The Alpine Quilt

by Mary Daheim

  “Then we’ve gotten past one big obstacle.” Rolf raised his glass. “To Miriam. To Tom.”

  I lifted my glass, too. “Amen,” I said.

  “Now that we’ve opened the door to our ghosts, we can talk about other things,” Rolf declared. “Name your ten favorite movies.”

  “What is this?” I asked. “The Rolf Fisher version of speed dating?”

  “You bet. Let’s hear your list.”

  And so the time passed, through the salad course, the trout and salmon entrees, the after-dinner drinks. Movies, books, and a short course in sports. Rolf liked only baseball, which was fine with me. There was the backgrounding, too. He was another UW graduate, receiving his degree just before I entered the journalism program. He’d managed to miss being drafted during the Vietnam conflict, and still harbored guilt about it, even though he hadn’t approved of the war. He considered himself a political liberal and a fiscal conservative. He loved apple pie, kosher dill pickles, and old-fashioned pot roast. His favorite color was green, any green. His most admired historical figure was Abraham Lincoln.

  “We have some common ground,” he said, summing up our likes and dislikes. “I trust we’ll have things to discuss.”

  Smiling, I shook my head. “Do you always approach a woman this way?”

  Setting down his brandy snifter, he grew serious. “You’re the first woman I’ve asked out since my wife died.”

  Believe? Or not? I tried to find the answer in his eyes. But they revealed nothing. “You’ve certainly got the verbal foreplay down pat,” I said in a reproachful voice.

  “I’ve always done that,” he said, still solemn. “It’s gotten me into trouble a couple of times. Once, I was sued for sexual harassment.”

  “Who won the case?”

  “It got thrown out of court,” Rolf replied with the hint of a smile. “The poor lady was one of the homeliest women I ever met. I thought my remarks would make her feel good. Instead, she got mad. But the judge took one look at her and knew I couldn’t be serious.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  Rolf didn’t respond directly. “I’d seen you. I knew you weren’t homely. I also knew you had a sense of humor. You had to, because Cavanaugh wouldn’t have still been nuts about you if you’d been another grim female like his poor wife. I once heard that Sandra Cavanaugh hadn’t laughed in twelve years before she died. And I assumed she didn’t laugh then.”

  Tom had never mentioned such a thing. But this time, I could believe Rolf. Sandra’s mental problems were no laughing matter to any of the Cavanaughs, including their two children.

  I rested my cheek on my hand. “Why me, O Lord?”

  “I’ve already told you.” Amusement gleamed in Rolf’s dark eyes. “I think you’re cute.”

  “I hoped I was beyond cute,” I said.

  Rolf shook his head. “Thirty years from now you’ll be one of those little old ladies who rams her grocery cart into the backside of the person in front of her and then smiles and bats her eyes and everyone says ‘What a cute old lady. She can’t mean any harm.’ ”

  “Thirty years from now we won’t have grocery carts,” I said.

  “Probably not.” He grew silent before signaling for our bill.

  The truly awkward moment had arrived. “It’s going on nine o’clock,” I noted, sounding a bit strained. “Shall I drop you off at Cal’s?”

  He laughed. His laughter was sharp-edged, but not jarring. “Isn’t this where you should ask me back to your place for a cup of coffee so that I become sober and thus a safe driver?”

  I considered. “Okay, I’ll take you to Cal’s, you can pick up your car, and follow me back home. For coffee.” I kept telling myself I wasn’t a complete fool. Knowing that Rolf’s favorite movie was Citizen Kane and that he thought Abe Lincoln had a higher IQ than Thomas Jefferson didn’t yet qualify him as a full-fledged lover. I wasn’t a trusting person, a virtue—or lack thereof—that stood me well in my profession. Maybe, I thought briefly, it hadn’t always been a plus in my personal life.

  A different valet—also young and probably a college student—brought my Honda to the entrance. In the last few minutes before we left the ski lodge, Rolf had been rather quiet. Maybe he was disappointed in my reaction. Maybe he’d lost interest. Maybe he was a big phony.

  “Do you smoke?” Rolf asked after we pulled out of the parking lot.

