Monster in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  I shook my head clear and got out of the car. I trudged up the walkway and climbed the porch steps, keeping as far as possible from the left-hand side, where Oliver’s body had been perched.

  Not that I was nervous or superstitious.

  “Well, Geraldine Porter, what a nice surprise,” Lillian Ferguson said. “Sam is out playing golf. He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

  I followed the short, matronly Lillian into a comfortable living room decorated in an English country style. Floral designs covered the chairs, the wallpaper, the curtains, the scatter rugs, and even the lampshades. Her flowery housedress blended in so well I wondered if she’d made everything herself, from the same enormous bolt of fabric. I wanted badly to see how she’d furnished her Victorian dollhouse and where it was located. Whatever the circumstances, it seemed, I was a miniaturist at heart.

  I handed Lillian the gift basket. “I collected a few little trims that might work well in your Victorian,” I said, imagining my forehead emblazoned with the word “busybody.”

  A model hostess, Lillian made tea and put out a plate (with a floral pattern) of sugar cookies. She sat down and picked up the basket. She lifted the floral spray, wrapped in light pink tissue, by its tip.

  She adjusted her glasses and examined the flowers with her fingers. “The glue is still a bit wet,” she said, looking up at me with a smile. “You made it this morning, especially for me?”

  “Just for you, thinking of your dollhouse. It might need to sit in the sun for a few minutes to dry completely, but it won’t fall apart.”

  “I’m touched,” she said, placing the tiny spray on the coffee table. She turned her attention back to the basket and hooked a short, chubby finger onto a four-inch-long section of loops of fringe in different shades of blue. “This is lovely, too. I know just where I’m going to use it. It will be perfect for the window at the end of the long hallway on the second floor.”

  I nodded, knowing exactly where in the dollhouse she meant. “I noticed you took down your Halloween decorations,” I said, then thought I should have waited a little longer to move into an unpleasant topic.

  “Yes, it did seem inappropriate to have anything festive or holiday-ish around the house. But we offered to be on the judging committee instead, and that way the Prebles can enter the contest this year. Not that anyone is really in a mood to celebrate, but it’s for the children, you know—they look forward to it.”

  Maybe “for the children” explained the escalation of decorations in the neighborhood since Friday. I thought of Maddie’s observation that there was one too many houses without decorations on Sangamon this year. “I noticed an extra house on the street that isn’t competing,” I said, in a gesture toward returning to small talk for a while.

  Lillian stiffened. “Yes, the Pattersons have gone dark.” She bowed her head. “Their son was the janitor who was killed in the fire that erupted in our factory last year.”

  I winced. I’d gone from bad to worse, reminding Lillian of a family who might be planning a lawsuit against her boys. “How awful. I read about that, but I didn’t know they lived on this street.” And I didn’t mean to bring it up.

  Lillian had her own way of dealing with awkward moments. She picked a five-square-inch carpet swatch from the basket I’d given her. “I think this will go nicely in the upstairs hallway, don’t you? Not everything has to be a print.”

  I heartily agreed with her choice of placement for the swatch.

  “You know, you didn’t have to bring me anything, Geraldine,” she continued. “I would have been glad to talk to you, anyway.” She replaced the plain green carpet swatch. “I assume you’re here about that boy’s murder?”

  “Was it a murder?” I asked, blushing at having been outed and at pretending ignorance of the nature of Oliver’s demise, which I didn’t know was common knowledge already.

  “That’s what my boys tell me. You remember Eliot and Emory?”

  It made sense that to Lillian, who was close to either side of eighty, I guessed, men in their forties could still be considered “boys.”

  “Of course I remember the twins. They were among ALHS’s star pupils.” A slight exaggeration, which was called for, I felt. The boys were no more than about a B or B-minus each. “Did you or your boys know Oliver Halbert very well?”

