The Alpine Quilt

by Mary Daheim

  “There now,” she said, shoving the weather-beaten mums into the vase. “I’m afraid that’s all that’s left in my garden except for a few rosebuds that will never bloom fully. If we have frost tonight, they’ll be blighted.”

  Blighted. The word stuck in my mind. Ernest, blighted and cut down in middle age. Annie Jeanne, a blighted blossom if there ever was one. Buddy Bayard, blighted in childhood by lack of love. Most people were blighted, in so many different ways. I, too, had felt an early touch of frost. But maybe Rolf Fisher was bringing some sunlight into my life.

  “I see Ernest’s birthday was last week,” I noted. “November eighth.”

  “Yes.” Vida was pulling some tufts of overgrown grass from around the base of the Blatt monument. “We were born just six months apart.” She straightened up. “Shall we go?”

  “Sure.”

  We both trudged uphill to where I’d parked my car at the edge of the narrow winding road. Vida chattered all the way, commenting on the various graves: Bertha May Amundson, Arthur Trews, Elmer Tuck, Old Doc Dewey. It seemed as if she knew everyone who was buried in the cemetery. I wasn’t paying much attention, even as she continued her running commentary after we started to drive away.

  There had been no flowers commemorating Ernest Runkel’s birthday. The cemetery’s groundskeepers left bouquets and plants for at least two weeks. Indeed, Ernest’s headstone was surrounded by tall grass and a couple of weeds. It wasn’t well-tended like the Blatt plot and even a few of the other Runkels’ graves. That seemed very odd.

  But the idea that had been growing in my head was far from blighted.

  In fact, it was beginning to flourish.

  And I didn’t like it one bit.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “What really happened to Ernest?” I asked. Vida and I were sitting in her kitchen, waiting for the teakettle to boil. Since returning to her house, we had talked of other things, mostly the arrest of the valet parking attendants. But I’d finally worked up my courage to ask the troublesome question that had been beating up my brain even before I read the article about Ernest.

  Vida evinced surprise. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “The accident at the falls,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I went back and read the coverage in the Advocate. It doesn’t make sense. Was Andy Bayard really there?”

  Vida made an awful face. “I’m afraid so.” The teakettle whistled; she got up to take it off the burner. “I suppose you’re thinking there was foul play. Or that Andy caused the accident that killed Ernest.”

  I didn’t respond. Vida put two bags in the kettle and waited for the brew to steep.

  “I’m surprised you never asked about Ernest’s death before,” Vida remarked. “Tact on your part, I always assumed.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to reopen old wounds.”

  Vida nodded. “Very thoughtful. And I must confess, it was a ludicrous situation. At the time,” she went on, pouring tea into our bone china cups, “there were people who couldn’t talk to me about it without having to stifle their amusement. It was quite terrible.”

  “I imagine,” I said as Vida sat down at the table.

  She sighed and gazed at Cupcake, who was pecking at his cuttlebone. “We’ll never know what really happened, of course. Andre Bayard was totally irresponsible. I can’t think why Ernest asked him to go to the falls in the first place. Plenty of other people had trucks in Alpine. I suppose Andy had been drinking.” Vida spoke in a dispassionate voice, pausing to blow on her tea. “I always assumed that Andy was also inebriated when he had that fatal accident down on Highway 18 or wherever it was outside of Seattle.” She gave me her owlish look. “Did Buddy tell you about Andy’s involvement?”

  I hedged. “I think it was Buddy.” There was no need to reveal that I’d interrogated Milo. That would further rile Vida. “You must have started with the paper just a few weeks after Ernest died,” I remarked.

  “Four weeks to the day,” Vida said, and gave me an even harder stare.

  We locked gazes for several seconds before Vida jumped up from the chair, turned her back on me, and bowed her head.

  “I can’t do this!” she cried, her voice shaking. “Please, Emma, leave me now.”

  It wasn’t the reaction I’d expected. Vida’s broad shoulders were quaking and she was stifling sobs. I went to her and put a hand on her back.

  “Please, I didn’t mean to upset you. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  But Vida shook off my hand and stumbled away toward the back door. Speech seemed beyond her. Even Cupcake was watching his owner with a bright, beady eye.

