The Alpine Kindred

by Mary Daheim

  Praise for Mary Daheim

  and her Emma Lord mysteries:

  THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

  “An intriguing mystery novel.”

  —M. K. WREN

  THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

  “Editor-publisher Emma Lord finds out that running a small-town newspaper is worse than nutty—it's downright dangerous. Readers will take great pleasure in Mary Daheim's new mystery.”

  —CAROLYN G. HART

  THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

  “If you like cozy mysteries, you need to try Daheim's Alpine series Recommended.”

  —The Snooper

  THE ALPINE DECOY

  “[A] fabulous series… Fine examples of the traditional, domestic mystery.”

  —Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

  THE ALPINE FURY

  “An excellent small-town background, a smoothly readable style, a sufficiently complex plot involving a local family bank, and some well-realized characters.”

  —Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine

  THE ALPINE GAMBLE

  “Scintillating. If you haven't visited Alpine yet, it would be a good gamble to give this one a try.”

  —The Armchair Detective

  THE ALPINE ICON

  “Very funny.”

  —The Seattle Times

  By Mary Daheim

  Published by Ballantine Books:

  THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

  THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

  THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

  THE ALPINE DECOY

  THE ALPINE ESCAPE

  THE ALPINE FURY

  THE ALPINE GAMBLE

  THE ALPINE HERO

  THE ALPINE ICON

  THE ALPINE JOURNEY

  THE ALPINE KINDRED

  Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.

  Chapter One

  EINAR RASMUSSEN JR. was angry. The deep grooves in his face that reminded me of cedar bark were twisted, and the agate-blue eyes never blinked.

  “So Miss Steinmetz told me to be here by noon,” Einar Jr. growled, planting both fists on my desk. “It's twelve-fifteen. I've been waiting for her out front, but nobody's there.”

  Unseen by Einar Jr., a small child sat on my feet. “Carla—Ms. Steinmetz—left before eleven to do a story on a new restaurant,” I explained, trying to keep my patience along with my composure. The child was bouncing up and down. “She should be back any minute.”

  The agate eyes narrowed. “A new restaurant? So you mean that harebrained scheme the Bourgette kids came up with?”

  I nodded. “Dan and John. They want to build a Fifties-style diner where the old warehouse burned down by the railroad tracks.”

  “Dumb,” Einar Jr. declared. “Alpine doesn't need a new restaurant. My son, Beau, would never come up with such a harebrained scheme. When it comes to business, those Bourgette kids haven't got the sense to pour sand down a rat hole.”

  I didn't know the Bourgette kids—who were actually thirty-something—well enough to assess their business acumen. But then I didn't know Einar Rasmussen Jr. much better, and I'd never met his son, Beau.

  “It's different here now with the college,” I countered as little Brad Erlandson started to squeak like a rubber duck. “Alpine's no longer just a stagnant mill town. You ought to know. You've had a big hand in helping build the new community college.”

  The flattery wasn't intentional, which was just as well, because Einar Jr. scoffed. “Bull. A few underpaid faculty members and a bunch of hard-up students can't support new restaurants.” Einar Jr. scowled, the hard blue gaze raking my little cubbyhole of an office. “What's that noise? It sounds like a pig's loose in here.”

  I reached under the desk and tried to budge one-year-old Brad. “It's Ginny Burmeister's boy,” I explained, gritting my teeth as Brad offered resistance. “Ginny Burmeister Erlandson, that is. Our office manager.”

  “So I wouldn't think an office would be the place for little kids.” Einar Jr. smacked one fist into the other. “What are you running here? A newspaper or a babysitting service?”

  Einar Jr. had pushed too far. “Look,” I said, finally getting little Brad to remove himself from my feet, “I don't need advice on how to run The Alpine Advocate. Would I try to tell you how to run your trucking business? If you don't want your picture taken in front of the Rasmussen Union Building at the college, just say so. When I need an outside consultant, I'll take out an ad in The Advocate's classifieds.”

  At last Einar Jr. blinked. “Okay, okay, Mrs. Lord—you don't have to get ornery with me. So I'm leaving. If your inconsiderate reporter ever shows up, let me know.”

