by Mary Daheim
“Ben will feel terrible when I tell him,” I said to Spence. “In fact, here he comes now.”
After I’d relayed the message, Ben started directly for the phone. I cautioned him to wait; the Shaws probably still had deputies with them.
“Was anything stolen at the Shaws?” he asked after evincing dismay.
Spence shook his head. “Not that they know of. They were trying to break a window when the joggers spotted them and called us on their cell phone. The perps took off the back way.”
Bernie and Patsy Shaw lived in a house on the east side of town, overlooking the river, and not far from Casa de Bronska, as I called the Italianate villa owned by Ed and Shirley. Maybe the next break-in would be at Ed’s, and they’d steal his latest manuscript.
Spence got a quote from Ben, packed up his equipment, and left. But not before he needled me about how he’d gotten the stories of Gen’s demise and the latest break-in before the Advocate’s pub date.
The next hour seemed anticlimactic. I waited for Ben to get hold of the Shaws around nine-thirty. They’d tried to call my brother from the ski lodge, but the line was busy. Bernie said he figured that some emergency must have come up at the rectory, but was shocked to hear of Gen’s death, adding that he hadn’t heard of her in years and had wondered if she’d already died.
“She wasn’t insured with me,” Bernie added, as if her life and death didn’t matter unless he had to pay out on a policy.
“Go easy on him,” Ben cautioned as we walked through the rain to the hospital. “Bernie’s a good guy. He and Patsy are already upset, what with almost getting robbed.”
“I’m in a grumpy mood,” I admitted. “I hate having Spence gloat when he scoops me.”
“There’s nothing you can do about that,” Ben said in consolation. “He always will. That’s the trouble with owning a weekly as opposed to a radio station.”
“I know.” But it still grated.
Doc Dewey, looking tired, met us outside of the intensive care unit. “Just a precaution,” he assured us. “Annie Jeanne’s sleeping. I want to keep her under observation. She was quite ill when we brought her here.”
“In what way?” I inquired.
Doc made a face. “Sick to her stomach, disoriented, complaining of a terrible headache, blood pressure dangerously low, and she’d started to turn blue.”
Ben had brought his kit, which contained the oil for the Sacrament of the Sick. “Any way I can nip in and anoint her?”
Doc, who is an Episcopalian, considered briefly. “Why not?” He opened the ICU door for Ben.
“I don’t get it,” I said to Doc. “Are those symptoms of hysteria?”
“They can be,” Doc said with a frown. “At least the headache, the stomach upset, and even the disorientation. But . . .” He stopped, glancing through the glass that separated the ICU from the corridor.
“But what?”
Doc hesitated again, before meeting my gaze. “I administered ipecac to cause emesis, and activated charcoal to prevent absorption, just in case.”
I was puzzled. “Just in case . . . what?”
Doc looked distressed. “Just in case she’d ingested poison.”
I didn’t exactly reel, but I was certainly startled. “Accidentally, you mean?”
Doc, who was looking more and more like his revered father, nodded. “Of course.” But he didn’t meet my gaze.
On the way back from the hospital, I told Ben what Doc had said. My brother stopped short of scoffing.
“I suppose,” he allowed, “that in her excitement and general ditzlike state, Annie Jeanne may have used the wrong kind of ingredient.”
“That’d be terrible,” I asserted. “It’d mean she poisoned her best friend. Assuming Annie Jeanne recovers, she’ll never forgive herself.”
Ben looked grim as we stopped by my Honda in the church parking lot. “That’s the trouble with the Sacrament of Penance. God can forgive people, but often they can’t forgive themselves.”
“At least the autopsy on Gen will show cause of death,” I noted. “Maybe Milo shouldn’t be so hard on Buddy after all.”
Ben glanced through the rain toward the hospital. “Maybe if Buddy hadn’t asked for an autopsy, Doc would have, based on Annie Jeanne’s symptoms.”
The rain was coming down harder and the wind had picked up. My brother and I were getting wet. But that wasn’t the reason for the shiver I felt along my spine.
Homicide—accidental or otherwise—was nagging at the back of my mind.
