The Alpine Escape

by Mary Daheim

  “How do you like Port Angeles?” I inquired, having decided to hold off asking Jackie about her alleged body in the basement. It was the sort of question best discussed over strong coffee or weak drink.

  Jackie wrinkled her button nose. “It’s okay. The setting’s great. But I miss Portland.”

  “Me, too,” I replied. After four years in Alpine I still missed the vitality and variety of the city. My plans to spend as many weekends as possible in my native Seattle had never quite worked out. I was lucky to get into the city once every couple of months.

  But Jackie was right about her surroundings. Port Angeles was nestled at the base of Mount Angeles, which seemed to glower over the town like a sullen guardian angel. The outskirts were dense with evergreens, signaling the start of the vast Olympic National Park. While new businesses seemed to abound on the long stretch of highway that led into the heart of Port Angeles, the mountains to the south and the strait on the north were a reminder that residents lived close to nature.

  We turned on First Street, which is also Highway 101. The houses were sturdy and old, though none reached quite as far back as the Victorian era. Like Alpine, Port Angeles was built into the foothills of the mountains. Unlike Alpine, the ascent was more gradual, starting at sea level.

  Jackie pulled into a paved driveway that led to a detached garage that couldn’t have held more than one modern car. I stared. The house, which was set back among the Douglas firs, was huge. The style suggested a Spanish mission reinterpreted by a late-Victorian mentality. A giant monkey tree stood in the middle of the front lawn, with a smaller, less imposing oak near the comer of the house. A concrete retaining wall separated the newlyweds’ house from a two-story ramshackle edifice that looked deserted. Jackie followed my gaze and emitted a little snort of disgust.

  “That was the old livery stable that served the whole neighborhood. It’s a wreck. I don’t know why it doesn’t fall down in a strong wind.” She led me back onto the sidewalk so that I could get a better view of the house from the front.

  Several of the camellia bushes appeared to be at death’s door. The magnolias didn’t look much better, and even the peonies seemed lifeless. Three stories of faded amber paint, a wraparound porch with peeling Moorish arches, a big lawn choked by weeds, a scarred river-rock foundation, and a roof with missing shingles all combined to validate Jackie’s description.

  “You must have gotten a real deal on this place,” I said.

  Jackie laughed immoderately. “We sure did. It was free.” She started back toward the driveway. “Paul inherited it from his uncle,” she explained, leading the way to the back door. “Uncle Arthur lived here until about fifteen years ago when he got Alzheimer’s and had to go into a nursing home. Uncle Arthur died last year. Aunt Wilma bought a condo in Sequim, but she died before he did. We decided to move here and fix the place up. That’s how we found the body.”

  The interior of the house appeared to be in much better shape than the exterior. We were in the kitchen, which had been renovated and enlarged. I guessed that Jackie and her groom had enclosed the back porch. Gleaming black appliances were set off by red and white accents. A white-tiled island stood in the middle, with a rack of stainless-steel cookware suspended overhead. The basic design was orderly, but the counters were cluttered with pizza boxes, old newspapers, grocery bags, and empty bottled-water containers. My toaster oven was all but hidden by a half-dozen cookbooks that looked as if they’d never been used. Jackie headed straight for the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of white wine.

  “I can’t drink but you can,” she said, waving the bottle at me. “I’ll have some mineral water.”

  I didn’t question her abstinence, though I recalled downing reasonable quantities of Canadian whiskey with Ben while I awaited the birth of Adam. Neither Ben nor I ever got seriously drunk, and my son seemed sober enough when he finally arrived. But it was over twenty years later, and perhaps medical knowledge had made progress. Then again, doctors were still practicing. They probably never would get it perfect.

  Carrying a delicate, long-stemmed glass, I followed Jackie into what she called the den but what I suspected had once been a library. This space was also littered with magazines, videocassettes, tapes, CDs, and more newspapers. It appeared that Jackie didn’t spend her spare time cleaning house.

