The Alpine Quilt (2 page)

I realized I’d been so hungry when I got home that I’d forgotten to check my calls. Sure enough, Vida had phoned shortly before seven. “I’m afraid I won’t be in the office tomorrow, Emma. My daughter Beth is ill and has asked me to visit her in Tacoma. I’m leaving as soon as I can pack a few things. I’ll try to be back to work Monday. But of course you never know with these things. That is, illness can be so unpredictable. Beth’s husband, Randy, is so tied up with work, and their children are very busy with school and sports. Well—you understand, I’m sure. Good-bye for now.”

It wasn’t just the content of Vida’s message that puzzled me, it was her tone. She sounded constrained and spoke slower than her usual staccato delivery. I was puzzled, and said so to Ben.

My brother shrugged. “She’s probably worried about her daughter. Did Vida say what was wrong with Jo?”

“Beth,” I corrected. “There is no Jo. Vida and Ernest had only three little women—Amy, Meg, and Beth.” Amy, the unfortunate mother of Roger, was the only one of the trio who lived in Alpine.

Ben’s keen brown eyes watched my every move, probably to make sure I didn’t waste any time getting dinner on the table. “Vida’s husband met a tragic end, right?”

“Totally tragic, but semicomic,” I replied. “Ernest decided to go over Deception Falls in a barrel. Bad idea.”

“People don’t do that kind of thing much anymore,” Ben remarked. “I guess it was a fad that lost its appeal. Especially when you don’t make it to the bottom in one piece.”

“That wasn’t Ernest’s problem,” I explained, peeking at the rice. “The truck that had brought him to the falls ran over the barrel—with Ernest in it.”

Ben winced. “That’s a pretty ignoble way to go. Was Vida driving the truck?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “No. I don’t think anybody was, or if Ernest had someone along, I never heard who it was. The brakes slipped. I don’t believe Vida was even there.”

“She’s not the type to endorse daredevil activities,” Ben declared. “Was Ernest always such a wild man?”

I shook my head. “I gather that Ernest was normally a most prosaic type. I suspect that this was his big chance to break out of his image—midlife crisis and all that. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out very well.”

“Only in Alpine,” Ben murmured.

“Risk-takers are everywhere and you know it,” I said, sounding defensive. “But Ernest wasn’t the first to try the barrel bit in Skykomish County. In the early years, several men had attempted the stunt, either at Deception or one of the other falls in the area. A couple of them also met a grim fate—though at least they got in the water.”

Dinner was a success, judging by Ben’s ability to eat not only his share but whatever I might have had left over for Vida. While we talked of many things, including my son, Adam, who had followed in his uncle’s footsteps and was now a priest in a remote part of Alaska, it was Vida who kept niggling at the back of my mind.

Finally, just as Ben was about to head back to the rectory at ten-thirty, I again expressed concern for my House & Home editor. “Vida never misses work,” I asserted. “I can’t imagine her not being on the job tomorrow and maybe not even Monday.”

Ben, however, downplayed my anxiety. “Her daughter’s sick,” he reasoned. “If it were Adam, wouldn’t you rush to his igloo?”

“You know it’s not an igloo,” I retorted. “And of course I would. What bothers me is that Vida sounded so . . . evasive.”

Ben patted my head, another old habit. I’d hated it when we were younger because it was so patronizing: older, taller, smarter brother. He was still all those things, but the gesture no longer irritated me.

“From what you’ve told me,” Ben began, “Vida is a very private person, at least when it comes to her personal life. If whatever is wrong with her daughter is serious, she may not want—or be able—to talk about it. Cut her some slack.”

Ben was right. Vida would use every means short of torture to uncover other people’s deepest, darkest secrets. But she guarded her own like the CIA. I told Ben I’d try to stop fussing about her.

I managed fairly well, in fact.

Later, I’d learn that I should have been worried to death.

TWO

The office seemed empty without Vida Friday morning. I wasn’t concerned about having to do her work for her. She had a backlog of at least two features, and she’d already written a wedding story along with a cutline for the happy couple’s photograph. If she didn’t return until Tuesday, Vida would have plenty of time to sort through her fillers and to collect items for the front page’s gossipy “Scene Around Town” feature.

My ad manager, Leo Walsh, glanced over at Vida’s empty desk. “Where’s the Duchess?” he inquired. “She’s not on her dais this morning.”

