7 Madness in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  Back in the atrium, we analyzed what we knew and tossed around all the possibilities in rapid fire.

  “A kid from the school up the street?” from Henry.

  “Not if he was driving,” from me.

  “Esther didn’t necessarily see the person get in the car,” from Skip.

  “Why would someone break in and not take anything?”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “It’s possible something will turn up. Or not turn up.”

  “We could sweep for a bug.”

  “Know any national secrets?”

  “How about SuperKrafts secrets?”

  “I know what color balloons are ordered for Saturday.”

  “Maybe one of those door-to-door people found your door open.”

  “And thought, ‘Why not?’ ” from Skip.

  “They usually travel in twos,” from me.

  “True,” from Henry.

  “Did you lock your door when you left this morning?” from Skip.

  I wanted to block my ears. My head was splitting. “Yes, I always lock my door. Does any of this matter?” I asked. “I should just be grateful that no one was hurt and nothing was taken.”

  I should have been grateful, but I wasn’t.

  * * *

  By the time I recovered from what was apparently not a burglary, it was midafternoon and I had no heart or energy for shopping or for much of anything. I should have known my wonderful family and friends would come to my aid.

  Henry offered to pick up the girls and take them to his house. “They’re due for a sleepover,” he said.

  “If you’re sure—”

  “Kay and Bill love having them. Why don’t you take a little down time?”

  Nothing sounded better. And between Bev and June, I had more casseroles and take-out than I could eat.

  Skip promised to go back to talk to Esther himself to try to psych out what aspects of the incident stayed in her mind in a consistent way.

  “Are you sure you’re okay by yourself?” each one asked in one way or another.

  “Yes, it was a non-burglary, remember? Just like the non-earthquake.”

  I suppressed the fact that someone had been murdered during the most recent non-earthquake.

  I puttered around my house, still checking for signs of a stranger’s presence. I looked through my shelves for bookmarks or notes that may have fallen from books that were tampered with. I opened each kitchen cabinet and studied the arrangement of the mugs, the spices, and the boxes of crackers. I opened dresser drawers and counted my pajama sets and pairs of sandals. For a moment, I felt my heart skip—where were my blue terrycloth slippers?—until I remembered they were in the wash. I wished my furniture and rugs could speak to me and tell me if anyone undesirable had passed through today. I wished my clocks would stop ticking.

  Finally, with not another inch of my house left to scrutinize, I poured a large glass of iced tea, gathered up loose periodicals and mail and took everything to my atrium. I seldom allowed myself such a treat, to sit and leaf through magazines and catalogs, to play with the crossword puzzle in the Sunday (it didn’t matter from which week) newspaper. I browsed through catalogs from a kitchen store, a museum, and a “creative toy” company, sipping tea in between.

  Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

  A call from Bev on my landline, checking in. “I figured if you were sleeping, you wouldn’t hear the phone,” she explained.

  I pulled the phone back to my chair, as far as the cord would reach. “I was just reading, feeling a little sleepy.”

  “Good, that’s good. Let yourself sleep. But I have to tell you, the funniest thing happened. Megan Sutley’s car was stolen. Either that or she just dumped it instead of turning it in.”

  “Strange. So you guys are looking for it?” I knew that in her capacity as civilian volunteer, Bev worked on all matters related to lost, stolen, and abandoned cars and was closely connected to leasing and rental companies.

  “No, they found it. It was a rental and they found it even before Megan could report it missing. The car was at the San Jose airport. Where it belongs, sort of, but it wasn’t turned in to the company. You know how the rental companies cruise the lots in case someone abandoned one of their vehicles or dropped it at the wrong spot.” I did now. “So, Megan’s car was just sitting in one of the private lots off the freeway and they tried to call her. But, of course, she’s in the air on the way to JFK. I’m sure they don’t really care since they must have her credit card number and that’s all they care about.”

  “The weirdness won’t quit.”

  “No kidding. Well, I’ll let you rest.”

  We signed off but the call had wakened me a bit. I left the phone on the floor and my mind wandered back to Megan and her strange lie about the errand and her important bead. My head was fuzzy, in the middle ground between sleeping and waking. I took a gulp of tea. It tasted less fruity than usual. Maybe I’d mixed in a caffeinated brand by mistake and the stimulating properties were fighting with the relaxing effects.

  My mind drifted to the start of the day, in SuperKrafts, and my surprise that Maddie had taken Megan’s bead. I floated back, all the way to my first encounter with the shiny crystal. I’d been summoned to a meeting at the last minute, around three o’clock on Sunday. I became bored, or annoyed, or both, and left. I wandered through the store and saw the bead. I seemed to see it now. On the floor. In the retail section. At the border of the area where Craig Palmer was murdered.

  Another neuron (not that I knew what that meant) kicked in. My head snapped up and I remembered with clarity hearing Megan tell Jeanine and me that she’d never been in that part of the store.

  My head fell forward. Confused again. How did the bead from Megan’s cell phone case get into a part of the store where she had never been? Unless she was lying. And unless she had entered the area on Saturday evening, arguing with Craig.

