Free The Alpine Traitor by Mary Daheim Page A

if I should answer back. Finally I decided to wait until morning. A good night’s sleep might alter my mood.
    But that didn’t happen. I tossed and turned for hours, finally getting up to take two Excedrin PMs. It was going on five o’clock when I drifted off into a series of unsettling dreams that I couldn’t remember when I woke up just after nine-thirty.
    While drinking my third cup of coffee, I thought more about Adam’s e-mail. My disappointment had overshadowed his advice about the murder coverage. Maybe Ben was right—it could be a conflict of interest for me, though more in a personal than in a professional sense. I considered assigning the story to Curtis, but I was reluctant. He simply didn’t know his way around the town yet.
    Still, I reflected, maybe that was to his advantage. As long as I watched him like a hawk, maybe I should let him handle the coverage. I dialed his number, which was a cell phone. Curtis was temporarily living with Oren and Sunny Rhodes, who had some spare room in their Ptarmigan Tract house while both of their kids were in college. Oren tended bar at the Venison Inn, and Sunny was the local Avon lady. The extra cash came in handy to help pay tuition.
    Curtis didn’t answer. It was going on eleven. Maybe he’d left town for the weekend without telling me. Then I remembered that I was his boss, not his mother. I called the Rhodes’s number. Sunny picked up on the second ring, perhaps hoping I was a customer with a big Avon order.
    “Curtis isn’t up yet,” she informed me, still sounding like her usual cheerful self. “I promised to make breakfast for him this morning because Oren wanted pancakes. Should I wake Curtis?”
    I hesitated. “No. But have him call me as soon as he gets up. Thanks, Sunny.”
    Sleeping in is not a sin. I’d do it myself if I had more opportunities. But I wondered if my new reporter was a bit lazy. While I waited for him to reach a conscious state, I called Milo’s cell phone.
    “Are you at work?” I asked in response to his gruff greeting.
    “Yes,” he replied. “How come you didn’t ignore my warning and run off to see Lover Boy in Seattle?”
    I realized that Milo had seen my home phone number come up on his caller ID. “That’s really none of your business,” I snapped. “What
does
concern you is that I’m assigning Curtis Mayne to the Platte investigation.”
    “Curtis is twelve,” Milo responded. “Are you crazy? You didn’t let Scott Chamoud take on a big story like this until he’d been working for you at least five years.”
    “It wasn’t
that
long,” I countered, although it had definitely taken me quite a while to let Scott handle a touchy assignment. “This is different. I’m concerned about my objectivity.”
    “Yeah, right, okay,” Milo said grumpily. “It’s your call. But I don’t want to have to hold this twerp’s hand.”
    “That’s how he’ll learn,” I declared. “Naturally, I’ll edit his copy closely.”
    “Damned straight you will,” Milo shot back. “I don’t want some punk fresh out of college making me look like an idiot.”
    “Of course not,” I said. “Is there anything new on the case?”
    “It’s not your story,” Milo retorted. “I’ll keep Curtis up to speed when he gets here.”
    There was no point in arguing with the sheriff when he was in one of his ornery moods. “You’ll see him soon,” I promised and hung up.
    But noon came and the clock kept ticking. I’d gone outside to work in the garden, taking my phone with me. By one o’clock I’d filled a plastic bag full of weeds, leaves, and branches, taking out my increasing annoyance with Curtis by yanking up the English bluebells that were crowding out my summer-blooming plants.
    I stood up, brushed the dirt off my old slacks, and surveyed my handiwork. As usual, I couldn’t see much of an improvement. My front yard is relatively flat, but out in back of my log house the property slopes upward and is shaded by tall