“It’s fine,” Vida declared, following me through the newsroom as I went in search of my mug. “Except for some ash, of course. What does Milo have to say about all this?”

  “Not much,” I said, looking around my cubbyhole. “You’re right. My hand vac and a damp rag should accomplish the cleanup. Where are Mitch and Leo?”

  Vida informed me that Leo had gone to Pines Villa to fetch his laptop for her use and Mitch was checking with the firefighters for any updates to our lead story. “I assume you’ll go online presently,” she continued. “Do you know how to do that without Kip’s help?”

  “Yes,” I snapped. “I’m not a total computer imbecile. Give me five minutes to check out the premises.”

  Vida looked affronted. “Really, Emma, I’m only trying to help. How do you think I feel with my recipe files ruined? I’ll have to start from scratch. Many of those menu items were classics of their kind.”

  And, I thought, just about as dated, but I sympathized. “I know. I’m still upset. Have you talked to your nephew Bill yet this morning?”

  “Of course,” she responded. “Billy’s on duty today, despite helping out last night.” She grimaced. “I believe he was staying with Tanya when he was called in by Milo. Lila will be wild if she finds out.”

  “Lila should be glad Bill’s involved with a young woman who isn’t already saddled with kids or an ex,” I said, retrieving my mug. “Did he have any idea when someone will show up to start repairs?”

  “Not really,” Vida replied while we retraced our route back to the reception area. “But Dick Bourgette called to let you know he’ll be by later to determine how he and his sons can rebuild the outer and inner front walls. Perhaps they can start today.”

  “They’d better. I want the glass in the front door replaced, too. I’ll call Brendan right away.”

  “Yes. That’s a priority,” Vida murmured.

  As if she needed to remind me.

  —

  Brendan wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. He hedged, as insurance agents do, about bringing in an adjuster or an estimator or whatever title was held by whoever would try to get out of a big payoff.

  “You know how it goes around here these days,” he said in his chummiest salesman’s voice. “Everything’s inflated in this part of the country because of all the rapid growth in Seattle’s greater metro area.”

  “This is Alpine,” I said. “We haven’t grown that much.”

  Brendan chuckled. “But aren’t you always writing editorials about how SkyCo’s residents have to adjust to change?”

  It took me a couple of seconds to overcome my surprise that anyone actually read my editorials. “Look,” I said, “just get somebody to assess the damage so that my staff and I aren’t going to blow away in the first big fall windstorm, okay?”

  Making soothing noises, my agent assured me he’d have someone on-site before five. My next call was to Eleanor Jessup at the courthouse to get the election results.

  “We have to do another recount,” she said, sounding exasperated. “We always count twice to make sure, but the tallies didn’t agree. Then, when we got it right, the absentee vote had to be recounted. We’re all cross-eyed by now. We may not have the total verified until tomorrow. I’m not even sure all the mail-in votes are here yet. You know how careless Marlowe Whipp can be with his deliveries.”

  I knew only too well, so I told Eleanor to keep me posted. I finally had time to go through the paper to make sure there were no serious glitches. Given last night’s turmoil, it was a wonder that half the pages weren’t upside down. But the only oversight was that I’d forgotten to delete the Mickey O’Neill big-rig incident. All things considered, that was negligible. I’d just put the issue aside when Alison appeared with the mail. I asked her why it had arrived so late.

  “Marlowe couldn’t come in the front way and he didn’t want to vary his route, so he left it at the dry cleaners,” she explained. “Mrs. Hermanson just got around to bringing it over now.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “L.J.’s release this morning is confirmed.”

  “That’s a bit soon,” I said. “Will he stay at the ski lodge?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “At least for a day or so. He’s still recovering. Now that he’s not loopy, he may recall I said I was his cousin. He’ll think I’m a head case. I feel like a total twit.”

  “Interview him,” I urged her. “You work for the paper. Reporters often use ruses to get stories. The public’s not interested in how we dig for news.” I checked the time. “If L.J.’s being released today, it’ll be at eleven. It’s now five to. You’d better hustle. Where’s your car?”

  “By the Sears catalogue office,” Alison said.

