by Deb Baker
Andy nodded. “I don’t know how to repay you.”
Repay us with your innocence, Gretchen thought.
“What do you say, Gretchen?” her mother asked. “Are you willing to give it a try? To give it three days?”
“Two days.” She heard the words coming out of her mouth and couldn’t stop them. “Two days of investigating. That’s it.”
“I knew you’d help,” Caroline said. “We’ll come back and pick up Andy here at the coffee shop around dusk. Can you stay out of sight until then?” she asked Andy.
“Sure. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of hiding until now.” He downed the rest of his coffee and slipped out the door.
Gretchen watched him through the window until he was out of sight.
Had Andy murdered Allison? What if she had tried to leave him again and he’d killed her in a jealous rage?
Gretchen turned from the window to find her mother had been doing the same thing, watching the man disappear.
How could they be certain that Andy Thomasia was innocent of murder?
Gretchen felt chilled, and it had nothing to do with ghosts or cold spots.
24
“If you and I are going to pull this off,” Caroline said from the passenger seat in Gretchen’s car, “I have to come clean.”
“Okay?”
Gretchen didn’t want to hear more bad news. She’d had an epiphany. She wasn’t the problem. Her family was. Caroline and Nina were like trouble magnets, drawing Gretchen in against her will, making her a magnet, too. All she wanted was to put on a fundraiser, decorate a doll museum, and finish lassoing her hot man.
Why couldn’t they leave her alone? Now she was up to her neck in murders, bones, and hauntings, doing everything possible to destroy the fledgling relationship with Matt Albright.
“Someone in a white van tried to hurt me,” Caroline said. “It wasn’t driver’s error that made me lose control of my car. Another driver rammed into the side of my car twice. The first time I was able to correct my direction and escape injury. The second time the driver was much more determined and I was forced into oncoming traffic.”
Gretchen slowed and pulled over to the side of the street. She put the car in park. Information was coming at her too fast and none of it was good news.
Silence hung heavy inside the car as Caroline let Gretchen absorb what she had learned. Finally, Gretchen said, “Then the driver was trying to kill you.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far.” Caroline saw Gretchen’s incredulous stare. “All right. It’s possible, yes, that the driver intended to kill me.”
“He didn’t count on your amazing resilience.”
“It was dumb luck that I survived.”
“Someone was killed, though. That van driver obviously didn’t care how many innocent people were killed. That’s unbelievably ruthless.” Gretchen was horrified at what had occurred. “Why would anyone want to kill you?”
“Why would someone leave a threatening note on your windshield?”
“How do you know about that?”
“April mentioned it. She thought that it was a suggestion for a new title for the play. She knew I’d be interested.” Caroline narrowed her eyes, in mother-bear mode. “Come on, Gretchen, after a murder in a cemetery with those exact words written on a tombstone and a skeleton in a house we happen to be converting into a doll museum, do you really think Die, Dolly, Die could be something that innocent?”
“I wanted to block it out,” she admitted. “I really wanted to believe it was a bad joke.”
“You didn’t want to face the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
Caroline didn’t answer. Gretchen pondered the possibilities. They all led back to Allison’s death in the cemetery and the bones in the museum. “Up until this point in time,” Gretchen said, “we worked on the luncheon without anyone threatening us or trying to kill us.”
“But after Allison was murdered, someone attempted to kill me and you found the note,” her mother said.
“Someone wants us to do what? Abandon the show? Close the museum?” They weren’t dealing with idle threats. They were targets. “We’re in the way?”
“What’s changed?”
“You began working in the house,” Gretchen said.
“And you were at the murder scene.”
“We’re the only ones with keys to the museum. Is that important?”
“I don’t know.”
“Now what?”
“More bad news, I’m afraid. The reason I didn’t want to leave the coffee shop with Andy is because we’re being followed.”
Gretchen stared at passing traffic, first ahead through the windshield, then in the rearview mirror. Flickers of panic shot through her. Was someone following them this very minute, parked close by with a scoped rifle?
“Are you sure?” Gretchen asked. Her Birch imagination was out of control.
Caroline laughed.
“What’s funny about our situation?”
“I’m pretty sure Matt Albright’s behind the tail.”
“What?”
“He’s having us watched. See, there goes his goon.”
A squad car passed at a turtle’s pace. The driver craned to get a good look at them.
“He’s so obvious,” Gretchen said. “How did I miss him? How long has he been behind us?”
“I’m not sure. I admire Matt for wanting to protect us, but how can we help Andy if we’re under police surveillance?”
“I can lose him.”
Gretchen pulled back into traffic as soon as she saw the police car park up the block. She made a U-turn in heavy traffic, jamming on the gas. Caroline let out a surprised squeal. Several horns blared. And they were off.
“He’s turning around,” Caroline called. “He has his lights on.”
Gretchen took a corner, then another.
