The Alpine Betrayal (16 page)

He trampled my protest. “I don’t know much about the state university system up there, but he ought to make sure his courses are transferable to the lower forty-eight. How many credits does he have from Hawaii?”

Tom had to stop asking me questions I couldn’t answer. Adam’s transcripts looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics. “Adam has saved up to go to school. That’s why he’s working in Ketchikan. I think he needs the responsibility of
earning most of his own money. But you could give him the price of an airline ticket to Fairbanks.”

Tom was silent for a moment. “Stanford would be closer.”

“To who? You?” The words tumbled out unbidden.

“Emma.” Tom was a patient man, but he sounded faintly exasperated. “To both of us, if you put it like that. But I was only thinking in terms of Stanford because of its reputation. What does Adam want to do with his life?”

I laughed. “Adam has planned his life only as far as his next party. Give me a break, Tom, do your kids know what they’re doing?”

“My
other
kids?” Tom with the needle was a new experience for me. “Graham still likes taking cinema at USC, but he doesn’t know if he wants to be a director, a cinematographer, or sell Milk Duds at the Tenplex in Beverly Center. Kelsey says she’s not going back to Mills. She wants to see Europe and meet Alberto Tomba on the ski slopes.” He paused, but not long enough to let me interrupt. “Okay, airline tickets it is. I’ll send enough so Adam can come home for the holidays.”

I was about to ask how his mentally unstable wife, Sandra, was doing when he turned away from the phone. “Terrific,” I heard him say. “I always said green was your color.”

A woman’s voice answered in the background. Sandra’s voice. She sounded almost normal, which meant she wasn’t cackling like a chicken or howling like a loon. I glanced at my watch—it was almost six-thirty. I guessed that they were going out to dinner. Together. I put my hand to my head and fought down a terrible urge to cry.

“Thanks, Chuck,” Tom said into the phone. “I’ll get back to you in a few days. Good-bye.”

Chuck
. Chuck who? Chuck what? I felt my mouth twist into a bitter little smile. I should have chucked my emotions out the window a long time ago. Unfortunately, feelings aren’t as easy to dump as old clothes.

But, I thought, getting up off the sofa and moving briskly into the kitchen, I’d just saved the price of an airline ticket.

I tried out Tom’s theory on Vida. She didn’t discount the idea. “Tommy’s no dope,” she said. “So where does it lead us? Back to Dani and Cody five years ago?”

“Maybe.” We were driving in my Jag out to the Burl Creek Road. It was a muggy Thursday morning, and we wanted to have a look at the spot where Durwood had mistakenly thought he’d run down Cody Graff. “Vida, what do you remember about Cody and Dani?”

Vida leaned back against the leather upholstery, her flower-strewn fedora slipping down almost to the rim of her glasses. “Not much,” she admitted. “That was the year my three daughters insisted I go to Europe. They’d been nagging me to use their father’s insurance money for a long time, and after they were all married and settled down, I finally gave in. I was gone three months, so I missed the wedding.”

I stopped for the arterial onto Alpine Way. Across the street, I could see Old Mill Park with its statue of Carl Clemans, the town’s official founder, and despite the discrepancy in spelling, kin to Samuel Clemens. A family of tourists was going into the museum that housed logging memorabilia. On the tennis courts, a half-dozen people were energetically lobbing balls back and forth across the nets. It was too early in the day for the picnickers to show up with their jugs of Kool-Aid and containers of potato salad and raw hamburger patties. In my mind’s eye, I tried to recreate the original mill, which had stood next to the railroad tracks. Old photographs usually showed it under a lot of snow, with lumber piled high on the loading dock and great puffs of smoke pouring out of slim steel stacks.

“They had a baby shower for Dani at Darlene Adcock’s,” Vida went on. “I didn’t go, but I wrote a little story about it. Darlene said Dani was very excited, thrilled to pieces over every gift she got. Then the baby came—and went.” Vida shook her head, tipping the fedora even farther down on her forehead.

“Patti told me Dani was a rotten mother,” I remarked, following the railroad tracks past the sign advertising the new Safeway.

Vida adjusted her hat. “I don’t think that’s true. I saw Dani a couple of times downtown with little Scarlett—what a terrible name to give a child, no wonder she died, probably of mortification—but Dani was proud as punch. She had the baby all dressed up in the sweetest little things—which is a lot more than I can say for Patti when Dani was a baby. She just threw a bunch of hand-me-downs on her and stuffed her into a stroller.”