  Lillian put her cup down and folded her hands on her lap. She spoke softly. “We did have dealings with the man now and then since he had an oversight job and my boys are in business. I didn’t pay much attention, but I think Mr. Halbert was going back and forth about my boys. First he said they were not to blame for that fire. The one that killed Andrew, the Pattersons’ son, poor soul. But there was talk that he was opening up another grievance against E&E Parts. We didn’t know what to think.”

  “It seems Mr. Halbert had called quite a few people under his scrutiny,” I said. Including my husband.

  “Yes, it makes you wonder,” Lillian said, with a knowing roll of her eyes, just before she took a sip of tea.

  “I was concerned that you might have been here, right in the house when Oliver Halbert was killed. It’s frightening how close you might have come to being hurt yourselves.” I tsk-tsked.

  I had had genuine concern for Lillian and Sam when I’d been standing in front of the crime scene that was their porch. But sitting with Lillian now, I was convinced the murder had hardly touched her, physically or emotionally. Had she hated Oliver Halbert so much for giving her boys grief that she was glad he was dead? Had her boys done anything to facilitate his death? It wasn’t such a wild thought.

  Lillian tsked back, smoothing the cotton fabric of her old-fashioned housedress. “Imagine our shock when the police called us and we came home to that yellow tape.”

  “I’m sure it was horrible for you. I was here, out on the sidewalk, as I’m sure you know, and I must apologize for not attempting to see if you were home at the time. I had my granddaughter with me, and there were teenagers who had discovered Oliver’s body. I was trying to keep everyone safe and in tow. It was upsetting to all of us.”

  “I can imagine the state you were in. Not to worry about it. We were all safe and sound at the factory.”

  “I must have been gone by the time you got home.” I sipped my tea. “And I suppose you have no idea why he was killed—or at least left—on your porch?”

  Lillian stiffened. “Of course not. We were all at the boys’ factory,” she repeated. “Did you know that Sam and I still work there a couple of days a week? I answer phones and do the filing and the payroll. Sam”—she chuckled—“works in the shop and thinks he’s in charge of it, too. He’s always loved being around machines. It’s nice to keep it all in the family.”

  “It sounds like an ideal arrangement.”

  Clunking footsteps disturbed the otherwise quiet house. A man in a blue windbreaker appeared, galloping down the steps that led to the front door. His gait indicated that he might have gotten a running start from an upstairs landing. Hanging over his left arm was a large amount of black fa bric.

  “Hi, Mrs. Porter,” the man said, waving and moving at the same time. The black fabric swung over the banister and back. “ ‘Bye, Mom. I’m late.”

  The man was traveling too quickly for me to determine whether he had a limp or not, but from the formal address to me, I assumed it was Eliot, my former student.

  “Bye-bye, dear,” Lillian said, offering no help in identifying her son.

  “Was that—?” I began.

  “My boys are always on the go,” Lillian interrupted. “They don’t mean to be rude. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to run a small business these days.” She gave me an indulgent smile. “Eliot is taking my Halloween costume to the factory. We’re having our little party there as usual. For the children.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s not a very splashy event, especially this year. We invite our customers and a few friends. You’re welcome to bring your little granddaughter.”

&n
bsp; “Thank you, Lillian, I just might do that.”

  Lillian’s expression said that wasn’t the answer she expected. “As I was saying, Sam and I were there at the factory with our boys the whole day on Friday.” Was this the third time she’d mentioned that? “I think Eliot may have left for five minutes to pick up sandwiches, right around the corner in that new strip mall. You know we’re way at the edge of town at the new Lynch Business Circle.”

  I knew the area. “Formerly the site of the defunct Lincoln Point airport,” I said.

  “That airport was a bad idea from the start. The county people thought it would ease the traffic in and out of the San Jose airport and bring Lincoln Point some revenue, but the plan didn’t work. They didn’t have sufficient parking, for one thing, nor enough commitments from airlines who’d agree to use the facility. And who wants to land in Lincoln Point anyway?”

  I laughed. “That’s a good question.”

