“Bonnie, she . . . well, she had Glen right after. Poor little guy, never knew his mama.”
“She passed away?” Imogene held her breath.
Ida nodded. “The birth—it wasn’t easy. The doctors knocked her out so they could take the baby without painin’ her, but then Bonnie never woke up. Our aunt has helped raise Glen, especially since Sam was over in the Philippines. Now . . .” Ida glanced over her shoulder, where Sam had disappeared with the throng of workers. “Well, it was hard to come home to a dead wife he’d barely had time to love and a boy he didn’t know.”
Imogene nodded, even as a small piece of her shattered on behalf of Sam. On behalf of his wife, Bonnie, and their little boy, Glen.
“I swear, Ida,” Imogene heard herself say, the words almost bitter as they passed through her lips, “I wish we could erase the last six years and start over.”
Ida’s eyes were teary, and she nodded, even as one slipped out and ran down her cheek. “I’d like that. To start over with all the ones we loved before.”
Imogene bit her bottom lip so she didn’t follow Ida’s watery example. “With all the ones we loved before . . .” she repeated softly.
The lantern lit the stall with its warm glow. Imogene stood over her table of supplies. Paintbrushes. Paints. Glue. An assortment of necessities she’d collected from Hazel’s supply of miniature-making crafts. Her insides curdled as she turned her attention to the dollhouse itself. She was certain this wasn’t what Hazel had imagined when she’d set out to re-create the family farmhouse. So much of her work was already finished. Loving details, down to a tiny replica of the mantel clock that Momma said had sailed over from Germany with her grandmother.
Imogene ran her finger over the tiny piece of wood. Hazel must have stood in front of the real clock for long moments, studying every detail so she could remember it later. Like a camera, only in her mind. Imogene and Hazel used to play games remembering details until finally one of them tripped up with a lapse of recollection. They could go for hours. Hazel usually won, but Imogene had never been far behind.
Now she shifted her focus to the attic bedroom and the tiny furniture Hazel had so delicately crafted to match her own precious space of respite, which had careened into an event that would collect her very blood instead.
Imogene shivered at the thought. She picked up a tiny paintbrush. Her breaths came in short, quick successions as she lofted the bristles over the small jar of red paint. That she had to paint her own sister’s demise on the walls of the precious and beloved dollhouse Hazel had constructed! Its ominous undertones of realism twisted Imogene’s insides, and she felt her nostrils flare as she sucked in a breath and held it for five long seconds. Releasing it, she dipped the brush into the paint.
Remember, there was a spatter of polka dots on the wall just a few feet above my head.
Imogene squeezed her eyes shut, picturing, remembering the horrible details as Hazel’s voice recited them in her mind.
As if someone lifted something from the blow to the back of my head in an arc over their shoulder.
“Only to repeat it again and again.” Imogene dotted a pinprick point of red paint where she recalled the first part of the spatter. The meticulous detail was so tiny, yet it glared at Imogene with the vigorous assault of the actual attack.
How many times did they strike me?
“I don’t know.” Imogene applied another tiny dot.
I wonder if you could tell how many times if you could pattern the blood on the wall precisely the way it looked when you found me?
“My memory isn’t that remarkable.” Imogene smirked as though Hazel was really standing there to be the recipient of the dry sarcasm. “And why . . . ?” Her words waned as she frowned. There was a picture on the bedside stand. It was turned up and facing her with the sketch of a black-and-white landscape. Too tiny to be exact replicas of the real picture and too tiny to be identifiable.
“This wasn’t there.” Imogene held her paintbrush in the air, staring down at the minuscule picture replica while retracing the details of the room as she recalled it. “There wasn’t a picture by your bed the night I went back to see.”
Are you sure? There’s one here in my dollhouse.
Hazel’s question nagged at Imogene.
“I-I don’t . . .” Remember? She had to remember. She remembered details far more obtuse and difficult than a sketch of some landscape! But perhaps the picture or painting was so mundane, so a part of life that she’d grown so used to it that . . . “Hazel, I don’t remember!”
