7 Madness in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “I don’t think I’m the one to do that.”

  “You’re much better with her at these sensitive things, Mom.”

  A picture formed in my mind: me, bringing up the topic of “boys” with my granddaughter while we glued tiny cups to saucers the size of her pinky fingernail.

  “You know, Mary Lou, she still hasn’t changed the décor in Richard’s old room, though I’ve told her many times she can have it the way she wants it. She sticks with that baseball set I made for him when he was about four.”

  “I know, but these things don’t happen all at once. There’s a lot of overlap between little girl and grown-up girl. Just see what you can find out, okay?”

  “I just don’t think—”

  “Thanks a lot, Mom. You’re the greatest.”

  “Okay,” I said, my voice so weak I doubted Mary Lou heard me. I doubted also that she needed to.

  * * *

  At four in the afternoon I was on my way to jail. As I approached the front door of the police station, I called Bev’s phone. Nick, the groom-to-be, my future brother-in-law answered. I thought how happy Ken would be that his sister had found someone, and I was positive the two men would have become great friends. My immediate delight was that baby-sitter Bev had adult company plus backup in case Maddie turned sour at my absence—not because she missed me, but because she was missing out on an adventure. I wished I could convince Maddie that she didn’t know how lucky she was.

  “Is it okay if I make another stop?” I asked, hoping the background noise didn’t alert Nick to the fact that I’d made the assumption already.

  “Not a problem,” he said. “We’re settled in, playing some board game that’s not on a board.”

  I thanked him and before hanging up, promised a special batch of cookies.

  I opened the front door of the building, and nearly banged into my nephew.

  “Hey, Aunt Gerry. Where’s the squirt?” Skip asked.

  “With your mom and Nick.” As we walked toward the stairs to the lower level, I told Skip about my meeting at SuperKrafts, and since there wasn’t much to report, also about my conversation with Mary Lou, being sure to get his solemn oath of secrecy first. Then something about the environment spawned a brilliant thought. It must have been the crowd of uniformed men and women milling around, emitting authoritative auras, supported by an assortment of hardware from handcuffs to flashlights to holstered weapons.

  “Maddie adores you,” I began, though it wouldn’t be news to him. “Maybe you should be the one who—”

  Skip stopped and held out his hands as if to ward off an attack. “Whoa. You want me to give her the birds-and-the-bees talk?”

  “No, no. Just see what’s up in that regard. You could ask if there are any boys in her class that she especially likes.”

  “Not a chance,” Skip said.

  “Or if there any boys she does homework with during study period.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Or does she ever have lunch with a boy? Share her box of raisins? Then wait and see how she reacts. If this feud with Taylor really is about a boy, she might let something slip.”

  Skip shook his head so hard I thought he’d have a headache for the rest of the day and into the night. “Absolutely not. That’s women’s work.”

  “Now you’re sounding like the fifties.”

  “Let’s not go there. I get enough of that with…” Uh-oh. I figured I hit a June Chinn nerve. I’d have to address it later. I let Skip continue. “I’m just saying Maddie and I don’t have conversations like that. We horse around, talk sports, throw balls at each other, play computer games…”

  “That’s what I mean. You have a kind of rapport with her that Mary Lou and I don’t have. You’re her Uncle Skip. You play with her.”

  “You play with her, too. You’re always doing the dollhouse thing with her.”

  “The dollhouse thing? That’s serious business.”

  But Uncle Skip had already started walking away. “Let’s go find Bebe,” he said, pushing the stairwell door open and heading down the stairs.

  “At least stop calling her ‘squirt,’ ” I said to his back.

