The Alpine Scandal

by Mary Daheim

  Of course she was trying to divert me. Still, I answered, though as succinctly as I could. “I had an unexpected inheritance. I decided to quit my job as a reporter for The Oregonian and buy a small weekly. The Advocate was up for sale.”

  I went on to explain the money I’d inherited was not only unexpected but undeserved. My ex-fiancé, Don, had listed me as the beneficiary on his Boeing employee insurance policy. After we broke up, he forgot to delete my name. When he died of a heart attack twenty years later, I ended up with half a million dollars. His wife had been furious, but over the years Don had risen in the company ranks and left her and their kids comfortably well off.

  Anna Maria looked bemused. “How could anyone—like your fiancé—make such a mistake?”

  “It wasn’t a mistake,” I replied. “When he first went to work for Boeing, there were so many forms to fill out, it took him most of a day. Apparently, as time passed, he forgot about putting my name down as his life insurance beneficiary. Real life was sometimes vague for Don. He was an engineer.”

  “Fascinating,” Anna Maria declared. “More coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, “but now tell me if you’ve had a career.” Turnabout was fair play, after all.

  “Well.” Her features hardened. “Before and after I was married, I worked for many years in Everett, where I grew up. I took several years off after Gloria was born, but I didn’t like staying at home, and when she reached third grade, I went back to work. Are you sure you don’t want a cookie?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, but thank you anyway. What kind of work did you do?”

  Her expression was faintly defiant. “I was an orthodontist’s assistant.”

  I laughed, but I don’t know if my feigned spontaneity was convincing. “That’s a coincidence. With Dr. Nystrom, I mean. Two people in the same profession living side by side.”

  “I suppose it is,” Anna Maria said dryly.

  I frowned. “I heard there’s an opening in the office. The receptionist quit, and so did her replacement…but of course that’s not your line.” I feigned another laugh, this time of the self-deprecating variety. “What am I saying? I don’t even know if you want to go back to work.”

  Anna Maria shrugged. “We could use the money. Gloria will be starting college next fall. She’d like to go to the UW.”

  “But you’re more than a receptionist,” I remarked. “I assume that becoming an assistant to an orthodonist takes quite a bit of training.”

  “It does.” The warmth hadn’t yet returned to Anna Maria’s eyes. “Are you trying to find out if I resent Carter Nystrom for not hiring me when he opened up his practice?”

  I wasn’t a very good liar. Certainly my subterfuge hadn’t fooled Anna Maria. I decided to come clean. Sort of. “Sometimes when you’re investigating a story like this, you have to hear the bad as well as the good. Frankly, all I’ve heard about Carter’s dad is that he was a wonderful man. That certainly doesn’t point to anybody having it in for him. So why was he murdered? I can’t figure that out until I know why somebody wanted him dead.”

  Anna Maria’s plump fist tightened on the cotton tablecloth. “Isn’t that up to the sheriff?”

  “Of course. But,” I went on, “the sheriff had to be hospitalized yesterday.” I saw my hostess nod slightly. “I don’t think the doctors know what’s wrong with him, which means they’ll tell him to take it easy. That may leave this case up to the deputies. They’re capable, of course, but any good journalist wants to help find out the truth, if only for selfish reasons, and often that takes a lot of personal questions and probing. It’s called investigative reporting.”

  “It takes a lot of nerve,” Anna Maria declared.

  “Yes, it does.” I paused. “Professionally, I prefer to call it courage.”

  My words seemed to give Anna Maria food for thought. “I suppose it does. Require courage, that is.” She eyed the cookie jar once more. Temptation won. She got up and fetched herself a cookie. Comfort food was also food—and fuel—for thought. And maybe for her own brand of courage.

  “Honestly,” she began after taking a couple of bites of cookie, “Elmer was a very nice man. Carter was pleasant and polite but distant.”

  “And didn’t hire you,” I pointed out as she worked her way down to the last mouthful of cookie. “That might have caused the coolness. Guilt on his part.”

