The Dollhouse Murders

by Betty Ren Wright

  Later, after they’d driven Ellen and her bike home in the car, Aunt Clare said, “I hope you don’t think I was criticizing your mother, Amy,” she said. “I know I’m too blunt. The thing is, it never occurred to me to be afraid. Tonight I wanted you and Ellen to see the raccoons—if I’d thought it was a burglar, I wouldn’t have let you come with me.”

  “I didn’t think you were criticizing,” Amy said. “I know my mom worries about things a lot. She can’t help it.” She remembered how daring she’d felt, walking through the darkness toward the unknown. “I really like solving problems myself. Being independent.”

  Still later, as Aunt Clare rinsed the supper plates and wiped the vinyl tablecloth, she said, “Your sister must learn to be independent, too. She has to become her own person.”

  “Oh, no.” Amy was shocked. “Louann’s like a little kid. She’ll always be that way. The doctor said so.”

  “I know.” Aunt Clare rinsed the dishcloth and draped it over a faucet to dry. “But, even little kids can learn to help themselves, and they’re happier because of it.” She turned and smiled at Amy. “I’ve enjoyed having you and Ellen here today,” she said. “You’ve made me feel about twelve years old myself. And speaking of ripe old ages, don’t you have a birthday coming up soon?”

  “Next Friday. Ellen’s is the week after.”

  Aunt Clare clapped her hands. “How about a party?” she asked. “A birthday party for both of you. Maybe—a pizza party! You and Ellen can invite some friends.”

  Amy could hardly believe her ears. A double birthday party—exactly what she’d suggested to Ellen yesterday.

  “We’ll make the pizza ourselves. I’m the best pizza lady you’ll ever meet.” Aunt Clare gave Amy a quick hug. “I want this to be a visit you’ll remember.”

  Curled up in her high, rather lumpy bed that night, Amy wondered if every day with Aunt Clare would be as exciting as this one. Yesterday she’d been miserable. Today she had all kinds of things to think about. Ellen’s friendship. The birthday party. Aunt Clare herself—wise, brave, unpredictable. The dollhouse.

  Amy’s eyes closed, and at once, in the darkness behind her eyelids, the dollhouse appeared, as vividly as if it were there in the bedroom. It’s waiting, Amy thought hazily. But waiting for what? She sank into uneasy sleep.

  7.

  “They Were Murdered?”

  Most of the time, Amy enjoyed her vacation from sister- sitting. No one begged her to play baby games. No one insisted on going along every time she went out. No one hung around listening, asking questions, interrupting when Ellen came over after school. No one turned the television on full blast and then wandered away, or complained if Amy curled up with a book for hours.

  Planning the double birthday party was a special treat. “Ellen and I’ve invited four girls to the party,” Amy reported to Aunt Clare at dinner Tuesday evening. “There were a couple of others we wanted, but they’re busy.”

  “Four is fine.” Her aunt poured extra sauce on Amy’s spaghetti and passed her a wicker basket filled with garlic bread. “I’ll do the shopping Thursday. I’ll get Italian sausage and pepperoni and mozzarella cheese and mushrooms. . . .”

  “Terrific! I called Mom and told her about the party. I said it was just going to be a few kids from our class. She’ll make a birthday cake.” There was no use mentioning how coolly her mother had taken the news of the party. “I’ll bake a cake after Louann goes to bed,” was what she’d said. “Her feelings would be hurt if she knew.”

  Amy wound long strands of spaghetti around her fork. “It’s really nice of you to have this party,” she said. “Ellen thinks so, too.”

  “Nonsense.” There were tired lines around Aunt Clare’s eyes that vanished when she smiled. “You’re doing me a favor,” she said. “I told your father the truth when I said I needed company for a while.”

  “Did you ever want to get married and have kids?” Aunt Clare would have been a great mother.

  Amy was sorry at once that she’d asked. The tired lines came back, and for a moment her aunt looked old. “Most women want that at some time in their lives,” she said shortly. “I’m no different.”

  “But you decided to have an exciting career instead,” Amy suggested.

