The Alpine Scandal (22 page)

“Waste of time?” Scott asked as we left the sheriff’s office.

“Probably.” I shrugged. “Go home. I’ll check your in-box and voice mail to see if you’ve missed anything important. If you haven’t, I won’t pester you. Enjoy the weekend.”

When I returned to the office, Freddy Bellman was talking to Leo. Vida was on the phone. I nodded at Freddy and went into my office. If nothing else, all the vehicle research I’d been doing had given me an idea for an editorial. It was a subject I’d harped on ever since I’d been the
Advocate’
s editor and publisher: There was nothing to be done about Americans owning cars. It was a love affair that would never grow stale. But while the state searched desperately for ways to raise money, vehicle license tab fees had decreased, not increased. Granted, some families genuinely needed two cars, but three or more vehicles were superfluous. Still, if that was what drivers wanted, fine. Then let them pay for their excess by tripling or quadrupling the fees to help fund for highways and roads. Maybe some of that money could even trickle down to the counties and municipalities.

I knew I didn’t have a prayer of getting through to the politicians. The idea made far too much sense. Some people would have to get rid of a vehicle or two or three because they wouldn’t be able to afford the annual fees for license tabs. Thus, there’d be fewer cars to guzzle gas, congestion would be eased, and insurance rates might go down. Crazy Emma, blowing her ideas into the wind.

I’d gotten to the third paragraph when Freddy strode into my cubbyhole. “I’ve cut a deal with your Mr. Walsh,” he announced. “Two three-column by four-inch ads running in the next issues, placement in the professional services section for three months, and another, larger one-time-only ad in mid-March before the income tax deadline. Do you feel richer already?”

“My middle name is Wealth,” I replied. “Thanks. Leo will do a good job for you.”

“And I shall do the same for my new clients.” He sat down. “In fact, I’ve already acquired one.”

“Who?” I asked idly.

“A fellow named Ed Bronsky. I ran into him at that burger place across the street.”

I tried not to gape at Freddy. “Ed wants you to be his accountant?”

Freddy chuckled. “You think I’m foolish to take on some guy who’s slinging hamburgers at a greasy spoon? Self-employed pros like me know you have to start small and expand your base when you plunge into new territory. If I can help this poor sap out of his tax mess, he’ll spread the word and help me get new, more prosperous clients.” Freddy shrugged. “It’s a simple theory, like throwing a rock in the water and watching the circles move ever outward.”

I decided not to say anything more about Ed, let alone divulge his background. “Sensible,” I remarked, and promptly changed the subject. “What time is your dinner reservation?”

“Seven-thirty.” Freddy stretched and yawned. “Bree doesn’t get done at the hospital until six. She has to go home and change.”

Judging from Freddy’s relaxed attitude, he’d decided that the
Advocate
office was his personal waiting room. I was about to remind him that we would shut down in another ten minutes, but instead I inquired if Bree had a sense of humor.

“Interesting query,” Freddy responded. “Yes, sort of. Why do you ask?”

“I think it’s important in relationships.”

“It is.” He regarded me with curiosity. “Are you matchmaking?”

“Never,” I said. “I was just wondering why she and Carter broke up. I don’t really know her, and I met Carter for the first time today at the funeral reception. That’s hardly an occasion to probe for somebody’s funny bone.”

“Don’t bother yourself about Bree’s heartbreak,” Freddy cautioned. “She could be Venus reincarnated and it wouldn’t matter to Carter. I could have told her that before she ever followed him to Alpine. But I didn’t know her back then.”

“What do you mean?”

He chuckled, a rather unpleasant sound. “You know what I mean.” He slapped his hand on my desk and stood up. “I should be going. I imagine it’s quitting time around here. Enjoy your weekend.” He strolled out of the office, whistling.

Chapter Eighteen

V
IDA SHOWED UP
at my house a few minutes before six. She’d gone home just before Freddy Bellman made his exit. Naturally, she wanted to know if he’d told me anything interesting.

“I think so,” I said, melting butter to drip over the salmon steaks. “But I almost hate to repeat what he implied. Carter may be gay.”

