The Alpine Quilt

by Mary Daheim

  “Fine,” Betsy said tersely. “As far as I’m concerned, Doc Dewey should give her a dose of gumption.”

  “Are you saying she’s malingering?”

  “I won’t say that,” Betsy replied, “but I don’t think the woman’s ever put in a hard day’s work in her life. Believe me, Jake and I know what work is. The Grocery Basket wouldn’t have survived if we didn’t. But Annie Jeanne’s been what you might call a dilettante most of her life. She’s been a clerk in some of the stores off and on, but she’s been able to get by on next to nothing. Being the housekeeper here at the rectory doesn’t require much more than a swipe of the broom and a flip of the duster. Any real labor is done by parish volunteers. Oh, she cooks, but she’d have to do that anyway unless she intended to starve.”

  “Her parents left her some money,” I recalled. “She was an only child, and probably pampered. They could afford music lessons, for one thing.” Better they should have bought her a chemistry set, I thought to myself.

  “She says she isn’t well enough to play the organ for five o’clock Mass tomorrow or Sunday, for that matter,” Betsy complained. “Not that that’s any great loss,” she went on, reading my mind, “but what she suffered from was just a big stomachache.”

  “And shock,” I pointed out. “The emotional toll on her has been far greater than any physical damage.”

  “Tell me about it,” Betsy said in a grim voice. “And if I hear one more word about the ‘dear Betsys’ and how much they love each other, I’m going to legally change my name to Buttsy.”

  “Do you want me to relieve you? I’m not doing anything tonight.” Ah, but tomorrow was a different matter. . . .

  “Oh—Jake’s working at the store until seven, seven-thirty.” Betsy sighed. “Father Ben said he’d be home around eight. I’ve fed Annie Jeanne—though she eats like a damned bird. I suppose I could go home and get a start on our dinner. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” I replied. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  And I was, despite the pelting rain and hard-driving wind.

  “I’ll finish that,” I said to Betsy, who was cleaning up the kitchen. “I see Ben left the rectory door unlocked. Maybe that’s a tradition he should change.”

  “Dubious,” Betsy replied. “Your brother’s dead set against making any kind of changes, lest the parishioners rise up and take arms. He doesn’t want to look like he’s sabotaging Father Den.”

  I uttered an ironic laugh. “I remember when Dennis Kelly came here, and most of the parish was shocked to see that he was black. Father Den’s overcome some big hurdles in Alpine.”

  Betsy wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I’ll be honest,” she said with a wry expression. “Jake and I were put off by him at first. Back then, before the college was open, we’d never had an African-American living here, let alone being an authority figure.” She made a face. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Once you get to know someone, you stop thinking about the color of their skin.”

  Betsy’s tardy insight might be forgiven. Alpine had been all-white for decades, with a traditional Scandinavian majority.

  “Where’s Annie Jeanne?” I inquired as Betsy put on her hooded coat.

  “In her room. She’s spending more time in there the last day or so.” Betsy paused to rummage for her car keys in her leather purse. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But we haven’t had many visitors, so there’s not much point in her staying in the parlor and holding court.”

  “What about the thimble club members?” I asked, walking Betsy to the door.

  “Char and Dar stopped by once—Wednesday, I think. Edith Bartleby phoned; so did Jean Campbell. Oh, Debra Barton brought a hot dish for last night.”

  “That’s it?”

  “There’ve been cards,” Betsy said, inching through the door. “Grace Grundle and Ella Hinshaw don’t drive much anymore. I don’t think Ella ever did. And of course Ethel Pike is out of town.”

  “Yes. Not to mention that the ones who aren’t old as dirt keep busy.” I shut up at that point, sensing that Betsy O’Toole was anxious to be off.

  But after she left I locked the rectory door.

  So kind,” Annie Jeanne declared from the rocking chair in her room on the second floor. “Betsy O’Toole, Mary Jane Bourgette—oh, and Debra Barton. Such a lovely casserole! Crab and shrimp and mushrooms!” She burst into tears. “Emma, Emma,” she groaned through the thin hands that covered her face. “Am I going to prison?”

