Amber Dee's Missing Toe

by Matt Ferraz

  Grandma Bertha laughed too. “Oh dear, we shouldn’t be joking over something like this. Anyway, it wasn’t recent. Amber’s big toe was chopped off when she was a baby, and she’s had problems walking ever since. She’s had to wear orthopaedic shoes all her life.”

  “Does this help the investigation in any way?” asked Winifred.

  “Perhaps,” said Grandma Bertha. “From experience, I know that every detail can help. I have to go out for a couple of hours. Will you be OK?”

  “Where are you going?” asked Winifred.

  “The inspector has asked me to visit Amber’s mother. Someone mentioned my name to her, and she’s something of a fan. He thinks we should talk tonight.”

  “I’ll drive you,” said Winifred, drying her hands on a tea towel. “You’ve had two beers already today. Plus, I’d like to take part in this investigation.”

  “It could be dangerous,” said Grandma Bertha.

  Winifred nodded. “I know. That’s why you need me. You’re smart, Grandma, but you need someone who can run after a criminal. Plus, it’s just an enquiry. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “Put on a warm coat, then,” said Grandma Bertha, picking up her bag. “I’ll meet you in the van.”

  Twenty minutes later they were on their way to Dana Dee’s place. Grandma Bertha used those minutes to brief Winifred about her conversation with Inspector Shaw. There wasn’t much to tell, apart from about the missing toe. Amber had been adopted as a child and didn’t have a boyfriend.

  “So her mother’s possessive?” summarized Winifred, thinking of her own mum. “I know what that’s like.”

  “Let’s not pass judgement yet,” said Grandma Bertha. “When we get there, be careful. Remember that this woman is going through the worst night of her life. In fact, that’s lesson number one as a detective: we deal with people all the time, and we need to treat them right.”

  “And what is lesson number two?” asked Winifred.

  “I don’t know. I’ll make it up as we go.”

  They came to the door of a big apartment building, and Grandma Bertha rang the buzzer.

  “Who is it?” asked a woman’s tired voice.

  “This is Grandma Bertha, Mrs Dee. I was told you’d be expecting me.”

  The door opened with a click, and they walked inside.

  “She’s not expecting me to come with you,” said Winifred. “Should I tell her that I was the one who found the body?”

  “Better not,” said Grandma Bertha as they entered the lift. “Be quiet and let me do the talking. Ask to use the toilet at some point, then see if you can take a look at the apartment and Amber’s stuff. I’ll make sure Dana doesn’t notice.”

  “Can’t you ask her to show you Amber’s things herself?” asked Winifred.

  “Yes, but she would tell me a different story about every object and I wouldn’t be able to focus on the details,” explained Grandma Bertha.

  Amber’s mother was waiting at the door to her flat. She looked miserable, her make-up ruined by tears. She held a photograph of her daughter. “Oh, hello!” she said. “You must be Bertha. I’ve read about you in the newspaper.”

  “It’s Grandma Bertha,” corrected the old lady, giving her a hug. “I’m sorry for your loss, Dana. I can’t imagine how you feel. This is my assistant. She’s here to take notes as we talk.”

  They entered the apartment. Dana offered them the couch while she sat on a chair and stared at the photograph. “My dear baby!” she said. “I can’t believe I’ve lost her at this time of year.”

  “Christmas isn’t always cheerful,” said Grandma Bertha.

  “Oh, but it’s not just that. I adopted my daughter on the twenty-fifth of December, twenty-three years ago. They didn’t know her real date of birth, so we always celebrate her birthday on Christmas Day.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Grandma Bertha. “How did you find her? Through an orphanage?”

  “Our family doctor helped us,” she said. “Dr Balsam. He’s also been Amber’s physician all these years.”

  Grandma Bertha looked her in the eye. “I assume you know I have experience in this sort of thing, Mrs Dee. That’s why you invited me here, isn’t it?”

