The Alpine Fury (32 page)

I sensed that Vida was about to make a stinging retort. “Say, where’s Goldwater?” I asked brightly.

Elmer’s nostrils twitched as if he were testing the air to make sure the goat wasn’t still in the house. “Tied up
again. Goldwater should stay outside. Otherwise, he steps on the chickens.”

The chickens, however, were also absent. The only creature that strolled through the living room was a part-Persian cat with suspicious amber eyes and a shaggy brown coat. The cat brushed my legs, hissed at Vida, and settled down on a bare spot in front of the fireplace.

“That’s Mamie Eisenhower,” Elmer announced. “She’s one dumb cat. Ornery, too. I had to put Ike to sleep.”

Vida had stood up. “Really, Elmer, you’re very disrespectful. It isn’t funny to name animals after our presidents and their wives and famous statesmen.”

Though Thelma and I had both risen, too, Elmer remained seated. “Aw, come on, Vida,” Elmer said, and actually chuckled. “If you had a jackass, you’d call him Bill Clinton.”

Vida was buttoning her coat. “I think not.” She put on her knit stocking cap. “If I had a jackass,” she said with a tight little smile, “I’d call him Elmer Petersen.”

“Really, he does get my goat. So to speak.” Vida was still irritated as we wound down the Icicle Creek Road’s smooth new surface. It had been snowing off and on all day, but the plows had been busy.

“I think he’s kind of … ah … unique.” It seemed the only positive word that fit Elmer Petersen.

“It’s a wonder Thelma hasn’t killed him,” Vida remarked, turning off by the high school. “But I do feel sorry for her and Elmer. And especially Marv and Cathleen. I’m going to make a casserole and take it over to them tomorrow night.”

Like most of her cooking, Vida’s casseroles are wretched. The Petersens probably would feel worse if
they ate it. But the thought would be there. And they could always order a pizza.

“My clam casserole,” Vida was saying to herself. “I have some frozen geoducks I could use.”

Vida was lucky that I’d outgrown my car sickness when I was twelve. We were now on Fir Street, approaching my house. I hadn’t yet mentioned the call from Susan Lindahl. I knew Vida would have a violent reaction to Milo’s search warrant. It wouldn’t have been a good idea to call on the Petersens while Vida was all worked up over Thelma’s nephew.

As we pulled up in front of my house, I asked Vida to come in for a cup of tea. She protested, saying she should go home and eat.

“Just pickups,” she said, using the terms she applied to almost anything that wasn’t screwed into the frame of her refrigerator. “That pudding wasn’t very filling.”

But I persisted. “I’ve got something to tell you, Vida. I’m worried.”

Curiosity overcame hunger. Vida sat down at my kitchen table while I related the phone call and its ominous portent. She listened in silence, making no comment until I was done.

“Milo was going back to the Lindahls’?” Vida finally gasped. “What for? To arrest Howie or merely to question him? Oh, Emma, I don’t like this one bit!”

“Neither do I,” I said, sinking tea bags into hot water. “Milo could be on the right track, but there are so many things—little things, I’ll admit—that indicate he isn’t. I don’t want to see him make a fool of himself, especially now when the bond issue is going before the county commissioners.”

The phone rang. I hurried into the living room to answer it. Carta’s roommate, Marilynn Lewis, was on the line.

“Emma, I’m sorry to bother you, but Carla’s come down with the flu. I’ve seen dozens of cases at the clinic this fall, and there’s no way she can come to work tomorrow. I thought I’d give you some notice since you’re close to your deadline.”

Marilynn was a good nurse and a good friend. She had moved from Seattle to Alpine the previous spring. Her African-American heritage had created some nasty problems at first, but after six months, she seemed to be easing into small-town life.

“Thanks, Marilynn,” I said. “Tell Carla to get well. I know you’ll take good care of her.”

“I’ll try.” She paused, and I heard a moaning voice in the background. Marilynn spoke again: “Carla says to tell you she brought some—what are they?—oh, contact sheets back from Buddy Bayard’s studio. They’re on her desk if you need them.”

I thanked Marilynn, then hung up, and informed Vida of Carla’s illness.

“That tears it,” Vida said. She’d made the tea in my absence and now took a long sip. “We’ll be shorthanded tomorrow, and heaven only knows how much of your time will be devoted to the homicide case. Let’s go down to the office and get a head start.”

