Dolled Up for Murder

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Better now that I’m talking to you. What are you doing?”

  “Laundry.”

  “You’re a man in a million,” I said, meaning it.

  “Just a man in love who likes clean clothes.”

  I laughed and then smiled, relieved I was able to appreciate the humor tucked into an everyday conversation. After the anxiety of the past week, I hadn’t expected to laugh for a while.

  “What do you want for dinner?” he asked.

  “I want to go out. Surprise me.”

  “Done.”

  I returned to Hank’s corner.

  “Hi, Hank,” I said, sitting on his carpet, leaning against the wall, watching him. “How’s my baby boy?”

  He mewed between bites.

  “You don’t say.”

  Another mew. I fluffed his pillow, the one Gretchen had ordered to custom-fit his basket.

  “You know, Hank, I’ve been thinking. What if Alice hadn’t been joking or setting Darleen up when she told her the jewelry box was her most valuable possession? What if she’d meant it, Hank? Have you considered that possibility?”

  He mewed again, then crunched. I leaned back on my calves watching him as he lapped some water. All at once, the memory that had been flitting around the edges of my consciousness for days burst forth with a whoosh that almost rocked me.

  “Alice said that when she was a kid she hid her diary key in the doll she made so her sister wouldn’t find it. You know what, Hank? I bet she still did.”

  I leapt up and ran to the worktable where Alice’s dolls were lined up. I lifted the sock doll named Hilda and gently squeezed her, starting with her head and neck, then moving to her torso and legs, trying to locate the key by touch. All I felt was cushiness. If the key was hidden in the doll, it had been placed deep inside. I lifted Hilda’s dress to examine her tube-sock thighs and bottom. The seams were sewn with neat, small stitches; there was no opening. I raised the dress higher, and even though I was concentrating, I just about missed it. The ribbing aligned so precisely that the 2" × 4" inch flap was nearly invisible. I peeled it back. A slit had been carved into the stuffing, and a tiny linen envelope had been slipped inside. I used a pair of long-handled tweezers to extract the envelope. Inside was a shiny silver key with a heart-shaped finial at the top. I held it up and smiled, then placed it on the table.

  The jewelry box rested nearby, still shrouded in bubble wrap. I unwrapped it and measured the height—it was 6¼" tall. I opened the lid and measured the depth. The red velvet inner compartment was only 5¼" deep. Somewhere in that inch was Alice’s diary, I was as sure of it as if I’d stood alongside the cabinetmaker as he’d crafted the hidden compartment. Once again, I was reminded how looks can be deceiving. The jewelry box wasn’t an antique, so I’d dismissed it out of hand.

  There wasn’t any visible looseness or gaps in the velvet lining. I used a sharp probe to try to locate an opening under the velvet, but failed. I turned the box upside down and examined the bottom and sides. An inlaid rosewood border ran around the edge. I slid my finger along it, taking my time, applying pressure. On the right side, about halfway back, my finger pushed in about half an inch, and a drawer popped out.

  “Clever,” I said aloud. “It’s like those spring-loaded data ports on some computers.”

  I opened the drawer, and there was Alice’s diary. It measured ¾" × 5" × 8" and was bound in black kid leather with matching leather ties formed into a neat bow on top. A silver keyhole was surrounded by a heart-shaped escutcheon. Next to it sat a small red flowered satin pouch, its drawstring pulled taut.

  Hank mewed again and rubbed my leg. I hadn’t realized he’d joined me. “Good boy,” I said. “You did it again, Hank. You helped me think. We’re a good team, you and me.”

  I used tweezers to loosen the bag’s strings and opened it, but all I saw was darkness. I unlatched the flashlight I keep hooked to my belt and aimed the beam inside. I saw another key, this one flat and dull silver. I knew the style. I had one like it; it opened my safety deposit box. I pulled the bag’s strings tight with the tweezers, then toyed with undoing the diary’s ties. Just a quick peek, I thought. I shook my head. I’d never be able to replicate Alice’s neat bow, and I couldn’t risk mucking up evidence. Plus, I didn’t need to read her entries to know what she’d written.