No one, not even Vida, could make Leo stop calling her Duchess. “She went to Tacoma to stay with her sick daughter,” I replied.

Scott turned away from the coffeemaker. “You mean . . . she won’t be in today?”

Ginny Erlandson stopped just inside the newsroom door. “I don’t think Vida’s missed a day since she went to Oregon with you years ago,” our office manager declared. “She doesn’t even take vacation unless it’s family oriented.”

I nodded. Vida’s defection was tantamount to abdication by Queen Elizabeth II. “Well, this
is
family oriented. We’ll have to struggle along without her.”

“At least,” Leo put in, lighting a cigarette, “I can smoke in peace.”

Ginny, however, scotched that notion. “You really should quit, Leo. It’s not good for you, and it smells bad.”

“Half the people who come through this office smell bad,” Leo shot back. “The cigarettes protect me. A smoke screen, you know.” Happily, he puffed away.

“Ugh,” said Ginny, with a shake of her stunning red hair.

So the day began, routine despite the void. By nine-thirty, the first person seeking Vida arrived. Ethel Pike, steel-gray hair, stout, and stern, stared at Vida’s chair as if she could make our House & Home editor materialize like a genie.

“Out and about, I suppose?” I heard Ethel say to Leo.

“Ran off with the circus,” Leo replied, grabbing his briefcase and standing up. “I’m going to join her. We’ve got a really amazing trapeze act.”

Leo left Ethel still standing by Vida’s desk. I realized that Scott had gone off on his regular city-county beat and that Ginny was at her usual post in the front office.

“Good morning, Ethel,” I said pleasantly, emerging from my cubbyhole. “Vida’s gone for the day. Can I help you?”

Ethel had no sense of humor. “Gone to the circus? I don’t believe it.”

I explained that Leo was joking. Ethel’s round, rosy face didn’t crack a smile. “Some joke. I’d like to see Vida in the circus. Especially on a trapeze.” Judging from the grim expression, I guessed that Ethel was envisioning Vida working without a net.

“You can tell me what you have for the paper,” I assured her.

Ethel delved into her big blue purse and pulled out a manila envelope. “I’ve got two stories.” She opened the envelope and took out at least four or five sheets of handwritten ruled paper. “This first one is about me and Pike going to Orlando Tuesday. That’s where our son, Terry, lives with his wife and our grandkiddies. We’re taking the grandkiddies to Disney World, even though Terry’s snippy wife, Dawn, says they’ve been there about a hundred times. Now to me and Pike, Disney World is a place where grandfolks take their grandkiddies. I don’t care if they live within spitting distance, Terry and Dawn should have waited until we got down there. The kiddies are only six and eight. What’s the rush?”

I was at a loss for words, maybe because Ethel had used up so many of them. “What’s the other story?” I asked.

Ethel scowled at me. “Have you been to Disney World?”

I shook my head. “Only to Disneyland, years ago, when my son was about seven.”

She waved the pages at me. “You see? You could wait. Did his grandfolks go with you?”

“My parents were dead,” I replied.

“What about his daddy’s?”

Having cut myself off from Tom Cavanaugh after he refused to leave his nutty wife, I had no idea where my son’s paternal grandparents were at the time. They, too, could have been dead, or living blissfully in Seattle’s Fremont district where Tom had grown up.

“I was a single mother,” I finally said. “My brother—Father Lord—and I took Adam to Disneyland.”

“Oh.” Ethel may have looked slightly deflated, but with her stoic features, it was hard to tell. She handed me the first two pages. “Here’s the story about our trip. I’ll bring more after we get back.” She held on to the other pages. “This is about the Burl Creek Thimble Club’s big reunion party Sunday night.”

“This Sunday?” I tried not to look miffed. “If you’d brought it in earlier in the week, we could have run the story in Wednesday’s edition.”

“We didn’t know we were having it until today,” Ethel asserted. “How could I tell you something I didn’t know about?”

It was not an unreasonable argument. “Spur of the moment, huh?”

Ethel nodded emphatically. “None of us in the club knew Gen would be in town until yesterday.”

“Gen?”

“Genevieve Bayard, Buddy’s mama.” Ethel regarded me as if I should be wearing a dunce cap.

