Baby Doll Games

by Margaret Maron

  I reassured Mrs. Berkowitz that such regression often signals an inner turmoil that might foretell a major breakthrough and she immediately brightened. “Do you really think so?”

  [NB-the adoption’s being held up until I give Corrie a clean bill of mental health O everyone hopes it will come soon.] “Tanya says that as soon as the judge gives her to us, she wants to call Lyle and me Daddy and Mother,” Mrs. B. confided. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  She stood there in my waiting room, in her neat wool skirt and practical flat shoes, with pride and wonder on her thin face. She already has one daughter of her dreams, and I am determined that she shall soon have a second daughter well and whole.

  Since I’ve begun seeing her, Corrie has lost the rest of her baby fat and has grown an extra inch in height. This November day, she wore blue plastic boots, bright blue stretch pants, and a white pullover with a flower appliquéd on her tummy. Her curly brown hair was held away from either side of her face with little flower-shaped plastic barrettes but she seemed wan despite a lingering summer tan.

  I took a chance today and prepared the scene before she came. The G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls that represented Ray and Darlene lay on the low hassock with the “sisters” on a nearby chair. I had found a miniature toy hammer and I placed it on the floor by the hassock in plain view.

  At four years old, Corrie understood very well that Darlene s “ginger ale” wasn’t a soft drink; and from the baby doll play I’ve observed these past few months, I know that she and Tanya tried to keep Darlene from drinking too much. They knew alcohol distorted her personality.

  So we sat down beside the toys in our usual position and talked about how people sometimes said or did things they really didn’t mean.

  “Like sometimes you and Tonier squabble and maybe you even say ugly things to each other but later wish you hadn’t.”

  Corrie looked at the little bear sitting so close to the schoolgirl doll.

  “Grown-ups do the same thing,” I said. “They may wish afterwards that they hadn’t and then it’s too late.”

  Keeping my voice as casual as possible, I said, ‘I’ll bet even Ray and your mommy used to yell things to each other at times.” Corrie scooted away from my side and spent most of the session curled up in the wing chair with those two figures that represented Tanya and herself. She mimicked a few skirmishes between the bear and the schoolgirl, but her blue-green eyes kept darting over to the hassock. When it was time to return the toys to the shelves, she put away the Barbie doll but did not offer to touch either the G.I. Joe or the hammer.

  But I can feel it in my bones. Inside that small head, something's happening! [Called Anne H. after Corrie left &told her that tomorrow's session would probably be the climactic one- that I have Corrie poised for the catharsis which must precede reintegration. Should make for wonderful photographs.]

  Chapter 26

  Hoping to forestall one of Roman’s incredible inedibles, Sigrid stopped at a crowded deli on Hudson Street and stood in line to order a roast chicken, macaroni salad, and a quarter-pound of fresh mushrooms while a local easy-listening radio station broadcast premature Christmas carols for the less-than-merry clientele around her. When she got home, however, she found Roman amid pots and pans in a kitchen redolent of sauerkraut, smoked pork, and German sausages.

  “A Berner Platte stretches so nicely he said, busying himself with the oven. “Two can be served generously or three moderately. And if Oscar’s coming-”

  His voice trailed off and he seemed unable to meet her eyes.

  His self-consciousness fueled Sigrid’s.

  “He isn’t,” she said. "There was an opening at the Friedinger and I thought I d make it an early night.”

  “-since last night was so busy?” hung unspoken in the green-and-white kitchen.

  Sigrid dumped her cartons on the tiled countertop. “Mushrooms,” she croaked. “Salad- But Berner Platte's a great idea. We can save the chicken for tomorrow,”

  She unbuttoned her raincoat and went out into the vestibule to hang it beside Roman’s.

  “Ale?” asked Roman, setting out bottles and two beer steins. “Or do you want something more full-bodied? I mean, something more stimulating,? I mean-” His face registered horror at his clumsiness.