  I used the wall-mounted phone to call Ellis. While I waited for him, I took a bunch of photos for Wes.

  * * *

  The rain I’d been expecting all day arrived with a thunderous blast about six, just as I was getting home. The temperature had dropped from sixty-eight to forty-two in an hour.

  Ty opened the front door as I rolled to a stop and stood just inside the hall, silhouetted by the amber glow of the porch light. He was smiling at me. My heart began pounding as it always did when I first saw him. He was tall, just over six feet, and broad, with muscles earned by splitting logs and hiking, and lately by working out in hotel gyms. He had dark, thick hair and brown eyes. He was smart and funny and kind and tender. I adored him.

  “Hey, good-looking,” he called as I ran for the porch.

  A clap of thunder sounded, and I ran faster.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said.

  He pulled me inside and embraced me, holding me against his chest, lightly resting his chin on the top of my head.

  “I’m all wet,” I said into his chest.

  “I’ve known that for years.”

  “Ha, ha. Seriously, you’ll get damp.”

  “I don’t mind getting damp. I want to hold you.”

  I smiled and hugged him, and after a minute, he leaned back to kiss me.

  After a kiss that weakened my knees and sent my heart racing faster, he said, “You should go change into something dry.”

  “I can’t wait … I’m so ready to relax. I changed my mind about going out. I want to stay home and cook. What are you in the mood for? Do you want barbecue chicken?”

  “Sure. Always. You don’t want to grill outside, though. Not in this weather.”

  “True. We can try the new grill pan.”

  I changed into my pink velour lounge-around pants and top, then joined Ty in the kitchen. While I mixed the marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, shallots, salt, pepper, and Italian peppers, Ty leaned against the kitchen wall drinking a beer, a Copperhook, and telling me about his training coup.

  “It sounds goofy,” he said, “but I read this article about the importance of discovery. To really learn something, there has to be discovery. That’s how I came up with the idea. You can’t just tell someone what to do. They have to discover how to do it for themselves.”

  “Experiential learning. We do that with appraisals, too.”

  “And it works?”

  “Better than anything else we’ve come up with.”

  He nodded. “That’s how I positioned it. Not that it’s faster or cheaper, because it’s not. That it’s better.”

  As he was placing the Cooperhook empty in the recycling bin and getting another from the fridge, he said, “So, I’ve booked our flights to Norway. We leave on the Monday after Gretchen’s wedding.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I’m a can-do sort of guy,” he said.

  “I love you, Ty.”

  “I love you, too, Josie.”

  * * *

  “It’s all there in black and white,” Wes said. He lowered his voice, his eyes searing ino mine. “Alice’s diary is one hot potato!”

  I stirred sugar in my tea. We sat in a back booth in the Portsmouth Diner early the next morning, Saturday, tag sale day. I ordered tea, a fruit salad, and an English muffin. Wes ordered his regular, a double side of bacon and a Coke.

  “She wrote about everything—her affair with Ian, her business going down the tubes, Penn blackmailing her, learning that Salmon Chase had purchased a thousand of those Union bills, even seeing the Civil War currency in Selma’s doll.”

  “She admitted running a Ponzi scheme?” I asked, astonis
hed that Alice would put such a thing in writing.

  “Not exactly. What she wrote was that Penn caught on to what she called her ‘business difficulties.’” Wes punctuated the words with air quotes. “Can you believe that? ‘Business difficulties!’ Jeesh! Anyway, she wrote that her business difficulties affected cash flow, and that she had to cover her losses in unconventional ways. She didn’t specify what that meant, just that she expected to make a recovery. Then Penn started demanding money as a courtesy for keeping quiet, and she paid and paid and paid until she couldn’t pay anymore. She wrote that he was on a tear, the way gamblers get sometimes. How do you figure he latched on to her scam in the first place?”

