Absence of Alice

by Sherry Harris

  I studied the front door. “I don’t see any signs of breaking.”

  “Of course you don’t. I have mad skills with a lock-pick.”

  He was mad all right. I steeled myself. If it meant some clue or more time to help me find Stella, I’d do it.

  “I’ll stay on the line with you.”

  “That’s such a comfort.” I tried the doorknob, and unfortunately it easily turned in my hand. I stepped inside the building, found a light switch, but nothing happened when I flipped it on. I used the flashlight on my phone and flashed the light around the room, but didn’t spot anything other than the chair. I approached it. I could see traces of duct tape around the front legs of the chair. A small piece clung like a tiny flag. Had Stella been here? Taped to this chair. I wanted to punch something. I walked around it. Something was duct-taped on the back. I leaned closer. A small Alice in Wonderland doll.

  Chapter Nine

  I almost dropped my phone.

  “Do you like it, Sarah?”

  “Lovely. What’s the deal with Alice in Wonderland?” My voice shook more than I’d like it to again.

  “It’s such a great adventure story, and now you’re on an adventure too. We’ll see if you come out of this larger or smaller or if you’ll disappear like the Cheshire Cat,” the kidnapper said. “Take it with you.”

  This was no adventure. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving it behind. I’ll add it to my doll collection.” I didn’t have a doll collection. While I’d loved them as a kid, as an adult I found them all a bit creepy with the ever-present smiles and fake, staring eyes. Eyes that weren’t that different from Trooper Kilgard’s.

  “Have a good evening. We’ll talk soon. Oh, and you just won an hour back.” He hung up.

  Wow, a whole extra hour. How generous. But if that hour made the difference between finding Stella and not finding her, I’d take it. I picked up the chair. I was taking the whole thing. It might have evidence on it, and in two days I was going to quit playing these games and get help.

  * * *

  I drove home and saw the lights were on in Mike’s apartment. While in some ways having him next door complicated things, in others it was nice to have someone else around. Several someone elses. I carried the chair up the stairs with me, being careful to keep the Alice in Wonderland doll out of sight against my body. Mike’s brother Diego sat outside the door hunched over a Sudoku puzzle book and with a pen in his hand.

  “Hi,” I said, holding up the chair awkwardly, keeping the doll hidden. “I’ve been out doing a little curbside shopping. You never know what you’re going to find.” I hoped I sounded cheery and breezy. Just another typical day in the life of Sarah Winston.

  Diego looked up and shrugged. “I prefer new stuff.”

  “Lots of people do. Any word on who’s after Mike?”

  “Nothing yet. We’ve got some leads, but nothing’s panned out yet.” He looked back down at his Sudoku.

  I guess our conversation was over, but I was relieved and hurried back to my apartment. I wanted to get the chair in and examine the doll. I freed the doll from the chair and stashed the chair in the storage area off my living room. I sat down with the doll. She was cloth, about six inches tall with a face that was painted on. The fabric used for her arms, legs, and face had yellowed. I squished her, trying to feel if there might be something inside her. I didn’t feel anything, but I found some scissors and cut the back open.

  I took out all her stuffing, which didn’t amount to much given her size. No cameras. No recorders. No drugs. No clues. Just something the kidnapper wanted to scare me with. He’d done a fine job. Because I was me, I looked up dolls like her online. Was she valuable? Collectible? Had I just destroyed something priceless? Was there some kind of message that would lead me to where Stella was or help me figure out who the dead Alice in Wonderland was?

  Ten minutes later I knew there were all kinds of soft-bodied Alice in Wonderland dolls for sale. They ranged from Madame Alexander collectibles to a topsy-turvy doll that was three dolls in one depending on which way you flipped it around. But none of them matched the one I had. First, they were all bigger, and second, they all looked newer than this one. Nothing to help me out.

