The Alpine Christmas

by Mary Daheim

  Thinking of my brother blinded by snow and lying half-frozen somewhere along Fourth Street, I started to protest. But St. Mildred’s was only a half-mile away. Ben could practically slide down the hill from my house to the church. Instead of arguing, I shrugged, and ditched another one of Aunt Rylla’s homemade concoctions close to the tree trunk, out of sight. Somehow, sequin-spangled furnace filters don’t appeal to my Christmas spirit.

  But one big bowl of popcorn and an hour later, I rallied. After a quick pass with the vacuum cleaner to pick up spare needles and spilled icicles, we switched off the living room lights and turned on the tree. Ben chuckled; Adam whistled; I gasped. As always, it was a miracle: Magic lights and glittering balls, silver garlands and shimmering rain, old memories and renewed promises. The tree was cut fresh each year, yet never changed. I glanced at Adam, at Ben. We were together. Christmas was nigh. I felt peace wash over me, and let out a weary, happy sigh. The moment was sufficient unto itself. Tomorrow and its troubles would have to wait.

  I had no idea that they were only a few minutes away.

  I had just put my book aside and was about to turn off the light when I heard the sirens. Shortly after midnight, by my bedside clock. My first thought was of Ben. The weird little fantasy I’d had of him struggling through a snowbank had come true. An ambulance was pushing up Fourth Street, desperately trying to rescue my brother.

  But I can differentiate between the sounds of the various emergency vehicles. This was a fire truck—both fire trucks, in fact, and farther off, perhaps over on Alpine Way. It was hard to tell, with the wind blowing the sirens’ wail in erratic directions. I settled down into bed and drifted off to sleep.

  It might have been the middle of the night, it could have been early morning, but it was really only one-fourteen. Fumbling for the phone, I managed to knock my book off the nightstand and hit my elbow on the headboard. My brain was fuzzy with sleep.

  “Emma?” It was Milo Dodge. His voice was tense.

  “What?” I finally managed to turn the light on.

  “Sorry to bother you, but I know you’re sending the paper to Monroe first thing in the morning.” He paused, and I heard shouts in the background along with the grinding of wheels.

  “Right, right,” I muttered, fighting to get my eyes open in the brightened room. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re at Evan Singer’s place. It burned to the ground. No known cause yet, no damage estimate.”

  I sat up, feeling a draft around my shoulders. “How sad!” In my mind’s eye, I pictured the dreary exterior, the bizarre artwork, the strange Christmas tree. With candles. Maybe that’s what had started the fire. The rickety old shack would go up like kindling. Even if Alpine had more than four full-time firemen and a dozen volunteers, there probably would have been no way to contain the blaze. In ten-degree weather, the water in the hoses would no doubt freeze. “How is Evan taking it?” I asked.

  Milo expelled a little grunt. “I don’t know. We can’t find him.”

  My knees jackknifed as I clutched the phone. “What? You don’t mean … Was he in the cabin?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Milo’s voice was grim. “I’ve got to go, Emma. If we have anything new, I’ll call before you ship the paper out.”

  Clumsily, I set the receiver in its cradle. With a groan, I fell back onto the pillow. Surely it wouldn’t take long to determine if Evan Singer had died in the fire? The cabin was small; the furnishings were sparse. The image of his Christmas tree with its dangerous candles and grotesque ornaments wavered before my eyes. Evan Singer was odd, maybe even unbalanced. But he shouldn’t have been foolish enough to set his home and himself on fire.

  Then, as I switched off the light, it dawned on me that maybe he hadn’t. Perhaps someone else had done it for him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I SLEPT FITFULLY, upset about Evan Singer, and aware that the phone could ring again at any minute. Milo, however, didn’t call back until after six A.M. I was already up and dressed, having decided that as long as I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, I might as well start the new day.

  Milo reported that no remains had been found in the ruins. I heaved a sigh of relief, then asked if they’d figured out how the fire had started. They hadn’t, but it had originated inside. His voice foggy, Milo announced that he was going to bed.

  Vida was an early riser, so I had no compunction about calling her. She would want to hear the news, and for once, I had scooped her. Or so I thought.