  “I will. She will. Have a nice day. And,” I added in an uncharacteristic display of waspishness, “it's Ms. Lord. I've never been married.”

  “I don't doubt it,” Einar Jr. shot back. “Who'd have you?”

  In my youth, there would have been a dictionary at hand to throw at Einar Jr.'s infuriating head. But in the computer age, there was only software. As with so many other aspects of life, high tech had sucked the drama out of human emotions.

  It was probably a good thing. As the editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, I had no reputation as a prima donna. But Einar Rasmussen Jr. had pushed the wrong buttons; Carla might be a flake, but she was my flake. Einar Jr. ought to stick to supervising his fleet of eighteen-wheelers.

  Getting little Brad out from under the desk proved hopeless. I had just unwrapped the tuna-salad sandwich I'd made at home when the phone rang. My former ad manager, Ed Bronsky, assaulted my ear with a jumble of words that I didn't quite catch. “Sorry, Ed,” I interrupted, “would you mind going over that one more—”

  Ed was exasperated. “Emma, have you got a bad connection down there at The Advocate! I repeat, Shirley and I are getting an opergirl, and we want you to meet her.”

  “That's what I thought you said, and I don't know what you're talking about. What's an opergirl?” I winced as little Brad tickled my legs and started to giggle.

  A heavy sigh rolled over the line from Ed and Shirley's so-called villa above the railroad tracks. “A live-in, a helper, a …” Another sigh followed, shorter and conveying frustration. “It's spelled A-U space P-A-I-R. I think it's French, but she's a Swede.”

  “Oh. An aupair girl.” I pronounced the term as well as two years of French class at Blanchet High School in Seattle would allow.

  “Right, right,” Ed said impatiently, “you got it. She gets here tomorrow, Tuesday, and Shirl and I are giving a little party up here at Casa de Bronska. Friday, May sixteenth, eight o'clock. You and Vida and Leo and Carla and everybody else at the paper are invited. Tell Ginny to bring her husband and their little boy. We'll have a big spread.”

  The biggest spread at Casa de Bronska was Ed himself, but naturally I kept that thought to myself. Maybe my mean-mindedness was caused by envy at Ed's soft life since inheriting money from an aunt in Iowa. Or perhaps it was little Brad, now shinnying up and down my legs and threatening to bump his head on the underside of my desk. With the boy toddling at my side, I went into the news office, and expressed my annoyance to our current ad manager, Leo Walsh, who had just returned from making his Monday-morning rounds.

  “Is Ed as big a dim bulb as I think he is or am I crabby these days?” I asked of Leo.

  “Ed's a dim bulb, all right,” Leo agreed, his weathered features amused. “On the other hand, you may be crabby because you haven't gotten laid lately.”

  “That's a really rotten thing to say,” I retorted, flashing angry eyes at Ed's successor. “Besides—how do you know?”

  Leo shrugged. “Ever since yo
u and the Sheriff broke up last fall, I haven't seen you hanging out around Alpine's hot spots with any other guys.”

  “There are no hot spots in Alpine,” I said with a straight face. That much was true—in our small mountain aerie in the Cascades, nightlife generally consists of unemployed loggers dumping pitchers of beer over each other's heads at the Icicle Creek Tavern. “Where's Carla?” I asked, changing the subject. “She was supposed to meet Einar Rasmussen, Jr., here at noon for a photo shoot out at the college.”

  Leo shrugged. “I haven't seen her since I left around nine-thirty.”

  “Where's Ginny?” I demanded as Brad suddenly decided walking wasn't such a good idea after all and began crawling around on all fours.

  “It is the lunch hour, boss lady,” Leo replied. “She probably went over to the Burger Barn.”

  “She shouldn't have left Brad,” I complained as the boy crawled under Carla's desk. “Ginny is usually so responsible. What if I weren't here? What if you weren't here?”

  “But we are,” Leo said reasonably, then pulled out his wallet. “Are you seeking male companionship? Bright lights? Fusion cuisine in a sophisticated setting? Look. I got five of six numbers in the lottery Saturday night. Want to drive into Seattle and have dinner this weekend?”

  “Wow!” I was impressed. “How much?”