Vida considered the statement. “Well…that would hardly reflect on his ability as an orthodontist. Still, it’s not something that Carter might want known in a small town.” Vida grimaced. “I despise saying so, but some people harbor peculiar prejudices.”

Vida’s broad-mindedness might surprise most people, but not me. I knew her too well. As a student of human nature, she considered any deviation from the norm as “interesting” and therefore worthy of endless speculation—and, of course, scathing criticism. In this case, however, she seemed unusually benign.

“Still,” she went on, tracing the daisy pattern on my kitchen tablecloth with her finger, “it might explain Carter’s behavior toward his mother. An Oedipus complex of some sort.”

“I don’t know much about Freud,” I admitted, “though I recall from Psych 100 in college that young boys who fixate on their mothers often show homosexual tendencies in later life. Or not,” I added lamely.

Vida frowned, obviously thinking hard. “Really, I have so little faith in psychology and psychiatry and such. Common sense is much better as well as cheaper—yet rare. Still, such fixations exist and must be called something. Oedipus complex will do.”

I was still trying to remember anything specific from my long-ago freshman course at the University of Washington. What I recalled most vividly was trying to stay awake during early morning lectures. “This may sound crazy, and excuse the expression,” I said, “but I think I read or heard in class that early on the overwhelming love in boys for their moms is accompanied by a death wish for their dads.”

Vida nodded. “Yes, of course. That’s why the complex is named for Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother. Honestly, even in Alpine that would be a scandal! It’s bad enough that I know at least two sets of first cousins who married each other. It’s no wonder their children are extremely odd! They’re also rather homely.”

I wasn’t sure who Vida meant, nor did I want to find out. The salmon was under the broiler, and the potatoes and Brussels sprouts were boiling on the stove. Vida was drinking ice water; I sipped a Pepsi.

“So,” she said after I’d told her about the search Scott and I had made at the sheriff’s office, “you aren’t much wiser.”

“No,” I said, lifting the lid off the potatoes to see if they were done. “Maybe it
is
a random thing. The railroad tracks run fairly close to the Burl Creek Road along that stretch. The trains always slow down when they approach Alpine. A vagrant might have jumped off and spent the night in the henhouse. Elmer could have surprised whoever it was, and the guy put up a fight. It happens.”

“True.” Vida folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me again who received those citations.”

I ran down the list from the notes I’d brought home with me. Vida, of course, needed no such visual reminders of who was who and who did what to whom. I’ve never known her to make notes of any kind. Her local lore was encyclopedic—and infallible.

“Nick Della Croce,” she murmured after I was finished. “That’s the name that intrigues me most. Yet the offense of not removing his studded tires on time isn’t connected to Elmer, even if the Della Croces do live next door to the Nystroms.”

“I’ve never met the man,” I said, “though I vaguely recall seeing him a couple of times at St. Mildred’s. Solid build, mustache, receding wavy dark hair going gray. And his wife is an orthodontist’s assistant who didn’t get a job with Carter.”

Vida nodded. “No doubt Mr. Della Croce is very protective of his only child. Gloria might shrug off the strange relationship she’s overheard, but her father may not have done the same.” She unclasped her hands and clapped them together. “Ah! We must pay a call on the entire family after dinner.”

“Vida…”

“Don’t argue. Let’s see…our pretext…” She shoved a hairpin into her unruly gray curls. “Car trouble? No. Too obvious. A readership survey for the paper? No, no. Not in person. You mentioned your editorial for the next issue…Burl Creek Road needs to be resurfaced. Perhaps we could say we’re asking residents who live along there to—”

“Vida!” I all but yelled at her. “How about the truth?” My House & Home editor was the soul of integrity, except when she resorted to subterfuge in the name of the job. Then she relished dreaming up plausible excuses for snooping. “We’re still working on the murder investigation story,” I said in a reasonable tone. “We haven’t yet talked to the father and the daughter. They could be witnesses.”

Vida looked disappointed. “Well, now…I suppose that would do.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Maybe you should have become a spy.”

“I think not. Spies can’t wear hats that get noticed.” She sniffed at the air. “My, my—something smells delicious.”

“I put some liquid smoke on the salmon to give it that alder flavor,” I said. “We’re almost ready to eat.”

