The Alpine Escape

by Mary Daheim

  My patience was growing thin. I tried not to sound waspish. “Look, Mike, I really have to go to the store. If Paul gets home before I do, he’ll think I’m a lousy guest. Jackie’s starving. So’s the baby.”

  Mike glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard that read two fifty-eight. “Paul gets off at four, which gives us ample time.” He had turned toward me in the bucket seat, resting his jaw on his hand. The smile he gave me might have melted the heart of a nineteen-year-old coed, but not a fortyish newspaper publisher with a pregnant mother to feed. “I’m enjoying your company,” Mike said, his other hand gripping the steering wheel. “This skeleton situation is intriguing, and I’ve been admiring your input. You’ve got an excellent mind.” He slipped the key out of the ignition. “Ten minutes, that’s all I ask. I’ll be candid. Life’s too short not to seize opportunities. Tomorrow you’ll be on your way and we may never see each other again. I’d hate to look back at this interval and feel regret. Come, they make a fine tequila sunrise in here.”

  Wearily, I got out of the Corvette. I began to wonder who had been the real alcoholic in his family. But maybe that wasn’t fair. I pictured thirty Carlas in a classroom and understood his need for a pick-me-up. All the same, I didn’t see the necessity for me to join him.

  But across the alley Mike was giving me a sheepish look. “They’re closed,” he said, returning to the car. “I forgot, they shut down between lunch and dinner. Oh, well.” He slid behind the wheel before I could decide whether or not he was a complete boob or just another pathetically flawed human being like the rest of us.

  Mike reversed out of the alley and headed for Safeway. “You must think I’m a fool,” he remarked, not looking in my direction.

  “Nonsense,” I replied, hoping I sounded sincere. “I appreciate your …” I faltered, searching for the right word.

  “Openness,” Mike said. “I’m reaching out, and the best way to do that is to be up-front. No games, just two people trying to …” It was his turn to pause.

  “Reach out?” I felt my mouth twist with irony, then immediately berated myself for being crass. “Look, Mike, I’m all for honesty. I’m not good at games. But let’s face it, we don’t know each other. You’re right, after tomorrow I’ll be gone.” Seeing his face tighten, I softened. “That doesn’t mean I’ll be out of touch. I mean, if we wanted to be friends, that would be wonderful. But at this point in time we’re barely acquainted.”

  Pulling into the Safeway parking lot, Mike’s blue eyes were sorrowful. “It’s not easy meeting women who are intellectually stimulating as well as physically attractive. Oh, you’d think there would be plenty of them at the college, but either they’re married or living with someone or they’re … uh …” Again Mike stumbled.

  “Repulsive?” I couldn’t keep from laughing. Mike, however, remained serious, merely nodding as he eased the ’Vette between a pickup truck filled with scrap metal and a gleaming-white Chrysler Imperial. I sobered, wishing I could do more for Mike than offer flippant remarks. “You aren’t used to being on your own,” I said, hoping to strike a compassionate note. “It’s a tough world out there in Singleland. For one thing, the rules have changed.”

  Mike sighed as he leaned back in the bucket seat. “They certainly have. When did flirtation become harassment? Where did gallantry go? What has become of romance?”

  The man of science was more fanciful than I’d guessed. I hadn’t heard anybody talk like this since going with a guy who wrote freelance verse for a greeting-card company. Even he usually had to smoke a lot of pot before he got the hang of it. No wonder his specialty had been sympathy cards.

  But Mike had hit a raw nerve. I wagged a finger at him. “You got it. Those things are all still there, though under a different guise. The key is taking the time to build friendship. What I just said. Friendship creates trust. Women are scared, Mike.”

  “So are men.”

  He was right, of course. I gave him a sad smile and got out of the car. So did he, following me like a pet pup. Maybe I could lose Mike in produce, with the rest of the rutabagas. Or, better yet, the cold-storage locker. I drove my grocery cart as if it were an entry in the Indy 500. Two young mothers, four senior citizens, and a man in a clerical collar were scattered in my wake. Ten minutes later I checked out of the store with fifty dollars’ worth of groceries. If Jackie didn’t reimburse me, I’d have to eat cat tuna for the rest of the trip. On the other hand, I was her guest and I shouldn’t press for payment. Maybe cat tuna wouldn’t taste as bad as it sounded.

