Dolled Up For Murder

21

Gretchen stared at the hanging doll, cold fear jettisoning through her body. Was the intruder still in the house? She quickly closed the workshop door and locked it. She picked up a pair of scissors lying on the table, and, with Nina as backup, she opened the closet door and peered in. Nothing inside but more bins. She sighed with relief. “It’s empty,” she said.

Nina dropped the repair hook she had grabbed as a weapon, and it clattered to the floor. “I almost died of fright.”

Gretchen retrieved the hook and placed it on the workbench with the scissors. “I’m calling the police. Let’s stay in here until they arrive.”

“What about the animals?” Nina asked shrilly.

“I’m sure whoever did this is gone by now,” Gretchen said, dialing 911. “But let’s stay smart. If it was me, if I was the bad guy, all I’d care about would be a safe way out of the house.”

“What if we came home while he was here,” Nina said, “and he’s trapped inside with us?”

“Then staying in the workshop will give him time to escape.” Gretchen wasn’t sure she liked the idea of hiding, but after another glance at the swinging doll, she decided not to risk a confrontation.

She gave the dispatcher the necessary information, alerting him to the remote possibility that the intruder might still be in the house, and hung up.

“Red paint,” she said after touching the pooled liquid on the floor and noting an open jar of paint on the table.

“Don’t contaminate the crime scene,” Nina advised. “I hope they dust for prints.”

“How many people knew Martha’s bag was here?” Gretchen asked.

“Bonnie, April, Rita, Larry and Julia, Karen Fitz.” Nina ticked them off on her fingers. “And anyone they might have told. We weren’t trying to keep it a secret.”

“We really botched this one,” Gretchen said, thinking, What else is new? “Who had a key to the house?”

Nina shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then she widened her eyes. “We gave the key to Larry at the hospital when we thought Daisy was Caroline. He checked on the animals, and I suppose he could have had a copy made.”

Gretchen shook her head. “The sliding door was unlocked before I gave Larry the key. I think whoever did this was also in the house earlier. Who else?”

“Clients and friends were in and out of here all the time, but I never knew Caroline to give out her keys.”

Gretchen heard sirens in the distance, growing louder and stopping outside. With all the noise only a bungling fool would still be inside the house.

After a thorough search, a police officer with a perky ponytail and a cautious stance discovered the point of entry. “Jimmied the lock,” she said, studying the patio doors leading to the pool. “Probably came over the fence and forced the lock.”

“Anything else gone?” another officer said, holding a notepad and pen. “Other than the bag?”

“I don’t see anything else missing,” Gretchen said.

“Me either,” Nina said, plopping on the living room sofa surrounded by canines, a firm hand on Enrico, his incisors bared. “I should take him home. He isn’t handling all the excitement very well,” she said to Gretchen. “I’ll come right back.”

“You have to fill out this report first,” the woman said handing a clipboard to Nina, a wary eye on Enrico. “Why would anyone break in to steal a bag of old clothes?”

“Someone wanted the key,” Gretchen said. “Someone knew what the key would open.”

“And what does it open?”

“We don’t know.”

The officers observed Gretchen and Nina with steady stares. “And you don’t know why anyone would hang the doll and smear red paint all over it,” the officer with the notepad said.

“Right,” Gretchen and Nina said simultaneously.

“Looks like a warning to me,” perky ponytail said. “Or a threat. There’s a warrant out for Caroline Birch. Could she have done this?”

Gretchen gaped at the police officer. “Why would my mother break into her own home? Wouldn’t she let herself in through the front door?”

“That’s right,” Nina said, the pen in her hand poised midair, jabbing at the officers. “She wouldn’t try to scare her own sister and daughter.” She shook her head, and Gretchen smiled. She could hear the wheels turning in Nina’s head, berating the cops for what she considered total ineptness.

Their eyes met. We’ll have to take care of this on our own, won’t we? Gretchen thought.

Nina nodded slowly, and Gretchen blinked. Nina’s psychic thing was getting scary.

“Most of it is simply intuition,” Nina said, explaining what Gretchen referred to as her psychic abilities. The police officers had departed, and Nina had returned the cheeky Chihuahua to his owner. “Nothing magical about it. And it usually runs in families, so you probably have it, too, but you haven’t figured out how to channel your powers.”

“Did you hear what I was thinking when that officer suggested that my mother had broken into her own house?” Gretchen asked, dishing up food concoctions for Tutu, Nimrod, and Wobbles. All thoughts of finding a flight to Boston vanished from her mind.

