The Alpine Gamble

Book 7: Emma Lord

by Mary Daheim

Genres: Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries; Suspense

Synopsis

THE ALPINE ADVOCATE IS ON A ROLL.
The big story is the five million dollar luxury spa that Los Angeles real estate developers want to build around Alpine's mountainside mineral springs--hot news and fierce controversy for Advocate readers, and for the paper's editor and publisher, Emma Lord.
Pro-spa Alpiners cite the prospect of sorely needed new jobs. Those against it predict glitz, sleaze, and an avalanche of "Californicators." No one foresees the murder that shocks the town. Aided by her House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, and tongue-tied Sheriff Milo Dodge, Emma lines up her biggest, blackest headlines and goes hunting--for a brilliant killer and the strange story behind an almost perfect crime. . . .
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Release date: December 24, 2008

Publisher: Fawcett

Print pages: 304

Sample

Chapter One
 
MY SON ADAM had started a war. He hadn’t meant to, but he’s always been a bit rash. Indeed, animosities between the combatants were long-standing. All it took was a careless remark to Lydia Twofeathers about Jacinto de Mayo’s spotted dog.
 
“It’s like this,” Adam said to me over the phone from Tuba City, Arizona. “The Navajos and the Hopis usually hate each other. There’s this big argument about who should live where, and the government really screwed up. Has Uncle Ben ever told you what a mess they made of the Native Americans around here? It’s better now, I guess, but dumping the Hopi reservation into the middle of Navajo lands was a bummer. That’s what really caused the problem when I went into the Tuba City Truck Stop to get a taco.”
 
“Uh-huh,” I remarked, somewhat vaguely. My attention had been distracted by Ginny Burmeister, my business manager at The Alpine Advocate. She had just dropped off the first group of classified ads for the newspaper’s premiere personals page. “So you mentioned you’d seen Jacinto de Mayo’s dog digging in Lydia Twofeathers’s garden. Why bother bringing it up?”
 
Given my son’s penchant for convoluted explanations and harebrained motivations, the question was ill-advised. Naturally, I got what I deserved:
 
“It was when I got arrested. My hubcap fell off. Well, Uncle Ben’s hubcap, from his truck. After the cop drove away, I had to—”
 
“Whoa!” Maternal sharpness cut into my voice. “You got arrested? What for?” Suddenly SWM seeking free-wheeling SWF for bed-and-not-bored didn’t look like much of a crisis.
 
Adam’s impatient sigh reverberated in my ear. “I told you, Mom. For speeding. You can only go about ten miles an hour on the reservation. It’s really dumb, but they watch everybody like a hawk.”
 
“You got picked up for speeding when you visited Ben at Easter. This is Memorial Day weekend. Or was. Why are you still yakking about Jacinto de Mayo’s dog?” I tried to ignore SWF wants SWM with big rig. Alpine, Washington, is a logging community. Perhaps the woman wanted a man with a truck. Perhaps not. “And why,” I persisted, “are you still in Tuba City, instead of back at school in Tempe?”
 
“I’m going tonight,” Adam replied, sounding as if he were gritting his teeth. “I don’t have class on Tuesdays.”
 
The sudden silence indicated that my previous question was being dismissed. I refused to let Adam off the hook.
 
“Okay, okay,” Adam said in a testy tone, “I got picked up again. Which is why I need a hundred and fifty dollars. They doubled the fine on me this time. These Navajos really know how to stick it to the white man. I don’t blame them, of course,” he added in his youthfully broad-minded manner.
 
I held my head, closing my eyes to DWF wants Same.
 
“The war, Adam—what about Ben’s hubcap and the Navajo-Hopi war?”
 
“Oh, that.” Adam now sounded breezy. “The hubcap rolled into Lydia Twofeathers’s yard where the dog was digging up her flowers. She came out and yelled at both of us. I ran back to the truck and drove off. Then I saw her later when I was getting my taco. I felt sort of bad, you know. I didn’t want her to think I’d ruined her garden. So I mentioned this spotted dog, and she knew he belonged to Jacinto de Mayo. He’s a Hopi and she’s a Navajo, and that’s how it all started. Now everybody’s mad because they say there’s been a lot of trespassing and stuff. Uncle Ben’s trying to keep the peace, but he won’t have time because he’ll be coming with me to Alpine in a couple of weeks.”
 
“Three weeks,” I clarified. “Nobody’s shot anybody, I hope?”
 
“Not yet, but they’re threatening to.” Adam’s voice was alarmingly cheerful. “Hey, got to go. Uncle Ben just came in with somebody from the Navajo council. See you. Oh, send that money to—”
 
I hung up. Adam could cope with his own stupid speeding tickets. But of course he wouldn’t. If I didn’t send the money, he’d borrow it from Ben, who, as a mission priest, was in even more straitened financial circumstances than I was as a small-town weekly editor and publisher. Immediately, I was filled with remorse. I’d call my brother and tell him to refuse my son’s request. Adam was twenty-two. He should learn some responsibility.
 
