The Alpine Christmas

by Mary Daheim

  I cut Ben off. “Gösta Berling’s Saga was Greta Garbo’s first big hit. It was also the film that Lars Nyquist used for the grand opening of the Marmot. Now what the hell are you talking about?”

  Ten minutes later, I was back at the rectory, this time driving my car, which took five minutes to warm up. Four big round tins of film lay on the parlor floor, clearly marked in English and in Swedish. “Where,” I asked in amazement, “did Evan get these? They must be worth something.”

  Ben got out the brandy again. “Think about it,” said my brother, his usually crackling voice slowing to a drawl that he might have picked up in Mississippi. “Evan Singer spends Tuesday night at the Marmot. How long is he there? What’s he doing? We don’t know, Oscar doesn’t know. Oscar finds him asleep in the theatre’s auditorium. Cut to Wednesday. Enter Evan dressed as Santa, suit stolen from the mayor, mailbag taken from your office. Now why does he need the sack?”

  I eyed my brother in the dim amber light of a three-way lamp, conservatively set on low. “To carry something … And,” I added, suddenly remembering Vida’s barbed remark of the previous week, “because Fuzzy Baugh didn’t use a pack. He has lumbago.”

  We were silent, both of us staring at the film cans. “Evan found the tins Tuesday,” my brother speculated. “Where?”

  “The basement?” I had been down there, but Ben had not. “It’s full of old stuff, but I didn’t see anything like this.” I closed my eyes, trying to picture the clutter. Oscar had shown Vida and me almost every nook and cranny. Where had the film cans been stashed? “The rain barrel! Lars saved it from the old social hall. It was probably empty, and somehow these cans were put in it after the movie ended its run. Lars Nyquist was a great fan of Garbo’s. Maybe he wanted a souvenir.”

  Ben nodded. “Could be. It was illegal, unless he worked out some kind of deal. In any event, I’ll bet Evan Singer found these cans and took them up to the auditorium, ditched them under the seat—and fell asleep. Oscar found him and threw him out before he could get away with the reels. So he had to come back—and sit exactly where he was the previous night. That’s why there was the ruckus. Somebody else was already in that seat. During the movie, Evan slipped the cans into the mailbag. Who would stop Santa with his pack?”

  I had to laugh. Evan Singer might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. “How did you find these?” I asked.

  Ben lighted a thin, black cigarette, one of his rare tobacco indulgences. He knew better than to offer me one. I would have accepted. “Teresa McHale will kill me for smoking in here, but I’ll remind her I’m the pastor. How, you ask? Same reason—Teresa. She’s so damned fussy, and I was afraid Evan might have trashed Father Fitz’s room, so I went in to check. It was tidy enough, he hasn’t got much left since the fire, but when I looked under the bed, I found this.” He waved his cigarette at the mailbag and film cans. “Now what do I do? Confront him?”

  I didn’t like the idea of Ben confronting Evan Singer. My brother was a big boy, and reasonably fit. But he had no killer instinct. I was beginning to think that I couldn’t say the same for Evan Singer. “We’d better find out if these reels came from the Marmot.”

  “Where else?” asked Ben.

  “Right.” I watched Ben’s cigarette smoke spiral up toward the ceiling, drifting into the old-fashioned light fixture of orange bulbs shaped like candle flames. “Ben—we’re asking the wrong questions.” My brother blew a smoke ring, forming his unspoken oh? I stood up and began to pace the room. “It isn’t enough to know how Evan Singer stole this movie. We need to know why. We need to know how he knew it was there in the first place. Most of all, we need to know who in hell is Evan Singer?”

  I lingered at the rectory, unwilling to leave Ben alone. At last, I openly questioned my brother’s safety. He might be sleeping under the same roof as a known thief and a possible killer.

  “I’ll admit I can’t see why Evan would kill those two girls,” I said as the old marble clock on the mantel chimed eleven, “but I’m worried. Maybe you should put those film cans back under Evan’s bed before he gets in.”

  Ben shook his head, his customary indecisiveness coming to the fore. “I can’t. If Evan’s got the nerve to ask for them, we’ll talk it over. But I need to think this through. Now go home, you’re stalling to give me protection. I don’t need it. Teresa McHale is strong as an ox. She could put Evan Singer on the ropes in the first twenty seconds of round one.”

  “But she’s not back, either,” I protested. “Where are you going to put those film reels?”