  “No,” I replied. “At least not anymore. Except . . .” I’d braked for the arterial at the end of the ski lodge road. “Why do you ask? Do you?”

  “A cigar once in a while. I thought I smelled cigarette smoke when we got in the car just now. I didn’t notice it on the way here, though.” He grinned at me. “I was probably too excited.”

  I sniffed at the air. There was a faint aroma of tobacco smoke. “The valets,” I said. “I’ll bet the kids sneak a cigarette in the cars sometimes. They probably aren’t allowed to smoke while on duty. Check the ashtray.”

  “It’s empty,” Rolf said after taking a look. “How hard does your fair town come down on smokers?”

  “Not too hard, since the sheriff frequently lights up in a nonsmoking area. You have to remember,” I continued, “that many of the politically correct issues of the day aren’t as popular in a place like Alpine. They like their guns not only because they hunt, but because wild animals who consider humans a tasty treat come to visit. For decades they voted a straight Democratic ticket because the party supported the worker. Then the environmentalists were mainly liberals. Now the natives feel deserted, and tend to be much more conservative.”

  Rolf sighed. “It’d take some getting used to. Not to mention suffering fools gladly.”

  “I find the fools represent all parts of the political spectrum,” I replied. “The other thing to keep in mind is that small towns are always ten or more years behind the rest of the country. I still haven’t figured out if that’s good or bad.”

  “Wholesome. Family values. I noticed several American flags on the way up here.”

  “That’s part of it,” I agreed, turning onto Alpine Way. “They’re proud of their country, though historically the flip side has been that they don’t like newcomers.”

  “The college must have made a difference,” Rolf remarked as I pulled into Cal’s Texaco.

  “It has, thank goodness. When I first came here, there were no people of color. Now we have a growing racial mix. Is that your car parked by the water hose?”

  “Yes, that’s my Bug buggy,” Rolf replied. “You should see it in daylight. It’s very lime.”

  “I’ll wait until you get it started,” I said as he edged out of the Honda. “I shouldn’t lose you, but if I do, take a left on Fir Street. I’m on the right, three blocks down. It’s a log house, set back in the trees.”

  “Cozy,” Rolf said as he went out into the rain. “See you shortly.”

  With little traffic, it took only three minutes to get to my place. I pulled into the carport; Rolf pulled the VW up behind me.

  “Very cozy,” he emphasized. “All that’s missing is a light in the window.”

  I frowned as I opened the kitchen door. “I could have sworn I left at least the kitchen light on. Maybe it burned out.”

  But even as I stepped across the threshold, I sensed that something was different. For one thing, the log house didn’t feel cozy. It felt cold and smelled odd. The light went on in the kitchen, however, but I wasn’t reassured.

  Rolf looked at me in a curious manner. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

  “It feels wrong,” I said. “Let’s go into the living room.”

  I turned on the lights in the dining alcove. The first thing I noticed was that the front door was wide open. Then I saw that my TV, my CD player, and the laptop I kept on a side table were gone. The cupboard where I stored tapes, CDs, and some classic vinyl records was empty.

  “Good God!” I said, low and angry. “I’ve been robbed!”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Don’
t move,” Rolf urged, putting both hands on my shoulders. “They might still be here.”

  “No. The door’s open. There wasn’t anybody parked outside. And it’s very cold, which means they must have been gone awhile.” I slammed my purse down on the sofa. “Damn!” I was rattled. What was there to steal in my bedroom?

  I started into the small hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the bath. Rolf stopped me. “Take a deep breath. Sit down.” He all but pushed me onto the sofa next to my purse. “Collect yourself. Relax.” He grinned at me, which seemed highly inappropriate. “I knew it would work. I attempt to seduce you while my accomplices steal your most priceless items.”

  “Not funny,” I muttered.

  “Semifunny,” Rolf retorted. “If you can’t laugh, you won’t survive.”

  I knew he was right, but it didn’t cheer me. He spotted the phone on the end table. At least the thieves hadn’t stolen that. Dazedly, I watched Rolf pick it up.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a voice that had become shaky.

