Dolled Up For Murder

18

Tutu and Nimrod greeted them with enthusiasm. Gretchen was enormously relieved to find they had behaved themselves without leaving the whirlwind mess in Caroline’s house she’d feared. One natural disaster for the day was enough.

Wobbles, a fairly large tomcat, stalked between the two dogs, towering over Nimrod and standing almost eye to eye with Tutu. A formidable trio, but Wobbles was clearly the ruler.

Ever since Tutu had suffered a scratched nose, she watched Wobbles with a healthy respect.

The respect wasn’t reciprocated.

Wobbles feigned indifference, but Gretchen suspected that he knew exactly where the dogs were at all times. He even tolerated Nimrod’s puppy playfulness. As for Tutu, he didn’t allow her much leeway after cutting her down to size with one swift swoop of his armed paw.

“Six o’clock, and it’s dark outside already,” Nina said. “Monsoon season is the only time of year that we have such short days. If the sun never set at all, I’d be perfectly happy.”

Nina ordered a delivery of Chinese from a nearby restaurant, and they changed into dry clothes, Nina selecting a loose sundress from Caroline’s closet.

“Watch what I’m teaching Nimrod,” Nina said to Gretchen, crouching and holding open his personalized purse. Nimrod ran right in, turned around, and peeked out joyfully. Holding the handbag, Nina stood and adjusted it on her shoulder.

Gretchen said, “Rumor has it you tried to sneak Tutu into the hospital in a purse.”

“I would have pulled it off if I had a larger purse. I used to carry Tutu around all the time, but she weighs about twelve pounds, and my back isn’t as strong as it used to be. Nimrod, when he’s grown, will be only four or five pounds, the perfect weight for a purse. Now watch this.”

Nina strolled across the bedroom with Nimrod and purse, past the dresser filled with Shirley Temple dolls. She pivoted at the closet, started back, and stopped before she reached Gretchen. “Nimrod, hide,” she whispered, turning her head toward Nimrod.

He instantly ducked inside the purse.

Nina grinned with pleasure. “Okay, good boy.” Nimrod peeked out again.

Gretchen laughed out loud, a deep, throaty, full-bodied laugh. The first one since she arrived in Phoenix. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. She laughed until tears streamed down her face.

“It’s so easy to train a puppy,” Nina said wistfully. “I wish I had taught Tutu that trick before she grew up. The old adage is true. Teaching old dogs new tricks isn’t easy.”

“Let me guess,” Gretchen said, wiping her eyes. “You’re teaching Nimrod to hide so you can take him into stores where he wouldn’t be welcome.”

“Exactly. And he loves it. He burrows down and takes a catnap. Or rather a puppy nap.”

Nina hung Nimrod and purse on the doorknob and sat down on the side of the bed. “Nimrod’s family has had an unexpected delay, and they won’t be home today. Nimrod needs a place to stay for a few days, a temporary home.”

Gretchen stopped laughing. “He seems perfectly happy staying with you.”

“We’ve had a great time.”

“But?”

“But I have another client coming,” Nina said. “I love Nimrod. He took to a purse with the same instinct he takes to water. But I can’t possibly train another puppy with so many other dogs around. The distraction would be counterproductive.”

“Can’t you reschedule your next client?” Gretchen felt a case of can’t-say-no-itis coming on.

“That wouldn’t be very professional.”

Gretchen glanced at Nimrod. His ears quivered. “Okay, but only for a few days.” She lifted his purse from the doorknob and slung him over her shoulder. “Let’s see what’s inside the bag Nacho gave me. Maybe it holds all the answers to Martha’s death.”

“You’re a dreamer,” Nina said.

“Nothing of value at all,” Nina said, slapping her hands together and rubbing them as though shedding dirt and grime, a look of distaste on her face. The clothes spread out on the table reeked of cigarette smoke. “This is it? All she owned? And we actually toyed with the idea that she still had her dolls?”

Gretchen studied the paltry collection. Aside from a few pieces of clothing, the bag contained a toothbrush, a near-empty tube of toothpaste, and a stick of roll-on deodorant. Not much to show for a well-worn life, for years of collecting personal effects.

“Let’s throw the whole mess in the trash,” Nina said.

“No, this belongs to Joseph now. He can decide whether to dispose of it or not.” Gretchen picked up the stick of deodorant and idly lifted the cover. Something made of metal fell and clinked on the floor. She bent down and picked it up.

