The Alpine Betrayal (15 page)

“What’s up?” I asked, handing Milo his beer and opening a Pepsi for me.

Milo loped out of the kitchen and planted his long shambling
frame on the sofa. “This is the damnedest homicide case. If that’s what it is.” He let out a weary sigh, then drank thirstily.

I waited as patiently as possible. Milo was gazing at the fireplace, which had accumulated a lot of trash in the past few days. Maybe I could set it off tonight if the house stayed cool.

“Billy Blatt talked to Marje today,” he finally said, referring to one of his deputies who also happened to be Marje’s first cousin. “She told him Cody was taking that suff, Haloperidol. It’s a tranquilizer, and he was having some weird mood swings.”

“Oh.” I felt deflated, and wasn’t sure why. Was it disappointment that Cody’s death had been an accident after all? Or did I get a thrill out of homicide? If so, my only consolation was that Milo was looking as dejected as I felt. “Well, Marje would know,” I said. “She works for the Deweys.”

Milo’s hazel eyes were still troubled. “Right, except that when we checked the prescription out with Garth Wesley at the drug store, he couldn’t find one. So Billy went back to Marje, and she said that was because she’d been able to give him some pharmaceutical samples.” Milo gave me an inquiring look.

I, too, grew puzzled. “Hmmmm. That’s probably not ethical. Do you know if either of the Deweys had treated Cody for his mood swings?”

Having unburdened himself, Milo stretched out his long legs under my coffee table and relaxed a bit. “Marje told Billy that Cody hadn’t seen a doctor. She’d noticed how moody he was and had told him he ought to make an appointment, but he wouldn’t, so she got him the samples.”

“Of syrup?” I asked.

Milo stared at me. “That’s right. It wasn’t pills.” He sat up straight, pounding his fist into his palm. “Damn! Marje Blatt is lying! Why?”

“No,” I said slowly, “she may not be lying. Perhaps she just doesn’t know the whole truth. Cody might have gotten
hooked on the stuff and got it from somebody else in another form. Or someone knew he was taking Haloperidol”—I uttered the word carefully—“and slipped him an extra dose.”

Milo was shaking his head. “I don’t see how we’ll ever figure this one out. I can’t get a handle on it. None of it seems quite real to me.”

I was forced to agree. We sat in silence for a few moments, Milo drinking his beer while I sipped my Pepsi. “Any report from your forensics fellow?” I asked.

Milo gave a little jump. “Yeah, I almost forgot. He found some fibers that match the upholstery in Matt Tabor’s Zimmer.”

That seemed like big—if not unexpected—news to me. Milo, however, wasn’t exactly elated. “So? Cody rode out to the Burl Creek Road in Matt Tabor’s car,” I mused. “Who drove him? Was Cody dead or alive at the time?”

“I don’t know the answers to either of your questions,” Milo replied glumly. “Matt Tabor says he didn’t take his car out at all Saturday night. He rode with Dani and Reid Hampton to the tavern. Henry Bardeen isn’t sure if the Zimmer left the ski lodge that night because he was up at the high school, helping judge the Miss Alpine contest. But we know somebody had that car out by the Burl Creek Road, and we know that Cody was in it.”

I was sitting in the easy chair across from the sofa, my chin resting on my hands. “You’re right, Milo—this is a real mess. On the one hand, we’ve got several people who refuse to accept the fact that Cody was murdered. Then we’ve got some others—some of them the same ones—who refuse to tell us anything helpful.”

“Us?”
Milo gave me a crooked grin. “Jeez, Emma, when did I slap a badge on your chest?”

“Let’s leave my chest out of this,” I snapped, recalling his comment at Mugs Ahoy. “Don’t you want me to help? It seems you could use a little assistance.” To strengthen my case, I told him about my visits to the ski lodge and
Patti Marsh’s house. Milo didn’t look terribly impressed, but at least he seemed mildly interested.

“Dani insists there’s no motive to kill Cody,” I pointed out. “On the face of it, she’s right. But I think Cody knew something about somebody. I don’t mean he was a blackmailer, but I’ll bet he had some knowledge that was dangerous. And it can’t be a coincidence that he was killed right after Dani and the rest of the movie people came to town.”

Milo’s expression was skeptical. “I don’t see it that way. The only one of those people that Cody knew was Dani. I’ve got another angle on the timing—it was Loggerama, and emotions were running high, they always do. Whatever it was that spurred the killer into action was probably triggered by all the excitement.”

