by Mary Daheim
Jack was the first to leave. Ben and Milo remained, sipping their drinks and talking about fishing. I wanted to kill them both.
“Don’t you two have something better to do?” I demanded.
Ben wore an innocent expression. Milo frowned, as if he’d missed some important event on his social calendar.
“No,” the sheriff finally replied. “Can’t think of a thing. I’m going steelheading at first light tomorrow. I’m trying to talk your brother into joining me for a couple of hours before he does his church thing.”
“Martin Creek,” Ben said. “I’ve never fished it. How long is the drive?”
Disgusted, I went into the kitchen. The coffee hadn’t been touched. I could warm it up in the morning. Briefly, I considered a second drink. But like a moronic adolescent, I didn’t want to wipe away Rolf’s kiss.
Instead, I began straightening up the house. The thieves—or thief, I kept reminding myself—hadn’t done much damage. They—or he—knew what was desirable and what wasn’t. When I reappeared in the living room shortly before eleven, I was wearing my ratty old blue bathrobe. My guests had obviously raided my liquor cabinet again and were growing rather merry.
“Are you enjoying yourselves?” I asked in voice coated with sarcasm.
“We’re fine,” Ben replied airily.
Milo ignored the question. “See,” he was saying, “a priest and a rabbi and a minister go into a bar. They see a woman sitting next to a goat. A real goat. The rabbi looks at the goat and . . .”
I went out into the kitchen again.
Milo went home half an hour later. Ben insisted I shouldn’t stay alone, but I was firm. After all, I still had our father’s gun. My brother gave me a disparaging look, but finally left.
I admitted to myself that I didn’t like being alone that night. The house still felt cold and strange. My cozy sanctuary didn’t exude its usual comfort. Houses were curious things, I thought as I lay wide-eyed in bed. They provided solace while you lived in them. But the home in which I’d grown up in Seattle had ceased to be of any interest the moment my parents died in a car accident. The Portland bungalow that I’d bought for Adam and me became merely eighteen hundred square feet of real estate property as soon as I decided to move to Alpine. In both cases, strangers would climb the steps and walk the floors as soon as I was gone. And now, strangers had entered my little log house and turned it into a stranger. It wasn’t right; they’d taken only things. And things could be replaced. But it still felt as if they’d stolen part of me.
Ben hadn’t gone fishing. I didn’t see him before Mass started, though our eyes met as soon as he finished processing and turned on the altar to face the congregation. Annie Jeanne, looking frail and timid, sat on the aisle in the second row, next to the O’Tooles. No one played the organ.
After Mass, I started to approach Ben but saw Bernard and Patsy Shaw, who had been sitting in the back. I decided to inform Bernie about my loss so he could start the insurance ball rolling.
“Not you, too, Emma!” Patsy cried. “Are they picking on us Catholics?”
“We’re not the only ones who’ve been hit,” I replied. “It seems to be a random thing.”
“I’d like to know,” Bernie said, looking vexed, “what Dodge is up to. He’s certainly taking his time rounding up the thieves.”
“He may have a lead,” I offered. “Milo goes by the book, you know.”
“He’s a slow reader then,” Bernie asserted. “It’s been a week since the break-in at our place.”
I saw the Bronskys headed our way. I could talk to Ben later. I quickly excused myself and all but ran to the car. I wasn’t in the mood to suffer from Ed’s self-absorption.
I was drinking coffee in the living room and reading the Sunday paper when the phone’s ringing brought me out of what felt like inertia. It was Vida, and she was agog.
“A date! A break-in! Milo and Ben! We must talk!”
“Do you want to come over to what was once my happy little home?” I inquired.
“No, no, no, you must come here. Take yourself out of yourself. And the house, of course. Such unpleasantness! My, my!”
I told Vida I’d come by in half an hour.
The rain had all but stopped, with the clouds lifting and even a hint of sun directly overhead. I wondered if we’d get heavy snow in the winter to come. Despite a couple of big snowfalls the previous season, the state had been suffering from drought in the summers.
