The Alpine Obituary Page 5

  An image of Babe and Katharine standing outside the pool hall with rolled stockings and beaded bags raced through my mind’s eye. But all I said was, “That was before your time, right?”

  “Considerably,” Vida agreed. “Oh, here’s an early mention of the Iversens—that’s with an e—in the Blabber from May, 1914 ‘Trygve and Olga Iversen arrived at camp April 30. Trygve will be the new assistant superintendent of the mill. The Iversens bring with them their four children, Per, Karen, Jonas, and Lars. Per, who is a sturdy lad of twenty-two, will work in the mill as a loader.’ ” Vida picked up a pencil and made some notes on a white ruled tablet. “A family tree,” she said with satisfaction. “We’ll be able to see how Marsha might be related. Not to mention”—she winced—“Jack Froland.”

  I found the next Iversen reference in the second edition of the Blabber. “Per, that sturdy young lad, takes a bride in the September issue. Susan Wicks of Seattle. They were married at a Lutheran church in Ballard, like any good Scandinavian of the era.”

  “Ballard,” Vida murmured. “That part of Seattle was almost exclusively Scandinavian until rather recently, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but the ethnic groups have diversified in the past few years.”

  “Trygve Iversen was born in Norway, as was his wife, Olga,” Vida recalled. “My mother once told me that Olga never really learned to speak English. Indeed, she rarely spoke at all. Tsk, tsk.”

  We remained silent for several minutes, perusing the fragile newsletters. “Are we looking only for Iversen/Iverson references?” I finally asked. One more euphoric comment about Mrs. De Bie’s Belgian waffles or Head Cook Patterson’s flapjacks and I was either going to sleep or going to eat.

  “At this point, yes,” Vida replied. “I’m still trying to make the connection with Marsha.”

  “Why don’t we ask her?”

  “I thought she didn’t know,” Vida replied, looking puzzled. “I suppose we could ask again.”

  I dialed Marsha’s home number but got her machine. Next, I tried the courthouse and was put through to her chambers.

  “I dragged my butt in for the morning session,” Marsha said, sounding somewhat better. “Now I’m about to go home and take to my bed again. What’s up?”

  I related that Vida believed Marsha was somehow connected to the Iverson dynasty. “Does that ring any bells?” I asked.

  “The Iversons,” Marsha repeated. “Don’t they own the Venison Inn?”

  I said that was so. “Jack and Helene owned it for years, but when his nephew, Fred, got hurt in the woods, Jack brought him and his wife, Opal, in as partners. Jack’s been threatening to retire.”

  “My Aunt Josephine was married to an Iverson,” Marsha said after a long pause, “but they lived in Mount Vernon. Uncle Burt was killed during World War II, and Aunt Jo remarried a few years later. Frankly, I lost track of her. The last I heard, she was in a nursing home in Port Angeles or some place. She must be ancient.”

  I gave Vida a high sign. “Was your Uncle Burt from Alpine?”

  “I’m not sure,” Marsha responded. “He’d been dead years and years before I was born. We were never close with that side of the family. Aunt Jo was my dad’s sister. My mother and Uncle Burt fought over politics, I think. Anyway, I hardly remember seeing Aunt Jo except at the wedding of one of my brothers. She didn’t come to mine.”

  Vida was making wild gestures with her hands. I became so distracted that I had to terminate the conversation with Marsha. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. There’s a whirling dervish in my office. Get well.”

  I hung up and gave Vida an exasperated look. “What?”

  “Burt Iverson,” Vida said, her gray eyes glinting. “He was one of Per’s children. Burt had married before the war and moved away, then he went in the army and was killed in North Africa. Kasserine Pass, as I recall. Since he’d grown up here, a big fuss was made when we got the sad news. You’ll see his name inscribed on the war memorial at the courthouse.”

  “So that’s the Iverson connection to our judge,” I remarked.

