Dolled Up For Murder

by Deb Baker

  “Matt who?” Nina asked through a space between her fingers.

  “Matt Albright, the detective.”

  “Oh, suddenly he’s Matt. What happened to Detective Albright? You’re forgetting who the enemy is.”

  “No, I’m not.” Gretchen handed Nina a box of tissues. “He’s right. She has to come back and explain what happened. He isn’t the enemy. Martha’s killer is the enemy.”

  “What are we going to do?” Nina blew her nose loudly. “Caroline better have something to say for herself. How could she become involved in anything like this?”

  “We need to find out who really killed Martha.” Gretchen paused to absorb the scope of what she was proposing. “And we need to find out why my mother was on Camelback Mountain. What happened up there?” She chewed the inside of her cheek while she thought about the possibilities.

  Nina slammed her hands on the table. “Let’s go. I can’t stand just sitting here.”

  She rounded up her dogs, stuffing Nimrod in his purse and bundling Tutu in her arms.

  Gretchen nodded. “Let’s go find the elusive Nacho.”

  Nina drove like her life hung in the balance, and Gretchen realized for the first time how close her mother and her aunt really were. She, too, fought against a growing pressure around her own heart, the physical pain of life gone awry. Losing her job seemed insignificant now. Even her issues with Steve seemed petty.

  “Slow down,” Gretchen called. “We won’t be much help to her if we’re dead.”

  “Where did April go?” Nina asked, easing off the gas a little. “April didn’t say anything to me about going away.”

  “It’s to our advantage. I didn’t tell Matt about the shawl and picture and was worried that she might.”

  “I think she knows more than she’s letting on. Maybe she wants to beat us to the doll. Remember, it was her idea to keep it a secret.”

  Gretchen gripped the dashboard as Nina took a sharp right turn. “You might be overreacting. April seemed harmless to me.”

  “She hated Martha. You saw her reaction. She even admitted it. She could be our killer.”

  Gretchen considered April-enormous, lumbering April. “How could she have climbed up the mountain to push Martha? She can barely manage a porch step.”

  “You’d be amazed at how limber large people can be when they want to,” Nina said, turning onto Thirty-fifth Avenue and continuing past the Phoenix Rescue Mission.

  “There it is.” Gretchen pointed, and Nina swung over and found a parking space. She left the car running and cool air continued to circulate.

  Gretchen and Nina stayed inside the car and looked at the church.

  St. Anskar’s Parish was set back from the street. Its whitewashed facade gleamed in the sun, and a large gold cross glistened above a small courtyard leading to the massive front doors.

  “We’re a little early,” Gretchen said, impatiently checking her watch.

  Fifteen minutes later people began to arrive at the church. Most of them came alone, shuffling slowly down the street, silent and weary from the heat, motivated by the promise of a free meal. Each turned in to the courtyard and followed a walkway that led around the side of the building. Gretchen and Nina watched from the car.

  “Should we wait here until he comes by?” Nina asked. “Or go inside?”

  “Let’s wait here and confront him on the sidewalk,” Gretchen said. “We don’t know how he will react, and we don’t want to create a scene inside. When he comes, I’ll get out and stop him.” She glanced at the dogs in the backseat. They panted heavily and smeared saliva on the back windows.

  Gretchen watched an old man limp past, wearing more clothes than should be bearable.

  “Well,” Nina said. “I hope he comes along soon, or the car is going to overheat.”

  Gretchen turned slightly in her seat and peered down the street in the opposite direction. “We’re in luck. Here he comes,” she said, clutching Nina’s arm.

  He wore the same clothes he’d worn last night and carried the same black garbage bag tucked under his arm. As he approached, his gaze fell on Nina’s red Impala, and he froze in place.

  “What…?” Gretchen began, confused by his response. He was reacting to the car as though he knew it. She jumped out when she saw him running away.

  “Stay here,” she commanded, slamming the car door and breaking into a run. He turned a corner, and she followed. Gretchen’s pulse throbbed as she gave pursuit. She was in excellent condition from hiking and jogging and could keep up with almost anyone. But he had a wide lead that she would have to close.

