The Alpine Scandal (8 page)

“Trade you,” I said, leaning over my cart.

“What?” Bree turned around.

“I think I like your choices better than mine,” I replied with a friendly smile.

Bree gave me a cool look. “Oh.”

Edna Mae hadn’t found a dime, but she’d dumped the entire contents of her purse on the checkout stand and was counting out five pennies and a nickel. “There!” She beamed at Cara, the redheaded clerk. “I knew I had exact change! I hate making people wait while I write a check or give you a ten-dollar bill for five dollars and some odd cents worth of purchases.” She must have seen me out of the corner of her eye. “Emma? How are you? I meant to call you this evening. Can you substitute for bridge tomorrow night? It’s short notice, but the flu’s going around. Charlene Vickers and Francine Wells are both sick. Francine phoned me just before I left the library.”

“That’s fine,” I said, pressured not so much by Edna Mae as by the half-dozen people who were now lined up behind me. “Where is it?”

“My house,” Edna Mae said, carefully collecting each of her items one at a time and putting them back in her purse. “Seven-thirty, of course.”

Of course. I nodded. I’d been a regular member of the bridge club for several years, but for a short time a couple of the members had boycotted me for reasons that still rankled. The rest of the group finally had rallied and invited me back, but I’d played hard to get and told them I’d substitute only when needed.

Edna Mae finally pulled herself and her belongings together. Bree moved quickly, credit card and pen already in hand. My chance to get acquainted was slipping away as fast as a rock rolling down Tonga Ridge.

I leaned closer to Bree. “Can you tell the difference between the yellow and the red peppers?”

Bree, whose eyes were a mesmerizing blue, regarded me as if I were the local loony. “I find the yellow a bit more mild,” she replied through tight, glossy lips. She turned away and gazed at Cara, who had finished totaling up Bree’s groceries.

I was undaunted. Journalists are used to rejection. “Say,” I said in my most engaging voice, “aren’t you Bree Kendall?”

Bree all but glared at me. “Yes. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m Emma Lord,” I said, still friendly as I could be. “We’ve run your picture a couple of times in the
Advocate
.” I became somber. “I’m very sorry about your employer’s father.”

“He’s not my employer,” Bree snapped. “I resigned last week.”

“Oh—yes, I’d forgotten.” Bree had signed off on her purchases and turned away from me. “Then I guess you’re not a suspect,” I said loudly.

She almost dropped her plastic grocery bag. “What?” The deep blue eyes stared. Cara, who was already starting to tote up my items, also gave me a startled look.

I shrugged. “That’s how it works with a homicide investigation.”

Bree took two steps toward me. Menace can distort even the most attractive faces. “If I ever hear you or anybody else even mention my name in connection with that Nystrom bunch, I’ll sue for every cent I can get. You hear me?”

I blinked. “I hear you.” I steeled my nerve. “But you don’t realize what you’re saying.”

Bree may not have heard me. She was already stalking resolutely toward the exit in her mile-high boots.

And she was not aware that she’d told me what I wanted to know.

Chapter Six

“T
HEY’RE GONE
,” V
IDA
said over the phone. “I’m so glad. The Bartlebys are very difficult to entertain. Regis said grace, and it must have lasted ten minutes. My casserole got cold and didn’t taste as it should.”

Maybe the vicar had been praying for something edible. Hot or cold, Vida’s casserole would have tasted like newspaper pulp. “Was your social gesture worthwhile in terms of information?”

“Oooh…” Vida paused. I could imagine that she’d taken off her glasses and was rubbing her eyes in frustration. “The Bartlebys are so maddeningly discreet! You’d think all those Episcopalians led blameless lives!”

“Including the Nystroms?”

