The Alpine Xanadu

by Mary Daheim

  At my desk, I tried to focus on my next editorial. The phone rang before I could gather my thoughts.

  “Okay,” Mavis said, “you’re not dead, Ms. Lord. You must be mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” I replied. “I’m Mrs. Dodge.”

  I had to hold the phone away from my ear to avoid being deafened by Mavis’s shriek. “You’re mad, all right,” she finally declared. “Mad as a hatter. Emma, I can’t believe it.”

  “You’d better. I’m happy, happy, happy.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about ‘congratulations’?”

  She sighed loudly. “I … what am I missing here? You always made Dodge sound like some hick whose only talent was explaining the infield fly rule.”

  “I guess I never told you the part about what he was doing when he explained it. Would you like to hear it now or should I just purr?”

  “Oh, no!” She sighed again. “Do you want to make me jealous?”

  “Someday when we both get very drunk I’ll tell you. I’m not mad. But here’s something you can understand. It’s going on five and I’ve got to write an editorial before I go home to make dinner for my husband. I may get off a letter to you this weekend—if I have time.” I made a purring sound just to annoy her.

  Mavis hung up on me. Three minutes later, an email from her showed up. “I think I just figured out how to cheer up the Resident Grump. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Congratulations—to me.”

  Alpine had been founded as a company town by Carl Clemans. He had been impressed by the cooperative philosophy of his alma mater’s president, Leland Stanford, but he hadn’t embraced that concept in his logging community. Money never changed hands, as workers were paid in scrip to buy goods at the company store. Many early Alpiners saved some of their earnings, a boon when they were forced to move on after the original mill’s closure. I had historical grounds for my editorial. There was more than one way to fund a town or a county. That was a start toward changing local minds.

  What I didn’t know was that someone would soon change my mind about murder.

  NINETEEN

  THE GROCERY BASKET HAD ONLY PREVIOUSLY FROZEN ALASKAN king salmon filets. I bought enough for three, assuming Tanya would join us. It had been a long day—a long week—and I was tired. Having gone to the ATM, I splurged on Betsy’s Bakers, potatoes that were ready to serve and came with a variety of toppings, none of which Milo liked, but I do. As with most things in life, he kept his food simple. Butter suited him just fine.

  He arrived at ten to six—alone. “Where’s Tanya?” I asked.

  “Blatt’s car broke down,” Milo said, hanging his hat and jacket on its usual peg. “There was nobody around to fix it after four in Lake Chelan. Nobody to tow it this far, either. They’re spending the night at Kelly’s Resort. They may stay until Sunday. And no, I didn’t sabotage Bill’s car. I told him last week it sounded like a washing machine.”

  “They’re spending our wedding night at a resort?”

  Milo laughed—sort of. “Sounds about right.” He cradled my face in his hands and kissed me. “How’s my wife?”

  “Tired, but …” I looked up at him. “You want to eat or …?”

  He kissed me again before heading to the kitchen. “I’m unwinding. I spent two hours interrogating the three witches from Macbeth.”

  I followed him. “I didn’t know you’d ever seen Macbeth.”

  “Seen it?” he said, hauling out the liquor bottles. “I was in it in high school. It was an English project. I was Birnam Wood.”

  “You weren’t!”

  “No, I was Banquo. Being so damned tall was good for a ghost. I didn’t have to memorize as many lines as the other kids did.”

  “You have hidden depths,” I said. “Who played the Macbeths?”

  Milo frowned in an apparent effort at remembering. “Jim Carlson, Norm’s kid brother, and …” He laughed. “Cookie Parker.”

  “Cookie? The meek Mrs. Eriks? How’d she do that?”

  “Badly. She subbed for Ellen Vickers, who got mono.”

  “Not a role for Cookie,” I said. “What three witches?”

  “Patti, Kay, and Tiffany,” he replied, putting ice into our drinks.

  “Tiffany? Where is she?”

  “With Cookie.” Milo looked at the stove. “How come the oven’s not on?”