  “Tenuous, at best,” Vida said, adding onto her family tree, which she had transferred to a large sheet from the tablet Leo kept for manually laying out ads. “Josephine—his widow—married a Bergstrom after the war. They lived in Sultan for years, then he died, and Josephine came to live with her daughter. Now what was her name?” Vida thought for several seconds. “Marjorie. Marjorie’s husband—dear me, I forget his name—took a job in Port Angeles. Josephine went into the nursing home here, but left on her own and went to join Marjorie over on the Peninsula. Don’t you remember that Josephine was reported as a missing person about four years ago?”

  “Vaguely,” I replied. “She wasn’t missing for long.”

  “Of course not,” Vida replied. “Marjorie came to the nursing home to collect her mother’s belongings. Then we heard where the crazy old fool had gone. Port Angeles! All those ferries you have to take to get there.”

  “What a scamp,” I murmured as Scott Chamoud squeezed into the office.

  “There’s a forest fire up on Martin Creek,” he said. “Do you want pictures?”

  I gazed—as always with pleasure—at my handsome reporter. “How bad is it?”

  Scott shrugged. “Not too bad right now. But the woods are really dry. Look at all those wildfires we’ve had over in eastern Washington. The arrow on the Skykomish Ranger Station sign still points to ‘extreme danger.’ ”

  It had been a terrible summer for fires, not just in Washington, but across the entire country. Until now, Skykomish County had been spared.

  “Do they know how it started?” I asked.

  Scott was loading film into his camera. “A ground fire broke out early this morning. Careless campers, maybe.”

  “They should be imprisoned,” Vida said.

  I agreed. “Go ahead, Scott, but be careful. Have they brought in a fire crew?”

  “Yes. They’re digging trenches to contain the fire. It’s only about two or three acres. Depending on how the wind blows, the fire could move northwest, right into Martin Creek.” His handsome face looked excited. Scott was still young enough to be enthusiastic about a new kind of assignment, particularly one with a hint of danger.

  “How are you going to get there?” I asked.

  Scott gave me a puzzled look. “In my Jeep. There’s an old logging road. The fire’s at the twenty-eight-hundred-foot level, just south of where Kelley Creek goes into Martin.”

  I glanced at Vida who looked blank, and no doubt sorry for it. I’d never been on that particular road, and I guessed she hadn’t either. There was nothing in the area that couldn’t be seen from a nearer, safer vantage point.

  “Can’t you get a ride up there with one of the Forest Service people?” I asked, feeling like Scott’s mother.

  Scott cocked his head to one side. “Emma, we’re not talking about a conflagration. I don’t mean to disrespect you, but it’s not like Yellowstone or one of those other mammoth fires like they have in eastern Washington.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but be careful. We haven’t had much rain lately. The fire could get out of control in a hurry.”

  Scott saluted, then dashed off to seek his thrill.

  “They intended to burn Alpine to the ground, you know,” Vida said with a dark expression. “Without Mr. Clemans’s mill, the town had little reason to exist. Thank goodness for my father-in-law and Olaf the Obese.”

  I paid brief homage to the old-timers’ entrepreneurial spirit, then leaned back in my chair and stretched a bit. “What are we doing, Vida?”

  “Research.” She frowned at me. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I don’t think the Blabber or early copies of the Advocate are going to tell us much about Marsha Foster-Klein’s great sin. Whatever that may be.”

  I expected Vida to be annoyed, but she wasn’t. “Maybe we’ve found out everything we can from these old issues. At least we know there is a connection between Marsha
and the Iversons.”

  “Which gets us nowhere.” I yawned. The afternoon had grown quite warm, and the sloping tin roof over my cubbyhole raised the temperature inside by at least ten degrees.

  “It’s a start.” Vida stood up, tugging her print dress down over the hem of her white slip. “Surely we’ll find something.”

  By five o’clock, Scott Chamoud hadn’t returned from Martin Creek. I stood on the sidewalk outside of the Advocate office and looked northeast. Sure enough, I could see billows of dark smoke in the further reaches between Mount Baldy and Windy Mountain. A small plane circled overhead, probably a Forest Service lookout. The wind had changed, now coming from the north. I could smell the smoke. That was not a good sign. The fire would be fanned in the direction of Highway 2 with only Deception Creek—which was very low this time of year—in its way.

