by Mary Daheim
“See what happens in the next couple of weeks,” I advised, sounding almost genial. “Ben may find himself inundated with volunteers.” And, I thought to myself, you, my son, will be bored and ready to return to Arizona State and the beer and the girls and the other joys of college life.
“That's not what I mean,” Adam said in that semi-somber voice that was so unlike his usual flippant style. “Uncle Ben doesn't need just moral and physical support. He needs somebody to prop him up spiritually, too. You know, Mom, even priests can hit a low ebb sometimes.”
Did I hear sarcasm in Adam's tone? Or irony? Was my son trying to kid me or impress me? I was confused. “Are you telling me that Ben's having a spiritual crisis?” I asked with a lame little laugh.
“Not a crisis, no,” Adam replied, his patience sounding strained. “He's tapped. But everybody still leans on him. So he needs someone he can lean on. I'm here for him. Is that a problem for you?”
It shouldn't be, I told myself. Then I told Adam the same thing. He seemed to believe me.
But did I believe it? I wasn't sure. Suddenly there appeared to be a number of things about which I had doubts.
* * *
That night I watched the news on one of Murray Felton's rival TV stations. To my horror, the feature that closed out the telecast showed Polly Patricelli and her vase. Judging from the wan light and the heavy rain in the exterior shots of Polly's house, the TV crew hadn't arrived in Alpine until late afternoon, perhaps while Marilynn and I were at Cafe Flore.
“Attending Sunday services isn't all that the little town of Alpine has to offer in the way of religious experiences,” the dapper TV newsman announced as Polly's dark old house loomed behind him in the background. “Appollonia Patricelli has her own shrine, which may or may not be some kind of miracle.”
The camera moved inside, showing Polly in her living room. In spite of the TV crew's efforts to light the interior of the house, it still looked gloomy.
“A few weeks ago,” the newsman recounted as Polly piously approached the mantel, “Mrs. Patricelli discovered that her precious family heirloom vase had cracked. But the pattern formed by the cracks was no ordinary damage.”
A microphone was put in front of Polly, who was obviously startled as an off-camera reporter asked what she could see in the vase. “Jesus,” she said simply. “I see Jesus.”
Now the cameraman zoomed in on the vase. Under the TV lights, the vase took on mellow gold and sepia tones. Try though I might, the cracks still looked like cracks tome.
“Not everyone may see what Mrs. Patricelli sees,” the newsman said in a voice-over as the camera lingered on the vase. “But if the longtime Alpine resident is a woman of simple faith, she also has some reasons for believing in her little miracle.”
Again, the microphone was thrust at Polly. “I come from Italy, the town of Assisi, where St. Francis lived,” she said, obviously in answer to a question posed by the reporter. “The first time I noticed Jesus' face was Friday, the eleventh of August. It is the feast of St. Clare, St. Francis's dear friend in God.”
We were back to the vase and the flickering votive candles. “Skeptics may scoff,” the voice-over continued, “yet in this small logging town with its hard-hit economy, any sign of hope is welcome. Polly Patricelli's vase may not be a miracle, but as she herself might put it, maybe Alpine isn't the town that God forgot.”
The screen abruptly changed to a shot of the news desk with a smiling crew wishing us good night. Angrily I clicked off the set. My phone rang almost immediately.
“Screw the competition,” Murray Felton said in a furious tone that matched my mood. “Where did those jerks from that other freaking unmentionable station come from?”
“It was your choice not to use the story,” I snapped, sparing no sympathy for Murray. “How do you think I feel? I've been scooped in my own hometown!”
“I drove all the way to Alpine and back for nothing,” Murray fumed, as lacking in compassion for me as I was for him. “I didn't get a freaking thing on the Randall death, I came up empty on your crackpot's cracked vase, and I didn't get laid! This three-day weekend sucks!”
I agreed. Trying to calm down, I made an attempt at doing something positive. “Check out these names from Alpine and see if any of them have sued Randall.” I gave him the four patients that Marilynn had mentioned in her not-so-subtle fashion at dinner.
Murray seemed slightly mollified. “Okay, but I'll have to wait until Tuesday. Everything's closed tomorrow because of Labor Day.”
