The Alpine Journey (33 page)

We spent the rest of the short drive discussing various other aspects of the case. We did not, however, talk about the murder itself or how we would give Rosalie the news about Gordon. Yet I knew the latter weighed heavily on Vida's mind. Her step had slowed after we reached the hospital parking lot. Indeed, when we came through the main entrance and saw Rosalie sitting in a wheelchair, Vida actually stopped in her tracks.

“We'll do this here,” she whispered. “I want a doctor close by.”

I didn't know if she meant the remark literally or figuratively. In any event, Vida greeted Rosalie with a constricted smile, then suggested we move to a far corner for privacy.

Rosalie sensed at once that something was wrong. “Don't tell me,” she said in a breathless voice. “Is it…?”

“No,” Vida replied, pushing the wheelchair past the comfortable sofas and easy chairs provided for visitors.
“It's Gordon.” Vida knelt next to Rosalie and took her hands. “This morning, Gordon—” She stopped, unable to go on.

“He's dead.” Rosalie closed her eyes and seemed to shrink inside herself.

Vida said nothing. She lowered her head and squeezed Rosalie's hands.

“I was afraid of that,” Rosalie said after a long silence. “It's my fault.”

Vida's head jerked up. “Never! It's mine!”

“It's nobody's,” I intervened.

Rosalie gave a litde start, staring at me as if she'd forgotten I was present. She probably had. “No, no. Last night at the restaurant I tried to make Gordon tell me why he'd spent so much time on the run. He had all these excuses, but they didn't amount to much. I watched his eyes and I knew in my heart that something was very, very wrong. I think I always knew it. I spent quite a while with the children after Audrey died, you see. I'd begun to guess then.” Putting a hand to her bosom, Rosalie paused for breath.

“He told us you were stunned by the news about Marlin,” I said, to fill the gap. “But you couldn't have been. Rett indicated you already knew when he said Marlin couldn't get his bail money from you.”

Rosalie gave a faint nod. “I didn't have it, at least not that I could get at right away. I'm glad Rett could do it for Marlin. It's about time he did something for somebody else. Why are people so selfish?” She began to cry.

“Selfishness was what got Audrey killed,” I blurted. “She thought only of herself, and not of her family.”

“I'm afraid so,” said Vida, still on her knees, now patting Rosalie gently. “But it's selfish to kill, too. Then
again, children learn from their parents.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Molly's run away.”

Clutching a tissue she'd dug out of her pocket, Rosalie stared at Vida. “I hope they never find her. It's better that way. Granddaughter or not, I don't know that I could face her. Not after Molly killed Audrey.”

The Jackson County sheriff's deputies found Molly later that day in a barn about a mile from Ashland. She was curled up peacefully in a horse stall, and at first they had thought she was asleep. When they realized that Molly was dead, they could find no external cause. It was only after the autopsy that the authorities determined she had taken some kind of lethal medication used to put down animals. Her body was brought back to Cannon Beach, where a joint service was held for her and her father. Gordon and Molly were buried next to Audrey in the local cemetery, which overlooks the sea. Three members of the Imhoff family were united in death, instead of being torn asunder in life. I suppose it was what Molly would have wanted.

Vida stayed on for the funeral, but I went home that Thursday morning. I felt much improved, at least physically, but the Imhoff tragedy would leave a scar to last a lifetime.

I had stopped off in Portland to call Mavis. I'd meant to contact her while I was in Cannon Beach, but somehow I'd never gotten around to it. Maybe I'd been as caught up in Audrey's murder as Vida.

A brief, cryptic story about Gordon's apparent suicide and Molly's unexplained death had appeared in
The Oregonian.
Mavis hadn't made the connection with Vida or me, but when I told her about it, she was agog.

“Are you going to use it in
The Advocate
?” Mavis
asked, the excitement in her voice evoking our professional life together in Portland. “I would. It's one hell of a story.”

I knew Mavis would have attacked the Imhoff catastrophe like a tiger going after raw meat. But she was made of sterner stuff. “No,” I replied from the phone booth that was just off 1-205 near the Columbia River. “The only native Alpiner directly involved is Rett Runkel, and he's still alive and well, living in a wretched trailer with his dog, T-Bone.” I didn't add that the story might embarrass Vida and the rest of the Runkels. Mavis was a City Girl, and wouldn't understand small town ways.

