The Alpine Quilt (17 page)

“You’re not a TV fan,” I remarked, for lack of anything more cogent to say.

Annie Jeanne shook her head. “Television is the source of moral depravity in this country. If there’s something I want to see on the news, I go to the parlor. Father Dennis had a set installed there for people who had to wait to see him. He paid for the satellite dish out of his own pocket. I understand that reception in Alpine is poor because of the mountains. Frankly, I think those dish things are very ugly.”

“They are,” I agreed, as always trying to ignore the fact that one stood in my own backyard. “How do you spend your spare time, Annie Jeanne?”

“I knit. I listen to the radio. I read. The time passes.”

I glanced at a bookshelf across the room. The dozen or more books that sat between praying pixie angels were mostly paperbacks. “What do you read?”

Annie Jeanne flushed again. “Love stories, mostly. Some biographies.”

Even from twenty feet away, I could see the paperbacks’ spines: romances all, of the sweet rather than steamy variety, except for the photos of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor on the two biographies.

“You’re feeling much better, I hear.” It was an exaggeration, of course.

The response was an uncertain nod. “Yes,” Annie Jeanne said, “every day, I seem to get a bit stronger.”

I stood up. “Good for you. Betsy O’Toole told me you wouldn’t be able to play the organ for the weekend Masses. You have to be ready for next week. We all miss you so much.” That wasn’t an exaggeration; it was close to an outright lie.

“We’ll see,” Annie Jeanne replied in a pessimistic tone.

“You can do it,” I declared with a pat on the shoulder for Annie Jeanne. “Try to eat more. You need to build yourself up.”

She didn’t reply except for a noise that was half sniff, half grunt. I returned to the kitchen. Talking about food had made me realize how hungry I was, and no wonder—it was almost seven-thirty. I opened cupboard doors and the fridge. It looked as if most of the items that the sheriff had confiscated for testing had been returned: There were partially used spices, bags of flour and sugar, and jars of various condiments. All were presumably innocent, poison-free. It also appeared that the O’Tooles had generously donated some staples.

I decided against raiding the rectory. Ben wouldn’t return for probably half an hour. There was no point in waiting, especially since I was starving. I locked the door behind me and left my brother a note under a rock I placed on the mat: “Use your key, unless you forgot it. If so, use a window. Love, Sluggly.”

Vida called shortly after I got home. “I hear via the grapevine that you actually did see Mary Lou this afternoon. Whatever could that idiot have had to tell you that might be of interest?”

“Not much,” I hedged. “I wasn’t keeping it a secret. You weren’t around when I got back, and then you seemed to be on the phone until I left a few minutes early.”

“I don’t see why it was necessary to talk to her in the first place,” Vida huffed.

“I’m trying to contact all of the club members,” I replied. “If you’d help me out, I wouldn’t have to do this.”

There was a pause. “Very well. Who’s left?”

I ticked the names off, including yet another shirttail relation of Vida’s, Nell Blatt.

“Oh, dear,” Vida sighed. “Nell is somewhat gaga. I really think you should talk to Debra Barton. She belongs to your church, after all. I’ll do Grace Grundle over the phone. I simply can’t stand to step foot in that cat menagerie of hers. I’m told she had nine of the little beasts at last count. Besides, Grace is addled—as is Darla Puckett, so I might as well handle them both, since I’m better at translating their nonsense than you are. Who else? Oh, Jean Campbell. She and Lloyd are leaving for a week in Hawaii. Imagine, sitting around in all that awful sunshine this time of year! How can you possibly get into the holiday spirit in weather like that?”

“It sounds like they’ll be back before Thanksgiving,” I noted dryly. “Surely then they’ll have enough rain and maybe even snow to set them straight.”

“Don’t be smart,” Vida admonished. “You hate hot weather as much as I do. It’s unnatural. Why do you suppose they describe hell as hot?”

“I think it’s supposed to be more than ninety degrees there.”

Vida ignored my latest comment. “Is that everybody? What about Edith Bartleby? Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, of course.”

I related my brief encounter with Edith at the bakery. “Incidentally,” I added, “Ben was having dinner with Regis Bartleby this evening.”

“He won’t know anything,” Vida asserted.

“Ben isn’t sleuthing,” I pointed out. “This is a pastoral get-together.”

