The Alpine Vengeance: An Emma Lord Mystery (2 page)

“At least,” I said, watching Milo loom over Vida’s desk, “think about it overnight. As for Denise, I honestly don’t know how she’d fit in. I hate to sound uncharitable, but she’s never struck me as …” I paused, noting that Mitch had joined Vida and the sheriff. “Sorry. I got distracted. Does Rick really think Denise could handle your job? He’s worked closely with her,” I went on, realizing that Milo’s usually laconic demeanor seemed to have succumbed to aggravation. “If Rick has any doubts, maybe he can suggest someone else.”

“If he had,” Ginny huffed, “he’d have mentioned it. Denise has matured in the past few years. She’s been through a lot. Greg hung out most of the time with his buddies and their stupid band. He was totally selfish about …”

Leo Walsh had entered the newsroom, greeting the sheriff with an amiable “Good morning.” Milo turned abruptly and glared at Leo. My ad manager stopped midway between the door and Vida’s desk. “Guess it’s not so good,” I heard Leo say.

I hadn’t, however, heard what Ginny was saying about Denise or Greg or anyone else. In fact, I cut her off. “I’ve got to go, Ginny. There’s a crisis brewing. It’s Monday—as you may recall, the day before deadline. Talk to you later.” I hung up and hurried into the newsroom.

“Whoa!” I shouted, interrupting whatever Milo was saying to the rest of my staff. “What’s up with you?”

The sheriff towered over me by more than his usual thirteen-inch advantage—not including his regulation trooper’s hat. His chilly hazel eyes veered in Vida’s direction before he answered the question. “I don’t want to hear about anybody else’s problems with letters. I’ve got my own, goddamnit, and I’m not in the mood for bullshit.”

“I can see that,” I said with a straight face. “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee and tell me about it, or would you rather stand here and implode?”

Milo looked in the direction of the coffeemaker and the pastry tray. “Are those the cinnamon rolls with pecans?”

Leo, who had made the morning run to the Upper Crust Bakery, made a little bow. “Half with, half without. Better hurry. Mitch already ate two of them.”

Mitch chuckled. “I thought I put my name on all six.”

“You could scarf those down and it’d never show,” Leo said. “What’s your secret, Laskey?”

“Born skinny,” Mitch replied, waiting for the sheriff to make a move on our goodies stash. “Just plain dumb luck.”

“Luck’s luck,” Leo said, pressing a hand against his slight paunch. “Too wide, too short. Bad combination.”

The sheriff ignored the banter, but he went to the table, grabbed a pecan roll, and poured himself a mug of coffee. I returned to my office. “What now?” I asked as Milo settled into one of my two visitors’ chairs.

“Here.” He reached inside his jacket and took out three letter-sized envelopes. “See for yourself. Don’t worry about fingerprints. There are too damned many to ID any one person.”

The three white envelopes were all addressed by hand to Milo at his office. The postmarks were from Alpine, dated November 22, 23, and 26. There was no return address. The stamps were from the U.S. Postal Service’s Cloudscape series. “Interesting,” I murmured, carefully taking out the first single sheet of paper.

“What?” Milo asked impatiently.

“Most people use the plain stamps. Adam used to collect …” I stopped. The plain white sheet of paper had a brief printed message that had been applied with Scotch tape: “
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. DIDN’T YOU LEARN FROM YOUR LAST MISTAKE
?”

Milo had lighted a cigarette. “Well?”

“That’s cryptic,” I said. “What mistake?”

“Who knows?” He shrugged. “Where’s the damned ashtray?”

“Oh.” I opened the drawer where I kept the ashtray for smokers like Milo and Leo. “Here.”

The sheriff put the cigarette down and took a big bite from his pecan roll. I read the second message, also typed and affixed to the page with Scotch tape. “
WELL? HAVE I GOT YOUR ATTENTION
?”

I grimaced. “This is weird, but it doesn’t say much.”

Milo wiped a crumb off his long chin. “Keep going.”

The third message jolted me. “
LARRY PETERSEN IS INNOCENT. SHOULDN’T YOU BE LOOKING FOR LINDA’S KILLER
?”

I stared at the sheriff. “This is about the murder of Linda Petersen Lindahl ten years ago?”

“That what it says.” Milo looked grim. “What makes it really weird is that Sam Heppner got an FYI call this morning from the state penitentiary in Walla Walla. Larry died of a heart attack Saturday around seven
A.M
.”

