Dolled Up For Murder

10

As Gretchen stood outside of Nina’s house, she heard a coyote howl in the distance. Larry and Julia were the last to leave. Larry wandered out to join her while Julia and Nina worked in the kitchen. Julia, apparently allergy-free tonight, had offered to help clean up in the spirit of renewed camaraderie. More likely, she hoped for an earful of tantalizing new gossip.

“Where did you and Julia originally live?” Gretchen asked. “Everyone in the Phoenix area seems to be a transplant from another state, mainly from the Midwest. I have yet to meet a native Arizonian in Phoenix or Scottsdale.”

“We’re both from Cleveland,” he said, laughing. He wore sunglasses to hide his facial tic, and Gretchen wondered how he could see through them in the dark of night. If she didn’t remove her sunglasses before entering any type of building, she couldn’t see a thing.

“Ah, you started out here as snowbirds.” Permanent Arizonians, Gretchen knew, weren’t particularly fond of Northerners who fled their home states every winter to bask for a few months in the sun. When the cherry and apple trees began to blossom, the snowbirds returned home.

“Didn’t we all?” he asked.

The coyote’s howl was joined by other howls, and a choir of yipp yipp calls sounded across the desert.

“Thank you for your help with the repair projects,” Gretchen said.

“My pleasure. Julia doesn’t let me work on restorations much anymore. She wants me out buying and selling. I forgot how much I enjoy it.”

“It’s relaxing,” Gretchen acknowledged, recalling the many times she had assisted her mother, immersing herself in a doll project, forgetting about the passage of time and life’s pressing responsibilities. “Repairing a doll is one of the few times I actually live in the moment,” she said. “There’s something very Zen about it.”

Larry agreed. “I’m making a wig for one of Caroline’s customers. It’s time-consuming but gratifying. Working on it gives me that same sense of timelessness.”

“Really? You’re making a wig?” Gretchen was surprised. Her mother saved wigs from dolls that were beyond repair and used them to replace damaged wigs. “That’s well beyond the call of duty. The workshop has bins brimming with supplies. You could look there for a wig that would work.”

“I enjoy the challenge. Wig making is one of my specialties.”

“What material are you using? Mohair? A kit?”

“Kits are for amateurs, you know that. I’m using human hair. It’s going to be an extraordinary wig when I’m finished.”

“Is a local salon saving hair for you?” Gretchen had found several human hairpieces stored in the repair shop, but she knew her mother avoided making them unless a customer couldn’t be satisfied in any other way and if the price was right.

“I can’t give out my secrets,” Larry said crisply. “Your mother might move into my territory.”

Gretchen eyed him. “I think it’s the other way around. But seriously, I appreciate your help, and I’m sure she will, too, when she gets back.” She didn’t add that her mother would have more problems than she could deal with when she resurfaced without worrying about her customers’ needs.

“Maybe I can pitch in soon and help you out,” she added.

“No rush.”

Julia, her bulldog jaw leading the way, whirled out in a flurry of activity, and the Gerneys waved from the car windows as they drove off.

“He’s still out there?” Nina asked, joining her and peering into the night.

Gretchen nodded and glanced down the street where the detective sat in his car. “Does he really think I’m going to lead him to my mother?”

“That tells me he’s out of ideas. He’s hoping you come up with something.”

“He and I are in agreement on that,” Gretchen said wearily. “But I don’t know what to do next.”

“We can start with that disgusting dirty journal you swiped from Nacho.”

“I completely forgot about it.” The painkiller seemed to be affecting her mental alertness, but at the moment she didn’t care. The pill had done its magic, and her wrist didn’t hurt.

With one last look at the detective’s car, Gretchen returned to the house, fished through her purse, and extracted the worn notebook. Nina carefully drew the curtains, and the two of them settled at the kitchen table.

“He wouldn’t creep around and look in the windows, would he?” Gretchen asked, carefully removing the rubber bands encircling the notebook.

Nina shrugged. “Who knows what he will do? We should have brought a few of Caroline’s dolls over to post at the windows and doors as guards.” She watched Gretchen open the thick wad of paper with disgust. “What a mess.”

