The Alpine Quilt (8 page)

“Where the hell are you, Sluggly?” my brother asked. “I’m drowning on your front porch.”

“Meet me at the paper,” I said. “I’ll explain then. I’ve got the lamb chops with me.” I rang off, turned on the windshield wipers, and reversed out of the parking space. Someone honked behind me. I looked in the rearview mirror. It was Spence in his BMW. I felt like backing up and hitting him.

Instead, I drove a little too fast, but not fast enough to beat my brother, who had a straight shot down Fourth from my little log cabin to the newspaper office.

“What kept you?” he asked ingenuously as he stood by the entrance.

“You’ll kill yourself someday,” I muttered as I unlocked the door. “I’ll gloat before I mourn.”

“Hmm,” he responded, “somebody’s little sister is in a bad mood.”

“Somebody’s big brother is going to be in one when I tell you what’s happened,” I shot back.

“How’s that?” Ben asked as I flipped on the lights in the reception area before heading into the back shop.

I was feeling perverse. “What do you think of having your housekeeper charged with murder?”

Ben looked at me as if I must be joking. But I kept walking until we were in the production area. Kip looked up from whatever he was doing with the optical character scanner.

“Hi, Emma, hi, Father.” Kip stood up. “Are we talking poison as in murder?”

“We don’t say ‘murder’ until Milo does,” I replied. “Don’t worry, I’m going to rewrite the story with great caution.”

“What about
Annie Jeanne
?” Ben demanded, following me back into the newsroom and on into my cubbyhole.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting down and turning on the computer. “I exaggerated. Let me do this first. Then I’ll explain.”

Ben glowered at me before turning around and going out into the newsroom.

It took me a couple of minutes to focus on the new lead. “Alpine native Genevieve Ferret Bayard died early Monday evening after ingesting what the Snohomish County medical examiners termed ‘an overdose of insulin.’ ”

I stared at the sentence. It was as dead as Gen, and I’d misspelled her maiden name. Changing
Ferret
to
Ferrer
, I deleted the rest of the lead. Then I deleted everything except Gen’s name. Next, I called the sheriff’s office.

“Milo’s not there, right?” I said to Deputy Bill Blatt, who also happened to be Vida’s nephew.

“He only left about ten minutes ago for the Bayards’,” Bill said. “Can I help?”

Perhaps because of his kinship—not to mention constant reminders from Aunt Vida about deadlines—Bill was more aware than most about how we put out the paper. “Can you give me the exact wording of the ME’s statement?”

“Want me to fax it to you?” Bill asked.

“Please. Thanks, Bill. I gather there isn’t anything else that Milo didn’t tell me?”

“Um . . .” Bill was as cautious as his boss. “I was standing right by him when he was talking to you. Until we start the investigation, I don’t think there’s anything else we can say yet.”

That made sense. “Can I quote you as saying Gen’s death qualifies as being caused by mysterious or suspicious circumstances?”

“Ouch.” I could picture Bill flinching. “Gee, I wouldn’t want to say that in the paper.”

“I need a quote.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes.”

“Um . . . okay, how about this? I’ll say, ‘Mrs. Bayard’s death will be under investigation.’ ”

It was feeble, but it’d have to do. At least it covered the backsides of the sheriff’s office and the newspaper. “Thanks, Bill. Your aunt will thank you, too.”

“I hope so,” Bill said. “She’s been out of sorts the last few days, even before she went to Tacoma. I guess she gave Buck Bardeen an earful because he hadn’t put Cupcake to bed Monday night. Luckily, she got home before it was really dark. Why do canaries have to have a blanket anyway? Other birds don’t.”

“Other birds don’t live indoors,” I said before ringing off.

Although the fax’s official wording didn’t add anything important, by the fourth try, I had a livelier, more up-to-date lead: “Skykomish County law officials are launching an investigation into the insulin poisoning death of Alpine native Genevieve Ferrer Bayard, who was stricken Monday evening while visiting here.”