“Tonight?”
I was taken aback. Once again, I had to remind myself who was boss. But Vida was right. Either we could work for a couple of hours tonight, or face the possibility of a very long Tuesday.

We didn’t linger over our tea. It was seven-thirty when we turned on the lights and the heat in the
Advocate
office. The next thing I did was call the sheriff’s office. Bill Blatt informed me that Milo hadn’t yet returned from Everett. He and Jack Mullins had been gone since before three o’clock.

“Are you in communication with Milo?” I asked, feeling the onset of a minor panic attack.

“Not since he was at the lab in Everett,” Bill replied. “That was around four-thirty. He and Jack probably went somewhere to eat.”

I was sitting at Carla’s desk. Across the room, Vida watched me with narrowed eyes. “Is that my occasionally dim nephew, Billy?” Seeing me nod, she picked up her phone. “Now see here, Billy, the minute you hear from Sheriff Dodge, you let us know. We’re at the office. This is very important.” She slapped the phone back into place. “I trust it is,” she said, eyeing me rather doubtfully.

I made a rueful face. “I’m still piecing my theory together. If I explained it to you, would you laugh?”

“Certainly not. We can talk as we work. Shall we start with layout? The copy’s in good shape, except for the rest of your homicide piece and any late-breaking news.” Vida had come over to Carla’s desk. The House & Home section was the one part of the paper that was still laid out by hand. Vida refused to learn either the computer or the word processor.

I was tearing open the envelope from Buddy Bayard’s studio. “Let’s see if Carla has anything we can use,” I said. There were dozens of contact prints, maybe eight rolls with thirty-six exposures each. “We could use a good snow scene. Something that says Thanksgiving, too. I don’t imagine Carla got much out of that small fire.” I handed half of the contact sheets to Vida.

Using a magnifying glass to study the prints, Vida wore a dubious expression. “Trees, trees, trees—the girl’s obsessed with trees. She should have been an arborist. I’ll admit, she’s got some interesting composition in … Oh!” Vida dropped her magnifier. “Look, Emma, quick! What do you make of this?”

I usually don’t need an enlarger to see contact prints, but this time I wanted to be sure. Squinting through the glass, I saw a truck parked behind a car. The truck belonged to the state highway department; the car had been owned by Linda Lindahl.

“It’s Maple Lane,” Vida said excitedly. “See—there’s the walk to Linda’s unit. There’s the shrubbery between the condos and the apartments. It was dark, but Carla used some very fast film. She must have taken this from her deck.”

I was transfixed. “There’s no one in the car. But it looks as if someone might be sitting in the truck. We’ve got to get these blown up right away.”

Vida, however, was trailing a finger down the contact sheet. “Look—here’s the truck again, parked almost where we did, in front of Parc Pines on Alpine Way. The cab’s empty.” She paused, noting the exposure numbers on the sheet. “Number three is Maple Lane, number six is Alpine Way. The pictures taken in between are telephoto lens work. Carla was shooting down Alpine Way, to Old Mill Park. Then she switched over to the mall.”

I had already punched in Carla’s number. As I expected, Marilynn answered. “Ask your patient when she took the pictures from her deck,” I requested, after first making sure that Carla was still alive.

Away from the phone, I could hear Marilynn’s pleasant voice and Carla’s croaking response. Then Marilynn relayed my reporter’s message. I asked Marilynn if Carla was sure. A brief croak was in the affirmative.

Still clutching the receiver, I stared at Vida. “Carla says it was a week ago Friday. The night Linda Lindahl was killed.”

Vida was holding her head. “Why didn’t Carla tell us about these pictures?”

Naturally, I’d asked myself the same question. But Carla had shot so much film, in so many places, and been so indifferent to everything but her own little world, that I wasn’t surprised. Besides, it hadn’t been discovered until today that Linda was probably killed at her condo.

“Marilynn,” I said, again speaking into the receiver, “do you think Carla could talk to me for just a minute?”

Marilynn was dubious. “She can hardly hold her head up. In fact, she’s got it hanging over a basin.”

Feeling like the ultimate callous employer, I asked if Marilynn could hold the phone to her roommate’s ear.

“This must be some hot set of pictures,” Marilynn remarked. “Is there something X-rated in Alpine that I don’t know about?”

But Marilynn didn’t expect a serious answer, and the next thing I knew, Carla’s feeble voice was on the line. “What is it? Make it quick, I’m dying.”

“Did you see Big Mike Brockelman drive his truck from Maple Drive around the block to Alpine Way?”

