The Alpine Scandal

by Mary Daheim

  I smiled and shook my head. “Maybe you should have become a spy.”

  “I think not. Spies can’t wear hats that get noticed.” She sniffed at the air. “My, my—something smells delicious.”

  “I put some liquid smoke on the salmon to give it that alder flavor,” I said. “We’re almost ready to eat.”

  “Very kind of you to invite me to dinner,” she said in a relatively quiet voice.

  “You were right,” I told her as I drained the potatoes and the Brussels sprouts. “I definitely miss Ben already. Furthermore, I haven’t heard from Adam since I e-mailed him earlier today. I always worry when he doesn’t respond right away.”

  “He’s busy,” Vida stated with conviction. “His duties as a priest must take him far afield in a remote area such as St. Mary’s Igloo. Doesn’t he spend some time in Nome?”

  “Yes,” I said, placing a salmon steak on Vida’s plate, “but he usually tells me when he’s going there.” Suddenly I remembered something Vida had mentioned earlier in the week. “I thought you were going to have Roger come tonight for a sleepover.”

  Vida frowned. “He told me he had too much to do. Studying, I suppose. Now that he’s a college student, his time is taken up with class work and activities and his friends. I don’t see as much of him as I used to. But,” she added hastily, “that’s hardly his fault. Roger is virtually an adult these days.”

  The use of Roger and adult in the same breath struck me as incompatible. “How soon will he get his associate of arts degree?” I inquired as visions of a frozen hell played in my mind’s eye. I even pictured Roger’s chunky body in a red suit with icicles on his pitchfork.

  “I’m not sure,” Vida replied, looking away from me. “He’s had to drop some courses along the way. So much stress, you know, and some faculty members are very dense. They have no imagination, particularly when it comes to writing papers. Just last week Roger’s history professor assigned a paper on the Civil War. Roger wrote his about a football game he’d watched very recently…some sort of bowl contest…fabric in the name…yes, Cotton Bowl. Anyway, Roger wrote how these two teams from the Southern states never used to have black players, but now they did, and the games were so much better because Lincoln had freed the slaves. I thought it was a very inventive premise. The professor didn’t agree. But then, Grams doesn’t know much about sports.”

  As usual, Vida was wearing blinders when it came to her grandson. Her innate common sense and good judgment had flown out the window. If she’d been talking about any other college student, her criticism would have slashed the poor kid into bite-sized ribbons.

  I avoided commenting on Roger’s essay. “You must miss not having him around so much,” I said, sitting down across from Vida.

  “My, yes,” she replied. “The other grandchildren are just far enough away that it isn’t easy to visit back and forth. That traffic in Tacoma is so bad, and of course I-5 going either there or up to Bellingham is usually bumper to bumper on weekends. Not to mention that Beth and Meg are so busy with all their children’s activities. Gymnastics, swim meets, soccer—they’re constantly on the go. Unfortunately, they don’t often come to Alpine. It’s not on their schedules.”

  Vida made the statement without expression. Of course I knew what she was thinking: Her two daughters who lived out of town simply had no spare time to visit—or to entertain. I began to understand why Vida had confessed to feeling alone.

  “Parents are on overload these days,” I said. “As a single working mother, there was no way I could get too involved in Adam’s extracurricular activities. I felt I shortchanged him, but I had to put food on the table.”

  “Speaking of food,” Vida said, pointing her fork at her plate, “this is very good, Emma. I must mention that smoked alder flavoring in one of my cooking columns.”

  I realized she wanted to speak of other things. Despite being an inadequate cook, Vida felt no compunction about telling other people how to prepare food, blatantly stealing advice from one of our syndicated columns yet never applying it to herself.

  We spent the rest of the meal discussing mundane matters such as the cost of groceries, housing, and gas. Vida helped me clear the table and load the dishwasher. I insisted that we call the Della Croces before going to see them. Vida quibbled but gave in.

  A youthful female voice I assumed belonged to Gloria answered the phone. “I’ll tell them you’re coming,” she said rather timorously, and hung up. Her mother’s pride had given me the impression that the daughter oozed self-confidence.

