The Dollhouse Murders (6 page)

“You didn't know. It's really something, though. All these years she's been faithful to her lost love. She probably cries herself to sleep every night.”

Amy tried to imagine Aunt Clare—so brisk and
merry one minute, so touchy and remote the next—crying into her pillow.

“Maybe,” she said. “At least, this explains why the dolls and the dollhouse bother her so much. They bring back a lot of really terrible memories.”

“Darn!” Ellen looked at her watch. “I have to go home right now. We eat dinner early on Wednesdays because my dad bowls. I hate to leave. Are you going to read more?”

Amy nodded. “I want to find out if they caught the murderer,” she said. “Maybe the police found some clues in the next couple of days.” She walked with Ellen as far as the information desk and requested films of the May and June 1952 papers. “I'll call you tonight and tell you what I find out,” she promised.

“Won't your aunt be wondering where you are?”

“She doesn't worry as long as I get home before dark. I can make it if I stay another fifteen minutes or so.” Amy waved good-bye to her friend and then followed Miss Tatlock back to the audiovisual room.

“Can't you find what you're looking for?” Miss Tatlock gathered up the first four tapes. “I can give you the whole year if you wish.”

Amy said no. If the rest of the story of her great-grandparents' murders wasn't in the May and June papers, she'd have to come back another day. Hurriedly, she skimmed through the films, but except for several short articles regretting that the police had been unable to solve the case, there was no more information until the last week in June. There it was reported that Clare
Treloar was moving to Chicago and her little brother, Paul, was going to live with cousins.

Riding home through the quiet streets and out into the countryside, Amy thought about what it had been like for Aunt Clare. How lonely she must have been during those first months in Chicago! Amy felt a wave of homesickness for her own family. It was hard to believe she'd only been away from them for a few days.

When she reached the house, her aunt was in the kitchen, spooning a fragrant sauce over browned pieces of chicken. “I hope you're starved,” she said cheerfully. “This is my favorite recipe, but it's too much trouble to make if I'm just cooking for myself.”

“I could eat the whole panful,” Amy said.

All through the delicious dinner, Aunt Clare chatted about her plans for the house. Today she'd arranged for an appraiser to come in and look over the furniture. When that was done, she would set a day for an auction.

“I'll put aside what I want, and your father and mother can take what they want, and we'll get rid of everything else at the sale. What a relief that'll be!” She grinned at Amy. “This probably seems pretty dull stuff to you, but I'm going to feel like a new woman when this house is sold. Meanwhile, I'm glad we're going to have a party before we say good-bye to the old place.”

“I want to go home tomorrow after school and pick up some tapes and my tape deck,” Amy said.

Aunt Clare bit her lip. “Oh-oh!” she exclaimed. “I was supposed to tell you to call Louann as soon as you got home. She called and wanted to talk to you.”

“Was anything wrong?” Amy felt a familiar twinge of guilt.

“I don't think so.” But Aunt Clare sounded doubtful. “It's hard to tell, isn't it? She always seems kind of—gruff.”

“She doesn't mean to sound that way,” Amy said. “It's just that when she has something on her mind, she doesn't think about anything else.”

Aunt Clare smiled. “You're an understanding sister.”

“No, I'm not,” Amy said, turning red. Was Aunt Clare being sarcastic? “I'd better call right now,” she mumbled and hurried down the hall to the phone.

Louann must have been waiting. Her deep “Hello” broke into the first ring, and she began reciting her news as soon as she was sure it was Amy at the other end of the line.

“I know how to weave,” she said. “I made a potholder.”

“That's terrific, Louann. Did you learn how at school?”

“Mrs. Peck taught me. She's really smart. She taught me and she taught Marisa.”

Marisa was Mrs. Peck's granddaughter. She was a year older than Louann and a classmate at the Stadler School for Exceptional Children. Marisa stayed with her grandmother after school until her mother came to pick her up.

“My potholder is prettier than Marisa's,” Louann went on. “I'll make you one if you want me to.”

“Great,” Amy said. “You can make one for Aunt Clare, too.”

