The Alpine Kindred

by Mary Daheim

  “Don't do anything just yet,” Leo cautioned, handing me a mug which bore the logo of a California department-store chain.

  “I didn't intend to,” I replied stiffly.

  “Yeah, you did.” Leo chuckled and sat back down next to me. “Let me do a little detective work.”

  “Like what?” I was skeptical.

  “Like where Cavanaugh is emotionally.” Leo sipped his coffee. “Maybe he's nuts, too.”

  “Maybe he always was.” I couldn't keep the edge out of my voice.

  Leo didn't respond immediately. When he did, he turned around to stare into my face. “I've wondered who he was. I felt I was fighting a phantom.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Adam's dad. My competition.” He put both hands on his knees and wiggled his pinkie fingers. “There've been times when I thought you and I might have something going for us. But the minute I got a little bit close, you put up the 'No Vacancy' sign. Then that goofy Sheriff made off with you, at least for a while, and I couldn't figure it out. Dodge wasn't your type. He's about as exciting as garden mulch. Now it all makes sense.”

  “It does?”

  “Sure.” Leo took another drink of coffee.

  None of it made any sense to me. It never had.

  But oh, how I remembered.

  Half an hour later after two cups of coffee and three cigarettes, I was capable of driving. I got home around seven, but wasn't hungry. Instead of eating, I called Ben in Tuba City.

  My tale of woe evoked a laugh. Predictable brother, typical Ben. “You're a priest,” I practically shouted. “You're supposed to comfort me.”

  “No, I'm not,” Ben responded in the voice that always seemed to crackle around the edges. “You don't want comfort. You just want to talk about it and act like a love-crazed martyr. Hey, Sluggly,” he continued, resurrecting his childhood nickname for me, “what would you do if Cavanaugh called right now and asked you to marry him?”

  “I…” My hand strayed to the glass of Pepsi on the end table next to my sofa. “I don't know,” I admitted.

  “Of course not. Marriage would ruin it.” Ben continued to sound quite jocular. “This is your greatest role. If I were a priest to the stars, I'd call it Hopeless … and Damned Glad of It.”

  “Drop dead, Ben.”

  “Hey—neither of us was suited for the married state. Haven't you figured that out by now? I can manage being celibate, so can you—most of the time. Why fight your single vocation?”

  “Are you saying I should have been a nun?” The snarl in my voice wasn't pretty.

  “No. You'd have made a crappy nun. You can't do math, so you couldn't have gone into medicine, you haven't the temperament to teach, you've got too much common sense to be a counselor—except when it comes to your own problems—and you won't shut up for more than two minutes at a time, which nixes a contemplative order. You're fine just as you are—single mother, career, independent, all that stuff. And once in a while you can beat yourself up over Tom Cavanaugh because somehow you think you should have been legally wed. Go ahead, wallow around for a couple of days. Then take up with some twenty-year-old stud from your new college campus. Or whatever. Sorry to give bad advice. But I know you, Sluggly. You like living out a romance novel. It adds panache.”

  “You're hateful,” I asserted, but the words packed no punch. “Have you ever considered I might be lonely?”

  “Who isn't?” Ben sounded wistful.

  “Okay, I know, I'm sorry. Have you talked to Adam in the last few days?”

  “No, not since just after the Ascension.” It was typical of Ben to speak not in terms of dates, but feast days.

  “That was almost two weeks ago,” I noted. “Do you know if Adam had spoken with Tom recently?”

  I was aware of Ben's hesitation. “Adam saw Tom in St. Paul a couple of days before Lent started.”

  I felt my face stiffen. “Did Adam know that Tom's wife had died?”

  “I don't know.”

  Was Ben lying? Did priests ever lie? Of course they did. They were human. And Ben was more human than most. Or maybe that was because I knew him so well.

  “You're lying,” I said. “I can always tell. In fact, you're a lousy liar, Stench.” I tacked on the old nickname for retaliation. “Why didn't you—or Adam—tell me?”

  Ben sighed. “Tom asked Adam not to tell you. Not yet, anyway. He needed time.”

  “Time? The sonuvabitch has had twenty-five years!”

