“He probably was,” Milo said quietly. “Did you recognize him?”

  “Yes!” Alison’s pale face flushed. “It was that pollster doofus, Ronnie Davis!”

  The McKeans looked blank. I stared at Milo, who was studying Alison. “You’re certain?” he asked in his usual laid-back interrogative style.

  “Definitely,” Alison responded. “I ran into him once over a week ago, then he came into the Advocate office, and I saw him this morning at Safeway.” She shuddered. “Ronnie seemed like such a total dweeb. How could he be so…bloodthirsty?”

  Milo stood up. “Being what you call a ‘dweeb’ can be part of the reason, Alison,” he said. “But mostly it’s what goes on up here.” He tapped his temple. “Our local serial killers were both very different in physical appearance. Ted Bundy was good-looking. Gary Ridgway—the Green River Killer—wasn’t. But they were both wired to kill. Excuse me, folks, I’ve got an APB to put out.” The sheriff made his exit—without me.

  “Hey,” I shouted, running after him, “what about your wife?”

  He turned around. “Huh? Oh. You ride with Alison. In fact, you drive. Bring her to our house and I’ll take her to her place when I get back. She needs to unwind.”

  That made sense, even if Milo had only thought of it when I yelled at him. I went back into the cottage with a question for Ken McKean. Laura was still consoling Alison.

  “What did you mean,” I asked Ken, “about not talking to Dodge?”

  He looked chagrined. “I’d seen that guy looking at the house a few nights ago when I took out the garbage. His back was turned when I asked what he was doing. He jumped, turned around, and wanted to know if the house was vacant. I told him we’d bought it, but planned to remodel. He nodded and sort of slunk away. When I happened to run into you on the street, I was thinking about calling on the sheriff, but then I decided I’d sound like an alarmist.”

  I posed a question. “You didn’t know Ronnie Davis was taking a poll for Blackwell?”

  Ken looked puzzled. “I don’t know anything about a poll.”

  I sighed, mentally kicking myself. We should have verified Ronnie’s statement with the timber company. I’d flunked one of the first rules of journalism. “No wonder the polling company he claimed to work for was in Omaha,” I muttered.

  Alison finished her bottled water, and I asked if she was ready to leave. She was, but first gave profuse thanks to the McKeans for saving her life. “When I write my story, I’ll include how heroic you’ve been.”

  I agreed.

  While I coped with the differences in driving the Audi rather than the Honda, Alison mused not on her near-death experience but on Ms. Compton. “So she’s gone and taken Gemma and L.J. with her. Why did L.J. say the waitress was his sister?”

  “His mother had a plan from the get-go,” I replied, and then explained about the postcards to Kay and Jennifer. “The murder had nothing to do with Ms. Compton and her kids, but I suppose it jump-started the campaign against Blackwell. You missed her savage attack on him at the ski lodge. She’s one weird woman. Her husband’s death festered all these years until she decided to act. I don’t know if his death was Blackwell’s fault, but he became her target and infected her twins. When L.J. got shot, that was the last straw. She blamed Blackwell, even though he was the apparent target. I think Ms. Compton blamed Black Jack for everything that had ever gone wrong in her life, including hangnails.”

  I parked the Audi on the verge in front of our log cabin. Neither of us spoke until we got inside. We both collapsed onto the sofa.

  “So who was the poor waitress?” Alison asked.

  “An innocent victim.” I related Mrs. Willis’s call to Milo. “He’ll have to verify it.”

  Alison grimaced. “That’s awful. About her, I mean. How old was she?”

  “Around thirty, I think.”

  “Was she married?”

  I stared at Alison. “I don’t think so. Are you still stuck in that rut?”

  “Well…” She gazed up at the ceiling. “L.J. was kind of a dud when I got to know him. Maybe he is as weird as his mother. I suppose I could stay single for another year or two.”

  “Try at least ten,” I said. “I waited half a century and I’m damned glad of it.”

