The Alpine Recluse (22 page)

“I wondered if they’d charged him with the fire,” Spence said. “I can mention that in my next bulletin.”

“But nothing logged about resisting arrest,” I noted.

Dustin returned with a half-dozen cups of coffee in a cardboard container. “Anybody?” he inquired.

Spence declined, but I accepted, adding a packet of raw sugar to my cup. The deputy headed toward the interrogation room.

Spence watched Dustin disappear down the corridor. “How can we lure Mrs. Eriks out here?”

“Yell ‘fire’?” I said facetiously.

Spence’s expression was ironic. “You newspaper types really are callous.”

Neither of us spoke for a minute or two. I stirred my coffee and sipped slowly. When Dustin returned, Spence leaned on the counter. “Is there any way we could talk to Cookie Eriks?” he asked the deputy.

Dustin considered the request. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, sir.”

Dustin was probably right. But that didn’t mean it was impossible to see Cookie. “Is Doe here?” I asked.

Dustin shook his head. “She had the night shift. Sheriff Dodge didn’t think it’d be right to ask her to pull extra weekend duty.”

“You mean,” I said, looking as severe as I could manage, given my liking for Dustin, “that poor Cookie is all alone while her husband’s being interrogated? Or is there another deputy with her?”

“Emma . . .” Spence began in a warning voice.

But I kept talking. “Cookie’s not charged with anything. She’s got a pregnant daughter at home, she already lost a son years ago, her husband’s been accused of killing her son-in-law. If nobody else is available, I’m going to sit with her. We’ll go into the women’s restroom where it’s private.”

I heard Spence swear under his breath. I’d trumped him. Dustin uttered only the most feeble of protests as I circumvented him and headed down the corridor.

I found Cookie Eriks sitting in the small room reserved for inmates’ visitors. She had her head down and appeared to be asleep, but jumped when I came through the door.

“Oh! Emma! What’s happening?”

“I don’t know as much as you do,” I said, sitting down on the hard wooden chair next to her. “Can I get you something?”

Cookie shook her head. “Dustin Fong brought some coffee a few minutes ago, but I didn’t want it.”

I gazed around the stark room. Prisoners were seldom kept very long in the local jail. There were only a half-dozen cells, and the usual occupants were drunks or drug addicts who needed time to sober up. More serious criminals were shipped off to Everett or the correctional facility in Monroe. Thus, the visiting room was rarely used. Under close surveillance, visitors were allowed to talk face-to-face with the inmates. The room contained six chairs, a table, a magazine rack attached to the wall, and—just to make sure everybody knew where they were—a map of Skykomish County covered in heavy plastic wrap. There were no windows, only one-way glass on the outer corridor. The room smelled stale and felt oppressively stuffy. The women’s room had to be an improvement.

I made the suggestion to go there, but Cookie rejected the idea. “I’m not budging until I find out what’s going on with Wayne.”

“I understand,” I said, searching for tactful words. “So why do you think Dodge arrested him?”

Cookie twisted her fingers together. The plain gold wedding band looked dull under the fluorescent ceiling lights. “I’m not sure. Dodge showed up this morning. He’d been at the house yesterday, but . . . Wayne wasn’t home.” She paused, not looking me in the eye. “I tried to tell him—the sheriff—that Wayne was in the shower and that Tiffany was still asleep. Dodge insisted on coming in. Well, he
is
a neighbor, and I didn’t know what to do. Anyway, before I could let Wayne know the sheriff was in the house, he—Wayne—oh, dear, I’m so rattled!” She stopped and shoved a lank strand of hair off her forehead. “Wayne came upstairs from the bathroom in his underwear. That’s when Dodge saw the burns on his—Wayne’s—arms.”

“Burns?” I suddenly recalled that every time I’d seen Wayne in the past week he’d been wearing a long-sleeved shirt despite the hot weather. “How did he get burned?”

“On the job.” Cookie’s jaw jutted, though she still avoided my gaze. “Live wires. It happens sometimes.”

My brain did some mental gymnastics. Cookie could be telling the truth—or merely relaying the version Wayne had given her. But if her husband had gotten those burns when he started the fire to cover the murder, he might not have wanted to seek medical help. Perhaps the blisters had festered. That would explain Doc Dewey’s presence at the sheriff’s office. Milo was duty-bound to make sure that any suspect requiring medical treatment got it at county expense.

“I assume,” I said casually, “that Wayne had reported his on-the-job accident to the PUD.”