  Ben picked up the four cans, placed them in the mailbag, and pulled at the sleeve of my red sweater. “Come on, Sluggly, I’ll show you.”

  The rectory was built on a simple, practical floor plan. The parlor and study were at the front; the housekeeper’s room and bath were separated from the two priests’ rooms by the kitchen, dining room, and another bath. The long hall gave the impression of a dormitory.

  The priest’s guest room was spartan, with a twin bed, a bureau, a desk and a chair. A crucifix hung above the bed, but otherwise the walls were bare. Ben opened the closet to reveal his limited travel wardrobe. He put the mailbag on the floor at the rear of the closet, then set his ski boots at such an angle that the sack was obscured.

  “Okay?” He gave me a tight smile. When I didn’t respond, he sighed. “All right, come here. I’ll show you my life insurance policy.” He went over to the bureau and pulled out the top drawer. Socks and underwear were folded neatly. Ben reached under a pile of T-shirts. I waited. Ben reached some more. I glanced out the window to see if it was snowing yet. It wasn’t, but the clouds were low and seemed to press in on Alpine.

  Ben swore. I jumped. Under the tan, his face had lost its natural color. “It’s gone, Emma,” he said hoarsely. “God help me, it’s gone!”

  “What?” Ben’s reaction baffled me. It annoyed me, too, since he seemed to think I knew what he was talking about.

  Ben slammed the drawer shut, rocking the rickety bureau. “My gun. The Browning high-power. It’s gone.”

  I was adamant. Ben was either coming home with me or I was staying at the rectory. He refused to leave. So did I.

  “You’re irrational, Emma,” said Ben, sounding angry.

  “You’re a fool,” I countered, dialing my home. Adam answered, half-asleep. I wasn’t sure my message sank in, but maybe he’d figure it out when he woke up in the morning and found me gone.

  At last, Ben gave in, but insisted that I take his bed. He’d sleep on the davenport in the parlor. We’d just settled this minor dispute when Teresa McHale came in. Seeing her solid, no-nonsense figure made me feel a bit foolish.

  Ben, however, took command. “Please sit down, Mrs. McHale,” he requested, indicating one of the mohair chairs in the parlor. “I want you to tell me who has called at the rectory this past week.”

  Teresa was still wearing her handsome plum-colored wool coat. She set her handbag down on the floor next to the chair. “The last week? Really, Father, I don’t know if I can remember everyone. The entire school faculty and staff at some point. Most of the parish council. Mary Beth McElroy, the CCD teacher. Annie Jeanne Dupré, the organist. Oh, the choir, after practice Monday night. Mrs. Nyquist from the Lutheran Church, The eucharistie ministers. The dishwasher repairman.”

  “Mrs. Nyquist?” I interrupted. “Which one?”

  Teresa eyed me with distaste. It was one thing for a new pastor to invade her domain. It was something else for the pastor’s lippy sister to butt in. “Mrs. Arnold,” she replied coolly, turning to Ben. “Louise Nyquist. She came by Monday, after you attended the St. Lucy service. You forgot the Swedish Christmas chimes they presented to the clergy, Father.”

  “Oh. Right,” said Ben. “Who else?”

  Teresa continued her list of names, which made up most of Catholic Alpine and a dash of Separated Brethren thrown in for good measure. At last Ben revealed the source of his anxiety. The housekeeper was appalled.

  “A gun?
You carry a gun, Father?”

  “I need it in the desert, believe me,” Ben replied, a trifle testily. “I’ve got a permit. I brought it with me because my quarters are being renovated while I’m on vacation. The workmen had to pull the safe.”

  Teresa did not look appeased. “I see,” she said between taut lips.

  I dared to interject myself once more. “Mrs. McHale, when Louise was here Monday was she ever alone in the rectory? Waiting for you or something?” Louise Nyquist wielding a Browning high-power seemed incongruous, but so were a lot of other brutal truths.

  “Certainly not,” Teresa answered, taking umbrage at my suggestion that she somehow might have been derelict in her duties. “I let her in, we chatted, she said she’d never been in the rectory before. Mrs. Nyquist joked that her parents had told her horror stories about the place. You know, the usual Protestant mumbo-jumbo—orgies, Black Masses, human sacrifice, all that nonsense. She seemed interested, so I showed her around. She stayed so long that I thought she was thinking about converting.” Teresa laughed softly at her own small jest.

