Dolled Up for Murder (10 page)

Rudolph Timms cleared his throat.

“Remarkable,” Caroline said, without looking up from her work. “Simply remarkable.”

The light’s rays penetrated the layers of transparent porcelain.

Caroline’s gasp of relief caught in her throat.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

She had the doll right in her lap.

10

Deceptions are practiced wherever money can be made, and the doll world is no exception. Swindlers scour the country buying damaged dolls and sometimes work with an accomplice who repairs the dolls for them. These con artists represent the dolls to avid buyers as something they are not, sell them at inflated prices, then quickly disappear from sight.

—From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

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.

11

The Internet has revolutionized the doll industry. eBay and other online auction services connect doll collectors and doll dealers around the world. Rare and sought-after items appear for sale on a daily basis, and it is the wise doll connoisseur who follows the auctions. Remember the old adage—the early bird gets the worm? In doll-collecting lingo that translates in a meaningful way. The earliest buyer always wins the prize.

—From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

Gretchen greeted Sunday morning with a moan. It took her a good minute to realize she was in Nina’s extra bedroom. She hated mornings, and she hated energetic, bubbly morning people who thought watching the sunrise gave them special powers. At the moment, she hated Nina.

“It’s already nine o’clock, sleepyhead.” Nina sat down on the bed with a bounce. “Two things. First, you left your cell phone in the kitchen, and Steve called this morning. I told him you’d return his call when you got up.”

Gretchen managed to sit up with the support of her one good arm behind her. She cracked an eye.

“I’m going to my meditation center,” Nina said. “If I clear my head of all this stuff floating around, maybe I’ll get a reading on your mother.”

Nina’s methods of handling emergency situations differed drastically from Gretchen’s.

“Take the dogs with you. Please,” Gretchen said.

“I can’t very well take Tutu along. How would I watch her? Nimrod could stay in his purse, but he’d be a distraction. Anyway, he’d much rather stay here with you.” Nina patted Gretchen’s leg. “I’ll stop at Caroline’s and check on Wobbles.”

“Feed him.”

“I will. I won’t be gone long. Have some coffee, it’s fresh, and call Steve back. What’s the plan for the day?”

Gretchen managed to remain sitting upright without the leverage of her arm. She rubbed her eyes. “I can’t think straight. I need coffee first.”

“I’m off then.” Nina fluttered around, gathering her things, kissed Tutu good-bye, and left.

Gretchen slipped into a borrowed robe, pink with green satin trim at the knee-length hem, and shuffled into the kitchen. She poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, sipping it. Everything seemed to move in slow motion without the use of her left hand, but she was grateful that it didn’t hurt this morning.

After she poured the second cup, she returned Steve’s call and related the events of the past two days. For once, Steve heard her all the way through without interrupting.

“You need to come home,” he said when she finished. “This is nuts. You don’t want to involve yourself in something illegal. This is murder we’re talking about.”

“I can’t leave now. Nina needs me.”

“I need you, too. Doesn’t that factor in at all?”

“Of course it does.” Gretchen felt a flash of guilt. She really hadn’t given much thought to Steve recently. But why should she? Couldn’t Steve get by for a few days without her? “But I have to find my mother,” she insisted.

“And what have been the results of your search so far?” he demanded.

Gretchen didn’t say anything.

“She’ll show up when she shows up,” Steve continued. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in Arizona or Massachusetts. I have my career to think about. We can’t have any scandal, especially right now when the firm’s partners are deciding my future. The timing couldn’t be worse.”

Ah,
Gretchen thought,
the truth comes out.
He wasn’t concerned about her well-being at all. His request that she come home was a precautionary career move.

“I’m going to see what happens today,” she said. “I’ll call you tonight.”

“I’ll expect to hear from you by eight. Boston time. You’d think one broken bone would be enough for you.”

Gretchen closed the phone and threw it in her purse. For seven years she had hoped her relationship with Steve would evolve into something permanent. That dream was fading as fast as a drop of moisture in the desert.

Would she end up in spinsterhood like Nina? She already had the stereotypical cat.

Was the cost of marriage to Steve worth the price she’d have to pay? She had already lost the ability to refuse his increasing demands, her inability to say
no
more pronounced when dealing with him. She rarely crossed him for any reason. Had she subconsciously dimmed her own personality to accommodate his?

