The Alpine Legacy (19 page)

Victor lowered his large head onto his big chest. “Yes. We had been good friends. Though she had no true appreciation for music. Happily, she had other qualities. She was a humanitarian and politically aware. While she didn't understand my current composition, she encouraged me.”

“What is it that you're composing?” I asked, trying to pretend that I hadn't heard the word
humanitarian
in connection with Crystal Bird. “You mentioned an oratorio.”

“Yes, about the fall of France. It will be brilliant in its contrasts. The cowardice, the bravery, the entire gamut of raw human emotions.” Victor smiled, more to himself than to me. “I call it
Vichy.”

My gaze was wandering around the living room. Father Den was taking his leave, shaking hands with April and Mel. Vida now stood at the picture window, talking to Thad. Pastor Poole was with the rest of the Eriks clan, though he, too, seemed to be edging toward the front door. Dean Ramsey stood alone by the TV set, looking lost. Paula, who had been refilling her coffee cup at the dining-room table, joined him.

“Your oratorio sounds very ambitious,” I said, for lack of a better word.

“Of course.” Victor shrugged his wide shoulders. “What else would be the point?” Apparently, he'd also spotted Paula. “I'm very tired now and need my medication. Would you please inform my escort?” He slumped
in the chair, his body as limp as laundry after the rinse cycle.

Paula noticed, but took her time breaking away from Dean. Victor's cave-in signaled my move in Vida's direction. She had just concluded her conversation withThad, and was looking sour.

“I'm going now,” she murmured as I caught up with her by the coat closet. “We'll discuss this fiasco at the office.”

Not wanting the Eriks family to think that Vida and I were leaving on some sort of cue, I lingered until she made her farewells. Dean Ramsey, however, beat me to the coat closet.

“I have to get to work,” he explained. “It was really kind of Hector Tuck to let me take this much time off when he's breaking me into the job.”

I didn't know the present extension agent that well, but he'd always seemed like an easygoing man. “I'm sure he understands,” I said as Dean put his navy-blue parka on over his dark suit. “Was this awfully hard for you?”

“Well …” Dean tugged at one ear. “It sure brought back a lot of memories. The funny thing is, they were mostly good ones. Until today, I didn't think there were that many of them.”

I gave Dean a wry smile. “As time passes, we tend to repress much of the unpleasantness. I've often felt that was a shame. It would be easier to miss people if you only remembered the bad stuff.”

Dean turned up the collar of his parka. “Oh, I still remember plenty of bad stuff. Crystal had a real mean streak, right up until the end.”

“Divorce is always sad,” I said. “Maybe you were lucky to end the pain she caused you.”

Briefly, Dean seemed puzzled. “Yes, of course. I was lucky.” He offered his hand, then moved to the door.

When he left, he still looked lost.

* * *

“Worthless,” Vida declared half an hour later as she munched carrot and celery sticks in my office. “The Erikses are not a communicative family. What's worse is that they are so obvious in their personality traits. April, feeling inferior to Crystal and intimidated by her, even in death. Mel acting subdued, yet clearly callous about his sister-in-law's death. Melody trying to be a grown-up in a world she doesn't yet understand. And Thad, so arrogant and extremely defensive about his aunt. One wonders why.”

“The heir?” I offered, taking a bite out of the chicken-salad sandwich I'd picked up at the deli in the mall. It was going on two o'clock, and a couple of cookies hadn't been sufficient to stave off my hunger pangs.

“The heir to what?” Vida said scornfully. “I can't imagine that Crystal had accumulated any fortune. Yes, she had the bank buyout, and perhaps she'd made some investments along the way. But,” she added, averting her eyes,“I doubt Crystal had any substantial savings.”

My gaze was reproachful. “Vida—you didn't.”

Her head snapped up. “Certainly not. Just because I work with Ginny doesn't mean that her husband, Rick, would violate customer confidentiality. But one can't help noting when a statement is left in plain sight on someone's desk.”