Cookie sighed. “He gets banged up every now and then. His work’s dangerous. He started out as a logger, you know. I thought he’d be much safer when he started with the PUD. But things happen. And Wayne is too macho to tell the bosses about every little scrape or bruise. He doesn’t want anybody to think he’s a whiner.”

“Well,” I said, not entirely convinced, “I certainly can’t imagine why Wayne would want to harm Tim. I understand they had dinner together about a week ago.”

“They did.” Cookie darted a glance at me, but didn’t elaborate.

“So they must have gotten along,” I remarked. “There doesn’t seem to be any motive. It doesn’t make sense.”

As I’d hoped, the provocative comment evoked a reaction. “What evidence? Dodge didn’t search our house. He just called Bill Blatt and told him to come on over. The next thing I knew, Wayne was being hauled off to jail. I followed them in my car.” She began to twist her fingers again. “I don’t know what to do. Thank goodness Mrs. Runkel happened to come by. I hated leaving Tiffany alone.” Finally, she met my gaze head-on. “Should I call a lawyer?”

“I honestly don’t know, Cookie,” I admitted. “Sometimes that isn’t a good idea. I mean, if Wayne can get this cleared up with the sheriff, he may not need one. Milo’s fair.”

“He’s wrong,” Cookie declared. “Why are men so aggravating?”

The rhetorical question didn’t quite seem to jibe. “You mean the sheriff or men in general?”

“I don’t know what I mean.” Cookie’s jaw jutted again. “I just want to get Wayne out of here and go home.”

The door opened and Bill Blatt appeared. For the first time, I noticed that his boyish face had begun to age. Or maybe the strain of the weeklong investigation had gotten to him.

He nodded at me before speaking to Cookie. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to hold your husband overnight. We can’t formally charge him on a Sunday because the courthouse is closed. I’m sorry. Can I do anything for you?”

“Can I see Wayne?”

Bill nodded. “Of course.” He gave me an apologetic look. “You’ll have to wait out front, Ms. Lord.”

“Sure.” I attempted to give Cookie a reassuring smile, but she’d already turned away from me.

Spence was still at the reception desk, chatting with Dustin. Mr. Radio interrupted himself when he saw me.

“That was a dirty trick,” he asserted, though he didn’t really seem angry.

“Girl talk,” I replied. “I assume you and Dustin here have been doing the male bonding thing.”

Dustin looked embarrassed, but Spence shrugged. “Deputy Fong doesn’t exactly run off at the mouth.” He winked at the younger man. “We were discussing international politics.”

That may have been true. “Have you done another bulletin?”

“Not yet.” Spence stood up and stretched. He was definitely a cool customer in more ways than one. There were no sweat stains on his shirt, despite the fact that it felt very warm in the sheriff’s front office. “I thought I’d interview you, now that you’ve spent time with the suspect’s wife.”

“Don’t you dare,” I snapped.

“Chicken.” Spence made a clucking sound.

“Okay. Why not?”

He flashed me his big smile. “You’re a good sport.” Spence turned on the mike while I moved closer. “Rey? What’s airing?” He waited a moment. “Okay, as soon as the Pentecostal reverend winds down, break in. I’ll stay on until you give me a countdown.”

Spence’s dark eyes danced as he waited. “You can pour it on, Emma,” he said in a low voice. “Real sob-sister stuff. This is your chance to shine.”

I smiled.

Spence cupped his ear. “Got it,” he said to Rey, and gave me a thumbs-up sign. “This is Spencer Fleetwood,” he began after a few beats. Briefly, he continued with his standard self-aggrandizing introduction. “I’m here live and direct with Emma Lord, editor and publisher of
The Alpine Advocate.
Emma has just had a heart-to-heart talk with Cookie Eriks, wife of Wayne Eriks, who, as we announced earlier, has been arrested in the homicide and arson case involving the death of Tim Rafferty. Emma,” he continued, making sure I was close to the mike, “what was Cookie’s reaction to this latest turn of tragic events?”

“Thank you, Spence,” I said. “Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to disclose what Cookie Eriks told me in our remarkable conversation. You can read all the details in the next edition of the
Advocate.
We’ll have the entire story, along with comments from Sheriff Milo Dodge and other revealing aspects of this unfortunate crime.”

I smiled even more broadly at Spence and backed away from the mike.