  “But it’s an ideal location for the factory, away from town, where noise and deliveries at all hours won’t wake anyone up. And by the way, Emory didn’t leave at all on Friday. He was doing repairs on some radar units the navy sent them.”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say Lillian was giving her family an alibi.

  Once I’d had all the tea and talking in circles I could take, I left Lillian and walked to my car. To my disappointment, Sangamon River Road was still deserted. I’d been hoping to run into a neighbor or two and casually conduct interviews. Had anyone seen a stranger walking around on Friday? Or a resident walking a dog? Was someone carrying a gun? Any strange noises? (Other than the howling jack-o’-lanterns and screeching bedsheet witches scattered throughout the street.) Were any arguments or fights heard in the late afternoon?

  I knew that the police would have canvassed the area already; I was going to have to be happy with their work. Skip would be pleased to know I appreciated him and his colleagues.

  There was nothing more I could do, no one to question, not even a child on a bike or a homeowner mowing his lawn.

  If only pumpkins had ears or witches could talk.

  Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

  I drove down Hanks Road, slowing as I passed the building complex Oliver had lived in. With nothing more brilliant coming to mind, I’d decided to risk a daylight entry into his apartment.

  Oliver’s building was as quiet this morning as the rest of this east-side neighborhood. I checked the numbers on the sign and saw that his apartment was in the back. All the better chance that my entering (not breaking, since I had his key, I reasoned) would go unnoticed even in daylight. Still, I thought I needed a little fortification first and kept driving farther down the road where there was a coffee shop. Seward’s Folly, on the corner of Hanks Road and Springfield Boulevard, would offer a treat I felt I deserved.

  Newcomers to Lincoln Point questioned the wisdom of naming a business establishment after a government purchase that was ridiculed at the time—the acquisition of Alaska from Russia by Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward. All’s well that ends well, however, and ultimately, with the discovery of gold, the deal was seen as a wise one. Though the purchase was made after Lincoln’s death, when Seward was under President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln Point natives always gave Abe the credit for appointing Seward in the first place.

  Seward’s Folly (the shop, not the deal) had been a favorite of mine in the days before Maddie and her family moved up north from Los Angeles. Now I went more often to Sadie’s Ice Cream Shop or Bagels by Willie, where there were more attractive choices for an eleven-year-old.

  I walked into the shop and saw the reason for the deserted streets. Everyone was here. Milling around were dozens of people—some dressed as if for church, a couple of groups of sweatshirt-clad teens chattering loudly, and several uniformed workers, from EMTs to fast-food servers.

  I stepped into the winding queue and eyed the case of pastries at the front. It seemed a long time since my granddaughter had served me that double portion of oatmeal for breakfast. I saw only one more bear claw in the case and hoped no one in front of me was after it.

  “Did you see the pictures in the paper this morning?” a young woman in black jeans asked her companion. The two women were just ahead of me in line. “They showed the guy who was killed right over on Sangamon.”

  “Yeah, that was awful,” the second woman said. “Someone shot him in the head.”

  “That was us,” said one of the EMTs in front of them, a tall, fair-haired man who looked strong enough to take the entire rack of special coffees and aromatic teas in his arms and lift them off the floor.

  The young women giggled.

  “He means we took that call,” said the other, smaller EMT. “Not that we shot the guy.” The partners nudged each other playfully.

  “Wow,” said the first young woman. “I’m Amy and this is my friend, Savannah. Do you get calls like that all the time?”

  I thought of joining the conversation (I had questions of my own) until it came to me, just before I embarrassed myself, that Amy and Savannah had deliberately opened the topic as an excuse to chat with the young male EMTs.

  I was way out of practice for flirting or even spotting it when it was right before my eyes.

  One of the coffee-shop employees, wrapped in an oversize brown apron with Kayla embroidered on a white patch, arrived to clean a side counter that held napkins, accoutrements to coffee, and four different kinds of milk products.

  She’d clearly overheard the foursome and wanted to add her bit. “I hope you catch the guy who did it,” she said to the EMTs. “We all liked Ollie.”