I could imagine the wheedling and cajoling and perhaps even threats that Vida had used to get Rick Er-landson to print out a copy of Crystal's account at the Bank of Alpine. “How much?” I sighed.

“A bit over fifty thousand dollars. Crystal was living off of it, of course,” Vida went on, once again making eye contact. “She didn't solicit advertising for her silly newsletter, and I doubt she had any other income.”

“Still,” I said, “fifty grand would make a nice nest egg for graduate school.”

“Thad's not the only one who could use that amount, I suppose.” Vida paused to sip from her mug of hot water. “Aaron certainly needed money, not merely for his drugs, but to live on. I can't guess at Victor's financial status, since I've no idea what kind of salary tuba players earn.” She made a face. “Such a silly instrument. All that oompah.”

“Do you think Crystal had a will?” If anyone would know, it'd be Vida.

But for once, she pleaded ignorance. “It's doubtful, isn't it? She was still a young woman. Have you made a will?”

I had, in fact, but only because of a fluke. The fiancé of my youth, a Boeing engineer, had made me the beneficiary of his company life-insurance policy. Though we had parted and Don had married someone else, he'd neglected to change the policy. When he died of a sudden heart attack at forty-five, I had come into five hundred thousand dollars. After months of litigation from his deserved heirs, I ended up with the entire sum. Somewhat guiltily, I used the money to pay off my legal counsel, purchase
The Advocate
, and buy my secondhand Jag. Thus, in one of my wiser moments, I'd asked the attorney I'd been forced to hire to draw up a simple will. I'd designated Adam and Ben as my sole heirs.

“Milo should know about the will,” I said.

“Yes.” Vida carefully peeled a hard-boiled egg, another basic item in her ongoing attempt to diet. “There was one conversation of interest at the reception, now that I think about it.”

“Which was?”

Vida sprinkled the egg with the tiny packets of salt and pepper she guiltlessly lifted from the Burger Barn. “Mel
was grumbling about the expenses for the funeral and reception. Thad spoke rather sharply to his father, saying that if he—Mel—and Mom—April—ever saved any money, then he—Thad—wouldn't be … something-or-other. I couldn't quite catch the last of it.”

“Indicating that the family wasn't going to inherit?” I suggested.

“Perhaps.” Vida carefully cut her egg into quarters. “It might also indicate they don't yet know who gets the money. One assumes, if Crystal hadn't made a will, everything would go to April as next of kin.”

“As I said, Milo might know whether there's a will.” I paused, tossing the sandwich's plastic container into the wastebasket. “I'm betting Crystal had one.”

Vida didn't comment as she finished her low-calorie lunch. I called Scott in and gave him the winter driving assignment. He didn't look pleased, but spared me any protest.

Having requested and received a photo of Dean Ramsey, I typed up the slightly skewed interview Vida and I had conducted Monday. We could have run it in this week's edition, but I'd deemed it in poor taste to carry the story of his new appointment in the same issue that contained coverage of his ex-wife's untimely demise. Besides, now we had time to do a feature on the departing Hector Tuck. That assignment would go to Vida. She knew the Tucks better than I did, and it would fit as neatly on her House & Home page as in the straight news section of the paper.

Around four o'clock, I was about to call Milo and ask if there had been any new developments, or if he knew about the existence of a will. But the phone rang before I picked up the receiver. I heard the vaguely familiar fragment of a masculine voice at the other end just before the lights flickered and the line went dead.

“Power failure,” I called to the news office, though I wasn't sure if anyone was there.

Leo strolled into the office as the lights gave one more blink and then went completely out. “I'm still not used to living with a mountain PUD.” He sighed, opening a fresh pack of cigarettes. “Damned good thing I'd just hit the save key on my computer.”

I nodded, shoving the candle I kept at the ready toward Leo. “It happens even in good weather,” I said. “This is the first one since Scott came aboard. I must warn him. Is he out there?” I gestured toward the news office.

Leo shook his head as he lighted the candle first, then his cigarette. “He went over to the courthouse to check something-or-other. Hey, babe”—he grinned—“want to play some games in the almost dark?”

