Murder In Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  Big Blue had given me the choice of going downstairs to file an incident report tonight, thus leaving Maddie again, or waiting until morning. I chose not to leave my granddaughter this time, even though he himself offered to stay with her.

  Maddie had awakened briefly and accepted the explanation that I’d stepped out of the room for a minute and forgotten my key, so the nice man from the hotel let me in. She’d dropped back on her pillow and seemed to be off to sleep in a minute.

  I wondered how many years before she wouldn’t be able to do that.

  It wasn’t hard to talk Maddie into one last hour at the pool with Taylor before we checked out. So far I’d been able to shield her from the events of last night and I planned to keep it that way.

  The interview with hotel security was brief and relatively useless. As luck (for the thief) would have it, not all the lights in the garage were working last night. Thus, the security camera had only the fuzziest image of someone exiting the stairwell and running across the garage floor within a half hour on each side of the time I specified. Other than that, no one could say what had happened to the robber.

  By the time I’d repeated my story three times, to different personnel, none of whom were SFPD, my purse had been located in a trash can outside the exit door from the garage. The shiny beads on the black silk purse, put there myself in a fit of macro-crafting one day, had caught the eye of a hotel custodian.

  The purse was empty. I imagined the thief, tossing my lipstick and sundries aside, frustrated when he found little cash and no credit cards. The other option was too hard to accept: that all he’d wanted in the first place was the key to my room. And that one of those middle-of-the-night rattles was not a dream.

  Chapter 9

  Knowing that I’d left Maddie at the pool for a supervised kids’ water ballet class with her BFF temporarily set my mind at ease.

  “Most of your body is in the water,” Taylor had explained to Maddie, and then Maddie to me. “It’s mostly just kicking your legs up and flopping your arms around, in tune with some music,” Taylor assured me, as if I were the one who needed to be talked into it.

  With not a lot of time to waste before checking out, I headed for the hotel gift shop. Walking through the quiet lobby, I had an uneasy feeling, which wasn’t surprising after last night’s ordeal. Again, I wondered where everyone was. I thought San Francisco was one of the most visited cities in the country. Not this weekend.

  I bypassed the tile bridge that ran through the faux jungle and took the longer route, through a seating area for the hotel’s coffee shop, called Friars Minor. Only low-level plants lined this wide-open area. No place for someone to hide. Or jump out from.

  I approached the gift shop, hoping that an Aaron-like person had the early morning shift. It bode well for the success of my mission that there were no other customers at this hour.

  I knew as soon as I entered the shop that getting what I wanted from the bored-looking young woman filing her nails behind the counter would require only a small percent of my talents. I imagined her sitting at the back of a classroom, tapping her desk, longing for something interesting to come her way. I’d seen the likes of her many times over.

  From my tote, I pulled out the unopened box of chocolates and the updated “yearbook” Rosie had produced. “Hey,” I said. “I wonder if you can help me with some romantic detective work I’m doing.”

  She looked up from her nails (that was a start) and raised her eyebrows. “What’s up?” she said, sounding like Skip and the rest of the twenty-to-thirty crowd.

  “Well, I got this nice box of chocolates from your shop”-I placed the box on the counter-“and I think it’s from an old flame.” I flashed a coy grin. “But, you know, I’m going to be really embarrassed if I have the wrong guy.” I flopped the spiral-bound yearbook over the box and tapped the cover. “His picture would be in here.”

  “Yeah?” she said, brightening. “When did you get the candy?”

  I wasn’t sure, but I knew the box hadn’t been in the room when we checked in. I couldn’t remember if it was there after the cocktail party. I was sure Maddie would remember, however, and wished I’d asked her when it first appeared. But then, it was never possible to ask my granddaughter a question without giving her the background she’d insist on.

  “Sometime late Friday evening,” I said, which I felt was as good a guess as any. “I just opened my door and there it was. There was a message on a card, but no name.” I tried to fake a blush.