Precisely at ten o’clock, my phone rang. I figured it might be Ben, calling to see if I got home safely. Just as I left him, sharp gusts of wind had blown down from the mountains, snapping a few tree limbs along my route. Ben wasn’t a worrywart, but he also wasn’t used to the vagaries of weather in the Cascades.
The caller wasn’t Ben. “Emma, I’m so happy to be home!” Vida exclaimed. “Tacoma! So big, so busy! How do people cope? And all those stoplights on the main streets! Really, I almost went mad!”
“I’m truly glad you’re back,” I declared. “How’s Beth?”
“Limping, but able to get around,” Vida replied. “Randy is taking tomorrow and Wednesday off since she can’t drive yet. He has to prepare for a trial, so he can do that at home.”
Beth’s husband was a member of a law firm with offices in Tacoma and in Olympia, the state capital. His specialty was insurance fraud.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,” I said to Vida. “Genevieve Bayard died this evening.”
“No!” Vida sounded shocked. “What a shame! To think she’d just gotten here. Very sad for Buddy and Roseanna and the grandchildren. How’s your dear brother, Ben?”
“Not as good as he could be, since Gen died at the rectory,” I replied. “She was having dinner with Annie Jeanne Dupré.”
“Really.” Vida paused. “Quite upsetting for Annie Jeanne. I suppose she went to pieces. Such an emotional creature, I’ve always thought, and not really a very good musician.”
Although Vida was a Presbyterian, she’d attended enough funerals at St. Mildred’s—and every other church in Skykomish County—that she’d been subjected to Annie Jeanne’s thumping.
“Annie Jeanne’s in the hospital,” I said, somehow put off by Vida’s reaction to the latest grim news.
“Dear me,” she remarked. “A nervous collapse, I suppose.”
“Maybe.” I hesitated before dropping my bombshell. “Doc Dewey thinks she may have been poisoned. I assume he’s thinking that Gen was, too.”
“Gracious!” Vida’s cry almost ruptured my eardrum. “Poisoned! Isn’t that far-fetched?”
“Please don’t tell anyone until after the autopsy on Gen,” I urged. “It wouldn’t be fair to Gen—or to Annie Jeanne.”
“Autopsy!” I could almost hear Vida smacking her lips. “Really, now!” She paused again. “If that’s the case, it must have been an accident. My, my. I wonder if the funeral service will be held here?”
“I’ve no idea,” I replied. “That’s up to Buddy. I imagine most of Gen’s current friends are in Spokane. Where’s her husband buried?”
“Ex-husband, you mean,” Vida huffed. “I have no idea.”
“Did you know him?”
“Vaguely.” Vida’s voice had cooled. “I must go. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Vida’s return caused a predictable stir. She preened a bit, obviously pleased by the reception. Leo even refrained from calling her Duchess, despite the red satin toque that lent her a regal aura.
But it was Scott who captured the limelight later that morning. He didn’t get back from his usual beat until almost ten-thirty.
“Not one,” he announced to Vida and me, “but two break-ins yesterday. The Shaws and the Pikes.”
“The Pikes?” I said with a curious expression. “They’re not home.”
Scott nodded. “Right. Their neighbors, Roy and Bebe Everson, noticed a broken window by the Pikes’ front door this morning
when Roy left for work. Bebe called the sheriff, and Sam Heppner went out to take a look. Sure enough, the place had been ransacked.”
I stared harder at Scott. “Ransacked? What do you mean?”
Scott hung his peacoat on the oak hat rack Ginny had recently purchased at a garage sale. “Just what I said, according to Sam. The place was really torn up. The funny thing was that nothing of value seemed to have been taken.”
Vida was standing by her desk, tucking in the red-and-white-striped blouse that had inched its way out of her gray skirt. “I thought the Pikes weren’t leaving until today.”
I told her they’d changed their minds and had spent the night at the airport. Turning back to Scott, I asked if the Pikes had been informed.
“Dodge managed to have them paged at the airport,” he replied. “They don’t take off until around noon. Mrs. Pike said they wouldn’t cancel the trip if nothing seemed to be missing. Roy Everson’s going to fix the window for them and try to straighten things up before they get back.”
