Part 20 (1/2)

”Good Lord, no!” I uttered an abbreviated laugh. ”He asked me if I thought you were a good attorney. I told him of course-or words to that effect. But I'd never suggest that you'd take on his case, especially pro bono.”

Marisa's expression was wry. ”I thought not. I'm sorry to have bothered you.”

”I can't believe Ed knows what pro bono means,” I said.

Marisa smiled slightly. ”He knows what it means, all right, but he called it pro bueno. I guess he thought it was Spanish, not Latin. He told me once after Ma.s.s that he'd served as an altar boy. You'd think he might have remembered some Latin from the old days.”

”He's lucky he remembers English,” I responded. ”Oh, I shouldn't be so hard on him, but Ed can be a trial. Say,” I went on impulsively, ”have you got time for a drink?”

”Well...yes,” Marisa answered, obviously surprised by the invitation. The fact was, I'd been meaning to get to know her better ever since she'd moved to Alpine not too long after I arrived. Our relations.h.i.+p had been strictly professional, although we occasionally chatted briefly before or after Sunday Ma.s.s. We had a good deal in common, though, both being single career women and not having much in the way of social lives.

”Venison Inn?” I said, pointing just down the street to the restaurant's entrance.

The wry expression returned. ”Where else?”

I laughed. ”We could go to the liquor store, buy a cheap fifth of something, and drink under the statue of Carl Clemans in Old Mill Park.”

”That would end up in Vida's *Scene,'” Marisa said.

”Not while I'm editor,” I retorted as we headed down the street.

We made casual chitchat until we were seated in the bar and had given our orders to an effusive Oren Rhodes.

”Is he always like that?” Marisa inquired after Oren returned to the bar. ”I don't come here very often.”

”I think he saves the flattery for women of a certain age,” I replied. ”Maybe that's what they taught in bartending school thirty years ago.”

”That sounds about right,” Marisa remarked, her shrewd gaze moving around the rapidly filling room. Her voice was low and rather soft but well-modulated, probably a valuable a.s.set in trials. ”So. What kind of off-the-clock legal advice do you need?”

I was surprised and faintly offended. ”I don't. Is that something you're used to being asked for?”

”Of course.” She looked amused. ”Just like doctors get cornered by people with symptoms whenever they're out of the office or the clinic or wherever.” Before I could respond, she waved a slim hand. ”Sorry. I'm not used to life as a social animal.”

”I can understand that,” I said. ”Alpine isn't really suited for single professional women. So why do you stay?”

Marisa shrugged. ”I grew up in a small town. Omak, on the other side of the Cascades, in what is quaintly called high desert country.” She smiled. ”But you know all that. It's about the same size as Alpine, but even farther away from a big city. My parents moved to Arizona a few years ago. Then my father died and Mom had to go into a nursing home, so I found a place for her in Everett. I've thought about moving there to be closer, but her health is very fragile. My practice is fairly good because there are so few lawyers in Alpine, and property is much cheaper here. So I stay.” She shrugged again. ”Maybe that's a mistake.”

”I can't offer any advice on that,” I said and waited for Oren to set down Marisa's vodka martini and my bourbon and water. Briefly, I wondered if Vida was nursing her Tom Collins c.o.c.ktail at the ski lodge with Sophia Cavanaugh.

”Anything else, lovely ladies?” Oren inquired, bending down a bit, maybe a.s.suming that we were both deaf. ”Dinner menus?”

I shook my head. ”Can't. It's Tuesday, Vida's night to howl.”

The bartender straightened up, and his beaming face turned serious. ”You don't have to tell me that. This place is really dead when her show is on the radio.” He gazed around the bar and fingered his chin. ”Do you suppose Vida'd like to do her broadcast from here? What do they call it? A remote?”

”Probably not,” I said, ”but,” I went on, feeling impish, ”you could ask her the next time she comes into the restaurant.”

”I just might,” Oren replied. ”You never know.”

”So,” I said to Marisa after Oren had again gone on his way, ”you went to law school at the UW. I take it you didn't want to stay in Seattle?”

”I was fine while I went through the U,” Marisa said. ”Focused on my studies, lived on campus in one of the dorms until my final year, and then I moved to a boardinghouse nearby. But the big city kind of frightened me. I worked for the state in Olympia for several years, and that wasn't too bad. Then I decided to go into private practice, and the opportunity came up here in Alpine. I took it. And I haven't budged in all these years, despite a couple of tempting offers.”

”In bigger cities?”

She nodded. ”One in Seattle, but the firm was too big. I'd have felt lost. The other was in San Francisco, and it was a much smaller firm. I was tempted because it was fairly prestigious. But when I found out I'd be replacing a lawyer who'd been murdered, I didn't feel right about it. That was three or four years ago, and I suppose I'm not really sorry I said no. *Kill all the lawyers' suddenly seemed like more than a mere quote from Shakespeare. Silly, huh?”

”Maybe not,” I allowed. ”Walking in a dead lawyer's shoes might not be comfortable. Did an outraged client do the dastardly deed?”

Marisa shook her head as she swallowed a sip of martini. ”The last I heard, the case was never solved.”

”I hope the sheriff has better luck with our current homicide,” I remarked.

”Dodge seems very competent,” Marisa said without expression. No doubt she knew that Milo and I had an off-and-on-again affair.

”He is,” I agreed, ”though he tends to go by the book. Still, that's important these days. I imagine that lawyers, especially prosecutors, prefer law enforcement types who are sticklers for going about their jobs the right way.”