Vida opened the door before I was halfway up the walk. She looked awful. Her chin was trembling, and her face was ashen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, hurrying to meet her.
“I tried to call you to tell you not to come,” Vida said in a voice that was hardly recognizable. “But you’d already left.”
She’d backed into the narrow entry hall. I’d never seen her in such a state. “Shall I make tea?” I asked, utterly confounded.
A whistling sound told me that Vida had already put the water on. “I’ll get it,” I said. “You sit.”
I also felt shaken, and took extra care not to drop Vida’s English bone china cups and saucers. Whatever caused her distress had occurred in the last thirty minutes. A devastating phone call, maybe. I doctored Vida’s tea with cream and plenty of sugar before joining her in the living room, where she’d collapsed on the sofa, holding her head.
“Is it the family?” I inquired. “Has something happened to one of them?”
But she mouthed the word no.
“Buck?” I asked.
“No,” she said out loud. “Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
Vida sat up straight and took a sip of tea from the cup I’d placed on the side table. “Maybe I’m being a silly old fool,” she said.
“I can’t tell unless you let me know what upset you so,” I responded, sitting down beside her. “I take it no one died?”
She shook her head. “That’s the problem,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
Obviously, Vida was making an enormous effort to pull herself together. She even managed a croaking laugh. “I am a silly old fool. I’m sorry I alarmed you.” She cleared her throat. “Now tell me about the break-in.”
“Vida,” I said firmly, “I won’t let you get away with this. Something scared the hell—heck, I mean—out of you. What was it?”
She was scowling into space, apparently at war with herself. Finally she took off her glasses and began rubbing her eyes. “Ooooh . . . It’s probably nothing. Maybe I got upset because of your robbery. It was bad timing, that’s all.”
“What was?” I’d started to survey our surroundings. A round Chippendale table was flanked by two armchairs on the opposite side of the room. A stack of mail sat next to a lamp with a crystal base. Several catalogs, no doubt enticements for Christmas shopping, along with a couple of circulars and what looked like a letter were spread out on top. “Did something come in the mail?”
Vida shot me an accusing glance, perhaps because I’d reached the right conclusion. “Yes,” she said after a pause. “Marlow Whipp—or his substitute—was so late yesterday that I forgot to check the mail after four-thirty yesterday. I’d forgotten about it until I phoned you. I’d just gotten home from church, you see.” She paused, taking another drink of tea. “There was a letter, anonymous. Really, it’s probably someone’s idea of a prank.” She nodded in the direction of the round table. “See for yourself. I can’t think why I let it distress me so.”
I got up and retrieved the letter as well as the envelope. The single sheet of plain paper read:
I KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT ERNEST.
The envelope, with no return address, was typed in the same font. The postmark was from Seattle.
I put the letter and the envelope back on the table. “We shouldn’t touch this anymore. There may be fingerprints.”
“No, no, no,” Vida said adamantly. “I’m not turning it over to Milo. Goodness, such a fuss about nothing!”
“Oh. Thank you.” She tried to smile, but it wasn’t much of a success.
When I returned, Vida was no longer trembling and her jaw was set. “A joke. Definitely a joke. Ernest spent his life putting up with Oscar Wilde allusions. You know—The Importance of . . . etc. This may be from some old friend.”
My face became severe. “You know that’s nonsense. That letter has nothing to do with Oscar Wilde. Frankly, I don’t know why you’re so upset.” I had an inkling, but Vida didn’t need to know that. “Ernest has been dead for . . . what? Over twenty-five years?”
“Thirty, to be exact,” Vida replied. “Come January.”
I’d forgotten how young Vida was when Ernest died. Meg, the youngest of the three girls, wasn’t in her teens yet; Amy and Beth were in junior high and high school. It was no wonder that Vida had gone to work for the newspaper just a few weeks after Ernest’s death.
I sat down on the sofa beside Vida. “Let’s rule out a joke,” I said firmly. “Can you think of any reason—no matter how far-fetched—why you’d receive such a letter after all these years?”
