The Alpine Christmas (32 page)

With all my heart,

Your loving MA  

“
Ma?
Isn’t that carrying the Irish mother bit too far?” I handed the letter back to Ben.

“It must be initials. I wonder what happened to her?” My brother looked wistful as he studied the letter again. “He must have thought something of her, or he would have thrown this out.” Ben returned to his file folders. My watch told me it was almost eight. I hadn’t eaten dinner and was suddenly ravenous. I asked my brother if he might be hungry, too.

Ben shook his head. “Mrs. McHale fixed me a crab omelette and a green salad. Delicious.” His puckish expression showed that he still delighted in taunting me.

I waited until he seemed absorbed in his work. “Any leftovers?” I, too, could be a pain.

“What? No, I ate the whole thing.” Ben looked very pleased with himself. “The salad, too.”

I got out of the chair. “In that case, I’ll go forage for myself.” I headed for the kitchen.

The rectory refrigerator was not only immaculate, but virtually empty except for the usual dairy products, condiments, and a crisper drawer full of vegetables. Except for a wedge of cheddar cheese, there wasn’t much with which to make a meal. The freezing compartment was small and looked as if it had been recently defrosted.

“Try the big one in the basement,” said Ben, lounging in the doorway. “But don’t let Mrs. McHale find out I said it was okay. She lives in mortal fear that somebody will screw up her food-filing system.”

“She files food?” I wrinkled my nose. “What is she, a frustrated Department of Agriculture clerk?”

Ben chuckled. “She’s the most organized woman I’ve ever met. Peyton Flake keeps telling me how Father Fitz tries to give orders and practically gets himself worked up into another stroke. The poor old soul needn’t worry—Teresa McHale will keep this place running like a Swiss watch.”

We headed out the back door. The basement stairs were at the rear of the house, off the small porch. “Father Fitz is
lucky to have her,” I noted, as a blast of snow and wind hit us. “He ought to stop fussing and put his energy into recovering.”

“I know,” Ben agreed as we carefully trod the dozen wooden stairs that led to the basement. Although the steps were covered, snow had drifted onto them, making the descent treacherous. I worried about Adam skiing. Then I worried about Adam
not
skiing. But if he was sipping mulled wine in the lodge with Carla, Ginny would be there, too. Somehow, I wasn’t consoled.

Ben tried the door; it was locked.

“Damn,” he muttered, unhooking a set of keys from his belt. “Which one is it? I’ve never been down here before. Front door, back door, church, garage, car ignition, car trunk … here, it’s got to be this one.…”

It was. The hinges creaked, and we couldn’t see a thing inside. Ben felt for a light switch, but couldn’t find one. At last he made contact with a thick string. One pull illuminated the unfinished basement. The usable area wasn’t much bigger than the parlor. Above four feet of concrete and several beams, we could see piles of dirt and some large rocks. The mountainside pushed up beneath the rectory. It was no wonder that the basement smelled damp, even rank.

“This place needs airing out,” Ben remarked, grimacing. He moved toward the old freezer, which was wedged between a large fruit cupboard and a stack of cartons tied with twine. Next to me was an ancient, black steamer trunk with rusted locks. I wondered if it had made the original crossing from Ireland with Father Fitz. Like its owner, it would probably never see the Emerald Isle again.

Ben put his shoulder to the heavy freezer and lifted the lid. I was wrinkling my nose. The basement really smelled terrible, an odor I couldn’t define. Ben bent over the freezer. And let out a horrible cry. I think I made an exclamation, too, of shock. Ben allowed the freezer to slam shut. He reeled, then stumbled toward me and held on for dear life.

“Ben …” He was clinging to me so tightly that I could scarcely speak. “What …?”

Taking deep breaths, Ben kept his arms around me but steered us to the door and onto the stairs. The snow swirled around us; the wind howled in our ears. Ben’s face was in shadow from the basement light, but I could see that he was pale under his tan.

“It’s a body,” he finally gasped, then groaned. “
Some
of a body … Oh, God!” He let go and crossed himself.

I fell back against the side of the house. “Ben …” I couldn’t think clearly. Had he said it was
somebody
 … or
some body
?

My brother put his hands over his mouth and took more deep breaths. Then he squared his shoulders. When he spoke, his voice had lost its usual crackle. Indeed, he sounded faintly giddy. “Oh, Emma—I think we found the rest of Kathleen Francich!”

