The Alpine Uproar (8 page)

“Don’t count on it,” Leo said under his breath.

Vida congratulated Rick one last time and hung up. “A boy, eight pounds, four ounces, twenty inches long, born at eleven-eighteen, delivered by Dr. Sung.” She glanced at her watch. “Twenty minutes ago. It was good of Rick to call me first, though he sounded rather muddled.”

“Have they named him?” I inquired.

Vida shook her head. “Ginny refused to consider a boy’s name this time, being so sure that she was having a girl. Personally, I think it’s just as well. I had three girls, which made raising them much simpler. The same should be true of bringing up boys. If anything, I believe boys must be comparatively easy. Girls tend to be moody and unpredictable. If Ginny had a girl, the poor child might become unbearably spoiled.”

The word
spoiled
automatically conjured up a vision of Vida’s grandson, Roger. When it came to him, Vida had a maddening blind spot. He was twenty-three, taking—and quitting—an occasional class at the community college. His attitude toward work followed the same pattern. Get hired, get fired—or simply not show up. Vida, of course, always blamed the teachers, the employers, or a world that didn’t appreciate Roger’s fine qualities. I changed the subject.

“Mitch,” I said, “I’m puzzled by something in these witness accounts. Have you talked to Fred Engelman?”

“No,” Mitch replied. “He lives in a camper somewhere along the Icicle Creek Road. I called him twice, but he doesn’t have an answering device. I’ll try to catch him at Blackwell
Timber. He’s the one who used to get into fights all the time, right?”

I nodded. “That’s why it seems odd that he apparently wasn’t involved in this one. Maybe he was on his best behavior because it was his ex-wife’s birthday.”

“What about Berentsen’s girlfriend with the goofy name?” Mitch asked. “Should I talk to her or is it worth a trip to … Snohomish? And what’s with this
mish
at the end of so many local place names?”

“The
mish
,” I explained, “is a Native American name around here for ‘river,’ as in Snohomish, Skykomish, Stillaguamish, Duwamish, and so forth. Hold off interviewing Jica Weaver. The sheriff should talk to her first. In fact, I’m going to stop by his office on my way to lunch and see if he’s recovered from whatever he was doing last night.”

I tried to keep my tone neutral. Obviously, I failed. Vida gave me a sharp look. “With Delphine?”

To save face, I shrugged. “Whoever.”

Vida didn’t quite manage to conceal a smirk, but turned to her keyboard. “It’s never too soon to suggest items for ‘Scene,’” she reminded us. “I
will
use Rick’s minor car mishap, but without names. Nervous fathers-to-be have a certain charm. As usual, I’ll put the baby’s birth on my page. I trust that the child will have a name by press time.”

“Say,” I said, having a sudden thought, “getting back to Jica Weaver, did any of you listen to KSKY this morning?”

“I did,” Leo replied. “I wanted to check on a co-op ad we did with them for the Columbus Day sale at Stuart’s Sight and Sound. Why?”

“Jica Weaver was going to the station last night to proclaim Berentsen’s innocence. Maybe Fleetwood wasn’t there or he felt like I did about going public with something as flimsy as a girlfriend’s opinion.”

“I’ll ask him,” Leo said. “I’m going to KSKY later.” He glanced at Vida. “A cooking store in Monroe wants to be one of your sponsors. You don’t want your
real
employer to lose out on that, Duchess.”

“Certainly not,” Vida asserted. “A cooking store.” Her tone turned musing. “My, my, that’s good news.” In an instant, she whipped off her glasses to glare at Leo. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t know it until a few minutes ago,” Leo said. “Spence sent me an FYI e-mail. You got one, too.”

“Oh.” Taken aback, Vida blinked rapidly. Having held out for a long time on using a computer, she often forgot that it had uses beyond typing up news copy.

“That’s some kind of bright spot,” I said. “I don’t see how Fleetwood could turn us down.” I looked at Vida, who had put her glasses back on. “If he did, you could threaten to quit and KSKY’s ratings would plummet.”

“Perhaps,” Vida said with an inclination of her head. “I try to bring a certain amount of local lore and neighborliness to my program.”