Vida shook her head. “That’s why it came as such a shock.”
“Do you think the letter is a prelude to blackmail?”
She looked bleak. “What a horrible idea.”
It struck me as odd that Vida didn’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand. “This might be an attempt to . . .” I hesitated. “To soften you up for the next letter.”
Vida threw up her hands, almost hitting me in the head with her elbow. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! You make me sound like a victim in a cheap detective novel!”
“Sorry. But we have to explore the possibilities.”
“No, we don’t,” Vida asserted. She drank a big swallow of tea. “It’s all very silly. I wish I hadn’t told you. Let’s talk about something else. Your gentleman friend, perhaps. Or the break-in.”
I surrendered. The truth was I wanted to talk about Rolf; I needed to talk about the break-in. Vida, however, listened with half an ear. That wasn’t like her. After about an hour, I wound down and stood up.
“I should get going,” I said. “Maybe Milo has some information on the robbery. I haven’t talked to him today.”
“Very well,” Vida said, also rising to her feet. “Let me know if you hear anything.”
After I went down the walk, I glanced over my shoulder. Vida had already gone back inside. Usually she waited until her guest had driven off, waving her arms like a windmill, and shouting, “Do come back!” Farewells also gave her an opportunity to scour the neighborhood for any interesting activities.
Vida was obviously not herself.
As I drove down Tyee Street, I realized that I had never checked out the story about Ernest’s death in the Advocate. If I felt like it, I could call Milo from the office.
January, thirty years ago. I found the correct volume, which had not yet been put on microfiche. Kip had been working on that project for some time, but could do it only in his very sparse leisure time. I hauled the heavy book down from the shelf and took it to Scott’s desk.
It didn’t take long to find the story. It was on page one of the edition from the second week of the new year.
ERNEST RUNKEL
DIES AT FALLS
The article was written under Marius Vandeventer’s byline. “Alpine timber broker Ernest Runkel died Friday night in a tragic accident at Deception Falls. He had been attempting to go over the falls in a barrel when the borrowed truck he had driven to the site accidentally ran over him.
“A native of Alpine, Runkel, 49, was a well-liked and respected businessman. According to his widow, Vida Blatt Runkel, her husband had harbored a longtime desire to make the falls attempt in the winter months when the water was running full spate.
“Sheriff Eeeny Moroni was called to the scene when Cornelius Shaw, Alpine insurance man, noticed a truck perched haphazardly on the edge of Deception Creek and phoned the authorities to ask them to check it out. Sheriff Moroni and Dr. Cedric Dewey agreed that the accident had occurred close to an hour before they arrived on the scene.
“See Obituaries, page 4.”
I felt as if ghosts were reaching out from the past. Cornelius Shaw, Eeeny Moroni, and Cedric Dewey were all dead. Bernard Shaw’s father had died before I arrived. The doctor—known as Old Doc Dewey after his son, Gerald, set up practice—had passed away a couple of years after I arrived in town. And Sheriff Moroni had turned out to be as crooked as a logging road.
I turned to the obituary. Ernest had indeed been a pillar of the community. He was an elder in the Presbyterian church, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, and Rotary clubs. He’d worked with the Girl and Boy Scouts, the Future Farmers of America, and the Red Cross. He’d served as a volunteer firefighter and an organizer of Loggerama, the town’s annual summer festival, which, in recent years, had metamorphosed into the Summer Solstice. The lengthy list of Ernest’s survivors included, of course, his “devoted wife” Vida and their three daughters. Services would be held at First Presbyterian Church on Friday. There would be no viewing. Mourners were asked to sign the guest book, and memorials were to be sent to the Red Cross and various Presbyterian charities. A two-column photo of Ernest ran above the obit. It was a studio pose, probably taken a few years earlier, since he looked closer to forty than fifty. He was indeed a “nice-looking” man, as Mary Lou Blatt had informed me. He also appeared stolid, even a bit pompous.