  The woman nodded. “I heard about the dead body they found behind your house, and the body on the beach, and all the others. I’ve always been a fan of crime novels and Agatha Christie, and reading about you in the newspaper felt like a breath of fresh air, with all the crime we see nowadays.”

  Grandma Bertha offered her a smile. “That’s kind of you.”

  “I want to hire you,” said Dana. “To do what the police can’t do. Get justice for Amber. I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

  “I don’t do it for the money,” said Grandma Bertha, gesturing subtly to Winifred. “Now, please, tell me everything you can about your daughter.”

  Before Dana opened her mouth to speak, Winifred took her cue. “Excuse me, would it be too inconvenient if I used your toilet?”

  Chapter Five

  Pieces of Paper

  Spying on a dead woman’s belongings wasn’t Winifred’s idea of fun, but that’s what Grandma Bertha had told her to do. The two ladies chatted in the living room, Grandma Bertha asking questions and offering a shoulder for Dana to cry on. She was the best person to have around at times like this.

  Winifred found nothing out of the ordinary in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She walked into the hallway, trying not to make a sound, and to the next room, which she hoped was Amber’s bedroom. Here, she got lucky.

  It looked like the typical room belonging to a woman in her twenties who still lived with her mother. The wardrobe contained a collection of orthopaedic shoes and plain dresses. Winifred was about to return to the living room when she found something interesting.

  There was a wastebasket in a corner, with pieces of shredded paper in it. Some of them were pieces of photographs, but there seemed to be pieces of letters as well. The apartment was neat and tidy. Since the wastebasket hadn’t yet been emptied, Winifred wondered if the letters had only been ripped up earlier that day. Without thinking too much about it, she picked up the scraps of paper and put them in her pocket. Grandma Bertha would know what to do with them.

  She turned off the lights, walked back into the bathroom, flushed the toilet and came out. Grandma Bertha sat by Dana’s side, drying her tears with a handkerchief.

  “There, there,” said the old lady. “Promise you’ll remember what I said. We must always believe in justice. We will catch the person who did this.”

  “Thank you so much!” said Dana. “The moment I heard you were involved in this case, I knew God had sent you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Grandma Bertha. “But I do know that criminals always make mistakes.”

  “Bless you, anyway,” said Dana, apparently noticing Winifred for the first time. “That’s your assistant, right? The girl who—”

  “We should go,” interrupted Winifred, not wanting to be reminded of the murder case in her past.

  “You’re right,” said Grandma Bertha, pulling a card from her bra and giving it to Dana. “Call me if you remember anything, or if you just need to talk. I’m a good listener.”

  Dana thanked them again and the two detectives went on their way. “Did you find anything?” asked Grandma Bertha as Winifred drove down the road.

  “Pieces of letters and photographs,” said the girl. “You can examine them when we get home. Now, tell me what she told you.”

  “It’s quite a story,” said Grandma Bertha. “Amber was a baby when Dana and her husband adopted her. She was small and frail, and had been abandoned in the hospital by her parents after her toe had been cut off. Dana’s husband died two years after they adopted her, leaving them with a good pension. Apart from that rocky start, they led a normal life. Dana doesn’t strike me as a possessive mother, and Amber seemed happy.”

  Grandma Bertha went silent, staring out the window as they passed shops and resta
urants with their bright signs.

  “What’s wrong, Grandma?” asked Winifred.

  “I thought I’d be used to this kind of thing by now,” she said. “But it’s tiring me. This isn’t the kind of thing that should happen at Christmas time.”

  Winifred tried to keep her eyes on the road. She had never seen Grandma Bertha in this kind of mood before. Nobody had. The old lady was always the most cheerful person in the room, even when she was investigating a murder.

  “Why don’t we stop at a pub?” asked Winifred. “We’ve had too much salad this week – we could do with some chips. And a glass of beer for you.”

  Grandma Bertha smiled at her. “That sounds like a good idea.”

  They found a cosy pub not far from where they lived. Winifred picked a table next to the wall and ordered their drinks and food. Grandma Bertha reached for her bag and took out her knitting things. She was working on a Santa Claus hat she had started at home.