I understood. We made mutual, grudging promises to help each other on the Randall story.
“What about the vase?” I asked. “Are you still interested?”
“Hell, no,” Murray replied. “Put a fork in it, it's done.
In TV, when a rival station uses a feature like that, the rest of us back off like a guy on a bad blind date. Mrs. P can take that vase and stick it.”
My attitude couldn't be so cavalier. “Okay. Give me your number so I can call you if I find out anything.”
“Generous!” His tone was mocking, but I knew he was appreciative. He had to be; he was a journalist. Murray might be a pain in the butt, but he seemed to have his priorities right when it came to tracking down a story. “Don't call me, I'll call you, probably Tuesday, around noon. See ya.”
Still feeling angry about having the Seattle media pull a local story right out from under me, I checked the doors and windows before going to bed. It was still raining, and the house had finally cooled off. I wasn't really afraid that the alleged prowler would return, but there was no point in taking chances.
Yet as I lay awake I realized that theft and assault weren't always physical in nature. However unwittingly, my brother had robbed me of my son. A Seattle TV station had stolen my story. And Polly Patricelli had attacked my capacity for faith. All in all, it had been a bad day.
I almost wished the prowler would come back. I was in a combative mood. Recklessly I got out of bed, turned on the light, and went to my closet. Under the low shelf where I kept my shoes was a combination jewelry case and music box I'd received as a present on my fifteenth birthday. It was white, with a small ballerina on top. When wound up, the little figure twirled to a Tchaikovsky strain. I'd liked the music, but I'd hated the case. In fact, I'd taken the interior apart many years ago. In its altered state, it was a perfect repository for my dad's old Colt .45.
I removed the gun along with a box of bullets. Then I loaded all seven of them into the magazine and pushed it into the well. I chambered a round by pulling the slide back, then put on the safety. My father had taught me how to shoot, but warned that I should never pick up a weapon without being prepared to use it.
On this wet, lonesome September night, I not only felt that I could, but that I wanted to.
Chapter Eleven
THE NEXT MORNING I reached Milo at his office. He spent the first minute or two yawning in my ear and complaining about driving on a rainy night in heavy holiday traffic between Alpine and Bellevue.
“We need the rain,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, sure, I know that,” the sheriff replied. “But we don't need all those damned cars, and half of them are from out of state and they don't know how to drive in the rain in the first place.”
I waited for Milo to finish grumbling before I broached the subject of Warren and Alicia Wells and Betsy O'Toole being in the Icicle Creek vicinity Friday night. The sheriff wasn't much interested.
“Emma, give it up,” he said with a weary sigh. “You're not a detective. Three-day weekend or not, Cal closed his Texaco station around six. Warren mentioned having a beer with him at Mugs Ahoy, remember? With Buzzy's BP shut down, where else would people go to get gas except Icicle Creek?”
“Exactly.” I felt smug. “Warren and Cal went beer drinking together because Warren had stopped at Cal's to get his brakes checked. If he needed gas, why didn't he get it there? Besides, Craig Rasmussen didn't say Warren bought gas. He just said he came i
n to use the rest room.”
The silence at the other end indicated that I'd hit home. Milo, however, wasn't giving in gracefully. “So he had to take a leak. Big deal. Or are you trying to say that he drowned his girlfriend, and it upset him so much that he felt like wetting his pants?”
“That's not funny, Milo,” I retorted. “As a matter of fact, it could have happened that way. Never having killed anyone, I wouldn't know.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Milo exploded in my ear: “/ know! Didn't I save your ass last winter by blowing away a perp? I may not have wet my pants, but I had some damned strange dreams for months!”
I knew about the dreams. It wasn't long after the fatal shooting that Milo and I had become lovers. He hadn't talked about the incident for a while, and I'd hoped that he'd put it behind him. That hope was not just for Milo, but for me. I'd always felt guilty about the shooting. It wasn't Catholic guilt, as Leo would put it; guilt can be nondenominational.
