Free The Alpine Uproar by Mary Daheim

haven’t seen Bert’s pile of junk, but it has to look like the Garden of Eden by comparison.”
    Vida sat up straight. “I’d never dream of going to Detroit. I’m not much of a traveler. If you’ve lived your entire life in Alpine as I have, there’s very little in the rest of the world to match its scenic beauty.”
    “This is beautiful country, all right,” Mitch agreed. “My wife and I are anxious to see more of it.”
    Leo couldn’t resist needling my House & Home editor. “Wait until the low-hanging gray rain clouds lift,” he said to Mitch. “It usually happens at least one more time in October before the long wait till May. Oh, and by the way, if you get homesick for Detroit, take a drive out on the Burl Creek Road. A lot of the folks who live there decorate their gardens with rusted-out DeSotos, F-Series Ford pickups circa 1958, and the much rarer remnants of a Model A chassis.”
    Vida glared at Leo. “That is so unfair! Granted, some people don’t enjoy gardening and tend to be slothful by nature. But I would hardly compare Alpine to Detroit. Parts of your old stomping ground in Los Angeles might be a more apt analogy.”
    “True enough, Duchess,” Leo admitted with his off-center grin. “On the other hand, Alpine doesn’t have Beverly Hills or Bel Air.”
    Before Vida could respond, her phone rang. She picked it up on the first ring. “Vida Runkel here,” she said in her usual brisk manner. “Slow down, please,” she urged after a pause. “I can’t understand you.”
    Leo, Mitch, and I remained silent, watching Vida, who was now holding up one finger to signal she was receiving news ofinterest to the rest of us. “That’s wonderful, Rick,” she said at last. “Tell Ginny the main thing is that the baby is healthy. Besides, he’ll have hand-me-downs from his two brothers.”
    “Another boy,” I murmured. “Let’s hope Ginny stops griping about that by the time she comes back to work.”
    “Don’t count on it,” Leo said under his breath.
    Vida congratulated Rick one last time and hung up. “A boy, eight pounds, four ounces, twenty inches long, born at eleven-eighteen, delivered by Dr. Sung.” She glanced at her watch. “Twenty minutes ago. It was good of Rick to call me first, though he sounded rather muddled.”
    “Have they named him?” I inquired.
    Vida shook her head. “Ginny refused to consider a boy’s name this time, being so sure that she was having a girl. Personally, I think it’s just as well. I had three girls, which made raising them much simpler. The same should be true of bringing up boys. If anything, I believe boys must be comparatively easy. Girls tend to be moody and unpredictable. If Ginny had a girl, the poor child might become unbearably spoiled.”
    The word
spoiled
automatically conjured up a vision of Vida’s grandson, Roger. When it came to him, Vida had a maddening blind spot. He was twenty-three, taking—and quitting—an occasional class at the community college. His attitude toward work followed the same pattern. Get hired, get fired—or simply not show up. Vida, of course, always blamed the teachers, the employers, or a world that didn’t appreciate Roger’s fine qualities. I changed the subject.
    “Mitch,” I said, “I’m puzzled by something in these witness accounts. Have you talked to Fred Engelman?”
    “No,” Mitch replied. “He lives in a camper somewhere along the Icicle Creek Road. I called him twice, but he doesn’t have an answering device. I’ll try to catch him at BlackwellTimber. He’s the one who used to get into fights all the time, right?”
    I nodded. “That’s why it seems odd that he apparently wasn’t involved in this one. Maybe he was on his best behavior because it was his ex-wife’s birthday.”
    “What about Berentsen’s girlfriend with the goofy name?” Mitch asked. “Should I talk to her or is it worth a trip to … Snohomish? And what’s with this
mish
at the end of so many local place