Explaining where Gen’s death occurred was a delicate matter. Pending the outcome of the autopsy, I hadn’t yet written that part. No blame must be attached in any way to St. Mildred’s or to my brother. And, as far as I was concerned, to Annie Jeanne.

“Bayard died shortly after dinner with her longtime friend Annie Jeanne Dupré, who was hospitalized with similar symptoms of poisoning. Dupré is recovering at Alpine Memorial Hospital, but is expected to be released today.”

So far, so tactful. But I hadn’t finished the paragraph. Reminding myself of the five W’s of journalism—who, what, when, where, and why—I took a deep breath and continued typing.

“The two women were dining at the rectory of St. Mildred’s Catholic Church, where Dupré is employed as parish housekeeper.”

I looked out into the newsroom. My brother was perusing a bound copy of past editions of the
Advocate.

“Ben,” I called, “I need a quote from you.”

He slammed the volume shut and approached my office. “Why?”

“To save your ass and mine. Here,” I said, quickly printing out the material I’d written, “what comes next is you exonerating the church, Annie Jeanne, and yourself while also expressing shock and sorrow.”

Ben scanned the lines. “Shit.” He bit his lower lip and scowled before signaling me to vacate my chair. “I do better if I write, not talk.”

“Go ahead.” I stood up and wandered around what little space there was in my cubbyhole. Ben typed in fits and starts. After five minutes, he shook his head and got to his feet. “See if this’ll do.”

I sat down again and read what my brother had written.

“Like the entire community of Alpine, I’m devastated by the untimely passing of Genevieve Bayard and by the suffering of Annie Jeanne Dupré. However, I have great confidence in Sheriff Milo Dodge, and I am certain that he’ll be able to determine what might have caused such a horrendous accident. Personally, I blame the Baptists.”

“That’s not funny,” I snarled, deleting the last sentence.

“Hey,” Ben retorted, “don’t lose your sense of humor. You’re wound up like a Swiss watch.”

He was right. I tried to relax. “It’s going on seven. We’re two hours behind already.”

“No, you’re not,” Ben pointed out. “Kip hasn’t been dozing in the back shop; he’s been putting the rest of the paper together. Sure, you’re worried about Annie Jeanne. So am I. But we know she wouldn’t intentionally hurt a fly. So we’ll have to see her through this.”

I agreed. It wasn’t hard to picture Annie Jeanne all aflutter, scurrying around the rectory kitchen and, in her excitement, using the wrong—and deadly—ingredient.

Just before I sent the complete story to Kip, I wondered if we should run a small head shot of Annie Jeanne on page two. There was one in our files, although it had been taken at least fifteen years earlier, before I bought the paper. But Annie Jeanne was one of those people who never appeared to age; she seemed to have been born middle-aged.

I had seen the photo recently, just before Father Kelly left on his sabbatical. Annie Jeanne wasn’t smiling, but looked uncharacteristically severe, with her high forehead and graying black hair pulled back into a tight knot: A cliché, really, of the repressed old maid who might slide off her rocker and do in her nearest and dearest. I decided not to run the photo. It was too easy for readers to imagine the cutline that wasn’t there.

“Annie Jeanne Dupré: church organist, housekeeper—and ruthless poisoner.”

EIGHT

I didn’t have the energy to call Vida that night to relay the latest news. She’d find out soon enough, if, in fact, she hadn’t wormed the story out of Bill Blatt already.

Strangely enough, she hadn’t. “You should have phoned me,” she declared in a testy voice when I announced the autopsy findings to the staff shortly after eight o’clock Wednesday morning. “What got into you?”

I was standing in the middle of the newsroom. Vida was also on her feet, hanging up her mottled brown raincoat. Leo lounged at his desk, caressing his coffee mug as if it were a woman. Ginny was in the doorway to the outer office, and Scott was placing the Upper Crust’s morning offering of elephant ears on our worn plastic tray. Kip, who worked late hours before pub day, was always allowed to come in when he felt like it.

“Why?” I replied in an indifferent voice. “You haven’t had much input on Gen’s Alpine visit, Vida. I didn’t think you’d be that interested.”