“Oh, yes!” Vida’s sigh carried over the phone line. “Elmer was practically a saint. Polly is such a dear woman, ‘bless her heart,’ and I quote. Carter is a paragon of virtue. ‘Bless his heart,’ too. Elmer was an usher. Polly made tea towels for the church bazaar. Carter has very flexible payment plans for patients who are financially embarrassed. That’s the way Regis put it. So tactful. Whatever happened to—and now I must quote myself—‘broke,’ ‘lazy,’ or ‘spending paychecks at Mugs Ahoy’?”

“You didn’t expect them to dish the dirt,” I pointed out.

“I expected
something
,” Vida declared. “And I must say, there were some very small tidbits of interest, if one interprets them properly.”

“Such as?”

“Edith described Polly as ‘taking an interest in other people.’ Yet at another point in the conversation, Regis mentioned that the family kept to themselves. ‘A close-knit trio’—those were his exact words. The two things don’t go together.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning, of course,” Vida explained, “that someone who takes an interest in others usually has many friends. That person is a good listener and probably is sympathetic. However, if that person—Polly, of course—is merely encouraging people at church—and I don’t think the Nystroms had a social circle beyond Trinity Episcopal, because I certainly never ran any items about them entertaining guests—then I must conclude that Polly was pumping the other parishioners for information. Which, of course, is perhaps what Maud Dodd complained about. Polly is a
gossip
.”

I was glad Vida couldn’t see my expression.
Pot, meet kettle
, I thought to myself. “There are worse things,” I remarked.

“That may be so,” Vida allowed, “but it depends on whether or not Polly adhered to the truth and refrained from malice. I intend to visit Maud Dodd tomorrow on my lunch hour.”

With the cordless phone propped between my ear and my shoulder, I had wandered into the living room where I stood before my favorite painting.
Sky Autumn
hung above the sofa, replacing a Monet print I’d moved to my bedroom. I never tired of my recent acquisition. The tumbling river seemed to change color and movement with the light. Just then, with only one lamp burning on an end table next to the sofa, the rushing water looked dark and dangerous. It struck me as a metaphor describing Elmer’s killer.

“Is that all you found out?” I asked.

“Almost,” Vida replied. “Elmer’s funeral will be Friday morning at ten. I called that in to Kip so that he could add it to my obituary and your story. But,” she went on, “there was one other faintly curious comment by Regis. He mentioned that as an usher, Elmer always stood in the rear of the church during the service. Polly and Carter sat together in the third row and nudged each other frequently during the sermons. Regis was puzzled as to whether they were quibbling with Scripture or with his—that is, Regis’s—interpretation.”

“That’s a clue?” I said, leaning so close to my painting that I could see the signature of the artist, Craig Laurentis.

“Well, no,” Vida admitted, “but it obviously disconcerts Regis. He wonders if he’s becoming too pedantic as he grows older.”

I sat down on the sofa and put my feet up on the matching ottoman. “At least he’s not senile like our poor old Father Fitzgerald. When I first came to Alpine, he was giving homilies about loose women with bobbed hair and short skirts doing the Black Bottom and drinking bathtub gin.”

“Yes,” Vida said. “I recall the St. Mildred’s people complaining about that sort of thing. Living in the past, poor soul. Of course it always seems a safer place.”

“By the way,” I said, “I ran into Bree Kendall at the Grocery Basket.”

Vida didn’t respond immediately. I sensed that she was checking Bree’s name in her prodigious memory bank. “Oh, the young woman who worked for Carter Nystrom. Really, Emma, you did not just happen to run into her.”

“In a way,” I said. “I didn’t follow her to the store. She was ahead of me in the express lane.” I related our brief encounter.

“Well, now,” Vida said, “Bree’s the first person I know who’s been openly critical of the Nystrom family. I wonder why.”

“I’d say it was because she and Carter didn’t get along,” I said, “except that she definitely referred to all of them. I wonder if Milo will talk to her.”

“He should,” Vida asserted. “He must. Disgruntled employees have motives. Though why Carter’s receptionist would kill his father seems very odd. I’m ruling out a mistake. Except for both men being fairly tall, they don’t look at all alike.”