  Her eyes were riveted on the man ahead. He glanced back over his shoulder and increased his pace. Gretchen’s legs pumped faster.

  Nacho cut across the street against the lights. Horns blew. Someone shouted out a warning.

  Gretchen’s eyes never left the fleeing man as she raced across the street behind him, even though she realized the danger in crossing a busy street. She heard her name called out and instinctively turned her head.

  Nina cruised next to her in the Impala with the window down. “Let him go,” she called. “It’s not worth it.”

  Gretchen looked ahead just as he left the sidewalk and disappeared between two commercial buildings. Ignoring Nina, she gave chase. Nacho was the path to her mother, the key to Martha’s murder. She felt sure of it. This might be her only chance, and she wasn’t about to blow it.

  He ran like a desert coyote, like his life depended on it, his arms pumping hard, his eyes, when he glanced back, frightened.

  Gretchen remembered the alcohol on his breath the night before and wondered where his stamina came from. Maybe his fear was greater than hers, and his fear drove his momentum. In spite of having nothing material to show for his life, he might have more to lose than she did. If that was possible.

  She began to gain on him. Closer and closer. She could hear her breath, usually controlled when she ran distances, pounding in her ears. Now it came out ragged, and she struggled to establish a rhythm. The sweltering heat beating down from the desert sun was unbearable.

  He vanished behind another building, and Gretchen rushed after him. Rounding a corner, something shot out at her from a Dumpster against the wall and struck her below her knees. Gretchen felt herself falling. She lurched forward, trying to recover from the fall, but it was too late. She put her hands out in front of her to break the fall and felt a sharp pain in her left wrist as her body slammed into concrete.

  Footsteps thundered past her. Then silence.

  She struggled to her feet, holding her wrist.

  Nacho, her only lead, had vanished.

  When Gretchen emerged from between the buildings, Nina jumped from the car and shouted at her. “Are you crazy?” she screamed. “You could have been killed. You didn’t know if he had a gun. What were you going to do if you caught him?” She clasped her hands on top of her head. “He could have had a knife and sliced you to pieces.”

  Gretchen gasped for breath. She bent over and cradled her wrist.

  “What happened to you?” Nina said, noticing Gretchen’s protective stance.

  “Hurt… my… wrist.” An image of Nacho running flashed through Gretchen’s head. His long strides. His arm motions assisting him, increasing his speed. The arms were important.

  “Let me see.” Nina hurried over to her.

  Gretchen shook her head. “He…” She gasped. “… tripped me.”

  The arms, she thought. What am I missing?

  She realized what it was. “He dropped the bag.”

  Nina scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “The garbage bag. He must have thrown it off somewhere along the way.” Gretchen straightened up. “Hurry. We have to find it.”

  Gretchen ran quickly along the sidewalk, retracing her steps. Nina swung the car around and followed. The dogs, sensing a game afoot, watched side by side out the back window. Tutu yelped encouragement, her excitement spurring Nimrod to join in.
<
br />   When did she notice that he was swinging both arms? After they crossed the intersection but before Nacho ducked between the buildings. She walked to the intersection and studied her surroundings. Sharp pain shot through her wrist, forcing her to support it with her other hand.

  Where was Nacho now? Was he watching from a hiding place? She had to beat him to the garbage bag. Gretchen looked up and down the street but didn’t see him. She peeked into a trash receptacle on the corner, then motioned to Nina with her head.

  “What?” Nina asked, stepping out of the Impala.

  “You’ll have to grab it,” Gretchen said. “He stuffed the bag in here.” She gestured with her hands.

  “Do I have to?” Nina said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Afraid so.”

  Nina pulled out the black bag with a grimace of disgust and held it away from her body. “Now what?”

  “Let’s look through it in the car, then I’ll return it,” Gretchen suggested. “I don’t want to take it away from him. It’s all he has.”

