The Alpine Quilt

by Mary Daheim

  Saturday brought less wind but harder rain. There was a small rock slide on Highway 187, above the old mine shafts. I called Scott to ask him to take some photos of the slide and the work crew that was going to clear it.

  After breakfast, I went through my wardrobe, seeking an appropriate outfit to wear to dinner with Rolf Fisher at the ski lodge. Not a dress—though I had but two of those. Not a pantsuit—too formal, and the only good one I owned required a trip to the dry cleaner. Besides, I’d worn it to Hank Sails’s memorial. The sweater I’d worn with it also needed to be cleaned. Slacks and a sweater—but nice slacks, pretty sweater. None of my slacks were nice, and none of my clean sweaters were pretty. My clothes were definitely suited to my working lifestyle.

  I recalled that Leo had shown me the mock-up of a Francine’s Fine Apparel ad that would appear in the next edition. Francine Wells was having a Thanksgiving sale. Maybe she could come to my rescue if my credit card would bear it.

  I arrived at the shop just after Francine opened the doors at ten o’clock. Three other women were also eager beavers: May Hashimoto from the college; Sherry Medved, the local veterinarian’s wife; and Marisa Foxx, an attorney and a fellow parishioner. We all went straight to the sale rack. Apparently, word of the upcoming sale had leaked out. But the sight of the trio brought back memories of a Saks Fifth Avenue sale I’d gone to in Beverly Hills when Ben and I took Adam to Disneyland. It was a war zone. Women exchanged blows over blouses, shoves over shoes, and punches over purses. I hadn’t seen anything like it up close since the protest rallies of the seventies. Customers had to share dressing rooms, and a saleswoman shrewdly paired me with another intimidated tourist. Alpine was another world, at the opposite end of the frenzy scale.

  But Francine managed to stay in business. She never tried to deceive her customers. If she had, she wouldn’t have lasted long in this up-front town. “I haven’t marked anything down yet, but I’ll give you the discount anyway if you don’t tell anybody.” She winked. “All the sale items are from the first fall shipments. Times are tough, and I overbought on the Anne Kleins and Ellen Tracys. Those two Tahari suits are knockouts, by the way.”

  They were, but not intended for a five-foot-four woman with no waist and too much bust. Along with Marisa Foxx, I browsed through the Ellen Tracys.

  “Who around here is a size four, Francine?” Marisa demanded.

  “I am,” piped up the petite May Hashimoto. “Where did you find a four?”

  “I’m a six,” Sherry Medved, former Washington State University cheerleader, declared in her perky voice. “Usually,” she added, not quite so perkily.

  Separates, I thought, trying to focus. Separates were so versatile.

  “Your poor brother,” Marisa murmured as we both searched the size tens. “I understand that some of the parishioners are afraid to attend Mass this weekend.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I declared, keeping my voice down.

  But Francine, also a parish member, had overheard us. “Stupid rumors,” she said, not bothering to be discreet. “Does anyone really believe that Father Ben or Annie Jeanne, for that matter, would go off on a poisoning spree?”

  “It’s mostly the elderly,” I said. “Fuddled, maybe.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Marisa snapped in her best courtroom manner. “Have you had much negative feedback at the paper?”

  “The usual cranks,” I said. “I’m used to them. Ben—or Den—is the Antichrist, and I’m Satan’s handmaiden. Blah-blah, misspell, wrong punctuation, incorrect word usage, et cetera.”

  “You should run them,” Francine asserted, “to show your readers what you have to put up with and how stupid they are.”

  I shook my head. “I only run letters if I can verify the signature. The real cranks are either anonymous or use a pseudonym. But I still know who most of them are.” And the irony was that when I met them on the street or in the store, they smiled and greeted me as if I were their best buddy. Maybe, in a pathetic way, I was.

  But suddenly, I was distracted, as if a powerful spell had been cast over me. The three pieces were hung together, but sold separately: a long brown cashmere cardigan, a long-sleeved taupe cashmere pullover with a halter neckline, and taupe wool cuffed slacks.

  Francine was quick to note a customer’s rapture. “There’s a belt that goes with it on the accessory sale table. Brown calfskin, with a gold medallion.”

  “I don’t wear belts,” I reminded Francine.