I was stunned. “Are you sure the information was genuine?”

“Oh, yeah. I called the warden to confirm Larry’s death.”

“Does the family know?”

“What family?” Milo looked disgusted. “Larry’s wife, JoAnne, moved away after he got arrested for killing his sister, Linda. Marv and Cathleen Petersen retired to Arizona, and the last I heard from Aunt Thelma, Marv had Alzheimer’s.”

I’d almost forgotten the family connection between the sheriff and the Petersens. Milo’s aunt had married Elmer Petersen. Unlike his older brother, Marv, Elmer hadn’t followed their late father and Bank of Alpine founder into the business. Instead, Elmer and Thelma had owned a modest farm until they sold the property and moved into the local retirement home.

“But,” I said, “you must’ve talked to your aunt and uncle about Larry. Weren’t there a couple of other Petersen aunts who moved away?”

“I haven’t told Uncle Elmer and Aunt Thelma about Larry,” Milo replied, relighting his cigarette, which had gone out while he was eating his roll. “I don’t know if Elmer and Marv’s sisters are still alive. They broke off whatever connection they had with the rest of the Petersens after Linda was murdered.” Milo took a drag on his cigarette. “All I had time to do this morning was verify Larry’s death. Now I’m wondering who the hell is
sending this crap—and why.” He took the letters from me. “You know what’s going to happen next.”

“I do?”

Milo regarded me as if I were the dimmest suspect in a police lineup. “Legal problems. Threats. Dealing with a nut-job. I don’t need more grief right now. Hell, it’s only been a little over a month since the shootout at the trailer park.”

“It’s a crackpot,” I said. “Larry never denied killing Linda. I’ll admit I didn’t attend the entire trial, but that was because the defense wanted a change of venue and the case was tried in Everett.”

“I know, I know.” He waved away the plume of smoke from his cigarette. “I got so damned tired of having to be there that I spent two nights in a motel. The commute was killing me.”

“And Larry tried to kill
me
,” I reminded the sheriff. “Thank God you came along or I wouldn’t be here listening to you bitch about some stupid letters.”

Milo was silent for a long moment. “Did you ever wonder if Larry wanted to tell you something instead of turning you into his next victim?”

I thought back to what had been one of the most frightening moments in my life. “To be honest, no. In fact, that’s how the whole situation began. It was snowing that night. I was in front of the bank, waiting for Vida and Rick to come out after we inveigled him into letting her inside. Larry drove up and realized something odd was happening. He did say he wanted to talk to me, but I was suspicious of him by then, so I suggested we go over to the
Advocate
. Then everything went downhill. He got very agitated and dragged me inside the car. You know the rest.”

Milo sighed. “What if Larry did just want to talk?”

It was my turn to pause before speaking again, trying to force myself back in time to my emotional, as well as intellectual,
reactions. “I was on guard from the get-go. I sensed his desperation. It scared the hell out of me. I already figured him for the killer. So did you.”

The sheriff nodded. “Everything fit. If it hadn’t, I’d never have made the arrest.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” I smiled softly. “That’s the way you always work.”

“Right.” He shook his head, obviously unhappy. “It’s a hell of a way to spend a Monday morning. The first two letters were so vague that I almost chucked them. The timing bothers me, now that Larry’s dead.”

“The letters were sent before Larry died,” I pointed out.

“I know. But still …” He shrugged. “Coincidences happen.”

I waited while he finished the roll before I posed a question. “Are you here because you want us to run a story about these letters?”

The sheriff stuffed the letters inside his jacket. “God, no!” He frowned, his eyes fixed on my wall map of Skykomish County. “Maybe I just wanted to blow off steam. It must be a crank. The woods are full of them. All this Internet stuff—somebody reads something that sets them off, and even if it has nothing to do with them, they get their rocks off by jumping into whatever. It’s just one step away from the crazies who confess to a murder they didn’t commit or claim to have information about a terrorist plot to blow up Grand Coulee Dam.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Go solve some real cases. If you have any.” I looked inquiringly at Milo. “Do you? I haven’t talked to Mitch about the police log from the weekend.”

The sheriff put out his cigarette and stood up. “Mitch hasn’t been in yet. Nothing much to report anyway, just the usual DUIs, traffic violations, and a couple of non-injury vehicular accidents on Highway 2.”

I also stood up. “No break-ins? No domestic violence? No lost livestock?”