  Nina looked at her sharply. “After what he’s put you through, how can you sympathize with him? He threatened you. And look at your wrist. An innocent man doesn’t run away like he did. And you don’t want to take his bag? Unbelievable!”

  Nina continued to grumble as they returned to the car, and her protests grew louder when she realized she’d have to search the bag herself. Gretchen’s wrist began to swell and turn a deep purple.

  The search produced a single change of clothes, not especially clean, and a thick, tattered notebook held together with two rubber bands. At Gretchen’s insistence, Nina found a piece of paper and a pen and Gretchen wrote out a message for Nacho with her good right hand, advising him that she had his notebook. She would return it, she wrote, when he was ready to answer her questions. She included her cell phone number.

  “I’m holding it hostage,” Gretchen said to Nina. “Maybe he’s written something useful in it.”

  Nina stalked over to the garbage receptacle and stuffed the bag inside. “He’ll probably murder us in our sleep,” she said on returning to the car. “That’s how he’ll get his notebook back.”

  Gretchen wondered why he had run away. What had scared him?

  Nina pulled away from the curb. “Where to?”

  “That gas station on the corner for ice,” Gretchen said, wincing. “Then the hospital.”

  Caroline’s eyes traced the arch of the high ceiling, the original paintings on the walls, and the marble floor beneath her feet. She sat on a high-backed tasseled sofa. Rudolph Timms sat across from her in a broad leather chair-tall and slender, with a pronounced widow’s peak and dark, piercing eyes.

  “I still don’t see the fuss over this particular doll,” he said.

  “As I explained earlier, I’m researching my next book, and I’d like a photograph of the doll you own,” Caroline said, her story believable even to her ears. “For the book.”

  He chuckled, obviously proud of his latest acquisition. “It is a perfect Madame Rohmer from the mid-eighteen-hundreds. Original costume and the blue Rohmer stamp on the leather body. Quite a find.”

  “Glazed china,” Caroline muttered. “Swivel head?”

  Rudolph Timms nodded. “And blonde wig.”

  Caroline held up a small Leica camera. “A shot or two would be appreciated.” The day before her frantic race across the country, she had dropped off film for developing and tossed the empty camera in her satchel-like purse. It was proving useful today as a prop, with or without film.

  His thick brows met the dark widow’s peak. “How did you find me so quickly? I only acquired the doll recently.”

  “I followed the auction on eBay,” Caroline said, feeling chilled in her damp clothes. “I considered bidding myself.”

  “I would have outbid you, no matter the cost,” he said. “I had to have this doll for my very own. Whatever the price.”

  Caroline arched a brow. “Whatever the price?” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I would have paid whatever it took.”

  Rudolph Timms rose. “I’ll get her.”

  Caroline held her breath as he walked away.

  9

  Antique bisque, china, and parian doll heads were all made from the same type of clay, but different finishes were given to the porcelain. Each doll maker mixed the ingredients in a unique way, and the recipes were fiercely guarded. Parian dolls retained their white porcelain finish, and bisque dolls had flesh-colored tints added to the clay. China dolls were glazed to a high, shiny gloss.

  – From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

  When Gretchen emerged from Scottsdale Memorial Hospital at a little after seven o’clock with a cast on her broken left wrist, she found Detective Albright leaning against his car at the curb. He sauntered over to join her.

  “I’m looking for Aunt Nina,” Gretchen said coolly while she scanned the immediate vicinity for the red Impala. “She isn’t in the waiting room.”

  “Your Aunt Nina tried to hide a mutt in her purse, and the emergency room staff didn’t appreciate the humor in it,” he said.

  “Tutu wouldn’t fit in her purse,” Gretchen said. “That’s absurd.”

  “That’s what the staff said.”

  Matt glanced at her wrist. “Broken, I see.”

  “I tripped and fell.” Gretchen’s eyes searched for Nina. She wasn’t in any mood to deal with the police, and the quicker she found her ride home, the better. She hoped the painkiller administered by the nurse would kick in soon.

  “Your aunt left,” he said, his lips twitching in amusement. “I told her I’d wait for you.”