“Very kind of you to invite me to dinner,” she said in a relatively quiet voice.

“You were right,” I told her as I drained the potatoes and the Brussels sprouts. “I definitely miss Ben already. Furthermore, I haven’t heard from Adam since I e-mailed him earlier today. I always worry when he doesn’t respond right away.”

“He’s busy,” Vida stated with conviction. “His duties as a priest must take him far afield in a remote area such as St. Mary’s Igloo. Doesn’t he spend some time in Nome?”

“Yes,” I said, placing a salmon steak on Vida’s plate, “but he usually tells me when he’s going there.” Suddenly I remembered something Vida had mentioned earlier in the week. “I thought you were going to have Roger come tonight for a sleepover.”

Vida frowned. “He told me he had too much to do. Studying, I suppose. Now that he’s a college student, his time is taken up with class work and activities and his friends. I don’t see as much of him as I used to. But,” she added hastily, “that’s hardly his fault. Roger is virtually an adult these days.”

The use of
Roger
and
adult
in the same breath struck me as incompatible. “How soon will he get his associate of arts degree?” I inquired as visions of a frozen hell played in my mind’s eye. I even pictured Roger’s chunky body in a red suit with icicles on his pitchfork.

“I’m not sure,” Vida replied, looking away from me. “He’s had to drop some courses along the way. So much stress, you know, and some faculty members are very dense. They have no imagination, particularly when it comes to writing papers. Just last week Roger’s history professor assigned a paper on the Civil War. Roger wrote his about a football game he’d watched very recently…some sort of bowl contest…fabric in the name…yes, Cotton Bowl. Anyway, Roger wrote how these two teams from the Southern states never used to have black players, but now they did, and the games were so much better because Lincoln had freed the slaves. I thought it was a very inventive premise. The professor didn’t agree. But then, Grams doesn’t know much about sports.”

As usual, Vida was wearing blinders when it came to her grandson. Her innate common sense and good judgment had flown out the window. If she’d been talking about any other college student, her criticism would have slashed the poor kid into bite-sized ribbons.

I avoided commenting on Roger’s essay. “You must miss not having him around so much,” I said, sitting down across from Vida.

“My, yes,” she replied. “The other grandchildren are just far enough away that it isn’t easy to visit back and forth. That traffic in Tacoma is so bad, and of course I-5 going either there or up to Bellingham is usually bumper to bumper on weekends. Not to mention that Beth and Meg are so busy with all their children’s activities. Gymnastics, swim meets, soccer—they’re constantly on the go. Unfortunately, they don’t often come to Alpine. It’s not on their schedules.”

Vida made the statement without expression. Of course I knew what she was thinking: Her two daughters who lived out of town simply had no spare time to visit—or to entertain. I began to understand why Vida had confessed to feeling alone.

“Parents are on overload these days,” I said. “As a single working mother, there was no way I could get too involved in Adam’s extracurricular activities. I felt I shortchanged him, but I had to put food on the table.”

“Speaking of food,” Vida said, pointing her fork at her plate, “this is very good, Emma. I must mention that smoked alder flavoring in one of my cooking columns.”

I realized she wanted to speak of other things. Despite being an inadequate cook, Vida felt no compunction about telling other people how to prepare food, blatantly stealing advice from one of our syndicated columns yet never applying it to herself.

We spent the rest of the meal discussing mundane matters such as the cost of groceries, housing, and gas. Vida helped me clear the table and load the dishwasher. I insisted that we call the Della Croces before going to see them. Vida quibbled but gave in.

A youthful female voice I assumed belonged to Gloria answered the phone. “I’ll tell them you’re coming,” she said rather timorously, and hung up. Her mother’s pride had given me the impression that the daughter oozed self-confidence.

We arrived just after seven. Anna Maria greeted us at the door, her round face slightly florid and her brown eyes wary. “This isn’t going to take long, is it? Nick has a TV program he wants to watch in a little while.”

“No,” I assured her as we went into the living room. “We only have a few questions.”

“We might have answered them over the phone,” Anna Maria said. “This is my husband, Nick.”