“We’ve lost him,” her mother said.
Gretchen turned one corner after another until she was satisfied that they weren’t being followed. The only option left for the cop would be to wait at the banquet hall or their home and hope to pick them up at one of their known haunts. With the museum closed to them and April handling the show, they could easily change their patterns.
“Have you considered the possibility that Andy did kill his wife?”
“Yes, it crossed my mind, but I rejected it the moment I saw him again. Andy wouldn’t harm anyone for any reason.”
“How can you be that sure? I don’t share your confidence. He doesn’t have an alibi, and he admits that the relationship with his wife was tenuous. Not very reassuring.” Gretchen’s argument sounded logical, even to her troubled ears. “So you once had a casual friendship with Allison and Andy Thomasia. That doesn’t mean you have to harbor the man from criminal charges.”
“Gretchen, calm down. I can explain.”
“This better be really good, because I’m jeopardizing my relationship with Matt because of your blind faith in a man you haven’t seen for years.”
“I should have told you much earlier that Andy and I were more than friends. We were high school sweethearts. He was my first love. Our senior year we went in different directions, grew apart, but we kept in touch occasionally.”
Gretchen tried to imagine Andy and her mother together. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. She’d never imagined her mother with any man other than her father. “What about Dad?”
“That was long before I knew your father. Come on, don’t you remember your first boyfriend?”
She did remember her first love. She thought of him occasionally and wondered where he was and what he was doing. He held a special place in her heart and always would. But that didn’t mean she would protect him if he was accused of murder.
“Don’t you understand how I feel?” Caroline asked. “Even a little?”
“Knowing helps.”
But not much.
In her opinion, anyone was capable of murder given the right ci
rcumstances. Andy Thomasia hadn’t convinced her otherwise. Neither had her mother.
25
Terry Vascar scans a stack of messages that came in through police dispatch while he was out. He kicks back, feet crossed on his desk. As a member of the Violent Crime Bureau, he collaborates closely with Phoenix PD Laboratory Services, Missing Persons Detail, and the medical examiner, among others.
Today he is reviewing events with Matt Albright. They have collaborated on cases ever since graduating together from the academy.
Their division has more cases to solve than they can handle. The department is short on trained personnel, and they try to prioritize the cases the best that they can. A recent murder takes precedence over old bones in an armoire. Not to mean they are being ignored. Only that Matt will have to count on others to assist with some of it.
That’s where he comes in.
Terry will let Matt know what he finds.
“Allison Thomasia is my most important concern right now,” Matt says. “Along with substantiating evidence to support the investigation.”
“Andy Thomasia is on the run,” Terry says. “It’s only a matter of time before he surfaces. A man like that can’t last for long as a fugitive.”
Matt rubs his face with both hands, as if attempting to rub away exhaustion. “The suspect and the victim were estranged,” he says, “but according to the husband, they were reconciling.”
Rule number one, learned in the first week of the criminal justice program: assume everyone is lying.
“The victim could have changed her mind,” Terry says. “She might have decided to move forward with the divorce. Rage, jealousy, unrequited love. All powerful motives for murder.”
Matt nods, and Terry thinks of his friend’s problems, the former wife’s cunning, her manipulative tactics, would have been enough to make a weaker man consider murder.
Matt’s lucky to be rid of her. Finally.
“The suspect didn’t have an alibi,” Matt says.
“Tough for him.”
Usually a suspect can come up with at least one witness, even if the timing isn’t perfect. But this guy doesn’t have a single one, not a hotel desk clerk or a bartender who can establish an out for him. Never a good sign.
And the suspect was certainly strong enough to crush Allison Thomasia’s skull, given the right weapon.
Andy Thomasia could have had all three-motive, opportunity, and means.
“If only they would locate the murder weapon,” Terry says.
“They will.”
Police have searched the hotel room. Nothing there, but Terry isn’t surprised.
“Blunt force trauma to the back of the head,” Matt says. “Lacerations suggesting an object such as a hammer. But also sharp cuts, three deep incisional wounds. I called the ME. Not a claw hammer, she says. It isn’t sharp enough.”
Terry and Matt go through the different types-sledge, club, ball, brick.
Matt likes the brick hammer idea. “It’s designed for breaking bricks,” he explains. “It has a blunt end, but it also has a sharp end. It’s a possibility as a murder weapon.”
“Is your suspect a bricklayer?” Terry asks.
“No. He’s a mechanical engineer.”
“A handyman type?”
“No idea. Can you put someone on it and start checking hardware stores?”
“At your service,” Terry says.
The Thomasia woman had crawled from one gravestone to another. The perpetrator had attempted to drag her away. Why had he stopped? Fear of discovery? More likely the trail of blood that followed behind the victim canceled out his efforts to move her to a different grave site.
The sharp blows that finished her off were delivered at the second headstone.
