The Alpine Vengeance: An Emma Lord Mystery (11 page)

“Hunh,” I said. “I haven’t ordered anything lately. I’m not quite geared up for Christmas yet. If you don’t mind, maybe you should get it and take it inside your house. I’ll collect it tonight after work.”

“No problem,” Viv assured me. “I worry about things left outside for very long because of your other neighbors and their rotten kids. They’ve made off with some of Val’s garden tools and his chainsaw. Fortunately, we got all the stuff back, but next time it happens, we’re calling the sheriff.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “So far, I don’t think they’ve stolen anything of mine, but maybe I don’t have items that appeal to them.”

Viv harrumphed. “I’d hardly call Val’s Weed Eater an enticing object for teenagers except as a weapon. Those Nelson kids are too lazy to do any work around their own house.”

I agreed, and after a few more words of chitchat, I thanked Viv and hung up. The rest of the morning flew by with the usual busy work to meet our Tuesday deadline. It wasn’t until after I got back from getting my takeout lunch at the Burger Barn that I heard from Milo.

“I’ve been at the hospital for over half an hour,” he said, sounding grumpy. “I’m waiting until Stella is finished and I’m damned hungry and I won’t eat any of this crap they call food around here. I had enough of that when I was a so-called patient.”

“Stella?” It was the one thing he’d said that grabbed my attention. “You mean Stella Magruder, as in Stella’s Styling Salon?”

“Who else?” Milo snapped. “She’s grooming Laurentis. Nobody else could untangle Laurentis’s hair and beard. Jesus Christ, you’d think I never interviewed somebody with lousy hygiene.”

“I don’t think that’s exactly the point,” I said. “Given Craig’s lifestyle, he could infect the hospital. I imagine the medics who brought him in sanitized themselves after they left him in the ER.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I still haven’t talked to the guy. In fact, I’m going over to the Venison Inn and grab some lunch. I’ll call you whenever I’ve got something that isn’t fleas or lice or whatever Laurentis might still be able to pass on to me.”

“I’ll be here,” I said. “It’s deadline day.”

I changed my mind as soon as I hung up. Now that the rest of this week’s edition was almost wrapped up and we were playing a waiting game to finish the front page, I grew curious about the mysterious package Viv Marsden had seen on my front porch. It probably wasn’t from Ben, who never Christmas-shopped
until the last minute. Besides, if my brother had sent something, he would’ve mentioned it when we spoke on the phone. As for Adam, his teachers at the seminary apparently had never taught him that Catholic dogma didn’t prohibit the shipping of parcels both ways. Except for sending some knitwear that his native parishioners had made, my son believed that it was better to receive than to give, at least when it came from his mother.

I dialed Viv’s number and asked if she’d had time to retrieve the package. She had, remarking that it was fairly heavy and bore a
PERISHABLE
sticker.

“Food?” I said. “Where was it sent from?”

“Ooh-la-la, Emma,” she said, laughing. “It’s from a shop in Paris.”

Damn
. I thought I’d heard the last of Rolf Fisher. My former so-called lover, for lack of a better term, had taken early retirement from the AP, exchanging his Seattle condo for a cottage in the Loire Valley. Or something like that. I was never sure what to believe with Rolf, which was probably why he intrigued me enough that I slept with him. Maybe I kept hoping I’d actually fall in love with the exasperating yet attractive and eligible jerk. He’d invited me to join him at his oh-so-charming
petite maison
in château country, but I’d repeatedly turned him down. I hadn’t heard from him for at least six weeks, so I figured he’d finally decided I was a lost cause. But typical of Rolf, he didn’t take no for an answer. Or so I assumed.

“No actual name on the package?” I asked Viv.

“Just the shop it came from,” she replied. “I don’t speak French, so bear with me. I can’t pronounce the name, but the address is 27 Place de la Madeleine. Does that mean anything to you?”

It meant more to me than Viv could guess, since Tom and I’d
planned to spend our honeymoon in Paris. “All I know is it may be close to the opera house, which means it’s in a fashionable part of the city.”

“It’s too big to put in the fridge,” Viv said. “Maybe I should keep it on our back porch until you get home.”

“No, keep it inside. I’ll collect it when I get home from work. Thanks, Viv. Whatever is in it, I’ll give you some for your trouble.”

