The Alpine Recluse Part 15

"d.a.m.n!" I swore under my breath, scanning Front Street. Several people were on the sidewalks, coming or going to the movie theater, the Venison Inn, the video store, the Burger Barn. That section was always busy by Alpine standards, especially on a warm summer night.

I was driving almost as slowly as Darla Puckett, trying to see where Old Nick had gone. If the man was the recluse, it seemed unlikely that he'd gone into any of the business establishments. The only escape route was the narrow alley between the theater and Dutch Bamberg's Videos-to-Go on the corner.

But I didn't see him from the car. He could be hiding in a doorway or even have reached Pine Street. Again, I was amazed at his quickness. Discouraged, I turned up Fifth, looking in every direction when I reached Pine again. The street was now deserted except for a couple who were just coming out of Mugs Ahoy. I kept going, cutting back to Fourth where the middle school blocked the street.

I called Vida as soon as I got home. "I think I saw Old Nick," I said.

"No!" Vida sounded flabbergasted. "Where?"

I recounted my little adventure. "For an old guy, he moves pretty fast," I added.

"You're sure you aren't mistaken? It's dark; it may have been someone else with a beard."

"It wasn't that dark," I responded. "This happened ten, fifteen minutes ago." I started at the beginning, with dinner for Milo and his talk at the library.

"Alfred Cobb!" Vida exclaimed when I got to the part about the accident. "The old fool! He should have had his license revoked years ago! He must be ninety if he's a day!"

"He has an outstanding guardian angel," I remarked.

"Worn to a frazzle, I should think." But Vida still had objections about my sighting. "I can't imagine Old Nick-or any other of those hermits-staying so long in town, especially in the summer. They come for a day or two, get what they need, and go back to their lairs. It's utterly uncharacteristic for one of them to linger."

Vida had a point, but I wondered if she wasn't dubious because it would mean her search-Roger's search-was in vain. "All the same, I'm going to tell Milo," I said.

"Oh, Milo, my foot! He couldn't find Old Nick under his desk!"

"Well," I said, piqued by Vida's disbelief, "Roger and his buddies didn't find Old Nick in my backyard."

"What do you mean?"

"That's where I found them when I came home from work a half hour early."

"You did?" Vida paused. "They were resting, of course."

It was useless to reveal the truth to Vida. She'd accuse me of lying, of causing trouble, of being blind as a bat. Worse yet, she'd be on the peck-as she'd put it-for the rest of the week.

"Ask Roger," I said, and let it go at that.

There was another pause at the other end of the line. "They'd probably been to the cul-de-sac, looking for clues. Or at the abandoned house."

"You haven't talked to him this evening?"

"No," Vida admitted. "I only got home about ten minutes ago. I had dinner with the Thorvaldsons in Sultan. They're distant cousins, you know."

If I'd ever known, I'd forgotten. It was impossible to keep up with all of Vida's relatives.

"I tried to drop off those geranium cuttings for Mandy Gustavson on my way to Sultan. Unfortunately, she wasn't home," Vida continued. "I'll try again tomorrow, or perhaps Sat.u.r.day. She may be working evenings at the Venison Inn. I certainly don't want to meet her in the bar."

I a.s.sumed she shuddered at the mere thought. "Bars are good places for gossip," I pointed out.

"Anywhere is a good place for gossip," Vida retorted. "I'll call Roger right now. Don't you dare phone Milo until I call you back."

I agreed. For all I knew, Milo had gone off to Mugs Ahoy with Coach Ridley and Cal Vickers. The sheriff was, after all, off duty.

It was going on ten o'clock. I hadn't checked my e-mail since I got home from work. Sure enough, there was a message from Adam.

"Mom," he wrote. "If Toni was seeing Tim Rafferty, that'd explain the e-mail I got from her today. I'm forwarding it on to you. Make of it what you will. Love and prayers, Adam the Popsicle."

Lucky Adam. Apparently, he wasn't suffering from ninety-degree heat.

Quickly, I read through Toni's message.