  I shook my head, saddened and stunned at how adroitly Alice had lived a lie. I thought I’d known her well. Now I realized I hadn’t known her at all. “Penn was a lawyer and an astute businessman. If nothing else, he had to know that the returns Alice was offering were unrealistically high, and he had to know what that implied.” I sighed. “You said she wrote about the Civil War currency?”

  “Yeah. When she was over at the Farmington house, she saw a letter President Lincoln had written to Salmon Chase mentioning that Chase had bought a thousand bills.”

  “That explains why Alice was so hot to get her hands on Selma’s dolls. She didn’t admit to stealing the three hundred, did she?”

  “Nope, but the cops opened her safety deposit box and bingo! There they were! All three hundred bills. One thing’s for sure—Alice’s investors will be clamoring for the currency to be included in her estate. I figure the courts will have to sort it out.”

  “I’m so glad to hear the money was found. The Farmington sisters may have to sue the estate, but eventually, I’m sure they’ll get it all back.”

  “Maybe. You ready for a real gotcha? Guess what else was in the safety deposit box … printing plates. And guess whose fingerprints are all over them? Randall’s. Gotcha!”

  “So they have Randall cold. How about Penn? Is there any evidence he knew about the Civil War currency, and that it was in the dolls?”

  “Uh-huh. From what Alice wrote, you can tell that she was kind of kicking herself for telling him about it. It came up at dinner one night last week when they got talking about how some people are so cynical about banks, they hide money under their mattresses or in the backyard, that sort of thing. She mentioned that she’d seen three hundred bills hidden in one of Selma’s dolls and that President Lincoln’s letter proved they were real.”

  I nodded. “I can picture that. She told him as a curiosity, but he heard it as an opportunity. What with Selma dead, her daughters’ car gone, and our van parked out of sight in the back, the way it probably was so Eric could load it easily, he probably thought he could sneak into the house easily and get the dolls. He was a desperate man.”

  “Desperate enough to kill Alice?” Wes asked, sounding dubious. “Why?”

  “If Alice threatened to turn him in for blackmail, he would have known the jig was up. He’d lost everything, and he was a very prideful man. I think he stole and kidnapped and killed not because he was busted flat but because he couldn’t bear the shame of being busted flat. He joked about his losses, saying he lost his shirt. There was also a story about how he went on some gambling cruise and lost more than anyone in the history of the ship. Do you remember that, Wes? It was on your Web site the same day you wrote about the dolls. I didn’t think about his comment at all, but if I had, I would have assumed he was exaggerating for effect. Now I think it was literally true—he lost everything and he was truly desperate … yes, for money, but more for a way to save face. Think of Penn, a local celebrity with a lot at stake. A gambler, with a gambler’s belief that his luck was about to change, that the next big break was just around the corner. Once he got the idea that he could latch on to Selma’s money, his optimism would have soared. Instead of breaking into Selma’s house and finding the money, though, he found Eric. I bet he waited for Eric to leave. When he saw Eric behind the wheel of Prescott’s van, he must have guessed that Eric had packed up the dolls and flipped out. In his head, he’d already been spending the proceeds.”

  “Are you saying that he jacked the van on impulse?” Wes asked.

  “Yes. Remember, he didn’t check into the hotel or buy the other cars until afterward.”

  Wes nodded. “Which he was able to do because he’d done a segment on local makers of fake IDs, so he could get new paper easily. He must have had a stash of cash, enough to buy the cars.”

  “Right—and he did another segment on how to get illegal weapons.” I thought for a moment. “He must have tried to break into my place, too, also probably on impulse, but saw the bolts on the door and the security cameras and knew it was too risky. Have they found that remote, by the way?”

  “Yup. In his car’s glove compartment,” Wes said, nibbling bacon. “His real car, the only one registered under his actual name. They also found the red wig and aviator glasses he wore with Eric and the phone he used to call Ian.”

  “With both men dead, we’ll never know what they talked about.”

  “Which means we’ll probably never know for sure if Ian’s death was suicide or murder,” Wes said. “What do you think?”

  “Why do you suppose Penn didn’t kill Eric?” I asked, delaying answering his question. “Wasn’t he taking a risk Eric could ID him?”

