“She says she has no uncle,” Henry said, wasting no time.
My heart sank. No uncle for Alicia meant no brother for Varena. “How about an aunt with a deep voice?” I asked.
We gave ourselves a moment to laugh about the fantasy of a masculine-looking lady who sang baritone.
“Alicia—she’s a fashion designer by the way—says there’s no family beyond her own brother and their ex-spouses. Varena was the last of her generation.”
Henry seemed embarrassed to tell me, but it wasn’t his fault.
“I’m stumped,” I said.
“Maybe you did—”
I held up my hand. “Please don’t say I misunderstood.” I relaxed and took a long breath. “Did Alicia leave you with any useful tidbit?” My tone was harsher than it should have been.
“Not that I can think of.”
I blew out another breath, this one sounding louder. “Well, that’s that.”
“But I did arrange for you to have lunch with her tomorrow.”
I gasped. “Henry!”
California had a strict law against cell phone use while driving, but as far as I knew there was none against smooching.
Chapter 7
I hadn’t been home since my trip to the Rockwell Estate in midafternoon. After a taste of luxury living on Robert Todd Heights, my lowland quarters seemed unworthy of being called a “residence.”
Many thought my home was special—an Eichler house built in the sixties by a developer who was ahead of his time, bringing indoors and outdoors together in an efficient design. At the center was a large atrium, topped with a retractable skylight, that served as a living area in any weather. The major rooms of the house opened onto this court, the edges of which were nicely landscaped.
I’d always loved it. Now, after only a few minutes in Varena Young’s environment, my home seemed small and unremarkable. Fortunately, the people in my Eichler made up for its lackluster appearance.
Plus, it now held a brand new dollhouse. Actually, a new old dollhouse, since this treasure was obviously a few years old, close to an antique except that it had been repainted in places.
Kay and the girls had managed to set up a card table in the atrium and install the streamlined, cantilevered structure at a level convenient for viewing and working.
“Watch this, Grandma,” Maddie said, flicking a switch on the second floor. Lamps, track lighting, and modern sconces came on in the bedrooms, bathroom, and hallway. A tiny reading light attached to a book on a bedside table was the first I’d ever seen.
“Impressive,” Henry said.
Taylor got to flick the second switch, squealing at the same time. I was bowled over when a television set in the living room clicked on. We stared at a tiny screen that showed a football game. In action. On a screen less than two inches on the diagonal. With sound. Obviously a retrofit from the original house. Someone had been working on this for decades. Varena? It was hard to imagine she’d have time, in between writing several books a year and touring the country.
“Beyond impressive,” Henry said, and I agreed. Never mind that I wouldn’t have chosen a sports event to showcase such an amazing piece of dollhouse furniture. The effect was marvelous.
“It’s an MP4 player,” Maddie said.
“Of course it is,” Henry said.
Maddie assured us there were even more astounding features to our latest acquisition, but thirty-four years married to an architect notwithstanding, I’d had it with houses. First Varena’s residence, then Lord and Lady Morley’s miniature mansion, now a completely wired, modern-looking dollhouse that seemed ready for a biological family to move in.
“I’m buildinged out,” I said. “Maybe we can pick this up tomorrow.”
“You’ve never done that before,” Maddie said.
“You mean turned my back on a dollhouse?”
“No. You made up a word, Grandma. You said ‘buildinged.’ ” She let out her delightful little-girl giggle. “There’s no such word, Grandma. You’ve never done that before.”
“It must be time to go,” Kay said, chuckling herself.
“Yeah, maybe tomorrow we can building some more.” Maddie laughed, thrilled with her own cleverness, parodying her grandmother.
What had I started? I never knew with my granddaughter.
While Maddie helped Taylor scoop up articles of clothing and assorted trinkets, I walked to the door with Kay. “Thanks again for giving up this evening,” I said.
