The Alpine Christmas

by Mary Daheim

  Milo raised his sandy eyebrows. “So? What was taken?”

  A slight flush enveloped Arnie’s round face. “Priceless stuff. Keepsakes, two cartons of ’em. How do you put a value on a lifetime of memories? They’re irreplaceable!”

  Milo’s beeper went off. He gave Arnie a cool look, started to pick up the phone on Carla’s desk, changed his mind, and announced he’d better go straight back to the office. He took our coffee mug with him.

  Arnie was now leaning on Vida’s desk. “Well? Aren’t you going to put this in the story about our family? About how we’re being persecuted?”

  I watched Vida gaze up at Arnie. She looked a bit owlish. “I could. What’s actually missing?”

  Momentarily appeased, Arnie began to tick off items on his thick fingers. “A lot of family pictures, especially from when Travis was little. Maybe our wedding album—Louise isn’t sure, she’s been too busy crying. My discharge from the army, my diplomas from Alpine High School and the University of Washington, my yearbooks, and Travis’s baby book. Letters, postcards, invitations, announcements—all the stuff people save. You know.”

  Vida gave a curt nod. “ ‘Arnold Nyquist—The Early Years.’ Yes, I’ve got it.” She put her glasses back on and blinked twice.

  Now that Arnie had quieted down a bit. I posed a question of my own: “How did they get in?”

  Arnie looked exasperated. “Walked. Louise forgot to lock the basement door.” His voice dropped to a mumble.

  Carla made a clucking noise with her tongue. “Oh, gee, that’s not too smart, especially with a murderer on the loose. You know, Mr. Nyquist, you can’t blame the sheriff for everything, not if you don’t take precautions.”

  I felt like applauding Carla; Arnie Nyquist looked as if he wanted to slug her. But he refrained. Instead, he heeled around and slammed out of the office. We were not sorry to see him go.

  “Neener-neener-neener,” chanted Carla, putting her thumbs in her ears and waggling her fingers. “What an oaf!”

  Vida snorted in apparent agreement; Ed shrugged and took a bite out of a sweet roll he’d picked up from the bakery. I retreated into my office to lay the paper out on the computer. The Pagemaker program has simplified my life, though sometimes I miss the immediacy of hot type and cold sweat. I was never very good at translating words into inches. Translating other people’s incoherent words was more my line.

  I had finished the front page when Milo called. The summons he had received had not only gotten his day off to a jolt, but also upset my carefully computerized Page One. Duane Gustavson, a shirttail relation of Vida’s on the Runkel side, had been out fishing at first light on the Tye River at the mouth of Surprise Creek, near Scenic. He had caught an eleven-pound steelhead, a worthless white fish—and an arm. Duane had netted his dinner, but he’d lost his lunch. Or, in this case, his breakfast.

  And I had another piece of the story. So to speak.

  Doc Dewey and his wife had gone into Seattle to attend a conference and to visit relatives. Doc wasn’t due back until Wednesday night. He had delegated Peyton Flake to take over as medical examiner, should the need arise. It had—unfortunately.

  Dr. Flake cruised into his private office, sangfroid intact. Milo and I didn’t share his equanimity, though, as professionals, we tried. The sheriff had studied Flake’s impressive credentials; I had admired his collection of duck hunting stamps. The ducks were another matter: there were six of them, stuffed and glassy-eyed, with handsome plumage and unfamiliar pedigrees. I suppose they went well with the moose, stag, cougar, and lynx heads. I half-expected to see a couple of his patients mounted on the wall, but I was probably letting my imagination get the best of me.

  “I don’t like guesswork,” Peyton Flake announced flatly. “It’s going to take a while to get all the lab results back. But if you want my opinion”—he stressed the word, curling his lips over his teeth—“I’d say the arm went with the leg.”

  Milo nodded. “Do you think it had been in the river a long time?”

  “Definitely. Two, three months.” Flake fiddled with the rubber band that held his pony tail in place. “Unfortunately, from your point of view, there were no rings, no watch, nothing identifiable. You want a look?” He gazed at me, and I could have sworn that he was trying to keep amusement at bay.

  Milo, of course, had already seen the arm. He was duty-bound. I wasn’t. I shook my head. I didn’t even want to think about where Dr. Dewey and Dr. Flake filed spare appendages.

