The Alpine Betrayal (25 page)

“Your brother must know people pretty well,” he said, “being a priest and all.” I allowed that was fairly accurate. Priest or not, Ben had his blind spots. “Now why,” mused Milo, “would somebody know who the killer was and not say so?”

“The most obvious reason is that whoever knows wants
to protect the person who killed Cody. That could be Dani and Patti, or Reid and Dani, or various combinations of people who care about each other.” I moved my chair back a few inches as the sun rose high over the treetops. “It could also be fear. Cody’s murderer might not stop there. Take Jack Blackwell, for example—I don’t believe he poisoned Cody, but if he did, I think he’s the type who would kill again to save himself. There’s a ruthless quality about that man.”

Milo gave a grunt of assent. “Hampton, too. Hell, I remember Ray Marsh—we went to high school together. He was a wrestler. I played basketball.”

“But you didn’t recognize him?” I asked.

“No. He was kind of scrawny then, wrestled at a hundred and twenty-six pounds. His hair was about the color of mine, only more washed-out.” Milo brushed at his sandy forelock, a few strands of gray glinting in the sun. “By the time he walked out on Patti, he’d put on some weight, but he was still more boy than man.”

I made a murmur of acknowledgment. The flutter of bird’s wings, the shadows cast by the evergreens, the heavy heat of midday were all conspiring to make me sleepy. My mind didn’t want to dwell on murder. Yet Milo was right—we were running out of time. I was trying to stir myself into some kind of mental action when Milo’s beeper went off.

“Damn,” he mumbled, getting up and going into the house to use the phone. I leaned back in the deck chair, craning my neck to look out toward the street. I caught the rear end of Milo’s Cherokee Chief. So far, he had resisted efforts to have a cellular phone installed in his off-duty vehicle.

He returned with two more bottles of beer. They were warm. I knew he must have rummaged around under the sink to find them. “That was Bill Blatt,” he said, sinking back into his deck chair. “There’s some sort of ruckus going on up at the ski lodge. I told him and Sam Heppner to see what it was, and if it looked serious, to call me back.
I suppose Henry Bardeen has a guest who tried to skip without paying the bill.”

I eyed Milo curiously. Hadn’t it dawned on him that trouble at the ski lodge might involve the movie crew? But of course there were other guests, perhaps half again as many non-Hollywood types. Milo must know his own business. I kept quiet.

“This theory about Art,” he was saying, cradling the bottle of ale against his chest as he stretched out in the chair, “really threw me. I stopped to see Doc Dewey about it this morning, but he wasn’t around. Or,” he added with a wry glance in my direction, “if he was, Mrs. Dewey wasn’t going to let me talk to him. She’s pretty thick with Dot Parker, and I don’t think Mrs. D. has forgiven me for arresting Durwood.”

“Did Doc ever say anything to you about the Graff baby’s death?” I was still trying to fight off my feeling of inertia.

“Never.” Milo took a long drink of the warm ale. My own bottle rested on the grass, unopened. He sat up abruptly, an awkward jangle of long arms and legs. “You know, that’s strange, Emma. If that baby had been murdered by Cody, wouldn’t Doc have guessed? I mean, if Art was suspicious, Doc sure would have been.”

“That’s true.” I gave him an accusing look. “You never told me what Curtis said last night.”

“Curtis turned into a damned clam. He refused to talk about it, said it was too painful to bring up.” Milo’s face was rueful. “Maybe so, but it’s driving me nuts with everybody pulling this hush-hush act. The only thing Curtis would say was that his brother was scum, that Marje Blatt was blind if she intended to marry him, and that Dani was misunderstood by a lot of people.”

The beeper went off again. Milo swore and returned to the house. He emerged in less than a minute. “Goddamn, that tears it!” He started to drain his ale, thought better of it, and handed the bottle to me. “Billy and Sam had to arrest Matt Tabor. They’re bringing him down to the office.”

I struggled to my feet, my lethargy gone. “Why?”

Milo was already taking long hurried strides across the grass. I ran to keep up. “Assault with a deadly weapon,” he called back over his shoulder. “Matt took a fireplace shovel to Reid Hampton. Reid’s on his way to emergency. Maybe that’ll get Doc Dewey away from his baseball game on TV.”

I was torn between following Milo down to the sheriff’s office and going to Alpine Community Hospital. Halfway from the front door to the carport, I made up my mind to head for the emergency room. Milo would tell me what went on with the booking of Matt Tabor, but I needed a first-hand report of what had happened to Reid Hampton.