  “I didn’t know when you’d get here,” I said, opening the fridge to take out the salmon. “Can you eat all this? I got enough for Tanya too.”

  “Sure. I never had lunch. I was too busy getting us married.”

  I turned the oven on and put the fish in a baking dish. “How was Tiff? Did she reveal all about her brief encounter with Blackwell?”

  “She clammed up, insisting she just wanted to get away for a few days. Hated her job, needed a break, tired of winter, thought Jack was taking her to Palm Desert for a few days. When she found out he couldn’t get away because of his business, she split.”

  I opened a can of string beans. “Do you believe her?”

  “I wouldn’t believe her if she told me you were dumb enough to park in a loading zone.”

  I shot him a flinty look. “What about Kay?”

  Milo leaned against the sink. “I haven’t seen her in almost thirty years. She looks good, considering all the husbands she’s had. The exes haven’t held up so well, two of them being dead. The one before Burns died in a car wreck. Kay admitted she’d gotten it on with Dwight—because he was her first husband, she’d always had a soft spot for him, especially with Jack being a womanizer. Nobody could ever accuse Gould of that.”

  I started the potatoes and the beans. “Let’s sit. Tell me what she said about not stabbing Jack. Or did she confess?”

  Milo didn’t answer until we were in our usual living room places. “Kay admitted she’d seen Jack at RestHaven, including the open house. She called the exchanges ‘brief and frosty.’ She said if she wanted to stab him, she’d have done it when he dumped her for Anne Marie Olson.”

  “Was that wife number two?”

  “More like number four, but the second wife here. There’d been a couple of others in Oregon or Idaho. Or maybe California.”

  “No wonder he never bothered marrying Patti. Was she sober?”

  “Is she ever?” Milo paused to sip his drink and light a cigarette. “She wouldn’t let me in. I got to her place a little before five and she was on her way to pick up Jack at the hospital. After she got through calling me every name in the book, she denied stabbing him. Hell, maybe all those women are telling the truth. I’ll wait to see what the lab turns up on the sheets we took out of Blackwell’s house.”

  “What?” I shrieked, almost falling off the sofa. “You didn’t tell me about any sheets!”

  “Hell, Emma, I don’t have to tell you everything until it’s official. You think we wouldn’t process the place after Blackwell got stabbed?”

  “When will you get the results back? Are you looking for DNA?”

  “Right. We’ll have to get samples from the three witches.”

  “Can you do that without them knowing it?”

  Milo had put down his drink and stubbed out his cigarette. “Doe can. She’s crafty. Have I got time to change?”

  “Yes. Eight minutes.”

  The sheriff loped off to the bedroom. I tended to my cooking and set the table. When he entered the kitchen I was about to dish up. I asked if Blackwell had any kids by his ex-wives.

  “Not that I know of,” Milo said, sitting down. “If he did, maybe that’s why he kept moving north and ended up here—he was fleeing child support. Too late now to nail him for that.”

  “What happened to the wife after Kay? Anne Marie … Olson?”

  “Right—Olson with an ‘o.’ ” Milo paused to admire the salmon. “Looks good. She married somebody from Monroe and moved there. I dated her for a while. Nice girl. Not too bright, though.”

  “Were you jealous when she married Jack?” />
  “Hell, no,” he replied, putting a chunk of butter on a Betsy’s Baker. “I was dating Mulehide then. Jack bragged about stealing her, but Anne Marie was up for grabs.” He eyed me curiously. “Why this past history?”

  I sighed. “Somebody told me your history with Jack went back further than the Cody Graff case. I thought if that was true, maybe it was over Anne Marie.”

  Milo shook his head. “Face it, Blackwell’s an arrogant S.O.B. He came here right after I started as a deputy. He sucked up to Eeeny, but wanted to make sure I knew my place—under his heel. Even back then I didn’t take well to that kind of thing. Basic personality clash, maybe.”

  I smiled at him. “You wouldn’t, big guy. But I’m asking about some of the history because of tales Clarence Munn’s been telling about corruption in years gone by.” As we began to eat, I told Milo about the research Tanya and I had done.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said when I finished. “But let it lie for now, with Fuzzy’s brainstorm bubbling on the back burner. You might want to save that kind of stuff for later to show what happened under the old regime.”

