Murder In Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “Truthfully, I’d rather-”

  “Gerry, I need you,” Rosie said in a near wail.

  “I’ll be fine here, Grandma,” said Maddie, more grown up at eleven than Rosie in her late forties. Maddie had already bit into a tuna sandwich and downed a handful of potato chips. “I have homework for class.”

  Although we were long past the time I could help Maddie with much of her homework, I would have given anything to stay, even for an hour or two, listening to programming language.

  My late husband often called me a patsy. The term had probably gone out of style by now, but I was still a patsy. “Just for a little while,” I said to Rosie.

  “How did you find out David’s room number?” I asked Rosie as we stepped off the elevator on the eleventh floor.

  “I asked old Coach Robbins, figuring he’d be going to the party, too. He didn’t seem to know anything about it, but he didn’t have a problem telling me David’s room number. His whole team is up here on eleven. It’s almost like high school, with everyone sticking together in the old groups.”

  I thought back to Susan’s remark at our last crafts meeting, that if you didn’t fit in then, you won’t fit in now.

  We walked down the hall toward eleven forty-three, Rosie alternately speeding up and slowing down. I was sure some of her pacing problem had to do with her stilettos, a far cry from the tennis shoes she wore in her own milieu, Rosie’s Bookshop. At one point I thought (hoped?) she was going to turn around and forget about the party.

  When we got to David’s door, Rosie adjusted her dress and fingered each stone in her bracelet, a gesture she’d made repeatedly since she’d put it on her wrist. She gave me a look that said I should be the one to knock.

  I did, gently.

  No answer. Except for the giggling we heard through the door.

  I knocked again, a little louder.

  David opened the door, revealing expansive, handsome quarters. Looking down the opening he’d given us, I caught a glimpse of a panoramic view at the end of the suite. He’d shed his jacket and tie and swirled a drink in a short, stubby glass.

  Cheryl, in a peach chiffon spaghetti-strap number meant for a younger woman, was on his arm, as she was at the cocktail party. Had she ever let go?

  There was no sign of anyone else in the rooms.

  “Hi,” Rosie said in a bright, nervous voice. “Are we too early?”

  Cheryl swung her long brown hair back and laughed. “Too early for what?”

  David looked confused. “Can I help you, Rosie? Mrs. Porter?”

  I let Rosie handle this one.

  “I… uh… I thought there was a little get-together tonight. In your room. Your note…” she said.

  “We’re already getting together,” Cheryl said, her hair still swinging, her tone disparaging.

  “I’m sorry,” David said to Rosie. “I don’t know anything about a get-together. I think everyone went out to dinner or something.”

  I understood the “everyone” to mean David’s inner circle.

  “Maybe she means the party tomorrow night, David,” Cheryl said.

  Another confused look from the football star. “That’s just for-”

  “Right,” Cheryl said. “I didn’t see her name on the list.” Cheryl laughed, emphasizing her, and apparently enjoying the third-person references. “Maybe she’s on the list that has Math Bird on it.”

  Rosie put her hand on my arm to steady herself. I thought she was going to faint.

  David grinned, then seemed to have an attack of conscience. “Do you want to come in for a drink?” he asked.

  Too little, too late, I thought, as Rosie recovered her balance, turned, and walked away.

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said to David.

  “I guess so. Sorry, Mrs. Porter,” David said, closing the door. I figured he apologized to me, forgetting I wasn’t responsible for grading him anymore.

  I went after Rosie, the sound of Cheryl’s laugh following me down the hallway. I recognized the reference to Math Bird, a nickname for one of the smarter boys in the class, but I had no idea why his name would be invoked tonight.

  Apparently some of the thirty-year alums of ALHS weren’t just reuniting, they were sticking to the cliques of their high school days.

