The Dollhouse Murders

by Betty Ren Wright

  The telephone rang, and Amy heard Louann run, heavy-footed, to answer it.

  “Amy, TELEPHONE!”

  If only she wouldn’t bellow! Amy raced downstairs, wondering if Aunt Clare had changed her mind.

  “Hi, it’s me. Ellen.”

  Ellen! Amy hadn’t expected to hear from her again.

  “My mother’s taking my aunt and uncle to visit some friends later this afternoon. I know it’ll be too late for a picnic, but maybe you can come over for a couple of hours. We can make brownies or something. If you don’t have anything else to do, that is.”

  Like taking care of Louann. Ellen hadn’t said the words, but Amy knew what she meant.

  “My mom doesn’t usually like me to have friends over when she’s out, but she said one friend would be okay,” Ellen went on. Another pause. She might as well have said it right out—Retarded sister not wanted.

  Amy pushed down the resentment. She shouldn’t blame Ellen for feeling the way she felt herself.

  “The thing is, I’m going to stay with my aunt for a while,” Amy said. “It’s on the way to Rainbow Falls—north of town. I’m leaving in a few minutes.” She had an idea and decided to take a chance that Aunt Clare would welcome a second visitor. “Why don’t you bike out there?” she suggested. “I found something terrific in the attic last night—wait till you see it!”

  Ellen agreed at once. “You mean you’re going to live with your aunt? Just you?”

  “I’m only staying a few days.”

  The girls talked a couple of minutes more, and Ellen promised to be out at Aunt Clare’s around three. When Amy put down the phone and turned around, she jumped. Louann was right behind her. Her feet were planted far apart, and her flushed face showed anger and hurt.

  “What’s terrific, Amy?” she demanded. “What’s terrific at Aunt Clare’s?”

  “Nothing.” Amy ducked around her sister and ran back upstairs. She didn’t want to look into those accusing eyes. She didn’t want to think about how much Louann would love the dollhouse.

  She’ll see it someday. But not now. This is going to be my private time.

  Minutes later, as she was about to close her suitcase, Louann opened the bedroom door and walked in. She carried a vase she’d made at school.

  “Here.” She laid the vase on the bed. “For your bedroom at that place,” she said.

  The vase was an olive jar, covered with silver paint and pasted-on pictures of roses. It was one of Louann’s dearest treasures.

  “You don’t want me to take that,” Amy protested. “It belongs on your dresser.”

  “Take it.” Louann stalked out of the room but glanced over her shoulder. “Bring it back when you come home.”

  “Oh, I will,” Amy said. “Thanks a lot.” She nestled the vase into the clothes in the duffel bag so it couldn’t be broken. “You’re going to have a great time at Mrs. Peck’s,” she called. “You’ll see.”

  The only answer was the sound of scrunching springs as Louann threw herself across her bed.

  Amy zipped up the duffel bag and picked up her shoulder bag. She hurried downstairs and out the front door. Her father was cutting the grass, but he shut off the mower when he saw her coming.

  “Can we go right now, Dad?”

  “This minute?” He smiled. “Okay. Put your bike into the car trunk and we’ll go. Have you said good-bye to your mother?”

  “I will.”

  She brought her bike from the garage and then went back into the house. Her mother was at the kitchen table, reading a book of Italian recipes and drinking coffee. She always read recipe books when she was upset.

  “I’ll call you later.” Amy bent and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Dad’s taking me out to Aunt Clare’s now.”

  Mrs. Treloar nodded. “I still don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t see why you’re so eager to get away from us. We had a disagreement yesterday, but. . . .” She looked up.

  Amy moved toward the door. “It’s not that I want to get away from you.” Not exactly, anyway.

  “We love you very much, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Louann loves you, too.”

  “I know.” Amy was sure she’d scream if her mother said one more word. “I’ll call tomorrow. Good-bye, Mom.”

  She ran out the back door and down the steps, almost stumbling in her haste. Her father was in the car, waiting. She slid in on the passenger’s side with a sigh of relief.

  “All set?” He backed down the driveway.