Could she move past his recent indiscretion and forget, as well as forgive?

Worry about that later,
she scolded.
Focus on today and the task at hand
.

Tutu caught Gretchen’s attention when she trotted down the hall and whined at the front door. Nimrod trailed at a distance.

“Okay,” Gretchen said in a surly tone. “I’m coming. But be quick about it.”

She opened the door, and Tutu ran out. The dog didn’t stop in the yard to sniff around and find the perfect spot, and if Gretchen had been more awake, she would have remembered that Tutu preferred wee-wee pads and indoor plumbing over normal dog outhouses.

Tutu lowered her body close to the ground and ran full-out down the street without a single glance back, like an escaped convict with the irresistible taste of freedom in her mouth.

Gretchen stood in the doorway with her mouth open in shock. Recovering somewhat, she slammed the door before Nimrod had the chance to join in the escape. Running barefoot into the street, she shouted Tutu’s name. The spoiled schnoodle was nowhere in sight.

Gretchen had managed to lose Nina’s dog mere moments after beginning her dog-sitting assignment.

She had a decision to make. Follow the demented dog immediately in bare feet, wearing Nina’s pink and lime green robe, or quickly change into her own clothes and pull on her sandals. Tutu already had a wide lead, and Gretchen’s only hope of catching up with her would be if the roving rascal encountered a distraction. A cute boy dog would do the trick.

Gretchen gasped. What if Tutu was in heat?

An image of Nina’s reaction to the loss of her prized pet trotted through Gretchen’s head, replaced quickly by an image of Tutu giving birth to schnoodle mutts.

She took off running.

The desert morning heat was already oppressive. The pavement under her feet felt hot and sticky. A bird perching on an overhead electrical wire panted through its small, open beak, and the sound of sprinklers laboring to water the lush tropical yards filled the air.

And sun, sun, blazing sun everywhere.

“Wait up,” she heard someone call out behind her. She whirled to see Matt Albright loping toward her, wearing running shoes, cargo shorts, and a yellow T-shirt. He looked fresh and scrubbed, and he wore that dazzling yet deceptive smile.

Gretchen turned back to the task at hand and continued running, squinting against the sun’s intense rays and wishing for a good pair of sunglasses more than a pair of shoes.

“I heard you were an avid runner, but your commitment astounds me,” he said, catching up. “Me? I would have changed out of the robe and probably worn shoes.”

“There are vast differences between the two of us, Albright.” Gretchen ignored the pain in her tender soles. “For example, if it was my investigation, I’d be out questioning Martha’s acquaintances, and I’d be compiling a list of suspects.”

“My henchmen take care of that,” he said, jogging easily. “Can I get a picture of this?”

“Of what?” Gretchen peered between houses as they ran side by side. If she had shoes on, she could leave him in her desert dust.

“A picture of you jogging in your cute robe.”

“Go away,” Gretchen said, huffing slightly.

Matt stopped running and fell behind. “If you step on a scorpion, you’ll be back at the hospital,” he called after her. “I spent enough time waiting around there for you yesterday.”

Gretchen slowed and stopped, staring at the ground with growing panic. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Scorpion stings were excruciatingly painful, according to reports by several Arizonians who had been stung and lived to tell about it. Their venom wasn’t deadly, but death seemed preferable to the pain they inflicted.

“They have clear bodies and that makes them hard to see.” He stood with both hands on his hips. “Anyway, that isn’t what you’re looking for? What’s up?”

“Tutu escaped.”

“The yappy mutt?” he said. “I thought she seemed in a rush when she blasted out of the yard.” Matt looked down the block. “But are you sure you want to find her?”

“Tempting thought, but I have to. Nina would kill me.”

“I’ll help then. I wouldn’t want to be partially responsible for your demise.”

After a brief consultation on the best search tactics, they returned to the house, Gretchen walking gingerly, alert to the threat of stinging monsters. Matt walked another half block to get his car. He waited outside while Gretchen changed into the same clothes she had worn yesterday: green capris, a white tee, and sandals.

They cruised slowly down the street in Matt’s unmarked police car. Gretchen decided to make the most of this opportunity to pump the cop for information, forgetting momentarily that she could count her future health by mere minutes if she didn’t find Tutu.

“Who tipped you off about the doll in my mother’s workshop?” she said.

“What makes you think someone tipped me off?”

