The Alpine Recluse Read Free

did I want to seem like a besotted teenager, tracking him down, checking his whereabouts, fretting over what he was doing and who he was doing it with.
    When the phone rang an hour later, I thought it might be him. But it was Vida, and she sounded annoyed.
    “I may have a hole on my page,” she said crossly. “Dot and Durwood Parker aren’t home.”
    It took me a moment to recall why the Parkers’ absence was noteworthy. Or why they were newsworthy. “Oh,” I finally said. “They’ve been on an Alaskan cruise, right?”
    “The Inland Passage,” Vida responded. “They got back yesterday. I swore I’d never write another Alaska cruise feature, but this was different because they ran aground. You’d think Durwood was steering the ship.”
    Durwood Parker was a retired pharmacist and the worst driver who’d ever lived in Alpine. Indeed, Sheriff Milo Dodge had yanked Durwood’s license years ago. “What time was your interview?” I inquired.
    “Six-thirty,” Vida replied. “I was invited to supper. Dot was making a Chinese chicken salad. I ran the recipe a year or so ago. It’s actually quite good.”
    “I assume you drove to their house,” I said.
    “Of course. Everything was closed up, except for a window or two. Their car was gone. Naturally, Dot would’ve driven. But there was no note, and there’s certainly not enough wind to blow anything away. So airless these days. I waited for over fifteen minutes.” Vida paused for breath. “I’ve telephoned twice since then, but they don’t answer. I’m also tempted to call the hospital to see if something happened. The Parkers aren’t spring chickens, you know.”
    I knew. Durwood and Dot must be close to eighty. “Did you try calling their daughter?”
    “Yes, I phoned Cookie a few minutes ago, but her line was busy,” Vida replied. “I refuse to pay seventy-five cents to have the phone company ring me back when the line is free. That’s a terrible gyp.”
    “Maybe they’re getting forgetful,” I said. “You’ve got until deadline tomorrow afternoon to do the interview.”
    “But not with Chinese chicken salad,” Vida pointed out. “Dot wouldn’t bother making an elaborate lunch.”
    That, I figured, was a sacrifice my House & Home editor would have to make in order to fill her page. I rang off, then placed another call to Rolf. Still no answer. Maybe there was breaking news in the city. I wondered how Scott was doing with the county commissioners’ meeting. The old farts droned on for hours. My unfortunate reporter probably wouldn’t escape until after ten. I was certain that Scott was sitting in the stuffy meeting room at the courthouse, longing to be back in the embrace of his fiancée, Tamara Rostova. They were planning an October wedding, and making noises about eventually moving away from Alpine. I dreaded the thought of finding someone to fill Scott’s place. The list of competent journalists who were willing to work for a small weekly paying small wages was short.
    By eleven o’clock I still hadn’t reached Rolf. Maybe he’d gone out to dinner after work. Maybe he was still manning the AP desk. Maybe he’d found another woman. Feeling faintly sorry for myself, I got ready for bed.
    My bedroom is small, but not airless at night. When my son visited in June the weather had already turned unusually warm. Before his priestly duties sent him to a remote Alaskan village, his mechanical aptitude was only a notch better than my own, which consists of sometimes operating an electric can opener. For Adam, necessity had been the mother not only of invention, but application. He had installed fans in both bedroom windows. The whirring noise bothered me the first two nights, but I got used to it. Again, I blessed my son for making my summer nights bearable.
    Still, I lay awake for a while, wondering what had happened to Rolf. I suppose it was the sound of the fan that kept me from hearing the distant wail of fire engines. Usually, I’m