The Alpine Quilt

by Mary Daheim

  With a heavy sigh, Tony stood up. The two men exited the chapel. It was my signal to leave.

  My brain was on overload. As I got into the Honda, I wondered if I’d short-circuit myself and explode. Unsure of what to do next, I again sat behind the steering wheel, trying to think. Big drops of rain splashed down on the windshield, distorting the trees and shrubs across the street in John Engstrom Park. Should I go to the Bayards’? Or Vida’s? Or call Milo?

  I chose the sheriff as the safest, least volatile person to confront. It wasn’t up to me to accuse Vida of burying the wrong man or to inform Buddy that he really did have a brother. I dialed Milo’s cell phone number, assuming that he might be at the office, questioning the parking valets.

  I was right. But I didn’t want to talk to him at his headquarters, where we might be interrupted or overheard.

  “You want me to come to your place?” he replied in a vexed tone. “I thought you were all hot to nail these perps and get your stuff back.”

  “I am,” I said, “but I’ve learned something extremely important to Gen’s investigation. Please?”

  “Oh—hell, okay, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Milo made it in thirty. “This better be good,” he warned me, shaking the rain off his parka.

  “It is. Let me get you a drink.”

  Milo didn’t object. I poured us both a couple of stiff shots—more for my benefit than his. Fifteen minutes later, the sheriff was over halfway though his beverage and had already smoked two cigarettes. Unfortunately, so had I.

  “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “You’re positive about all this?”

  I admitted that I hadn’t seen Tony Knuler’s documents, but Al had seemed convinced. “I think,” I said, “I know why Tony didn’t want to meet me. He swiped that phone book from the motel to find my listing or that of the Advocate. I’m guessing he was looking for some background on Buddy and thought the newspaper would be a good source. But when he got to the diner that morning, he asked for a copy of the paper. Maybe he looked inside and saw Vida’s name on her page. It might have spooked him. As incredible as it may seem to us, Tony may never have heard of her, at least not by name. In fact, I wonder if he sent Vida that note.”

  Milo scowled. “What note?”

  I told him what the note had said and how Vida had reacted. “Tony seems hard up for money. He may have intended to blackmail Vida.”

  Milo held out his glass. “I could use a refill. Jesus, I can’t take all this in.”

  “Neither can I,” I said as the sheriff followed me out to the kitchen. “It’s strange, but I’d never thought much about Ernest Runkel. He was so far in the background that I only considered him as some vague adjunct to Vida, like one of her hats. He was never really a person—if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, more or less,” Milo said, leaning against the door frame. “Who’s going to tell her?”

  “Not me,” I said, handing the sheriff his glass and adding another dash of bourbon to my own. “What’s worse, how is she going to tell her daughters? I have a feeling they never knew their father wasn’t dead.”

  “Why?” Milo asked, scratching his head as he sat down again in the easy chair. “What was the point?”

  “I think I know that,” I said, stealing one more cigarette from Milo. “Vida was aware that Ernest and Gen were having an affair. When did Vida not know everything that was going on? We only have Vida’s word for it that Ernest was attempting the barrel stunt. Maybe it wasn’t Ernest’s idea; maybe it was Andy Bayard’s. It sounds more like something an irresponsible drunk would do. I don’t know why Ernest would go with him; they couldn’t have been close friends. Maybe he went with Andy to tell him he was running away with his ex-wife. Or maybe he was trying to talk Andy out of doing the barrel trick.”

  Milo looked skeptical. “Are you saying they got into a fight and Ernest killed Andy?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s what happened. There probably was an accident, with Andy in the barrel. And Ernest was the one who took off. Look,” I said, tapping the coffee table. “If you’re going to do such a wild-eyed stunt, you’d want an audience. But nobody was there except Ernest and Andy. It might have been a dress rehearsal. And when Andy got killed, Ernest decided it was the perfect time to make his exit and join Gen in Seattle or Spokane or wherever she was awaiting their baby.”

  “So Eeeny Moroni covered for him?”

  I gave a shake of my head. “No. Eeeny covered for Vida.”