That was one of the rare instances when I’d seen Spence look flabbergasted. There was dead air for at least four seconds before he spoke to his audience again. “I appreciate your discretion, Emma. I understand that you—as is true with all of us in the media—must protect our sources. Stay tuned for more breaking news on KSKY—the only place you can get on-the-spot coverage in Skykomish County.” Angrily, he switched off the microphone. “That was a really low blow.”

I shrugged. “You didn’t actually expect me to tell all, did you?”

Before Spence could respond, Evan Singer came out from the hallway on the other side of the reception area. “Is Dwight Gould the only deputy on patrol right now?” he asked Dustin.

Dustin nodded. “Bill’s supposed to be out there, but he had to help out Dodge with the arrest. Why?”

“Because,” Evan replied, “I just got a call from the nursing home. The old Rafferty lady has wandered off again. It may take more than one deputy to find her.”

EIGHTEEN

M
Y IMMEDIATE THOUGHTS
went to Beth Rafferty. The last thing she needed was to have her mother roaming around Alpine in ninety-degree heat. There should be limits to what one person had to endure in the course of a week.

“What about Roger Hibbert’s volunteer searchers?” Spence said to Dustin. “As far as I know, they haven’t done much since that first foray.”

“You’re right,” I put in. “Vida has been very quiet about Roger and his band of blunderers.”

“I’ll check with Dodge,” Dustin said. He asked Evan if Jack had been contacted.

“Right away,” Evan replied, his lanky frame restless as always. He’d been in Alpine for over ten years, and was not only a serious student of film, but an artist. He was also a bit of an eccentric and rarely showed off his drawings, which were usually rather morbid. Instead, he restricted his commercial efforts to more conventional art for local merchants. The rest of the time he ran the Whistling Marmot Movie Theatre and filled in taking 911 calls. He was a loner whose nervous energy seemed to be expended in various pursuits. It suddenly dawned on me that I should have talked to Evan earlier.

“How long are you on duty today?” I asked him.

“Until six,” he replied with a curious expression.

“Can we meet for coffee after you get off?”

He ruffled his unruly reddish hair. “How come?”

“I have some art questions for you.”

“Sure. Fine. Starbucks okay?”

I said it was. Evan returned to his inner sanctum.

“I wonder,” I said, “if Beth’s been told about her mother.”

“The nursing home would’ve called her,” Dustin said. “They always notify family when one of the residents disappears. That is, if they have family or anyone who cares.” There was a sad note in his voice.

I was torn. I wanted to wait for Milo, but I felt I should try to get in touch with Beth. If not yet friends, we’d formed a bond in the past week. I realized, however, that even after the sheriff had put Wayne Eriks in a cell, there’d be no further news. Spence could fill up the airways with words such as
alleged, possible, awaiting developments,
and promises of bulletins to come, but he’d have nothing hard-core—and neither would I. As for Cookie, she’d go home—where Vida waited like a duck hunter in a blind. That situation was covered.

I made my brief farewells and went out to the Honda, where I immediately called Beth on my cell.

She didn’t answer. Maybe she was still at the hospital. I called the emergency room, but was informed that she’d been released. Perhaps she’d been summoned to the nursing home. I decided it was worth a try, and pulled out onto Front Street.

Margaret Peterson was behind the front desk. She recognized me at once and frowned. “Are you looking for Beth?” she asked.

“Is she here?”

Margaret nodded. “She’s talking to some of the other residents, trying to figure out where Mrs. Rafferty may have gone. This isn’t the first time, you know.”

“Delia seems so feeble,” I remarked. “How could she get far?”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Margaret sighed. “You’d be amazed at how some of our residents find the strength to do what’s impossible. Two weeks ago Dorothy Phipps moved a bookcase from one side of the room to the other. She’s been in a wheelchair for five years, but she suddenly got the notion that the bookcase shouldn’t be by the TV. It must have weighed fifty pounds, but she did it—and then she couldn’t get out of the wheelchair to use the toilet.”

“Malingering?”

“No.” Margaret gave me a doleful look. “Oh, for some, maybe. But so many people who end up in the nursing facility—not the retirement residence,” she added hastily as two well-dressed couples in their seventies came through the lobby and headed for the elevator. I guessed that they’d been to church and out for brunch. Margaret greeted them before she spoke to me again. “People like that. They keep active, they’re in fairly good health, they have outside interests, but they don’t want to be bothered keeping up a house. It’s the other type that simply give up. Their families have given up on them, too. I’ve seen some sad cases of neglect and indifference.”