  The young men nodded and muttered something that made it sound as though they had the inside scoop, with phrases like “we’re all over it” and “the dude that did it won’t be on the street for long.”

  Since when did EMTs investigate crime? Since the LPPD began using retired English teacher/miniaturists?

  “Ollie was in here all the time, you know,” Kayla said. “He lived right down the street. It’s awful what happened. When I heard they killed him right on the porch where his friends’ ’rents live . . .” She stopped pouring chocolate powder into a shaker bottle and stared off in the distance. “He always got the coffee of the day, with room.”

  Thanks to my granddaughter, I knew that “ ’rents” had nothing to do with leasing homes but was special parlance for “parents”; and thanks to my own past history of frequenting coffee shops on both coasts, I knew a little caféspeak: “with room” meant for the barista to leave room in the cup for the customer to add milk or cream.

  More important, if I could believe Kayla, I’d just learned that the Ferguson twins and Oliver had been friends, not, as Lillian put it, someone with whom they had business dealings now and then. Was this a case of a parent not knowing who her sons’ friends were, even when the children were middle-aged? I doubted it, since, according to Lillian herself, she was still active in their business.

  I guessed instead that Lillian’s sweet, flowery housedress was meant to mask her sharp mind and canniness.

  “There wasn’t too much blood this time,” said one of the EMTs, in an attempt to bring the conversation and the women’s attention back to themselves.

  Amy (or Savannah) shuddered. “Eeew. I don’t think I could do a job like yours,” she said, looking up in admiration.

  “He and those twins came in a lot,” Kayla said. Her turn for attention. I wondered if I were witnessing a double date in the making, with the two EMTs and the knowledgeable Kayla acing out either Amy or Savannah.

  I felt like a person from another planet listening in on a conversation among young earthlings.

  Kayla wasn’t finished. “Like, that same day, one of the twins was in here with him. I never can tell them apart unless I see them walking because one of them has this limp.” Kayla gave a brief demonstration of a limp, taking two awkward steps to the other end of the counter.

  I took
my eyes off the bear claw, still safe in the case, on its doily, after three more customers’ choices, and not worrying about the appropriateness, jumped in. “Excuse me, are you talking about one of the Ferguson twins?”

  Kayla looked surprised to see me, but answered as if her tip depended on it. “Uh-huh. They’re regulars, too. Their ’rents—uh, mom and dad—live around the corner.”

  I wanted to inform her that I was cool (wicked?), that I knew what ’rents were, but I had bigger issues to press. “So, Oliver and one of the twins were in here on Friday? Can you be sure it wasn’t Thursday, for example?”

  I studiously ignored the rest of the group, who seemed to be trying to identify that strange planet I’d come from.

  “Uh-huh,” Kayla said more forcefully. “I didn’t work on Thursday, and I don’t work on Saturdays. It was Friday. It’s hard to tell them apart, but it was probably Eliot, the one who lives with his parents now. They were in here around lunchtime. We started having those premade sandwiches, you know, and they’re very popular. Then, next thing you know I saw Oliver’s picture in the paper.”

  Amy and Savannah had stepped to the counter, losing interest in Kayla, me, and even the EMTs, who were now checking their wallets and deciding whose turn it was to pay.

  I hoped I wasn’t responsible for nipping a romance or two in the bud.

  I was lucky enough to nab the last bear claw and a free corner table. I needed to process not only the information I’d just gleaned, but also how reliable its source was. How much should I trust a young barista in the midst of a coed game of one-upmanship with her peers?

  Lillian was too wise a lady to feed me a line that could be checked out this easily, even serendipitously by a casual observer.

  It was interesting also that Lillian had failed to mention that one of her boys lived with her. Not an unusual situation these days with many people trying to economize, but I would have expected Lillian to bring it up while she was accounting for her twins’ whereabouts. Did she think I might suspect Eliot of the murder, simply because he lived there?