The Alpine Menace Part 24

Vida nodded. "That's fine. Perhaps Ronnie knows something about Henrietta that we don't. Did you ever inquire?"

"No. I never thought of Henrietta as playing any part in this," I said, steering the Lexus back onto Greenwood.

"Obviously, I was wrong. There's some connection. But what could it be?"

Vida didn't answer right away. When she did, I noted an odd expression on her face. "Someone said something this afternoon-but for the life of me, I can't recall exactly what it was. Still, I know that it gave me an idea at the time."

There was no point in prodding Vida; eventually, she'd retrieve the thought without prompting. Meanwhile she berated both of us for not using the opportunity to search Henrietta's personal possessions.

"We had plenty of time," she a.s.serted, "waiting for those detective fools to finish making jokes and get down to business."

"You know better, Vida," I said. "They would have yanked our chain if we'd started shaking down the place."

"We'd have been more subtle. A trip to the bathroom. A side trip to the bedroom. Really," she went on, her annoyance building, "what were we thinking of? There were probably things right there in the kitchen that might have proved helpful."

"Like a slip of paper stuck to the refrigerator with a Mickey Mouse magnet that said, *The killer is...'?" I made a face. "I agree, Henrietta knew something dangerous, but I'm not sure it was the killer's ident.i.ty."

"Why do you say that?" Vida asked, suddenly tense. "Do you know what you mean?"

To be honest, I didn't. It was one of those utterances that slips out, with no rationale behind it. "Hunh. I guess I meant that Henrietta knew something that was dangerous to the murderer. Maybe something she didn't even realize she knew."

"Exactly," Vida said. "Now what on earth could it be?"

"Something she'd overheard earlier, before Carol was killed?" I speculated, negotiating my way through the steady build of the city's early commute. "A quarrel, a visitor, a misdirected piece of mail." I slapped my hand on the steering wheel. "d.a.m.n! We never had a chance to ask Maybeth about that envelope addressed to the Addisons."

"Please don't swear," Vida said primly. "Maybeth should be home from work by the time we've seen Ronnie."

Our departure from Seattle was creeping ever later. Maybe that was just as well. If we left earlier, we'd hit the full commute, no matter which route we took. The two-hour drive wasn't that difficult in good weather. I was, however, uneasy about leaving Amber and Danny alone for too long. One of these days I feared that I'd come home and find my little log house burned to the ground.

Then a brilliant idea struck me. "When Ronnie gets out of jail," I said excitedly, "if he does, of course, I'm going to introduce him to Amber. They're a perfect match. What do you think?"

Vida looked skeptical. "Isn't he a bit old for her?"

"Ten years, more or less," I replied. "Anyway, do you really consider Ronnie that much older emotionally?"

"No," Vida said, not yet getting caught up in my enthusiasm. "Really, Emma, I never knew you to be a matchmaker."

"It's not matchmaking; it's self-defense," I countered. "They might do each other some good. Ronnie would have to grow up and act responsibly. Amber would move out of my house. I think it's brilliant."

"You're dreaming," Vida said.

Maybe I was. But at the moment it sounded good.

As I sat across from Ronnie for the second time that day, he listened to the news of Henrietta's murder with confusion rather than shock.

"That nurse next door?" he said, wrinkling his nose. "I don't get it."

"Henrietta must have known Carol better than I realized," I said. "Can you think of anything Carol might have confided in Henrietta that would have put her life in danger?"

Ronnie didn't bother to reflect. "Nope."

"Come on, Ronnie," I urged. "This is important. Did they talk to each other sometimes?"

"Nope." He reached up to adjust his bandage. "My ear still hurts. I need some painkillers."

An idea occurred to me. "Did Henrietta ever give you or Carol painkillers?"

"Huh?" Ronnie rubbed at his upper lip. "Yeah, maybe a coupla times. I hit my head on a ladder on the truck once. That nurse said she had something to help. I forget what she gave me, but it worked. Then another time Carol dropped a case of smoked tuna on her foot at the seafood place where she worked. Carol got some of those pills, too."

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Far as I remember," Ronnie replied. "How's Buddy?"

"Fine." I'd forgotten about Buddy. For all I knew, he was decorating the grillwork on somebody's car. "You're sure? Henrietta didn't drop in often?"

Ronnie shook his head. "Nope. Never, far as I remember. I went to her place to get them pills."

Apparently, Ronnie hadn't yet drawn any conclusions about Henrietta's murder. "Do you realize that there's a good chance you may be able to get out of here soon?" I asked.