  “Six hundred and forty-seven bucks,” Leo replied, fingering a half-dozen Big Bens. “What do you say?”

  While occasionally Leo and I fraternize in a platonic sort of way, his offer sounded suspiciously like a date. “Why me? Why not Delphine?” I asked, referring to his off-and-on-again girlfriend, who happened to be the local florist.

  Leo wrinkled his broad nose. “We don't do it for each other anymore. To tell the truth, I think she's stalking one of the construction workers out at the college.”

  “Well.” I fingered my chin. Invitations to big-name city restaurants didn't come along very often. In fact, invitations of any kind—except for Ed's, which somehow didn't count—were as rare as an environmentalist at the Icicle Creek Tavern. “Okay,” I said, diving after Brad, who was trying to pull a desk drawer onto his head, “why not? I haven't been into Seattle for a couple of months.”

  “Five months.” Leo had stood up, stretching and ironing out the kinks in his broad back.

  “What?” I stared. “Are you keeping score?”

  “Yeah, I am.” Leo grinned and ran a hand through his graying auburn hair. “I was only partly kidding when I made that crack about your sex life. You've been spending too much time alone lately, babe.”

  I despised the nickname, and Leo knew it, but obviously didn't care. “So you're taking it upon yourself to save me from myself?” I asked, my tone rather stiff.

  “Something like that. Hey,” he continued, leaning on his cluttered desk, “a while back you were worrying about me, remember? I let you. Now it's my turn.”

  I had indeed fussed about Leo's temporary withdrawal almost two summers earlier, and had wondered if he'd started drinking again. But my ad manager had merely been going through an introspective phase. The life he'd left behind in California looked better from a distance, was better, in the sense that he had reconciled himself to his ex-wife's remarriage and resumed speaking to his children.

  “Okay,” I finally said, pulling little Brad out of Carla's wastebasket. “Saturday it is. But don't forget, you're invited to Ed and Shirley's soiree Friday.”

  Gazing through one of the small windows that looked out onto Front Street, Leo sighed. “How can I forget? Nobody can forget Ed. Though we try.” He sighed again.

  My House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, was neither surprised nor dismayed when I told her about Ed's invitation. “I heard he and Shirley had sent for an au pair” she said, shrugging out of her new orange raincoat. “Frankly, I didn't think they'd get one. Whatever is the point except that the Bronskys want to show off?”

  I had no explanation. The oldest of the five Bronsky children was now attending Skykomish Community College; the youngest was an eighth-grader at St. Mildred's Parochial School. “Maybe,” I ventured, “Shirley needs help with that big barn of a house.”

  “Then she should hire a housekeeper, not an au pair.” Vida sniffed. “Of course Shirley did hire at least three housekeepers, including Frieda Wunderlich, who told me it was utterly useless to clean the Bronsky house. They litter, like vagabonds. Food, clothes, appliances—they simply drop them as they walk—or waddle, as is the case with Ed.”

  “Maybe she won't stay,” I remarked, checking Carla's computer screen to see what she was working on for the weekly issue due out in two days. The screen was blank. “Damn it,” I groused, “Carla and Ginny have both been gone far too long! Little Brad's asleep under my desk. What's going on around here?”

  Vida peered at me over the orange rims of her big glasses. She had recently acquired new bifocals, and replaced her tortoiseshell frames with a shade that matched her raincoat. I still wasn't used to the change.

  “Something's afoot,” Vida said in an undertone, though no one else was in the news office. “Ginny and Carla had their heads together earlier this morning. Buzz-buzz, whisper-whisper. I couldn't believe they wouldn't tell me what they were talking about.”

  Neither could I. There was scarcely a soul in Alpine who didn't divulge the darkest of secrets to Vida Run-kel. She knew everyone, she was related to many of them, she hardly ever missed a morsel of news. If Vida had worked for the CIA, no foreign power's secrets would have been safe.

  To prove the point, Vida pounced when Ginny and Carla entered the office ten seconds later. “Well?” my House & Home editor demanded, fists on broad hips and formidable bust thrust forward. “Where in the world have you two been? It's almost one-thirty.”

  “I'm sorry, I'm really sorry,” Ginny Erlandson said, wringing her thin hands. “Is Brad okay?” She turned in every direction, her glorious red hair spraying around her shoulders.