  —

  I wrote the story about the attack on Alison, which took almost half an hour. I called it in to Kip around nine-thirty. Naturally, he was horrifed. I thought of phoning Vida, but I was too tired. She’d be mad at not being informed, but I’d deal with that in the morning. Milo finally got back home a little before ten. While he was at his office, he’d sent over to the Burger Barn for sustenance. I’d stifled my own hunger pangs with pancetta, Brie, and sesame crackers. We both decided we could use a stiff drink. I posed no questions until he was settled into the easy chair.

  “Any sightings of Davis?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “He had a car, a ninety-eight Kia Sephia. He didn’t clean out his motel unit at the Lumberjack, but he’s on the run. I sent out an APB. Oh—Blatt heard from Mrs. Willis. She’s making it official that her daughter is missing.”

  I took in everything my huband was saying, but zeroed in on the motel. “I told Alison that Sarah—or Shannon Willis—was an innocent bystander. But she wasn’t. She and Davis were both staying at the Lumberjack. Shannon must have had some suspicions about him, so she had to go. That’s why she doesn’t fit the vicitm profile.”

  Milo swallowed a big swig of Scotch and lighted a cigarette. “Okay, why not speculate? It’s been that kind of month so far.”

  “I bet I’m right,” I asserted, glaring at my mate.

  “Hell, Mrs. Willis should hack into her daughter’s computer,” Milo said. “Maybe Shannon was researching small-town murders or some damned thing.”

  “What about Mickey O’Neill? Have you interrogated him yet?”

  Milo shook his head. “I want him to be sober and I need the lab results from Everett. But he’s screwed now that the Nelson girl is pressing charges. If he got a decent lawyer—which he probably won’t—he might argue the shooting down to reckless endangerment. But he’ll still do time. Hell, I almost feel sorry for him. He came from a violent family and got some bad genes.” Milo’s cell rang. With a big sigh, he pulled it out of his pocket. “Dodge here.”

  Whoever was at the other end had a lot to say. I sipped my Canadian Club and tried to be patient.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “That part’s out of our jurisdiction. We’ll deal with what’s left over tomorrow.” He clicked off.

  “Well?”

  “Down around Sultan, Davis apparently tried to pass somebody on a curve and smashed into a big camper. The creep was obviously going too fast and was killed outright. Maybe that’s just as well for everybody concerned.”

  “What about the other people involved?”

  “No other injuries,” Milo replied. “He didn’t clip the car he was passing and though the camper was damaged on the front and the side, it was still drivable. The two passengers were shaken up but declined medical assistance. SnoCo’s stuck with the accident details.”

  “Do you think they’ll agree that Davis committed their murders?”

  “They would’ve saved the victims’ clothes, so a match can be made with DNA samples. If the killings stop, that’s the end of the story. Oh—I heard back from Milwaukee. Believe it or not, the woman who called me has a sister in Monroe. Anyway, she checked back and found out that though the charges were eventually dropped, Iain Farrell beat the crap out of his then girlfriend. The university put him on probation, but he decided to cut his losses and move on. You better not tell Kay. Maybe he’s changed his ways.”

  “Maybe,” I allowed. “But he’s still a jerk.”

  “Kay runs to type,” Milo said, “though I doubt Gould ever hit her. Maybe she got bored. Some people like danger.” He finished his drink. “Let’s make an early night of it.”

  “I’m worn out, too,” I said, getting off the sofa. “Those other people were lucky they didn’t get creamed.”

  “Right.” Milo was also on his feet. He put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “Maybe I can revive a little once we’re in—”

  The doorbell rang.

  “What the hell…?” My husband let go of me. “Maybe it’s one of my deputies,” he muttered as he went to open the door.

  I stood in the hallway and heard Clint Dodge before I saw him—and Pootsie.

  “Bro!” Clint shouted as he all but shoved his brother aside to enter the house. “You won’t believe what happened to us tonight! We damned near got killed out on that damned highway! Haul out the strong stuff and we’ll tell you all about it.”

