The Alpine Fury (21 page)

“No, it’s not.” My eyes had traveled to the cigarette butt in the ashtray. To my horror, I found it enticing.
My smile evaporated. “You’re right, Leo. It’s good of you to participate. But you can’t put out for every funeral, wedding, and anniversary in town. You’ll go broke.”

“I’ve been broke before.” Leo had regained his aplomb. “Hey, babe, you look great in that black dress. But you’re a little washed-out. Too much time with those Lutherans. How about a drink after work? It’s almost quitting time.”

It occurred to me that Leo had already had a drink. Or two or three, before quitting time. Maybe he’d been in a bar instead of at the funeral.

“Sorry,” I said, hoping to sound sincere. “I’ve got a date tonight.”

Leo stared, then broke into a grin. “No kidding? Who’s the lucky stiff?”

Leo’s choice of words was unfortunate. My plan was to visit the murder site off Highway 187. Maybe Vida would go with me. There was no man involved, of course. I hadn’t had a real date since I moved to Alpine. The tryst with Tom Cavanaugh had been a matter of circumstances, and evenings with Milo Dodge didn’t count.

“I didn’t say it was romantic,” I hedged, caressing a phone message from Averill Fairbanks as if it were a request to meet Mel Gibson at the ski lodge instead of the usual sighting of aliens crash-landing at the fish hatchery. To soothe Leo’s feelings, I came up with a brainstorm: “Why don’t you come to my house for Thanksgiving? My son will be there, and I’m asking Carla and her roommate, Marilynn Lewis, too.” Vida was going to her daughter’s in Bellingham, and Ginny would be with her own family. Marilynn, who was a nurse at the Alpine Medical Clinic, had moved in with Carla the previous June.

Somewhat to my surprise, Leo hesitated. “Well—we’ll see. Can I let you know next week?”

“Sure.” It crossed my mind that Leo might intend to fly to L.A. over the long weekend. Considering that he seemed estranged from his entire family, it was a long shot. I kept my mouth shut.

Leo wandered out of the office, and five minutes later, Vida stomped in. Her velvet cloche was drooping sadly, a victim of the rain. “There’s definitely something fishy going on at the bank,” she declared. “I talked to several people at the funeral reception who have had problems, particularly cashing in CDs. They’re not all as addled as Grace Grundle.”

If Vida was right,
The Advocate
had a responsibility to get the story. “Do you think that’s why the Bank of Washington bowed out?”

Having finally conceded that the Petersens could be sufficiently traitorous to sell their establishment to a big-city blockbuster, Vida was ready to consider other possibilities. “It could be so. Let’s say that Bobby Lambrecht came to Alpine to talk business with Marv Petersen. Marv agreed to a buyout, or a merger. Then Bobby went back to Seattle where he sent Dan Ruggiero up here to check the books. But things didn’t look right. So this Ruggiero fellow goes back to Seattle and alerts Bobby. The proposal is scrapped. That’s what the woman in their PR department told you, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “If it was still pending, but unofficial, she could have said, ‘No comment,’ or some such ambiguous statement.”

Vida was also nodding, but slowly, ponderously. “I know so little about financial institutions. I’ve banked here all my life. I was eleven years old when I had my first account. Savings-bond stamps, twenty-five cents apiece, every week, through the school. We had what
they called Bank Day, and everybody brought at least one quarter. When we filled up the little books, we had eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents—enough to buy a twenty-five-dollar war bond. By the time the Allies defeated the Germans and the Japanese, I had five bonds. I didn’t cash them until I was twenty-six.” Vida grimaced. “My, but life is full of ironies. I suppose we should consider it a blessing that a bank from Japan isn’t trying to buy us out. Yet.”

It didn’t matter to me whether the potential buyer was from Tacoma or Tokyo. The point was that there was no buyer. What we needed to find out was the reason.

“I’m going to call Milo,” I said, punching in the sheriff’s number. “He ought to know what happens when one financial institution discovers that there’s a serious problem with another financial institution.”

“Bank examiners,” Vida murmured. “I’m sure they call them in. But who are they?” Her face was an uncustomary mask of puzzlement.

Jack Mullins answered the phone. Sheriff Dodge was out. Assuming that Milo might have taken the rest of the day off after attending the funeral, I asked if he’d be back before five.

“Oh, sure, he’ll be here,” Jack replied in his dry, droll manner. “Our favorite law enforcement officer wants to keep a high profile with the electorate while this Lindahl thing is still perking.”