  “During which time he was married to a woman who has recently died.” Ben's voice was so dry that it not only crackled, but seemed to shred. “Come on, Sluggly, give the guy a break. I don't know what happened to Mrs. Cavanaugh—Adam didn't say, maybe he doesn't know, either—but whatever it was, you can be sure Tom is blaming himself. Haven't you told me he's got guilt etched on his manly chest?”

  “Shut up.” I had leaned back on the sofa, with a hand over my eyes. Of course Tom would feel guilty; of course he'd blame himself.

  My doorbell rang. It was working again, after a long hiatus. Milo had fixed it. The Sheriff was good at such things. Irrelevantly, I wondered if Tom could fix doorbells.

  “I've got to go,” I said to Ben. “Someone's here.”

  “Okay. But whoever it is won't be riding a white horse,” said my brother. “God bless, Sluggly.” Ben rang off.

  My caller had arrived in a white Chrysler LHS, which was parked in the driveway. Nat Cardenas was wearing not shiny armor, but a tan windbreaker over a pale yellow sport shirt and brown corduroy slacks. His usually aloof expression had been replaced with a self-deprecating smile.

  “May I come in, Emma?” He placed one tentative foot on the threshold.

  “Sure. Can I get you something to drink?” I waved at my glass of pop on the end table.

  “No, thanks. I just ate dinner.” Nat seated himself in one of my two matching armchairs. “I'm afraid I wasn't very helpful when you came to see me yesterday. I want to apologize. I was still very upset.”

  “That's understandable,” I replied, my mind not quite focused on Nat, but still lingering over the phone conversation with Ben.

  “You handled the college's part in this tragedy with great tact,” Nat said, his black eyes level with mine. “I appreciate that. So does the rest of the faculty and staff.”

  Concentrating, I tried to remember exactly what I'd said about the college. Not much, which was probably why Nat had complimented me on my “great tact.”

  “At present, the college's role is incidental,” I said. “Einar could have been murdered anywhere.” It might not be true, but it sounded comforting.

  “Of course,” Nat agreed. “Though I still think he got caught in the middle of something. Attempted robbery, most likely.” The college president paused, his finely etched mouth working slightly. “There's bound to be talk, there always is on a campus and in a small town. That's why I thought I should come to you before you hear a distortion of the facts.”

  “Talk about what?” Now I had completely zeroed in on the present.

  Nat sighed and placed his hands together. “Einar Ras-mussen Jr. and I didn't always see eye to eye. Don't take me wrong, he was a wonderful benefactor and his business advice was sound. But when it came to academic matters, he was … well, out of his depth.”

  “Ah,” I remarked, more as a prod than in understanding.

  “Einar was dead set against hiring two of our part-timers,” Nat continued as darkness enveloped the room and I turned the three-way lamp up a notch. “There were some heated discussions at our private board meetings, and at least one of his fellow trustees went along with Einar. Fortunately, the other three followed my lead. In the fall, both instructors will become full-time faculty members.”

  “This is official?” I asked.

  “It will be, at the next board-of-trustees meeting,” Nat said, his gaze taking in my cozy living room with its stone fireplace and pine-log walls. “We hope to have word from the governor on a new
appointment by then.”

  “I'll be there,” I said, though Carla usually covered the public sessions. “Which faculty are involved? Why did Einar oppose them?”

  Nat hugged himself and laughed softly. “Small towns. They're always a hotbed of hostility and internecine rivalries. You may know the instructors. They're Scott Kuramoto and Pat Dugan.”

  I nodded. “I know Scott, but I've only seen Pat at Mass.” It occurred to me that with a name like Cardenas, Nat might be Catholic, too. But I'd never seen him at St. Mildred's.

  “Then you probably know why Einar didn't want Pat on the faculty,” Nat said with a twitch of his lips.

  I was ignorant. “Because of his religion?” I said, making a wild guess.

  “No, no.” Nat frowned. “I hope we're beyond that sort of thing, even in Alpine. It was because Pat's married to one of the Bourgette daughters, who, of course, is Einar's niece.”

  “Oh.” I'd never made the connection between the Dugans and the Bourgettes, let alone the Rasmussens. “And Scott? Is he … ?” The query trailed off. I'd gotten the impression that Scott was single.

