The Alpine Christmas Read online

  “I suppose,” I mused, “there’s no way to connect this corpse with the leg?”

  Milo gave me a wry glance. I made a face. There didn’t seem to be any way to discuss this case without uttering something that sounded like a bad joke. “No. Two different parts of the river, probably a time frame of three or four months’ difference. It’s probably just a coincidence.”

  “Probably.” I had to agree, yet I wasn’t much of a believer in coincidences that didn’t mean anything. “But you’ve got to admit that there could be. What about foul play?”

  Before Milo could answer, the phone rang. It was Vida. “I’m almost out the door,” she said in a rush, “but Marje Blatt just called from Doc Dewey’s office.” Marje was Vida’s niece and Gerald Dewey’s receptionist. As such, Marje walked a fine line between strict patient confidentiality and her aunt’s mighty badgering. Her aunt usually had the edge. “Marje worked late tonight, so she was still around when young Doc started the autopsy. He practically had a fit—that body Milo and your brother dug out of the snowbank had been frozen!”

  I pulled back, staring at the receiver. Had Vida lost it, along with Father Fitz? “I should think so,” I said calmly. “It’s been getting down to about ten above zero the last few nights. You’d be frozen, too, if you were lying under a snowbank in the Skykomish River.”

  Vida’s tone was not only rushed, but impatient. “I mean frozen beforehand. She’d thawed a bit, maybe the other afternoon when it got up to thirty-six. Monday, wasn’t it? Think about it—I’ve got to head out to the Grange Hall. By the way, Doc can’t find Milo. He doesn’t answer his beeper.”

  Milo called young Doc right away. Yes, Doc figured the victim had been left to freeze, judging from the internal organs, then somehow had been partially thawed. Definitely, foul play: signs of trauma, a blow to the head. Blunt instrument, no idea what, brick, bat, or bowling trophy—that was Milo’s department. When? Hard to tell, given the frozen state of the corpse. Maybe, said young Doc, four or five days, possibly longer. No, there was no sign of sexual assault or of recent intercourse. As for the tattoo, Doc hadn’t gotten around to that yet. Ever the man of science, young Doc was more interested in the medical post-mortem than in such superfluous details as who he was performing it on. Milo looked very unhappy when he hung up.

  “Now the rest is up to us,” he sighed after relaying Doc Dewey’s multiple messages. “You wait and see, everybody will jump on that spare leg and figure we’ve got a serial killer loose. Damn.”

  The Burlington Northern whistled in the distance, a mournful sound. Outside the window, I could see snow piling up, drifting against the small panes, obscuring the rest of the world. The train whistled again. Irrelevantly, I thought of the avalanche, over eighty years ago, that had caved in the Great Northern Railroad tunnel on the second switchback up the line at Tyee. Ninety people had died, buried under a mass of snow. There had been only a handful of miners and loggers living in Alpine at that time. The disaster had served as a reminder that death lurked even in the most remote, beautiful settings.

  Trying to shake off such grim thoughts, I made an attempt to encourage Milo. “You ought to be able to find a match with missing persons. If this poor young woman has been dead for going on a week, she’d be reported by now.”

  Milo refused to be consoled. “Not if she was a prostitute. Or if she’s from out-of-state. Or on the run from some guy who was trying to beat the crap out of her. You’d be surprised. People can lose themselves pretty easily. At least on a temporary basis.”

  Ben had gotten to his feet and was toying with my manger scene. He set the three shepherds in a row, as if they were queuing up to get into the small wooden shed. “She must have worn clothes. What happened to them?”

  Looking mildly affronted that Ben would raise such a point, Milo shrugged. “How do I know? According to Doc, it wasn’t a sex crime. At least not rape. Maybe the killer is trying to hide the victim’s identity.”

  Putting the two sheep in line behind the shepherds, Ben turned to Milo. “Do you mean she had her name stitched in her clothes?”

  “Not necessarily,” replied Milo. “Labels, maybe, that would narrow down where the clothes came from. You know, like some fancy designer store.” He glanced at me. “Isn’t that right, Emma?”

