The Alpine Christmas (23 page)

“Damn!” I exclaimed. “I wish we knew where Evan Singer was. We could fill up that hole with quotes from him.” Only fleetingly did I chastise myself for my callous attitude. At six o’clock in the morning of press day, I tend to let a crisis make me a journalist instead of a human being.

Vida, however, understood. “We could hold off sending Kip to Monroe until eight or nine. Wouldn’t you rather be late than inaccurate?”

Of course I would, but the printer would hate me for it.
The Advocate
had a specific time on the press. Missing it screwed everybody up, and cost me money. “We’ve got over an hour to hear anything new,” I pointed out, trying to keep panic at bay. “I’m walking to the office. I’ll be there in twenty minutes if I don’t fall down and break my neck.”

Vida said she’d come in early, too. Hurriedly, I drank a cup of coffee, ate a piece of toast, and bundled myself up for the foray out into the snow. Peeking in on Adam, I saw only a patch of dark hair etched against his old Superman sheets. It occurred to me that I should replace them. Maybe bedding could be added to his Christmas gifts.

It was still dark, still snowing, but the footing was decent. A few cars were plodding along Fir Street. I crossed it carefully, noting that several houses along my route had left their outdoor lights on overnight. They provided cheerful beacons as I made my way down Fourth, mentally waving to Ben as I passed St. Mildred’s and the rectory.

Except for a couple of delivery trucks, Front Street was virtually deserted this early. By the time I got to the office, I was stiff with cold. It didn’t seem much warmer inside than it did outside. I turned on the heat, made coffee, and didn’t
take off my coat. Vida arrived before I could switch on the computer.

“Where do you suppose Evan Singer is, if he wasn’t at home last night?” Vida demanded, yanking off her heavy knitted gloves. “Ronnie told me the fire probably started around eleven-thirty. Nobody would have noticed it way out there if Sue Ann Daley Phipps at Cass Pond hadn’t gone into labor. She and her husband saw the flames on their way into the hospital and called from the emergency room.”

“What time was Evan at your house?” I asked, staring stupidly at the computer display of page one.

“About nine-thirty. The snow got so heavy that he couldn’t get the sleigh through it. Henry Bardeen had to use a four-wheel drive to haul the diners back to the parking lot.” Vida gave me a flinty look. “Don’t say it. No, Evan did
not
tell me where he was going after he left my house. If he had, I would have told you already.”

I fueled myself with more coffee and wrote the sketchy story about the fire. It filled up a scant five inches. I needed twenty. I could run Evan’s photo with a new cutline—but only if I knew whether he was dead or alive. I scowled at the layout. It was after seven, and Kip MacDuff would be along any minute. To my astonishment, Vida was emptying a string bag on her desk. At first, I thought it was our mail, but the postman doesn’t usually show up until around ten. Then I recognized the bag of letters and bills and circulars I’d brought from the Villa Apartments.

“How’d you get hold of that stuff?” I demanded.

Vida gave me a superior look. “Billy let me borrow them. He and the rest of those dimwits haven’t had time to go through them yet. They only opened a couple of bills. Now that we know Kathleen Francich was in Alpine—or that her car was—we can proceed without further doubts.” She waved a green-edged piece of paper at me. “See this? It’s an oil-company bill with a charge for the BP station in Sultan, October
seventh. I do hope Milo is going over that car with a fine-toothed comb.”

I stared at the list of billings; Vida was right. The Sultan charge was also the last one made on the account. The bill itself was dated November the first. Vida held up another BP invoice.

“December. No payments, no charges. Nothing on any of her credit cards since early October, either.” She was haphazardly organizing the mail into categories: catalogues, circulars, bills, and personal mail. “They both have a lot of creditors, their bank cards are up to the limit, and neither seem to make many payments. Dun, dun, dun—done.” Vida pushed the bills to one side. “There are some Christmas cards, but no letters. Most of the cards are absolutely hideous, as you might expect with a person of Kathleen’s low morals. Vulgar, too. I really don’t care to see Santa exposing himself. There are some for Carol, too, but read this one.”

Vida handed me an envelope containing a card that didn’t seem to bear out her assessment. The return address, in Redmond, was for one Murray Francich. The card itself was a handsome cutout of a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Unless it produced bird droppings when I opened it, Murray Francich’s greeting seemed to be the exception to Vida’s rule.

