Iced (11 page)

“My name is Regan Reilly, and this is my friend Louis.”

“How nice for you. What do you want me to do about it?”

“We wanted to talk to you.”

“About what? I’m pretty busy here. I have a lot of odds and ends to rummage through.”

“It looks as though you have quite a few interesting artifacts here,” Regan said, lying through her teeth. “You could have some garage sale.”

“Yeah, well, I’m donating what’s good to the new museum in town. Other things”—she pointed to a canvas lying on the ground—“I don’t know what to do with.”

“What is it?” Regan asked.

Geraldine waved her hand dismissively. “I bought it for the frame. It’s just a beat-up portrait of some old geezer from France.”

“Can I see?” Regan asked, bending over.

“I guess.” Geraldine watched as Regan lifted the folded canvas. Staring from it, under layers of dirt and grime, was the corpulent figure of a white-haired aristocrat with a self-satisfied smile. He was wearing a velvet cape trimmed with ermine, silver slippers and hose. In one hand he held a plumed hat; in the other, a scepter. A throne could be seen behind him and a gold crown rested on the table next to him.

“I don’t know what possessed those guys to dress like that and wear their hair long and curly,” Geraldine said. “Don’t you think he looks awful?”

Regan laughed. “I think he was in the height of fashion for his day. It must have taken him a long time to get dressed. Will you be giving this to the museum as well?”

Geraldine shrugged. “As I said, I only bought it because the frame is really nice and I wanted it for the portrait of my Pop-Pop.”

“Your what?”

“My grandfather.”

“Oh. Do you know who this is?”

“He’s supposed to be Louis the Eighteenth of France,” Geraldine said. “At least that’s what the woman who sold it to me said. I didn’t care who it was. The museum certainly won’t want it. That guy never marched around Aspen. I’ll get rid of it somewhere.”

Louis had been hovering in the doorway. Regan’s mind raced. This might be a good time to break the news of who he was to Geraldine. “Louis, did you hear that?” Regan asked him. “This is a portrait of King Louis! Don’t you think this would look great hanging in your restaurant?”

“Wait a minute!” Geraldine snapped. “What restaurant?”

“I’m the one you’re mad at,” Louis said quickly. “Please listen to us!”

“YOU!!! You brought that lawbreaker into the bosom of this town and let him run wild among our youngsters?” Geraldine shook her head and stalked out of the barn. “You don’t deserve to have the big benefit.” She turned and pointed her finger at Louis. “The police force in this town has a wonderful motto.” She straightened her back. “ ‘To share with all a safe and peaceful environment by encouraging mutual responsibility and respect.’ You, sonny, showed no respect for Kendra and Sam Wood or for the Grants or for anyone in this paradise in the wilderness.”

Louis’s lip quivered. “I’m sorry.” He turned to Regan.

“Let’s get going. It’s no use.” He started down the driveway, his feet crunching in the snow.

“Louis, wait,” Regan called. She turned to Geraldine, who was wrapped in a red-and-black jacket. “Ms. Spoon-fellow, from what Louis tells me, and from what I’ve read about you, your grandfather was a silver miner who lost the potential to make a lot more money when silver was demonetized.”

“Don’t mention that snake President Grover Cleveland’s name in my presence,” Geraldine warned. “That was his big idea.”

“Didn’t eighty percent of Aspen go bankrupt?”

“Eighteen ninety-three was a terrible year, um-hmmm.”

“But your grandfather, unlike a lot of other people, chose to stay here...”

“And tough it out.”

“He didn’t abandon ship, shall we say.”

“That’s right. He used his resources to open a saloon. He figured that people needed a place to go and forget their troubles. Have a few shots of whiskey, tell jokes, get drunk. Pop-Pop liked to bring people together.”

“So why don’t you give Louis that chance?”

“What’s that guy got to do with my Pop-Pop? Don’t mention them in the same breath, missy.”

Regan paused and inhaled deeply. If she failed now, it was all over for Louis. “Ms. Spoonfellow,” she said earnestly, “Louis is trying to open more than a restaurant. It’ll be a place where he’ll have poetry readings and society meetings and whatever else people want to gather for. The paintings of local artists will be on display all the time. If anyone is trying to promote the Aspen idea of keeping culture in this town, it’s Louis. Like your Pop-Pop with his saloon, he just wants to bring people together. If you have the party moved to that other restaurant, which is just another commercial joint, he’ll be finished.”

