Alpine Gamble (28 page)

I tried to keep from looking curious, but for once Carla was observant. “Peyts is on call this weekend.” She gave me a faintly amused smile. “It's okay, Emma. You can mention his name. You can mention his name in the same sentence with Marilynn. You can mention their names
together.
Frankly, Peyts made me crazy. Marilynn can have him.” Her smile now arch, Carla swished out of the office.

Leo snickered. “Sour grapes—or not?”

I shrugged. “Carla and Dr. Flake were never a good match. I like Marilynn's chances much better. She knows how to deal with impossible men.”

Again Leo bent over his layout. I started for my cubbyhole. “What happened?” Leo called out after me as I crossed the threshold.

I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “About what? Carla and Peyts?”

Leo gazed up from his work. He was wearing a short-sleeve summer sports shirt with no tie. His bare arms looked muscular as he rested them on the desk. “No. Your weekend pass to wherever. San Francisco?”

I turned all the way around. “Who blabbed? Janet Driggers?”

Leo nodded. “I ran into her at Parker's Pharmacy this afternoon. She said you were very mysterious.”

I didn't understand the sudden urge to spill everything on Leo. But I did it anyway, at least in part. “I got dumped,” I said, forcing myself to look my ad manager straight in the eye. “My hot weekend didn't pan out. If you tell anyone, you're fired.”

Leo arched his eyebrows at me, but his expression was sympathetic. “The guy must be an idiot. I suppose I can't ask what happened?”

“No.” I'd already said too much. “It wasn't really his
fault.” It was, though. Tom had put up with Sandra's nonsense for far too long. But Sandra was sick. The mind could be as diseased as any other part of the body. I gave myself a sharp shake. This was no time to bring up all the old, tired arguments.

Leo was giving me his crooked grin. “Let Dr. Walsh cheer you up, babe. How about dinner at King Olav's? I owe you, remember? Our Sonics bet?”

I had forgotten the wager we'd made last fall in the NBA season's early stages. In a rare moment of basketball insight, I'd predicted that the Seattle team wouldn't get to the finals in the playoffs. They hadn't, losing to Denver in the first round.

I started to demur, then managed an uncertain smile of my own. “Why not? You can admire the price tags on my San Francisco wardrobe.”

“I can find plenty to admire without that,” Leo said, and for just a moment he looked very serious. “Go home, soak in the tub, unwind. I'll hold down the fort here until five and pick you up just before seven.”

There was no compelling reason to argue. I'd already planned my workload so that I could leave early to get to the airport. Three minutes later I was going through the front office, wishing Ginny a pleasant weekend.

“Rick's taking me to dinner on
The River Queen
in Everett.” Ginny seemed tickled at the prospect.

“It sounds like fun,” I said, recalling the announcement of the paddleboat's arrival a couple of years earlier. “The sun's coming out, so you should have a nice view. Enjoy yourselves.” With a farewell smile, I pushed open the front door.

The sun was indeed out, which made the drenching flood of water all the more astonishing. I let out a shriek as the brief torrent soaked me to the skin. In the middle of Front Street a man in a pickup truck screeched to a stop, while a handful of pedestrians, ineluding
Pastor Purebeck from the Presbyterian church, paused to gape.

I probably wouldn't have sworn anyway, since I was more stunned than angry. Ginny came running outside to find me wiping water out of my eyes and peering up at the lintel over
The Advocate's
entrance.

“Emma!” she cried in alarm. “What happened? You're all wet!”

Simultaneously, we spotted the galvanized bucket dangling from a piece of cord. Our eyes followed the cord down along the door to the outside knob. Ginny and I stared at each other.

“Somebody set this up,” I said, still dripping and spluttering. “Somebody,” I added, now sounding grim, “like that little rat, Roger.”

Ginny's eyes grew even wider. She started to laugh, then quickly put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no! Roger is so awful!” But Ginny couldn't stop giggling.

The pickup had driven away, but most of the pedestrians, including Pastor Purebeck, remained. “Are you all right, Ms. Lord?” he inquired in his grave voice.

I was trying to squeeze water out of my navy slacks. “I'm okay. I'm just glad it's a late Friday afternoon and we don't get much traffic at the office. I wouldn't want one of our subscribers to get doused. You might give your Sunday sermon on discipline.” My gaze narrowed at Pastor Purebeck. “Especially for grandparents.”