Silence. “Just you,” Louann said finally. “When are you coming home, Amy?”

“Well, I'm stopping in tomorrow afternoon for a few minutes,” Amy said. “I have to pick up some tapes for the—some tapes I want. I'll see you then, okay? Tell Mom.”

“Okay.” Louann liked carrying messages. “Goodbye.” The receiver clicked.

I shouldn't have told her I was coming
, Amy thought.
I could have picked up the tapes while she was at Mrs. Peck's. She'll just get upset again when I leave
. But she felt better for having talked to her sister. If Louann was having fun with Mrs. Peck and Marisa, Amy didn't have to feel so guilty about being away.

She decided to call Ellen before doing her homework. “I checked all of May and June,” she said in a low voice. “They didn't find out who did the murders.”

Ellen whistled. “Not even a clue? Amy, maybe the killer is still here in Claiborne. Maybe it isn't such a great idea to be living way out there in that old house. He might come back and—”

“After thirty years?” Amy scoffed. “Why would he do that?”

“Still,” Ellen insisted, “I wouldn't like staying in a house where people were murdered. Even thirty years ago. It could be haunted.”

Amy had been trying not to think about that. The parlor where her great-grandmother had died was only
a few feet away. “I don't believe in ghosts,” she said, more bravely than she felt. “And I guess Aunt Clare doesn't either, or she'd never have come back here to live, even for a short time. Listen, Ellen, do you want to go back to the library with me next week and check the rest of the tapes for 1952? Maybe they caught the killer later. The last thing I found today was an article telling about Aunt Clare going to Chicago and my father being adopted by some cousins—” The floor creaked behind her, and she whirled around to discover Aunt Clare standing there, white-faced, holding a large cardboard carton.

“I have to go. See you tomorrow.” Amy hung up the phone. “It was Ellen,” she said, unable to meet her aunt's eyes. “I'll carry that stuff. Where do you want it?”

Aunt Clare turned away. “It's some pieces of the best china,” she said. Her voice was cold. “I'm going to put them up in the attic with the rest of the set, so the appraiser can tell how much there is.” She shot a furious glance over her shoulder. “You must have a lot more telephoning to do. Everybody loves hearing about a gory murder.”

Amy felt as if she'd been slapped. “I wasn't gossiping, Aunt Clare—not really. I just wanted to know what happened to Grandpa and Grandma—and I haven't told anyone but Ellen. She was with me when I found the stories in the papers—”

Aunt Clare started up the stairs.

“I'm
sorry
,” Amy said. “I know I keep saying and
doing the wrong things. But I don't mean to make you feel bad.”

“Don't bother to apologize,” Aunt Clare snapped. “You admit you're curious—don't expect me to like it. The past is dead, and it would help a lot if you'd leave it that way. You needn't go back to the library, either. The police didn't find out who killed them.”

At the bottom of the attic stairs she stopped and waited for Amy to open the door. “I think I'd like to be alone for a while,” she said and went on up the steps, puffing a little with the weight of the box.

Amy was close to tears. This time she'd made a real mess of things.
Why didn't I wait till tomorrow to talk to Ellen?
she mourned.
Now Aunt Clare is disgusted with me, and I don't blame her
.

The hall was dark, the house very still except for Aunt Clare's steps overhead. With dragging feet, Amy made her way down the hall, past the bedroom where her great-grandfather had been killed. She had just reached her own room and had her hand on the light switch when a strangled cry broke the silence.

“Aunt Clare!”

Amy raced back down the hall. “Aunt Clare! Are you okay?”

There was no answer. Amy ran up the attic steps. Her aunt was standing in the far corner of the attic, staring in horror at the dollhouse. “How could you do it?” she cried. “How could you do such a cruel, ugly thing?”

“Do what?” Amy hurried to her aunt's side. The dollhouse was open, and the small box that had held the
dolls was open, too. The girl doll was back in the box. The grandfather doll lay face down across the bed in the master bedroom, and the grandmother stood where Amy had last seen her, in the parlor.

