“I’ll bet it’s Nick’s idea to send these daily cards.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked. From what I knew of Nick, he was very friendly and considerate, but he didn’t strike me as this much of a touchy-feely kind of guy.
“He’s going overboard trying to prove everything is the same as far as the family goes. He’s very concerned about being seen as ‘taking Beverly away from us,’ as he puts it.”
“Who gave him that notion?”
Skip grinned. “I might have mentioned how close we all are, especially since my dad died seventeen years ago. I might have added how great my uncle Ken was, kind of taking me in when I needed a dad. How neither of them could ever be replaced. That kind of thing.”
“Subtle,” I said.
I wanted to ask if he’d given June or his legion of past girlfriends the same message about our tight-knit, apparently exclusive family circle, but I filed the question away for another time. There was also the issue of how Skip had tried to get Nick and me together over many months before it became obvious that Nick and Beverly had been eyeing each other. Was I dispensable in the family, available for “taking away”? (I knew better.)
“I’m just glad your mom is enjoying herself,” I said.
“I know. She deserves it.” He put his feet back up on his desk. “Say, I have a meeting at twelve thirty. So, we could stall with this chatter for a few more minutes, and then you’d get no time to tell me what you really came here for. Or you could come out with it.”
“Where are all the slashed paintings?” I asked.
“In the police evidence room. Next?”
“Can I see them? Just one of them, really.”
“How come you didn’t ask Drew Blackstone?”
Busted. Too bad for me, the Lincoln Point Police Department was a miniature world in itself.
Skip really did have a twelve thirty meeting. He obliged me more quickly than I thought he would, sending me down to the evidence room with (this time) an attractive female officer, Laura Fischer. I recognized her as one of Maddie’s fans, or one who played up to my granddaughter when she visited, in order to impress my nephew.
Officer (“Please call me Laura, Aunt Geraldine”) Fischer led me down a stairway to the basement. I worried that we’d be walking down the odiferous hallway to the jail, but we took the opposite direction at the bottom of the stairs. This hallway, only slightly better smelling, dead-ended at a half door with a wide wooden ledge. Barely visible behind the door, a uniformed officer about my age was napping on a jailhouse-style chair.
“It’s a boring job,” Laura whispered to me. She tapped on the ledge, and the officer sprang to action. Lucky for us he didn’t reach for his weapon.
“I wasn’t asleep,” he said, smoothing down his white hair. He gave us a pleasant grin, as if he’d been waiting patiently through his whole shift for our visit. The evidence room stretched behind him, larger than an average furniture store, and not the crafts kind with miniature living room and bedroom sets.
Laura introduced me to Frank Ramos and we kibitzed for a few minutes, with Laura twirling her longish brown hair the whole time. If Frank weren’t old enough to be her father, I’d have thought she was flirting. Their chatter was about an “important” football game, not Lincoln Point’s most recent murder as I wished for, but I felt I had to allow them a holiday from shoptalk.
“Do you need something from here, Laura?” Frank asked, looking at me. I figured it wasn’t often that an officer took a civilian to the ledge with a request. Did he think Laura simply wanted to introduce us? I was a little surprised that Skip hadn’t called Frank with a “Geraldine Alert” using the rapid communications system that seemed to exist within the building.
“We need to see that cut-up painting from the Rutledge Center 187,” she said. It didn’t say much for the crime stats of our neighborhoods that I knew that code: 187 meant homicide.
“That’s a pretty big item, you know.” Officer Ramos opened his arms and stretched them as far as they would reach. “You’re not signing it out, are you?”
Laura shook her head. “No, no, we’re”—she looked at me—“what are we doing with it, Geraldine?”
“I just need to look at it,” I said. I reached into my purse and pulled out a notepad and pen, hoping to look less like a Lincoln Point busybody. Taking on the persona of a reporter had worked with Nan Browne; maybe it would make a difference here. I had to walk a thin line, however, lest I act like the unwelcome kind of media representative. The dollhouse drawing on my notepad should take care of that image problem, I mused.
