The Doll Maker (23 page)

‘Old? Not for
years
,’ Byrne said.

Miss Emmaline smiled. ‘Heartbreaker.’ She glanced at Jessica. ‘Is he always this charming?’

‘Always,’ Jessica said.

Miss Emmaline put down her cup, an elegant china demitasse, continued.

‘When my sisters and I were small, my grandmother only took out her doll on special occasions,’ she said. ‘Mostly on our birthdays, sometimes on holidays.’

‘She had just the one doll?’ Byrne asked.

‘Yes. She was a Bru, very beautiful.’

‘What is a Bru?’

‘Bru is a line of dolls created in the late 1800s in France. Mostly they were made of porcelain, though some were made of gutta-percha. They are considered by some – myself included – to be the finest dolls ever made.’

‘And your grandmother had one of these?’

Miss Emmaline nodded. ‘Her name was Sarah Jane. The doll, not my grandmother. We had to be bathed and scrubbed every time we touched Sarah Jane, had to have very clean hands when we held her. When we got older, and took to tomboying, we had to wear our Easter gloves. Imagine.’

While Miss Emmaline talked, Jessica found her attention being drawn to one of the dolls on display. The doll, on top of the dresser to Jessica’s left, was big, and its eyes were looking off to the side. They seemed to be looking at Jessica.

‘I see you’ve noticed Carlene,’ Miss Emmaline said. ‘She’s what’s known as a Googly doll.’

Miss Emmaline pointed at the doll’s face, continued.

‘You see how the eyes are somewhat oversized and glancing off to the side? This is a trait of the Googly, although many other dolls and figurines and popular images have this trait.’

‘The Campbell kids,’ Byrne said.

‘Very good, young man,’ she said. ‘The two children in the Campbell soup advertisements are most certainly in the Googly tradition.’

The headquarters for the Campbell Soup company had for many years been located in Camden, New Jersey, just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.

Just about anyone in Philadelphia or Camden with the last name of Campbell was nicknamed Soupy.

Jessica thought about the Gillen crime scene, how the doll was in one corner, and the victims directly across.

Was the doll looking at the victims?
Was that the invitation?

Byrne held up the photo of the doll found at the crime scene. ‘Is this a doll you may have sold in this shop?’

‘It is,’ she said. ‘But I believe I have not seen this
particular
doll before.’

‘Is there any way to tell where this doll may have been purchased?’ Byrne asked. ‘Any markings?’

‘Antique dolls can have any number of marks,’ Miss Emmaline said. ‘The manufacturer’s identification mark on an antique doll often appears on the back of the head, which is usually hidden by the wig. But marks can appear on the shoulder plate, on the chest or back, sometimes on the soles of the feet.’

‘Are these marks stamped in?’

‘Sometimes. It depends on the material. Marks can also be incised into the material, or attached as a label or decal. It depends.’

Jessica felt she knew where her partner was going with this. It made her blood run cold.

Miss Emmaline held up the photograph. ‘It’s hard to tell much from this photograph. If you could bring the doll here, I might be able to tell you more,’ she said. ‘If I saw the mark, I could tell you exactly who made this doll, almost to the day when, and perhaps where it might have been purchased.’

‘We can do that,’ Byrne replied. ‘We appreciate the offer.’

‘Not at all.’

‘May I ask if you run this shop by yourself, Miss Emmaline?’

‘Mostly,’ she said. ‘I live just upstairs, so there is not much of a commute. Then there are a few neighborhood girls who come in and help clean once in a while. It’s not too hard to get girls to work in a shop like this. I pay them what I can.’

A few minutes later they stepped back into the shop. Jessica was glad to see the place had not been burgled. She was turning into
such
a cynic in her old age.

Byrne turned to Miss Emmaline. ‘I was just wondering. Do all dolls have names?’

Miss Emmaline looked at Byrne as if he had asked her whether or not the sun rose in the east. ‘Of course they do, young man,’ she said. ‘To a lot of people dolls are almost living things. To many, dolls are members of the family.’ She gestured to the dolls displayed around the room. ‘These are my family now.’

Byrne buttoned his coat. ‘Well, again, thanks so much for your time.’

‘It has been my pleasure. I have enjoyed this visit immensely, and I hope I have been of some assistance to the Philadelphia Police Department. You have been an assistance to me more times than I care to remember.’

