The Alpine Menace Part 7

"It's expensive to live in Seattle," I admitted. "Real-estate prices are out of sight."

"How could Kendra afford such a place?" Vida huffed as we approached the young woman's door.

As I pressed the buzzer, I was wondering the same thing. I was still wondering when there was no response after three tries.

"Did you notice her car?" Vida asked.

"The Miata?" I shook my head. "There were a couple of cars parked outside, but I saw an entrance to an underground garage. I couldn't see into it."

Nudging me aside, Vida jiggled the doork.n.o.b. "Drat. It's locked."

"Of course it is," I said, amused.

Vida looked a trifle sheepish. "Well-you never know. The young are so irresponsible."

"Now what?" I said, heading back for the elevator.

"Carol's ex-boyfriend? Her ex-husband?" She paused, leaning against a wooden rail and rummaging around in her purse. "I've got the names in here somewhere... Ah! Look down there."

A white Miata was pulling into the drive, headed for the underground parking. From our vantage point, we couldn't see who was inside, but Kendra Addison was a good guess.

"Come," Vida commanded. "Let's duck around the corner."

Kendra's unit was the last one at this end of the building. It had a wraparound deck, closed off by a gate with a simple latch.

"Perfect," Vida murmured. "Look, there's a window. I can see the bedroom quite clearly."

So could I, and had a momentary urge to mention that window peeking wasn't legal. Except, of course, to Vida, who scoffed at such restrictive regulations.

"She'll come into the living room," I pointed out.

"Of course. Then we'll call on her." Vida pressed against the exterior wall, her sharp gaze glued to the window, one hand pus.h.i.+ng back the cartwheel hat with its profusion of b.u.t.terflies on the brim. I swear I could see her nostrils twitch.

Almost five minutes pa.s.sed before we heard footsteps. Then, somewhat to our surprise, we heard voices, a male and a female.

"Not alone," Vida whispered, wiggling her eyebrows.

"... for the kitchen," the female voice was saying.

"Why?" the male responded. "You don't cook."

"I will some-" The door closed on the young woman we presumed was Kendra.

"How long do we wait?" I inquired of Vida.

She looked at her watch. "Two minutes. I'll time it."

We remained silent as the seconds ticked down. Vida was giving me a nod when something moved in the bedroom. I flattened myself against the wall, looking straight ahead through the trees. Vida, however, remained at her post.

"It's them. Oh, my!"

"What?" I whispered.

"They're... My, my!" She gave a faint shake of her head, but kept looking.

I was about to ask her what was going on, but she was riveted to her small sliver of window. At last, Vida, now bug-eyed, ducked under the sill and crept toward me.

"I don't think we should call on them after all," she said under her breath. "I didn't know you could do it that way. Oh my!"

"SO KENDRA HAS a boyfriend," Vida said, adjusting the cartwheel hat as we returned to the car. "Goodness, she's certainly promiscuous. Just like her mother. Her real mother, that is."

"We don't know that for a fact," I countered. "The guy in that bedroom may be Kendra's one and only. How old did he look?"

Vida expelled an impatient sigh. "Young. Early twenties, no more. I really didn't get a very good look."

I couldn't resist. "Old enough not to be wearing Bugs Bunny underwear?"

Vida took offense. "Really, Emma. How do you think of such things?"

I laughed, but Vida continued in a musing tone. "It's not natural. It's... acrobatic."

I ignored the comment. "Let's not come down too hard on Kendra just yet," I said, heading south on Roosevelt Way. "What do we know about her? Apparently, she was happy to have met her birth mother, which indicates family ties are important to her. We saw her try to reason with her father last night. That means she believes in keeping the peace. She's moved out and gone on her own, which shows she has initiative. The only negative is that she accused Ronnie of hitting on her, which may be true. From what little I've seen of her, mainly a graduation picture, Kendra is very good-looking."

"Carol was good-looking as a teenager," Vida said in a musing tone. "Very fair. She was a Lucia Bride one year at the Lutheran church."

"So where did Carol go wrong?"

"That boy... If only I could remember..." Vida snapped her fingers. "Darryl Lindholm. That's who got Carol pregnant. Quite tall. He played basketball and football for the Buckers."

