The Alpine Quilt

by Mary Daheim

  After ordering the pancakes with ham, an egg over easy, and coffee, I looked at my watch: It was seven thirty-five. Tony Knuler was late. He might know me, but he might not know exactly how to find the diner. I thanked the waitress as she filled my coffee mug and kept my eye on the restaurant’s front.

  A young man I didn’t recognize came in alone a couple of minutes later. But he didn’t have a copy of the Advocate as far as I could tell, and judging from his suit and tie, I figured him for a salesman. Terri seated the new arrival at the chrome counter.

  By seven forty-five, I was squirming a bit on the bright red plastic seat cover. A minute later, my order arrived—but still no Tony Knuler.

  His tardiness didn’t spoil my appetite. I ate as if I were related to the Bronsky family, but still watched the diner’s front. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock when I finished my meal. Sated, but becoming annoyed, I decided to give the Mystery Man another five minutes.

  He never showed.

  “Did you get stood up?” Terri asked as I paid my bill.

  “I guess so,” I replied, adding a tip and signing the receipt for my Visa card. “I’m not heartbroken. I have no idea who this guy is.”

  Terri’s pretty face showed interest. “Really? Should I keep an eye out for him in case he comes in?”

  I nodded. “Tell him to call me at the office. Thanks.”

  “He’s got your number?” Terri inquired as I started to turn away.

  I looked back over my shoulder. “Oh, yes. He’s got my number.”

  Maybe, I wondered, in more ways than one.

  Just to make sure, I lingered for a few minutes in the parking lot, watching for a man with a copy of the Advocate. There were new arrivals, but I recognized all of them: Skunk and Trout Nordby from the GM dealership, Shawna Beresford-Hall and Clea Bhuj of the college faculty, and County Commissioner Leonard Hollenberg with his wife, Violet. I gave up and drove away.

  By the time I arrived at the office, the staff was in place, and most of the Upper Crust’s coffee cake was gone. I didn’t care; I was full of pancakes.

  There was, however, a frosty air in the newsroom. Vida and Leo were obviously annoyed with each other. My ad manager was purposely blowing smoke in my House & Home editor’s direction, while she was speaking much louder than usual on the telephone and rattling papers at the same time. Scott sat low in his chair, hiding behind his computer.

  “Good morning,” I said to all. “Sorry I’m late. I had a breakfast meeting.”

  Vida was all but shouting into the phone. “Now, now, Darla, you know perfectly well that I’ve never seen your underwear.”

  Leo looked at me and shook his head. “Rough start,” he murmured.

  Vida hooted with laughter. “Really, Darla, if it’s genuine Belgian lace, I wouldn’t sell it at any price, especially not on eBay.”

  I signaled for Leo to step into my office, but didn’t ask him to close the door. We couldn’t possibly be overheard with Vida’s trumpetlike conversation.

  “What’s up?” I inquired.

  “The Duchess’s dander,” Leo replied with a droll expression. “I dared to criticize her program last night. Did you hear it?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m afraid so.”

  “What’s with her lately?” Leo asked. “She’s been acting strange for the last week or so.”

  I admitted I didn’t know. “I wonder if I should ask her daughter Amy or Buck Bardeen. Frankly, it’s getting to the point where she’s disruptive in terms of the paper.”

  “Spence isn’t happy with her, either,” Leo confided in a low tone. “He called you first thing this morning, and when he found out you weren’t here, he had Ginny transfer him to my line. Naturally, I couldn’t say much—don’t know much, for that matter—with Vida sitting ten feet away.”

  “What did Spence tell you?”

  Leo stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray I kept on the desk for him, for Milo, and for a few other local puffers. “The station got a bunch of calls right after the program went off the air. Two of the complaints were from Hispanics at the college who resented the Edna Mae service station bit, one was from another librarian who thought the item made her co-workers sound bad, and the rest wanted to know why Vida didn’t talk about the local news—like Gen croaking at the rectory.” He gestured in the direction of the newsroom. “She’s been on the phone ever since she and I got into it. I think Vida’s avoiding incoming calls. Ginny’s already handed her about a half-dozen messages.”