  Dr. Flake had leaned back in his chair, putting his hiking boots up on the desk. “Interesting,” he mused. “Amateur at work. A saw, I’d guess.”

  “Gack!” I closed my eyes and shuddered. Then I berated myself. It was all part of the job—the reporting of news, the discovery of facts, the search for truth. “Gack,” I repeated, with less force.

  Milo’s suggestion of going to lunch fell on deaf ears. Not only had I lost my appetite, but I was up against a deadline. Milo didn’t press; Carol Neal’s co-worker was supposed to arrive at the sheriff’s office around one.

  Carla was out, Ed was working on his advertising layout, and Vida was munching carrot sticks between spoonfuls of cottage cheese. Ben had called while I was gone. Vida relayed his message.

  “He talked to the chaplain at Blanchet. There is no record of a Kathleen Francich attending the school.”

  Somehow, I was disappointed. But the information goaded me into calling Rachel Rosen at the University of Washington. I went into my office and closed the door, not to keep secrets from my staff, but to avoid distractions. I had the feeling I would need full command of my wits.

  Luckily, Rachel had not gone out to lunch. She answered in the same manner as she had done the previous day when I called from the Villa Apartments. I wondered if she would remember my voice.

  “Ms. Rosen,” I began, using my most professional tone and trying not to jar Rachel too badly, “I’m the editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, on Stevens Pass. We’re running a missing persons story about someone you know. Her name is Carol Neal. Could you tell me when you last saw her or talked to her?”

  “Carol’s missing, too?” The words were blurted out.

  “You’re referring to Kathleen Francich?” Milo should be doing this, I thought. Maybe he was, through the auspices of the King County Sheriff.

  “Yes.” Rachel Rosen paused. I could imagine her sitting at a desk, pondering the disappearances of Carol and Kathleen. When she spoke again, there was a note of caution in her voice. “I haven’t seen Carol or Kathy in a long time. But I did talk to Carol a month or so ago. She was worried about Kathy.”

  “Worried because she’d disappeared?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t like Kathy to be gone so long. Excuse me, Ms. Lord, I have someone in the office here.” Rachel had become brisk.

  “Ms. Rosen—where did you go to high school?” The question flew out of my mouth.

  “Seattle Hebrew Academy. Why do you ask?” Rachel sounded suddenly tense.

  I ignored her query. I was a journalist; I could ask whatever I damned well pleased. “And Kathy?”

  “Kathy? Holy Names, I think. Goodbye.”

  The phone clicked in my ear. Holy Names was a private all-girls’ Catholic high school at the north end of Capitol Hill. The Seattle Hebrew Academy was coed, but also private and located not far from Holy Names. What was the link between Blanchet’s Carol Neal, Holy Names’s Kathleen Francich, and the Academy’s Rachel Rosen? Was there any link, other than all three young women had gone to private schools? And where, if anyplace, did Bridget Nyquist, also of Blanchet, fit in? I ignored my computer screen and drew strange rectangles on a piece of scratch paper. I wished I had been able to keep the little blue address book. But of course Milo had confiscated it, along with the mail I’d brought from the Villa Apartments.

  A firm knock on the door jolted me out of my reverie. “Well?” Vida stood on the threshold, her green cloche hat askew, though with a cloche it’s hard to tell. “Who have y
ou been grilling?”

  I told her, adding that while Rachel Rosen hadn’t exactly been a font of information, she had made one telling remark. “She said Carol was worried about Kathleen because she was never gone for such a long time. That tells me Kathleen occasionally took off for a few days. I assume she went with a man.”

  “A fair assumption,” said Vida, nodding. “It’s also fair to assume that if Carol called Rachel a month or so ago, it was more likely back in October, not November. People lose track of time. And that could mean that the other body is indeed Miss Francich.”

  “Ugh.” I put a hand to my head. “I hope somebody in Seattle is going to question Rachel. I got the impression she wasn’t real eager to share what she knew.”

  My phone rang before Vida could comment. The call was from the sheriff’s office, but it was Vida’s nephew, Bill Blatt, not Milo.

