The Alpine Fury (26 page)

Milo offered to pay for lunch. I let him. It was small compensation for putting up with his cigarettes. It certainly wasn’t sufficient to make up for the fact that I had a terrible urge to join him and puff my head off, too.

The knock on my door was so timorous that I didn’t hear it over of the roar of the vacuum cleaner. It was only when I saw a face at my living-room window that I let out a squeak of surprise and turned off the vacuum.

“Rick!” I exclaimed, opening the front door. “What can I do for you?”

His manner was furtive as he slipped inside. “Hide me,” he breathed. “The sheriff’s on my trail.”

It had been almost two hours since I’d parted from Milo Dodge at the Venison Inn. Glancing out into the street through the rain, I could see no sign of the sheriff’s official car or his Cherokee Chief. The thunder-and-lightning storm had passed, happily without causing one of our frequent power failures.

“Are you sure?” I asked, winding up the vacuum cord and putting it in place.

Rick nodded, raindrops falling from his short hair. “He came to my folks’ house just a few minutes ago. I saw him get out. I was coming back from the bowling
alley. I kept going. You were the first person I could think of who’d let me in.”

Rick and his parents lived two blocks away, on Tyee Street. It struck me as odd that there wouldn’t be neighbors who would give Rick shelter. I mentioned the fact, even as I offered Rick a seat on the sofa.

“I wanted to get far enough away so Sheriff Dodge couldn’t see me,” he said, and for the first time, I realized that he looked not only wet and miserable, but scared, too. “He’d recognize my car.”

“Oh.” I sat down in my most comfortable armchair, across from Rick. “Yes, he probably would. Why don’t you want to see him?”

Rick Erlandson’s hands fumbled and twisted. “It’s dumb, really dumb. Maybe I shouldn’t be worried. But I think I made a mistake at the bank.”

“What kind of mistake?”

Rick’s earnest young face turned very pink. “This is such a mess….” He scraped his fingers on the fabric of his faded blue jeans. “Everything’s been all screwed up at the bank since Linda got killed. Well, no, it really started before that. I should have noticed then.” He swallowed hard and gave me a helpless look.

“Noticed what?” My voice sounded sharp.

“Secrets.” Rick brushed at his short damp hair. “Mr. Petersen—Marv, I mean—and Linda were behind closed doors a lot. He looked worried, and she looked mad. Somewhere along in there—I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday—Linda asked me if I was cosigning everything. I told her I thought so, but how would I know unless I was asked?”

Rick had me confused. “Cosigning what? Loans?”

Rick shook his head. “Every time a teller handles a big transaction—like a CD or a tax-exempt bond or something—somebody else has to sign, too. Christie
and Denise and I do it for each other all the time. But Linda showed me a request for money market funds that somebody had asked for by phone. It had been made back in September, after Alyssa Carlson quit to have her baby and before Denise came to work at the bank. Christie had signed it, but I hadn’t. Linda wanted to know why.”

“Well?” Still bewildered, I tried to regain my patience.

Rick looked stricken, as if I were the one accusing him of wrongdoing. “I wasn’t asked. Then Linda talked to Christie, and Christie just laughed and said she must have forgotten. We were short-handed, and it happened at a busy time. But the next day, Linda got on my case again. This time it was a payment for Mr. Walsh’s car, and it only had one signature.”

I arched my eyebrows. “Had Christie forgotten again?”

Rick shook his head in a despondent fashion. “No. I’d signed it. But the funny thing is, I don’t remember. There’s been all this stuff going on with Denise and Ginny, and I’m all mixed up. Women sure can make a man feel weird. Ms. Lord, do you think I’m losing it?”

Rick was a couple of years older than Adam, but I tried to think how I would answer my son. The hard part was imagining that Adam would ever own up to a personal flaw. Or harder yet, that Adam would ever have a real job.

“We all make mistakes,” I said, resorting to a cliché. “Let’s back up. Why is the sheriff after you?”

Rick’s eyes darted to the front window. Maybe he expected to see Milo standing there with his King Cobra Magnum at the ready. “Sheriff Dodge was at the bank yesterday afternoon. He spent a long time talking
to both Mr. Petersens, which was really strange because you’d think they wouldn’t have come back after the funeral. Like I said, things haven’t been right at work for a couple of weeks, even before Linda got killed. Maybe they think I’ve been … skimming or something.”