“Your brother should be sleuthing,” Vida insisted. “He has to clear the parish’s good name. Does Father Kelly know what’s happened?”

“I’m sure Ben e-mailed him,” I said. “Frankly, I didn’t ask. Ben and I haven’t had much time together lately. We’ve both been busy.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Vida suddenly sounded vague. “Just what did that idiot of a Mary Lou have to tell you?”

“I talked to her mainly about the party for Gen,” I replied.

“That’s it? We already knew that, didn’t we? I mean,” Vida went on, “how everyone was so lovey-dovey.”

“Pretty much,” I allowed.

“Hunh.” She paused. “Was that all?”

“She traced the route of the cookies,” I said.

“We knew that, too,” Vida said in a disdainful voice. “Nothing more?”

“Nothing important,” I fibbed.

There was another pause. I heard the wind whistling down the chimney and the rain pelting the windows—but nothing from Vida for so long that I thought we’d been disconnected.

When she did speak again, it wasn’t about Mary Lou or the mysterious death of Gen Bayard. “I hear you’re going out with that Rolf Fisher.”

“Yes, he actually called.”

“So Leo told me. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m going to dinner, that’s what I’m doing.”

“You know what I mean. I met him at the memorial for Hank Sails. Rolf Fisher is definitely not to be trusted. He’s far too smooth, not at all like Tommy or Milo.”

It had always irked me that Vida referred to Tom as “Tommy.” She’d done it to his face, and although he seemed amused, I never was. “Tom was fairly smooth,” I asserted.

“He was poised, not smooth,” Vida countered. “There’s a difference.”

A vision of Rolf Fisher looking like an oil slick came to my mind’s eye. “Rolf simply has a line. I’d like to see if there’s something more to him. He may not be as slick as you think.”

“We’ll see.”

It took all my self-discipline not to call Buddy and Roseanna Bayard that night. But I respected their wishes to wait until morning. I called Milo instead. It was well after nine, and he’d just gotten home.

“The Bayards never heard of a half brother or anybody named Knuler,” Milo said, his voice weary. “We ran the name through the computer again, not just the perp database, but every other site we could think of. No Knulers anywhere, at least not in this country or Canada.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” I pointed out.

“He sounds like a guy who doesn’t want to be found,” Milo said glumly.

“He’ll have to reveal himself if this ploy of his is all about inheritance.”

“Ploy? What the hell do you mean by that?” Milo demanded.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Look—the guy comes to town, checks into a motel, spends one night, steals a phone book, makes a date with me, then takes off after he’s looked at a copy of the
Advocate.
Did he come to Alpine to meet his alleged mother? Did he come to kill her? Did he arrive before or after she was poisoned? Did he know she was dead when he got here?”

“Slow down,” Milo cautioned. “You’re going too fast. And you’re speculating.”

“Well?” My tone was impatient. “Can’t you track Knuler from his California plate and driver’s license?”

“We could if they were real,” Milo retorted. “The address is illegible, the driver’s license hasn’t checked through yet, and we got word from Sacramento just before I left the office that the plate number belongs to somebody who drives a Bentley in L.A. Knuler probably reversed the numbers or letters, and that dim bulb of a Will Pace never checked it out. It’ll take time to run through different plate combos—and even then, a letter or a number might be omitted or changed.”

“So his name may not be Knuler,” I murmured. “He definitely sounds wrong. Say, I looked at a map. Citrus Heights is right by Sacramento—a suburb, from the looks of it. Don’t you have somebody in the state capital who could find out if Knuler was a troublemaker? Assuming he really lives in Citrus Heights, of course.”

“I might be able to give someone a shove,” Milo said in a reflective voice. “I looked at a map, too. You know what else is close by?”

“Not offhand,” I admitted.

“Folsom Prison,” Milo said.

SIXTEEN

Milo wasn’t in the mood to continue our conversation. He said he’d let me know when they heard anything more from Sacramento—or Citrus Heights. Knowing how much he hated guesswork, I had to smile at his own speculation that Anthony Knuler might be an ex-con. It was possible. Down Highway 2, the Monroe Correctional Complex sat cheek by jowl with the town itself. Many wives and girlfriends moved into the area while their loved ones were serving time. When prisoners were released, they often moved into established residences. The same might be true for Folsom’s ex-inmates.