  I told myself that Scott was probably having the time of his life. He’d been gone only a little over an hour. Putting my worries aside, I went home.

  Such was my state of mind these days that I had sunken to eating TV dinners. But lately, I’d made a small effort to improve my lifestyle. I no longer microwaved the dinners but actually baked them in the oven. One day at a time.

  While waiting for my feast—Mexican tonight, olé!—I drank a glass of bourbon and 7UP and watched the Mariners play the Blue Jays in Toronto. The three-hour time difference meant that I could eat during the last two innings.

  By the time I’d finished dinner and the Mariners had finished the Jays, the smell of smoke had permeated the log walls of my house. I went outside to see if the fire had spread.

  There seemed to be more smoke. My view from above the town showed a haze over the business district six blocks below. The wind had died down; the air was quite still. This wasn’t the first forest fire I’d watched in Alpine, but there was something ominous about the quiet that had settled over the town along with the haze. The entire population couldn’t have gone to see Jack-in-the-Box.

  The phone rang just as I went back inside. It was Scott, calling on his cell.

  “Hey,” he said over a connection that was marred by static, “I got some great pix. This thing has spread toward Embro Lake, but the fire crews expect to have it out by morning.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “Sure.” He laughed, or maybe the sharp sound was static. “I’m kind of warm, but this is really cool. If you know what I mean.”

  “I do.” I’d gone back to the front porch where I gazed again at the billowing clouds of smoke. “Exactly where are you?”

  “Well . . .” Scott sounded uncertain. “I’m on Department of Natural Resources land, according to my buddies here. We’re off the road about a quarter of a mile.” He paused. “What’s that?” Apparently, he was speaking to someone nearby. I could hear another voice, very faint. I could also hear what sounded like the snapping of branches and more dimly, the fire itself. “We’re at about the forty-five-hundred-foot level.”

  “When are you coming down?” I asked.

  “What? I can’t hear you very well.”

  I raised my voice and repeated the question.

  “Not right . . .” There was a loud noise, like a champagne cork, and then nothing but static. Apparently we’d lost the connection. At least, I hoped that was all we lost.

  Maybe, I thought, I should be at the fire scene, too. But if Scott was right, by the time we ran the story in the next issue, it might be relegated to page two.

  For the next two hours, I puttered around the house but kept my eye on the fire across the valley. As darkness settled in, I could see several pockets of flames. The smell of burning wood is usually a pleasant, comforting aroma. But the smoke was thickening over the town and turning acrid. I closed all the windows and considered going to bed.

  The phone rang again just as I was heading into the bathroom.

  “Emma.” It was Vida, sounding perturbed. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, really. Why?”

  “I’m calling from Driggers Funeral Home. Can you come over to the Froland house?”

  “What for?”

  I could hear her take a deep breath. “Something’s amiss,” she said, lowering her voice to its familiar stage whisper.

  “Don’t tell me Jack got out of the box.”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” There was a long pause. “June Froland is in a state of collapse. She insists that Jack was murdered.”

  June 1916

  The mail had arrived as it always did, on the ten-thirty Great Northern freight train. Mary Dawson had picked up the family’s delivery at Alpine’s general store. There was a postcard of the Isle of Wight from her husband’s family in England, the new Sears Roebuck catalog for fall, and a letter from her in-laws in Seattle. Bad news, Mary thought. It was almost always bad news when Fred and the other Mary wrote to their son and his wife.

  Her two older daughters, Monica, nicknamed Babe, and Kate, met her at the door of the family’s small house above the Great Northern railroad tracks.

  “Can we see the catalog, Mama?” Kate begged, trying to elbow Babe out of the way.

  “If you behave like young ladies instead of hooligans,” Mary replied, handing the big book over to Babe. “Here. Don’t get any big ideas.”

  Mary sat down in a spindle-back chair by the window. She read the postcard first: “Fine weather here, fishing tomorrow. Watched the yachts off Cowes yesterday. Will walk the chalk downs Sunday.”

  Reluctantly, Mary opened the letter from the senior Dawsons. Did they need money again? With five children and possibly—Mary wasn’t certain yet—another on the way, it was hard enough to make ends meet on Frank’s salary at the mill.