Maybe I always knew we would. Or that someone would. My knees turned to water. I kept leaning against the house, oblivious to the snow that blew in under the overhang, impervious to the sharp wind that came off the mountains. In truth, I was turning numb, and that was just as well. Maybe I could go to sleep and not have to deal with what was left of poor Kathleen.…

But Ben rallied. “Come on, let’s call Milo.” He snatched at my hand, which hung limply at my side.

“Milo?” I spoke his name as if I’d never heard of him. “Oh. Milo.” I felt Ben tug at my hand and I gave myself a shake. “Yes … Milo.” We started up the stairs but I stopped behind Ben at the door. “Wait—the phones—maybe we’d better drive over and find him in person.”

Ben’s brown eyes darted this way and that, indicating he was considering our options. “Right. But we’d better tell Teresa. What if she happens to go down to …’ ”

He saw the awful look on my face and his jaw dropped. “Oh, Jesus … Emma … What are you thinking?”

My voice came out as a rasp. “Ben—that letter. Quick, let’s take another look. Please.”

Furtively, we moved through the rectory, past Teresa’s room, which was now ominously silent. Ben closed the study door behind us and locked it. I grabbed the blue sheet of stationery and put it directly under the desk lamp. The cramped handwriting wasn’t improved by the illumination, but my brain was illuminated instead. “Oh, Ben—this doesn’t say
defy old laws—
it says
defy old Lars
.”

“Lars?”
He sprang toward me, reaching for the single sheet. “Let me see!” Scanning the page, Ben was incredulous, then puzzled. “So what does it mean?”

A kaleidoscope of seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of knowledge spun in my brain: Bridget’s mother’s suicide, Arnie Nyquist’s former girlfriend, Teresa McHale’s desire for a public swimming pool, Francine Wells’s remark about Teresa seeking a job, Ben’s comment about Bridget’s request for masses for her father, and now, the letter signed
MA
.

“This wasn’t written to Father Fitz,” I said in a hushed voice. “It was sent to Arnie Nyquist, from his Catholic girlfriend. Who, I might add, was quite a swimmer.” Ben’s puzzlement deepened, but I rushed on; there wasn’t time for detailed explanations. “This woman was begging Arnie to defy his grandfather, Lars Nyquist, and not let religion stand in their way of getting married.”

“I don’t get it.” Ben’s forehead wrinkled. “What’s it doing in Father Fitz’s prayer book?”

“It wasn’t in the book, remember? You said it was stuck to the bottom. I’m guessing there were more letters, which have been destroyed.” I swallowed hard, trying to figure out what to do next. “They were stolen from Arnie’s house, along with his UDUB-yearbook and that other stuff. Ben, let’s get out of here.”

But my brother was still looking baffled. “Hold it, Emma. Are you saying … Oh, come on, Sluggly, you don’t think …”

A noise in the hall made both of us freeze. Ben’s face turned grim as he positioned himself at one side of the door. “We’ve got company,” he whispered. “Do I attack first and ask questions later?”

Frantically, I shook my head. “She may have your gun,” I whispered back.

“Oh, God!” Ben glanced at the doorknob and recoiled. Maybe he thought that Teresa McHale was going to blast her way into the study. Maybe he was right. “The window,” Ben breathed, shoving me across the room. “It opens. I smoked one of Flake’s cigars in here today and had to air the place out.”

It was only a two-foot drop into the snow. A last look over my shoulder caught the doorknob turning. Of course Teresa had a key. Ben and I ran as fast as the snowstorm would permit. We were on the side of the rectory directly across from the darkened church. To our left was the garage and woodshed; to our right, the street. Teresa hadn’t followed us through the window. My guess was that she was going out through the front door. Ben was already heading that way.

“Wait!” My voice sounded hoarse. Ben turned, cocking his head. “Let’s go the back way and around the church,” I urged, shivering in my green sweater and flannel slacks. “We can get to Fourth Street. There’s bound to be some traffic there.”

Looking as chilled as I felt, Ben followed my lead. As I fought through the snow that had drifted up against the sanctuary, I kept looking back. To my relief, there was no sign of Teresa. Maybe she had decided to make a clean getaway. Maybe she didn’t feel threatened. Maybe my hypothesis was dead wrong.

There wasn’t time to open the garage and get out the old Volvo. Across the empty church parking lot, Cascade Street was obscured by the blowing snow. A dash for the nearest house might be smarter than trying to get down to the intersection. I felt Ben at my elbow as I tried to make out any
nearby lights. My face stung from the cold, and my feet felt numb. We pressed forward, and I uttered a sigh of relief to find that the snow was only a few inches deep in the parking lot. Apparently some Good Samaritan was keeping it plowed.