  “Apparently not a big one. Eric couldn’t. Neither could you. Despite all the publicity, no one could.”

  “True. Still … you’d think that once you murder one person, the rest would come easy.”

  “Jeez, Josie, that’s cold.”

  “I’m a realist,” I said, shrugging, “and it’s possible he did kill a second time … Ian.”

  “I think he did it.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “Penn lied in his broadcast when he said that Ian was despondent. The implications didn’t occur to me at the time, but when I spoke to Ian the next morning, he didn’t sound the least bit despondent. He sounded angrier and more determined than ever. Penn hoped the police would believe that Ian, in the throes of despair, turned the gun on himself. He also hoped he’d find the diary before I did.”

  “I can’t believe Penn fell for your trap, which, by the way, you should have told me about in advance.”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I promised Chief Hunter I wouldn’t.”

  “You promised him you wouldn’t show up, too, but you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. He told me to stay away. I never agreed that I would.”

  Wes sighed. “Whatever. Wouldn’t you have thought that Penn was smarter than that?”

  “No. Actually, I’m not surprised at all that Penn gave it a try. Desperate men do desperate things.”

  “Hard to believe his desperation was all about money,” Wes said, shaking his head. “Money and maintaining his position. Do you care about money that much?”

  “Well, yeah. Sure, I care about money. Don’t you?”

  “Not really. I care about work.”

  “Doing good work leads to money,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Not at the Seacoast Star, it doesn’t. I figure my attitude toward money is why I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “What happened to that girl? You know … it was a while ago. You asked me to recommend a restaurant.”

  “Sue … yeah, she was nice. She moved to Florida to go to school.”

  “You’ll find another girl, Wes.”

  “Whatever,” he said, waving my comments aside. He chomped a piece of bacon. “So, Alice wrote that as soon as she told Lenny not to worry about certain bookkeeping entries, he stopped asking about them. Clearly Lenny turned a blind eye to accounting irregularities, but the Feds aren’t blaming him much. They say that turning a blind eye is what employees do.”

  I didn’t, I thought. When I’d blown the whistle on how my boss at Frisco’s was colluding with the competition to fix commissions, I’d been naive enough to expect to be treated like a hero; instead, I�
�d become a pariah and learned an important lesson: Doing the right thing is lonely work.

  “Randall’s a different case altogether,” Wes added. “They’re probably going to up the charges because his involvement was more active—he created those printing plates.”

  “What about Darleen?”

  “There’s no mention of her at all, so it looks like she’s off the hook.”

  “It’s all so sordid, Wes.”

  Wes pushed his empty plate to the side. “You think so? It’s just people being people, right? So what else you got?”

  I shook my head at Wes’s jaded view of human nature. “The police ran tests on my phone lines. There was no tap.”

  “You really got your paranoia going with that one, huh?”

  “There were moments.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  Wes double-tapped the table and said, “Thanks for breakfast. Catch ya later.”

  After Wes left, I sat awhile longer sipping tea and thinking about Alice. She’d misappropriated funds, had a long-term affair with another woman’s husband, submitted to blackmail, and stolen her best friend’s treasure. My dad had been right, as usual, when he’d warned me to be careful about the people you trust. No one else, he’d said, could get close enough to do much damage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The rain had stopped, but the temperature hadn’t risen. It was raw. When Zoë called around eight and offered hot homemade blueberry pie and a fire, neither Ty nor I hesitated. Ty and I sat on huge pillows in front of Zoë’s fireplace. Ty leaned against her ottoman, and I leaned against Ty. His arms encircled me.

  “Ty and I are going to Norway,” I said.

  “That’s great,” Zoë said. “Why Norway?”

  “Fjords,” Ty said. “Josie wants to see fjords.”

  “Very romantic,” Zoë said. Ellis reached over and took her hand in his.

  “Do you want to go to Norway?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t mind,” she replied, “but my dream vacation is Italy.”

  Ellis nodded thoughtfully.

  “How about you, Ty?” I asked. “Where’s your dream vacation?”