The Alpine Journey
Page 9
Stacie picked up the napkin, crumpled it, and tossed it onto the table. “What difference does it make if they didn't love each other?” Her eyes flashed with anger, but her overall expression was miserable.
“Define love,” I said, still perverse.
“You define it,” Stacie snapped. “How long have you been married?”
I was taken aback, deservedly so. “I'm single,” I said. “I've never married.”
“See?” said Stacie, almost gleeful. “You don't know what you're talking about.”
She was right. I didn't.
But neither did Stacie and Molly.
“I've done my duty by the children,” Vida said after we'd returned to the motel. “At least as far as treating them goes. Thank you for helping. You didn't have to.”
“I know,” I said. “But I wanted to. Besides,” I went on, with a sheepish look for Vida, “maybe it makes up for my visit with Marlin.”
“Marlin!” Vida whirled on me. “You didn't! I told you …”
I held up my hands. “I know, I know. But it didn't seem right that he'd be the only family member I hadn't met. How do you expect me to get any perspective on these people if I don't meet all of them?”
To my surprise, Vida was only mildly outraged. “Marlin is a disgrace. He's done nothing with his life, except to sit up there in his awful house and smoke marijuana. I suspect that he grows it, too. I hate to admit he's a Runkel.”
I hated to admit that I preferred Marlin to his father, Rett. Instead I related how Marlin had extolled his sister's virtues.
“You're right,” Vida conceded. “Marlin presents a more favorable portrait of Audrey. A regular do-gooder, if he can be believed.”
“I don't see why he'd lie,” I said, opening the drapes so that we could watch the sunset. “Unfortunately, his information doesn't help us figure out who killed her.”
“No,” Vida agreed, carefully removing her turban. “Quite the opposite. It sounds as if some people were dependent on her.”
“Motive,” I said, settling into one of the room's two armchairs. “If we're playing detective, we ought to discuss motive.”
“True.” Vida sat down in the other armchair. “Jealously comes to mind. Alas, that points to Gordon.”
“It could also be the young man, Damon Whoever,” I noted. “Or Stina Kane, Gordon's alleged lover.”
“It could be a rejected suitor,” Vida mused. “Someone we know nothing about.”
“That's the problem,” I admitted. “We don't know much.”
“Jealously often results in crimes of passion,” Vida said. “I sense that's what this was.”
The sky was turning gold. A trawler moved south, bobbing gently on the big waves. “That narrows the field a bit,” I said. “How about gain? Now that we know Audrey had a sizable savings account, who gets it?”
“I believe,” Vida said slowly, “that Oregon, like Washington, is a community-property state. Dear me.” She grimaced. “That brings us back to Gordon.”
“But Gordon may not have known about the stash,” I pointed out. “Why else would Audrey keep it at a separate bank in a different town under just her name?”
“A point well taken,” Vida allowed. “And the children didn't snoop. Goodness, they didn't even open mail addressed to the family!”
“Revenge,” I said, going down the list of possible motives. “But who for what?”
Vida shook her head. “I've no idea.” Then a sly look crept into her eyes. “Blackmail—now that's a possibility. It might be how Audrey accumulated her savings.”
“That's good,” I agreed with a sudden enthusiasm that swiftly dimmed. “But again—who for what?”
Vida didn't answer. She sat with her hands resting on the chair's arms, her head tipped back. “It's all so difficult.” She sighed. “Maybe we should concentrate on the crime scene.” Abruptly, she sat straight up. “Good grief! I forgot about ‘Scene’! What shall I do?”
“Scene Around Town” was Vida's weekly gossip column, which included such tantalizing tidbits as Cal Vickers's new gas pumps at the local Texaco station, Darlene Adcock losing control of her grocery cart at Safeway, Sunny Rhodes conducting her Avon-lady route on a new ten-speed bicycle, and the Reverend Minton Phelps singing verse two instead of verse three of “Throw Out the Anchor, Someone's Floating Away.” As trivial as these items might seem by big-city standards, they were hot news in Alpine. “Scene” was the best-read part of the paper, narrowly edging out the obituaries. When we had any.
“Think back,” I urged Vida. “What did you notice before we left for Oregon?”