“Not exactly. I caught the gist of it, though.”

“Well that isn’t so hard. You probably could tell from my expression that I didn’t have any faith in their ability to solve the burglary.”

“That could be true.” Nina placed two bowls on the floor and watched Wobbles jump onto the counter to eat his.

“Cats on the countertop are disgusting,” she said, making a face.

“Wobbles knows he can only go on this section,” Gretchen said, gesturing to the countertop farthest from the food preparation area. “Right here on the corner.”

“Anyway, you should work on your own psychic abilities.”

“If you’re so good, why haven’t you solved Martha’s murder and found my mother?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Nina watched Tutu lick every last crumb from her bowl. “Sometimes I have a clear mental image of fragments of the past or future, but mostly I analyze my feelings through auras. An image of Martha’s murderer won’t pop into my head, but I might see an evil aura emanating from the killer if I encounter him.”

“And have you seen any malevolent auras lately?” Gretchen picked up the canine’s bowls and soaped them in the sink. Wobbles jumped to the ground, challenging the two dogs to rush him. They kept their distance, although Nimrod wagged his short tail ferociously.

“To tell you the truth, my energy connection seems to be on the fritz lately,” Nina said. “To make it work I have to clear my mind and concentrate, and there’s too much turmoil right now to see through the haze. That hanging doll, for example.” Nina shivered visibly. “I don’t have to be a psychic to read that message.”

“I agree,” Gretchen said. “Steve’s going to be away from Boston for a few days, and it doesn’t make sense for me to go home now. I can’t leave you here alone with some psychopath running loose.”

She hoped Nina wouldn’t pursue a discussion of Steve. She wasn’t anxious to share her confused feelings with her aunt. Her emotions were too close to the surface, and she needed time to think about what she wanted to do next.

Nina was too delighted when she learned of Gretchen’s change of plans to follow up with any comments about Steve. “Let’s get started then. The key, obviously, is important. Important enough to risk breaking and entering.”

“But the thief wants us to know he’s angry.”

“Or she,” Nina said. “I still think we need to watch April more carefully. My aura might be off, but every time I’m around her, I get mixed signals and a confusing blend of colors.”

“And how about Bonnie?” Gretchen said. “She was lying about the Rescue Mission.”

Nina held up her copy of Martha’s hidden key. “Let’s start with April and Bonnie and see if this fits in either one of their door locks.”

A flash of lightning struck nearby, and Nimrod’s ears flattened to his head. His tiny poodle body shook violently, and Gretchen picked him up. “It’s storming outside. Can’t we wait until it passes?”

“During monsoon season in Phoenix?” Nina said. “It’ll continue to storm at least until midnight. Besides, we can use the rain and darkness as cover.”

“Great. Just what I want to do. Stand in the rain.”

“Slink around in the rain,” Nina corrected her, ignoring the sarcasm. “We are going to slink like an Arizona rattlesnake.”

They drove toward Tempe, taking one detour after another to escape entrapment in flooded washes. On the left side of the road, coyotes appeared in the Impala’s headlights, gaunt, running loosely in a pack, eyes red and glaring. Their heads swung in unison to look at the car, but they continued moving on through the spears of rain.

The windshield wipers slapped against the window in high gear. Occasionally, Nina pulled over to the side of the road until visibility returned. At times, all they could see ahead of them were taillights and streams of water rushing down the windshield.

April’s modest home came into view through the descending gloom. Nina parked across the street and killed the lights, and Gretchen saw April’s car parked in the carport. Through the rapidly fogging windshield of the Impala they watched an undulating glow behind April’s front curtain.

“She’s watching television in the dark,” Nina said, rubbing her palm in a circle on the driver’s window to clear her view. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”

Gretchen clutched the key. “Only one of us needs to go,” she said, watching April’s window for movement.

“You can,” Nina said, looking away.

“Who’s idea was this in the first place?”

Rain hammered on the roof of the car, reminding Gretchen of one Boston hailstorm so intense that it pounded circular dents into the hood of Steve’s Porche.

“I have an umbrella,” Nina said, reaching onto the backseat floor and pulling out a long white umbrella with pink polka dots. She handed it to Gretchen.

“Pink and white? How can I hide with this?” Gretchen cast a dubious expression Nina’s way. She tossed the umbrella into the backseat and quickly jumped out into the rain. Sometimes, she thought, you have to take a deep breath and plunge in, like a dive into frigid water. The longer you wait, the harder it is to go through with it.

