The Alpine Advocate (11 page)

I had just hung up on Cal Vickers when Fuzzy Baugh, our current mayor, lumbered into my office. Fuzzy was the retired owner of Baugh’s Fine Home Furnishings and Carpet, which had recently moved from Front Street to the new mall, causing a ruckus over whether or not downtown Alpine was dying. Since the entire commercial district was only eight blocks long and two blocks wide, the controversy struck my city-bred mentality as odd. But all things are relative, and when, two months later, Barton’s Bootery also vacated Front Street, I actually asked Carla to poll the remaining downtown merchants and find out if they planned to stay put. As far as she could tell, they did. But with Carla, you could never be quite sure of her data.

Fuzzy was a tall, heavy-set man with curly blond hair, which I presumed was dyed. His face was nicely crinkled and his eyes were green and small. He had been mayor for
the past six years, though his first election back in ’84 was also steeped in controversy. It seemed that Fuzzy and Irene, his wife of thirty years, had decided to split up. Irene stayed at their house in town, and Fuzzy moved out to a cabin he’d built on the Skykomish River, about ten miles downstream. When Fuzzy announced he was running for office, the opposition declared he wasn’t a resident and therefore was ineligible to stand for election. Fuzzy moved back in with Irene, a gesture that was dismissed by his detractors as merely expedient, but the couple actually reconciled and went on a second honeymoon to Mexico. Politics might make strange bedfellows, but in this case, they had reunited a pair who probably should never have stopped sleeping together in the first place.

“This is bad, Emma,” Fuzzy announced, dropping into the vacant chair on the other side of my desk. “Drugs, of course.”

“Drugs?” Though that was often a factor in homicides I’d covered on
The Oregonian
, I hadn’t seriously considered the issue. Not that we didn’t have our share of substance abuse—but for all of Mark Doukas’s failings, I’d never heard him accused of taking or dealing drugs. “What makes you say that, Fuzzy?”

Fuzzy leaned forward in the chair, trying to find a bare spot to place his elbows. As usual, he was dressed impeccably in suit and tie, never having overcome his salesman’s need to look his best. Perhaps he felt such formal attire was worthy of his mayor’s role, though his predecessor, Elbert Armbruster, had never been seen in anything but overalls. “You haven’t been here long, Emma,” Fuzzy said in a kindly tone that suggested it wasn’t entirely my fault. “This town was originally filled with Orientals. That’s why it was called Nippon. What do you suppose those people brought with them?”

I resisted the urge to answer
tempura
and merely looked curious. Fuzzy gave me his sage half smile. “Opium. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts Mark found a stash of it at the old mine. Other stuff, too, probably brought up there by
modern-day drug traffickers. The question is, who’s the kingpin?”

Every first and third Tuesday, I sit in on the city council meetings, so I was used to Fuzzy Baugh’s strange—and imaginative—hypotheses. Last spring, damage to one of the Burlington Northern spurs had, he insisted, been caused by neo-Nazis. The Fourth of July fireworks hadn’t all gone off due to the devious machinations of the Monroe Elks Club, who were jealous of Alpine’s display. The theft of a birdbath from young Doc Dewey’s front yard was the plot of irate loggers who wanted to avenge their endangered livelihoods by getting back at all avian species, spotted owls or not.

Thus, I regarded Fuzzy’s latest flight of fancy in context. “Mark might have found something up at the mine, Fuzzy,” I allowed, “but I doubt it was drugs.”

Fuzzy’s small green eyes opened wide. “See here, Emma, you haven’t thought this through like I have. I know human nature. I had to as a salesman. I still do, as mayor of this fine town. Mark was real anxious to get hold of Sheriff Dodge and get him up there to Icicle Creek. Now what could Mark have wanted to show Milo unless it was drugs?”

Fuzzy’s conclusion might be off base, but his reasoning wasn’t. Despite his lamebrained ideas, he was no dope. “Well, everybody agrees it wasn’t gold or silver,” I conceded. “As far as the mine goes, I understood it had been closed for years. Isn’t it a safety hazard?”

“Definitely,” Fuzzy agreed, sagely nodding his head. “There’s a real danger of cave-ins. Plus, the springs can rise up and flood those shafts. That’s one of the reasons they quit working the mines in the first place.”

“You mean there was still ore?”

“Oh, maybe some. Not enough to risk lives over, though.” Fuzzy made the statement with some authority, as if he had personally been in charge of the closure some seventy-five years ago. He sat up straight, turning so that I could catch his profile, which was still a fine one. “Mark
my words. It’s drugs. I intend to ask for a resolution at the city council meeting next Tuesday to open Mineshaft Number Three.”