Puzzled, I shook my head. “This doesn’t sound like the usual MO.”
Scott agreed. “The others have been quickies. The burglar gets inside, grabs whatever looks like it could be fenced, and takes off.”
“I don’t suppose,” Vida put in, “that the Eversons saw anything. Roy may be the postal supervisor, but he lives in his own little world. And Bebe is even worse. I wonder sometimes if she doesn’t have early Alzheimer’s.”
That seemed a trifle harsh. Bebe was the vivacious type with a short attention span.
“The fact is,” Scott said, sitting down in his swivel chair, “Sam isn’t sure when the break-in happened. Roy was at work all day, and Bebe went into Monroe for the afternoon. Neither of them got home until after six. It gets dark a lot earlier than that this time of year, especially when it’s raining.”
Vida also sat down. “Maud Dodd lives on the other side of the Pikes. She hardly ever comes out of the house anymore. Arthritis, you know. As for Ethel and Pike, I can’t imagine what they’d have that was worth stealing. The last time I was in their house they still had a black-and-white TV.”
“Then they still have it,” Scott said, grinning.
Vida rested her chin on her hands and tapped her cheeks with her fingers. “Yes.” She was looking thoughtful, even a bit worried.
Maybe she was thinking about Beth. Whatever the cause of her mood shift, I couldn’t let it gnaw at me. This was Tuesday, and we had a paper to put out.
Scott went off to take pictures of both the Shaw and the Pike houses. He’d already photographed the previous break-in sites. We could run the most recent shots on page two, with a jump from page one. For now, the burglaries were our lead story.
“ ‘Scene,’ ” Vida said, just as I was heading into my office after checking the wire service. “I have two items from Ginny and one from Leo. I need four more.”
“How about you?” I asked.
“You mean my trip to Tacoma to take care of Beth?” Vida frowned. “Isn’t that self-serving?”
“We ran an item about Leo a few years back when he slid downhill on the ice and sprained his ankle,” I countered. “In September, you all but announced Scott and Tammy’s engagement before they did.”
“I merely hinted,” Vida said with a sniff. “How did I put it? ‘Which beautiful educator and which handsome journalist are hearing the tinkle of wedding bells in the distance?’ Or something like that.”
“I don’t think you wrote tinkle,” I said dryly. “At least, I hope not.”
“You’re not helping me,” Vida admonished.
I thought back over the weekend. I’d love to announce that my son was coming home, but that would definitely be self-serving, as if I had to see it in print to believe it. Anyway, it was a two-inch item for Vida’s page when he got here. Or maybe twelve inches. Adam and his Alaskan adventures were worth a feature, publisher’s son or not.
“We’re in a bind,” I admitted. “It’d be inappropriate to use the Pikes’ early departure, because it’d sound as if they were to blame for the break-in. We should avoid the Burl Creek Thimble Party’s event for Gen, since she died a day later. How about mentioning the old-time photos at the Upper Crust?”
“We did that in the story about the renovation,” Vida reminded me.
“Oh. Right.” I ruminated some more. “The wind blew down some branches on Third Street last night, and probably elsewhere in town.”
“That’s a brief story,” Vida asserted. “You or Scott should check to see if there was any serious damage.”
I made a face. “I already did. There wasn’t any.” My mind seemed to be turning to mush. I felt fragmented by the weekend’s events, both happy and sad.
“You’re a total loss,” Vida chided. “Here’s the sheriff. Perhaps he can help. Good morning, Milo. You’ve spilled something on your trousers. I can use that for ‘Scene.’ What is it?”
In surprise, Milo glanced at his pants legs. “Damn. Coffee, I expect.”
If so, I thought, it was a wonder it hadn’t eaten through the fabric. “What’s up?” I inquired, after Vida told him not to curse. “Don’t tell me you have news.”
“Not yet,” he replied, still studying the stain. “We sent Gen’s body to Everett last night, but I don’t expect to hear anything until late today.”
“How late?”
Milo shrugged. “Five, six o’clock. Then again, maybe not until tomorrow.”
“Milo,” I said calmly and slowly, “we have a deadline today. Do you think it might be possible to see if you can goose the Everett MEs into hurrying just a little bit? After all, they owe you. Didn’t you apprehend a bank robber for them last month?”