“You’re not.” My tone was emphatic, lest Rick think I suspected him of malfeasance.

“Gosh, no!” He looked horrified. “That’s a crime!”

“Yes, it is.” I was thinking hard, trying to put the pieces together. “Now, go over these procedures one more time—if you’re dealing with certain kinds of transactions, the bank requires two signatures, right?”

Rick nodded. “It’s like—well, checks and balances, to make sure that nobody can authorize certain debits or credits on their own. Mr. Petersen—Marv—used to be so fussy about that sort of thing that when I came to work for the bank two years ago, nobody who worked there could get in or out of their own account without having another employee sign for them. But that got to be a hassle. Since it’s all practically family, he decided we could trust each other.”

“But he didn’t waive the requirement for customer accounts?”

“Oh, no. That’s why I’ve got this problem. There’s a code, too, on our computers. We have to enter that. It’s supposed to be secret, but in a small bank like ours, it isn’t.”

I nodded as comprehension began to dawn. “So it’s possible that any of you, from Marv on down, could authorize the liquidation of a customer’s funds and put it into your own account?”

Rick blanched. “I’m afraid so. But nobody would do a thing like that! They’d go to jail!”

“If they got caught.” Remembering my duties as a hostess, I offered Rick a drink of some kind. He refused at first, then surrendered to a soda.

In the kitchen, I poured us each a glass of Pepsi. Rick had followed me, and seemed inclined to linger. Perhaps he felt safer there than in the living room. Milo Dodge couldn’t see through the log walls of my little house.

“You don’t remember signing Leo Walsh’s car payment authorization, right?” I indicated a kitchen chair to Rick. We both sat down.

“That’s why I think I’m going mental,” Rick said in a pitiful voice. “It was about then that Ginny wouldn’t talk to me anymore. Otherwise, I would remember, because Mr. Walsh’s proxy arrangement was new. And he works with Ginny. It would have … sunk in.” Rick’s eyes strayed to the far corner of the kitchen where I kept an old galvanized milk can filled with straw flowers.

For the moment, I wanted to avoid talking about Ginny. “Who handled Grace Grundle’s CDs?”

Rick turned his blue eyes back to me. “Mrs. Grundle? Anybody. I mean, we can’t offer personal banking in the way that a big branch can.”

“But who waited on her when she came in recently to redeem one of her CDs?”

Rick’s high forehead wrinkled. “Denise, I think. I was on break. But we all went looking for it when it didn’t show up on the computer screen.”

“No luck?”

“Not for the one she was asking about. Mrs. Grundle said it was good for a year and due in early November. But we went back through the records for all of last fall, and she hadn’t been issued any CDs since 1990. Those
had already been rolled over.” Rick was squinting in a perplexed manner, as if he could visualize the computer monitor that listed Grace Grundle’s assets.

“Mrs. Grundle is a bit … confused,” I remarked. “That’s why she has proxy banking, right?”

Now Rick turned very red. “I’m not supposed to talk about this stuff. It’s confidential. Gosh, I feel like such a dork! But I’m so upset, I don’t know what to do!” He wrenched himself around in the chair; I halfway expected him to burst into tears.

I was suffering from ineffectualness. Finance wasn’t my strong suit. “Have you talked to Mr. Petersen? To either of them, Marv or Larry?”

“How can I? Not now, with Linda dead and whatever else is happening at the bank.” Rick pushed aside his glass of Pepsi. Maybe he was denying himself any small pleasures as punishment for his imagined sins.

Getting up, I went over to the window above the sink. At an angle, I could see Fir Street. There were no cars parked there, except for the pickup that belonged to the family across the way. Rick had left his car in my driveway, presumably to mislead the sheriff.

“The coast is clear,” I announced. “It seems to me you need a sympathetic listener. A sensible soul who understands you.” I paused, waiting for Rick’s reaction.

“Ginny?” Her name came out on a hush.

“Ginny. No woman can resist a man whose defenses are down. Trust me, Rick.” I couldn’t suppress a grin. “If Milo Dodge is really looking for you, her house is the last place he’d go. He must know you two have broken up.”

Clumsily Rick got to his feet. “Everybody knows
that,” he mumbled. “Everybody in Alpine always knows everything.”

Escorting him to the door, I put a hand on his arm. “Then give them something new to talk about.”

“But …” He straddled the threshold, just inches out of the rain. “Maybe Ginny won’t see me.”