  We arrived just after seven. Anna Maria greeted us at the door, her round face slightly florid and her brown eyes wary. “This isn’t going to take long, is it? Nick has a TV program he wants to watch in a little while.”

  “No,” I assured her as we went into the living room. “We only have a few questions.”

  “We might have answered them over the phone,” Anna Maria said. “This is my husband, Nick.”

  Nick Della Croce made an effort to hike his burly body off the recliner but managed to make it only halfway and gave us a desultory wave. “I’ve seen you both around town,” he said, not sounding convinced that he was pleased to see us again.

  Anna Maria indicated that we should sit in a couple of side chairs. Apparently the sofa was her domain. She settled back down on its corduroy cushions and pushed aside the jumble puzzle she’d apparently been doing. “I could make some coffee,” she said in an uncertain tone.

  “Please don’t trouble yourself,” Vida insisted. “This is business, not social.” She smiled in her toothiest manner.

  “We were hoping to talk to Gloria as well,” I put in. “I assume she’s home. I thought she answered the phone.”

  “She’s in her room,” Anna Maria said. “Gloria has a phone in there. She’s got company, so she won’t be joining us.”

  “Oh, dear!” Vida looked upset. “It’s terribly important that she should be here, too. So mature and perceptive—at least that’s what I’m told. Surely her chum could spare her for fifteen minutes.”

  Nick and Anna Maria exchanged glances. I sensed that the husband deferred to the wife when it came to issues regarding their daughter.

  But I was wrong.

  “As long as you don’t embarrass her,” he warned, and rose from the recliner. “I’ll go get her.”

  Anna Maria didn’t look pleased. “This is all so sordid,” she declared after Nick had left the room. “I don’t like Brianna being left alone.” She got up from the sofa and followed her husband into the hallway. “Nick, tell them both to come.”

  At the mention of Brianna’s name, Vida stared at me and mouthed the name “Phelps?” I shrugged.

  The parents returned to the living room. “They’ll be along in just a moment,” Anna Maria said, still looking out of sorts. “Can we get started?”

  “Certainly,” Vida said. “Mr. Della Croce, did you know the Nystroms very well?”

  He moved the recliner into a sitting position and frowned. “Not really. I probably saw more of Elmer than Mrs. Nystrom or the son. Nice guy. I’d see Elmer out in the yard sometimes, especially in the spring and summer. He liked to work in the garden. Kind of fussy about it—everything neat as a pin.”

  Vida nodded approvingly. “I enjoy yard work myself. Did you ever have dealings with Elmer at Nordby Brothers?”

  Nick nodded. “My truck’s a Chevy Colorado. Great service at Nordby. Elmer was the best.”

  A pretty dark-haired young girl entered the living room, followed by a shorter and not quite so pretty blonde. Anna Maria introduced us.

  “Gloria,” she said, moving over to make room on the sofa for the girls, “this is Mrs. Runkel and Ms. Lord from the newspaper.”

  The dark-haired girl smiled faintly. “Hi.” She put a hand on her friend’s arm. “Meet my friend, Brianna Phelps.”

  Brianna also said hi, though there was no smile. She seemed suspicious. She might have been pregnant, though it was hard to tell with the baggy
Seattle Pacific University sweatshirt she was wearing.

  “Of course!” Vida exclaimed. “You’re Reverend Phelps’s daughter. I remember when you were a baby. We ran your picture in the paper.”

  Brianna didn’t respond. Maybe the word baby put her off.

  Anna Maria did her best to cover the awkward moment. “Gloria and Brianna are what they call ‘buddies’ at the high school. Seniors befriend sophomores to make the transition from junior high easier. Our daughter was lucky. She and Brianna have become genuine pals.”

  “Oh, yes,” Vida said enthusiastically. “I recall when my grandson, Roger, had a sophomore buddy. Ryan Post. Roger always called him ‘Lamp,’ no doubt because Ryan was so bright.”

  I figured that wasn’t the reason behind Roger’s nickname and that poor Ryan probably had suffered mightily at his “buddy’s” chubby hands. Naturally, I kept my mouth shut.

  Nick was drumming his fingers on the arm of his recliner. “Get on with the questions, okay?”

  Vida’s expression turned severe. “Very well. Gloria, how often did you overhear those silly conversations between Mrs. Nystrom and her son?”