  I hadn’t yet sat down. “Of course not,” I assured Annie Jeanne, putting an arm around her quivering shoulders. “Why would you? You haven’t done anything.”

  “But I did! I made the cheesecake!” She sniffed a couple of times, pulled a crumpled handkerchief out of her housecoat pocket, and wiped her eyes. “I was the one who killed Genevieve,” Annie Jeanne went on, her voice dropping. “If nothing else, I should have locked the door behind me when I went to the store. I just keep waiting for Sheriff Dodge to arrest me.”

  “I don’t think he’s even considered such a thing,” I said, stepping away and sitting down on the single bed. It was covered with a well-worn quilt. I guessed aloud that Gen had made it.

  “Yes, yes.” Annie Jeanne attempted a smile. “Years ago, before she moved. It’s still lovely, isn’t it?”

  I supposed that it was, but the pieces in the wedding ring design had faded and the edges were frayed. “Did Gen work in Alpine after she and her husband divorced?”

  “She did,” Annie Jeanne replied after blowing her nose. “At the dress shop. It wasn’t Francine’s then—before her time. It was Helen Jane’s. Bernie Shaw’s mother owned it, and sold out to Francine Wells. Gen worked in a yarn shop for a short time, too, but it went out of business.”

  “Gen must have been lonely after she and Andy broke up,” I said in a thoughtful tone. “Raising a son on your own is hard to do. I know, because I’ve done it. And from my own experience, it’s difficult to meet eligible men in Alpine when you’re older.”

  “I suppose,” Annie Jeanne agreed in a disinterested manner.

  It was hard to picture Annie Jeanne stalking bachelors at any age. “Gen was very good-looking,” I went on in the same thoughtful voice. “She must have had an occasional suitor.”

  “If you could call them that,” Annie Jeanne said scornfully.

  “What would you call them?” I inquired in a mild tone.

  Annie Jeanne frowned. “Lechers, perhaps. Skirt-chasers. Stepping out on their wives.”

  Her words seemed to crawl up from out of the past. “Surely Gen wouldn’t fall for men like that.”

  “Oh, she made short shrift of them, all right,” Anne Jeanne asserted. “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t try. Sometimes they were hard to discourage.”

  Or did it take a while before Gen tired of them? I tried to keep such evil thoughts at bay. “I would think,” I said, watching Annie Jeanne carefully, “that somewhere along the way, Gen would have found a man she could love.”

  Annie Jeanne lowered her eyes. “That wasn’t easy.”

  “But did she?”

  The black eyes still didn’t meet my gaze. “I really couldn’t say.”

  Couldn’t or wouldn’t? I forced a laugh. “Oh, come on, Annie Jeanne, I’ll bet you and Gen stayed up late at night, drinking cocoa and sharing confidences. You were such good friends. If anyone knows, it’s you.” I managed another chuckle.

  Her skin darkened slightly, and she cast a swift glance in my direction. “That doesn’t mean I can talk about it, not even after she’s gone. You mentioned ‘confidences’; that’s what they were. I won’t betray them.”

  I suppressed a sigh. “Of course. I understand.” An uneasy silence settled over the room. It wasn’t a large space, but Annie Jeanne had filled it with furniture, knickknacks, and other décor that presumably had come out of the family home. Two baby dolls on the end of the bed looked as if they were from the pre–World War II era. The outfits they wore were pristine, as
if they had been much admired, but seldom engaged in play. There was no television set, only a small radio on the bedside table.

  “You’re not a TV fan,” I remarked, for lack of anything more cogent to say.

  Annie Jeanne shook her head. “Television is the source of moral depravity in this country. If there’s something I want to see on the news, I go to the parlor. Father Dennis had a set installed there for people who had to wait to see him. He paid for the satellite dish out of his own pocket. I understand that reception in Alpine is poor because of the mountains. Frankly, I think those dish things are very ugly.”

  “They are,” I agreed, as always trying to ignore the fact that one stood in my own backyard. “How do you spend your spare time, Annie Jeanne?”

  “I knit. I listen to the radio. I read. The time passes.”

