The Alpine Legacy (10 page)

“I feel terrible,” she said, raising the glass to her lips. “I meant to call you first thing to find out how the meeting went.” She paused, then lifted the glass in a toast. “To Crystal. Poor crazy Crystal.”

I leaned forward and we clicked glasses. “Do you mean that? Was she crazy?”

“Oooh…” Paula flung her free hand in the air. “Aren't we all? Let's say that Crystal was kind of obsessed. She'd
had two lousy marriages, which is enough to make any woman spin out.”

“What happened?” I inquired.

“Crystal got married almost straight out of high school, to some guy from around here. Sultan, I think. His name was Dean Ramsey, and he had a scholarship to Oregon State University.” Paula paused to remove the olive from her drink. “They moved to Corvallis, and she worked to help put him through school. I don't think the scholarship was for a full ride, maybe only the first year. Anyway, she had a couple of miscarriages before they had a daughter. After Dean graduated, he got a job with the county. I forget what he did—something agricultural, like an extension agent. They lived in Salem, where Crystal worked as a bank teller. After about ten years, she left him.”

“She left him?” I wanted to be clear on the background.

“That's how she put it when she told me,” Paula replied, chewing the olive slowly. “Crystal felt the relationship had come apart. They couldn't communicate, and she was stifled. After they separated, she moved to Portland.”

“What about the daughter?” I asked. “Her sister, April, never mentioned her.”

Paula made a sad little face. “She ran away when she was seventeen. It happened while Crystal was married to Aaron Conley. I think the girl's name was Amber.”

I was trying to calculate ages and dates. I figured Crystal to be about my age, which meant she had probably graduated from Alpine High School in the late Sixties. Ten years later, at the time of the divorce from Dean, she would have still been under thirty.

“Crystal got very caught up in the women's movement,” Paul continued. “She went to work for another
bank, but also enrolled at Clackamas Community College. It took her three years, but she got her associate-of-arts degree, and finished up at Portland State circa the mid-Eighties. That was when she got on with US Bank. The rest you know.”

I shook my head. “I don't, actually. I mean I know she got some kind of buyout from the bank and moved here, but what about Husband Number Two?”

“Oh.” Paula made a face. “An easy omission. She never told me how she got mixed up with Aaron. He was about ten years younger and yearning to be the next Kurt Cobain. That marriage didn't last long.”

“Did you know he's in town?”

Paula's eyes widened. “No kidding! Did Crystal tell you that?”

“Crystal didn't tell me much of anything,” I said, and was surprised that the memory of our brief encounter could make me sound so irritable. “I heard about it from my usual source. Vida.”

A hint of amusement played at Paula's lips. “Of course.” She paused and let out a big sigh. “We're the smart ones, Emma. We never married. How many women do you know who are happily wed?”

I was surprised by her comment. “Several. Shall I count the Merry Wives of Washington?”

“Don't bother.” Paula made a slashing motion with her hand. “My parents were miserable all the years that they were both alive. But they never divorced. I often wondered why not.”

I didn't want to get sidetracked in a debate over marriage. My own feelings were strong about the merit of struggle and endurance, of commitment and love. Except, of course, that I'd never had to do any of it.

“Tell me,” I said, “if Crystal had a current man in her life.”

Paula shrugged. “There was some guy, a tuba player, I think. Or maybe he's a composer. Russian name—I forget.”

“He's in the hospital. His name is Victor Dimitroff, and he was in a car wreck Friday night.”

Paula choked on her drink. “Really! Goodness.” She dabbed at her chin with the back of her dimpled hand. “Then he must have been on the scene more than I realized. Did you talk to him?”

I shook my head. “I heard about him by chance. Vida and I went to see Carla Steinmetz. Carla Talliaferro, I mean. I can't get used to her married name. She had her baby early this morning.”

“Well.” Paula gazed into her glass, which was just about empty. “That's interesting.”

“It's a boy,” I said. “They named him Omar.”

“What?” Paula's eyes took a moment to focus on me. “Oh. Omar? That's …different.”