  But this time Fred and Mary didn’t want to get anything from their kinfolk. They wanted to give. And that was worse news than a request for twenty dollars.

  “Dearest Frank and Mary,” the letter read. “With summer upon us, it is very difficult to keep young Vincent occupied. We thought it would do him good to stay with you for a while in Alpine. He is a good boy, but restless, and sometimes makes Mary very nervy. If it is all right with you, he will arrive next Monday on the four o’clock train. We bless you for your kindness to your poor orphaned nephew.

  “Your Papa and Mummy send their love to all.”

  Mary slapped the letter down on her apron-covered lap. “Nervy, my foot,” Mary said under her breath. “The woman’s crazy as a loon.”

  “What did you say, Mama?” Babe asked as Kate yanked the catalog out of her older sister’s hands.

  Mary smiled guiltily at the girls. “Nothing.” She paused as little Frances toddled into the room on chubby pink legs. “How would you like to have your cousin Vincent for company?”

  Babe clapped her hands. “That sounds wonderful!”

  Kate made a face. “I don’t like Vincent. He’s no good.”

  Frances, who had just turned four, turned blue eyes on her sisters and spit up all over her cotton pinafore.

  Chapter Four

  VIDA GAVE ME the Frolands’ address, which was on Spruce Street across from the high school football field. I got there in under five minutes, recognizing Al Driggers’s black funeral car out front.

  Apparently Al had just arrived. He got out of the driver’s seat as the Reverend Donald Nielsen emerged from the passenger’s seat. Each man opened the rear door on his side of the limo. As I approached from my parking spot a few yards away, all I could see were their bent backs.

  But I could hear high-pitched shrieks coming from inside the funeral car. I was approaching with caution when Vida pulled up in her Buick. I waited for her to join me while a third man backed out of the limo’s rear compartment. As more and more of his black-suited figure appeared, I could see that his hands were gripping a woman’s ankles.

  “That’s Max,” Vida said in her stage whisper as she appeared at my side. “The son. I don’t think June wants to get out of the car. Oh, dear, listen to that! My ears are about to burst.”

 
; Vida wasn’t entirely exaggerating. The piercing screams cut through the smoky air as Max and Al forcibly removed the stricken woman from the limo. Her stout legs flailed, her flabby arms waved, and her vocal cords were strained with hysterical cries.

  For the first time, I noticed a half-dozen people congregated in the Frolands’ front yard. Vida saw them, too, and with one hand on her beribboned black hat, she marched up to the paved walkway.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded of the group. “Didn’t you see what happened after the viewing?”

  Bessie Griswold, who was, to put it charitably, six ax-handles across, set her fists on her wide hips. “What do you mean, Vida? Jack’s kid said there was coffee and cookies at the house. We left the funeral parlor then. What else do we need to know?”

  “Yeah,” chimed in George Engebretsen, one of our aged county commissioners. “June makes those real good ones— krumkake, filled with whipped cream.”

  Vida pointed at the funeral car where Al Driggers and the others were still grappling with June. “There’s no coffee klatch tonight. June is overcome.”

  To prove the point, the bereaved widow let out a blood-curdling shriek.

  “Good God,” exclaimed Jack Iverson, Jack Froland’s nephew and namesake. “Auntie sounds pretty bad.”

  “She is,” Vida declared. “Go home. Now. You’ll have to wait for your treats until after the funeral tomorrow.”

  Bessie Griswold shot Vida a dirty look. “You better not eat all those cookies tonight,” she warned, as she started down the walk. The others trailed behind her. They stopped, however, on the sidewalk as three or four neighbors came out of their houses to see what was going on. June Froland was drawing quite a crowd.

  Reverend Nielsen, with his long-legged step, had hurried ahead to the front porch where he opened the door. Max, who was carrying his mother’s lower extremities, momentarily stumbled over the threshold, causing Al to trip on the porch’s top stair. They bobbled their burden but righted themselves as June Froland emitted a groan that sounded like a cross between that of a wounded bear and a hoot owl.