The Alpine Kindred (16 page)

“Skip it.” I banged down the phone. Only then did I realize that the lab must have turned up some prints. Otherwise, the Sheriff wouldn't have been so touchy.

“Damn!” I exploded, hurtling into the newsroom. “Milo's withholding information! That's wrong. He's acting like a big brat!”

“Watch your language,” Vida said in mild rebuke. “If there's a personal element involved here, you'd better let me handle the story.”

“Hey!” Carla's head jerked up, making the pigtails sail around her shoulders. “The college is
my
beat! If you're going to hand the assignment over, Emma, you'd better give it to me.”

Maybe, just maybe, Carla's six years of experience had provided sufficient grounding to tackle an important homicide case. I was caught between Carla's snapping brown eyes and Vida's narrowed gray gaze.

“Carla,” I began in my most soothing voice, “I don't want you overtaxing yourself at this stage of your pregnancy. You've already had one bad scare. Take it easy, I'm keeping this one.”

“Nonsense!” Vida had pushed her glasses back up on her nose and was sitting with her fists on her hips. “Your feelings—and Milo's—are already getting in the way. He's not angry with me. Besides, I have my nephew Billy.”

“I have Ryan,” Carla countered. “He knows plenty about the college. I have an
in.”

I struck an adamant stance. “I'm keeping the story. You got that?” My head swiveled first in Vida's direction, then Carla's. “I wouldn't mind help from both of you, though,” I added in a placating tone. “Carla, could Ryan meet us for lunch today or tomorrow?”

“Us?”
Vida put in. “Or are you going to drink your meal in a bar?”

“We can all eat up at the ski-lodge coffee shop,” I said. “It's close to the college. How about it, Carla?”

“Fine.” She was almost pouting. “But Ryan can't do it today. He teaches a sociology class at twelve-thirty. He can probably come on Friday. He doesn't have class.”

As it turned out, Ryan had a division meeting, so I invited everyone to dinner at my house Sunday evening. I was anxious to speak with Ryan for more than journalistic purposes. While I'd seen him around town, I hardly knew the man, and he was about to take my sole reporter to wife. I felt a certain responsibility for Carla, though I knew she would scoff at the idea.

And while Carla seemed marginally appeased, Vida was not. She was, as she'd put it, “huffy” with me for the rest of the day, until I asked her just before five if she'd like to have dinner at the Venison Inn. With a hint of regret, she turned me down, saying that she and Buck Bardeen were meeting his widowed brother, Henry, and Linda Grant, the high school PE teacher, for dinner at Cafe Flore out on the highway.

Carla and Leo had left for the day. Ginny was packed up and ready to go, except for Brad, who had escaped once more into the news office and was pulling discards out of Leo's wastebasket. As soon as his mother completed her rescue operation and had bid us a frazzled good night, I told Vida about Sandra Cavanaugh's death.

“Goodness!” Vida exclaimed, a hand to her cheek. “An overdose! How dreadful!” Her gray eyes suddenly narrowed. “Foul play was ruled out, I suppose?”

“Foul play?” The idea jarred me. “I don't know anything except what I've told you.
Foul play?”

Vida blinked innocently. “Well … Sandra was a very wealthy woman who must have made many people's lives unpleasant. You scarcely knew her. What if she left all her money to one of the servants or a pet chinchilla?”

That sounded about right. If Sandra had owned a chinchilla, she might have been goofy enough to put him in her will. But I still found Vida's suggestion outrageous.

“It's a wonder,” I said, doing a bit of my own huffing,
“that Sandra hadn't killed herself years ago. She took about a zillion kinds of medication.”

“Poor thing.” Vida's eyes seemed to glisten with tears.

“Who? Sandra? Tom? Me?” Her surprising reaction annoyed me.

“Sandra, of course.” Vida took off her glasses and dabbed at her eyes. “Such a tragedy—to be tied to a man who loves another. No wonder she killed herself.”

“Oh, good grief!” I literally spun around in the middle of the newsroom. “You're taking her side! Nobody said she killed herself! And I don't think she ever knew I existed!”

“Of course she did.” Vida sniffed a bit and put her glasses back on. “Wives always know.”

“Not when they're totally caught up with themselves,” I argued. “Sandra Cavanaugh was self-centered, self-absorbed, and, in case you've forgotten, crazy as a bedbug.”

“I don't believe that's the medical term for her condition,” Vida said primly.

