The Alpine Traitor

by Mary Daheim

  “You will, too,” I said. “Thanks, Leo.”

  “Sure.” He patted my back and got out of the car but leaned down before shutting the door. “Hey, just remember Walsh’s Famous Maxim—‘Things can always get worse.’”

  I laughed. Sort of. “I know.”

  Of course Leo was right.

  I didn’t call Vida after I returned from the ski lodge. I was too tired, and couldn’t cope with a rehash of my unsettling encounter with what I was beginning to think of as the Cavanaugh Gang.

  By the time I got to the office at a couple of minutes before eight the next morning, I felt better despite a series of chaotic dreams, none of which I could remember after I woke up. That was probably for the best. Real life seemed harrowing enough.

  Kip was already on hand, but Ginny hadn’t yet arrived to start the coffeemaker. “I can do it,” Kip said. “Is she sick?”

  “Not that I know of,” I replied. “She’s just…pregnant.”

  Kip laughed. “I’d forgotten what she was like the other times.”

  “She wasn’t quite as bad,” I said, “but she didn’t already have two other kids making demands on her time and energy.”

  Just as Kip was about to measure out the coffee, Vida entered the newsroom. “Think, think, think! I need four more ‘Scene Around Town’ items. Emma, Kip—what have you got for me?”

  Kip held up a hand. “Norm Carlson went out yesterday looking for those two cubs that lost Mama Bear. No luck, but he told his dairy truck drivers to get an early start on their routes so they could help him search the woods near Gus Lindquist’s place on Disappointment Avenue.”

  “Excellent,” Vida declared, then looked at me. “Or is it a small story?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but there’s no reason you can’t put it in ‘Scene’ as well. I wouldn’t list all the searchers for fear of leaving someone out and making them mad at us. There’s bound to be more than Norm and his Sky Dairy employees around here, given the number of people who love animals.”

  “Very true,” Vida agreed. “Now you give me an item for ‘Scene.’”

  My mind was blank. All I could think of was the Cavanaugh Gang. It suddenly dawned on me that, if they had been anybody else, I’d toss the tidbit into Vida’s hat—which, this morning, was a white and purple striped turban. “Bay Area visitors at the ski lodge enjoying dinner while taking a respite from house hunting in Alpine.”

  Vida gaped at me. “What?”

  “I saw them last night,” I said. “I got home too late to call you.”

  “Nonsense! You know I stay up past eleven! How late could you possibly have been?”

  Kip wisely decided to withdraw and retreated into the back shop. “Frankly,” I said, looking Vida straight in the eye, “I was too damned worn out and frazzled.”

  Her ire evaporated. “Truly? Were they unbearably rude?”

  “Smug’s more like it,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it later. And yes, Kelsey and Dylan still plan to buy Ed’s house.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Vida cried, throwing her hands up in the air. “Smug indeed! ‘Stupid’ describes them better.”

  “Maybe,” I murmured. “Here’s Leo with the bakery goods. Ask him what he thought about the Cavanaugh Gang.” I greeted my ad manager and hurried into my cubbyhole.

  Several minutes later, as I was going into the newsroom to pour my coffee, Ginny plodded through the door. “Sorry,” she said in a forlorn voice. “Our hot-water heater blew up.”

  “Good,” Vida said, swinging around to her keyboard. “That goes in ‘Scene.’ Let me see…‘Expectant parents run out of hot water for their two youngsters who—’”

  “Don’t,” Ginny pleaded. “We never mention our staff in ‘Scene.’”

  “I’m not using your names,” Vida responded. “It’ll be one of my little teases.”

  Shoulders drooping even more, Ginny surrendered. “Really, Emma, I’m sorry I was late. I’ve already checked the calls. You have one from a Mr. Weasel.” She took a slip of memo paper out of the pocket of her baggy cardigan. “Here’s his number.”

  “Thanks. I think his name is Wenzel.” I glanced at the clock above the coffee and bakery table. It was eight-thirty. “Anybody seen Curtis?”

  Leo looked up from the Grocery Basket layout on his computer screen. “Yes, I saw his beater pulling out of Cal’s Texaco when I stopped to get gas just before eight.”

  “Then where the hell is he?” I demanded.

