The Alpine Kindred

by Mary Daheim

  “I don't believe that's the medical term for her condition,” Vida said primly.

  “Whatever. It comes down to the same thing. Look,” I went on, returning to stand by Vida's desk, “I'm sorry she's dead. Really, I am. Hers was a wasted life, in my opinion. And frankly, Vida, I thought you'd have a far different reaction.”

  Vida gave me an unusually helpless look. “I can't help how I feel, Emma. I honestly think it's a terrible thing to have happened. Whatever will poor Tommy do now?”

  “I've no idea.” Vida's lack of concern for me was making my temper rise. Rather than quarrel with her, I started for my office. “I thought you'd want to know. I'm going home now. Good night, Vida.”

  She didn't respond. When I left, Vida was still at her desk, seemingly lost in thought.

  I was still mad.

  * * *

  The next morning, Edna Mae Dalrymple tiptoed up to my office before I could finish my drst cup of coffee. “Knock, knock,” she piped in her birdlike manner. “May I?”

  I'm not really a morning person, and seldom feel anything like jovial until I've downed two mugs of coffee. “Yeah,” I said, my voice raspy. “What is it, Edna Mae?”

  She ducked inside, but didn't sit down. “Are you … feeling better, Emma?”

  “Better than what?” I sounded ungracious, then remembered my outburst earlier in the week. “Oh. That. No, as a matter of fact, I'm not. The Sheriff is behaving in a most unprofessional manner over the Rasmussen homicide investigation.”

  My formality seemed to fortify Edna Mae. She approached the nearest of my two visitors' chairs, touched the back as if it might bite, and then awkwardly angled herself down upon the seat.

  “That's what I wanted to discuss. With you or Vida. But Vida's not here.” Edna Mae glanced over her shoulder to confirm the statement.

  “Vida's attending the May Madness breakfast at the Congregational church,” I said. “What about the murder?”

  “Well”—Edna Mae gulped—”it's not exactly about the murder itself. Did you hear about the article I proposed for The Advocate!”

  I assured her that Vida had kept me informed. Edna Mae proceeded to explain all the background anyway, including the paucity of display items available in Skyko-mish County. She had become particularly discouraged when Darla Puckett had refused to let the library exhibit her collection of dead grasshoppers which Darla had dressed in the national costumes of France, Italy, Austria, Latvia, and Finland.

  “Pity,” I murmured, wondering where Tom Cavanaugh was at this exact moment.

  More background ensued, mainly concerning Edna Mae's futile efforts with Thyra Rasmussen and her knick-knacks. “Such a difficult old lady,” Edna Mae lamented with a shake of her short salt-and-pepper curls. “But I thought that if I went over to Snohomish and offered my condolences on Einar's very tragic demise, her mother's heart might be softened.” She paused, her small, birdlike face contorted with frustration.

  “Get the old girl in a weak moment?” I remarked.

  Edna Mae's head jerked up. “Oh! No! Nothing so crude. I merely thought that she might be looking more to posterity. That is, if her son was dead, and she herself being ninety or thereabouts, she might want to … to make a gesture.”

  I'd never met Thyra Rasmussen, but given Vida's description of the family matriarch, I could well imagine the “gesture” she might make to Edna Mae. But I let the librarian continue.

  “Mrs. Rasmussen didn't seem the least bit moved by Einar's death. At first I thought perhaps she'd become senile and couldn't take it in. But then she mentioned— quite off-the-cuff, as it were—that Einar Jr. probably goaded someone into killing him. That struck me as … unnatural.”

  It struck me, too, in several ways. “Did she mention anyone in particular?”

  “No. Indeed, I was so startled that I sort of glossed over the comment, and changed the subject.” Edna Mae hung her head. “That was probably foolish of me, wasn't it? I mean, as awful as it sounds, I'm rather intrigued. Human nature is always so fascinating, and in my line of work, I'm often restricted to reading about it instead of actually encountering it. Am I making sense?”

  I supposed it depended on how one defined sense. Edna Mae meant well; she was a kindhearted woman. But if common sense could be equated with card sense, then my sometimes bridge partner was a washout. In answer to Edna Mae's specific question, I said yes.

  “What about Einar Sr.? Was he as harsh about Einar Jr.'s murder as Mrs. Rasmussen was?”