The three of us walked back through the aisles of evidence. The vast room was laid out like a neat garage with non-matching storage boxes. A variety of racks, some wooden, some metal, held cardboard cartons, plastic containers, and paper bags, many with neon-orange labels. The area was very cold, but still I held my breath, lest I breathe in something not quite dead. I shuddered to think what that might be. I tried not to study the packages and labels too closely. Did one of them say RACCOON, chinn residence? I turned off the image in my mind.
We reached the back of the room, where oversize pieces littered the area. I counted no fewer than six mattresses, four dismembered straight-back chairs, and assorted lamps and unidentifiable, but clearly broken, large objects.
Against the back wall was part of a sink, leaning on one of its pipes. Officer Ramos responded to my strange look. “That was a case where there was trace evidence in the sink.” He leaned over and pointed to a brown stain on the porcelain. (I didn’t get as close as he did.) “We couldn’t get a good wet sample for analysis, so we just took the sink.”
“The things you miss when your home has never been a crime scene, huh?” Laura said.
Brad Goodman’s painting, with several others the police thought exhibited Zoe’s handiwork, was just beyond the sink. I stopped a few feet away, already zeroing in on something familiar about the oil. Having seen her only once, I still had no trouble identifying the woman in the painting. The deep gashes that sliced across her face, neck, and bare shoulders couldn’t hide the features, so well drawn and articulated. The woman was not any soft, sedate Harriet Lane I’d ever seen, but a sharply defined, flirtatious Rita E. Gold. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Even the initials fit: Rhonda Edgerton Goodman. It made sense that when she changed her name, she’d keep the same initials.
Harriet was Rita, who was most likely Rhonda.
Consciously or not, Brad had produced a flattering painting of his ex-wife and planned to display it to the town of Lincoln Point.
What kind of boyfriend (hadn’t June said they were “in love”?) was Brad Goodman that he’d keep the image of his ex-wife alive in his paintings? Whether the resemblance was deliberate or not, this would have made it clear to Zoe that he wasn’t “over” Rhonda by any standards.
It seemed to me that if Zoe had seen this, she might have reacted more strongly than being “miffed” as she’d called it. The slashed face and upper body of Harriet Lane looked like more than a random act of vandalism. Without a great leap, it could be interpreted as a message to her boyfriend that Zoe recognized the face he’d painted. Once started, she might have continued slashing what she thought were others of his paintings. And maybe the ripped-up paintings were only the beginning of the message.
I didn’t like being misled. First by Zoe’s false alibi, and now by a possible motive for her destroying this painting in particular.
The one thing Zoe didn’t lie about, apparently, was that her visitor, Arizona license notwithstanding, had been Rhonda Goodman.
In deference to the signs in the basement of the police building, I’d had my cell phone off. I sat in Willie’s now at nearly one thirty, well past my lunchtime, and turned the phone on. Four new messages. I knew the first two would be from Richard and Mary Lou, reminding me to pick up Maddie. As if I could forget.
I smiled as I heard each parent in turn pretend to have called me for another reason and th
en end with “Maddie will be so glad to see you this afternoon at three” (Mary Lou) and “Tell Maddie I love her when you pick her up at three” (Richard).
The next two calls were from crafter friends. First, Susie, our southern belle, confirming that our Friday-night meeting was cancelled because of the Lincoln-Douglas deadline. We’d each chosen to make different scenes to be raffled off and worked on them together in the initial idea stages. But now it was a matter of final placement and serious gluing, a phase we preferred to work on alone.
“I figured out how to make a working mini television set,” she said.
That was good news. I’d call her back before our next crafts meeting and get the scoop. I allowed myself a reprieve from deadly motives and deceitful suspects and took a mental trip back to the last miniature show I’d been to with Susie in nearby San Jose.