“But not with Delia Rafferty,” I said. “She has Alzheimer’s. She can’t live alone.”

Margaret nodded. “True. The situation became impossible for Beth. Her job is very stressful, and she’d gotten to the point where she couldn’t focus on it as she should because she was always fretting about her mother being alone and doing heaven-knows-what. Beth tried to get help during the day, but that’s so difficult in a small town like Alpine. Caretakers are hard to find, and frankly, there’s always the danger of elderly abuse. Alzheimer victims are particularly hard to deal with.”

“Where did Delia go the last time she wandered off?” I asked.

“Downtown,” Margaret replied. “Ione Erdahl found her at the children’s store. They often go somewhere that’s familiar, usually from the distant past. Delia wanted to buy something for Tim—in a toddler two size.”

“I’ve heard that’s typical,” I said as Beth came into the lobby.

“Emma!” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here? Have you news?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said in apology. “I thought I’d see if I could help you in any way. How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she replied, despite the fact that she looked even worse than when I’d last seen her slumped in the diner booth. “I mean, I just sort of caved in at breakfast when I heard about Wayne’s arrest. It was such a shock. One of the nurses checked me out and agreed that I was overwrought, so I went home. I hadn’t been in the house five minutes when Margaret called about my mother. Is there no end to this?”

I went to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Beth had never been fat, but she’d always seemed substantial. Now I could feel bone instead of only flesh. I realized she’d probably lost at least ten pounds since I’d last noticed.

“It’s a nightmare,” I agreed, “but you’ll manage. You’re strong. Did you find out anything from the other patients?”

“No.” Beth lowered her voice, apparently to prevent Margaret from overhearing. “They’re mostly gaga in that wing. Half of them don’t even know who my mother is.”

I nudged Beth over to a Victorian love seat away from the front desk. “Tell me what happened. When did they realize your mother was gone?”

Beth gazed up at a grandfather clock, which stood in the corner. Its elegant hands indicated that it was ten minutes after one. “Her lunch was brought to her room at a quarter to twelve,” Beth said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Mom rarely eats in the dining room. The first week she was here, she got into the kitchen and turned the stove on high under a kettle of water. It boiled over, and I guess one of the orderlies chewed her out about it. Those people ought to know better. But she wouldn’t go back into the dining room unless I was visiting and insisted. Anyway, whoever brought her meal—her name’s Cristina—said Mom wasn’t in her room. Nobody could remember when they’d seen her last except after breakfast when they cleared away her tray. That would’ve been around nine, nine-thirty.”

“Did she take her wheelchair?”

“No.” Beth grimaced. “She took her walker, though. At least, I think so. Sometimes the patients steal each other’s walkers, even their dentures.” Putting her head in her hands, she shuddered violently. “If only I could have kept her at home! This is such an awful place!”

Margaret’s head jerked up. She stared at us, looking annoyed. I didn’t really blame her. Hopefully, Margaret and the rest of the staff were doing the best they could—given the pathetic circumstances.

“Milo may ask those students to help look for your mother,” I said. “She can’t have gone far in this weather.”

Beth shook her head. “Heat doesn’t affect her the way it does the rest of us. Her circulation is so poor. She’s always cold.”

“Still . . .” I began, and stopped. “Shall we go together and look around Front Street? Not that many stores are open on Sunday.”

“She’d have been seen by now if she’d gone there,” Beth said.

That was probably true. The eating places on Front Street were doing business, as were assorted other establishments, including Donna’s art gallery, the movie theater, and Videos-to-Go. But most Alpine merchants firmly believed that “if you can’t make it in six days, you won’t make it in seven.”

“Would she go to the mall?” I asked.

“Mom hated the mall,” Beth replied. “She was old-fashioned. She liked the stores on Front Street, even during those years when many of them closed or moved because of the downturn in the timber industry.” Beth paused, obviously considering the possibilities. “She might have gone anywhere, even back to the house. I asked the neighbors to watch for her.”

“What about Tim’s? I understand Alzheimer victims often go to familiar places. Could she make it uphill?”

Beth calculated. “It’s only two blocks up, and then two more on the level when you reach Fir. She might, if she has her walker.” A flash of fear crossed Beth’s face. “But if she did, she could have gone off into the woods. The cul-de-sac is surrounded by trees. That’s another thing,” Beth added fretfully, “the patients often wander off into the wilds, especially around this part of the world.”