I suppose I haven’t experienced enough of small-town life yet to go gaga over a three-day celebration of tree-chopping. Still, I had to allow for the differences in background. Loggerama definitely changed the ebb and flow of Alpine’s life. It wasn’t every day that we had an erection, as our mayor would put it, in the middle of Front Street. At least I hoped not.

“I don’t know, Milo …” I began, but he was crushing his empty beer can in his hands and shaking his head at me.

“Look at all the tourists and locals who got themselves banged up over the weekend,” he said with uncharacteristic heat. “Look at the hordes of people who crowded into town. Look at Cody himself, throwing that axe at Dani and her friends. I wasn’t there, you were, but now that Cody’s been killed, I’ll bet my boots he did it on purpose.”

“If he did, it was a dumb stunt,” I said. “Even if he’d actually hurt one of them, there were several hundred witnesses.”

“And he could claim it was an accident.” Milo was still wringing the beer can. I gathered he wanted a new one.

“He hated Dani,” I remarked, heading into the kitchen. “He said some awful things about her the day she came to town. Oddly enough, Dani doesn’t seem to hate Cody. Or else she hides it better. I have to keep telling myself she
is
an actress.” I returned to the living room and gave Milo his fresh beer.

He took a deep swig, feet now flat on the floor, arms resting on his knees. “Hell, Emma, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Somewhere between the refrigerator and Milo’s outstretched hand, I’d had a thought: “Milo, if somebody brought that Haloperidol to the Icicle Creek Tavern, what was it in?” I noted the sheriff’s blank look and clarified my question. “If it was a syrup, it had to come in some kind of container. A bottle, a vial, a ten-gallon jug. Did your deputies go through the tavern’s trash?”

“Hell, no,” replied Milo, faintly belligerent. “By the time we got the autopsy report, everything had been hauled away. Shoot, Emma, whoever brought the stuff—assuming somebody did—could have walked right out the door with the bottles or whatever. It took two days before we realized Cody had been poisoned.”

Milo was right. “I suppose the risk was minimal,” I allowed, now back in the easy chair, with my legs tucked under me. “Your forensics guy must have found something in the Zimmer. Who else has been driving it besides Matt Tabor and Patti Marsh?”

“Patti’s hair, Dani’s hair, Hampton’s hair, lots of stuff,” said Milo with another sigh. “You’d think they’d all gone bald in that car.”

They hadn’t, of course. But Cody Graff might have lost more than his hair in the Zimmer. In the elegant, handcrafted, meticulously detailed setting of the custom-built automobile, he very likely had lost his life.

“M
ARJE IS
NOT
a liar.” Vida was emphatic. She tipped the straw hat over one eye and gave me a cold stare. “She may be confused, but she wouldn’t lie. In fact, I find it hard to believe she admitted passing out purloined pills to Cody. She certainly never told
me
he was on medication.”

“They were samples,” I reminded her. “I had a friend in Portland who was a nurse. She was always handing out free samples. What else can they do with them?”

Vida wasn’t appeased. She was, however, disturbed. It appeared that her own arguments had created misgivings. “There’s something very wrong here,” she pointed out. “I had lunch with Marje yesterday. She hadn’t talked to Billy yet. She was upset, mostly about Cody, and the fact that she couldn’t believe anyone would have a reason to kill him. Marje actually got quite inarticulate—most unlike her. But she never once mentioned that he was taking that Haloperidol. And even though Cody had a bad temper and could be mean as cat dirt, she didn’t complain about him being moody. Now why did she suddenly give her cousin all this blather?”

If Vida didn’t know, I couldn’t even guess. We were in the news office, waiting for the paper to come back from Monroe. Vida was at her desk, and I had borrowed Ed’s chair.

“I suppose,” I ventured, “because Billy is a deputy sheriff and Marje felt she had to be candid with him. Let’s face it, Vida, we’re not out of the Dark Ages yet when it comes to attitudes on mental problems. Would Marje want to go
around town telling everybody that her fiancé was taking tranquilizers because he couldn’t control his moods?”

Vida shook her head so hard that she had to hold onto her hat. “I’m not talking about telling
everybody
. I’m talking about telling
me
. Marje and I are very close. Her mother, Mary Lou, is a pinhead.”

Ed lumbered into the office just then, with Curtis Graff in tow. I hid my surprise and gave Curtis a pleasant smile. He was leaving in a few hours for the San Juans, and wanted to clip Cody’s obituary. Did we have copies of the newspaper yet?