Or maybe she did. “Sap,” Mavis said, and then laughed. “Call me next week and let me know if you're still in business. And next- time, stick around longer. We never did finish raking Tom Cavanaugh over the coals.”

We hadn't, in fact. Maybe we shouldn't. The coals had gone out long ago, along with the sparks and embers.

I got back into my latest rental car and crossed the Columbia River into Washington.

“It was horrible,” I told Milo that night after I arrived home in Alpine. We were sitting in my living room, each with our drink of choice. “I feel sony for Vida. She's always set such store by family.”

Milo chuckled. “Half her family's as nuts as everybody else's. She didn't even know this Oregon bunch. Vida'll get over it.”

I didn't think so, and said as much. “I won't either,” I asserted. “It breaks my heart to think that a kid like Molly would go so far to prevent her parents from splitting up. She simply couldn't face the idea of divorce. She never wrote about it in her diary, and I doubt that she ever talked to anyone about it.”

Milo shrugged. “She was kind of like Vida. It wasn't the actual concept of family that meant so much to her, but what other people thought. That's a big deal with teenagers. You know—acceptance, peer-group pressure, all that.”

“No,” I said, recalling Molly's heartfelt poem about losing the dog.
The family circle has been broken.
“It wasn't just that. It was the idea of a broken home, of a family destroyed. Molly had seen what had happened after her grandparents divorced. The family had come apart, in three generations. She realized that her mother and her grandmother were virtual strangers, and that frightened her. Then there were the other kids she knew who'd been through a divorce. She'd watched them being pulled back and forth between parents, uprooted and moved away, made to feel as if they were to blame, used as pawns, and, I suspect, in some cases, not really wanted by either the mother or the father. Everybody talks about child abuse these days, but one of the biggest ways that kids are abused is by divorce. Sure, I know that in some instances, it's the only solution. You can't stay with a drunk or a drug addict or someone who's violent. But that's not what we're talking about here—Audrey wanted to move on, maybe with her family, maybe without them. Gordon didn't want to go anywhere. He could hardly make up his mind about getting out of bed, if you ask me. But neither would change or compromise or make accommodations, which is what marriage is all about.”

Milo rubbed at his temple. “Did she plan it? That's kind of scary, but it happens.”

“We'll never know,” I replied, sipping at my bourbon. “Personally, I think she was overcome with a terrible rage. Her mother was leaving in a day or two, she was
already packed. I suspect Molly had begged her mother to stay—and Audrey had dismissed the request. I can imagine Molly lying in bed that night, and suddenly feeling that there was only one way to stop her mother. Violence—as Walt Dobrinz mentioned to Vida—is a contemporary solution to problems. Molly got up, went into the living room, and grabbed the first lethal-looking thing she saw, which was a metal sculpture with a sharp point. Maybe after she got to the dock, she made one last attempt to persuade Audrey to stay. I doubt that Audrey would have been afraid of Molly, let alone moved by her daughter's pleas. Molly reacted by stopping her mother in the only way she knew how. And then she returned to the house, replaced the metal sculpture, and went to bed.”

Milo looked grim. “The poor kid must have been nuts. Or driven to it. The same goes for the dad. I suppose he couldn't face living with the fact that his daughter had killed his wife. That could send even a stable guy around the bend.”

I agreed. “And Gordon wasn't the most stable sort. But he understood his kids, and he knew intuitively that Molly had committed the murder. I suspect he left after the funeral because he thought the cops would figure it out and he couldn't stand seeing Molly arrested. Then, when the crime wasn't solved after a month, he decided to come back. But that solved nothing, because he still had to live with the knowledge of what his daughter had done.”

Milo stroked his long chin. “I can see that. It'd tear you apart. It's no wonder he sent the girls away, but that didn't help. Imhoff was wrestling with himself.” He paused. “I take it the weapon checked out?” As ever, the sheriff wanted evidence, even when it wasn't his case.

“Yes. Vida learned from my old friend Bill Wigert that there were traces of hair and skin and blood on the sharp metal point.” I grimaced at the thought. “Most killers would have dropped the damned thing into the ocean. But Molly was tidy by nature. She put the sculpture back where it belonged.”