  “Ale’s fine,” she answered tersely and withdrew to freshen up and, with a little luck, give Roman time to bring his adjectives under control. She hung up her jacket, put her blouse in the laundry hamper, and changed into a dark red turtleneck sweater, which she’d bought because it was comfortably loose and knitted of plain thick wool. That its rich warm color flattered her own coloring was an unsought bonus.

  As she came back down the hall, the gate bell rang. Sigrid pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

  “It’s me, honey,” said Anne Harald’s disembodied voice.

  Sigrid buzzed the lock release and, peering through the darkness, saw her mother maneuver through the gate with a large flat box.

  “I thought you and Roman might be in the mood for pizza,” she said gaily as Sigrid opened the door. An I aroma of olive oil, garlic, and oregano wafted in with the chill night air.

  “A party!” Roman exclaimed. “What fun!”

  He kissed Anne heartily upon the cheek, relieved her of the pizza, and immediately popped half of it into the microwave to reheat. “We can begin in Napoli and wind up in Bern. Now the only decision, mes petites, is should we stay with ale or switch to Chianti?”

  Ale won unanimously and Sigrid set the table while Anne filled their glasses and Roman brought the first half-pizza to the table in great ceremony. Sigrid drank deeply and was beginning to relax when the gate bell rang again.

  “Now who-?” wondered Roman. “Sit, sit, my dear. I’ll get it.”

  He went out to the intercom and they heard his deep “Yes?” An instant later, he stuck his head in the door and hissed, “Sst! It’s Oscar!” before hurrying back to open the front door.

  Anne glanced at Sigrid in amusement. “Why did that sound like ‘Fly! All is discovered!’?”

  “God knows,” Sigrid said, apprehensively taking another swallow of her ale as she heard Nauman’s baritone mingle with Roman’s bass.

  “Guess what Oscar brought?” Roman boomed. “MouseKey and baklava.”

  “How sweet,” murmured Anne.

  Nauman added his coat to the collection building in the hall and joined them looking blown and buffeted by the wind. “I couldn't get the top of my car to stay up,” he complained. “Hello, Anne.”

  She smiled up at him and gave him her cheek to kiss.

  “I thought you were going to an opening tonight,” said Sigrid, willing herself not to redden under her mother’s watchful eye.

  “Decided against it. Hope you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all,” she said stiffly and rose to set another place for him.

  “What opening?” asked Anne and while Oscar explained about Chinese calligraphy, Roman looked at the table critically. “All we need are some egg rolls or won ton soup and we could be the UN.”

  “We could eat with chopsticks,” Anne suggested with a mischievous glance at Sigrid.

  “No, we couldn’t,” said her daughter Which reminded Oscar of the Koreans that morning and he proceeded to make a witty and visual tale of their inventive use of western tableware.

  “You went out for blueberry muffins?” blurted Roman. “But that was what I planned to make for breakfast.” Anne’s hand froze in midair and melted mozzarella slid off the piece of pizza she was serving Oscar Her eyes, so similar to Sigrid’s in color if not in size, darted from Sigrid’s face to Oscar’s and back to Sigrid’s again.

  “Is that for me?” Oscar asked mildly.

  “Hm? Oh. The pizza. Yes,” said Anne. "Siga, honey, I’m afraid I’ve got pizza all over your tablecloth. Isn’t this one my mama gave you? If you’ll get a damp cloth-” She looked confidingly at Oscar as Sigrid seized the excuse to leave the table. “You know the nicest thing about pure li
nen is that you can bleach it if you have to. Not like polyester. Of course, lemon juice and sunshine-thanks, honey. I’ll just sponge the worst of it.”

  Doing his own bit to smooth over the awkwardness, Roman chose that moment to bring in his succulent Berner Platte in its earthenware casserole dish. He set it in the center of the table and removed the heavy lid with a dramatic flourish, “Voila!”

  Unfortunately for the effect he wished to create, the cooked sauerkraut had shrunk away from the surface of the dish to reveal two large white potatoes. Nestled between those rounded shapes was a swollen pink knackwurst.

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then Anne began to giggle.

  “Oh dear!” said Roman, fumbling for something with which to stir the dish as Oscar threw back his head and hooted with laughter.

