The Alpine Escape (31 page)

Vida seemed absorbed in the dessert menu. “I haven’t
had a hot fudge sundae in years. Roger’s so fond of them. The last time I took him to Baskin-Robbins in Monroe, he ate two.”

My grin was fading, but I was on the edge of my seat. “Vida …”

“They’ve got poppyseed cake, but that’s awfully heavy, especially this late in the day.” Vida leaned forward, her manner conspiratorial. “They don’t bake it here, you know. They get it from the Upper Crust Bakery.”

“
Vida
.” My tone was severe. “Don’t you want to hear what I found out?”

Vida was wide-eyed, then blinked several times behind her big glasses. “Certainly. Though I can’t think why you didn’t tell me any of this over the phone. We spoke several times. I thought you wanted to keep this your little secret.”

“I never had a chance to tell you about the body,” I protested. “You were always in such a tizzy about the problems with the paper.”

Vida uttered a faint snort, then smiled warmly at our waitress and ordered the boysenberry pie à la mode. “You seemed to be a world away from Alpine,” Vida said after our order had been taken.

“It was your idea for me to go.” Now I was on the defensive. “Damn it, Vida, you’re just irked because you weren’t there to help figure all this out!”

“Well, now!” Vida looked affronted. “I daresay I could have made a contribution. At least I knew some of the people involved. You didn’t.”

“I do now. Or I feel as if I do, even though most of them are dead.” I was turning sullen. Vida had stolen the ball and slam-dunked right over my head. Now that I was trying to go for the winning basket, she was committing a flagrant foul.

Her pie and my coffee arrived. Vida seemed appeased
by the generous slice with puddles of berry juice and the mound of vanilla ice cream. “Very well. So tell me what you learned from your mysterious phone call.”

I relaxed against the back of the booth. “I called Julia’s sister, Claudia, in Victoria. Now don’t tell me you know Claudia Malone Cameron intimately.”

Vida’s attitude was vague. “I recall Aunt Julia speaking of her. But they weren’t close. I didn’t realize Julia’s sister was still alive.”

“Two of her sisters and a brother are still living, but Claudia was the only one I met.” I explained how I had gone over to Victoria and spent most of a morning with Claudia Malone Cameron. Vida’s resentment faded in the face of hearing about her late aunt’s sister. When I got to the part about Walter, the Root Cellar Rapist, Vida choked on a mouthful of boysenberries.

“Oh, good grief!” she exclaimed after taking a drink of water. “No wonder Aunt Julia never mentioned her brother! How disgusting! Obviously, it wasn’t only her mother who was evil!”

Vida’s choice of words electrified me. “Evil,” I repeated. “That’s right. Julia’s mother was evil.”

“Malicious Minnie, that’s what Aunt Julia called her. She spread scandal about Simone, too.” Vida patted her mouth with her napkin. “I imagine she did that because she knew Julia was fond of Simone.”

“No,” I said. “She did it because she was afraid. Julia’s mother couldn’t risk meeting Simone in Seattle. Just now I asked Claudia Cameron if her mother wore a wedding set. She did, with a beautiful diamond that Claudia had remounted but can’t wear because of her arthritis. I also asked if Mrs. Malone had a thick Irish brogue like her father’s. Claudia said she did not.”

I couldn’t resist pausing for dramatic effect. But Vida’s gaze was blank. “So?”

“That’s because Claudia’s mother wasn’t Irish. She
wasn’t Minnie Burke. She was Carrie Rowley, and yes, she was Julia and Claudia and Walter’s real mother as well as the mother of the three children who were born after the family moved to Seattle. But she was never Mrs. James Malone. She murdered Jimmy’s wife. The victim was Minnie Burke Malone, and she was going to have a baby.”

T
HE MAIL HAD
piled up during my four-day absence. The box at the edge of the street was crammed to overflowing. The separate delivery containers for
The Advocate
and the Seattle papers were also full. I needed two shopping bags to carry everything into the house. The reading material could wait. At a cursory glance, the mail looked mostly like bills and advertising circulars.

Vida was already in the kitchen, putting the teakettle on the stove. We had adjourned to my cozy log cabin for a couple of reasons: I was anxious to get home, and we were taking up much-needed space at the Venison Inn. Also Vida and I wanted to discuss the Melcher mystery in more comfortable circumstances. She had followed me up the hill in her big Buick, announcing upon arrival that we must have tea. Having just gulped down two cups of coffee, I wasn’t in the mood, but I was willing to humor Vida.