“Hiding in plain sight,” Milo mused. “It's not the first time that law-enforcement types have missed the obvious. I've done it myself.”

“It's pitiful,” I said, still thinking of Molly. “I have to wonder if the Imhoff marriage was ever what you might call a successful union. I doubt that it's possible for a husband and wife to be happy when each of them has such different goals and needs, and no apparent understanding of the other. The long-term toll on the kids must be very heavy.”

Milo laughed and put his arm around me. “How would
you
know? You've never been married.”

“Maybe that's why I've stayed single,” I said, surprising myself. “I'm not able to do all those things.” I twisted out of his half embrace and turned to face him. “Why did you and Tricia get divorced? You've never really told me.”

“Oh, well …” He put his hands behind his head and stretched out his long legs. “We got so we fought over every damned little thing. She kept leaving the emergency brake on in the car. She could never get dinner on the table until I'd been home at least half an hour. She left her stupid hair curlers all over the bathroom floor. She read in bed at night when I was dead tired. It was a bunch of stuff, and it just kept building until we both wanted out.”

I gave a nod. “So what did you do that made her crazy?” I put up a hand. “Don't tell me. I know. You got
stuck at work and didn't come home when you said you would. You zoned out in front of the TV after dinner and never talked. You dumped your dirty clothes wherever you took them off. You had a dishwasher, but you never, never put so much as a teaspoon in it. You left everything in the living room, the dining nook, or—if Tricia got
really
lucky—on the kitchen counter.”

Milo's hazel eyes widened. “Shit! Do I still do all that stuff?”

“You sure do,” I declared, again ducking away from him. “I shrug it off. I shouldn't, though, or you'll never improve. You'll spend the rest of your life driving some woman to distraction—or divorce.”

Milo looked chagrined. “I can't help what goes on with the job. Mulehide never understood that part.”

“She didn't want to. She was selfish. That's what's at the heart of most failed relationships.” It was the first time I'd criticized Milo's ex.

“You bet,” the sheriff agreed. “Everything had to be her way. The house, the yard, the kids. I felt like a cipher.”

I was neither inclined nor qualified to act as marriage counselor. “You wouldn't talk to her,” I said flatly, and picked up my bourbon glass.

“It was always the same old crap,” Milo asserted, then eyed me speculatively. “So you think I'm crummy husband material, huh?”

“Not crummy. Just hauling around a lot of bad habits and an inflexible attitude.”

He reached over and held my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Are you saying you wouldn't take a chance on me?”

My jaw couldn't drop because Milo was holding it. “No. Yes. What do you mean?”

His hand fell away. “Well … I've been thinking. I really missed you while you were gone. We've been going together for what? A year?”

I sighed. Men are so rotten at details, as Vida often reminded me. “Over a year and a half. Twenty months, to be exact.”

“That's a long time,” Milo said. “Anyway,” he went on, shifting awkwardly on the sofa, “it dawned on me that maybe we should think about getting married. Or wouldn't your church allow it?”

It wasn't a question of what the Catholic Church allowed. “I don't think so,” I said, giving Milo a sad little smile. “I just told you, I don't think I'm marriage material.”

“You don't know. You've never tried it.” Milo looked bewildered.

“That's not a very good argument for getting married,” I pointed out.

“Is it because I flunked the first time?”

I shook my head. “Not really.” I hesitated, then covered his big hand with mine. “It's me, Milo. I don't think I'm the marrying kind.”

He sat back on the sofa, gazing up at the beamed ceiling. “So you're satisfied with going along the way things are?”

I was hoping he wouldn't ask. And yet he had to, or else the burden of truth would fall on me.

I kept my hand on his. “I think we need a break.”

I felt him tense. “As in breakup?”

My attempt at a smile was dismal. “That sounds like teenage stuff. We're friends, aren't we? I don't ever want to lose that.”

He was silent for quite some time. “Is it all that dumb
stuff you mentioned? The dishes and the TV and the dirty clothes?”

“No. If that really bothered me, I
would
have said something. It's me. I feel…” I didn't know how to say it. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to say. “I just feel uncertain. It's not fair to string you along because I like your company and the intimacy and the sex and the companionship.”