  “Mmm,” she said, rubbing her palms together. The young woman had rings on every finger except her ring fingers. A wide silver thumb ring with a large turquoise stone was especially eye-catching. “I was here from four to midnight on Friday. I have to do inventory after we close. You’re lucky because, you know, the guys that work here… She whooshed her hand over her head to indicate how clueless her male colleagues were. “Who do you think it is?”

  I’d already stuck a piece of hotel notepaper in page thirty-six, toward the back of the book, where the faculty photos were laid out. A random choice. I opened the book to the spot and pointed, again at random, to Joel Mullins, who’d taught history at ALHS during the eighties. As far as I knew, Joel and his wife were happily married and traveling the world together. “I think it might be Joel,” I said.

  She held up the book for a better view and shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I’ve never seen this guy.”

  Good sign. She’d passed the “trick question” test.

  A young couple in nearly matching sweats came through the door. I was worried that their presence would end our research session, but my new BFF, the clerk with spiffy nails, handled their transaction quickly, telling me, “Don’t go away, okay?”

  She was mine.

  As soon as the couple exited with newspapers and trail mix, the ringed clerk rushed over to me. “Let’s start from the beginning,” she said. She held out her hand. “I’m Samantha.”

  “Mary Lou,” I said. Maddie’s mother’s name was the first to come to my lips once I made the quick decision not to use my own. Just in case my real name was on a hotel watch list somewhere, or Skip was monitoring my activity.

  Samantha, whose morning I was salvaging, I knew, took the book from me and opened it on her lap. Apparently her “Let’s start from the beginning” meant not only a name exchange but going to page one of the yearbook.

  She flipped pages, uttering sounds like “nuh-uh” and “mmpft” now and then, while I stewed and hoped no one I knew came into the shop. I imagined Henry Baker coming in with “Good morning, Gerry.” Which reminded me-Maddie and I were due to meet him and Taylor for brunch at ten when the girls had finished swimming.

  “Bingo,” Samantha said.

  I came to the present. “You found him?”

  “Yup. Here he is. I remember because he was carrying this big trophy, like for football or basketball or something. And I stored it in back here for him while he looked around and made up his mind.” She folded her arms and stepped back to admire her work. “Yup, it’s him.”

  I was glad she didn’t feel it necessary to point out the age difference between me and my Romeo, found early in the reunion class pages. On second thought, as with Aaron, we probably all looked the same vintage to Samantha. I was glad it wasn’t someone whose name began with Z; the shop couldn’t stay empty too much longer.

  I turned the book around to see whom she’d fingered.

  “Barry Cannon,” she read, as I was processing the photograph and caption. “Wow. He was senior class president.”

  I gulped. “So it was Barry?”

  “What? Is he married or something?”

  I shook my head no, though I wasn’t positive. I closed the yearbook before she could verify his marital status.

  “Sweet, huh? He’s cute. Did you guys date back then or something?” Samantha asked.

  I couldn’t disappoint her. “Yes, it was a long time ago. I had no idea he still cared after all these years.”

&nbs
p; “So maybe you’ll get back together now? Woo-hoo!”

  “Thanks a lot, Samantha,” I said, packing up to leave. “You really helped a lot.”

  “You made my day,” she said, in a convincing tone.

  “I’m glad.”

  I’d reached the threshold between the shop and the lobby when I heard Samantha’s voice again. “Hey, Mary Lou?” I almost blew my cover by not responding. “Go for it, okay?” she said.

  I planned to.

  I took a seat in a cozy corner in the lobby. I sat on a wide easy chair with my back to the tile bridge, the boulder, and most of the jungle area with their unpleasant associations. I needed to review everything I knew and try to make sense of it.

  I had about a half hour before I should pick up Maddie and get ready to meet Henry and Taylor for brunch. I took out my small notepad and pen. I knew that most of my notes would be mere doodles as my brain worked over bits of information, but the physicality of the writing and scribbling helped me focus in situations like this.