Vida stamped her foot. “Nonsense! Of course I’m interested when someone gets poisoned in my hometown!”

She made it sound as if anyone having the temerity to die of unnatural causes in Alpine was a personal affront. I shrugged. “Now you know.”

Vida paced back and forth by her desk. She was wearing the sou’wester today and hadn’t yet taken it off. I kept expecting her to announce she’d found a full lobster pot off the coast of Maine.

I decided to confront her. “Well? Does that mean you’ll write Gen’s official obit when we get the information?”

Vida stopped pacing, standing splayfooted by the hat rack. The sou’wester’s brim had fallen over her eyes, and I could barely see them. “Well. I’ll have to think about that.”

“When you make up your mind, let me know,” I said, and started back into my cubbyhole but stopped just short of the doorway and turned to Scott, who was sampling the baked goods. “Maybe I should take over this story,” I told him.

He looked crestfallen. “I haven’t gotten a really juicy assignment in a long time,” Scott said quietly. “So far, this is just a dumb accident.”

I made a face. “I know. But it involves my brother and my parish. Nobody knows him—or Annie Jeanne, for that matter—as well as I do. I feel a family obligation.”

The gloom lifted from Scott’s handsome face. “That’s true.” He gave me a sheepish smile. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

“I’ll check the sheriff’s log for you while I’m there,” I said. And then, because I hate being at odds with Vida, I asked her to step into my office.

“I forgot to mention this earlier, but Hank Sails died. I’m going to a memorial reception for him in Seattle tomorrow evening at seven o’clock. Do you want to come with me?”

Vida evinced surprise and then sadness. “Hank,” she murmured. “Such a fine, courageous man. Yes, I think I’d like to join you, though going to Seattle so soon after being in Tacoma is something of an ordeal.”

But, I thought, not one she couldn’t endure for the sake of sniffing some funereal atmosphere. To be fair, however, I was certain that Vida had genuinely liked and admired the longtime newspaperman. Most people in the profession did.

Fifteen minutes and one cinnamon twister later, I was walking through the rain to the sheriff’s office, a block away on Front Street. Like many people who were born and raised in Seattle, I didn’t own any bumbershoots, as my parents had called them. The rain in the city was seldom more than a drizzle, and the first stiff wind turned the umbrellas inside out. They were more trouble than they were worth. Despite the more severe weather in Alpine, I remained staunch—and often wet. No umbrella for Emma, but always a jacket with a hood.

“No,” Milo said as soon as I came through the front door.

“No?” I flipped back the hood and went up to the curving reception counter. “You mean you have nothing new for me?”

“Yes.”

Jack Mullins snickered and Toni Andreas smothered a giggle. Sucking up to the boss, I thought, at Emma’s expense. “No break-ins?”

“No.”

“No words of more than one syllable?”

Milo looked exasperated. “We’re stalled until Doc Dewey releases Annie Jeanne from the hospital and lets us talk to her. Meanwhile, we’ve got Buddy on our necks. Not to mention half your damned parish has been calling us all morning. They heard it on the radio.”

Milo made the last statement with a slight smirk. “Okay,” I said, giving in, “let me see the log. I’m filling in for Scott this morning.”

“What’s wrong with Scott?” Toni asked, her brown eyes wide with concern.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Forget it, Toni, he’s taken.”

She sighed. “I know. But still . . .” Her voice trailed off as she went back to making entries on the computer.

The log had only five entries: three speeders on Highway 2, none of them local; one DUI, a college student; and one shoplifting incident involving Myra Sundvold, our local kleptomaniac, whose husband, Dave, was a retired telephone company vice president and could afford to pay for the items his wife stole.

“Is Myra being charged?” I asked Milo, who was going over a schedule for target practice at the shooting range in Everett.

He shook his head but didn’t look up. “Nope. She never is, but we still have to log it if the merchant calls in a complaint. This time it was a bottle of suntan oil from Parker’s Pharmacy.”

“Are the Sundvolds going on a trip?” I inquired.

Milo shook his head again before setting the schedule aside. “Not that I know of. Myra usually steals stuff she can’t use, like paste-on tattoos and contraceptives and dog food.”

