The Alpine Fury (6 page)

“I suppose,” I said in a musing and, I hoped, confidential
tone, “Bob was curious about how the bank gets along in times of economic duress.”

Linda was opening the door of her car. “Maybe.” Her smile was arch. “Good night, Emma.” She ducked her head and disappeared inside the compact.

Earlier, Larry had cut me off by hiding behind his telephone; now Linda was making a getaway in her car. I was beginning to feel as if the Petersen family was avoiding me. Defeated, I got into the Jag and drove onto Railroad Avenue.

Linda had just pulled away from the arterial at Highway 187. I knew she lived in a relatively new condo at Parc Pines. The dozen dwellings look nice from the outside, but Carla says they’re cramped. She also says she has no problem with spelling Parc with a
C
. She is wrong—Carla has problems with spelling in general.

Parc Pines is on Alpine Way, just off my own street. I didn’t want Linda to think I was following her, so I turned off at Front Street. Linda continued up Highway 187, the in-town stretch already having been paved and widened. I cut up Eighth Street, past the 7-Eleven and Alpine Appliance, then turned onto Pine, zigzagging my way up the mountainside. It hadn’t iced up yet, but the route was safer, if slower. I was in no hurry; no one waited for me at home. The thought made me feel a trifle bleak.

My recovery was quick: Linda Lindahl was right in front of me again, if not for long. Her car turned off at the Lumberjack Motel. I put my foot on the brake and crawled along past the twenty units that took up a half block.

All the rooms faced the parking lot in the two-story structure. I felt like a voyeur as the Jag crept to the corner of Pine and Seventh Streets. But snooping is my
job. And I wanted to know why Linda was wearing her good wool coat to get gas at Icicle Creek.

She had parked at the far end of the lot, under cover of a tall Douglas fir. There were only five or six other vehicles in front of the Lumberjack. In early November before ski season starts, tourists are scarce in Alpine.

There was no arterial at the corner. I couldn’t come to a dead halt. My last sighting in the rearview mirror caught Linda walking purposefully toward a unit on the bottom level. She disappeared as the Jag drifted across the intersection.

Somewhat guiltily, I headed home. Except for leaving her car in the shadow of the tree, Linda hadn’t seemed to fear discovery at the Lumberjack Motel. I knew she was divorced, with an ex-husband living in Everett. I recalled a child, a daughter maybe. I realized I knew very little about her.

Vida would know, of course. On a whim, I rounded the corner of Sixth and Tyee. The lights from Vida’s small, neat bungalow glowed through the gathering fog like a beacon.

“Well!” My House & Home editor expressed surprise, curiosity, and pleasure all at once. So did I, since Vida had her gray curls covered with a ragged bandana tied in the middle of her forehead and was wearing a tattered flannel bathrobe and rubber gloves. “Whatever are you doing out at nine o’clock?” she inquired. “There are no meetings tonight.”

Vida, Carla, and I all cover our share of civic and social gatherings. We each usually get stuck for at least one a week. But not on this first Monday in November.

I explained about going to church and getting gas. Vida listened as she put on the teakettle. Her usually cozy kitchen was covered with old newspapers, including
The Advocate
. The house smelled strongly of Comet cleanser.

“I’m cleaning,” she announced, waving a rubber glove at various appliances. “I’m having Thanksgiving. I like to get a head start for the holidays. I’m also having Roger this weekend. Amy and Ted are going to spend the weekend in Seattle. They have tickets to the Repertory Theatre.”

Personally, I would have waited until after Roger had left to clean house. Then I would have called in the Bomb Squad first. Roger is Vida’s ten-year-old grandson, and the apple of her eye. Amy is the only one of Vida’s three daughters who lives in Alpine. Never mind that Roger is a horror. While Vida is highly critical of other people’s children, Roger can do no wrong.

I tried to conceal my dismay. As far as I’m concerned, a weekend with Roger would be like a month in the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition. I didn’t ask how Vida would amuse him, but she told me anyway.

“Friday, we’re getting videos, all his favorites. Saturday, I’ll take him to the mall and he can buy something special. In the evening, we’ll get a big pizza. Sunday, we’ll go to church and then practice shooting his new BB gun in the woods.”

I blinked. Roger with a BB gun sent off danger signals. He should run up the Jolly Roger on his bike. “What if it snows?” That was the only nonpejorative comment I could manage.