No defensive marks on the victim’s knuckles or under her fingernails. The attack was unexpected, but the perpetrator wasn’t. Allison knew her killer.
Matt’s phone rings.
“They found Andy Thomasia’s California driver’s license,” he says when he disconnects, already rising from his chair.
“Where?”
“Under a bush at the entrance to Eternal View Cemetery.”
“That takes care of it then.”
“Maybe.”
Rule number two: assume the possibility that evidence has been planted.
“Something is out of whack,” Matt says.
He doesn’t stick around to explain, but Terry agrees.
26
Andy Thomasia was waiting near the coffee shop at the arranged time. He rode in the backseat while he listened carefully to the impromptu plan that Caroline and Gretchen had implemented on his behalf. The original idea to stash him away in their home was no longer feasible, given the police protection that seemed to be in place.
Two days, Gretchen reminded the former sweethearts. The deadline was Sunday at three in the afternoon. If they didn’t have a killer in their sights with enough information to go to the police, Andy would turn himself in.
“Why was Allison’s doll at the cemetery?” he wanted to know.
“That’s what I want to ask you,” Caroline said.
“I have no idea, although she did bring a few dolls along on the trip to give as gifts if she found any relatives. It makes me think she was meeting someone.”
“Are you sure you were staying with Allison?” Gretchen said, dispersing with social etiquette and cutting right to the chase. “You don’t have a clue what her plans were. You can’t tell us who she met, where she went, or what she was doing.”
“Research, I told you. Genealogy study of her family history.”
“You must have more than that,” Caroline said. “A name, an address, something to help us?”
“I don’t care about things like who her third cousin twice removed might be. Come on, give me a break. All those charts and tree branches, who cares?”
Charts? Gretchen thought. Of course!
Gretchen almost slammed into the car ahead of her when it stopped at a light. She looked at Caroline, then glanced quickly back at Andy. “Were these charts computerized?” she asked.
“She had a printout in her purse,” Andy said. “But the police told me that she didn’t have her purse when they found her. She used a computer program to record her genealogy research, and while we were in Phoenix, she carried a notebook. That’s gone, too. It would have been inside her purse.”
“Did she bring her laptop?”
Andy shook his head.
“Can we access her home computer records?”
“Without going back to LA, I don’t see how.”
Gretchen stopped the car in front of a central Phoenix soup kitchen. Daisy had been quick to agree to their plan. Nacho, on the other hand, had reservations but had acquiesced with a little prompting from his fiancée.
“We’re leaving you with some friends,” Caroline explained to Andy. “Trust them. They won’t turn you in. What they will do is give you different clothes to wear and show you how to fit in. Follow their example. Watch how they act and follow suit. No one will look for you here. You’ll be in good hands.”
Andy nodded.
Gretchen gave her mother’s old friend a hard look to convey her feelings of distrust. “We won’t make contact with you until we have something to go on. Word will come to you through those who are helping.”
“I understand.”
While Caroline was inside getting Andy settled in his new environment with their homeless friends, Gretchen contemplated her next move. She couldn’t access Allison Thomasia’s computer, but she knew who could.
“Detective Albright,” she said when he answered his phone. “I have information for you.”
“Ms. Birch. So pleased to hear from you.”
“Were you worried?”
“Should I be?”
The man liked to answer her questions with his own. She knew he had to be concerned, because their tail would have informed him that he’d lost the Birch car. Too bad.
> “You sound excited,” he said with a playful amusement in his tone she could tell was forced. “What is this intriguing information? A new doll collection purchased by your lovely mother that will make you a rich woman? A newly opened restaurant to which you are about to invite me?”
He was going to be so angry with her in a few more minutes. Gretchen almost hung up.
“We have a bad connection,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”
“I can hear you perfectly fine.”
Great.
“What I have to say is important.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Allison Thomasia was related to our skeleton. I mean to the Swilling family. She was in Phoenix researching her family tree.”
“Yes. I know.” A harder tone.
Jeez.
“Check her computer. She kept computerized records of her findings. You might find something useful in them.”
Heavy, heavy sigh on the other end. “I’ve already done that. Where are you?”
“Uh, running errands.”
“You’re hiding from me, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. I can’t believe you think that. Why would I hide?”
She could have told him that the Birch women were busy trying to keep from getting killed and that to accomplish that goal they were aiding and abetting his primary suspect.
He’d read her rights to her if she’d said that.
“Are you any closer to finding out who tried to kill my mother?”
“She told you about that?”
“Of course.”
“We’re making progress. Where are you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Get to work and catch bad guys.”
“We’re doing the best we can.”
Not good enough!
“I appreciate your concern over my safety,” Gretchen said. “The police protection was thoughtful and sweet, but we need to do this our way, not yours.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“My mother’s with me.”
Since he was already worked up, Gretchen decided to tell him about the note on her windshield.
“I need to see it,” he said.
“It’s missing.”