“I take it they don’t own a dog?”

“They don’t.” Milo looked bemused, then leaned one hand on the counter. “There was another complaint we didn’t bother to put in the log. Will Pace from the Alpine Falls Motel called to say that the guy who didn’t check out on time did steal something—a local phone book. That didn’t seem worth our time.”

Stealing an Alpine directory struck me as odd. “Where was the guy from?”

“California,” Milo answered, as if that explained everything.

But his answer struck me as even more odd. “So this Californian comes to Alpine, stays one night, and steals a phone book? Isn’t that a little weird?”

“I told you,” Milo said doggedly, “he’s from California, and those people can be really weird.”

I pointed to the log. “Weirder than Myra Sundvold?”

The sheriff held up his hands to forestall an argument. “Okay, okay. So we have some oddballs here, too. I suppose the guy wanted to call somebody before he left town. Will charges three bucks for every call from the motel.”

At that price, I didn’t blame the guy for ripping off one of Will’s phone books. “What was his name?”

“The guy?” Milo was looking annoyed again. “I don’t know.” He turned to Jack, who was pouring himself a mug of coffee. If that stuff hadn’t poisoned anybody, I suspected that the sheriff’s staff could withstand even an overdose of insulin. “Did Will give you the name of the motel guy?” Milo asked his deputy.

“Yeah,” Jack replied, “I’ve got it somewhere. Hang on.” He rummaged around on the top of his desk. “Here. It’s Anthony Knuler of Sacramento, California.”

I thought for a moment. “I don’t know anybody by that name around here. I guess he wasn’t visiting his relatives.”

Milo shrugged. “Whatever.”

I took the not-so-subtle hint and left. The rain had almost stopped. The gray clouds were lifting, swirling like phantoms across the base of the mountains. I could see Baldy, almost to the five-thousand-foot level. There was no new snow at that elevation yet, but the past few autumns had stayed warmer. Too warm, as far as the hydroelectric companies and the ski industry were concerned.

It was only a steep block up Third from the sheriff’s headquarters to the hospital. I decided to see how Annie Jeanne was doing. The old bank clock on the sidewalk down the street informed me it was just after nine. Annie Jeanne should have had her breakfast and be preparing to go home by eleven, the usual time for hospital releases.

Olga Bergstrom was on duty again, and so was Dwight Gould. Judging from the way they were glowering at each other, it looked as if they weren’t getting along. As I approached the nurses’ station, I noticed that Olga had her hands pressed over a copper-colored candy box.

“It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a law enforcement officer. You are
not
entitled to sample the staff’s belongings,” she declared with a harsh look for Dwight. “This was a Halloween present from Dr. Sung. And nobody sticks a thumb into the chocolates to see what flavor they are. That’s absolutely taboo.”

Dwight, who had put on weight in the past few years, glared right back, but noticed me and kept his mouth shut.

“How’s Annie Jeanne?” I asked, directing my question to Nurse Bergstrom.

“Mopish,” Olga replied. “I told you, one of those people who are all over the chart when it comes to moods. Really, I don’t see why it’s so difficult to maintain a happy medium.”

Nurse Bergstrom might be medium, but she didn’t seem very happy. “Is Annie Jeanne being released this morning?”

“Yes. Dr. Dewey has made rounds already,” Olga replied, keeping her eye on Dwight, lest he attempt to vault the counter and snatch away the candy box. “I understand your brother is picking her up around eleven.”

“May I see her for a moment?” I inquired in my most humble manner.

Peering at me as if I had
HOSPITAL TERRORIST
stamped on my forehead, Olga frowned. “To what purpose?”

“I’m a friend,” I said, not quite so humble. “We belong to the same church, remember?”

Olga relented. “Very well.” She shot a glance at Dwight, perhaps to make sure he’d watch my every move through the ICU window.

“Hell of a mess,” Dwight muttered as I went past him. “You sure your brother’s feeling okay?”

“As far as I know,” I responded, none too amiably.

Annie Jeanne was still in bed, the single sheet rumpled and only half-covering her. She didn’t look to see who had come through the door.