We didn’t, but I told Curtis he could wait for Kip MacDuff who ought to be getting in from Monroe very soon. Curtis sat down at Carta’s desk, I vacated Ed’s chair, and Vida fixed our visitor with a shrewd gaze.

“Curtis,” she began without any bothersome preamble, “who do you think killed your brother? Or do you think he may have accidentally killed himself?”

Curtis did not return Vida’s gaze. “I haven’t had anything to do with Cody for five years. Don’t ask me how he died. I just wish I hadn’t been around when it happened.”

“But you were,” Vida noted, never one to let a squirming fish off the hook. “Didn’t you talk to Cody before he died?”

“I sure didn’t,” said Curtis with fervor. He was now looking at Vida, matching stare for stare. “Why would I want to talk to that jerk?”

Ed looked up from his clip art and I gave a little jump from my place by the coffeepot, but Vida was unmoved. “I never did know what you and Cody had your falling-out over,” she said, implying that someone had been remiss by not telling her. “But it must have been a pip. What was it, Curtis—a girl?”

Curtis stood up abruptly, glaring at Vida. Then he uttered a lame little laugh, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yeah—you could say that. A girl.” He made a half-hearted effort to kick Carla’s desk. “I’m heading out. I don’t want to miss the Anacortes ferry. I’ll pick up those papers when
I get back to Alpine in a couple of days.” He moved swiftly to the door and let it swing shut with a loud bang.

Vida was bristling. “Well! I was right. The Graff boys did have a real set-to. Now I wonder why?”

We all did. But at the time, we couldn’t begin to understand what had caused the rift. And we certainly didn’t see the connection with Cody’s death. Given the circumstances, we couldn’t blame ourselves.

When I got home that evening, there was a call from Adam on my machine. He had a few more items for Curtis Graff to bring back to Alaska. His fleece-lined denim jacket. His navy blue ribbed knit sweater. His leather driving gloves. His ten-speed bike. And, if I had time to go shopping, could I throw in some crew socks, a half-dozen boxer shorts, a pair of Nikes, and olive green Dockers with one-inch belt loops? Oh—and a seven-eights of an inch woven black belt?

Grimly, I dialed the cannery’s dormitory. But Adam wasn’t there. He had a couple of days off and was on an overnight rock climbing expedition. My son had neglected to tell me about that, obviously being too caught up in the size of his belt—which was considerably larger than the size of his brain.

Or so I decided as I banged down the phone. It rang under my hand, and I answered in a vexed voice.

“Emma, you sound as if some outraged reader put a bomb under your desk,” said Tom Cavanaugh, in that easy, resonant voice that always made me tingle. “What’s wrong?”

I was about to say “My son,” then realized that would get us off on the wrong foot. “We had another homicide. I don’t suppose it was in the San Francisco papers.”

“No, we have too many of our own,” said Tom. “Who got killed?”

I explained, as briefly as possible. The account gave me time to catch my breath and regain my temper. It also allowed me to recover from the surprise of hearing Tom’s
voice. Even though I’d spoken with him as recently as early June, I had the feeling that he could call me every day and I’d still get a little breathless.
Sap
, I chided myself, and concluded my recitation with Milo’s frustration over the complexities of the case.

“Dodge is a good man,” said Tom, “but he’s not much for subtleties. I agree with you, I don’t think this Loggerama business is what set the killer off. Assuming there
is
a killer. Your theory about Dani Marsh’s return makes more sense. Given that, though, it would work better if Dani, not Cody, had been the victim.”

“Well, she wasn’t,” I said. “Cody was a bit of a drip, but he wasn’t worth murdering. If you know what I mean,” I added hastily, aware that I sounded crass.

“Right.” Tom spoke absently. “Did you get my letter?”

I bit my lip. “Yes. I was going to answer it … tonight. I just got home. We’ve been so busy with Loggerama and then Cody’s death …”

“And you didn’t know how to fob me off.” Tom chuckled. “Emma, I’m going to do
something
for Adam, and that’s that. But it would be better if we agreed on what it would be.”

“Okay,” I said. “Pay for his tuition to the University of Alaska. Throw in room and board.” I smirked into the phone, figuring I’d hoisted Tom on his own petard.

I was wrong. “Fine, when does he have to register? Are they on a quarter or a semester system? Has he declared a major?”

I was virtually speechless. “Tom—”