The Alpine Fury (33 page)

“Call the Lindahls,” Vida said suddenly. “See if Milo has shown up yet.”

It was after eight, and as I recalled, Susan had said that the sheriff planned on returning around six. I got out Carla’s Everett directory and looked up the Lindahls’ number. A moment later, Susan answered in a tense voice.

“No,” she said in response to my query about Milo. “He still hasn’t come back. I don’t understand it. And now Howie is working himself into ulcers.”

“If you see Milo Dodge, have him call me at
The Advocate
before he does anything except walk into the house, okay?” I hung up, no doubt leaving Susan bewildered.

The phone on Vida’s desk rang at that exact instant.
Vida answered, then nodded at me to pick up Carla’s receiver. “Yes, Billy,” Vida said. “Why did Jack Mullins go home?”

“Because,” her nephew replied in a tone of uncharacteristic pique, “Sheriff Dodge didn’t need him. After they went to the crime lab in Everett, the sheriff said he’d changed his mind about questioning Howard Lindahl tonight. It could wait until they got the report back from the lab tomorrow.”

Vida fingered the contact sheet with the Parc Pines photos. “Very well. When you see Milo, tell him to get in touch with Big Mike Brockelman in Monroe. It’s very urgent.”

“The highway construction guy?” Bill Blatt sounded dubious. “What for?”

“Never mind, just have Milo do as he’s told.” Vida circled the third and sixth shots on the sheet with a grease pencil.

“I don’t think I’ll be seeing Sheriff Dodge tonight,” Bill said, sounding a mite intimidated. “Jack Mullins dropped him off in Startup. I don’t know how the sheriff’s going to get back to Alpine.”

“Oh, good grief!” Vida pulled at her hair, then composed herself and ordered Billy to have
someone
track down Big Mike. “Doesn’t that beat all?” she demanded, jutting her jaw at me. “Milo’s off playing kissy-face with Honoria Whitman! Oooooh!”

“At least he’s not making a wrongful arrest,” I noted. “We should have known he’d wait until he got the information on Howard’s things back from the crime lab.” I glanced at the little notebook in which I’d listed the items that Milo had removed from the Lindahl house. Inspiration struck. “Vida, maybe we
can
get some proof. It wouldn’t be much, and it might not even be
there. Do you think Ginny could talk Rick into letting us in the bank?”

“If she can’t, I’ll give her lessons.” Vida dialed Ginny’s number. Ginny balked. Vida talked. Ginny remained adamant. She and Rick were still in the process of making up. She refused to jeopardize their status by “using him,” as she put it.

Admiration shone in Vida’s eyes as she replaced the phone. “Very astute. Very obstinate. You have to respect Ginny.”

I wasn’t quite so charitable. “One stubborn woman around here ended up getting killed. You might have mentioned to Ginny that this is a matter of life and death.”

Vida seemed unperturbed as she made yet another phone call. “You’re exaggerating. Perhaps,” she added, then spoke into the receiver. “Rick? How nice to find you home. Now, this may sound like an odd request, but Emma and I need to get into the bank…. Certainly, I know it’s against the … Well, when else would we find it completely empty except when it’s closed? … No, that’s not the same thing. We want the effect of darkness, with the snow falling outside. Think how our readers—and your customers—will be touched. The Bank of Alpine, deserted on a cold November night, waiting to be warmed by the loving, loyal people it’s served for over sixty years …”

Rick fell for it. Vida and I put on our coats, she grabbed a camera, I got a flashlight, and we trudged across Front Street. There was a fresh inch of snow on the plowed surface. Maintenance work would wait until early morning. I slipped slightly just before reaching the far curb.

Rick, who owned an old beater, drove slowly down
Fourth Street where he parked a good thirty feet from the corner.

“I don’t want to be seen,” he whispered after he’d all but skidded to a stop under the big clock. Hurriedly he inserted two keys into the double locks on the front doors. Vida rushed inside, but Rick held out an arm to bar my way.

“Sorry, Ms. Lord. I can only be responsible for one of you. Honest. You’ll have to wait out here.”

I started to protest, then decided not to make things any more difficult. “Okay.” I shrugged and handed Rick the flashlight. “Give this to Vida.”

Trying not to shiver, I huddled next to the clock standard. Only one car had passed by since we’d left the office. Now, half a block away, a young couple came out of the Burger Barn and walked in the opposite direction. They were laughing as they deliberately slid around in the new snow.