“Whatever. It comes down to the same thing. Look,” I went on, returning to stand by Vida's desk, “I'm sorry she's dead. Really, I am. Hers was a wasted life, in my opinion. And frankly, Vida, I thought you'd have a far different reaction.”

Vida gave me an unusually helpless look. “I can't help how I feel, Emma. I honestly think it's a terrible thing to have happened. Whatever will poor Tommy do now?”

“I've no idea.” Vida's lack of concern for me was making my temper rise. Rather than quarrel with her, I started for my office. “I thought you'd want to know. I'm going home now. Good night, Vida.”

She didn't respond. When I left, Vida was still at her desk, seemingly lost in thought.

I was still mad.

* * *

The next morning, Edna Mae Dalrymple tiptoed up to my office before I could finish my drst cup of coffee. “Knock, knock,” she piped in her birdlike manner. “May I?”

I'm not really a morning person, and seldom feel anything like jovial until I've downed two mugs of coffee. “Yeah,” I said, my voice raspy. “What is it, Edna Mae?”

She ducked inside, but didn't sit down. “Are you … feeling better, Emma?”

“Better than what?” I sounded ungracious, then remembered my outburst earlier in the week. “Oh. That. No, as a matter of fact, I'm not. The Sheriff is behaving in a most unprofessional manner over the Rasmussen homicide investigation.”

My formality seemed to fortify Edna Mae. She approached the nearest of my two visitors' chairs, touched the back as if it might bite, and then awkwardly angled herself down upon the seat.

“That's what I wanted to discuss. With you or Vida. But Vida's not here.” Edna Mae glanced over her shoulder to confirm the statement.

“Vida's attending the May Madness breakfast at the Congregational church,” I said. “What about the murder?”

“Well”—Edna Mae gulped—”it's not exactly about the murder itself. Did you hear about the article I proposed for
The Advocate!”

I assured her that Vida had kept me informed. Edna Mae proceeded to explain all the background anyway, including the paucity of display items available in Skyko-mish County. She had become particularly discouraged when Darla Puckett had refused to let the library exhibit her collection of dead grasshoppers which Darla had dressed in the national costumes of France, Italy, Austria, Latvia, and Finland.

“Pity,” I murmured, wondering where Tom Cavanaugh was at this exact moment.

More background ensued, mainly concerning Edna Mae's futile efforts with Thyra Rasmussen and her knick-knacks. “Such a difficult old lady,” Edna Mae lamented with a shake of her short salt-and-pepper curls. “But I thought that if I went over to Snohomish and offered my condolences on Einar's very tragic demise, her mother's heart might be softened.” She paused, her small, birdlike face contorted with frustration.

“Get the old girl in a weak moment?” I remarked.

Edna Mae's head jerked up. “Oh! No! Nothing so crude. I merely thought that she might be looking more to posterity. That is, if her son was dead, and she herself being ninety or thereabouts, she might want to … to make a gesture.”

I'd never met Thyra Rasmussen, but given Vida's description of the family matriarch, I could well imagine the “gesture” she might make to Edna Mae. But I let the librarian continue.

“Mrs. Rasmussen didn't seem the least bit moved by Einar's death. At first I thought perhaps she'd become senile and couldn't take it in. But then she mentioned— quite off-the-cuff, as it were—that Einar Jr. probably goaded someone into killing him. That struck me as … unnatural.”

It struck me, too, in several ways. “Did she mention anyone in particular?”

“No. Indeed, I was so startled that I sort of glossed over the comment, and changed the subject.” Edna Mae hung her head. “That was probably foolish of me, wasn't it? I mean, as awful as it sounds, I'm rather intrigued. Human nature is always so fascinating, and in my line of work, I'm often restricted to reading about it instead of actually encountering it. Am I making sense?”

I supposed it depended on how one defined
sense.
Edna Mae meant well; she was a kindhearted woman. But if common sense could be equated with card sense, then my sometimes bridge partner was a washout. In answer to Edna Mae's specific question, I said yes.

“What about Einar Sr.? Was he as harsh about Einar Jr.'s murder as Mrs. Rasmussen was?”

Edna Mae sighed. “Quite the contrary. I never saw Mr. Rasmussen. He'd taken to his bed, apparently much affected.” As usual, Edna Mae had fallen into the vernacular of her favorite dated literary works. “He's way up in his nineties, poor old trout, and his health is failing. Or so rumor has it.” She rolled her eyes in apparent dismay.

I waited for her to go on, but she didn't. Her silence forced me to ask what happened next.