  “My nephew Ronnie called an hour ago,” she said, sounding vexed at my insane notion that she should be uninformed. “He’s my brother Winfield’s son and a volunteer fireman, you know. It’s all very peculiar. I think we should run out there. We’ll need a picture, though I suppose we couldn’t make the deadline for this issue.”

  We couldn’t. But I was faced with an editorial problem. On page four I had a photo and a feature on a young man who was apparently missing. I had to pull the whole spread and move something from page one to fill up the hole. The cabin fire was late-breaking news and took precedence over everything except our female body count. The Advocate’s front page was getting grimmer and grimmer. As for going out to Burl Creek, a peek through the window revealed that we had at least another eight inches of snow. It wouldn’t get light for two hours, and the county road probably hadn’t yet been plowed. Nor would there be time to take the picture, get Buddy Bayard to develop it, and run the thing in the paper.

  “Damn!” I exclaimed. “I wish we knew where Evan Singer was. We could fill up that hole with quotes from him.” Only fleetingly did I chastise myself for my callous attitude. At six o’clock in the morning of press day, I tend to let a crisis make me a journalist instead of a human being.

  Vida, however, understood. “We could hold off sending Kip to Monroe until eight or nine. Wouldn’t you rather be late than inaccurate?”

  Of course I would, but the printer would hate me for it. The Advocate had a specific time on the press. Missing it screwed everybody up, and cost me money. “We’ve got over an hour to hear anything new,” I pointed out, trying to keep panic at bay. “I’m walking to the office. I’ll be there in twenty minutes if I don’t fall down and break my neck.”

  Vida said she’d come in early, too. Hurriedly, I drank a cup of coffee, ate a piece of toast, and bundled myself up for the foray out into the snow. Peeking in on Adam, I saw only a patch of dark hair etched against his old Superman sheets. It occurred to me that I should replace them. Maybe bedding could be added to his Christmas gifts.

  It was still dark, still snowing, but the footing was decent. A few cars were plodding along Fir Street. I crossed it carefully, noting that several houses along my route had left their outdoor lights on overnight. They provided cheerful beacons as I made my way down Fourth, mentally waving to Ben as I passed St. Mildred’s and the rectory.

  Except for a couple of delivery trucks, Front Street was virtually deserted this early. By the time I got to the office, I was stiff with cold. It didn’t seem much warmer inside than it did outside. I turned on the heat, made coffee, and didn’t take off my coat. Vida arrived before I could switch on the computer.

  “Where do you suppose Evan Singer is, if he wasn’t at home last night?” Vida demanded, yanking off her heavy knitted gloves. “Ronnie told me the fire probably started around eleven-thirty. Nobody would have noticed it way out there if Sue Ann Daley Phipps at Cass Pond hadn’t gone into labor. She and her husband saw the flames on their way into the hospital and called from the emergency room.”

  “What time was Evan at your house?” I asked, staring stupidly at the computer display of page one.

  “About nine-thirty. The snow got so heavy that he couldn’t get the sleigh through it. Henry Bardeen had to use a four-wheel drive to haul the diners back to the parking lot.” Vida gave me a flinty look. “Don’t say it. No, Evan did not tell me where he was going after he left my house. If he had, I would have told you already.”

 
I fueled myself with more coffee and wrote the sketchy story about the fire. It filled up a scant five inches. I needed twenty. I could ran Evan’s photo with a new cutline—but only if I knew whether he was dead or alive. I scowled at the layout. It was after seven, and Kip MacDuff would be along any minute. To my astonishment, Vida was emptying a string bag on her desk. At first, I thought it was our mail, but the postman doesn’t usually show up until around ten. Then I recognized the bag of letters and bills and circulars I’d brought from the Villa Apartments.

  “How’d you get hold of that stuff?” I demanded.

  Vida gave me a superior look. “Billy let me borrow them. He and the rest of those dimwits haven’t had time to go through them yet. They only opened a couple of bills. Now that we know Kathleen Francich was in Alpine—or that her car was—we can proceed without further doubts.” She waved a green-edged piece of paper at me. “See this? It’s an oil-company bill with a charge for the BP station in Sultan, October seventh. I do hope Milo is going over that car with a fine-toothed comb.”