The clergyman's sculpted features sagged. He understood that I was referring to a member of his flock. “Well … ah … yes, discipline is considered old-fashioned, I'm afraid. But it's never really out of style. God bless you, my dear.” He moved away with unseemly haste, lest I actually take Vida's name in vain.

It wasn't hard to remove the bucket and the cord. I didn't understand how Roger had gotten up there until
I noticed the ladder standing innocently in front of the dry cleaners next door. Apparently our neighbors had been putting up their striped summer awning. Roger had taken advantage of the opportunity while his grandmother was collecting her clean clothes.

The drive home wasn't comfortable, but at least the incident propelled me into following Leo's advice. The first thing I did after grabbing the mail and checking my answering machine was to soak in the tub. I was relaxing and trying to forget that I should be en route to San Francisco when I heard an odd pounding noise. Hastily, I got out of the tub, wrapped myself in a frayed summer robe, and went into the living room. Someone was knocking on my door.

“Your bell's broken,” Milo said, giving it a poke. “See? Nothing. You want me to fix it?”

“Jeez, Milo, why not? I can stand here and shiver while you play Mr. Handyman. Come in, I'm going to get dressed.”

When I emerged in dry sweats, Milo was in the kitchen, searching for beer. He managed to find a lone can at the rear of the refrigerator. I made a mental note to stock up before Adam and Ben arrived.

“I heard you had an accident,” Milo said with a grin as we went back into the living room. “Roger gotcha, huh?”

While I knew that Milo shared my loathing of Vida's grandson, I didn't find his remark very funny. “He's amazing, really,” I said, collapsing into my favorite armchair and taking a deep swig of Pepsi. “He can create mayhem even when he's not around. That's genius, Milo. The kid may have a future after all.”

But Milo scoffed. “Not a chance. I'm going to stay in office until Roger's old enough so that I can arrest him and put him away for life. Speaking of which,” he went on, resting his feet on my coffee table and causing me
to wince, “we learned something interesting today regarding our current homicide investigation.”

“Oh?” I tucked my bare feet under me in the soft chair. “Something you're actually going to share with the press?”

Milo grimaced, then lighted a cigarette. “If I don't, Bill Blatt will. He's the one who took the call from L.A. Vida will be all over him like a patchwork quilt.”

“So what is it?” I decided I might as well smoke, too. I'd been such a trouper at work, never giving into my nicotine frenzy despite my personal disappointment. Certainly I wouldn't manage to survive Leo's dinner without surrendering to a cigarette.

The sheriff looked as relaxed as I'd seen him for a while. He was gazing up into the rafters of my ceiling, studying the chinks between the logs. It suddenly dawned on me that Milo felt at home. The thought jarred me.

“We had L.A. County check into VineFan, Inc.'s accounts. That's the name of their corporation, by the way. It's a combination of their last names.”

I knew that; I'd used it in the original story on the hot springs project. Sometimes
I
wondered if Milo ever read
The Advocate.
“Go on,” I encouraged, trying not to sound impatient.

Milo puffed and sipped, then chuckled. “Big spenders, my butt. Those guys had less than twenty grand in the bank between them. We should have known they were both just a lot of L.A. smog. Emma, old girl, I think my troubles are over.”

MILO
'
S
SELF
-
SATISFIED
ATTITUDE bothered me. I drank more Pepsi and tried to figure out why. “Are you saying they were con artists?”

Milo shrugged. “Maybe. I don't know that they did anything illegal
here.
Except that Levine got himself killed. But their financial status could give us a fresh motive that leaves me off the hook.”

I was puzzled. “How?”

Milo swung his feet onto the floor, then leaned over to lift the lid on my crystal candy dish. It was empty. I made another mental note. “Somebody they swindled in L.A. Or wherever. But not anybody local. As I said, so far as we know, they didn't break any laws in Alpine.”

The sheriff's information still perturbed me. It simply didn't ring true. Skye Piersall had fought Blake and Stan on other projects. Presumably, she'd lost a few battles. “Are you talking about the corporate account or their individual, personal accounts?”

Milo put his feet back on the coffee table. “Corporate
and
personal. Levine's, that is. We have no reason to check into Fannucci's. Yet.” He drained his beer can. “VineFan, Inc. has around fourteen grand in two separate banks. Levine's savings came to just under six grand. Hell, I'd have that much if I weren't still paying Mulehide for our kids' support. I should have it, too,
since that jerk she married makes twice as much as I do.”

I didn't want to get sidetracked by Milo's domestic problems. As with Leo, I'd heard it all before. “Did you—or Bill—check into the projects that VineFan supposedly promoted?”