  Vida swiveled around in her chair. “Emma, please! Watch your language. You’re out of control this morning.”

  For once, I ignored her comment. “Ginny,” I said before our office manager could escape to the sanctuary of the front office, “did your husband have anything more to say about the man who came into the bank and called himself Josh Roth?”

  “Not really,” Ginny responded. “The only reason Rick talked to him was because Jodie—that’s the new teller—thought a manager had to sign off on a traveler’s check from out of state.”

  “Did you show Rick the picture we’re running of the dead guy?”

  “No.” Ginny looked puzzled. “Why should I?”

  Ginny is fairly smart and usually very efficient, but she has no imagination. “To make sure the guy on the driver’s license is the same one who Rick saw at the bank. Why don’t—” I stopped. Asking Ginny to go to the bank now would get her off to an even later start in the workday. “I’ll have Curtis do it when he gets in.”

  Ginny nodded. “The bank doesn’t open until nine-thirty, you know.” She slouched out of the newsroom.

  “I’ll go to the bank,” Vida volunteered. “I must get a money order for some bulbs I’ll plant after Labor Day. They’re twenty percent off now in the catalog I like, but they don’t take checks and I refuse to give out my credit card numbers to anyone unless I know them personally.”

  “Okay,” I said, knowing that Vida was using the bulb purchase as an excuse to talk to Rick. Little by little, Curtis was losing his grip on any part of the homicide coverage, but he had no one to blame but himself.

  Ten minutes later my new reporter arrived, seemingly full of enthusiasm. “Time to beat those deadlines with those headlines,” he said, rubbing his hands together before selecting a couple of doughnuts from the bakery tray. “Hey, boss,” he called to me, “how much room for my page one story?”

  I’d been standing in the doorway of my office, talking to Kip. “None,” I replied. “Come in here and talk to me. Close the door behind you.”

  I stalked over to my desk and sat down. Curtis hadn’t worked for me long enough to know that the closed door meant serious business was at hand. Still, he already looked abject, his usual cockiness gone.

  As usual, I felt guilty over causing pain for anyone else. I am basically softhearted, a trait that had kept Ed Bronsky on the payroll during my early years with the Advocate.

  “Look,” I said, resting my elbows on the desk and leaning forward, “I made a big mistake. I should never have assigned you to this homicide story so early on in your job here. In fact, I didn’t give Scott much responsibility for complicated and potentially touchy coverage until the last year he worked for the Advocate. That was a mistake, too, though of a different kind. If necessary, I’ll still have you do some of the sidebar or background stuff, but I feel this is a burden I ought to take on myself. It’s not fair to weigh you down with this murder investigation.”

  “Okay.” Curtis’s chin was practically on his chest. “Maybe crime’s not my strong suit. It’s politics that interests me. Like I could do a series profiling the average voter in this county. It’s an election year, so it’d be timely.” He raised his head and suddenly regained some of his swagger.

  “We might consider that,” I allowed. “There’ll be issues, of course. Any levies or bonds will be on the primary ballot in September. In fact, my editorial this week involves asking residents what they’d like to see happen in SkyCo. Your articles could tie in with that.
”

  Curtis frowned. “That isn’t exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking more about national and international problems facing the whole country. It’d be kind of a forum.”

  I had the feeling that somewhere along the way in college Curtis had written a poli-sci paper on the subject and planned to take the easy way out by using it to fill up space in the Advocate. “We’ll figure out the angle later,” I said. “We’ve got over two months until the primary. Meanwhile,” I continued, sitting up straight and pushing my chair away from the desk, “we have a paper to get out. You’ve turned in a story and two photos already about Mayor Baugh’s wood carving. What else is ready to go to the back shop?”

  “The sheriff’s blotter is almost done,” Curtis replied. “Not much new this morning.”

  “What about the bear?” I asked. “Do that story and how some of the locals are searching for the motherless cubs.”

  Curtis looked askance. “That doesn’t exactly have global implications, does it?”

  “We’re not global,” I asserted. “We’re local, small town. This isn’t the Guardian, it’s the Advocate.”

  Curtis didn’t look pleased, but he refrained from arguing. “You want to use my lead for the homicide story?”

  “I haven’t seen it,” I said. “Let me have a peek.”