“I take it Dani never knew her father?”

“Ray Marsh? No. Patti couldn’t track him down to get any child support, which made her wild. I think he went to California. They often do,” Vida said, as if there were big signs at the Agricultural Inspection Stations on the state line that read
WELCOME IRRESPONSIBLE MEN OF THE WEST
.

At the little dip in the road, I applied the brake. “It must have been right about here,” I noted. The Burl Creek Road was to our left, the Overholt farm just across the intersection. Vine maple, cottonwoods, and a few firs lined the other side of the road, concealing the train tracks and the river. We pulled over and got out of the car. “The Zimmer must have been parked where we are, at least according to Cal and Charlene Vickers.”

“Yes,” said Vida, walking slowly around the Jaguar. “I suppose Milo and his deputies scoured this area thoroughly.”

“No doubt.” I watched Vida bend down, her lack of confidence in Milo and his men apparent. “Do you think they missed something?”

Vida shot me a wry look. “Did you ever know a man who didn’t? Remember, Emma, men aren’t like other people. My late husband could never find his hunting shirt, right there in front of him in the closet. It was
red plaid
. Imagine!”

I joined Vida in her search. Three full days had passed since Milo had decided that Cody Graff had been murdered.
Maybe. Careless passersby had already littered the roadside with the usual beer cans, gum wrappers, and Styrofoam cups. Vida clucked at the vandals’ leavings, even as she checked each item to make sure it couldn’t possibly be a clue. She was well off into the brush now, up to her knees in fiddlehead ferns.

“Ah!” she cried, holding up an object that looked like a pen. “See this!” Triumphantly, she charged up through the ferns and presented me with an eyeliner pencil. “It’s almost new, obviously expensive. What do you bet it belongs to Dani Marsh?”

I turned the eyeliner over in my hand. It was a brand I’d seen only in high fashion magazine advertisements. No store in Alpine carried the line, and it would probably be hard to find even in Seattle. “Could be,” I said. “So what?”

Vida was gesturing in the vicinity of my car. “Let’s say the Zimmer was parked the way we are now, heading out of town. The driver’s side is next to the road. Dani has Cody with her, he passes out, maybe dies right there, she panics and pushes him out of the car. The eyeliner rolls out, too, and goes down that little bank. Got it?”

I wasn’t sure. “Then how did Cody get onto the road? If he’d been on that side of the car, he would have gone down the bank, too. And Durwood would never have thought he’d hit him.”

Vida frowned. “If Cody acted so tipsy, there’s no way he could have driven. So to put him on the passenger side next to the road, they had to be coming
from
somewhere. But where? And why?”

“We can’t be sure Dani was driving,” I objected. “An expensive eyeliner doesn’t prove she was in the Zimmer.”

“It does if it’s hers.” Vida was once again combing the underbrush, without much success this time. “Let’s return it. Are they still up on Baldy?”

“I don’t think so. They were going to film on Front Street today, remember?”

Vida did, but pointed out that the movie company hadn’t been in evidence when we left the
Advocate
office at eight-thirty.
“There was some action down by the taco place, but no lights or cameras,” she informed me, tramping back to the Jag.

We decided to head for the ski lodge, which could be reached by taking the Burl Creek Road. Henry Bardeen’s attempt to enforce the film personnel’s screening process fell flat with Vida.

“Who started this lodge, Henry?” she demanded, using her height and her hat to tower over the unfortunate manager. “Rufus Runkel, my father-in-law, that’s who. Where did your most glowing reference come from when you applied for this job, Henry? This old girl, that’s who. Now turn your back and pretend you never saw us. We’re going upstairs.”

“Wait,” I hissed, trotting after Vida, who was already inside the small elevator. “How do you know which room Dani is in?”

Vida gave me a patronizing look. “The FDR suite, what else? The old fool stayed here back in ’forty-two when he came West for the Grand Coulee Dam opening. Then that busybody wife of his came here in ’forty-three. What a pair! It’s a wonder this country didn’t lose the war. Or maybe it did.” She tromped out of the elevator on the fourth floor and headed down the hall to the last door, which was set in an alcove. Vida’s knock was anything but timid: It could have raised FDR’s ghost. If he’d had the nerve.

