I sat on the sofa and waited. Chipmunks chattered in the evergreens and the Empire Builder whistled as it passed through town on its way to Seattle. After a couple of minutes, Milo looked at me and said, “It’s a setup. I’d bet good money on it.”

  “How do you mean? Because the girl was killed at your house?”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know that for certain. Maybe that’s what it’s meant to look like.” His expression was grim as he lighted a cigarette. “Where’s Tanya?”

  “In the bedroom,” I replied.

  “She’s okay?”

  I nodded. Milo started to speak, but stopped. “I’ll tell you more while I eat. Or is Tanya eating, too?”

  “She told me she’s not hungry. I already ate something.”

  He grinned. “You surprise the hell out of me. You’re not asking a lot of dumb questions. Are you sick?”

  “I’m learning how to be a sympathetic wife instead of a prying journalist, okay? However,” I went on, given that there are limits to my patience, “I’d like a brief statement that Kip can post on our website.”

  “You’ve got a website?” Milo said in mild surprise.

  I never knew when he was teasing about his ignorance of my job. “We’ve had one for ages,” I told him, my eyes narrowed. That wasn’t true, but I wished it were. It had been only about a year, and even then, it hadn’t been my idea, but Kip’s. “Give, Sheriff, or I’ll dump your dinner out in the yard.”

  “No, you won’t. It’d attract bears and they scare you.” He uttered a weary sigh. “Okay, the basics are Sarah Williams, twenty-four, resident of Redding, according to her California driver’s license, staying at the Lumberjack Motel, started at the VI Monday. She’d worked evenings until today, when she had to take over for Vida’s niece, Nicole, who had an emergency dental appointment. Sarah was polite but not friendly with her co-workers. That last part’s from Fred Iverson.”

  “Weird,” I murmured. “She moves to Alpine a week ago and almost immediately gets murdered? Someone must’ve followed her. Or did she come up here with a friend?”

  “Fred didn’t think so,” Milo replied. “I had Heppner check with the owners of the Lumberjack. Mel and Minnie Harris were sure she was alone.”

  “Has her family been contacted?”

  “Not yet. The Redding address is an apartment house. I’ve got Blatt working on that.”

  Hearing the timer on the stove, I got up. “Your dinner’s ready.”

  “Good,” Milo called after me. “Give me a minute. I want to see how Tanya’s doing.”

  I smiled to myself. After so many years of being friend and lover to the sheriff, now that I was his wife, I was adjusting to him being a father. He’d taken on that role long before I met him. But until Tanya had moved to Alpine after a horrendous experience with her now dead fiancé, Milo’s main obligations had been occasional visits to his family in Bellevue. As selfish as it sounded even to me, I wasn’t used to sharing him.

  I turned off everything on the stove before calling Kip to tell him what to post on our website.

  “Not a great start to the Labor Day weekend,” he remarked. “How come Fleetwood wasn’t there?”

  “Maybe he left town for the weekend,” I said. “Now that I think about it, he hasn’t taken a real vacation this year. Spence may have trouble rustling up a reliable college student to fill in for him at KSKY.”

  “He never does live stuff on weekends,” Kip pointed out. “It’s mostly music and canned programming. On Sunday mornings he has some crazy reverends. They sound like they’re preaching in a tent.”

  “Be thankful they aren’t preaching in Old Mill Park. Are you sticking around over the weekend?”

  “I think so,” Kip replied. “We’re having dinner tomorrow with my brothers and their families. You want me to take pictures at the picnic?”

  I told him Mitch was supposed to be back late Monday afternoon, but to be prepared for details on the murder investigation. I was disconnecting when Milo entered the kitchen.

  “Tanya seems good,” he said. “Where’s the food?”

  “I’m getting it out now,” I informed him, not so sweetly. “I, too, have job responsibilities, you big jerk.”

  “How come you’re so crabby?” he shot back, sitting down at the table. “You’re not the one who’s stuck working over a holiday weekend.”