  Milo looked at me. I looked at Milo. We made the drinks. We listened. We both nodded off. When we woke up around eleven, the Dallas Dodges were gone.

  “For good?” I asked in a sleepy voice.

  “Who knows?” Milo responded, stretching his arms beside me on the sofa. “Next time I’ll look through the peephole. If they show up again, we’ll be gone.”

  —

  Wednesdays were always times of semi–kicking back after meeting our deadline. For the first time since I could remember, I deliberately allowed myself to be late getting to work. Naturally, Vida was agog when I entered the newsroom a little before nine. In fact, my entire staff eyed me with curiosity, including Alison. I’d told her she should sleep in or even take the day off, but apparently she had recovered from her near-death experience. I commended her for her courage and recuperative powers.

  But it was Vida who followed me into my cubbyhole and closed the door. I expected her to interrogate me on the details of the previous night, but I was wrong. “I visited my addled sister-in-law Ella last night at Parc Pines,” she said after she’d settled onto a visitor chair and adjusted the netting on her felt cloche. “I happened to run into Leo and Liza, who’d gone out to dinner at the ski lodge. We chatted for a bit.” She paused, giving me her gimlet eye. “Do you know how the Walshes met?”

  I said I didn’t, or if I had, I’d forgotten.

  Vida looked like a cat in cream. “Leo was just starting his career as an ad man. Liza was working on one of his papers in Orange County as the women’s page editor. Naturally, I didn’t mention my plans to retire, but I got the impression that Liza is a bit…” She paused, grimacing at what she was about to say. “A bit restless here in a smaller town. Ordinarily, I’d advise her to become involved in our many organizations and charities, but…” The gray eyes locked with my brown-eyed stare. “When the time comes, of course.”

  “Of course.” I smiled back.

  BY MARY DAHEIM

  The Alpine Advocate

  The Alpine Betrayal

  The Alpine Christmas

  The Alpine Decoy

  The Alpine Escape

  The Alpine Fury

  The Alpine Gamble

  The Alpine Hero

  The Alpine Icon

  The Alpine Journey

  The Alpine Kindred

  The Alpine Legacy

  The Alpine Menace

  The Alpine Nemesis

  The Alpine Obituary

  The Alpine Pursuit

  The Alpine Quilt

  The Alpine Recluse

  The Alpine Scandal

  The Alpine Traitor

  The Alpine Uproar

  The Alpine Vengeance

  The Alpine Winter

  The Alpine Xanadu

  The Alpine Yeoman

  The Alpine Zen

  Alpha Alpine

  MARY RICHARDSON DAHEIM started spinning stories before she could spell. Daheim has been a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but fiction was always her medium of choice. In 1982, she launched a career that is now distinguished by more than sixty novels. In 2000, she won the Literary Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. In October 2008, she was inducted into the University of Washington’s Communication Alumni Hall of Fame. Daheim lives in her hometown of Seattle and is a direct descendant of former residents of the real Alpine, which existed as a logging town from 1910 to 1929, when it was abandoned after the mill was closed. The Alpine/Emma Lord series has created interest in the site, which was named a Washington State ghost town in July 2011. An organization called the Alpine Advocates has been formed to preserve what remains of the town as a historic site.

  marydaheimauthor.com

  Read on for a sneak peek of the next Emma Lord mystery by Mary Daheim:

  Bitter Alpine

  Coming soon from Alibi

  Chapter 1

  As editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, I’m used to my reporter’s often gloomy face. But despite the dark January skies that hung over the town this Tuesday morning, Mitch Laskey looked bemused.

  “I drove by the cabin that partially burned last summer,” he said, a lanky leg propped up by one of my two visitor chairs. “It’s being fixed up. Do you know if someone bought it?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I haven’t been down that stretch of Highway 2 by Baring lately. If Vida comes in today, ask her.”

