Alpine Hero (28 page)

I recalled Vida’s remarks about Kay. A young, attractive woman with a husband serving a long jail term would certainly be vulnerable to temptation. As Vida had suggested, Kay could have found another man. Or several of them, over a twelve-year period. But perhaps Kay still loved Trevor. If he returned her feelings, then he’d take her back, forgive and forget. Just as Becca was doing with Eric Forbes.

Paula’s revelation also shored up what I knew Vida had been thinking: that if Kay had taken a lover, or lovers, the motive for her murder might be passion scorned. I could believe that; in fact, I wanted to believe it. But why had Kay been killed in Alpine? Had she been followed from California, or was her murderer in our midst all along?

I didn’t say any of these things out loud. Paula was glancing from her liquor cabinet to the kitchen and back again. Anticipating that she was about to offer another drink or a bit of lunch, I decided to take my leave. While I found Paula’s company agreeable, I was anxious to speculate with Vida. Vida, of course, would be annoyed that I’d called on Paula without her. But she’d get over it.

There was one more question for Paula, however. “Did Honoria tell you if Kay had found another man?”

Paula had also risen. I thought I saw a fleeting look of
disappointment cross her face. She might have fled the city, but I suspected that her self-imposed exile had a price. Paula was probably lonely. While I didn’t want to flatter myself, I figured that she found me a slightly more interesting guest than Dodger. Then again, as she fondly watched the Siamese weave in and out under the hem of her caftan, maybe not.

“Honoria didn’t mention a man specifically,” Paula responded. “As I told you, loyalty was her big hang-up. It was a quality that Kay lacked, and Honoria harped on it. I suppose you could assume that some guy was in the background, though. It would be a safe guess.”

I nodded, then put out my hand. “It usually is. Thanks for everything, Paula. Stop and see me if you get to Alpine. The drinks will be on me.”

Paula brightened, and for the first time I noticed her eyes, a gray green that wasn’t a true hazel, but whose color seemed to shift and merge with the light.

“I’ll do that,” she declared. “I haven’t been to Alpine since last summer. Maybe we’ll discover more mutual friends, and we can trash them, too.”

I grinned, pleased at the kinship we seemed to be experiencing. “The only problem in trashing Honoria is that she doesn’t expose enough of herself to make it worthwhile. Then there’s her handicap, which, when I remember she has one, commands nothing but admiration for overcoming it so well. I don’t know if I admire that about her most, or the way she’s been able to recover from that horror of a husband, and move on to have a relationship with men again.”

The oddly colored eyes grew puzzled. “Mitch? Are you kidding? Honoria was nuts about the guy. Isn’t that why she moved to Startup? She wanted to finally get over him.”

I stared at Paula Rubens. The cats began to chase each
other across the hardwood floor. In the ensuing silence, I could hear the grandfather clock chime the noon hour. It sounded like a warning bell.

In the end I stayed for lunch. Paula had insisted, stating quite rightly that we couldn’t stand out on the porch forever in the chill, wet air. Furthermore, she didn’t want Rheims and Rouen to escape. They might end up like Dodger.

Initially, our conversation over mushroom-filled crepes stayed fixed on Honoria. Paula insisted that Honoria’s feelings for Mitch Harmon were deep and abiding. My hostess was more vague about Mitch’s brutality, however. He’d had a temper, yes, but Honoria had never blamed him directly for her accident. Confused, I abandoned further probing, and talk turned to an exchange of life stories.

My abbreviated version seemed dull by comparison. Paula had been raised in D.C., but had attended a Swiss boarding school. Indeed, she’d attended four of them, having been expelled from the first three for a variety of high jinks, including the seduction of a prim and proper Calvinist chaplain. She had studied painting in Paris, where she’d also learned to make crepes such as the ones she’d whipped up for lunch. She’d lived in Florence for six years with a sculptor who created nothing but cross-eyed stone frogs. In her early thirties she’d headed back to the States, and settled in Manhattan, where she’d become involved in selling artifacts from old buildings that were about to be demolished. That was when she had discovered her interest and talent for stained glass. Despite an off-and-on affair with a tuba player from the New York Philharmonic, she finally decided to move west. Oddly, or so it seemed to me, she chose Cheyenne, where she fell in love with a cattle
auctioneer. When his jealous wife came after her with a shotgun, Paula left for Seattle. A year later she was in Gold Bar, where she felt not only at home, but as if she’d been there in another life, perhaps as a Douglas fir. Paula definitely believed in reincarnation. She also claimed to have been a cat during the reign of Amenhotep II in Egypt.