  Anna Maria shrugged. “Maybe. He must have known I was qualified. My résumé was very thorough, with excellent references. But Carter had already made up his mind and hired outsiders.” She grimaced, brushing cookie crumbs off of her housecoat. “Granted, we haven’t lived here all that many years, and he was away at school for much of the time. I’ll bet Polly knew I was suited for the assistant’s position. She’s very snoopy.”

  “You don’t talk to her often, though,” I pointed out.

  Anna Maria made a face. “Who needs to? Polly has her ways. Through their church, her husband and her son, the mailman, your newspaper delivery boys—you name it. Polly grills them all as if she were the police.”

  “But she’s not a social type of person?”

  “Not that I can tell. I hardly ever see any cars at the Nystrom house except for their own—Elmer’s Chevy and Carter’s Pontiac. Polly doesn’t drive.”

  “Interesting,” I commented. “It’s peculiar for people to want to know about others and yet not to want to know them. If you see what I mean.”

  “Oh, I see perfectly,” Anna Maria responded. “She wants the dirt, I figure. She’s one of those people who has to feel better than anybody else, so she finds out all the negative stuff. I suppose it gives her a certain kind of power over others. She thinks her knowledge makes her superior—and she shows it in the way she acts, even if she is all nice-nice and polite. But the truth is, Polly has—” Anna Maria broke off and gave herself a stern shake. “Never mind. As I was saying, I’ve never told tales about people like she does. I’m not going to start now.”

  I considered urging her to finish saying what she’d started. But I could tell from the set of her jaw that she’d refuse.

  Her virtuous resolution disturbed me. I was sure that Anna Maria knew something she ought to say.

  But maybe she could only tell a priest.

  Chapter Eleven

  ANNA MARIA AND I chatted for a few more minutes while she ate a second cookie. The subject moved away from the Nystroms—mostly because she seemed reluctant to talk about them anymore—and onto her daughter, Gloria, or, as I recalled Janet Driggers’s description, “SuperSlut.”

  But Gloria’s mother presented quite a different picture. “Our daughter wants to be an urban planner,” Anna Maria explained after I’d asked why Gloria was headed for the University of Washington. “She’d actually be in the school of architecture, where she’d get her BA in urban design and planning. Then, if she wants to, she can get an MA and even a doctorate. She’s an excellent student, but I don’t think she should make such a long-range commitment at this point.”

  “That’s probably wise,” I said.

  “Gloria’s a very sensible girl, if I do say so myself.” Anna Maria wore a pleased expression. “People always label only children as spoiled and selfish. That’s unfair. Nick and I’ve made darned sure our daughter didn’t turn out that way.” She got up from the table. “Let me show you a picture.”

  Anna Maria left the kitchen. I took the opportunity to look around the area. It was reasonably, if not compulsively, tidy. A few dirty dishes sat in the sink, a frying pan had been left on the stove, and a plastic bag of garbage was waiting to be taken outside. I had a feeling that the reluctant homemaker took her time in completing household tasks.

  She returned with a color photograph in a silver frame. “Senior picture,” she said. “They always take them in the fall.”

  I studied Gloria, a pretty, slightly plump girl with dark blond hair and her mother’s brown eyes. Her makeup was spare: mascara, maybe, lip gloss, and possibly foundation base. She looked
intelligent and happy. There was nothing in her appearance that would proclaim her as SuperSlut. But then, you can’t tell just by looking.

  “She’s quite attractive,” I remarked. “Gloria exudes brains, too.”

  Anna Maria laughed. “I always tell Nick that I don’t know where she got them. I figure that my husband and I are both fairly average.”

  “Maybe you’re underrating yourselves,” I said. “You had to be smart to complete your training. I assume Nick needs a brain for his job as a surveyor.”

  “Well…maybe,” Anna Maria murmured. She gave me a scrutinizing look. “I’ve seen you somewhere before. Safeway? The mall?”

  “That’s possible,” I replied. “How about St. Mildred’s?”

  Anna Maria clapped a hand to her cheek. “That’s it! You were at Christmas Mass.”

  I nodded. “I thought I’d seen you, too, probably at church.”