“Oh, yes, I heard Buddy and Roseanna went into Seattle to meet her,” I said in an effort to save face. “They’re spending the weekend there, I understand.”

“Hunh. I can’t think why,” Ethel grumbled. “All that traffic, all those people. I told Pike we should worry more about getting to the airport than having the plane crash. He don’t like to fly, you know, which is why we haven’t been to Orlando yet. I warned him if he went over thirty-five on that freeway, I’d divorce him.”

I felt a pang for Pike, whose first name was Bickford. I also felt a pang for all the drivers who would be driven to despair—and possibly road rage—by the slow-moving Pike vehicle.

“As for Gen,” Ethel went on, “why did she have to fly from Spokane? She could have driven here in the time it’d take to get through the airport with all that security they have nowadays. It isn’t like there’s snow to close the pass.”

I didn’t argue, nor did I point out that Genevieve Bayard apparently wanted to see something of Seattle since she’d once lived there.

“Anyways,” Ethel continued, barely stopping for breath, “Gen used to be a member of the BCTC”—she pronounced the initials as
Betsy
—“way back when. A fine quilter, that was her specialty. She’s getting to Alpine in the afternoon, so we decided to have a party for her. We didn’t want to wait until she got settled, because I’m leaving Tuesday so it’s kind of a send-off party for me. Not to mention the BCTC is giving me a special going-away present for winning the blue ribbon in quilting at the Skykomish County Fair this fall.”

Another action-packed article for the paper,
I thought. “There should be a follow-up on it,” I pointed out, “since we can make our deadline if we get the story by Tuesday afternoon.”

Ethel shrugged. “Somebody else will have to do that. Maybe Charlene Vickers. She has a way with words.”

Charlene was married to Cal, owner of the Texaco gas station. As a member of several clubs and organizations, she was often tapped to write news releases. I nodded at Ethel. “Charlene can handle it,” I said, “but please remind her about the Tuesday deadline.”

Ethel frowned. “I’ll try. I’ve got plenty on my mind as it is, what with the party and getting ready to go out of town.”

I was more than ready to have Ethel go out of the office, which she did, just as Scott came in.

“Crime wave hits Alpine,” he announced jauntily. “Lock up your valuables. And your daughters, just in case.”

“I have neither valuables nor daughters,” I noted. “I’m safe. What now?”

Scott handed me a copy of the police log. “A break-in last night at Cliff and Nancy Stuart’s house in The Pines,” he said, referring to the owner of Stuart’s Stereo and his wife, who happened to be Doc Dewey’s sister. “Last weekend, the Vickerses got burglarized in Ptarmigan Tract, remember?”

“Sure,” I replied, studying the log, which included a few additions to the previous day’s reports of Halloween vandalism. “We ran the burglary article on the front page. Do you think I’m getting senile?”

Scott gave me his killer grin. “I was thinking that if we had one more before Tuesday’s deadline, we wouldn’t have to worry about a lead story.”

“Ah.” I smiled back at Scott. “Good thinking. Three break-ins this time of year would be real news.”

“You mean as opposed to during the summer when the kids are out of school and at loose ends?”

“Exactly.” I looked again at the log. “Whoever did this wasn’t very bright. I see that a stereo system was taken along with some of Nancy’s jewelry and the Dewey family’s sterling tea set. If what they really wanted was the stereo, why not break into Cliff’s store?”

“If it’s the same guy—or guys,” Scott said, dumping out his cold coffee and pouring himself a refill, “they took the Vickerses’ stereo along with their brand-new flat-screen TV.”

I sighed. “Money for drugs, I imagine. Does Milo Dodge have any leads?”

“The sheriff is baffled,” Scott declared, sitting down at his desk.

“Another standing headline,” I murmured, then felt a pang of guilt. “I shouldn’t criticize Milo. He’s really a fine lawman.” The guilt wasn’t only for my offhand remark. I always felt guilty about the sheriff for having dumped him years ago when he wanted to turn our affair into something more serious.

“You want me to write the story?” Scott inquired as I handed the log back to him.

I nodded. “We can play it up a few inches, given the previous burglary. I’m guessing there’s a link, which is what Milo probably figures, too, even if he won’t come out and say so.”

“He allowed for the possibility,” Scott said. “Both happened in the evening while the couples were out. Both break-ins were through a window on the first story near the porch. No prints, by the way.”

