The Alpine Kindred (28 page)

“No. That's why I didn't mention it earlier today. I'm guessing.” Milo put another breath mint in his mouth. “I've talked to the arson investigators, and they're still not sure what started the fire. They went along with the illegal-fireworks theory because some of that stuff is so powerful it can set off anything that's flammable. But so can a match, if it's put in the right place.”

“Like where?”

“Like the victim's clothes, soaked in gasoline.”

“And there's no way of telling now?”

Milo shook his head. “Not after the Bourgettes bulldozed the site.”

I was silent for a moment or two. “So all we've—” I hastily corrected myself: “—all you've got is the possibility that the reconstructed-skull drawing may resemble someone recognizable.”

“So far.” Milo didn't look very hopeful.

“May I see it when it comes in?”

“Everybody can see it. That's the only way we can get an ID. We'll put out an APB.”

Again, I was silent, trying to think if there was anything else I should ask the Sheriff while he seemed in this more mellow mood. But when I spoke again, it was not of the unknown victim.

“Milo, could we be friends? I think too much of you to be enemies.”

Milo's long face registered surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Of course.” I folded my hands on the desk, as if I were
praying for his understanding. “For years we were good friends. Then, when sex got in the way, everything changed. Can't we go back?”

Milo fiddled with the ashtray, spilling yet more ash on the desk. Then he shook his head, sadly, slowly. “No, we can't. I can't.” He paused, rubbed at his chin, and looked away. “I loved you. I still do. Being friends won't cut it. I'd rather stay mad.”

Awkwardly, I got to my feet. “Damn,” I breathed. “I'm so sorry.”

Milo stared at me, hollow-eyed and solemn. “So am I.”

The Mariners were playing Minnesota in an away game. I got home in time for the top of the third inning. No matter who won, I'd feel like a loser.

The next morning, I remembered to make an appointment with Doc Dewey. Since none of my appendages had fallen off and my heart was still beating, the receptionist, Marje Blatt, was able to squeeze me in at ten
A.M.
, June 25. That was almost a full month away, but if my major symptom was crankiness, I could live with it. The people around me were the ones who had to suffer.

Vida was intrigued by the facial reconstruction of the skull from the warehouse site. If anybody could recognize the face that emerged, it would be my House & Home editor.

“Speaking of pictures,” Vida said later that afternoon as she leafed through the edition that Kip had just delivered to us, “Einar Jr.'s portrait looks rather nice after all. Maybe it's the way Leo framed it. The formality makes Einar's pompous aspect more bearable.”

A compliment from Vida for Leo was unusual. I was about to insist that she pass it along to him in person when Ginny poked her head through the door to the news office.

“Birgitta Lindholm's on the phone and she's really mad. Emma, can you take line one?”

Carla looked up from her copy of
The Advocate.
“What's wrong with her? She can't have seen the paper. Kip took it to the newspaper shacks less than half an hour ago.”

“Who knows?” I sighed, and went into my cubbyhole.

Birgitta, however,
had
seen the paper. Ginny had neglected to tell me that the au pair girl had stopped by the office to pick up a copy. It seemed that she was calling from across the street at a pay phone outside the Burger Barn.

“I am angry,” Birgitta declared. “It is wrong to print these words about my privates. I will sue.”

“Sorry, Birgitta,” I said, resisting the urge to laugh out loud at her phrasing. “The claim you filed is a matter of public record. You have no quarrel with us.”

“The claim is record, yes,” she responded. “But not my words with small dark girl. She gophered me.”

“What?” I jiggled the phone, thinking we had a bad connection. Then I realized Birgitta meant
badgered.
She'd gotten her wildlife mixed up with her verbs. “I don't think so,” I said hastily. “Carla was simply trying to get some facts for her story.”

“She snoops,” Birgitta persisted.

Not as well as someone I could name
, I thought. Birgitta ought to get a dose of Vida. Indeed, that would happen as soon as I got off the phone. There was more to this conversation than met the eye—or ear. “Listen, Birgitta, you should talk to Mr. Bronsky. He used to work for me, and he understands the newspaper business.”
Sort of.
“He can explain how we do our jobs.”

“You and the short dark person are not nice,” Birgitta declared. “You are bad with the visitors.”

“That's not true,” I said, keeping calm. “Besides, what's the big secret?”

