The Alpine Advocate (16 page)

“Neeny, do you really think Chris Ramirez is a no-account?”

He snorted in disgust. “He’s Hector’s son, isn’t he? Hector ran out on my daughter and the kid. Blood tells, Emma.”

“Chris has your blood as well as Hector’s,” I pointed out. “Besides, half the town seems to think you bribed Hector to go away.”

Neeny Doukas all but leaped out of the chair. The afghan fell to the floor. “That’s a goddamned lie! Who told you that, old big-mouthed Vida? I wouldn’t have given Hector Ramirez a plugged nickel!”

His vehemence exploded Vida’s myth. Still, it had been a logical explanation. In general, people do not just disappear. Or if they do, there’s usually a reason. In the matter of Hector Ramirez, I hadn’t yet heard anything to convince me that he had cause to drop off the face of the earth.

“I’d hoped,” I said, still keeping calm, “that you and Chris might have hit it off.”

“Hell!” Neeny kicked at the afghan with his foot. I wondered if Hazel had made it for him. Phoebe didn’t strike me as the domestic type. “He came in here the other night all full of bullcrap about the rough time I gave Margaret. Damn! Margaret made her own bed. She wanted to wallow in it with Hector. See where it got her. Right outta
the family, that’s where! She could have married ten other guys—lawyers, doctors, even a forestry professor from the university. They all were hot for Margaret. But oh, no, she had to run off with that greasy Mexican! It’s a wonder she didn’t go over to Hawaii and wind up with some Chinaman! Or a Jap!”

It was all I could do to keep from declaring my hope that Margaret had slept with every Oriental in the fiftieth state and had had the time of her life. But I’d been around prejudiced people enough to know that there was no changing them, especially when they were part of the older generation.

“Did Chris stay long?” I inquired innocently.

“Too long.” Neeny bent down to retrieve the afghan. He looked up, the black eyes sharper now. “I don’t wanna talk about it. You feeling around for an alibi for the kid?” His mouth twisted in the thick beard. “It won’t work, Emma. He was here about twenty minutes. He could have killed Mark before he came or right after. The damned mineshaft is right over there.” Neeny jerked his thumb toward one of the windows. “Imagine! My poor grandson died within shouting distance, and I didn’t even know it! Do you wonder I won’t discuss this Chris when he’s alive and Mark’s dead?” Neeny shook his head, and I actually felt sorry for him.

I said as much. Wordlessly, Neeny accepted my condolences. He didn’t look ill, so much as devastated. I asked how he felt.

“How would you expect? I’m getting to be an old man. What’s to look forward to at my age?”

I shrugged. “Lots of things. You could travel more. Didn’t you enjoy your trip to Vegas with Phoebe?”

The black eyes narrowed, but before Neeny could respond, Phoebe Pratt Doukas glided into the room. As always, she was dressed expensively, if tastelessly. Today she sported bright green slacks and a matching blazer with enough gold chains to enhance a harem.

“Emma,” she said, her usually languorous voice tense.
“How kind of you to call.” She moved across the room, full hips swaying, her upswept hair plastered to her head. Phoebe was what you might call handsome, if artificial. Her attention was fixed on Neeny. “Doukums, did you eat?”

Neeny waved at the tray. “Swill. That Kraut can’t cook Greek food. Fix me some soup. Chicken noodle.”

Phoebe planted a kiss on the top of Neeny’s head. “Of course, Doukums. Lots of crackers, too.” She swayed away, leaving a scent of jasmine in the air and a sense of unease in the room.

“Hey,” he shouted, “get me some cocoa, too, Big Bottom. Lots of sugar.”

Phoebe’s return from Monroe had thwarted my question about the trip to Las Vegas. In any event, I knew the answer. I decided it was time to leave Doukums and Big Bottom to their own devices.

It was Phoebe, however, who showed me to the door. She had put on a frilly apron that said
RED HOT MOMMA
and rattled her chains as she came down the hall from the kitchen. “I’ve a mind to take Doukums to Palm Springs for the winter,” she announced with less than her usual aplomb. “The change would do him
soooo
much good.”

“Phoebe, what did you think of Chris?”

Phoebe’s gray eyes with their layered blue lids widened. She fiddled with her chains and avoided my gaze. “Chris? I didn’t see him. I was upstairs watching TV.” An uncertain hand smoothed the lacquered hair as she lowered both her head and her voice. “He sounds like a saucy boy, I’m afraid.”

I couldn’t help but make a face. “Don’t believe everything you hear. Especially in this town.”