  “Sheriff’s interrogating this Desmond woman,” Bill reported in his youthful tones. “She positively IDed Carol Neal. Then she fell apart. But Sheriff Dodge said you’d want the information right away, because you’ve got to get the paper out, right?”

  “Right.” And God help Billy Blatt if he didn’t deliver the goods to Aunt Vida and company first. “Does this Desmond person know the other girl, Kathleen?”

  “Couldn’t tell you,” said Bill Blatt, then, lest his aunt and I accuse him of keeping secrets, quickly added, “That is, I don’t know. I imagine Sheriff Dodge will ask her. We’ll keep you posted.”

  I thanked him and hung up. It was an easy matter to add Carol Neal’s identity to the story about the discovery of her body. We were a week late with the news anyway, having missed last Wednesday’s deadline by a matter of hours. I’d already inserted Duane Gustavson’s grisly catch on the tye River. The front page of The Advocate was turning into a gruesome travesty. The lead story of a double murder juxtaposed with a picture of Fuzzy Baugh in a Santa suit wasn’t going to make for the jolliest of holiday reading.

  Vida was lingering in my doorway. “We’ve got to talk to Bridget again,” she announced flatly. “We can’t leave it up to Milo. He’s too busy following procedures.” She made a face as she spun out the word.

  “Bridget doesn’t want to talk to us,” I pointed out.

  Vida sniffed. “Of course she doesn’t. But she will.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Vida finally started toward her desk, then turned back to face me. “Say—if you need more filler for next week, I’ve got some fascinating background left over from the Marmot piece. That Lowenstein fellow designed several of the old movie houses in the Pacific Northwest, most of which have been torn down. The Marmot is the only one left on this side of the state. Besides, he lived in Alpine for a time, while the theatre was being planned.”

  I considered Vida’s suggestion. “Sounds good to me. But it might fit better in the New Year’s edition.”

  “Fine,” Vida agreed. “That will give me time to see if I can track down any old coots who might have known Lowenstein. Besides Oscar Nyquist, of course.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, I tried to put murder from my mind. It wasn’t easy, but by five o’clock the paper was ready to roll. Milo stopped in just as Carla and Ed were leaving.

  “Lila Desmond,” he said, sitting on the edge of Carla’s vacated desk. “I hope I never see her again.”

  “Carol’s colleague?” I signed my initials to the note for Kip MacDuff, who would truck the paper to Monroe in the morning. “What happened?”

  Milo was looking bemused. “She cried, she got hysterical, she threw up. Trying to get any genuine information out of her was like walking in a swamp. All she could say was that Carol was a sweet kid and lent her a pair of earrings. Hell!” Milo made an impatient gesture with one hand, as close to anger as I’d seen him in ages.

  Vida pursed her lips. “Now, now. Surely this Lila knew when she’d last seen Carol?”

  “Sort of.” Milo gave Vida a disparaging look. “She was vague about that, too. But she thought it was over the Thanksgiving weekend. I gather table-dancers don’t keep to strict schedules. And no, she wasn’t acquainted with Kathleen Francich. She knew—vaguely—that Carol had a roommate. But that was all.” The sheriff now wore a disgusted expression. Alpine is not without its depravities, but table-dancing isn’t one of them. Milo could cope with drunken brawls, domestic S&M, drug addicts, and even grisly homicides. But scantily clad young women bumping and grinding for bug-eyed lechers was beyond him. His idea of an evening on the wild side was four beers and a bowl of popcorn at Mugs Ahoy.

  “What about Kathleen?” I asked. “Has anybody in Seattle come up with news about her?”

  Now solemn, Milo nodded. “She hasn’t shown up at work since October the sixth. She had a couple of days off at the bar and never came back. Nobody got excited. It happens, I guess.” His hazel eyes suddenly sparked. “But on October fifteenth, Carol Neal reported Kathleen missing.”

  “Ooooh!” Vida whipped off her glasses and rubbed frantically at her eyes. “Why didn’t you say so? Honestly, Milo, you are as slow as mold!”

  Milo resumed his stoic expression. “One thing at a time. The bottom line is that Kathleen never turned up.”

  Vida stopped rubbing. “So Carol went looking for her?”

  “Maybe.” Milo shrugged. “Carol probably hoped the police would find Kathleen. Or that she’d show up on her own. What I want to know is why did she come looking for her in Alpine? If, in fact, that’s what Carol did.”