Imogene’s gasp was followed by a deep voice from the doorway of the stall.
“Who are you talking to?”
Imogene spun around, paintbrush lofted like a weapon. Her preoccupied vision collided with the reality of Ollie’s very real form and confused gaze. His eyes scanned the barn stall, squinting to see into the shadows where the lantern light didn’t cast its blaring focus.
“Are you all right?” He stepped into the stall.
Oh. The walk. The “stroll down Lovers’ Lane,” as Sam had so casually teased earlier in the day. Imogene had completely forgotten.
“Is it eight o’clock?” She dropped the paintbrush onto the table, clattering it against a jar of brushes and sending a metal paint lid bouncing along the surface. Imogene slapped her hand on top of it to keep it from careening over the side into the straw on the floor. Flustered, she lifted it, her hand shaking.
You can’t remember?
She was still hearing Hazel’s voice.
“No!” Imogene mumbled, still trying to pull herself from her jaunt deep into her memory.
“Genie?” Ollie took another step toward her, his brow furrowed. The shadows only emphasized the crags and crevices on his face. Ones that hadn’t been there four years ago when he’d left for the war as a young man and returned home an old, dying soul.
“I don’t remember,” she whispered. Agony welled up within her. The kind that mingled with panic and shock. When one’s habitual tendencies failed at just the pivotal moment you relied on them the most.
“Remember what?” Ollie captured her gaze with his own, and he neared her but didn’t reach out to touch her. He tilted his head to his right as if by doing so he could somehow burrow deep into her vision and see what Imogene was seeing.
Nothing. She was seeing nothing. She wasn’t hearing anything either.
Hazel’s voice had gone deathly quiet.
CHAPTER 20
Aggie
Mumsie had fallen asleep in her chair. The morning—and probably their predawn meet-up in Mumsie’s dollhouse room—had worn the poor woman out. The police left, and now Aggie leaned against the front door, letting the latch click into place. She paused for a moment, collecting her nerves, and then swung about, coming nose to nose with Collin O’Shaughnessy and his cheeky smirk.
This time she didn’t let it bother her—neither the annoyance nor the butterflies in her stomach. She grabbed Collin’s hand and started for the stairs.
“That’s a bit bold, don’t you think, after just rifling through someone’s bones?” Collin’s teasing lilt followed her as she tugged on his extended arm and started up the stairs. He continued his friendly mockery. “I don’t think we know each other well enough to be heading upstairs to your room, Love.”
“Shut it, Romeo.” Aggie dropped his hand as they reached the top of the stairs. She wagged her finger. “Come. I need to show you something.”
It was a violation of Mumsie’s privacy. But who else did she have to share it with? After Mumsie’s not-so-subtle challenge to the detective, things were starting to fall into place.
Hazel, Mumsie’s never-spoken-of sister.
A dollhouse that was a literal crime-scene reenactment.
The stained bedspread . . . Aggie stumbled to a halt outside the room.
Collin’s spicy cologne filled her senses with a calming effect. “What are we doing?” His whisper lifted some of the hairs by her ear. Aggie patted the
m down and stepped away from Collin. She swung open the door, stretching her hand out in an arc as if to announce a big reveal.
“My grandmother’s room.” Her statement meant little to Collin. He peered in with a vaguely curious gaze, then shifted his attention back to her through the lenses of his round glasses. Heaven help her—his dimples were still visible even when he didn’t smile!
He appeared genuinely perplexed. “Forgive me, but . . . why are we in your grandmother’s room?” Collin’s voice rose a bit in question.
Aggie stepped into the room, an eerie sensation raising the hairs on her arms. The pieces beginning to make only a smidgeon of sense, but enough to know this room was the coffin that held Mumsie’s broken heart.
“Welcome to Mumsie’s past.” She gave her arm a broad sweep that ended with the flicking of the light switch. The lamp on the bedside stand shed its warm, muted tones across the room.
