The Alpine Christmas (3 page)

“… couldn’t find a two-by-four up your butt!” Nyquist was saying to Jack Mullins.

Mullins, who had a reputation for drollery, turned his head to look down at his backside. “Golly, I don’t see anything. Do you?”

Nyquist banged his fist again, causing ballpoint pens to jump and papers to flutter. “Don’t be a wiseass, Mullins! That stuff cost close to a grand. And the fountain pen belonged to my granddad. He brought it over from Norway in oh-seven.”

Standing at the bulletin board, I pretended to scan the various announcements and notices. Arnie Nyquist stormed out, with a parting shot for Jack: “This isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with theft and vandalism. That moron of a sheriff and the rest of you dumbbells couldn’t arrest anybody if they broke into the county jail. I’ll expect to hear
from you or Dodge by five o’clock this afternoon. You got that?”

Jack nodded his shaggy red head. “I’ll put it with the two-by-four,” he said after Nyquist had made his exit. “Hey, Mrs. Lord, isn’t old Tinker Toy a world-class jerk?”

“He can be,” I conceded. Luckily, I hadn’t dealt much with Arnie Nyquist. The kind of news he generated usually came through cut-and-dried building permit or zoning council stories. I had, however, dealt with his father, Oscar, who owned The Whistling Marmot Movie Theatre. At one time, in the 1920s, Oscar and his father had owned the entire Alpine block where the theatre was located, kitty-corner from
The Advocate
. Although Lars Nyquist had chosen
Gösta Berling’s Saga
with Greta Garbo for the opening of his new picture palace in 1924, his son had refused to show foreign films for decades. Oscar asserted that they were all obscene, obscure, and anti-American. He had been tricked into presenting
Wild Strawberries
because he thought the Bergman involved was Ingrid, not Ingmar. According to Vida, at least four people in Alpine noted the irony of one Norwegian getting confused by two Swedes.

“What’s the problem?” I asked of Jack, sensing another late-breaking, if minor, story.

Mullins pushed the official log my way. “Somebody got into Nyquist’s van last night and stole a bunch of stuff. Portable CD player, half a dozen CDs, some tools, a box of Jamaican cigars, a couple of fancy photographs … whatever. Nyquist left the van unlocked. It serves him right.”

It probably did, but people in Alpine still have a tendency to trust each other, at least with their belongings, if not with their spouses. “Could it be the same thief who stole the band equipment up at the high school?”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe. But Nyquist’s van was parked at his son’s place on Stump Hill. That’s a good mile or so from the high school.” The implication was that Alpine’s crooks
were too lazy to cross town to commit a second burglary. Especially in the snow.

I jotted down some more notes, just in case Carla had forgotten to check the log. I recalled some other incidents involving Arnold Nyquist. Last December, a display of Christmas lights at his home on First Hill had been swiped; his second floor office in the Alpine Building was egged in the spring; a load of garbage had been dumped on his front lawn in July; a small fire was started at his construction site for the new bowling alley across the river. Nyquist was right about one thing, though—if memory served, no one had been apprehended for any of the mischief. I supposed it was only natural that Arnie would take it more seriously than the law enforcement officials did. Indeed, the family’s string of minor bad luck was ongoing.

“How is Travis?” I asked, referring to Nyquist’s son, who was recovering from a broken ankle suffered in a skiing accident over the Thanksgiving weekend. Until the theft of last night, Travis’s mishap on Tonga Ridge had been the most recent Nyquist calamity.

Jack grinned, which always seemed to make his teeth sparkle and his freckles dance. “If I had that wife of his to take care of me, I’d break a leg three times a year. Trav’s doing fine, and why shouldn’t he? There’s a guy who’s got it all.”

On the surface, at least, Travis Nyquist had attained many a young man’s dreams before he was thirty. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, he had gotten his M.A. in finance at the University of Washington, gone to work for a big brokerage house in Seattle, met his future bride, Bridget, and moved back to Alpine to mull over his stock options. The young Nyquists had been married for a little over a year. They now lived in a handsome Pacific Northwest version of a Cape Cod on Stump Hill, otherwise known as The Pines. The house had been built six years earlier by Arnie Nyquist on speculation, but this time he’d spared no expense. When the well-to-do commuter family
from Everett had gotten fed up driving back and forth on Stevens Pass, Arnie put earnest money down and held onto the place until his son carried his bride over the threshold.

“Trav and I went to high school together,” Jack was musing, his freckled face now wistful. “He never seemed to work that hard, but he always got good grades. The other guys and I used to say that he charmed his teachers, at least the women, but I guess Trav is really smart. He must have gotten his brains from Mrs. Nyquist. Old Tinker Toy’s IQ isn’t so hot, if you ask me. My dad says it’s a wonder Arnie didn’t flunk out of UDUB in his freshman year.”

