The Alpine Christmas Read online

  Vida had resumed her doodling. Six circles and an evergreen silhouette later, she put the pad aside. “I’m going to do the Whistling Marmot story after all,” she announced, just as I was heading back into my private office. “Oscar is eighty-two. He might not be around by the time we get to the Marmot’s official seventy-fifth anniversary. Oh, I know, Lars lived to be ninety-three and still had all his faculties, such as they were to begin with, but I don’t want to take a chance. As far as that goes, I might not be around.”

  That didn’t strike me as likely. Vida seemed about as in destructible as any human being I’d ever met. She had a point, however. “What’s the hook?” I asked.

  “The Capra movie,” Vida answered promptly. “Oscar has shown It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas now for going on twenty years. I want to ask him why he thinks people keep coming back to pay for something they know by heart. He won’t have any answers because he’s never thought about it, but it’s a feature story and I can speculate. It also gives me an excuse to be at your house when he comes over tonight.”

  “Crafty,” I remarked. “By the way, I’m leaving early. I want to go to the mall and do some Christmas shopping.”

  On my way out, I met Carla and Ginny, who were each carrying a rather small paper bag. “Didn’t Harvey have any decorations?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Carla replied, rustling about in her paper sack. “Look, isn’t this adorable?” She pulled out a six-inch figure of Santa Claus, or more precisely, Father Christmas, since he was decked out in a nineteenth-century satin suit of blue trimmed with white fake fur.

  “It’s charming,” I said in admiration, as the wind blew snowflakes before my eyes. “But I was thinking more of—”

  “See this,” Ginny interrupted. Her paper bag held a pair of candlesticks shaped like angel heads and two green tapers. “We can put them on the reception desk instead of those crummy Wise Men.”

  Somehow, I’d been thinking more in terms of evergreen garlands, tasteful plastic holly wreaths, even a small artificial tree with a few handsome ornaments. “These are very nice,” I said with a weak smile, “but they don’t make much of a display. Maybe we could get a couple of other items. How much did these cost?”

  Ginny dug anew into her paper bag. “Here’s the bill. They came to $53.73. We kept it under fifty dollars, but of course there’s the sales tax.”

  I clenched my teeth. It was no good criticizing my staff members for their ill-chosen method of eroding my finances. I had, as Vida and other Alpiners would say, sent a boy to the mill. Or a couple of them, in this case. They’d gone, they’d seen, they’d purchased. Ginny and Carla simply weren’t up to the task. A veteran Christmas decorator had been required, and neither of them qualified.

  I brushed snow off my nose. These two pieces were at least a start toward improving the quality of our holiday decor. Maybe I could find some other decorations on sale after Christmas. But for now, I wasn’t about to deplete my checking account any further.

  At least not on behalf of The Advocate. I was, in fact, about to make a large dent in my current balance by filling some of the gaps on my Christmas list. The parking lot at the mall was full of slush, with big piles of plowed snow around the outer edges. I’d taken care of most of my shopping on two weekend trips to Seattle during October and November. But there were still a few presents I wanted to buy for Adam and Ben. And Vida. It wasn’t so much that she was hard to please, as that she never seemed to want anything. I took a chance on bedroom slippers and headed for Barton’s Bootery.

  The Alpine Mall isn’t very large by big city or suburban standards. There are only fifteen stores and two restaurants, though Ed has been trying to track down a rumor that Fred Meyer and Starbuck’s Coffee plan to open in the coming year. We’ve heard other such stories, usually concerning big chains, but so far nothing has come of them. In my dreams, I see an honest-to-goodness department store, with three or four floors of merchandise. But I don’t think that will happen soon in Alpine. Too many people are out of work. Even now, so close to Christmas, the large parking lot was only half-full. A couple of cars looked as if they had been sitting there for a week or more. Snow was piled high on their roofs, hoods, and trunks. If their owners had suffered from mechanical problems, I wondered why they hadn’t pushed the cars across the street to Cal Vickers’s Texaco station.

  The merchants at the mall had done their best to make their shops look festive. The light standards in the parking lot wore gold garlands and sprigs of plastic holly. Inside, more garlands hung from the ceiling with more holly and clusters of shiny colored bells. The display windows were jammed with Santas, reindeer, angels, snowmen, trees, wreaths, fireplaces, and candles; at Tina’s Toys, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were dressed in holiday finery.