  “Good point,” I conceded. “But am I missing something?”

  Milo looked puzzled. “About what?”

  “I’ve heard a couple of references to a dark horse lately. I don’t know if it’s about Wayne or Blackwell or … Go ahead, tell me I’m crazy.”

  “Why repeat myself? Decent salmon, even if it was frozen.”

  I touched his hand. “Why don’t I feel different being married?”

  “What did you expect? Shooting stars and comets?” He put his hand over mine. “We’ve known each other for over fifteen years. We went through a civil process lasting five minutes today. It took you almost that long to pay your parking ticket. Despite you being in denial and me telling myself there had to be somebody besides you, we knew we belonged together from the first time you stumbled into my office.”

  My eyes widened. “You noticed that? You remembered it?”

  He took his hand away. “You bet. I’d seen you around town, but you waited two weeks to introduce yourself. I’d run you through the system, grilled Vandeventer, and heard the rumors about your tainted past. I didn’t want the Advocate falling into the hands of some city tart who didn’t know a Swede saw from a Swedish meatball. You drove a Jag and your clothes were too classy for Alpine. But you were damned cute. I could see that from a block away. I waited for you to come to me. And when you did, you tripped over your own feet and gave me a big doe-eyed look, pretending nothing had happened. I figured maybe you were okay.”

  “I was nervous. I’d seen you. I worried you’d be as daunting and grim as you looked. But you weren’t. You bought me a drink.”

  “It was all I could do then. I was still screwed up from the divorce.”

  “You sure were. When you finally asked me out on a real date, you didn’t seem to notice I was a girl. I was damned disappointed, big guy. I felt there was zero chemistry between us.”

  Milo didn’t answer until he’d finished chewing and swallowing some green beans. “Good God, Emma, you showed up in a white blouse and a black skirt looking like one of those nuns from your church. I knew your brother was a priest. I figured maybe you’d planned to be a nun but got knocked up and tossed out of the convent. You might be some religious wacko. That outfit scared the hell out of me.”

  “I thought I looked nice. You knew by then I wasn’t wacky, you jerk. What about the green dress I spent three hundred bucks on when you took me to dinner at the ski lodge a year later?”

  Milo leaned back in the chair. “I was going with Honoria then.”

  “You held my hand in the sleigh going up to the lodge before it got tipped over and we fell in a snowbank.”

  He sighed. “Okay, so I wanted to make a move on you. But that sleigh accident made me think it’d be a bad idea. It wasn’t my style to cheat on Honoria. I had to fight myself to keep from jumping you during dinner. I’ve never seen you wear that dress since. It’s still in your closet.”

  “I wore it once for Tom,” I said bitterly.

  “Let’s go to that French place tomorrow night. Wear the dress and you can try your luck with me again.” He stood up.

  I stared at him. “We’re not done eating,” I said.

  “Yes, we are.” He lifted me out of the chair into his arms. “Let’s go act like married people. You don’t need a damned dress for me.”

  I nestled against him. “It’s about time. I thought you’d never ask.”

  Milo was on his cell when I staggered into the kitchen the next morning. “I owe you,” he was saying. “Thanks.” He clicked off and looked at me. “Bill has to have the car towed here. The Chelan County sheriff is having a deputy drive him and Tanya back to Alpine on Sunday.”

  “Did you talk to Bill or Tanya?”

  “Bill. They’re staying over there because the weather’s better.”

  I paused in the act of pouring coffee. “It usually is. You mean they’re having a good time together?”

  Milo rubbed the back of his head. “I guess so. It’s almost too good to be true. They’ve both had romances go sour. Maybe they need each other. Hell, why not?”

  I sat down. “What are you doing today?”

  “I should start cleaning up at my place. I’m serious about putting the house on the market in early March. You can come along and figure out what—if any—of the furniture we should keep.”