  “Oh, yes, I am,” I asserted, unceremoniously shoveling his food onto a plate. “I have to keep up on what you’re doing.”

  “Are you going to stand there glaring at me or sit down and enjoy my company?” Milo asked in an annoyingly complaisant voice.

  I started to snap back, reconsidered, and plopped down in my usual chair. “Someday I’ll stay mad at you for…how long is my record?”

  “Eleven minutes. Not bad after sixteen years.”

  “You stayed mad at me for months after we broke up the first time,” I reminded him.

  “I didn’t like being dumped,” he declared after downing more steak. “Back then, despite what you insisted when we first got together, you hadn’t finished chasing the impossible dream that was Tom Cavanaugh. Hell, unless my memory’s gone south, he was still married to his nutty wife.”

  “He was.” I smiled wanly. “But Tom was Adam’s father, and after Sandra died, I thought marrying him was the right thing to do.”

  Milo shook his head. “It wasn’t. If you’d done that, you wouldn’t have this plush remodeled log cabin.” He gestured at the expanded kitchen with its all new appliances.

  “Tom was rich,” I asserted. “He could’ve built me a castle.”

  “You wouldn’t have liked it. You like being cozy. Castles are drafty.”

  I was quiet for a moment or two. “True. Most of all, I wouldn’t have had you. That’s what I always wanted. I just didn’t know it.”

  He shrugged. “That’s okay. I did.”

  I growled low in my throat. Milo ignored me and kept eating.

  —

  After we’d adjourned to the living room, I asked Milo why he thought the murder had been a setup.

  “You know I hate to speculate,” he began, putting his feet up on the ottoman, “but have you ever heard of anyone who found a murder vic they didn’t know in their house?”

  I thought for a moment. “Yes, when I worked for the Oregonian. Four people, two couples. One pair was in Portland, the other in the suburbs. Tigard, to be exact.”

  “That’s cheating,” Milo declared. “I thought you didn’t cover crime in Portland.”

  “I didn’t, but you asked if I’d ever heard of anybody like that.”

  He stared at me. “God, but you can be a pain in the ass.”

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “The last few days have been kind of nerve-racking. You think Blackwell set you up?”

  “He seems like the obvious suspect,” my husband said, settling back into the easy chair. “But it doesn’t make sense. Would Jack—or one of his stooges—murder a waitress just to cause me trouble? Even he wouldn’t pull a stunt like that. His goal is to run the county. Getting rid of me comes in second.”

  “Except for knocking Patti around, Jack keeps his public image clean,” I allowed. “Will you learn much from the crime scene evidence?”

  “What evidence?” Milo made a face. “That’s Bran’s old room. It was pretty well cleaned out ten years ago after he went off to WSU. All that was left were some bookcases, a few books, and a beat-up desk. But I’m borrowing one of Snohomish County’s crime scene magicians to give it a once-over. If they send somebody tomorrow, they’ll have to charge SkyCo triple time because of the holiday.”

  “What about the wig?” I asked.

  “What about it? You women are always doing weird stuff with your hair. Maybe Sarah had a different wig for every day of the week.”

  “I never do anything weird to my hair,” I asserted. “It looks weird because I have a styling disability.”

  Milo stood up. “I like your hair the way it is. You never get mad if I mess with it. Why don’t I do that now?” He eased his big frame onto the sofa. “Well? Why are you looking like a prune?”

  “Because,” I said quietly, “your daughter is in the next room. Do you want to shock the poor girl?”

  “Shit. I forgot. Why didn’t I have Blatt ask Tanya to help him hold down the fort at headquarters?”

  I gave him my widest doe-eyed look. “It’s not too late.”

  Milo reached for his cell phone.

  Chapter 5

  The first phone call of the morning was from Alison at nine-twenty. Milo had already left and I was still in my usual foggy state.

  “Do you want my report over the phone?” Alison began, sounding irritatingly cheerful. “Maybe I should stop by in person to see the inside of your amazing log cabin.”

