The Alpine Obituary (7 page)

“No,” Max replied. “I assume she meant murdered by cancer. Or the medical profession that couldn’t save him.”

“I see.” But Vida sounded dubious.

Max caught the tone in her voice. “Do you mean you put some stock in her rantings?”

“N-o-o,” Vida answered slowly. “But it did strike me as a strange thing to say.”

Max’s smile was ironic. “You mean my mother wasn’t a particularly imaginative woman.”

“Nor fanciful,” Vida allowed.

Max set his cup and saucer down on the counter. “That’s true. But why would anyone murder Pa? It’s absurd. My parents had nothing except for this house, Pa’s pension, and a bit of savings. I live alone, I don’t need money. Except for the usual bickering with his coworkers before he retired. I can’t think of any enemies he might have had. You don’t kill over who doesn’t pony up for a round at Mugs Ahoy.”

It would have been tactless to ask if Jack and June got along, so I kept my mouth shut. Vida, of course did not: “Your parents seemed to live separate lives.”

Max chuckled. “Are you hinting at a love triangle, Mrs. Runkel?”

“No,” Vida responded, “of course not. But your father spent his spare time at the tavern or watching TV. Your mother was a member of the Burl Creek Thimble Club. She crocheted and read romance novels. I don’t recall them ever taking any big trips. I interviewed them only once, six years ago when they drove to Spokane for a family wedding.”

“They didn’t like to drive,” Max said. “Not after Lynn was killed in that accident up at the summit.”

Lynn. I recalled the name of the late Froland daughter from the obituary. I didn’t recall the accident. It must have happened before I arrived in Alpine.

“Yes,” Vida said, “I can see how such a tragedy might affect them. But of course that was in the winter and there was black ice on the road. Your family has had its share of sadness. Especially you, Max. It seems like only yesterday that your wife passed away.”

Max lowered his gaze. “Jackie was only thirty-two. We’d been married less than five years. You don’t expect such a young person to die of an aneurysm.”

“Such a loss,” Vida said with a sad shake of her head. “And then to find out that she was six weeks pregnant. How did you bear it, Max?”

Max gave Vida a grim look. “Is there a choice other than putting a gun to your head?”

“No.” Vida glanced in my direction. “You have to be strong. And you have been, Max. I greatly admire you for it.”

I turned away, reaching for the sugar bowl. I didn’t feel strong. And I certainly wasn’t admirable.

Maybe I really was a grief diva.

Maybe it was time to change.

Vida insisted that I attend Jack Froland’s funeral the following morning. “Don’t you want to see what happens next?” she demanded.

I started to reply that I’d attended one too many funerals already but thought of my resolve the previous evening. “Do you really expect that something will happen?”

“Who knows?” Vida retorted. “That’s the interesting thing about funerals.” She suddenly blanched. “Oh dear, I shouldn’t have said that! Never mind, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

I searched my conscience before making a decision. “The truth is, Vida, I’ve got a paper to put out. Yesterday we wasted half the afternoon going through those old issues of the
Blabber
. I think I’d better stay close to the office and figure out an interesting feature for Scott and an electrifying editorial for me.”

“You have the fire story for your lead if nothing more current comes along,” Vida said. “Scott must have taken some excellent photos.”

Scott had come to work late, which had worried me. But instead of being turned into toast at Embro Lake, he’d merely been tired. The fire was still burning, but under control. Scott had waited for the formal announcement, which had come shortly before five in the morning. Four hours sleep hadn’t affected his looks, however.

“So how did the fire start?” I asked after Vida had returned to her desk and begun two-fingered typing on her old upright.

Scott was pouring himself a second cup of coffee. “They don’t know. Careless campers are always good suspects, but there’s no good place to pitch a tent in that area. Hikers, maybe, stopping for a smoke or a toke.”

Leo Walsh, who had been on the phone, slammed down the receiver. “Dammit, Fred and Jack Iverson are pulling their standing ad for next week. Fred says he’s doing it out of respect for Jack Froland.”

“Hey,” Scott put in, “aren’t there too many Jacks in this town? Whatever happened to originality?”

Vida looked up from her typewriter. “Both Jack Froland and Jack Iverson are actually named John. Indeed, Jack Iverson was named for his uncle. Both Jacks were grandsons of Trygve Iverson, though born fourteen years apart.”