Vida’s Cupboard
had been an instant hit when she began her fifteen-minute weekly broadcast three years earlier. It usually aired live on Wednesdays, but this week she’d insisted that Spence move the show to Tuesday because of the conflict with the Presbyterian Harvest Home supper. It was a testimonial to her popularity that Mr. Radio had complied. It also gave her the opportunity to remind her brethren about the potluck. When I first learned of the original offer for Vida to do the program, I’d had qualms, but my House & Home editor had vowed never to use material better suited to the
Advocate
. Naturally, she’d kept her word. The show featured interviews with local residents, helpful hints on gardening, and reminders of upcoming events in Alpine. The irony of the cooking store advertisement didn’t
elude me. Although Vida ran recipes and other food-related advice on her page, she never applied any of the information to herself, relying instead on her family’s time-honored concoctions and methods. Unfortunately, her ancestors were reputed to have been the worst cooks in Skykomish County’s history. If the Detroit bar actually served gopher as Mitch claimed, it probably wouldn’t taste worse than most of Vida’s culinary efforts.

Glancing at the clock, I noticed it was going on twelve. “I’m heading out to check in with the sheriff,” I said, ignoring what I figured was Vida’s intrigued expression. “I’m running out of ways to write another editorial begging the state to do something about the horrendous accidents on Highway 2. Maybe the fresh air will inspire me.”

I thought I heard Vida snicker.

T
HAT FRESH AIR HAD TURNED CHILLY WHEN
I
STARTED DOWN
Front Street. Maybe we were due for an early frost. Approaching Parker’s Pharmacy, I suddenly remembered that I had to replenish my stock of Band-Aids, Kleenex, and mouthwash. Trying to recall if I needed anything else, I didn’t pay attention as I crossed the well-worn blue and white hexagonal tiles leading inside the store. The door flew open and almost hit me.

“Watch it!” Patti Marsh shouted. “Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”

Her greeting lacked warmth, but that was no surprise. We had a history. “Hello, Patti,” I said.

“Hello.” She shot me a hostile look. “I hear the sheriff’s seeing Delphine Corson.”

“I heard that, too,” I said, forcing a smile. “I guess she figures Gus Swanson and his wife are only temporarily estranged. Or maybe Delphine’s playing the field after Spike Canby dumped her.”

“That was a while ago,” Patti pointed out, both of us stepping aside for a young woman pushing a baby in an elaborate stroller that Averill Fairbanks might have mistaken for an alien space ship. “Delphine has kept her looks,” she added.

“Where does she keep them?” I retorted, and immediately wished I’d kept my big mouth shut.

Patti, however, seemed to find my remark amusing. I figured it wasn’t because of my flippant response, but that she felt she’d succeeded in her attempt to rile me. “Delphine has a way with men,” Patti said. “Gus and his wife may not be divorcing, but he certainly acts like he’s crazy about her. Last Saturday, she was showing off a very pretty Judith Ripka bracelet he’d given her.”

“Nice,” I said, trying to lighten my tone. “A man dating a florist can’t send flowers.” I refrained from saying that he shouldn’t give his girlfriend candy when she was carrying an extra twenty-five pounds.

“I suppose,” Patti said. “Got to run. Jack and I are going to dinner at Le Gourmand tonight and I have an appointment with Stella for a foil job.” She touched her short hair, which was a different shade—or shades—of blond every time I saw her. Luckily, our meetings were infrequent.

Inside the drugstore, I grabbed a forest-green basket and headed down the aisle that featured Band-Aids and a raft of other wound care products. I was trying to find the Quick Stop variety when something Patti had said came to mind. She’d mentioned seeing Delphine on Saturday. Where and when? I wondered. To my knowledge, Patti Marsh and Delphine Corson weren’t close. I had no idea what Delphine’s bracelet looked like, but I knew that Judith Ripka items weren’t cheap. Few women—at least in Alpine—would wear anything that expensive and elegant during the day. If Delphine was showing
off her new bauble, what better way to do it than in a social setting? Pricey designer jewelry seemed out of place at the Icicle Creek Tavern. But that didn’t mean Delphine hadn’t worn it anyway.

I now had a question for Milo that had nothing to do with asking him if he’d jumped in the sack with the local florist. That was none of my business. Nor did I want to know.

Strange how even in middle age we mortals can still fool ourselves.

“W
HY
,” I
DEMANDED EVEN BEFORE
I
SAT DOWN IN
M
ILO’S
visitor’s chair, “didn’t you mention that Jack Blackwell and Patti Marsh were at the Icicle Creek Tavern Saturday night?”

Milo, looking a bit sleepy, scowled. “Because they weren’t. What’s with you?”

I sat down. “You’re sure about that?”

