son. Ordination as a priest doesn’t cancel the bond between mother and child.

  I left the laptop turned on, hoping Adam would reply before I went to bed. At ten-thirty, just as I was about to head into the bathroom, his e-mail popped up.

  Mom—Just got in after having supper with a dozen or so of my parishioners. Your news is startling. I understand why you’re upset, but it’s not your problem except for having to put it in the newspaper. Try to distance yourself from the Cavanaughs. It isn’t as if you ever had any real contact with them, even after you and Dad got engaged. Got to figure out what my homily will be for the weekend. I’ll remember Dylan in the Masses. With love, your son who still marvels at the never-ending daylight this time of year.

  I was disappointed. I didn’t know what I’d been hoping for from Adam, but it certainly wasn’t this rather peremptory response. For a few minutes, I sat wondering if I should answer back. Finally I decided to wait until morning. A good night’s sleep might alter my mood.

  But that didn’t happen. I tossed and turned for hours, finally getting up to take two Excedrin PMs. It was going on five o’clock when I drifted off into a series of unsettling dreams that I couldn’t remember when I woke up just after nine-thirty.

  While drinking my third cup of coffee, I thought more about Adam’s e-mail. My disappointment had overshadowed his advice about the murder coverage. Maybe Ben was right—it could be a conflict of interest for me, though more in a personal than in a professional sense. I considered assigning the story to Curtis, but I was reluctant. He simply didn’t know his way around the town yet.

  Still, I reflected, maybe that was to his advantage. As long as I watched him like a hawk, maybe I should let him handle the coverage. I dialed his number, which was a cell phone. Curtis was temporarily living with Oren and Sunny Rhodes, who had some spare room in their Ptarmigan Tract house while both of their kids were in college. Oren tended bar at the Venison Inn, and Sunny was the local Avon lady. The extra cash came in handy to help pay tuition.

  Curtis didn’t answer. It was going on eleven. Maybe he’d left town for the weekend without telling me. Then I remembered that I was his boss, not his mother. I called the Rhodes’s number. Sunny picked up on the second ring, perhaps hoping I was a customer with a big Avon order.

  “Curtis isn’t up yet,” she informed me, still sounding like her usual cheerful self. “I promised to make breakfast for him this morning because Oren wanted pancakes. Should I wake Curtis?”

  I hesitated. “No. But have him call me as soon as he gets up. Thanks, Sunny.”

  Sleeping in is not a sin. I’d do it myself if I had more opportunities. But I wondered if my new reporter was a bit lazy. While I waited for him to reach a conscious state, I called Milo’s cell phone.

  “Are you at work?” I asked in response to his gruff greeting.

  “Yes,” he replied. “How come you didn’t ignore my warning and run off to see Lover Boy in Seattle?”

  I realized that Milo had seen my home phone number come up on his caller ID. “That’s really none of your business,” I snapped. “What does concern you is that I’m assigning Curtis Mayne to the Platte investigation.”

  “Curtis is twelve,” Milo responded. “Are you crazy? You didn’t let Scott Chamoud take on a big story like this until he’d been working for you at least five years.”

  “It wasn’t that long,” I countered, although it had definitely taken me quite a while to let Scott handle a touchy assignment. “This is different. I’m concerned about my objectivity.”

  “Yeah, right, okay,” Milo said grumpily. “It’s your call. But I don’t want to have to hold this twerp’s hand.”

  “That’s how he’ll learn,” I declared. “Naturally, I’ll edit his copy closely.”

  “Damned straight you will,” Milo shot back. “I don’t want some punk fresh out of college making me look like an idiot.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Is there anything new on the case?”

  “It’s not your story,” Milo retorted. “I’ll keep Curtis up to speed when he gets here.”

  There was no point in arguing with the sheriff when he was in one of his ornery moods. “You’ll see him soon,” I promised and hung up.

  But noon came and the clock kept ticking. I’d gone outside to work in the garden, taking my phone with me. By one o’clock I’d filled a plastic bag full of weeds, leaves, and branches, taking out my increasing annoyance with Curtis by yanking up the English bluebells that were crowding out my summer-blooming plants.

  I stood up, brushed the dirt off my old slacks, and surveyed my handiwork. As usual, I couldn’t see much of an improvement. My front yard is relatively flat, but out in back of my log house the property slopes upward and is shaded by tall evergreens. I confine my greatest labor to the front, where the garden gets more sun. The rainy climate encourages growth, and for some perverse reason it seems to have a more positive effect on weeds and other undesirable flora than on the flowers and shrubs I’ve spent my hard-earned money on. I don’t have a truly green thumb, but I try. At the moment, I felt as if I was a better gardener than an editor and publisher, given my inability to keep track of my
reporter. I went back inside, washed my hands, and called the Rhodes residence a second time.

  “Did Curtis ever wake up?” I asked Sunny.

  “Yes,” she replied. “He came into the kitchen about ten minutes after you called. I told him you wanted to talk to him, and he said he’d call, but after he ate his breakfast, he left. Maybe,” she added hopefully, “he’s coming to see you.”

  “Maybe.” I sounded far less hopeful. “Thanks.”

  I dialed Curtis’s cell phone again. This time he picked up on the third ring.

  “Wow,” he said with what sounded like feigned amazement, “would you believe I was just about to call you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I snapped. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for almost two hours.” It was an exaggeration, but I was mad.

  “Sorry,” he said breezily. “I didn’t realize I was still on the clock. I thought this was a Saturday.”

  “Journalists are always on the clock,” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “News actually does sometimes happen on a weekend, even in Alpine. Where are you?”

  “Uh…Starbucks. Mrs. Rhodes doesn’t make lattes.”

  I couldn’t resist sarcasm. “That’s a shame. Poor you. Bring it with you and be here in five minutes.” I hung up.

  It took Curtis almost ten minutes, but he arrived in his aging Nissan just before one-thirty. He wasn’t carrying a paper cup, so I presumed he’d finished his latte at Starbucks.

  “So what’s happening?” he asked after I indicated he should sit in an armchair by the fireplace.

  I sat rigidly on the sofa. “You’ve heard about Dylan Platte’s murder, I assume.”

  Curtis nodded. “It’s all over town. He’s the guy who wanted to buy the paper, right?”

  “He and some other family members,” I said. “I’m assigning you the story.”

  His blue eyes widened. “No kidding! That’s great. Byline and all, huh?”