“I think so,” I agreed, standing up. “Can I fix you another?”

“Half,” Paula replied, giving me her glass. “On second thought, why not a whole one?” she called as I started for the kitchen.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” I asked, pausing at the kitchen door. “I've got some chicken breasts thawed.”

“Okay,” she said. “That way, I'll be sober by the time I go home.”

I put the chicken breasts in the oven, set a pot of water on to boil for rice, and got out a can of French-style green beans. After replenishing our drinks, I returned to the living room.

“Tell me,” I said, after using a poker to turn one of the logs in the grate, “why do you think Crystal killed herself?”

“That's a tough one.” Paula stared into the fire, which
was again crackling brightly. “If, as you mentioned, Aaron Conley is in town along with Victor, maybe they sent her into some kind of emotional tailspin. Honestly, I can't say, except that Crystal had mood swings.”

“Depression?” I asked.

“Could be.” Paula settled back in the armchair, balancing her drink on her lap. “She didn't talk about—what do I want to say? Her innermost thoughts, I guess. She was always so involved with issues. If I had to guess, I'd go for manic-depressive, or whatever they call it these days.”

“When did you see her last?” I was beginning to feel somewhat mellow. The second bourbon, the sweet scent of wood burning, the shadows dancing around the room all contributed to an improvement in my own mood.

“Let me think,” Paula said. “I spoke with her on the phone Thursday about meeting with you. In fact, I called her late Friday night to see how things had gone, but she didn't answer.” She gave me a sad little smile. “I guess I know why now. But the last time I actually saw her was Tuesday. She came by the college to look at the exhibit.”

“How'd she seem?”

“Okay.” Paula paused, apparently thinking through her perception of Crystal. “If anything, she was kind of revved. I thought she was being enthusiastic about my glass pieces, but in retrospect, it may have been more than that.”

“Like Victor?”

Paula shrugged. “Could be. I'm not sure how serious that relationship was. I'm guessing it wouldn't be because of Aaron. That guy was nothing but trouble.”

Trouble was what Crystal seemed to have found, enough of it to force her to take her own life.

I wondered if Milo knew where those sources of
trouble might have come from. Aaron Conley or Victor Dimitroff, perhaps.

Or even Milo.

But I didn't want to think about that possibility.

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING
of a buzz about Crystal after Mass Sunday morning. Francine Wells, who seemed friendly if a bit uncomfortable in my presence, said she'd never met Crystal but figured her for an oddball.

“Most women come into my shop to at least
look,”
she told the little circle that had gathered around Father Den on the wood-framed porch of St. Mildred's. “Not Crystal. Somebody told me she wore nothing but ethnic outfits.”

“She wasn't wearing anything at all when I saw her,” I put in. “She was in the hot tub.” I glanced at Father Den, who acknowledged my statement with a slight incline of his head.

However, Ed and Shirley Bronsky's heads turned as if they were on springs. “You met Crystal?” Shirley gasped, huddled in her black mink coat. “I thought you two hated each other.”

“And a meaningful Advent to you all,” said Brendan Shaw, wearing his insurance agent's grin. “Hey, Father Den—maybe we should go back and start over with Mass. I don't think it took the first time.”

Everyone laughed except Shirley, who was still regarding me with a curious expression. It was pointless to keep my meeting with Crystal a secret. In Alpine there are no secrets. The grapevine is long and active, even without Vida's considerable help.

“Gosh,” Ed said in wonderment when I'd finished my brief recital, “you must have been about the last person to see her alive.”

“It's possible,” I allowed, darting a furtive glance at Den.

“I don't get it,” Ed declared. “People shouldn't kill themselves. Life's full of surprises. Look at me, for instance.”

I did. Ed Bronsky had worked—well, sort of—as
The Advocate's
ad manager until a few years ago. He was full of gloom and complaints, lacking in ambition and energy, and it was only my soft heart and softer brain that prevented me from canning him. Then an aunt in Iowa had died and left him several million dollars. Ed had quickly retired to a squire's life and built a so-called villa above the railroad tracks. He and Shirley were the quintessential nouveaux riches, hosting the occasional lavish party “to show off,” as Vida put it, and often asking the guests to bring along “a little surprise.” Like the booze or the steaks or the hot dog buns. Ed was that kind of guy.