I gave him one last pat. With his forlorn, lost-puppy expression and the need for comfort brimming in his eyes, Ginny couldn’t possibly throw him back out into the rain. “Take a chance,” I said. “Go for it.”

Rick went, at least across the soggy grass to his car. Through the front window, I watched him reverse onto Fir Street and drive away. There were a dozen questions I’d been burning to ask him, but, as he’d realized, the answers would violate customer confidentiality. Despite my ignorance of financial matters, the situation at the bank was coming into focus. If Rick could tear off his emotional blindfold, he’d be able to see what was happening, too. Maybe Ginny could help. After all, she kept the books for
The Advocate
. If any staff member could sort through Rick’s work problems, it would be Ginny. And in the process, maybe she and Rick would resolve their personal problems.

I hoped so. It would be nice to think that there were people who could create happy endings for themselves. I wanted to do that, too. All the while that I was cleaning house, I’d tried to sift through my reaction to Tom’s telephone call. I hadn’t come to any conclusions, but at least I had a clean floor.

Maybe I’d sort through my desk drawers and find some answers. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. It was possible that there weren’t any answers. It was probable that cleaning out the desk would only depress me. The drawers were stuffed with memories. It wasn’t a good
idea to look at them on a rainy Saturday afternoon with an empty Saturday night looming ahead.

Instead, I called Leo Walsh.

L
EO WAS NOT
only home, but he sounded sober. I was surprised, having expected my ad manager to spend his weekend in the bag. What I did not expect was that he wasn’t particularly pleased to hear my voice.

“Oh, it’s you, babe.” Leo sounded disappointed. “I just got back from Snohomish. It’s hell driving in this rain. How do you people put up with it?”

“We natives like it,” I answered, trying to sound aloof. My ridiculous impulse to ask Leo to dinner died a-borning. “Say, have you any way of knowing who authorized the payments for your rent and whatever else you set up at the bank?”

“Hell, no. At least not yet. I haven’t gotten a statement this month. I’m a
W
, remember? I’m at the end of the cycle. When the statement comes, it might show a teller code. Why do you ask?”

I opted for candor. “Something odd is going on at the bank—besides or maybe along with Linda’s murder.” The words sounded harsh; maybe I felt like trampling Leo’s feelings. He’d already bruised mine.

“Oh, swell. I finally try to get my finances in order and then it turns out that my trusted bankers are a bunch of swindlers. That’s typical of my luck. What next? My paycheck bounces on Monday?”

Annoyed, I snapped at Leo: “Don’t be a jerk.
The
Advocate
is solvent. And don’t go spreading around this stuff about the bank. I’m not absolutely—” There was a click on the line; I recognized it as Leo’s Call Waiting. “Go ahead, I’ll hang up—”

But Leo interrupted, asking me to hold. With an impatient sigh, I did. It took Leo at least a full minute to come back on the line.

“Sorry, babe. The flu bug has hit town. It seems to go away and then come on again. I suppose the germs hang around until April, like the rain and snow.”

“That’s about right. You have the flu?” I was more surprised than sympathetic. “Why did you go to Snohomish if you’re sick?”

“No, it’s not me. I’m too ornery to get the flu.” Leo gave a little laugh. “Say, you want to put on your fishing boots and wade down to the Venison Inn for dinner?”

“I was there for lunch.” And, I wanted to add, about six other meals since the previous weekend. “I’m housecleaning. I feel like staying in tonight and admiring my dust job.”

“Oh.” Leo was sounding disappointed again. “Now I’ll have to go get some food at the store. I’ll probably drown between here and Safeway. The only thing I’ve got in the fridge is a jar of horseradish and two kosher dill pickles.”

If Leo expected me to feel sorry for him, he was right. I didn’t want to, but in the wake of Milo’s frustration and Rick’s despair, my defenses were down.

“I’ve got some frozen prawns. How do you feel about yakisoba noodles?”

Leo felt very good about yakisoba stir-fry. In a chipper voice, he said he’d even bring the sake—to go with the yoba. I ignored the terrible pun and told him to
show up around six-thirty. Then I put down the phone and wondered what hath Emma wrought.

Leo arrived, not with sake, but a bottle of California Chardonnay. “I ought to try some of the Washington wines,” he said, putting his feet up on my coffee table, “but as a rule, I’m not much for wine of any kind.”