The long silence at the other end made me wonder if Birgitta had left the phone dangling and gone off. At last, she spoke again: “That is what I want to know.
What is the secret
?”

This time I heard the phone go dead.

A
T MY URGING
, Vida tore out of the office, heading for the Burger Barn. I watched her through the small window above her desk as she crossed Front Street and rushed past the Bank of Alpine, Mugs Ahoy, SaraLynn's Gift Shop, and out of my line of sight.

Carla folded her copy of
The Advocate
and set it on her desk. “So what's Miss Sweden bitching about?”

“Basically, she feels you invaded her privacy.” I gave her a wry smile. “We know better, but she doesn't. Maybe the rules for the media are different in Sweden.”

“Maybe,” Carla said, wrinkling her nose, “she wouldn't know the rules of the media from a Swedish meatball. Birgitta's just trying to stir up trouble.”

I gave her a sharp glance. While she is often distracted, even careless, my reporter really isn't stupid. Her people skills are quite well honed. “Why would she do that?” I asked. “Except, of course, to get her hands on the gold nuggets?”

Carla cocked her head. “To keep anybody else from getting them?”

“I'm not sure I understand,” I admitted.

“First of all, she probably didn't want anybody to know about the claim,” Carla said, scooting her chair back from her desk, “which they might not have known if she hadn't
raised such a fuss Monday when she found out the courthouse was closed for the holiday. Now she's mad at us because we put it in the paper. Birgitta may think it's some sort of antiforeigner conspiracy.”

I uttered a little laugh. “It is, I suppose. It's always that in Alpine, where any nonnative is considered a foreigner. Including us, Carla.”

Carla laughed, too. “Weird, huh? I don't know how many people in this town still call me 'the new girl.' “

I nodded. “Same here. Every so often, somebody seems surprised that Marius Vandeventer doesn't own the paper anymore. What's worse, they act disappointed.”

Carla patted her abdomen. “When the baby comes, he or she will be born in Alpine. Maybe that'll give Ryan and me more credibility.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it.” I turned as Vida tromped back into the newsroom.

“Well! I got an earful!” She adjusted her straw skimmer with its festoon of yellow daisies and plopped herself down at her desk. “The girl's not arrogant so much as terrified.”

“Of what?” I asked in surprise.

“I don't really know,” Vida confessed. “Whatever it is, it has something to do with the woman named Christina.”

“Was she her great-grandmother?” asked Carla.

“No,” Vida replied, still panting a bit. “I determined that much. But Christina had some connection with Ulf, the great-grandfather, and apparently was from around here. That's very puzzling, because there weren't many women in the area at the turn of the century when Ulf was allegedly here.”

With a thoughtful expression, Carla toyed with a lock of black hair. “Did you gather that Ulf gave her some of the gold?”

“I think so,” said Vida. “Goodness, it's so difficult to
get the facts out of that girl! If that's so, then Ulf may have been romancing this Christina. Perhaps they were even engaged. Or,” she added in a musing tone, “married.”

“That we could check on,” I put in. “But what good would it do? I mean …” I threw up my hands. “I don't know what I mean. Is it worth the trouble?”

“It is to me,” Vida declared. “If nothing else, I'm … curious.”

Of course. “Go ahead, see what you can find out. It would probably be Snohomish County, though. There wasn't much here back then.”

“I'll call the courthouse in Everett,” Vida said, reaching for the directory. “I'll do it now, while I have a spare moment or two.”

“Wait,” I said as she began to flip through the government listings. “Why do you think she's afraid? She did say something about a secret.”

“It was her manner, the way her eyes darted about,” Vida explained without looking up from the phone book. “She was more agitated than angry.”

Carla snorted. “That's because you're almost as tall as she is. Birgitta couldn't try to intimidate you.”

“I should think not,” Vida said, reaching for the phone. “No one ever does.”

The county clerk couldn't promise any information before Thursday or Friday. Since the query seemed only a matter of curiosity, I didn't dwell on it. The paper had now hit the delivery boxes, and the usual carping had commenced. Actually, it wasn't quite as usual: I received six calls demanding to know why Einar Jr. rated a full-page photo when he really wasn't a resident of Alpine. Explaining that the portrait was a paid advertisement didn't do much to soothe our chauvinists. There were twice as many who phoned about the bones. Could they
belong to Cousin Freddy who went to Monroe in 1954 and never came back? Was this the long-lost Aunt Bibba who had Alzheimer's—though they didn't call it that then, they just said she was crazy—and wandered off shortly after Nixon resigned? Was it possible that the remains were those of Goldie, the retriever who ran away when somebody shot off a Roman candle too near his tail in 1981?