  “When Grandma and Grandpa Treloar were—when they died, I went to work,” Aunt Clare said. “I didn’t have much choice. If I’d met the right person, I might have married and had a family, and a career, too. But I didn’t.”

  Amy decided to change the subject. “Did Grandma and Grandpa die in a car crash?”

  But that, too, was the wrong question. “It’s all in the past, Amy,” Aunt Clare said. She stared at the remaining spaghetti on her plate as if she couldn’t remember what it was. “Obviously your father hasn’t talked to you about your grandparents, and, frankly, I don’t want to. That whole scene is something I’d like to forget. If possible.” She crumpled her napkin beside her plate. “Have you had enough to eat? I think I’ll just rinse the dishes and turn in early, if you don’t mind. I’ve been cleaning and sorting all day—I’m exhausted.”

  Amy jumped up. “I’ll wash the dishes,” she offered. “You go to bed.”

  For the rest of the evening, while Amy washed the dishes, did her homework, and watched a sitcom on television, Aunt Clare’s suddenly taut, unhappy face was there in front of her. Why should Aunt Clare refuse to talk about how Grandma and Grandpa Treloar died?

  Amy decided to find out, one way or another.

  “Ask your father and mother,” Ellen said the next afternoon after school. “They’d know.”

  “Of course they would,” Amy replied. She and Ellen were wheeling their bikes up the steep hill beyond the junior high school. “But they won’t tell me. They’ve always changed the subject when I’ve mentioned Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa. Something bad must have happened to them—I’m sure of it. You should have seen Aunt Clare’s face when I asked her.”

  “Still, if you asked your father. . . .”

  Amy shook her head. “I’m going to play detective and find out for myself. I know the year they died—1952—and I’m going to go through the obituaries in the Claiborne News for that year and see what I can learn. If it was an unusual accident, maybe there’ll be a news article about it, too. Want to help me look?”

  Ellen made a face. “That’ll take hours, Amy,” she said. “Going through stacks of old newspapers. Reading about dead people. Ugh!”

  Amy admitted she had a point. “Go with me to the library just this once,” she suggested. “Just today. We’ll look for one hour—and if we don’t find anything, I’ll look by myself some other time.”

  “Well, okay,” Ellen gave in.

  The girls left their bikes at the rack in front of the library and made their way through the reading room to the information desk. Amy explained that she wanted to look at the 1952 issues of the Claiborne News.

  “The films, you mean.” Miss Tatlock, the assistant librarian, acted as if the request were a routine one. “Have you used a viewer before?”

  “No.” Amy rolled her eyes at Ellen. What were they getting into? She’d expected to sit down with a stack of newspapers and start paging through them.

  “Come along, then, I’ll show you. This way—the audiovisual materials are in the back room.” She led the way around the reference area, and soon Amy was seated in front of a screen about the size of the television screen at home. Ellen sat beside her, with her chair pulled up as close as possible.

  Miss Tatlock went to a file cabinet and pulled out four small cardboard cartons. She opened one and took out a spool of film.

  “Now,” she said, “all of the January 1952 Claiborne News is on this spool. You thread it through the machine, like this. You move it ahead fast with this knob, or rewind it with this one. Use the knob at the side to move ahead one page at a time. What are you looking for, exactly?”

  Amy gulped. “Obituaries.”

  Miss Tatlock gave her a puzzled look. “
Well, they’re on the second-to-last page of the paper now, and I bet they were there thirty years ago, too,” she said. “Let’s find out.” She turned the knob at the side of the viewer five times in quick succession, and whole pages of the paper slid by on the screen. “There,” she said. “Just as I thought. Very little changes in the News except the headlines. Now, just look over the page, and keep turning till you find what you want. If you don’t find it in the first four films—”she paused, but Amy kept her eyes on the screen—“just call me and I’ll get the films for the rest of the year.”

  “Okay,” Amy said. “Thanks a lot.”

  She waited until Miss Tatlock had gone back to her desk, then began turning the side knob furiously. Pages of the second January edition flashed by until she came again to the small print of the obituaries. There were no Treloars mentioned.

  “This isn’t going to take long,” Amy said. She skipped through January, removed the film, and rethreaded the machine. February and March went by in quick succession.

