by Mary Daheim
Tessie was astute. She knew that I was, in effect, palming her off. “It’s trivial, but it’s not unimportant. While all these things were happening”—she jabbed at one of the binders with a stubby finger—“someone was being murdered. If you could look beyond the printed words, you’d know who—and why. You’d also know the killer. Don’t give up now, Emma. I have a sixth sense about these things. When I’m getting close to connecting a farmer from Missouri with a lumberjack from Idaho, I have a feeling for it. I can’t see the link until I look way out on the family tree. It’s there, Emma. You just have to climb a little higher.”
Chapter Thirteen
JACKIE WAS WAITING up when I got back to the Melcher house. Tessie had given me a lift after she gave me the pep talk. It was just past eleven-thirty when Jackie let me in and insisted we adjourn to the den. I tried to argue but failed.
“Don’t fuss over me, I had a nap. Honest,” Jackie insisted, settling onto the little sofa. “I went right to sleep while Paul and I were watching a rerun of Seinfeld.”
I couldn’t admit to Jackie that I was more concerned about my own weary state than I was about hers. I buoyed myself with a Pepsi and told Jackie what I’d learned from the old newspapers. She listened in a distracted manner, shifting and twitching on the sofa until I began to get nervous, too.
“Well?” I finally said when I’d concluded my account. “What do you think? Or should I say, what’s wrong?”
“The police, that’s what’s wrong.” Jackie was noticeably upset. “They came just after we left for Downriggers. Somebody named Arkwell put a note on the door. He’s probably the same jerk who gave me the ticket.”
“Well?” I prompted. “What did the note say?”
Jackie heaved one of her monumental sighs. “They’ll come back tomorrow to remove the body. I don’t want them to, not until we know for sure who it is and why she was killed.” She leaned toward me, her gray eyes pleading for understanding. “Once she’s gone, the chain is broken. It won’t be the same. She won’t be our body anymore.”
Jackie’s feeling of kinship was justified, by real estate if not by family ties. On the other hand, she had to be reasonable. I knew that was asking too much, but I tried anyway.
“There are laws and moral duties involved here,” I began, but Jackie scoffed.
“Poopy on the law,” she declared. “As for moral duty, it’s ours, to make sense of this tragedy. We’re on the right track, I’m sure of it. All we need is a little more time.” Jackie reached into the pocket of her cotton bathrobe. “I went to get the magnifying glass again to have another look at that picture of the house. You know how those drawers in the bookcase are sort of … crammed?”
I nodded. Jackie’s drawers were as jammed and cluttered as the other surfaces of her house. Or at least those for which she was responsible. “And?” I encouraged her.
A letter reposed in her hand. It was obviously old, with a pale green stamp featuring George Washington’s profile. “I got the drawer stuck. I had to go underneath and take out the one below it. I found this at the back.” She waved the envelope at me. “It must have fallen in there years ago.”
The postmark was clear: Seattle, May 8, 1908. It was addressed to Cornelius Rowley. I slipped out three sheets of ivory paper and looked first at the signature. The handwriting was bold but precise. It was signed “Your faithful daughter-in-law, Lena.”
Dear Mr. Rowley:
The convention here is most enlightening, though frustrating as well. Too few of the candidates support the platform that we women and our supporters have fashioned. I spoke this morning to the Grant County delegation and found them exceptionally narrow-minded.
If anyone has doubts about the contribution that women can make to this great country, let them quarrel with our present venture. An outbreak of bubonic plague is feared in Seattle, due to the increased number of foreign ships coming into port. I am helping organize several women’s groups to clean up the city and capture the disease-carrying rats. With God on our side, we shall be successful. Then our trip here will not have been in vain.
However, my political and social concerns must be balanced with those of a personal nature. I intended to speak privately with you about a certain matter before Edmund and I left for Seattle, but you were feeling poorly and I hesitated to disturb you.