  I glanced at a bookshelf across the room. The dozen or more books that sat between praying pixie angels were mostly paperbacks. “What do you read?”

  Annie Jeanne flushed again. “Love stories, mostly. Some biographies.”

  Even from twenty feet away, I could see the paperbacks’ spines: romances all, of the sweet rather than steamy variety, except for the photos of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor on the two biographies.

  “You’re feeling much better, I hear.” It was an exaggeration, of course.

  The response was an uncertain nod. “Yes,” Annie Jeanne said, “every day, I seem to get a bit stronger.”

  I stood up. “Good for you. Betsy O’Toole told me you wouldn’t be able to play the organ for the weekend Masses. You have to be ready for next week. We all miss you so much.” That wasn’t an exaggeration; it was close to an outright lie.

  “We’ll see,” Annie Jeanne replied in a pessimistic tone.

  “You can do it,” I declared with a pat on the shoulder for Annie Jeanne. “Try to eat more. You need to build yourself up.”

  She didn’t reply except for a noise that was half sniff, half grunt. I returned to the kitchen. Talking about food had made me realize how hungry I was, and no wonder—it was almost seven-thirty. I opened cupboard doors and the fridge. It looked as if most of the items that the sheriff had confiscated for testing had been returned: There were partially used spices, bags of flour and sugar, and jars of various condiments. All were presumably innocent, poison-free. It also appeared that the O’Tooles had generously donated some staples.

  I decided against raiding the rectory. Ben wouldn’t return for probably half an hour. There was no point in waiting, especially since I was starving. I locked the door behind me and left my brother a note under a rock I placed on the mat: “Use your key, unless you forgot it. If so, use a window. Love, Sluggly.”

  Vida called shortly after I got home. “I hear via the grapevine that you actually did see Mary Lou this afternoon. Whatever could that idiot have had to tell you that might be of interest?”

  “Not much,” I hedged. “I wasn’t keeping it a secret. You weren’t around when I got back, and then you seemed to be on the phone until I left a few minutes early.”

  “I don’t see why it was necessary to talk to her in the first place,” Vida huffed.

  “I’m trying to contact all of the club members,” I replied. “If you’d help me out, I wouldn’t have to do this.”

  There was a pause. “Very well. Who’s left?”

  I ticked the names off, including yet another shirttail relation of Vida’s, Nell Blatt.

  “Oh, dear,” Vida sighed. “Nell is somewhat gaga. I really think you should talk to Debra Barton. She belongs to your church, after all. I’ll do Grace Grundle over the phone. I simply can’t stand to step foot in that cat menagerie of hers. I’m told she had nine of the little beasts at last count. Besides, Grace is addled—as is Darla Puckett, so I might as well handle them both, since I’m better at translating their nonsense than you are. Who else? Oh, Jean Campbell. She and Lloyd are leaving for a week in Hawaii. Imagine, sitting around in all that awful sunshine this time of year! How can you possibly get into the holiday spirit in weather like that?”

  “It sounds like they’ll be back before Thanksgiving,” I noted dryly. “Surely then they’ll have enough rain and maybe even snow to set them straight.”

  “Don’t be smart,” Vida admonished. “You hate hot weather as much as I do. It’s unnatural. Why do you suppose they describe hell as hot?”

  “I think it’s supposed to be more than ninety degrees there.”

  Vida ignored my latest comment. “Is that everybody? What about Edith Bartleby? Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, of course.”

  I related my brief encounter with Edith at the bakery. “Incidentally,” I added, “Ben was having dinner with Regis Bartleby this evening.”

  “He won’t know anything,” Vida asserted.

  “Ben isn’t sleuthing,” I pointed out. “This is a pastoral get-together.”

  “Your brother should be sleuthing,” Vida insisted. “He has to clear the parish’s good name. Does Father Kelly know what’s happened?”

  “I’m sure Ben e-mailed him,” I said. “Frankly, I didn’t ask. Ben and I haven’t had much time together lately. We’ve both been busy.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Vida suddenly sounded vague. “Just what did that idiot of a Mary Lou have to tell you?”

  “I talked to her mainly about the party for Gen,” I replied.