  Nat hung his head. “Scott has been seeing Deirdre Ras-mussen since her divorce. It strikes me as an odd pairing— he's a very serious young man, and she seems … well, a bit flighty. You never know about people, though, when it comes to romance.”

  No, you didn't. Some people marry nuts. “Why didn't Einar like Scott? Her first husband sounds kind of dismal, according to Deirdre.”

  Nat cleared his throat. “I mentioned that I hoped we were beyond religious prejudices. I'm afraid we haven't reached the same point when it comes to race. Einar didn't believe in intermarriage, if that's what you want to call it. He was, to put it plainly, a racist.”

  It shouldn't have surprised me. If Einar was typical of some Alpiners, intermarriage meant a Norwegian marrying a Swede. “I don't even know what Einar was.”

  “Danish,” Nat replied, “and very proud of it. His family came from pure Danish stock, which he seemed to think gave him some sort of bragging rights.”

  “Did Deirdre marry a Dane the first time?” I didn't know that “Jerk-off” was a nationality. It had a universal ring to me.

  “I don't know.” Nat smiled, the brilliant public smile he flashed to woo supporters and benefactors. “I should get home. But I wanted you to hear about our little controversy before someone else told you and exaggerated it into a downright battle. It was nothing of the sort,” he went on, getting to his feet. “Just a disagreement among the trustees which would eventually have been resolved in favor of Scott Kuramoto and Pat Dugan.”

  In other words, I thought, not worth killing a man.

  Which, I guessed, was what Nat Cardenas wanted me to believe.

  Chapter Nine

  CARLA RETURNED TO work the next day, looking none the worse for her experience Monday night. I disliked calling her shallow, but the immaturity she often displayed may have protected her. Or perhaps it was the pregnancy. While expecting, women tend to isolate themselves from anything that occurs outside the womb.

  That morning, Leo seemed to keep his eye on me, as if he anticipated another emotional outburst. I held back telling Vida about Sandra's death. I already knew what she'd say: now everything will work out, just give Tommy, as she called him, some time. Vida was usually so sensible, so hardheaded—except when it came to my peculiar nonrelationship with Tom. If, as Ben had said, I was living out a romance novel, Vida was avidly reading it and rooting for a happy ending.

  Dwight Gould gave us the official autopsy report over the phone. Einar Rasmussen Jr. had died from three stab wounds in the back which had penetrated the heart and lungs. A massive hemorrhage had ensued, though Einar probably had not died immediately. Death had taken place some time between six-thirty and seven-thirty, the latter parameter set by Carla's discovery of the body.

  “He looked surprised,” I said to Vida after I'd relayed Dwight's information. “Didn't you think so, Carla?”

  Carla looked up from her computer screen. She had plaited her long black hair into pigtails this morning, which made her seem even more girlish than usual. “He looked dead. That's all I remember.”

  “What about the weapon?” Vida asked, her glasses far down on her nose.

  “It was the knife Jack found,” I answered, “which belonged to the kitchen cutlery set. It was big, new, and extremely sharp. I figure you could butcher a cow with it.”

  “Einar was more of a bull,” Vida remarked. “Have they found fingerprints?”

  In my anxiety to make sure I got the ME's report before Milo interfered, I'd forgotten to ask. “I'll call back now,” I said, and hurried into my office.

  To my dismay, Toni Andreas put me through to the Sheriff. “I asked for Dwight,” I said as soon as I heard Milo's voice.

  “Dwight just left.” The Sheriff's usual laconic voice was harsh.

  “He gave me the ME's report, but…” I hesitated, not wanting to admit that I'd forgotten to inquire about the weapon. “I need confirmation regarding prints on the knife.”

  “What do you mean, 'confirmation'? What did Dwight tell you?” Milo sounded irritated.

  “Not much,” I said, skirting the truth. “Why don't you tell me?”

  “Because we're not releasing anything about the weapon,” Milo snapped. “What exactly did my deputy say?”

  “Skip it.” I banged down the phone. Only then did I realize that the lab must have turned up some prints. Otherwise, the Sheriff wouldn't have been so touchy.