I told Vida that I’d drop Bree’s name in Milo’s lap. On that note, I rang off. It was after nine. The Wesleys would be home from the drugstore. They’d probably spend the dinner hour having their little talk with Jessica. I gave them another twenty minutes before I dialed their number.

Tara answered the phone.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “but I need some background for a follow-up article on the Nystrom tragedy.” Like most people, Tara wouldn’t stop to think that I had an entire week to write the article. If she thought about it at all, she’d figure I was still working on this week’s edition. “How many employees does Dr. Nystrom have in his office?”

“Not counting our daughter?” Tara said dryly.

“Right.” I couldn’t resist the opening Tara had given me. “Did you find out why she quit?”

“Jess didn’t like the environment. Whatever that means.” Tara sounded annoyed. “Hang on. Maybe I can get a straight answer out of her on your question.” I waited. I could hear voices in the background but was unable to understand what was being said. “Two assistants,” Tara finally informed me. “Jess doesn’t know their last names and doesn’t think they’re from around here. The dark-haired girl is Christy, and the one with blond highlights is Alicia. You’ll have to check with the office to get their last names. Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I assured Tara. “I know the environment bit with the younger set. It can be anything from not liking the workplace’s computer keyboard to hating a coworker’s shoes.”

“Exactly,” Tara said. “Still, I expected better of Jess. It’s not like her to be vague. Got to go, Emma. I was just loading the dishwasher.”

After hanging up, I checked my e-mail to see if Adam had responded to the message I’d sent to him in Alaska. He hadn’t. As usual, I worried that he’d been kidnapped by marauding polar bears.

An hour later, I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. When I was ten or so, our family dentist suggested that I get braces because I had an overbite. The cost was out of my parents’ price range, and I didn’t ever want to wear those ugly metal things. I’d preferred the overbite despite the dentist’s dire warnings that I’d do all kinds of damage to my jaw and teeth. By middle age, I had never suffered any such problems, nor was I self-conscious. Still, I wondered if I couldn’t use my slight deformity as an excuse to see Dr. Nystrom.

I stood there looking in the mirror and trying to tell myself it was a dumb idea. For one thing, Carter Nystrom might not be taking appointments until after his father’s funeral. And, I asked myself, why was I trying so hard to play detective? Didn’t I trust Milo? Or had I gotten into the habit of helping solve murder cases over the years?

I turned away from the sink and flicked off the light switch.
None of the above
, I thought as I went into my bedroom. My rationale was quite different and very simple: The prehomicide obituary had been sent to the
Advocate
. Had it been a warning? An attempt to stop the murder before it happened? Or was it a cruel hoax to play on my staff and me? If Vida hadn’t known the Nystroms, we might have run the obit and looked like idiots. Or, even worse, gotten slapped with a lawsuit. Whatever the answer, I had to find it.
The Alpine Advocate
was already involved, and that meant I was, too.

Pub day—Wednesday to the rest of the world—usually meant the pressure was off. It was a good day for haircuts, doctor and dental appointments, or whatever else had to be done during the week between eight and five. But this time there was no letting up for me on the day the newspaper came out. As soon as I reached the office, I dialed Carter Nystrom’s office.

After four rings, a recorded message came on, informing me that the office was closed for the rest of the week due to a death in the family.

Shot down again.

I went out to Vida’s desk. “Alicia and Christy, Carter’s orthodontist assistants. Do they have last names?”

Vida had just turned on her computer. “A moment. I’m still never sure if I’ve done this right.” She gazed at the screen, which was black. “Oh, dear. Now what did I do wrong?”

I leaned over her chair and poked the button on the monitor. “See if that helps.”

“Ah,” she said. “Yes, it’s doing something now. You’re very clever, Emma.”

“Hey,” I responded, “plugging things in and turning on switches are as clever as I get. As far as I’m concerned, the computer is just a typewriter with pictures. Now, what about Alicia and Christy?”