  ***

  Even in her stilettos, Rosie managed to get to the elevator and ride away before I got to the doors. I took the next car and rode down to our room on five, feeling a heavy sadness for my friend. I was sure she didn’t expect to be humiliated. Who ever does? With all the misgivings I’d had from the beginning of Rosie’s journey to the past, I was still caught off guard. Warnings and forebodings were one thing; the full manifestation of all our fears was another.

  I entered our room, where Maddie was already asleep on her cot in front of the television, a mostly eaten sandwich on her lap. All that swimming had taken its toll.

  There was no sign that Rosie had returned to the room. I thought about checking the bar to see if she’d gone there, or the all-night business center where she could be doing bookshop work on a hotel computer. I decided not to interfere beyond putting a note on the cooler that she should help herself to sandwiches and snacks.

  I covered Maddie, turned off the television, and settled down for a sandwich myself. As for David and the non-party, I couldn’t guess what had happened. Did Rosie misread the note? She’d held the note out to me, but I hadn’t read it myself. Was this a cruel game David was playing with her? All the gifts were now called into question. Had the whole drama been Cheryl’s idea all along? I couldn’t fathom.

  I waited up for Rosie, reading until well after midnight, but she didn’t come back. I eased my fretting by assuming, and hoping, that she’d found a quiet place to reflect, or cry, or do whatever she needed to in private.

  When I woke up on Saturday morning I expected to see the sun streaming through our east-facing windows, but this was San Francisco, where the summer days usually started with a serious fog bank.

  I looked over at the second twin bed and breathed a sigh of relief that Rosie was there, also just waking up. She might have been a battered woman, for all the black and blue and puffiness on her face. I realized it was simply eye makeup running into cheek makeup.

  She caught my eye, inadvertently I thought. It was hard to think of an appropriate greeting. “What time did you get in?” I whispered, not wanting to wake Maddie, curled up in a corner of the cot.

  “Around two, I think. I just had to clear my head. I went to the fitness center.”

  “Rosie, I’m so sorry about-”

  She waved away my concern. “No problem. I just needed a little workout.” From a supine position, she lifted imaginary barbells in the air. “I’m really fine now.”

  Why didn’t I believe her? Maybe one reason was because as long as I’d known her, Rosie had never been to a health club or lifted a barbell.

  Maddie and I left the hotel about eight o’clock, while Rosie was still packing, her mood swinging from angry to moping. I wanted to get an early start on the drive back to Lincoln Point for the groundbreaking ceremony. Rosie had told us she doubted she’d return to San Francisco for the banquet tonight, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d wondered about keeping the commitment myself, but Maddie and I decided we would go back. After all, the room was paid for, and if nothing else, we could enjoy some of the tourist attractions.

  “And be much cooler than in Lincoln Point,” Maddie added.

  “Do you mean the temperature or what we can do there?” I asked.

  “Both.”

  When we reached the garage, I saw Cheryl Mellace coming down the entrance ramp in a black convertible. If she’d kept on a straight path, she would have passed in front of us, but she veered off and drove up another row and parked. My guess was that she had no interest in greeting me. The feeling was mutual.

  We had nasty traffic the whole way home, but Maddie always made a car trip more pleasant than it otherwise would
be. We never lacked for topics of conversation, knock-knock jokes, and plans for more time together.

  One question, like “What are you working on in class?” could be good for many miles. Today she tried to explain video game design using something called fusion software. To me, fusion was a style of cuisine, and probably always would be.

  “It’s version two,” she said, as if that meant anything to me.

  “As long as you’re having a good time and learning a lot,” I said, resorting to generalities.

  “You’ll see when we have our big demonstration at the end,” Maddie said, with a grin. “It will be like a crafts show.”

  “Smarty,” I said. Too bad tickling was an unsafe driving practice.

  We’d agreed it would be a good idea to stop at home as soon as we got to Lincoln Point, to replenish the food supplies in the picnic cooler. This habit had a little to do with economizing but more to do with being sure Maddie had food she would eat. I was afraid the gourmet restaurants of San Francisco would be lost on her and leave her hungry. Except for the “food” at the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, where we’d taken her when she was about two years old, but not since. At the time, the whole family shared one serving of Ghirardelli’s famous earthquake sundae, in which “cracks” in scoops of ice cream are filled with whipped cream, nuts, and cherries.