"Hi, Adam-I'm not at work today because I don't feel good. Is it true that men outnumber women in Alaska? I'm thinking of moving there. Where's a good place? I don't think I can live in Alpine anymore. I trust you. Please help me. Your friend, Toni."

The message sounded like Toni: immature, naive-and trusting. If she'd trusted Tim Rafferty, she'd made a big mistake. But at least she'd had the good sense-or dumb luck-to confide in Adam. I suspected that Toni always trusted the men she dated. My son was probably one of the few that she could still locate, let alone trust.

I thought about the matter for several minutes before finally replying to Adam. Maybe he was still online. His message had been sent only a half hour ago, our time.

"Dear Adam-Upon sober reflection (no, your mother hasn't been drinking, not for the past four hours anyway), I've decided that this is a perfect opening for me to talk to Toni. But first, you should e-mail and tell her what she needs to know about jobs and locations and such. Then I can take it from there. Are you really cold? I envy you. Love, Mom."

I waited, hoping that Adam would respond. The phone rang a minute or two later.

It was Vida. "I spoke to Roger," she said in a brusque voice. "I was quite right. He and the other searchers were merely taking a break on their way back to Old Mill Park. They'd decided to do a thorough search of the abandoned house and the murder site."

"And?"

"They were impeded by smoldering rubble at the house," Vida replied in a hostile tone. "There's still a danger of flare-up there, though I can't think why. Doe Jameson was patrolling the site and shooed them away. Honestly, you'd think that with all the water and chemicals they use on fires now, there wouldn't be a problem. It's been four days."

"Only three, really," I pointed out. "The fire was late Monday night. This is only Thursday."

"Well," Vida huffed, "it seems like much longer. In any event, Roger and the other brave souls went through the vacant property, though why Milo put up crime-scene tape around the house, I'll never know."

"To keep out trespa.s.sers?" I suggested.

Vida took umbrage. "Roger and his chums certainly aren't trespa.s.sers, they're on a mission. The sheriff should thank them. But they did get in and had a very good look around before Doe showed up a second time and made them leave."

Doe had had a busy day. Maybe I could learn to like her.

"What did they find?" I inquired as a new message from Adam showed up in my in-box.

"All sorts of things," Vida said cryptically. "Of course, Milo had taken away items that might have fingerprints or be traceable. But there was still a great deal to sort through."

I was torn between reading my son's e-mail and listening to Vida puff up her grandson's importance. "Such as?"

"What you might expect from hippies and squatters," Vida said in a self-righteous tone. "Wine bottles, candles, drug paraphernalia, music tapes, artsy-craftsy things, even some kind of kiln. Or that's how Roger described it, though he thought it was an oven. Which, of course, it really is."

"Yes." I was distracted. "Good for him," I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. "I'm still going to call Milo."

"If you must."

I would-but as soon as I hung up, I read my son's latest missive.

"Mom-Will do, along with a warning for Toni to ignore ads that promise big bucks and may sound like they're some kind of official Alaskan site but are a scam. I'll do it now while I have time and CC the message to you. I'm not cold now, but I will be in about two weeks. Envy is a sin. You'd better stick to drinking."

I smiled, as if I could see Adam's face on the laptop's screen. I tapped out a brief reply. Then I called Milo on his cell. He picked up, sounding irritated.

"Why didn't you call me at home?" he demanded. "I thought this was another d.a.m.ned emergency."

"I didn't know you were home," I said innocently. "I thought you might be out drinking with the boys."

"What boys?" Milo grumbled. "Cal Vickers isn't far from sixty, and Coach has got to be over fifty. h.e.l.l, they're as old as I am. As for Myron Cobb, he's close to seventy. Myron rode a bicycle to the library, for G.o.d's sake."

"You can't blame him for not wanting to ride with his father," I pointed out. "Guess who I think I saw coming home?"

"Roger?"

"No. Old Nick."

"The h.e.l.l you did."

"This guy fit the description," I insisted before describing the encounter.

"That's weird," Milo said when I'd finished. He knew that I wasn't given to flights of fancy, so his tone was thoughtful. "Maybe he got wind of those goofy kids and their search party. Maybe he decided the best place to hide was in town."