  I thought about the story of Alice in Wonderland as I put the shredded doll into a plastic bag. I needed to save it just like the chair in case there was some evidence on it. At the beginning of the tale Alice drinks and eats things that make her big and small. Now I’d encountered a big and small Alice in Wonderland myself. Did that mean anything? I pondered for a moment. Not anything that I could easily figure out.

  * * *

  I busied myself with pricing things for my garage sale because I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around doing nothing and I was out of ideas of what to do. Until Stella had been kidnapped I’d been excited to celebrate my business anniversary. Two years ago Carol had asked me to organize a garage sale for her. During her garage sale a woman had commented to Carol how well organized the sale was and how she’d like to have one but didn’t have time. Carol had told the woman I ran a business organizing them, and thus my business was born.

  My anniversary sale included an eclectic mix of things. Some leftover from when I’d been married—things I didn’t have room for now. A small bit of it was from garage sales I’d run where people had asked me to take what was left behind because they just didn’t want it in their houses. Usually, I took all of that stuff to the thrift shop on Fitch Air Force Base. And some of the other things in the sale I’d found abandoned on people’s curbs. Half of it was perfectly good or could be with a little work.

  What I’d tried to avoid was small figurines that took up lots of room, time to price, and earned very little money. Unless they had some kind of unusual value like the handblown glass vase signed by the artist that I was holding. It was bright yellow, with a rim of bright blue. I’d found it at a thrift shop for fifty cents. The colors were what had attracted me, but when I’d turned it over, I’d realized it was handblown and signed.

  I’d brought it home, researched the name, and found out it was by a well-known glass artist in Seattle and worth way more than fifty cents. About forty-five minutes into pricing things, my phone rang.

  I dreaded answering, but knew I had too. “Hello.” This time I made sure there was no question mark in my voice.

  “Sarah, I really think you should go see Seth. He’s going to feel neglected if you don’t spend any time with him. He’s a good-looking man. I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who’d be happy to keep him, well, happy.”

  I hoped that someday this jerk was going to suffer for what he was doing. Going to see Seth was a problem. After Alice’s garage sale I’d sent Seth a text saying I was tired from the garage sale and that I wouldn’t see him today. Spending time with him would be almost impossible. The secret I was keeping felt like a canyon between us. But I did miss him, and maybe seeing him would help me sort out some of my feelings about what was going on.

  After sending him a text—I didn’t want to surprise his guards this time—I drove over. Soon we were tucked on his couch in the basement watching TV. The Celtics were playing a close game. I could snuggle Seth without having to talk a lot.

  “Hey,” Seth said, gently stroking my blond hair out of my face.

  I blinked a couple of times. I’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. “Hey,” I said. I looked at the TV, but it was off. “Who won?”

  “The Celtics. It was over an hour ago.”

  “You let me sleep on you that long? I’m sorry.”

  “You can sleep on me anytime you want. In fact, why don’t you just stay? It’s after eleven.”

  “I want to. I just . . . can’t.” I couldn’t think of a good excuse when I was still only half awake.

  “Is it the guards?”

  “Yes. It is.” He had thrown me a bone without even knowing it. Talk about guilt. I pulled away from him. “Have the police made any progress on who tried to kidnap you?”

>   “The van was stolen. They had gotten a picture of the plates from a security camera. And the van was pulled out of Cambridge Reservoir this morning. They’ll go over it for evidence, but it’s not likely they’ll find anything.”

  Cambridge Reservoir was five miles south of here, just off the 95. “Maybe they’ll find something.”

  Please let the kidnapper have left his wallet in the van by accident. “I hope things are back to normal in the next couple of days.” They had to be, or I’d go mad.

  Seth pulled me in for a kiss. “Me too. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.” I didn’t want to let him go, but I did.

  * * *

  On the drive home I again started thinking about why me. Not in a whiny “poor me” way, but in a “who the heck would want to do this to me” way. If I could figure that out, maybe I would be able to find Stella and end this. It was hard to imagine anyone hating me this much. I understood that not everyone liked me, but this was way beyond a mild personality conflict.