  In Barton’s Bootery, I saw several people I knew, including Annie Jeanne Dupré, music teacher and the organist at St. Mildred’s; Heather Bardeen, Henry’s daughter; and Charlene Vickers, whose husband Cal owns the Texaco station. I had just made my purchase of turquoise blue high-top slippers with little bows when Arnie Nyquist came into the store. At his side was a plump middle-aged woman who I realized must be Mrs. Nyquist. Yes, I probably had met her, but on closer inspection, I realized that not only was Louise Nyquist mousy; she was the type of person who looks like everybody else; a bit under medium height, a bit overweight, a bit of gray in her brown hair, a bit of this and a bit of that. She was utterly average, though I suspected that in her younger years, she had probably been pretty.

  Arnie was prepared to breeze by me, but I executed a quick step in my fur-lined boots and barred his way. “Hi, Arnie,” I said cheerily, then beamed at Mrs. Nyquist. “Louise, right? We’ve met … uh … ah …”

  “At Doc Dewey’s funeral reception,” Louise replied with a diffident smile. “I poured.”

  The senior Doc Dewey had died of cancer the previous month. His funeral had been held right after Thanksgiving. Less than two weeks had passed. I felt like a fool. I couldn’t believe Louise Nyquist could be so forgettable. I must be having a memory lapse.

  “Everyone was so upset about poor Doc,” Louise murmured, as if excusing me for my obvious gaffe. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.”

  I’m never sure how to respond to that particular cliché, especially since I’ve never figured out exactly what it means. I gave Louise a weak smile and turned to Arnie, who was all but tapping his foot in his impatience to move on.

  “Any luck with the sheriff?” I asked brightly. “We’ll be running your complaint in the weekly log. You don’t happen to have a description of the guy who’s been lurking around Travis’s house, do you?”

  Arnie Nyquist bristled. “Ask Travis. I got problems of my own.”

  Louise was obviously embarrassed by her husband’s manner, and not, I figured, for the first time. She patted his arm and gave me an apologetic smile. “Arnie is so upset by all these incidents, and who can blame him? Really, there’s not much to say about this person, whoever he may be. Very ordinary: medium height, stocky, a working man, mid-thirties, perhaps.”

  Arnie looked fit to spit. “Mid-thirties! How the hell could Travis or Bridget figure that out? They’ve only seen him two or three times, and never up close. What a bunch of bunk!”

  Surprisingly, Louise Nyquist held her ground. “By the way he moved. Or so Bridget told me. And he wore workmen’s clothes, like a logger or a millworker. That’s not much help, I know.”

  She was right. In Alpine, that description could fit at least two hundred men. Not wanting to further annoy Arnie, who would probably take his anger out on his wife, I wished them a pleasant shopping trip and made my exit from Barton’s Bootery. Arnie didn’t exactly heave a sigh of relief, but he did relax a little. Louise, however, looked as if she was sorry to see me go. As I headed for SportsWearWorld, I wondered why.

  Ninety minutes and two hundred dollars later, I was loaded down with parcels and heading back to the Jag. Two sweaters for Adam, a lightweight j
acket for Ben, the slippers for Vida, and, as an afterthought, a little something for Milo. If, I reasoned, he was coming for Christmas dinner, I ought to have a token gift for him under the tree. I opted for a trio of alder-smoked sockeye salmon, rainbow trout, and kippered king salmon, then added a bag of Ethiopian coffee beans. I was at the Jag when I suddenly thought about Teresa McHale. Would she be alone at the rectory for Christmas dinner? It was possible that Father Fitz would be out of the hospital by then. As the snow drifted around my inert figure, I debated the matter: Teresa had been in town for about a year and should have made some friends among the parishioners. If memory served, this would be Teresa’s second Christmas at St. Mildred’s. But Alpine was slow to accept newcomers. On the other hand, surely someone in the parish would remember what Christmas was really all about and take her in. I decided to bide my time. Ben would find out about Teresa’s plans, if any.