"Did any of them find a shack or any kind of place where a hermit might hole up in the woods?"

"Oh, a couple of old lean-tos we already knew about," Milo replied. "They've been there forever, but n.o.body lives in them. There's an abandoned cabin up on Martin Creek-some others around the county, too. From time to time, they've been occupied, but not lately. Summer people, homesteaders, whoever built those places a million years ago just left them standing vacant. They should be torn down, but that's not my worry. Most of them are on what's now state or federal forest service land."

I already knew that story. Over the years, we'd run articles on the subject, hoping that rightful owners or their heirs might step forward. The only responses we'd gotten were bogus. As for the hermits, they wouldn't set up housekeeping on property that the authorities had on record.

"One thing bothers me," I said. "If this was Old Nick, he's in terrific shape. He ran like a racehorse. How old is he supposed to be?"

"How should I know?" Milo retorted. "He's always been described as having a long gray-sometimes even white-beard. That goes back twenty, thirty years. If I had to guess-which I hate to do-I'd say in his seventies."

"He ran like he was eighteen," I said. "Or closer to that than to eighty."

"That's possible," Milo said after a pause. "Those hermits have to keep fit just to survive. They have to haul their supplies, often uphill. You've heard about the Iron Man of the Hoh?"

"Of course," I replied, "but he wasn't a hermit. He had a ranch on the Hoh River over on the Olympic Peninsula." The old guy had been so strong that he'd allegedly carried a cast-iron stove for miles and miles over rough country trails and streams. When encountering a neighbor who asked if the stove was a heavy burden, the Iron Man responded that it wasn't too bad-but the hundred-pound sack of flour inside the stove kind of slowed him down.

Milo's point was well taken, however. Forest-dwelling recluses didn't need to work out in a gym to keep in good physical condition.

After a.s.suring the sheriff that he'd made a very effective presentation at the library, I rang off. My work was done. But I had a busy Friday ahead of me.

VIDA GOES TO all the funerals. She always has a wonderful time, despite the tragic circ.u.mstances or her criticism of the deceased. I go only when it's someone I've known well. It's not that funerals disturb me so much, but that I can't endure the Wailers, a trio of black-clad women who attend every service for the dead whether they know the person or not, and who constantly moan, shriek-and wail. I've tried to ignore them-as Vida manages to do-but they drive me nuts.

I'd heard back from Adam shortly before going to bed Thursday night. The message he'd sent Toni was informative and relatively concise, directing her to the state of Alaska's web page. He also wanted to make sure that she understood the size of Alaska, not to mention the harsh weather conditions. He'd suggested that she might consider seasonal work, particularly in the seafood industry, rather than making a permanent move.

I don't know why, but I always find it surprising when my son exhibits a mature and compa.s.sionate nature. Priest or no priest, I still think of him as seventeen and utterly irresponsible. I suppose it's one of the occupational hazards of being a mother.

Adam had also told Toni that I'd be checking in with her, as I was familiar with the situation in Alaska. That wasn't exactly true, but what he really meant was that at least I knew where to find it on a map.

Thus, the first thing I did after securing coffee and a glazed doughnut was to call the sheriff's office and find out if Toni was at work. She wasn't, Doe Jameson informed me rather testily. Toni was still ailing. It was possible, Doe added, that Toni might come in later in the day.

I tried Toni at her home. She didn't pick up. All I got was a prerecorded message informing me that the party I was trying to reach wasn't available. And all I could do was wait.

"You really must come," Vida declared, standing in the doorway to my office. "The funeral could be very revealing."

"How so?"

Vida began ticking off reasons on her fingers. "Tiffany's reaction. The att.i.tude of her parents. Beth's manner. Dot and Durwood, not to mention anyone else who shows up and makes us wonder why."

"You're referring to suspects we haven't suspected?"

Vida shrugged. "Something like that. Still," she added quickly, "I think finding Old Nick is important. If not the killer, then he may be a valuable witness."

