The Alpine Christmas Read Free Page B

people who first miss them usually aren’t anxious to get tangled up with the law.”
    I had taken my notebook out of my handbag and was writing swiftly. Maybe the story could run at least six inches if I included the background Milo was giving me. I could dump all of Carla’s quotes about the plastic Santa and cut the last two grafs of my latest spotted owl piece, which was merely a rehash of the most recent plan to resolve the environment-logging industry controversy.
    “Let me know if you find out anything more,” I requested as I stood up, loath to leave the space heater. “We’ve got the rest of the day to get the story in this week’s edition.”
    Milo grimaced. “Don’t make me look like a damned fool.”
    I cocked my head to one side. “Have I ever?”
    The sheriff looked the other way. “No—I can probably manage that on my own.”
    “Can’t we all?” I gave him a wave and headed out through the reception area where Arnold Nyquist was pounding his fist on the counter and griping at Jack Mullins. Nyquist was a large, bluff man in his fifties, with a fringe of gray hair and a ruddy complexion. Known to most Alpiners as Arnie, but to some as Tinker Toy, he was the biggest building contractor in Alpine. The nickname had been coined by some wag who didn’t consider Nyquist’s residential dwellings up to snuff. Since three of the thirty homes in the Ptarmigan Tract west of town had collapsed during the early 1980s, the criticism might have been justified. Of late, Nyquist was concentrating on commercial construction.
    “… couldn’t find a two-by-four up your butt!” Nyquist was saying to Jack Mullins.
    Mullins, who had a reputation for drollery, turned his head to look down at his backside. “Golly, I don’t see anything. Do you?”
    Nyquist banged his fist again, causing ballpoint pens to jump and papers to flutter. “Don’t be a wiseass, Mullins! That stuff cost close to a grand. And the fountain pen belonged to my granddad. He brought it over from Norway in oh-seven.”
    Standing at the bulletin board, I pretended to scan the various announcements and notices. Arnie Nyquist stormed out, with a parting shot for Jack: “This isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with theft and vandalism. That moron of a sheriff and the rest of you dumbbells couldn’t arrest anybody if they broke into the county jail. I’ll expect to hearfrom you or Dodge by five o’clock this afternoon. You got that?”
    Jack nodded his shaggy red head. “I’ll put it with the two-by-four,” he said after Nyquist had made his exit. “Hey, Mrs. Lord, isn’t old Tinker Toy a world-class jerk?”
    “He can be,” I conceded. Luckily, I hadn’t dealt much with Arnie Nyquist. The kind of news he generated usually came through cut-and-dried building permit or zoning council stories. I had, however, dealt with his father, Oscar, who owned The Whistling Marmot Movie Theatre. At one time, in the 1920s, Oscar and his father had owned the entire Alpine block where the theatre was located, kitty-corner from
The Advocate
. Although Lars Nyquist had chosen
Gösta Berling’s Saga
with Greta Garbo for the opening of his new picture palace in 1924, his son had refused to show foreign films for decades. Oscar asserted that they were all obscene, obscure, and anti-American. He had been tricked into presenting
Wild Strawberries
because he thought the Bergman involved was Ingrid, not Ingmar. According to Vida, at least four people in Alpine noted the irony of one Norwegian getting confused by two Swedes.
    “What’s the problem?” I asked of Jack, sensing another late-breaking, if minor, story.
    Mullins pushed the official log my way. “Somebody got into Nyquist’s van last night and stole a bunch of stuff. Portable CD player, half a dozen CDs, some tools, a box of Jamaican cigars, a couple of fancy photographs … whatever. Nyquist left the van unlocked. It serves him right.”
    It probably did, but people in Alpine still have