  “This is a hip belt,” she responded. “Come, take a look. You have slim hips. You could wear it with real flair.”

  “Yikes!” I’d looked at the price tags. “Out of my league.”

  “Oh.” Francine was unfazed. She brushed at her carefully coiffed blond hair before taking all three garments off the rack. “Just try them. Obviously, I haven’t marked everything down yet. I was going to do that tomorrow when we’re closed, since the ad won’t run until Wednesday. You’re getting the preview.”

  I was dubious, but like a sacrificial lamb, I allowed Francine to lead me into a dressing room. I was putting the cardigan on over the rest of the ensemble when she appeared with the hip belt.

  “It’s meant to cover the sweater hem,” she informed me, putting what I considered the useless accessory around me. “There! Now have a look.”

  It was certainly a different me, if not a radical renovation. Ignoring the wash-and-wear hair and the lack of makeup, I looked taller and even younger. The brown and taupe tones complemented my brunette coloring. I was still in love, even with the low-slung belt.

  “How much?” I squeaked.

  “Let me see.” Francine checked out all four price tags. “I won’t kid you, this stuff’s expensive, even on sale. But damn, Emma, it’s worth it. When did you last spoil yourself? Before the turn of the century?”

  That was true. I hadn’t bought anything really nice since Tom died. “How much?” I repeated.

  Francine slipped a calculator out of the pocket of her wine-colored wool jersey dress. “Just a sec . . . a little over nine hundred. But think of how you could play off of this outfit. I’ve got a beige blouse that would look wonderful with it, and a brown sweater with a funnel neck that—”

  “Stop.” I’d turned solemn. “I can’t. For one thing, the slacks need to be taken up. I wanted something I could wear tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Like a sleek cat, Francine’s ears seem to lie back. “Is he worth nine hundred dollars?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You won’t find out unless you look good,” Francine declared. “Let me get the blouse and the sweater. I’ll give Marcella Patricelli a call to see if she could alter the slacks today.”

  My protests were feeble. The two additional pieces worked beautifully with the slacks. I was surrendering like an unarmed soldier in the face of an enemy battalion. Besides, Francine was right. A little pampering was in order. I’d look very chic in debtors’ prison.

  Twenty minutes later, and almost thirteen hundred dollars poorer, I walked happily, yet dazedly out of the shop and headed for Paul and Marcella Patricelli’s home in Ptarmigan Tract. Marcella had married into the large Patricelli clan shortly after I arrived in Alpine. Unlike his brother, Pete, who owned a pizza parlor, Paul didn’t believe in hard work. He took the occasional odd job, and let Marcella support him and their four kids with her sewing.

  “How come,” I asked as she measured the slacks, “you’ve never joined the Burl Creek Thimble Club?”

  “I sew for money, not gossip,” Marcella replied, after taking pins out of her mouth. “I have to be professional. That means concentrating without a bunch of old bags talking my ear off.”

  She stood up, ordering me to run around in front of the full-length mirror. “Besides,” she added, “I’d rather not get poisoned.”

  “Genevieve wasn’t poisoned during the club’s party,” I pointed out.

  Marcella, who was short and stocky with beautiful curly black hair, shot me a dark look. �
�It’s a wonder. I did go to a meeting once, years ago. It soured me on joining. They talked about other women in town in the most awful way. Criticize this one, rake over that one, make mean remarks about another—including one of the members who hadn’t been able to come. I sure didn’t want to join a group like that. They should call it the Cat Club.”

  “They were that vicious?”

  Marcella motioned for me to turn around slowly. “That’s good. These slacks are really beautifully made. I’ll have them done by four.” She picked up some fallen pins while I stepped out of the slacks. “Yes,” she continued, “they were. I hadn’t gone there to hear how so-and-so drank on the sly, or such-and-such was having an affair. I don’t know how they ever accomplished anything. Of course, most of them don’t.”

  “Ethel Pike did,” I said. “She won a blue ribbon at the county fair.”

  “Ethel must have done some of her work at home,” Marcella stated. “She had one of the sharpest tongues. A bitter woman, I’d say.”

  “How long ago was this?” I asked, putting on my worn black slacks.

  “Oh—seven, eight years ago. It was while I was expecting Paul Jr. He was eight in August.”