“We're looking at you, Ed,” Francine said in a dry tone. “Your point would be …?”

“That if you live right, everything will turn out fine,” Ed asserted, sweeping a pudgy hand over the luxuriant length and considerable width of his fur-trimmed camel-hair overcoat.

Father Den flinched. “I don't think that was the same kind of camel-hair outfit that John the Baptist wore in the desert,” he said, alluding to this morning's gospel from St. Mark.

“Huh?” Ed gave our pastor a curious look. “No, I guess not. It was hot over there in the Holy Land. You wouldn't need a coat.”

Marisa Foxx had slipped between Shirley and me. “On the other hand,” she said in an undertone, “you saved yourself the price of a lawsuit.”

“Did I have one?” I asked, turning to look at Marisa.

She smiled and shrugged. “I don't know. I was going to check into it this afternoon at home. I don't mean to be callous, but Crystal saved several people some trouble.”

“Did she?” I wanted Marisa to elucidate, but Brendan Shaw had caught her attention. My gaze wandered out to the parking lot, where vehicles were making their way through the unplowed snow. It occurred to me that Ed could have used his idle time to help out Father Den by clearing the lot. In fact, I recalled that Ed had originally been in charge of the shelter project, as St. Mildred's liaison with the other churches. As usual, he had kept a low profile, burrowing down in Casa de Bronska.

“Hey, Ed,” I said, grabbing him none too gently by the camel-hair sleeve, “what kind of progress have you made with the women's shelter?”

Ed stared at me. “Progress? How do you mean? The Alpine Hotel site is all mired down in legal stuff. You know those Californians.”

“That was months ago,” I said. “How recently have you checked in with them?”

Ed turned to Father Den. “You talked to somebody in Santa Barbara a while ago, didn't you, Father?”

Den shook his head. “I thought you were going to do that.”

“Gosh.” Ed removed his expensive fedora and scratched at his bald spot. “I guess I got mixed up. I'll give them a buzz tomorrow.”

Shirley tugged at Ed's arm. “You can't, Ed. You're going into Bellevue tomorrow to meet with your publishers.”

Ed smacked himself alongside the head. “Right! Gosh, I can't keep up with everything these days.” He offered Father Den and the rest of us an ingratiating smile. “The meeting tomorrow is huge. Skip and Irving didn't like the offer from Spielberg. To tell the truth, I didn't either,
though
Mr. Ed
is a natural after that big war movie he's got coming out. In fact, we played around with changing the book title for the movie and calling it
Saving Mr. Ed.”

Having read the original manuscript, I felt there was no possible way of saving
Mr. Ed.
The only thing I could save was myself, and I quietly ducked out of the little group as Ed raved on about other film deals, tossing around names like Coppola and Lucas and Cameron as if they were on his Christmas-card list. Maybe they were. I wouldn't put anything past Ed.

That afternoon, I drove over to the college to see the glass exhibit. I'd promised Paula that I'd take it in, though I had assigned Scott to cover the story. He'd gotten the photos back from Buddy Bayard on Friday. They looked okay, though it was a shame we couldn't run them in color.

All the works had been done as windows or door insets. Most were mediocre, though there were a handful—including three by Paula—that were quite beautiful. I was surprised to see that one of the names on a luminous sunset was Melody Eriks.

I was admiring the delicate pinks and lavenders and blues when a young woman came up beside me. “Do you like it?” she asked in a shy voice.

I turned. Even without the name tag identifying her and stating her credentials as an exhibitor/guide, I would have recognized Melody Eriks. She was a younger, prettier version of her mother, April. The daughter was taller, but small-boned, with the same big brown eyes. The fair hair hadn't gone gray, but the mouth and the nose were almost identical to her mother's.