  Mike was waiting at the magazine rack, still looking miserable. Somewhat diffidently, he offered to carry two of my four grocery bags. I figured that that was his way of showing me that we were equal. I made sure I gave him the two that were the heaviest.

  Determined to pass the fíve-minute drive in a lighter vein, I asked Mike questions about the college and his classes. He answered in a polite but strained manner. I barely heard him; I was too busy asking myself why I was being so perverse. Mike’s candor was admirable; he had exhibited nothing but kindness and courtesy; his eagerness for companionship should have been endearing, not annoying. So what if he didn’t have a sense of humor? Maybe he did. I’d said it myself, I didn’t know him well enough to judge. The real Mike Randall was still a stranger.

  Unless the open, earnest, sensitive, caring man beside me was the real thing. To further prove my perverse nature, I gathered up all the grocery bags and carried them into the house myself.

  Chapter Seven

  I WAS SORELY tempted to tell Vida about the possibility of a murdered woman in the Melcher basement. But I never got the chance. When I called The Advocate at ten to four, my House & Home editor was full of her own problems, which, of course, were mine as well.

  “Ginny and I patched something together for Barton’s Bootery and Harvey’s Hardware. It isn’t fancy, but it carries the message and takes up space. As long as we were late getting to the printer anyway, I figured we might as well try to salvage the ads and stretch the paper to twenty-four pages. That would save you the charge for the single-sheet insert.”

  “Bless you, Vida,” I breathed into the phone. Mike had joined Jackie in the den for a quick meal I’d prepared of boneless chicken breasts, white rice, and carrot sticks. I had the feeling that Mike’s bachelor eating habits might be as unwholesome as Jackie’s.

  “Don’t bless me,” Vida snapped. “With all this extra work I didn’t have a chance to proofread the paper thoroughly. I’m vexed with myself, and you will be, too.”

  My face fell. “Oh.” I hate typos. I hate sloppy work of any kind. I’m not a perfectionist, but there’s no excuse for a lack of professionalism. “Like … what?”

  “The paper delivery was forty-five minutes late, which means it hit the mailboxes around ten minutes ago. I’m already getting calls.” Vida sniffed into the receiver. It was hard to tell if she was more angry with herself or our readers.

  I teetered on the kitchen stool, waiting for the worst. There was a stream of invective about the print job itself, which apparently had something to do with our timing on the press. Muddy was the word Vida. used most, along with fool, which I trust referred to the pressman. “… and then Carla forgot to run my wedding story on Shari Stuart and Ted Davis, but she did get in the birth announcement of their new baby. The Burl Creek Thimble Club piece got cut off after the line that read, quote, ‘The business meeting ended when Darla Puckett removed her clothing,’ unquote.” Vida paused and I blanched.

  “What?” I asked faintly.

  “I told you, Carla dropped the last line,” Vida said in an irritated voice. “It should have read that, quote, ‘Darla Puckett removed her clothing drive suggestion from the agenda,’ unquote. Naturally, Darla is wild.”

  “Oh.” I kicked myself for letting Carla lay out the paper. Even Vida’s hard-eyed supervision was no match for Carla’s ineptitude. To be fair, it was Carla’s maiden effort with layout, though I had hoped that the Pagemaker program
would prevent any serious foulups. Computer technology has not yet found a way to overcome human error. I cringed at the thought of the typos that had gone unnoticed.

  As usual, Vida seemed to read my mind. “Mayor Fuzzy Baugh is now Wuzzy. The county commissioners discussed construction of a new bride across the Skykomish River by the golf course. Elsewhere, it was a proposed steel spam. At least Carla didn’t capitalize it. The 4-H Club speaker next week will be a well-known Everett dog broomer. Oh! Did I tell you how she spelled Darla Puckett’s name in the Burl Creek lead?”

  “No! Please!” I begged. The high standards I’d set for the past three years had been washed away by a tide called Carla. “I should have asked Ginny Burmeister to help more.”

