The Alpine Menace by Mary Daheim Read Free Book Online Page B

Vida and I were in no hurry; we could afford to wait.
    Or could have, until a car honked behind us. I lookedin the rearview mirror and saw the Honda with the bald man driving.
    “Great,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Now she's going to have to move or we'll spend the night on Ashworth.”
    To my surprise, the girl got out of the car. I braced for a tirade, but she squeezed between the Lexus and a van parked beside me. Quickly, I also rolled down my window. She had reached the Honda.
    “Dad?” the girl said. “Where do you think you're going?”
    We couldn't hear the answer.
    “Kendra?” Vida mouthed, her gray eyes wide behind the big glasses.
    “Maybe,” I said, craning my neck to get a better look at the argument that was going on behind us. I caught the words
leaving her
and
end of my rope
from the man I assumed to be Sam Addison.
    “This isn't a good time,” the girl said, her high-pitched voice carrying on the night air. “Calm down, Dad. Let's go inside and talk.”
    “I'm through talking,” Sam retorted. “Move your car, Kendra. Let these two nuts in front of me get by.”
    “Dad… Hey, Dad, open the damned window! Don't be such an ass!” Kendra was all but hopping up and down next to the Honda.
    “We're the nuts?” Vida breathed. “Really, now.”
    Kendra stomped past us without so much as a glance. She got into the sports car, which I'd finally identified as a Mazda Miata, and backed up. I offered her a halfhearted wave, then took a right to Green Lake Way, leaving the Addisons to their peril.
    “Most interesting,” Vida murmured as we headed for the Aurora Bridge. “What do you make of it?”
    “Something has brought things to a crisis in the Ad-dison household,” I said. “I wonder if it has something to do with Carol's murder.”
    “A catalyst, perhaps,” Vida said. “Drat. I shouldn't have asked about the zoo. Sam Addison will remember me.”
    I didn't mention that Vida was unforgettable, especially wearing a feathered hat that looked like it might have been one of Montezuma's ceremonial headdresses.
    It seemed too late to start pub crawling in search of witnesses. In fact, it was probably too early, but Good Friday didn't strike me as an appropriate time for hitting the bars. Still, neither Vida nor I go to bed early, so I gave her a quick tour of the two major neighborhoods that flanked the city center, Queen Anne Hill and Capitol Hill. Then we drove around downtown, through the canyons between skyscrapers, and finally returned to our motel around eleven.
    “So big.” She sighed, sitting on one of the twin beds and removing her shoes. “So many cars. So many people. How do they stand it?”
    “I like it,” I declared. “I miss it. Seattle energizes me.”
    “Twaddle. How can you stand driving around and not knowing who lives in all the houses? How can you possibly feel connected to half a million people?”
    “I don't need to,” I said. “When you grow up here, you know your neighbors. At least most of them. Being anonymous is what many people like about a big city.”
    “Twaddle,” Vida repeated. “It doesn't make sense.”
    It wouldn't to Vida, but it did to me.
    We had breakfast at a café in the lower Queen Anne district, then headed downtown to the jail. Vida complained about the traffic, which was unusually heavy for a Saturday morning.
    “It's the day before Easter,” I explained. “Everyone's out doing last-minute shopping. We'll be lucky to find a parking place close to the jail.”
    “Parking!” Vida exclaimed. “I cannot think when Ihaven't been able to find a parking space at the Alpine Mall.”
    There was no point in arguing. The mall was a collection of two dozen shops, none of them bigger than my modest log house. We were in luck, however. The city and county buildings are south of the larger stores, and since most office workers had the day off, we were able to find a meter a half block away.
    Vida griped all the way to the visitors’ area. People