  “All set.” If those words meant “Do you feel great about leaving?” she really wasn’t set at all. But if they meant “Do you want to go?” then she was all set indeed.

  5.

  “Dolls Can’t Move by Themselves”

  “This is my room,” Amy announced. She led Ellen into the large corner bedroom Aunt Clare had prepared for her. The fragrance of lemon oil and the breeze blowing in from the fields almost hid the musty smell of the dark red carpet.

  “My aunt had to throw away the quilt that was on the bed,” Amy said. “It was full of moths.” She swung open the doors of a gigantic wardrobe in one corner. “How’s this for a crazy closet?”

  “I love it!” Ellen went to a window and looked out. “It’s really funny not seeing neighbors,” she said. “I’ve never been in a country house before.” Amy joined her just as Aunt Clare came out the back door with a garbage bag and crossed the yard. The cover of the can next to the garage was tight, and they watched her struggle with it for a moment.

  “The covers have to fit well because of the raccoons,” Amy said, repeating a detail Aunt Clare had mentioned during lunch. “They come almost every night and try to get at the garbage.”

  Ellen shivered and rolled her eyes.

  “Now the attic,” Amy said. “I’ve been saving the best for last. Wait’ll you see what’s up there. Guess!”

  “Bats and spiders,” Ellen said. “Why don’t you just tell me about it?” But she followed willingly enough as Amy led the way back down the hall and switched on the attic light. The stairs creaked as they climbed them, side by side.

  At the top, Ellen stopped and looked around at the clutter stacked in front of dusty, gabled windows. “This could be the set for a spooky movie,” she commented, but Amy hardly heard her. She ran across the attic, pulling her friend behind her.

  “Look!” She pointed at the dollhouse in the corner. “What do you think of that?”

  Ellen was as stunned as Amy had been the evening before. “Oh, Amy,” she breathed. “Look at—at the tiny railings on the porch, and the curtains, and the little curvy pieces above the windows. It’s perfect!”

  “It’s this house,” Amy said. “Watch.” She ran her fingers down the side until she found the snap that held the facade in place. There was a small click, and the treasures inside were revealed.

  “Wow!” Ellen didn’t know what to look at first. She pointed at the little organ in the front parlor and then at the wardrobe in the corner bedroom. “And the dining room chairs!” she exclaimed. “Each one has its own needlepoint covering.”

  Amy used a fingernail to open the sideboard in the dining room, and both girls gasped at the sight of tiny dishes and silver serving pieces stacked on the shelves inside.

  “Look at that teapot!”

  “Sugar tongs!”

  “Amy, I can’t believe these salt and pepper shakers. They’re so tiny, they look like they might disappear.”

  For a half hour the girls crouched in front of the house. Finally Ellen leaned back with a sigh. “Your aunt must have been crazy about this,” she said. “I wonder if there were any dolls with the house when she got it. That’s the only thing that’s missing.”

  Amy looked around. On the floor beside the house was a small wooden box with a landscape painted on it. She lifted the lid. Inside, lying in a row, were four dolls, the tallest about six inches high. The man wore a black suit; he had a white mustache, and tiny rimless spectacles rode on hi
s nose. The woman was in blue silk, her gray hair drawn up on top of her head in a bun. The other two dolls were a young girl with long brown hair, wearing a dress of palest pink, and a tiny boy in a blue sailor suit.

  “Here they are,” Amy said. “This must be Grandma and Grandpa Treloar, and here’s Aunt Clare when she was fifteen.” She picked up the boy doll. “And this is my father,” she said. “Look, Ellen, the arms and legs are jointed, and the hair is real. Did you ever see such perfect little dolls?”

  “Never.” Ellen sighed. “The Aunt Clare doll looks kind of like you, Amy.”

  She and Amy picked up the dolls, one by one, and put them on the dining room chairs, bending the delicate limbs so that the figures sat primly at the table. Then they took tiny dishes from the sideboard and set a place in front of each doll. They were concentrating so hard that they didn’t hear Aunt Clare come up behind them.

  “The girl doll should be up in her bedroom,” she said.