Inside there was a note: “Kathy,” it began, “it’s Christmas, let’s try to be a family for a couple of days. I’m heading for E. Wash. Dec. 21. Why don’t you come with me? No matter what you may think, the folks want to see you. Call me. Love, Murray.”

I hazarded a guess. “Her brother?”

“That’s what it sounds like. Their parents must live on the other side of the mountains.” Vida gazed down on her untidy stacks of mail. “Frankly, that’s the only one of real interest I found. The rest are signed with names and at best—or worst, considering—the occasional ribald remark.”

“Milo has to get hold of Murray,” I said. “Maybe the
parents, too. And Carol’s. It sounds to me as if those poor girls had problems with their parents.”

“No wonder.” Vida grimaced. “Carol’s background sounds unstable, but that’s no excuse to sell herself into prostitution. Imagine! Private school backgrounds, good educations, a bright future—and now this.” She slapped at the pile of allegedly obscene Christmas cards, symbolic of depravity. “What could have made them ruin their lives?”

I lifted an eyebrow at Vida. “What? Or who?”

Vida regarded me with approval. “A good point.”

The door opened, and of course I expected to see Kip MacDuff. Instead, Oscar Nyquist blundered and thundered into the office. This day was definitely not off to an auspicious start.

“Now this! What next? Who do I sue?” Oscar was one of the few octogenarians I knew who could still jump up and down. His bulky body made the furniture shake.

Vida, however, was unmoved. “Sue the ACLU. Claim you’re a minority and then get them to represent you against themselves. It should be an interesting case.” She gave Oscar a tight smile.

As usual, her irony was lost on Oscar Nyquist. “I’m not kidding!” he bellowed. “I get down to the Marmot first thing, like I always do, never mind four or forty feet of snow. And what do I find? A trespasser, that’s what! I made a citizen’s arrest. It’s come to that, I tell you!”

I edged a bit closer to Oscar. “You actually took this person to the sheriff?” Why did I doubt it? Oscar Nyquist looked as if he could have hauled off the entire loge section of the Marmot.

“You bet.” He nodded vigorously, the tube lights lending a jaundiced cast to his bald head. “They’d better lock him up, too. He’s dangerous. He was smoking dope!”

My heart gave a lurch. “Who? Who was this trespasser?”

Now Oscar shook his head, just as vigorously, but from
side to side. “That punk, you know, the one who drives the sleigh. Henry Bardeen must have been nuts to hire him.”

I slumped against Ed’s desk in relief. “Evan’s alive, then?”

Oscar’s bushy brows drew close together. “Evan? Is that what he’s called? What kind of name is that? Only my sister could come up with such a silly moniker! She called her kid Norman!”

“It’s no worse than Travis,” Vida pointed out. She saw Oscar start to boil over again and shook a ballpoint pen at him. “Simmer down, Oscar. Haven’t you heard about the fire last night?”

Oscar hadn’t, though he recalled sirens somewhere between dusk and dawn. The burning of Evan Singer’s cabin didn’t faze him, however. “No wonder,” he muttered. “He was probably smoking that dope and set it off himself.”

It took some doing, but eventually we got a rational account out of Oscar Nyquist. He had come to the Marmot shortly before seven. Walking through the auditorium, he had noticed what he thought was a coat that someone had left on a chair in the third row. Upon closer inspection, he discovered Evan Singer, slumped down and fast asleep. Irate, Oscar had bodily hauled Singer out of the theatre and down the street to the sheriff’s office. Trespassing charges had been filed with Deputy Dwight Gould, though Oscar didn’t doubt for a minute that they’d be dismissed and that Evan Singer would be merrily on his way to go off and smoke more weed. Would we put the story in the paper? Oscar assured us that we needed to run this kind of publicity. Vida informed him that we didn’t—at least not in this week’s issue. We’d have to see the formal charges, talk to Dwight Gould, get a statement from Evan Singer, and take another picture of Oscar the Valiant Hero. Since the paper was due to leave for Monroe at any moment, our hands were tied.

Amazingly, Oscar seemed to understand. What was even more amazing was that after only another outburst or two, he left. Frenzied, I called the sheriff’s office to make sure
that Evan Singer really was alive and reasonably well, then redummied the front page, threw in Evan’s picture, and added a semi-happy ending to the fire story. Three minutes later, Kip MacDuff was on the road to Monroe.

