by Mary Daheim
I shook my head. “I think it's a pun. Nat's first name is actually Ignacio. Crystal probably needed three letters for her computer files. Hence, ICU stood for ‘I See You.’”
Milo grunted. “Some pun.” He turned to Tom, who was at the window, watching the birds in the feeder. “How come you're not having lunch?”
“It's a bit early for me,” Tom said pleasantly. “I'll fix something later on.”
“You must feel at home, too,” Milo remarked.
“Emma is very hospitable,” Vida put in, apparently to save an awkward situation. “Too hospitable. It seems that someone knew what to look for in her medicine cabinet.”
“Cardenas, maybe,” said Milo. “The way I see those files, they're a motive for murder.”
Vida frowned. “I thought you were still suspicious of Victor.”
“I am,” Milo replied. “That's the problem. Too many suspects. I don't have a motive for that Russian guy, but what was he doing at Baring right after Crystal was killed? What if he made the noise that scared Cardenas off? And now it turns out that Conley's alibi isn't worth shit.”
Vida gasped, and shot Milo a disapproving look. He ignored her. “Dwight Gould went back to that tavern in Monroe,” Milo said. “It turns out that Conley was gone for at least an hour, between nine and ten. He went off with some girl but she decided she didn't want any after all. She took off, but was bragging the next day about how she'd made it with this big-city-type rock musician. Her girlfriends knew she was lying, so we checked her out, and she'd gone straight home. Which means Conley can't account for that missing hour. He did show up again at the tavern to play another set around eleven. I guess he got there about ten-thirty. Unfortunately, my deputies weren't as savvy as her pals. They believed her the first time.”
“So what are you going to do now?” I asked.
Despite talking so much, Milo had wolfed down half the sandwich. It occurred to me that he was probably hungry. I pictured him getting up early and struggling through the snow to get to Nat Cardenas's house. The sheriff had probably skipped breakfast. After all, he had no one to look out for him. The thought made me feel sad and just a little guilty.
Milo ate two chips and lightly touched my arm. “What kind of stuff are you really made of?” he asked.
I wrinkled my nose. “How do you mean?”
“Technically, you're still a suspect,” he said in an even voice. “I'd like to lull these other bastards until we collect some solid evidence. I can't afford a mistake like I did last time and make a wrongful arrest, especially with somebody like Nat Cardenas involved. How would you feel if I used you as a smoke screen? I want to let everybody know that you're the prime suspect. Can you take it?”
I sagged in the chair. “Why should I?”
Milo's eyes darted in Tom's direction. “Let's say you owe me.”
I bit my lip and reluctantly agreed.
* * *
Naturally, Tom thought I was crazy. Vida, however, felt that Milo's suggestion made sense.
“Don't discourage him,” she said under her breath as she stood at the back door, winding herself back into the mohair outfit. “For once, he's showing some imagination. You must admit, he's not getting anywhere as it is.”
“The thing is,” I said, an ear cocked to the apparently innocuous conversation between Tom and Milo at the kitchen table, “I wish I hadn't agreed. You know how people jump on negative things and ignore reactions. My reputation will take a beating.”
“Nonsense,” Vida declared, yanking the ski hat over her gray curls. “You either killed Crystal or you didn't. When Milo arrests the real killer, your name will be cleared.”
“What if he never does?” I asked in a bleak voice.
“Well …” Vida's eyes, which were almost hidden by the ski hat, veered toward the kitchen table. “That could be a problem,” she said in a tone that was far too chipper for my taste.
I felt more than bleak. Frankly, I was scared.
BY TWO O'CLOCK, Tom had a path shoveled from the house to the street. He'd also cleared off his rental car, which had all but disappeared under the previous night's snowfall. Tom seemed exhilarated by the task. Although he kept himself in good shape, he wasn't used to manual labor.
“I haven't shoveled snow since 1964,” he said, grinning at me and leaning on the shovel. “My dad had hurt his back, so I came home from my apartment on Eastlake to clear the walks for him and Mom. It was just about this time of year.”