  “I don’t suppose they talked about Gen that night,” I remarked.

  Marcella frowned. “I honestly don’t remember who all they shredded. Except your Vida Runkel. Her sister-in-law, Mary Lou Blatt, was especially nasty.”

  “In what way?” I inquired, hoping to sound casual.

  “In every way,” Marcella replied, hanging my new two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar slacks from a hanger. “I don’t remember specifics, I just recall that she raked Vida up and down from every angle—as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a journalist, you name it.”

  “Did anyone defend Vida?”

  Marcella shrugged. “I don’t really recall that, either. It’s been a while. Maybe Nell Blatt made some feeble protest. She seemed to be the nicest of the bunch, though a bit vague.”

  “Certainly Edith Bartleby wasn’t cruel,” I said.

  “Edith? Oh, the vicar’s wife.” Marcella was leading the way to the door. “Edith wasn’t there. They made cracks about her being standoffish and a snob, not to mention holier-than-thou.”

  Maybe when Edith was present, cutting remarks about others weren’t acceptable. It was possible that Marcella had been there on one of those rare nights when the Betsys had let loose.

  My next stop was the Bayards. On Saturdays, Buddy and Roseanna worked until noon. Then Roseanna took the paperwork home while Buddy spent the rest of the day in the darkroom. I arrived at the studio fifteen minutes before their early closing time.

  “Buddy’s taking pictures of the Erlandsons for their Christmas card,” Roseanna informed me. She looked tired and unkempt.

  “Bad night?” I said.

  “Terrible.” She ran a hand through her red-gold curls. “I don’t think either of us slept for more than a couple of hours. What next? Another supposed sibling for Buddy? This is all just crazy.”

  “What about birth records?” I asked. “Surely they can be checked out.”

  “Not over a weekend,” Roseanna replied in disgust. “And how do we search? Dodge already told us that they can’t find any Knulers anywhere. Checking out Bayards is useless; all our kids had to do that in sixth grade when they put together a family tree. We saved the projects, and I checked them over last night. No Anthony. I’ll admit, only Annie went beyond using the Internet. She contacted the Mormons in Salt Lake City.”

  Ginny, Rick, and their two young children exited from the rear. They all looked harried, if festive, in their red and green elf costumes.

  “Hi, Emma,” Ginny greeted me. “Are you having a portrait done?”

  “I’m on the job,” I said. “Your editor and publisher never sleeps.”

  Ginny smiled. Rick grabbed their youngest, Brett, who apparently had decided he wanted some retakes and was running back into the studio’s inner sanctum.

  “I’m lucky I work only five days a week.” Ginny glanced at Roseanna. “Did you and Buddy get our sympathy card?”

  Roseanna said they did indeed, and offered appreciation. Rick and Ginny, each with a boy firmly in tow, completed the process at the front desk. After they’d left, I asked Roseanna if they’d heard from Gen’s attorney in Spokane.

  “Yes, finally,” she replied with a grimace. “Gen left no instructions about her burial or any services. Bogus claim or not on the part of this Knuler jerk, we’re going to have a funeral Mass at St. Mildred’s and bury Gen here. I’m calling Al Driggers and Father Ben this afternoon to make the arrangements.”

  “How about Tuesday?”

  Roseanna shot me a knowing look. “So you can have it in the paper Wednesday?” She shrugged. “Why not? The sooner the better.”

  Assuming my most confidential manner, I leaned against the tall desk. “Can you recall even a hint that Gen might have had another child or remarried?”

  Roseanna shook her head. “She had a guy—maybe guys, over time—living with her. I told you that. But Gen never mentioned a male friend. He was like a phantom.”

  “The lawyer didn’t know anything, I suppose?”

  “No. He—his name is George Vaughn—only saw Gen a couple of times,” Roseanna said as Buddy came into the reception area. “When she made her will, and when she needed a copyright for her quilts.”

  Buddy was scowling, not at me, but at the world in general. “I stopped by the diner this morning,” he said. “Terri Bourgette figured this Knuler character for mid-thirties at most. That’d mean that my mother would have had him—not that I think she did—when she was in her forties, after she moved to Seattle.” He scowled, apparently considering the possibility. “But I saw her a couple of times when I was in the city. I think I’d have noticed it if Mom had been pregnant.”