I was watching their figures grow smaller when a car quietly pulled into the disabled parking space a few yards from the clock. Anxiously I glanced at the bank. For one brief moment, I could see the flashlight waver.

“Emma?” called a voice from the car. I turned to see Larry Petersen, with one foot on the curb and his head and shoulders leaning in my direction. “What’s going on?”

“Oh!” I brushed snow out of my eyes. “This sounds crazy, but we suddenly thought of a wonderful photo opportunity. Vida’s in there now, taking a picture.”

Larry frowned, or at least I thought he did. The snow was coming down harder by the second. “In the dark?” Larry asked incredulously.

A gust of wind from off Tonga Ridge threatened to topple me. I grabbed the clock pedestal for support.
“That’s what makes it so dramatic. She’s using very fast film.”

Larry didn’t move. He was looking up at the bank’s arched windows. Again the flashlight wavered. “Who let her in?” Larry’s tone had turned curt.

“Rick. He didn’t want to, but you know Vida…. She could talk Noah into a leaky rubber boat.” My attempt at a laugh sounded more like a sick chicken.

“I don’t like this.” Larry started to get out of the car, then beckoned to me. “Come here, Emma. I want to talk to you.”

I hesitated, then took a few uncertain steps toward Larry. Except for the wind, Front Street was unnaturally quiet. Surely Vida had found what we wanted by now. If it was there. I took another couple of steps. I had reached the front fender of Larry’s car.

Larry had moved across the front seat, resuming his position behind the wheel. “Get in, Emma. You must be freezing out there.” His tone had changed again; he sounded almost jocular.

“No, that’s all right,” I replied, leaning against the car. “I have to wait for Vida. And Rick. They should be out any minute. Or should we go get them?”

“Get in, Emma.” Larry’s affability evaporated. “Just a word, that’s all.”

I wasn’t getting into Larry Petersen’s car. Never mind that I was shaking as well as shivering, and that my feet had gone numb. So had my hands, which were jammed into the pockets of my duffle coat.

“Why don’t we go over to
The Advocate
!” I suggested in a cracked voice.

“Emma …” Larry was moving back across the seat. He could haul me into the car without much effort. I could scream, of course. If my voice still worked and it could be heard over the howling wind.

Larry’s hand reached out to grab my arm. That was when I saw the dim glow of approaching headlights. I raised the arm that Larry wasn’t holding in a viselike grip. But whoever was coming down Front Street probably couldn’t see me through the snow. Certainly the driver would be concentrating on the street, not the sidewalk.

I let out one strangled yelp, fell against the open car door, and grappled with Larry as he tried to pull me inside. My handbag had fallen onto the slush at the curb. I tried to get traction with my boots, but they slipped on the new snow, and I slipped with them—right into the front seat.

Larry reached over me and slammed the door shut. I struggled to sit upright, but he kept a hand on my back. And then I became aware of a light shining into the car and a muffled, familiar voice.

“You’re under arrest,” said Milo Dodge to Larry Petersen. “Please step out of the vehicle with your hands on top of your head.”

M
ILO AND
I have sworn each other to secrecy. I will never, ever tell anyone, including Vida, that he arrested a murderer for parking in a disabled space without a state handicapped decal if he won’t reveal that I acted like a nincompoop by getting myself into such a mess in the first place.

Milo had meant well, of course. He had been returning from Startup with Honoria in her car, and seeing that someone had violated the disabled parking place, he’d aimed to show his newly reconciled ladylove that he could be sensitive, especially to her special needs.

“If Honoria hadn’t been with me,” Milo said the next evening at the bar in the Venison Inn, “I wouldn’t have dreamed of busting Larry Petersen.
Larry
, for God’s sake! In front of his own bank!” Milo’s mouth was agape, as if he’d only just realized the enormity of his gaffe.

“His own bank,”
I repeated. “That was the key. Larry couldn’t bear to think of not taking over from Marv. The bank was in his blood. I remember how he talked about it the very week that Linda was killed. It was like a mistress.”

Milo leaned back in his chair, signaling Oren Rhodes for a second round. I didn’t protest. The last twenty-four hours had been hectic. Horrible, too, with Larry
Petersen locked up on a homicide charge. It was now almost nine o’clock, the paper was ready to be sent off to Monroe, my aches and pains were subsiding, and the sheriff was basking in the glory of his arrest. Many considered it tarnished, however, if for the wrong reasons. A Petersen was not supposed to kill another Petersen. Alpiners would much prefer to see Dan Ruggiero or Bob Lambrecht or even me behind bars.