The wood floor creaked beneath Collin’s step. He rolled his lips together in confused contemplation and raised his eyebrows—a ruddy shade darker than his hair—over the rim of his glasses.
“Aggie, what are we looking at? Why did you bring me here?”
Aggie led him to the dollhouse, to the disturbing scene splayed out in its attic bedroom. “This. And Hazel Grayson. And . . . the messages on the rose petals.”
Collin shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. Darn it if the man wasn’t wearing suspenders like some English professor, looking as though he could stroll the quaint streets with the calm air of a man on an adventure.
“Hazel Grayson,” he murmured with a nod.
Aggie reached out with her index finger and glided it slowly across the unmarred portion of the miniature attic room. She eyed Collin’s reaction with a sideways study. His gaze followed the trail her finger left until the tip of her manicured nail touched the imitation pool of blood that had drained from the head of the woman whose body sprawled facedown on the floor.
“Dreadful.” Collin’s expression held a strong hint of curiosity. He bent forward, craning his neck to examine the interior of the dollhouse. “But this miniature shows remarkable workmanship. I mean, it’s splendid! The detail is stunning!”
Aggie didn’t wait for Collin to piece anything together. He had no reason to outside of the vague clues she’d dropped. “Hazel Grayson was Mumsie’s sister.”
Collin shot her a quick look, and then he returned his attention back to eyeing the blood spatter on the tiny wall.
“I believe—I think this is how Hazel died.” Once the words had left Aggie’s internal musing, the harshness of her statement stilled her tongue. It was a conclusion she’d been so sure of in her head, but now that she’d spoken it out loud, she wasn’t certain it would all fit together.
Collin must have thought the same. Aggie realized he had stilled and turned his head, even though he was still bent over the dollhouse. His cinnamon eyes roved her face. “You’re serious?”
Aggie gave a short nod. A strand of hair fell from behind her ear, and she pushed it back before giving a dismissive wave of her hand. “I know it’s crazy, but I . . . what else could this be?” She gestured toward the minuscule crime scene. “And did you notice?” Grabbing hold of his arm, Aggie pulled Collin away from the dollhouse to the room behind them. “Look. The bed. It’s the real-life version of the tiny one in the dollhouse. That entire side of the room is the actual furniture.”
“So it is.” Collin was grave now. He strode across the room, eyeing the wallpaper. “But the wallpaper is a different pattern.”
“Do you suppose the murder happened—” Aggie swallowed hard—“happened here?”
Collin shook his head, scrunching his lips in thought. “Doubtful. The floorboards run in the opposite direction as the ones in the dollhouse. I would wager it’s a different house altogether.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“No.” Collin’s reply was confident. He turned back to the dollhouse. “The attention to detail is too particular for the artist to have made a very general mistake such as directionally juxtaposed flooring.”
“Of course,” Aggie nodded. Bewildered. “I-I wouldn’t have noticed that.”
“Why do you believe this is Hazel?” Collin touched the model person that served as the murder victim. The dress she was clothed in was real cotton, woven green with tiny navy-blue polka dots.
“Because . . .” Why indeed? Mumsie had only admitted to being Hazel’s sister. She’d given no further detail that her sister had been violently murdered or that this was a reenactment of the crime scene.
Collin didn’t wait for Aggie’s response. “This is really quite genius. Have you ever heard of the Nutshell Studies?”
“No.” Aggie drew her brows together.
Collin straightened from his perusal of the murder victim. He gave Aggie a slight smile. “Francis Glessner Lee. She was the godmother of forensic science.” He pointed at the dollhouse. “She created crime scenes in dioramic form. Students who wished to learn the investigative techniques of forensics would attempt to solve the murders by examining the clues she planted in the scene.”
Aggie’s attention was drawn back to Mumsie’s dollhouse with magnetic force. Collin continued to explain. “It was in the 1940s that Francis Glessner Lee began making the dioramas. I’m quite intrigued your grandmother did the same. I highly doubt she would have known of Lee.”