  “Sure.” He got up from the chair. “I’ll zap it in to you.”

  I watched him leave the cubbyhole. From where I was sitting, I could see only the front of his desk. After he disappeared out of sight, I waited. And waited. Finally he came back into my office.

  “Sorry,” he said ruefully. “I must’ve deleted it by mistake. Oh, well. Too bad. It was a real grabber.”

  I didn’t ask if he could remember what he’d written. Or if he’d written anything. “That’s okay. I’ll wing it.”

  As soon as Curtis left, I dialed Snorty Wenzel’s number. He answered—and snorted—on the first ring. “The local media,” he said, chuckling and snorting. “First KSKY, now the newspaper. Not to mention the local law enforcement last night. I feel like a celebrity.”

  “You’ve done a radio interview?” I asked as Spencer Fleetwood’s hawklike face sprang before my eyes.

  “Just coming from the station,” Snorty replied. “Fleetwood’s playing it on the half-hour turn at nine-thirty. You ought to tune in.”

  “Right,” I said without enthusiasm. “Could you stop by the newspaper office? I’d like to do a face-to-face interview.”

  “Sure. I can be there in five minutes. Hold the presses.”

  I tried to ignore the several snorts he’d made during his part of the conversation. It might be even worse up close and personal. But I thanked him and rang off.

  I went into the newsroom. Leo had left, Curtis was on the phone, and Vida was tapping away at her keyboard. “Snorty Wenzel’s on his way,” I announced, glancing up at the clock. It was nine-fifteen. “He’ll be here in time for his taped session with Fleetwood at nine-thirty.”

  Vida looked up. “Oh, dear. I suppose that was to be expected. Spencer would naturally want to follow up on the murder. Which reminds me, I need a guest tonight for ‘Cupboard.’ Maud Dodd has come down with a virus. A shame, since I could’ve helped promote her senior citizen column for the paper.”

  “Vida’s Cupboard” was a weekly fifteen-minute radio program of local lore and gossip. The ratings were excellent, and Vida never used items that should have run in the Advocate. In April, the time slot had been changed from Wednesdays to Tuesdays in order to beat the multiple grocery chains’ mailings and thus bring in more ad revenue for KSKY.

  “Have you got a backup for Maud?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Vida replied.

  “What about Mrs. Hines?” I suggested. “I’m doing a brief front-page article about the possibility of converting Pines Villa into condos.”

  Vida scowled. “Must you? It seems so out of place.”

  “That doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” I pointed out.

  “She might not want to drive back to Alpine this evening.”

  “You could do it over the phone,” I said. “Spence can hook you up.”

  Vida shook her head. “No, no. I dislike that sort of thing. So impersonal. Maybe I’ll try Reverend Nielsen. He and his wife are going to Scandinavia this summer. Again.”

  Ginny trudged in carrying the mail. “Catalogs!” She shook her head. “Why do we get so many catalogs? Most of them have nothing to do with newspapers, and they’re so heavy.”

  “Get on one list, get on all lists,” I said. “I’m told you can request that individual companies stop mailing them to us.”

  “I tried it,” Ginny said, putting a six-inch stack in Vida’s in-basket. “Three times. The catalogs keep coming. Marlowe Whipp gets really annoyed when he has to deliver all of them. His back’s going out.”

  “Oh, piffle!” Vida cried. “Marlowe is a chronic complainer. The last I heard was that he wanted the post office to get him one of those contraptions that big city employees use on hills, like meter readers in Seattle do. An elaborate and expensive sort of motorized tricycle. So silly. The hills here in Alpine are good exercise.”

  A short, stocky, balding man stopped in the doorway and rapped on the frame. “Anybody home?” he inquired—and snorted.

  I hurried to greet him. “Mr. Wenzel,” I said. “Come in.”

  Snorty’s handshake was on the weak side; his skin felt very soft. He turned toward Vida. “You must be the famous Ms. Runkel. Your popular radio show airs tonight, I hear. Spence absolutely raved about you.”

  Vida’s guarded expression didn’t change. “He did, did he? He ought to. I bring in a goodly sum of advertising for him. And please call me Mrs. Runkel.”

  Snorty made a little bow. “I am delighted to do you that honor…Mrs. Runkel. You are, I understand, one of the brightest stars in Alpine’s firmament.”

