The Alpine Christmas (21 page)

Vida stopped rubbing. “So Carol went looking for her?”

“Maybe.” Milo shrugged. “Carol probably hoped the police would find Kathleen. Or that she’d show up on her own. What I want to know is why did she come looking for her in Alpine? If, in fact, that’s what Carol did.”

“We can’t know that,” I murmured. “And yet … If that other body is Kathleen … The tennis shoe fits, should she wear it?”

“Carol gave a description of Kathleen as five-six, a hundred and twenty pounds, light blonde hair, deep blue eyes, a small scar above her left eyebrow. Doc Dewey and Peyton Flake can figure out height, maybe even weight. But not much else. Yet.”

I grimaced at Milo’s implication. Vida, however, appeared composed. “Well. If Carol was out searching for Kathleen, Alpine may not have been the first place she went. But I have a feeling it was the right place, don’t you?”

Milo nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so. It was also the last place she looked.”

From that point of view, it was the wrong place as well.

Milo was taking his leave when Cal Vickers came into the office. “Just the man I want to see,” said Cal to Milo, after acknowledging Vida and me with a tip of his greasy duckbilled cap. “Bill Blatt said you’d be here.”

“What’s up?” inquired Milo of the strapping gas station proprietor.

Cal was the sort who liked to spin out a tale, a habit forged
while standing next to an open hood and putting off the moment when the car owner learns that it’s going to cost him dearly to have his vehicle repaired.

“I got a call yesterday from Clancy Barton at the Bootery. You know Clancy, he’s a fussbudget. The mall was busy over the weekend, and at one point they ran out of parking places. Clancy and the rest of the merchants wanted the sheriff to impound those old heaps that have been sitting there for weeks and have me tow ’em away.” He stopped, taking off his earmuffs. “Actually, there were only two cars. Dodge here said fine, go get ’em; he had other fish to fry. So did we, with all the jackasses sliding into each other or landing in ditches. You’d think people around here would know how to drive in snow. Anyway, we finally got down to it this afternoon. The old Malibu belongs to some kid from Gold Bar. Starter went out, near as I can tell. You know kids, they’d rather give up on something than take the trouble to fix it.”

Behind me, I could hear Vida emit a low, impatient sigh. I, too, wished Cal would speed his story along. Milo, however, appeared unflappable.

“Then we checked out the Barracuda. Man, it had been there a
long
time. Everything’s froze up, no antifreeze, but almost a full tank of gas.” Cal shook his head.

“Stolen?” The word was Milo’s mild attempt to hurry Cal along.

Cal Vickers shrugged. “Could be. I figure you ought to run it through the computer.” He removed his cap again and brushed his stubby fingers through the fringe of dark hair that grew from ear to ear. “The car’s from Seattle. It’s registered to a Kathleen Francich.”

There couldn’t be much doubt that if Kathleen Francich’s car had arrived in Alpine, so had Kathleen. How her car had ended up at the mall while she seemed to be appearing in various other places remained a mystery. Maybe Milo could wave his forensics wand over the Barracuda and come up with some answers. Meanwhile, I was going to rely on intuition. Sometimes it actually worked.

I had been bothered by Louise Bergstrom Nyquist ever since I’d run into her and Arnie at Barton’s Bootery. Maybe I’d imagined that she had wanted to talk to me; maybe I’d misread the appeal in her eyes.

Nevertheless, on this snowy Tuesday night I felt compelled to talk to Louise. The timing was good: I’d put aside the cares of
The Advocate
for another week, and the planning commission met on the third Tuesday of each month. Arnie Nyquist was on the board. Louise would be home alone.

I arrived shortly after seven, my nerves frayed by the brief but treacherous drive up First Hill. Arnold Nyquist had built himself a house on Icicle Creek. Two stories of brick and cedar, the showpiece dwelling was set among the evergreens, but commanded a ravishing view of the town and Mount Baldy. Everything seemed to fit, from the cathedral ceilings to the Aubusson carpets. Everything, that is, except Louise Nyquist, who looked as if she would have been more at home with faded mohair and braided rugs.

“This is a surprise,” she said in apparent pleasure. “I
was just going to bake some Christmas cookies. Would you like an eggnog?”

I said I would indeed, but to skip the rum. I had to face the tricky downhill drive to get back home. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about your burglary. It’s one thing to have VCRs and CD players stolen, but it’s terribly sad when keepsakes go. Arnie said your wedding album might have been taken, too.”