  “That’s it? We already knew that, didn’t we? I mean,” Vida went on, “how everyone was so lovey-dovey.”

  “Pretty much,” I allowed.

  “Hunh.” She paused. “Was that all?”

  “She traced the route of the cookies,” I said.

  “We knew that, too,” Vida said in a disdainful voice. “Nothing more?”

  “Nothing important,” I fibbed.

  There was another pause. I heard the wind whistling down the chimney and the rain pelting the windows—but nothing from Vida for so long that I thought we’d been disconnected.

  When she did speak again, it wasn’t about Mary Lou or the mysterious death of Gen Bayard. “I hear you’re going out with that Rolf Fisher.”

  “Yes, he actually called.”

  “So Leo told me. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m going to dinner, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “You know what I mean. I met him at the memorial for Hank Sails. Rolf Fisher is definitely not to be trusted. He’s far too smooth, not at all like Tommy or Milo.”

  It had always irked me that Vida referred to Tom as “Tommy.” She’d done it to his face, and although he seemed amused, I never was. “Tom was fairly smooth,” I asserted.

  “He was poised, not smooth,” Vida countered. “There’s a difference.”

  A vision of Rolf Fisher looking like an oil slick came to my mind’s eye. “Rolf simply has a line. I’d like to see if there’s something more to him. He may not be as slick as you think.”

  “We’ll see.”

  It took all my self-discipline not to call Buddy and Roseanna Bayard that night. But I respected their wishes to wait until morning. I called Milo instead. It was well after nine, and he’d just gotten home.

  “The Bayards never heard of a half brother or anybody named Knuler,” Milo said, his voice weary. “We ran the name through the computer again, not just the perp database, but every other site we could think of. No Knulers anywhere, at least not in this country or Canada.”

  “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” I pointed out.

  “He sounds like a guy who doesn’t want to be found,” Milo said glumly.

  “He’ll have to reveal himself if this ploy of his is all about inheritance.”

  “Ploy? What the hell do you mean by that?” Milo demanded.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Look—the guy comes to town, checks into a motel, spends one night, steals a phone book, makes a date with me, then takes off after he’s looked at a copy of the Advocate. Did he come to Alpine to meet his alleged mother? Did he come to k
ill her? Did he arrive before or after she was poisoned? Did he know she was dead when he got here?”

  “Slow down,” Milo cautioned. “You’re going too fast. And you’re speculating.”

  “Well?” My tone was impatient. “Can’t you track Knuler from his California plate and driver’s license?”

  “We could if they were real,” Milo retorted. “The address is illegible, the driver’s license hasn’t checked through yet, and we got word from Sacramento just before I left the office that the plate number belongs to somebody who drives a Bentley in L.A. Knuler probably reversed the numbers or letters, and that dim bulb of a Will Pace never checked it out. It’ll take time to run through different plate combos—and even then, a letter or a number might be omitted or changed.”

  “So his name may not be Knuler,” I murmured. “He definitely sounds wrong. Say, I looked at a map. Citrus Heights is right by Sacramento—a suburb, from the looks of it. Don’t you have somebody in the state capital who could find out if Knuler was a troublemaker? Assuming he really lives in Citrus Heights, of course.”

  “I might be able to give someone a shove,” Milo said in a reflective voice. “I looked at a map, too. You know what else is close by?”

  “Not offhand,” I admitted.

  “Folsom Prison,” Milo said.

  SIXTEEN

  Milo wasn’t in the mood to continue our conversation. He said he’d let me know when they heard anything more from Sacramento—or Citrus Heights. Knowing how much he hated guesswork, I had to smile at his own speculation that Anthony Knuler might be an ex-con. It was possible. Down Highway 2, the Monroe Correctional Complex sat cheek by jowl with the town itself. Many wives and girlfriends moved into the area while their loved ones were serving time. When prisoners were released, they often moved into established residences. The same might be true for Folsom’s ex-inmates.

  The possibility—not to mention Knuler’s own activities over the past few days—kept me awake until almost two A.M. I sensed that some missing piece of the puzzle was right before my eyes. But I’d be darned if I could figure out what it was.