  I told her to come over. Only after I hung up did it occur to me that I had no idea what kind of report she was talking about. While I was pleased that she sounded in better spirits, I didn’t want her taking my spying suggestion too seriously with a murderer on the loose. I was pouring a third mug of coffee when Tanya stepped into the kitchen.

  “Bill and I are going to breakfast at the Cascadia in Skykomish,” she informed me, looking pleased. “He got off work a little after midnight. I went on patrol with him after he finished up at headquarters. It was really kind of interesting.”

  Her remark jolted me out of my fogged-in state. “What happened?”

  “Nothing dramatic,” Tanya replied, darting a glance at the living room window. “He only made three stops. Two loud party complaints and teenagers looking as if they were about to break into a house that was dark. Oh, he pulled over some other kids for speeding and a guy who ran the arterial on Spark Plug Road. Gus something. He apologized to Bill and said he was looking for some lost bears. He was kind of weird.”

  “I know Gus Lindquist,” I said. “He had to shoot a mama bear a while ago and it sort of unhinged him.” I spotted the deputy’s Ford Focus pull into the drive. “Bill’s here,” I said as he honked the horn.

  As Tanya went out the front door, I waved from the window. The lost bears story could be put on hold. Intermingling with wildlife wasn’t uncommon for those of us who lived so close to nature on the rocky face of Tonga Ridge. Tanya’s childhood may have been spent in Alpine, but she had come of age on Seattle’s Eastside. Twenty years ago her mother had carted the three Dodge children off to suburbia in Bellevue. Ironically, back in the fifties, when I was born, the town had just begun to emerge from what had been little more than forest, orchards, farms and, during World War Two, military housing. Half a century later, over a hundred thousand people called Bellevue home. Ironically, the downtown skyscrapers reminded me of the Seattle I had known in my own youth. I, meanwhile, stared out at a handful of homely midcentury modern houses flanked by towering evergreens and Alpine Baldy.

  Alison’s Audi appeared just as the Ford drove out of sight. Its owner practically bolted out of the car, hurrying to the front door.

  “Well?” I said in greeting. “Have you solved the case?”

  “No,” she replied, swiveling around to take in the living room. “But I talked to some people. Wow! This is one very cool cabin! You say you remodeled it? How long have you lived here?”

  I explained that I’d bought the cabin when I moved to Alpine. It had belonged to a couple who’d used it as a family ski retreat. Eventually the children moved away and the parents’ knees gave out. I’d spent less for the cabin than I’d paid for my Portland bungalow.

  “Milo took on the remodel when we got married,” I continued. “It started with a den out back for him and went on from there. We doubled the kitchen’s size to include a laundry area, enlarged both bedrooms, and added a second bathroom.”

  Alison seemed duly impressed, especially with the appliances. “Stainless steel,” she said wistfully. “Someday when I get married—if I ever get married—that’s what I want. Maybe by that time, robots will do all the work.”

  I shot her a hard stare. “If you don’t stop saying things like that, I’ll be tempted to shake you. Why are you so anxious to get married?”

  Alison sank down onto a kitchen chair. “Good question.” She studied her navy crocheted flats. “Maybe because my parents flunked marriage. They always told me they were too young and didn’t know what they were doing.”

  I nodded. “But you lucked out. Susan’s been a great stepmother.”

  “Sure, but that’s not the point.” Alison paused again. “It turned out she couldn’t have kids. After my parents split, my real mother didn’t want me. She died before I was old enough to talk to her about it. I was born when she was twenty-four, but I’m sure she resented being tied down with me. Then she and Dad split when I was six and she let him have custody. I want to get married and have kids to prove that I’m not like her.”

  I thought back in time to when I met Alison ten years ago. “Your mother was making more of an effort to spend time with you before she died,” I pointed out. “She was in her midthirties by then. Maybe she realized what she’d missed by giving custody to your father.”

  Alison’s expression was wry. “You mean she matured?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do,” I allowed. “She’d succeeded in the banking business, so you know she was smart. But it took her longer to become a full-fledged adult.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Alison said with a lift of her chin. “I want to prove I’m an adult now. I don’t want to be like my mother.”