  “We don’t have room for much more stuff,” I said, still feeling a bit foggy. “Your sofa’s newer, but it’s bigger and wouldn’t fit here.”

  “I could put it in my workshop if I wanted to take a nap.”

  “Milo! How big is your workshop going to be?”

  He laughed. “Not that big. Relax. I’m kidding.”

  “Oh.” I sipped some coffee. “I’ll tag along. I’ve never really seen all the furnishings in your house.”

  We arrived at the sheriff’s split-level a little after ten. “You’ll have to hire somebody to clean up the yard,” I told him, gazing at what once was probably a decent, if modest, garden. “This is a jungle.”

  “Mulehide and the kids handled that stuff,” he said. “I only did the heavy lifting. When do I have time for anything but basic maintenance?”

  “I like to work in my garden,” I said. “It’s good exercise. Jeez, Milo, you’ve got wild berry vines and small cedars and just plain junk in the flower beds. You could have snakes for all I know.”

  He shrugged. “Only garter snakes. They’re harmless.”

  “I can’t stand it,” I declared. “Since it’s not raining, I’ll start here.”

  “Go for it. I’ll see you inside.”

  I spent the next twenty minutes pulling weeds, saplings, four kinds of vines, and what looked like a trail of Marlowe Whipp’s careless mail deliveries. At least there was no wind or my pile of debris would have blown all over the other houses in the Icicle Creek development. I was wishing the sheriff could arrest himself for littering when I picked up a bedraggled photo that had caught on a small holly bush—and dropped it. Running up the steps into the house, I called Milo’s name.

  “What?” he asked, coming from downstairs. “You found a snake?”

  “No. It’s much worse. Come see for yourself.”

  With an impatient sigh he followed me outside.

  The photo was filthy in more ways than the obvious. Milo didn’t pick it up. “Jesus,” he said softly. “It’s kiddy porn. Did you touch it?”

  “Briefly,” I admitted. “I didn’t know what it was.”

  “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll get some gloves and bag it. No fingerprints in this weather, though.”

  I kept my distance from the blasted picture, wondering where it had come from. Not Marlowe—he was an odd duck in his way, but he wouldn’t leave a porn trail behind him. I was deadheading a rhododendron when Milo came back outside. He made short work of his task before joining me.

  “Okay, tell me I should’ve bust
ed into Freeman’s closed meeting last night about the porn problem.”

  “I should have, too,” I said. “But the press wouldn’t qualify.”

  “He might have barred me—or moved the venue.” Milo sighed. “Okay, so who’s the porn perp?” He looked up at the overcast sky. “Or who was the porn perp?”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  He took off his gloves before tipping up my chin. “It has to be somebody around here. I could be wrong.”

  “So could I. What are you going to do?”

  “Get to work,” he said, his hand falling away. “You can’t come with me. I’ll drive you back home.”

  It was useless to argue. Besides, I had an agenda of my own. “The furniture can wait,” I said. “Are you going to talk to Freeman?”

  “Not yet. Hang on while I lock up.” I waited while he secured the house. “I figure he’s clueless about the source,” Milo went on after we got in the SUV. “That kind of meeting is to rally the troops and bring them up to speed. If any staff or faculty know where the junk’s coming from, they won’t admit it. My guess is that they don’t. The kids bring it in.”

  We left the Icicle Creek development, heading up to Fir Street. “You processed Wayne’s PUD van, right?”

  The sheriff shot me a reproachful glance. “It was a murder site, even though we weren’t sure at first. But I kept it in impound anyway. Early on, my first concern was for the safety gear in case it was faulty or someone had tampered with it. But there was no sign of anything else suspicious.”

  “What about the little fire by the road?”

  Milo frowned. “You’re right. That might mean something. Now.”

  I patted his arm. “Gosh, now that we’re married, you listen to me?”

  “I don’t have much choice. I’m stuck doing that for the rest of my life. Just don’t get bigheaded about it, okay?”

  “You really are a beast,” I said as we passed the high school football field. “I wonder how often Wayne worked on the lines around here, whether they needed it or not.”