Mix-up in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  I waited until Paige calmed down, resisting the temptation to pat her on the back or whisper soothing words. I reminded myself that I’d been “hired” to investigate her and everyone else. I needed a lesson from Detective Rutherford.

  Once Paige lifted her head, I was ready. “Did you feel Varena gave you enough credit for all the work you did for her books?”

  Paige mopped her eyes with a tissue. “Oh, yes, I was very happy working with Varena. I loved the research on the Regency period, looking up whether they had zippers and stuff like that. Making sure the family trees all were consistent from one book to the next.”

  “It sounds fascinating.”

  “And I knew eventually Varena would put my name on a book. She said, when the time was right.”

  “And you were satisfied to wait.”

  “Of course. I’m not like Laura, you know.” Paige took a settling breath. “Laura Overbee, I mean. She was trying to write, too. Not romance, but poetry mostly. Lots of luck trying to get poetry published these days.”

  “What did that have to do with Varena?”

  “Laura was always complaining that Varena went back on a promise she made when she hired her.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  “Supposedly, Varena told Laura that if she took the job as assistant, which we all know is really just a glorified secretary, making travel plans and booking events, things like that, that she’d help Laura get published, but she never did. Laura would beg Varena even for an endorsement, but Varena just wasn’t interested in the kind of things Laura wrote.”

  An image came to my mind of two people, Laura and Paige, their fingers pointing at each other, like the hands in the Escher drawing, each writing on the other’s shirt cuff: GUILTY!

  “And just to be clear, you didn’t feel any resentment at the low level of acknowledgment Varena gave you? Simply listing your name with many others who helped her?”

  Paige bit her lip. “No, no. I told you, Varena was like a mother to me.”

  She was sticking to her script. I had to rethink my theory. College juniors were more persistent than high school juniors. Too bad for me. I needed another tack, and clearly, some prep time. I knew Paige was hiding something she knew about the mysteriously delivered dollhouse, but I couldn’t come up with anything to coax it out of her except a direct question.

  I pointed toward my atrium. “Paige, I have a feeling you’ve seen that dollhouse before. Is it my imagination or do you recognize it? Is it from Varena’s collection?”

  Paige’s eyes twitched, as did her hands, which retreated further into the sleeves of her sweater. “I told you, Mrs. Porter, I had some kind of allergic reaction. Maybe it’s your plants.”

  “Of course. That must have been what I noticed,” I said. I was almost glad when Paige’s cell phone interrupted us. I could tell she was digging in and would give me nothing useful.

  Paige was even happier about the call than I was.

  “Bummer,” she said, holding out her phone, as if I’d be able to read the small screen from several feet away. “I gotta go.”

  “Bummer,” I said.

  I saw her to the door, but I had a feeling I wasn’t through with Paige Taggart.

  —

  Three in the afternoon and what had I accomplished? Trying to be positive, I ran through all the interactions I’d had since our wonderful French-delights breakfast. I’d at least become familiar with three of the main players at the Rockwell Estate. Varena’s elegant, fashionable daughter, Alicia, who commanded the respect of her household staff. Laura Overbee, Varena’s aide, and Paige Taggart, her research assistant, who all but accused each other of Varena’s murder.

  There were more loose ends than leads, however.

  There was the matter of the missing housekeeper, Corazón Cruz, and the mystery of Varena’s brother. If Varena’s only sibling was deceased, to whom had Corazón referred yesterday? And who did I hear arguing with Varena? (Or was her real name actually Mildred Swingle?)

  I’d had only the briefest of interactions with the Rockwells’ financial manager, Charles Quentin, as he closed the door in my face. Did he fall under Alicia’s directive to cooperate with me, or was he above it all?

  I needed to meet Varena’s son, Adam. Should I rule him out as a suspect since he was three thousand miles away until last evening? Nothing said he couldn’t have hired someone.

