Design on a Crime

by Ginny Aiken

If Marge was known for anything, it was for her attention to detail. She wouldn't have let a discrepancy that big stand, not even for a short intermission.

  "Ozzie?" I called reluctantly. I didn't know what to think of him now that I'd read that awful memo. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Of course. How can I be of service, Miss Farrell?"

  If things ever worked out that I'd own this place, we'd have to shake him up some. That Miss Farrell thing got old real quick.

  "I remembered a piece from the catalog, a beautiful sculpture, and I wondered who'd bought it."

  He rubbed his chin and then smiled. "Oh, you mean the Erte. She is stunning, isn't she?"

  "Lovely." But not what I wanted. "Do you know who bought it?"

  His forehead furrowed again-no smile though. "Come to think of it, miss, I cannot recollect ... I don't even know if it sold."

  I knew enough to keep my big mouth shut.

  He shook his head as though to clear it of cobwebs. Poor man. There were no cobwebs. If what I'd already checked out turned out to be true, then the figurine had never gone up for bid.

  "If you'll give me but a moment, I'd like to verify something in the database."

  As he walked away, muttering under his breath, a weird sensation started in the pit of my stomach. If the Erte hadn't sold, then how did it wind up in the Stokers' living room? And why?

  What did it mean? Did it mean anything?

  Had I finally gone off the deep end?

  After about fifteen minutes of similar ring-around-the-rosy thoughts, Ozzie returned, the worried look back in place, the same one he'd worn when he couldn't find Marge at the auction.

  Things were getting kinda squirrelly again. "What's wrong?" I asked when I couldn't stand the wait a second longer.

  "It's the strangest thing, Miss Farrell-"

  "For Pete's sake, Ozzie! Stop with the Miss Farrells already. You've known me since I was a snot-nosed little kid. You'd think you could make yourself call me Haley by now."

  He took a step back. "I do apologize, Miss-er ... ah ... Haley. It was never my intent to offend."

  Did I blow that or what? "Ozzie, you didn't offend me, but you make me feel as if I have parsley stuck between my teeth, stepped on dog poop, and tracked it into Buck ingham Palace while I did some kind of whirling dervish dance."

  His eyes widened even more. "I ... I..."

  "Look. All I'm saying is that you don't have to be so formal around me. Just call me Haley, and we'll get along fine, as fine as we always have."

  "Very well, M-er ... Haley."

  "Good! See? The ground didn't even open up under you or anything." Now, here was a guy without a sense of humor. But he did have info I needed. "You were saying about the sculpture ... ?"

  "Oh! Yes. It's the oddest thing. There's no record of it selling. Now, it's a rare occurrence when an item, especially one so desirable, doesn't sell, but it does happen from time to time." He shook his head again. "What's truly odd is that we have no record of Marge putting it up for bid during the auction. It was scheduled as one of the last pieces before the intermission."

  "What do you think happened?"

  "I can't begin to imagine. Perhaps ..."

  When he'd mulled his thoughts long enough, I stuck in an impatient, "Yes ... ?"

  "The only thing I can think of is that the runners-you know, the teens who help bring the smalls up front during the sale-couldn't find it. They might have told Werner, our catalog man, and he could have told Marge we'd have to leave it until the afternoon. The piece created enough interest to warrant a special sale."

  "Funny no one's mentioned it. I mean, since it was such a favorite and all."

  He nodded, the glum look back on his plain features. "I know precisely what you mean. I can't imagine why I didn't remember."

  "Give me a break, Ozzie. Give yourself a break." At his puzzled look, I went on. "You only went through your employer's murder, an investigation, and then you got called out to inventory an estate for possible sale. When have you had time to remember a tchotchke that didn't sell?"

  "Miss Farrell-Haley! An Erte is much more than a ... a mere knickknack. It's an absolute treasure. It should never have slipped my mind."

  "Give it a rest. If I sweated every last thing I forgot, then there wouldn't be enough soap by half to go around the world. Pretty stinky, don't you think?"

  Ouch! Lame.

  But he smiled. True, it looked more like the kind one gives a nutcase, the "Let's humor the poor dear" kind. But hey. I did get him to smile. I added, "Time to go. I have a bunch of stuff to buy for the redesign I'm doing."

  On my way out, Ozzie called and asked me the single, solitary question I'd hoped he wouldn't ask.

  "Since the sculpture did not sell," he said, "and since we have no record of it being offered, and especially since I know it isn't on the premises, then where do you think it's gone?"

  Since I couldn't answer, refused to do so, I shrugged and fled, coward that I am. That uneasy feeling prowled around my middle again. I didn't want to deal with it right then.

  Yeah, right. I didn't want to deal with it, period. End of story.

  So I made a beeline for the cop shop. Let the unflappablelove that word; I'd never used it before, but now I thought of Detective Tsu as the unflappable karate chop cop-Detective Tsu figure it all out.