  I had no solution to the problem. As long as Vida wouldn’t confide in me, I was at a loss.

  She was out most of the day, returning just after three o’clock. I had spent the morning on the phone talking to state and federal agencies about a proposal to create a new wilderness area just north of Highway 2 between Sultan and Alpine. The legislation, which covered 106,000 acres of forest and mountains, was called the Wild Sky Wilderness bill and was being studied by Congress. Because a wilderness area is the most stringent of all designations, Alpiners were divided between the environmentalists and those who had commercial interests. So far, I’d been siding with the former. Civilization was creeping ever farther along the Highway 2 corridor. I didn’t like that.

  Milo had no new developments regarding our local crimes. I told him about Tony Knuler, but he merely chuckled. “Publicity shy, huh? I’ll bet he’s some kind of promoter who came to town with big ideas. It happens.”

  That was true. Alpine had had its share of new arrivals who thought they’d found a place to make a buck. Some had succeeded; others had barely gotten a foot in the door. And in one case, a California developer had ended up dead.

  Ben informed me that Annie Jeanne thought she might get out of bed by the afternoon. He was still getting the occasional crank call, but, as I’d expected, seemed unruffled.

  When Vida finally showed up that afternoon, she dismissed the messages that Ginny had piled up for her. “I’ll tend to them tomorrow. We really should be leaving soon if we want to avoid that dreadful rush-hour traffic into Seattle.”

  “I thought we’d head out around a quarter after four,” I said, checking my watch, which informed me it was ten after three. “It shouldn’t take more than two hours to get from here to downtown.”

  “Ha!” Vida exclaimed. “You obviously haven’t been to the city lately! I can tell you what it’s like in Tacoma, and Seattle is much larger.”

  We compromised, setting our departure time at four o’clock. I hated to admit it, but I was buying time to see if Tony Knuler would try to contact me and apologize.

  He didn’t. I had to wonder if, since he’d left the Alpine Falls Motel, he might have checked in somewhere else in town. Just before it was time to go, I reluctantly dialed Will Pace’s number and asked what he knew about his recent guest.

  “That creep?” Will wasn’t exactly a gracious host. “He steals my property and you want to know about him? Well, I’m telling you—he’s scum.”

  As far as I was concerned, Will might as well put up a sign on his reader board saying, WELCOME, SCUM. Between his attitude and the motel’s no-frills policy, that was the type of guest he might expect.

  To cut to the chase, candor might be my best ally. “I’m asking because he was supposed to meet me for breakfast this morning. He didn’t show. Have you any idea where I could find him?”

  “Hell, no.” Will paused, and when he spoke again, his gravelly voice was suspicious. “What do you mean? Why did he want to have breakfast with you?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was hoping you might enlighten me. Did you speak to him much when he stayed at the motel?”

  “I don’t get chummy with the clientele,” Will retorted. “If you do, the next thing they’re asking for is special treatment.”

  Like heat and electricity. “I understand he was from California,” I said.

  “Yeah. So what?” Will shot back. “I’m from Riverside.”

  “Look,” I responded, growing short on patience as
well as time, “just tell me what you know about him. I’m sure you’re busy and I am, too.”

  “Yeah, well, it is about time for guests to start arriving,” Will mumbled. “I repeat, I didn’t talk to him, even though he asked a bunch of questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hell, I don’t remember. Just about Alpine and stuff like that. Hey, a car’s pulling up, gotta go.”

  “What kind of car did Knuler drive?”

  “Huh? Oh, a beat-up Jap car. A Nissan, I think.” Will hung up.

  The car’s make and year and license plate should be in the guest registry. So should Tony Knuler’s home address. My natural curiosity was getting the better of me.

  But I could do nothing more about my Mystery Man that afternoon. It was almost time to leave for Seattle. At four o’clock sharp, Vida appeared in my doorway, wearing a sealskin derby and her black swing coat over a black dress, which featured sprays of bright orange poppies.