  “What?” Gretchen couldn’t believe her ears. Nina abandoned her? And left her trapped with the cop who wanted to put her mother behind bars? What was Nina thinking?

  “I can see by the look on your face that you aren’t happy with the arrangement.” He walked around the car and opened the passenger door. “My mother is helping Nina call the Phoenix Dollers club members together for an emergency meeting. I didn’t give your aunt a choice.”

  “Is this a trick?” Gretchen’s eyes narrowed. “If I get in the car, will you take me to Nina or…”

  “Or what?” Matt laughed. “Kidnap you for interrogation and lock you in the bowels of the police station? No. Better than that. I get to hang out with a roomful of people who know Caroline Birch, and I get to listen to them discuss ways to find her.”

  He still held the door open.

  “You can’t do that,” Gretchen said, sliding into the seat, careful not to jar her arm.

  “Yes I can,” he said. “I’m an honorary member.”

  “How did your mother get the club together on such short notice and on a Saturday night?”

  “Easy. She tempted them with the promise of food.”

  As they pulled out of the hospital parking lot into traffic, Gretchen wondered about Nina’s mental state. She had always been on the sidelines of rational thought. But leaving Gretchen with a cop, never mind his remote connection to the doll group…

  The detective must have intimidated her with his badge or threatened her in some way.

  Matt rolled up to a stop sign and looked both ways. “Aunt Nina’s trunk produced interesting new material in the Williams case. She turned over the items you found on Camelback Mountain-a shawl and doll picture-but she wasn’t happy about it.”

  “You searched her car?” Gretchen said.

  “Standard procedure when someone tries to smuggle contraband into a hospital,” he said. “Some might call it withholding evidence.”

  “So, arrest me.”

  “Can’t,” Matt said lightly. “I’m using you as a decoy.”

  “As in hunting for ducks.” Gretchen stifled a smile. He did have a certain charm. If you liked arrogant witticism and superficial friends.

  Matt nodded. “Just like that. I’m hoping your mother will spot you floating in the water and fly in for a reunion.”

  Gretchen didn
’t like being compared to a sitting duck. “She’s too smart to think there’s any water in Arizona. She’ll know it’s a mirage.”

  Bonnie Albright attempted to call the meeting to order with flair. She banged a kitchen mallet on the stovetop. People milled around holding plates heaped with assorted appetizers. Cheeses, crusty bread, fruits, and tiny sandwiches.

  All ignored Bonnie.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Tutu coolly surveyed the scene from her throne on the sofa, and Nimrod entertained the club members, who passed him from lap to lap, by being cute and cuddly.

  Gretchen counted three purse dogs waiting patiently in their uniquely customized bags. All, Gretchen guessed, graduates of Nina’s fine purse school. Nina really knew how to sell a product.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  “Give it up, Bonnie,” Nina said, “before you pound a hole in my stove. Pop the cork on that champagne.” She pointed to a bottle and a line of flute glasses. “And come and join us.”

  Bonnie shook her head, and her red lacquered flip moved in sync. “The last time you popped the cork, social hour went on for hours, and by the time we started with actual business, no one could focus on the task at hand.”

  “This,” Nina replied, “isn’t a normal, boring meeting filled with hours of tedious planning. The agenda for this evening is Caroline, and she’s a worthy reason to stay sober. But I still need a drink. Matt, would you open the bottle, please?”

  Nina clapped her hands together. “All purse dogs outside. Rita, please let them out.”

  Pandemonium reigned while miniature dogs swarmed through the room like greyhounds off to the race.

  Nina gestured at the champagne bottle, and Matt moved around her and worked the cork until it exploded like a gunshot. He filled glasses and handed them out. Gretchen, refusing a glass because of the painkiller she’d taken earlier, raised an eyebrow when he held up a glass, met her eyes, and took a sip.

  “Aren’t you on duty?” she asked.

  “Yup,” he said. “I’m undercover, remember? I’m blending in. Don’t tell anybody, but this is only water.”