  Milo was still confounded. “I don’t get it.”

  “Vida couldn’t bear the idea that Ernest was leaving her for another woman. She paid Eeeny to go along with her and bury Andy as Ernest. She had to cut a deal with Al Driggers’s father, too. Not a bribe, but payback time. I didn’t know until this afternoon that Ernest’s dad had helped set up the senior Driggers’s business. Vida had no money, because Eeeny probably demanded some big bucks. I put in a call to Bernie Shaw today, but he won’t get back to me until tomorrow. I’m convinced that Bernie will tell me that his office never paid any insurance to Vida.”

  “If Ernest was still alive, she wouldn’t dare commit insurance fraud,” Milo put in. “She’s not a crook.”

  “Hardly,” I said. “She’s a staunch Presbyterian, and accepting money that wasn’t entitled to her would be anathema. Ernest was still alive—except to Vida. As far as she was concerned, once he’d abandoned her and Alpine, Ernest was dead.”

  With his third drink in hand, Milo was pondering. “Hell, I can’t arrest Vida for lying. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Even if Al digs up Andy Bayard, there’s no evidence that Vida did anything wrong. She’s mainly guilty of pride. But that’s Vida—and I won’t stand in judgment. Think of how she would have felt in this town. Having everybody know that her husband ran off with another woman would have destroyed her. It was bad enough that she knew. In fact, I’m convinced that she came to believe her own lie. People do that, you know.”

  “What about Gen?” Milo asked, lighting another cigarette.

  “For all I know, Gen was in on it.” I started to reach for Milo’s pack, but noticed that he had only a couple of cigarettes left. I took one anyway and ignored the sheriff’s frown. “Gen and Andy had been divorced for years. She wouldn’t have cared if Vida herself had run over Andy with that truck. All Gen wanted was to marry her baby’s father. Not that children were important to her. She was interested only in men and love and sex.”

  “Why don’t I ever meet anybody like that?” Milo said in a mournful voice.

  I smiled. “A woman like Gen would drive you nuts.”

  “And end up dead,” Milo conceded. “Hey, this makes a great story, but it still doesn’t tell us who poisoned Gen.”

  I sipped my drink instead of saying anything.

  The sheriff, however, expected a response. “Well?”

  “Tell me,” I said slowly, “do you think those two kids from the ski lodge are responsible for all the break-ins?”

  “It’s too soon to be sure,” Milo replied, eyeing me quizzically. “They’re both students—more or less—and they’re from Everett. They aren’t real clear about Alpine addresses. ‘A blue house near a creek,’ ‘a place by a church’—that kind of vague stuff.”

  “The Pikes get home from Florida tomorrow, don’t they?”

  Milo shrugged. “I guess so. Why?”

  “I’ll bet you a dinner at the ski lodge that those valets didn’t hit the Pike house.”

  “Why not? Because of the MO?”

  I nodded. “That, and the religious medal that was found there,” I said. “I asked Ben to see if anyone from the parish had lost it. I’m sure he hasn’t found a claimant. The initials were MAR. I figure they stand for Michael Anthony Runkel.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Why Runkel?” Milo asked. “I thought you said the name had been changed to Knuler about the time this Tony character was born.”

  “It had,” I
agreed. “But this is a Miraculous Medal, and the person who receives it has to be enrolled in the society. We don’t know exactly when Ernest changed his name. It could have been after Tony was born. Maybe they never got around to changing Tony Runkel to Tony Knuler. That might explain why, when it came to religious documents, Gen used her son’s birth name.”

  Milo finished his drink and put the glass aside. “Why would Knuler break into the Pikes’ house?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It probably had something to do with his mother’s quilt patterns. Or maybe the ones she stole from other members of the Burl Creek Thimble Club. He might have done it at his mother’s urging. If she’d passed off copied patterns as her own, she’d be guilty of fraud.”

  Milo laughed out loud. “So this is all about quilts? What’s wrong with a good old Hudson Bay blanket? That’s what I’ve got. Are you sure you aren’t off on a spur line that doesn’t go anywhere?”