Her flip-flops splashed through sheets of water, and her hair hung from her face in dripping strands even before she made it to the first porch step. She clomped under an overhang and flattened against the brick wall, wiping water from her face and listening to the sound of the television, muted by the pounding rain. The light through the window flickered.

She edged over and risked a peak between the curtains. April’s enormous frame covered her sagging sofa, and in the glow from the screen, Gretchen could tell that she was fast asleep, eyes closed, mouth hanging wide open.

She wiggled back to the front door, careful to stay under the protection of the eave, although she wasn’t sure why she bothered, since she was soaked to the skin. She tried to slide the key into the lock.

It didn’t fit.

In one mad rush, she lunged back to the car. Nina, encased in fogged windows, searched Gretchen’s face. “Well?” she said.

“It isn’t April’s key.”

“You didn’t try the back door.”

“The back door?”

“We have to be thorough,” Nina said.

“We?” Gretchen was annoyed by Nina’s use of a plural noun to describe a singular act. It wasn’t as though Nina was making a significant contribution. “We?” she said again. “Remember what you said? We are going to slink around in the rain like a rattlesnake. Your turn.”

“Don’t be silly,” Nina said, crossing her arms in protest. “You’re already wet. And rattlesnakes know better than to slink around in the rain.”

Gretchen climbed up on the seat and reached into the back for the umbrella. “April’s sleeping. I’m through slinking.”

She made her way carefully over the AstroTurf in April’s yard and circled around the back. Lightning struck nearby, too close for comfort, and Gretchen hoped her umbrella wasn’t the tallest structure in the vicinity. Not a single tree or large shrub grew near April’s yard. Aside from an antenna on top of the house, she held the only other lightning rod around. With her recent streak of bad luck, electrocution was a distinct possibility.

She hurried to the back door and transferred the umbrella to her left hand, hooking it with her thumb, which protruded from the cast. The umbrella swayed and tipped out of her hand, falling to the ground. Abandoning it, she fumbled in her pocket for the key, retrieved it, and tried it in the lock. It didn’t fit.

As she bent in the rain to pick up the umbrella and make a speedy exit, she heard the back door squeak open. She straightened. April’s face loomed in front of her.

“Thought I heard something out here,” April said. “What you coming to the back door for when the front’s so much closer? And look at you, you’re soaked through. Come on in.” April held the door open.

“I’m too wet,” Gretchen said. “I’ll come back later.”

“Nonsense, girl, I’ll get you a towel. Well, come on.”

While April went for the towel, Gretchen stood in front of the window, hoping Nina was paying attention and had spotted her. She turned and swept her eyes over the clutter in the room. Miniature dolls scattered over the tables, empty bags of chips, a collection of soda cans on the coffee table.

Overnight bag still on the floor with its contents thrown carelessly on top.

Gretchen realized that the overnight bag could have been on the floor a long time. Judging from April’s nonexistent housekeeping skills, her earlier assumption that the bag had been used recently could have been wrong.

“How are you feeling?” she asked when April handed her the towel.

“This valley fever has me feeling awful,” April said, coughing and sinking back into the sofa. She looked ashen and languid, and Gretchen couldn’t help but believe that she really was ill. April probably did suffer from Phoenix’s infamous lung infection. She hadn’t been away on some furtive mission after all.

While toweling dry the best she could, Gretchen told April everything-about the break-in, Martha’s bag, the key, and the hung doll. As she talked, April sat up straighter.

“Hanging a doll is scary business,” she said. “You better go back to Boston until this is cleared up. You might be in danger.”

“Someone is trying to scare me off. I can’t let them win. I need to know who else you told about Martha’s bag.”

“Not a soul,” April said. “I’m not a blabbermouth.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, April. I don’t care if you did tell everyone you see, I’m just rounding up suspects.”

“Well, you’ll have to look someplace else.” April blew her nose. “I have something to tell you that might help, though. I finally got a look at that doll the police found in your mother’s workshop. I’m proud of my appraisal skills and consider myself one of the best around. I base most of my analysis on market research like actual sales from shops and shows and on what’s hot at the moment. Right now its all-bisque dolls, but that parian, even though it’s not on the hot list, is so rare, I took awhile to estimate its worth.”

Gretchen gently dabbed the towel on her wet arms and legs. “What did you decide?”

“The doll has a unique hairdo, for starters. Real elaborate. And it has flowers and jewels molded in the bisque. Pierced ears, too. The other appraiser said three thousand, but my guess is it’s worth an easy five thousand and could sell for a lot more. And I’m being conservative. One fine doll, that one.”