  I nodded. “Some boutiques put their own labels in their merchandise. But it seems a little strange to me that the killer would check something like that.” I played the scenario through in my head: violent murderer bashes in skull of victim, then calmly looks to see if clothing came from other than off the rack. It didn’t make much sense, and I was sure that Vida would agree with me. It also didn’t strike me as likely that a young woman with a tattoo on her rear end would buy her apparel at an exclusive shop. But people were unpredictable.

  The discussion wound down. Ben finished putting the cow and the ox on the top of the stable roof, then announced that he had better get back to the rectory. I volunteered to drive both men, but they insisted on walking. St. Mildred’s was half a mile from my home; Milo’s house in the Icicle Creek development was about twice as far. I didn’t press either of them, figuring the cold air would do them both good.

  After they left, I cleared away the remnants of our meal and played around with possible ways of handling coverage of the latest murder victim. I had almost six days to write the story. A lot could happen between now and then. Still, it was a mental reflex on my part to take any news item and run with it. Two decades on daily newspapers was habit-forming. Often, I still found myself unable to adjust completely to the slower pace of a small town. I also found it impossible to adjust to murder.

  I rearranged my Nativity set, added the new sheep, and tried to focus on other, more pleasant concerns. It was Advent, my favorite liturgical season. Hope. Joy. Peace. Those were the emotions I should be experiencing. Year after year, I had vowed to seek more quiet in the weeks before Christmas. But as a single working mother, there had been little time for anything but my son and the job. As Adam grew older, I figured I’d have extra hours to myself. Yet every December had brought a new, unexpected crisis: for example, the gingerbread house for German class which Adam had wanted to resemble Mad Ludvig’s castle in Bavaria, but which, after forty-eight hours of shared toil, looked more like an overturned Dumpster. Adam knew he wouldn’t get extra credit when his teacher had to ask, “What is it?”

  When Adam went off to college, I was already an editor-publisher. Free time, let alone quiet time, was hard to come by. This year was proving no different. In a flurry of activity, I hauled out a half dozen boxes from the storage room off the kitchen. Candles, wreaths, figurines, garlands, colored lights, ornaments, tinsel—it was all there, most of it mine, some of it my parents’, and a few treasured items passed on from my grandparents. I set aside all the decorations for the tree with the remainder of the nativity pieces, then began to drape artificial pine over the doorways. I arranged candles on the mantel, hung a trio of wreaths, and put the rest of the Santas, Madonnas, angels, reindeer, and elves on whatever spare places I could find. Weary, but content, I surveyed my handiwork. My log house looked festive, warm, welcoming. When the tree was up, it would become sheer magic. I smiled with pleasure.

  The tree. I had thought about it in the abstract, almost as if it were the same tree, from year to year, as artificial as the pine garlands. But the perfect Douglas fir that stood in a bucket next to the house had been witness to a murder. Or at least to a murder victim.

  It was not a thought that brought hope or joy or peace. In fact, it was a damned rotten thing to happen to me during Advent.

  But of course it was even worse for the victim.

  Chapter Five

  OSCAR NYQUIST, OWNER of the Whistling Marmot, had started going bald in his early twenties. He was, like so many older people in Alpine, a living legend. One of my favorite bits of Oscarana, as I called it, concerned Alexander Pantages, famed West Coast theatre entrepreneur. When the great man took his final curtain c
all in 1936, Oscar wanted to pay homage to a fellow impresario. Either out of respect for this icon or vanity for himself, Oscar was compelled to cover his half-bald head. His neighbor, Millard O’Toole, had butchered a cow that very morning. In a fit of inspiration, Oscar had cut off enough hide to make a toupee. It didn’t match his remaining hair; it didn’t fit his large head; and it wouldn’t stay put—but Oscar wore it anyway. He drove off to Seattle in his Model-A Ford feeling respectable and looking ridiculous. When he bent over Pantages’s coffin, the makeshift hairpiece fell off. Humiliated, Oscar left it there, and all Alpine assumed that the famed impresario was spending eternity with a little bit of local lore.

  At eighty-two, Oscar had long since become completely bald. He was still a big man, an inch taller than his son Arnie, and probably thirty pounds heavier. On Thursday morning, he lumbered into the Advocate office behind his grandson, Travis, who had graduated to a walking cast, but still leaned on a pair of metal crutches.