Meanwhile, the Peabody brothers and their plow had reached Fir. If necessary, we could get out in Tom's car, though mine was still blocked by the snow in the driveway.
“I was going to get my Christmas tree today,” I said, standing in front of the broken picture window. “Maybe I can do that tomorrow. It's still not snowing much.”
“Isn't it early to get a tree?” Tom asked. “Sandra never ordered ours until the eighteenth.”
“Ordered?” I gave him a curious look.
He nodded. “She always had Neiman Marcus deliver and decorate our tree. Last year—the last one she picked out—was all burgundy and gold.”
I started to say that it sounded very beautiful, but candor got in the way. “I think that's horrid. What about tradition? What about using ornaments that have been handed down through three generations? What about letting the kids decorate the damned tree?”
Tom gave a faint shake of his head. “That wasn't Sandra's way.”
I didn't comment further. My gaze wandered to the mantel, where eleven pieces of my Nativity set reposed. I'd neglected to get out the twelfth piece the previous night, having been too caught up in the throes of passion. Instead of a sheep, I should have put up a figure of Salome.
“I'm an Advent disaster,” I said out loud. “I don't know why I'm criticizing Sandra. I'll bet I'm worse than she ever was.”
“What are you talking about?” Tom was standing in front of the TV set, having turned on a college basketball game.
I didn't feel like elaborating, so I went to the closet and took out two more sheep. “Have you ever hated anybody?” I asked, arranging the sheep between the shepherds.
Tom hit the mute button on the remote control. “I don't think so. Hatred is actually rare, and requires some very strong feelings. I've never gone beyond despising a few people.”
“That's not the same,” I asserted, turning my back on the Nativity scene. “I mean hating someone so that you'd like to wring their neck?”
“Their? Or her?” Tom looked amused.
“It's not funny.” I glared at Tom. “It's a terrible thing, like a cancer. It eats away at you. That's how I feel about Crystal, even now that she's dead. She didn't know me, and yet she must have hated me. Here,” I said, going to my desk and pulling out the back issues of Crystal Clear. “Read this to see how Crystal took a hatchet to poor old Emma.”
Since I'd highlighted the stories that attacked me, it didn't take Tom long. To my chagrin, he still seemed amused when he finished.
“Except for the part about you and Milo, it doesn't sound all that bad. Mostly, it's Crystal's opinion. I don't think you would have gotten far with a libel suit.” He put the newsletters back on the desk. “Isn't it your pride that's hurt?”
I'd never thought of it that way, and Tom's suggestion angered me. “It's a hell of a lot more than my pride. It's my professional competence, my virtue, my ethics, my integrity,” I said, my voice rising. “Not to mention my lack of Christian charity.”
“For Crystal?”
The irony wasn't lost on me. “That's my point,” I retorted. “I haven't got any charity for Crystal Bird. That's why I feel so crummy.”
“You'll get over it,” Tom said, glancing out the window. “It's stopped snowing. Want to go for a walk?”
“No.” Arms folded across my breast, I plopped down on the sofa. “People will probably throw rocks at me. Or snowballs, at any rate.”
“That's possible,” Tom replied, a bit too breezily for my taste. “But I re
quire some fresh air.”
He went to the closet and put on his jacket. “G'bye,” I muttered.
With a wave, he was gone. I pouted for another couple of minutes, then turned off the TV and dialed Vida's number. She should be home by now, unless she'd stopped too often with her usual gawking into open windows. By foot or by car, Vida couldn't resist peering into people's houses. I honestly believed she not only knew who lived at every address in Alpine, but what they did in their daily routine.
“You'll never guess who I ran into on the way home,” Vida said. Then, before I could say anything, she went on: “Dean Ramsey. He was walking around town, looking at some of the houses that are for sale. He was particularly taken with the Burleson place by the football field on Spruce. They've moved into the retirement village, you know. It was in ‘Scene' two weeks ago. They wanted to get settled by Christmas.”
I didn't know the Burlesons, but I evinced interest. Vida, however, had zigzagged back to Dean Ramsey. “Dean seems like a very nice man, if a bit timid. Naturally, we talked about Crystal. He's been lying to us, Emma.”
