by Mary Daheim
I was able to make out the Runkel brothers’ names on the family tree. Rufus had married Ingeborg Stensrud; they were the parents of Vida’s late husband, Ernest, and thus her in-laws. I didn’t recall Rupert.
I pointed to the younger brother’s name. “What happened to Rupert?” I inquired.
“He was killed in the woods. Twenty-three years old.” Vida clucked her tongue. “Not an uncommon tragedy, but it ruined Rufus’s logging career. He couldn’t bear to go back after Rupert died. That’s why Rufus was so intent on starting up the ski lodge when the original mill was closed a few years later.”
I nodded. Logging was still a dangerous business. Like other timber towns, Alpine had its share of amputees and people with missing digits. Casually, I checked to see if young Rupert had left a family.
He’d had a wife. Her maiden name was Julia Malone.
It was a coincidence, a similarity of names that had nothing to do with Port Angeles. I refused to believe that Vida could be connected, however tenuously, to the Rowley-Melchers. Julia Malone Runkel’s year of birth was noted by Vida as 1904, but even that could be coincidental.
Yet I knew the ties between the logging towns of western Washington were strong and intertwined. Part of it was the nature of logging, the nomadic existence that so many woodsmen lived, going where their work or their whim led them.
“Tell me about Julia Malone Runkel,” I said, feeling faintly light-headed.
Vida put her glasses back on and frowned. “Aunt Julia?” She traced her finger across the page to the Blatt branch. “After Rupert died, she married my uncle Elmer. They moved to Sultan while I was in high school. When Elmer passed away in the Sixties, she married an Olofson, from Seattle. She buried him, too, and died about twelve years ago. She was Marje Blatt’s grandmother. Why do you ask?”
I heaved a deep sigh. “Vida, are you hungry?”
“Well …” Vida glanced into her wastebasket, where I suspected the remnants of her latest diet lunch reposed. “I’ve been working like a dog all day. I could use a little sustenance.”
The Venison Eat Inn and Take Out was crowded. We managed to snag the last booth, stepping nimbly in front of a couple who had tourist marked all over their deeply tanned faces.
I spent the salad course relating the events of my stay in Port Angeles as well as the background. I tried to keep to the basic facts, stressing only Julia Malone’s relationship to the mystery. Vida listened attentively, occasionally cocking her head to one side like an owl. By the time I finished, I was hardly surprised to see her nod.
“Oh, that’s Aunt Julia, all right. She was from Port Angeles originally, though I honestly don’t know much about her family. Except that it wasn’t a happy situation for her or she wouldn’t have run away.”
“Why Alpine?” I asked. “She was only fifteen. It seems like an odd choice.”
“Oh, no.” Vida allowed her empty salad plate to be removed. “She had a stepmother here. Well, not really a stepmother, a stepgrandmother, but she was too young to be called that.” Abruptly, Vida’s mouth turned down. “Her husband was a cook at Camp Two. They left town after the mill closed.” Vida was showing some signs of distress.
My hot turkey sandwich and Vida’s pot roast arrived. I was somewhat confused as well as alarmed. “What’s wrong, Vida?”
Regaining her composure, Vida assaulted her dinner. “I’m not telling this at all well. Let me back up. It might help you with your little mystery. This cook was an out-of-work fisherman from Alaska. It was a year or so after the Great War and he’d met someone in Ketchikan who knew Carl Clemans and was heading for a job in Alpine after the fishing season was over. It was suggested that he come along, since the cook at Camp Two had recently quit, and this fellow was French, which doesn’t mean he was a chef. But you know how people think in such clichés. And as it turned out, the Frenchman did have a knack for cooking. Armand Nievalle brought his wife, Simone, to Alpine in the fall of 1919. Julia joined them soon after they set up housekeeping.”
“Armand! Simone!” The names shot out of my mouth. “That was the second Mrs. Rowley and her lover!”
Vida gave a little shrug. “Was it now? I don’t think I knew who Simone had been married to before. You must remember that this was before my time. I was only aware that she had been close to Aunt Julia.”
“But how? Julia was very small when she and her family left Port Angeles.”