  Maybe, maybe not, depending on how far along Genevieve had been. “Did Roseanna go with you on those trips?”

  Glancing at his wife, Buddy shook his head. “They were for photography classes. I was about to go off on my own. Flash Avery was on his last legs. He had the photography business in Alpine for years. He sold it to me six weeks before he died.”

  I’d heard Flash’s name over the years. His real name was Edgar, but he’d gotten his nickname from his flashbulbs that Vida swore threw sparks when they went off. He was a drunk, she’d informed me, and insisted that all her own wedding pictures were out of focus and made her look enormous. At one time, Flash had worked for the Advocate. Marius Vandeventer had had to fire him, according to Vida, because some of the sparks from his flashbulb had set fire to a Bergstrom bride’s veil. The newlyweds had threatened a lawsuit, but abandoned it six months later when the marriage collapsed. Vida had blamed Flash for getting the couple off to a bad start.

  Roseanna looked grim. “Early forties,” she murmured. “Childbearing still possible—and nowadays, even popular, especially in big cities like Seattle. I don’t get it. I’m glad I had our kids while I was still young.”

  “Did you ever visit your mother’s place in Seattle?” I asked Buddy.

  Buddy scowled some more. “No. We always met at a restaurant.” He turned a little bleak. “I never thought about it at the time. She told me her place was a mess. I figured she had her quilt frame up in the middle of the living room or something like that. Mom was actually a good housekeeper.”

  “I’ll give her that,” Roseanna muttered.

  “What about the will?” I queried.

  “It’s a simple will,” Buddy said. “No names, just ‘my rightful heirs’ or something like that.”

  Which meant Anthony Knuler could share in the inheritance if he could prove Gen was his mother. “You’re certain,” I said slowly to Buddy, “that no one you don’t know has ever contacted you claiming to be a relative? I’m talking about in the last twenty-odd years.”

  “Never.” Buddy was emphatic. “It’s not the kind of thing I’d forget.”

  I believed him, but it did
n’t help solve the puzzle. Maybe that was up to a computer in Sacramento.

  Vida whispered into the phone. “Please put the teakettle on. I’ll be at your house in five minutes.”

  She hung up, leaving me puzzled, though hardly surprised. Vida enjoyed a little subterfuge. Sure enough, she pulled up in her almost-new green Buick Regal just after I’d finished putting away my new treasure trove of clothing.

  “Well!” Vida stamped her galoshes-clad feet on the doormat. “I was right. As usual.”

  “About what?” I asked, closing the door behind her.

  “My mother’s quilts.” She paused as the teakettle sang. “Wait until we sit down.”

  While Vida was removing her coat, galoshes, gloves, and water-repellent derby, I made tea.

  “Such a cheerful sound, the teakettle,” she remarked, entering the kitchen. “Especially on a dark day like this. Poor Cupcake is getting confused about his bedtime.”

  I poured tea into our mugs. Vida always used English bone china, but I didn’t have anything so elegant. Instead, I thought with a wince, I owned thirteen hundred bucks’ worth of new clothes. I was growing increasingly guilty.

  “Well?” I ventured. “Did you confirm that Gen stole your mother’s patterns?”

  Vida nodded vigorously. “Certainly. I rose early and phoned Jean Campbell before she and Lloyd left for the airport. The Betsys—such a gagging name—usually meet at Jean’s because the Campbells have the biggest house—imagine the markup on Lloyd’s appliances!—and they have room in their basement for all the supplies. The party for Gen wasn’t supposed to involve sewing, merely eating and fawning over that awful woman. That’s why Mary Lou Blatt was the hostess instead of Jean.” Vida paused for breath and took a sip of tea. “I asked Jean what happened to my mother’s quilt templates. In retrospect, I’m sure I gave at least some of them to the club. Jean told me she didn’t have any, but she recalled the one I was talking about that we saw in the Seattle store. It was very unusual, she said, but of course the colors Gen used were different. It seems that Mother had made the quilt to honor Carl Clemans, the town founder. She used his initials in a double-C design, back-to-back. I don’t think I ever knew that.” Briefly, Vida looked embarrassed and a little sad.