  I parked, went up the stairs, waved at Francesco, and let myself into my apartment. After washing my face, brushing my teeth, and putting my jammies on, I did a search for costume shops in the area. There was one in Chelmsford which was a couple of towns north of Ellington. It was a long shot, but one of the few tenuous connections to the dead woman I had. I would check it out tomorrow.

  I made a list of people who I knew didn’t like me. Ones who would be happier if I left town. Seth’s mom topped my list. At first, she had thought I was keeping him from the woman she’d picked out as his future wife when he was a toddler. A toddler! Who does that? Fortunately, that woman was now happily engaged to someone else. However, Seth’s mom still didn’t like me because she blamed me for holding his political career back. She pictured him as a governor, senator, or maybe even president. Even though Seth had insisted to me and to her that he wasn’t interested, she still resented me. She would never dirty her hands doing this, but she had enough money to pay someone to do it. Seth’s parents were both trust fund babies. They owned multiple homes and ran with an elite crowd. I shook my head. This was nuts.

  Was the old girlfriend really happily engaged? She seemed to turn up at Seth’s house a lot needing advice on all manner of things from birthday gifts to engagement gifts for her fiancé. I knew Seth wasn’t interested, but that didn’t mean the engagement wasn’t some kind of ploy. And Seth had dated a lot of women in the past—ones I didn’t know. Could one of them be the perpetrator?

  Then there was Zoey. It was hard to believe she’d been hanging around outside of Alice’s garage sale. That she’d moved signs to try to ruin my sale. Thank heavens for the ads I’d put online and for people using map apps.

  I sent another quick text to Awesome as I’d done throughout the day. Then focused back on the kidnapper. I couldn’t imagine that anyone I knew would go so far as to kidnap Stella. I’d had a stalker and had helped solve a couple of murders, but could any of those people pull this off from jail? And it seemed like they’d have to have an accomplice who was making the calls and sending the texts. Who was crazy enough to help someone do that?

  Chapter Ten

  At eight Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed after a terrible night’s sleep. I had two more days to find Stella before I told someone about her kidnapping. But at nine I had to be at a client’s house to price things for a garage sale on the Thursday a week and a half from now. According to my client Thursday was the new Saturday in the world of garage sales. I figured it didn’t hurt to try. But how was I going to do both—find Stella and price things? My stomach hurt just at the thought of it. And who knew when Stella’s kidnapper would contact me again, telling me to be someplace or do something. I didn’t know if I could take finding another body.

  I hadn’t come up with any answers during the night about who had kidnapped Stella. Thankfully, Harriet was meeting me at my client’s house to help price. Harriet! I had been so stunned and shocked and busy yesterday, I hadn’t even thought about asking Harriet for help. It’s possible that Stella’s kidnapper didn’t know about my friendship with Harriet or her background as an FBI hostage negotiator. She’d never been to my apartment and although we enjoyed each other’s company, we didn’t hang out together.

  Talking to Harriet might just be a chance I’d have to take. Maybe Harriet could help me find Stella, but I’d have to find a way to convince her to keep it a secret. Not telling anyone official probably wouldn’t sit well with Harriet and convincing her would be complicated. Maybe even impossible. I was driving myself crazy with all of the second guessing. I’d just have to see what I felt like when I saw her.

  * * *

  My client lived near the center of Ellington in a neat colonial house that dated back to the 1700s. White paint sparkled, green shutters shined. Windows were polished. It was a stark contrast to the rambling Victorian next door where paint peeled, the porch sagged, and bushes could do with a good trim.

  I rang the bell, and John McQuade answered the door. He was petite, well groomed, fastidious. John had told me, when I’d been here before to assess what he wanted to sell and sign contracts, that the man next door was driving him crazy because of his sloppy house and noisy dog. John and his husband had decided to downsize and move into Boston.

  After we greeted each other John said, “Like I told you earlier, my husband and I are going out of town for a week. Here are the keys. Text me if you have any questions about something we are selling.”