  “We can’t know that,” I murmured. “And yet … If that other body is Kathleen … The tennis shoe fits, should she wear it?”

  “Carol gave a description of Kathleen as five-six, a hundred and twenty pounds, light blonde hair, deep blue eyes, a small scar above her left eyebrow. Doc Dewey and Peyton Flake can figure out height, maybe even weight. But not much else. Yet.”

  I grimaced at Milo’s implication. Vida, however, appeared composed. “Well. If Carol was out searching for Kathleen, Alpine may not have been the first place she went. But I have a feeling it was the right place, don’t you?”

  Milo nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so. It was also the last place she looked.”

  From that point of view, it was the wrong place as well.

  Milo was taking his leave when Cal Vickers came into the office. “Just the man I want to see,” said Cal to Milo, after acknowledging Vida and me with a tip of his greasy duckbilled cap. “Bill Blatt said you’d be here.”

  “What’s up?” inquired Milo of the strapping gas station proprietor.

  Cal was the sort who liked to spin out a tale, a habit forged while standing next to an open hood and putting off the moment when the car owner learns that it’s going to cost him dearly to have his vehicle repaired.

  “I got a call yesterday from Clancy Barton at the Bootery. You know Clancy, he’s a fussbudget. The mall was busy over the weekend, and at one point they ran out of parking places. Clancy and the rest of the merchants wanted the sheriff to impound those old heaps that have been sitting there for weeks and have me tow ’em away.” He stopped, taking off his earmuffs. “Actually, there were only two cars. Dodge here said fine, go get ’em; he had other fish to fry. So did we, with all the jackasses sliding into each other or landing in ditches. You’d think people around here would know how to drive in snow. Anyway, we finally got down to it this afternoon. The old Malibu belongs to some kid from Gold Bar. Starter went out, near as I can tell. You know kids, they’d rather give up on something than take the trouble to fix it.”

  Behind me, I could hear Vida emit a low, impatient sigh. I, too, wished Cal would speed his story along. Milo, however, appeared unflappable.

  “Then we checked out the Barracuda. Man, it had been there a long time. Everything’s froze up, no antifreeze, but almost a full tank of gas.” Cal shook his head.

  “Stolen?” The word was Milo’s mild attempt to hurry Cal along.

  Cal Vickers shrugged. “Could be. I figure you ou
ght to run it through the computer.” He removed his cap again and brushed his stubby fingers through the fringe of dark hair that grew from ear to ear. “The car’s from Seattle. It’s registered to a Kathleen Francich.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THERE COULDN’T BE much doubt that if Kathleen Francich’s car had arrived in Alpine, so had Kathleen. How her car had ended up at the mall while she seemed to be appearing in various other places remained a mystery. Maybe Milo could wave his forensics wand over the Barracuda and come up with some answers. Meanwhile, I was going to rely on intuition. Sometimes it actually worked.

  I had been bothered by Louise Bergstrom Nyquist ever since I’d run into her and Arnie at Barton’s Bootery. Maybe I’d imagined that she had wanted to talk to me; maybe I’d misread the appeal in her eyes.

  Nevertheless, on this snowy Tuesday night I felt compelled to talk to Louise. The timing was good: I’d put aside the cares of The Advocate for another week, and the planning commission met on the third Tuesday of each month. Arnie Nyquist was on the board. Louise would be home alone.

  I arrived shortly after seven, my nerves frayed by the brief but treacherous drive up First Hill. Arnold Nyquist had built himself a house on Icicle Creek. Two stories of brick and cedar, the showpiece dwelling was set among the evergreens, but commanded a ravishing view of the town and Mount Baldy. Everything seemed to fit, from the cathedral ceilings to the Aubusson carpets. Everything, that is, except Louise Nyquist, who looked as if she would have been more at home with faded mohair and braided rugs.

  “This is a surprise,” she said in apparent pleasure. “I was just going to bake some Christmas cookies. Would you like an eggnog?”

  I said I would indeed, but to skip the rum. I had to face the tricky downhill drive to get back home. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about your burglary. It’s one thing to have VCRs and CD players stolen, but it’s terribly sad when keepsakes go. Arnie said your wedding album might have been taken, too.”