Extracting a promise that she would give at least some of this biography to Carla for an article, I left Paula around two. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were lifting. By the time I reached the turnoff for Alpine, a frail sun was following me up the mountainside.

I drove straight to Vida’s house. The big white Buick was parked in the drive, so I knew she was home.

“Well,” my House & Home editor exclaimed after I confessed to my latest incursion on her journalistic turf, “you might have called me! Really, Emma, I’m beginning to feel as if you lack confidence in my investigative abilities.”

“Oh, Vida!” I tried to make a joke out of the mere idea. “That’s like saying that Lou Piniella doesn’t think Randy Johnson can pitch!”

It was the wrong metaphor. Vida wasn’t interested in sports. “Lu and Ella who? Don’t bring up your big-city friends! Goodness, I can’t think why you have to go haring off on your own to talk to these people! I’m not sure I even want to hear about it! You probably got everything mixed up!”

Suddenly I felt about eight years old. It didn’t matter that I was the boss. Vida’s scolding reminded me painfully, longingly, of my mother. I hung my head, fingers entwined behind my back.

“It was a whim,” I said, sounding suitably childish. “I just felt like getting out of town for a few hours. The next thing I knew, I was in Gold Bar.”

“Of course you were,” Vida snapped. “How could you not be unless you went east?”

I didn’t try to argue the logic of Vida’s statement. “Okay, I’m sorry. To be honest, I didn’t think much would come of it, except that Paula might know who killed Dodger. She didn’t. But she made a wonderful lunch.” My usual perversity prodded me into a pugnacious stance. Vida might not admit it, but she knew that cooking was her domestic Achilles’ heel.

“Oh, so your new friend is a wonderful cook, too! Well! She sounds to me like a bit of a know-nothing! Stained glass, indeed! However can you see through it? Why would you want such a thing except in a church?”

I didn’t bother to point out that there was a great deal of clear glass in Paula’s designs. To my mixed annoyance and pleasure, Vida was exhibiting jealousy. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction on her part when I made a new woman friend.

“Paula knows something we don’t,” I said, casting off truculence. “She says Kay left Trevor years ago. And Honoria never stopped loving her late husband. Oh, Honoria despised Kay. G’bye, Vida. See you Monday.” I turned toward the front door.

Naturally, I didn’t get very far. I hadn’t expected to. Vida let out a little shriek, then with surprising agility, she blocked my passage.

“Just a minute, young lady,” she huffed. “You can’t walk out on me now! You march right into the kitchen and start talking. I’ll make tea.” The command brooked no opposition; the offer of tea was grudging.

“It won’t be some fancy English or Indian brand,” she went on, entering the kitchen, “just plain old reliable Red Rose. Now sit down and go over all this—carefully.”

I did. For most of the account, Vida’s back was turned to me while she put on the kettle, got out the cups, and
searched for a fresh box of tea bags. But I could tell from the tilt of her head how she was responding.

“The part about Kay and Trevor is understandable,” Vida said when I concluded. “As you may recall, I wondered about that myself. Prison has taken a toll on many a marriage, especially if the spouse is gone for a long time.” She was now sitting at the table. “Kay probably went off with someone else, and when that didn’t work out, she took Trevor back when he got out of jail. That’s the simplest kind of scenario, and would explain Honoria’s earlier dislike of Kay as well as welcoming her to Startup with Trevor and Mrs. Smith. Honoria could hardly do anything else. But this business about Honoria’s enduring love for Mitch Harmon is another matter. I’ve always gathered from what little she said, at least in my presence, that she feared and hated the man. Certainly Milo never gave us any reason to believe otherwise.”

We discussed the point until the teakettle sang. Cupcake sang, too, a merry little canary song that somehow lifted my spirits. When Vida and I had talked the situation through and come up with no viable solutions, my House & Home editor suddenly took on a conspiratorial air.

“I was not idle today,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows in what I took for a mysterious manner. “I spoke with Becca. And Eric.”

“Aha!” I had to smile. “So you went off without me.”