  Sigrid rolled her eyes in resignation. “Maybe we should have put a notice in the Daily News.”

  * * *

  Roman's dinners were always long and boisterous and by the time he had divided three pieces of baklava between four dessert plates and was ready to pour coffee, it was almost ten and conversation was long since back to normal. Anne and Oscar had fought to a draw the question of whether photography should be taken seriously as an art-Oscar for, Anne against, Sigrid and Roman abstaining; Roman raved about a current book on the best-seller lists-Sigrid and Oscar had both disliked it intensely but for radically different reasons which devolved into a subdebate; and Anne passed around the contact prints of some of the pictures she’d taken for the New York Today series which was scheduled to begin in January.

  “You were right about Christa Ferrell,” she told Sigrid. “She’s wonderfully photogenic.”

  The individual pictures on the proof sheet weren’t much bigger than commemorative postage stamps and Roman set the coffee tray on the end of the table and brought out a large magnifying glass in order to see better. Oscar slipped on his reading glasses.

  ‘This is an old schoolmate?” he asked. “She’s quite lovely.”

  Telling herself that she was being stupid, that Nauman certainly didn’t mean to be tactless and that he wasn’t necessarily drawing comparisons, Sigrid rose to set the cups around the table for Roman and to distribute the baklava.

  “Likes herself, doesn’t she?” Oscar commented as Anne described the case.

  “You noticed that, too?” asked Anne. “I thought maybe it was just me.”

  Absurdly, Sigrid’s heart lifted and she looked over their shoulders at the contact prints.

  “No one sits on a low chair with her skirt draped like that unless she knows she has perfect legs,” said Nauman.

  “And she made sure that she was either full-face or three-quarter profile during the whole session, even when she had the little girl on her lap. See there? See how she never quite lets the child’s face block hers?” Anne looked up at Sigrid. “I don’t know about your friend, honey. There’s just something about her that puts me off and I don’t mean only the way she thinks she s going to come out looking so good in the article.”

  “Have you changed your mind about using her?”

  “No-o-o,” Anne drawled thoughtfully. “The pictures are good, the story’s dramatic, and she’s promised me fireworks tomorrow. I don’t walk away from a story just because I don’t like one of the people.”

  “Fireworks?” queried Roman as he began to pour the coffee.

  “The little girl there saw her mother killed by her lover last summer but she’s been blocking it out of her mind ever since then,” Anne explained. “Dr. Ferrell seems to think that tomorrow may be the day she unblocks.” Sigrid handed the contact prints back to her mother The close-ups of little Corrie Makaroff reminded her of Nate Richmond’s photographs and she described them to Anne. “He does the lights at the dance theater Roman’s connected with, but he’s also a very gifted photographer.” Roman nodded enthusiastically. “Sheer magic, Anne! His portraits of the children would break your heart with their innocence. Everyone there likes the children, of course, but Nate’s relationship with them is quite special. He becomes a child when he works with them.”

  “Peter Pan?” asked Nauman as his fork shattered the multilayered Greek pastry.

  “With a dash of Lewis Carroll thrown in for good measure,” Sigrid said, passing the sugar bowl to Anne.

  “The Reverend Charles Dodgson.” Anne stirred a heaping spoonful of sugar into her coffee and added cream as well. “He photographed children, too. No, not what you’re thinking. Did I sound lascivious? I’m sure it was quite Victorian and proper. The mamas were always present”

  “The Victorians were a curious race,” said Nauman, a propos of nothing that Sigrid could see, so she smiled at him.

  “The mamas may not always be present when Nate snaps their children,” Roman said, “but they love the results. One father bought ten different poses of his two kids. Makes a nice little sideline for the theater.”

  “What about the other men?” asked Sigrid.

  “You mean the dancers?” Roman smoothed several strands of sandy brown hair across the high dome of his head. “What about them?”

