The Alpine Journey (12 page)

But that thread had snapped along with Sandra Cava-naugh's mind. Since hiring Leo, I'd half expected him to notice a resemblance between my son and Tom, but so far he had never mentioned it.

Vida had taken in my startled expression, and pounced as soon as I finished giving Leo instructions.

“Well? Has something happened in Alpine?”

“No,” I answered, but knew that trying to deceive Vida was useless. I told her that Leo had seen Tom in Seattle.

A slight smile touched her lips. “Well now. That's very nice. Have you no reaction other than your slightly shaking hands and flushed complexion?”

“Shut up, Vida.” I suddenly wished I had a cigarette. And another Rob Roy. “Why do you persist in romanticizing my relationship with Tom? It's over.”

“So you say.” Vida didn't sound as if she believed me.
“Then I shouldn't think news of Tommy would upset you.”

“I'm not upset,” I asserted, irked at Vida's insistence on calling Tom “Tommy.” It made him sound about twelve. “I was startled, that's all. What
is
upsetting is how you encourage me to hold on to some tattered memory of a love affair that should have ended twenty-five years ago. It did, really. The brief resumption was folly, an epilogue that didn't need to be written.”

“How poetic,” Vida remarked, picking up the telephone directory. “You surprise me. I'd come to believe that you had no poetry—or romance—in your soul.”

“I don't,” I retorted, and then realized that Vida did. The insight amazed me. Vida was so down-to-earth, so practical, so suffused with her favorite attribute: good sense. That somewhere deep down was a hankering for romance, even of the vicarious sort, gave me pause.

“You believe in happy endings,” I said in an awestruck tone.

The gray eyes narrowed slightly. “No. Not that. They occur so seldom. But I believe in love. It comes in many forms, and it can change over time. Love is precious, even rare, especially the kind that you and Tommy … had.”

She had started to say “have”—I was sure of it. “Long ago, you told me to forget him and move on with my life. What made you change your mind?”

Vida sighed and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Ordinarily, it would be good advice. But as time went on I sensed the depth of your feelings for each other. It struck me as foolish at first because I felt you'd built barriers to prevent being hurt again. If you told yourself you still loved Tommy, you couldn't fall in love with anybody else. You were safe. Then you decided you didn't
love him anymore—which is impossible to do. Love can't be ordered around like a servant. You've tried to fall in love with Milo, but I don't believe you can. You should have remained friends, which is very pleasant. Besides, it became clear that Tommy, though ambivalent about his responsibilities, still loved you. Such powerful emotions can't be dismissed or ignored. Surely you must see that.”

If I did, I wouldn't admit it. But what had become clear, even as Vida spoke, was that she had never known passion. The word, along with sex, had been avoided. As outspoken as she was, perhaps Vida would not personally confront either passion or sex. Not verbally, not physically, not emotionally. I'd never sensed that Vida's marriage had been loveless, but maybe it had lacked fire. My mental picture of Ernest Runkel evoked a stolid man of even temperament who might have been overwhelmed by his wife and three daughters. He had been the assistant superintendent at the old Cascade & Pacific Mill, a hardworking, diligent man. Yet he'd possessed a streak of daring that had led to his demise at Deception Falls. Maybe I didn't have the complete portrait of Ernest—or of Vida. Maybe nobody ever does know another person through and through. It's tough enough to know oneself.

“Vida,” I finally said, “it's pointless to talk about Tom and me. He's never going to leave Sandra. Even if he did, what kind of future would we have? Can you picture Tom moving to Alpine? He's a city person. Most of his business interests are in California. And I can't see myself packing up and heading south. I'd dry up and blow away from lack of rain.”

“Compromise,” Vida murmured. “Just what Audrey and Gordon should have tried.”

“Maybe. Let's talk about them instead. Shall I try the Kanes again?”

“You won't face facts,” Vida said flatly.

“I just did. I've been doing it for a long time.” We were staring at each other, neither of us willing to give in. “The subject is closed. I'm here to help you with your family tragedy.”

Maybe I'd made a dent in Vida's thinking; maybe it was the Runkel catastrophe that brought her around. Whatever the reason, she handed me the phone book. “I was going to look up the number for Willamette University, but Salem's not in here,” Vida said, her manner uncharacteristically stiff. “I suppose you'll have to take a small detour on your way home tomorrow in order to track down Damon.”