I was kept on the phone right up until five o'clock. “Shut it down,” I told Ginny. “The rest of the nuts can wait until tomorrow.” There'd be letters, too, there always were. We ran the ones signed with verifiable names and addresses, unless they were libelous or obscene, and often they were both.

Thursday was a bit of a lull, in terms of our ongoing stories. There was nothing new on the homicide investigation, no further word from Birgitta, and, as expected, nothing on the skull. The only event of any note was the removal of the crime-scene tape at the Bourgette property. I called Dan Bourgette and learned that they would resume work on Monday. Since he and John hadn't known how soon the Sheriff would give them the okay to proceed, Dan was taking his wife to Victoria, BC, for a long weekend.

About ten-thirty on Friday, Vida heard from the courthouse in Everett. There was no record of a marriage between Ulf Lindholm and a woman named Christina. Vida contemplated calling King, Skagit, and Chelan counties, but I dissuaded her.

“Unless there's some scandal back in Malmo, Sweden,” I noted, “we have to assume Ulf returned home and married there.”

Vida reflected, fiddling with the big, loopy tie on her frilly pink blouse. “In Malmo? An illegitimate offspring? A bigamist?”

“Maybe. Birgitta did refer to a secret.”

“But it must be a secret here, not there,” Vida said. “I can't help it, I'm intrigued. Maybe I will call those other counties.”

“It'll take forever with King County,” I told her. “Give it up. Christina was probably some girl from Monroe or Skykomish or Sultan who caught Ulf's fancy. Maybe Ulf's intentions were honorable, but he had to flee. We'll probably never know. Neither will Birgitta.”

Vida showed me her most somber face. “I can't stand not knowing.”

“Good luck,” I said with a laugh, and started for my cubbyhole just as Mary Jane Rasmussen Bourgette entered the newsroom.

“Emma Lord?” she said, giving me an engaging smile.

“Yes, yes,” I said, hurrying to shake her hand. “I've seen you and your husband at Mass.”

“I've seen you,” Mary Jane responded, her lively dark eyes level with mine. “Can we talk?”

I led her into my office, where the eyes still danced, but the smile faded. “I'm not sure why I'm here,” she said, sitting across from me and resting her chin on her fist. “It's just that I'm so frustrated. Why can't people be kind?”

“Any people in particular?” I inquired.

“My relatives,” she replied. “They stink.”

I had to smile. “You mean the Rasmussens, I take it?”

“You got it. How unnatural is it for a mother not to speak to her daughter for almost forty years? How unfeeling can a woman be?” She paused, and her eyes glistened with tears. “Wouldn't you think that after losing one child, she'd want to make up with one of her two remaining offspring?”

I pictured Thyra Rasmussen in her handsome bedroom,
vulturelike, and mean-minded. “Your mother's a very hard woman,” I said, no longer smiling.

“You've met her?” Mary Jane looked surprised.

“Vida and I called on her a few days ago. She wasn't very nice, especially not to Vida. But then your mother and Vida's mother had something of a history.”

“Mother has a history with just about everybody,” Mary Jane said with more than a touch of bitterness. “For years she had nothing to do with my brother Harold. That was when he was drinking. And even later, when he went on the wagon, she treated him and Gladys like dirt. I understand that Einar's wife, Marlys, is a queer duck. I wouldn't be surprised if Mother helped make her that way. But of course I'd never met Marlys until the funeral, and even then, all she did was cry and sort of mumble at me.”

“It sounds like Marlys could use a sister,” I said. “She must be very lonely now, as well as withdrawn. Maybe you could befriend her.” I cringed a little, wondering why I was giving advice to a woman who seemed quite capable of handling her own life.

“You know what?” Mary Jane said, her pretty face very serious. “For years I tried to reconcile with Einar. I even tried asking Marlys to intercede for me. She refused. Oh, she was decent about it, but I got the impression that she wouldn't upset Einar for the world, that she was just plain wishy-washy.” She had become somewhat heated, raising her eyes to the low ceiling and grimacing. “There goes the star for charity in my heavenly crown. Sorry.”