I was still mulling over my family problems when Vida Runkel, The Advocate’s House & Home editor, stomped into my tiny office. With disgust, Vida indicated the cigarette I’d just picked up.
 
“You said you’d quit.” Vida’s gray eyes were hard behind the big glasses with their tortoiseshell rims. “I’m very disappointed in you, Emma Lord.”
 
“This is only my second cigarette today,” I protested, guiltily putting it back in the pack.
 
“It’s not yet ten o’clock.” Vida’s majestic figure radiated virtue, indignation, and disapproval all at once. “You didn’t smoke for a week after New Year’s. You stopped for eighteen days during Lent. Where’s your willpower?”
 
I scanned my cluttered desk as if I could find my willpower somewhere under the personal ads or the first draft of my editorial on the Iron Goat Trail. It was pointless to defend myself: Vida was right. I’d gone for years without a cigarette, weakening only when our new ad manager, the nicotine-stained Leo Walsh, came aboard in September; I’d succumbed completely when Sheriff Milo Dodge lighted up during an ugly murder investigation the previous November. I gave Vida a sheepish smile.
 
With a sigh, she lowered herself into one of my visitor’s chairs. “Remember the Californians?”
 
I frowned. “Which ones?” Alpine gets its share of out-of-state tourists, at least during the summer. Winter visitors are usually skiers who come from within Washington.
 
Vida was adjusting the many ties that were intended to form a bow on her bright pink blouse. It was a complicated task, and while Vida has a multitude of skills, artistic coordination isn’t one of them. The result looked like a wad of bubble gum.
 
“Last November,” Vida said, impatient as usual when I was slow to recall specific names, places, and events. “They stayed at the ski lodge. They’re developers from Los Angeles, and they’re back. Henry Bardeen called this morning.”
 
Henry manages the ski lodge. Humorless and efficient, he usually isn’t prone to disclose his visitors’ names unless there’s a self-serving reason involved. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued.
 
Naturally, Vida was pleased to show off her knowledge. “You know the mineral springs by Scenic—these developers want to buy up the property and build a hotel. A spa, as it were.”
 
I regarded Vida with interest. During my five years in Alpine, I’d never visited the so-called hot springs, which I understood to be a series of muddy holes where hardy health-seekers wallowed for various reasons. They were located near the whistle-stop of Scenic, a couple of miles east of Alpine. Many years ago there had been a hotel, but it wasn’t directly connected to the hot springs and had long since been abandoned.
 
“Aren’t the springs on state timberland?” I inquired, discovering that my fingers were straying to the cigarette pack.
 
Vida shot me a warning glance. “No. That particular parcel is owned by Leonard Hollenberg, one of the county commissioners. I’ve heard he intended to build a chalet so his children could come up from Seattle to ski. Henry Bardeen figures that Leonard would prefer to sell it to the Californians for a big price and build the chalet at his other property east of town. Naturally, Henry’s wild.”
 
The image of the sober-sided Henry Bardeen going wild and flipping his toupee provoked a giggle. “You mean he’s afraid of competition with the ski lodge?”
 
Vida nodded, causing her jumble of gray curls to bob up and down. Her hair might be unruly, but at least it was her own. “It’s no laughing matter, Emma. These Los Angeles people have no respect for the environment. Henry is entitled to be upset. My father-in-law, Rufus Runkel, helped build the lodge in 1930, after the original mill was shut down. It saved Alpine.”
 
I knew all about the town’s rickety history. It had started out before the turn of the century as Nippon, with Japanese immigrants working on the railroad and mining the mountain cliffs. Circa 1911, Carl Clemans had come from Snohomish to build a lumber mill. He renamed the town, hired logging crews, and created a fledgling community. But in 1929 a variety of factors led to the mill’s closure. The town itself was to be abandoned unless residents found a new economic source. Rufus Runkel and Olav the Obese—as local lore fondly called the big Norwegian—sunk money into the rocky slopes of Alpine, thus becoming pioneers in the ski business. Over sixty years later the lodge still flourished, though other mills had come and gone.
 
I pointed out this well-known fact to Vida. “The only ongoing industry that isn’t endangered by the spotted owl is tourism,” I said, keeping my hands folded in my lap. “Skiers, hikers, campers, fishermen—they’re Alpine’s mainstay. Logging is increasingly unstable. Look at all the out-of-work people around town.”
 
Vida harrumphed. “It would be different if somebody local was interested in creating a resort spa. Or even someone from Seattle. But these developers are Californians.” Vida made their state origin sound obscene.
 
Cigarette smoke wafted into my office. It was followed by Leo Walsh, who was a California native. “Hey,” Leo said with a grin, “do I hear my homeland’s name being taken in vain?” He poked Vida’s shoulder as he sat down in the other visitor’s chair. “What’s wrong, Duchess? You afraid that Alpine is attracting Californicators?”