”Oh, certainly,” Marisa said. ”Not that I do any serious criminal law. DUIs, speeding tickets, a rare burglary or a.s.sault. Even some of those are often frivolous from a defense attorney's viewpoint. Myra Sundvold's husband, Dave, insists that I represent her every time she's charged with kleptomania. The last case I had to take to court involved her stealing a three-pack of boxer shorts from the men's store in the mall. Dave said she had no reason to take them because he wears briefs and she wears bloomers. The prosecuting attorney, Rosemary Bourgette, suggested that Myra might have a lover. That's when the fur began to fly. But you know more about crime in Alpine than I do since you have to publish the offenders' names.”

I admitted that naming names in the paper was always very touchy in a small town. ”They can't sue because the police log is a matter of record,” I pointed out. ”But that doesn't mean they can't hara.s.s me by phone, mail, or even in person. Not to mention their irate friends and relatives. Sometimes I feel very unpopular.”

”I understand,” Marisa said. ”I've had some ugly reactions-even threats-when I win a judgment for one local against another. What makes it worse is that sometimes the two sides are related to each other. Talk about family feuds!”

We spent the rest of our drinking time discussing the various perils of our professions. It was almost six-fifteen when we left the Venison Inn. ”We should do this another time,” I said just before we parted company on the sidewalk.

”I'd like that.” Marisa smiled. ”We should have done it a long time ago.”

”I know. But life-or maybe I should say the rut we get in-often seems hard to change. Next time we'll do dinner, but not at a time that interferes with Vida's program.”

”Right.” Marisa's smile seemed genuine, though she immediately sobered. ”You know something? Talking about that job offer in San Francisco made me think that I should follow up and find out whatever happened to that lawyer I was supposed to replace. I completely lost interest after a couple of months went by. Now I'd like to find out if they ever solved the case.”

”And if the lawyer they hired instead of you turned out to be a dud?”

She laughed, a sort of low little chuckle. ”Oh, they probably got some eager beaver from Stanford or Cal who's now making big money. Most of that practice was probate, and frankly, I'd find it very limiting. I'd have gone stale in six months.”

After we made another vow to get together, she headed for her office in the Alpine Building, across the street from the Advocate. I considered checking with Kip but knew that if he'd had any problems he would've called me on my cell phone. With only a glance at the front door to our modest digs, I got in my car and went home to my equally modest log house.

The mail I removed from my box by the side of Fir Street was all junk, with the usual couple of promos for credit cards. No phone calls awaited me. Except for a batch of advertising messages, there were no new e-mails of interest. The refrigerator and freezer were bereft of any tempting items. I took out a frozen chicken and noodle ca.s.serole and a handful of little peeled carrots. The ca.s.serole went into the oven. I might take shortcuts in food preparation, but with some muddled rationalization that I wasn't completely lazy, I rarely microwaved frozen entrees. Then, despite already having downed a preprandial drink, I poured a half-inch of bourbon over ice and added some water. Now I was set to enjoy my evening's big event, listening to Vida chat her head off from her gossipy cupboard.

The ca.s.serole wasn't done by the time the usual sound effects of creaking hinges announced that Vida was opening her cupboard. She immediately launched into her usual ”Good evening to all my dear friends and neighbors in Alpine and the surrounding area of Skykomish County. As ever, I take my hat off to each and every one of you for...”

The rest of the salute varied from week to week. This time her apparent theme-not that she always had one-was the Fourth of July or, as Vida insisted on calling it, Independence Day, and her hat was doffed to everyone who appreciated the American way of life, especially those who had the good sense to live within the range of her trumpetlike voice.

She continued her holiday theme by talking about more of the descendants of the early town settlers and the mill workers. Ruby and Louie Siegel had moved to Sultan and raised three sons; one of the mill owner Carl Clemans's three daughters had married her fellow Alpiner Payson Peterson and settled in Snohomish; the former logging camp cook Webster Patterson and his wife, Clara June, had two sons, one of whom had become a doctor and the other a Jesuit priest. And so on, names from the distant past that still seemed to resonate across the river valley from Mount Baldy to Tonga Ridge.

During the commercial break, I took my ca.s.serole out of the oven and began to eat. The subst.i.tute for the ailing Maud Dodd was Vida's nephew, the SkyCo deputy sheriff Bill Blatt. As was her custom, she called him ”Billy,” despite the fact that he was now in his mid-thirties and probably would've preferred just plain Bill. The interview was about observing a countywide restriction against setting off fireworks except in Old Mill Park or on the high school football field. The law was aimed not only at preventing careless people from blowing off their fingers but also preventing forest fires. There were always several arrests and fines for those who ignored the ordinance. The previous year our resident UFO spotter, Averill Fairbanks, insisted that his teenage grandson had launched several mortars in the backyard to prevent a half-dozen hostile s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps from landing on top of First Baptist Church across the street. Milo didn't buy the argument, and the Fairbanks family had to sh.e.l.l out-so to speak-two hundred bucks in fines.

My mind wandered during the interview. Bill Blatt was reiterating much of what we were running in the Advocate, as we'd been doing for the last few years since the ordinances had gone into effect. I had finished my meal by the time Vida closed her cupboard-more creaking hinges followed by Spencer Fleetwood's recorded message to return next week when ”Vida Runkel is back at this same time on KSKY with all the news that isn't fit to print.”

I shut off the radio and tidied up the kitchen. Feeling at loose ends, I turned on the TV to catch the Mariners playing the Texas Rangers at home in Safeco Field. My brain, however, wasn't focused on the game. Vida probably would call me as soon as she got home to tell me about her chat with Sophia Cavanaugh. Remembering Adam's request, I started to dial Father Den's number at the rectory but stopped on the third digit. Tuesday was our pastor's night for conducting a cla.s.s on St. Matthew's gospel. I'd phone him in the morning.