Phoebe had the grace to look a trifle sheepish. “Well, I did hear he was quite handsome. My niece, Chaz, met him at the Burger Barn. Of course, he can’t be as good-looking as Mark was.” There was a slight catch in her voice as she shook her elaborately coiffed head. “I’d like to meet Chris, though. It’s a shame he and Doukums didn’t get on.” She
let out a nervous trill. “After all, Chris
is
family. I think it’s
soooo
important to keep everybody close.”

“Yes,” I conceded, trying to envision a rollicking clan of Doukases, “but it helps if they don’t hate one another.” I gave her a bright smile and went out the door.

My Jag was wedged between Neeny’s twenty-five-year old black Bentley and Phoebe’s Lincoln Town Car. She had pulled in too close behind me, and I cursed her thoughtlessness. But as I was trying to figure out how to maneuver the Jag out into the open, I noticed that the red exterior of Phoebe’s new car was dappled with blue spots. Curious, I thought, but I wasn’t sure why the blemishes tugged at my brain. The real question I had for Phoebe was why she had written to Chris in Hawaii, but I wasn’t going to broach the subject until I had the letter in hand. There were already too many unanswered questions about Alpine’s extended First Family.

L
UNCH WAS FISH
and chips picked up at the Burger Barn and eaten at my desk. Vida, who was also running late, joined me with a hard-boiled egg, cottage cheese, carrot and celery sticks, and a water pistol.

“Roger shot me this morning,” she said, speaking of her eldest grandson and looking annoyed. “He’s supposed to be home sick with the flu, but he’s running around like a savage. Amy and Ted don’t know how to handle him.”

A staunch fan of Louisa May Alcott, Vida had named her three daughters Amy, Meg, and Beth. Jo had never materialized. Amy was the only one of the trio to remain in Alpine, the other two having moved to Seattle and Bellingham. Roger, who was almost ten, seemed to devote his life to plaguing his grandmother. Naturally, Vida doted on him.

“Gibb’s got some explaining to do,” declared Vida, taking aim with the water pistol at the portrait of Marius Vandeventer that hung over my bookcase. “Maybe he went up to Icicle Creek to make sure there wasn’t any gold after all. He never did trust Mark.”

“That part of town sure was popular Wednesday. Between the mineshaft and Neeny’s house, half of Alpine seems to have passed by.”

“It’s a small town, after all,” Vida remarked while snapping off carrot sticks in rapid succession. “Everybody has to be somewhere.”

I dipped a piece of too-dry cod into a small container of tartar sauce. “At any rate, Neeny says Mark didn’t stop by
Wednesday night. And Phoebe didn’t see Chris. She was watching TV.”

Vida dug into her cottage cheese. “Maybe she was trying to figure out how to break the news of the elopement to Simon and Cecelia.”

“I wouldn’t think Neeny would care what his family thought,” I said as the phone rang. It was Richie Magruder, acting mayor in Fuzzy Baugh’s absence. He wanted to know if Carla could take a picture of the raccoon family that was setting up housekeeping at the base of Carl Clemans’s statue in Old Mill Park. I told Richie I’d ask Carla when she got back from interviewing Darla Puckett about her two weeks in Samoa.

“Even Neeny would care about repercussions if he’s changed his will,” Vida said, not missing a beat. “Simon would raise more of a ruckus than a bear with a crosscut saw.” She reached over to the bookcase and pulled out my Seattle phone directory. “I just thought of something.”

“What?” The french fries were better than the fish. I washed them down with a swig of Pepsi.

“Why would Phoebe go all the way to Seattle to see an eye doctor? She only wears reading glasses.” Vida glanced up from the Yellow Pages to wave a celery stick at me. “What if she went to see someone else?”

“Like?”

“Like a lawyer. Here.” She tapped at the page. “Old Doc Dewey’s daughter, Sybil, married an attorney who is in a big firm in One Union Square. Douglas Difienbach. He specializes in estate planning. I think I’ll give Sybil a call.” Vida was wearing her smug expression.

“That’s a long shot.”

“Of course,” agreed Vida, writing down the number and replacing the directory. “But Phoebe couldn’t use Simon’s firm. She wouldn’t want him to know what she was up to. And Sybil’s husband is the only attorney I know of in Seattle. I mean, personally. Phoebe wouldn’t go to a stranger”.

Of course she wouldn’t, I thought. Small-town mentality
wouldn’t permit such a digression. Vida might be right. “But what about client confidentiality?” I countered.