“I'm sorry,” I apologized. “I didn't mean to be a smart-mouth. But let's face it, Milo—how often do you guys stop at a service station to use the bathroom if you're near the woods?” I had long ago become accustomed to the sight of fishermen and hikers and just about any other male relieving themselves on the outskirts of Alpine. Expediency often won out over privacy.
“Doubles has become citified,” Milo replied, no longer sounding angry. “Somehow I don't think Ursula would approve of him whizzing in the International Fountain at the Seattle Center.”
“Probably not,” I allowed. “But I still think it's a little bit of a coincidence. If you're not going to ask any of those three people what they were doing at Icicle Creek, I am. I've nothing better to do today.”
“Go ahead,” Milo said on a note of resignation. “You know I've got to work. Will you be at the picnic?”
I'd forgotten about the picnic. “I don't know. Will you?”
“Maybe. If they need crowd control.” Milo sounded cagey.
“At a Labor Day picnic in Old Mill Park? What do you expect—a riot between the wienies and the dill pickles?”
“Hell, these days you never know. Everybody's so damned touchy. But,” he admitted, “it's raining, which means there won't be such a big turnout. They've got canopies, though.”
“Vida's taking pictures, so I don't need to attend.” I paused, contemplating the long, empty day. “I'll see.”
As anticipated, my House & Home editor proved more intrigued by Craig's sightings at Gas 'N Go. “I think,” she said in her most ingenuous tone, “that we should drop in on Francine and Alicia. It isn't right not to have a visit while Alicia's here. I'll bring cookies. You offer a beverage.”
I bridled. “I'm not offering a beverage.” It was bad enough that Vida would haul along a package of cheap cookies from the Grocery Basket. “Why don't we ask them over here?”
“What a nice idea!” Vida exclaimed, and I knew I'd been conned. “Try to make it around one. I'd have them here, but Roger is staying with me while his parents are in Seattle. I don't like disrupting his schedule.”
I kept mum, but thought how much I'd like to disrupt Roger—permanently. Vida's spoiled grandson was the apple of her eye, and a colossal pain in the butt. No doubt she meant that trying to drag him away from the TV set would unleash a tantrum. Or, since Roger was now going on twelve, a world-class sulk. Maybe he'd even threaten to run away. I liked the concept.
But the cozy get-together with Francine and Alicia wasn't to be. Vida called back ten minutes later, saying that mother and daughter were going to the picnic. Maybe, Francine had said, they'd see us there.
I was stuck. It's not that I despise communal picnics, but after five years I was tired of the Labor Day event. The high-school band would play, Mayor Fuzzy Baugh and at least one of the three county commissioners would give a boring speech, somebody from the unions would drone on about the virtues of hard work and brotherhood, a designated old-timer would talk about what it was like when the woods were full of trees, the mills were full of jobs, and Alpiners' pockets were full of money. Finally Bucker Swede, the stuffed dummy dressed in logging togs that serves as the high-school mascot, would be trotted out and hauled around in a mule-drawn wagon. If the mules would deign to budge.
I was doing my best imitation of housework when Laura OToole had a flat tire in front of my house. She knocked timorously on my door shortly before noon and asked to use the phone. Glancing outside through the rain, I saw a battered maroon Plymouth Fury listing in the direction of my mailbox.
“Come in,” I urged. “Are you calling Cal Vickers?”
Laura, who wore a shabby blue jacket over shapeless green slacks, looked bewildered. “I don't know. Should I?”
“Well … You were going to call someone. Who was it?” I tried to make sure that my voice conveyed kindliness.
In the wan midday light, Laura's thin face looked much older than her forty-odd years. “Mike,” she finally said. “He knows how to change a tire. If we've got a spare.” She chewed on her index finger.
“Does Mike drive?” Laura and Buzzy's children were a blur to me. There were four or five of them, maybe even six, and none seemed to have a distinct personality. I thought Mike was the eldest, perhaps sixteen, and therefore old enough to have a license.
“Yes,” Laura answered. But I was only half-right: “He flunked his driving test, though. But he could borrow a car.”
“Don't let him do that,” I cautioned. “I'll go get him. Is he home?”
“I don't know.” Laura looked utterly at sea, a leaky boat caught in a summer squall.