Vida shrugged, then removed two bone-china teacups and saucers from her cupboard. “We could drive down the pass to Sultan. Everyone practices shooting at the gravel pit there.”

Everyone would soon stop if Roger came along. But I let Vida run her course before I got to the purpose of my visit. She was steeping the tea by the time I was
able to tell her about my latest encounters with the Petersens.

“So I still don’t know why Bob Lambrecht met with Marv Petersen, and now I wonder who Linda was meeting at the Lumberjack Motel,” I concluded as Vida poured tea.

“I can’t use
that
in ‘Scene Around,’” Vida remarked with some asperity. “If I mentioned everyone having an extramarital affair in this town, we’d run out of room.”

“I know that, Vida.” I allowed myself a teaspoon of sugar. Vida is a diligent housekeeper and a fine gardener, but her culinary skills are limited. Even her tea lacks flavor. “I’m not really prying. If there’s a bank buyout in the works, this is big news.” I ignored Vida’s scowl. “I need background on the family.”

Vida refused to address the issue. Instead, she asked if Leo had gotten his financial life straightened out at the bank. I assured her he had, then steered the conversation back to Linda.

Vida removed her glasses and vigorously rubbed her eyes, always a gesture of annoyance or distress. “Ooooh … This is all very silly. The Petersens would never sell out. It would be tantamount to admitting that the town itself is going under.”

I didn’t say anything. My arrival in Alpine had coincided with the downturn in the timber industry. Since then, Front Street had become dotted with
FOR RENT
signs. Some of the vacancies were caused by businesses that had moved to the mall, but others had simply failed. Not only had Buzzy’s BP gone belly-up, but so had the Chinese-American restaurant in the same block, a gift shop, a feed merchant, a pet store, and a building contractor. I waited for Vida to face reality.

“After high school, Linda went to Everett Junior College.” Vida put her glasses back on and gave me a look
of resignation. “During the summers, she worked for her father as a teller. She had a very unhappy romance with a boy from Gold Bar. They called off the wedding less than a month before they were to be married. Linda has always been difficult. She married Howard Lindahl on the rebound and moved to Everett. She was—what?—twenty-three, I think. They had a daughter who must be about twelve. Howard worked for one of the mills over there, but later he started his own cabinetry business. That was before the divorce, which was three years ago, just after you moved to Alpine. Linda came back here and went to work for her father again, first as a teller, then as his bookkeeper when Alma Olson retired. Howard has custody of young Alison.” Daintily Vida sipped her tea.

“Interesting. Why?”

“I can only guess.” Vida set the cup down with great care. “Howard’s remarried, for one thing. Linda never struck me as very maternal. I’ve always suspected that Alison was a mistake. When Linda and Howard broke up, I think she wanted to be free of responsibility.”

“Men?”

Vida frowned, then poured more tea for both of us. “Possibly. Though Linda was never what we used to call boy-crazy. Still, she’s fond of men. Unfortunately, they haven’t always been fond of her—not after they get to know the real Linda.”

“Prickly,” I murmured. Unlucky, maybe. That’s how I preferred to describe myself. “Maybe I shouldn’t assume the worst about Linda being at the motel.”

“Why not? I always do. I’m rarely wrong.” Vida’s tone was matter-of-fact.

We were silent for a moment. My mind’s eye traveled back to the bank. “Say, Vida, why is there an empty medallion on the bank wall?”

Vida looked puzzled. I elaborated. “Ah.” She dabbed at her lips with a paper napkin. “The Silent Partner. I’d forgotten about that. The medallion, I mean. Someone—I never knew who—invested money in the original bank but wouldn’t allow his name—I assume it was a man, being 1930 and all—to be made public. Possibly it was a former Alpiner who had moved away and done well.” She shrugged. “It was, of course, before my time.”

Things that happened before Vida’s time really didn’t count for much. “What about the rest of the family?” I inquired.

Vida was eyeing her stove. Judging from what looked like a faint streak of spaghetti sauce, she hadn’t yet cleaned it. I got the impression that having disposed of Linda’s background, Vida was now anxious to resume her chores.