Briefly, I considered Arnie Nyquist’s wife, Louise, a meek ex-schoolteacher who had reputedly jumped out the window of her seventh-grade classroom during a particularly arduous social studies session. Fortunately, she was on the first floor at the time and landed virtually unharmed in a rhododendron bush.

With some reluctance, I left Jack Mullins to his musings about The Life and Times of Travis Nyquist, and headed out into the snow, which had turned fairly heavy. Through the curtain of white, I could barely make out the Christmas decorations along Front Street: golden strands of tinsel, big red shiny bows, and tall amber candles that covered the regular streetlights.

Back in the office, I found Ginny Burmeister distributing the mail. There was nothing much of interest: only the usual press releases, bills, promotions, and a couple of letters to the editor and/or publisher. The first missive was in response to our front-page article about cutting Christmas trees on state lands, an activity that was permitted in certain areas every year from the last week of November until mid-December. The irate correspondent, Ruth Rydholm, asserted that such plundering of the forests was unnecessary and even dangerous. Since Mrs. Rydholm’s son Cliff owned a Christmas tree farm in Snohomish County, I figured she was a bit biased.

The other letter, also tree-oriented, chided me for my previous spotted owl story. A week without a spotted owl letter was like a week without a Monday. Alpiners, except for the recycled Californians, were generally anti-owl and pro-logger, which befitted a town founded on the timber industry. Even though the original mill had closed in 1929, logging was still an important, if severely jeopardized, source of income. Most of the locals viewed efforts to protect the endangered spotted owl as no more necessary than saving the pterodactyl. The longer I lived in Alpine, the more I tended to agree, but I hoped, in my fair-minded journalist’s way, that a compromise could be reached.

What I could not reach was my son. Adam was taking a final. He was due to arrive at Sea-Tac Airport Saturday from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. Although I’d spoken to him by phone, I hadn’t seen him since he’d spent two days with his father, Tom Cavanaugh, in San Francisco. It was the first time Adam had met his dad. My son indicated that all had gone well. Young men—most men—aren’t much for relating intimate details. Wish I’d been there. Wish Tom were here. Wish my life away. That’s what I’d done for over twenty years.…

Just as I was entering Milo’s fishing incident on my word processor, the phone rang. I hoped it was Adam, returning my call, but the voice at the other end of the line was equally pleasing to me.

“Hi, Sluggly,” said my brother. “I’m at the hospital. Mrs. McHale was right: Father Fitz has had a small stroke. Dr. Flake wants to keep him for a couple of days. I’m wondering if I should move into the rectory.”

I was torn: Ben was currently staying in Adam’s room, but had insisted he’d take up residence on the living-room sofa once my son got to Alpine. I had argued that I would sleep on the sofa—Ben was on vacation. But maybe the rectory was a good idea. Someone besides the housekeeper should be there during Advent.

“Have you called the Chancery?” I asked. Ben had. The archbishop—or an underling—had given my brother a green light. Priests were scarce; priests were needed. The Chancery office was only too glad for someone who had actually taken holy orders to run St. Mildred’s. Otherwise, we might have been stuck with liturgical services conducted by Helga Wenzler, parish council president and manic-depressive—or worse yet, Ed Bronsky, eucharistic minister, who would immediately change the Good News to the Bad News. Or no news at all … Such was Ed’s morbid style.

I made the proper sisterly noises about having Ben sleep away from my cozy log house, but ultimately we agreed that he ought to stay at the rectory, if only until Father Fitz was released from the hospital. I thought of telling him about Milo’s dreaded catch, decided to wait, and said I’d see him for dinner around six.

“Make it eight,” said Ben, sounding apologetic. “I’ve got to say a seven o’clock mass for the Immaculate Conception.”

Having done my duty at eight
A.M
., I’d forgotten about the extra mass for a holy day. “No problem. We’ll have T-bone steaks.”

“Maybe I should stick around at the rectory,” Ben mused. “Somebody might wander in after mass.”

This time, I made up Ben’s mind for him. “Tell Mrs. McHale to make an appointment for the lost soul. You want your steak medium rare, don’t you?”

Ben did. Shivering from the cold, I hung up and returned to Milo’s account of the leg. Now that I had recovered from the ghastliness of the incident, I began to wonder where the rest of the body was. Halfway through the story, I dialed Milo’s number.