The possibility—not to mention Knuler’s own activities over the past few days—kept me awake until almost two
A.M.
I sensed that some missing piece of the puzzle was right before my eyes. But I’d be darned if I could figure out what it was.

Saturday brought less wind but harder rain. There was a small rock slide on Highway 187, above the old mine shafts. I called Scott to ask him to take some photos of the slide and the work crew that was going to clear it.

After breakfast, I went through my wardrobe, seeking an appropriate outfit to wear to dinner with Rolf Fisher at the ski lodge. Not a dress—though I had but two of those. Not a pantsuit—too formal, and the only good one I owned required a trip to the dry cleaner. Besides, I’d worn it to Hank Sails’s memorial. The sweater I’d worn with it also needed to be cleaned. Slacks and a sweater—but nice slacks, pretty sweater. None of my slacks were nice, and none of my clean sweaters were pretty. My clothes were definitely suited to my working lifestyle.

I recalled that Leo had shown me the mock-up of a Francine’s Fine Apparel ad that would appear in the next edition. Francine Wells was having a Thanksgiving sale. Maybe she could come to my rescue if my credit card would bear it.

I arrived at the shop just after Francine opened the doors at ten o’clock. Three other women were also eager beavers: May Hashimoto from the college; Sherry Medved, the local veterinarian’s wife; and Marisa Foxx, an attorney and a fellow parishioner. We all went straight to the sale rack. Apparently, word of the upcoming sale had leaked out. But the sight of the trio brought back memories of a Saks Fifth Avenue sale I’d gone to in Beverly Hills when Ben and I took Adam to Disneyland. It was a war zone. Women exchanged blows over blouses, shoves over shoes, and punches over purses. I hadn’t seen anything like it up close since the protest rallies of the seventies. Customers had to share dressing rooms, and a saleswoman shrewdly paired me with another intimidated tourist. Alpine was another world, at the opposite end of the frenzy scale.

But Francine managed to stay in business. She never tried to deceive her customers. If she had, she wouldn’t have lasted long in this up-front town. “I haven’t marked anything down yet, but I’ll give you the discount anyway if you don’t tell anybody.” She winked. “All the sale items are from the first fall shipments. Times are tough, and I overbought on the Anne Kleins and Ellen Tracys. Those two Tahari suits are knockouts, by the way.”

They were, but not intended for a five-foot-four woman with no waist and too much bust. Along with Marisa Foxx, I browsed through the Ellen Tracys.

“Who around here is a size four, Francine?” Marisa demanded.

“I am,” piped up the petite May Hashimoto. “Where did you find a four?”

“I’m a six,” Sherry Medved, former Washington State University cheerleader, declared in her perky voice. “Usually,” she added, not quite so perkily.

Separates,
I thought, trying to focus. Separates were so versatile.

“Your poor brother,” Marisa murmured as we both searched the size tens. “I understand that some of the parishioners are afraid to attend Mass this weekend.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I declared, keeping my voice down.

But Francine, also a parish member, had overheard us. “Stupid rumors,” she said, not bothering to be discreet. “Does anyone really believe that Father Ben or Annie Jeanne, for that matter, would go off on a poisoning spree?”

“It’s mostly the elderly,” I said. “Fuddled, maybe.”

“That’s no excuse,” Marisa snapped in her best courtroom manner. “Have you had much negative feedback at the paper?”

“The usual cranks,” I said. “I’m used to them. Ben—or Den—is the Antichrist, and I’m Satan’s handmaiden. Blah-blah, misspell, wrong punctuation, incorrect word usage, et cetera.”

“You should run them,” Francine asserted, “to show your readers what you have to put up with and how stupid they are.”

I shook my head. “I only run letters if I can verify the signature. The real cranks are either anonymous or use a pseudonym. But I still know who most of them are.” And the irony was that when I met them on the street or in the store, they smiled and greeted me as if I were their best buddy. Maybe, in a pathetic way, I was.

But suddenly, I was distracted, as if a powerful spell had been cast over me. The three pieces were hung together, but sold separately: a long brown cashmere cardigan, a long-sleeved taupe cashmere pullover with a halter neckline, and taupe wool cuffed slacks.