“What’d he do, go home to burn his ugly tie?” I asked.

Jack chuckled. “I missed that. He’d taken it off when he came back here. No, he’s actually working. He went up to Linda’s condo to have a look-see for himself. I guess he doesn’t trust Sam and me to do the job.”

As it turned out, I didn’t make contact with Milo that
afternoon. There were too many phone messages that had accumulated in my absence, and the AP wire had provided us with yet another in-depth overview of the timber controversy. I would let Carla do the usual checking for local comments, but the issue was becoming so complicated that I needed to understand the latest developments in order to provide direction for my scatterbrained reporter.

I actually forgot to tell Vida about Milo’s visit to Parc Pines until the next morning. In my defense, Vida had been caught up in writing the funeral story, which we’d feature prominently in the next edition. When I mentioned the condos, Vida turned thoughtful.

“We should go over there. We should have done it sooner. It might be well to study the layout of the complex.” Vida looked at her watch. “It’s almost eleven. Are you free?”

I had never been inside Parc Pines, but I was certain that Vida had. There was nowhere in Alpine that she hadn’t been. I hesitated, then caved in. The Jag was parked a few places closer to the front door than Vida’s Buick. It took less than five minutes to get down Front Street and climb Alpine Way to the Parc Pines complex. The condos are off my own Fir Street, but five blocks west, facing the entrance to the expensive homes in the Pines development. Pines Villa, the apartment building where Carla lives with Marilynn Lewis, is separated from the condos by a high cedar fence and some decent landscaping.

Unlike most condos in the city, the security at Parc Pines is minimal. There are only twelve units on three stories built around a courtyard that, Vida informed me, contains a swimming pool and sauna. We parked on the street and made our way up a winding walk lined with
Oregon grape and butterfly bush. Vida buzzed for Ella Hinshaw, who was somehow related to her by marriage.

Ella let us in after the second buzz. She was close to seventy, with a startling blue rinse, and wing-shaped glasses that contained hearing aids. I vaguely recognized her from sightings around town.

“Vida!” she exclaimed, offering a hug. “I haven’t seen you since Labor Day weekend! I missed the last Cat Club because I had the flu.”

Vida’s Cat Club was a collection of women who got together once a month to trash the rest of the town, and then, according to Vida, spent the following day exchanging phone calls trashing each other.

Ella’s condo was tidy but jammed. I guessed she was a widow who’d moved from a big house that had been able to accommodate her many possessions. I could scarcely find room to swing my legs as I sat in a high-backed chair covered with a fabric that looked like damask.

“You’ve had a terrible tragedy,” Vida said, getting straight to the point. “Emma and I are covering the murder story. Did you know Linda well?”

Ella assumed a shocked expression. “I was so stunned when I heard the news that I almost fainted! Imagine! In Alpine! What’s this world coming to? You’re not safe in your own bed!”

Vida let Ella run down. “Did you know Linda well?” she repeated.

“Luckily, no.” Ella squirmed a bit on one of a pair of matching love seats. “I mean, if I had, I
would
have fainted. From grief.”

“But,” I put in, “you must have been acquainted. You have condo-owner meetings and such, I believe.”

Ella looked as if she’d like to disavow any knowledge of Linda. “Well, yes. But Linda worked all day
and she wasn’t what I’d call the outgoing type. Very businesslike at the meetings, always trying to hurry people along and get to the point.”

I had a twinge of sympathy for Linda. “You didn’t visit with her on the weekends or in the evenings?”

“Not really.” Ella sighed deeply, as if she suddenly regretted her failure to make friends with Linda. “I don’t go out much at night. A good thing. It’s not safe.” Under her heavy pullover with its crewelwork at the neck, Ella shuddered. “It’s not as if I’d see her coming and going. On the ground floor, we each have our separate entrances. The people who live on the second and third floors go in the back way, off Maple Lane. There’s an elevator next to the courtyard.”

Surreptitiously Vida checked her watch. “Which was Linda’s unit?”

“One C,” Ella replied. “I’m One A. Maybe you noticed.”

Vida nodded. “I’ve been here before.”

“Of course you have!” Ella exclaimed. “How silly of me! I had Cat Club in May.”

“April,” Vida corrected, but Ella didn’t seem to hear her. “Were you home the night Linda was murdered?”

Ella put a hand to her flat bosom. “I was! Watching TV and crocheting. To think that poor girl went off and got herself killed while I enjoyed
Jeopardy
! Isn’t life cruel?”