  “Hey, turn back to that first page,” Ellen said, halfway through April. “Look at that headline: ‘Flash Flood Sweeps Away Birthday Celebration.’ Let’s read about that.”

  The story told of a flood that had covered the west side of Claiborne with five feet of water. It had come so suddenly that people were barely able to escape. Marilyn Thompson’s guests at her tenth birthday party had had to run for their lives, and her gifts had been carried away or ruined before she had a chance to open the packages.

  “Poor kid,” Ellen said. “I bet she feels—felt—terrible.”

  “She’d be forty years old now,” Amy said. It was an amazing thought . . . as if they’d peeked into another world that no longer existed.

  “Spooky,” Ellen commented. “I’ll go out and ask the librarian for the rest of 1952. You can keep on looking.”

  She started toward the reference area but stopped when Amy gasped.

  “What is it? Did you find something?”

  Amy nodded. With a trembling finger she pointed at the screen. “Another front-page story,” she said thickly. “Oh, Ellen, look.”

  Ellen hurried back and leaned over Amy’s shoulder, her eyes widening. “ ‘Prominent Couple Murdered in Their Home,’ ” she read aloud. “ ‘Five-year-old Grandson Found Hidden and Asleep in Closet.’ ” She stopped reading and stared at Amy. “Were those your great-grandparents? They were murdered?”

  “And that’s my father,” Amy said, her voice quivering. “No wonder he never talks about how they died. My very own father was the five-year-old boy who was in the closet while his grandparents were being killed.”

  8.

  “I Don’t Believe in Ghosts”

  The story was terse and ugly. The Treloars’ granddaughter Clare had discovered the body of Margaret Treloar in the parlor when she returned home after attending a motion picture with friends. Police were called, and they found James Treloar, fatally shot, on his bed in the couple’s upstairs bedroom. The Treloars’ little grandson, Paul, was at first believed to have been kidnapped, but when the police searched the house, they found him curled up fast asleep in a small wood-storage closet next to the fireplace in the parlor. There were no suspects.

  “How terrible for Aunt Clare!” Amy exclaimed. “Think what it would be like, Ellen, coming home and finding them like that. . . .”

  Stunned, she turned to the next day’s paper. There were interviews with the chief of police, the cleaning woman who came in three days a week to help the Treloars, and the handyman who took care of the yard and some of the household chores. The police chief said the search for clues was continuing. The Treloars’ house was under guard, and the grandchildren were staying with relatives while funeral arrangements were made.

  The murders were still front-page news on the third day. “ ‘Victims’ Granddaughter in Shock,’ ” Amy read. “Ellen, listen to this. ‘Clare Treloar, 18, is under a doctor’s care after being told last evening that her friend Thomas Keaton was killed in a one-car accident on highway 131 the night of her grandparents’ murder. Keaton, who moved to Claiborne a year ago, was identified by a friend. His car was traveling north at a high rate of speed when it left the highway and hit a tree. The accident was discovered by passersby early yesterday morning.’ ”

  “That’s terrible,” Ellen breathed. “Her boyfriend and her grandparents killed in one night!”

  Amy’s eyes were wet. “And guess who keeps asking her dumb questions about it. Me! Oh, Ellen!” She was remembering the conversation at the dinner table the night before. “I even asked her why she didn’t get married and have children of her own. How could I do that?”

  “You didn’t know. It’s really something, though. All these years she’s been faithful to her lost love. She probably cries herself to sleep every night.”

  Amy tried to imagine Aunt Clare—so brisk and merry one minute, so touchy and remote the next—crying into her pillow.

  “Maybe,” she said. “At least, this explains why the dolls and the dollhouse bother her so much. They bring back a lot of really terrible memories.”

  “Darn!” Ellen looked at her watch. “I have to go home right now. We eat dinner early on Wednesdays because my dad bowls. I hate to leave. Are you going to read more?”

  Amy nodded. “I want to find out if they caught the murderer,” she said. “Maybe the police found some clues in the next couple of days.” She walked with Ellen as far as the information desk and requested films of the May and June 1952 papers. “I’ll call you tonight and tell you what I find out,” she promised.