“Oh, it was nothing really. I actually got some work done on my laptop. Your phone rang just once besides your own call—Maddie’s mom and dad called on her cell, then called back and left a message for you on your landline. Otherwise it was all quiet.”
I guess not everyone was lucky enough to have been trapped at a noisy police station as Detective Rutherford’s murder suspect.
—
Maddie and I had a long-standing special routine around her bedtime. I knew the ritual was on its last legs as she approached teenhood but for the moment it was thriving.
“Tell me a story about me and Grandpa,” she said. She seemed wide awake but I could tell by her drooping eyelids that she wouldn’t last long. The only question was who would give in first.
I sat on her bed. “ ‘The Aquarium Trip,’ ” I began, as if I were reading the title of a book.
I rolled out the familiar story of a trip the three of us had taken to Monterey. I attended a crafts fair for much of the day, so it was bonding time for Maddie with her grandfather and some giant fish.
“You were only about six,” I said. “But you could read the letters on the exhibit sign. You saw T-U-N-A”—I tapped out the letters on her freckled nose—“and you sounded out ‘tuna.’ Grandpa told me how you looked, so upset.”
“Then what did I say? What did I say?”
As if she didn’t remember. I cleared my throat and aimed for as high a pitch as I could reach. “Are these the same fish that we make sandwiches with, that get squeezed into a can?”
Even as her smile broadened, her eyelids got more and more heavy.
“And I haven’t eaten tuna salad for lunch since then,” she finished.
I was surprised that Maddie wasn’t all over “the case,” as she’d learned to call Skip’s investigations. I’d expected her to quiz me about my trip to the police station, the fact of which she had surely guessed or wrangled out of Kay. I’d waited for her offer to use her computer skills to solve Varena’s murder, but she hadn’t mentioned the idea since she tried to wrestle the phone from me during the conversation with Skip that had interrupted our chicken-and-dumplings feast. She’d missed a half dozen opportunities since then to insert herself into the case.
Was it too much to ask that the appearance of a new, spectacular dollhouse had captured her imagination and pushed out her interest in police work? Either that or Maddie was more tired than she’d let on.
“Do you like the little earrings I got you, Grandma?” she asked, just before she nodded off.
“Of course.” In my distracted state had I neglected to thank her properly? I needed to focus more on the important things at hand. “Why do you ask?”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Then, “Nothing. Good night, Grandma.”
“Are you sure, sweetheart?”
“Did you talk to Mom and Dad tonight?” she asked me.
I’d forgotten about the message Kay mentioned. “Not tonight. I heard you did, though. Is something wrong?”
“Uh-uh. Is everything okay with getting me to school tomorrow? Isn’t your car still at Uncle Henry’s?”
“He’s going to drive it by in the morning.” I tucked her still-favorite baseball afghan, one I originally knitted for her father, under her chin. “Which is why you need to get to sleep.”
One more kiss on her rusty curls and I left the room. I had the strangest feeling my granddaughter was harboring a concern or a secret of some kind.
Probably Maddie was simply missing her pare
nts.
I hoped nothing was wrong with my family. Houston was two hours ahead, so it was too late now to return the call to Richard and Mary Lou. I assumed if there were some emergency, they’d have called back. I headed for the answering machine.
I was one hundred percent capable of being too nosy about my son’s and daughter-in-law’s lives, but I couldn’t stand the thought that there might be trouble in Palo Alto.
—
Henry had made himself comfortable on the living room couch with a large bowl of ice cream and a paperback—a thriller judging from the blood-red cover. One day I’d ask Henry how such a gentle man could have such nasty taste in fiction.
“Just because we were late doesn’t mean we don’t get dessert,” he said, closing the book. He stood and took a step toward the kitchen. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have what you’re having,” I said. “Only a little less.” I pushed the button on my answering machine. “Meanwhile I have a message I need to hear.”
“Hi, Mom.” My son Richard’s voice. “Mary Lou and I need to talk to you. It’s important, so call back as soon”—I heard scratchy noises on the line—“Hi, Mom.” Mary Lou’s voice this time. “It’s important but not urgent, so please don’t worry, okay? Everyone’s fine. We’ll catch you tomorrow.”