“Christ!” Milo snatched up his pack of cigarettes. “Yes, I’m sure. You saw the witness list. Hell, if I thought I could add that bastard Blackwell to it, I’d have done it. In fact, I’d put him at the top.”

If there was no love lost between Patti and me, there was plenty of hostility between the sheriff and the owner of Black-well Timber. Years ago, when the sheriff’s job was still an elected position, Jack had run against Milo. The two had never gotten along, and when a murder investigation involved Patti’s former son-in-law, Jack hadn’t liked the way Milo handled the case. The two men had almost come to blows at Mugs Ahoy. The voters had reelected Milo by a wide margin, but Jack and his ego had neither forgiven nor forgotten.

“I ran into Patti Marsh at Parker’s,” I explained while Milo lighted his cigarette. “She got …” I hesitated, not wanting to admit that Patti’s original intention in bringing up Delphine’s name had involved annoying me. “She told me that Delphine had an expensive designer bracelet that Gus Swanson had given her. Patti saw it on Saturday.”

Milo shrugged. “So?”

“So where did Patti run into Delphine?”

“How the hell do I know? The beauty parlor? The grocery store? At the corner of Sixth and Front?” He took a second puff on his cigarette and regarded me with skeptical hazel eyes. “Don’t go trolling where you know damned well there aren’t any trout. You know I hate guesswork.”

I did know, and felt a little foolish for dumping speculations in the sheriff’s lap. “Okay. Have you talked to Jica Weaver?”

“Heeka?” Milo’s long face looked puzzled. “You mean Berentsen’s girlfriend? Dwight Gould went to Snohomish to interview her this morning. He’s not back yet.” He stopped to sip coffee from his NRA mug. “How’d you hear about her?”

“I’m a reporter, in case you’ve forgotten. She came to me. And Jica’s name is pronounced the way I said it, like José or Juan. She stopped by the office to insist that Clive Berentsen’s innocent. When I told her I couldn’t print that—at least not now—she went off to see Spencer Fleetwood at KSKY”

“Dwight won’t swallow that.” Milo looked dour. “He’d like to put Blackwell’s name on the suspect list, too. Dwight’s never gotten over his ex-wife Kay dumping him for Jack Black-well.”

“Kay and Jack were married for only about ten minutes, as I recall,” I said. “That was before my time, but didn’t she leave him for another guy and move to Everett?”

“Yeah, and after a couple of years she divorced him and
married somebody else. Dwight doesn’t know where she is, and what’s more he doesn’t give a damn. It’s no wonder he’s stayed single all these years. It’s a good thing he and Kay never had kids. That’s the tough part when marriages break up, with the wife getting the better custody deal.”

The sheriff spoke from experience. His own wife had left him for another man while their children were still in their teens. Old Mulehide, as he called Tricia, had remarried and moved to Bellevue across the lake from Seattle. Milo had seen less and less of his kids as the years went by. Though he sometimes expressed regret, I wondered if, in fact, he was relieved. The sheriff had enough mayhem, mischief, and even murder on his plate without adding a big serving of typical parental woes.

I tipped my head to one side. “Are you feeling okay? You look a little peaked.”

Milo shot me a sour glance. “I’m fine. I don’t give a damn about fancy labels and sniffing corks and all that ritzy crap. I don’t like wine and it gives me heartburn. Did you forget I don’t have a gallbladder?”

“Hardly. Though sometimes I think
you
forget,” I said. “I won’t lecture you, though. I’m not fond of wine, either. I assume Delphine was paying.”

“If she wasn’t, why would I drink that sour stuff?”

“So it was a bribe,” I said, making an attempt at nonchalance.

“I guess.” Milo puffed, exhaled and sipped. “Dumb idea. She knows you can’t keep secrets in this town.”

I tried to phrase my question in a detached, professional manner. “Then why did she ask you to dinner? Did Delphine want to talk about what happened Saturday at the ICT?”

“She’s already given a statement. Delphine and Gus were at a table where they couldn’t see much.” Milo flipped through a
yellow legal-size tablet. “Sam sketched the layout of the tavern. Delphine and Gus were here,” he said, shoving the floor plan at me and pointing his finger. “The pool table is over there beyond the bar,” he went on. “They probably couldn’t see much from their table, unless the fight spilled out into the customer section. Delphine said she could hear yelling and cussing and a big commotion, but not what actually happened. Gus backed her up with basically the same kind of statement except for one thing. He added that there was a brief lull—his word—just before everybody started yelling again.”