“Hey, Milo,” I said, my fingers on the keyboard and the phone propped between my shoulder and my left ear, “will you and your deputies go looking for the missing pieces?”

Milo uttered a heavy sigh. “With the river up the way it
is? Hell, Emma, I’d be lucky to catch a steelhead, let alone find a spare arm. What’s the point?”

I made a little face of exasperation into the receiver. How typical of Milo, to be only as curious as circumstances permitted. On the other hand, it wasn’t up to me to tell him his business. “Just curious,” I said. “Bye.”

“Emma—wait. What are you saying in the paper?” Milo sounded faintly alarmed.

I almost never offered copy on approval. My readers had to trust me, while I, in turn, worked hard to earn that trust. But Milo was a friend as well as a news source. “What’s it worth to you, Dodge?”

There was a slight pause. “Dinner at King Olav’s?”

I’d had worse offers. The lights flickered; so did my computer screen. “What would Honoria think?” Milo’s current lady love was Honoria Whitman, a transplanted Carmel potteress who lived in Startup and got around in a wheelchair.

“Honoria wouldn’t mind,” said Milo. “She likes you.”

The feeling was mutual. Still, I was a bit chagrined. Milo’s trust was fine when it came to my writing efforts. Honoria’s trust was an insult when it came to my feminine wiles. I read the three paragraphs I’d written aloud to Milo. He quibbled over a couple of words, but I ignored him. The sheriff wasn’t any more qualified to meddle in my business than I was in his.

I’d just finished the piece when Henry Bardeen made his brisk way through the newsroom. Trim, slim, and ever-dapper, Henry ran the ski lodge with great efficiency. His brown toupee, gracefully etched with just a touch of silver, rested naturally on his well-shaped head. Henry had come to confer with Ed Bronsky, and was not pleased to learn that Ed was out.

“I wanted a final look at that ad about the sleigh ride to the restaurant,” said Henry in his dry monotone voice. “We’ve decided to keep doing it after New Year’s, maybe until ski season is over.”

“I can find it for you.” I led Henry back into the larger office. Ed was more organized than either Carla or Vida. Under a double-truck ad for Safeway, I found the mock-up Ed had created for Henry. It was tastefully done, with an original illustration of a horse-drawn sleigh going through snow-tipped evergreens. “This is very nice,” I remarked. “How did you talk Ed out of using his odious clip art file?”

Henry was mulling over the copy. The promotion had its charm and was practical to boot. Diners heading for the new King Olav’s restaurant could park on the far side of the bridge near the highway and ride a horse-drawn sleigh for two miles up to the ski lodge. While the gimmick was primarily an advertising promotion, it was also aimed at out-of-towners who didn’t mind traversing the pass in winter weather but weren’t keen on making the final leg up a steep, narrow, winding stretch of road. The last quarter-mile was through trees decorated with fairy lights, and ended in front of a Christmas scene straight out of Dickens. Like many Alpiners, I was anxious to take the sleigh ride, too.

“Can we say
through February
instead of
until January 3
?” Henry inquired. I told him we could, and made the appropriate changes on both the dummy and Ed’s computer. Henry, who had left his sense of humor in the nursery, was actually smiling, albeit thinly. “That’s Evan Singer’s art work. He’s the one who drives the sleigh.”

The name rang no bells, sleigh or otherwise. After almost three years in Alpine, I was still lost in the maze of names. Small-town residents love to toss out names, as if testing newcomers. They assume everybody knows everybody else. It’s a form of snobbism, making the new arrival feel even more like an outsider. As the editor and publisher of the local newspaper, I was supposed to know all—but names were still my nemesis.

Henry noted my blank expression.

“Evan’s new in town, what you might call a free spirit.” He wrinkled his aquiline nose. “As a rule, I’m not in favor
of hiring that sort of person, but this sleigh driver’s job was hard to fill. The Dithers Sisters volunteered to take turns since we’re using their horses, but you know what
they’re
like.” This time, Henry not only wrinkled his nose, but wiggled his eyebrows. The Dithers Sisters were a pair of middle-aged horse owners who had been left a considerable amount of money by their parents. It was probably the greatest misfortune ever to befall them, since neither had ever had to work, except to keep the farm going. That should have been sufficient to instill a sense of responsibility, but they’d had enough wealth to hire help. Judy and Connie Dithers spent their days pampering their horses and their nights watching TV. They were said to be eccentric, miserly, reclusive lesbians. As far as I could tell, they were none of the above. Occasionally, they played bridge in the same group I did, and the worst that could be said of Judy and Connie was that they were unmotivated and dizzy. Still, I had to agree with Henry—I wouldn’t want them pulling my sleigh, either.