“Because of her repair business, my mother works on rare and valuable dolls all the time.” Gretchen folded the towel over a chair and returned to the window. “That’s how she makes her living. She isn’t a thief.”

“Nobody said she was.” April coughed. “Martha’s the one I’d peg as a thief.”

“Martha was an enigma,” Gretchen said. “From what people tell me she kept everyone at a distance. She had few confidantes, if any. No one really knew her.”

April grunted. “A nasty woman. She used to call me Chubby Checker. Hey, Chubby, she’d call out every time she saw me, and then she’d laugh. She had nicknames for all of us. Bonnie was Pippi Longstocking because of her stiff hair. She called your mother Cruella De Vil from that Dalmation movie, because of her silver hair. Right to our faces, too.”

“Alcoholism is a disease,” Gretchen said, remembering Julia’s own complaints about Martha’s name-calling. The Tasmanian Devil was Martha’s term for Julia, she’d said, sounding hurt. “She probably couldn’t help herself.”

“There’s no excuse for cruelty.”

“Are you feeling well enough to work out tomorrow?” Gretchen asked.

“Doctor says I should get a little exercise as long as I go slow and don’t overdo.”

“Good. I’ll see you at Curves.”

April shifted her weight and slung a leg onto the coffee table. “Speaking of Curves. It’s a social event for our little group. We’ve been working out together for the last year or so, and we touch on a lot of subjects while we try to shed some fat.” She patted her midsection and sighed. “I suppose I’d lose some weight if I’d watch what I eat, but I work up a real appetite after all that exercise. They have a diet plan I’m going to look into.”

“You’d feel better,” Gretchen agreed.

“What I’m trying to say and taking the long way to say it is that Bonnie’s been dropping hints about Martha’s dolls. She knows more than she’s letting on.”

“What kind of hints?”

“She says things like, what if Martha stashed her collection someplace. Or, what if some of the Phoenix Dollers were hiding Martha’s dolls for her. Bonnie’s the club gossip, and she has a secret she can’t hardly keep. Give her a little shove, and she’ll spill.”

April’s face turned rosy red when she realized what she had said, and she lifted a pudgy hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. After what happened to Martha I shouldn’t be telling you to give her a little shove.” April reached for a box of tissues. “Bonnie’s always up real late. She won’t mind if you stop by right now. Just don’t call her before noon. She’s a late sleeper.”

Gretchen lifted the umbrella and worked it through the front door. “Thanks for the information, April.”

“Let me know what you find out,” April called out. “And say hi to Nina out in the car.”

Caroline wondered if she had made a mistake by placing an early bid and alerting other bidders to her presence. Web traffic through the doll listing was extremely heavy. As antique dolls became more difficult to find, their worth increased by volumes, and the bidding for the French Jumeau Bébé proved it.

The bidding war that Caroline had hoped to avoid had begun. The current bid flashed across the screen for the doll with the unique eyebrows designed by the world-famous French designer: $12,000.

Every doll collector yearned for at least one Jumeau, but few could afford to purchase a doll selling for thousands. At this price, how many different collectors were actually bidding? Two? Four? Certainly no more than ten.

Caroline wondered how long the seller would risk exposure. A stolen doll. A murdered collector. The seller must be motivated by uncontrollable greed or bold arrogance. Or desperation.

Using both hands she pulled her silver hair away from her face and neck and twirled it on her head. She gazed outside. Soon the planes overhead would cease flying for the night, only to start up again a few hours later at sunrise. Orange lighting from the parking lot shone into the drab room, and she could hear a television playing in the room next to hers.

Caroline rose and closed the heavy, smoke-laden drapes. She felt a small shiver of excitement, tasted the thrill of the auction on her tongue. She welcomed these new emotions, which until now had been masked under her own sense of desperation. Refreshing after days of extended panic. Pretend you’re in Vegas, she thought, where time is meaningless. Where light and dark merge into an insignificant gray.

Good and evil. Light and dark. Were these and concepts such as justice and retribution subjective in nature? Caroline had always been able to see both sides of an issue, empathize with each point of view, rarely taking a firm stance. Everything a hazy shade of melded colors. Until now.

“Play to win,” she whispered aloud. “At closing time, you must be the highest bidder.”

The motel phone rang shrilly, the harsh and unexpected sound startling her, and, after a pause to still her pounding heart, she picked up the receiver.

A voice spoke soothingly to her in flawless French, and she smiled.

“You know I don’t speak French,” she said.

“Take a small break and eat something, cherie. What can I do for you?”

“Stall,” Caroline said. “I need more time.”