  Edna Mae sighed. “Quite the contrary. I never saw Mr. Rasmussen. He'd taken to his bed, apparently much affected.” As usual, Edna Mae had fallen into the vernacular of her favorite dated literary works. “He's way up in his nineties, poor old trout, and his health is failing. Or so rumor has it.” She rolled her eyes in apparent dismay.

  I waited for her to go on, but she didn't. Her silence forced me to ask what happened next.

  Edna Mae's eyes grew wide. “Why, nothing. Mrs. Rasmussen couldn't be moved to part with her collectibles, so I took my leave.”

  “That's what you came to tell me? And Vida?” I couldn't keep the puzzled curiosity out of my voice.

  “Well … yes. That is, I thought you should know about this impasse. Vida had mentioned that perhaps later, after a decent passage of time, you might print my article about Mrs. Rasmussen's gold pieces.”

  One word clicked in my brain. “Gold? Her collectibles are gold?”

  Edna Mae nodded solemnly. “Yes, and most interesting. Each piece is fashioned from crude nuggets, and woe upon the critic who despises them! Artful things, and such aglow!”

  I gathered that Edna Mae had been reading Dickens. But English classics weren't what intrigued me at the moment. “Where'd she get them?”

  “The Klondike,” Edna Mae answered promptly. “Her father had been a prospector.”

  I was disappointed. Somehow, I'd hoped that the mention of gold wasn't coincidental to the nuggets discovered at the warehouse site. However, souvenirs from the Gold Rush a hundred years ago were common in the Northwest. I had inherited a gold cross made out of nuggets from my mother, who had, in turn, received it from a great-uncle who had prospected in the Klondike.

  “There's one other thing,” Edna Mae said shyly.

  “Yes?” I was twitching a bit, anxious to get my second cup of coffee.

  “As I mentioned, I find this situation most intriguing. When I first arrived, you said that Sheriff Dodge wasn't being cooperative. Is it possible that you'd like someone to … um… sleuth for you?”

  I pushed back in my chair. “In what way?”

  “Well… now that I've established some kind of rapport with Mrs. Rasmussen—precarious as it may be—it occurred to me that I might be of help. Family secrets, and all that. There are bound to be some, correct?” Edna Mae glanced over her shoulder again, apparently making sure that Vida hadn't returned. “I'm well aware that Vida knows everything about people in Alpine. But the Ras-mussens are Snohomish residents. Surely she isn't as well-grounded in Snohomish County lore.”

  Edna Mae was probably right. I couldn't see what harm she might do in pestering Mrs. Rasmussen. As a librarian, she was schooled in research. The exercise in social intercourse would be good for Edna Mae. To my knowledge, it was the only kind of intercourse she had ever experienced.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “We'll appreciate whatever you can find out.”

  Two pink spots appeared in Edna Mae's usually pale cheeks. “Oh! Thank you! This is so exciting! Just like a book!” She started to rise, then stopped. “You don't think I'm a ghoul?”

  “No,” I replied truthfully. “Curiosity is very normal. It's a huge part of my job.”

  Practically walking on air, Edna Mae went off. I was pouring coffee when Vida returned from the May Madness event.

  “Such drivel! Really, even after four hundred years, those silly women don't know whether they're Presbyters or Congregationalists! We certainly don't want them crossing over!” she declared, mar
ching around her desk as if she were ready to do battle to preserve the purity of First Presbyterian. “Nor will I ever do the Tea Cup Trot again!”

  Leo looked up from a layout for Francine's Fine Apparel. “Huh? What's that got to do with religion?”

  “Never mind,” Vida retorted, but elucidated all the same. “It has to do with posture as a virtue, an arguable point, and those cheap, ugly saucers ruin my hair.” She patted her gray curls, which didn't seem any more disheveled than usual. “I'm lucky I didn't spill orange pekoe all over my new blouse!”

  Briefly, I tried to envision Vida doing the Tea Cup Trot. The image brought the first smile of the day, but my House & Home editor hadn't finished her tirade. “Then, on the way out of the church hall, I ran into Averill Fairbanks. Instead of UFOs in the sky and his backyard, he's seeing ghosts on the ground. Really, that silly old fool should be locked up!”