  “Good. So go, girl.” I gave her a thumbs-up gesture.

  Mitch’s expression was quirky when he leaned into my office a few minutes later. “Do you know any World War Two buffs around here?”

  I looked up from a Forest Service news release. “You mean collectors or veterans?”

  “Either one.” My reporter sat down in what was now my only visitor chair. “According to Ron Gustavson of the firefighting crew, the explosion was probably caused by an old-fashioned hand grenade. Maybe two of them. Dodge agrees.”

  “Gee, I’m glad the sheriff let me know,” I muttered. “But,” I went on in my normal tone, “I only heard—and felt—one explosion.”

  “They could’ve been thrown simultaneously,” Mitch pointed out.

  “True. I suppose no witnesses have come forward?”

  Mitch shook his head. “The Whistling Marmot’s second showing didn’t get out for another forty minutes. The VI stops serving dinner at ten and the bar’s never very busy on a Tuesday night. Everything else on both sides of the block was already closed.”

  I sighed in frustration. “But what was the point? Anybody who wanted to put us out of business would’ve aimed for the back shop. I assume Milo doesn’t have any new theories since I saw him this morning.”

  “I didn’t talk to Dodge,” Mitch said, his face now grim. He and Milo hadn’t been on good terms since Troy Laskey’s escape from the Monroe Correctional Complex. “He wasn’t in when I stopped by earlier. Then, a few minutes ago, he had his door closed.”

  “Okay,” I said, “we’ll leave theorizing to the experts. I’ll post what we have, but check back with Gustavson and the sheriff this afternoon.”

  Mitch stood up. “What about the shooting victim?”

  “Alison’s checking on him,” I said.

  “Alison?” Mitch, always touchy about turf, scowled. “How come?”

  “She met him.” It wasn’t really a lie. “She accompanied him in the ambulance.”

  “Oh.” Mitch seemed appeased. “I didn’t realize…Jennings, is it?” He saw me nod. “I didn’t realize he’d been here for more than a few days.”

  I shrugged. “Young women work fast when it comes to good-looking young men. Cut Alison some slack. She’s been through a bad breakup.” I put on my most sympathetic smile for Mitch—and for Alison.

  “I gathered something like that had happened.” He grimaced. “I overheard her on the phone last week. She’s young, just learning how rough life can be.” Shoulders slumping, he turned away and went into what was left of the newsroom.

  I’d learned my first major life lesson when my parents were killed on the way back from Ben’s ordination as a priest. But Alison had been much younger when her mother was murdered. I didn’t really know which of us had felt more bereft.

  A few minutes later Eleanor Jessup delivered more annoying news about the election results. “The recount shows the yes vote has fallen behind by five,” she said, sounding frazzled. “But we still don’t have all the absentee ballots in.” She spoke the last sentence as if she were gritting her teeth. “How does Marlowe keep his job? He’s the worst mailman we’ve had in this town since Holy Ole Olafson.”

  “Before my time. Why was he called Holy Ole? Was he a religious freak?”

  “No,” Eleanor replied. “It was the holes in his mailbag. He let his dog, Snorri, sleep in it, and that animal was a champion chewer. Ole refused to get a new bag because Snorri loved his so-called bed.”

  “Snorri was aptly named,” I remarked. “Okay, just keep me posted. Thanks, Eleanor.”

  Kip was as good as his word, showing up before noon to take more photos of the damage. He’d been dog-tired at first light and wasn’t sure the photos he’d taken then would reproduce well in our next edition. By chance, Brendan Shaw showed up moments later with an adjuster in tow.

  “Coincidence,” he told me in my cubbyhole. “Fritz Segal’s from Wenatchee and was heading home from a meeting. We’ve done some seminars together, so he stopped by to see if I was free for lunch. He can check out the dry cleaners and the VI, too. But neither of them look as if they had enough damage to collect.”

  “Lucky them. Lucky you,” I added, seeing Dick Bourgette heading for my cubbyhole. “He’s here to make an estimate on the repairs. Why don’t all you big business types work it out?” I greeted Dick and exited via the rear door. I was not only tired but hungry.