A violent retching noise assaulted my ear. I arched my eyebrows as Vida quietly picked up her phone to listen in. She made a face. Then Carla spoke in a series of gasps:

“Sort of … I know the truck … moved … because I didn’t want … a blur of … headlights … so I changed angles and … took some … long-distance shots of … Old Mill Park.” Carla paused and uttered a heartrending sigh. “Then I saw the truck in front of Parc Pines, so I took another shot.”

“Did you see Mike Brockelman get out of the truck?” I tensed, waiting for Carla’s answer.

“No.” The single word was barely audible.

“But he must have,” I countered. “In the second photo of the truck, he’s not in the cab.”

“I must have … been concentrating … on … Old Mill Park.” The phone fell, and I heard more retching noises.

Marilynn came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Emma, Carla’s really a mess. Shall I have her call you when she feels a little better?”

I assured Marilynn that wasn’t necessary. Carla had told me all that she knew. I wished aloud to Vida that she had told me sooner. But of course, Carla really wasn’t at fault.

Vida didn’t look so forgiving. She was, however, ready to move on. “Roust Buddy. Get him to meet us at the studio so we can enlarge these.”

“We’d better check the rest of the contact sheets,” I said.

“I already did. The fire is a dud. Wet paper boxes do not a front page make.” Vida was putting her coat back on.

As I dialed Buddy’s home number, I flipped through the rest of the finished photos that I’d collected. There were more of Carla’s, some of Vida’s, and a couple of my own, including the static county commissioner meeting shots I’d taken over a week ago.

“Buddy doesn’t answer,” I said, putting the phone down. I snapped my fingers. “It’s Monday—there’s a parish council meeting tonight. Buddy’s the chair and Roseanna’s the secretary.”

“Rats!” Vida worked her way out of her coat.

But at the moment, I was more intrigued by the courtroom where the county commissioners had held their meeting. With growing excitement, I pushed an eight-by-ten glossy under Vida’s nose.

“Look. What do you see?” I sounded a bit breathless.

“Dunderheads. A roomful of them. The biggest dunderheads
of all aren’t in the photo because you shot the audience.”

“I know that. But look in the fourth row. There’s Big Mike Brockelman.”

Vida still wasn’t joining in my enthusiasm. “So? This was Thursday, not Friday. Why shouldn’t he be there?”

I shuffled through the rest of the photographs I’d clicked off in about a two-minute time period. “Look at the back of the room.”

“What?” Now Vida was getting testy. “I see Henry Bardeen and Norm Carlson and Darrell Pidduck and …”

I shook my head impatiently as I scrambled through Leo’s wastebasket. “Damn!” I cried. “When’s our trash pickup? Monday?”

“Of course it is. It always has been.” Vida now stood in the middle of the news office, regarding me as if I’d joined ranks with Crazy Eights Neffel. “Settle down, young lady, and tell me what you’re so wrought up about.”

I gripped Leo’s desk to pull myself up. “The rope. The one Carla was using for a noose. She threw it at Leo, and I suppose he tossed it in the wastebasket. That was last week. But Carla had found it earlier—out in the street by her apartment. Now, what do you think it was doing there?”

Vida put out a hand to feel my forehead. No doubt she thought that I, too, was coming down with the flu. “It probably fell off a logging truck. That would hardly be unusual around here.”

“It wasn’t that kind of rope,” I said, dancing away from Vida’s outstretched hand. “It was more like cording. Not so coarse or thick as what the loggers use on their trucks.”

Vida’s gray eyes had turned thoughtful. At last she
seemed to be taking me seriously. “But Linda wasn’t strangled with a rope. The killer used her scarf.”

“But maybe the killer didn’t know Linda would be wearing her scarf. If this murder was premeditated, which I’m sure it was,” I went on, speaking rapidly, “the killer brought the rope along, then didn’t need to use it, but had to get rid of it. Why not simply toss it into the street?”

“Litter,” murmured Vida. “So ordinary. So unnoticed.”

“Especially since it was supposed to snow,” I reminded Vida. And then I trotted out the theory that had been running in and out of my brain since morning. In the last fifteen minutes, several gaps had been filled. When I finished, I knew Vida wasn’t going to scoff.

“It’s quite simple, really,” she said in a sad, tired voice. “But there’s no proof. What do we do?”

As usual, Vida had driven straight to the heart of the matter. “I don’t know,” I replied, collapsing into Carla’s chair. The wind had gone out of my sails.