“Aunt Julia knew Simone and Armand in Seattle. Simone was left by herself for months at a time while Armand fished in Alaska.” Vida paused to administer great sprinklings of salt and pepper on her mashed potatoes and green beans. “Aunt Julia used to take the streetcar and sneak across town to visit Simone in West Seattle. Simone was very pretty, very gay. Julia was very fond of her, much more so than of her own mother. That’s why it was quite natural for Aunt Julia to run away to Alpine.”
I had always said that not only did Vida know everybody, she was related to most people, too. Given her numerous nieces and nephews and the rest of her extended Runkel-Blatt family, it wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Now I discovered that she had a connection with the Rowley-Melcher family. I was surprised, but I should have guessed. When it came to knowing everything about everybody, Vida was an oracle. Or, in this case, a conjurer.
For a few moments I was silent, eating my hot turkey and sage stuffing and gravy-soaked white bread. It wasn’t a summer meal, but the long drive had given me an appetite.
“I gather they’d had quite a bit of money somewhere along the line—no doubt from Simone’s first husband, if you’re saying Mr. Rowley was rich—but they’d frittered it away,” Vida explained, employing both knife and fork in her attack on the pot roast. “Simone had expensive tastes, even in Alpine, and I heard Armand liked to gamble. Then there was a child,” Vida said, her voice dropping a notch, her eyes not on me but on the aisle that separated us from the other diners. “He’d been born while Armand was in Alaska that summer. They named him Charles. He was very strange, never fitting in, going his own way.”
“A different drummer?” I suggested.
“An entire marching band.” Vida spoke without humor. “Charles was always a problem.”
“Did Julia help care for him?” I inquired, wondering why Vida seemed so uneasy.
“Certainly. Aunt Julia never shirked a task.” Vida acknowledged Durwood and Dot Parker’s exit from a rear booth. “When Carl Clemans closed the mill in Twenty-nine, the Nievalles moved away, as so many of the earlier people did. They left Charles in Alpine with Julia and Elmer.”
I was surprised. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten. “Why? Where did they go?”
“They were headed for San Francisco. Simone wasn’t well. She’d never been robust. I think they intended to send for Charles once they got settled. But they never did. Simone kept in touch, but she died a few years later, when I was about eight. Armand dropped out of the picture.” Vida nodded at the Lutheran minister and his wife, who were being escorted to the booth vacated by the Parkers.
My portrait of Simone Dupre Rowley Nievalle was changing. Yes, she had been vain, self-indulgent, extravagant, and amorous. But she had also possessed a good heart or she would not have taken in Julia Malone. Yet something about this revised portrait jarred me, as if the colors clashed.
“I don’t get it, Vida. Simone abandoned her own son, while on the other hand she took in a troubled runaway teenage girl. That’s not consistent.”
“I told you,” Vida replied doggedly, “Simone was sick by the time she and Armand left Alpine. I’m not excusing her, mind you. But there was a big difference between Aunt Julia and little Charles. Julia wasn’t troubled in the sense that you’re implying. She didn’t get along with her mother. There may be two sides to every story, but in this case I’d take the daughter’s side. Or so my mother did. When Julia married Uncle Elmer, she became my mother’s sister-in-law. They were rather close.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind certain small scraps o
f information were dancing about, demanding my attention. “Details,” Paul Melcher had said. Details were important. Momentarily, I shut myself off from the bustle of the restaurant. My greetings to Harvey and Darlene Adcock were somewhat distracted.
“Harvey’s taken it well,” Vida whispered as the Adcocks headed for the cashier.
I gave Vida a startled look. “What?”
“The ad for the hardware store.” Vida’s expression reproached me. “You’ve forgotten Ed’s debacle?”
I had. I’d forgotten Ed, too, at least temporarily. “I’m sorry, Vida. I’m trying to remember something. I think it’s important.” Taking a last bite of turkey, I slid out of the booth. “I’m going to make a phone call. It shouldn’t take long.”
Vida arched her eyebrows but said nothing. I hurried to the pay phone in the hallway between the restaurant and the bar. Digging in my purse, I found the number for Claudia Malone Cameron in Victoria. I had only two questions for her, but if she had the right answers, the Melcher mystery was solved.
“Boysenberry pie,” Vida said upon my return five minutes later. “It’s fresh this time of year. It wouldn’t be right to pass it up, do you think?”