Geraldine kicked a mound of snow with the tip of her boot. Her white hair seemed to blend into the snowy mountains in the distance behind her. The creases in her forehead deepened. “What about that Eben fellow? He’s a no-good varmint.”

“Louis was trying to give someone a fresh start. He thought that Eben wanted to pull himself up by the bootstraps and begin his life again. Like the old silver miners who came to Aspen looking for a new life. No one would have hired Eben if they knew he had a criminal record. The only thing Louis is guilty of is sticking out his neck for somebody.” Regan paused. “It didn’t work out so well, but I don’t think he should have to pay so heavily for it. If this town is anything, I thought it was open-minded. I thought it was a place where all different kinds of people can hang out together...”

“People who can afford it,” Geraldine snapped.

“Still. People come here to ski and socialize and have some grog...”

“Peppermint schnapps is a local favorite,” Geraldine observed.

“Peppermint schnapps, whatever,” Regan said. “This town was built by people taking chances, not by people who played it safe. Your grandfather was one of the first. I think he’d probably hate to see someone lose his chance before he even got started.”

Geraldine stared out at the mountains. Who knows what memories of Pop-Pop are flashing through her mind, Regan thought.

Finally, Geraldine said, “I guess nobody’s perfect. It’s getting nippy.” She pulled the jacket closer around her. “Why don’t you two come in for some coffee?”

Louis, who’d been quiet up until now, with one foot in front of him as though ready to flee if Geraldine attacked him, now looked as though he could have jumped three feet in the air. He clapped his hands together. “Do you by any chance have herbal tea?” he asked as they followed her into the house.

“Herbal tea is for wimps,” their hostess said emphatically.

For the next forty-five minutes they sat and talked with Geraldine.

“Call me Geraldine,” she demanded. “You find as you get older, fewer and fewer people call you by your first name. And the ones who do right away are just plain rude. If there’s anything that bugs me it’s these people who call on the phone and try to sell you something you don’t need. They always start off with ‘Hello, Geraldine, are you having a good day today?’ Give me a break. The ones that really tick me off say, ‘Hi, Gerry.’ I just hang up on them. Anyway, with my family and most of my friends gone, I get to miss the sound of my own name.”

Regan found the house to be cozy. A Christmas tree decorated with old family ornaments, framed pictures and holly adorning the mantel of the fireplace, the painting of Pop-Pop, floral curtains and an oriental rug—all gave the feeling that the house shared a history with its owner. The very essence of Geraldine oozed from every nook and cranny. Obviously all the junk had been relegated to the barn.

A bouquet of flowers was centered on the dining-room table, where they sat drinking their coffee.

“They’re beautiful,” Louis said, leaning over to inhale the pungent scent.

A faint smile appeared on Geraldine’s lips. “I had a beau who used to go out and pick me a whole big bunch of forget-me-nots. That’s why I like to keep fresh flowers around, to remind me of him. We used to go out to the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness and ponder our existence. We had great discussions out there about the meaning of life. Or we’d grab our fishing poles and go down to the Roaring Fork or Frying Pan rivers and try our luck at those flying fish....” Her eyes glistened at the memory.

“When was this?” Regan asked.

“Last year. Besides Pop-Pop, Purvis was the smartest man I’d ever met. Then one day he woke up dead.”

“That’s too bad,” Louis said sincerely, silently wondering just how you wake up dead.

“A bummer,” Geraldine agreed.

Regan smiled to herself. She doubted that in all the years her father had run the Reilly funeral homes there had ever been anyone who came to pay their respects to the deceased and greeted the family with “What a bummer.”

“We had fun together,” Geraldine continued. “He was always interested in learning about everything. He hadn’t lived here long and he wanted to hear all about the history of the town. Like I bet you didn’t know that Ute City the mining town changed its name to Aspen in homage to the aspen tree that you find all around here?”

How have I survived so long without knowing this tidbit, Regan wondered, but dutifully shook her head no. Louis was paying attention with the fervor of a reformed student in danger of flunking out of school.