  The room was freshly painted in a soft shade of green. A tiled fireplace was flanked by glass-fronted bookcases that contained mostly paperbacks. Along the middle molding were the brass heads of monks, at least a dozen of them, their expressions ranging from puckish to surly. The furnishings were sparse, befitting a monk’s cell. The absence of more than a small sofa, a huge cushiony footstool, and a TV set didn’t bespeak a disdain for worldly goods but rather a credit limit on a charge card.

  Jackie collapsed onto the footstool which seemed to devour her small frame. The flannel shirt she wore over her jeans concealed any signs of pregnancy. Running a hand through the natural waves of her taffy-colored hair, she sighed.

  “It’s going to take forever. I hope we get the roof replaced before winter sets in. The baby’s due at the end of December.” Jackie had turned pensive. The topsyturvy emotions she’d displayed earlier over the phone seemed in abeyance. “We’ve already spent a fortune on making the house livable. Paul can do some of the work himself, but not the major stuff.”

  I tried to remember what Mavis had told me about Paul Melcher. She and Roy liked their son-in-law, I knew that much. It seemed to me that Paul was some sort of engineer. I fished a little, hoping not to show my ignorance.

  “Paul was lucky to get a job here,” I remarked, thinking that the bare green walls cried out for a framed print or two.

  Jackie nodded enthusiastically. “It was a near thing. We thought we’d have to move here and wait it out for a while, but then that opening came along at Rayonier. In fact, he actually started work right after New Year’s, before we got married. That’s why we couldn’t go on a honeymoon. He didn’t have any vacation yet.”

  ITT Rayonier was the big pulp plant down on the water. I’d seen its billows of smoke from the tow truck. Like Alpine, Port Angeles was still dependent on the timber industry, though it had been able to diversify over the years. Fishing and tourism also contributed to the town’s economic base.

  “He gets off at four,” she said, glancing at her watch. I did the same. It was just three fifty-five. I postponed asking the inevitable and switched to baby-related inquiries instead. Jackie beamed and glowed, discussing plans for the nursery upstairs and promising to take me on a tour of the house when I finished my wine.

  The phone rang as she was listing potential names for both a girl and a boy. Jackie heaved herself out of the cushioned footstool and left the den. A moment later she shouted for me. It was the Chevron station. Jake had finally returned from the West End. He didn’t have the foggiest notion what was wrong with my car. Could I have it towed over to Dusty’s Foreign Auto Repair?

  I could, of course. I’d have to. I wondered if my towing insurance covered two trips in one day. I sought the Yellow Pages and called a local tow company. Then I turned glum.

  “They can’t possibly fix it before evening,” I moaned out loud.

  “Big deal.” Jackie shrugged and led us back into the kitchen. “Have some more wine. We’ve got tons of room. Six bedrooms, take your pick. Except ours.” She showed me her dimples.

  I started to make the usual demurs about not wanting to impose, but Jackie ran right over me. “Hey, why not? I haven’t told you about our body yet. I’ll send out for pizza.” The light behind her eyes went out. “I usually do lately. I get sick every time I look at the stove.”

  She was pouring me a second glass of wine when Paul Melcher came home. A stocky young man in his early thirties, he sported a neatly trimmed blond mustache and a faintly receding hairline. His handshake was firm and sincere.

  “I’ve heard Mama Mavis talk about you,” he said with a diffident grin. “You two used to get
into a lot of trouble at The Oregonian, right?”

  If trouble was sneaking out for a beer and a burger while working after hours, then I guess we qualified. But I merely laughed and tossed my head as if Mavis and I were indeed a couple of scamps.

  Jackie poured wine for Paul, another mineral water for herself, and then we adjourned to the den. Paul seemed mesmerized by the sad story of my Jaguar. He speculated on its problems.

  “Those Jags—they’re a wonderful piece of automobile,” he said with a serious expression on his face, “but they didn’t used to call the head of their engineering department Dr. Demento for nothing.”

  “Really?” I winced. But I had been warned. In fact, it was Mavis who had told me that if I couldn’t afford the price of a new Jag—and I couldn’t, not even with my unexpected inheritance, which had also allowed me to buy The Advocate—then I probably couldn’t afford the repairs. It appeared that I’d been lucky. So far.