“
I’m
covering the story.” Vida now looked smug. “Naturally, Billy called me after you told Jack Mullins about Becca contacting Janet Driggers. My nephew also informed me that Milo was going to see Becca, so I waited an hour or so, and then I went to her apartment, too. She seemed quite chagrined by then. So did this Eric, who is neither as handsome as Mrs. Wolfe claimed,
nor as gruesome as Mr. Wolfe reported. In fact, he’s rather nondescript, except for muscles. Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking he was as good-looking as the unsuitable boy from Skykomish.”

“Did he seem dangerous?” I inquired.

Vida had returned to the stove. A patch of sunshine through the kitchen window turned the well-polished steel fittings to gold. “It’s hard to tell. His manners are adequate. But that’s often the case.” Vida hadn’t bothered to steep the tea this time, but simply dumped a bag in each of our steaming cups. “They seemed very lovey-dovey, despite being embarrassed over the furor Becca’s disappearance had caused.”

“How could they have been at the Lumberjack without anyone knowing?” I demanded, scooping my tea bag out with a teaspoon. “Minnie Harris should recognize Becca.”

“Exactly.” Vida smirked a bit. “Minnie was having her hair done at Stella’s when Becca ran off with Eric. Don’t you remember?”

I did, now that Vida mentioned it. “And Mel Harris doesn’t know Becca. What did they do, use assumed names?”

Vida nodded. “They registered as Mr. and Mrs. Becker, from Seattle, a combination of their first names, Becca and Eric. Mel had no idea who Becca was because she hasn’t been back in town very long, and the Harrises didn’t move here until after she left Alpine.”

Cupcake was still singing, emitting long trills as he hopped around his cage, going from rung to rung. I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound right. Becca and Eric, I mean. She must have been very hostile to have gotten rid of her wedding pictures and souvenirs. Why would she take him back? Where,” I asked, wondering about the practicalities, “did she run into him?”

“Right on Front Street, by the ski shop.” Vida’s expression was rueful. “Plain sight, wouldn’t you know it? He drove up and honked, and she got in. They went off together. In fact, they rode all around town before finally agreeing to go to the Lumberjack. Isn’t it strange how we can miss the obvious? Frankly, it gets my goat.”

Before long, it would get mine, too.

B
Y THE TIME
I left Vida’s house, I was not only back in her good graces, but she was expressing excitement over my trip to Arizona. She was fond of Ben, even if he was a Catholic priest, and thus alien to her Presbyterian soul. As for Adam, she reserved judgment. Vida was convinced that I spoiled him. Since I thought Roger was rotten to the core, my son and her grandson were off-limits as topics of serious discussion.

At home, I couldn’t resist calling Milo. He was in, and though I had merely intended to tease him about my visit with Paula Rubens, I blurted out a dinner invitation instead. Milo blurted out acceptance. He’d drop by around six-thirty. Was there any chance that I was cooking lamb chops?

There wasn’t. I had a couple of New York steaks in the freezer. Milo liked beef just fine. Should he stop to pick up some booze? The offer took me aback. Milo usually didn’t contribute much to dinners chez Emma except his appetite. I told him that my Scotch supply was still plentiful.

I was giving my housework, as my mother used to say, “a lick and a promise,” when Martin Marshall arrived on my doorstep.

I almost didn’t recognize him at first, because he was dressed in a suit and a tie. Like most Alpiners, Martin’s
everyday wardrobe runs to plaid flannel shirts and Sears work pants. The charcoal suit jacket looked a bit snug; I suspected it was usually kept in mothballs.

“We’re going to a wedding in Monroe,” Martin explained, sounding anxious, “and I had to run over to the mall and pick up the present at Table Toppings. Jane bought it, but she walked out of the store without it. I was just passing by, so I thought I’d drop in.”

Even with a stretch of the imagination, Martin’s route from the mall wouldn’t have taken him by my house. Since he avoided my eyes, I figured that he knew he hadn’t fooled me.

“Do you mind?” He put one foot across the threshold, then darted a look of apology.

“No, come on in. What can I do for you?”

The implied offer seemed to relax him, though he declined to sit down. “I won’t take but a minute, Ms. Lord.” He smoothed his curly gray hair with both hands. “It’s about this murder case. I appreciate—
we
appreciate—the fact that you didn’t mention our names in your story the other day. But then Becca Wolfe pulled that disappearing act Friday, and it looks as if everything’s going wrong at the salon. I can’t begin to tell you how important it is to Jane and Laurie and me to keep us out of this.”