  I was at the arterial on Alpine Way when I realized that the one person I hadn’t bought anything for was me. If Milo and I were going to dinner at King Olav’s Saturday night, it would be nice to have a new dress. It was after four o’clock and already quite dark. I hadn’t planned on going back to the office, but Francine’s Fine Apparel was only two blocks away, across Front Street. I parked the car in my usual slot and cautiously walked over to Francine’s. Even though the main byways had been sanded that morning and rock salt had been put down on the sidewalks, the below-freezing temperatures and the new snowfall made footing hazardous.

  The apparel shop was deserted, except for the owner and one customer I recognized as Roseanna Bayard, wife of Buddy Bayard, the photographer we use for our darkroom work. Like Francine, the Bayards were fellow parishoners. Roseanna greeted me with a friendly wave.

  “I love your brother,” she declared, her wide-set blue eyes dancing. Roseanna was an enthusiast, a grown-up Carla, but intelligent and well-grounded. When she wasn’t helping Buddy run the photography studio, she tutored children with reading disabilities. Roseanna was a tall woman, rather rangy, with short blonde hair and incongruous dimples. “Not that I don’t think the world of Father Fitz, but let’s face it: he’s been gaga for years. I don’t care what that old bat up in the rectory says, it’s great to have a priest who’s got all his marbles.”

  My proud smile endorsed my brother. But I had to ask Roseanna about the old bat. “You mean Mrs. McHale? What’s she got against Ben?”

  Roseanna sniffed. “She’s a typical parish housekeeper. Remember Mrs. McPhail? She thought she ran the church, and Father Fitz along with it. That’s why those women take those jobs. They’re on a power trip.”

  Francine Wells’s carefully plucked eyebrows arched. “That’s true, Roseanna,” Francine said in her amiable retail manner. “They don’t have a vocation, but they want to be involved with the Church. So they become housekeepers. What do you think?” She held up two tweed skirts, one in soft tones of heather, the other in creamy browns.

  Roseanna seemed caught off-guard. I’d watched Francine in action before and knew some of her tactics. This one involved forcing a customer to choose between two garments, rather than rejecting a single item out of hand. It was a trap, and both owner and customer knew it. But like most women, Roseanna would prefer to have than have not. She merely needed a little coaxing.

  “The heather,” she said, giving me a rueful smile. “I haven’t a thing to go with it. Now Francine will sell me a new sweater, a blouse, and some damned scarf I’ll never take out of the drawer.”

  We all laughed, but Francine was shaking her head.

  “No, I won’t. I’ll wait for Buddy to come in here looking hopelessly baffled. Then I’ll whip out the blouse and the sweater. Buddy will practically kiss my feet in gratitude, and you’ll end up with something you really want for Christmas. Your kids can give you the damned scarf.”

  We laughed some more. After Roseanna had gone out into the dark late afternoon, I told Francine what I was looking for. She led me not to the rack of moderately priced dresses, but back up front to the display window where three mannequins stood on a sparkling snow-covered floor and huge crystal snowflakes were suspended from almost-invisible wires.

  “The dark green is you, Emma. You’ve got a nice figure and it will emphasize your height.”

  I gazed at the green wool crepe with its surplice bodice and gently draped waistline. In my head, I also translated Francine’s comments: Your bust’s okay, your hips aren’t bad, you don’t have much of a waist, and you’re kind of short. This dress will make for good camouflage.

  “I’ll try it on,” I said, “but I hate to have you wreck your window display.”

  Francine was already heading for the back room. “That’s an eight. I’ve got a ten out here. I was saving it for Dr. Starr’s wife, but she didn’t think the color looked right on her. She got purple silk instead.”

  The last words were spoken from behind a mauve velvet curtain. I looked around the shop, marveling as always that Francine could make a go of it in Alpine. Her clothes were in what retailers laughingly call the moderately priced designer range, which meant that anything under a hundred bucks could be found only on the clearance sale rack. Vida once told me that Francine had made out like a bandit ten years earlier when she’d divorced her alcoholic attorney husband from Seattle. Apparently, she had taken the money and run—back to her hometown of Alpine, where she’d opened Francine’s Fine Apparel. It was the only store within sixty miles where a woman could buy clothes that didn’t look as if they were designed primarily for spilling beer down your front at the bowling alley. Despite the dearth of customers on this dark December afternoon, Francine obviously did enough business not only to keep going, but to make a profit.