“No need,” she insisted. “It isn’t every day that I get to touch something that came from Paris. It’s kind of exciting.”

Speak for yourself
, I thought.
How about “annoying” instead?

“Do you know who it’s from?” she asked before I could say anything I might regret.

“Not really,” I replied, realizing that it was possible Rolf wasn’t the sender. “These days anybody can order anything from anywhere. Maybe Ed Bronsky sent it as one last lavish gesture now that he has to live from paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us.”

Viv laughed again. “You mean
Shirley’s
paycheck. But I’m glad they finally got back into a real house. That big family of theirs must’ve been jammed like sardines in the mobile home. See you later, Emma.”

Just after two o’clock, Mitch and I were going over the copy he’d already written for the lead story. “Maybe,” I suggested, “you should go over to the hospital and see if Milo’s ever going to talk to Laurentis. It’s been almost two hours since I heard from the sheriff. Sometimes he forgets what the word ‘deadline’ means to us newspaper types.”

“Will do.” Mitch got up and headed out to the newsroom. Before he could put on his jacket, my phone rang.

“I could use some help over here,” Milo declared in an irritable
tone. “Laurentis won’t talk to me. In fact, he won’t talk to anybody, including Doc Dewey or Dr. Sung or the nurses.”

“Won’t or can’t?” I said, wondering if Craig was suffering from some kind of trauma.

“Won’t. He can sure as hell say ‘no,’ ” the sheriff all but shouted.

“Hang on,” I said, putting the phone down and calling to Mitch just as he was about to leave. “Change of plans.” I relayed Milo’s message. “Let me go over there, you hold down the fort, and then I’ll call you if you’re needed. Okay?”

“Sure.” He started to take off his jacket. “I gather you can communicate with him.”

“I
have
talked to him, but very briefly and not often,” I admitted. “Still, it’s worth a try.”

After telling Milo I was on my way, I put on my coat, hoisted my handbag over my shoulder, and thanked God that Vida wasn’t at her desk. She’d want to go with me and that might not be a good idea. In fact, trying to talk to Craig under any circumstances might not be a good idea, but I had to give it my best shot.

Once inside the hospital, I took the elevator to the second and top floor where the patient rooms were located. Debbie Murchison, a plump and pretty RN, was on duty.

“The sheriff sent for me,” I informed her. “He didn’t know the room number, but did say Mr. Laurentis had been moved from the ICU.”

“Second door on the right,” Debbie replied. “The patient has been fumigated.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

I tried to put on a sympathetic face, but for some reason, I felt protective about Craig. I thanked Debbie for pointing me in the right direction and went down the hall, where I found the door was closed. I knocked twice. Milo appeared a couple of
seconds later, no doubt waiting impatiently for my arrival. He didn’t say anything to me, but turned to the patient. “You’ve got a visitor. It’s Ms. Lord from the newspaper.”

I walked across the room, trying not to show the shock I felt. I didn’t recognize the gaunt, pale, clean-shaven man in the bed. “Hello,” I finally said in an unnatural voice. I had to clear my throat. Maybe it was the strong odor of disinfectant that was affecting my vocal cords. “How are you feeling?”

He gave a little shrug.

“Here,” Milo said, shoving the visitor’s chair at me. “Take a seat. I’m going out for a smoke.”

I waited until the sheriff had left us alone. Craig seemed fixated on the blank screen of the TV set hanging from the wall. I took off my coat, stalling for time to figure out what I should say next.

“I saw your new painting last night,” I finally announced, settling into a rail-back chair that looked as if it had been part of an old kitchen set. “You’ve altered your style.”

He regarded me with those forest-green eyes I remembered so well from our first close encounter. “Well?”

The single word was raspy, another thing I remembered about Craig. Unless he talked to himself, I doubted that he used his voice very often. “I was surprised,” I admitted. “It struck me as very different from
Sky Autumn
in terms of atmosphere.” Maybe that wasn’t the right word, but I was no art expert and lacked the proper vocabulary.

He shifted uncomfortably in the bed. There were three IVs running into his left hand, but I couldn’t see any bandages, so I assumed he had been shot somewhere below his chest. “You hate it,” he said at last.