Sadly, she shook her head. “I know at least two Christys and one Alicia, but none of them work for Carter Nystrom. Like Bree, they must be out-of-towners he hired when he went into practice. Very foolish of him, really. Alpiners prefer dealing with people they’ve known a long time. Strangers can be so off-putting.”

Having been a stranger in Alpine, I knew that Vida spoke the truth. I pointed out, however, that Carter was a local.

“True,” she said slowly, “but he’d been away for many years completing his studies. He’d grown up in Alpine and should have known better than to hire outsiders.”

Scott had been assigned to the morning bakery run. “I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets in,” I said. “If Scott met any of these young women when he did the feature article on Carter, they might thaw a little if he talks to them again.”

Vida nodded. “Just because he’s married now doesn’t mean he’s lost his appeal to the fair sex.”

Leo entered the newsroom, looking grim. “I got a call from Carter Nystrom at seven-oh-five this morning. He wanted to know if it was too late to place a paid obit in this week’s paper. I had to restrain myself from telling him he couldn’t put it there but I knew somewhere else he could shove it.”

“There’s no need to be crude, Leo,” Vida chided. “The poor man has just lost his father.”

“He’s also lost track of time,” Leo grumbled. “I was just getting into the shower. Why the hell did he have to call me at home?”

“He probably thought we hadn’t printed the paper yet,” I put in. “So many readers don’t get it.”

Leo glanced at the coffeemaker, seeing that the red light hadn’t gone on yet and that the baked goods hadn’t arrived. “So I’m supposed to stand there buck naked listening to Carter natter on about how his mother knows for an absolute certainty that Elmer wasn’t murdered but just had a freak accident? Talk about denial!” He glared at the coffeemaker, as if he could compel it to finish the brewing process.

“An accident?” I said. “How can Polly believe that?”

Vida made a disgusted face. “Polly doesn’t want to think that their perfect little family could be involved in anything as messy as murder.”

“Then Polly is an idiot,” Leo declared, lighting a cigarette.

“Perhaps,” Vida allowed. “And please don’t blow that smoke in my direction.”

“Right, Duchess, right. I’ll blow it up my—”

“Leo!” Vida wagged her finger. “You are out of control this morning! Please overcome your foul mood so that the rest of us don’t have to suffer.”

The red light came on. “Yeah, okay, fine,” Leo grumbled. “Carter talked so much that I didn’t have time to get my first jolt of caffeine at home. He got me off to a bad start. You don’t need caffeine, Duchess. You never sleep. All that hot water you drink must have a magic potion in it.”

Vida ignored the comment. “Did Carter say anything of interest?”

Leo poured mugs of coffee for me and for himself. “Damned if I know. I told you—I wasn’t really awake and I was stark—”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned all that,” Vida interrupted. “Please drink some coffee, stop cursing, smoke your awful cigarette, and try to remember. I’ll give you five minutes.” She turned away, fiddling with her computer.

I was about to retreat into my cubbyhole, but just then Scott made his entrance, purple Upper Crust box in hand.

“Apple slippers and pear boats,” he announced. “The new hot items from the Upper Crust. Almost literally. They’re still warm.”

I pounced, all but ripping the box to get it open. Leo waited until he’d finished his cigarette. Vida shook her head. “They sound very fattening. I’m on a diet.”

Vida always claimed that she was on a diet, yet she never seemed to gain or lose an ounce. Her large frame supported her weight, not to mention her hat, which she was still wearing this morning. It was a bright green turban with a large brooch of multicolored fake gems.

Ginny and Kip appeared, as if popping out of a genie’s bottle. After eating a bite of the delicate pastry layers surrounding the pears, I sat down on the edge of Scott’s desk.

“Tell me everything you know about the people who work for Carter Nystrom.”

“Hang on.” Scott waited for Ginny and Kip to make their selections, then chose an apple slipper and poured out a mug of coffee. Vida, who had heard my query, came over to stand by my reporter’s desk. “You mean the two assistants and the receptionist?” Scott said, sitting down in his chair. “Bree quit last week.”