“Beastly,” Vida retorted. “You and the other residents were questioned by the sheriff’s men, I presume.”

“Oh, yes! Just like on TV. Well,” Ella amended, “not quite. Sam Heppner isn’t exactly Andy Griffith, is he?”

Vida was starting to look grim. “Didn’t anyone see or hear anybody that night?” Her tone implied that not all of the Parc Pines residents could be as dim as Ella Hinshaw.

But Ella shook her head. “These condos are built very sound. Arnold Nyquist put them up, and he never skimped. Quality, that’s what, through and through. I must say I paid a pretty penny to buy in here. But I never hear a thing. Of course, I am a wee bit deaf.”

“As a post,” Vida muttered. In a louder voice, she pressed her earlier point: “You’re certain no one saw Linda come or go that night? Or anyone visiting her?”

Ella now regarded Vida with a smirk. “Come, dear, if anyone would have heard about it, it would be you. Isn’t Billy Blatt our nephew?”

Briefly I tried to make the family connection between Bill Blatt and Ella Hinshaw. I recalled that Bill’s mother, Mary Lou, had been born a Hinshaw. If Ella had married Mary Lou’s brother—or uncle—then … I gave up. Vida’s family tree had too many branches for me to climb.

“… unlikely, with the ground-floor entrances all on different sides of the complex.” Apparently Ella was explaining why no one at Parc Pines had seen Linda or her visitor on that fateful Friday night.

Seemingly satisfied, Vida stood up. “One small favor, Ella,” she said, managing to resurrect her peculiar brand of charm. “Can you show us the outside entrance and the garage? Oh, and Linda’s condo, of course.”

Ella turned a trifle pale. “But we can’t go in! It would be … ghoulish!”

“It would probably also be illegal without approval from the sheriff,” Vida responded, heading for the door. “You’d better get your coat, Ella. It’s down to thirty-five.”

But Ella demurred. “All I need is another sweater. Come along, Vida, dear. We’ll go out the back way. It won’t be so cold.”

Vida glanced at me in surprise. “I didn’t know there
was
a back way,” she whispered as Ella went to fetch her extra sweater. “Interesting. Perhaps.”

Ella’s kitchen had sliding glass doors that opened up onto the courtyard. There was a small lanai that led to a walkway that went around the inner walls of the complex. Standing at the bright blue iron railing, I saw that the pool was covered to protect it from the weather, but some hearty Scandinavian type in bathing trunks was heading for the sauna.

“That’s Mr. Bjornsen from Two B,” Ella said. “He’d swim all winter, if we’d let him.”

Ella led us around the corner past another condo. “One B,” she remarked. “Marisa Foxx. The lady lawyer. Very mannish.”

Vida sighed and rolled her eyes. But when we were about to turn the next corner, we saw the elevator. It was built into a pillar of concrete that ran up to the third deck. Directly across the walkway was an open corridor. And next to it was One C, Linda Lindahl’s condo. Vida moved swiftly to peer in the floor-length windows, but all of the drapes were closed.

“Drat,” she groaned, turning back to face Ella and me. “Very well, let’s see that outer door.”

Ella led the way again. The narrow hallway was the length of Linda’s unit. It took a moment for Ella to get the door open. When it finally swung wide, there wasn’t much to see: another short walkway, small shrubs, frostbitten flowers, and Maple Lane, a cul-de-sac off Fir Street that ended where the Pines Villa Apartments began.

Vida went outside to check the security arrangement, such as it was. There was a list of names and condo numbers, each with a buzzer and a tiny speaker.

“If you come in this way, you simply ring the occupant, correct?”

Ella nodded. “Whoever you’re visiting pushes a button to let you in. The entrance itself is primarily for the residents on the second and third floors.”

“But your name is here. So is Linda and Ms. Foxx and”—Vida squinted at the fourth listing—“the Hansons. Goodness, I don’t know these Hansons.” Momentarily Vida seemed bewildered.

“They’re new,” Ella said, coming to Vida’s rescue. “All our names are listed here because of deliveries. If we’re not home, the post office and UPS and all those other carriers will leave parcels in this box.” She indicated a large chest beside the door, then pointed to Vida’s left. “There’s the entrance to the garage. I don’t drive anymore, so I don’t use it. I think it’s one of those automatic things, though.”

“Probably.” Vida was surveying the steel mesh grid. “All right, take us down there on the elevator. Please.”