I considered Vida's proposal. "It's a memorial service, right? It won't go on forever, right?"

"Well . . . it is at the Lutheran church. Some of them tend to be quite long-winded, though Pastor Nielsen isn't too loquacious. He's Danish, I believe. It's the German Lutherans you have to worry about. Of course, the problem with you Catholics is that your clergymen give rather short sermons. You get very restless if anyone speaks for over ten minutes."

I couldn't argue the point. My brother, Ben, had counseled Adam about long homilies. Ben recalled that when he was in the seminary a priest had insisted that each of his students deliver a sermon while holding a twenty-pound squirming pig. This, the veteran priest a.s.serted, was the equivalent of a paris.h.i.+oner trying to control a baby while attending Ma.s.s. It was a lesson my brother never forgot, and one that, I gathered, Adam had taken to heart.

"I can't promise," I told Vida, "but maybe I'll look in. Okay?"

Vida seemed satisfied. I spent the next hour working on my Wild Sky Wilderness editorial, urging the state's congressional delegation to unite across party lines and get the bill pa.s.sed. The issue had been pending for some time. The vast area, with some of the oldest forests in the state, was north of Highway 2, and included Mount Baldy and the north fork of the Skykomish River.

I got so caught up in seeking the right verbiage to move lawmakers that I lost track of time. It was five after ten when I glanced at my watch. Vida had already left around nine-thirty, presumably to make sure she got an excellent vantage point in the church.

She needn't have worried. The church seats approximately four hundred people, but no more than fifty were scattered among the comfortably padded pews. Vida was in the third row on the aisle. Her broad-brimmed black hat with the white daisies was easy to find.

Not wanting to be noticed as a latecomer, I kept to the rear. The Wailers sat a few rows in front of me, like a trio of vultures. At the moment they were mercifully silent, perhaps in deference to Beth Rafferty, who was on the altar, speaking of her brother.

"Tim heard many people's troubles over the years," Beth was saying. "That's part of the job when you work in a restaurant."

I noticed she didn't say "bar." Maybe that was because some of the mourners were anti-alcohol. At least a dozen of those present weren't known to me, even by sight. I a.s.sumed they were relatives or friends who lived out of town. But I knew many quite well. Dot and Durwood Parker seemed to have shrunk since I'd last seen them. They sat very close to each other in the second pew, right in front of Vida. Tiffany was with her parents. I couldn't see anything but the back of their heads. Poor old Mrs. Rafferty was sitting next to Al Driggers. I hoped she didn't know what was going on. I also spotted Dwight Gould in attendance, wearing his civvies. He was probably doing double duty. Not only had he known the Parkers quite well, but Milo always attends a funeral involving a homicide or else sends one of his deputies to observe.

Beth was still talking. ". . . the radio where Tim made many new friends . . ."

Sure enough, Spencer Fleetwood was sitting off to one side. He was wearing an earpiece. I noticed that Beth wore a microphone. d.a.m.n all, Spence was broadcasting the service live over KSKY.

Well, I thought, Tim had been Spence's employee. Why not? I scrunched farther down in the pew as Beth continued: ". . . his love of baseball and his memorabilia collection. Tim hated to part with any of it, but he wanted to share with other fans so he . . ."

Tiffany was s.h.i.+fting around in her seat. Her back probably bothered her. It was a good thing she didn't attend St. Mildred's, where the old fir pews are as unyielding as steel and no pastor has ever suggested replacement or padding.

Beth had finished. The organ was playing "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." Pastor Nielsen returned to the middle of the altar. The Wailers were wailing. I tried to shut them out, but it was impossible. They covered the scale from deep, dark moans to high-pitched, shattering shrieks.

I tried to focus on my immediate surroundings and ignore the Wailers. It was impossible, of course, but movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I saw a side door open ever so slightly. Through a pane of frosted gla.s.s, I could make out a curly dark head I thought I recognized. I scooted out of the pew and went over to the side aisle. The door closed quickly. I kept moving, if only to escape the Wailers.

I wasn't really surprised to see Toni Andreas going toward the main entrance.