Alpine Gamble (13 page)

“Hippies, that's what they were,” Cal was saying. “Nothing but drugs and sex and incense. They plea-bargained their way out of an insurance fraud conviction. I'll bet that wouldn't have happened if we'd had Milo as sheriff back then.”

I smiled a bit thinly at Cal. “I won't quote you in the paper. We've all got our prejudices.”

Cal looked as if he were about to argue that he wasn't prejudiced, merely sensible. But he shrugged and went to check out the Range Rover, which I presumed he'd been asked to tow into town.

Cal seemed to read my mind. “Milo asked me to bring this thing in so he can go over it. I suppose the keys are on Levine.”

Watching Cal prepare to tow the Range Rover reminded me of something. I leaned out the open car window and asked whose vehicle he had been towing when Vida and I had seen him at Old Mill Park.

Cal was about to climb back in the cab of his tow truck. “That Eighty-one Honda Accord? It's registered to an out-of-towner. I towed it in from across the highway, just the other side of Icicle Creek. It belongs to some woman with a weird name. Moon or Sun or Sky. Her parents were hippies or beatniks, I'll bet. But she was clean.”

Maybe Skye Piersall had been a hippie in her youth. Now she was a woman with a cause. Smiling again at Cal Vickers, I turned on the ignition. I was anxious to get back to
The Advocate
, and more than a little curious to hear what Carla had learned from Skye Piersall.

When I reached the office, Carla was on the phone. Leo was out checking with our advertisers, and Vida had taken her roll of film to Buddy Bayard's studio. A glum-faced Ginny was distributing phone messages.

“I suppose,” she said as I stepped over the threshold, “this means we won't be going to the Chamber meeting tomorrow to talk about the Summer Solstice.”

Given the shock of Stan Levine's death, I had indeed forgotten our date with the Chamber. But I pretended otherwise. “No, Ginny, not necessarily. Although I expect
the members won't want to talk of much else. Even before Stan was shot, Henry Bardeen said they planned on discussing the spa project and taking a vote of support. Or nonsupport, as the case may be.”

“That's dumb,” Ginny sniffed. “Maybe the whole thing will fall through. I mean, the sale couldn't be final this fast, could it?”

I'd neglected to ask Leonard that very important question. “The financing hasn't been secured. Stan and Blake were flying back to L.A. tomorrow to raise the money. My guess is that the deal's up in the air.”

“It sure is,” Carla chimed in, putting the phone down. “Skye Piersall and her group are asking for an environmental impact study. She says that will take months. I was just talking to the state agency in Olympia. They haven't been notified yet by CATE.”

I sat on the edge of Carta's desk while Ginny slouched from the news office. “Why didn't Skye show for our ten-thirty?”

“She had car trouble.” Carla was unperturbed; her own car was always having trouble.

I wasn't as easily satisfied. Not that I doubted Skye's word about her car. I'd seen it being towed with my own eyes. Cal Vickers had mentioned that the Honda had been across the highway, which indicated she was coming from the direction of the hot springs. I couldn't help but wonder why Skye had been driving west on Highway 2, perhaps about the same time she was supposed to be in my office.

“Skye was two and a half hours late,” I pointed out.

Carla flipped her long black hair over her shoulders. “So? Cars are a pain. Give her a break, Emma. She was here when you called about Stan Levine. When Skye found out he'd been shot, she went to pieces. I had to drive her to the Tall Timber Inn.”

“Really?” I was shaken by Skye's reaction. Apparently,
I hadn't been completely wrong about Skye and Stan having more than an adversarial interest in each other. “What did she say?”

“Say?” Carta's expression was blank. “Not much. She just started to cry and beat her fists on my desk.”

“She didn't know he was dead.”

“She did when you called the second time. Vida hadn't said anything about it to us when you talked to her a few minutes earlier. Sometimes,” Carla added with a grimace, “Vida can be a pill.”

Vida tended to spout off about everybody and everything at the drop of a name. But she could also be close-mouthed. That was one of the reasons people confided in her. Having no comeback for Carla, I checked the phone messages at my desk. As yet, there was nothing urgent. I'd give Milo another half hour to get back to the office and collect himself. In the meantime, I started a rough draft of the shooting story. It seemed we now had a new lead.

Five hundred words into the piece, I decided to phone Skye Piersall at the Tall Timber Inn. Alma Eriks, who has owned the motel for thirty years along with her late husband, Gus, answered.