The bald truth—and it must be told, I fear—is that certain shocking behavior has been going on behind my back. And yours as well. A highly respectable source from Quilcene has confirmed this. S—— has been seen in that vicnity in the unchaperoned company of M——. I cannot approve of these clandestine meetings some sixty miles from home. Naturally, your son agrees with me. M—— is an unsuitable object for S——’s affections in every way. Furthermore, he has had an understanding with R—— for some time now. She is a most sensible and modest young woman from a good family. I would hate to see their romance broken off because of some silly indiscretion on the part of S——, who no doubt has been led on.
I shall deal with S—— when I return next week. Meanwhile, I must request that you remonstrate with M——. When you’ve thought through this matter, I should think it quite likely that you will dismiss her at once. In the meantime, I trust this letter finds you in good health and excellent spirits.
I refolded the stationery. “I wonder what Cornelius thought of that?”
Jackie was giving me her wide-eyed gaze. “Nothing,” she replied. “He never read it. I was the one who broke the seal.”
It required only a quick glance at the family history to note that Cornelius Rowley had died before the letter from Lena was delivered. Someone had thrown the missive into the bookcase drawer. Over the years it had worked its way to the back and finally fallen out to where it had been stuck forever. I could picture Simone, either grief-stricken or indifferent, tossing the letter aside and forgetting about it. I voiced my thoughts aloud to Jackie.
“Maybe,” she replied, after hesitating. “Or maybe somebody hid it on purpose.”
I considered, then shook my head. “No. Whoever got hold of the letter couldn’t know what was in it. If they did and were alarmed, they’d have destroyed it.”
Jackie laid a hand on the gentle curve of her abdomen. “ ‘S’ must be Sanford. ‘M’ is Minnie. Who else could they be?”
“No one we know of,” I said. “It fits what we heard from Clara Haines about Minnie chasing Sanford. Lena defends her son, saying he was led on. That may be true. But Sanford might have been willing.”
“Yet Minnie went off with Jimmy Malone and eventually married him.” Jackie was staring at the albums and photographs strewn on the floor. “What if Sanford was crushed by what she did? We know he and Grandma Rose weren’t happy together. Aunt Sara said so. What if the marriage was forced on him by Lena? I think Sanford was manipulated. Maybe Rose was, too. Poor things! Paul is the fruit of an unhappy union! Oh, dear!” Jackie seemed on the verge of tears.
I gave her a wry smile. “Paul’s a generation removed from Sanford and Rose. His parents are happy, aren’t they?”
Briefly, Jackie reflected. “They must be. They’re in Hong Kong.”
Tessie Roo had photocopied the newspaper articles pertinent to the Rowley-Melcher families. I gave half of them to Jackie and kept the rest for myself. Jackie seemed most taken with Eddie Rowley’s intruder.
“Think about this, Emma. There had been a burglar who was caught. The loot may not have been recovered. If it wasn’t, because it was pawned or stashed or whatever burglars did in those days, would a second burglar try to steal from the Rowleys? I know they were rich, but wouldn’t that be dumb? Besides, the family must have taken precautions against another robbery. I can’t imagine Lena sitting still for being victimized a second time.”
Jackie had a point. “Okay,” I agreed, “but so what have you got in mind?” I was getting my second wind. It often happens to me when I stay up past midnight.
“I wonder,” said Jackie, speaking slowly, “if the in
truder was that Frenchman. Armand. I don’t remember his last name, but he was Simone’s lover.”
“Armand Nievalle.” I searched for the few scraps of information we had about the French fisherman. According to Claudia Malone Cameron, Cornelius Rowley had tried to mn Armand out of town. Maybe he hadn’t succeeded. Maybe Armand had simply gone to ground in Port Angeles. “Or,” I said in a burst of inspiration, “if Cornelius really did send Armand packing, it would have to have been in early spring. The old boy died in May. Where would a fisherman go that time of year? Alaska, of course, with the fishing season just starting up there. But he would come back in September or October. Maybe he knew Cornelius was dead by then and it was safe. Maybe he and Simone had kept in touch by letter. Maybe,” I went on in a rush of enthusiasm for my own brilliance, “he and Simone stole those two horses and fled Port Angeles.”
Jackie gave me a blank stare. “What horses?”