  “Good God,” I murmured, pressing the hand she’d rejected to my forehead. I didn’t know what to do.

  Except to obey her command.

  I left.

  I sat in the car for a few minutes, feeling wretched. Vida and I had both had emotional breakdowns in one day—and, I feared, for the same reason.

  Ernest.

  After five minutes of inertia, I used my cell phone to call Bernie Shaw and ask him a vital question. Bernie told me he’d have to check the records in his insurance office. The matter that I was inquiring about probably had been handled by his father, Cornelius. Would Monday be all right? I grimaced, but told him that was fine. It wasn’t, but I didn’t want to badger Bernie.

  After ringing off, I drove to Driggers Funeral Home. With Gen’s services set for Tuesday, Al might be at work. Too much time had already passed in preparing the body for burial.

  “Emma!” Al exclaimed as he unlocked the door for me. “What’s wrong? You look awful!”

  Al never looked so good himself, having a gray complexion and wearing a perpetual air of mourning. “I have a question for you,” I said, moving inside the beige foyer. Everything was beige at the funeral parlor. Except Al, of course. “Were you working for your father here when Ernest Runkel was killed?”

  Al seemed struck dumb by the query. Instead of answering directly, he led me into the parlor, where he indicated I should sit on a beige love seat.

  “I was just starting out in the business,” he said in his doleful voice. “I went to college, you know, at WSU.”

  If I knew, I didn’t remember the fact, but I nodded sagely.

  “I must admit,” Al continued as he sat down in a beige and brown bergère armchair, “I didn’t work on Ernest. He’d been terribly mangled by the truck’s wheels. My father didn’t think I had enough experience.” Al winced—or smiled. It was hard to tell. “I also think he wanted to spare me the gruesome sight. Why do you ask?”

  I hesitated. But Al was discreet, even if his brassy wife, Janet, was not. “I’m trying to sort out this Genevieve Bayard homicide. It may sound crazy, but do you remember anything—anything at all—about rumors concerning Ernest and Gen?”

  Al looked surprised. “Ernest Runkel and . . . No, not a thing. I assume you mean . . . an affair?”

  “Possibly. Some intimates of the Runkels have suggested it.” I paused, waiting to see if my words had evoked any long-forgotten gossip. If Janet Driggers had ever heard anything, she’d have reveled in telling her husband such a scandalous tale.

  “I can’t imagine,” Al declared. “Ernest was a most upstanding citizen. His father—the one who started the ski lodge—helped my dad build the funeral home back in the thirties. They were always a very righteous family.”

  Righteous or self-righteous, I wondered. “There was nothing out of the ordinary about the burial or its preparations, I take it?”

  “Not that I recall,” Al replied. “Vida took over, of course. I do remember how much I admired her, under the circumstances. She was in control, not only of the arrangements, but of her emotions. I remember Pastor McLeod—he was at the Presbyterian church long before Pastor Purebeck—saying that Vida was like a block of ice.”

  “And the three girls? How were they?”

  “They’re not cut from the same cloth as their mother,” Al asserted. “All of them
were extremely distraught. I believe one of them—Beth, maybe—fainted at the grave site.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “It was a closed casket service, I suppose.”

  “Definitely.” Al sighed. “I wasn’t spared when the next two ugly deaths occurred. Both were loggers, within a three-week period of each other. One was run over by an eighteen-wheeler, and the other had fallen from a . . .”

  I wasn’t listening to Al. I was thinking through what he’d told me. It was what I’d expected. And feared.

  “. . . get hardened in a hurry,” he concluded.

  “Yes,” I said rather absently. “I’m afraid that’s true,” I added, giving Al what I hoped was a sympathetic smile before I stood up. “I suppose Vida made sure Ernest had the best of everything.”

  Al was also on his feet. “Funny you should mention it,” he said, walking me to the foyer in his slow, dignified gait. “She didn’t, actually. She went lowball. So to speak. It seemed odd at the time, but my father figured that she was so mad at Ernest for getting killed doing such a stupid stunt that she refused to spend a large amount on his burial. Not that we minded, of course. We never coerce clients into overspending.”