I shrugged. “That doesn’t mean it was a pro.”

Ginny and Leo came into the newsroom together. Ginny had the mail; Leo had a sour expression on his face.

“I’m humiliated,” he declared. “I missed a glitch in the Upper Crust’s ad last week.”

“Then I missed it, too,” I said, though in fact, Leo made so few errors that I scarcely bothered to read his ad copy. “What was it?”

“Those new owners of the bakery changed their hours,” Leo said, putting his briefcase down on the floor with more force than was necessary. “You wouldn’t have caught the mistake. It was supposed to read, ‘Open now on Sundays from noon to 5
P.M.’
Instead, it read, ‘6
P.M.
’ Now they figure a bunch of pastry freaks will show up between five and six and get pissed off because the bakery’s closed. Either that, or this Sunday they’ll have to stay open late.”

“You’re right—I didn’t know what the hours should have read,” I responded. “The marvel is that they’re open at all on Sundays. It’s so un-Alpine.”

“They’re new,” Leo said. “They’re from Seattle. They figure they can make an extra buck, especially with the holiday season coming up. They admit they may change their minds come January.”

I recalled the article on the new owners that Vida had written for her page. Vicki and Gordon Crowe had bought the Upper Crust in September from the longtime proprietors, who had decided to move back to their native California. So far, the Crowes’ baked goods had proved not only equal, but better, especially when it came to cakes. The previous night I’d kidded Ben that the coconut slice he’d eaten was the size of Mount Baldy.

“If Vicki and Gordon are such go-getters,” I pointed out, “they shouldn’t mind putting in an extra hour on Sunday. Don’t beat yourself up, Leo. Usually, you’re infallible.”

Leo merely grunted. I leafed through Ethel’s articles before putting them in Vida’s in-basket. Both stories were for the House & Home section. I could put my time to better use by going to the Upper Crust Bakery and making nice.

The Crowes had given the bakery a fresh paint job, both inside and out. They’d also hung a new purple, pink, and black awning over the storefront. I recalled from Vida’s article that the couple had also installed a new oven and a state-of-the-art bread slicer. The sales section, however, remained much the same except for the pink walls with their purple trim. Best of all, they’d restored the old photographs that the Californians had removed and put into storage: a long-dead Petersen with a nineteen-pound steelhead; a young couple named Durning bicycling through a wide cut in a giant cedar stump; a half-dozen loggers standing next to a truckload of Douglas fir trees; the entire Alpine Lumber Company seated in the social hall for 1927’s holiday dinner with the framed menu below it.

The aroma of fresh bread wafted my way as I went up to the counter. Vicki and Gordon both baked. They’d retained the counter help, which included Carrie Amundson, the teenage daughter of Wes, one of our park rangers. Carrie was a strawberry blonde with translucent braces on her teeth. She was waiting on Annie Jeanne Dupré when I arrived.

“Hi, Ms. Lord,” Carrie said brightly. “I’ll be just a minute.”

Annie Jeanne turned around. “Emma!” she said in surprise. Annie Jeanne was always surprised, wearing a constant expression of amazement on her long, thin face with its wide-open chocolate-chip eyes. “What a coincidence! I’m here buying a coconut cake for your brother.”

It was my turn to be goggle-eyed. “You mean he ate the chunk I sent home with him already?”

Annie Jeanne giggled, a shrill, girlish sound that didn’t suit her advancing years. “For breakfast. Can you imagine?”

I grew stern. “You shouldn’t let Ben—I mean, Father Ben—eat such an unwholesome diet. He’ll get fat.”

Carrie had tied up the pink cake box with purple string. She offered it, along with a pink paper bag, to Annie Jeanne. “Here you go, Ms. Dupré. That’ll be twelve dollars and forty cents.”

Annie Jeanne had taken a worn coin leather purse from her woven handbag. “I may have exact change,” she said before turning back to me. “Oh, Emma, don’t give Father Ben such a hard time. He’s spent so many years in godforsaken places like Arizona and Mississippi.”

“He grew very fond of the local cuisine in both places,” I said. “Too fond. That’s why he’s working out at the high school gym.”

“He is?” Annie Jeanne was surprised, as usual. “Oh, my! That’s very energetic of him. Father Kelly used the college gym. Priests seem very different these days, don’t they?”