The Alpine Quilt (6 page)

“That’s a brief story,” Vida asserted. “You or Scott should check to see if there was any serious damage.”

I made a face. “I already did. There wasn’t any.” My mind seemed to be turning to mush. I felt fragmented by the weekend’s events, both happy and sad.

“You’re a total loss,” Vida chided. “Here’s the sheriff. Perhaps he can help. Good morning, Milo. You’ve spilled something on your trousers. I can use that for ‘Scene.’ What is it?”

In surprise, Milo glanced at his pants legs. “Damn. Coffee, I expect.”

If so, I thought, it was a wonder it hadn’t eaten through the fabric. “What’s up?” I inquired, after Vida told him not to curse. “Don’t tell me you have news.”

“Not yet,” he replied, still studying the stain. “We sent Gen’s body to Everett last night, but I don’t expect to hear anything until late today.”

“How late?”

Milo shrugged. “Five, six o’clock. Then again, maybe not until tomorrow.”

“Milo,” I said calmly and slowly, “we have a deadline today. Do you think it might be possible to see if you can goose the Everett MEs into hurrying just a little bit? After all, they owe you. Didn’t you apprehend a bank robber for them last month?”

“Oh—right,” Milo said, finally looking up. “The guy who ran off the road by Deception Falls. No big deal. He wasn’t going anywhere. He had a broken pelvis.”

“That’s not the point. You caught him.” I put on my most pitiful expression. “Please, Milo? Just for the sake of your hometown newspaper?”

“The SnoCo MEs don’t care if I apprehended a perp,” Milo noted. “But I’ll see what I can do.” He strolled over to the table that held the coffeemaker and what was left of the morning’s pastries. “No doughnuts? No cinnamon rolls? What’s this?” He picked up a knish.

I explained. “That one is filled with cheese. The Upper Crust is introducing a few ethnic pastries. We do, after all, have some diversity on the college campus.”

Milo bit into the soft dough. “Not bad,” he remarked, licking his lips.

“A ‘Scene’ item for certain,” Vida murmured, scribbling on a piece of paper.

Milo poured himself half a mug of coffee. “By the way, this might be of interest to you, Vida. When Sam checked out the Pike house this morning, somebody had set a small fire in the backyard. The rain was down to a drizzle by then, so the fire didn’t do much damage. It’s kind of crazy, though. The parts that didn’t get completely burned were some papers that looked like a kind of pattern. There was also a corner of an old quilt. What caught Sam’s eye was that somebody had written on it. It was your mother’s name, Muriel Blatt.”

Vida turned white.

SIX

“It’s just the shock,” Vida assured me after I’d quickly brought her a glass of water. “My mother. Her quilts. She was so clever with her fingers. Goodness.” Vida dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Goodness,” she repeated.

Milo was leaning over Vida’s desk, his face filled with concern. “Would you like . . . what’s left of the quilt?”

Vida vehemently shook her head and blew her nose at the same time. “No. No, not if it’s half-burned.”

“It’s pretty much gone,” Milo conceded. He stood up and framed a foot-wide triangle with his hands. “The only part is the border where her name is, and some red, white, and blue cloth.”

Vida nodded and blew her nose again, sounding much like a herald using his trumpet to proclaim a big event. “Yes, Mother always signed her quilts. Most quilters do. Excuse me,” she said, getting up from her chair. “I must go to the restroom.”

“Poor Vida,” I said when she’d disappeared. “She’s had a rough few days.”

“I guess,” Milo allowed. “I’ve never seen her so upset.”

“Did Mrs. Blatt date the quilt, as well?” I inquired, recalling some of my paternal grandmother’s handsome quilts, three of which I still had at home.

Milo grimaced. “I almost told her what the whole signature deal said. I’m glad I didn’t.”

All at sea, I gazed up at Milo. “Why not?”