  I stared at the list of billings; Vida was right. The Sultan charge was also the last one made on the account. The bill itself was dated November the first. Vida held up another BP invoice.

  “December. No payments, no charges. Nothing on any of her credit cards since early October, either.” She was haphazardly organizing the mail into categories: catalogues, circulars, bills, and personal mail. “They both have a lot of creditors, their bank cards are up to the limit, and neither seem to make many payments. Dun, dun, dun—done.” Vida pushed the bills to one side. “There are some Christmas cards, but no letters. Most of the cards are absolutely hideous, as you might expect with a person of Kathleen’s low morals. Vulgar, too. I really don’t care to see Santa exposing himself. There are some for Carol, too, but read this one.”

  Vida handed me an envelope containing a card that didn’t seem to bear out her assessment. The return address, in Redmond, was for one Murray Francich. The card itself was a handsome cutout of a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Unless it produced bird droppings when I opened it, Murray Francich’s greeting seemed to be the exception to Vida’s rule.

  Inside there was a note: “Kathy,” it began, “it’s Christmas, let’s try to be a family for a couple of days. I’m heading for E. Wash. Dec. 21. Why don’t you come with me? No matter what you may think, the folks want to see you. Call me. Love, Murray.”

  I hazarded a guess. “Her brother?”

  “That’s what it sounds like. Their parents must live on the other side of the mountains.” Vida gazed down on her untidy stacks of mail. “Frankly, that’s the only one of real interest I found. The rest are signed with names and at best—or worst, considering—the occasional ribald remark.”

  “Milo has to get hold of Murray,” I said. “Maybe the parents, too. And Carol’s. It sounds to me as if those poor girls had problems with their parents.”

  “No wonder.” Vida grimaced. “Carol’s background sounds unstable, but that’s no excuse to sell herself into prostitution. Imagine! Private school backgrounds, good educations, a bright future—and now this.” She slapped at the pile of allegedly obscene Christmas cards, symbolic of depravity. “What could have made them ruin their lives?”

  I lifted an eyebrow at Vida. “What? Or who?”

  Vida regarded me with approval. “A good point.”

  The door opened, and of course I expected to see Kip MacDuff. Instead, Oscar Nyquist blundered and thundered into the office. This day was definitely not off to an auspicious start.

  “Now this! What next? Who do I sue?” Oscar was one of the few octogenarians I knew who could still jump up and down. His bulky body made the furniture shake.

  Vida, however, was unmoved. “Sue the ACLU. Claim you’re a minority and then get them to represent you against themselves. It should be an interesting case.” She gave Oscar a tight smile.

  As usual, her irony was lost on Oscar Nyquist. “I’m not kidding!” he bellowed. “I get down to the Marmot first thing, like I always do, never mind four or forty feet of snow. And what do I find? A trespasser, that’s what! I made a citizen’s arrest. It’s come to that, I tell you!”

  I edged a bit closer to Oscar. “You actually took this person to the sheriff?” Why did I doubt it? Oscar Nyquist looked as if he could have hauled off the entire loge section of the Marmot.

  “You bet.” He nodded vigorously, the tube lights lending a jaundiced cast to his bald head. “They’d better lock him up, too. He’s dangerous. He was smoking dope!”

  My heart gave a lurch. “Who? Who was this trespasser?”

  Now Oscar shook his head, just as vigorously, but from side to side. “That punk, you know, the one who drives the sleigh. Henry Bardeen must have been nuts to hire him.”

  I slumped against Ed’s desk in relief. “Evan’s alive, then?”

  Oscar’s bushy brows drew close together. “Evan? Is that what he’s called? What kind of name is that? Only my sister could come up with such a silly moniker! She called her kid Norman!”

  “It’s no worse than Travis,” Vida pointed out. She saw Oscar start to boil over again and shook a ballpoint pen at him. “Simmer down, Oscar. Haven’t you heard about the fire last night?”

  Oscar hadn’t, though he recalled sirens somewhere between dusk and dawn. The burning of Evan Singer’s cabin didn’t faze him, however. “No wonder,” he muttered. “He was probably smoking that dope and set it off himself.”