Vida looked abashed. “Dear me, I don't recall. I was so distressed about Audrey. I… just… wasn't… paying attention.”
The admission was tantamount to the Pope revealing that he'd scarfed down a couple of eight-ounce T-bones on Good Friday. Maybe that was the moment when I fully realized how concerned Vida was with the murder of her niece-by-marriage. This was no whim of curiosity, no desire to poke her nose where it wasn't wanted. My House & Home editor was on a mission, and I realized that she wouldn't come back to Alpine until she'd unraveled the family mystery.
“Oh, boy,” I said under my breath.
“Beg pardon?” said Vida.
“We can't leave out ‘Scene.’ I'm going to call Leo and see if he and Carla can fill the space.” I got up and went to the phone.
“Wait!” Vida exclaimed. “Call Milo first. We need his help. He can get information out of Clatsop County that they won't give to us.”
“Milo's in Bellevue,” I replied. “He won't get home until late.”
“Oh.” Vida's face sagged. “Does he expect you back tonight?”
It dawned on me that I hadn't thought much about Milo since leaving Alpine. Except for the brief discussion with Mavis about our so-called romance, the sheriff hadn't crossed my mind. I not only didn't miss him, I realized he was becoming a peripheral figure in my life. The insight was upsetting.
“Yes, I think I told him I'd be in late,” I replied, rubbing at my forehead with both hands. “But he'd be late, too. So he won't know I'm not there. Damn.”
“What?” Vida seemed put off by my comment.
“It's nothing. But we can't call him until tomorrow.” I picked up the receiver. “It's almost seven. Maybe Leo's home by now.”
Leo answered on the second ring. “You never call me at home, babe,” he said, using the nickname I loathed. “Miss me?”
“Like blisters,” I replied. “You got my first message?”
“You mean the one where I teach Carla the difference between a subject and a predicate, and that the lead shouldn't go at the end of the story? Yeah, I got it. What now?”
Leo's breezy manner irked me, though it wasn't his fault. It was mine, for still being in Cannon Beach. “Vida didn't get a chance to finish ‘Scene,’” I said, avoiding my House & Home editor's anxious gaze. “Can you and Carla and maybe Ginny and Kip come up with some items?”
“Vida never started ‘Scene,’ and you know it,” Leo said. “After I got back from Seattle this afternoon I stopped by the office to check page layouts. Alpine Appliance has to get rid of a bunch of used stoves and refrigerators they got as trade-ins to make room for the new models. They're taking out a half page, which means—in case you've forgotten while you're beachcombing or surfboarding or whatever the hell you're doing down there—that I have to virtually redo the whole damned paper. One of the missing links was ‘Scene.’”
“Right. Have you got anything?” I kept my voice calm so as not to further agitate Vida.
“Grace Grundle walked into a phone pole at Front and Fourth. She broke her glasses. How's this: ‘Retired Grade-School Teacher Makes Spectacle of Herself, Wrecks Spectacles, Former Students Speculate If Two Plus Two Doubles Equals One Drunken Old Broad’?”
“Grace has an inner-ear problem, as you very well know,” I said testily. “I doubt that she's ever had a double anything in her life.”
“Ho
w about Clancy Barton crawling out of the Elks Club on his hands and knees Friday night? He had a G-string in his teeth.”
“Stop it, Leo.” I didn't know if my ad manager was kidding or not. “You and the rest of the staff have two days to fill that column. Do it.”
A heavy sigh emanated from the other end of the phone line. In my mind's eye, I saw Leo stretched out in his La-Z-Boy chair, the phone in one hand, a cigarette in the other, an adult beverage on the side table. He would be rumpled but comfortable, at ease in his small apartment on Cedar Street across from St. Mildred's Catholic Church and flanked by the Alpine Medical Clinic on one side and the Baptist church on the other. Leo should have benefited from his neighbors, both spiritual and temporal, but he seemed to prefer the occasional fifth of Jack Daniel's instead.
“We'll do it,” he said at last, sounding as if he'd prefer walking down Railroad Avenue wearing buttless chaps and a sign that read TWEAK ME, I'M YOURS. “Ginny 's good at that stuff. Unlike the rest of the younger generation, she notices what's going on around her.”