I gaped at Vida. “Salem isn't a small detour from Cannon Beach. It's at least a hundred and fifty miles from here. I'm not going.”

“But he's on your list of people to be interviewed,” Vida protested, no longer rigid but clearly vexed.

“No, he's not,” I shot back. “He was nowhere near Cannon Beach when Audrey was killed. He was already back on campus.”

“We don't know that for certain.” Vida was looking adamant.

“Then you go to Salem,” I said. “I will not—cannot—drive all the way to Salem, then back up to Portland, and on to Alpine. It'd take the entire day.”

Vida gave a small, piqued shrug. “Very well. I thought you just said you were here to help me with this unfortunate situation.”

I wanted to placate Vida, to be reasonable. “Call Damon. Or I will. He can probably provide an alibi for
September thirteenth. Then we can drop him from the suspect list.”

Vida regarded me as if I were the class dunce. “For the middle of the night? Unless he was sleeping with a young woman, which is possible, he can't have much of an alibi for the time between, say, midnight and four A
.
M.”

“Give it a try,” I said dryly. “I'm calling the Kanes.”

This time the bubbly voice belonged to a real person. Stina Kane was somewhat confused by my call, which was understandable.

“You're a friend of Audrey's?” she asked after I'd gone through a rather circumlocutory explanation.

It was easier to say yes than to explain. “Is there any chance you'd be able to meet me for a drink?”

Stina hesitated. I had the feeling that she was either consulting her husband, or checking to see if he was comatose in front of the TV. “Okay, fine. Do you know the Driftwood Inn? It's right across from Sandpiper Square.”

I recalled Sandpiper Square, a collection of shops in a barn-inspired building on the ocean side of Hemlock. Stina said she could meet me in ten minutes. “I'm short, blonde, and fifteen pounds overweight,” she declared, and the bubbles threatened to erupt in my ear.

The Driftwood didn't conform to most of the other buildings in the downtown area, and I suspected it had been built before the code was enforced. The exterior was Olde English, with lace curtains at the windows. There was a waiting list for the snug, beamed dining room, and the small bar was jammed.

Stina, however, knew the ropes. With friendly greetings all around, she cleared a path for us and put in our orders. Two thirty something men wearing Seahawks and
Trail Blazers shirts respectively stepped aside at the end of the bar to make room.

“We'll get a table as soon as some of these people are moved into the dining room,” Stina said, glancing at her diamond-studded watch. “It's after seven-thirty. The rush ought to be just about over.”

The room was noisy, and no one seemed to be paying attention to us, but I didn't like asking indiscreet questions in a raised voice. Thus I opted for a general query.

“What do you think happened to Audrey?”

Stina looked puzzled. “How do you mean? Somebody conked her over the head, as far as I know.”

“I put that badly,” I admitted, my concentration derailed by the crowded surroundings and the constant chatter. “I should have asked why you thought she was killed.”

Stina set her martini glass down on the bar. She was pretty in an artificial way, with platinum hair that couldn't have been natural, a pouting lower lip that might have been the result of implants, and a voluptuous figure that carried the alleged extra poundage quite capably. “How well did you know Audrey?” she asked, her voice so low that I had to strain to hear her.

Should I lie? Truth had a way of coming out quickly in small towns. “I knew her only through her aunt, who works for me in Alpine,” I said, and noticed that Stina continued to look puzzled. “Alpine, Washington,” I specified. Sometimes I forget that most of the world has never heard of our little mountain aerie.

Stina's brow cleared. “Audrey was a real piece of work, in my opinion. She'd dropped out years ago, took off for San Francisco, did the whole scene, got in a lot of trouble, and somehow ended up married to Gordon Imhoff. They moved back here—what? seven, eight
years ago?—and opened their shop. Stu and I'd come to Cannon Beach from Eugene not long before that, so what I know of Audrey's previous history is hearsay, but it's consensus.” Stina paused to sip from her drink. She talked with her hands, no mean feat given the crowded confines at the bar. Her long nails were polished a glossy pearl, and diamond studs flashed in each pierced ear.