The Buckers was the nickname for Alpine high-school teams. "What happened to him?"

"The Lindholms were would-bes," Vida said, using her term for people who would be of a better social standing than they actually were. "They moved to Mount Vernon, where they became active in the bulb business. Darryl went to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. Which, I believe, is why his parents put pressure on him not to marry Carol. It would have interfered with his upward mobility."

"So the Lindholms are long gone from Alpine?" I asked.

"Yes," Vida replied. "Very sad."

Vida always finds cause for grief when someone moves away. Typical of small-towners, she considers such defections a personal betrayal.

"Where are we going?" she asked abruptly.

"I don't know," I said. "It's almost three. We've got hours to kill before we bar-hop."

Vida shuddered. "Really... Will it be worse than Mugs Ahoy?"

Mugs Ahoy is Alpine's most popular tavern, a gritty watering hole on Front Street run by Abe Loomis, whose last name should be Gloomis. Abe is one of the most morose men I've ever met. At first, I couldn't understand how he could tend bar and offer sympathy to his customers as they poured out their troubles. Then it occurred to me that after a few beers, most people want to be told that the misfortunes visited upon them are unique, unparalleled, and couldn't happen to a more pitiful person. Then, by the final call, Abe can actually lift their spirits by revealing the horrible things that have happened to him since they last warmed his bar stools.

"Worse?" I echoed. "No. All taverns are the same. The tonier ones have become pubs in Seattle."

"That sounds much nicer," Vida said, looking fretful. "Why couldn't your cousin have aspired to higher things?"

I had no answer for that, but suddenly said, "Lynn-wood," then signaled for a right turn onto Northgate Way. "We're going to see Garvey Lang."

"The roofer that Ronnie worked for? A splendid idea. Will he be there?"

"Somebody will," I said, heading for the freeway. "He also has a wood yard. Garvey can't be the only one who knows Ronnie."

Vida agreed. I noticed that she had grown pensive again. "I've never read those racy romances."

"What?"

"Nothing." She shrugged. "Still, one wonders..." Vida lapsed into silence, so I let the subject drop.

The suburbs change and spread so fast around Seattle that I always get lost. We stopped at a gas station to get directions, but the young man who came out to the car had never heard of Garvey Lang, a roofing company, or a wood yard. He only worked in Lynnwood and lived in Both.e.l.l.

We stopped next at a 7-Eleven, where the Pakistani behind the counter had barely heard of Lynnwood. The phone book had been stolen from the booth outside, so we went on to a Plaid Pantry. The spike-haired girl at the register had gone to high school with somebody named Garvey-or maybe it was Carvey-but couldn't help us. I finally found a directory at a pay phone by a Safeway store. The address for Lang's Roofing meant nothing. Thankfully, a checker with a Bob Marley hairstyle in the express lane told me how to get there.

We drove through the maze of malls, bucking heavy traffic and interminable stoplights. Vida complained constantly, a staccato accompaniment to the overhead street signs, the merging lanes, the bored expressions on the other drivers.

"The city indeed! We must be miles from Seattle. Where's Everett? Where are we?"

"Still in Lynnwood," I said. "I hope."

Lang's Roofing was located in an unpretentious house that had been converted into a commercial enterprise. Garvey's Firewood was next door, behind a chain-link fence. There was a sign in the window of the house: OPEN.

Two men, one young, the other late-middle-aged, stood staring up at roof samples that wrapped around the display room. Behind the counter, a burly, bald man of fifty was calculating what were probably roof dimensions.

"Garvey Lang?" I asked.

The man took off his gla.s.ses and smiled, revealing either perfect teeth or excellent dentures. "Can I put a roof over your head, young lady?"

I pretended to be flattered, then had to disappoint Garvey Lang. As Vida tapped her foot, I lowered my voice and explained my connection to Garvey's erstwhile employee.

"Ronnie's cousin, huh?" Sadly, Garvey shook his head. "Hang on. Let me get Hank out front."

Hank was probably Garvey's son. Same build, same smile, signs of early male-pattern balding. He took over as Garvey led us behind the counter and into a crowded office that featured a flowering cactus.