Scott shook his head. “I don’t know how you keep everybody in this town straight, Vida. Why don’t they just call all the guys Swede?”

“Because the Iversons are Norwegians,” Vida said.

I perched on the edge of Leo’s desk. “Couldn’t you talk Fred and Jack into running an In Memoriam ad?”

Leo made a face. “I tried. No go. By coincidence, Fred and Opal are going on vacation next week. They’re closing the Venison Inn for repairs.”

“Then hit them with a big reopening ad,” I said.

“I will,” Leo replied, looking determined. “The upside is that they’re also pulling the Venison Inn ad from KSKY.”

“That restaurant could use some work,” Scott remarked. “It looks like it hasn’t been renovated since the Sixties.”

“That’s correct,” Vida said. “They closed down after President Kennedy was killed in 1963. That’s the last time they remodeled.”

“They could use a new menu, too,” Scott said. “There’s only one decent place in town for a really nice meal, and that’s the ski lodge.”

“Don’t forget Le Gourmand out on the highway,” I said. “They often make the top twenty lists of best restaurants in the state.”

“But it’s way out of my price range,” Scott responded, no doubt blaming me for his less than opulent salary. “A meal for two costs close to a hundred bucks if you want a couple of glasses of wine.”

Scott was dating a professor from Skykomish Community College, a somewhat older beauty named Tamara Rostova. Even college instructors made more than Scott, an economic fact that no doubt embarrassed him.

“We need more ad revenue,” I declared, with a glance at Leo.

“We need more advertisers,” Leo shot back. “Since when don’t I work my butt off scrounging up ads?”

“Of course you do,” I said, “but maybe we should come up with a special promotion to tide us over between now and Halloween.”

“The college,” Scott suggested. It was hardly a surprise, since I figured his mind was there much of the time. “Unlike the other schools, they don’t start fall quarter until the end of the month.”

“We included them in the Back to School edition,” Leo pointed out.

The newsroom went silent until Ginny came in with the mail. “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking alarmed. “Did something awful happen?”

Leo waved a dismissive hand. “No. We’re thinking. It’s done best when not talking. You got any ideas for a new kind of special edition?”

Ginny handed Vida her mail. Our House & Home editor was always first on the delivery list.

“Autumn,” Ginny said, moving to Leo’s desk. “What about things people do in the fall?”

“How many pictures of leaf raking can Scott take?” Leo asked dryly.

Ginny, whose scarcity of imagination is rivaled only by her lack of a sense of humor, frowned at Leo. “People do other things. Like prune. Oh—and dig up bulbs and tubers that won’t winter in this climate.”

No one said anything for almost a minute. It was Vida who finally spoke up: “That’s not really a bad idea, Ginny. Leo could get large ads from Harvey’s Hardware and Mountain View Gardens and some of the other stores that provide plants and tools and such.”

Scott was fingering his chin. “How about a tie-in with the environment? Energy conservation, too. Preparing your house for winter and all that.”

“Well . . .” Leo paused to light a cigarette while Vida, as usual, stared him down. “That does have some possibilities. Let me think about it. Thanks, Ginny.”

“I like it,” I said. “Fall officially starts September twentieth.” I looked at Leo. “Do we have enough time to pull it together for the edition on the thirteenth?”

“I’ll see,” Leo replied, his weathered face showing no expression.

“Do that,” I said as a spur. I had the feeling that despite his polite words to Ginny, he wasn’t entirely sold on the project.

Half an hour later, Vida was off to attend the Froland funeral. I worked on a list of possible features for the proposed autumn edition. The more I thought about Ginny’s idea, the better I liked it. The broadness of scope meant that there were plenty of advertisers to tap. Home improvement. Yard work. Energy. Fashion. Food. “An Alpine Autumn.” That sounded good to me.

By noon, I was so pleased with the concept that instead of eating in, I decided to call Milo and see if he wanted to meet me for lunch at the Venison Inn. I was told, however, that the sheriff wasn’t in. Feeling slightly deflated, I walked down Front Street to the restaurant. There I encountered a CLOSED sign on the door and a handwritten message taped to the glass.

THE VENISON INN WILL BE CLOSED BEGINNING FRIDAY, SEPT. EIGHTH, UNTIL MONDAY, SEPT. EIGHTEENTH, IN MEMORY OF JOHN AUGUSTUS (JACK) FROLAND.