  I stopped. How desperate was I, to imagine a hit man being hired by a member of a Robert Todd Heights family to murder his mother? If the police were trained to think this way, it was no wonder some of them turned into skeptics like Blythe Rutherford. It’s a good thing Alicia, so determined to get to the bottom of her mother’s death, wasn’t spending money on this investigator she’d hired.

  Calculating my score as a detective, I nearly forgot the unreachable clue in the letter hidden in the secret room of a dollhouse I could trace only to an Arizona vehicle, on the word of a ninety-plus-year-old neighbor. It was a dizzying string of facts. More in the loss column than the win, even before I counted the rift with my nephew and the possibility that my granddaughter had begun a life of crime.

  “Getting your mind in order?” Henry asked, coming up behind my chair. I hadn’t moved from the living room since Paige Taggart left. Neither Paige nor I had touched our coffee, now too cold to be appealing.

  “I’m trying, but it’s complicated.”

  He leaned over for a hug and I was glad to have one solid person to hang on to, one who didn’t mind my saying things were complicated.

  “I struck out with the secret room,” he said, taking the chair opposite, where Paige had sat. “Can’t find anything to open that wall, unless I tear the building apart. I think we should give Maddie another try before we do that.”

  I nodded agreement. “She found it once, she can probably do it again if she’s not under stress.”

  Henry sent a meaningful look to the large clock. A look that said the time was approaching when I needed to pick up Maddie from school.

  Often the trip to Palo Alto to retrieve my granddaughter was the highlight of my day. I never tired of praising her latest artistic endeavor, listening to stories of lunch-swapping with her friends, and being impressed by the newest fact she’d learned in history class.

  On the drives home, Maddie served as my conscience on matters of everything from recycling to world peace, expressing her views with the simplicity reserved for the very young.

  Today was different. Today the issue was not helping the poor and imprisoned, but what Maddie herself had done that might merit punishment. The state of affairs turned my stomach to the consistency of tacky glue.

  “Shall I come with you?” Henry asked, as if he’d been following my train of thought.

  “I think I’d better handle this alone first.”

  “Let’s get you to your car, then.” Henry lent his arm as I lumbered up from the chair, a testimony to how pathetic I must have looked. “It might not be as bad as you think,” he said. “By the time you get home, I’ll bet it will be all cleared up.”

  That was my fondest wish.

  —

  When I pulled up to a spot in front of Maddie’s school, I saw her sitting on a bench, by herself, hugging her neon green backpack to her chest. Not business as usual, when she’d be surrounded by her friends, chatting and laughing, until she’d bound over to my car. Today she seemed as heavy as I was, pushing herself off the bench and making her way to the curb.

  She got into my car and we leaned toward each other for a kiss. At least that part of the ritual was intact. While I drove off, still pondering the appropriate greeting, Maddie extracted a book from her backpack and dropped the pack to the floor.

  “Look, Grandma, I got a book on dollhouses from the library,” she said, her voice strained in an effort to sound normal. “I found some in the kids’ section.”

  Not her section now that she was eleven, she meant, but the section she’d used when she was younger.


  “Did you find anything on secret rooms?” I was no more eager than she was to discuss the elephant in the car.

  “Uh-uh.” Maddie flipped through the oversize book on her lap. “But there’s a picture of this really cool house. You can’t look now, but you’ll see later. The building is called a vacation home and most of it sticks out over this hill. It looks like it’s going to take off and fly over the ocean right across the street from it. We used to see a lot of these along the beaches in Los Angeles, but this one is a dollhouse. I guess the ocean is fake. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Very cool, sweetheart.”

  “I think I might want to be an architect like Grandpa and build cool houses like this.”

  Maddie knew this would be thrilling news to me. Not only had she abandoned dreams of wearing a uniform with a gun on her belt, but she wanted to follow in Ken’s footsteps. I had a feeling this was Maddie the politician softening up dumb old Grandma before she had to face the music.