  “Really.” Vida looked less than pleased.

  Snorty—who, naturally, had snorted his way through all this fulsome verbiage—turned to look at Curtis, who had hung up the phone and was obviously trying to keep a straight face. “And this dashing young man?” Snorty inquired of me.

  “Curtis Mayne, our new reporter,” I said, noting that Ginny was furtively leaving the newsroom after finishing her mail delivery.

  Snorty saluted. “Truly pleased to make your acquaintance. Ah, youth! I remember it well. So encouraging to see that newspapers still attract the younger set. I’m sure you’re on your way to making a name for yourself in the business.” He paused and glanced up at the clock. “Nine-twenty-five, I see. Where shall we listen to the broadcast?”

  “Right here,” I said. “Have a seat.” I indicated Leo’s empty chair. “I’ll get my radio. There’s coffee and baked goods on the table under the clock.”

  Snorty snorted with pleasure and made a beeline for the freebies. By the time I returned with the radio and plugged it into the outlet by Vida’s desk, he was in Leo’s chair with two doughnuts, a cup of coffee, and several napkins.

  After turning the radio on, I sat on the edge of Vida’s desk. Curtis was sitting with his head propped up by his fists; Vida’s posture was ramrod straight as she stared straight ahead; Snorty was smacking his lips over a jelly doughnut. KSKY’s “Morning Medley” was playing Connie Francis’s “Stupid Cupid” from the fifties. It was one of those oldies that convinced me popular music had gotten better, not worse, over the years. Snorty, however, was rocking in Leo’s chair and wagging his head.

  A canned commercial for Safeway followed. Then Spence’s mellifluous radio voice floated over the airwaves. “This is your ‘Mid Morning’ host, Spencer Fleetwood. We promised our listeners in beautiful Skykomish County an interview with a local Realtor, Snorty Wenzel, who had business dealings with the unidentified man shot to death last Friday in Alpine. However, due to technical difficulties, we’re unable to air that segment at this time.” Brief pause. “Now let’s take another stroll down Memory Lane with Dean Mart
in’s ‘That’s Amore’…”

  I clicked off the radio. “That’s too bad,” I said. “Maybe Spence will run it later.”

  Snorty looked crushed. Curtis was still trying not to laugh. Vida scowled at the radio.

  “Spencer better not have technical difficulties when I do my show this evening,” she declared. “Two weeks ago my chair broke. Fortunately, it was during a commercial.” She turned her gaze on Snorty. “You might as well recount what you said in the interview.”

  I kept my eyes averted. Leave it to Vida, I thought, to make sure she got in on my interview. Not that I minded—she’d be a help, not a hindrance.

  “Well…” Snorty used a napkin to brush a bit of doughnut off his lower lip. “It’s kind of complicated. Want me to begin at the beginning?”

  Vida nodded. “If that’s necessary, please do.”

  “It is.” He scratched his thick neck. “I met Ed Bronsky at the country club a while back. He was thinking about selling that amazing house of his. I told him I was in the real estate business and would be glad to handle it for him. A couple of weeks later, he agreed and we made a deal for an exclusive listing.” He tugged at the collar of his green, blue, and white-striped too-snug Polo shirt. “Now let’s face it—there aren’t many people in SkyCo who’d be able to afford or maintain a fine property like Ed’s, so I listed it on the Internet.”

  He paused and grimaced at me. “Sorry about that, but your paper’s circulation doesn’t attract a large readership of wealthy buyers. Location, location…it cuts both ways in real estate.”

  I nodded. “Go on.”

  “I got a couple of hits the first week, but nothing solid until about the second week of June. This Dylan Platte guy sounded really interested. We e-mailed back and forth for a few days, and he finally said he’d come to Alpine toward the end of the month and have a look. Then he called me a week ago Monday…no, it was Tuesday…and said he’d be here Thursday. I met him at the diner and we played a little golf before I took him to look at the site. We didn’t go inside because Ed and Shirley needed more notice to get everything shipshape for viewing. Anyway, I’d given him kind of a virtual tour on the Internet, you know, showing all the highlights. The next thing I know, the poor guy’s dead.” Snorty shook his head. And snorted, of course. “I was stunned, I can tell you.”