I shook my head. “No. I just don’t understand it. Your other paintings—and I have only seen two or three besides my own—were
all about primeval beauty. I can bond with that. I guess I was just put off by the difference in … 
Forest Watch
.”

Craig didn’t comment. To break the awkward silence, I asked another question. “The original title was something else. Why did you change it?”

“It suited the final work better.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. You either respond or you don’t. Titles aren’t important except to the artist.”

Feeling his dismissal for my lack of artistic understanding, I waited a few moments before I spoke again. “Where were you shot?”

He gestured with his free hand at the left side of his abdomen. “The doctor told me the bullet missed anything vital.”

“That’s good news. Are you in pain?”

“Yes.”

“What are they giving you for it?”

He shrugged—and winced. “Morphine, I think.”

I figured the medication was in one of the IVs. “Can you regulate the dosage?”

He stared at me. “Why would I do that?”

“To ease the pain.”

“Pain is part of life.” He looked away, toward the window with its view of the Clemans Building and the foothills that rose above the town.

This was no ordinary chat. I cut to the chase. “Who shot you?”

He waited for what seemed a long time before turning his gaze back on me. “I don’t know. I never saw anyone at that time.”

“How long did you lie there before you were found?”

“I kept going in and out, night and day, black and light.”

“Did you know there were tree poachers in the woods?”

“Yes. They’re plunderers. They’re always around, in one form or another, despoiling Nature with their greed.”

The more Craig talked, the less he rasped. I had a sudden vision of Dorothy pouring oil into the Tin Man’s suit in
The Wizard of Oz
. “Have you ever seen any of these pillagers in the act?”

He shook his head. “I see what they leave behind. Stumps. Sawdust. Chunks of tree bark. Holes in the ground. Beer cans. Empty junk food bags. They left their consciences somewhere else a long time ago.” He leaned toward me. “Are you putting this in the paper?”

I gave a start. “No. This isn’t an interview.”

“Then why are you here?”

The piercing green eyes seemed to bore a hole in my brain. “You wouldn’t talk to the sheriff. He needs your help to find out who shot you and cut down the trees.”

Craig lay back down on the pillows, the faintest of smiles at the corners of his mouth. I wondered how often he smiled. Except for his forehead, his face was curiously unlined. “You’re the sheriff’s stooge?”

“He knows we’ve met. He thought you might talk to me.”

“He was right.”

“He hoped you might be able to identify the shooter.”

Craig shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t.”

“Maybe something will come to you later.”

“I doubt it.”

I didn’t know what else to say. “You must be tired. I should go.”

“I should go, too,” he said. “I want out of here.”

“You’ll have to stay until the doctors are sure you can manage on your own.”

“I always do.”

“But you usually aren’t recovering from a bullet wound.”

“What difference does that make? I’ll mend.”

“You’ll mend faster if you stay here for at least a couple of days.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Arguing with Craig was useless. I stood up. “I have to tell you how much I love
Sky Autumn
. I never tire of looking at it.”

“That’s good.”

“Please take care of yourself,” I said, hoisting my purse back over my shoulder.

He didn’t respond. I was almost at the door when he spoke again. “Maybe I’ll see you somewhere another time.”

I swiveled around to look at him. “Yes. I hope so.”

He nodded and shifted his gaze back to the window, probably looking not at Alpine’s buildings, but the snow-dappled foothills that rose up the face of Mount Baldy.

T
WENTY MINUTES IN THERE AND YOU GOT NOTHING
?” M
ILO
practically shouted at me when I joined him at the nurses’ station. “What were you doing, talking about the
Mona Lisa
?”

“Hey,” I said irritably, “he didn’t see the shooter. I don’t think he’s even sure when he was shot, let alone who pulled the trigger. What did you expect? A video of the crime?”

The sheriff let out a long, weary sigh. “I take it he talked to you.”

“Yes.” I avoided glancing at the eavesdropping Debbie Murchison, who was trying to look as if she were studying a patient’s chart. “Why wouldn’t he? He was my date at the Blanchet High School senior prom.”

“I could almost believe that,” Milo muttered. “If you gave
him
your frigid act, maybe that’s why he became a hermit.” The sheriff picked up his regulation hat. “I might as well go back to work.”