A quick check of the answering machine revealed a total of eleven messages, which wasn’t too daunting for a four-day absence. Of course the business calls would have piled up at work. I fast-forwarded through the answering-machine tape, pausing for Adam in Tuba City.

“Hey, Mom, where are you? I need some new jeans and a pair of khaki shorts and some Nikes and—” I cut
Adam off. He could whine at me later. Besides, he and Ben would be in Alpine soon.

I pressed the button again. Jackie Melcher squealed at me from Port Angeles: “Emma! You forgot to take the pearl earrings! I owe you for groceries! Did you want the elephant bracelet?” She stopped, probably gasping for breath. “I finally talked to Flint Bullard. What an old crank! He went on and on, blah-blah-blah! I don’t know why people can’t come to the point! Finally I said to him, ‘Mr. Bullard, I don’t think you remember zip about the day the fire started except that your house burned down.’ And he said, he did so, his father had gone down to get a tub of beer and he’d made him—Flint, I mean—rub lard around the tub so they wouldn’t cheat him—his father, I mean—and put a bunch of foam on top and when he and his dad got back just before supper, Carrie Malone was there with two of her kids, borrowing one of his mother’s hats and talking too much! But she wasn’t lighting any matches.” Jackie’s voice took a downward tum. “It’s not much help, is it? Call me. I think I’ll send you the elephants.” I was about to shut the answering machine off when Jackie resumed speaking: “Oh, guess what? I’m going to volunteer up at the nursing home. I really liked Clara Haines, and if I can stand Flint Bullard, I can put up with any of those ornery old coots. Besides, when the baby comes, they’ll enjoy that. It’ll be like having a whole bunch of grandparents. Or great-grandparents. Or whatever. ’Bye.”

Vida stood in the doorway to the kitchen, hanging on every word. “That’s your hostess?” She sniffed in disdain. “From what you’ve said of Mavis, I thought her daughter would have more sense! She sounds like a jabberwocky!”

Vida and I settled in the kitchen. It was still daylight at seven-thirty. My house smelled faintly stuffy. The
sun was coming down over Western foothills, but I left the front door open to clear the air.

“You must go over all these people again,” Vida insisted. “I knew only Aunt Julia and the Nievalles.”

I started with Cornelius Rowley and his first wife, Olive. Vida affected shock at the cause of Olive’s demise, but I knew better. Inwardly, Vida was probably smirking her head off.

I moved on to the Rowley children, Eddie and Carrie. I explained Lena’s background, her first marriage, the birth of her son, Sanford, and her subsequent remarriage to Eddie Rowley. Counterpoising Eddie’s business failures with his wife’s political success, I awaited Vida’s reaction.

“Lena sounds overbearing but admirable.” Vida got up to remove the whistling teakettle from the burner. Somehow, I could see Vida face-to-face with Lena. They would have made a great match. “I suppose she henpecked Eddie. No backbone on his part. Poor soul.”

I was getting a couple of mugs from the cupboard. “That’s how we figured it. Then there was Carrie, the daughter, who seemed to be the victim.”

Vida allowed the tea to steep. “Slowly, Emma. What about Lena’s son, Sanford? Let’s keep to one side of the family at a time. That’s how I managed with the Runkels and the Blatts this afternoon.”

I told Vida how Sanford had married Rose Felder. “There was a pattern there,” I noted as we sat back down at the table. “Lena’s first husband was a weakling, so was her second. And her son didn’t sound much better. None of them had a will of his own, unless you count Ferris Melcher’s desire to roam the country as a sign of determination.”

Vida considered. “Ferris may have been weak physically but not emotionally. Certainly he got Lena to go along with him on his travels to pursue whatever it was
he wanted from life. It’s probably a good thing—otherwise, Paul Melcher might have been a washout. I take it the young man has some gumption.”

I hadn’t thought about Ferris Melcher’s many moves as willful. Will-o’-the-wisp was more like it. But perhaps Vida was right. Paul Melcher wasn’t exactly a ball of fire, but somewhere under that anal-retentive exterior I sensed that he had a spine. He’d have to, in order to survive his rollercoaster ride through life with Jackie.

“The point is,” I impressed on Vida, “Grandpa Sanford rebelled, if briefly. He fell for Minnie Burke, the governess to the Malone children. I think he wanted to marry her. He gave her a locket with his hair in it, and she led him on.”

“Maybe she loved him,” Vida commented, stirring a great deal of milk and sugar into her tea.