Aggie nodded. She had to agree. If recollection served her well, Mumsie had been a beautician, not a forensic scientist. Not in the slightest.
“How many of the students solved Lee’s crime scenes?” Aggie tried to wrap her mind around what they were looking at.
Collin shook his head. “Frankly, no one knows. Lee never actually gave them the truth of the crime or the killer—although I have to imagine she had one in her story. The miniature scenes were merely to be used as tools of observation. Piecing together clues into a puzzle. As with any crime, the evidence must be used to draw a conclusion, but it’s not as if the dead rises to confirm one’s theory. This is why the science must support it. In many ways, it’s archaeology only moments after a person’s death rather than dusting aged bones.”
Bones. Aggie twisted to give Collin her full attention. “Do you suppose . . . ?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Suppose what?”
Aggie tried to tamp down the nagging suspicion. “The bone fragments just sent to Mumsie. The fake skeleton in the backyard. The break-in at the office. And your assault . . .”
“Are you imagining they’re somehow tied together?” Collin’s eyes never left hers.
Aggie shrugged, the red wool of her cardigan-covered shoulder brushing her hair against her ears. “Nothing is tied together, obviously, or there’d be a distinct connection the police would be making by now.” She cast him a look of exasperation. “But I also don’t believe in coincidence. There have been too many oddities since I arrived in Mill Creek to turn a blind eye to or make justification for. Even if I ignored the dummy skeleton in the backyard as a mid-September Halloween prank—which still seems ridiculous—everything else is too coincidental. And I can’t disregard it or look at them as anything but a conglomeration of random evidence that needs piecing together.”
Collin must have spotted something on her sweater. He reached out and plucked at it, his fingers brushing away a piece of lint. Aggie blinked. A bit surprised that his platonic and absent-minded gesture would make her catch her breath.
“I’m the last person you’d ever need to convince that pieces of a puzzle create a larger picture.” His words soothed Aggie’s frayed nerves. It justified her direction of thought and validated that she wasn’t turning into a bitter-edged woman like Mumsie with eccentric ideas and off-the-wall theories.
She blinked, breaking eye contact with Collin, who for some unknown and most likely meaningless reason had yet to do so himself. Aggie cleared her throat. “All right then. The common denominators seem to be Hazel Grayson, the cemetery, your attack, and bones.
”
“That’s an awful lot of denominators.” Collin’s mouth quirked in a half smile.
“Well, what do you suggest? I was never good at mathematical equations.” Aggie rolled her eyes.
Collin’s smile broadened. “Perhaps we should learn the culture and history of the time, so we understand the subject better?”
“Spoken like an archaeologist,” Aggie grumbled.
“Spoken out of sheer logic,” Collin corrected. “Because truly, who was Hazel Grayson—aside from your grandmother’s sister—and why, after all these years, have you never known she existed?”
Aggie wrapped her arms around her chest as she stood in the doorway of Mumsie’s house. The afternoon sun was brilliant as it illuminated the trees along the street, whose leaves were beginning to show definitive tinges of autumn reds, yellows, and oranges.
Collin’s question about the existence of Hazel Grayson bugged her. She waved goodbye as he pulled away from the drive. She’d told him she would meet him at the cemetery in an hour. The flooded graves would not wait for bone fragments to be identified and Aggie’s family history to be fully revealed. She still had a job to do, although the thought of continuing the arduous task of entering each gravesite’s index card information into a spreadsheet on the new computer was not at all as intriguing to her as helping Collin search for more—if there were any—unmarked graves.
Two was probably enough. But those buried in them, especially seeing as they were in Fifteen Puzzle Row, made Aggie question their stories too.
“One story at a time,” she muttered to herself as she stepped into the house and closed the door behind her. She went to the doorway of Mumsie’s sitting room and peeked in. The old woman appeared so delicate in her sleep. The stubborn lift of her shoulder having relaxed into the thin, fragile body. Her impish look was replaced with the sweetness of slumber. Her wrinkled face telling the depths of the story she’d lived for almost a century, a life filled with untold tales.
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