  I decided going backward would be the easiest process. I called up the image: Barry Cannon with a sports trophy, buying candy for Rosie and delivering it in David’s name. I thought it was a safe bet to believe Samantha, who had passed too many other tests to have made an error identifying Barry. And if nothing else, I had a sense that she was very good with people and faces.

  First task: find out if Barry had ever won a sports trophy of his own (I doubted it) or if he’d been carrying David’s trophy, the murder weapon, into the shop. For now, I’d have to assume those two options were the only ones. I couldn’t remember whether there had been a trophy on the stage at the ALHS groundbreaking ceremony. Barry himself was small-framed, not an athlete, unless it was at a sport that got less attention at ALHS than the big three of football, basketball, and baseball.

  At the very least, Barry seemed guilty of overseeing the delivery of the presents to Rosie, leading her to think David was courting her, with or without David’s knowledge. It was a slim motive, but a motive nonetheless, to think that David found out what Barry was up to and a fight ensued. Slim, I repeated to myself, but not zero.

  I found Barry’s page in the yearbook to see what he’d been up to since his well-written Dickens paper. I did a quick read of the text and saw no mention of participation in sports. I moved on to Training and Education-it seemed Barry was a CPA. He now worked as the chief financial officer in the accounting office of Mellace Construction Company.

  Small world, and not just for miniaturists. I filed the information under “what a coincidence” and moved on.

  More accurately, I moved back, to my conversation with Skip, who had claimed to have more to share eventually. I had a sinking feeling that whatever it was, it wasn’t good news for Rosie. I had to decide whether to add to his arsenal by producing the tiny locker mirror I’d found in David’s room after the murder.

  If I were a trained interrogator, as he was, I’d skirt around how I found the mirror and get him to tell me how and where he located the vandalized version of the miniature locker room Rosie had built.

  I tried to weave in the loose ends-a disgruntled (based on one interaction) employee who quit the morning David’s body was found; Walter Mellace wanting something from David’s room. For a moment I considered that it might have been Walter who stole my purse, thinking I had that “something” he’d hassled me about on the eleventh-floor hallway, in my purse (could the something be that small?) or in my room. Given Walter’s heft, however, I guessed I’d still be unconscious in the Duns Scotus jungle if he’d been the one to bump into me on the bridge.

  I had Callahan and Savage to fit into the scheme also. The only connection I could put my finger on was that both they and Walter Mellace were in professions associated with buildings. I thought of my crafts rooms. So was I, you could say.

  Another loose end fluttered to the front of my mind, demanding attention. I remembered what Rosie had told me when we woke up in adjacent beds on Saturday morning. She’d come in at two, she said, after a workout at the hotel’s fitness center.

  This one was easy. I didn’t even need Aaron or his equivalent. I went to the concierge’s desk and picked up a hotel brochure from a pile in the corner. I ran my finger down the list of amenities and hours of availability. Room service was offered twenty-four hours; same-day service laundry pickup was before seven in the morning; the fitness center-my heart sank-closed at midnight.

  If I were the police, one lie would be enough to discredit Rosie completely. But I was her friend; I had to give her the benefit of the doubt in spite of the trashed locker room, the tiny mirror in David’s suite, and the failed alibi.

  The concierge came back to his desk and I made one last stab at rescuing my faith in Rosie. “Is this brochure up-to-date?” I asked him.

  Young enough to be Aaron’s twin, he scratched his stylishly bald head. “Yeah, pretty much. Something in particular you’re interested in?”

  “What time does the fitness center close?”

  “Midnight.”

  A sigh escaped. “Thanks.”

  “That do it for you?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  ***

  I was in dire need of someone to talk to. That person had always been Ken’s younger sister Beverly, Skip’s mother. Now that she was “going steady” with a retired cop friend of Skip’s, I saw her less and hesitated to bother her.

