by Mary Daheim
Fortunately, I didn’t laugh. Crazy Eights, Alpine’s resident loony, had been raised by Vida’s aunt and uncle. Vida and Crazy Eights were practically related. I gave myself a good shake. “That’s … remarkable. How did Nievalle become Neffel?” I asked, hoping to soothe Vida with a mundane question.
Vida turned to face me, her presence somehow majestic. She took a deep breath. “Charles wasn’t very good at spelling. Also he tended to mumble. Somewhere along the line he went from Nievalle to Neffel. French names were quite exotic in a basically Scandinavian community like Alpine. I suppose Neffel sounded more … ordinary. The nickname of Crazy Eights was from some sort of game the children played. I don’t remember it. We had hopscotch and chuck-the-wicket.” The blush had faded and Vida was speaking with dignity.
It would have been unkind to tease Vida about her connection to Crazy Eights Neffel. “At least he’s not a murderer or a rapist or a bigamist,” I remarked. “The best news for the Melchers is that they’re not related to any of those people. They were all Rowleys and Malones.”
When I returned to the kitchen, Vida seemed more at ease. I opened The Advocate and immediately cringed. The press work was definitely not up to par and the layout was sloppy. Vida’s makeshift job on the hardware and shoe store ads was adequate, if uninspired. I would wait until later to read all of the copy. However, I couldn’t resist asking Vida to point out the typo on Darla Puckett’s name.
“Page seven,” she answered promptly. “It’s terrible. When you see it, you’ll know why Darla was wild.”
I saw it, third column, middle of the page. Now I had to laugh. Carla Steinmetz had erred, all right. Darla Puckett’s name was misprinted as Carla Puckett.
It could have been worse. Maybe.
After Vida went home around nine, I listened to the rest of my messages. None was urgent. Adam’s list of wants included another couple of items, neither of which he would receive before coming to Alpine. My son didn’t realize that his mother was unexpectedly broke. The window was closed. But Adam’s final, seemingly casual, remarks caught me off-guard.
“It’s really great down here, Mom. No rain, no snow. I’m thinking about switching to Arizona or Arizona State this fall. See you.”
I could never remember if Tuba City was on daylight savings time. It seemed to me that Arizona was capricious, with individual towns and areas following the local whim. On the chance that it might be after ten o’clock for Ben and Adam, I decided to call them before I unpacked.
Ben’s crackling voice on the answering machine caused me to smile. “This is the San Martin de Braga rectory. We’re unable to answer your call, but we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Daily Mass is at eight A.M., Sundays and Holy Days at nine A.M. and seven P.M. Confessions are heard starting at four P.M. before the Saturday Mass at five.” The message was repeated in Ben’s grammatically correct if egregiously accented Spanish. Then he spoke what I presumed was Navajo. I trusted it was better than his Spanish. There was a faint pause. “If this is Hector calling, we’ll be at the dig around three. Don’t drop that polychrome bowl on your foot. It sounds like a world-class find.”
It also sounded as if Ben and Adam were off and running, making momentous discoveries in the fourteenth-century sandstone of Arizona. Their excavations were more uplifting than the one I’d left behind in Port Angeles. I hoped they would bring along pictures of their summer’s work. My brief message informed them that I’d call back in the morning. Maybe by then Adam would have forgotten about trying to hold me up. Again. Maybe he would also have forgotten about changing colleges. Again. Neither was likely. My son’s memory was often faulty, but rarely when it came to his own wants and needs.
Still gripping the receiver, I decided to go ahead and phone Jackie and Paul. Having assuaged Vida by putting The Advocate at the top of my priorities, I felt no need to postpone calling Port Angeles.
Jackie answered on the third ring. “Emma! I just wrapped the bracelet! What about the earrings? I’m sending you a check, but I don’t know the amount. How much were the groceries you bought?”
“Skip the check.” I grimaced, thinking of my dwindling money reserves and my ascending bank-card statement. “That’s my treat as a houseguest. If you mail it, I’ll tear it up. Keep the earrings. I’d never get around to converting them into clips. But I wouldn’t mind having the bracelet.”
At my request, Jackie sent Paul upstairs to join us on the extension. “It’s too bad we don’t have three-way calling,” Jackie said while we waited for Paul to pick up the bedroom phone. “We could get Mike and have him listen, too.”
I murmured halfhearted agreement, then heard Paul come on the line. Not wanting to make my phone bill any larger than it already was, I tried to keep my summation brief. Jackie shrieked when I confirmed that Minnie Burke, not Carrie Rowley, was the real Mrs. James Malone. She howled when I revealed that their skeleton was Minnie Burke, not Carrie Rowley. Jackie was utterly silent when I announced that Carrie had killed Minnie and impersonated her for most of the next half-century.
It was Paul who spoke up at the other end of the line. “I guess I should be relieved. I guess I am. The police took the remains away this afternoon. We’ll have her buried just the same. I wonder if there’s any room in the family plot at Ocean View?”
Jackie found her voice. “We can’t do that! She wasn’t family! Not even by a stretch!” Apparently Jackie had finally let go. Maybe it was my departure, not Minnie’s, that she’d dreaded. New brides often missed their mothers, and I had been subbing for Mavis.