  Amy’s hand jerked, knocking the grandfather off his chair.

  “She was usually sent to her room for impertinence about halfway through dinner, as I remember.”

  “Every night?” Amy asked, amazed.

  Aunt Clare shrugged. “I don’t suppose it was every night. It just seems that way now. Come on, kids, haven’t you seen enough of this old thing by now? I’ve made some fudge, if anybody’s interested.”

  “We’re interested.” Amy put the grandfather doll back at the table with his family, and Ellen straightened the tiny candlesticks.

  “I didn’t know there were dolls to go with the house,” Amy said. “Grandma Treloar thought of everything, didn’t she?”

  “I guess she did.” Aunt Clare was already at the top of the stairs. “Coming?”

  Amy noticed how her aunt’s voice changed when she spoke of the dollhouse. She sounded as if she were angry but wanted to hide it. It would be better to talk about something else, she decided. She tried to catch Ellen’s eye, but her friend was chattering excitedly as she followed Aunt Clare down the attic stairs.

  “I wish someone would make a doll that looked like me,” she said. “And a house that looked like our house. I’d keep it forever—right in my living room.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Aunt Clare said. “If it made you unhappy, you’d try to forget it existed—which is, frankly, what I’d like to do. Please.” Her smile didn’t quite take the sting out of the words. “Now, how about some cookies with that fudge? I did some baking this morning, in honor of my houseguest.”

  “We’d better wash up first,” Amy said. She grabbed Ellen’s hand and led her down the hall to the bathroom, while Aunt Clare continued to the first floor.

  “Is something the matter with your aunt?” Ellen demanded, when the door closed behind them. “She sounded mad all of a sudden.”

  “I don’t know,” Amy said. “My mom says she’s a changeable person, but she’s really nice. There’s just something about the dollhouse that makes her really jumpy. I’m not going to mention it again. I told you—she thinks it was a babyish gift for a fifteen-year-old.”

  “Well, I think it was a wonderful gift,” Ellen said. “Anybody who doesn’t think so is—” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  Amy wanted to defend her aunt, but secretly she agreed with Ellen. After so many years had passed, you’d think Aunt Clare could forgive her grandparents for giving her a dollhouse instead of a phonograph.

  “I have to go back to the attic,” Amy said suddenly. “I left the house standing open.”

  “What’s the difference?” Ellen pulled her hair back like the Clare doll’s and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “The furniture will get dusty. All those rugs and teeny pillows and lace curtains.” She washed her hands and dried them. “You go on downstairs. I’ll be with you in a minute.” She grinned at Ellen’s doubtful expression. “Aunt Clare doesn’t bite,” she said. “She’s great—just don’t talk about the dollhouse. And don’t start eating the fudge until I get there.”

  Before Ellen could argue, Amy left the bathroom and hurried back to the attic stairs. She flicked the switch that lit the overhanging bulb at the top. As she climbed, she found herself walking on tiptoe. The silence was different when she was alone.

  Beyond the circle of light, the furniture, boxes, and trunks loomed large. A sound, like the scurrying of a mouse, made Amy catch her breath. It came from the dollhouse corner. Ellen and Aunt Clare seemed very far away.

  Just close up the house and go downstairs, silly, she scolded. But she had to force herself to walk across the attic. The sound came again—a small, frightening scratch.

  Biting her lip, Amy stepped into the shadows around the dollhouse. In spite of the lingering warmth of the day, the corner seemed cold. She dropped to her knees in front of the house and swung the facade. For a moment, before the wall clicked into place, she stared into the dim rooms. Then she was on her feet and running back across the attic and down the stairs.

  “Amy! Your aunt’s calling us—” Ellen was in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. She stepped back, startled, as Amy burst out. “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

  Nothing,” Amy said. “Nothing’s the matter. It’s just creepy up there when you’re all alone. Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

  She didn’t want to think about the attic anymore today. She didn’t want to talk about the dollhouse. If she did, she’d have to figure out how one of the dolls—Grandma Treloar it was—could be standing in the parlor, when Amy was practically certain they’d left the whole family sitting around the dining room table.