“Thanks, Leo. I'll try to come up with something after I get back Monday afternoon. I should be in around three.” I started to sign off, then thought to politely inquire if he'd had a good time in Seattle.
“You bet,” Leo replied. “It was kind of off-the-wall. I got a phone call Friday night from an old pal in the Bay Area. He was in Seattle on business and wanted to see how I was doing. I used to work for the guy in Southern California, and I guess he wondered if I was still seeing little purple people doing the macarena at the foot of my bed. I told him I'd gotten a grip on my life—more or less—so he asked if I'd like to come into town and have lunch or brunch or whatever with him this morning. I said sure; he's a helluva guy, and it'd been a while since we'd gotten together, at least when I was sober enough to remember the occasion. By the way, he asked about you.”
My heart sank. “Who was it?” I queried through taut lips.
“The guy who gave you the recommendation to hire me. You remember—Tom Cavanaugh.” I remembered. Too well.
Chapter Seven
I WANTED TO ask Leo a zillion questions about Tom, but through a monstrous act of will, I refrained. Though Leo had worked for one of the Cavanaugh weeklies years ago, and Tom had written to give him a recommendation, neither of us had ever enlightened my ad manager about our relationship. That was three years ago, during the rejuvenated halcyon days of intimacy when we shared a frayed thread of hope.
But that thread had snapped along with Sandra Cava-naugh's mind. Since hiring Leo, I'd half expected him to notice a resemblance between my son and Tom, but so far he had never mentioned it.
Vida had taken in my startled expression, and pounced as soon as I finished giving Leo instructions.
“Well? Has something happened in Alpine?”
“No,” I answered, but knew that trying to deceive Vida was useless. I told her that Leo had seen Tom in Seattle.
A slight smile touched her lips. “Well now. That's very nice. Have you no reaction other than your slightly shaking hands and flushed complexion?”
“Shut up, Vida.” I suddenly wished I had a cigarette. And another Rob Roy. “Why do you persist in romanticizing my relationship with Tom? It's over.”
“So you say.” Vida didn't sound as if she believed me. “Then I shouldn't think news of Tommy would upset you.”
“I'm not upset,” I asserted, irked at Vida's insistence on calling Tom “Tommy.” It made him sound about twelve. “I was startled, that's all. What is upsetting is how you encourage me to hold on to some tattered memory of a love affair that should have ended twenty-five years ago. It did, really. The brief resumption was folly, an epilogue that didn't need to be written.”
“How poetic,” Vida remarked, picking up the telephone directory. “You surprise me. I'd come to believe that you had no poetry—or romance—in your soul.”
“I don't,” I retorted, and then realized that Vida did. The insight amazed me. Vida was so down-to-earth, so practical, so suffused with her favorite attribute: good sense. That somewhere deep down was a hankering for romance, even of the vicarious sort, gave me pause.
“You believe in happy endings,” I said in an awestruck tone.
The gray eyes narrowed slightly. “No. Not that. They occur so seldom. But I believe in love. It comes in many forms, and it can change over time. Love is precious, even rare, especially the kind that you and Tommy … had.”
She had started to say “have”—I was sure of it. “Long ago, you told me to forget him and move on with my life. What made you change your mind?”
Vida sighed and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Ordinarily, it would be good advice. But as time went on I sensed the depth of your feelings for each other. It struck me as foolish at first because I felt you'd built barriers to prevent being hurt again. If you told yourself you still loved Tommy, you couldn't fall in love with anybody else. You were safe. Then you decided you didn't love him anymore—which is impossible to do. Love can't be ordered around like a servant. You've tried to fall in love with Milo, but I don't believe you can. You should have remained friends, which is very pleasant. Besides, it became clear that Tommy, though ambivalent about his responsibilities, still loved you. Such powerful emotions can't be dismissed or ignored. Surely you must see that.”