“Go ahead,” I replied, wearing a big grin. “I’ll settle for coffee.”
Vida seemed absorbed in the dessert menu. “I haven’t had a hot fudge sundae in years. Roger’s so fond of them. The last time I took him to Baskin-Robbins in Monroe, he ate two.”
My grin was fading, but I was on the edge of my seat. “Vida …”
“They’ve got poppyseed cake, but that’s awfully heavy, especially this late in the day.” Vida leaned forward, her manner conspiratorial. “They don’t bake it here, you know. They get it from the Upper Crust Bakery.”
“Vida.” My tone was severe. “Don’t you want to hear what I found out?”
Vida was wide-eyed, then blinked several times behind her big glasses. “Certainly. Though I can’t think why you didn’t tell me any of this over the phone. We spoke several times. I thought you wanted to keep this your little secret.”
“I never had a chance to tell you about the body,” I protested. “You were always in such a tizzy about the problems with the paper.”
Vida uttered a faint snort, then smiled warmly at our waitress and ordered the boysenberry pie à la mode. “You seemed to be a world away from Alpine,” Vida said after our order had been taken.
“It was your idea for me to go.” Now I was on the defensive. “Damn it, Vida, you’re just irked because you weren’t there to help figure all this out!”
“Well, now!” Vida looked affronted. “I daresay I could have made a contribution. At least I knew some of the people involved. You didn’t.”
“I do now. Or I feel as if I do, even though most of them are dead.” I was turning sullen. Vida had stolen the ball and slam-dunked right over my head. Now that I was trying to go for the winning basket, she was committing a flagrant foul.
Her pie and my coffee arrived. Vida seemed appeased by the generous slice with puddles of berry juice and the mound of vanilla ice cream. “Very well. So tell me what you learned from your mysterious phone call.”
I relaxed against the back of the booth. “I called Julia’s sister, Claudia, in Victoria. Now don’t tell me you know Claudia Malone Cameron intimately.”
Vida’s attitude was vague. “I recall Aunt Julia speaking of her. But they weren’t close. I didn’t realize Julia’s sister was still alive.”
“Two of her sisters and a brother are still living, but Claudia was the only one I met.” I explained how I had gone over to Victoria and spent most of a morning with Claudia Malone Cameron. Vida’s resentment faded in the face of hearing about her late aunt’s sister. When I got to the part about Walter, the Root Cellar Rapist, Vida choked on a mouthful of boysenberries.
“Oh, good grief!” she exclaimed after taking a drink of water. “No wonder Aunt Julia never mentioned her brother! How disgusting! Obviously, it wasn’t only her mother who was evil!”
Vida’s choice of words electrified me. “Evil,” I repeated. “That’s right. Julia’s mother was evil.”
“Malicious Minnie, that’s what Aunt Julia called her. She spread scandal about Simone, too.” Vida patted her mouth with her napkin. “I imagine she did that because she knew Julia was fond of Simone.”
“No,” I said. “She did it because she was afraid. Julia’s mother couldn’t risk meeting Simone in Seattle. Just now I asked Claudia Cameron if her mother wore a wedding set. She did, with a beautiful diamond that Claudia had remounted but can’t wear because of her arthritis. I also asked if Mrs. Malone had a thick Irish brogue like her father’s. Claudia said she did not.”
I couldn’t resist pausing for dramatic effect. But Vida’s gaze was blank. “So?”
“That’s because Claudia’s mother wasn’t Irish. She wasn’t Minnie Burke. She was Carrie Rowley, and yes, she was Julia and Claudia and Walter’s real mother as well as the mother of the three children who were born after the family moved to Seattle. But she was never Mrs. James Malone. She murdered Jimmy’s wife. The victim was Minnie Burke Malone, and she was going to have a baby.”
Chapter Eighteen
THE MAIL HAD piled up during my four-day absence. The box at the edge of the street was crammed to overflowing. The separate delivery containers for The Advocate and the Seattle papers were also full. I needed two shopping bags to carry everything into the house. The reading material could wait. At a cursory glance, the mail looked mostly like bills and advertising circulars.