  Dolls can’t move by themselves, she told herself, and felt goose bumps pop up on her arms.

  6.

  “A Visit You’ll Remember”

  “I should go home,” Ellen said. “I told my mother I’d be back by seven.” But she didn’t move. They’d been sitting out on the front-porch steps for nearly an hour. The cookies-and-fudge snack had expanded to include sandwiches and milk, while the night closed in around them. For the last twenty minutes they’d been watching two rabbits—small, dark mounds with pointed ears—foraging for their supper in the deepening twilight.

  “We’ll drive you home when you’re ready,” Aunt Clare said. “No rush.”

  “It’s so peaceful here.” Ellen sounded dreamy. “I’d love to live in the country—even if it’s kind of spooky.”

  Spooky. The image of the grandmother doll standing in the dollhouse parlor flashed through Amy’s mind. What would Ellen say if she knew about that? Amy swept the image away.

  “I like the country, too,” she agreed. “Look! Did you see that bird swoop across the yard?”

  “That bird was a bat,” Aunt Clare said. She chuckled as both girls ducked their heads. “You’re right, Ellen, it is peaceful. But there’s a lot of work in a big old country house like this one. It’s plumb full of things—and I’ve promised Amy’s father that they’ll all be gone before I head back to the city.”

  “Why don’t you find a job in Claiborne?” Amy asked. “Then you could live here all the time.” She pictured herself visiting Aunt Clare whenever she felt like it.

  “I belong in Chicago,” Aunt Clare said. Her voice was warm and relaxed, not at all the way it had sounded when she talked about the dollhouse. “When I get this job done here—the house emptied and sold—I’ll be ready to tackle Chicago again. At least, I hope so. But right now, I’m grateful to be here.” She sounded as if she were thinking aloud.

  Crash! A sound of falling metal shattered the night quiet. The two rabbits vanished into the bushes that edged the lawn. Amy felt a prickle of hairs at the back of her neck.

  “Those darned raccoons!” Aunt Clare jumped to her feet. “Now they aren’t even waiting till we go to bed! Wait here, girls, I’m going inside to get a flashlight. Maybe we can scare them for a change.”

  She tiptoed across the porch and returned in a few moments with the biggest flashlight Amy had ever seen.

  “Come o
n. And don’t make a sound. Those rascals are probably so busy, they won’t hear us coming if we’re careful.”

  Smothering nervous giggles, Amy and Ellen fell in line behind Aunt Clare, and they all tiptoed around the side of the house. The side yard was black except for patches of light outside the parlor windows.

  “Stay close,” Aunt Clare murmured. “I don’t want to use the flash until we’re nearer.”

  “What if it isn’t a raccoon?” Ellen whispered. “What if it’s a burglar trying to get into the house?”

  Aunt Clare didn’t answer. Ahead, there was a scuffling and a clanking of metal. Amy reached back and found Ellen’s hand. “It’s okay,” she said.

  “Now!” Aunt Clare switched on the flashlight. On the ground sat a large raccoon, its forelegs wrapped around a garbage can to hold it steady. A smaller raccoon was on top of the can, tugging at the cover. Another can lay on its side, the cover still on.

  For a second the intruders stared, bright-eyed and terrified, through their dark, furry masks. Then the bigger one scrambled up and raced into the darkness behind the garage. The can tipped over, and the smaller partner somersaulted to the ground. With an outraged squeal, it ran off, too.

  Aunt Clare laughed gleefully. “We gave them a little of their own medicine!” she exclaimed. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone for a few nights—though I doubt it.” She swung the light back toward the girls and grinned at their expressions. “Ellen, how do you like country life now?”

  “I still love it,” Ellen replied at once. “I just can’t stop shaking, that’s all.”

  “Amy, how about you?”

  “My mom would have called the police if she’d heard a noise in the dark like that. She’d never have gone out by herself. I guess I wouldn’t have, either—but it was fun!”

  “Your mother and I react differently to a number of things,” Aunt Clare said, leading the way back to the house. “When you’ve lived alone, you get used to solving your problems by yourself. You can’t always wait for help.”