I tipped my head to one side. It didn’t seem like a very helpful idea, but on the other hand, it couldn’t do any harm. As long as nobody wandered inside and got hurt. “Who owns those old mines, Fuzzy?”

“Nobody. That is,” he went on in his low, soft voice that still held just a hint of his native New Orleans even after twenty years, “the rights to the mines expired years ago. The Forest Service owns the land that Mineshafts One and Two are on, Number Four belongs to the railroad, Five is gone, and Three is on Neeny Doukas’s property.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Do you have to get Neeny to approve of opening the shaft?”

A flicker of uncertainty passed over Fuzzy’s crinkly face. “I hope not. But he’d do it, especially if it’ll help find out who killed his grandson.” Standing up, Fuzzy put out his hand. “I’m off, Emma. Nice as always visiting with you.” He gave me his best marketing-mayoral smile. “You’ll handle this with care, I’m sure.”

“From now on,” I replied with a smile of my own, “my middle name is
Alleged.”

Briefly, Fuzzy looked puzzled; then he nodded and let go of my hand. “Yes, that’s right. Circumspection. That’s the ticket.” He started for the door, then turned back to face me. “In fact, it might be better to let matters sit for a time. There’s no point in riling everybody up, is there?”

I feigned innocence. “How do you mean?”

Taking a step back toward my desk, Fuzzy assumed his best good-ole-boy air. “Well, the way I see it, if you run just an obituary on Mark this coming week, that pretty well covers it. The funeral will be over by then, I imagine. If Milo’s arrested somebody, fine. If not, why upset folks?”

Neeny Doukas had Fuzzy Baugh, along with almost everybody else in town, tucked in his pocket. I wondered if Neeny, supposedly sick, had delegated his influence to Simon.
I said as much to Fuzzy: “Have you been talking to Simon Doukas?”

Mild surprise registered on Fuzzy’s face. “I offered him my condolences, of course. And to that fine wife of his, Cecelia.” He gave a sad shake of his curly locks, reminding me of an aging cherub. “You realize how hard it is on the family, Emma.” His voice had grown rather faint. “I know you’ll want to spare them any further grief.”

I decided to play the game. “Certainly. I have no intention of rubbing salt in their wounds, Fuzzy. You know better than that. Good journalism isn’t cruel.”

The green eyes turned cold, like agates. Fuzzy filled the doorway, and for the first time since I’d met him, I was aware of the menace of the man, seventy years and all.

When he spoke again, his voice was still very soft. “You behave now. There’s no need to embarrass fine folks like the Doukases.” He gave another shake of his head. “We sure don’t want any more tragedies around Alpine, do we, Emma? I mean, you never know who could be next.”

Giving me the most empathetic of looks, Fuzzy Baugh made his exit.

I tried not to let Fuzzy’s thinly veiled threat bother me. Neither he nor Simon Doukas was the first in Alpine to attempt to scare me out of a story. There had been trouble with some of the loggers the previous winter. At least one irate taxpayer had promised to send me a bomb after I’d backed a school levy. And somebody had actually thrown a rock through the window of my office after I’d made the editorial comment that Alpine remained basically an unin-tegrated community because most of the residents weren’t hospitable to people of other races. Threats were also part of the job description.

But the intimidation I’d faced twice in one day over Mark Doukas’s murder unsettled me more than I liked to admit. It was no longer just a matter of Chris Ramirez’s involvement, but of preserving my right to publish. I did not, however, intend to perish in the process. The more I
thought about it, the more I became convinced that the only way to secure the story was to find the killer.

I put in a call to Adam. Nobody answered, but I wasn’t surprised, since it was only one-thirty in Honolulu. I’d try again, after five, our time.

Meanwhile, Vida returned and reported on her visit to Neeny Doukas. She’d been gone for over two hours, and, given the sudden threatening atmosphere hanging over
The Advocate
, I’d begun to worry.

“Oooh—” she exclaimed impatiently, rubbing at her eyes, “you might know I was fine. I just nosed around a bit here and there after I left Neeny’s. Not that it did me much good. People ought to pay more attention to what other people are doing.”

“What about Neeny?” I asked, pulling a chair up to Vida’s desk. Ed had left for the day, and Carla had gone to a hospital board meeting.