“The aspen is a member of the poplar family. They’re so beautiful. Nothing gets my goat more than when those hikers scratch out their initials in the bark. It lets the insects in and the trees start to rot. The only time I ever got mad at Purvis was when he started carving our initials in one of those trees. Of course he didn’t realize until I explained it to him. Anyway, enough of that.”

It seemed to Regan that Geraldine definitely liked to have an audience. With Purvis gone to the great beyond, Geraldine was obviously alone a lot and now seemed to enjoy their company. I’d have loved to see the way she interacted with Purvis, Regan thought. It was hard to imagine Geraldine with a man, especially since the spirit of Pop-Pop never seemed to leave the room. “I bet you had a lot of stories about your Pop-Pop you shared with Purvis.”

“Pop-Pop was a character,” Geraldine said. “He had so many adventures, you’d never get bored listening to him. I’ve tried to remember them all, keep them alive.” She sipped her specially brewed coffee and picked at one of the blueberry muffins she had magnanimously placed on an old-fashioned plate that reminded Regan of the kind her grandmother had had. The grandfather clock ticked away in the living room. Or should I call it the Pop-Pop clock, Regan wondered.

“This coffee is delicious,” Louis said as he drained his cup.

Geraldine almost pounded the table. “It gets you going in the morning. If I hear about one more person who needs to relax with their soothing herbs, I’m going to get sick.” She licked her lips and set her mug on the old oak table. “Okay, Louis,” she said with deliberation, “I’ll skip making a fuss about having the party at your restaurant. God knows it would send that ass-kissing committee into a tizzy if I made them change things now. I tell you, my hind quarters never felt so loved. Those people are really getting on my nerves. They think I can’t see through their fawning. But...”

Regan and Louis waited for whatever the “but” was. There’s always a but, Regan thought.

“I hope we don’t have any more problems with that son of a gun, Eben. Aspen is a place we want to be proud of.”

“For all we know he’s hundreds of miles away from here by now,” Louis said, anxious to get out of there before he did anything else wrong.

“Geraldine,” Regan said, “I am a private investigator. I really want to find out what happened. You’re the one who knows this town inside out. May I call you if I have any questions or need to talk to you?”

“Dial away. If there’s any gossip going on, I usually hear it somehow or other.” Geraldine looked across the table at Regan appraisingly. “You look like a smart young woman. I’ve been involved with a couple of private investigators lately and they haven’t been worth beans. If the one on my feedbag now doesn’t work out, I may talk to you.”

“I’d be very glad to help,” Regan said sincerely.

Geraldine turned to Louis and frowned. “Now listen. At the party, Pop-Pop’s portrait better have a place of honor. The committee swore up and down that it would, but I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Louis had been pressing his napkin up to his mouth, almost as a shield from anything Geraldine might hurl at him. “The best,” he sputtered. “The best.”

“Oh, I know that Beasley painting I donated that they say is so valuable will get top billing. I’d forgotten all about it. I remember seeing it when I was a little kid, but Pop-Pop never liked it. The fellow in it with him was a friend who tried to double-cross him.” Her face darkened. “A lot of bad blood between the two families. I guess that’s why Pop-Pop shoved it in the barn. I certainly forgot all about it until that young reporter started poking around.”

When they got up to leave, Louis slipped into the bathroom. Regan tried to make arrangements with Geraldine to buy the Louis painting.

“Take it,” Geraldine insisted. “Make a donation to the museum in Pop-Pop’s name.”

A few minutes later Regan and Louis were tying Louis XVIII to the ski rack of Louis’s car.

The weight of almost certain doom lifted from his shoulders, Louis was practically doing a jig. He looked as if he would break into song. Regan felt as if they should be in a grade-B musical.

“You didn’t have to do this, Regan,” Louis chirped.

“It was free, Louie baby,” Regan said, “but I’ll spring for the frame. Then we’ll find a good spot to hang him.”

“I feel as if I was almost hanged.”

“You were, Louis. But we’ll hang this Louis where everyone can see him when they walk in and pay their proper respects.”

“Like it was his wake. You sound like the daughter of a funeral director.”

“Gee, thanks. But the most important corpse at the party better be Pop-Pop’s. The Beasley with Pop-Pop won’t be unveiled until later that evening. Up till then it will be the portraits of Pop-Pop and Louis. What a pair.”

“Legends in their own mind.” Louis started to hum. “When this party is over, I’m going to be one happy man.”