Tessie hadn’t bothered to copy the story about the theft at the livery stable. The incident hadn’t seemed to have anything to do with the Rowleys or the Melchers. I recounted the item to Jackie.
“It happened the night after Eddie shot at the intruder,” I explained. “If it was Armand, maybe he was coming to get Simone and got scared off. See the part in the newspaper story about unintelligible curses? If the intruder swore, the reporter might have written unprintable curses or some such euphemistic jargon. But a startled, frightened Armand would have sworn reflexively in his native tongue.”
“And Eddie wouldn’t have understood it,” Jackie said in growing wonder. “Eddie’s stepmother might have used French now and then, but she wouldn’t have sworn like a sailor. Or a fisherman.”
“Exactly. So after Armand was scared off, he and Simone had to set up a second rendezvous, perhaps at the livery stable. They stole the horses and skipped town. Oh!” Excitedly, I flipped through the remaining news articles. “The ladies’ clothes! And fripperies! Lena donated them to the D.A.R. a short time later. I’ll bet they belonged to Simone. If Simone and Armand rode off on horseback, she couldn’t take much with her. Lena wouldn’t want the Widow Rowley’s fancy Paris wardrobe cluttering up the house. I can imagine what she thought of Simone’s expensive ‘fripperies.’ Am I making sense?”
Judging from Jackie’s elated expression, I was. Still, she had a quibble. “But would Simone leave all those lovely things behind?”
“She had no choice,” I pointed out. “Simone had to choose between her clothes and her lover. She was French. Vive l’amour! Besides, she had all that money. The French are also practical.” I was amused at my own reliance on clichés. In this case they made sense.
“It’s terribly romantic.” Jackie had grown misty-eyed. “Where would they go?”
I could only guess. “They wouldn’t go west. There wasn’t much civilization between Port Angeles and the coast in those days.” Logging camps and the Indian reservation made up most of what was locally known as the West End. The Pacific Ocean rolled onto rocky beaches between Cape Flattery and Grays Harbor. It was a wild and beautiful stretch of land, leading to the rain forest and the Olympic Mountains.
“Seattle then,” Jackie murmured, still looking moonstruck.
“Probably. Maybe they stayed there, maybe they took off for somewhere else. San Francisco, Denver, back east, even Paris.” I stopped, another idea dawning. “Is it a coincidence that Simone took a French lover? Was it really like attracting like? She could have had her pick of eligible men. A fisherman didn’t qualify. Socially, Armand Nievalle was no more suitable for the Widow Rowley than Minnie Burke was for Sanford Melcher or Jimmy Malone was for Carrie Rowley.”
“But Carrie did marry Jimmy,” Jackie reminded me.
“Oh, sure, but that was because she was afraid of being an old maid. I wonder about that, too.” I picked up one of the photo albums and turned to a picture of Carrie. “She was good-looking, really. She came from a well-to-do family. Was she really desperate to marry? Or was she just plain nuts about Jimmy?”
“So why shouldn’t Simone be nuts about Armand?” Jackie wasn’t letting go of her latest romantic fantasy.
“I think she was,” I replied. “I guess what I’m saying is maybe she was nuts about him for a long time. Like in Paris. I wonder if she didn’t follow him to this country. Or maybe they ran away together, then quarreled and parted. Simone met Cornelius Rowley and decided to be a rich wife instead of a poor mistress.”
Still paging through the album, I found the photograph of Simone with her flawless bosom and pearl dog collar. The jewelry tugged at my memory. I picked up another album. There was the engagement picture of Rose Felder in which she was wearing the same choker.
“That clinches it,” I said, shoving the two albums into Jackie’s lap. “Rose got her hands on Simone’s jewels. Lena wouldn’t give anything valuable away to the D.A.R. I wonder if Aunt Sara has Simone’s baubles stashed away in Seattle.”
In the kitchen the phone rang. It was a dull, distant sound, but it made both of us jump. Jackie rushed off to answer it. Mike, I thought, calling with a brainstorm. Or Tessie Roo, who had climbed out on a limb of the Rowley-Melcher family tree.
It was neither. Jackie came panting into the den, carrying the cordless phone. “It’s for you,” she whispered in wonder. “It’s a man. He sounds so sexy, like butter melting on toast.”