I grinned back. “Like what? Guess whether my automatic save actually worked and I haven't lost the feature I was doing on the candlelighting ceremony at Old Mill Park?”

“You were there?” Leo slipped into one of my visitor's chairs.

“No. But Scott took pictures for this week's edition. Don't tell me you missed them.”

Leo grinned again. “No, of course I saw them. There were only captions accompanying them. What's with the feature?”

“I should have written it the week before the ceremony,” I said in a rueful voice, “but I didn't get around to it. I'm writing about the history, how it was started in 1918 by Carl Clemans at the old mill site on December sixth, St. Nicholas's Day, then stopped for a few years after he shut down operations, and was finally resurrected the day before Pearl Harbor.”

“I didn't know that,” Leo said, the candlelight casting all sorts of weird shadows across his craggy face. “Say,
would you mind if I took off for L.A. over Christmas? I've still got two days' vacation coming, and since the holiday falls on a Thursday, I thought maybe I'd take the twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth.”

The lights gave a flicker, but went off again. “Sure,” I said, blinking at Leo. “You'll be able to have everything put together for the next issue?” I tried to peer at my calendar, but failed to make out the dates. “It'd be the thirty-first, New Year's Eve day.”

“No problem,” Leo said. “I can do most of the layouts in advance since it's another special edition for the year end.”

“Do you plan on seeing your kids?” I asked, hoping not to sound like a snoop.

“They actually invited me,” Leo replied, looking vaguely sheepish. “I guess they really have forgiven dear old Dad for drinking his way to divorce.”

It had taken Leo's three grown children a long time to work their way through their father's borderline alcoholism and subsequent destruction of the Walsh family as a single unit. His ex-wife, Liza, was remarried, and she and Leo had resumed speaking, though I wasn't sure how amiably.

I tilted my head to one side and smiled at my ad manager. “Was that who called yesterday afternoon just as I was leaving?” Leo had seemed a little surprised, if pleased, when he answered the phone.

“What?” Leo drew back in his chair, then inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “Oh—that call right at five. No, that was somebody else, an old pal from my advertising days in Southern California. Hey,” he went on, once again leaning forward, “it's after four, it's dark in here, what's the point of diligence? Want to grab a drink at the Venison Inn?”

I started to mull, and then the lights came back on. We
both held our breath and waited. Nothing happened. The power seemed to have been restored.

“That's your answer,” I said. “We stay. We work. We are diligent.”

Leo nodded and got to his feet, then blew out the candle. “The offer still stands at five,” he said over his shoulder.

“I'll consider it,” I said, wondering why I didn't give Leo a straightforward answer.

But I knew. In that brief moment as the lights had come on, I had seen his face unguarded by shadows. Leo was lying to me about the phone call. I suddenly felt uneasy.

I
DIDN'T GO
out for drinks with Leo that evening. Instead, I went directly home, still feeling unsettled. My ad manager wasn't inclined to hide his love life from me. Was it possible that he was covering up something to do with Crystal? Like Milo, he might have known Crystal, though if memory served, he'd said they'd never met. But my memory was sketchy. As I grew older, there didn't seem to be as much room on the computer disk in my brain.

Or maybe my mind was disintegrating along with my body. Just to make sure I still had all my appendages, I paused as I changed clothes in front of the full-length mirror that hung on my closet door. Perhaps it was the insufficient lighting in the bedroom, but I didn't look as bad as I felt. There was no gray in my brown hair yet, nor had I any noticeable wrinkles. The figure was reasonably trim, though I'd never had much of a waist, even before Adam was born. A bit of sagging along the jawline and the possible presence of emerging turkey neck were really the only signs that betrayed my forty-seven years.

So maybe it was only my mind that was going. Taking small comfort in that fact, I stepped into a worn-out pair of wool pants and pulled a Mariners sweatshirt over my head. Leo's suggestion of a drink sounded like a good idea, even if I wasn't going to have it with him.