A double phone call. I got them all the time when my son and his family lived in Los Angeles. Sometimes there was singing involved, such as on my birthday and holidays.
But this was different. My daughter-in-law, thankfully, had seen the need to take the edge off my son’s message. Their complementary personalities were evident as usual, with Mary Lou bringing an ease to life and the job of parenting that Richard would never achieve.
Mary Lou’s reassuring words helped, but didn’t take away all my concern. I’d try as soon as I got up in the morning.
Distracted, I picked up around the couch and chairs—detritus of the evening and many days past. An orange sticky note, probably Kay’s, with a telephone number on it. A miniature yellow gardener’s boot I’d been looking for and a quarter-inch jack of clubs from a mini deck, assorted life-size writing implements, including a souvenir pen from our recent Universal Studios tour. You never knew what scale object you were going to find in my house.
I pulled a piece of paper from under the cushion of an easy chair. Taylor’s stationery, with her name across the top in colorful letters. Several butterflies floated down the right side of the page. I saw the greeting, Dear Maddie, but kept reading anyway, shrugging off the possible federal offense. It was in my chair, after all, and the girls were minors.
Taylor’s large scrawling cursive spelled out a thank-you note. How charming. Maddie hated writing such notes and insisted that emails and texting the letters “TXS” were just as good. Maybe if I bought her personalized notepaper like Taylor’s she’d be won over.
Thanks for the package of markers, Taylor’s note read. I totaly love it. I never had such a BIG set with every singel color I will think of my BFF when ever I use it!!!!!!!! xoxoxoxo Taylor.
Just as well that it was too late for me to correct spelling and punctuation. And why use only one exclamation point when eight said it so much better? The thought was very sweet.
And it was sweet of Maddie to buy Taylor a present. But the cost of a large set of markers wasn’t trivial. What was this spending spree Maddie was on? Three presents—for me, Kay, and Taylor—didn’t make a spree, I admitted. And so what if my granddaughter was generous?
Henry, who’d made a detour to the garage with the rubbish, bless him, wandered back with two bowls of vanilla and caramel cashew ice cream. “The girls wiped out the chocolate,” he said, knowing my first choice.
I accepted the combo bowl without hesitation. All of Sadie’s flavors were delicious. “Did Maddie by any chance give you something recently?” I asked. “Some kind of present, maybe,” I clarified, seeing his quizzical look.
Henry snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah, in all the confusion today, I completely forgot to tell you. She gave me a key ring with a silver H on it. It’s still in the bag in my car. A thank-you for picking her up all the time—her words. Wasn’t that thoughtful?”
I managed a proud smile. I was annoyed with myself that I couldn’t stop scrutinizing my granddaughter’s every move.
I’d been thinking the worst—maybe she’d somehow learned she was dying and was trying to leave everyone she loved a fond memory. Skip’s mother, my own BFF Beverly, contracted scarlet fever at just about Maddie’s age. Beverly’s heart was weakened as a result, a fact that kept us all on alert whenever she was indisposed or got overtired.
I pushed the thought aside. Richard would have told me, and not through a telephone message. Besides, scarlet fever was so much more treatable now.
What was left? That Maddie thought we were dying? Too many years of reading and teaching fiction had taken their toll on my imagination.
Again, our family history came into play in my thoughts—Skip had lost his father when he was Maddie’s age. But Maddie had already gone through that crisis of thinking Richard would die when she turned eleven.
Were Richard and Mary Lou’s phone call and Maddie’s gifts related somehow? I couldn’t see how.
One would think I didn’t have enough to worry about without inventing scenarios. I brought my focus back to the present realities, deciding not to drag Henry into another drama of my creation. Once I talked to Maddie’s parents, it would all be cleared up anyway.