  Vida’s snort was audible. “You can’t expect Ginny to bail out your entire staff. She and I did our best. But I got stuck with all those summer vacation stories. How many ways can you write about Disneyland? My grandson’s adventures there were more interesting than the rest of them put together.”

  That was all too true. Roger, the apple of Vida’s eye, had jumped overboard on the jungle ride, thrown up on the Matterhorn, and pantsed Pluto. I had secretly hoped that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs might give the little wretch the bum’s rush down Main Street, but Disney employees are trained to be nice to terrorists. Maybe on their next trip Roger’s parents will take him to Iraq.

  The conversation with Vida ended abruptly when Cal Vickers came into the editorial office, asking why the ad for his Texaco station was upside down. Holding my head, I hung up so that Vida could calm Cal and whoever else would be surging into The Advocate after they received this week’s edition. If I was lucky, I might get back to Alpine before they torched the place.

  Paul Melcher arrived home while I was still thinking about taking some Excedrin. He had contacted the prosecutor’s office. Of course they’d heard about the skeleton and were intrigued. They were also up to their ears in pressing business. However, they’d get the paperwork started and send an officer to the Melcher house in the next twenty-four hours. Like Alpine, Port Angeles officialdom worked at its own small-town pace.

  Paul seemed to have mixed emotions. I wondered if he hated to part with his skeleton. Instead of regaling my host with the events of the day, I sent him off to the den. Jackie could explain everything. I wished I’d taken Mike Randall up on his offer of a drink. I finally steeled myself and called Dusty’s.

  The car would be ready by late afternoon, Thursday. Tomorrow. The fuel pump had arrived, but it had been for the wrong year. The replacement was due on the first ferry from Victoria in the morning. Dusty, or whoever he was, expressed mild regret. I had mixed emotions.

  By the time I’d downed the Excedrin I carried in my handbag, I found Jackie, Paul, and Mike poring over the floor plan I’d brought from the third-floor storage area.

  “Did you see this?” Paul inquired. He was on his hands and knees. He jabbed at the architectural rendering with his index finger. “Where’s the billiard room?”

  I knelt beside him. “It’s right there,” I said, pointing to the basement. “It’s off the hall from what’s now the rec room … Oh!” I stared at the blueprint. “I see what you mean. It was supposed to go where the unfinished part of the basement is now. The billiard room was never completed.”

  Paul tipped his head to one side. “That’s right. Do you suppose that’s because a dead body was there?”

  My gaze flickered from Paul to Jackie to Mike. “Maybe,” I allowed. “It might be a coincidence.”

  Paul got to his feet. “Jackie tells me I should call my aunt in Seattle. Do you think it’ll do any good?”

  I asked Paul if he’d ever met Sara Melcher Beales. He had, though only on about three occasions. She’d missed his wedding because of a two-month trip to Europe. The Samuel Melcher and Vernon Beales families not only lived in different cities, they also traveled in separate circles.

  “Aunt Sara and Uncle Verne sent silver,” Jackie chimed in. “We’ve only got place settings for three and a meat fork.”

  I consulted the family tree. “Sara’s not old enough to know what might have happened involving Carrie. Still, she may have heard some family gossip.” I wasn’t about to surrender any possible leads.

  “Go ahead,” Jackie urged. “Maybe she’ll be so tickled to hear from you that she’ll send another place setting. Sterling silver costs the world.”

  Paul debated with himself, finally deciding to phone his aunt after five when the rates were down. The delay turned out to be a good thing because Tessie Roo rang up almost immediately. She asked for me.

  “Three out of six are still alive,” she announced in a chipper voice. “Not bad, eh? Joseph Malone is retired in Arizona, Mary Ann Malone Strom lives in the Chicago area, and Claudia Malone Cameron’s address is Victoria, British Columbia.”

  I pictured the family tree I’d just been studying. “Claudia is actually one of Carrie’s children, right? The other two are Minnie’s?”

  “Yes, indeed. Julia and Walter are both deceased. They lived in the Seattle-Tacoma area at the time of their deaths, but their children were all spread out. Daniel, the eldest of the children by Minnie, never married and died last year at eighty-two in a retirement home on the Kitsap Peninsula, not far from Bremerton. I believe he was a navy man. But Claudia is just a hop, skip, and a jump away in Victoria. Oak Bay, to be exact. Are you game?”