  My eyes glazed over as Paul presented a litany of possible causes. The starter. The stick shift. The electrical system. I wondered what kind of pizza Jackie would order. Pastrami sounded good to me.

  “… with parts. Now over in Victoria they’d probably be able to get …” Paul seemed unusually talkative for an engineer, rambling on while carefully piling the magazines and stacking the videocassettes. He finally shut up. Jackie was weeping. “Sweets, what’s wrong now?” He reached over from his place next to me on the small sofa and patted her knee.

  Jackie wiped her eyes and sighed. “All this talk of fancy cars. How many people live in an old beat-up Volkswagen van? It made me think of the homeless. Why do they have to sleep under bridges? Do you think anybody is sleeping under a bridge in Port Angeles? We have so many of them, with all these gullies.”

  Gently, Paul soothed her. There weren’t that many homeless people in town. It was July, and while the summer weather had been cool and uncertain, nobody would take cold even if they had to sleep under a bridge. Shelters were provided. The churches were helping out. The United Way was doing its best. Jackie shouldn’t worry. The baby would get upset. Paul’s arguments were logical, orderly.

  Wanly, Jackie smiled at her husband. “You’re right, Lamb-love. Let’s talk about something cheerful. Like the body.”

  Paul rubbed her knee. “That’s my Sweets.” He gave me another big grin. “Emma would like to hear about that. It’s pretty interesting.”

  “I’ll bet it is,” I said, bracing myself. “When did you find this … ah … body?”

  Paul’s grin faded only a mite. “Yesterday.” He stood up. “We’re keeping it in the basement. Want to see it? Afterward, we can order pizza.”

  Chapter Two

  THE ROWLEY-MELCHER HOUSE was huge. The builder was Cornelius Rowley, some distant connection of Paul’s and a local timber baron who had hailed from Saginaw, Michigan. Cornelius had built on a grand scale. The paneled entry hall was half the size of my little log home. An inglenook curved out on each side of the fireplace. Fir wainscoting, rose wall sconces, and a wrought-iron chandelier reminded me more of a hotel lobby than a honeymoon cottage. The handsome, if uncarpeted, staircase led up to the second floor. The music parlor and the living room were sparsely furnished, and the bare maple floors looked as if they had sustained some water damage.

  “The flooring guy is coming next week,” Jackie said, her voice echoing off the living-room walls. “Then the rug man. We’re going green. Dark.” She gave her husband an arch glance. “Paul wanted white. Does that make any sense with kids?”

  “It’d brighten up the place,” he replied with a frown. “All those big trees outside make it kind of gloomy.”

  Jackie shrugged as she led us into the formal dining room. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you believed those ghost stories.”

  Paul rolled his eyes. “I’m being practical, that’s all. And might I point out that you’re the one who brought up the subject of ghosts when we found the body.”

  Jackie seemed unfazed by the remark. So far, I still hadn’t seen the remains. Clearly, there was no urgency in the Melchers’ manner. My host and hostess had decided to show me through the house before venturing into the basement. We’d already trekked around the second floor, where I’d put my meager belongings into a bedroom that faced the mountains. A small fireplace was closed off, and its dark blue tiles needed cleaning. Jackie had furnished the room with a bleached maple suite she’d had in her Portland apartment. The master bedroom, which looked out over the strait, was beautifully done in Amish style, complete with a quilt on the king-size bed and a large oval braided rug. The other four bedrooms, including two on the third floor, were all but empty.

  “The dining-room set is the original,” Jackie noted. “We had it refinished.”

  I didn’t blame her. The long oak table and eight matching chairs were perfect for the room with its plate rail and boxed beam ceiling. The buffet was built into the wall, its leaded-glass doors etched with a delicate spiderweb pattern. Through a Tiffany window the late-afternoon sun caught the gleam of the newly polished table.

  “What’s this about a ghost?” I asked as we headed for the basement stairs.

  Jackie was fumbling for a light switch, or so I thought. Actually, the basement lights were turned on with a cord that was next to the top step. As we descended, the air smelled musty, with the trace of fruit that often permeates the wooden counters of old cellars and kitchens.

  “You tell her,” Jackie said to Paul as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s your ghost.”