  “Ghosts?” Carla was intrigued. “What kind? The ones with white sheets or the specter type?”

  Vida sat down with a rather loud plop. “I've no idea.” Removing her glasses, she rubbed frantically at her eyes. “And Billy—my nephew Billy—my own flesh and blood— refuses to tell me about the knife!”

  Such insubordination was unthinkable. No one, especially her kinfolk, ever dared refuse Vida information. “How come?” I asked.

  Vida removed her palms from her eyes and gazed at me with a venomous expression. “Because Milo ordered him to hold his tongue. Now, I ask you, why is that? Mere orneriness, or is there a reason?”

  “There might be a reason, Duchess,” Leo said mildly. “If there weren't any prints, they might as well say so. But if there were …” My ad manager held his hands palms up.

  “That's what's so annoying,” Vida said. “I think there were prints, I think they know whose prints, I think they have a serious suspect.”

  “Okay.” Leo shrugged. “Then they'll make an arrest, and when they do, they'll have to tell us. So why sweat it? We're still four days from publication.”

  “We don't have much choice,” I pointed out. “But I'll be damned if I'll ever let Milo forget how shabbily he's treating us.”

  “Who?” Vida barked the word.

  I turned in her direction. “Who what?”

  “Whose prints, of course.” She didn't add the words you ninny, but I knew she was thinking them.

  “We can't begin to guess,” I said reasonably. “So we wait.”

  Vida harrumphed. I returned to my office. And waited. For many things, including for the phone to ring.

  On Saturday morning, I decided to accompany Vida to Einar Jr.'s funeral in Snohomish. It was a cloudy day, with showers that felt more like November than May. I'd half expected Vida to resent my intrusion on what she considered her journalistic territory, but she seemed grateful for the company.

  There were two Lutheran churches in Snohomish. Zion Lutheran was much older, and its worshipers were mostly of German descent. Einar Jr. was being buried out of Christ the King Lutheran, whose flock was Scandinavian. The church was situated in a hilly section of town, not far from the new version of old St. Michael's Catholic Church. It was a fairly modern brick building, probably dating back to the Fifties, with tall cedar trees shielding the back of the church. When we arrived at ten to eleven, the only parking left was on the street. Vida and I trooped a full block to the church, where the crowd was already standing-room-only.

  “I should have guessed,” she murmured, elbowing her way past some elderly mourners. “Press!” she hissed, practically bowling over a young couple with a babe in arms.

  Vida's aggressiveness carried us only so far, to the back of the last pew, to be exact. She is tall, and I am not, so the advantage was hers. I would be able to see only what was going on up front when the congregation sat or knelt.

  “Family room,” Vida said in a stage whisper as she nudged my arm. “Drat. It's curtained. We can't see them.”

  At last, the minister, wearing long white robes, appeared on the altar. The organ played a doleful hymn I didn't recognize as the casket was rolled in. There was no center aisle, and the procession came through the double doors, skirted the standees, and continued up the side aisle on the right.

  “Pallbearers,” Vida said, again in the stage whisper that was making a few heads turn. “Harold Rasmussen, with the peculiar hair combed over his bald spot. Fuzzy Baugh? Oh, really! Surely they could have found someone more appropriate! Somebody-or-other Jorgensen from Monroe, with the pigeon toes. A shirttail relation of Thyra's, I believe. Dear me, I don't know the others.”

  The service was uneventful, except for Vida's running commentary. Einar was eulogized by the pastor, the current mayor of Snohomish, and Mr. Jorgensen who turned out to be named Victor, and was some sort of cousin to the deceased. Forty minutes later we were back in the Buick, headed for the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery at the edge of town.

  “I know it's raining, but how else will we be able to view the family?” Vida demanded after I'd issued a mild protest. “The reception is private because—I'm sure— that old beast, Thyra, insisted on having it at their house.”

  It was only then that I remembered to tell Vida about Edna Mae's proposal to help us sleuth. Vida was annoyed.

  “That mouse? What could she possibly find out that we couldn't?”

  “Vida,” I said in mild reproach, “we haven't found out anything. How could Edna Mae do any worse?”

  We had pulled into the cemetery, following the long, slow line of cars, vans, trucks, and sport utility vehicles that formed the procession. With Memorial Day at hand, the fresh green grass was already covered with flowers, both real and artificial, as well as numerous small American flags.