  Mitch smiled wryly. “It doesn’t seem the same without her here on a regular basis.”

  I agreed. Our former House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, had started working for the Advocate more than a decade before I bought the weekly in 1989. As a single mother of three daughters, she’d needed the money and had been hired by my predecessor, Marius Vandeventer. Despite my title, there always had been a feeling among Alpiners that she, not I, ran the paper. There were times when I’d felt the same way.

  “Vida should be by today,” I said. “Since she still does the Scene Around Town snippets and her advice column, I’m sure she’ll show up with deadline looming.”

  Mitch nodded. “Liza Walsh seems like a capable replacement. Very different style, less folksy. So far there don’t seem to be any problems with Liza and Leo working together, though I realize they have…a history.”

  I looked past Mitch to make sure neither of the Walshes was in the news room. “You know Leo had a drinking problem years ago that wrecked their marriage. He was still overdoing it when I hired him, though he pulled himself together in a hurry. But it took him longer to reconcile with his wife and their three kids.”

  The familiar gloom returned to Mitch’s face. “Even when booze isn’t involved, staying married is a challenge.” He winced. “I don’t mean that the way it sounded. I love Brenda, I always have, yet…He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “She is more like herself these days, but the holidays are tough. Not that we celebrate Christmas, being Jewish, but her weaving customers make December almost as hectic a season for her as for everybody else.”

  “At least the holidays are over,” I pointed out with a smile.

  That didn’t seem to alleviate Mitch’s gloom. “It’s hard to celebrate anything when your son’s in prison.”

  “But he’ll be out in September. Does Troy plan to move in with you and Brenda?”

  “I hope so. Temporarily, anyway.” Mitch sighed. “We want to make sure he stays off those damned drugs and gets a real job. His Good Humor gig was only a cover for dealing as well as using.”

  “Yes,” I said, never sure of how to raise my reporter’s negative spirits. Mitch had worked on the Advocate for fifteen months and was the best reporter I’d ever had on my staff. He’d quit his job on the Detroit Free Press and the Laskeys moved from suburban Royal Oak to be near their son. I’d never figured out if Brenda’s shaky emotional state had been caused by Troy’s arrest or if it might be a pre-existing condition. Neither Mitch nor Brenda seemed very sociable. It was if they had put up an invisible barrier around their modest house on Tyee Street that was as strong as the walls on the Monroe Correctional Complex some eighty-five miles west on Highway 2.

  Mitch reached to adjust his tie and then remembered he wasn’t wearing one. He ran a hand through his thick gray hair and made an effort to smile. “I’m still adjusting to Small Town Casual,” he said apologetically.

  “It’s Pacific Northwest Casual,” I responded. “You’ve been to Seattle. Informality rules there, too.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he murmured, starting to turn away, but stopped. “Oh—I’ve set up an interview for this afternoon with the new park ranger, Jeff McEvoy. I’m meeting him at his Icicle Creek office. I guess his family won’t arrive for another couple of weeks.”

  “Has he found a place to live yet?”

  “No,” Mitch said, moving toward the newsroom. “They’ve got a couple of teenagers, a boy and a girl, so they want to rent a place with three bedrooms. I already told him we don’t have any classifieds for that kind of house right now. Jeff’s staying at the Lumberjack Motel.”

  “Maybe his family will have to stay put for a while,” I said. “Where’ve they come from?”

  “Somewhere east of the mountains,” Mitch replied. “I’ll find out when I do the interview. Oh—he’s a former cop. He only changed careers a year ago.”

  I smiled again. “That was probably a good decision. The new job ought to be less nerve-wracking. By the way, check with Doukas Realty. They should know who bought that cabin.”

  Mitch agreed and ambled back to his desk in the newsroom. But for some reason, my own nerves were tingling. I had no idea why.

  But I should have.

  Every great mystery needs an Alibi

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  Mary Daheim, Alpha Alpine

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