I considered the options. “Is the spare in the trunk?”
“Ummm…” Laura's gaze wandered around my living room, as if I had a prompter somewhere that could give her the answer. “It could be. I didn't look.”
Grabbing my jacket, I led the way back outside. “Let's see. If it is, I'll call someone.” Maybe, just maybe, Milo and his men weren't all tied up in Labor Day mayhem.
But there was no spare. The trunk was full of junk, beat-up shoes, dirty clothes, fast-food cartons and bags and boxes, old magazines and tabloids, rusted tools, and a bunch of road maps that bore the BP logo. When I studied the tire that had gone flat, I realized that it probably was the spare.
Recalling the various old cars and parts of cars that decorated the O'Tooles' yard, I posed a question: “Is there a good tire on any of those … ah … vehicles … um… parked by your house?”
Laura didn't know that either. She moved from one tennis-shoe covered foot to the other, with the rain trickling down her face. “Buzzy would know,” she finally said.
“So where is Buzzy?” I was finding it an effort to keep the kindliness in my voice.
Laura slowly shook her head. “I don't know.” Then she turned hopeful gray eyes on me. “In his van?”
I shrugged. “Could be. Where's the van?”
Laura considered. “Up in the woods?”
In Alpine, that's a vast amount of territory. Logging roads, many abandoned but still usable, snake along the mountainsides. I gave up. “Let's go inside,” I suggested. “It's raining pretty hard.”
Obediently Laura trotted along. Back in the living room, I offered coffee. She accepted, rather eagerly, I thought. Buckling under to what I presumed was misfortune in more ways than one, I also offered a sandwich. This time she declined, but I sensed that pride—or timidity—held her back.
“I'm going to make myself some lunch anyway,” I insisted, though it wasn't true. “You might as well eat something with me while we figure out what to do next.”
“Okay.”
Laura followed me into the kitchen. Indicating that she should sit at the table while I whipped up a can of tuna, I worked for at least a full minute in silence. It was Laura who spoke first:
“If only she hadn't drowned first.” A heavy sigh ensued.
I turned sharply. “Who? Ursula?”
Laura nodded. “She would have helped us. I know she would.”
The incongruity of Ursula Randall being Laura O'Toole's sister-in-law struck me anew. The two women couldn't have been more different. Yet Ursula, Buzzy, and Jake had been born to the same parents. It wasn't so difficult to paint Jake and Betsy into a family portrait, but Laura and Buzzy simply didn't fit.
“I understand Ursula was very generous,” I finally said, for lack of anything more cogent.
Laura nodded. “It was just a matter of minutes.”
Once again I turned away from the tuna salad. “What was?” I asked, feeling puzzled.
“Her. Coming to help us. But Buzzy didn't know. Or maybe he did. I suppose that's why he came home.”
Spreading the tuna mixture on bread, I added potato chips and the rest of the gherkins. Then I sat down at the table. “I'm confused, Laura,” I admitted. “What are you talking about? With Ursula, I mean.”
Laura crammed three potato chips in her mouth at once. “Money,” she said, though as she chewed, it sounded like mungey. “Ursula was bringing money. She'd promised Buzzy. But she didn't come and didn't come and didn't come. I blamed Buzzy for not being nicer to his sister. That's when he left.” She bit off a quarter of the sandwich, a defiant gesture indicating contempt for her husband, lingering hunger, or both.
I tried to cling to the narrative thread. “That was— when? That Buzzy left, I mean.”
“Which time?” Laura asked after swallowing her food.
“How many times did he go?” At this point I wasn't sure that I knew what we were talking about. Nor could I imagine Laura serving on the school board. I might as well have cast a write-in vote for Crazy Eights Neffel.
“Twice,” my unfit candidate answered. “Wednesday and Friday.” A slight frown creased Laura's narrow forehead as she stared at what was left of her sandwich. “The first time we had a fight. About money. It's always about money. That's when Buzzy took off.”
“Is he still working at the Grocery Basket?” I didn't want to stray from the original topic, but it seemed to me that Jake probably paid his brother a fair wage.