  I heard noises in my atrium. My front door opening and closing. A chair scraping. An earthquake? Another three-point-one? I tried to stand but my legs were limp. I slammed back down on the cushion. Now someone was sitting in front of me. A scent of lavender. Megan? Had she landed already? Was I in New York with her?

  No.

  As muddled as I felt, it became clear to me that Megan Sutley was in my atrium. And it wasn’t good.

  What time was it? I couldn’t keep my head up. I tried to focus on Megan, but I was disoriented.

  Now she was holding up a key. My key. I reached for it, but my arm flopped down on the table.

  “Nice of you to make it so easy, Gerry. Leaving the key in an obvious place.” My head fell again. Megan lifted my chin. “Don’t fight it, Gerry. Have some more tea.”

  The tea. Something in the tea had clouded my brain.

  “Why…” I had a question for my guest, but I couldn’t get the words through my thick lips.

  I heard Megan’s voice. “Why? Because you’re too nosy, Gerry. And too smart. Talking to Loretta, asking about broken glass. At first, I thought if I got out of town with the bead, you’d forget about everything and it would be all over, but I realized that, sooner or later, you’d put it together. I’d be worried about you for the rest of my life.”

  Megan’s voice was sharp. Why wasn’t mine sharp? I tried again to speak but my head and everything in it was heavy. My thoughts were feathery and sticky at the same time. Was Esther on duty? Where was Maddie? How soon would Skip get here?

  Megan’s voice droned on. “Or maybe you want to know why I killed Craig? I’ll tell you. Craig wanted to leave me here. In Lincoln Point. It’s a point all right, like the dot at the end of the world. He knew I loved him and this was his way of rejecting me. A double rejection. A twofer. He wanted to destroy both me and my career. Well, California came through for me.” She laughed. “An earthquake just when I needed one. At least I could salvage my career.”

  “Not from prison,” swam around in my head. I didn’t think I should say it, even
if I could have overcome the puzzling lump in my throat. Something must have come out, however, since Megan got angry.

  “You need to drink more tea,” she said.

  She stood and picked up the glass. She came around to my side of the table and aimed the glass at my mouth. Her face was close to mine. More lavender invaded my nostrils. I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t drink more tea. I summoned all of my strength and raised my arms. I grabbed the glass with both hands and poured whatever strength I had into pushing it toward Megan’s face. I hit her nose and sent tea splashing into her eyes.

  “No,” she screamed. “Look what you’ve done.” She grabbed a napkin and wiped her face. “What have you done?” She ran behind me, toward my kitchen. I heard her mumble, as if her mouth were as clogged up as mine. “Have to wash my eyes…need to get more tea…in the fridge…finish this job…meet this goal. My eyes…can’t see.”

  I fell to the floor and picked up the phone that I’d left there. The activity spurred me on a little bit. I heard water running. Megan in the kitchen, barely audible. I punched Redial. I couldn’t remember the last call I’d made on my landline. I hoped it wasn’t for pizza.

  “Hey, Gerry.” Bev’s voice. “I was just going to call you. Skip is on his way there. He found out that Megan never boarded that flight this afternoon.”

  No kidding. “She’s ’ere,” I said, my voice sounding drugged.

  “What? What’s wrong, Gerry? Gerry? Oh, no!”

  More noise. Megan cursing. I crawled across the atrium, down the entryway, toward my front door. Megan yelling. The door opening. Skip’s voice: “Aunt Gerry, can you hear me? Aunt Gerry?”

  Then nothing.

  Chapter 21

  By the time SuperKrafts had been open two weeks, I could hardly remember when the giant source of crafting goods wasn’t part of our landscape. Leo Murray and Catherine Duncan (minus Video Jeff) were back in New York City, and strangest of all, Bebe Mellon was named manager of the new store.

  As a favor to me for (in her opinion) helping catch the real killer, Catherine Duncan declined to press charges against Bebe and her co-conspirators, who were responsible for the upsetting correspondence slipped under her door.

  “Everyone’s suffered enough,” she’d rightly said.

  It had taken the brilliant detectives of the LPPD a little while to extract Megan’s confession. She’d stolen Leo’s car because it was a distinctive blue that someone would remember, making Leo blameworthy for whatever she did while driving it, thus buying her a little time. She needn’t have bothered, since Esther was lucky if she could distinguish blue from green. Megan had dumped her own car at the airport and taken a cab back to SuperKrafts, counting on Leo to have stayed put at the store. On such a busy first day, she was safe in that assumption. She’d entered my home and spiked the pitcher of tea in my fridge. No wonder we’d seen no signs of burglary.

  Now Megan was safely in jail in Lincoln Point. What irony. If she thought the town was boring when she was a free woman, what did she think of it now?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the details of what Megan had used to spike my tea, but Skip was determined to tell me.

  “You’ll just ask me a week from now, and I’ll have forgotten,” he said.

  I listened, along with the rest of the family and friends assembled in my living room, while Skip described a mixture of a roofie, sleeping pills, and alcohol. In a large enough dose, the combination was lethal. Megan had come back to be sure it worked.