  Ben and I exchanged glances. I knew we were thinking alike: while Louise Nyquist detained Teresa, someone else might have sneaked into the rectory. It could have been prearranged; it could have been by chance.

  Teresa still seemed unconvinced about my reasons for spending the night. Indeed, I was beginning to change my mind. But when the housekeeper headed for bed and Evan Singer knocked at the door, my resolve was renewed.

  “I’ve been out to the cabin,” he announced, looking mournful. “It’s all gone. Everything. I communed with the spirits. They told me to go to Hoquiam.”

  “Hoquiam?” Ben and I chorused. There’s nothing wrong with Hoquiam, which is a small city in the Grays Harbor area out on the coast. Still, it struck both of us as a strange choice by the spirits.

  “I leave tomorrow,” Evan said, drifting down the hallway. “My task here is finished.” He went into Father Fitz’s room and quietly closed the door.

  I grabbed Ben’s arm. “What if he sees the film reels are gone?”

  Ben shrugged. “He’ll ask. I’ll tell him. Stop fussing, Sluggly. It’s after midnight. Go to bed.” He kissed my forehead.

  It was very chilly in the rectory, so I slept in my clothes. I didn’t have much choice, unless I borrowed one of Ben’s sweatshirts. As late as it was, I couldn’t settle down. The bed was too narrow, too hard, too unfamiliar. I wondered how Ben was faring on the davenport.

  I tossed and I turned. I thought I heard a wolf howl. Was Adam okay? Should Ben have reported the missing gun? Or the discovery of the film reels? Maybe I should call the sheriff’s office. Dwight Gould was on night duty this week. But I might wake Ben if I went down the hall to use the phone in the study.

  A frantic knock sent me bolt upright. Evan Singer demanded to be let in. On stockinged feet, I hurried to the door. Evan flew into the room, wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  “They’re going to kill me!” he cried. “It’s horrible! The rack, the boot, the Iron Maiden!” He fell on his knees, wringing his hands. “Save me, Queen Isabella! Tell Torquemada Im innocent!”

  “Oh, jeez!” I rolled my eyes, then collected myself. “Okay, I’ll send Ferdinand. Get up, you’re safe. Hey, Evan, come on. You’ve reached sanctuary.”

  Slowly, Evan Singer got to his feet. He gave me a pathetic, grateful smile. “You’re a good person,” he said, sounding almost sane. “I know the Inquisition is passé, but that room scares me. Think of it, a priest occupying it all these years! Do you think he wore a hairshirt and flogged himself?”

  Evan might like to think so, but I didn’t. Such extreme penitence wasn’t Father Fitz’s style. He’d be more inclined to give up fudge for a week. But I didn’t expect Evan to believe that.

  “You want to trade rooms?” I inquired.

  He considered the offer carefully, then accepted. Ben was at the door, looking bleary-eyed. Teresa McHale, wearing a brilliant satin quilted robe, stood behind him. Without makeup, she more than looked her age. She also looked upset.

  “Really, Father,” she murmured to Ben, “didn’t I warn you?”

  Ben ignored the remark. He stood by while Evan and I switched sleeping quarters. Teresa padded off down the hall.

  “Well?” I whispered to Ben after Evan had closed the door to the guest bedroom. “I don’t think he noticed that the film was missing.”

  Ben gave a little smirk. “That’s not all that’s missing,” he said, starting back toward the parlor. “And I don’t mean the Browning.”

  “Hmmmm,” I said, and yawned. Evan’s outburst had broken the spell. It seemed normal for him to be crazy. I went to sleep almost immediately.

  Chapter Seventeen

  BEN WAS STILL hemming and hawing over telling Milo about the missing gun. As for the film cans, my brother would hide them in a safer place. Evan wasn’t going anywhere. Milo had seen to that. He had arrested Evan first thing Friday morning for the theft of Fuzzy Baugh’s Santa suit.

  “Honestly,” Vida exclaimed as Milo joined us in the news office around nine o’clock, “you can’t hold him long on such a flimsy charge!”

  “It’s Friday,” Milo replied. “We’ll be able to keep him over the weekend. Besides, he’s got nowhere else to go unless he wants to stay on at the rectory and get himself harassed by Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition.” Milo gave me an amused look. “By the way, Travis and Bridget are back.”

  I turned away from the AP wire, which was spewing out national news. “What happened?”