  Still, I scored another victory. Chalk two in one day for the prime suspect in a murder case. I ran into the police department, dashed past the receptionist/ dispatcher, who watched, jaw gaping, eyes horrified. Then I zipped past a group of Smurf cops and flung open the door with the brass plaque that read, in large block letters, "Captain Lila Tsu," and in small letters, "Homicide."

  She'd been at her desk, wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose. She gasped and stood in a hurry, her actions for once awkward and graceless. The chair rolled back and hit the file cabinet to the right rear of the desk before it toppled over. It might have clipped her leg on its way down.

  But just that fast, the unflappability was back in place. "What are you doing here?"

  "A clue!"

  I startled her again, but she did a good job disguising it. "Excuse me?"

  "I have a clue ... a lead ... whatever you want to call it. And this is one you didn't know before."

  The elegant eyebrow rose. "I wouldn't be so sure, Haley. I'm very thorough."

  "I bet you are, but this has nothing to do with thoroughness. It has to do with antiques and the sale and what did and didn't sell."

  "Care to run that by me again?"

  "I'm not going to waste time like that." I took a deep breath to tamp down my excitement. Maybe this was the pass I needed to get out of jail free, like in Monopoly. "I found something where it shouldn't be, a piece that should've sold but didn't. And it's in the last place you'd think it'd wind up.

  "I thought you weren't going to waste time." Detective Tsu smiled, taking some of the sting out of her words. "Why don't you tell me what the item is, where it is, and why it shouldn't be there. I especially want to know how you discovered it and why you think it's in the wrong place."

  Faster than a toddler after a crystal vase, I told her about my presentation. She grinned when I mentioned the table I climbed. Bet she didn't go around climbing on suspects' side tables, no matter what. Then I told her about the Erte, how valuable it was, how it had been listed but hadn't sold.

  "It is puzzling," she said when I ran out of steam, "but I don't see where it has anything to do with the case. Not unless you know more than you're telling."

  That popped-balloon feeling hit again. "I only know what I told you, but don't you think it's significant that a piece that never went up for bid at the auction turned up in the Stokers' living room?"

  "Significant how?"

  "What if someone meant to steal the piece, Marge found them, they bashed in her head, and then, when I started screaming, they ditched it in the Stokers' things. You know, so that they wouldn't be caught with incriminating eviden
ce."

  "It's plausible," Ms. Tsu said, throwing a wet blanket on my excitement, "but highly unlikely."

  That made me mad. "Why? Because it would clear me?"

  "Not necessarily, Haley. Think about it. You say you just found the statue at the Stokers' house. That you'd never noticed it there before. And now you also want me to consider it the key to the murder, the one you're accused of committing. How does that sound to you now?"

  Frustration brought bitter tears to my eyes. "It sounds as though you're determined to lock me up for life. Even though new evidence has now turned up."

  "Look, I'm not 'determined,' as you say. I'm just telling you what a judge and a jury are going to think." She took a deep breath. "They're also likely to turn against you for this."

  "What do you mean?"

  "How would you react if someone who looked guilty as sin tried to shift the blame onto a disabled woman and the husband who cares for her?"

  "But that's not what I'm doing..."

  Nothing I said would change her mind. I saw it in her eyes.

  I squared my shoulders. "Think what you want, but I know something strange is going on here. And I'm going to figure it out. Then, Karate Chop Cop, when you're washing the egg off your face, don't say I kept evidence from you. Remember, I tried to feed it to you, but you spat it back out."

  I retraced my earlier steps, excusing myself to all I'd shocked. Polite as my departure was, it wouldn't gain me a thing, not a minute less of jail time, that's for sure. The only thing that would save me was a miracle. And I'd have to work that myself.

  I had no other choice.

  Running ideas someone's already termed wild past your very serious-minded, ultraconservative, logical, absolutely nonsuspicious father is not a smart thing. I, of course, did just that as soon as I got home. I wanted Dad to agree with me, to say that something strange was going on, that maybe I'd found the key to turning suspicion elsewhere.

  But he didn't.

  He reacted as Detective Tsu had.

  "I know you're worried about going back to jail," he said. "But really, dear. This is terrible. How can you accuse the Stokers of murder? One would think you of all people wouldn't throw around accusations like that."

  "Why does everyone think I'm accusing them?" I blew hair out of my eyes. The rebellious, fluffy stuff wafted back down to where it had started out.

  I went on, certain I was on the right track. 'All I said is that someone stole the statue, probably killed Marge when she caught him. Then, when I found the body, he stashed the thing where he knew no one would think to look for it."

  "That's crazy."

  "No, really. Would you think Gussie or Tom might stuff a chunk of brass worth thousands inside the bag on the back of the wheelchair?"

  "You don't know that's what happened. No one but you would come up with that thought."

  "Bingo! That's my point. No one else would think to look there for evidence either." I scored that point. "But I bet the killer did. He also probably thought he could get it back when the cops were done with him. I doubt he thought Detective Karate Chop-"

  "Who?"

  "You know. The perfect woman who decided she's going to get me no matter what." At his puzzled look, I added, "Lila Tsu, Dad. The homicide detective in charge of Marge's murder investigation."