  Rolf gave me an encouraging look. “What we do in the big city. I’m calling the cops.”

  While we waited for whoever had drawn Saturday night duty, Rolf and I went through the rest of the house. Adam’s old skis were gone, so were the tapes and CDs he’d left behind, and the digital camera I’d never figured out how to use. Lastly, I checked in the bottom of the closet for my father’s handgun. It was still there, in a Nordstrom shoebox.

  “So you’ve had a series of break-ins around town,” Rolf noted as we returned to the living room. “Does your sheriff have some usual suspects?”

  “As a rule,” I replied, continuing on into the kitchen. “But apparently he doesn’t have any evidence. Only the dimmest of thieves would try to sell their ill-gotten gains in Skykomish County. In the past, whenever stolen items were recovered, they showed up in Monroe, Everett, or Seattle and its suburbs.” I saw that my coffeemaker was still there. At twenty bucks, it wasn’t worth stealing. “I’ll make coffee now.”

  “You’d better put some whiskey in yours,” Rolf said. “You’re white as a sheet, to coin a phrase.”

  “Maybe I’ll drink the whiskey separately,” I responded, plugging in the coffeemaker, which I’d readied for morning. “How about you? I’ve got vodka.”

  “No. Really, I shouldn’t,” Rolf replied. “I make it a rule never to drink past ten.”

  I poured myself a short shot of bourbon over ice. To hell with the mixer. Just as I was about to suggest we wait in the living room, there was a knock at the kitchen door. I looked outside and saw Milo’s tall figure looming under the carport light.

  “Emma,” he said in disgust, “you got hit?”

  “Yes, damn it,” I answered angrily, “I did.”

  The sheriff, who was wearing civvies, loped into the kitchen. He took one look at Rolf and stopped. “Are you the date?” Milo asked, sounding more like my father than the local lawman.

  Rolf, who was some two inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter, put out a hand. “Rolf Fisher, middle-aged journalist. I’m keeping Emma in protective custody.”

  Milo’s returning handshake was brief. “Yeah. Emma told me about you.” He scrutinized Rolf as if he were a suspect in a long line of serial killings. “Okay, tell me what happened here.”

  “Are you on duty?” I asked in formal tones.

  Milo gave me a dirty look. “Just answer the question.”

  I’d taken a big gulp of bourbon. “Can we sit down in the living room? I’m making coffee.”

  “Fine.” Milo led the way out of the kitchen.

  It didn’t take long to relate what had happened, at least from my point of view. When I mentioned the theft of the TV set, his eyes went straight to the vacant spot across the room. I wondered if he was thinking of all the times we’d watched sports together, sometimes as a prelude to sex. For one fleeting moment, I wished Rolf Fisher were as ugly as sin.

  I’d just finished when Jack Mullins arrived, complete with evidence kit. “Sorry,” he apologized after I’d made the introductions, “we had a medical emergency. Man bites wife, wife stabs man, dog hides under bed.”

  “Anybody I know?” I inquired.

  “Check the log Monday,” Jack retorted. “Cooper’s the name. They live way out past the fish hatchery in a double-wide.”

  No bells rang. My brain was still addled. “I don’t get it,” I said to Milo while Jack began to collect possible fingerprints and anything else that might be evidence. “Except for the value of the recordings, which I can’t estimate, the only brand-new item I had was that blasted digital camera.”

  “Did you ever use it?” Milo asked.

  “No.” I didn’t look at him. “I was going to have Scott show me how to install it or whatever you have to do. Or Adam, when he comes for Christmas. But it cost over two hundred dollars.”

  “So,” the sheriff said in a reflective voice, “you were having dinner at the ski lodge.”

  It sounded like an indictment. I merely nodded.

  “Did you park your own car?” Milo asked.

  “No. It was raining too hard.” I glanced down at my high-priced outfit. What I was wearing probably cost as much as the thieves—or thief—had stolen. Suddenly it dawned on me what Milo was getting at. “You think there’s a connection between the valet guys and the thefts?”

  Milo shrugged. “Just about everybody except the Pikes and maybe one other break-in took place while the victims were at the lodge. You like to sleuth. Work it out.”