  Milo took a maple bar from the sack of goodies Ginny Burmeister had brought for a special Friday treat. “Not much. Travis insisted he didn’t know what Standish Crocker was up to. They didn’t charge him, so I have to figure the surveillance team didn’t turn up much.” He dug inside his down jacket. “Except these.”

  I took the four photographs from Milo. They showed a man standing in the driveway of the younger Nyquists’ residence, then on the snow-covered lawn, leaning against the gnarled cottonwood tree, and finally up against the side of the house. Although the pictures were fuzzy, there was no mistaking the tall, thin figure of Evan Singer.

  “The guys in the PUD truck took these shots a week ago Tuesday. I guess I was wrong about the lurker’s intentions. Or was I?” Milo looked bemused.

  I handed the pictures to Vida. “Bridget and Evan as lovers? Well … maybe.”

  Vida huffed as she studied the photos. “I don’t call this lurking. He’s bold as brass. The least he could do is hide in the shrubbery or climb up that tree.”

  I practically fell over Vida’s wastebasket. “Let me see that again!” Puzzled, Vida handed the pictures back to me. I scrutinized all four in turn. The big tree at the edge of the front yard was prominent in each shot. “Isn’t that a cottonwood?” I asked.

  Vida didn’t bother to look. “Certainly not. It’s an oak. George Jersey, who felled the first tree when Alpine was still called Nippon, planted it back in World World I.”

  I felt half-silly, half-euphoric. I described the gnarled tree Evan had sketched, told how he had said his entire life was pictured there. A family tree, I realized, with its roots in Alpine. It was the same tree that grew in the front yard of Bridget and Travis Nyquist’s house.

  “Vida, think—is there any way Evan Singer could be related to the Nyquists?”

  I heard Milo guffaw. But Vida merely adjusted her glasses. “Now that’s an interesting question, Emma.” She picked up a pencil and began to draw lines on a blank piece of paper. “Let’s see—Arnie’s sister, Thelma, had twin girls who must be in their late twenties. Thelma and her husband, Peter, live in Spokane—he works for a packing company.” Vida drew another line, in reverse. “Oscar’s sister, who is, of course, Arnie’s Aunt Karen, had no children by her first husband, Trygve Hansen. But as I told you, she had three by the second marriage to Mr.… Well, if that doesn’t beat all! I never knew his name! None of the Nyquists would mention it because he was Jewish.�
� She looked to Milo for confirmation.

  “Hey,” said Milo, holding up a big hand, “I was a baby when all that happened.”

  I turned to Milo. “Can you find out what Karen Nyquist’s married name is?”

  Vida was dredging up the Seattle White Pages. “I can. If I’m following your thoughts.” She dumped the book back on the floor. “I don’t want that, I want the Eastside, don’t I?”

  “I don’t suppose,” Milo said in his laconic voice, “that anybody’s going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Vida looked up from the Eastside directory. “Oh, hush, Milo! It’s obvious.” She bent her head over the pages again. “There are four of them in the Bellevue area …ah!”

  “You found Karen?” I asked eagerly.

  Vida regarded me with dismay. I felt as if she were about to crown Milo and me with dunce caps. “Don’t you pay attention either, Emma? I’m not looking for Karen Nyquist, I’m looking for her son: Norman Singer.”

  I had forgotten that Oscar Nyquist had told us that his sister had named her son Norman. Vida, naturally, had absorbed that piece of knowledge like a sponge. Milo and I waited quietly while she dialed the Bellevue number. We were as fascinated by the excuse she would come up with as we were by the possible confirmation of my theory.

  “Mrs. Singer? Yes, this is Vida Blatt, from West Seattle. I understand your son, Evan, is an artist.… Oh, really? No, it doesn’t matter if he’s sold previously. I was thinking of a commission. A mural for my backyard fence. Your mother-in-law suggested it. Karen Singer, is it? I met her at Bel-Square a while ago.… Confined to a wheelchair? Since when? Goodness, maybe it’s been longer than I thought. You know how time flies.… Oh. Oh, that’s a shame. I’ll have to find someone else. Thank you so much.”

  Vida put the phone down and smiled in triumph. “Now you see how easy that was? The personal touch. No computers, no data whazzits, nothing but pure human communication. Thea Singer, Mrs. Norman, says her son has moved out of town. Surprise. Grandma Karen has been stuck in a wheelchair since she had a stroke a year ago. What else do you need to know?”