  For the first twenty minutes of the drive, Vida chattered away, mostly about her three daughters and their families. Beth’s feet were healing; Amy worried too much, especially about Roger; Meg was auditing a history course at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

  We were passing by Sultan’s old cemetery next to the river when she finally stopped for breath.

  I couldn’t stand it another minute. “Vida,” I said firmly, “what happened between you and Genevieve Bayard? I’ve never known you to be so callous or disinterested about what appears to be a murder.”

  Vida stiffened in the passenger seat. “Really!” She sniffed a couple of times. “I certainly didn’t mourn Thyra Rasmussen’s passing.”

  “Thyra wasn’t murdered,” I pointed out. “There was no mystery to her death. We were present when she died. She was just days short of being a hundred.” I didn’t add that a horrendous quarrel between Vida and Thyra might have precipitated the old girl’s passing.

  For a few moments, as we passed quiet farm country outside of Sultan, Vida remained silent. We were on the outskirts of Monroe when she spoke again.

  “I don’t like to speak of my relationship with Genevieve,” she finally said in a flat voice. “It was most unpleasant.”

  “It was also twenty years ago,” I noted. “More than that, wasn’t it? It couldn’t have been too awful. In fact, I’ve never heard one person in Alpine refer to it.”

  “Perhaps not,” Vida murmured. “It wasn’t something you’d broadcast.”

  I tried another angle. “Did it affect your daughters?”

  Vida seemed to be withdrawing emotionally and physically, pulling farther away from me in her seat. “They never knew.”

  Something very personal, I conjectured, something that would not get talked about, that no one else would ever know—except Vida and Gen. Yet there had been a time when the Runkels—or at least the Blatts—had been close to Genevieve. Otherwise, Vida’s mother would never have made Gen a quilt. Somehow, Gen must have betrayed the bond of friendship.

  We were on the interstate that passed through the Eastside suburbs—Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue. I planned to take the I-90 floating bridge, which would lead me into downtown, close to the Columbia Tower or the Bank of America Building or whatever the locals called the skyscraper these days. Not having lived in the city for so long, I couldn’t keep up with all the takeovers and real estate deals that had transpired in my absence.

  Neither Vida nor I had spoken for several minutes. We were getting into heavy traffic as we approached the bridge. The digital clock on the dashboard informed me it was five o’clock, the middle of rush hour. We were moving at a crawl by the time we took the Seattle exit from I-405.

  “We have plenty of time, even in this mess,” I said, breaking our long silence. “Do you want to get something to eat before we go to the memorial?”

  “There will be food at the reception, I assume,” Vida replied. “Eating in Seattle restaurants is very pricey.”

  “We’re going to have over an hour to kill,” I pointed out. “If you don’t want to eat, we can shop a bit after we park.”

  “Shop?” Vida sounded horrified. “Have you any idea what things cost in the city? Why, last month Beth went to the Nordstrom’s at the Tacoma Mall and saw a red wool coat that was priced at eleven hundred dollars!”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that you buy anything, Vida,” I said, inching toward the floating bridge. “We can merely look around.”

  Vida was fanning herself. “Oh, my. You realize that it’s raining.”

  A torrential downpour wouldn’t stop Vida in Alpine. The rain that was spattering the windshield was a typical Seattle drizzle. “You decide,” I said in an impatient voice. “As I recall, there aren’t a lot of shops at the lower end of town where the Columbia Tower is located. We’d have to take a bus up to the main stores, but it’s a free zone.”

  “Free?” Vida turned to gaze at me. “I suppose we could go to that sports store. I could look for a Christmas present for Roger.”

  I assumed she meant Niketown. “We could.”

  But I’d been optimistic about our arrival time. No sooner had we gotten across Mercer Island and onto the bridge than westbound traffic stopped. I turned on the radio to find out what had happened. Not that it mattered—there was nothing to do but wait.

  A cheerful young woman informed us that there was a stalled vehicle at midspan. The good news was there were no injuries; the bad news was that the car would have to be towed out of the way. That took over twenty minutes. Vida griped and groaned the entire time.