  “Would you rather talk about your parents’ phone call now or when we get home?” I asked her. Not so dumb after all.

  Maddie’s knobby knees, in jeans, came together. Her shoes slapped against each other in a sideways motion. “Did you talk to my mom?”

  “No, not yet. I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “You figured it out, didn’t you?”

  “I think so, but why don’t you tell me?”

  Instead of launching into her typical articulate narration, Maddie let loose with a flood of tears. She sobbed softly, but nearly uncontrollably. I had the feeling that she’d been needing to do that for as long as she’d been engaged in an activity she knew to be wrong. My heart was breaking for her.

  Between gasps, I heard the word “sorry” many times, often preceded by “very, very.” It was all I could do not to cry with her.

  I realized I had no plan for what to do once we started down this road. I regretted now that I hadn’t called her parents immediately, no matter how much Maddie pleaded otherwise. We would have already put this issue behind us and would have been working out a solution.

  I hadn’t reached the freeway yet, so it was easy to find a strip mall and pull in. As luck would have it, the first parking spot I came upon was in front of a chain ice cream shop.

  If I were going to punish my granddaughter, there would have to be a treat included.

  Chapter 13

  Once we were settled in the pink-and-brown ice cream shop with a hot fudge sundae for Maddie and a chocolate soda for me, we’d both calmed down. Two spoonfuls in, and Maddie confessed.

  “I used Mom’s credit card,” she said almost matter-of-factly. She looked at me, lips tight, chin up, ready to face the music.

  I smoothed back a recalcitrant red curl from her forehead. “I know,” I said.

  “I know it was wrong, wrong, Grandma. But it was like I talked myself into it anyway.” I didn’t want to break the news that it wouldn’t be the last time she’d make a decision under those conditions. “Dad freaked out on the phone last night. He was going to get on a plane and come and get me. But Mom just said, for now, no more computers, until we could talk.”

  I imagined my son beating himself up, thinking he’d done something wrong and created a potential lifer, while Mary Lou would research reasons why children steal and how to deal with it.

  “Can you tell me why you did it?”

  “I don’t know. Except, all my friends have money of their own and I don’t have any. They buy me things, like from the vending machine, or on a holiday sometimes they buy me a card. And I can never do anything back.”

  “You make wonderful cards for everyone on your computer. I’ve gotten many of them.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  I didn’t think Maddie would appreciate a lecture on how much better a handmade card was than one bought in a mall shop. No matter how much parents and grandparents lectured, peers were peers.

  “What about your allowance? Isn’t it enough?”

  “I don’t get one.” Maddie shouted this out, then noticed we weren’t the only patrons in the small shop. She lowered her voice. “Dad says I don’t need any money because I have everything I need. I have a phone for if I get in trouble and I know how to call emergency and I take my lunch and they give me money when the school needs it, like for trips, and he thinks that’s all that counts.”

  As I listened to Maddie’s rant, I became more and more sympathetic. No surprise, since I was always irresistibly drawn to take her side. That aside, I thought she had a point. I’d assumed all kids by this age received some amount of discretionary money. I tried to keep out of business matters like that in the life of my son’s family, focusing on spoiling his daughter on my own terms.

  I realized I had no idea if Maddie did chores at home, for example, except that I knew Richard kept after her about maintaining neatness in her room. The strange thing was that as a kid Richard kept his room in perfect order, as if he were practicing for the operating room even at eleven years old. I hope he didn’t expect that of her.

  Maddie spooned another mouthful of sundae. She had a special knack of getting a bit of everything—two flavors of ice cream, fudge sauce, whipped cream, and nuts—in each spoonful. She finished her reasonable defense with “Just once I wanted to buy everyone something.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Rochelle and Shauna, my two best friends at school. And Taylor and Uncle Henry.”

  “Don’t forget Aunt Kay. And me.” I paused. “And nothing for yourself?”

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head and gave me a look that said she’d never thought of doing that. I wasn’t surprised.