“About what?” I asked in surprise.
“Crystal. He saw her at Baring.” Vida, I imagined, was looking like a cat in cream.
“Did he say so?” I inquired.
“No, not directly. But you recall the timber-parcel story that she got before we did? He told her about it. Dean apparently had some advance notice from Olympia.”
“How did you wheedle that out of him?” I asked, even though I could imagine the answer.
“Oh, we got to chatting,” Vida said airily, “and somehow it came up and I told him how mystified we were that Crystal had the news first and he became very apologetic and said it was his fault, he'd mentioned it. What do you think of that?”
“I'm thinking, why? Why, I mean, did he see—or at least talk to—Crystal?”
“I can think of several reasons,” Vida said, her voice now jerky. “First, they were married. A courtesy call wouldn't be amiss. Didn't he—” She stopped for a moment and I heard a rustling sound in the background. “Didn't he tell us that he'd intended to see Crystal? But because she was… Oops!”
More rustling and a few cheeps ensued. I sighed, realizing that Vida was doing something with her canary, Cupcake. A bath, perhaps, or a claw clipping. Maybe she was putting his feathers up in rollers.
“So let's say,” Vida went on, apparently subduing Cupcake, “that he had indeed seen her or spoken to her, but he didn't want to admit it after she was murdered. It would be quite natural. After all, they had a…Oof!”
“Vida, what are you doing?” I asked in a beleaguered tone.
“I'm changing Cupcake,” she replied grimly.
“Changing him? He now wears pants?”
“Of course not,” Vida huffed. “I mean, I'm changing the papers in his cage. In fact, I'm using old copies of Crystal Clear.”
“That's fitting,” I remarked. “What were you saying about Crystal and Dean?”
“They had a daughter. Maybe there'd been some news of her. Ah. Cupcake is secured.”
“Good.” I paused, just in case the blasted bird tried to shoot his way out of the cage. “I asked Dean about the daughter when I reinterviewed him. He said he still had no idea where she was.”
“But perhaps Crystal did,” Vida suggested.
“Could be. Are you trying to find a motive in all this?”
“It comes to mind,” Vida said.
“Milo's already got too many motives,” I pointed out.
“No,” Vida countered. “Milo has too many suspects. He only has two motives. Nat Cardenas's and Aaron Conley's. There's nothing I've heard that suggests Victor Dimitroff has a motive.”
“Jealousy,” I said, “of Aaron. He and Crystal were still married. Remember how Aaron lashed out at Victor after the funeral?”
“Victor strikes me as someone who cares only about his tuba.”
“Not his tuba so much as his musical compositions,” I said, going to the front window to see if Tom was coming back yet. “Honestly, I can't tell with him. I can see Victor easily enraged, though, and possibly violent.”
Vida didn't agree, and then proceeded to read my mind. “Where's Tommy?”
“He went for a walk.”
“Oh.” Another pause. “Weren't you thrilled to see him?”
There was no sign of Tom outside, just two kids pulling a sled along the quiet street. “Of course. I almost passed out.”
“Do you have plans?” Vida sounded eager.
“No.”
“No? Why not?”
“It's complicated.” I sighed. “I'll explain later.”
“No, you won't. Explain now.”
I collapsed onto the sofa. “Tom's daughter Kelsey has moved in with him. She's having a baby and the father is a drug addict or a drug dealer or both. Tom can't make plans. He has to take care of Kelsey. When the baby's ready for college, check back with me.”
“It's not as bad as all that,” Vida asserted. “The daughter—Kelsey?—won't want to live with her father forever.”
“Oh, no?” I shot back. “After this experience, she's probably off men for the rest of her life. She'll never marry, and Tom won't want her to take a job because he'll feel that she should be a full-time mom. It would have been nice if he'd felt that way about me twenty-six years ago.”
“You're working yourself into a lather,” Vida scolded. “You don't know anything of the sort. Do be patient. Sandra hasn't been dead for a year.”