As for Oscar’s prediction, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Given the circumstances of the fire—which was news to Evan—Dwight Gould showed mercy, asked for a five-dollar fine, and tore up the charge.

“So where is he going to live?” I asked Carla, who had done the legwork on the latest developments.

“Evan doesn’t know,” she said, “and I didn’t want to get close enough to ask. He’s really upset. His artwork was destroyed, you know. I gather he figures Henry Bardeen will give him a room up at the lodge. Of course the cabin is owned by somebody else.” She threw an inquiring look at Vida.

“Elmer Tuck,” Vida responded promptly. “He lives out by the fish hatchery. Retired from the Forest Service. Originally owned by an off bearer in the old Clemans mill. Bachelor. Went up for auction in ’thirty-four and Elmer’s dad, Kermit Tuck, bought it for two hundred dollars as a retreat from his wife, May. Awful shrew, but a fine cook. Kermit drank, but only on weekends.” Vida summed up several lives without glancing away from her typewriter.

Wednesdays are usually slow days at
The Advocate
. Next week, however, we were aiming for forty-eight pages, which meant that there was a lot of copy to write. Now was the time to get a jump on it. I culled the wire service for anything that might have a local angle. Timber industry, ski resort, environment, state department of highways—often there was a tie-in. I handed several items to Carla and kept a couple for myself. By the time the AP got to business news, I gave the stocks and bonds my usual detached glance. But a dateline out of Seattle startled me:

I read the item to Vida who wrinkled her nose. “Hunts Point? Isn’t that where all your rich city people live across the lake?”

It was. Or at least it was an enclave where many wealthy persons had palatial homes. Hunts Point spelled prestige, exclusiveness, affluence. And, in the case of Standish Crocker, gross misconduct.

“I wonder how Travis Nyquist feels about this?” I mused. “Shall we get a comment from him regarding his former employer?”

Of course, Vida agreed, and a moment later, I had Travis on the line. He was shocked; he was incredulous. Standish Crocker was the soul of integrity. There must be some mistake.

“Cutthroat,” asserted Travis. “That’s what the financial business is like. I’m glad I’m out of it. Poor Mr. Crocker—he’s obviously got some sharks swimming after him. He’ll be fine, trust me.”

I didn’t, of course. Not with a stakeout in a PUD truck sitting across the street from Travis Nyquist’s house. I wondered how deeply Travis was involved. We were a week away from the next edition, but I felt a sense of urgency. It wasn’t yet noon. Milo Dodge was probably still asleep. I called his office and left word for him to get in touch with me as soon as he checked in.

Ed Bronsky was moaning over a double-truck co-op ad from the mall. “Look at this! Every store there is wishing our readers Merry Christmas! And after gouging us for presents! That takes nerve!”

It also took money, which I was only too glad to accept. I
let Ed groan on while consulting with Carla about a feature she was planning around holiday reunions. To my pleasant surprise, she’d gone to the trouble to track down several Alpiners who were getting together with relatives they hadn’t seen in years, either here in town or some place else. If she could carry through with her writing, the story should make heart-tugging, tear-jerking Christmas copy.

Ginny had just delivered the mail, which was late and not of much interest. Having skimped on breakfast, I was thinking about lunch when Vida announced that it was time for us to leave.

“For where?” I asked, startled.

She gave me a look of exasperation. “For Bridget’s. I told you we were going to talk to her this morning.”

“But …” I started to protest, watched her shrug into her tweed coat, and gave up. “I mean, I thought that after the fire, you might want to lay off Evan Singer.”

Vida gave me a hard stare. “Why? He’s not dead, is he? Let’s go.”

We did, taking her big Buick up to The Pines. The snow had let up a bit as the morning moved along. As difficult as it may be to conduct modern life in a world of perpetual winter, it is always beautiful. Each new fall obliterates the blemishes, accentuates the magic, and enhances the peace. Christmas lights, indoors and outdoors, sparkle all the brighter against a backdrop of white. No wonder the old pagans lighted bonfires for their winter festivals. Even less surprising is our modern urge to tear the rainbow apart and fill our homes and hearths with twinkling lights and dazzling baubles. We have not come so far from the barbarians; we merely have more means.