We’d been fascinated by a large room box with a video. Lighted rooms were a common sight and I had my share of them around the house, but I’d never seen a movie in miniature. The crafter had built a futuristic art deco setup (if that wasn’t an oxymoron) with black furniture and chrome and brass ornamentation. The floor beneath the coffee table was disco-lighted and against the back wall was a “working” television screen.
Not that I was a fan of elaborate television sets or anything high tech. I remembered the days when you could plug in one piece of equipment, like a record player, and be set to go. Now it seemed to take more and more separate components to hear a single song, and it was increasingly difficult to hide all the parts of the system in my attractive walnut cabinet. But the sheer creativity and craftsmanship of this miniature room box had impressed both Susie and me. We weren’t sure how the crafter had done it and Susie had volunteered to research it and help anyone in the group who wanted to try it. I wanted to put an old (working!) black-and-white television set in my Bronx apartment model.
The fourth and last call was from Karen Striker, our crafts club president (it was her turn to serve), excited about an invitation to do a demonstration for some organization or other on Friday afternoon.
I called her back, knowing she’d need an answer as soon as possible. “It’s really short notice,” I said. “I haven’t finished my Lincoln-Douglas box for Tuesday.”
“I know it’s an impossible deadline, but it seemed like a good opportunity, so I thought I’d ask.”
I was usually very cooperative when it came to teaching crafts classes and sharing techniques with anyone who’d listen. But I couldn’t imagine fitting in another project in the next twenty-four hours. When Lourdes delivered my toasted poppy seed bagel, I remembered yet another commitment—that I’d promised her an extra session soon to help her with an essay.
“It’s a really busy time, Karen.”
“Yeah, that’s what everyone else is saying, too. I’ve already tried Mabel, Betty, and Gail. I guess it’s really about the murder this week, and I can’t say I blame you all. I’d do it myself, although Don says I should stay away from there until they’re sure they have the killer. But anyway, I’m going out of town in the morning for the long weekend, so I can’t make it.”
Karen wasn’t making much sense. “Are you talking about the murder of the young artist, Brad Goodman?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. It’s awful, isn’t it? Of course, I didn’t know him, but it’s scary when something like that happens, and right there in our own local television studio. I can see why no one wants to do a show there very soon. I guess I’ll have to call the Channel 29 lady back and tell her we can’t accommodate her.”
“The Channel 29 lady?”
“Yeah, Nan Browne, you know, at the TV station at Rutledge Center. She’s the one who called at the eleventh hour to ask me for a crafter for tomorrow.”
A chance to visit the crime scene, the studio I’d been ushered out of so recently had fallen into my lap. “You know, Karen, I just realized I can rearrange some things. Tell Ms. Browne I’d be happy to do it.”
“You sure?”
“Quite.”
“Well, okay, then. I’ll call and tell her, and let you take it from there. I’m happy to be out of the loop.”
“No problem,” I told Karen.
“Thanks, Gerry. You’re a lifesaver.”
I hoped so.
Karen had explained the setup. The program for Friday at one o’clock was to have been a live musical segment by the local violin teacher and she’d had to cancel. Channel 29 needed a fifteen-minute “educational” slot filled. I wondered if Karen knew what had changed my mind. From her enumeration of our friends’ rejections, it seemed most people knew the studio had been a crime scene. If so, it was by word of mouth. I doubted Brad’s murder had been given much coverage in the major San Jose newspapers, and the Lincolnite, our local weekly, had switched to Friday publication. For those of us who didn’t use the Internet in our daily lives, that meant a lag in our awareness of current events.
Karen suggested I do a demonstration of crafting a simple item or two. Again, no problem. I had a number of things I could create using materials I had at home. In fact, I could make several items on the spot with the loose supplies in my purse. I took out a notebook and listed a few possibilities. An evening purse with a chain strap (from a broken necklace). A soda fountain chair (with a bottle cap for the seat and thick wire for its twisted legs). A quilt or an article of clothing (from fabric scraps).