Francine was quick to note a customer’s rapture. “There’s a belt that goes with it on the accessory sale table. Brown calfskin, with a gold medallion.”

“I don’t wear belts,” I reminded Francine.

“This is a hip belt,” she responded. “Come, take a look. You have slim hips. You could wear it with real flair.”

“Yikes!” I’d looked at the price tags. “Out of my league.”

“Oh.” Francine was unfazed. She brushed at her carefully coiffed blond hair before taking all three garments off the rack. “Just try them. Obviously, I haven’t marked everything down yet. I was going to do that tomorrow when we’re closed, since the ad won’t run until Wednesday. You’re getting the preview.”

I was dubious, but like a sacrificial lamb, I allowed Francine to lead me into a dressing room. I was putting the cardigan on over the rest of the ensemble when she appeared with the hip belt.

“It’s meant to cover the sweater hem,” she informed me, putting what I considered the useless accessory around me. “There! Now have a look.”

It was certainly a different me, if not a radical renovation. Ignoring the wash-and-wear hair and the lack of makeup, I looked taller and even younger. The brown and taupe tones complemented my brunette coloring. I was still in love, even with the low-slung belt.

“How much?” I squeaked.

“Let me see.” Francine checked out all four price tags. “I won’t kid you, this stuff’s expensive, even on sale. But damn, Emma, it’s worth it. When did you last spoil yourself? Before the turn of the century?”

That was true. I hadn’t bought anything really nice since Tom died. “How much?” I repeated.

Francine slipped a calculator out of the pocket of her wine-colored wool jersey dress. “Just a sec . . . a little over nine hundred. But think of how you could play off of this outfit. I’ve got a beige blouse that would look wonderful with it, and a brown sweater with a funnel neck that—”

“Stop.” I’d turned solemn. “I can’t. For one thing, the slacks need to be taken up. I wanted something I could wear tonight.”

“Tonight?” Like a sleek cat, Francine’s ears seem to lie back. “Is he worth nine hundred dollars?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You won’t find out unless you look good,” Francine declared. “Let me get the blouse and the sweater. I’ll give Marcella Patricelli a call to see if she could alter the slacks today.”

My protests were feeble. The two additional pieces worked beautifully with the slacks. I was surrendering like an unarmed soldier in the face of an enemy battalion. Besides, Francine was right. A little pampering was in order. I’d look very chic in debtors’ prison.

Twenty minutes later, and almost thirteen hundred dollars poorer, I walked happily, yet dazedly out of the shop and headed for Paul and Marcella Patricelli’s home in Ptarmigan Tract. Marcella had married into the large Patricelli clan shortly after I arrived in Alpine. Unlike his brother, Pete, who owned a pizza parlor, Paul didn’t believe in hard work. He took the occasional odd job, and let Marcella support him and their four kids with her sewing.

“How come,” I asked as she measured the slacks, “you’ve never joined the Burl Creek Thimble Club?”

“I sew for money, not gossip,” Marcella replied, after taking pins out of her mouth. “I have to be professional. That means concentrating without a bunch of old bags talking my ear off.”

She stood up, ordering me to run around in front of the full-length mirror. “Besides,” she added, “I’d rather not get poisoned.”

“Genevieve wasn’t poisoned during the club’s party,” I pointed out.

Marcella, who was short and stocky with beautiful curly black hair, shot me a dark look. “It’s a wonder. I did go to a meeting once, years ago. It soured me on joining. They talked about other women in town in the most awful way. Criticize this one, rake over that one, make mean remarks about another—including one of the members who hadn’t been able to come. I sure didn’t want to join a group like that. They should call it the Cat Club.”

“They were that vicious?”

Marcella motioned for me to turn around slowly. “That’s good. These slacks are really beautifully made. I’ll have them done by four.” She picked up some fallen pins while I stepped out of the slacks. “Yes,” she continued, “they were. I hadn’t gone there to hear how so-and-so drank on the sly, or such-and-such was having an affair. I don’t know how they ever accomplished anything. Of course, most of them don’t.”

“Ethel Pike did,” I said. “She won a blue ribbon at the county fair.”

“Ethel must have done some of her work at home,” Marcella stated. “She had one of the sharpest tongues. A bitter woman, I’d say.”

“How long ago was this?” I asked, putting on my worn black slacks.