“I wondered about that, even tonight, after I talked to Claudia Cameron. I came up with an alternate theory, that Minnie was pregnant with Sanford’s child and Lena was so set against her son marrying an Irish immigrant that she killed her. But it didn’t fit with the rest of what I knew, especially Carrie’s impersonation of Minnie.”

Vida gave a short nod, now obviously impatient to hear me out. “So Sanford caved in to his mother and married this Rose?”

“Yes, but that was later, the year following the tragedy. We—Jackie, Paul, Mike, and I—had some notion that Carrie was afraid of becoming an old maid, which is why she latched on to Jimmy Malone. His social standing wasn’t any better than Minnie’s, and certainly Cornelius Rowley must not have been keen on the match. Cornelius could have quashed it and sent Jimmy packing. That’s what the old boy did with Armand Nievalle, his wife’s lover. But Jimmy stayed. Then I began to realize that Carrie’s will must have been powerful, too, and that maybe she was madly in love with
Jimmy. As for Jimmy, he had the chance of a lifetime—to marry well and to live a comfortable life. The only obstacle was Minnie Burke. Jimmy had married her already.”

“Well, now!” Vida set her mug down so hard that tea spilled on my plastic tablecloth. “Jimmy was a bigamist?” Hastily, she mopped up the tea with a paper napkin.

“That’s right. But Jimmy couldn’t pass up his big opportunity. I’m guessing at so much of this, but I assume he met Minnie first, maybe in Seattle. Jackie and I foolishly asked King County to check marriage licenses for the years
after
the Malones left Port Angeles. We should have inquired about
before
Jimmy and Carrie were married. We even toyed with the idea of Jimmy being a bigamist because of the discrepancy in golden anniversary dates.”

Vida’s eyes sparkled behind her glasses. “Well, now. Jimmy and Minnie married in Seattle, then he found work in Port Angeles and met Carrie Rowley. She fell in love with him, they married—illegally—and Minnie followed her husband to his new home. Then Carrie started having babies and Minnie got herself installed as governess where she could keep an eye—and other things—on Jimmy.”

I nodded with appreciation for Vida’s quickness of grasp. “That’s right. There would be no need for a governess until the children started coming. It must have been a horrible situation, though. Two wives under one roof, Jimmy caught in a cage he’d built for himself bar by bar, Simone and her lover making assignations, Cornelius playing master of the house, Lena manipulating everyone, Sanford mooning after Minnie and ignoring his fiancée. I marvel that there was only one murder. It’s a wonder they didn’t all kill each other!”

“People had better manners in those days,” Vida dedared.
“Still, it must have been particularly difficult for Minnie. I can’t think how she stood it, waiting so long and watching Jimmy be a husband and father to another woman.”

I refused to spare too much sympathy for Minnie Burke Malone. I also refused to ask myself why I was so uncharitable. A first wife wasn’t always the right woman for some men. “Jimmy must have convinced Minnie that he’d stay with Carrie only long enough to get his hands on her money,” I said, my voice unduly harsh. “They were probably a pair of schemers. Minnie used Sanford as a cover. He was smitten, and provided not only a backup suitor but good camouflage. Then the situation got out of control. I’m guessing that after Cornelius Rowley died—that was in May—Minnie put pressure on Jimmy to leave Carrie. Minnie got pregnant about then and she may have figured that Carrie’s inheritance would go to both her and her alleged husband. But Cornelius’s will wasn’t written that way. It went only to Carrie and the children. I think Cornelius may have had his suspicions about his son-in-law’s devotion to Carrie.”

Vida poured more tea. “Cornelius sounds shrewd. He was probably a good judge of character except where his wives were concerned. It’s often that way with men. They’re not like other people.”

I acknowledged Vida’s oft-repeated aphorism with a faint smile. “When Carrie found out—and I don’t know how, maybe Jimmy told her, maybe she just
knew
—she pitched a jealous fit. I think she was aware that Minnie was pregnant. They lived under the same roof The governess’s condition would have been hard to conceal, especially from a woman who had already borne three children. Even Flint Bullard knew it in some undefined, childish way. He told Jackie and me that he recalled Minnie setting fat. At four months she wouldn’t have
shown much, but given the stylishly tiny waists of the period, a sudden change would seem to a young boy like putting on weight.”

Vida looked askance. “Shocking, really. What women will do to themselves to be chic. I haven’t worn a girdle in years.” She shook herself and her buxom figure rippled under the paisley blouse. It was an awesome sight.