“Because,” he said slowly, obviously trying to recall the inscription word for word, “it read ‘Begun February 10, 1974, by Genevieve Bayard,’ written in a different handwriting. Then it said, ‘Completed October 21, 1978, by Muriel May Blatt.’ I thought mentioning Gen’s name so soon after she died might upset Vida. I suppose they were friends.”

Milo and I didn’t know it, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead of the interview I’d scheduled with Gen, I asked Vida if she would talk to Buddy and Roseanna about the dead woman’s life.

Vida refused. She was polite but insisted she had too much catching up to do. In a way, that was true: Our House & Home editor collected potential news items via her vast network of friends and relations. Being out of the loop for the past four days was tantamount to having the Associated Press wire go down.

“Don’t forget,” she added, not quite looking me in the eye, “I have to prepare for my weekly radio show tomorrow night. I’ve already lined up Rosemary Bourgette to talk about her experiences as SkyCo’s prosecuting attorney.”

After eight months, Vida should know that I no longer harbored any resentment for what I’d initially termed her defection to the radio station. Last February she’d sprung
Vida’s Cupboard
on me without warning. That wasn’t fair, but after a few weeks, I got over it. She never used items that should have appeared in the paper first, and her sponsors divided their advertising budget between KSKY and the
Advocate.

Scott, whose main flaw was not making deadlines, already had plenty on his plate. I called Roseanna and told her what I needed as background—if she and Buddy didn’t mind.

Buddy had kept the studio open despite the tragedy, but Roseanna had taken the day off to cope with whatever arrangements might be necessary for Gen’s funeral.

“Come over to the house at two-thirty when the original appointment was set with Gen,” she said in a flat tone. “I’ll make coffee. Or maybe something stronger. I could use a good jolt about now.”

The rain had started again when I climbed the winding stone steps that led up to the Bayards’ brick rambler on Pine Street near Icicle Creek. I felt as if I were going to interview a ghost: Same time, same place—but the subject was dead.

Roseanna met me at the door. Her usual high color was drained, her fair hair drooped, and the sparkle was gone from her blue eyes.

“Can you believe this?” she said in a tired voice. “The first time Gen comes to visit, she dies. Why do mothers-in-law have to be so contrary?”

It dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t looking at grief in Roseanna’s eyes, but frustration. I didn’t know what to say. All I could come up with was, “It’s sad for everyone.”

Roseanna indicated I should sit on the big brown leather sofa, while she flopped into a matching armchair. “Gen wasn’t your average mother or grandmother,” she declared. “Oh, I shouldn’t criticize, but in all the years our three kids were growing up, she never remembered a birthday. Christmas, yes, she could hardly miss that, but otherwise . . .” She waved a hand. “Our kids barely knew her. We hauled them over to Spokane when they were little, but after they got to be teenagers, we gave up coercing them into going with us. It’s a damned shame, really.”

I seemed to have sunk at least six inches into the soft leather. “Not the maternal type, I guess.”

She shook her head. “No wonder Buddy is an only child. I honestly don’t think she liked children. Of course, Gen was very young when she had him.” Roseanna gave me a knowing look.

“Teenagers in love?” I remarked.

“You got it. Gen barely finished high school. Andy was two years older. They got married that June, and Buddy was born in October. You know how it was in those days—a backstreet abortion, a six-month stay at a home for wayward girls, or a shotgun wedding. One way or the other, unwed mothers didn’t keep their babies.” Roseanna’s color suddenly rose. “Damn. I didn’t mean . . .”

I waved away her apology. “I was ‘wayward’ several years later. Abortion was legal by then, but I wouldn’t do it. Just think of me as a pioneer.”

Roseanna smiled weakly. “The Poster Girl for Single Moms,” she said. “Do you want something to drink? A gin and tonic sounds good to me.”

“Go ahead,” I responded. “I still have work to do this afternoon. I’ll take a Pepsi or a Coke if you’ve got it—as long as it’s not diet.”

