The Alpine Obituary Read Online Free PDF Page A

had no family in Alpine, and I guessed that he’d come to town in search of work during the Depression.
    Finally, I checked the Iversons, to whom Vida believed Marsha had some tenuous connection. There were two early references, to an Iversen and an Iverson. I had sat down at Leo’s desk to peruse the names when I was startled by a noise in the outer office. I could have sworn I’d locked the door behind me.
    I was barely out of the chair when Milo Dodge loped into the room.
    “Emma,” he said in mild surprise, doffing his regulation sheriff’s hat. “What are you doing here this time of night?”
    “Research,” I replied, settling back down in the chair. “You startled me.”
    Milo gave me his lopsided grin. “Sorry. I didn’t notice your car outside. This place is usually dark Monday nights. It wasn’t, so I thought I’d better check it out. I used my master key. What’s up?”
    “For one thing,” I said dryly, “it’s not Monday, it’s Tuesday. Our pub date.”
    “Sheesh.” Milo clapped a big hand to his forehead. “I keep forgetting. These three-day weekends throw me.” He put a booted foot up on Leo’s visitor chair. “I knew it was Tuesday. I mean, I really did. I had to keep reminding myself all day, and just now, I forgot.”
    Ordinarily, Milo isn’t what I’d call a chatterbox. But in recent months, I’ve noticed that when we’re alone together— which isn’t all that often—he jabbers away. I suspect he doesn’t know what to say to me. The tragedy that killed Tom also robbed Milo of a woman with whom he’d been keeping serious company. Since Milo and I had once been lovers as well as friends, I figured that he assumed there was an awkwardness between us because our love lives had both been scuttled. Milo is not an introspective type of person.
    But he was a native Alpiner. “Let me show you something,” I said, reaching into my purse. I fumbled a bit as I detached the old photograph from the back of the letter that had been sent to Judge Marsha. “Do you recognize this trestle?”
    Milo’s hazel eyes squinted at the picture. Holding it in the palm of his hand, he studied the scene for a long time. “Is it supposed to be some place around here?”
    “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
    “Where’d you get it?” His gaze was still fixed on the photo.
    “From a friend,” I said. “She wants to know where it was taken.”
    Shrugging, Milo handed the snapshot back to me. “No idea. It probably dates back at least seventy years. Those brown tinted pictures—they stopped doing that in the Twenties, I think.”
    “That’s so,” I said, studying the photo once more. “You’re sure you don’t recognize the background?”
    Milo started to shake his head, then took the picture back from me. He was silent for some time. “Well . . . those boulders in the background—they do look kind of familiar. See that cleft in the one at the left? It looks like some fat guy’s rear end. It could be the old trestle that used to run over Burl Creek just before it got to the river. But the trees have all been cut, and by now this whole scene would be second- or even third-growth timber. The boulders might all be gone from a slide. Anyway, I’d have to think about it.”
    Again, I palmed the photo. Milo was a hunter and a fisherman. It didn’t surprise me that he knew every rock, creek, and other formation in Skykomish County. Besides, it was his job to know the local turf.
    “If you think of anything,” I said, “let me know.”
    “Sure.” Milo reached into his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes and offered one to me.
    I accepted. I’d started smoking—again—after Tom was killed. As of September first, I’d quit—again. But it wasn’t official. I’d decided that the long weekend had given me a grace period.
    “Who wants to know?” Milo asked.
    It wasn’t his professional inquiry tone, but I didn’t like lying to Milo. “A woman in Everett,” I replied, hedging