  “A lot of things bother me about this case,” said the old lady, the needles flashing through her fingers. “Here you have this normal young woman working in a normal job, living in a normal neighbourhood and with a normal mother. Why was she killed in such a strange way?”

  “Maybe it was the work of a maniac,” said Winifred. “They don’t usually have reasons for things they do.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Grandma Bertha. “The scene was too clean. Maniacs have fun when they commit a murder. This one was calculated, and it was done for a reason.”

  “But what reason?”

  The waiter brought over Grandma Bertha’s beer and Winifred’s cranberry juice. They waited until he had gone before they spoke again.

  “I don’t know yet. But I have an odd sensation that I can’t shake off,” said the old lady, sipping her beer.

  “Déjà vu again?” asked Winifred, picking up a chip.

  “This is my own personal mystery,” said Grandma Bertha. “The murder and my déjà vu have to be connected somehow. Maybe the key is in those letters you found. Let’s take a look at them.”

  Chapter Six

  A Puzzle with Too Many Pieces

  There were actually two different letters in the bin, both written on the same kind of light blue paper. One had elegant letters written by a firm hand in black, while the other seemed to have been written in a hurry by someone who wasn’t used writing with that kind of pen. It was in red ink and only contained eight words: You can’t run forever and, you know that.

  “A threat,” summarized Grandma Bertha. “At least, that’s how it sounds. What do you think about this letter, Winifred?”

  The girl examined it. “I’m not an expert, but this was written by a left-handed person. You can tell by the shape of the letters.”

  “So it seems,” said Grandma Bertha. “It’s also written by someone who doesn’t know much about punctuation. See that comma after and? That would make any English teacher cringe.”

  “Do you think someone wanted to hurt Amber?” asked Winifred. “That she had enemies, despite what her mother thinks?”

  “It’s too early to tell,” said Grandma Bertha. “Let’s put together the other letter.”

  It took more time to assemble it, for it was shredded into smaller pieces. “It looks like there’s too much paper here,” said Winifred.

  “It’s a puzzle with too many pieces,” said Grandma Bertha. There were four pieces of paper that didn’t fit anywhere in the finished letter. “Interesting.”

  This letter had a different tone. I didn’t intend for things to happen this way, it said. I could be dead to you and, you might not even exist to me. Please forgive me and never, contact me again.

  “The same extra comma,” said Grandma Bertha. “You can see that this letter was written by someone right-handed, can’t you, by the way the letters slope?”

  “Yes,” said Winifred. “What do you take from that?”

  Grandma Bertha sipped her beer, touching the extra pieces of paper with the tips of her fingers. She had put her knitting aside when they were assembling the letter and, when she reached for her purse, Winifred thought she was going to pick it up again. Instead, Grandma Bertha took out a ballpoint pen.

  “Let’s do an experiment,” she said, handing Winifred the pen and two napkins. “You’re left-handed, so write this sentence with your left hand: You can’t run forever.”

  Winifred wasn’t sure where Grandma Bertha was going with this but she did as she was asked, then showed Grandma Bertha the result. “I’m afraid my writing isn’t elegant.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Grandma Bertha. “Now the other napkin. You are going to write another sentence, this time with your right hand. Write: My life was good.”

  Winifred did the best she could, but she took longer and the result was barely legible. “Here it is,” she said. “Now explain it to me.”

  Grandma Bertha put the first napkin next to the second letter and the second napkin next to the first letter. “It’s not easy to make your handwriting look like it’s not yours. There are many subtle details that we can’t disguise, no matter how hard we try. But there’s a trick. If you’re left-handed, like you are, you can write a letter with your right hand, so your writing will look different. Ugly, yes, but different. Our girl Amber was right-handed, so she decided to use her left hand to write this threatening letter.”

  “What makes you think she wrote it? Is it the kind of paper?”