Instead, I was in one, and glad of it. “I can’t believe Larry blurted out that he didn’t kill Linda,” I said with a shake of my head. “He started babbling like a madman, spouting alibis for things he hadn’t been accused of.”

“But should have been.” Milo took a long drag on his cigarette. “Why the hell didn’t you clue me in sooner?”

“I tried to,” I protested as Oren brought our drinks and gave Milo another pat on the back. “At first it was only Linda’s keys that made me wonder. Andy told us how fussy she was about keeping them in order, and how symbolic it was for her to put Howard’s key as far away from her condo key as possible. Yet they were side by side on the ring when you gave it to Andy. I had to wonder if someone hadn’t taken one of the keys when Linda wasn’t looking. Someone at work, probably, where she’d be so caught up in her numbers that she wouldn’t notice. It couldn’t be her own key—she would have missed that. So it had to be Howard’s. Then I racked my brain figuring out why. The break-in that wasn’t a break-in explained it. Larry was setting Howard up, and he did it Thursday night while the Lindahls were at Alison’s open house.”

Milo allowed two more of his constituents to offer congratulations. “How did Larry know they wouldn’t be home?” he asked after his fans had migrated to the bar.

“Larry, like so many Alpiners, gets
The Everett Herald
.
They run a calendar of community events, just like we do in
The Advocate
. Except, of course, they have a lot more of them. He must have seen the listing for Alison’s school. She was his niece, remember, and he must have kept up with her to some extent. Still, he had to make sure they were gone, so he stopped in Sultan at the Red Apple Market and called the Lindahl house. Nobody answered. He knew the coast was clear. He continued to Everett, used Linda’s key, made just enough of a mess to make it look like a break-in, and planted the extra rope and the little map. I’ll bet that rope has goat hair on it. Larry took it off of Uncle Elmer’s goat. That’s why Goldwater was in the living room. Your aunt’s husband hadn’t gotten around to tethering him again.”

A grin spread over Milo’s face. “I’ll be damned. The lab guys wanted to know how that goat hair got on the rope we took from Howard Lindahl’s house. Goldwater, huh? That thing’s always on the loose. I found him in their bathtub once.” Still looking bemused, Milo rested his long chin on his hand. “Wouldn’t it have been smarter for Larry just to stash his evidence against Howard and not leave any visible sign of an intruder?”

I cocked my head to one side, sniffing at Milo’s trail of smoke. “Probably it would, but I think that Larry was looking for some other ways to frame Howard. Maybe he thought he could find something that belonged to Linda. Or some incriminating correspondence between the two. As far as we know, he didn’t find anything, but he couldn’t risk hanging around to tidy up. He had to be back in Alpine at the county commissioners meeting to give himself an alibi.”

“Where you saw him,” Milo remarked with a wry smile.

“I certainly did. But it was at the end of the meeting,
not at the beginning. You know how those county commissioner meetings go, Milo. They start out with a big crowd, and then, when the item that people are interested in has been covered, they often leave. But it’s rare that anybody comes late. I always take my pictures within the first fifteen minutes, because that’s when the audience is at its largest. When Vida and I looked at those pictures last night, I realized who
wasn’t
there at the start of the meeting: Larry Petersen. I didn’t notice him until it was over, after nine-thirty. He was at the back of the room. I suppose he’d slipped in after returning from the Lindahls’ house in Everett.”

Milo was nodding. “There’ll be witnesses to that effect. How did you blow holes in Larry’s alibi for Friday night? He was supposed to be at home with JoAnne hosting a card party.”

“He was—later. I remembered that Vida had deep-sixed the ‘Scene Around Town’ item about Larry’s wife, JoAnne, who had been spotted rushing around at the grocery store buying crackers and cheese Friday. Party food, obviously, and why the rush? Because she discovered at the last minute that she didn’t have anything to serve their guests. So if JoAnne was gone for a while early Friday evening, she couldn’t vouch for her husband being at home. How long would it take for Larry to go to Parc Pines, kill Linda, haul her body in her own car, and drive out to the clearing on the Icicle Creek Road? Fifteen minutes, maybe, and the same for the return. He had to stop at Icicle Creek Gas ’n Go to call Howard Lindahl and pretend to be Dick Johnson. Maybe he did that first, before he went to Linda’s. If JoAnne got home before Larry did, he’d simply tell her he ducked out on some trumped-up errand. She’d be too busy playing hostess to care.”