“Who?” Alma demanded in her sharp voice.

I repeated Skye's name carefully, then spelled it for Alma. She was in her seventies and perhaps was going deaf.

'That's a peculiar name, if I ever heard one,” Alma declared. “Why can't parents call their children by proper names, like Hazel and Myrtle and June?”

“Don't ask me, Alma,” I said, masking my impatience with breezy camaraderie. “I went way back and called my son Adam.”

“That's back, all right. Sorry, Emma, no such person is registered here.”

I frowned into the receiver. “You mean she checked out already?”

“She never checked in,” Alma retorted. “I looked through a whole week. You must have us mixed up with the Lumberjack Motel.”

Maybe, for reasons involving environmental espionage, Skye had used another name. As a last resort I described her to Alma.

“Nobody like that,” Alma said firmly. “No single women at all in the last few days. All men or couples and families. Like I said, try the Lumberjack.”

I did, but drew a blank there, too. Going to the door, I asked Carla if there was a possibility she'd made a mistake.

“Honestly,” she said in an exasperated voice, “do you think I'm
stupidl
I know which is the Tall Timber and which isn't. The inn's just three blocks from my apartment.”

That was true. Carla probably wasn't mistaken. For once. Thwarted, I decided to head for the sheriff's office.

The rain was coming down harder again. For some reason, June is often a wet month in western Washington. I have childhood memories of getting out of school on damp, gray days that often continued until the Fourth of July. Oddly, May is usually sunny and occasionally downright hot. Living in the shadow of the Cascades and in the path of the Japanese current creates peculiar weather patterns, including Februarys that feel like June.

Scorning an umbrella, I allowed my hair to get damp by the time I entered the sheriff's headquarters. Once again Jack Mullins and Bill Blatt were behind the counter. I inquired after Milo.

Jack gave me his puckish grin. “He's behind closed
doors, probably drinking some of Fannucci's Scotch. If there's any left, that is.”

“Can he be disturbed or shall I wait until he passes out?”

Jack chuckled. “It'd take more than what was left in that bottle to put Dodge on his ear. But he's busy, consoling the bereaved partner. Blake Fannucci's asking for police protection.” Jack rolled his eyes.

So far, I'd only considered Blake's personal feelings about losing Stan. Despite Jack's contempt for Blake's fear, I understood the Californian's point.

“Come on, Jack,” I chided. “This is no joke. Half the team's dead. Who says the shooter won't go for the surviving player?”

Jack's eyes hardened. “Who says it was intentional? In the course of a year, we get a shitload of complaints about people firing guns in the woods. Some of them are practically in town. Take a look at the road signs along the highway. How many are riddled with bullet holes? My guess is that some half-tanked character hiked up die trail and tried to pick off a spotted owl. Instead he shot Levine.”

“At close range?” I scowled at Jack. “Stan didn't look that much like a bird. Besides, it's not hunting season.”

Jack was turning mulish. “It is for coyotes. They're unclassified wildlife. They can be taken year-round, except for some specific areas, and there's no bag limit.” He shot me a superior look.

Jack could argue all day, but he wasn't going to convince me that Stan Levine had been mistaken for an owl or a coyote. Up close, Stan had looked very much like a human being.

“If I were you, I'd humor Blake Fannucci,” I said. “Is he still flying back to L.A. tomorrow?”

Bill Blatt, who had made a pretense of not eavesdropping,
edged closer to Jack. “He's postponed the trip until after the autopsy. The body probably won't be released until Wednesday. Dustin Fong is accompanying it over to the Snohomish County medical examiner in Everett. Even after the remodeling, we won't be able to do our own postmortems.”

Rubbing at my wet hair, I tried to think of an appropriate question for the deputies. I was still leaning on one foot and then the other when Milo and Blake came out of the inner office. The sheriff was wearing an aggravated expression and his companion looked belligerent. I judged that the two men had reached some sort of stalemate.

“It's my best offer,” Milo said to Blake's back. “The Peabody brothers are strong as oxes. Call them when you get back to the ski lodge.”

The Peabody brothers were a pair of out-of-work loggers who made extra money by digging graves at the local cemetery. As Janet Driggers had pointed out, the undertaking business was bad. Having Stan Levine get killed wouldn't help if he were going to be buried in L.A.