“Annie Jeanne,” I said softly, “it’s me, Emma.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounded faint, but she turned her head slightly.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked, standing close to the bed. There was no visitor’s chair in the ICU. Even though Annie Jeanne had passed the crisis stage, Doc Dewey apparently had felt she’d be better off staying put. Or maybe that had been Milo’s “procedural” decision.

“Oh, Emma!” Her voice was still weak, but it was charged with emotion. “How could I?”

I took her thin hand. Her color was still very bad, and she looked as if she’d lost ten pounds. The graying black hair was splayed all over the pillow, like small, dead twigs.

“Listen, Annie Jeanne, it wasn’t your fault. How could it be? You’d never harm anyone. Please don’t beat yourself up. Milo will get to the bottom of this, and Ben and I will help him.”

“That’s so sweet,” Annie Jeanne said listlessly. “But it won’t change things. I still killed my oldest friend.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I asserted, stroking the back of her hand. “What could you possibly have in the rectory kitchen that might be dangerous?”

The question only made Annie Jeanne look more dispirited. “Deputy Gould says just about anything can kill someone if they take enough of it.”

“But do you have insulin anywhere in the rectory?”

“Isn’t that what they make bombs from?” Annie Jeanne seemed bewildered. “No, of course not. I don’t even keep rat poison on hand. Or traps, for that matter. I haven’t seen a rat at St. Mildred’s in years, and if I find a mouse, I use the broom to shoo it outdoors.”

Her skin was so dry. Annie Jeanne obviously was dehydrated. I offered her a drink from the plastic tumbler next to the bed. While she took a couple of sips, I posed another query.

“What did you and Gen have for dinner?”

Annie Jeanne flinched and set the tumbler down. “I can’t bear to remember it.”

“But you have to,” I said gently. “I’m sure it was all very wholesome.” Except for the poison, I thought to myself.

“Well . . .” Annie Jeanne’s face displayed a lightning-quick series of emotions—regret, sorrow, anxiety, fear, and concentration. I imagined that her illness had been traumatic, causing her brain as well as her memory to go off track. “You must realize,” she began slowly, “that Genevieve was always very weight conscious. She used to tease me when we were young about how I could stay so thin, while just looking at a candy bar made her gain half a pound.” The faintest of smiles touched Annie Jeanne’s mouth. “She always had a sweet tooth, you see. But she was very disciplined. That’s how she kept her figure.” Gazing down at her lean frame, Annie Jeanne sighed. “I never actually had one.”

“The majority of women in this country would envy you for being so slim,” I put in. “More than half of them are overweight these days.”

“Oh?” Annie Jeanne didn’t seem interested in fat females. “Anyway, Gen told me at the BCTC party not to make a heavy dinner. And not to go to a lot of trouble, either. She was so thoughtful that way.” Another slight smile. “So I kept it simple—roasted Cornish game hens with white and wild rice stuffing, fresh green beans, and—this is where I just had to splurge—chocolate cheesecake for dessert. I told Gen she was on vacation and should piggy up—as we used to call it when we were young—because nothing else in the meal was that rich. She couldn’t resist. Gen had three slices to my one. I intended to send the rest home with—” Annie Jeanne stopped and began to cry.

I patted her arm and said soothing words. No wonder Annie Jeanne was dehydrated: Besides having her stomach emptied, she’d shed a couple of gallons of tears in the past twenty-four hours. I couldn’t blame her; I tried to imagine how I’d feel if I’d accidentally poisoned Vida. Even when I was annoyed with her, the thought was unbearable.

By the time Annie Jeanne got herself under control, Ben was tapping on the glass. I motioned for him to come in. Apparently he’d passed muster with Nurse Olga.

“Hey, ladies,” Ben said in his crackling voice, “it’s checkout time. Let’s blow this joint.”

“Oh, Father Ben!” Annie Jeanne looked as if she was going to cry again.

“Hold it,” Ben said with a smile. “We need to say our prayers. Come on, Emma, get down on your knees, you sinner you.”