  “Will do.” John left a few minutes later. This was the cleanest house I’d ever worked in. Everything had its place, and it was in it. I priced as I anxiously awaited Harriet’s arrival, tussling with what to tell her. I knew I was in over my head trying to find Stella’s kidnapper, and even John’s stunning collection of tramp art couldn’t distract me this morning.

  I’d recently read Tramp Art: An Itinerant’s Folk Art by Helaine Fendelman to brush up on the history and so I’d have a better idea of how to price things. I loved tramp art—a form of folk art that wasn’t necessarily made by tramps or hobos. It was mostly created from the 1870s to the 1940s out of cigar boxes or shipping crates. Anyone with a pocketknife could make something. Most of it was whittled into layers with notched edges. Some were simple frames; others elaborate boxes, tables, or more rare large pieces like dressers, of which John had a few.

  Harriet showed up thirty minutes later, wearing a black leather jacket, black skinny jeans, and motorcycle boots. No one would ever guess she was in her sixties. She looked like a biker today, but drove her sporty Porsche. She’d barely shimmied out of her jacket before I started talking. I had to do it now or I might lose my nerve.

  “Harriet, I need your help with something. You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone or talk to anyone without my permission.” I paused. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t forced to.”

  “Forced to?” I nodded. Harriet tilted her head for a moment, assessing me. “Did you kill someone?”

  “No.”

  “Have you committed a crime?”

  “A case could possibly be made that I’ve obstructed justice.” I’d thought about that a lot last night. Holding back information about why I had really been at the house where Alice in Wonderland was found. The information about Stella.

  Harriet fisted her right hand and tapped it against her thigh. “Was it for a good reason?”

  This was a good sign. She hadn’t said no or walked out or covered her ears. “Yes.”

  Harriet gestured to two wingback chairs upholstered in pink velvet. I sat on the edge of mine. She settled into hers, stretched out her long legs, and crossed her feet at the ankles. “I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t ask me to do this if it wasn’t something really important.” She sat up a little straighter. “I agree to your terms.”

  The story poured out of me with tears and pats on my knee from Harriet. I was a teapot that had boiled over. Once the pressure was released, I slumpe
d in my chair, exhausted.

  “They tried to kidnap Seth first?” Harriet asked.

  The thought still made me ill and angry. “Yes.”

  “And Awesome doesn’t know about anything that’s going on with the calls and texts.”

  I shook my head. “I’m awful, aren’t I? But I can’t break the rules without sacrificing Stella.”

  “You’re positive he has her?”

  “Yes.” I’d left out the part about verifying it was Stella by asking her what she had given me for Christmas in my first telling.

  Harriet looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Have you thought about motives? Why you? Why someone would do this to you?”

  “I have, but I don’t have any idea who or why. It’s ridiculous to think that any of the people I have thought of would pull off something like this.” I ran through my few suspects with Harriet.

  “Have you thought about the repercussions to your personal relationships with Seth, Awesome, and Mike when the truth comes out? Is it worth the possible cost?”

  “Yes.” Over and over again. “It’s Stella’s life we are talking about. I have two more days to find her. I made a deal with myself. If I haven’t made any progress by then, I’ll tell someone in law enforcement.” I paused. “I’m just not sure who.”

  “Okay. Although I really think you should reconsider and tell the authorities now. That said, how can I help?”

  Chapter Eleven

  As we priced things, we talked about possibilities of who might be behind this.

  “It must be someone local,” I said.

  “I agree. Someone from your past wouldn’t know about Mike helping you out. Unless they’ve been planning this and watching you for a long time.”

  That wasn’t a cheering thought. “It could be a person with connections to the police or to someone close to the police if they’d find out if I talked to a cop.”

  Harriet nodded. “Maybe someone who works at the police station. Do you want to send a text message to someone at the EPD? Find out if the person really knows what’s going on or if he is just relying on secondhand information?”