  * * *

  I could see that Bebe was striving for a new attitude for this visit. She sat up and brightened slightly when she saw me, even though her face was a web of concern. Something was off, either with her or with my perception. She was still in an interview room, so her status with the LPPD didn’t seem to have improved. My interaction with Skip had been so charged with personal matters, I’d neglected to ask what their long-term plans were for Bebe, who was apparently their prime suspect. Why hadn’t I at least asked about the results of the search warrants for her house and car? A wave of guilt washed over me as I realized I hadn’t done much except wrangle alibis out of everyone I considered a suspect. Not that it was my job to solve a homicide, but I hated to see Bebe, a friend for many years, held for so long and possibly charged with murder. As abrasive and ill-tempered as Bebe could be, I didn’t for a minute think she’d killed anyone. I also bristled at the fact that an unsolved murder in Lincoln Point dominated the news in the entire South Bay. Add to that, the victim was an integral part of a project that had taken a lot of my attention over the past year, and my sense of duty took over. It was time to get myself in gear.

  “Gerry, hey,” Bebe said. “I knew you’d come back even though I threw you out. They let me talk to Jeff for a while, so I feel much better.”

  I took a seat. “I’m glad to hear that, Bebe. Has anyone given you an update on the investigation?”

  “Nothing new on their end. They come in and bring me a coffee and I even got a sandwich this afternoon.”

  I decided to wait Bebe out. When she wanted to tell me why she’d asked for me, she would. “I’m glad they’re treating you well,” I said.

  “They’re always asking if I’m ready to talk.” Bebe lowered her voice. “And you know, Gerry, I think I am. I’m ready to talk.”

  “What do you mean ‘talk,’ Bebe?”

  “Jeff is working on getting me a lawyer, and I suppose I’ll need one eventually, but I wanted you to know the truth.”

  I felt my whole body stiffen. “Which is?”

  “I killed Craig Palmer.”

  Chapter 9

  Had I heard right? Or had I fallen asleep from the excessive heat outside and the stuffiness inside the police building? I blinked, shook my head, and the clear memory was still there. Bebe Mellon, ceramicist and sister of Jeff Slattery, admitted to killing the late Craig Palmer of New York City.

  I reached over and put my hand on hers. “Bebe, do you know what you’re saying?”

  “I do, Gerry, and I need to get this off my chest. Off my conscience. It’s not fair to my little brother, who’s worried about me, or to anyone else to let this drag on. I’m ready to pay whatever price I have to and take whatever punishment is coming to me.”

  An empty coffee mug stood on the table next to Bebe’s right arm. I had the urge to pick it up and send it to a lab for drug testing. Had the LPPD—my own nephew, perhaps—been so eager to close the case that they’d given her a little something to cloud her judgment? Nah.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it, Bebe,” I said in a near whisper. Before you speak to the police without a lawyer, I added to myself.

  She blew out a breath, but seemed eerily calm. “Wow, I don’t know where to start.”

  “Just take your time and tell me from the beginning. You were in SuperKrafts with Craig?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How did you get into the building?”

  “I’m on the code list, remember?”

  “And they hadn’t canceled the code for the day?”

  “They must have forgotten. Or I got in just under the wire.”

  “And then?”

  “Okay, I was really mad at him, you know. I heard he was going to cut my workshop from the schedule. I knew he was still meeting wi
th Catherine and the others so I waited in a corner of the store till it was over.”

  “You expected the others to leave the building before he did?”

  “Well, I, uh, sort of figured he’d be the last one in the room. Then when he was alone, I went up to him and I asked him why he was cutting me out and we fought and I just lost it and picked up a vase, and…” Bebe finished by lifting her arms and bringing an invisible object down on the table, with a thud. I flinched at the sound though Bebe remained calm through the demonstration.

  “The vase was right there?”

  “Yeah, I just picked up the first thing I could, you know.”

  “And if the others hadn’t gone out first?”

  “Well, I guess I would have found another way.” She threw up her hands. “Why are you asking all these questions, Gerry? I’m just trying to tell you how I did it.”

  Bebe had become agitated, which was not my intention. I was conscious of people—police people—walking in the hallway outside the interview room. I hoped the room was soundproofed and not bugged. If someone in charge heard Bebe, she might be arrested immediately.