“A key,” she said.

Gretchen handed it to Nina. “Is it a safe-deposit key?” she asked.

“Doesn’t seem to be. It isn’t a car key, either.” Nina turned it over and shrugged. “House key maybe.”

“Let’s see if it fits one of these doors.”

They tried the key in the front and back door locks. It didn’t fit.

“That’s a relief,” Nina said. “We don’t need additional evidence pointing to Caroline.”

Gretchen couldn’t agree more.

The Chinese food arrived, and they ate in silence. Afterwards, Nina gathered her wet clothes together and kissed Nimrod good-bye. “I left Nimrod’s food on the counter.” She ducked out quickly, leaving a considerable amount of baggage behind in one small, wiggly package.

Gretchen sat and stared at the key for a long time.

Then, with Nimrod at her heels, she went into her mother’s workshop and sat at the worktable. Equipment hung haphazardly from hooks on the wall: clamps, scissors, elastic in different weights for stringing, and a curling iron the size of a pinky finger for creating ringlets on her mother’s favorites, the Shirley Temple dolls.

Next to the workbench, a library of collector’s books, price lists, and identification guides. Guides for hard plastic dolls, vinyl dolls, every conceivable specialty doll-American Characters, Mattel, Nancy Ann Storybook dolls.

Gretchen removed a volume devoted to Sweet Sue dolls and idly paged through it, noting the pages were worn from research.

Sighing heavily, she checked to make sure the doll trunk was still safely stowed in its hiding place on the lower shelf of one of the cabinets. She removed the cloth and peered at the trunk, then stood up.

The bin where the police found the hidden parian doll and inventory list was still ajar. The two assigned officers had come directly into the workshop and searched it meticulously. A superficial, indifferent search of the rest of the house. There was no question in Gretchen’s mind that someone had given them information. But who? Nacho? He seemed the likeliest.

What was the point of alerting the police? To shift suspicion away from the real killer? An old doll list and a doll of disputable ownership hardly seemed damaging. But that, combined with eyewitnesses on Camelback Mountain, destroyed any credibility her mother might have had, her innocence now questioned by all except her immediate family.

Why did she hide those things in the first place?

Gretchen recalled her mother’s expertise at hiding her Easter basket. Caroline had an uncanny knack for concealing surprises in creative places, a game they both enjoyed playing. Every year her mother grew more inventive. Gretchen smiled as she thought of her mother’s devious tactics and some of her more creative hiding places. Suspended up the chimney, in nooks and crannies that Gretchen never knew existed in the Boston home she had lived in her entire life, wrapped in towels in the laundry basket, under a half-filled garbage bag in the trash can. That had been one of her best. It took Gretchen hours to discover it.

If her mother really wanted to hide something, no one would be able to find it.

A new idea sent a chill along Gretchen’s spine. What if someone else hid the doll and the inventory in her mother’s workshop, then called the police to report it? That had to be it.

She picked up the phone and called Nina. “Someone’s been in the house,” she said.

“What? Right this minute? Did you call nine-one-one?”

“No. Not right now. Before.” Gretchen explained her analysis of her mother’s ability to hide an elephant, about how convenient the police search had been.

“The second day I was here,” Gretchen said, “one of the sliding doors was unlocked, and I was sure I had locked it. And some of my things were rearranged, not quite where I left them. I think someone searched the house and planted the doll and Martha’s doll list.”

“Gretchen, you want to prove your mother’s innocence, that’s understandable, but nothing you can say or do will change the fact that Caroline was seen on Camelback Mountain when Martha died.”

Gretchen let out a rush of air. “That is a tough one.”

“And why did she run away? Innocent people don’t run away. She abandoned her business and used two disadvantaged homeless people to conceal her movements.”

Apparently, Nina had joined the growing list of disbelievers. Caroline’s own sister had abandoned her.

“She’s innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, Aunt Nina. People tend to forget our basic rights and judge on hearsay and innuendo. Don’t join that narrow-minded mob.”

“You’re right. I’m trying to keep an open mind.” Gretchen could hear the hurt in her voice as Nina continued. “But it’s hard. If only she would call.”

“She had a reason to run. We have to find out what scared her so much that she thought she had to flee. And what was so awful she couldn’t confide in her family?” Gretchen paused, hearing the familiar click of call waiting. “I have another call coming in. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Night, dear.”