Louise beamed at me from across the kitchen island where she was pouring homemade eggnog into tall mugs. “I found the album, thank goodness. It had fallen behind a box of Travis’s high school mementos. But you’re right,” she went on, leading me back into the living room. “Those were treasures we can’t ever replace. Now why would anyone take them?”

I was sitting in a tapestry-covered armchair; Louise was perched on an amber brocade sofa. Even with its cheerful Christmas decor, the room seemed stiff and formal. But it was also very beautiful. I wondered if the same person had done both this house and the younger Nyquists’ decor.

“Mischief, maybe,” I replied, taking in a Lalique vase, a Baroque mirror, and a brilliantly colored bowl that might have been crafted by Dale Chiluly. If the thief had had a pack like Santa’s, he could have thrown in those three items and made off with six figures worth of goodies.

“Drugs,” Louise was saying. “That’s what Arnie suspects. Whoever it was thought we might have some—or cash lying around—and when they couldn’t find anything, they just grabbed the first thing that came to hand. You know how those people are. They don’t think rationally, like the rest of us.”

I tried not to look dubious. But I recalled that Vida had said that Louise was no dope. Perhaps I could trust to be candor. “You know, Louise, that doesn’t seem likely. If the burglar was a drug addict, he would steal something he could sell or pawn.” I waved a hand to take in the vast living room with its
many-splendored things. “You have some valuable pieces. Sterling, too, I’ll bet. Who designed all this? It’s lovely.”

Louise’s gaze wandered around the room, from the demilune-inlaid console table to the satinwood urn filled with holly. “Designed it? We did. I mean, Arnie, really. But we always discuss what we’re going to buy. Once in a while he comes up with a clinker.”

I gaped at Louise. I couldn’t imagine that Tinker Toy could possess such elegant tastes. But of course the houses he built—at least the ones that didn’t fall down—were handsome structures. I had assumed that he used an architect. I said as much to Louise.

“Sometimes he does,” she said. “He did for this house. But Arnie has quite an eye. He has to, since there’s no real architect in Alpine. He couldn’t be running into Seattle all the time for consultations. Besides, talented architects are very expensive.”

It seemed to me that if Arnie Nyquist was going to spend money, he preferred to do it on himself. However, Louise and I had strayed from the point of my visit. If there
was
a point-Louise wasn’t exactly pressing confidences on me.

I steered the conversation back to the burglary, but Louise dismissed my remarks with a small smile and a shake of her head. “What’s the use? Maybe it’s just mischief, like stealing Christmas lights and rearranging the Marmot marquee. I have to be honest, except for Travis’s baby things, I won’t miss any of it. Who really looks at old birth and wedding and engagement announcements after thirty years? As for the rest—it was Arnie’s, and I don’t think I ever took the trouble to go through his Tyee yearbooks from the UDUB in my life. I went to Pacific Lutheran.” Her smile grew quite merry.

“But your M.A. is from the UDUB?”

Pride surged through Louise’s plump body. “I wanted to do that for years. Arnie couldn’t see why. But nowadays you have to have a master’s to teach in most districts. The truth is,” she went on, lowering her eyes, “I enjoyed my time in
Seattle. Being in the city was an adventure. Of course I would never admit that to Arnie.”

I could see why not. “You went to high school together, right?”

Louise abandoned her memories of independence and nodded complacently. “I was two years behind Arnie. We didn’t date until he graduated from college. It was cute, really.” She settled comfortably onto the brocade sofa, looking more at home with her memories than with her furniture. “It was summer break, and I came back home to work at the Marmot, taking tickets. Grandpa Lars was still alive, and on weekends he liked to get all dressed up in a suit and tie so he could greet the customers as they came in the door. We were showing a Paul Newman film that night—I forget which, I think his wife was in it, too—and I just adored Paul.” She emitted a girlish sigh, and I responded with a flutter of my own. I was not immune to Mr. Newman, either. “Grandpa Lars teased me about my crush and said if I wanted to meet a handsome young man, why didn’t I come to dinner at Popsy’s on my night off? Popsy—Oscar, I mean—and Mother Nyquist had huge meals—courses, really—with soup and salad and fish and meat. Everyone said they ate like kings and queens. I wasn’t as anxious to meet a handsome young man as I was to see the spread they put on. And they did.” Louise rolled her blue eyes. “Gravlax and sweet soup and butter dumplings and veal sausages and potatoes cooked with anchovies and onions—oh, it went on and on. I was such a skinny little thing then, but I ate until I almost passed out. Then Grandpa Lars said, ‘See this wee one. She can eat like a logger, ya? Maybe she can cook, too. You better marry her quick, Arnold, before she gets away.’ ” Louise’s laughter bubbled over.