  “I never paid much attention,” Paul responded with a grim little smile. We were standing in what I assumed had been a ballroom or, more recently, a rec room. Paneled in birch, the room’s focal point was a handsome stone fireplace. We moved on, passing a laundry room, a big furnace that looked like an octopus, a storage area, and a workshop. A glance at the latter showed that it was Paul’s domain: Shelves neatly lined with jars and cans, shiny tools hanging from carefully placed nails, renovation manuals filed between sturdy bookends all attested to my host’s love of order.

  “My dad told me about the ghost,” Paul said, resting his hand on the doorknob that, I presumed, led to the unfinished part of the basement. “He didn’t believe it, of course, but he’d tell it to me as a bedtime story. It was about a woman in a big cloak who showed up outside the house—this house—whenever there was a storm. She’d wail and shriek and carry on.” He lifted one shoulder. “Typical stuff you’d expect with a place like this.”

  I nodded. “Most of the older houses in Port Angeles probably have a ghost or two.”

  “I don’t know,” Paul answered, opening the door. “There aren’t that many big old houses here. Port Angeles was kind of a latecomer in terms of settlement.”

  The dank smell was almost overpowering. Paul pulled yet another cord to light up the unfinished section of the basement. There were no stairs leading from the door, though a stepladder rested against the wall. I peered at bare timbers and mounds of dirt. Then I saw the skeleton.

  Grabbing Jackie’s arm, I let out a small shriek. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you and the baby. I guess I hadn’t expected to see … that.” My free hand fluttered in the direction of the skeleton. I wasn’t about to admit that I’d expected a dead mouse or a stray cat.

  Paul regarded me with a tight smile. “Body sounds more dramatic than bones.” His gaze locked with Jackie’s innocent stare. “My bride is a real thrill-seeker.”

  “I am not!” Jackie asserted as I let go of her arm. “If I were, I’d have gone with the white carpets!” She burst into tears.

  Absently, Paul patted her shoulder, then frowned at the skeleton. “I still think we should compromise on a lighter shade of green. What do you think, Emma?”

  “I like green—all shades, except for the institutional kind.” The truth was I felt a little green around the gills myself.

  “No, no,” Paul said quickly, still patting Jackie, whose sobs were subsiding. “I mean, about
this guy. A workman, maybe? Heart attack, got trapped, something like that?”

  I summoned up my journalistic aplomb. The skeleton was in remarkably good condition. “He looks small. Did you measure him?”

  Paul shook his head. “No. But I called the sheriff and the police. They’re too busy to bother with a bunch of old bones. Besides, the sheriff’s department is facing some big cuts. Both the police and the sheriff’s people told us to get ahold of the prosecutor’s office and go through channels. Maybe we should contact Jackie’s doctor, too.”

  But Jackie, who had recovered from her latest attack of weeping, gave a vigorous shake of her head. “Dr. Carlisle has his hands full with live patients. Anyway, he’s an ob-gyn. I think we should get an anthropologist or somebody who teaches anatomy at Peninsula College.”

  The idea seemed sound to me. “How’d you find this in the first place?” I asked.

  Paul indicated that we should move away from the door with its precarious ledge. “The electricians were here yesterday. We’ve rewired everything except for the basement, four hundred amps, with a new breaker box. I did most of that myself, but I wanted a final runthrough by experts. The workmen were rooting around in here and found the skeleton. They practically quit on the spot.”

  We were heading back to the main floor. It was after five and time for Jackie to order the pizza. I wondered if I’d hear anything from Dusty’s about my Jaguar.

  “What’s so scary about a skeleton?” Jackie demanded, apparently dialing the phone number from memory. “It must have been there for years and years. I mean, it’s kind of creepy in a way, but Paul’s right—the guy probably had a heart attack. Or maybe he was a crook and hid out in the basement. How can we know why he died? There might have been a hermit in the—Oh! Hi! We want a large double cheese, Canadian bacon, mushrooms, and green pepper with three small salads.… That’s right, you know my voice! Thanks much.” Jackie replaced the receiver and beamed. “I’ve called so often lately that they don’t even have to ask for our address.”