INDEX, Wash. — Six years have passed since Bruce Albert witnessed the sudden, inexplicable death of a dozen Western red cedars on his property. The trees fell victim to a nameless culprit in the span of a single summer, showing no signs of a killer pest or deadly pathogen. Nearby, Douglas firs, maple, alder, black cottonwood and more than a dozen surviving red cedars remain unaffected, if not thriving, to this day. Albert is puzzled. “There’s no pattern to it,” the 70-year-old said. Similar symptoms have been seen among red cedars throughout the Pacific Northwest. For millennia, the trees have…