Without the rubber bands to hold the notebook together, bits and pieces of paper slipped out onto the table. A few fell to the floor. Gretchen bent down and retrieved them. “He must have saved every receipt he ever received.” She picked through a variety of purchase receipts from fast-food restaurants and liquor stores. “He drinks a lot of wine,” she noted.

“I’m not at all surprised.” Nina gingerly sorted through a stack on the table. “Here’s a gas receipt.”

Gretchen glanced over at the paper in Nina’s hand. “A gas receipt? He has a car?”

“Of course not. He must have picked it up from the street.” Nina squinted at the fine print.

Gretchen took the receipt. “The gas was purchased yesterday with a credit card.”

“Who knows why he has it,” Nina said, dismissing it. “Keep going.”

Gretchen put it aside and unfolded a piece of paper that had been folded multiple times, one of many stuffed into the notebook. “Phone numbers, random scribbles, pages ripped out and stuffed back in. I can barely make out his handwriting. Sorting through this mess is going to take time.”

“Spend the night here,” Nina suggested. “I’ll make some herbal tea, and we’ll get it done, however long it takes. Every hour counts.”

“Let’s get to it then,” Gretchen said. “And make us something stronger than herbal tea. Give me something with caffeine. Coffee, if you have it.”

Several hours later and after multiple cups of coffee, Gretchen and Nina were nearing the back of the notebook and the last few pages.

Gretchen turned a page and almost spewed coffee across the scattered papers on the table. “Look at this.”

She held up a crumpled sheet of paper.

Nina gasped.

It was a copy of the picture of the French fashion doll reposing serenely in her wooden trunk. The exact same photograph Gretchen had found on the mountain that now was held as evidence by the Phoenix police. “We should have started at the back of the notebook. Doesn’t it figure?”

Gretchen stared at the copy of the valuable doll, then turned the paper over. “There’s a message on the back,” she said, reading aloud.“‘I have the doll, but the trunk is too large. Hide it for me.’” She glanced quickly up and handed it to Nina. “The handwriting is different from the rest of this notebook. It’s not Nacho’s, but I know that handwriting from somewhere.”

“You should know it,” Nina said. “It’s Caroline’s.”

Caroline studied Rudolph Timms and wondered about the best approach.

“Were you aware when you purchased the doll,” she said, “that it had been extensively repaired.”

Timms uncrossed his long legs and stood up. “Impossible,” he said. “This doll is in mint condition.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t.” Caroline shone the light on the doll’s head. “Porcelain is translucent. Repair materials are not. See the streaks?”

Timms leaned forward. “Yes. I see them.”

“The streaks indicate repaired cracks. If we removed the doll’s head, I could demonstrate more effectively.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Timms said weakly. “I’ll have to see about a refund, I suppose. I don’t mind purchasing a repaired doll, but the price must be right. What I paid for this particular doll was obscene.”

Obscene by his standards? Caroline’s eyes scanned her opulent surroundings.

If Timms had been an experienced collector he would have thoroughly examined the doll before agreeing to the price. Caroline wondered, in the end, if Timms’s pride would prevent him from pursuing the dishonest seller.

Perhaps the seller, in a hurry to unload the doll, hadn’t known that the doll had been restored. Caroline wasn’t about to admit that she, herself, performed the repairs. It hadn’t been her intention at the time to deceive a potential buyer.

“Please tell me who sold you the doll.” Caroline contained her anticipation. The name. She needed the name of the seller. “The doll community is very tightly knit. We dislike those who give our industry a bad name.”

Timms looked embarrassed, a tinge of pink spreading from his neck and creeping toward his widow’s peak. “My secretary arranged the transaction for me. I believe an escrow service was involved.”

“She must have a name. At the very least she should have the name of the service.”

“Of course. She handles all my affairs very efficiently. There’s a small problem, however.”

“Yes?” Caroline asked, impatiently. “A name shouldn’t be complicated.”

“My secretary is away at the moment. Somewhere in the Amazon on a small boat or something equally remote. I’m afraid I’m helpless without her.”

He gazed longingly at the doll. “Such a waste. Perhaps I’ll keep the doll after all but at a reduced price, of course. My secretary will return next week, and she will handle the transaction.”

Caroline stared at Rudolph Timms in dismay. A week would be too late. The muffled voice on the phone had been clear about that. She’d be dead by then.