Vida shrugged. “It’s no breach for Doug to say he’s seen Phoebe. And he would say so. It isn’t every day that someone from his wife’s old hometown comes waltzing into One Union Square.” She grabbed the phone and started dialing. As it turned out, she had called the law office, not the Diffenbach residence. Undeterred, Vida asked for Doug. I sat back, watching her operate. Vida was a lesson in subterfuge.

“Doug? yes, this is Vida Runkel in Alpine. … No, not since little Ian was christened … Four already? Oh, my! Again in January? How lovely! Phoebe didn’t mention it. … Yes, she was too excited about being a bride, I suppose. … Oh, I know, but life’s like that, marry and bury, laughter and tears. … No, but Milo Dodge is doing his best. … Phoebe was so impressed with your work. … True, she’s easily impressed by a lot of things. … My daughter, Beth … Oh, that’s all she’d want, too, but these things are necessary when you have children Yes, I’ll have her call. … Thanks so much, Doug … My best to Sybil. ’Bye.”

Vida took a deep breath. “Phoebe had her own will drawn up.” She gave me a hawklike stare. “Who do you suppose she’s left everything to?”

I knew Phoebe was childless; I also figured that even if Vida had drawn the bare facts out of Doug Diffenbach, she couldn’t possibly have extracted the details. “I don’t know. Who?”

Vida sat back, munching on her hard-boiled egg. “Really, Emma, I’m not an oracle. I just wish. I knew.”

So did I.

At three o’clock, I swung by Alpine High School and caught Kevin MacDuff climbing on his bicycle. He took one look at my car and turned away. I honked.

“You must be awful mad at me,” he said as I got out of the car and hurried up to meet him. “Kent sure is.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said with a smile. “All I want to know is what you actually told Carla.”

Kevin hung his head. At fifteen, he was far more slender than his eldest brother, and his skin was comparatively pale except for a spot of color on each cheek. His hair was strawberry blond, very short, with a wispy pigtail in back. “I called Carla about the paper route and we got to talking, and I said I’d seen Mark and he acted like he’d found gold.” Kevin’s head bobbed up, his fingers clutching the handlebars of his mountain bike.

I nodded. “Mark
acted
like he found gold, right?”

Kevin nodded back. “Right.”

“Exactly how did Mark act? Were you at the mineshaft?” I queried as an old beater without a muffler roared past.

Kevin screwed up his face. “Well, he was kind of excited. Out of breath, you know. I was going to see Eric Puckett up the road and Mark came down from the mineshaft just as I was going by. He said …” Kevin paused, clearly trying to recall Mark’s precise words. “Mark said he’d made a big discovery. I asked him what, but he just shook his head and got into his Jeep, so I rode off to Eric’s.”

Briefly, I considered Kevin’s account. “But he didn’t
say
he’d found gold.”

“No.”

“So Carla misinterpreted your remark.” And, I thought, but didn’t say so, that Kevin had misinterpreted Mark’s reaction.

The entire student body seemed to be whizzing by us afoot, in cars, on bikes. The single-story high school, which had replaced the two-story red-brick building that had become the newly refurbished public library and senior citizen center, sprawled over a full city block, its play-field reaching to the edge of the forest.

Kevin screwed up his face. “Misinterpreted?”

“She took what you said literally,” I said, still smiling.

“I guess.” Kevin sighed.

I suspected he’d been taking considerable abuse from Kent. “Don’t worry about it. I seriously doubt if that bit about the gold had anything to do with Mark’s death.”

Kevin didn’t look convinced. “Kent was really pissed off. I guess so were all the Doukases.”

“I don’t know about that.” I patted his arm. “Just be careful what you tell Carla next time, okay? She tends to go overboard.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He gave me a half smile. “I’d better go home and feed my snake.”

“Kevin, what do you think Mark did find up at the mine?”

Balancing himself in mid-stride, Kevin turned to look back at me. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, it must have been a big deal. He acted … weird.” He gave a shake of his head.

“Scared?” I suggested.

“Maybe.” His fingers clenched and unclenched the handlebars. “Yeah, maybe that was it. Scared.” He gave me a curious look and pedaled off down the street.

I stared after Kevin. Mark Doukas didn’t strike me as an easy person to scare. For a long moment, I stood next to the Jag, lost in thought. Maybe Fuzzy Baugh was right: the sheriff should open the mineshaft. I’d ask Milo what he thought, though I already knew he felt it would invite danger.

But Milo was out when I stopped by his office. Bill Blatt said he was paying a call on Neeny Doukas. That news buoyed me a bit. I hoped that Milo wasn’t going to let the Doukases lead him around by the nose.