"You the aunt or the mom?" Garvey asked Vida.

Vida bridled in the armchair our host had provided.

"My word, no. I'm no relation to either of them." Her glance in my direction eloquently dismissed me as kin.

Tactfully, I explained that we worked together, but didn't say what we did. The word newspaper can close as many doors as it opens.

"I have to be honest," Garvey said. "Your cousin wasn't real reliable. He was often late, some days he didn't show up, he'd get the delivery addresses fouled up. I wish I could say better."

"But you kept him on," I said. "Why, if he was such a screwup?"

Garvey let out a heavy sigh. "I felt sorry for the guy. I had a kid brother like him. Maynard. He dropped out of high school, got into all kinds of trouble-nothing really serious-but it upset our folks. So I brought him into the business. It just didn't work out. Maynard was always s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up, even got into a fistfight with a customer. I had to let him go. Two weeks later he got drunk, crossed the center line in his pickup, and killed himself and two other people out on 99. That was fifteen years ago. I never forgave myself. I see a lot of Maynard in Ronnie Mallett. I guess I kept thinking maybe this time I could make a difference. It looks like I was wrong, huh?"

"No," Vida declared. "We're not certain that Ronnie killed Carol Stokes. And you were right to fire your brother. He could have caused you to lose your business."

Garvey smiled at Vida. "But I'd still have my brother."

"Not necessarily," Vida said. "He sounds self-destructive. Like Ronnie."

Thanks Vida, I thought. He's not one of your squirrelly relatives, so b.u.t.t out. Of course, I had to be fair. Without Vida's prodding-for the sake of "family"- I might not be here in the office of Lang Roofing, listening to the owner pour out his soul.

"Do you feel that Ronnie is capable of murder?" I asked.

Garvey sighed again. "Who isn't? I mean, I wonder about that. Under certain circ.u.mstances, I figure just about anybody could kill somebody else. I'll admit, though, I never thought of Ronnie as a violent guy."

"Did you ever see him drunk?" I inquired, silently agreeing with Garvey's a.s.sessment.

"A couple of times. He came in late-real late-and had a snootful. Sometimes he looked like he'd been in a barroom brawl. But he wasn't a belligerent drunk. He got even more mellow."

That didn't surprise me. "Did you ever meet Carol Stokes?"

"No," Garvey replied, "but Ronnie talked about her a lot. He seemed nuts about her. I never heard him say anything seriously critical."

"Nothing?" Vida put in. "Not even the usual masculine complaints?"

"You mean *She can't cook,' *She spends too much money,' *She always has a headache' sort of thing?" Garvey shook his head. "Not really. I got the impression he wanted to marry her. It was Carol who wasn't interested. He moved in with her not long after I hired him."

"Which was when?" I asked.

"A year ago last month," Garvey answered. "March is the usual time for me to add a couple of people because business picks up when the weather is good. Not the firewood part of it-that's just the opposite-but the roofing jobs. Anyway, Ronnie mostly made deliveries. Not always to the right places, though. He had trouble with numbers. I wondered if he was dyslexic."

Ronnie might be a number of things, but killer didn't seem to be one of them. "If this comes to trial, would you act as a character witness for him?"

Garvey scratched his bald head. "I told his attorney I wasn't sure that I could. I mean, I'd have to be candid. It'd be hard to give Ronnie an outstanding report card."

"As an employee, yes," Vida noted. "But as a person?"

Garvey regarded Vida with a serious expression. "I see what you mean. Maybe I could at that. Basically, I always thought he was a decent guy. Maybe that's another reason why I was willing to go the extra mile. Say, who's taking care of his dog, Budweiser?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "The neighbor didn't seem to know, either."

"That Maybeth?" Garvey said with a frown. "She wouldn't tell you if she did. I figure the dog was one of the reasons they broke up."

"Maybeth?" I said with a little gasp. "I meant the nurse, Henrietta Something-or-Other."

"Altdorf," Vida put in. "What's this about Maybeth and Ronnie?"

"Sorry," Garvey said with a grimace. "I a.s.sumed you knew they used to go together until Maybeth and Ronnie moved into the same apartment building next door to Carol."

We didn't know that. But it was certainly interesting.