  “We don’t go as often as we should,” she said with a rueful expression. “I’m a slow starter in the morning, no matter what day of the week it is. And Nick…well, Nick never has been much of a churchgoer, even though he’s a baptized Catholic, too. We don’t set a very good example for Gloria.”

  “Sometimes it backfires,” I said. “Gloria’s smart. She’ll figure it out. My son did, but it took him a long time.”

  “He goes to church?”

  “He’s a priest.”

  Anna Maria’s eyes widened. “Really! That’s…amazing, especially these days. I was so surprised to see two priests saying Mass, not just Father Kelly.”

  I smiled. “The other priest was my brother. He’s been visiting me over the holidays. He’s the one who set the example for Adam—my son. It wasn’t me. It was Ben.”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Anna Maria continued to look startled. Then, suddenly, her face clouded. “I think I may have—” She stopped. “Never mind. I forgot what I was going to say.”

  She hadn’t, of course. I was sure that Anna Maria was going to mention that she had spoken, however briefly, with Ben on the phone, mistaking him for Dennis Kelly.

  I rose from the chair. “I should be on my way. You’ve helped fill in some gaps.”

  Anna Maria frowned. “Not very much. I probably shouldn’t have said what I did about Polly. But I don’t like people who constantly want to think the worst of others. That’s the way she strikes me.”

  “There are people like that,” I said, starting out of the kitchen. “It’s a nasty habit.”

  “Yes, but saying those things about her makes me as bad as she is,” Anna Maria insisted. “And I don’t think it probably helps anybody figure out who killed poor Elmer.”

  I shrugged. “You never know.”

  We’d reached the front door. Anna Maria was frowning again. “I suppose not.” She bit her lower lip. “You’re right. You never know.”

  As I walked back to my Honda, I reflected on Anna Maria’s bouts of evasion. I still had a feeling that she knew more than she’d told me.

  After I recounted my visit to the Della Croce house, Vida agreed.

  “So,” she said, “you think Polly may have started false rumors about Gloria?”

  “Maybe,” I allowed.

  “I must call on Maud Dodd,” Vida declared, picking up the phone. “I intended to do that sooner, but I put it off. Very foolish of me. I’m going to see if she’s at the retirement home or out gadding. If Maud complained about Polly gossiping, then the tales must have been spread at their church. That’s what Maud complained of—the gossip.”

  “Go for it,” I urged, and returned to my cubbyhole.

  I found a message from Milo, telling me that he’d be back in his office by noon. It was ten-fifteen. Probably he was still at the hospital, waiting impatiently for Doc Dewey or Dr. Sung to sign the release papers.

  “I’m off!” Vida shouted.

  I glanced up to see her tromping at top speed across the newsroom. As she went out, Scott came in. He headed straight for my office.

  “I was wondering if I could do any kind of follow-up on the Nystrom story,” he said. “Or are you going to handle all of it?”

  Ordinarily, I would, but I knew Scott wanted to have more variety on his résumé when he sent it out. Experience limited to the police log, occasional features, and photos—albeit good ones—of Mayor Fuzzy Baugh presenting an award to an Eagle Scout wouldn’t excite a potential employer. “Let’s play it by ear,” I said. “You can do any of the stuff that doesn’t put us in harm’s way. That’s probably most of it. But if there’s ever any risk of a flap over what we run, I don’t want you held responsible.”

  “Any leads I can follow now?” he inquired.

  “Well…” I considered the options. “You know Coach Ridley and the rest of the high school faculty pretty well, don’t you?”

  The public schools, along with their sports programs, were part of Scott’s regular beat. He and I shared the college reporting chores.

  “Sure,” Scott replied, “but Coach is having another bad season. The basketball team has no rebounding.”

  “Coach is always having a bad season,” I pointed out. “The Buckers aren’t famous for their athletic prowess. I want you to get him in a talkative mood. Buy him a beer after practice and find out what you can about Brad Nordby and a certain sophomore girl.”

  Scott’s jet-black eyes twinkled. “Does she have a name?”

  “Brianna Phelps.”

  Scott looked even more intrigued. “The Methodist guy’s daughter?”

  “The Reverend Phelps,” I said. “Obviously, this isn’t for publication, just background.”