  “How’d you know about that?” Gloria asked, with a sharp look for her mother.

  Anna Maria avoided her daughter’s gaze and kept quiet.

  I intervened. “We’ve been conducting our investigation ever since we discovered Mr. Nystrom’s body. Any information we can get will help find his killer and keep this neighborhood safe.”

  Gloria frowned but seemed appeased. “Okay, that makes sense. I heard quite a lot from those two next door,” she went on. “I mean, off and on during the summer, maybe a couple of times a week. It was totally gross. I felt like yelling out my window and telling them to shut up.”

  Now that Gloria had spoken at length, I realized that she hadn’t been the one who had answered the phone when I called. Brianna had picked up the receiver, perhaps expecting a call from Brad Nordby with a marriage proposal. Good luck, I thought. When I’d gotten pregnant without benefit of having a husband, I knew that call would never come. Tom Cavanaugh’s loyalty to his crazy wife was stronger than his love for me.

  “But it was all talk,” Vida said with a question in her voice.

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “I guess. After a few minutes he’d turn the bathroom light off and go into his own room. Then they’d both be quiet and I’d be left in peace.” She gazed from one parent to the other. “If I had a TV in my own room, I could tune them out when they open the windows later on this year.”

  Nick chuckled. “Maybe you’ll get one for graduation. But you can’t take it with you if you go away to college.”

  “I’m going to the UW for sure,” Gloria asserted, “but fall quarter doesn’t start until the end of September.”

  Her father shook his head. “You know what I think. You should spend at least one year at the community college here. The UW has thirty or forty thousand students. Don’t make it harder on yourself than you have to.”

  “Dad…” Gloria’s withering glance told me that this was an old argument.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Anna Maria said in a weary voice. She turned to Vida and me. “Is that it for Gloria?”

  “One thing,” Vida replied. “Monday morning—when Elmer was killed—did you hear or see anything unusual? Anything at all?”

  She’d posed the query to Gloria. The girl wound a strand of dark hair around one finger. “No…I don’t think so. I caught the school bus at seven-forty. I wait for it a couple of houses up the road, by that old barn that’s falling down.”

  “Do you wait alone?” Vida inquired.

  “Not usually,” Gloria said, “but I did that day. Both of the Sigurdson kids were sick.”

  “No one was walking along the road?” Vida asked.

  Gloria shook her head. “I wasn’t standing there very long. I time it so I don’t have to wait when the weather’s cold and wet.” She stopped twirling her hair and made an impatient gesture. “Is that all?”

  Vida pursed her lips. “Yes. Unfortunately. I was so hoping that being a bright young person, you’d have noticed something.”

  Gloria seemed to know she was being conned. “Shall I make up something?”

  “Certainly not,” Vida retorted.

  Gloria got up from the sofa. “Come on, Brianna. Let’s see if I can find that Black Eyed Peas CD you like.”

  Brianna held back. “What about that old Elvis record you found?”

  Gloria looked puzzled. “I didn’t think you were into Elvis.”

  “I mean the one you found while you were waiting for the bus.”

  Gloria struck a hand to her forehead. “Oh! I forgot!” She uttered a lame little laugh. “There was a really, really old Elvis Presley album—vinyl—in the ditch by the bus stop. I know that vinyl is coming back in, so I stuck it in my backpack. I thought I might sell it on eBay if it wasn’t ruined. Or take it in to Platters-in-the-Sky. They sell used recordings.”

  Vida leaned forward in her chair. “Was there a name on it?”

  “You mean the album itself? It’s like Elvis’ Forty Greatest Hits. Do you want to see it?”

  “No,” Vida replied. “I meant the name of who owned it.”

  “Oh.” Gloria looked apologetic. “Sorry. Nothing like that. The album cover’s kind of faded and worn, but the record seems fine.”

  “Interesting,” Vida remarked. “Thank you, Gloria. And you, too, Brianna, for reminding your friend.”

  The girls scampered back into the hallway. Nick was scowling. “I wish Gloria had left that thing where she found it. These days you never know what kind of germs you can pick up off of stuff that’s been lying around. We live in a really terrible world. It’s a bad place to bring up kids.”