  For Anne and Nauman’s benefit, Sigrid briefly described Emmy Mion’s death and the people involved, embellished by Roman’s eyewitness account of her last moments. Roman was astounded to hear that Emmy must have suspected one of the troupe of murdering the Gillespie child, and the other two were drawn into theorizing about the case quite unwittingly. Although Nauman had twice seen Sigrid in action, she seldom discussed her work with him; and, like Anne, he would have preferred her in a safer profession.

  But both had read accounts of the young dancer’s dramatic death and one of Nauman’s students at Vanderlyn was a friend of Ginger Judson’s, so they were already familiar with the broad outlines and were interested in having it explained to them how one member of a dance troupe could kill another onstage, in front of an audience, and not be recognized.

  “I vote for the costume designer and her husband,” said Oscar. “Masks? Hoods? Pumpkin heads? She designed the perfect disguise and he carried out the murder.”

  “Why?” Sigrid demanded.

  He shrugged. “I don’t do whys, I just do hows.”

  “Unfortunately, the D.A’s office insists that I give them whys, too,” Sigrid told him.

  “I must admit, dear Sigrid,” said Roman, “that it’s vastly more difficult to question one’s friends about homicide than utter strangers.”

  “The Gillespie child,” said Anne, hewing to cause and effect. “Could she perhaps have been killed because she saw something else? A criminal act of one of the troupe? Or perhaps two people making love who weren’t supposed to?”

  “Lovemaking isn’t a criminal act,” said Sigrid and a warm wave of awareness promptly washed over her as Nauman s foot nudged hers teasingly under the table.

  Fortunately neither Anne nor Roman seemed to notice. Her housemate was still running over the probabilities.

  “Rikki’s hopelessly insane over Nate, although Nate can hardly be described as oversexed,” he mused in a low rumble. “Emmy was living with David Orland back then and it was certainly no secret from Eric; Win and Emmy may have slept together but sex doesn’t seem terribly important to Win either; none of the men would care whom Ginger bedded; and Helen knows that Cliff s unfaithful and it doesn’t bother her any more than it would bother Cliff should Helen turn the tables.”

  “Actually, it does bother Helen Delgado,” Sigrid told him and repeated part of the conversation she’d had with the designer that afternoon, “All the same,” countered Roman, “she's right about the children. I simply do not see how anyone in the troupe could have an unhealthy interest in children and it not be soon apparent.”

  “Perhaps the child was a coincidence after all,” Anne suggested. “Maybe it was a simple crime of passion-one of Emmy’s scorned lovers.”

  “I suggest it was Miss Scarlett in the conservatory with the candlestick,” said Roman. “More coffee anyone?” Sigrid covere
d her cup with her hand but smiled at Roman even as she shook her head, “You’re probably right.”

  Anne hid a yawn behind her hand. “Too deep for me, chickabiddies. And too late. Me for home and bed”

  “I’ll drop you,” Nauman offered and Sigrid didn’t know if she was pleased or disappointed.

  While Roman went to fetch a book he’d borrowed from Anne a few weeks earlier, Sigrid followed Nauman and her mother out to the hall and handed them their coats.

  “’Night, honey,” said Anne, She took the book from Roman, reached up to kiss Sigrid’s bent head, then tactfully stepped out into the chilly courtyard ahead of Nauman, who did not have a peck on the cheek in mind for her daughter.

  “I shall load the dishwasher,” Roman announced, not to be outdone in tactfulness.

  Sigrid felt her heart do funny little skips as Nauman embraced her.

  “Dinner at my place tomorrow night?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  He smiled at her in the darkness and followed Anne’s small figure across the courtyard, paused at the gate, and then turned back to Sigrid, who had remained in the open doorway despite the cold night air.

  “Forget something?”

  Nauman jangled Roman’s house keys in his hand. “I don’t think I can start my car with these. You must have given me Romans raincoat.”

  Now that he mentioned it, Sigrid realized that the raincoat he’d left in was at least two sizes too large.

  “Freud says there's no such thing as an accident,” Nauman observed when he’d retrieved his own coat and found his car keys.

  “Smart man, Freud,” Sigrid murmured, not at all displeased to repeat their goodnight kiss.