I waited for Paul’s response. Obviously, he was considering his wife’s words. “No, Sweets, I don’t agree that we should exclude Minnie. She lived here, she took care of the kids, she worked for the family. After the last few days I feel as if I know her as well as any of the rest of the ones who died before I was born. We owe her something. Besides,” he added with a weak chuckle, “maybe it’ll put the ghost to rest.”
“The ghost!” exclaimed Jackie. “I forgot about the ghost! Oh, Lamb-love, do you think the ghost was Minnie? She might have had dark hair, too, like Simone! The Irish do, you know. They aren’t all redheads.”
“I wonder who saw that ghost,” Paul said in a musing voice. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”
“Aunt Sara might remember,” Jackie said, and I could sense from her tone that she was warming up for another trip into the past. “We could call her and ask if—”
I felt like a third wheel, and it was costing me money. “Hey, Jackie, when your mother gets back from her trip, tell her she owes me a letter. Meanwhile, you two take care. And thanks for the mystery.”
“What?” Jackie sounded startled, and I could see her face wreathed with confusion. “Oh! Sure, I’ll tell her. Oh, poopy!” In her typical style, Jackie’s mood changed abruptly. “Now we’ve got to find another name for a girl! We were going to call her Carrie! That won’t do, will it?” Before I could respond, she went off on another tangent. “But what if it turns out to be twins? Then I could call them Minnie and—”
“Jackie …” Paul’s voice was gently reproving. “Jimmy was kind of a skunk.”
“Not Jimmy!” Jackie cried. “Minnie and Jimmy? That’s awful. I mean Minnie and Mickey. What do you think?”
I didn’t. Softly, I hung up the phone. Jackie and Paul Melcher didn’t need me. They had each other and the baby to come. I was needed here at home, at The Advocate, in the community of Alpine. I was also needed, to some extent, by Adam and Ben, and, I had just discovered, by Vida. So what if there was no husband who needed me? Maybe I didn’t need him, either.
I still had to unpack, but I felt obliged to flip through the mail. There were two letters buried among the bills and circulars. One was from my old high school chum, Ursula Guy Wilcox in Houston. The other was from Tom Cavanaugh. Nervously, I ripped open Tom’s letter first.
“Dear Emma,” he began, as I noted the date from last Sunday …
I’ve been meaning to writ
e ever since I got back from the conference at Lake Chelan. As usual, the crises piled up in my absence, on both the newspaper and the home front. I won’t bore you with the details of the former, since you’re all too familiar with what can go wrong with a weekly. Let’s just say that I’ve got a couple of local publishers here in northern California who think they have no responsibility to their community.
As for the domestic side, Sandra started taking a new medication the first of this month and the side effects have been horrific. Her doctors are trying to find something else that will help, not hinder, but so far, no luck. She’s become very withdrawn and refuses to leave the house. Given some of her previous escapades, I suppose I should be thankful. But she doesn’t want me to go anywhere, either. She clings, but doesn’t communicate. As I may have mentioned, we planned a two-week trip to Italy in September, but unless she improves, there’s no way I’ll be able to get her on a plane.
Enough of gloom. I feel as if I’m taking out all my frustrations on you in this letter. Maybe part of it is that I felt so terrific after our weekend in Chelan. Except for seeing Adam on his way to Arizona, the summer hasn’t been much fun.
My original intention was to write you a long, soulful letter about my reactions to our get-together (hey, love those euphemisms!), but to be honest, I haven’t had much time for soul-searching. All I know is that I haven’t been so happy in twenty years. Really. I also know it’s not fair to say so.
One of these days, I’ll find a few spare hours to think about us. Don’t be angry or hurt because I haven’t done it yet. You’re always on my mind, a 8vivid presence that helps me get through the rest of the daily grind (right, I said vivid—stop making faces—you’re always so alive, and you’re almost never nuts). Yes, I love you. I love Adam, too. I’ve got to go now—Sandra just woke up from her fourth nap of the day. Take care, let me hear from you, write when you get a chance.
By the way, one of my publishers in the L.A. area had to fire the ad manager of the weekly I own out in the San Fernando Valley. I’ve known him for years, and he’s basically a good guy and a hard worker who’s been through some rough times. I’m told he was heading up to the Pacific Northwest to look for a job. I know you’ve got Ed Bronsky (who I hope is still taking his energy injections or whatever perked him up), but I thought you might have heard of some other openings through the grapevine. If you know of anybody who’s interested, have the contact write to Leo Fulton Walsh, P.O. Box 534, Culver City, California 90255.
Love, Tom
In Alpine, murder always seems to occur in alphabetical order …
THE ALPINE ADVOCATE
THE ALPINE BETRAYAL
THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS
THE ALPINE DECOY
THE ALPINE ESCAPE
THE ALPINE FURY
THE ALPINE GAMBLE
THE ALPINE HERO
THE ALPINE ICON
… and you can be sure Emma Lord, editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, is there to report every detail.
THE EMMA LORD MYSTERIES
by Mary Daheim
Published by Ballantine Books.
Available wherever books are sold.
Mary Daheim is a Seattle native who started writing at the age of eight. The Alpine Escape is the fifth novel in her Emma Lord mystery series—the direct sequel to The Alpine Decoy. The author is married to David Daheim, a professor of cinema, literature, and English at Shoreline Community College. The Daheims have three daughters: Barbara, Katherine, and Magdalen. Mary Daheim is a member of the Authors’ Guild and Mystery Writers of America.