  “Yes,” said Grandma Bertha. “The same kind for both letters, despite them being so different. That, and the way both writers used commas in the wrong places. That’s too much of a coincidence. Also, these spare pieces indicate she wrote other drafts that ended up in the same wastebasket.”

  “Do you think she wrote this letter to herself?” asked Winifred. “After all, I found it in her room.”

  “No,” said Grandma Bertha. “I think these two letters are drafts. She wrote them, thought they weren’t good enough and threw them away. If I had to guess, I’d say that the final versions of both these letters are in the post, or have already been delivered to the people they were written to.”

  Winifred was baffled. “But why? Why write a threatening letter and a forgiving one, and pretend they were done by different people?”

  “That’s the question we have to answer if we want to crack this case,” said Grandma Bertha. Winifred noticed the sparkle in her eyes, and almost smiled. “There are at least two more players. One that Amber didn’t like, and another one she had forgiven. But forgiven for what?”

  Winifred picked up a chip. “Where do you think we should look for our next clue?” she asked.

  “I want to go back to the crime scene,” said Grandma Bertha. “Something in that shop feels wrong to me.”

  “I wonder if it’s still open,” said Winifred.

  “I’ll make a few phone calls in the morning,” said Grandma Bertha, finishing her beer. “I’m not hungry any more. I think we should go home – the doggies will be missing us.”

  Winifred asked the waiter to wrap the rest of their food so they could take it home. Grandma Bertha talked all the way home. She had ideas and theories that needed to be checked and tested, proved and disproved. Winifred couldn’t help but smile. In the end, she had given her friend a murder mystery for Christmas. Hopefully, Grandma Bertha would solve this one without getting in danger herself.

  Chapter Seven

  Grandma Bertha Tells a Lie

  Grandma Bertha always slept late, but Winifred was an early bird. She tried not to make any noise as she went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. To her surprise, the old lady was already up, dressed in pumpkin lantern pyjamas and fixing some eggs.

  “Rise and shine, darling,” said the old lady as Winifred sat at the table. “Four days till Christmas.”

  The three dogs jumped around Winifred’s legs, wagging their tails. It was their way of saying good morning. “I didn’t realize,” said Winifred, trying to pay the dogs some attention. “Why are y
ou up so early?”

  “The phone woke me,” said Grandma Bertha, serving the eggs. “It was your boss. There’s a problem with the central heating at the café and it’s closed for repairs. Which means you can help me with the investigation.”

  “That’s convenient!” said the girl, getting herself a cup of coffee. “What are we going to do today?”

  Grandma Bertha drank her coffee with cream and no sugar, and liked her eggs with a lot of ketchup. “First, we are going to pay a visit to the shop. I want to look at it again.”

  “Do you think the police will let him open it so soon?” asked Winifred. “It’s still a crime scene.”

  Grandma Bertha chewed her eggs. “The police should keep it closed. That’s the right thing to do. But remember, there are many shops in that area and this is the most lucrative time of the year for them. And this murder wasn’t a scandal because there were no witnesses – apart from you, of course. If a man had entered the shop shooting everywhere and hurting random people, or if the person he killed had been rich or famous, that would be a scandal. It would be in all the newspapers.”

  “So do you think they’ll let him open the shop?” asked Winifred.

  “I called Inspector Shaw,” explained Grandma Bertha. “He wanted the place to remain closed. But Goldman argued that if he didn’t open before Christmas, he would be bankrupt by New Year’s Eve. So Shaw has let him open it, with a policeman on guard.”

  “That tells us a lot about how the police force sees this kind of crime,” said Winifred.

  “And it tells us a lot more about how Mr Goldman sees his staff,” added Grandma Bertha. “Consider this detective lesson number two: words can be deceptive, but people’s actions tell us things about themselves that they might not even know.”

  “Duly noted,” said Winifred. “Any plans for the rest of the day?”

  “I thought we could find Dr Balsam,” replied Grandma Bertha. “See if there’s anything he can tell us without infringing the Hippocratic oath.”