  “I want publicity!” boomed Oscar, standing in the middle of the room and somehow making the walls suddenly appear to close in on all of us. Ed looked up from his copy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Ginny pivoted in the act of handing me some phone messages. Carla jumped so violently that she spilled latte on her desk. And Vida gave the newcomer a tight-lipped glare.

  “Oscar, you old fool,” she railed, “how many times do I have to tell you—and fifty other idiots in this town—that we don’t do publicity. We do news or ads. After sixty years of running that movie theatre, you ought to know the difference. Either get yourself arrested or plunk out some money. Which is it you want?” She stopped long enough to cock her head to one side and smile warmly at Travis. “You’re up and about, I see. How’s your leg?”

  “Dr. Flake put the walking cast on this morning and it feels …”

  “Like hell!” interrupted Oscar, barging in front of his grandson. “If I say publicity, I mean publicity! Isn’t this a newspaper? Isn’t it printed for the public?”

  “Oooooh … !” Vida whipped off her glasses and frantically rubbed at her eyes, the telltale gesture that indicated she was highly agitated. “I give up! Emma, you deal with this crazy old coot. He’s impossible!”

  So far, my dealings with Oscar Nyquist had been limited. Ed handled his weekly ads; Ginny did the billing; Carla had written a little news story the previous spring when a new Dolby sound system had been installed; and Vida, of course, covered any social events connected with the Nyquists. I knew Oscar only by sight—and sound, since his presence in the office was always unmistakable. To get my further acquaintance off on the right foot, I invited Oscar and his grandson into my inner office. Travis, however, demurred and sat down at Carla’s desk. With a shrug, I followed Oscar and closed the door. It wouldn’t prevent the others from hearing him, but at least it might muffle the roar.

  “Have you seen my marquee?” he demanded, sitting across from me with his elbows on my desk.

  “I saw it yesterday, I guess. You have your special annual showing of It’s A Wonderful Life. I’d like to see it again.…”

  “Today!” He pounded on the desktop, rattling objects and shivering timbers. “Yesterday I was showing It’s A Wonderful Life, this morning I’m showing It’s A Wonderful File! Who’s the culprit, I ask you? Who’s persecuting the Nyquists? That stupid sheriff of ours does nothing! We want you to help us. It’s your duty, right?”

  My brain was still dealing with the switch of letters on the marquee. It was simple enough, no doubt the nocturnal effort of some kids. It was also kind of funny, but I didn’t dare say so to Oscar.

  “Frankly, Mr. Nyquist,” I said in a serious voice, “I’m not sure publicity would suit your purpose. That only calls attention to this sort of thing and invites more trouble. As long as there’s no damage to your …”

  “Not yet,” bristled Oscar, taking a briar pipe out of his lumber jacket. “Not to the Marmot, I mean. But damage, yes, oh, yes, we’ve had plenty of that. Theft, vandalism, passion pits—what next? Where does it end when there’s no police protection in this town?”

  Oscar Nyquist was shaking his pipe. He had gotten very red in the face, which in his case meant all over his skull as well. His jaw jutted, and there were deep furrows in his forehead. Fleetingly, I wondered if he were about to have a stroke, like Father Fitz.

  “Wait a minute,” I urged, keeping calm. “Back up a bit. I heard about the theft and some of the vandalism. That’s happened mostly to your son, Arnie, right?” I saw Oscar give a jerky nod. “What’s this passion pit business? That’s news to me. Are you talking about necking in the movie theatre?” I phrased the question in the old-fashioned terms Oscar understood.

  “Sheesh!” breathed Oscar, arching his eyebrows far up into his dome. He settled down enough to extract an oilskin pouch of tobacco from his jacket. “Not in my theatre, you don’t. I still got ushers, remember? But I can’t say exactly in mixed company,” he murmured, lowering his voice as well as his head. “It’s the new bowling alley site. Immoral acts. You know what I mean? My son has proof of it. That’s not all, either.” His voice began to rise again. “Somebody punctured the tires of two of Arnie’s construction trucks. And then there’s that Peeping Tom at my grandson’s place.”

  “Has all this been reported to Sheriff Dodge?” I asked, still trying to keep my tone mild.