  “I’ll bet you gave Aunt Beverly and Uncle Skip a present, too.”

  Maddie finally gave me a smile, albeit a pouty one. “I was just getting to them when I got caught.”

  “Too bad for them,” I said, happy my son wasn’t around to hear my amusement over a serious matter. But I was so relieved that things weren’t worse. No one had a life-threatening illness, for example.

  “I guess Mom saw her bill online yesterday and some of the charges were on it. She called me at your house, then she called you.”

  “Several times. She must be wondering why I haven’t gotten back to her all this time.”

  “She probably knows what’s going on.”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “I did a really bad thing, didn’t I, Grandma?”

  I missed the easy questions I used to get from my granddaughter. Like, why is the sky blue and how do magnets work, in which cases I went immediately to the children’s encyclopedia for answers.

  “You made a pretty big mistake, Maddie. I’m sure you know the right thing to do is to talk to your parents about your feelings and ask them to think about an allowance. You’re the best negotiator I know.”

  “Yeah. I tried, but my dad is so…so…”

  “A little thick-headed maybe?” I offered.

  “Totally.”

  Dum, ta da dum, ta da dum, ta da dum.

  Maddie smiled when she heard the marching band on my cell phone.

  “It’s Uncle Skip. I’d better take it.”

  Maddie’s eyes lit up, then the light faded when she realized she was shut out of any “case” she might be salivating over. I’d have to remind her of her plans for a future in architecture as soon as we got over this crisis.

  “Hey, Aunt Gerry.” A pause. “Everything okay with, you know?” Skip asked, by which I figured he meant between us.

  “Everything’s absolutely okay,” I said, more relieved than he might guess. I loved make-ups that didn’t involve a lot of words and rehashing. A therapist might have disagreed, but long, drawn-out explanations and apologies were not for me. I hardly remembered what our tiff was about and I didn’t care.

  “I thought you might want to know. We’re holding Ms. Taggart, your friend’s research assistant.”

  “Paige? When did that happen? I just saw her this afternoon.”

  �
�I know and apparently she thinks you’re her advocate.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I’m not sure I do either, but she wants to talk to you and she has that right. She says you have something that will clear her.”

  “I can’t imagine what it is.”

  “Only one way to find out, if you’re willing to come down.”

  “Of course, but why is she there in the first place, Skip? Is there some evidence that points to her?”

  “How soon can you be here?”

  “I’m eating ice cream in Palo Alto. I’ll be on my way in a minute.”

  “So the squirt is with you. Don’t tell her I still call her that. Give her a kiss for me.”

  “Gladly.”

  Maddie, who had been following my side of the conversation intently, clapped and gave me a big smile. She was happy to receive a kiss from her uncle and me. I felt the relief in her body as she held onto my embrace, not an easy thing to do across a pink table, small as it was. Like a good girl, she cleared off our table and we headed out the door.

  For now, vicarious involvement in her uncle’s case seemed enough for her.

  —

  As eager as I was to find out why the police had pulled Paige Taggart in, I still needed to take care of unfinished business with Maddie. I was ready and willing to forgive and forget. But I realized that wasn’t the best solution for the long term. There was a lot more talking to be done first, especially with her parents.

  Maddie seemed to agree, but her plan was different from mine. “Can you talk to Mom and Dad, Grandma?” she asked, as soon as were safely merged into freeway traffic going south on Route 101.

  “I will, but you should know that whatever your parents decide I’m going to support them.”

  “I know, I know, I know. But maybe you can explain what it’s like to be a kid these days.”

  I was immensely flattered until I sneaked a look and saw Maddie’s wide grin and smug “almost gotcha” look.

  —

  The police station was its busy self on a Tuesday afternoon. I greeted officers I knew from having them in class at ALHS or from my frequent visits to Skip. I hoped I wouldn’t run into Detective Rutherford, for no other reason than I didn’t particularly care for her style.