  I shot Milo a disparaging look. “Quilters are artisans,” I informed him. “They take great pride in their work and their creativity. When was the last time you saw a plain old blanket on display at a county fair or in a museum?”

  “I haven’t been to a museum in twenty-five years,” Milo asserted. “I went to the aquarium in Seattle a couple of years ago, though. That was really something. You wouldn’t believe the octopuses.”

  I sighed. Sometimes the chasm between us seemed so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. “Never mind,” I said, standing up and emptying the ashtray into the fireplace. “I’m not saying Gen was poisoned because of her quilts.” I froze next to the sofa. “Or am I?”

  “What now? Was she making quilts out of hemp?”

  I ignored the sheriff’s sarcasm. “Never mind. I just thought of something, but it’s probably crazy.”

  Milo looked at his watch. “Jeez, it’s going on five. I should check back in at the office. Thanks for the weird story—and the booze.”

  “You don’t believe me?” I demanded as Milo put on his parka.

  “I don’t know what to think,” he replied. “I’ll see Al and try to track down this Knuler guy.” Milo pulled the parka’s hood over his head. “What the hell do we do about Vida?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  The sheriff shook his head, and left.

  There was only one person in whom I could confide: my priest, my pastor, my brother.

  “Do you want to come for dinner?” I asked Ben over the phone.

  “I’m supposed to have dinner with the sheriff,” my brother replied. “He’s cooking that steelhead he caught. What are you having?”

  “A fit,” I said. “And I don’t think Milo’s making dinner tonight. He’s kind of busy.”

  “Hmm. You sound a bit peculiar. Okay, I’ll be over in a few.”

  I had no appetite and I didn’t feel like cooking. I found a chunk of beef in the freezer and decided to make stew and dumplings. The phone rang as I was taking the meat out of the microwave. It was Ben.

  “I’ve got a problem,” he said, sounding worried. “Annie Jeanne won’t let me in her room. Any chance you could coax her out of there? I don’t like leaving her if she’s upset.”

  “I can try,” I said in a doubtful voice. “I’ll put dinner on hold and be right there.”

  The night was dark and wet. I forced myself to drive carefully. After three drinks, I didn’t want to cause an accident and add more complications to the sheriff’s already crowded plate.

  Ben met me at the rectory door. “I thought Annie Jeanne might like me to pick up something for her from the store since I planned to go out,” Ben explained, leading the way down the hall. “But she didn’t answer at first when I called to her. Finally, she told me to go away. She was praying. That was at least half an hour ago. Now she won’t answer or let me in.”

  “She seemed in good spirits when I saw her earlier,” I said. But I, too, was worried.

  At Annie Jeanne’s door, Ben stepped aside so I could take over. I knocked first, hard. Then I shouted her name. A note of anxiety coated my voice.

  “Do you have a key?” I asked Ben.

  “No. Or if there is one, I don’t know where it’s kept.”

  The door was old, but solid.

  Ben read my mind. “Do you think Dennis Kelly would appreciate me busting up his property?”

  “I think he’d rather you did that than let Annie Jeanne have a complete breakdown.”

  Ben heaved a sigh. “Okay, here goes Superpriest.”

  My brother had inherited our father’s sturdy build. He backed up to get a running start, then hurtled across the narrow hall, smashing against the door.

  “Damn!” he cried, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Ben replied, testing the shoulder by moving it up and down, “but the door sure as hell is. I need some kind of battering ram.”

  I had moved back to the door, listening to see if I could hear any kind of reaction from Annie Jeanne. Sure enough, I detected the sound of movement. Maybe she was reconsidering her solitude.

  “What about the window?” I asked. “It’s not that far off the ground.”

  “You’re right,” Ben said. “I’ll get the stepladder out of the storage shed.”

  “Maybe,” I muttered, “I should wait here in case Annie Jeanne decides to come out on her own.”

  “Chicken,” Ben murmured. “I’ll get a hammer to break the glass. Poor Kelly. He should’ve asked for a damage deposit.”