Milo shook his head. “Funny thing about the weekend after Thanksgiving. We never do get much real crime. I guess everybody’s too stuffed and sleepy from eating big Thanksgiving dinners.”

“That could be a story in itself,” I said.

Milo looked amused. “You must be desperate for headlines.”

“I am, actually,” I admitted. “But we’ve had enough excitement around here already this year, and much of it hasn’t been pleasant. I’d prefer a quiet holiday season.”

“Me too.” Milo awkwardly patted my shoulder. “I feel better. Maybe I’ll concentrate on winter steelheading.”

“Good plan,” I said. “Don’t ask for trouble.”

“I won’t.” He ambled into the newsroom, pausing just long enough to exchange a few words with Leo, Mitch, and Vida.
Peacemaking
, I thought.
Nice. Especially with Christmas around the corner
.

As I turned to go behind my desk and sit down, I bumped into the drawer I’d left open. I banged my knee, winced, and swore under my breath. It occurred to me that there was a problem with corners, even the ones on desks.

You can’t see what’s around them.

A
S SOON AS
M
ILO LEFT
, V
IDA CHARGED INTO MY OFFICE
. “What was that all about?” she demanded, leaning on my desk. “I merely mentioned that the letters I receive asking for advice are a perfect example of how foolishly people can behave—even in Alpine—and suddenly he went off on a tangent.”

“He’s gotten some weird letters lately,” I explained, emptying the ashtray. “I think he’s in a bad mood because his ex forced him to spend Thanksgiving with her and their kids to prove they could behave like a real family when their daughter gets married. Milo’s not too thrilled with Tanya’s choice, but he’s never liked any of the guys she’s dated. He didn’t go into mourning a couple of years ago when Tanya broke up with that live-in sculptor after her miscarriage.”

Vida avoided my gaze. Her own family gathering had been tarnished by Roger’s illegal and immoral behavior. “Yes, I understand. Awkward, sometimes.”

Ordinarily, Vida would’ve changed the subject immediately, but her reticence amplified her shame and guilt for having spoiled Roger the past twenty-odd years. Thus, I reverted to the
sheriff’s problems. “Did you know Larry Petersen died over the weekend?”

Vida looked stunned. “No! How can that be?”

“Presumably a heart attack in the penitentiary at Walla Walla.”

“My goodness,” she murmured. “Larry couldn’t have been more than early fifties. Has Milo talked to Elmer and Thelma?”

“Not yet,” I replied. “Do you know where Larry’s ex-wife lives?”

“In Seattle, but I don’t have her address. I can find out, though,” Vida said, her aplomb returning. “In fact, Rick Erlandson should know. He would’ve been involved in changing JoAnne’s accounts after Larry was sent to prison. Besides Denise, there were two boys who were away at college when the tragedy occurred.” She drummed her fingers on the back of the visitor’s chair. “Frankie’s the eldest and Cole’s the youngest, with Denise in the middle. The boys must be in their late twenties or even early thirties. As for Marv and Cathleen, I doubt they have enough brains left to take this in. If it hadn’t been for Andy Cederberg taking over at the bank, the rest of the Petersens might’ve sold out. I’ve always said moving to Arizona is a bad idea. So much sun! It must wither the brain cells.”

The concept of any Alpiner moving away always baffled Vida. Why move to Hell when you could live in Heaven? “Marv had two sisters,” I said. “Have you heard from them since the disaster?”

Vida straightened up and squared her wide shoulders. “Certainly not. Offhand, I don’t recall the sisters’ married names, but they were at Linda Petersen’s funeral. Or should I say Linda Lindahl? She never changed her name back after divorcing Howard. I can call Driggers Funeral Home. There was a guest book. I wonder who has it?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
“Marv, probably. He grieved deeply for his daughter. To realize that Linda was killed by her brother because Larry’s dream of running the bank had been dashed would be enough to make any parent want to blot out reality. Alzheimer’s, indeed! Every disease and condition has a ridiculous name these days for something that’s been around since time began. In my opinion, Alzheimer’s is a cliché diagnosis for shutting out the past, refusing to recognize the present, and fending off the future. I can’t blame Marv for any of that.”

Once again, I wondered if Vida was thinking of herself—and Roger. “Milo should know how a prison death is handled,” I said. “Next of kin would be notified. Larry’s kids, I suppose.” I suddenly remembered Denise. “Oh, my God! Ginny was just talking to me about Denise Petersen Jensen. I wonder if she—Denise, I mean—knows.”