The Alpine Traitor by Mary Daheim Page B

you wanted something, sir.”
    “Not now.” Enviously, he watched me remove the items from the white paper bag with the red barn logo. “Maybe I’ll eat some of Emma’s salad.”
    “I could get you one of your own,” Lori offered, putting my change of a quarter and three pennies on the desk. “Or go to the Venison Inn. They have a nice shrimp and crab Louis special on Fridays.”
    “Later,” Milo said. “Thanks.”
    “You really are watching what you eat,” I remarked after Lori left. “That’s good.”
    “Like hell it is,” Milo grumbled. “Ever since I had my gallbladder out I’m supposed to stay away from grease. Who wants to live forever without a thick steak or a double cheese-burger?”
    I tried to look sympathetic. “Don’t you feel better since you had the surgery?”
    The sheriff made a face. “I don’t have those damned chest pains anymore, but as long as I know I’m not having a heart attack, I’d almost put up with them if I could eat what I like all the time.” He took his eyes off my burger and looked at his notes. “Okay, so what about Vida and Leo at the motel?”
    “Nobody responded to their knock on the door of Dylan’s unit,” I said, sprinkling the contents of the salt and pepper packets on my salad. “They went back to the office to tell Minnie, and she told them that his rental car was still parked by his room, so maybe he’d walked wherever he was going. She hadn’t seen him because she was eating lunch in the back behind the front desk.”
    “Anything else?” Milo asked, snatching a couple of French fries from my red plastic basket.
    “Nothing,” I replied, “until I heard from you. Why did Minnie go to Platte’s room?”
    Milo waited until he’d swallowed the fries. “You mean when she found him?” He saw me nod. “Mel had lost his glasses. He thought he might’ve left them in one of the rooms when he did the cleaning earlier. Minnie didn’t get a response to her knock, so she used her key. You can guess how big a fit she pitched when she found Platte’s body.”
    “Minnie has always struck me as levelheaded,” I said.
    “She is,” Milo replied. “But Minnie and Mel have run their two motels for a long time, and they’ve never had more than the usual problems with drunks and irate spouses and petty theft. Besides, the Harrises aren’t spring chickens.”
    “Who is?” I murmured. “Did either of them see anything or anybody unusual at the motel?”
    Milo shook his head. “Mel was at the Cascade Inn earlier in the afternoon. Later on, they both were pretty busy. It’s vacation time, and their summer hires are just getting used to their jobs.”
    “Nobody heard the shot?”
    “No.” The sheriff was looking impatient. “That’s not the quietest spot in town. The mill’s close, the railroad tracks are a block away, and it’s just off Front Street. Platte’s unit was second from the end, away from the office. Nobody had checked in yet on either side of him. Besides, the Fourth of July’s coming up. Some of the kids are shooting off illegal fireworks. We’ve had a few calls about them already.”
    “Yes,” I said, rather absently, having noticed the complaints in the police log that Curtis checked every day. “Dylan’s wife—has she been notified?”
    “No.” Milo stole some more French fries. “Dustin Fong tried to call her in San Francisco, but nobody picked up. He didn’t want to leave a message. Deputy Dustman is the soul of tact.”
    “He is,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t want Dwight Gould making those kinds of calls. The first thing he’d ask is, ‘Are you the widow Platte?’ By the way, do the Plattes live in San Francisco?”
    “That’s the address on the vic’s driver’s license.”
    “Where in San Francisco?”
    Milo’s scowl returned. “How the hell do I know? I’ve been there twice in my whole life. Damned near froze to death at Candlestick Park in August the first time, and when I went with Old Mulehide