Edna Mae's eyes grew wide. “Why, nothing. Mrs. Rasmussen couldn't be moved to part with her collectibles, so I took my leave.”

“That's what you came to tell me? And Vida?” I couldn't keep the puzzled curiosity out of my voice.

“Well … yes. That is, I thought you should know about this impasse. Vida had mentioned that perhaps later, after a decent passage of time, you might print my article about Mrs. Rasmussen's gold pieces.”

One word clicked in my brain. “Gold? Her collectibles are gold?”

Edna Mae nodded solemnly. “Yes, and most interesting. Each piece is fashioned from crude nuggets, and woe upon the critic who despises them! Artful things, and such aglow!”

I gathered that Edna Mae had been reading Dickens. But English classics weren't what intrigued me at the moment. “Where'd she get them?”

“The Klondike,” Edna Mae answered promptly. “Her father had been a prospector.”

I was disappointed. Somehow, I'd hoped that the mention of gold wasn't coincidental to the nuggets discovered at the warehouse site. However, souvenirs from the Gold Rush a hundred years ago were common in the Northwest. I had inherited a gold cross made out of nuggets from my mother, who had, in turn, received it from a great-uncle who had prospected in the Klondike.

“There's one other thing,” Edna Mae said shyly.

“Yes?” I was twitching a bit, anxious to get my second cup of coffee.

“As I mentioned, I find this situation most intriguing. When I first arrived, you said that Sheriff Dodge wasn't being cooperative. Is it possible that you'd like someone to … um… sleuth for you?”

I pushed back in my chair. “In what way?”

“Well… now that I've established some kind of rapport with Mrs. Rasmussen—precarious as it may be—it occurred to me that I might be of help. Family secrets, and all that. There are bound to be some, correct?” Edna Mae glanced over her shoulder again, apparently making sure that Vida hadn't returned. “I'm well aware that Vida knows everything about people in Alpine. But the Ras-mussens are Snohomish residents. Surely she isn't as well-grounded in Snohomish County lore.”

Edna Mae was probably right. I couldn't see what harm she might do in pestering Mrs. Rasmussen. As a librarian, she was schooled in research. The exercise in social intercourse would be good for Edna Mae. To my knowledge, it was the only kind of intercourse she had ever experienced.

“Go ahead,” I said. “We'll appreciate whatever you can find out.”

Two pink spots appeared in Edna Mae's usually pale cheeks. “Oh! Thank you! This is so exciting! Just like a book!” She started to rise, then stopped. “You don't think I'm a ghoul?”

“No,” I replied truthfully. “Curiosity is very normal. It's a huge part of my job.”

Practically walking on air, Edna Mae went off. I was pouring coffee when Vida returned from the May Madness event.

“Such drivel! Really, even after four hundred years, those silly women don't know whether they're Presbyters or Congregationalists!
We
certainly don't want them crossing over!” she declared, marching around her desk as if she were ready to do battle to preserve the purity of First Presbyterian. “Nor will I ever do the Tea Cup Trot again!”

Leo looked up from a layout for Francine's Fine Apparel. “Huh? What's that got to do with religion?”

“Never mind,” Vida retorted, but elucidated all the same. “It has to do with posture as a virtue, an arguable point, and those cheap, ugly saucers ruin my hair.” She patted her gray curls, which didn't seem any more disheveled than usual. “I'm lucky I didn't spill orange pekoe all over my new blouse!”

Briefly, I tried to envision Vida doing the Tea Cup Trot. The image brought the first smile of the day, but my House & Home editor hadn't finished her tirade. “Then, on the way out of the church hall, I ran into Averill Fairbanks. Instead of UFOs in the sky and his backyard, he's seeing ghosts on the ground. Really, that silly old fool should be locked up!”

“Ghosts?” Carla was intrigued. “What kind? The ones with white sheets or the specter type?”

Vida sat down with a rather loud plop. “I've no idea.” Removing her glasses, she rubbed frantically at her eyes. “And Billy—my nephew Billy—my own flesh and blood— refuses to tell me about the knife!”

Such insubordination was unthinkable. No one, especially
her kinfolk, ever dared refuse Vida information. “How come?” I asked.

Vida removed her palms from her eyes and gazed at me with a venomous expression. “Because Milo ordered him to hold his tongue. Now, I ask you, why is that? Mere orneriness, or is there a reason?”

“There might be a reason, Duchess,” Leo said mildly. “If there weren't any prints, they might as well say so. But if there were …” My ad manager held his hands palms up.