Whenever I engaged in such brainstorming, the last idea was usually the most complex and telling. This time I pictured a miniature crime scene—a toppled table, scattered books, a spilled wineglass, a broken lamp, the chalk outline of a victim.
How insensitive, I mused, but not without a smile. I scratched “crime scene” off the list, and added “lady’s vanity with perfume bottles.”
A young waitress I didn’t know arrived to refill my coffee mug and to ask if everything was all right. Grateful as I was for the attention, I wished she hadn’t interrupted my concentration. I hated to leave the make-believe life of miniatures, where the decisions were easy—one-inch-scale or half-scale? Paint or varnish?
In the real world I was wrestling with choices with higher stakes—tell Skip about the resemblance between Brad Goodman’s portrait of Harriet Lane and his own ex-wife, Rhonda Edgerton, or not? I felt I’d be betraying Zoe, and therefore June, if I did, and possibly obstructing justice if I didn’t.
I looked around the restaurant at all the New York City photos, stalling, thinking of the good old days in the Bronx with Ken. (Never mind how we barely scraped by while he was in graduate school.) My gaze landed on a formal photograph of the NYPD’s finest, with row after row of policemen in the uniform of days gone by. The men (only) were lined up on the steps of New York City Hall. They all seemed to be giving me knowing, accusing looks.
I punched in Skip’s number.
“Have you had your dessert yet?” I asked him.
“No, and I had to rush my lunch, so I’m starving.”
“How does eating quickly make you less full? Never mind. I’m at Willie’s. Do you want to join me?”
“Can you come down here instead? It will be quicker. I have to be at a budget briefing at city hall in an hour and I’m still putting the last numbers on the chart.”
“Where shall I meet you?”
“There’s a cafeteria in the basement of city hall. What’s this about, Aunt Gerry?”
“There’s a cafeteria down there?”
“Okay, you learned that technique from me. I’ll wait. The cafeteria’s not exactly listed in the best of the Bay Area restaurant guide, but we can get a snack.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I had the young waitress, “Sunny,” wrap the rest of my bagel and give me three chocolate chip and three peanut butter cookies to go. If my nephew wanted a snack, it was going to be classier than the city hall cafeteria could offer.
Chapter 11
Once more I found myself among debate hopefuls in the civic center. I heard a tall would-be Abrah
am Lincoln.
“Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, having due regard . . . having due regard . . . due regard”—he snapped his fingers—“darn.”
Oops, more work needed. A short Douglas candidate, who needed one arm to hold up his padded belly, did better.
“Does Mr. Lincoln wish to push these things to the point of personal difficulties here? I commenced this contest by treating him courteously and kindly . . . Mrs. Porter?”
Old as I was, I hadn’t been at Galesburg, Illinois, that rainy October day in 1858. I turned and saw Ryan Colson, dressed in a tuxedo made of soft black fabric. He was probably the same height as Douglas, but not as broad-chested as Douglas appeared in photographs, and clearly needed help keeping his fake paunch in place.
“Are you trying out, too?” he asked, finally letting a small pillow fall free from under his cummerbund.
I laughed at the sight and at the thought of my taking the stage anytime soon. “Hardly.”
“You know, there are a few women applying. Really. My wife gave it some thought and almost signed up for an audition. She’d have been stiff competition for me.” He gave a wry laugh. “That’s kind of her goal in life.”
“Well, that’s how they did it in the early days of theater. I mean, not husbands and wives competing, but men and women playing opposite gender roles.”
“You don’t say?”
Ryan’s inattention to his high school Shakespeare class was showing. “Of course, it was mostly men playing all the roles, male and female.”
“Wouldn’t you know. Well, I do believe an actor is an actor and good actors can play either gender.” Ryan straightened his silky black cummerbund and patted his now flat stomach. He tucked the pillow under his arm. “I don’t even need this prop. Stephen Douglas was much less fit than I am, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take on his persona.”
Malice in Miniature Page 12
