Free The Alpine Kindred by Mary Daheim Page B

his side of the curving wood counter and sit at his desk. “Did you hear anything about a weapon?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
    I told Dustin I'd been in the cafeteria kitchen when Jack Mullins found the knife. “Are they sure that's what did it?” I asked.
    Dustin, who is the very soul of discretion, cleared his throat. “There has to be an autopsy. As usual, we can't do it here because of our limited facilities, so the body has been shipped to SnoCo, in Everett. It'll take a couple of days. As usual. We're not a priority in the other county. As usual.” He gave me a rueful look.
    Despite passage of a bond issue a couple of years earlier, SkyCo still was hampered by lack of adequate funding. Headquarters had been renovated and expanded, a small-scale lab had been added, Dustin had been hired to ease the manpower shortage, and the jail's security had been beefed up so that prisoners couldn't escape by kicking a hole in the wall and crawling out onto the sidewalk across from the Sears catalogue pickup office. Indeed, many years ago an escapee who had been serving time for assault with a deadly weapon had gone directly from his cell to the Sears outlet and tried to order a double-barreled shotgun.
    “So nothing definite on the weapon until the autopsy, right?”
    Dustin nodded. “Sorry. I know you come out tomorrow.”
    That was the curse of the weekly. If news didn't break within twenty-four hours of publication, it was stale by the next edition.
    “What about witnesses?” I asked, writing
no weapon news
on my notepad.
    “Nothing so far.” Again, Dustin's manner conveyed apology. “Dodge talked to Carla this morning on the phone, but she couldn't give us anything. I guess she'll make her formal statement tomorrow when she feels better.”
    “Has campus security reported anything?” I inquired. “Where were they, by the way? I never saw them.”
    Dustin offered his engaging grin. “At night, campus security is Ron Bjorason. He's been out of work in the woods for a while now, and that farm of theirs isn't enough to make a living, so he caught on with the college. It turned out that he was unplugging a toilet in the dorm when the murder must have occurred. It seems that Mr. Bjornson gets stuck doing more than making sure the doors are locked.”
    I knew Ron and Maylene Bjornson, who lived out on the Burl Creek Road and had teenagers to support. “The college has a bigger force during the day, don't they?”
    “Right,” Dustin said, and grinned again. “All two of them.”
    I seemed to recall as much from one of Carla's numerous stories. But with a faculty of only thirty, and a total enrollment just under five hundred students, there wasn't any need. Until now.
    “What's going on at the campus?” I asked, though I planned on heading there next.
    Dustin shook his head. “I haven't been out there this morning. I suppose everybody's pretty upset. Do you suppose they'll cancel the dedication?”
    “I don't know,” I answered grimly. If that happened,our special section was also canceled. I needed an answer fast. “Look, Dustin,” I said, catching a few phrases from Milo in his office, “it sounds as if the Sheriff isn't going to be able to see me for a while. Is there anything else you can tell me that I can use for the paper? What about Mrs. Rasmussen and the rest of the family? How are they taking it?”
    Dustin didn't know that, either. Milo had driven the short distance down the highway to inform Marlys Rasmussen of her husband's tragic demise. Dustin guessed that Beau was home when the Sheriff came by. As for the Rasmussen daughter, Dustin didn't know they had one.
    “Dodge called the Snohomish County Sheriff's office and had somebody go to Snohomish and tell Mr. Rasmussen Sr. He must be a pretty old geezer.”
    I hazarded a guess. “Close to ninety, maybe. Einar Jr. turned sixty-four in April.” I'd done my homework before walking over to the Sheriff's. “I'll check in with you folks before