  By the time I walked past the Sears catalogue office and reached Front Street, I spotted Milo heading to the Burger Barn. I yelled at him, but a Snohomish Heating Oil truck cut me off. After I dashed across the street, he’d already gone inside. I found him staring at the specials on the blackboard. I had no idea why. He always ordered the same thing. For that matter, I usually did, too. Over the years, we’d learned it could be risky when the Burger Barn’s cook had a sudden yen to get adventurous. The pulled pork sandwiches were still high on my Repulsion Meter.

  “Hey,” I said, tugging at the sheriff’s regulation shirt, “remember me? I’m your wife.”

  Milo turned. “So you are. How’s it going with your open-air newspaper operation?”

  “We’re surviving,” I replied. “Are you sitting down or are you doing takeout?”

  “I was thinking about takeout, but you’re here, so we might as well sit.” He grabbed my arm, dragging me to an empty booth near the back. Obviously he intended to ignore the No Smoking sign.

  “Don’t sound so thrilled about my intrusion,” I said, scooting onto the booth’s well-worn padding. “I was hoping you’d have news for me.”

  “The only news I’ve got is that Blackwell isn’t talking,” Milo replied. “He claims Jennings was passing through and volunteered to help hand out Jack’s literature. That’s bullshit, of course.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “Does Jack still insist there’s no reason anybody wants to kill him?”

  “You bet. Hell, I almost get that,” Milo said, pausing to light a cigarette. “He provides a big chunk of the local payroll. But his bravado doesn’t wash. If someone risked taking a shot at the bastard in full view of several hundred people, whoever it was will try again.”

  Our waitress showed up with coffee. We gave Jinnie or Jennie—I didn’t quite catch her name tag—our standard orders. She didn’t seem surprised. Maybe we looked as boring as the Burger Barn’s menu.

  “Have you talked to Patti Marsh?” I finally asked.

  Milo shook his head. “We can’t get hold of her. I wonder if Jack’s told her to go to ground. Sure, she loves the SOB, but Patti doesn’t always think before she speaks. He may want to make sure she doesn’t say the wrong thing.”

  “That’s possible,” I allowed, though I couldn’t imagine what Patti might know about someone trying to kill the love of her life. “Any…ah…ideas about who blew up my poor newspaper office?”

  “Not yet.” He shot me a sardonic look. “Hell, Emma, these long weekends slow everything down.”

  I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Even as we speak, Brendan Shaw and Dick Bourgette are figuring out how to fix the place. Your crew and the firefighters had damned well better finish the so-called explosion investigation so Dick can put up at least a temporary wall. Otherwise I’ll demand a deputy to guard the premises after hours.”

  The sheriff was unmoved. “I’ve got some sleeping bags at my old house. You want me to dig them out so we can spend the night there?”

  “Don’t get cute, big guy,” I warned him. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Hey,” Milo retorted, “I can’t hustle Snohomish County about the lab work we have to send over there. What I can do is have a deputy cruise by every half hour. Now that Vida’s recipes are toast, what’ve you got that’s so damned valuable?”

  “Well…computers. Cameras. Files with sensitive information.”

  The sheriff remained unimpressed. “What cameras? Doesn’t Laskey keep his with him? Vida has hers in the Buick. You can’t take a decent picture. And what the hell kind of ‘sensitive’ stuff is in your files? An escape plan when Ed Bronsky shows up with his next nutty idea?”

  “Vida might have confidential information,” I asserted.

  “If she did, it would’ve been with her recipes. Or under her crazy hats. You told me she never takes notes.” He stopped talking as our burgers, fries, and salads arrived.

  After sixteen years, I knew when to give up arguing when Milo was in full sheriff mode. I changed the subject. “Have you checked into Jennings’s background?”

  “He sounds legit. Mullins talked to a guy at Micron who said Jennings is on vacation from his marketing job. His last workday was a week ago Friday.”

  “He came straight here from…Boise?”

  “Right.” Milo sounded suspicious. “How’d you know that?”

  Evasion was pointless. Even from the beginning, I’d never liked deceiving the sheriff, and I liked it even less now as his wife. “Alison’s obsessed with the guy. She went to pick him up at the hospital and take him to the ski lodge.”