  It took some doing, but eventually we got a rational account out of Oscar Nyquist. He had come to the Marmot shortly before seven. Walking through the auditorium, he had noticed what he thought was a coat that someone had left on a chair in the third row. Upon closer inspection, he discovered Evan Singer, slumped down and fast asleep. Irate, Oscar had bodily hauled Singer out of the theatre and down the street to the sheriff’s office. Trespassing charges had been filed with Deputy Dwight Gould, though Oscar didn’t doubt for a minute that they’d be dismissed and that Evan Singer would be merrily on his way to go off and smoke more weed. Would we put the story in the paper? Oscar assured us that we needed to run this kind of publicity. Vida informed him that we didn’t—at least not in this week’s issue. We’d have to see the formal charges, talk to Dwight Gould, get a statement from Evan Singer, and take another picture of Oscar the Valiant Hero. Since the paper was due to leave for Monroe at any moment, our hands were tied.

  Amazingly, Oscar seemed to understand. What was even more amazing was that after only another outburst or two, he left. Frenzied, I called the sheriff’s office to make sure that Evan Singer really was alive and reasonably well, then redummied the front page, threw in Evan’s picture, and added a semi-happy ending to the fire story. Three minutes later, Kip MacDuff was on the road to Monroe.

  As for Oscar’s prediction, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Given the circumstances of the fire—which was news to Evan—Dwight Gould showed mercy, asked for a five-dollar fine, and tore up the charge.

  “So where is he going to live?” I asked Carla, who had done the legwork on the latest developments.

  “Evan doesn’t know,” she said, “and I didn’t want to get close enough to ask. He’s really upset. His artwork was destroyed, you know. I gather he figures Henry Bardeen will give him a room up at the lodge. Of course the cabin is owned by somebody else.” She threw an inquiring look at Vida.

  “Elmer Tuck,” Vida responded promptly. “He lives out by the fish hatchery. Retired from the Forest Service. Originally owned by an offbearer in the old Clemans mill. Bachelor. Went up for auction in ’thirty-four and Elmer’s dad, Kermit Tuck, bought it for two hundred dollars as a retreat from his wife, May. Awful shrew, but a fine cook. Kermit drank, but only on weekends.” Vida summed up several lives without glancing away from her typewriter.

  Wednesdays are usually slow days at The Advocate. Next week, however, we were aiming for forty-eight pages, which meant that there was a lot of copy to write. Now was the time to get a jump o
n it. I culled the wire service for anything that might have a local angle. Timber industry, ski resort, environment, state department of highways—often there was a tie-in. I handed several items to Carla and kept a couple for myself. By the time the AP got to business news, I gave the stocks and bonds my usual detached glance. But a dateline out of Seattle startled me:

  The State Attorney General’s office today announced the indictment of Seattle broker Standish Crocker on unspecified charges of gross misconduct. Crocker is the president and CEO of Bartlett & Crocker, a local investment firm. Pending further investigation, all activities of the firm have been suspended. Crocker, who lives at Hunts Point, refused comment.

  I read the item to Vida who wrinkled her nose. “Hunts Point? Isn’t that where all your rich city people live across the lake?”

  It was. Or at least it was an enclave where many wealthy persons had palatial homes. Hunts Point spelled prestige, exclusiveness, affluence. And, in the case of Standish Crocker, gross misconduct.

  “I wonder how Travis Nyquist feels about this?” I mused. “Shall we get a comment from him regarding his former employer?”

  Of course, Vida agreed, and a moment later, I had Travis on the line. He was shocked; he was incredulous. Standish Crocker was the soul of integrity. There must be some mistake.

  “Cutthroat,” asserted Travis. “That’s what the financial business is like. I’m glad I’m out of it. Poor Mr. Crocker—he’s obviously got some sharks swimming after him. He’ll be fine, trust me.”

  I didn’t, of course. Not with a stakeout in a PUD truck sitting across the street from Travis Nyquist’s house. I wondered how deeply Travis was involved. We were a week away from the next edition, but I felt a sense of urgency. It wasn’t yet noon. Milo Dodge was probably still asleep. I called his office and left word for him to get in touch with me as soon as he checked in.