  I should have been relieved by our conversation. Didn’t I want the case to be solved? Well, here it was, solved. The easiest way possible. A confession. But something was off. A lot, in fact. There was the detail concerning the murder weapon, which Skip had shared with me, but wasn’t publicly known—that Craig’s body was found in the retail area just outside the meeting room, and that the lethal vase had been pulled from a whole crate of vases in that area. Bebe’s story made it sound as though, one, she killed him in the meeting room, and two, the vase was also in the room, loose and handy.

  “Bebe, will you do me a big favor? Don’t tell this to anyone until we talk again. Especially not the police.”

  “But I want to get this over with.”

  “I know, and I want it over, too, but please tell me you’ll wait just a little longer.”

  “Are you going to talk to a lawyer or something?”

  I hesitated. To lie or not to lie. I was getting good at finding that middle ground. “Yes,” I said, as Henry’s daughter and son-in-law, both lawyers, came to mind. So what if their specialty was mergers and acquisitions? And so what if I was really going to talk to Henry, who was a master craftsman, but not in law?

  Bebe’s face went through contortions as if it were hugely difficult for her to make this decision, or to think at all. “Okay,” she said, the word coming out in a loud breath.

  I patted her arm and thanked her. I hated to leave her, not fully trusting that she’d keep her specious story to herself, but I had a call to make and a lot of thinking to do.

  * * *

  The last person I wanted to meet as I headed for the exit was Skip, but we ran into each other for the second time in an hour.

  “I’ve got someone ready to take your statement,” he said.

  I’d forgotten that I hadn’t yet been officially interviewed. I changed my mind on the spot—the last person I wanted to meet wasn’t Skip, but a cop who would formally interview me and ask what I knew about Craig Palmer’s murder. Not now, not after I’d been confessed to.

  “Fred Bates. He’s working some other cases, but he can fit you in.”

  I felt a little better. “I know Fred. I had his son in school.”

  “Of course you did.” Skip scratched his head. “It’s hard to find anyone around here that you don’t have a connection with.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  “It would be nice if once you didn’t have the upper hand,” Skip said, his grin taking away from a remark that might otherwise have been perceived as too smart for his own good.

  “I’m in kind of a hurry. Would it be possible for me to come back later tonight?”

  “Sure.” He pointed toward the interview room that housed Bebe. “Did you get anything useful from Bebe?”

  “Nothing,” I said, without hesitation, since I considered Bebe’s so-called confession useless.

  “Nothing,” he repeated as if he didn’t believe me.

  “Any word on the fingerprints?” I asked, to keep him from probing. I was also hoping that someone else’s prints besides Bebe’s would be on the vase, someone without the good excuse Bebe had given, back when she was proclaiming her innocence.

  “You know better than that. The way the crime labs are backed up we’ll be lucky to have them this year.” Unfortunately, I knew Skip was only slightly exaggerating. He’d schooled all his family and friends on the pitiful state of crime labs. “We’re better off than a lot of states where blood results take up to eleven months and the six-month ‘speedy trial’ rule goes out the window,” he continued.

  “Sorry, I should know better.”

  “It’s okay. Back to that other topic, I’ve been thinking about what you were suggesting.”

  My first thought was that the interview room was indeed wired and Skip had been listening in on my conversation with Bebe. What if he’d heard my suggestion—let’s face it, plea—that she not talk to the police? Had my nephew set up Fred Bates to charge me and arrest me for obstruction of justice? Had I been obstructing justice?

  He must have seen my panicked look. “I mean about talking to Maddie,” he explained. “What did you think I meant?”

  “Nothing,” I said again, this time feeling my face flush.

  “Well, I might be able to work it in, the boy talk,” he said. “But only if it feels right.”

  “That’s terrific,” I said, relaxing my shoulders. “Only if it feels right, of course.”

  “I was thinking I could ask her if any boys in her class are as cute as me.”

  He grinned, and at that moment I doubted any boy, or man, could be as cute as my nephew. I risked a quick peck on his cheek before we went our separate ways.