  The more I thought about it, the more eager I was to return to San Francisco this afternoon. We’d have time for a Ghirardelli stop before the banquet. I wanted to see Maddie’s face this time when the enormous sundae arrived at our table. And I wanted to dig into it myself.

  But an exciting groundbreaking ceremony in Lincoln Point had to come first.

  Chapter 4

  The noontime groundbreaking ceremony in our hometown was to launch the construction of the new athletic field and stadium for ALHS. Personally, I’d been pulling for a remodel of the old wing of the library instead, but the majority on the city council had ruled otherwise. “Alumni don’t show up for National Library Week in the numbers that they do for a high school football game,” went the argument.

  I’d seen the plans for the facility in the Lincolnite. At the entrance would be an archway that was trying to be much too grand for Lincoln Point. My architect husband would have agreed with me that such structures belonged only in Rome, Paris, or New York City’s West Village, where they already were. I was also less than thrilled about the ornamentation on the arch, which was of a frowning cartoon feline. I knew the idea was to tie the school mascot to Abraham Lincoln, like everything else in the town, but Abe was said to have loved stray kittens, not angry cats. Besides, everyone knew that his favorite pet was Fido, the family dog.

  I supposed I should have been grateful that the artist hadn’t given the growling, fanged cat a beard and a stove-pipe hat.

  Maddie and I joined the crowd on the field, entering from the edge of the parking lot closest to our civic center. A large sign that I’d passed many times, but never paid much attention to, announced that the project would be carried out by Mellace Construction Co., of Lincoln Point. I was glad the business would stay in town.

  The sun beat down, the only breezes created by tri-fold programs waving in front of individual faces. At this distance we couldn’t see the ceremonial shovel, but the image on the program showed a gold-plated shovel with a large maroon-and-gold bow to match the school colors. Balloons of the same colors dotted the area. At the entrance to the grounds were baskets of yellow-frosted cookies in the shape of hard hats. A sign in front of them read, Compliments of the Football Mothers.

  I’d often contributed to school baking projects, but not one of this magnitude. If the Lincolnite predictions were correct, there would be more than a thousand people attending the ceremony today. That was a lot of oven time, and in very hot weather.

  I hadn’t paid attention to all the details of the project, so this was my first clue as to exactly where the new field and stadium would be located-across Civic Drive from the complex of city buildings. I wondered about the wisdom of situating a noise-generating stadium, with most likely a state-of-the-art PA system, across from the library, but unless I was willing to serve on political committees, I had no right to complain.

  We expected a presentation shortly by principal Frank Thayer, our cocktail companion of last night, and probably a few words from Lincoln Point’s mayor and council members, as well as past and present faculty and student leaders. (Read: the coaches and student athletes.)

  Cliques aside, I’d enjoyed my years on the ALHS faculty and I was proud of the students I taught. As with the party at the Duns Scotus, today I derived great pleasure from all the greetings of “Hi, Mrs. Porter, nice to see you.” The short visits peppered the half hour while we waited on folding chairs for the official first turning over of dirt.

  “Poor Mrs. Norman,” Maddie said at one point. “I hope she’ll be okay.”

  As usual when there were tough grown-up issues in play, I wondered how much Maddie knew and how she was handling it.

  “She had a serious disappointment,” I told her. “I’m sure she’ll be fine in a few days.”

  “My dad would say, ‘As long as it’s not life-threatening, you should get over it.’”

  It seemed like a good rule to me.

  A John Philip Sousa march rang out from my purse. My ring tone of choice for the summer. It was one of many cell phones that rang intermittently around the great lawn, so I wasn’t as embarrassed as I might have been otherwise. I was proud that I’d learned how to program my cell phone ring tone and was no longer at the mercy of my tech-savvy granddaughter. I even took the trouble to change it according to the season.