  At last, we crept across the bridge. The lights of the city glistened through the rain. To me, it was a beautiful sight. To Vida, it was anathema. She likened our drive through the tunnel at the bridge’s end to entering Dante’s Inferno.

  We reached the parking entrance to the Columbia Tower a little after six. That didn’t give us enough time to take the bus uptown and do any shopping.

  “I’m stiff,” Vida announced after we got out of the car. “Let’s walk a bit.”

  We went downhill, toward the waterfront. There were shops along Western Avenue, including home design stores. Vida spotted a red leather sofa in one of the windows.

  “Wouldn’t that be perfect for Amy and Ted?” she enthused. “They’re still open. Let’s go inside.”

  The display floor was filled with rich woods, fine fabrics, and a sense of prosperity. The very air reeked of affluence. Or maybe it was all that leather.

  A chic young woman of Asian descent approached us discreetly. “Isn’t it handsome?” she murmured in a seductive voice. “Feel the leather. It’s soft as a baby’s skin.”

  “How much?” Vida asked without preamble.

  “Ten-five,” she murmured, as if the price were a secret. “It’s on sale.”

  Vida goggled. “Ten-five what?”

  “Ten thousand five hundred dollars.” The saleswoman sounded embarrassed by her own admission. Clearly, she was conveying incredulity at such a bargain. “It’s from Italy, all hand-tooled.”

  Vida cleared her throat and regained her composure. “That’s a bit high,” she said. “Does that include the pillows?” Apparently Vida wasn’t going to lose face.

  The saleswoman waved a hand at the three black satin pillows with their gold braided tassels. “They’re sold separately. A well-known local designer made them.”

  “Perhaps something a bit less expensive,” Vida said. “By the way, I’m Vida Runkel. What is your name?” The personal touch on Vida’s part, perhaps an attempt to dispel the faceless factor of the big city.

  “Michele.” The saleswoman put out her hand.

  “I’m Emma,” I said, feeling as if I should add “the small and meek.”

  We all shook hands before Michele began retreating toward the rear of the display floor. “Back here,” she murmured. “We have a red velveteen-covered sofa that’s quite nice.”

  Apparently, Michele had calculated the net worth of Vida’s pocketbook. “This is only two
thousand dollars, but it’s very comfortable.”

  Vida was looking not at the sofa but at the red, white, and blue quilt that was slung across its back. She froze in place before slowly lifting her hand to point at the quilt. “Where did you get that?”

  The saleswoman looked puzzled. “The sofa? Or the quilt?”

  Vida’s expression was grim. “The quilt.”

  “It also was made by a local person, all hand-stitched, no machine work as some quilters use,” Michele replied, keeping her aplomb. “This one’s a steal at eight thousand dollars,” she added in a confidential tone. “The price is about to go up because the artisan died recently. You see, it’s an original Bayard design.”

  My jaw dropped, though I said nothing. Vida, however, squared her broad shoulders and stared down at Michele. “No, it’s not. That quilt pattern was created by my mother.”

  TWELVE

  “I beg your pardon?” Michele said, her complacent facade finally cracking.

  Vida had assumed a bulldog expression, though I thought I caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “You heard me. That quilt pattern was originally designed by my mother thirty years ago. She won first prize for it at the Skykomish County Fair. I have the same one at home in my bedroom, but in different colors.”

  “I don’t understand,” Michele replied, turning slightly as a well-dressed young couple entered the store.

  “There’s nothing to understand,” Vida snapped. “My mother was a quilter, just as Genevieve Bayard was. Genevieve obviously used my mother’s pattern and took credit for it. I can bring my quilt down from Alpine to show you.” Vida winced slightly, no doubt at the thought of returning to the city. “Or I could take a photograph.”

  A suave, dark-skinned young man had glided onto the floor to assist the newcomers. They, too, were admiring the red leather sofa.

  “I’ll have to talk to the manager,” Michele said, focusing completely on Vida. “He’s gone home for the day.”

  “Do you have any other so-called Bayard originals?” Vida asked archly.