  * * *

  It was five o’clock by the time I reached my car. I hated to impose on Bev and Nick, but I wanted to make a private call to Henry. I needed advice about my meeting with Bebe, and couldn’t very well ask Skip or even Bev or Nick. They were all officially tied to the police force in one way or another, and probably took the same oath to report any confessions, suspicious or not.

  I dug around in my bottomless purse and found a chocolate ball wrapped, or almost wrapped, in red foil. I hoped it was from Valentine’s Day and not Christmas. I popped the small candy in my mouth, a rush of sugar to keep me going for a little while, and punched in Henry’s number.

  “Another pizza, another earthquake?” he asked.

  I told him that was a great idea, to try a do-over on the pizza, then launched into my troublesome visit with Bebe. I reviewed all the things that didn’t add up in her story.

  “That’s tough,” he said. “You really think she’s covering for someone?”

  “That’s the only reason I can think of that she’d be willing to go to jail. And as far as I know there’s no other family besides her brother.”

  “Video Jeff.”

  “Right. Bebe was married briefly, but her ex is long gone and there are no children. She’s been close friends with Maisie for years, but I can’t imagine either that Maisie killed a man or that Bebe would be that quick to go to jail for her.”

  “Is Jeff a viable suspect?”

  “He certainly had motive for wanting Craig Palmer out of the picture. Craig was competition.” Once again, I wished I’d paid more attention when I heard about romances and love affairs, especially relationships gone bad. Most people would have a sixth sense about those things. Was Catherine really “over” Craig? Had she committed to staying in Lincoln Point with Jeff? Were they still discussing it, giving Jeff the need to eliminate Craig and the pull in the New York direction? I was hopeless at figuring it out.

  I tuned back in to Henry’s voice. “I imagine the police questioned Jeff?” he asked.

  “I imagine so.”

  “You’d think the favorite aunt of a homicide cop would know for sure.”

  �
��The only aunt,” I reminded him. “And I wish it gave me as much of an inside track as everyone thinks it does. I know you can’t tell me what to do, Henry, but I’m at a loss about my obligation, legally and otherwise.”

  “I can talk to Kay. It’s not her field, but it might be a very simple question with a simple answer. The legal part anyway. I’ll speak hypothetically, of course.”

  “Hypothetically, that would help a lot. Then, no matter what, I have to try to figure out who really killed Craig Palmer. Bebe is about to confess to a crime she didn’t commit. I can’t sit around.”

  “I didn’t think you could.”

  It felt good to be understood.

  * * *

  I needed time and quiet space to get my thoughts in order. My car was too hot; the library behind me in Civic Center was closed; my house was full of people. I could go to Sadie’s but I wouldn’t be there ten minutes before a friend or former student would want me to join them, feeling sorry for me because I was eating alone. At times like this, Lincoln Point seemed too small.

  I was still parked in front of the police station. I wished I could march back in and sit down with Skip, ask him straight-out the facts of the case and his thoughts on it. I heard Skip’s voice in my head: “Not gonna happen.”

  Maybe I could endure the car for a few minutes if I had a little shade. I drove out of Civic Center, around to the half-finished lot behind Ten-to-Ten, the convenience store, and parked under a tree that had survived the construction project. I bought a cold bottle of water, and sat with my windows down and a notebook resting partly on my lap and partly on the steering wheel. I breathed deeply, sifted through my questions, and wrote them down.

  First, How did the killer get into the building? which depended a lot on What time was the store access code changed every day? I had no detailed knowledge of the schedule, and never cared to find out. We Lincoln Point reps came and went, assuming the managers would see to it that we had access when we needed it. If the code ran from midnight to midnight, then Bebe, or anyone with the code on Saturday, could have entered the building during the late afternoon meeting. But even if the code changed at six, which would match what was the closing time during construction, someone with the code would have been able to sneak in before the meeting. In a store like SuperKrafts, with its fully packed shelves and cartons of inventory stacked high and deep, there was no shortage of places to hide.