If I did, I wouldn't admit it. But what had become clear, even as Vida spoke, was that she had never known passion. The word, along with sex, had been avoided. As outspoken as she was, perhaps Vida would not personally confront either passion or sex. Not verbally, not physically, not emotionally. I'd never sensed that Vida's marriage had been loveless, but maybe it had lacked fire. My mental picture of Ernest Runkel evoked a stolid man of even temperament who might have been overwhelmed by his wife and three daughters. He had been the assistant superintendent at the old Cascade & Pacific Mill, a hardworking, diligent man. Yet he'd possessed a streak of daring that had led to his demise at Deception Falls. Maybe I didn't have the complete portrait of Ernest—or of Vida. Maybe nobody ever does know another person through and through. It's tough enough to know oneself.
“Vida,” I finally said, “it's pointless to talk about Tom and me. He's never going to leave Sandra. Even if he did, what kind of future would we have? Can you picture Tom moving to Alpine? He's a city person. Most of his business interests are in California. And I can't see myself packing up and heading south. I'd dry up and blow away from lack of rain.”
“Compromise,” Vida murmured. “Just what Audrey and Gordon should have tried.”
“Maybe. Let's talk about them instead. Shall I try the Kanes again?”
“You won't face facts,” Vida said flatly.
“I just did. I've been doing it for a long time.” We were staring at each other, neither of us willing to give in. “The subject is closed. I'm here to help you with your family tragedy.”
Maybe I'd made a dent in Vida's thinking; maybe it was the Runkel catastrophe that brought her around. Whatever the reason, she handed me the phone book. “I was going to look up the number for Willamette University, but Salem's not in here,” Vida said, her manner uncharacteristically stiff. “I suppose you'll have to take a small detour on your way home tomorrow in order to track down Damon.”
I gaped at Vida. “Salem isn't a small detour from Cannon Beach. It's at least a hundred and fifty miles from here. I'm not going.”
“But he's on your list of people to be interviewed,” Vida protested, no longer rigid but clearly vexed.
“No, he's not,” I shot back. “He was nowhere near Cannon Beach when Audrey was killed. He was already back on campus.”
“We don't know that for certain.” Vida was looking adamant.
“Then you go to Salem,” I said. “I will not—cannot—drive all the way to Salem, then back up to Portland, and on to Alpine. It'd take the entire day.”
Vida gave a small, piqued shrug. “Very well. I thought you just said you were here to help me with this unfortun
ate situation.”
I wanted to placate Vida, to be reasonable. “Call Damon. Or I will. He can probably provide an alibi for September thirteenth. Then we can drop him from the suspect list.”
Vida regarded me as if I were the class dunce. “For the middle of the night? Unless he was sleeping with a young woman, which is possible, he can't have much of an alibi for the time between, say, midnight and four A.M.”
“Give it a try,” I said dryly. “I'm calling the Kanes.”
This time the bubbly voice belonged to a real person. Stina Kane was somewhat confused by my call, which was understandable.
“You're a friend of Audrey's?” she asked after I'd gone through a rather circumlocutory explanation.
It was easier to say yes than to explain. “Is there any chance you'd be able to meet me for a drink?”
Stina hesitated. I had the feeling that she was either consulting her husband, or checking to see if he was comatose in front of the TV. “Okay, fine. Do you know the Driftwood Inn? It's right across from Sandpiper Square.”
I recalled Sandpiper Square, a collection of shops in a barn-inspired building on the ocean side of Hemlock. Stina said she could meet me in ten minutes. “I'm short, blonde, and fifteen pounds overweight,” she declared, and the bubbles threatened to erupt in my ear.
The Driftwood didn't conform to most of the other buildings in the downtown area, and I suspected it had been built before the code was enforced. The exterior was Olde English, with lace curtains at the windows. There was a waiting list for the snug, beamed dining room, and the small bar was jammed.
Stina, however, knew the ropes. With friendly greetings all around, she cleared a path for us and put in our orders. Two thirty something men wearing Seahawks and Trail Blazers shirts respectively stepped aside at the end of the bar to make room.
“We'll get a table as soon as some of these people are moved into the dining room,” Stina said, glancing at her diamond-studded watch. “It's after seven-thirty. The rush ought to be just about over.”
The room was noisy, and no one seemed to be paying attention to us, but I didn't like asking indiscreet questions in a raised voice. Thus I opted for a general query.