  “Roseanna Bayard’s off-line, of course,” Francine announced as she emerged from the back room. She held the green wool crepe up for my inspection, not unlike a wine steward proffering a bottle of champagne. I wondered if I should ask to sniff the sleeve.

  “About what?” I finally inquired, coming out of my shopper’s daze.

  “Teresa McHale. I don’t think she’s spent her life as a parish housekeeper. She applied for a job here first.”

  I’d already stepped inside one of the two small dressing rooms. They were also curtained off by velvet draperies. “She did? You mean after she moved here?”

  “No, before that.” Francine’s voice was slightly muffled by the curtain. “She’d worked at a couple of apparel stores in Seattle. Nordstrom’s, I think, and then some place in the Westlake Center. But I don’t need anybody full-time. Gerry Runkel fills in whenever I have to be out of here.”

  Geraldine Runkel was one of Vida’s numerous in-laws. She was married to Everett, Vida’s husband’s youngest brother. Or so I recalled from the complicated and extensive Runkel-Blatt family tree.

  I stood back a few paces. More than my bangs needed a trim; I realized I was at least two weeks overdue on a haircut. Most of my makeup had worn off during the course of the day and the harshness of the elements. Still, I looked good in the dress. Or did the dress look good on me? I peered at the price tag: Francine’s dollar amounts were always printed in round numbers and so smashed together that it practically took a magnifying glass to decipher them. Two hundred and fifty dollars, the tag read. I gulped, and visualized my rapidly sinking checking account balance.

  “Let’s see,” Francine called.

  Dutifully, I walked out of the dressing room. Francine beamed at me. “I was right. What a difference—Carrie Starr couldn’t handle that color. It’s great with your brown eyes and that almost-olive complexion. Here, Emma, let me show you something.” Francine dashed over to the display case where the cash register was located. She whipped out a single strand of pearls set with random dark green oval beads. “Put this on. There are earrings to match. It’s going to be dynamite.”

  It was. I guess. In fact, after I left Francine’s Fine Apparel, I felt as if I’d been blown up by a ton of TNT. The dress, necklace, and earrings had set me back
three hundred and forty-seven bucks, sales tax included. I’d had to use my bank card.

  As I drove home through the swirling snow, all I could think was Did I do this for Milo? The answer was No. I’d done it for me.

  And, just in case he might show up over the holidays, I’d done it for Tom Cavanaugh. It occurred to me that if Alpine had a contest for the Christmas Fool, I could win it hands-down.

  Chapter Eight

  VIDA ARRIVED AHEAD of Oscar Nyquist, stamping snow off her buckled boots and shaking out a long plaid muffler. Her black hat looked like the sort that Italian country priests are supposed to wear, but in this informal, global era, I suspect they lean toward Mets baseball caps.

  “You didn’t come back to the office,” she said accusingly.

  “I didn’t say I would,” I countered, taking her coat.

  “I thought you might want to check in with Milo.” She plopped down on the sofa and gazed around my living room. “Now this looks very nice,” she said approvingly. “Why is there a camel on your Nativity stable’s roof?”

  I stared at my cherished set. Sure enough, the standing camel, as opposed to the other two which were seated, appeared to be stalking across the stable. “Ben,” I muttered. “He must have come by to get the rest of his stuff. The camels don’t go up until this weekend.” I whisked the little figure away, putting it back in the desk drawer.

  “Milo didn’t call,” Vida remarked, apparently willing to excuse me for my truancy.

  “He probably won’t know anything until tomorrow,” I said, going out into the kitchen to fetch us an eggnog. “Rum or not?”

  “Half milk,” Vida called back, and I winced. I like my eggnog pure and simply fattening. I only put liquor in it when I figure I need to cut my cholesterol count. Happily, I rarely gain weight. I have too much nervous energy.

  I told Vida about my encounter at the mall with Arnie and Louise Nyquist. Vida was mildly interested in Louise’s description of the so-called lurker. She had been more intrigued by Milo’s suggestion that Bridget knew the man’s identity.