  I kept my ear to the door. Annie Jeanne was moving, though the sound wasn’t coming any closer. The room’s sole window was just beyond the foot of her bed. I doubted that Ben could see her if she was still lying under Gen’s quilt. Surely she must know that her obstinacy was causing a problem. It’d serve Annie Jeanne right if Ben’s appearance with a hammer at the window scared the wits out of her.

  I heard another sound, but this time it was human. Annie Jeanne had uttered a little cry. Perhaps she’d spotted Ben, although I didn’t think he would’ve had time to put on his jacket, find the hammer, and carry the stepladder outside.

  More silence, except for the rain pummeling the rectory roof’s cedar shakes. I couldn’t figure out what Annie Jeanne was doing. Had she gone into some kind of mystical trance? For all I knew, she was praying for the stigmata, and waiting to be pierced in hands and feet. Anything was possible, given her skewed religious ideas.

  A sudden chill—both emotional and physical—overcame me. The rectory that had seemed too warm earlier in the day now felt cold and clammy. Ben must have left a door open, creating a draft. I rubbed at my arms and stamped my feet. Despite my warm jacket and solid boots, I was shivering.

  At last I heard Ben calling through the window. He repeated her name loudly and forcefully. Nothing. Then I heard the smashing of glass, followed by several cuss words. Apparently my brother was having a problem getting through the broken window.

  The cussing stopped. I could hear Ben’s footsteps and his voice calling to Annie Jeanne more softly. Again there was silence.

  “Come on, let me in!” I yelled through the door.

  More silence. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably no more than a minute, a stricken-looking Ben opened the bedroom door.

  “Annie Jeanne’s dead.”

  “What?”

  Ben stepped aside as I scurried into the room. Annie Jeanne was lying in bed, with Gen’s quilt pulled up to her chin. She looked very peaceful. And very dead.

  I was stricken. “Do you know CPR?” I asked in a weak voice.

  “I do, but she’s beyond that,” Ben said, his voice brisk. “I’ve seen too many dead people from the delta to the desert to know it’d be useless. I’ll get my anointing kit.”

  Gingerly, I touched one of Annie Jeanne’s thin hands, which lay one on top of the other on the quilt. Her skin was cold. But it had been that way when I saw her earlier. A rosary dangled on the edge of the bed. Her prayer book lay closed a few inches from her bod
y. I knelt and prayed for the repose of her soul.

  Ben returned with his case and wearing his ecclesiastical stole. I moved away from the bed to give him room. While I bowed my head as he anointed Annie Jeanne and intoned prayers, I noticed a small medicine bottle on the nightstand. The lid was off and it looked empty. My eyes as well as my mind wandered. Being farsighted, I was able to read the patient’s name. It wasn’t Annie Jeanne’s prescription. The label had been filled out for Genevieve Bayard, and the medication was glipizide.

  As soon as Ben finished, I pointed to the medicine bottle. My brother started to pick it up, but I stopped him.

  “Don’t touch it,” I warned. “This could be evidence.”

  “Good God!” Ben glanced back at Annie Jeanne’s body. “You mean . . .” He stopped and grimaced. “Of course you do.”

  “We have to call Milo,” I said. “And the medics, just to go through the motions.”

  Ben, who had a couple of small cuts on his hands, nodded. “I’ll do it from my office. There’s no phone in here. I could use a couple of Band-Aids anyway.”

  Annie Jeanne wasn’t the first corpse I’d encountered. But standing vigil was a new experience. A few hours ago, the two of us had been chatting amiably in this very room. We were there again, together, and yet an eternity apart. The quick and the dead, I thought, and tried to look my own mortality in the eye. It was a test of faith to not think of mundane things.

  But the world infringed on my meditation. With the baby dolls and the pixie angels and the other youthful décor, I realized that this was a child’s room. Annie Jeanne had never grown up; she was still a true innocent.

  The piece of quilt that pictured Deception Falls caught my eye. It was a far cry from innocence. Now I knew why Gen had put it under H for happiness. Annie Jeanne had known, too. That was why she’d hedged when I asked her what the fabric patch had meant. It signified not only Gen’s release from any ties to Andy Bayard, but also her victory in capturing Ernest from Vida.