Vida was already in the kitchen, putting the teakettle on the stove. We had adjourned to my cozy log cabin for a couple of reasons: I was anxious to get home, and we were taking up much-needed space at the Venison Inn. Also Vida and I wanted to discuss the Melcher mystery in more comfortable circumstances. She had followed me up the hill in her big Buick, announcing upon arrival that we must have tea. Having just gulped down two cups of coffee, I wasn’t in the mood, but I was willing to humor Vida.
A quick check of the answering machine revealed a total of eleven messages, which wasn’t too daunting for a four-day absence. Of course the business calls would have piled up at work. I fast-forwarded through the answering-machine tape, pausing for Adam in Tuba City.
“Hey, Mom, where are you? I need some new jeans and a pair of khaki shorts and some Nikes and—” I cut Adam off. He could whine at me later. Besides, he and Ben would be in Alpine soon.
I pressed the button again. Jackie Melcher squealed at me from Port Angeles: “Emma! You forgot to take the pearl earrings! I owe you for groceries! Did you want the elephant bracelet?” She stopped, probably gasping for breath. “I finally talked to Flint Bullard. What an old crank! He went on and on, blah-blah-blah! I don’t know why people can’t come to the point! Finally I said to him, ‘Mr. Bullard, I don’t think you remember zip about the day the fire started except that your house burned down.’ And he said, he did so, his father had gone down to get a tub of beer and he’d made him—Flint, I mean—rub lard around the tub so they wouldn’t cheat him—his father, I mean—and put a bunch of foam on top and when he and his dad got back just before supper, Carrie Malone was there with two of her kids, borrowing one of his mother’s hats and talking too much! But she wasn’t lighting any matches.” Jackie’s voice took a downward tum. “It’s not much help, is it? Call me. I think I’ll send you the elephants.” I was about to shut the answering machine off when Jackie resumed speaking: “Oh, guess what? I’m going to volunteer up at the nursing home. I really liked Clara Haines, and if I can stand Flint Bullard, I can put up with any of those ornery old coots. Besides, when the baby comes, they’ll enjoy that. It’ll be like having a whole bunch of grandparents. Or great-grandparents. Or whatever. ’Bye.”
Vida stood in the doorway to the kitchen, hanging on every word. “That’s your hostess?” She sniffed in disdain. “From what you’ve said of Mavis, I thought her daughter would have more sense! She sounds like a jabberwocky!�
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Vida and I settled in the kitchen. It was still daylight at seven-thirty. My house smelled faintly stuffy. The sun was coming down over Western foothills, but I left the front door open to clear the air.
“You must go over all these people again,” Vida insisted. “I knew only Aunt Julia and the Nievalles.”
I started with Cornelius Rowley and his first wife, Olive. Vida affected shock at the cause of Olive’s demise, but I knew better. Inwardly, Vida was probably smirking her head off.
I moved on to the Rowley children, Eddie and Carrie. I explained Lena’s background, her first marriage, the birth of her son, Sanford, and her subsequent remarriage to Eddie Rowley. Counterpoising Eddie’s business failures with his wife’s political success, I awaited Vida’s reaction.
“Lena sounds overbearing but admirable.” Vida got up to remove the whistling teakettle from the burner. Somehow, I could see Vida face-to-face with Lena. They would have made a great match. “I suppose she henpecked Eddie. No backbone on his part. Poor soul.”
I was getting a couple of mugs from the cupboard. “That’s how we figured it. Then there was Carrie, the daughter, who seemed to be the victim.”
Vida allowed the tea to steep. “Slowly, Emma. What about Lena’s son, Sanford? Let’s keep to one side of the family at a time. That’s how I managed with the Runkels and the Blatts this afternoon.”
I told Vida how Sanford had married Rose Felder. “There was a pattern there,” I noted as we sat back down at the table. “Lena’s first husband was a weakling, so was her second. And her son didn’t sound much better. None of them had a will of his own, unless you count Ferris Melcher’s desire to roam the country as a sign of determination.”
Vida considered. “Ferris may have been weak physically but not emotionally. Certainly he got Lena to go along with him on his travels to pursue whatever it was he wanted from life. It’s probably a good thing—otherwise, Paul Melcher might have been a washout. I take it the young man has some gumption.”