Honeymoon for Three

and hiking, they didn’t have enough energy to cook dinner at the campground.
    At least they hadn’t seen Alfred. With any luck, he would be arrested, and the danger would end. Penny certainly hoped so. During the day she had racked her brain, trying to remember whether she had ever led Alfred on. She had been friendly to him, but she had been friendly to everybody at her high school, even the students the snobs ignored. She felt that all human beings deserved fair treatment.
    She and Emily had also been friendly to Darren, the janitor at Fenwick High School, and he had killed Emily. Friendship apparently wasn’t any guarantee that the friend wouldn’t turn on you.
    Why Alfred would think she had a special interest in him she didn’t know. He had never given any indication of having a crush on her, but apparently he had taken her picture out of the class yearbook and carried it around with him. Plus other pictures. She wondered what other pictures he had. Was it her fault that he was infatuated with her?
    “Are you Penny Blanchard?”
    Penny started. She had seen the young man come into the coffee shop, but he was too young and preppy to be a detective, with his cable-knit sweater over a button-down shirt. She had pegged him for a college student. She wasn’t used to answering to her new last name, and it took a couple of seconds before she realized that he was speaking to her.
    She looked up at his freckled face under reddish hair and said, “Yes, I’m Penny.”
    “I’m Detective Landon.” He offered his hand. “You look just like your picture.”
    She shook his hand and said, “How do you do? This is my husband, Gary.”
    “Don’t stand up,” Detective Landon said as Gary made an effort to unwedge himself from his booth seat.
    They reached out and shook hands and murmured greetings to each other. Gary moved over to give the detective room to sit down beside him. He was carrying a briefcase that he placed on the floor.
    At that moment the waitress brought their salads.
    “We were hungry, so we ordered dinner,” Gary said. “Would you like something to eat?”
    “No thanks,” Detective Landon said quickly. “Maybe a cup of coffee.”
    The waitress nodded and scurried away.
    “Did you find Alfred?” Penny asked.
    The detective shook his head. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. No word that he’s come into the park, but I’d still be careful if I were you two.”
    “Why did he kill the man in the grocery store?”
    “Probably because he needed money. He got several hundred dollars.”
    “But killing him. I didn’t think he was violent.”
    “The clerk had a gun, although he didn’t get a chance to fire it.”
    “Are you sure Alfred did it?” Gary asked.
    “Pretty sure. The bullets in his car match the one in the body. From his direction and speed when he was stopped, it appears that he would have been at the store about the time the murder occurred. What I’d like to do now is find out when you last saw him.”
    He was looking at Penny. His blue eyes were kindly, but she sensed that she’d better tell him everything.
    “Two days ago.”
    Detective Landon cleared a space on the table for his briefcase, opened it, and took out a small notebook. He started taking notes with a ballpoint pen.
    “We first ran into him in Seattle.”
    Penny related that experience while the detective wrote. He asked occasional questions, and Gary filled in some of the details. The waitress delivered the detective’s coffee and then their dinners. The dinners sat uneaten, as did their salads.
    They told him about Alfred showing up at Sperry Chalet in Glacier National Park and how they helped him get down the trail. How he pleaded that he was too sore to drive. Penny told how Alfred asked her to run off with him, but not about his threat of blackmail.
    Detective Landon wrote busily in his notebook.
    “He was with us all day,” Penny continued. “He ate dinner with us and even washed his clothes with us. He got me away from Gary at dinner and made a pass at me. I punched him, but it didn’t seem to bother him. We made him get a separate room at the lodge. I lay awake most of the night. Before dawn I woke Gary up and asked him if we could leave. We haven’t seen Alfred since.”
    The detective asked a few questions, which Penny answered, feeling guilty that she hadn’t told the whole truth. Then he said, “I’d like to confirm that the notebook found in his car belongs to you.” He extracted