But Dani Marsh didn’t respond. Vida tried again, then pressed her ear to the pine door. “It’s quiet,” she whispered. “Oh, well. We can wait.” She started retracing her steps down the hall.

“We can’t wait forever,” I said to her back. “I’ve got to get to work. So do you.”

Vida stopped so unexpectedly that I almost fell over her. She froze, then pointed to the room on our right. The words
ALPINE SUITE
were burnt into a slab of cedar. We could hear voices on the other side of the door. Or one voice, at least. Matt Tabor sounded very loud and extremely angry.
Though the walls were thick and sturdy, we could catch snatches of his furious words:

“… faithless as they come … You used me! … You don’t know the meaning of love! To think I cared about you so damned much….”

Vida and I exchanged startled glances. Down the hall, the elevator opened. The young woman I’d seen with the script up at the location on Baldy now emerged carrying a big manila envelope. She gave us a curious glance.

Undaunted, Vida yanked at the collar of my cotton blouse. “There! Now you’re presentable. Let’s go see Henry Bardeen.”

The ruse apparently worked. The young woman walked off in the opposite direction. Vida and I made for the elevator. We were in luck, catching it before the doors closed all the way.

“My, my,” said Vida, leaning against the frosted glass at the rear of the car, “true love isn’t running smoothly. Maybe it’s a mercy that Matt and Dani haven’t set a date for the wedding.”

“Hollywood romances must be especially rough,” I remarked, though I would be willing to match my own true love against any of them. “All those egos and temptations and ambition.”

“Ambition.” Vida breathed the word and gave me a puzzled look as we got out of the elevator. “Now that’s something I would never connect with Dani. Whatever else she was when she was growing up, ambition played no part in it.”

We were in the lobby, where several guests were checking out at the front desk. Heather Bardeen was looking very professional this morning in her desk clerk’s navy blazer and silk crimson scarf.

“We can check with Dani about the eyeliner later,” I said, looking at my watch. “It’s going on ten. The mail will be in any minute and Ginny will wonder what happened to us. If they’re going to film on Front Street, we may be able to catch Dani this afternoon.”

Reluctantly, Vida agreed. But in the parking lot, she grabbed my arm. “We can catch Dani now,” she whispered in my ear. “Look!”

In a specially reserved slot next to the lodge, Dani Marsh was getting out of a brand-new Lexus. She had obviously just arrived. My jaw dropped; Vida stared over the rims of her glasses. Then she charged after her prey.

“Dani! Yoo-hoo! Over here!” Vida waved her fedora.

Dani squinted at us against the sun, then smiled pleasantly. “Yes?” She was obviously in a hurry.

Vida whipped around the other parked cars like a halfback breaking tackles. “Here, Dani,” she said, handing over the eyeliner. “We found this.”

Dani glanced down at the proffered object. “Oh! Thank you. I was wondering what I’d done with it.” She gave Vida her dazzling smile.

I had moved a few steps so that I could see both of the women’s profiles. Vida was gazing down at Dani, the tortoiseshell glasses catching the sun. “You lost it out by the turnoff to the Burl Creek Road.”

Dani blinked a couple of times. “Oh? That’s odd—I thought I lent it to my mother.” She took the eyeliner and dropped it in her Sharif handbag. “I’m glad to get it back. I always prefer using my own cosmetics, rather than the makeup crew’s.” The smile remained fixed as she turned to head into the ski lodge.

Vida was standing with her hands on her hips. “Well, if that doesn’t beat all!”

I had sidled up next to her. “Yes?”

Vida looked down her nose at me. “Dani and Patti trading makeup? Punches would be more like it. And who was Matt Tabor quarreling with, if not Dani Marsh? What’s going on here?”

I hadn’t the slightest idea. My only hope was that Milo Dodge had a better grasp of the investigation than we did.

But, unfortunately, that was not so.

C
ARLA HAD GONE
in to see young Doc Dewey and find out if she needed a refill on her antihistamine. She didn’t, but when she got back from the clinic, her dark eyes were huge and her cheeks were flushed.

“Patti Marsh was there, all black and blue,” gasped Carla, leaning on Vida’s desk. “She said she’d fallen off her porch.”

I was standing in the doorway to my office, holding the mail that Ginny Burmeister had just brought in. “Porch or perch?” I responded. “Or neither one?”

Carla nodded vigorously. Vida sniffed. “Jack Blackwell. He probably beat her up. I’d guess it wasn’t the first time.”