The Alpine Advocate by Mary Daheim

Author:Mary Daheim [Daheim, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-76009-8
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2010-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

LUNCH WAS FISH and chips picked up at the Burger Barn and eaten at my desk. Vida, who was also running late, joined me with a hard-boiled egg, cottage cheese, carrot and celery sticks, and a water pistol.

“Roger shot me this morning,” she said, speaking of her eldest grandson and looking annoyed. “He’s supposed to be home sick with the flu, but he’s running around like a savage. Amy and Ted don’t know how to handle him.”

A staunch fan of Louisa May Alcott, Vida had named her three daughters Amy, Meg, and Beth. Jo had never materialized. Amy was the only one of the trio to remain in Alpine, the other two having moved to Seattle and Bellingham. Roger, who was almost ten, seemed to devote his life to plaguing his grandmother. Naturally, Vida doted on him.

“Gibb’s got some explaining to do,” declared Vida, taking aim with the water pistol at the portrait of Marius Vandeventer that hung over my bookcase. “Maybe he went up to Icicle Creek to make sure there wasn’t any gold after all. He never did trust Mark.”

“That part of town sure was popular Wednesday. Between the mineshaft and Neeny’s house, half of Alpine seems to have passed by.”

“It’s a small town, after all,” Vida remarked while snapping off carrot sticks in rapid succession. “Everybody has to be somewhere.”

I dipped a piece of too-dry cod into a small container of tartar sauce. “At any rate, Neeny says Mark didn’t stop by Wednesday night. And Phoebe didn’t see Chris. She was watching TV.”

Vida dug into her cottage cheese. “Maybe she was trying to figure out how to break the news of the elopement to Simon and Cecelia.”

“I wouldn’t think Neeny would care what his family thought,” I said as the phone rang. It was Richie Magruder, acting mayor in Fuzzy Baugh’s absence. He wanted to know if Carla could take a picture of the raccoon family that was setting up housekeeping at the base of Carl Clemans’s statue in Old Mill Park. I told Richie I’d ask Carla when she got back from interviewing Darla Puckett about her two weeks in Samoa.

“Even Neeny would care about repercussions if he’s changed his will,” Vida said, not missing a beat. “Simon would raise more of a ruckus than a bear with a crosscut saw.” She reached over to the bookcase and pulled out my Seattle phone directory. “I just thought of something.”

“What?” The french fries were better than the fish. I washed them down with a swig of Pepsi.

“Why would Phoebe go all the way to Seattle to see an eye doctor? She only wears reading glasses.” Vida glanced up from the Yellow Pages to wave a celery stick at me. “What if she went to see someone else?”

“Like?”

“Like a lawyer. Here.” She tapped at the page. “Old Doc Dewey’s daughter, Sybil, married an attorney who is in a big firm in One Union Square. Douglas Difienbach. He specializes in estate planning. I think I’ll give Sybil a call.

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