Milo was gazing soulfully at his empty beer can. “Oh, yeah. They exist. But that doesn't mean Fannucci and Levine are responsible.”

“You could find out,” I said in a chiding tone.

“We could,” Milo agreed with a condescending smile. “Have you ever tried to sort through who owns what and where the money comes from with a California company? It'd take some doing, and in this case I don't see how the payoff is going to help find Stan Lev-ine's killer. What we've told L.A. County is to look for somebody who got screwed over by VineFan. An investor, I'd figure.” Gently, Milo belched.

So Milo intended to dump the investigation in the L.A. County sheriff's lap. The idea wasn't worthy of him. I said so, using an unusually sharp tone. “What,” I finally demanded, “are you thinking of? That some sucker came all the way to Alpine and climbed up Spark Plug Mountain to shoot Stan? What's next? Blake gets lured to the Salt Flats in Utah and somebody runs over him with a four-wheel drive? Milo, you can't be serious!”

But he was. “The scenario is perfect. Revenge is a queer thing, Emma. You don't know people like I do. They brood, they dwell on stuff, they become obsessed. Think about it—whoever got bilked wanted payback time more than anything. Not in money, because it was gone. So this guy—we'll say it was a guy, okay?—sits around, figuring out how to do in Levine and Fannucci. He can take his time. That's all he's got, maybe. He follows his victims to Alpine. He could camp out this time
of year. He gets Stan alone and shoots him. Now he's got Blake scared spitless. He waits. Then Blake lets his guard down and goes off someplace and—whammo!” Milo gestured, as if pulling a trigger. “Revenge is complete. And sweet.”

“Then why doesn't VineFan have a big cash reserve?” I countered. “Why haven't Stan and Blake been reported to the authorities in California or wherever they did this alleged scam? Where did they expect to get the money to pay off Leonard Hollenberg?”

My questions didn't make a dent on Milo. “Good point,” he said, nettling me still further. “Because they were going back to L.A. to find another sap.”

Immediately, I thought of Ed Bronsky. That was when I told Milo almost everything I knew or thought about the homicide investigation. In his present mellow mood, the sheriff listened patiendy.

“I wouldn't worry about Ed,” Milo said, stifling a yawn. “Even he's not dumb enough to pour his inheritance into a resort project.”

One of the things I hadn't mentioned was Heather Bardeen's alleged recognition of Ed's voice on the ski lodge phone. “Ed could be conned,” I asserted. “Ego, for one thing. Blake Fannucci could talk the birds out of the trees.” I paused, frowning. There were those blasted birds again. “Damn it, Milo, this case is still in your jurisdiction.”

Stretching, the sheriff stood up. “Don't sweat it, Emma. The perp's not here. I guarantee it. This one'll get wrapped up in L.A., where it all started.” He reached out a hand and ruffled my hair, which had finally dried. “Thanks for the beer. I have to change and drive down to Honoria's. She's making some kind of Mexican stuff. It's supposed to go good with beer. That's why I didn't steal your Scotch.”

“I only keep it for you and Ben,” I said, sounding sulky.

Milo stopped outside of the front door. He fiddled with my bell, tried it again, still got no result, and straightened up. “It's the wiring. I'll stop by over the weekend to fix it. See you.” The sheriff made his exit, whistling.

Milo's visit had cast yet another shadow over my already dark mood. If Vida hadn't been showing Roger a good time, I would have called her. I knew she would agree that the sheriff was off base. But I also knew that, like me, she probably wouldn't know why.

Leo had reserved our table for seven o'clock. On a Friday night in June, we discovered ourselves surrounded by Alpine's young set. It was prom night, which I had forgotten. Carla, I hoped, had not— somewhere during the course of the week I'd assigned her to take pictures at the Elks' Club, where the dance was traditionally held. Maybe she planned to shoot a couple of rolls after she and Marilynn got out of their movie.

“Jesus,” Leo muttered after we'd put in our drink orders, “were we ever that young? I hope not.”

I laughed, remembering my own high school prom at Blanchet in Seattle. I'd gone with a fellow senior whose name I'd forgotten but whose behavior was etched on my mind. Whoever he was, he, like me, had been one of the less popular students. He had shown why by bringing along a flask and getting skunk-drunk after only a few sips. One of my darkest recollections was of driving his car from the restaurant to his house while he hung out of the door, throwing up all over Greenwood Avenue North. We had never made it to the dance.