“That fast?” I asked, eyebrows lifted.

“No, no. I’d barely noticed Arnie, poor dear. And to be frank, he wasn’t exactly bowled over. But we did agree to go to a church picnic, and the next thing I knew, I was having
dinner at the Nyquist house whenever I had a free evening. I still had to finish college, but we wrote letters. Arnie was quite a good correspondent. We got engaged the day I graduated. His family welcomed me as if I already was their daughter.” She gave another little shake of her head, apparently still overcome by the memory of such familial warmth.

“That’s a charming story,” I remarked, now racking my brain for a way to get Louise Nyquist to open up. I must have been mistaken. The pleading look I’d seen in her eyes at the mall had sprung from an urge no more specific than a need for female companionship. I’d risked my neck and my Jaguar for nothing. Except, of course, to be kind to another human being. Sometimes I’m surprised by my own crassness.

“We’ve done the same with Bridget, I hope.” Louise had gotten up, going to the kitchen to refill our eggnog mugs. I followed, with an eye on my watch. It was almost eight, and planning commission meetings seldom lasted more than an hour unless there was something controversial on the calendar. According to Carla, who was covering the session, tonight’s agenda was pretty tame.

“Bridget could use a maternal figure,” I noted, admiring if not particularly liking the stark black and white modernistic design of the kitchen. “Her own mother and father are dead, I hear.”

“Yes, very sad.” Louise handed over my replenished mug. “She never speaks of them. I must say, it hasn’t been easy. Making her feel loved, I mean. Oh, she’s agreeable enough. I was so afraid she might put up a fuss about being married in the Lutheran church.” Louise kept talking as we headed back into the living room. I noted with some alarm that the snow outside the tall windows was coming down so thick that I couldn’t see anything but a film of white. “She was raised Catholic, you know. That can cause problems. That is,” Louise went on, a bit flustered, no doubt because she suddenly remembered that I was one of Them rather than one
of Us, “it
used
to be that way. Things have changed, I’m told. Bridget didn’t protest at all.”

Frankly, I wasn’t surprised. Catholic education has become so ecumenically-minded since Vatican II that the younger generation has problems telling the difference between a Christian and a Jew, let alone understanding the finer distinctions between Catholics and Protestants.

“But you’re fond of Bridget,” I said, allowing only the hint of a question in my voice.

“Oh, yes,” Louise replied quickly. “So is Arnie.” She hesitated, caressing her eggnog mug. I had noticed that while my portions were as pristine as I’d requested, hers contained a fair dollop of rum. I wondered if the second shot would make Louise more prone to revelations. “The truth is, she’s not an easy person to get close to. I suppose losing both parents while she was still young has made her a bit guarded. And I can be
too
affectionate. Or so Arnie tells me. He insists I spoiled Travis. But what could I do? Arnie was always so busy and Travis was our one and only.”

“So’s my son,” I remarked. I didn’t add that Adam wasn’t spoiled, at least not as far as I was concerned. I’d had enough trouble just keeping up, financially and emotionally.

“Once the babies start coming, I’m sure we’ll grow closer.” Louise’s expression was now sentimental. “Babies have such a way of bringing people together, don’t you think? If you want to know the truth, Arnie and I never had a lot in common until after we had Travis.”

I murmured something inane about babies, but my thoughts were wandering. Louise Nyquist had a lot of love to give—I didn’t doubt that for a moment. But Arnie’s courtship of her sounded oddly perfunctory, as if it had been orchestrated. Not once had I heard exclamations of “love at first sight” or “mad about the man” or any such indication that Arnie and Louise had been drawn together by a strong romantic attraction. The beautiful house with its handsome furnishings suddenly spoke volumes. Under that brusque,
burly exterior, Arnold Nyquist aspired to champagne and caviar. Louise was satisfied with eggnog and cookies.