  “Someone,” Rolf said, speaking for the first time in ten minutes, “had been smoking in Emma’s car.”

  Milo inclined his head.

  Another knock sounded. Another deputy? The thieves returning my belongings because they wouldn’t fetch a good price?

  The sheriff beat me to the door. Ben came rushing into the room.

  “Emma!” he cried, enfolding me in a bear hug. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said in a muffled voice against his chest. “I’m mad, that’s all.”

  Ben sensed my emotional temperature and let go of me. Milo had wandered off to the kitchen. Rolf regarded my brother with curiosity. Ben was dressed in blue jeans and a brown pullover. I realized that my date had no idea that the newcomer was my brother.

  I introduced them. Milo returned with a shot of Scotch on ice. Some first date in eons for Emma. Any chance of romance was seeping away with the sheriff making himself at home and my brother the cleric on hand. If the thieves were ever caught, I’d reconsider my anti-death-penalty stand.

  “Good idea,” Ben remarked, seeing Milo’s drink. “You must not be on duty.”

  “Right.” He looked straight at Ben. “I picked up the call on my scanner at home. I figured I could get here faster than Jack since he was working a domestic violence incident.”

  Jack poked his head out into the living room. “Hey, Father, if you want to spend the night with your sister, I’ll send Nina to stay with Annie Jeanne. I’m working until seven A.M. Not,” he added with an impish expression, “that it matters. Our bedroom’s the coldest place in Alpine.”

  Jack’s barbs at his wife’s expense always annoyed me. Nina Mullins seemed like a warm, loving woman. But to listen to her husband, she was the Ice Queen of Skykomish County.

  “I’ll let Emma decide,” Ben said, then turned a dubious look in my direction. “Do you want company?”

  “No. I hardly expect them to come back. What I want to know is how they got in.”

  “Bathroom window,” Jack said. “Did you leave it open a crack?”

  I’d only given a cursory glance at the bathroom. I had none of the drugs that would entice a thief. “Yes. I usually do. I grew up in a family with gas.”

  Milo smirked; Rolf looked away; Jack burst out laughing.

  “My sister,” Ben said in his most formal manner as he glanced at Rolf, “means that we had a gas furnace and gas appliances. She was always certain that we’d die of carbon monoxide po
isoning unless there was fresh air coming into the house someplace.”

  “Sensible,” Rolf commented. But he didn’t look at any of us.

  Ben also strolled off to the kitchen, apparently following Milo’s example. It looked to me as if nobody was going anywhere.

  Except Rolf Fisher. He’d shed his raincoat, which was slung over the back of the chair where the sheriff had parked himself. “I should head on out,” Rolf said, giving the raincoat a tug that made Milo jump. “Sorry, Sheriff. Are you sitting on my hat?”

  “Your hat?” Milo twisted around. “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s right—I put it on the mantel.” Rolf retrieved the hat.

  I joined him at the door, opening it for him. Despite the rain, which was blowing in onto the covered porch, I went outside and left the door slightly ajar.

  “I feel terrible about all this,” I confessed. “Really, it’s not always like tonight.”

  “Oh.” Rolf looked bemused. “How many chaperones do you need?”

  The anger I’d felt toward the thieves now boiled over onto Rolf. “Are you trying to make me feel worse? Were you really expecting me to start pawing your body as soon as we got inside my house?”

  “I could but hope.”

  Again, I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. But he certainly was aggravating. I always believed Tom. Even when he made promises he couldn’t possibly keep.

  I waved an arm. “Okay, okay, run off to the big city. It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of crime there.”

  “Then be prepared when you come to see me,” he said, and before I could step aside, he took me in his arms and kissed me, a long, hard, soul-wrenching kiss. When he finally pulled back, his eyes studied my face. “I’m not going away completely empty. And damn, but it felt good.”

  Rolf let go of me, turned on his heel, doffed his hat, and headed for his car. I stayed on the porch, despite the fact that the rain was probably ruining my new clothes. I already smelled like a sheep.

  Or a lamb, being led to the slaughter.