  Vida lifted her chin. “You could, I suppose, move to Jupiter.”

  Nick stared at Vida and laughed. “Yeah, right. We don’t have much choice, do we? Still, I hate to think of Gloria going to college in a big city like Seattle. Everything’s worse there. She’d be better off in Pullman at WSU.”

  “I don’t think,” Anna Maria said with an edge in her voice, “we need to get into that argument again. That’s not what Mrs. Runkel and Ms. Lord came to hear.” She turned toward the two of us. “Are you done?”

  “No,” Vida answered. “I don’t believe either of you mentioned what you were doing Monday morning around the time that Elmer was killed.”

  Nick practically bolted out of the recliner. “Hold on! You aren’t cops. It’s none of your damned business what we were doing Monday!”

  Vida shrugged her wide shoulders. “It is if you noticed anything. I’m trying to figure out how you could not. That is, everybody sees or hears things that aren’t routine. If, of course, you’re paying attention to the world around you.”

  Anna Maria looked anxious. Nick sat back down. “We’re not robots, you know,” he said.

  “I’m sure you’re not,” Vida responded in an agreeable tone.

  Nick sighed. “Okay. Let me think back. I had to be on a surveying job by eight o’clock at the Foss River campground. I left here around seven-fifteen. The drive up there can be tricky this time of year. I didn’t see anybody or anything that was out of the way.” He folded his arms across his barrel chest and tried to stare down Vida, never an easy task.

  She turned to Anna Maria. “Yes?”

  Anna Maria sighed. “I suppose I was finishing breakfast and getting Gloria off to school. Caroline Sigurdson called to tell us her kids had flu and wouldn’t be at the bus stop. Then…” She paused. “I turned on the TV after Nick and Gloria were gone and watched one of those morning programs until nine or so. I’m a slow starter, especially on a Monday. The next thing I remember was when I noticed several cars parked by the road. They weren’t for us, and the Nystroms rarely had company.” She grimaced. “That’s the first I knew of anything happening next door.”

  The Della Croce accounts sounded reasonable but were not very helpful. Vida was get
ting to her feet. “Thank you,” she said stiltedly. “We’re sorry to take up your time. Good night.”

  In my usual stoogelike way, I followed her to the door. Anna Maria saw us out but murmured only a terse “Goodbye.”

  “Honestly,” Vida said when we reached my car, “it’s so maddening when people are oblivious to their surroundings! How can they be so self-absorbed?”

  I didn’t respond until I got behind the wheel and was fastening my seat belt. “I didn’t think the visit was a complete washout, though.”

  “My, no,” Vida agreed. “Nick Della Croce is very protective of his only child. As much as if not more so than Anna Maria. Strange,” she went on in a musing tone. “The two families mirror each other, don’t they?”

  I made a cautious U-turn on Burl Creek Road. “Uh…yes, you’re right. Two sets of parents, one child apiece. But very different dynamics.”

  “I can’t say I like the Della Croces very much,” Vida said, “but they seem to be much more like a normal family. Then again, how do you define normal?”

  “Good point.” I laughed softly. “I don’t think Gloria’s in love with her father. But she’ll like him better if he buys her a TV and lets her go to the UW.”

  “I see Nick’s point,” Vida said. “Gloria would be much better off attending Skykomish Community College. Cheaper, too. I hate to think of Roger going on to the UW in Seattle.”

  I was sure the administrators at the UW would hate to think about it, too. But as usual, I kept my mouth shut.

  When we got back to my house, Vida went straight to her car and left for home. She told me she had some phone calls to make. I wanted to check my e-mail to see if Adam had responded.

  Happily, there was a message.

  “Hi, Worried Mother,” Adam wrote. “Spent the afternoon helping the local ladies figure out how much they’ll make off of their Christmas knit sales. The harpoon and the diamond patterns did really well in the Lower Forty-Eight gift shops and online. You asked what a kuspuk was—it’s a women’s lightweight parka for warmer weather than the below temps we have now. Tomorrow I go island hopping to say Saturday Masses. Did I leave my digital camera in my old room? I can’t find it anywhere. Love and prayers, Your Son the Popsicle Priest.”