Aunt Clare bent, robotlike, and reached into the parlor, carefully avoiding the doll that balanced against the bookcase. With a fingernail she loosened a tiny latch in the wall and opened the wood-closet door next to the fireplace. The boy doll lay inside, its head pillowed on a log the length of a pin.

She stood up. “This is unforgivable, Amy,” she said in a voice of ice. “I suppose you have a right to know our miserable family history—I can try to make myself understand your need to find out. But to make a game of the deaths of your own great-grandparents! How could you?”

“I di-didn't!” Amy's mouth was dry with shock and fright. “I haven't been up here since Saturday when I showed the dollhouse to Ellen. We put all the dolls around the dining room table, and that's how we left them. . . .” Should she tell about seeing the grandmother doll in the parlor only minutes later? Her head whirled. “I mean,” she said, “I think—”

“Don't make it worse by lying,” Aunt Clare said. “I just can't imagine how you could—”

“But I closed the front of the house on Saturday,” Amy protested. “I know I did! And I didn't put the dolls where they are now.”

Aunt Clare just looked at her. “I'd appreciate it if you'd put all the dolls back in the box where you found them and leave
them there,” she said. “Permanently.”

Amy felt numb. She'd never been called a liar before. Trembling, she knelt and collected the dolls. She laid them in a row and closed the box with care. Then she stood up and faced her aunt.

“I really didn't move the dolls, Aunt Clare,” she said. “And I didn't try to find out what happened to Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Treloar just so I could gossip with Ellen about it. I wanted to know! You wouldn't talk about it, and I knew my folks wouldn't either. So I decided to find out for myself.”

She paused. Aunt Clare was staring into the dollhouse, almost as if she didn't hear.

“I didn't move the dolls,” Amy repeated. She searched for a way to prove she was telling the truth. “I just found out about the murders after school today, Aunt Clare, and I haven't been up in the attic since. You know I haven't.”

“I don't know anything,” Aunt Clare said, and now she sounded more sad than angry. She closed the dollhouse and replaced the sheet that had covered it the first time Amy saw it. “If you didn't move the dolls, who did?” she asked. “Tell me that.”

Amy couldn't answer.

Amy's notebook and English textbook were in the kitchen where she'd dropped them when she came home. She grabbed them and went back upstairs to her bedroom. Aunt Clare went into the parlor to watch television on the little portable set she'd brought with her from Chicago. They didn't look at each other as they passed in the hall at the foot of the stairs.

The bedroom felt chilly and impersonal. Amy dropped her schoolbooks on the bed and wandered around, thinking about her cozy bedroom at home, the bureau and desk tops covered with pictures and crystal bottles, the walls bright with posters, snapshots, and pennants. The shelves of books and miniatures. The friendly clutter. There was nothing in this room to remind her of home except Louann's vase, standing on
top of the bureau. Amy picked it up and ran a finger over the lacquered roses. She would have given anything to see Louann sitting at the foot of her bed right now.

I'm scared
, she thought.
I've never been so scared in my life
. It was bad enough to be screamed at and accused of lying. Aunt Clare was the most up-and-down person Amy had ever known. But it was the dollhouse, and the dolls that didn't stay where they were put, that really frightened her. What was happening in the attic? Who—or
what
—had moved the dolls?

She went to a window. The night was mild, sweet-smelling, and tinted with a pale wash of moonlight.
I can call Mom from school tomorrow and tell her I want to come home
. Her mother and Louann would be pleased. Her father would be disappointed. He really liked the idea that she and Aunt Clare had become friends.

Amy turned to the bed and kicked off her shoes. She sat cross-legged with the pillows piled behind her and opened her English book on her lap. But she couldn't concentrate on the assignment; the words ran together when she tried to read.

Maybe the ghost—if there was a ghost—had a special reason for moving the dolls. If Amy went home, the reason would remain a secret. Aunt Clare would finish her work on the house and leave. She'd go on believing that Amy had lied about moving the dolls. If there was a ghost, it would be ignored.

No one knows there's a mystery here except me
, Amy
thought, shivering.
I have to stay, even if Aunt Clare hates me
.