Roseanna went out into the kitchen. I hauled myself off the sofa and walked into the dining room, where one wall was covered with Buddy’s photographs, most of which were of family and friends. I felt guilty as I studied his artistry. Buddy was very good, although we rarely used his photos except in cases of Mother Nature gone wild. The most recent example was a July thunder and lightning storm where he’d captured some spectacular shots of the summer storm. Maybe I could appease him by buying more of his photographs for the paper. Financially, it wouldn’t make up for the loss of the darkroom job, but he’d get more exposure, perhaps even have some of his work picked up by the wire services.

“The Rogues Gallery,” Roseanna noted as she came out of the kitchen carrying two glasses and a can of Coke. “Did you ever see our wedding picture?” She nodded to her left. “Weren’t we cute? It was our hippie phase.”

Roseanna’s fair hair hung down to her waist; Buddy’s was almost as long, and his beard sprouted in every direction. Their clothes were conventional, however, though I peered closely at the bridal bouquet.

“It’s an artichoke,” Roseanna said. “We were into growing our own vegetables.”

I laughed. “Not artichokes at this elevation, right?”

“Right. But I couldn’t carry radishes or onions. Anyway, it was February. We convinced Father Fitz that the artichoke was an exotic tropical flower. I guess he’d never eaten one.”

“I assume he enforced a dress code,” I said as I accepted the glass of ice and the can of Coke from my hostess.

“You bet,” Roseanna replied. “Of course, my parents were on his side.”

“And Buddy’s, too?”

“Gen and Andy had split up long before that,” Roseanna said, no longer amused. “Andy didn’t come to the wedding, just the reception, where he got so drunk he fell in the punch bowl. He died about four years after we were married. His truck went off the road somewhere south of Seattle and hit a tree. He probably passed out at the wheel. Andy had moved from Alpine just a couple of months before he died. Buddy refused to talk about him.”

I nodded at the wall. “Are there any pictures of his parents here?”

“Just Gen,” Roseanna replied. “One of the few along with our wedding photo that Buddy didn’t take. Here.” She pointed to what looked like an enlargement of a snapshot. Standing on a beach with the ocean or maybe the sound in the background, Genevieve Bayard was wearing shorts and a halter top. She looked as if she was in her mid-twenties, and pretty enough to be a pinup girl.

“She was a knockout,” I said. “She certainly must have had her chances to remarry, especially after Andy died and she could have had a church wedding.”

Roseanna was heading back into the living room. “She probably did. I know she had at least one guy she was living with for a long time, but they never made it official. When we’d visit her in Spokane, she was careful to make sure he wasn’t around. But,” she went on, sitting down again in the easy chair, “Buddy and I knew there was a man stashed somewhere. His belongings were evident around the house.”

“But not in the spare bedrooms?”

“No. We figured they were sleeping together.” Roseanna took a big drink from her G&T. “There were only two bedrooms. When the kids went with us, they had to bring sleeping bags and bed down in the living room. I really can’t blame them for not going with us when they got older. It wasn’t as if she made a fuss over them anyway. I’m sure they felt like excess baggage.”

“That’s sad,” I remarked. Not that I’d ever know what it would be like to be a grandmother.

“Gen was an odd woman,” Roseanna said with a wave of her hand. “What else do you want to know about her?”

Obviously, we couldn’t run an obit with a headline that read
ODD WOMAN DIES IN ALPINE.
“Vida no doubt has the early background filed away in her amazing brain,” I noted. “Why did Gen move away?”

Roseanna shrugged. “I think she got bored, not to mention sick and tired of getting drunken phone calls in the middle of the night from Andy telling her how much he still loved her. She left town about three years after we were married. She went to Seattle for a while, but didn’t like it. Too big. Gen had friends in Spokane, though we never met them. She liked the sun, too, and of course they have more of that in eastern Washington than on this side of the mountains. I suppose Spokane was a natural choice—not really all that far, but smaller than Seattle.”