  “Penny-pinching on Vida’s part does seem odd,” I remarked.

  Al shrugged his thin shoulders. “As it turned out, Vida was short of money. I guess she didn’t get much out of Ernest’s insurance. Maybe there was a rider excluding coverage from self-incurred misadventure. In any event, that’s why she went to work for the paper so soon after Ernest’s departure.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Perhaps that’s it. Vida still had three daughters to raise.”

  The bell chimed just as Al touched the door’s brass lever. He glanced through the peephole. “Hunh. I don’t recognize whoever this is. Excuse me, Emma.”

  The young man who stood on the threshold wasn’t familiar to me, either. “Are you Mr. Driggers?” he inquired in a rather anxious voice.

  Al identified himself as such. The young man gave me the once-over, then turned again to Al.

  “I’m Anthony Knuler, and I’ve come to claim my mother’s body.”

  Al Driggers was schooled to never lose his aplomb. “I see,” he said, his eyes fixed on the newcomer. “Come inside, Mr. Knuler. Ms. Lord is just leaving.”

  But Ms. Lord was doing no such thing. I stepped back and rooted myself into the beige carpet. “On second thought,” I said pointedly, “I’d like to talk to Mr. Knuler. He stood me up the other day at breakfast.”

  If Al was taken aback, he didn’t show it. “Well. Then both of you must come into the parlor.”

  But Tony Knuler was giving me a hard blue-eyed stare. “You own the local paper?” he asked of me.

  “That’s right. I have to talk to you. It’s important.”

  But Tony shook his head. “Not now. This is personal stuff. I’ll meet you someplace in an hour, okay?”

  “No,” I retorted. “You have a lousy track record for keeping dates.”

  “Come on,” Tony said roughly, “loosen up. I’m here to get my mother’s body. Don’t be so mean.”

  “Maybe,” Al put in before I could escalate matters, “we should all go into the chapel and pray for a moment. That would settle everyone’s nerves.”

  I knew he meant tempers, but I also noted the swift glance he gave me before turning in the opposite direction from the parlor. I wasn’t sure what that glance meant, but I decided to play along.

  “That’s a good idea,” I said, following Al. “Come on, Mr. Knuler, a couple of minutes of repose might do us both good.”

  Tony had no choice. With a reluctant sigh, he accompanied Al and me into the dimly lighted chapel. As soon as we moved down the aisle, I realized why Al had made his suggestion. At one side of the small, plain altar was a curtained room for mourners who wanted privacy but still wished to hear what was going on in the chapel. Al let me go into the front pew first. I knelt and said a quick Our Father and a Hail Mary.

  “You’re right,” I said, leaning across Al to Tony Knuler. “I’ll leave you now. I’m very sorry about your mother.”

  Tony seemed placated; Al looked impassive. I left the pew and the chapel, hoping that Tony wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t heading for the main exit.

  It took me a couple of minutes to find the door to the private mourning area. The small room reminded me of a confessional, with its padded leather seats and concealing curtain. Maybe that was what I was going to hear—some kind of confession from Tony Knuler.

  The first words I heard were his, and they sounded uneasy. “If you say so.”

  “I know, Mr. Knuler,” Al replied slowly. “I’ve been through this countless times, trying to help grieving family members. Often, the chapel is the best place to talk. Serenity, you know, and peace of mind.”

  “Whatever,” Tony muttered.

  I figured Al’s spiel was more for my benefit than Tony’s. The stalling was to make sure I found the way into the eavesdropping area. I blessed Al for his consideration, though he was probably breaking several rules of undertaker ethics.

  “I assume,” Al said in his most sympathetic manner, “you have legal documents proving you’re the lawful son of Genevieve Ferrer Bayard?”

  “You bet,” Tony replied.

  I couldn’t see much except the two men’s dim outlines, but I imagined Tony reaching into his black leather jacket and extracting some papers.

  “Here,” he said. “Birth certificate, marriage license of my mother and father, and my father’s death certificate from two years ago. I had to go to Spokane to get all this stuff. Oh, there’s some other paper showing my father’s legal change of name around the time I was born.”