I checked the following week for a follow-up story, but there was nothing further. That struck me as curious. In fact, the coverage itself made me curious. Thirty years ago, the Advocate had been published on Thursdays. Marius Vandeventer had five days in which to write the page-one article. Given Ernest’s status in the community—and the bizarre nature of his accident—I would have expected at least a couple of dozen inches instead of a mere five.
I reread the news story twice and the obituary once. A strange feeling of unease crept over me.
But I wasn’t sure why.
NINETEEN
Confusion chiseled away at the gray matter of my brain. I needed to stop dwelling on the Advocate’s coverage of Ernest’s death, so I called Milo to inquire about any progress on the break-ins, mine in particular.
“As a matter of fact,” he said in a rather smug tone, “we are making progress. I’ll let you know by tomorrow morning.”
“That’s great,” I replied with enthusiasm. “I have an idea what direction you’re looking in.”
“Thought you might.” He paused. “Aren’t you going to ask if I had any luck this morning?”
I’d forgotten that Milo had gone fishing. “Sure,” I fibbed. There was no greater gaffe than not asking a fisherman if he’d had any luck. “Catch anything?”
“You bet. A ten-pounder. Real fight in that baby. I’m going to cook it for Ben.”
“Good for you,” I said, with even more enthusiasm. At least he wasn’t going to cook the steelhead for me. I’m a fish lover, but the steelies don’t taste as good as trout or salmon. “Martin Creek?”
“Yep. I’d only been out about twenty minutes.”
“Hey,” I said on a whim, “how long do you keep accident reports?”
“Seven to ten years,” Milo replied. “That is, until the insurance liabilities run out.”
“Oh.” I was disappointed. “Were you working for Eeeny Moroni when Ernest Runkel was killed?”
“I was,” Milo replied, his tone changing. “I never guessed he was such a bastard. But I was green in those days, and Eeeny was one clever SOB. Why are you asking me that?”
I made a face. Dare I suggest to Milo what I was thinking? Could I? I wasn’t even certain why I felt so curious. “Were you on duty that night?”
“No,” Milo said. “It was a Friday, and it was Mulehide’s birthday,
” he went on, referring to his ex-wife, whose real name was Tricia. “We’d gone into Seattle for a—excuse the expression—romantic weekend.”
“What about the other deputies? Were any of them around?”
“What year was that?” he asked.
I told him.
“No,” Milo said. “Dwight came aboard a year or so later, Sam maybe five years after that, and Jack didn’t join the department for another ten. Of course, Bill Blatt and Dustin Fong are relative newcomers.”
Dustin had been hired a few years after I arrived in Alpine. “Who were the deputies?”
“There were only two of us,” the sheriff answered. “Me, of course, and an old-timer named Zeke Zacharias. I think he was some shirttail relation of Eeeny’s pal Neeny Doukas. Why do you want to know?”
I suppressed a sigh. “Do I have to tell you?”
“What’s the big secret?” He sounded more miffed than curious.
I chose my words carefully, explaining first how I’d never looked up the article on Ernest Runkel’s death until now. “I’m surprised so little was made of it in the paper,” I went on. “Granted, before I bought the Advocate, I only went through the previous year’s issues. It seemed to be that Marius—like any small-town publisher—used twenty words when he could have managed with two. It’s the problem of filling up the front page with local news. You give the reader more than they need—or want—to know.”
“Maybe there was a bunch of other stuff going on,” Milo suggested.
“No. I scanned the rest of the page-one stories,” I said. “It was the usual county commissioners, school board, and timber industry news. Nothing big, no controversies. In fact, Marius ran a three-column picture of snow in Old Mill Park.”
“Well,” Milo said, “you know more about that stuff than I do. What’s your point?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “It just strikes me as odd. This was huge news. Not only was Ernest a native son, but his father was Rufus Runkel, who helped save Alpine. There was no mention of that in the obituary or much other background, either. I would’ve expected Vida to put together a foot-long death notice.” I paused, my brain working double-time. “What do you remember of all this? Were you back in town that Monday?”