But nobody could keep it from icing up under foot. I slipped and would have fallen had it not been for Ben. We teetered, then started forward again, moving at an agonizingly slow pace. On any given Sunday, the lot always seemed too small; tonight it was vast, windswept, like the frozen Arctic tundra.

The voice came out of a void. Or so it struck me at first. Then, when I turned, I realized it had come from the rear entrance of the church. Teresa McHale’s shadowy form was barely perceptible through the flying snowflakes. She had used the covered walkway between the rectory and the church. No wonder we hadn’t seen her.

“Come here,” she called, her voice strong and steely.

I glanced at Ben. He gave a faint shake of his head. We plunged forward. Teresa called out again. We kept going.

The single shot ripped past us, maybe between us. It was impossible to tell. We were both jarred, and fell against one another.

“Stop.” Teresa’s voice now sounded very near. I looked around Ben to see her approaching, the Browning high-power clutched in both hands.

“Is that what you used on Standish Crocker before you set his house on fire?” I had no idea what prompted me to make such an inquiry under the circumstances. Begging for mercy would have been more appropriate, but a journalist’s quest for truth dies hard. Right along with the journalist, it suddenly occurred to me.

Teresa was now within ten feet of us. Still, I could barely make out her heavy orange jacket and brown slacks. “You don’t need to know about Crocker. Get inside the church.”

Priest or not, this was one time Ben didn’t seem drawn to the altar. Neither was I. Our only hope was for someone to
drive by, realize something was amiss, and bring help. But Cascade Street was obliterated by the snow, and seemingly untraveled. On this stormy Friday night before Christmas, Alpine’s residents must be keeping cozy at home, wrapping gifts, sipping eggnog, listening to carols. There was no reason to expect them to cruise the town in a blizzard, looking for a homicidal housekeeper and her would-be victims.

“Listen, Mrs. McHale,” Ben began, the crackle back in his voice, “you’re going to get caught. If you shot Standish Crocker, the police have found the bullet. The law will exact its price. But you
are
a Catholic. What about the higher law? Have you thought about your soul?”

I couldn’t see her expression, but I could hear the contempt in her voice. “My soul died with my heart a long time ago. What did being a Catholic ever do for me? If I’d been something else—or nothing at all—I wouldn’t have lost the only man I ever loved. I’ve been dead for thirty-two years. The only pleasure I’ve had is watching Bridget marry into that stiff-necked bunch of Lutherans. That, and making money by making fools out of men. Don’t give me a homily on the state of my soul, Father. I’ve been in hell since I was a girl.”

Despite the imminent danger of dying in the freezing snow, I was aghast. “You turned your own daughter into a whore just to avenge yourself on the Nyquists?”

Teresa gave a little snort. “On
all
men. A woman has the power to reduce any man to the status of an animal. But I did it for the money, too. My husband ran his trucking business into the ground. He’d even let his life insurance lapse. When that oaf died, I had nothing. I couldn’t make ends meet as a sales clerk in a boutique.” She gave a toss of her head. “So I put Bridget and the others to work. They loved it. It was party time, ’round the clock. Young ladies of the finest backgrounds, groomed to please silly businessmen. Catholic, Protestant, Jew—take your choice. I was sorry I never had a real minority. That was my goal, but the girls graduated first.”

For someone who didn’t want to tell us anything, Teresa McHale seemed to be revealing a lot. And why not? Where else could she brag about her brilliant call-girl scheme? Maybe she wasn’t going to shoot us; we could freeze to death instead.

But I was too optimistic. Teresa gestured with the Browning. Maybe she was cold, too. “Enough. You’re trying to stall. Let’s get on with it.”

An even stronger gust of wind blew down from Tonga Ridge. Briefly, Teresa disappeared in a flurry of snow. Siblings have their own wavelength. Ben and I ran for the street. We slipped; we slid. Teresa screamed at us to stop. The gun fired again, not quite so close, but near enough to make my heart skip. No doubt she was right behind us, more than halfway across the parking lot. Or maybe we’d reached the sidewalk. It was impossible to tell. If there was a streetlight in the vicinity, we couldn’t see it. Teresa shouted another warning. The people who lived in the houses across the street didn’t hear a thing. The sound of the wind muffled not only her voice but the shots from the gun.