“Hi, this is Courtney,” a young voice said, childlike, waiflike.

“Courtney?” Wrong number, Gretchen thought. “You must have…”

“No, no, this is the right number. I’m sure of it. This is Courtney.”

Dim bulb, Gretchen chided herself. How many Courtneys do you know? None? Think again. You’ve heard of one, Steve’s Courtney, the intern.

“Ah,” Gretchen said. “Courtney.”

“Yes, well, how are you Ms. Birch?”

Ms. Birch? Immediately establishing an age barrier, manipulative, catty. Gretchen had a bad feeling, a Nina moment.

“Gretchen. Please call me Gretchen, and is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Is Steve all right?”

“Oh, he’s fine.”

Courtney’s voice was vaguely familiar. More than vaguely. It matched the voice of the anonymous caller who had first informed her of Steve’s cheating ways.

Silence on both ends. Gretchen waited her out, palms damp, feeling disoriented, a sense of foreboding causing her heart to beat a little too fast.

“Steve told me that you know about our thing,” Courtney said.

Our thing? Such small, innocuous words. A certain lack of literary excellence. Like the words nice or good. But what a punch they pack when used in this context.

Several times in the last several years she’d suspected Steve of being unfaithful. Even before the indisputable proof, she used to have to convince herself that it was her imagination, an uncontrollable jealousy from childhood that caused her to be suspicious over every little occurrence. A flaw in her character, not his. Every time his eyes stayed with a passing woman longer than Gretchen thought they should. Every time his hand brushed gently across another woman’s hand. Accidental or intentional?

Steve was a hugger, she’d rationalize. He enjoyed women. Gregarious. Loquacious after a drink or two. And his career mandated proximity to females. Divorce law. Women constantly in and out of his office, seeking solace in his legal strength, projecting hope on their attorney after betrayal, failed love.

Natural, Steve said, to have admirers. After all, his job is to take care of them, like a big brother or uncle or family friend.

Gretchen closed her eyes.

Courtney plowed forward. “Steve has no clue that I’m calling. It was my idea. I wanted you to know that we’re still together, in spite of what Steve tells you.”

Of course, Steve wouldn’t approve of honesty; he’d already become proficient at practicing deceit as well as law.

“I wanted you to know because I can’t stand lying to you.”

Touching, isn’t it? Courtney taking the high road.

“And I want you gone,” Courtney said, steering for the low road. “He’s mine now.”

Gretchen hung up the phone without another word. She wanted to slam the phone, break it, wrench its traitorous cord from the phone jack and wrap it tightly around Steve’s cheating neck.

Instead she picked up a broken doll from an overflowing bin heaped with dolls and steadied her shaking hands.

Standing at the padded workbench, she cut a length of elastic in the proper weight and with clamps and hooks spread out before her, she went to work, looping the elastic through a hook in the arm socket, carefully drawing it through and attaching it to the body. Rifling in a parts bin to find a replacement for a missing leg. Finishing one doll and starting another.

What would her life have been like if she had joined her mother’s business? Made dolls her life’s work? There was something appealing about working at home, dropping out of the nine-to-five rat race. Working in pajamas. Forgetting about snarled rush-hour traffic, appropriate work apparel, the proper business demeanor, fighting for raises, dodging a coworker’s efforts to sabotage your chances for promotion.

Gretchen gave a bath to a soft vinyl doll, found underpants, a hat, shoes. The right clothes for the right doll. Worked a bow into her hair.

What would life have been like?

The list of exquisite and valuable dolls was seared into Caroline’s memory bank, her human cerebral memory bank, not that of the artificial random access memory lying on the cheap pine dresser. Close to two hundred dolls, each rare and unique, a haphazard, eclectic collection.

A rare George II wooden doll with painted, gessoed face in silk polonaise gown. Two French shoulder papier-mâché dolls with bamboo teeth. A German waxed composition lady with inset blue glass eyes. Parians, chinas, bisques representing the finest from France and Germany. A group of Italian Lenci cloth dolls. A finite list with infinite worth.

Now a collector’s dream turned into a freakish nightmare.

Excessive greed had dimmed the glow, dampened the glory of the fine collection.

Caroline could recite all the particulars of the inventory, could describe every photograph in detail, although her hope of recovering any of the collection diminished with every passing hour.

Her lips curled in momentary satisfaction.

At least she had the prize.

The French fashion doll.