Nobody knew that better than I did. “Let’s go that way,” I urged. “If she’s around town, someone will find her. We can take my car.”

“No. I’ll follow you,” Beth insisted.

“Fine.”

As soon as I got into the Honda, I called Milo’s headquarters. Dustin answered. He told me that Bill Blatt had been trying to contact his nephew or cousin or whatever relation Roger was to the deputy, but that Amy Hibbert said her son wasn’t home. He’d taken an inner tube with him and presumably was going to float His Royal Chubbiness in the Skykomish River.

Despairing briefly because the river was so low that Roger couldn’t possibly drown, I realized that neither could Delia Rafferty, should she also head in that direction.

I could see Beth in the rearview mirror, keeping just a few yards between our cars. It took less than five minutes to reach what was left of the Rafferty home. The crime-scene tape remained, sagging under the bright sun.

I knew how hard this was for Beth. She didn’t get out at first, but sat behind the wheel, staring through the windshield. I waited between our two cars, already feeling enervated by the heat.

“This is hopeless,” she declared, finally joining me. “Everything is such a mess. How could we tell if Mom had been here?”

“Somebody has,” I said, pointing to a strip of crime-scene tape that had been pulled off from one of the temporary supports.

“You think so? Maybe it was those kids, when they were searching for the hermit.”

“Maybe.” I walked over to where the tape had been removed. Judging from what I knew of the original house layout, the section could have been a bedroom. There had been two, as I recalled—one for Tim and Tiffany, the other for the nursery.

“That’s odd,” I said.

Beth had stayed put, staring blankly at the pitiful scene. “What?”

“There are footprints in the ash,” I said, leaning down to get a better look.

Beth still didn’t move. “So? Those kids, probably.”

“No. The kids I saw wore sneakers or hiking shoes or sandals,” I said, standing up. “Whoever came here was barefoot.”

Beth finally walked over to where I was standing. I noticed that she was trembling. I didn’t blame her. We were probably very close to the spot where her brother had died.

“Good lord,” she whispered. “You’re right.”

“They had to be recent prints,” I said. “No one would have walked barefoot through this . . . debris until it was completely cooled down. That took at least two or three days, as I understand. Whoever was here had fairly big feet and didn’t seem to go very far, though it’s hard to tell because of the rubble. We’d better notify the sheriff. They can make casts from the footprints.”

“Yes,” Beth agreed. “I’ve heard about that, but usually it’s from shoes.”

“True.” I had no idea how footprint casts would help unless the sheriff happened to have access to the feet’s owner.

“Shall we start walking through the woods?” Beth asked. “We could go in different directions.”

I surveyed our surroundings. Most of the wild berry vines, ferns, and other underbrush had been cleared away when the Rafferty house had been built. The small garden area—like my own—abutted onto the encroaching forest, which marched up the face of Tonga Ridge.

I was wearing sandals—my churchgoing footwear; Beth was more sensibly shod, in Birkenstocks. On the other hand, if Delia Rafferty had tried to climb the hill, she may have been wearing bedroom slippers. Certainly she couldn’t get far.

There was a rudimentary trail, perhaps made by the Bourgettes when they built the house or used by Tim and Tiffany to gather kindling or mushrooms or whatever the younger Raffertys may have sought. Beth and I decided to stick together and follow the trail. It seemed like the most likely place that Delia would go.

It was somewhat cooler under the tall trees, and the air smelled of evergreens. The footing, however, was tricky: dry dirt in places, exposed roots, rocks, fallen branches, and scatterings of brown evergreen needles.

We had meandered along the switchback path for about a hundred yards when I stopped, leaning against a hemlock tree and catching my breath. “I haven’t seen a single sign of anybody using this trail recently. I can’t imagine your mother managing to get this far, given so many obstacles.”

Beth, who was about six feet behind me, shook some fir needles off her Birkenstocks. “Maybe she didn’t follow the trail. Should we go back and search closer to the cul-de-sac?”

I was dubious. “I wonder if she came here in the first place.”

“Yes. It was just a guess, after all.” Beth pondered for a moment. “Okay. We’ll head back down. The going seems to get rougher from here anyway.”

I agreed. The trail became narrower, the terrain much steeper. Beth turned around and started the descent. As I took a step forward, the sole of my sandal caught on a half-hidden root. I tripped, falling to my knees before I could grab a rotting log to steady myself. The only damage was a few splinters in my fingers. Carefully, I pulled them out before I started to move again, this time keeping my eyes focused on the ground.