“Oh—seven, eight years ago. It was while I was expecting Paul Jr. He was eight in August.”

“I don’t suppose they talked about Gen that night,” I remarked.

Marcella frowned. “I honestly don’t remember who all they shredded. Except your Vida Runkel. Her sister-in-law, Mary Lou Blatt, was especially nasty.”

“In what way?” I inquired, hoping to sound casual.

“In every way,” Marcella replied, hanging my new two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar slacks from a hanger. “I don’t remember specifics, I just recall that she raked Vida up and down from every angle—as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a journalist, you name it.”

“Did anyone defend Vida?”

Marcella shrugged. “I don’t really recall that, either. It’s been a while. Maybe Nell Blatt made some feeble protest. She seemed to be the nicest of the bunch, though a bit vague.”

“Certainly Edith Bartleby wasn’t cruel,” I said.

“Edith? Oh, the vicar’s wife.” Marcella was leading the way to the door. “Edith wasn’t there. They made cracks about her being standoffish and a snob, not to mention holier-than-thou.”

Maybe when Edith was present, cutting remarks about others weren’t acceptable. It was possible that Marcella had been there on one of those rare nights when the Betsys had let loose.

My next stop was the Bayards. On Saturdays, Buddy and Roseanna worked until noon. Then Roseanna took the paperwork home while Buddy spent the rest of the day in the darkroom. I arrived at the studio fifteen minutes before their early closing time.

“Buddy’s taking pictures of the Erlandsons for their Christmas card,” Roseanna informed me. She looked tired and unkempt.

“Bad night?” I said.

“Terrible.” She ran a hand through her red-gold curls. “I don’t think either of us slept for more than a couple of hours. What next? Another supposed sibling for Buddy? This is all just crazy.”

“What about birth records?” I asked. “Surely they can be checked out.”

“Not over a weekend,” Roseanna replied in disgust. “And how do we search? Dodge already told us that they can’t find any Knulers anywhere. Checking out Bayards is useless; all our kids had to do that in sixth grade when they put together a family tree. We saved the projects, and I checked them over last night. No Anthony. I’ll admit, only Annie went beyond using the Internet. She contacted the Mormons in Salt Lake City.”

Ginny, Rick, and their two young children exited from the rear. They all looked harried, if festive, in their red and green elf costumes.

“Hi, Emma,” Ginny greeted me. “Are you having a portrait done?”

“I’m on the job,” I said. “Your editor and publisher never sleeps.”

Ginny smiled. Rick grabbed their youngest, Brett, who apparently had decided he wanted some retakes and was running back into the studio’s inner sanctum.

“I’m lucky I work only five days a week.” Ginny glanced at Roseanna. “Did you and Buddy get our sympathy card?”

Roseanna said they did indeed, and offered appreciation. Rick and Ginny, each with a boy firmly in tow, completed the process at the front desk. After they’d left, I asked Roseanna if they’d heard from Gen’s attorney in Spokane.

“Yes, finally,” she replied with a grimace. “Gen left no instructions about her burial or any services. Bogus claim or not on the part of this Knuler jerk, we’re going to have a funeral Mass at St. Mildred’s and bury Gen here. I’m calling Al Driggers and Father Ben this afternoon to make the arrangements.”

“How about Tuesday?”

Roseanna shot me a knowing look. “So you can have it in the paper Wednesday?” She shrugged. “Why not? The sooner the better.”

Assuming my most confidential manner, I leaned against the tall desk. “Can you recall even a
hint
that Gen might have had another child or remarried?”

Roseanna shook her head. “She had a guy—maybe guys, over time—living with her. I told you that. But Gen never mentioned a male friend. He was like a phantom.”

“The lawyer didn’t know anything, I suppose?”

“No. He—his name is George Vaughn—only saw Gen a couple of times,” Roseanna said as Buddy came into the reception area. “When she made her will, and when she needed a copyright for her quilts.”

Buddy was scowling, not at me, but at the world in general. “I stopped by the diner this morning,” he said. “Terri Bourgette figured this Knuler character for mid-thirties at most. That’d mean that my mother would have had him—not that I think she did—when she was in her forties, after she moved to Seattle.” He scowled, apparently considering the possibility. “But I saw her a couple of times when I was in the city. I think I’d have noticed it if Mom had been pregnant.”