The Alpine Quilt Read Free

move, probably to make sure I didn’t waste any time getting dinner on the table. “Vida’s husband met a tragic end, right?”
    “Totally tragic, but semicomic,” I replied. “Ernest decided to go over Deception Falls in a barrel. Bad idea.”
    “People don’t do that kind of thing much anymore,” Ben remarked. “I guess it was a fad that lost its appeal. Especially when you don’t make it to the bottom in one piece.”
    “That wasn’t Ernest’s problem,” I explained, peeking at the rice. “The truck that had brought him to the falls ran over the barrel—with Ernest in it.”
    Ben winced. “That’s a pretty ignoble way to go. Was Vida driving the truck?”
    I couldn’t help but laugh. “No. I don’t think anybody was, or if Ernest had someone along, I never heard who it was. The brakes slipped. I don’t believe Vida was even there.”
    “She’s not the type to endorse daredevil activities,” Ben declared. “Was Ernest always such a wild man?”
    I shook my head. “I gather that Ernest was normally a most prosaic type. I suspect that this was his big chance to break out of his image—midlife crisis and all that. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out very well.”
    “Only in Alpine,” Ben murmured.
    “Risk-takers are everywhere and you know it,” I said, sounding defensive. “But Ernest wasn’t the first to try the barrel bit in Skykomish County. In the early years, several men had attempted the stunt, either at Deception or one of the other falls in the area. A couple of them also met a grim fate—though at least they got in the water.”
    Dinner was a success, judging by Ben’s ability to eat not only his share but whatever I might have had left over for Vida. While we talked of many things, including my son, Adam, who had followed in his uncle’s footsteps and was now a priest in a remote part of Alaska, it was Vida who kept niggling at the back of my mind.
    Finally, just as Ben was about to head back to the rectory at ten-thirty, I again expressed concern for my House & Home editor. “Vida never misses work,” I asserted. “I can’t imagine her not being on the job tomorrow and maybe not even Monday.”
    Ben, however, downplayed my anxiety. “Her daughter’s sick,” he reasoned. “If it were Adam, wouldn’t you rush to his igloo?”
    “You know it’s not an igloo,” I retorted. “And of course I would. What bothers me is that Vida sounded so . . . evasive.”
    Ben patted my head, another old habit. I’d hated it when we were younger because it was so patronizing: older, taller, smarter brother. He was still all those things, but the gesture no longer irritated me.
    “From what you’ve told me,” Ben began, “Vida is a very private person, at least when it comes to her personal life. If whatever is wrong with her daughter is serious, she may not want—or be able—to talk about it. Cut her some slack.”
    Ben was right. Vida would use every means short of torture to uncover other people’s deepest, darkest secrets. But she guarded her own like the CIA. I told Ben I’d try to stop fussing about her.
    I managed fairly well, in fact.
    Later, I’d learn that I should have been worried to death.

TWO
    The office seemed empty without Vida Friday morning. I wasn’t concerned about having to do her work for her. She had a backlog of at least two features, and she’d already written a wedding story along with a cutline for the happy couple’s photograph. If she didn’t return until Tuesday, Vida would have plenty of time to sort through her fillers and to collect items for the front page’s gossipy “Scene Around Town” feature.
    My ad manager, Leo Walsh, glanced over at Vida’s empty desk. “Where’s the Duchess?” he inquired. “She’s not on her dais this morning.”
    No one, not even Vida, could make Leo stop calling her Duchess. “She went to Tacoma to stay with her sick daughter,” I replied.
    Scott turned away from the coffeemaker. “You mean . . . she