  “Whoa!” Scott held up a hand. “What’s this got to do with Elmer getting killed?”

  “Maybe nothing,” I admitted. “But Brad Nordby knew Elmer fairly well, and Elmer occasionally took it upon himself to reprimand both Brad and his brother, Bryce. Maybe Elmer believed that Trout Nordby and his wife weren’t sufficiently strict. Certainly Elmer must’ve felt some kind of responsibility for reprimanding the Nordby boys, or at least knew he could give them a talking to without riling his boss.”

  “Trout’s wife,” Scott said softly. “Her name’s Emily, but they call her Fish.”

  “Trout and Fish? That figures,” I said, “but how does she come by her nickname?”

  “Because,” Scott replied, “she drinks like one.”

  Vida returned around eleven. I’d spent part of the last hour having Kip MacDuff try to explain the latest production problem to me. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and he knew it but apparently felt he should at least make an attempt to keep the boss informed. “Just fix it,” I’d finally said. The only thing I did know was that Kip was capable of fixing just about anything related to computers and high-tech newspaper production.

  “Maud Dodd had quite a bit to tell me,” Vida announced smugly, “once I got her past her aches and pains. She had several falls before she moved to the retirement home,” Vida continued, settling into one of my visitor’s chairs and removing the black felt Gaucho hat that was her chapeau du jour. “Maud informed me that Polly started a rumor at their church that she—Maud—was addicted to pain pills and forged prescriptions. That was why she fell so much. But of course those of us who know Maud very well are aware that she’s always been pigeon-toed. It makes her clumsy and causes her to fall down rather often. Luckily, she’s limber for her age.”

  “Lucky indeed,” I murmured.

  “Maud got very upset about the pain pill rumors Polly started, because Maud insists she’s never taken anything stronger than aspirin in her life, as her longtime pharmacist, Durwood Parker, would swear to in court.”

  “Durwood’s been retired for years,” I remarked. “Would the Wesleys also swear to it?”

  “Certainly. Doc Dewey would, too. But that’s not the point.” Vida looked faintly piqued. “Polly can be very convincing. Maud says that after the rumor was spread, several people started giving her odd looks and even avoiding her, and one of them—Be
rtha Cobb—hinted that Maud should go into rehab. Maud didn’t know what rehab was until she asked somebody else. She thought it was some sort of a motor home.”

  “Maud wasn’t the only victim, I assume.”

  “My, no.” Vida made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Shameless, really. And people are so credulous! Admittedly, Maud gets a bit muddled, but hardly any of the Episcopalians were left unscathed—not to mention anyone else Polly knew. Doc Dewey himself was a victim, though he has the good sense to ignore such prattle. Polly insisted he’d gotten fresh with some of his female patients. Imagine! That’s slander!”

  “Slander sounds like Polly’s middle name,” I noted.

  “Indeed. But the woman’s so seemingly sweet and so very insidious. A hint, a phrase, a gesture—she apparently never comes right out and says things. Really, it’s enough to make me want to attend the Sunday Communion service at Trinity Episcopal. But of course I wouldn’t dream of abandoning my Presbyterians.” She paused and looked at the ceiling. “Or would I? Ecumenism is still in the wind.”

  “And the wind is blowing a mighty gust of gossip,” I said. “Of course you’d be doing such a thing in a good cause.”

  “Of course.” Vida seemed slightly indignant.

  “What about the non-Episcopalians?” I asked. “Like the Nystroms’ neighbors, the Della Croces, for example.”

  “Well, now.” Vida frowned. “We didn’t get off onto names—Maud had to attend her brass rehearsal. She plays the trombone, you know. The retirement home has its own band—or is trying to have one.”

  “If they ever get it together, write it up,” I said, marveling at myself for no longer considering certain small-town activities preposterous.

  “If,” Vida responded. “At their age, they’re a little short on air.”

  I leaned on the desk, propping up my chin with one hand. “So where does this rampant tongue of Polly’s get us? She’d make a better victim than Elmer.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Vida said. “Polly might even have attempted blackmail, though there’s no indication that she did.”