  “Right. But Henry Bardeen was clueless about a connection between Jennings and Blackwell.” Milo frowned. “None of this plays for me. Alison had better watch it. At least she seems savvy.”

  “She is. You remember what she was like when you were investigating her birth mother’s murder.”

  “I do.” His expression was wry. “She ditched evidence to shield her dad. Alison gave it to you and you didn’t tell me about it.” He reached for his wallet. “You finally turned it over when it was too late to matter. It’d serve you right if I made you pay for your own lunch.”

  “You’re a real jerk,” I said. “I can pay….Hey, what about the rifle?”

  “The initial ballistics report indicates it was an ordinary hunting rifle,” he replied. “Probably a Winchester or a Remington—one of the more common makes. There are hundreds of those in SkyCo. It’d help if there’d been a witness. But nobody’s come forward.”

  “Do you know from where the shot was fired? You said earlier you thought it might have been from the mall.”

  Milo finished his coffee. “Yes. You’ve got forest on three sides of Old Mill Park, so unless the shooter climbed a tree, the shot had to be fired from the Alpine Mall. We’ve got an idea of where the shooter stood in order to see between the trees by the park. There’s a steel ladder on the roof that goes up to the top of the second-story section. Alpine Way’s a fairly busy street, but that’s the problem—drivers are watching traffic, not scenery.” He stood up. “I’ll buy your lunch, but you can leave the tip.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I muttered, taking out a couple of dollar bills. “I never thought I’d marry a miser.”

  “I’m not cheap, I’m just careful,” Milo said, putting a hand on my rear after I got out of the booth. “Who paid for the remodel?”

  “Um…well…” I stopped when we got outside and looked up at my husband. “I keep forgetting that, too. Are you mad?”

  “No.” He ruffled my hair. “Figure out a way to avoid Clint and Pootsie, okay? If they call, tell them we’ve gone into hiding after your office got blown up last night.”

  “Okay.” As I walked back to the Advocate, it occurred to me that Milo’s excuse was actually a good idea. Maybe I should take him up on it. But we both had our jobs to do. Still, I wondered who had tried to keep me from doing mine.

  Chapter 11

  Dick Bourgette had left a note asking me to call him. I complied, reaching him at home, where his office was in their basement. He told me the insurance information wouldn’t be available until the next day, but he could frame up the front before it got dark.

  “Don’t worry about overtime,” he said. “Dodge did right by me when my sons remodeled your log cabin. John and Dan loved doing the job. A log cabin was a first for them. I’ll only charge what your insurance will cover. Shaw’s one of us, too, but don’t let on how we Catholics stick together in a Protestant majority.”

  “You’re too kind,” I declared. “Were you at the picnic?”

  “We got there late,” Dick replied. “Mary Jane and I went to Lynnwood to celebrate our youngest granddaughter’s second birthday. We missed the excitement, although we wondered where that giant motor home had come from. It took up half the street.”

  I grimaced. “It belongs to Milo’s brother and his wife. They’re visiting from Texas.”

  Dick laughed. “It’s Texas-sized, all right. It sure attracted a lot of attention. I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

  I thanked Dick and rang off. A few minutes later Vida stood in my doorway. “A Ms. Compton is on my line. She asked if we know of a young woman named Gemma Jennings who’s visiting here.”

  “Who is she and why does she need to know?” I asked.

  “I gather it’s a relative.” Vida paused. “Perhaps I should put her through to you. My phone survived, but it makes odd noises. I’ll listen in, however. I wouldn’t want Ms. Compton to think I’m derelict in my duty.”

  “Never that,” I remarked with a straight face.

  I waited for her to transfer the call. It took over a minute, probably because Vida was giving a long-winded explanation. I identified myself as soon as I heard the caller speak.

  “I’m Georgiana Compton,” she said in a cool, crisp voice. “I hate to trouble you, but I’ve just returned from a European cruise. I live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I’ve been trying to track down my daughter, Gemma Jennings. A neighbor told me that Gemma was visiting Alpine. Is there any chance you know how to reach her? She’s not picking up her cell.”