‘You’ve been a great help, Miss Emmaline.’

‘Please let me know when you might come by with that doll. I’ll try to carve out a moment in my hectic schedule,’ she said with a wink.

‘May I ask one more question?’ Jessica asked.

‘You may.’

‘What happened to Sarah Jane?’

Miss Emmaline looked out the shop window, perhaps imagining the world as it was when little girls had to wear their Easter gloves to handle their grandmother’s prized bisque doll.

‘My mother had three sisters, you see. When my grandfather’s farm was sold, after his death, the contents were well picked over. My mother was the youngest, so she pretty much got what was left at the bottom. The last time I saw Sarah Jane she was in my cousin’s Ruthie’s hands, looking out the back window of Uncle Frederick’s 1937 Ford.’

Jessica wanted to ask if Cousin Ruthie’s hands were clean at the time, but the despondent look on Miss Emmaline’s face told her they were not.

It took a few moments for Jessica to come back to the twenty-first century after walking out of Miss Emmaline’s shop. She felt as if she had just time-traveled. She liked whatever place they had gone to, though, she’d liked it a great deal.

They got in the car, buckled up. They sat in silence for almost a full minute.

‘You want to know if the killer marked Nicole Solomon and the Gillen boys, don’t you?’ Jessica asked.

‘It crossed my mind.’

‘You want to know if there is a mark on the backs of their heads.’

Byrne said nothing. He didn’t have to.

‘I’ll let them know we’re coming,’ Jessica said.

She took out her phone, and called the ME’s office.

Of the eight divisions under the purview of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, the most active was the forensic investigation unit. In addition to its main charter – that being to determine whether or not a death comes under the jurisdiction of the MEO, and to investigate the circumstances surrounding a death – it sometimes, in conjunction with the city’s detective units, aided in notification of next of kin.

Working with the other divisions – pathology, toxicology, histology, as well as forensic odontology and forensic anthropology – the ME’s office processed more than six thousand cases of death every year. Add to this the division’s bereavement support services, and the recently established Fatality Review program, which strove to find ways to prevent future injuries and fatalities for the citizens of Philadelphia, the office was never silent for long.

All homicide detectives and other police personnel had their ideas about crime prevention, of course, but, for the sake of political expediency, and job longevity, most kept these thoughts to themselves.

When Jessica and Byrne arrived at the huge complex on University Avenue, they pulled around to the rear.

The ME investigator on both the Nicole Solomon and Gillen boys’ cases was Steve Fenton.

A fit, athletic family man in his early forties, Fenton took every body he processed seriously. Where there was sometimes a measure of gallows humor within these walls, it never came from Steve Fenton. It was Jessica’s understanding that, as a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary, Fenton had at one time considered the clergy.

They met in the large intake room next to the loading bays. The bodies of Nicole Solomon, Robert Gillen, and Edward Gillen lay on stainless steel tables in the center of the room.

Behind them they heard the sound of insects – mostly blow flies – being zapped by the electronic zapper. If you spent enough time in this room – and mercifully Jessica did not – you almost didn’t hear it anymore.

‘I missed it on all three of them,’ Fenton said.

He brought the lighted magnifying lamp over the back of Nicole Solomon’s head. Jessica put on her glasses, leaned in. The mark was small, but unmistakable. Jessica stepped back, allowed Byrne to approach.

‘These are really easy to miss, Steve,’ Jessica said. ‘I can’t make out anything. What do they look like to you?’

‘They’re numbers,’ he said. ‘The number ten on Nicole Solomon, eleven on Robert Gillen, and twelve on Edward. I had Dr Patel take a look. He concurs.’

Dr Rajiv Patel was the medical examiner for Philadelphia County. If ever there was an overworked, underpaid position, it was his.

‘Were these marks done pre- or post-mortem?’ Byrne asked.

‘Post,’ Fenton said. ‘No bleeding, no clotting.’

‘Do you know what the marks were made with?’

‘Not sure, yet,’ he said. ‘But I’d say presumptively it was some kind of needle.’

‘Needle as in knitting needle or hypodermic needle?’ Byrne asked.

‘Much smaller than a knitting needle. I’d say it was maybe a milliner’s or a sharp.’

‘A sharp?’