Blake Fannucci gave me a brief nod as he exited the sheriff's office. “Bodyguards?”' I asked after the door had closed.

Milo nodded once. “Right. We don't have the manpower to keep somebody on him. The Peabody brothers can handle it. They might not like Califomians, but they've got a mercenary mentality.”

My request to interview Milo was rebuffed. “It's after three,” he said in an edgy voice. “I haven't had lunch. Back off, Emma. I'll talk to you tomorrow. You've got plenty of time before your deadline.”

“I haven't had lunch, either,” I announced, trotting behind the sheriff. “Where are we going?”

Milo sighed in surrender. Two minutes later we were
in a booth across the street at the Burger Barn. The restaurant was busy, especially with take-out requests. Alpine High had just been dismissed for the day.

“Okay,” I said after we'd ordered. “What do I need to know?”

Milo shook a cigarette out of an almost-full packet. “You're up to speed, as far as I can tell.” His mood was still grumpy.

“Has the crime scene been secured?”

Milo scowled at me through a cloud of smoke. “Get real. The rain was coming down in buckets up at the springs. Visibility was limited because the clouds settle in at that altitude. If there were any footprints or sign of a struggle, I didn't see them. We had to get the body out as fast as we could or we might not have been able to use the Chelan County copter. As it was, the damned thing had to hover until there was a break in the fog, and then the landing was dicey as hell. It's a wonder the rotors didn't hit the trees.”

Wearing my most sympathetic expression, I steered Milo back to the original query. “So no man at the scene, right?”

“Right. Even with an extra deputy, I can't use somebody to watch the site.” Setting the cigarette down in a black plastic ashtray, Milo rubbed his forehead in a careworn manner. “Go ahead, tell me this isn't a textbook investigation. But not many people get themselves shot on terrain that's only fit for mountain goats.”

Having been to the springs, I understood Milo's dilemma. I also understood why he was upset. The conditions for seeking evidence were definitely unfavorable.

“No sign of the guii?” Weakening, I also lighted a cigarette, my first since breakfast.

Milo shook his head. “I'm guessing it was a handgun. The autopsy will give us some details.” He didn't sound optimistic.

“What about the threats?” I asked. “Any idea who made them?”

Milo stubbed out his cigarette as his cheeseburger and my hamburger arrived with our fries. “Hell, no.” He waited until the waitress had departed. “It could be anybody. Probably more than one person. When Dwight Gould comes on duty at five, I'm sending him over to the ski lodge to ask if the staff who took calls for Levine and Fannucci recognized any of the voices. It's a long shot, though.”

“Have you checked out the Range Rover?” I asked, adding extra salt to my fries. Vaguely, it occurred to me that I was cruising in unhealthy waters. Maybe it was time to reassess my lifestyle. Maybe it wasn't. I was going to meet Tom in San Francisco. That in itself was an enormous change.

“We've only checked the rental vehicle in a cursory way so far,” Milo said around a mouthful of cheeseburger. “Nothing obvious. I okayed some overtime for Jack so he could meet Dwight Gould at the lodge. They can go through Levine's belongings. I don't expect to find anything, but if Fannucci sees them hanging around, it might make him feel better.”

“Are you ruling out an accident?”

Milo gave me an ironic look. “At that close range, even Durwood Parker couldn't mistake Stan Levine for a bear. The weather wasn't bad this morning, so visibility was probably good. But don't quote me. Wait for the M.E.'s report.”

Swallowing a fat french fry, I asked a reluctant question. “I hate to say this while we're eating, but I'm bothered about Stan being shot through the eye.” I swallowed again, even though my fry was long gone. “Stan was fairly tall, at least six feet. Wouldn't the killer have to be that tall or taller?”

Milo, whose stomach was stronger than mine, devoured
a slice of dill pickle. “Not on that rocky ground. No matter where you stand, you're automatically several inches taller or shorter than whoever you're with.”

I deep-sixed my quibble, wrenched my mind away from gruesome details, and bravely tackled my burger. I couldn't conjure up any more pertinent questions for the sheriff. Milo's disposition was improving in a direct relation to his consumption of food, coffee, and nicotine. I decided to help him along by changing the subject:

“Even if you can't do autopsies in Alpine, you'll be able to handle more of the lab work when the renovations are done,” I said, raising my voice to be heard above the noisy arrival of a half-dozen teenagers. “What did Scott Melville say this morning about your storage space?”