  “Nothing has to change,” she’d told me. “I’m always here for you.”

  True theoretically, and I thought Beverly believed it, but in fact, much had changed. No more late-night tea klatches, no more last-minute taking care of Maddie. This weekend, for example, when she would have been an enormous help to me, she was in Seattle with Nick’s family.

  What hadn’t changed was that we were a close family and wanted the best for each other. I had pangs of guilt over my selfish thoughts and was glad she wasn’t aware of them. I knew that if I really needed her and told her so straight out, Beverly would be at my side in a minute.

  It was hard to ask for more.

  The Duns Scotus brunch buffet was as lavish as any I’d ever seen outside of pictures of Victorian-era banquets. A beautiful table was spread with breads and fruit; at a separate station a chef made omelets to order; at another station one could be served slices from an enormous leg of lamb, roast pork, or a side (it seemed) of beef. As Ken would say at a feast like this, “Many a man would call it a meal.”

  “Wow,” said Taylor and Maddie almost in unison as they saw the oversize éclairs. Taylor’s blond pixie cut was wet, as Maddie’s red curls were, from a quick after-swimming shower. The girls sent sprays of water drops onto their shoulders in their excitement.

  The éclairs and other pastries could each feed a family of four. I made a note to leave room for a dessert or two and therefore skipped the carnivores’ table in favor of a mushroom-and-cheese omelet. Calorie for calorie, there probably wasn’t a lot of difference.

  “Isn’t it funny?” Taylor asked Maddie. “Your grandma and my grandpa only live a few blocks away from each other in Lincoln Point, but we’re all hanging out in San Francisco.”

  The thought had crossed my mind, too.

  “Why did the witch need a computer?” Maddie asked, out of context.

  “You’ll have to tell us, “ Henry said.

  Taylor and Maddie burst out laughing.

  “We planned it,” Taylor said. “We’re not going to tell you the answer until next week.”

  “When we have lunch together in Lincoln Point,” Maddie said.

  Henry and I glanced at each other across the table, both seeming to catch on to the ploy-the two girls plotting to get together. I worried about Maddie’s becoming too attached to Taylor when she had just a few weeks before she’d be leaving Lincoln Point. Would this be another wrenching separation, like when she had to leave Devyn and her other friends in Los Angeles?

  It was only ten miles to Maddie’s home in Palo Alto, I reminded m
yself. We could have playdates. Not the same as being in the same school and joining clubs and teams together, but we’d make it work.

  There were many fewer reunion people here than at the banquet. I imagined many had been anxious to get home and get ready for the workweek. A couple of students we hadn’t seen yet came over to chat, but otherwise there were no new incidents. No one fighting, no one jumping out of bushes. Still, I kept my everyday shoulder purse on my lap instead of hanging it from the back of the chair as I usually would.

  “It’s a real shame about David. I keep thinking about him,” Henry said, during one of the girls’ trips to look at the dessert table. “And poor Rosie, caught up in it all.”

  “What have you heard about Rosie?” I said, jumping past sympathy to detective mode.

  “I called my daughter, Taylor’s mother, this morning to give her our timetable and apparently it’s all anyone’s talking about in Lincoln Point. Way more than yesterday. She says she heard that the police want to talk to Rosie and she’s nowhere to be found.”

  “I don’t think for a minute that she’s guilty,” I said, skipping over the part that I knew where to find her.

  “I’m sure you’re right. I used to do business with her father, Larry Esterman, when he had his own place in town. At the time, all of us trades teachers used to get together and pool resources and network with the Lincoln Point tradesmen. Larry was always ready to take on a promising student as an intern and I placed a lot of kids with him. Most honest guy around.”

  My experience complemented Henry’s. I’d had many dealings with Larry during Rosie’s high school years. He was as dedicated a single parent as I’d ever met. I now saw him occasionally in the bookshop, though we never had extended conversations.