Puzzled, I accepted the phone. It was Milo Dodge, whose laconic voice sounded more like cold mayo on day-old rye to me. “You’re damned lucky that Crazy Eights Neffel finally came out of that tree. Durwood Parker lured him down with some of his wife’s blueberry pie. Crazy Eights said he was going to share it with the bear,” he grumbled. “I waited until I was going off duty to call you back. You wanted felony convictions only, right?”
“Right.” My grip tightened on the phone. I had the feeling that Milo had found something.
“No Rowleys, one Melcher, wrong time frame. Eleven Malones—bunch of troublemakers. Whoa!” I heard something drop, probably knocked off of Milo’s desk by his big feet. He paused, swore under his breath, and then turned back to the receiver. “I lost my wobbler. It’s a new kind Harvey Adcock got in this week. He says it’s great for summer-run steelhead. Red, green, and yellow.”
I grimaced with impatience. “Sounds like it’d match a skirt I saw at Francine’s Fine Apparel last week. Give, Milo. Did you find the right Malone?”
“I found two Walters. One was up for armed robbery in the Sixties, but he was from Texas, born 1939. The other was a local, born 1906. That’s your guy, right?”
“Right,” I repeated with a weary sigh. My second wind was blowing out to sea.
“Nutcase, maybe. He was picked up and charged on September fifteenth, 1935, and convicted December fourth, same year. Four charges of rape. Malone was sentenced to twenty years in Walla Walla but got out six years early for good behavior. Plus he didn’t use physical violence on his victims, only threats. One really weird thing—he always attacked them in a basement. He was known as the Root Cellar Rapist. Does that suit you?”
It suited me fine. It hadn’t done the same for the victims, of course. Or for Walter Malone.
I was pushing Jackie out into the hall. She resisted. I tried not to use force or to raise my voice. I didn’t want to wake Paul. As usual, he had to get up early.
“Jackie, it’s past midnight. You need your rest. I need mine. We can talk this over in the morning before I leave. It’s probably a harebrained notion, anyway.”
Jackie and I were a match in weight, but she had youth on her side. She refused to budge. I didn’t want to put a hammerlock on an expectant mother. “At least you’ve got to tell me what put you on to Claudia’s brother being a convict,” she demanded.
I hesitated, then relented. If I didn’t tell her, she’d lie awake fussing and fuming. But I wasn’t going to mention the part about Walter Malone and the basements. Jackie didn’t need to suffer nightmares on behalf of our investigation. “It was part whim, part intuition,” I
said, leaning against the doorjamb. “I was curious if any of the Rowley-Melcher-Malone clan had any criminal tendencies. I don’t necessarily believe that such traits are inherited, but if somebody in the family was a murderer, then it was possible that the same somebody had committed another crime.”
Jackie’s baffled expression made me pause. “Not Walter! He couldn’t have murdered anybody! He was a baby back then!”
“I know. I’m talking about other members of the family. As it turns out, none of the ones we’ve been considering had ever been convicted. So our murderer apparently never struck again. Or didn’t get caught. This gives us a better profile of the killer.”
Jackie didn’t see how.
I tried to explain. “The murder in this house went undetected and the murderer was never apprehended. I think it’s safe to say that much. This tells us several things. For one, the killer was very clever. But why wasn’t the victim missed? If it was Carrie, as we’re assuming, then we may already know the answer—Minnie Burke impersonated her. But there’s another woman involved who isn’t accounted for and that’s Simone. We’ve got our theory about her running off with Armand, but we don’t know that for sure. All along I’ve been slow to identify the body as Carrie. I still think it might be Simone. After all, Aunt Sara claimed that the ghost was Simone, not Carrie or anybody else.”
The old house creaked in the summer breeze. Or maybe it merely groaned with the burden of age. Hearing the sound, I easily envisioned that in winter the wind could howl through the eaves and a specter might seem to wail on the cold night air. Outside, the trees and shrubbery would move, causing strange shadows and firing the imagination.
Jackie frowned. “Simone was tall. It can’t be her skeleton.”