“Vida, I've been patient for a quarter of a century. If it's not Sandra, it's Kelsey. If it's not Kelsey, then it'll be his son, Graham. Or a crisis with the newspaper business or another San Francisco earthquake or some damned thing. I'm resigned. Forget it.”
“Would you say yes?”
The unexpected question caught me up short. “That's beside the point.”
“Hardly. Would you?” There was a dogged edge to Vida's voice.
“Don't ask,” I replied in a sulky tone. “I can't possibly answer that question unless I know what I'm getting into.”
“You know,” Vida said accusingly, but she backed off. “It's a good thing Tommy is here. You're going to need him. The word is out.”
“What word?”
“About Milo suspecting that you killed Crystal.”
I made a face into the receiver. “How could it be? Milo was still here an hour ago. He couldn't possibly have spread the word so fast.”
“True,” Vida allowed. “But I could.”
First Presbyterian Church had what was called a Telephone Tree to inform the faithful of deaths, births, and convalescences. As a lifelong member of the congregation, Vida perched on top of the tree, ready to spread the news.
I held my head. “Vida. You didn't.” Then I started to laugh. “But of course you did. It makes perfect, infuriating sense.”
“You couldn't expect Milo to do it on his own,” she said, bridling. “Especially on a weekend with the weather so bad. Crystal has been dead for over a week. People are starting to question Milo's competence. Not to mention that so many elderly and infirm are housebound in this snow and are afraid that the killer might be out to get them.”
“Not a chance,” I retorted, though small-town paranoia was annoyingly familiar to me. “Did you volunteer or did Milo ask you?”
“I volunteered,” Vida responded indignantly. “I called the sheriff as soon as I got home. Then I got busy. It only takes a few calls when you're at the top of the Tree.”
I wished I'd been a very big bear and Vida had been up a very small tree. “Vida—” I began, then stopped. “Never mind. I guess somebody had to do it. I still wish I'd refused to go along with this stupid stunt. I'm not even sure it'll work.”
Naturally, Vida felt differently. We argued a bit, but I knew that trying to change her mind was useless. I didn't even bother pointing out that I thought Milo had gotten his bright idea as some sort of weird retaliation for Tom's presence under my roo
f and in my bed.
I'd just hung up when I saw two figures approach my house. Neither of them was Tom. They had almost reached the porch when I recognized Melody andThad Eriks.
Amid much stamping of feet, they apologized for intruding. Curious, I showed them inside and offered coffee.
“No, thanks, Ms. Lord,” Melody said, still looking apologetic. “We've come with a request.” She turned to her brother. “Thad?”
Thad cleared his throat. “We heard some really bad news this afternoon. Somebody called my mother and said that Sheriff Dodge was going to arrest you for Aunt Crystal's murder.”
Even in the aftermath of a blizzard, news travels fast in Alpine and reaches out beyond the Presbyterians. I flopped down on the sofa and indicated that Melody and Thad should also sit. They declined and remained standing stiff as a pair of snowmen.
“We shouldn't be here,” Thad declared, with a nervous glance at the broken window. “We know it could be dangerous, but we let Sheriff Dodge know where we were headed.”
Watching Melody's scared wide eyes and noting that Thad's usual self-confidence was in abeyance, I realized there might be an amusing side to being an alleged murderess.
“You're very brave,” I said with just a touch of sarcasm. “What prompted such audacity?”
The siblings exchanged quick looks, perhaps seeking mutual encouragement. “You used to live in Portland, right?” It was Thad who spoke up.
“Yes,” I replied. “For a long time. I moved to Alpine about nine years ago.”
“You knew Aunt Crystal there, right?” It was Thad again, apparently the official family interrogator.
“Did I?” Until Thad mentioned it, I'd never made such a connection. While living in Portland, I wouldn't have known Crystal from the queen of the annual Rose Festival.
“That's how we figure it,” Thad said. “You were still there when she married Aaron. How come she didn't divorce him?”
“Maybe she still loved him,” I suggested.
“No,” Melody put in. “She never did. It was an infatuation. She should have just had an affair and let it go at that.”
“So,” I queried, “why do you think she stayed married to him?”