"Huh?" Ronnie looked blank. "How come?"

"Because," I said patiently, "the police will figure out that there must be a connection between two murders that occurred next door to each other. Since you were in jail when the last one happened, you couldn't have done it. Thus they'll realize you probably didn't kill Carol, either."

"I didn't," Ronnie said simply.

"I know that," I said, still patient. "But it would help a lot if you could remember more about Henrietta and Carol."

"Carol didn't like Henrietta," Ronnie said after a long pause. "She said she was a busybody. One time-I forgot till now-Carol went over there to borrow a lightbulb. It was a month or so ago. She was gone for quite a while, and I thought maybe she'd run to the store instead. Anyways, when Carol came back, she was all wrought up. I asked her how come, but she wouldn't say. She just got mad at me and..." He ducked his head.

I could guess the rest. Carol had taken her anger and distress out on poor Ronnie. It's a wonder he hadn't asked Henrietta for more painkillers.

"Did Carol say what got her so upset?" I inquired.

Ronnie shook his head again. "Not really. But I think she got riled up over something Henrietta said about Kendra."

"Kendra?"

"Yeah. I never seen Carol so p.i.s.sed off. She was almost cryin'. She called Henrietta a big fat old liar."

I was surprised by the incident, amazed that Ronnie could have forgotten about it until I prodded him. But Carol must have thrown many a temper tantrum. Maybe Ronnie only recalled them in relations.h.i.+p to his own wounds.

"Do you," I asked slowly, "remember anything at all that Henrietta said to Carol about Kendra? Any phrase, any words?"

This time Ronnie put some effort into his response. "It was hard to catch, what with Carol carryin' on so. But maybe it was something like... I don't recall exactly... but like *There's no way Kendra could be your daughter.' "

I frowned at Ronnie. "Do you know why Henrietta said that?"

"Nope." Ronnie fished out a cigarette from behind his undamaged ear. "Can I go back now?"

"Sure," I said, and tried to smile.

He seemed relieved as he stood up and signaled to the guard. Maybe he felt safer in prison. At least n.o.body there pretended to love him.

"WHAT ON EARTH could Henrietta have meant?" Vida demanded as we once again headed north. I'd driven up and down Aurora so often lately that I swore I recognized some of the hookers. Vida had already been scanning the cars behind us to see if she could spot the Taurus. She'd seen two of them since we'd left downtown, but both had disappeared along the way.

"It could mean a couple of things," I said. "That Carol wasn't fit to be anybody's mother. Or that Henrietta didn't believe Kendra was Carol's daughter."

"Now, why would she think that?" Vida remarked. "This is very puzzling."

"That's so," I agreed as we found ourselves in stop-and-go traffic, "but I felt I was lucky to get anything at all out of Ronnie. It took some doing, believe me. At first, all he could talk about was painkillers that Henrietta had given them. I suppose she got the pills through the hospital."

"Oh!" Vida snapped her fingers. "That's it! I remember now what was said earlier. It was Mr. Rapp, talking about his doctor. He told us that Henrietta had recommended him because she'd worked with him-a Dr. Fitzgerald, wasn't it?- at the same clinic where she'd worked for the OB-GYN."

"That's right," I said, not sure of Vida's point. "So what?"

"Really," Vida huffed, "you're being rather dim. OB-GYNs handle adoptions. What if this doctor Henrietta worked for was the one who found a baby for the Addisons?"

I considered the idea. "It's possible. Olive Nerstad might know. He was her doctor, right?"

"Kathy Addison said his name was McFarland," Vida said. "I believe he died not long ago. But it would be easy to check to see if a Henrietta Altdorf had worked for him at the clinic around the time of the adoption."

"It would," I said dryly, "if it weren't after five. I'll bet the clinic staff has gone home for the day."

"Tell me again how to use your cell phone," Vida commanded, reaching into my handbag. "I'm going to call right now."

I gave her the simple directions. Then, while waiting for yet another interminable stoplight, I watched her face fall.

"The answering service," she said, switching the phone off without bothering to speak to whoever was taking the clinic's calls. "Drat."

An idea occurred to me. Years ago in Portland, I'd had a friend who worked as a nurse for a dermatologist. The office staff automatically switched incoming calls over at five, whether they were still there or not.

"Try the backline," I said. "Dial the same number, but go up one digit on the last one. You might be able to get through."