“Oh—right,” Milo said, finally looking up. “The guy who ran off the road by Deception Falls. No big deal. He wasn’t going anywhere. He had a broken pelvis.”
“That’s not the point. You caught him.” I put on my most pitiful expression. “Please, Milo? Just for the sake of your hometown newspaper?”
“The SnoCo MEs don’t care if I apprehended a perp,” Milo noted. “But I’ll see what I can do.” He strolled over to the table that held the coffeemaker and what was left of the morning’s pastries. “No doughnuts? No cinnamon rolls? What’s this?” He picked up a knish.
I explained. “That one is filled with cheese. The Upper Crust is introducing a few ethnic pastries. We do, after all, have some diversity on the college campus.”
Milo bit into the soft dough. “Not bad,” he remarked, licking his lips.
“A ‘Scene’ item for certain,” Vida murmured, scribbling on a piece of paper.
Milo poured himself half a mug of coffee. “By the way, this might be of interest to you, Vida. When Sam checked out the Pike house this morning, somebody had set a small fire in the backyard. The rain was down to a drizzle by then, so the fire didn’t do much damage. It’s kind of crazy, though. The parts that didn’t get completely burned were some papers that looked like a kind of pattern. There was also a corner of an old quilt. What caught Sam’s eye was that somebody had written on it. It was your mother’s name, Muriel Blatt.”
Vida turned white.
SIX
“It’s just the shock,” Vida assured me after I’d quickly brought her a glass of water. “My mother. Her quilts. She was so clever with her fingers. Goodness.” Vida dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Goodness,” she repeated.
Milo was leaning over Vida’s desk, his face filled with concern. “Would you like . . . what’s left of the quilt?”
Vida vehemently shook her head and blew her nose at the same time. “No. No, not if it’s half-burned.”
“It’s pretty much gone,” Milo conceded. He stood up and framed a foot-wide triangle with his hands. “The only part is the border where her name is, and some red, white, and blue cloth.”
Vida nodded and blew her nose again, sounding much like a herald using his trumpet to proclaim a big event. “Yes, Mother always signed her quilts. Most
quilters do. Excuse me,” she said, getting up from her chair. “I must go to the restroom.”
“Poor Vida,” I said when she’d disappeared. “She’s had a rough few days.”
“I guess,” Milo allowed. “I’ve never seen her so upset.”
“Did Mrs. Blatt date the quilt, as well?” I inquired, recalling some of my paternal grandmother’s handsome quilts, three of which I still had at home.
Milo grimaced. “I almost told her what the whole signature deal said. I’m glad I didn’t.”
All at sea, I gazed up at Milo. “Why not?”
“Because,” he said slowly, obviously trying to recall the inscription word for word, “it read ‘Begun February 10, 1974, by Genevieve Bayard,’ written in a different handwriting. Then it said, ‘Completed October 21, 1978, by Muriel May Blatt.’ I thought mentioning Gen’s name so soon after she died might upset Vida. I suppose they were friends.”
Milo and I didn’t know it, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead of the interview I’d scheduled with Gen, I asked Vida if she would talk to Buddy and Roseanna about the dead woman’s life.
Vida refused. She was polite but insisted she had too much catching up to do. In a way, that was true: Our House & Home editor collected potential news items via her vast network of friends and relations. Being out of the loop for the past four days was tantamount to having the Associated Press wire go down.
“Don’t forget,” she added, not quite looking me in the eye, “I have to prepare for my weekly radio show tomorrow night. I’ve already lined up Rosemary Bourgette to talk about her experiences as SkyCo’s prosecuting attorney.”
After eight months, Vida should know that I no longer harbored any resentment for what I’d initially termed her defection to the radio station. Last February she’d sprung Vida’s Cupboard on me without warning. That wasn’t fair, but after a few weeks, I got over it. She never used items that should have appeared in the paper first, and her sponsors divided their advertising budget between KSKY and the Advocate.
Scott, whose main flaw was not making deadlines, already had plenty on his plate. I called Roseanna and told her what I needed as background—if she and Buddy didn’t mind.