  “Damn!” I exploded, hurtling into the newsroom. “Milo's withholding information! That's wrong. He's acting like a big brat!”

  “Watch your language,” Vida said in mild rebuke. “If there's a personal element involved here, you'd better let me handle the story.”

  “Hey!” Carla's head jerked up, making the pigtails sail around her shoulders. “The college is my beat! If you're going to hand the assignment over, Emma, you'd better give it to me.”

  Maybe, just maybe, Carla's six years of experience had provided sufficient grounding to tackle an important homicide case. I was caught between Carla's snapping brown eyes and Vida's narrowed gray gaze.

  “Carla,” I began in my most soothing voice, “I don't want you overtaxing yourself at this stage of your pregnancy. You've already had one bad scare. Take it easy, I'm keeping this one.”

  “Nonsense!” Vida had pushed her glasses back up on her nose and was sitting with her fists on her hips. “Your feelings—and Milo's—are already getting in the way. He's not angry with me. Besides, I have my nephew Billy.”

  “I have Ryan,” Carla countered. “He knows plenty about the college. I have an in.”

  I struck an adamant stance. “I'm keeping the story. You got that?” My head swiveled first in Vida's direction, then Carla's. “I wouldn't mind help from both of you, though,” I added in a placating tone. “Carla, could Ryan meet us for lunch today or tomorrow?”

  “Us?” Vida put in. “Or are you going to drink your meal in a bar?”

  “We can all eat up at the ski-lodge coffee shop,” I said. “It's close to the college. How about it, Carla?”

  “Fine.” She was almost pouting. “But Ryan can't do it today. He teaches a sociology class at twelve-thirty. He can probably come on Friday. He doesn't have class.”

  As it turned out, Ryan had a division meeting, so I invited everyone to dinner at my house Sunday evening. I was anxious to speak with Ryan for more than journalistic purposes. While I'd seen him around town, I hardly knew the man, and he was about to take my sole reporter to wife. I felt a certain responsibility for Carla, though I knew she would scoff at the idea.

  And while Carla seemed marginally appeased, Vida was not. She was, as she'd put it, “huffy” with me for the rest of the day, until I asked her just before five if she'd like to have dinner at the Venison Inn. With a hint of regret, she turned me down, saying that she and Buck Bardeen were meeting his widowed brother, Henry, and Linda Grant, th
e high school PE teacher, for dinner at Cafe Flore out on the highway.

  Carla and Leo had left for the day. Ginny was packed up and ready to go, except for Brad, who had escaped once more into the news office and was pulling discards out of Leo's wastebasket. As soon as his mother completed her rescue operation and had bid us a frazzled good night, I told Vida about Sandra Cavanaugh's death.

  “Goodness!” Vida exclaimed, a hand to her cheek. “An overdose! How dreadful!” Her gray eyes suddenly narrowed. “Foul play was ruled out, I suppose?”

  “Foul play?” The idea jarred me. “I don't know anything except what I've told you. Foul play?”

  Vida blinked innocently. “Well … Sandra was a very wealthy woman who must have made many people's lives unpleasant. You scarcely knew her. What if she left all her money to one of the servants or a pet chinchilla?”

  That sounded about right. If Sandra had owned a chinchilla, she might have been goofy enough to put him in her will. But I still found Vida's suggestion outrageous.

  “It's a wonder,” I said, doing a bit of my own huffing, “that Sandra hadn't killed herself years ago. She took about a zillion kinds of medication.”

  “Poor thing.” Vida's eyes seemed to glisten with tears.

  “Who? Sandra? Tom? Me?” Her surprising reaction annoyed me.

  “Sandra, of course.” Vida took off her glasses and dabbed at her eyes. “Such a tragedy—to be tied to a man who loves another. No wonder she killed herself.”

  “Oh, good grief!” I literally spun around in the middle of the newsroom. “You're taking her side! Nobody said she killed herself! And I don't think she ever knew I existed!”

  “Of course she did.” Vida sniffed a bit and put her glasses back on. “Wives always know.”

  “Not when they're totally caught up with themselves,” I argued. “Sandra Cavanaugh was self-centered, self-absorbed, and, in case you've forgotten, crazy as a bedbug.”