I’d forgotten about the closure. Annoyed, I started to cross the street to the Burger Barn but stopped just short of the curb. It was twelve-ten, about the time that Jack Froland’s funeral would be over. Vida would probably go to the cemetery. I could meet her there and see if she wanted to go to lunch. Ordinarily, Vida wouldn’t miss a post-funeral get-together, but I figured that after the fracas the previous night, any socializing at the Froland home would be cancelled.

I drove down Front Street, all the way to Highway 187, or the Icicle Creek Road as it was unofficially known. Smoke still hung in the air, and the sky was overcast. The temperature was close to seventy degrees, which wasn’t all that warm, yet the hazy skies spread an oppressive air over the town. Perhaps it was my imagination. I hadn’t attended a burial since Tom’s, which had been held not in Alpine but in San Francisco, where he had lived for years with his family.

“Damn!” I said aloud as the steep road curved ahead of me. Can I do this?

“You damned well better,” said a crackling voice inside me. It sounded like Ben. I kept driving and finally entered through the cemetery’s open iron gates.

It wasn’t hard to find the Froland mourners. The cemetery is built on hilly ground. The road at the entrance dips down, so I slowed enough to spot the line of cars pulled up on the verge and the cluster of people under a green canopy.

I parked behind the last car. To my left I saw the Runkel monument, a solid granite monolith that marked the graves of Rufus Runkel and several other family members, including Vida’s late husband, Ernest. She had told me that she would be buried beside Ernest and that the headstone was already in place. She’d bought it when Ernest died over twenty years ago.

“It was such a bargain,” she’d said. “I couldn’t turn it down.”

I’d never looked closely at the Runkel family plot. I couldn’t bear to see Vida’s name there, even though in my lighter moments, I’d wondered if she’d have a periscope installed with her so that she could keep track of the local happenings even from the grave.

At least two dozen cars were parked alongside the road. I trudged across the grass, which showed ominous patches of brown, a reminder of our tinder-dry surroundings. As always, I noticed the strange markers that looked like sawed-off tree trunks. I’d finally done some research and written a feature about them, explaining that they were a favored cemetery item from the turn of the last century and represented the Tree of Life. They were often the choice of people who had worked in the timber industry, though their popularity wasn’t exclusive to job or class, and they had been sold through the Sears Roebuck catalogs.

To my surprise, June Froland was at the graveside, seated in a sturdy chair. Her chin rested on her bosom and her hands were slack in her lap. I wondered if she was so medicated that she’d fallen asleep.

Pastor Nielsen was praying over the pale blue casket as I sidled up to my House & Home editor.

“Well,” she said in her stage whisper, “you came. Now why is that?”

“Lunch,” I said under my breath. “Do you want to eat with me after this is over?”

“Oh, dear,” Vida replied. “I brought lunch because I heard there’s no post-burial function. June barely made it to the funeral. I understand she’s heavily sedated.”

As the casket was being lowered into the ground, several people turned our way. Vida’s sister-in-law Mary Lou Hinshaw gave us a dirty look and put a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture.

“Nitwit,” Vida breathed.

Al Driggers handed Max a shovel. The son was about to put the symbolic dirt on his father’s casket when a siren cut through the air, startling us all.

Everyone turned to the road where Milo Dodge’s Grand Cherokee was coming to a stop in front of the hearse. The siren, which the sheriff—in an uncharacteristic flight of fancy—had ordered through Harvey’s Hardware, was the wah-woo-wah-wah sound of the British police. Milo had sent for it not long after we broke up. I figured it was the masculine equivalent of the feminine change of hair color following a broken romance.

Max stood stiffly with the shovel in his hand. June’s head slowly lifted. Pastor Nielsen looked annoyed. Fred and Opal Iverson, standing with several other kinfolk, eyed the sheriff with curiosity. Only Al Driggers—ever the professional— showed no emotion whatsoever.

“Hold it!” Milo shouted, loping awkwardly to the grave site. He winced as the widow Froland scowled at him. “Sorry, June, sorry, folks.” The sheriff removed his regulation hat. For at least ten seconds, he shifted from one foot to the other, looking like a student caught in class without an answer.