  “Won’t your aunt be wondering where you are?”

  “She doesn’t worry as long as I get home before dark. I can make it if I stay another fifteen minutes or so.” Amy waved good-bye to her friend and then followed Miss Tatlock back to the audiovisual room.

  “Can’t you find what you’re looking for?” Miss Tatlock gathered up the first four tapes. “I can give you the whole year if you wish.”

  Amy said no. If the rest of the story of her great-grandparents’ murders wasn’t in the May and June papers, she’d have to come back another day. Hurriedly, she skimmed through the films, but except for several short articles regretting that the police had been unable to solve the case, there was no more information until the last week in June. There it was reported that Clare Treloar was moving to Chicago and her little brother, Paul, was going to live with cousins.

  Riding home through the quiet streets and out into the countryside, Amy thought about what it had been like for Aunt Clare. How lonely she must have been during those first months in Chicago! Amy felt a wave of homesickness for her own family. It was hard to believe she’d only been away from them for a few days.

  When she reached the house, her aunt was in the kitchen, spooning a fragrant sauce over browned pieces of chicken. “I hope you’re starved,” she said cheerfully. “This is my favorite recipe, but it’s too much trouble to make if I’m just cooking for myself.”

  “I could eat the whole panful,” Amy said.

  All through the delicious dinner, Aunt Clare chatted about her plans for the house. Today she’d arranged for an appraiser to come in and look over the furniture. When that was done, she would set a day for an auction.

  “I’ll put aside what I want, and your father and mother can take what they want, and we’ll get rid of everything else at the sale. What a relief that’ll be!” She grinned at Amy. “This probably seems pretty dull stuff to you, but I’m going to feel like a new woman when this house is sold. Meanwhile, I’m glad we’re going to have a party before we say good-bye to the old place.”

  “I want to go home tomorrow after school and pick up some tapes and my tape deck,” Amy said.

  Aunt Clare bit her lip. “Oh-oh!” she exclaimed. “I was supposed to tell you to call Louann as soon as you got home. She called and wanted to talk to you.”

  “Was anything wrong?” Amy felt a familiar twinge of guilt.

  “I don’t think so.
” But Aunt Clare sounded doubtful. “It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? She always seems kind of—gruff.”

  “She doesn’t mean to sound that way,” Amy said. “It’s just that when she has something on her mind, she doesn’t think about anything else.”

  Aunt Clare smiled. “You’re an understanding sister.”

  “No, I’m not,” Amy said, turning red. Was Aunt Clare being sarcastic? “I’d better call right now,” she mumbled and hurried down the hall to the phone.

  Louann must have been waiting. Her deep “Hello” broke into the first ring, and she began reciting her news as soon as she was sure it was Amy at the other end of the line.

  “I know how to weave,” she said. “I made a potholder.”

  “That’s terrific, Louann. Did you learn how at school?”

  “Mrs. Peck taught me. She’s really smart. She taught me and she taught Marisa.”

  Marisa was Mrs. Peck’s granddaughter. She was a year older than Louann and a classmate at the Stadler School for Exceptional Children. Marisa stayed with her grandmother after school until her mother came to pick her up.

  “My potholder is prettier than Marisa’s,” Louann went on. “I’ll make you one if you want me to.”

  “Great,” Amy said. “You can make one for Aunt Clare, too.”

  Silence. “Just you,” Louann said finally. “When are you coming home, Amy?”

  “Well, I’m stopping in tomorrow afternoon for a few minutes,” Amy said. “I have to pick up some tapes for the—some tapes I want. I’ll see you then, okay? Tell Mom.”

  “Okay.” Louann liked carrying messages. “Goodbye.” The receiver clicked.

  I shouldn’t have told her I was coming, Amy thought. I could have picked up the tapes while she was at Mrs. Peck’s. She’ll just get upset again when I leave. But she felt better for having talked to her sister. If Louann was having fun with Mrs. Peck and Marisa, Amy didn’t have to feel so guilty about being away.

  She decided to call Ellen before doing her homework. “I checked all of May and June,” she said in a low voice. “They didn’t find out who did the murders.”