  I clicked the phone on.

  “Aunt Gerry? Are you at the high school ceremony?” Skip asked me, with no prelude.

  “Yes.”

  “Is your friend Rosie Norman with you?”

  “No. Are you calling from Seattle?”

  “Do you know where she is right now?”

  “No, I don’t. I suppose she might be in this crowd.” I stretched my neck and scanned the crowd. Being tall has its advantages at times like this, but given Rosie’s small stature, it didn’t help me much in this gathering. “I don’t see her. We left the Duns Scotus before she did this morning. Why are you looking for her?”

  “I thought I’d give you a heads-up. One of the BMOCs in your reunion group was found dead this morning.”

  “BM-”

  “You know, Big Man On Campus. David Bridges.”

  My throat went dry. I thought everyone in my vicinity would notice how my knees had become weak. I cupped my hand over my mouth, conscious of Maddie at my side. Happily, Henry Baker and Taylor were approaching and were a distraction for her. Maddie had made sure to save seats for them, and had been on the lookout for her new friend.

  “David Bridges is dead?” I whispered the question to Skip.

  “Okay, well, I guess that’s it,” he said. “I knew you were traveling with Rosie to the reunion so I thought you might know her whereabouts.”

  “Whereabouts” sounded much too official to suit me. “Where are you, Skip?”

  “I flew in early this morning. Glad to be back in the sun. It rains even in August in Seattle.”

  “Why are you asking about Rosie’s whereabouts?”

  As if I didn’t know. Nephew or not, when a homicide detective tells you about a death, probably the next person he mentions has either been murdered or is a key suspect.

  “You’ll hear an announcement about Bridges’s death pretty soon,” Skip said, avoiding my question. “We’ve alerted Frank Thayer.”

  How? Where? Who? Why? came rushing to my lips.

  “You have to tell me something, Skip. You called me, after all.”

  Skip answered, albeit only the simple questions. “Bridges was bludgeoned to death with his trophy, but even though the body turned up in Lincoln Point, we’re not sure yet where it happened. Do me a favor, Aunt Gerry, and just forget everything for now,
okay?”

  He clicked off before I could agree or not.

  In too few years, David Bridges had gone from BMOC to “the body.”

  What reason could the LPPD possibly have to suspect Rosie? Surely she hadn’t broadcast her severe disappointment last night-who else could have known besides me, Cheryl, and David? Skip wouldn’t have zeroed in on her without some evidence, however.

  There I went, leaping ahead unjustifiably. Skip had simply asked where Rosie was, hadn’t he?

  I thought back to Maddie’s observation, quoting her father. Had Rosie’s disappointment been life-threatening after all?

  ALHS principal Frank Thayer stepped up to the podium in the nick of time, before I had to make polite conversation with Henry and Taylor, who’d just taken their seats next to Maddie. I gave them each a wave and as friendly a smile as I could manage in my state of distress over David and over Rosie.

  Frank tapped the microphone on the makeshift stage. “Testing, testing” came out, along with static.

  Among the dignitaries on folding chairs behind him were his wife, Paula, and key people in Lincoln Point administration. At this distance I could still recognize members of the Faculty Senate, some of whom were first-year teachers during the end of my career, and others of whom I’d known for many years. They all seemed unaffected by the extreme noontime heat, not even waving their programs in front of their faces as Maddie and I were.

  I pretended to be listening with rapt attention to Frank’s uttering of the fascinating, “One, two, three. One, two, three.”

  Frank’s voice carried all the way back to those of us at the edge of the high school property, where the parking lot ended at Civic Drive. Skip’s office was in the building complex in front of us; Rosie’s Books stood across Springfield Boulevard to our left. Understanding the connection between the two locations at the moment made me dizzy. Given the urgency in Skip’s tone, I couldn’t shake the conclusion that my friend Rosie was suspected of killing David Bridges.