Vida breathed on her glasses, wiped the lenses on her slip, and settled the tortoise-shell stems over her ears. “I got lucky. Phoebe was just leaving to get her hair dyed.”

“Neeny isn’t at death’s door, I gather.”

Vida snorted. “Of course not! Oh, he’s upset, I suppose he would be, he regarded Mark highly, which proves what an old fool he really is; but, except for gastritis, I don’t think there’s much wrong with him.” She wagged a finger at me.
“He
says otherwise, but I don’t believe him. He just wants to be babied.”

Given the fact that Neeny had just lost his favorite grandchild, I felt Vida was being a bit harsh, but I didn’t say so. “Had he seen Mark last night?” I inquired.

Vida took a sip from the hot water she always drank in the late afternoons. “No. He didn’t realize Mark had parked that Jeep or whatever it is in the drive. Neeny said he heard sirens by the mine some time between nine and nine-thirty. He thought it was a wreck on the highway. Sheriff Dodge didn’t tell him about Mark until this morning.”

I gave Vida a quizzical look. “How come?”

The wry expression on her face told me she also thought the delay was strange. “Milo called around ten-thirty and talked to that idiot, Phoebe. She said Neeny was resting—I’ll bet!—and shouldn’t be disturbed. The sheriff should wait and give Neeny the bad news in the morning, after he’d had a good night’s sleep. Ha!”

I reflected briefly on Vida’s words. “So Phoebe knew?”

Vida rolled her eyes. “Taking a lot on herself, isn’t she? Imagine Hazel Doukas making decisions like that for Neeny! Why, Hazel couldn’t even decide for herself whether to broil or bake her pork chops!”

Not having known the late Hazel, I couldn’t imagine much. But Vida’s remark gave me an idea. “Phoebe doesn’t live up there, does she?”

“She might as well,” Vida huffed. “You should see her house over on Pine Street—I’ll bet she hasn’t washed her curtains in four years. And the yard—it’s a mess. Nothing but a few ratty rose bushes and some poor bedraggled perennials. She spends most of her time up there at Neeny’s, holding his—whatever.” Vida’s expression showed rampant distaste.

Out on Front Street, a car horn honked and somebody yelled a greeting to a passerby. Darkness was settling in over Alpine, but the rain had stopped shortly after my return to the office. I examined my sad suede shoes and considered heading home. I was anxious to get hold of Adam.

“Did Neeny say anything about Chris?” I asked.

Vida cocked her head at me. “Now that’s odd. He didn’t! At first, I expected him to launch into one of his diatribes about how Chris must have killed that nitwit, Mark, but he never let out a peep. I have to admit, Neeny was a little subdued. He figures Mark was murdered by bikers.”

The theory was more plausible than Fuzzy Baugh’s. About every four years, sort of like the Olympics, a horde of rough-and-tumble bikers descended on Alpine. They raised hell up and down Front Street and usually tried to smash up the bar at Mugs Ahoy. But on their last foray,
the previous spring, they had taken on a bunch of disgruntled loggers at the Icicle Creek Tavern at the edge of town. The leader of the bikers had made the mistake of imitating a spotted owl. The final score had ended up something like Loggers 48, Bikers 3. Still, it wasn’t impossible that they might have returned for revenge. But it was unlikely that they’d pick on Mark Doukas.

“I think it’s odd that Neeny didn’t mention Chris,” I said.

“So do I.” Vida raised her eyebrows above the rims of her glasses. “But what does it mean?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Did he say anything about our running the story?”

Vida batted a hand at the air. “Oh, of course! I told him to go soak his head. I won’t stand for that nonsense from Neeny Doukas or anybody else.” She gave me a quick, shrewd look. “Who else has been trying to scare you?”

I told her about Fuzzy Baugh. Vida hooted in derision. “That nincompoop! He should have stuck to selling rugs! In fact, I’ll bet he’s wearing one. That mop can’t be his real hair, and if it is, he ought to be ashamed of himself!”

In spite of my more serious concerns, I was amused. “What was his hair like when he was younger?”

Vida shrugged. “Fuzzy was never younger. Not by much. He came here only about twenty years ago and bought out my brother-in-law, Elmo, who owned the furniture store first. Elmo had to go away for a while, and the business had gone downhill. Fuzzy’s wife was a Pratt whose first husband lived in Baton Rouge.”

As ever, the intricate, inbred background of Alpine’s citizenry never ceased to amaze me. But Vida, who apparently felt she’d finished dispensing all usable information, had begun pounding away at her old upright. I stood up and went back into my office to collect my gear and call it a day.