“You know Larry and his wife, JoAnne. She’s a Bergstrom. Their two boys are away at college. Denise just started at the bank a short time ago. Her only experience has been waiting tables at the Burger Barn and the Icicle Creek Tavern. At least she knows how to make change.” Vida was speaking very fast, one slippered foot swinging under the table. “Marv is the youngest of Frank’s three children. There’s a story—anecdotal, perhaps—that Frank was made the original president because my father-in-law, Rufus Runkel, wanted to call it Frank’s Bank. I think not. In any event, Frank’s elder son, Elmer, had absolutely no interest in banking. He still lives with his wife, Thelma, on their farm near Icicle Creek. Thelma was a Dodge. Milo’s aunt.”

I knew of the farm, which consisted mostly of chickens, ducks, a dozen cows, two horses, and a large vegetable garden in the summer. I didn’t realize that Milo
was somehow connected with the Petersens. But this was Alpine, and the fact wasn’t amazing.

“Frank’s daughter, the middle child, is DeAnne,” Vida continued, still with one eye on the stove. “She married an Iverson first, then a Sigurdson, and has lived in Seattle ever since. As for Marv, the youngest of Frank and Irmgaard’s children, he went into the business because he liked it. So did his son, Larry. Marv’s wife isn’t from around here. Cathleen Petersen was born and raised somewhere near Puyallup. I don’t recall how she and Marv met. He served in Korea.”

My mental processes were awhirl. I should have taken notes. As usual, Vida’s biographical account had been thorough. “There was Frank originally,” I said slowly, “then along came Marv, with Larry waiting in the wings. Linda, too, maybe. Denise is the fourth generation.”

“Oh, Denise!” Vida waved a hand in dismissal. “She’s a feather-wit! One of her brothers will follow in their father’s footsteps. It won’t be Denise. But Larry has to have his turn first.”

I remarked that Andy Cederberg had said Marv Petersen would retire when he turned sixty-five. “If the Bank of Washington takes over,” I speculated, “they might keep everyone in place.”

Vida finally stopped staring at her stove. “They won’t take over the Bank of Alpine. They can’t. They mustn’t.” She seemed to be talking to herself, or possibly communing with the banking spirits in Seattle. “Frank would roll over in his grave.”

“He died—when?” I asked, getting to my feet.

Vida seemed relieved that I was leaving. She tried to cover by picking up the teapot and tapping it. I shook my head. She put the pot back on the table.

“Frank died in 1976, the Bicentennial year. His wife,
Irmgaard, went in ’seventy-nine. She outlived him, but not by much.” Vida made it sound as if mortality were a competitive event.

I made it to my car. The fog was now thick, swirling above the ground and forcing me to drive at a snail’s pace. Again I ticked off the Petersens, generation by generation: Frank, the founder, now deceased; farmer Elmer, daughter DeAnne, banker Marv; Larry and Linda, both working for their father; Denise, dim, and eventually to be supplanted by one of her brothers.

I had the family lined up. I knew the players. But I didn’t know the facts. Tomorrow I’d try to pry the truth out of the bank personnel. I’d also call Bob Lambrecht in Seattle. I hoped to be out of my mental fog by deadline.

My hope was unrealistic. Bob Lambrecht was an intelligent, courteous man who was perfectly willing to give me a concise rundown of his banking career. He spoke affectionately of his wife, Miriam, and their four children. He even gave me a quote about his impression of Alpine after a thirty-year absence. But he only chuckled when I asked if he’d come to the bank on business.

Nor were the Petersens more forthcoming. I went over to the bank around eleven, after I finished writing the feature on Bob Lambrecht. Larry was engaged in an earnest conversation with Garth Wesley, the current owner of Parker’s Pharmacy. Linda, according to Andy Cederberg, was tied up in her office. Marv, however, could spare me a few minutes.

Marvin Petersen’s usual geniality seemed strained on this cold, overcast November morning. His blue eyes were wary and his handshake was tentative. Marv was taller than his son by an inch and heavier by at least
twenty pounds. He grunted as he sat down in his leather-covered swivel chair.

“Emma, let’s be frank. I hate rumors. This town is always full of them.” He picked up a gold ballpoint pen and twirled it in his stubby fingers. “If I say anything for public print, everybody will interpret it six different ways. When—and if—I’ve got something to tell you, you’ll be the first to know.”

Briefly I considered baiting Marv by telling him that I was now forced to write “… that when asked if the Bank of Alpine was for sale, President and CEO Marvin Petersen had no comment.” But I wanted to keep Marv on my side.

“If you change your mind, will you call me before five o’clock today?” I asked. “We have to send the paper off to the printer in Monroe first thing tomorrow.”