  “The doctors who pumped your stomach said it was a good thing you’d had enough to eat, and also you have a pretty strong constitution,” Bev said.

  “I knew that.”

  “I thought they fixed it so that any clear liquid turns blue when a roofie is dropped into it?” Henry said.

  “Only some formulas. There are generic versions that don’t have that property,” June said. “I saw it on TV.” June was now the proud owner of a miniature police station, thanks to Maddie’s idea.

  “So she’ll think of Uncle Skip whenever she sees it,” Maddie had said.

  Eventually, all the girls in the extended family, including Maddie and me, found a time to go shopping together. We’d come home with enough clothes, shoes, and accessories to outfit a seriously large bridal party. Even Maddie chose a dress—a blue silk sleeveless with a wide gold belt, sparkly, of course, and identical to Taylor’s dress, the same style in fuchsia. I thought I’d never want to look at a shiny bead again, but I got over it once the girls modeled the very “in” creations.

  With less than two weeks to go, there seemed to be no end to wedding talk. Who would sit where? Had all the music been selected yet? Was there time to add another dessert to the menu?

  Henry leaned in to me on the sofa. “Once this wedding is over, we should talk,” he said.

  “Don’t we talk?”

  “I mean really talk.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Not unless you’d mind one more shopping trip for wedding clothes.”

  I looked at my BFF and saw in his eyes exactly what he meant. We inched closer and clasped hands.

  “Do you think we can keep it below one hundred guests?” I asked.

  He smiled and kissed my cheek. I knew it was time to call Loretta at the KenTucky Inn. I wondered if she’d be willing to take her sign down for just one afternoon.

  Gerry’s Miniature Tips

  Gerry shares her tips for making dollhouse furniture and accessories from everyday objects.

  Lollipops

  Don’t toss that old hairbrush away. If it has the kind of bristle that’s a stiff plastic rod with a little “knob” on top, cut to size and put a few of them in a holder.

  Glasses, containers

  Use a colored or transparent stiff drinking straw cut to size for a drinking glass (no bottom needed unless you’re going to show it tipped over), or as a holder for lollipops (above) or pencils (toothpicks).

  Purses

  Use binder clips! Remove the metal prongs. (It’s easier than you think—simply squeeze together the ends that run along the track of the clip and they’ll slide out.) Cover the body of the clip with fabric of your choice, or (the easy way) buy clips with designs already printed on the metal. Add a handle: a chain or a thin strip of leather. You’re ready to go shopping!

  Bathroom scale

  A disposable razor makes an excellent start for a doctor’s-type scale. Stand it on its end and glue to a base of the same color. Add a strip of numbers to the top along the razor, either from printables or drawn yourself.

  Springs

  The small springs found in ballpoint pens have many uses. Stretch one a bit and attach it to a screen door for a realistic look; place it on the floor of a child’s room as a Slinky. You can also bend it into an arch and glue the ends down for another typical Slinky look.

  From Stickers to Props

  Check the sticker aisles of office supply and crafts stores. Many have a 3-D look and can be used as is. Flip-flops are a common sticker item and can simply be stuck to the floor of a dollhouse bathroom, a porch, or the towel in a beach scene. Give three-dimensional musical instrument stickers extra depth by gluing to a piece of foam board, cut to shape. Lean a guitar against the wall in the retro-hippie’s room.

  Charms to Go

  See above, on stickers, and apply to charms. Even more designs await in charms. But, since charms are most often silver, gold, or pewter, they’re better when painted, for a more realistic look. Also, jump rings and other jewelry findings may need to be removed or hidden.

  Toys to Go

  Many types of toys and games make great material for furniture. Dominoes, for example, offer twenty-eight identical blocks that can be used to build the familiar style of open-work entertainment center with shelves for books, electronic equipment, or objects of art. They come in different colors, and the dots can be painted to match or covered with paper or fabric. Some small toys, like cars, balls, and board-game tokens can be placed
in a nursery or child’s room as is, with no additional labor.

  About the Author

  Margaret Grace, author of six previous novels in the Miniature series, is the pen name of Camille Minichino. She is also the author of short stories, articles, and twelve mysteries in two other series. She is a lifelong miniaturist, as well as board member and past president of NorCal Sisters in Crime. Minichino is on the staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and she teaches science at Golden Gate University and writing at Bay Area schools. Visit her at www.minichino.com and on Facebook.

  MYSTERIES BY CAMILLE MINICHINO

  Miniature Mysteries, written as Margaret Grace

  Murder in Miniature

  Mayhem in Miniature

  Malice in Miniature

  Mourning in Miniature

  Monster in Miniature

  Mix-up in Miniature

  Madness in Miniature

  Periodic Table Mysteries, written as Camille Minichino

  The Hydrogen Murder

  The Helium Murder

  The Lithium Murder

  The Beryllium Murder

  The Boric Acid Murder

  The Carbon Murder

  The Nitrogen Murder

  The Oxygen Murder

  Mathematical Mysteries, written as Ada Madison

  The Square Root of Murder

  The Probability of Murder

  A Function of Murder

  The Quotient of Murder