“Why do you answer every question with another question?”

“Do I?”

Gretchen sighed heavily and continued to scan for Tutu. She rolled down the window and called Tutu’s name. The more Gretchen thought about the police search at her mother’s house, the more certain she became that the police had known not only what they were looking for, but also where they were looking for it. “Did it ever occur to you,” she said, “that your tipster might have planted the evidence?”

“Vivid imagination,” Matt said. “You must be some sort of artistic type. What do you do for a living?”

“Nothing at the moment. I’m unemployed. I have another question for you.”

“Of course.”

“Who claimed Martha’s body?”

Matt stopped the car and studied her, his brows furrowed. Eventually he said, “I guess telling you won’t hurt the case. Her body and personal effects haven’t been released yet, but Joseph Reiner is making arrangements.”

Gretchen was surprised. “The same Joseph Reiner I met at Nina’s house yesterday?”

Matt nodded. “He’s Martha’s nephew.”

“Why didn’t he mention that?”

“I didn’t know myself until late last night when he called me. He seemed embarrassed by the family connection. That explained all the nervous twitching I observed at the meeting.”

In Gretchen’s mind, that didn’t explain anything. It only led to more questions.

“Okay,” Matt said. “I shared information with you. What do you have for me?”

“Nothing yet,” Gretchen said, thinking of the photocopy in Nacho’s notebook and the note on the back in her mother’s handwriting.
“I have the doll. Hide the trunk.”

Gretchen felt a confusing mix of anger and fear for her mother. What in the world had her mother gotten herself into? Sitting in the car next to Matt, she realized she was clenching her fists, and she forced herself to relax.

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and Tutu appeared from the side of a house, her tongue hanging out so far it almost scraped the ground.

“There she is,” Matt said. “We’ve got her.”

“How was I supposed to know she couldn’t be trusted outside alone?”

“The backyard is fenced for a reason,” Nina said, alternating between sending Gretchen piercing glares and rubbing her face in the schnoodle’s fur. “Poor baby, lost alone in the big world.”

“How’s Wobbles?” Gretchen asked.

“Obviously he enjoyed more care and attention than Tutu.”

Gretchen stuffed her purse with the contents of Nacho’s notebook, slipping the picture of the French fashion doll into her wallet.

“I can’t bear sitting around doing nothing,” Gretchen said. “I’m taking your car for a few hours. You start calling everyone my mother knows, including relatives you might not like.”

She realized the chances of proving her mother’s innocence were evaporating with every piece of new evidence. Instead of uncovering information that would lead to a new suspect, she was cementing the case against her. She could see the headlines now: “Daughter Leads Police to Prove Mother Is Killer.”

At the moment, unsubstantiated evidence pointed to a conspiracy between Caroline and Nacho to steal the French fashion doll from someone. Why else would they discuss hiding the doll and the trunk?

“We have to find out who owns the doll,” Gretchen said.

“How are we going to do that?”

“We’ll find Nacho and make him tell us. He’s the link. And we are going to pay a visit to Martha’s nephew and ask him why he’s creeping around the doll club and concealing his identity.”

“Who? Who?” Nina said, sounding exactly like a great horned owl. “Who is Martha’s nephew? I think I missed something.”

“Joseph Reiner.”

“No,” Nina said in disbelief. “Martha was his aunt? He never said a word.” She plunked the car keys into Gretchen’s outstretched hand. “I should come along to protect you,” she said in a small voice.

“I won’t be gone long. Start making phone calls.”

Caroline stood in the incessant rain staring at Rudolph Timms’s condominium complex, a small figure lost in the early morning mass of humanity swarming around her. She clutched the case containing her laptop close to her body. It was her last hope.

She had spent the night in the Amtrak train station, acutely aware of the indigents attempting to blend with legitimate travelers, seeking dry benches to pass the night. She had become one of them, her remaining dollars slipping through her fingers as her body demanded nourishment. Soon, out of desperation, she would take a chance and use a credit card.

Her Phoenix source had apprised her of the latest developments, and she knew that a warrant had been issued for her arrest. A wanted woman. Also wanted by a more dangerous force than the local authorities.

She turned off Michigan Avenue and sought cover under the canopy of the entrance to the Holiday Inn. Glancing back once more toward the opulent Timms home, she realized there wasn’t anything more she could do in the center of downtown Chicago. She had to keep moving.