The waiting room for Emergency was small, spartan, and air-conditioned. By the time I arrived, Reid Hampton had already been wheeled into an examining room. The nurse behind the reception desk was short, red-haired, and had a face that reminded me of a Pekingese. Her plastic name tag identified her as Ruth Sharp, R.N.

I told her who I was, which didn’t seem to impress her in the least. “I’m checking on Mr. Hampton’s condition,” I said, trying to sound official.

Ruth Sharp arched her finely penciled eyebrows at me. “His condition? He just arrived. Why don’t you call back later this afternoon.” The suggestion was clearly intended as a dismissal.

“Where’s Doc Dewey?” I asked, digging my heels into the gray-and-white-flecked carpet.

“Dr. Cecil Dewey or Dr. Gerald Dewey?” The nurse’s pug nose twitched a bit, probably in disapproval.

“Either one,” I replied, my patience on the wane. Behind her, a young woman carried a howling infant through the double doors.

Ruth Sharp looked down at some papers on her desk. She appeared to be debating whether or not to tell me anything. “Dr. Gerald Dewey isn’t on call this weekend. Dr. Cecil Dewey isn’t here yet. He’s on his way, I believe. Perhaps
you’d like to speak to Dr. Simon Katz. He’s up here from Monroe.” She glanced at her watch, which looked as if it should have adorned the wrist of a railroad conductor. “Dr. Katz will be free in an hour or two.”

I decided to wait for Doc Dewey. Stepping aside for the woman with the screaming child, I began to roam around the little waiting room. Ruth Sharp and the beleaguered mother had to shout to be heard over the youngster’s cries. I had just sat down when the young woman approached and set the child next to me. It was a boy, about three, with very bright red cheeks, curly brown hair and a runny nose. I tried to smile; the boy let out another howl. I buried myself in a year-old copy of
National Geographic
. The child suddenly stopped crying, hopped off the chair, and began to run full tilt in circles around the waiting room.
Another miracle cure
, I thought, remembering the times I’d hauled Adam off to the doctor’s, usually in the dead of night with the threat of snow, and had been certain he was near death. On virtually every occasion, it had taken him less than three minutes to recover his usual form and raise hell until we got into the examining room. On one particularly harrowing night, he had run away while I was filling out an admittance form. I had chased him all over Portland’s Good Samaritan Hospital and through a side door, where he had jumped into a reflecting pool. It turned out that he had gas. It was a wonder I didn’t have a stroke.

Twenty minutes passed before I saw Doc Dewey behind the window of the doors that led into the emergency area. I got up, careful not to trip over the whirling dervish who apparently was still awaiting the ministrations of Dr. Katz. Crossing the small room, I rapped softly on the glass. Doc turned, giving me a quizzical look.

“What is it, girlie?” he asked, opening the door a couple of inches. “You sick?”

I explained that I was performing in my professional capacity. “Reid Hampton’s famous. It’s a news story. What happened?”

Doc expelled a gruff little breath. “Reid Hampton, Ray
Marsh, what a crock! Give me five minutes, we’ll catch a cup of coffee.” He nudged the door shut.

It was actually ten minutes before Doc Dewey shuffled into the vending machine area that served as the hospital cafeteria. I noticed that his hand shook as he carried his paper cup over to the table where I was sitting. Crock or not, his experience with Reid/Ray had seemingly unnerved him.

“Slight concussion,” said Doc, easing himself into an orange vinyl chair. “He’ll have to stay overnight, but he should be all right. It’s a good thing that Tabor fellow’s got a swing like a bear with a crosscut saw.”

“He really attacked Reid?” I realized I shouldn’t be incredulous; movie people were known to be excitable. Still, I hated relying on clichés.

Doc drank his coffee as if he were parched. “Seems like it, all right. Reid—oh, hell, I’m going to call him Ray, I brought the kid into the world over forty years ago—said there was a row. Heather Bardeen was doing something upstairs outside their rooms and heard all the commotion, so she called her dad, who called the sheriff. I didn’t ask Ray a lot of questions, because he has to keep quiet.” Doc shook his head, the sparse white hairs looking limp. “Damned fools, all of ’em. What’s this world coming to, Emma?” He looked at me as if I should know.

“Frankly, it’s a miracle Matt didn’t do some serious damage,” I noted. “Reid—or Ray, if you will—is in terrific shape, but so’s Matt and he’s several years younger. They must have been going at it a while before the sheriff’s deputies got there.”