“Stu was in property management, vacation rentals mosdy, but we decided to open our own real-estate office about five years ago,” Stina continued, hardly missing a beat. “We added Lincoln City a year later. Gordon worked part-time for us for a while, mosdy handling the seasonal stuff. With three kids, he and Audrey needed the extra money. But last fall he quit. Gordon said Audrey felt he should spend more time with the shop—she couldn't handle it by herself.”

Stina's hazel eyes had been darting in every direction even as she talked nonstop in her bubbly voice. The vigilance paid off: a middle-aged couple was getting up from a corner table. With an outstretched hand intended to waylay anyone who dared encroach on her designated territory, Stina swiveled her hips between the other customers and claimed the table as our own.

“Ah,” she said with satisfaction, “now we can be comfortable. Where was I?”

“Audrey was overwhelmed,” I prompted. “Why?”

“Good question. The woman didn't do anything. Oh, she puttered around the shop and went looking for collectibles and every once in a while she'd take up with some new passion. But they never lasted.”

“You mean …?” Tactfully, I let the sentence dangle.

“Watercolors. Quilting. Soapstone carving. Glassblowing. Audrey thought she was an artist, or at least a craftsman.
But she had all the talent of a clamshell.” Stina looked disgusted.

Having thought that Stina was referring to Audrey's love life, I tried to hide my embarrassment. “She had a husband and three kids. They certainly required time and energy.”

Stina sniffed indignantly. “What they required and what they got were two different things. As far as I could tell, the kids were pretty much on their own. And Gordon might as well not have been there. In fact—as you may have heard—he wasn't. Not lately. He'd moved out.”

Something didn't jibe. While the noise level was beginning to ebb, I was still having trouble keeping focused. “You felt sorry for Gordon, I gather.” The words were intended to sound innocent.

“You bet,” Stina said with feeling. “He was a solid kind of guy who really cared about his family. He cared about Audrey, too. But she got this wild hair to move. She wanted a flower cart.”

“What?” Now I was sure that my ears, as well as my brain, were playing tricks on me.

“You know—one of those carts they have outside of buildings or in the lobby with fresh flowers and maybe espresso.” Stina lifted her head and her empty glass, signaling to the bartender. “That was her dream. She'd move to Portland and set up shop—or cart, if you will—in the downtown core. Gordon thought she was nuts. I agreed.”

A second martini and another bourbon and water arrived. My companion exchanged slick banter with the bartender, nodded at a trio of newcomers, and turned back to me. Despite Stina's persistent eyeballing of the bar, she managed to convey a sense of empathy. It was a
trick of her real-estate trade, but it worked. I found myself liking Stina Kane.

“Audrey wanted to put the house up for sale,” she went on, placing the olive from her martini in an empty ashtray. “Gordon fought it. Not that it mattered to Stu and me—Audrey wouldn't list it with us in any event.”

“She didn't like you and your husband?” I ventured.

Stina gave a slight shake of her head. “I don't know and I don't really care. I think she had a buyer in mind, and wanted to sell the place without paying a commission. But as I said, Gordon refused to go along with it.”

“But he moved out,” I noted. “And now he's gone. Do you have any idea where he could be?”

“He's scared.” Stina chewed on her full lower lip. “He thinks the police figure he killed Audrey.”

“Did he?”

This time she not only shook her head with vehemence but laughed. “Heck, no! Gordon wouldn't hurt a sand flea. He's out wandering the beach somewhere, or holed up in the mountains. There's plenty of empty space in Oregon where a person can get lost. I imagine Gordon's waiting for the sheriff to find the real murderer.”

I tipped my glass toward my mouth. “And that would be …?”

“Some drifter. Let's face it, this is the coast. People running away from their troubles and from themselves wander across the country and end up here. The next stop is Asia, or putting a bullet in your head.” The concept didn't seem to perturb Stina; drifters weren't prospective clients.

“When did you last see Gordon?” I winced; the query smacked of official interrogation.

Stina didn't seem to notice. “At the funeral, I think.
No, I saw him that evening outside the Jaded Eye. He was in his van.”

“Which the police have never found?”

Stina shrugged. “I guess not. If they have, the rumor mill didn't grind down this far from Astoria. Heck, it's a big state. Gordon could be anywhere. But I'll bet he's not far.”