The Alpine Uproar (41 page)

O
F COURSE
KSKY
BROKE THE STORY BEFORE WE DID, BUT IN
deference to Vida, Spence treated Roger’s role with kid gloves. Her show would air in its usual time slot Wednesday evening. She postponed Jim Medved’s appearance and expanded the program to a half-hour. Vida wanted to discuss drug addiction with Doc Dewey, Dr. Sung, Milo, and—to my surprise—Roger. Her
Cupboard
would garner the all-time biggest audience in SkyCo’s radio history. Leo told me that new advertisers were beating down Fleetwood’s door to help sponsor the show.

Meanwhile, Kip had not only gone to press but helped me do a breaking news story for the online edition. I didn’t get home that night until almost two
AM
. I was still so keyed up that I hardly slept. When I got to the office just after eight, Amanda gave me a big smile.

“You’ve had a big adventure,” she said. “I thought you might take the day off.”

“Can’t,” I said, puzzled at her sudden change in attitude. “You seem very chipper.”

She laughed. “Maybe life looks a bit brighter to me today.”

I looked back out into the street. “It is. The rain’s stopped.”

“Not that.” She was still smiling. “Holly’s going to jail, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I suppose she is.” I leaned on the counter. “I didn’t realize how much you disliked her.”

“It isn’t that,” Amanda said. “It’s her kids. They’re going to need a home. After we heard on the radio what happened last night, Walt and I finally had a heart-to-heart talk.” She
leaned her head back and briefly closed her eyes. “It was way overdue. But,” she went on, looking at me again, “we’ve had problems with starting a family. It seems that neither of us can have children.” She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t be talking about this. Sorry.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ve heard every other horror story in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Well.” She rested her elbows on the desk and held her face in her hands. “We kept blaming each other instead of being rational. I used to be sort of laid-back. Walt has always been fairly even-tempered. But this problem gnawed away at both of us. Every day it was a war zone when we were together. I was so sure it wasn’t my fault as much as it was Walt’s that I got to the point where I was willing to let some other guy try to get me pregnant before my biological clock ran down.”

“A guy like Jack Blackwell?”

She gaped at me. “How did you guess? Oh!” She clapped both hands to her head. “Patti! She must’ve told you something.”

I nodded. “She did—sort of.”

“Talk about desperation.” Amanda shook her head. “Anyway, Walt and I’ve agreed to take in those poor kids that Holly will have to give up when she goes to jail. We can be foster parents or down the road even adopt them. I’ve been checking out agencies online, but it’s hard to tell which ones would be right for us.”

A light dawned in my brain. “Such as Journeys of the Heart?”

Amanda looked surprised. “How did you know that?” Before I could answer, she clapped a hand to her cheek. “Oh! You saw me looking at that adoption agency on the computer here. Did you already guess what I was thinking?”

“No,” I admitted. “I thought it was an Internet dating service.”

“Oh, no!” Amanda laughed. The sound evoked the bubbly woman I recalled from previous encounters. “I wasn’t
that
desperate. I talked to Marisa Foxx the other day about our options. We have an appointment with her this afternoon. Is it okay if I leave for about an hour at three?”

I grinned. “You go, girl. And good luck.”

I was both dazed and relieved as I went into the newsroom. The rest of the staff was already engaged in deep conversation about the previous evening’s activities. I managed to slip away into my cubbyhole and collapse in my chair. It was going to take me some time to sift through the recent deluge of events. Still, I felt some sense of satisfaction. The people most important to me had all survived. Scarred, maybe, but in one piece. Life would go on as it always does, not smoothly, not without shocks and surprises, and not always with happy endings. I knew that better than anyone. When it came to fairy tales, my own story had ended in gunfire.

It was almost noon by the time I went to see the sheriff. He was in and Clive Berentsen was out. “Craziest case I ever had,” Milo said after I sat down in his office. “Jica or whatever her name is came to pick Clive up. She’s taking him to New Mexico or Arizona or both for a sun break.”

“Say,” I said, “did you know about Bert’s drug dealing?”

“I had to wonder. Truckers do drugs, Bert sometimes dealt with trucks.” Milo offered me a mint, which I accepted. “But so did De Muth and Berentsen.”

“Oh.” I rolled the mint around in my mouth. “I recall somebody saying you’d gone off yesterday to do something about a donkey. I just realized it might have been a mule, as in Holly’s part of the operation.”

The sheriff looked puzzled. “No. I don’t remember what I said, unless it was about Mulehide and going to buy that damned car for Tanya. This wedding thing is going to keep me broke.”

“You’d better stop calling your ex Mulehide now that you’re getting back together,” I said.

“What?”

“The reconciliation.” I saw Milo’s obvious lack of comprehension. “Aren’t you two giving yourselves a second chance?”

“Hell, no. Are you nuts?”

To my astonishment, a wave of relief washed over me. I almost swallowed the mint. “You’re not?”

Milo was scowling at me. “Who told you that?”

I blanked out. “I’m not sure. Vida, maybe, but she must’ve heard it from somebody else.”

“Oh, for chrissakes! I mentioned to Jack or Lori something about how Tanya wants Mulehide and me to act like we’re on good terms for the wedding, but even that’s a pain in the ass. Or at least in the checkbook. ‘Think about appearances,’ is how she put it. ‘We’re still family’ Bullshit. It’s not my fault she and that creep she ran off with are splitting up. Hell, she even stayed over with Linda Grant from the high school so she could visit my aunt and uncle at the retirement home. She probably wanted to make sure they’d pony up with a big wedding gift. Fat chance. Look up ‘tightwad’ in the dictionary and you’ll see pictures of Aunt Thelma and Uncle Elmer.” He shook his head in apparent disbelief before peering more closely at me. “What’s with you? You look kind of strange. Are you still slugging down that Demerol?”

“No. Yes. Uh … I’d better dash.” Clumsily, I got out of the chair. “Good luck with Vida’s show tonight.”

“I canceled,” Milo said as he stood up. “I decided to let Bill
Blatt take my place. Make it a family affair with Vida, Roger, and Bill.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

Milo shrugged. “I don’t like doing media stuff. Why don’t I listen to the show at your place? I’ll pick up a couple of steaks.”

“That sounds … good,” I said. “See you at six?”

Milo had moved next to me. “Did you say ‘sex’?”

I smiled up at him. “Maybe I did.”

He smiled back.