  “Why bother?” exploded Oscar. “I tell you, he hasn’t done anything! Oh, Arnie went to see him about the break-in the other day, but this new stuff—what’s the use? That’s why I’m here.”

  A single knock sounded on my door. I called out.

  Travis Nyquist poked his head in. His words were for his grandfather: “Popsy, what did I tell you?” Travis’s blue eyes narrowed slightly, distorting his otherwise appealing, all-American face.

  Oscar turned slightly, then banged the desk again. “You’re soft, boy! This is persecution, I tell you!”

  Travis, however, stood firm, if slightly unbalanced on his new walking cast. “For Bridget’s sake, Popsy. Come on, she asked nicely, didn’t she?”

  “Nyaaah!” Oscar made a scornful gesture, taking a swipe at the framed Sigma Delta Chi Award from my days at The Oregonian. “She’s a baby, still wet behind the ears.…” But he caught the warning stare from Travis and began to simmer down. “Okay, okay, but those tires—do you know what they cost?”

  “The tires don’t bother me,” agreed Travis, his face regaining its usual pleasant aspect. “Just remember what you promised.” He winked, then closed the door.

  “Maybe,” I suggested, having racked my brain for a way out of this awkward situation, “what we need to do is look into the matter of the sheriff’s office. That’s what you’re really complaining about, right?” I saw Oscar give a little shudder that passed for assent. “Perhaps I could assign one of my staff to investigate how the sheriff handles complaints. We might do a series, you know, in-depth, and in the process, goad Dodge and his deputies into taking complaints such as yours more seriously.” It sounded exemplary, even though I had absolutely no intention of following through. Over the years, however, I have learned that most unreasonable requests made to journalists can be put off by the promise of in-depth. The average layman is impressed by the idea, and when nothing comes of it, the explanation is easy: in-depth takes time. Most people’s attention span is only slightly longer than that of a bug’s, so eventually the crisis dries up and blows away.

  Oscar, however, was looking dubious. Instead of protesting, however, he set aside his pipe and pouch, reached for my notepad, and picked up a ballpoint pen. Apparently, Oscar was incapable of whispering. His handwriting was large and overblown, like the man himself: Someone is trying to kill my grandson’s wife. Help us.

  I blinked at the message, then stared at Oscar. He motioned for me not to speak out loud. Who? I scribbled.

  Don’t know, he scrawled in reply.

  With a sigh, I leaned back in my swivel chair. It would do me no good to urge Oscar or any other Ny
quist to go to the sheriff. Rapidly, I considered the previous problems the family had encountered. All of them were petty, probably pranks. Young people in Alpine didn’t have enough to do, especially in the winter. None of the Nyquist complaints would lead me to think that they could be connected with a killer. My initial reaction was to dismiss Oscar’s fears as part of a persecution complex.

  Except that we already had two dead young women. Was it possible that Bridget Nyquist might become number three?

  I found a fresh piece of paper and invited Oscar to come over to my house around six. He mulled over the request, fidgeted with his pipe, then gave a nod of assent. “Okay,” he said out loud. “You promise to help?”

  “Of course.” It felt like an empty vow, but at least I could hear the man out. He was on his feet, heavy shoes tramping on the floor. “What about Travis?” I murmured. “Would he like to come?”

  The bald head gave a sharp shake. “No.” Oscar started for the door. “He needs to rest.” The remark was an afterthought.

  Out in the news office, Vida and Ed were gone, Ginny had returned to the front desk, and Carla was deep in conversation with Travis. She giggled, which Carla often does, a decidedly unmusical sound. Travis was laughing, too. They were head-to-head, and I noticed that Oscar stiffened at the sight of them.

  “Let’s go, boy!” bellowed Oscar, barreling through the newsroom like a tank. Startled, Travis looked up from his tête-à-tête.

  “Sure, Popsy,” he said, appearing to struggle with the crutches. He slipped, caught himself on the desk, then allowed a wide-eyed Carla to brace him. “Thanks, I needed that.” Travis beamed down on Carla, who actually blushed. I was refreshed and at the same time annoyed. Carla’s private life was none of my business, but flirting with married men was dumb. After all, look where it had gotten me.…