“Oh, yeah?” Doc eyed me inquisitively. “What are you trying to say, girlie?”

I considered. It wasn’t advisable to toss irrational answers back at Doc. His shrewd blue eyes demanded judicious thinking. “I mean that if Matt really wanted to brain Reid, he could have done it. Or if they were going at it tooth and toenail, they’d both be here in the hospital.”

Doc nodded once. “Good point. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” He polished off his coffee and stood up, lifting
himself out of the chair by hanging onto the table. “I’d better go see if Katz needs any more help. If not, I’ll go home and watch some golf. The Red Sox won again—what do you think about that?”

I thought that was fine. On the way out we talked of Fenway Park, of the Green Monster, of Boggs and Clark and Clemens. “No relation to Carl or Samuel,” remarked Doc as we passed through the now-empty waiting room. “Roger, I mean. At least that I know of. Carl and Samuel spelled it different from each other, but they were related all the same. Did you know that?”

I said I did. “Speaking of Roger, do you really think Vida’s grandson needs medication, or just a good swift kick?”

For a fleeting instant, Doc looked appalled, then he broke into a grin. “If it were me, I’d prescribe the medication for his parents. Tranquilizers, heavy-duty. But I can’t argue with Gerry. It wouldn’t be right. My son knows what he’s doing. And nowadays, you can’t tell a parent to give their kid a good licking. That’s child abuse.”

I glanced over at the reception desk. Ruth Sharp, R.N., appeared absorbed in charts, but I doubted it. She struck me as a world-class eavesdropper. I lowered my voice:

“Was Cody Graff a child abuser?”

Doc’s body gave off a tiny tremor, but his blue eyes were steadfast “Yes.”

I couldn’t suppress a little gasp. The confirmation of my private beliefs came as a shock. Even when you fear the worst, you still hope for the best. “Did you know it at the time?” My voice was barely audible.

Doc nodded slowly. “I was pretty sure. The trouble was, I didn’t know who did it. Then.”

The soft thrum of a telephone sounded in the background. I put a hand on Doc’s arm. “You mean you thought it might have been Dani?”

Doc was looking very grim. “Maybe. It wasn’t obvious who it was. If you’re going to ruin somebody’s life, you want to be damned sure you got the right one.”

Ruth Sharp was standing, leaning across the reception desk. “Dr. Dewey, a Mrs. Whipp is on her way in. She fell out of a lawn swing. Possible wrist fracture.”

Doc rolled his eyes. “The Whipps are at it again.” He adjusted his stethoscope and turned toward the emergency receiving area. “There goes the golf,” he muttered. “A good thing it bores the bejeesus out of me.” Doc disappeared behind the swinging doors.

“I had to let him go,” Milo asserted in a peevish tone. “We have to wait to see if Reid Hampton presses charges.”

I was sitting across from Milo in his little office, angling my chair to get the full benefit of the fan that was whirling at high speed on the floor. According to Milo, the quarrel had started over Reid’s refusal to take Matt with him to Seattle to meet the film lab people.

“Sounds silly,” said Milo, fingering a round blue object on his desk, “but I’ve known men to fight over dumber things.”

“Was Matt penitent?” I asked.

Milo stuck his finger through the middle of the blue object. It was smaller than a doughnut, but basically the same shape. “Actually, he was. Not at first—he was pretty belligerent. But then he simmered down and seemed worried about Hampton. I had to talk him out of going over to the hospital on his way back to the ski lodge.”

“Alone?”

Milo stared, wearing the blue object like a big ring. “Yeah, why?”

I tilted my head to one side. “If Matt is in love with somebody other than Dani, who is it? It’s got to be a woman who is here in town, because Vida and I heard them quarreling. Who?”

Milo’s hazel eyes wandered around the room. “Hell, I don’t know, Emma. There are several other women on that movie crew. Are you sure you heard two voices? Maybe he was talking on the phone.”

I reflected. “I thought we heard someone else, but I
couldn’t make out who it was. Matt was doing all the shouting.”

“I’ll bet he was on the phone,” said Milo.

“Find out,” I said. “I can give you the day and the time. Have Heather check it and see if Matt was making a call then.”

“Why?” Milo was regarding me skeptically.

I had no rational answer. But unlike my exchange with Doc Dewey, I didn’t feel the need for logic with Milo. “Just do it. Don’t you believe in hunches?”

The disparaging expression on Milo’s face told me he didn’t. But I knew he’d do it anyway. I got up to leave, but paused in the doorway.