“And more sun,” I murmured. “More snow, too. Was this really the first time she visited here since she left?”

Roseanna nodded. “Yes. Gen always said she’d had enough of small towns. Her parents—they were the Ferrers, who died long before you came to Alpine—were her only other relatives here. The brother had been a commercial fisherman and drowned in Alaska years ago. Except for Buddy,” Roseanna added on a bitter note, “there was no reason for her to visit. And apparently, he wasn’t enough.”

“She had friends,” I pointed out, “like Annie Jeanne Dupré and the other women in the Burl Creek Thimble Club.”

Roseanna gave me an ironic smile. “Gen and Annie Jeanne. The original odd couple. Yes, that’s so, but she wasn’t really close to the rest of them. Actually, I think she and Annie Jeanne wrote to each other quite often.”

“Did Annie Jeanne ever go to visit Gen in Spokane?”

“Not that I ever heard of,” Roseanna said. “You know Annie Jeanne; she’s so timid. I’m not sure if she’s ever been to Seattle.”

If Annie Jeanne had ever visited the big city, I hadn’t heard of it. That meant Vida hadn’t, either: Vida would not only know, but put the item on her page or in “Scene.” As for Gen, I knew more than I did when I arrived at the Bayards’, but most of it wasn’t fit to print.

“She was a quilter,” I said after a long pause. “Gen must have been clever with her hands.”

“Yes,” Roseanna agreed. “She was good. When we visited, she always showed off the latest outfits she’d made for herself. She didn’t just sew, she could do tailoring. Until a couple of years ago, Gen worked in alterations for women’s stores in Spokane. But she never made anything for us, not even baby clothes when the kids were small.”

“Ah.” Finally we’d hit on something newsworthy. “Do you know what store she worked at?”

“Several,” Roseanna replied, her hand swirling around what was left of her cocktail. “She never stayed long in one place, except for Frederick & Nelson before they closed. Gen always had complaints, especially with the owners of smaller stores. She was with Nordstrom when she retired. Do you need to know exactly?”

I shook my head. “That’s good enough. I suppose she belonged to a parish in Spokane.”

“Yes, the church on the Gonzaga University campus. She had a condo by the river.”

It crossed my mind that the condo would be worth something. Maybe it had crossed Roseanna’s mind, too. If so, she wasn’t looking very happy about it.

“So,” I said, “Buddy and your kids are the sole survivors?”

“Yes.” She wore a dour expression.

Making notes, I nodded. “Full names in order of age are Kenneth, Anne, and Joseph, right?”

“Right.” Roseanna finished her drink. “Kenny’s waiting at WSU to hear about the funeral. If it isn’t held here, he might as well stay in Pullman since it’s so close to Spokane.”

“You don’t know yet where the services will be held?”

“No. We haven’t tracked down her lawyer yet—if she had a lawyer. For all we know,” Roseanna went on in a grim voice, “she left instructions to be buried in Spokane. We’re waiting for Doc or the ME or whoever to sign off on the death certificate. According to Al Driggers, she didn’t have a plot in Alpine.”

“Maybe,” I said, putting my notepad in my purse, “we’ll hear something later today.”

Roseanna stood up. “I hope so. This is a real pain.” She grimaced. “That sounds so callous. It isn’t as if we’d been close to Gen. Buddy’s never known what it’s like to have a doting mother. Oh, she clothed and fed him when he was a kid, but she was never . . .
loving.
I guess that’s the word. Gen was a very cold person, in my opinion.”

I’d struggled out of the deep leather sofa and was moving toward the door. I smiled at Roseanna. “I can’t put that in the paper, either.”

“I know,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“I can run a photo, though,” I said. “Do you have one that’s fairly recent?”

Roseanna snorted. “No. The only one we have is that cheesecake shot on the wall. Not appropriate, right?”