‘That’s the term for your basic needle used for hand sewing. My mother worked as an in-house seamstress for Wanamaker’s, so I grew up around this stuff.’

Fenton methodically, and reverently, pulled the sheets over the bodies, turned back to the detectives. ‘I’d say the needles that made these marks are of the kind used for fine tailoring.’

‘Did you take any photographs?’ Byrne asked.

‘I did.’ Fenton snapped off his gloves. He walked over to the desk in the corner, retrieved a nine by twelve envelope. He handed it to Byrne.

‘Thanks,’ Byrne said.

Fenton took a moment, looked at the three small forms beneath the gray sheets in the center of the room, back at the detectives. Whatever he was about to say was not going to come easily. He cleared his throat.

‘My daughter Catherine turns thirteen, next week,’ he said. ‘She goes to the same school Nicole Solomon went to. We have a flyer on our refrigerator door about that movie at the Franklin Institute.’ He glanced again at the bodies. The sound of blowflies ceased for a moment. Fenton looked back. ‘Cathy had to get her braces tightened that day. If she hadn’t, she would have been on that bus.’

For a few moments, no one said anything. The look on Steve Fenton’s face said it all.

Let’s catch this guy.
 

They rode in silence on the way back to the Roundhouse. Jessica was certain that the images floating through her partner’s mind were all but identical to the images in hers.

The killer was marking his victims with a sewing needle, after they had died.

Neither detective said it out loud, but there could be no mistake.

The killer was turning his victims into dolls.

The last interior door in Valerie Beckert’s house – the final door of twenty-six with a lock that required a skeleton key to open – was to a room off the pantry, perhaps once used as a broom closet. Inside were now the remnants of a corn broom, and a fine layer of dust. An upper shelf was lined with yellowed paper in a red gingham pattern.

The skeleton key in Byrne’s hand – a tarnished brass key that had been attached to Valerie’s key ring, a key that did not work in any other door in the house – locked and unlocked this door. Byrne tried it twice to make sure.

He slipped the key into his pocket, wondering:

Why this door, Valerie
?

Why this key
?

When the doorbell rang, Byrne’s mind was adrift somewhere between the world of antique dolls and the world of antique electrical wiring. At the moment, a few Bushmills into the evening, there was no line of demarcation.

As he crossed the foyer, Byrne found himself relieved that there was a functioning doorbell.

He opened the door.

It was Donna. In her hands was a large brown envelope.

‘Kevin Francis Byrne,’ she said with finality and a broad grin. ‘Homeowner.’

‘What’s so funny?’

Donna banged him on the chest with the envelope, stepped inside. ‘Never thought I’d say those two things in a row.’

‘Laugh it up.’ Byrne took the papers from her. He hadn’t expected Donna. He wished he’d had the chance to clean up a bit. At least a shave.

‘What’s all this?’ he asked.

‘My bill.’

Byrne said nothing. He wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. She wasn’t.

While Byrne closed and locked the door, Donna crossed the front room, slipped the tote bag from her shoulder.

‘I love what you’ve done with the place.’

Donna had brought a full-blown Mexican dinner, as well as two bottles of chardonnay.

They ate on a blanket thrown in the center of the living room. The only light –besides the candles Donna had also brought – was a lamp on the floor in the corner. In anticipation of the deal going through, he’d called in a favor and had the power turned on.

They were halfway through the second bottle of chardonnay.

‘I always loved this part,’ Byrne said.

‘This part?’

Byrne felt he was blowing it. He scrambled.

‘This part. When there’s no furniture, when there’s just a lamp on the floor. Like a picnic.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I sell a lot of properties to young people. I remember.’

Young people, Byrne thought. Before he could say anything, Donna put a finger to his lips.

A few moments later, Donna Sullivan Byrne, the only woman Kevin Byrne had ever really loved, was in his arms.

By the last day in April, Nancy Brisbane had lived in the house for two weeks. Thaddeus Woodman had come to live with them just a day earlier.
 

Nancy was a fussy little girl, never satisfied with anything. No matter what food Valerie prepared for the girl – breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a sweet evening snack – the girl poked at the food, sometimes throwing it on the floor. Indeed, she had cried for almost the entire fortnight she had been in the house. Even when Valerie put on music for her, Nancy could not find the lilt in the song, nor allow it to lift her spirit.