  “I intend to call on Thyra myself,” Vida declared. “I can't go on letting the past keep me away.”

  “The past?” I turned to Vida, my attention diverted from the large, time-worn monuments that sat beside the narrow road in the older part of the cemetery. Snohomish clung to its own past with a stubborn insistence on keeping up the original buildings, including the many fine old houses that predated the century. Though the outskirts grew and sprawled and congested, the heart of Snohomish beat true to the early days, when timber was king and farms flourished.

  “Thyra was unkind to my mother.” Vida's lips pressed together. “There was an incident, at Klahowya Days, Snohomish's annual summer festival. Thyra Rasmussen embarrassed my mother in public. I detest speaking of it.”

  “What did she do?” I asked, undaunted by Vida's grim aspect.

  “She …” Vida paused, as if unable to go on. “She tromped on my mother's gourds.”

  I succeeded—barely—in not laughing. “Really!”

  “That's not all.” Vida gripped the steering wheel with her gloved hands. “Thyra caught her heel in the stem of a very beautiful green-and-orange specimen. The heel broke off her shoe, and she had the nerve to insist that my dear mother buy her another pair. Imagine!”

  I was biting the insides of my cheeks. “Did your mother accommodate her?”

  “Certainly not! Those silly shoes were very expensive, and unsuitable for Klahowya Days. Besides,” Vida said sadly, “Mother felt that she should be recompensed for her gourds. They were not only handsome, but unique.”

  “Why did Thyra do such a thing in the first place?” I inquired, getting my mirth under control.

  “Because my mother's gourds were superior to hers,” Vida responded, switching the windshield wipers to high as the shower grew more intense. “Thyra, as I've mentioned, couldn't stand competition.”

  “Goodness.” I tried to sound appropriately aghast. But there was no more to be said: the procession had come to a halt, and we got out of the car.

  Being far back in the line of vehicles, we had to walk almost a full block to the grave site. It seemed that most of the mourners had also come to the cemetery. Once again, our viewpoint was obscured. Vida was jockeying for position when someone tugged at my sleeve. I turned around and saw Edna Mae D
alrymple, attired in a baggy black raincoat and plastic rain bonnet.

  “I saw you at the church,” she whispered, “but I was far back, in the vestibule. Such a crowd! Mr. Rasmussen must have been very popular.”

  That wasn't the impression I'd gotten so far, but the grave site wasn't the place to argue over the dead man's reputation. Vida acknowledged Edna Mae with a tight little smile, then craned her neck to see around the two young men who stood in front of her.

  “The Bourgettes,” I murmured. “Dan and John.”

  “Ah! Yes.” Vida nodded. “I'm surprised.”

  So was I. The two young women standing on each side of the brothers were, I guessed, wives or girlfriends. I scanned the gathering for Pat Dugan, but couldn't find him. The senior Bourgettes, Richard and Mary Jane, were on the opposite side of the grave, just outside the shelter of the canopy. Their usually pleasant faces were set, and they held hands.

  As the coffin was lowered into the ground my attention turned to the Rasmussens. Vida's gaze followed mine, and she made a hissing noise. “Veils! Who do they think they are—the Kennedys?”

  The Rasmussen women were definitely heavily veiled. Only Deirdre had removed hers so that her face could be seen.

  “The widow Marlys, leaning on Harold,” Vida noted, nodding once at the figure swathed in a long black coat and wearing a pillbox from which descended heavy flowing net. “Gladys, clinging at his other side.”

  More black, more veils. The fourth woman in the family grouping stood apart, ramrod straight and head held high. “Thyra?” I asked.

  “Thyra. Showing off, as usual. Black pearls, black fox boa. I'll bet they're both seventy years old. The fox has probably lost its glass eyes.”

  I hid my amusement as I regarded Thyra's funeral finery. The hat from which her veil hung was a black toque.

  She reminded me of Dowager Queen Mary at George I'ts funeral.

  As the rain thrummed on the canopy like a dirge, the pastor intoned prayers for the dead. Just behind Thyra, I saw an old man huddled in a wheelchair. “Einar Sr.?” I mouthed.

  Vida nodded. “The rest are Jorgensens and Malm-stroms and whoever.”