  The question flustered me. “Well … I could call, of course …”

  “Good heavens,” Tessie exclaimed, “you could be there in less than an hour! Take the Victoria Express tomorrow morning. It’s passengers only and fairly zips across the strait! If I had the day off, I’d go with you.”

  Before I could argue with Tessie, let alone myself, I had Claudia Malone Cameron’s address in Victoria as well as her phone number. Tessie cautioned me to call first, after I arrived in the city.

  “She’s well into her eighties, so she may be deaf,” Tessie added. “Judging from the address, she still lives at home, so her mind is probably keen enough. Good luck. Call me when you get back to Port Angeles.”

  I broke the news to the others, expecting one or all of them to volunteer as well. But Paul had to work, Mike met three classes on Thursdays, and Jackie wasn’t yet feeling up to par.

  “I’d get seasick,” she said, clutching her stomach as if she could already feel the waves beneath the boat.

  “Are you sure you want to go to all this trouble?” Paul asked, his earnest face displaying mixed emotions.

  I wasn’t, actually. But if I hung around the Melcher house while I waited yet another day for the Jag, I’d feel as if I were imposing. Two days and two nights of hospitality were plenty to ask of anyone.

  “It could be a story,” I said, surprising myself as well as the others. “I know I’m not local, but if we figured this all out, it might make a feature for the wire service around the state. Then the IRS would let me write my trip off.” Suddenly I felt very clever.

  Paul was nodding thoughtfully. “I got a call from The Daily News this afternoon. I put them off by saying we didn’t want to talk about it until we had some more information.”

  I voiced my approval. “That’s the way to handle the press. But I’d be glad to let them write the story if I’m not around for the ending. If there is an ending,” I added.

  Jackie sprang to life. “Emma! You have to be! You’re the one who’s done all the real work. As long as you’ve got to stay until tomorrow afternoon, you might as well take another day off from work and spend the weekend.”

  Paul chimed in, also urging me to remain in Port Angeles. Mike said nothing, but his blue eyes seemed hopeful. I, however, was immovable.

  “Things aren’t going so well at the office,” I admitted. “If the Jag is ready before five tomorrow, I’ll head straight back to Alpine and skip the rest of the Olympic Loop.”

  A chorus of nays echoed in my ears. This time, Mike had joined Jackie and Paul. Instead of arguing, I challenged
them to organize the known facts of our little mystery. If Paul intended to phone his Aunt Sara and I was actually going to call on Claudia Malone Cameron in Victoria, we needed to see where we stood. I asked Mike to take notes.

  “We’ll stick with the theory that the skeleton is Carrie Rowley Malone, but we could be wrong,” I said, sipping from a can of Pepsi I’d bought at Safeway. “We’ve come to that conclusion because of the earring we found, which we also saw in Carrie’s photograph. Tessie Roo has cautioned me about discrepancies, inconsequential human actions that can alter family history.”

  Jackie wrinkled her nose. “Like what?”

  I gave a little shrug. “Oh, like Carrie lending her earrings to somebody else. Or the earrings finding their way into the unfinished basement in some other manner. Lost, thrown away, maybe even stolen.”

  Mike’s expression was very solemn. “That’s true. There was another woman in the family about the same age as Carrie. Her stepmother, Simone.”

  Jackie demurred. “Simone looks tall. She would have worn bigger shoes. I’m still voting for Carrie.”

  It wasn’t up to me to argue. “It might be someone we know nothing about,” I went on. “If we believe what we hear, both Carrie Rowley Malone and Simone Rowley left Port Angeles around the same time in 1908, after Cornelius Rowley died. We’re told that Carrie and her husband and children moved to Seattle. We have no idea what happened to Simone.”

  “We need to consult a lawyer,” Mike asserted, looking up from the spiral notebook in which he’d been writing. “Somebody with a firm that’s been around forever. All we know is that Eddie and Lena Melcher inherited the house. Who got Cornelius’s money?”

  Jackie and Paul exchanged blank looks. “We haven’t had a reason to see a lawyer,” said Jackie. “What about you, Mike?”

  Mike flushed slightly. “I still use the family firm in Tacoma. The divorce, you know.”