Vida looked at me as if I'd just turned water into wine. "Very clever," she said, clicking away on the phone. "Ah!" She rocked back and forth in the pa.s.senger seat. "Yes, I'm calling for Dr. Fitzgerald. Is he in?"

Vida stopped rocking. "Oh." Her face fell again. "I see. Tell me, is there anyone in the clinic who worked there twenty years ago?" Pause. "Really. Yes, people do tend to come and go these days. Thank you."

"Well?" I asked, feeling as if Vida's disappointment was contagious.

"Only Dr. Fitzgerald has been there that long," she said, "and he's left for the day. I suppose we could call him at home. He makes house calls, after all."

"Maybe he's seeing Mr. Rapp," I suggested. "We might kill two birds with one stone at the apartment house."

"An excellent idea," Vida responded, brightening. "Goodness, all these cars! However do people put up with this traffic? I'd go quite mad."

"So would I. It's been a long time since I've had to fight freeways and bridges," I said. "That's one thing I don't miss about the city."

"I wouldn't miss any of it," Vida declared as we finally reached the left-hand turn for Greenwood Avenue. "It's a dismal place. Most depressing, not to mention dangerous."

Arguing was pointless. Alpine was bedeviled by family feuds, gossip, backbiting, an economy that still hadn't been completely resuscitated by the advent of Skykomish Community College, and intermittent violence, which seemed all the more painful because it involved people you knew. But Vida would never admit that small towns, particularly hers, could be anything but utopia.

So instead of contradicting her, I merely mentioned my exclusion from the local bridge club. "You'd think they would have gotten over it by now," I said. "It's been five months. They certainly found out that I didn't kill Crystal Bird."

The allusion was to the homicide of Amber Ramsey's mother, who had attacked me in her scurrilous self-published newsletter. Briefly, everyone in town-except maybe Vida herself-considered me the prime suspect.

"But they thought you might have killed her," Vida said. "Now they're embarra.s.sed."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" I shot back. My former bridge partners weren't, for the most part, stupid women. To be fair, I understood that only a minority of them had insisted on my expulsion. The point was that these few, these callow, these easily prejudiced members of a narrow-minded clique had prevailed. I liked to think it wouldn't have been that way in the city.

"They'll come 'round," Vida said easily. "You'll see."

I uttered nothing more than a snort. We were back at the apartment house, where two unmarked city cars were pulled up out front, blocking the driveway.

"Forensics people," I said, forgetting about the bridge club. "We'll have to find a place on the street."

We finally did, but had to leave the Lexus a block and a half away. There was no crime-scene tape posted yet on Henrietta's unit and the door was closed. Vida buzzed the b.u.t.ton at 1-C. We waited for Maybeth to answer.

Roy Sprague, looking disconcerted, opened the door. "It's you," he said with all the enthusiasm of a person welcoming the Grim Reaper. On second thought, maybe that's who he expected.

"Is Maybeth home?" Vida asked in her most chipper voice.

"She's lying down," Roy replied, nodding in the direction of the bedroom. "She's whipped. What's going on around here? We're moving out. This place has one of them curses on it."

"Do you suppose," Vida wheedled, tipping her head to one side and trying to look coy, "we might come in for just a minute? We found Henrietta's body, you know."

"Oh." If Roy had known, he'd either forgotten or not made the connection. The offhand remark served as our pa.s.sword, however. "Well... yeah, sure, come on. Want a beer?"

"No, thank you," Vida responded just as I said that it sounded like a great idea.

Vida glared at me while Roy went to the fridge. "You're driving," she murmured. "Is this wise?"

"One beer a drunkard does not make," I said. "What's more, I'd like a beer right now."

"You don't drink beer," Vida countered.

"I don't, at least not very often. Should I have asked for a Singapore Sling?"

"A what?" Vida said, puzzled.

Roy came back into the living room and handed me a bottle of Henry Weinhard's pale ale, which was a bit tonier than I'd expected. "Maybeth called me at work, so I took off early," he said. "She got home before I did, but wouldn't come in by herself. h.e.l.l, I never seen her so scared. This whole thing's really got her down."

"She took it hard," I said. "She pa.s.sed out when we told her about Henrietta."

Pulling on his beer, Roy nodded. "That's why we're leaving. Tomorrow. I don't care what that Mr. Chan says. This place ain't safe."

I offered Roy my most pleading expression. "Do you think we could ask her one quick question?"

Roy looked skeptical. "About what?"