  “Brad's napping,” I said, gesturing toward my office at the rear of the newsroom. “He's fine, but he'll be hungry when he wakes up.”

  My office manager rushed to check on her son. Carla, however, strolled to her desk without looking at Vida— or me. “Was I supposed to get those Rasmussen Union Building pictures today?” she asked in a detached voice.

  “You sure were,” I responded, waving a finger at her. “Einar Rasmussen Jr. waited around here for twenty minutes and left in a huff. He said you had a noon appointment here.”

  Carla glanced at her calendar. “No, I didn't. It's tomorrow, the twelfth.”

  “This is the twelfth,” I shot back. “Monday. You must have written it down wrong.”

  “Big deal. There's plenty of time. The dedication section isn't due out for over a week.” With a languid air, Carla sat down.

  I started to respond, but Vida interrupted: “What have you and Ginny been up to? It couldn't have taken you almost three hours to interview the Bourgette boys. Why would you need Ginny to go with you? It seems more likely that the two of you were out shopping at the mall or ate a very long lunch. No one takes more than an hour break at The Advocate. Isn't that right, Emma?” The latter comment was clearly an afterthought. Sometimes Vida has trouble remembering who is in charge. Sometimes I do, too. At sixty-plus, Vida not only can spot me by twenty years, but she has seniority on the newspaper, having been employed for almost two decades by the previous owner, Marius Vandeventer.

  I nodded. “It tends to leave the rest of us in the lurch, especially with Ginny bringing Brad to work most of the time.” As the boy began to walk and grow more active, I was beginning to think that my original offer of on-premise child care was a bad idea.

  “That's it.” Carla's pretty face brightened. “We were checking out day care. Ginny thinks it may be time to find a nice place for Brad.”

  Vida scowled. “Goodness, but you're a poor liar, Carla. You know perfectly well that Ginny's sister-in-law, Donna Wickstrom, has always said she'd take Brad in. Now, where were you?�
�

  Carla's olive skin flushed and she hid behind her long, black hair. “It's a secret.” One eye peeked out between the dark tresses.

  “Nonsense!” There were no secrets in Vida's world. “Come, come, what's going on?”

  Slowly, Carla brushed the hair from her face and made an attempt to stare down Vida. “I mean it. Honestly. I can't say—yet.”

  “Yet?” Vida's scowl deepened.

  Carla shook her head. “I really, really can't. Wait until this weekend.”

  The sigh that Vida uttered could have blown down a small sapling. “Carla! I'm ashamed of you!”

  Ginny was tiptoeing out of my office. She was Brad-less, so I assumed the child was still sleeping. “It's true,” our office manager put in. “Carla can't say anything just yet. But it's nothing bad.”

  It seemed to me that Vida looked faintly disappointed. “Well, now. Then I suppose we'll have to wait.” She drummed her short fingernails on the desktop. “When, this weekend?”

  Carla and Ginny exchanged quick glances. “Sunday?” Carla finally said. “We'll drop by your house in the evening.”

  Mention of the weekend reminded me of Ed's phone call. As soon as Vida indicated she was partially appeased, I relayed the invitation. Ginny said she'd have to check with her husband, Rick; Carla hemmed and hawed.

  “I just can't say,” she said at last, then pointed to a news release on her desk. “Now, what about the RUB?”

  “Oh—the RUB,” I echoed, using the acronym for the student-union building named to honor Einar Rasmussen Jr.'s financial contributions to the community college. The dedication was set for Sunday, May 25. Our special section would be published Wednesday, May 21. The scheduling was awkward, because it meant we had to postpone our Memorial Day edition until after the legal holiday, but at least it would come out before the historical date, May 30. “Leo figures he can sell enough advertising for a four-page pullout,” I said. “How much space can you fill with photos and text?”

  For once, Carla seemed more at ease discussing business than personal matters. “I've got plenty of photos. I've been taking them ever since construction started. I ran into Mr. Rasmussen on campus last week to set up a photo of him in front of the completed union building. Now I suppose I'll have to reschedule.” She sighed, the soul of self-sacrifice. “This is such a pain. I can't find his number in the phone book.”