“Let’s talk about tomorrow’s lunch,” I said to Henry. “I still haven’t heard how you managed to set it up for me to meet Alicia. I feel like I should rehearse. You did say it’s just going to be bagels at Willie’s, nothing formal?”
“I did.”
“Good, because otherwise I’d be spending a lot of time worrying about what to wear or what to order.”
Henry cleared his throat. “I might have misled Alicia.”
“Uh-oh. Is there something more important that I should be worried about?”
“It’s possible I left her with the impression that you and her mother were closer than you actually were.”
I crossed my index and middle fingers. “We were like this,” I said.
“Good,” Henry said. “And I did indicate some potential added value if she chose to meet you.”
Now I was nervous. “Such as?”
“I pointed out that you were at that very moment in a room with a detective working on her mother’s case, and that you had a nephew—”
“Henry,” I interrupted. “I was being interviewed as a suspect. Well, at least a material witness. Or something like that. And Skip—”
“She doesn’t know any of that. All she knows is you’re the favorite aunt of an LPPD homicide detective and that you were on the scene helping out.”
“You’ve really pushed things here, Henry. Exaggerating, worming your way into a homicide investigation, misrepresenting me.”
“Yeah.”
I leaned over and kissed him. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Henry drew me close. “You know, it really did seem like she wanted to meet you.”
“Really?”
“Well, who wouldn’t?”
I moved closer.
Buzzz. Buzzz.
Heavy sighs from both of us.
I knew my nephew would be coming around tonight as he always did at the start of a new case. Ordinarily, I’d be eager for an update, especially tonight considering my interview with Detective Rutherford.
But I’d have been perfectly happy waiting another hour or so.
“Skip?” Henry asked, getting up to answer the door, straightening his shirt on the way.
“I’m afraid so.”
Henry grinned. “I was ready to leave anyway.”
I doubted it.
—
Once Henry left, the scene in my living room morphed quickly from a cozy make-out session between consenting adults to a formal inquiry with a member of law enfo
rcement.
I said as much to my nephew, skipping the making-out part.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” Skip said, handing me a folder with four typed sheets. “I figured I’d help you out by bringing you your statement, saving you another trip downtown.”
“I didn’t know I was giving a statement,” I said, with a touch of huffiness in my tone.
I’d mellowed a bit since my encounter with Detective-Nurse Ratched, but Skip didn’t need to know that.
“Just routine,” Skip said. He pointed to the new dollhouse in my atrium. “That from Varena Young? Pretty fast work.”
I explained how the dollhouse appeared on my doorstep this evening. “I suppose Detective Rutherford will think I killed Varena to get the dollhouse.”
Skip made a pshaw sound.
I looked at the sheets he’d handed me. The first thing that struck me was Detective Rutherford’s first name.
“Blythe?” I said.
Skip shrugged and mumbled awkwardly. Apparently he also felt that such a lovely name should have been reserved for a less brash persona. I thought it perfect for one of Varena Young’s romance heroines. I pictured a nymphlike Blythe wearing a billowing ball gown, laughing sweetly—not sporting a suit bulging with a weapon and topped off with an attitude.
More annoying than Detective Rutherford’s first name was the notation in the box below the case number: GERALDINE PORTER—INVOLVED PERSON.
I felt my jaw tighten. “Involved?”
“It’s nothing. It just means you were there shortly before the murder, likely the last person to see the victim alive.”
“Alexandra Rockwell was her name. Or Varena Young, another perfectly good name.” Why did I have to keep reminding people of that? “And I probably was one of the last people to see her.”
Skip nodded vigorously. “Right. Right.” He scratched his head, covered with the same thicket of red hair as Maddie’s, but not as curly. I could almost read his thoughts—Why is my usually kindly aunt so grouchy tonight? “Look, I’m going to grab a cup of coffee while you read that over and sign it at the end. Oh, and initial any corrections.”
“Yes, sir.” I saluted.
Mix-up in Miniature Page 7