  “Getting married won’t make you an adult,” I declared.

  “It will if I find the right man. Isn’t marriage about helping each other grow?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I stayed single until last February.”

  “But…you have Adam, right?” She saw me nod. “Look at poor Sarah. She was only a little older than I am and she’ll never get married or have kids. Life’s too short to take chances by putting off important things.”

  “I did.”

  “Not really,” Alison said. “You had a son. How old were you when you had him?”

  “Twenty-one,” I replied, not wanting to dredge up my personal history. “Maybe we should talk about the people you interviewed.”

  Alison sighed. “You think I’m weird.”

  I laughed. “Would I turn a weirdo into a spy?”

  “You might. Mrs. Runkel is the biggest spy—okay, snoop—in town and she’s a little weird. Those hats! Where does she find them?”

  “That’s a mystery we’ll never solve,” I said, laughing. “Let’s stick to something easier—like murder. Who did you talk to?”

  Alison reached into her straw handbag and pulled out a Nokia tablet. “I started with that old couple next door. I figured they might have seen something because elderly people like to check out the neighborhood. It turned out the only person they noticed until the sheriff’s deputy pulled up was the mailman, Marlowe Whipp. According to Mr. Swenson, he didn’t stop at the Dodge house. Is that unusual?”

  “No. Milo had his mail changed some time ago. I’m not sure if Tanya ever officially switched her place of residence from Bellevue.”

  “Got it.” Alison glanced at her tablet. “Next is Cookie Eriks, who lives with her daughter and granddaughter a couple of doors down. Mrs. Eriks was walking the baby in her stroller around four and saw a U-Haul van go by, but she didn’t see where it went.”

  “Cookie’s not the noticing kind,” I murmured. “How big a U-Haul?”

  “Fairly small, not moving van size,” Alison said.

  “That’d be easy to check through the company. Besides,” I went on, “there are only a dozen houses in the whole development. What else?”

  “Do you know who lives in the ultra-modern house? It looks out of place.”

  “The Melvilles. Scott’s an architect who redesigned that house when they moved here from California ten years ago. He also worked on the remodel for all of this.” I gestured at the living room. “Beverly’s an interior designer. Did you talk to them?”

  Alison shook her head. “I saw…” She glanced at her tablet. “Anagreta Amundson, lives this side of the sheriff’s house and next to the Melvilles. She was leaving for a meeting, but had been in and out during the afternoon. The only things she noticed were a carpet company van and a FedEx truck. But she hadn’t seen either of them stop.”

  Anagreta was the wife of Wes Amundson, Del’s cousin, and one of our forest rangers. “Did she notice the carpet company’s name?”

  “Not really,” Alison replied. “She thought it had letters, not words, in it.”

  That rang no bells, but Alpine didn’t have a store that specialized in flooring, unless I counted Harvey’s Hardware, which I didn’t, since it’d require a DIY job. “No suspicious strangers?”

  She looked apologetic. “Only the pollster dweeb.”

  “You mean…Ronnie whatever? Leo mentioned him to me. What did he look like?”

  She nodded. “Young, midtwenties, maybe five-eight, average build, short brown hair, brown eyes. Nothing special.”

  “Find out who ordered a new rug,” I said. “The carpet truck’s of interest.”

  Alison stood up. “Will you pass this on to the sheriff?”

  “Yes,” I asserted, walking her to the front door. “He may want to talk to you later on today. Be careful, Alison. There may be a random killer on the loose, an outsider who preys on young women.”

  Alison looked startled. “Like Ted Bundy or the Green River Killer?”

  “Like that,” I said—and impulsively squeezed her arm. “Be careful!”

  “I will,” she said, flashing me a smile. “I promise!”

  I smiled back. But promises are flimsy things and easily broken.

  —

  Alison had been gone for less than half an hour before the doorbell chimed again. Remembering Milo’s caution about checking through the peephole, I peered out to see Kay Burns, RestHaven’s PR person.