  “I’ll study the birth certificate first,” Al said. “I see your first name is actually Michael.”

  “Right. But my mother didn’t want to call me Mike or Mickey or whatever, so she always called me Tony.”

  “Ah.” Al was probably looking next at the marriage license. “I’m afraid I didn’t realize your mother had remarried. Are you your parents’ only issue?”

  “Issue?”

  “Offspring. Child,” Al translated.

  “Oh. You mean of my mother and father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, I am. I know I’ve got a half brother here, but I never met him.”

  I heard the shuffling of papers. The vague outline that was Al moved in an uncharacteristically agitated manner. “I d-d-don’t understand,” Al said, his voice rising an octave. “This is impossible! It must be a—a mistake!”

  “How do you mean?” Tony Knuler sounded annoyed.

  Al took a moment to compose himself. He cleared his throat. “The name of the husband on this marriage certificate is Ernest Runkel. He died thirty years ago. I know, I helped bury him.”

  Tony Knuler chuckled unpleasantly. “Then, Mr. Undertaker, you buried the wrong man. Ernie Runkel died two years ago from diabetes.”

  I wasn’t really stunned—just distressed that my guesswork had proved right. All I could think of was Vida. Had she known? I was sure she did. My heart went out to her.

  But I could barely contain myself in the small, rather stuffy room behind the curtain. I clenched my fists and my jaw to keep from giving my presence away. Besides, I had to listen closely. Tony Knuler was talking about his father’s life with Genevieve.

  “All I ever knew was that he’d skipped town and dumped his first wife,” Tony was saying. “He didn’t go into details, and I was just a kid. I didn’t really care. The only weird part was that once or twice a year my mother’s other son and his family would come to visit. Pop and I had to make ourselves scarce. I even had to hide my toys and stash everything in the basement. But Mom insisted, and there was no arguing with her. That’s why I left home right out of high school. I don’t think she liked kids very much.”

  “So,” Al said in a thoughtful voice, “your . . . father legally changed his name to Knuler when you were born, which occurred quite soon after your paren
ts married.”

  “So?”

  “I’m sorry,” Al apologized. “I wasn’t casting aspersions—that is, criticizing your mother’s and father’s morals. I was simply trying to get the time line straight. Why Knuler?”

  “It’s some screwed-up way of spelling his real name, Runkel. Besides, it’s different. I’ve never run into anybody with that name. Hey, I’ve got all the legal stuff. Can I claim the body now? I know Mom would like to be next to Pop in Spokane. Or cremated, I guess. Pop’s in a vase.”

  There was a muffled sound from Al. I didn’t know if he was stifling laughter or trying not to throw up. Not only was I hearing some amazing revelations, but I was seeing—or at least hearing—a different side of our local mortician.

  “Yes . . . well,” said Al. “Really, we’ll have to confer with your brother. Half brother, that is. You understand that what you’ve told me can’t be confidential? There are legal issues here.”

  “Like what? Isn’t all this stuff I showed you okay?”

  “Yes, I assume it is,” Al replied in a reasonable tone, “but that’s not the point. From my perspective, this mortuary has buried a man under false pretenses. I have to look into our liability, perhaps even have the body exhumed for DNA purposes.”

  “Shit.” Tony Knuler didn’t sound pleased.

  “Not,” Al said quickly, “that it will interfere with your inheritance. Of course, you must share it with your brother, Buddy Bayard.”

  “That Vaughn guy in Spokane told me it can take a long time to get the money,” Tony said in a petulant voice. “I need it now.”

  “You should ask Mr. Vaughn for an advance,” Al said, his professional poise restored. “And I must beg you to be patient regarding your mother’s remains. I’ll have to confer with Mr. Bayard. Perhaps you’d like to join me in my office.”

  Al had risen. Tony didn’t budge. “You’re giving me the runaround,” he declared.

  “Not at all. There are procedures to be followed, especially in a complicated situation like this.” Al was waiting for Tony to get up. “Come, Mr. Knuler, let’s get started.”