Nick Della Croce made an effort to hike his burly body off the recliner but managed to make it only halfway and gave us a desultory wave. “I’ve seen you both around town,” he said, not sounding convinced that he was pleased to see us again.

Anna Maria indicated that we should sit in a couple of side chairs. Apparently the sofa was her domain. She settled back down on its corduroy cushions and pushed aside the jumble puzzle she’d apparently been doing. “I could make some coffee,” she said in an uncertain tone.

“Please don’t trouble yourself,” Vida insisted. “This is business, not social.” She smiled in her toothiest manner.

“We were hoping to talk to Gloria as well,” I put in. “I assume she’s home. I thought she answered the phone.”

“She’s in her room,” Anna Maria said. “Gloria has a phone in there. She’s got company, so she won’t be joining us.”

“Oh, dear!” Vida looked upset. “It’s terribly important that she should be here, too. So mature and perceptive—at least that’s what I’m told. Surely her chum could spare her for fifteen minutes.”

Nick and Anna Maria exchanged glances. I sensed that the husband deferred to the wife when it came to issues regarding their daughter.

But I was wrong.

“As long as you don’t embarrass her,” he warned, and rose from the recliner. “I’ll go get her.”

Anna Maria didn’t look pleased. “This is all so sordid,” she declared after Nick had left the room. “I don’t like Brianna being left alone.” She got up from the sofa and followed her husband into the hallway. “Nick, tell them both to come.”

At the mention of Brianna’s name, Vida stared at me and mouthed the name “Phelps?” I shrugged.

The parents returned to the living room. “They’ll be along in just a moment,” Anna Maria said, still looking out of sorts. “Can we get started?”

“Certainly,” Vida said. “Mr. Della Croce, did you know the Nystroms very well?”

He moved the recliner into a sitting position and frowned. “Not really. I probably saw more of Elmer than Mrs. Nystrom or the son. Nice guy. I’d see Elmer out in the yard sometimes, especially in the spring and summer. He liked to work in the garden. Kind of fussy about it—everything neat as a pin.”

Vida nodded approvingly. “I enjoy yard work myself. Did you ever have dealings with Elmer at Nordby Brothers?”

Nick nodded. “My truck’s a Chevy Colorado. Great service at Nordby. Elmer was the best.”

A pretty dark-haired young girl entered the living room, followed by a shorter and not quite so pretty blonde. Anna Maria introduced us.

“Gloria,” she said, moving over to make room on the sofa for the girls, “this is Mrs. Runkel and Ms. Lord from the newspaper.”

The dark-haired girl smiled faintly. “Hi.” She put a hand on her friend’s arm. “Meet my friend, Brianna Phelps.”

Brianna also said hi, though there was no smile. She seemed suspicious. She might have been pregnant, though it was hard to tell with the baggy Seattle Pacific University sweatshirt she was wearing.

“Of course!” Vida exclaimed. “You’re Reverend Phelps’s daughter. I remember when you were a baby. We ran your picture in the paper.”

Brianna didn’t respond. Maybe the word
baby
put her off.

Anna Maria did her best to cover the awkward moment. “Gloria and Brianna are what they call ‘buddies’ at the high school. Seniors befriend sophomores to make the transition from junior high easier. Our daughter was lucky. She and Brianna have become genuine pals.”

“Oh, yes,” Vida said enthusiastically. “I recall when my grandson, Roger, had a sophomore buddy. Ryan Post. Roger always called him ‘Lamp,’ no doubt because Ryan was so bright.”

I figured that wasn’t the reason behind Roger’s nickname and that poor Ryan probably had suffered mightily at his “buddy’s” chubby hands. Naturally, I kept my mouth shut.

Nick was drumming his fingers on the arm of his recliner. “Get on with the questions, okay?”

Vida’s expression turned severe. “Very well. Gloria, how often did you overhear those silly conversations between Mrs. Nystrom and her son?”

“How’d you know about that?” Gloria asked, with a sharp look for her mother.

Anna Maria avoided her daughter’s gaze and kept quiet.

I intervened. “We’ve been conducting our investigation ever since we discovered Mr. Nystrom’s body. Any information we can get will help find his killer and keep this neighborhood safe.”