  "You mean that nice young woman who takes lessons with you at Tyler's gym?"

  I didn't know which error to address first, calling Detective Tsu nice or calling Tyler's dojo a gym, so I corrected neither. "Yeah, sure. That one. Anyway, you want to bet the killer never thought the cops would send Tom and Gussie home right away?"

  "You know I don't bet, Haley, but that could be true. Not that I think the sculpture matters in the long run."

  "Then how did it get to Gussie's living room? Who do you think got it there? Or do you think the Stokers mysteriously bought it from Marge, and she never bothered to record the sale, much less tell Ozzie about it?"

  "Don't you think the Stokers would have wondered how the figurine got in their bag? Into their living room?" He shook his head and gave me an indulgent smile. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation, just as I'm sure there's a God in heaven who'll reveal the truth in his own good time."

  "Let me tell you, Dad. I hope you're right, and I sure hope he hurries. If he doesn't, I'm going to stink in that cell worse than Lazarus did after lying around dead until Jesus got there to raise him up ... from the ... dead..."

  Where did that come from? Yet another time in recent days that Scriptural scraps floated up from my past. It shocked me enough that I shrugged, kissed Dad on the head, and ran upstairs.

  Maybe something strange was happening.

  But was it happening to me?

  By the time my next session with Tedd rolled around, I'd begun to question my own sanity. Why not? Everyone else did.

  But the savvy Latina shrink asked the one question no one else had. "Do you think you're losing your mind? Do you think you're imagining bogeymen where there aren't any?"

  I stared at her, another elegant woman, but this one originally so. Whereas Detective Tsu did nothing to enhance her ethnic beauty, Tedd left no doubt in anyone's mind how she felt about her heritage. Rich, glossy black waves tumbled past her shoulders, held back by a pair of hand-hammered silver combs, one at each side of her center part. Ruby lipstick enhanced her full lips, and a white blouse, embroidered in the same fiery shade, hinted at athletic curves. More Taxco silver graced her earlobes, wrists, fingers, and throat. Everything she wore showed pride in the artistry of fellow Mexicans.

  But she'd asked a question, and no matter how I tried to avoid it, she'd made a good point. "No, I'm not losing my mind. At least, I don't think I am when someone who refuses to see what's so clear to me doesn't tell me I am."

  "And when they do ... ?"

  "Then I question my motives. Am I that desperate to avoid jail that I would blame an even more innocent person? Have I really fallen that low?"

  Tedd waited in silence. She'd made it clear, in words and actions, that she wasn't going to give me any answers. She felt that any she offered wouldn't be mine and wouldn't benefit me.

  I looked at my hands, hands that had moved the Erte, hands that had clutched the rock that crushed Marge's skull, hands that had once tried to fight off a man bent on domination and self-gratification. How could anyone use their hands to hurt or kill another?

  "There is a bogeyman," I said. "But he's not in my imagination. He killed Marge, and he's waiting for me to pay for his crime."

  "And the sculpture?"

  "Ozzie Krieger, Marge's assistant, agrees that something happened to that statue. And he doesn't know I found it, that it turned up at the Stoker home."

  "Would he play mind games with you? Could he be guilty?"

  "Could be. I just know what I know."

  Tedd's ability to get me to cut to the chase impressed me. I'd come to our session questioning what I'd seen. She'd let me talk things out, and I no longer questioned myself. I doubted anyone could budge me now.

  "How do you think the rape has affected how you see this crime?"

  I inhaled sharply. "I haven't given it thought."

  "Take your time and think about it now."

  It didn't take long to find an answer. "I think the rape colors everything I see, think, or do. I don't know that it can ever be different."

  "What if I told you that's not a bad thing?"

  "I'd think we need to swap chairs."

  She chuckled. "Think about it, Haley. You have a different way of looking at this murder. You even have a different perspective than a jaded detective. In this case, that perspective might prove to be a benefit."

  "I wouldn't go that far."

  "I would, and that's because I've been in your shoes. Don't you think my experience helps me understand others? To walk that mile in their shoes?"

  "I guess, but I don't see where that follows in my case."

  "I'd suggest that the suspicion everyone's
directed at you is a way to ward off fear."

  She blocked my objection with a shake of her head. "Give me a chance to explain myself. Everyone, even a cop, is capable of fear. Murder is the ultimate violence, the ultimate fear everyone has to conquer. They need a quick answer to the question at the top of their thoughts, and they need it right away. Who killed Marge becomes greater than the need to know. For most, it boils down to knowing who might kill again. And will it be me or someone I love he kills next?"

  "I can sort of buy that, but I don't see where I'm all that different. Except that I'm more afraid I'll wind up in jail with no way to help myself."

  "Exactly. You've been to the edge of death and, by the grace of God, came back from it. It's lack of freedom and control that rocks you."

  I nodded. She understood.

  "Can't you see that while others are ready to jump to the quickest solution, you can distance yourself and see more? You can question the easy answers. To see everyone who's involved in a different light."

  "That's some way to make lemonade out of the sourest lemons."

  "That's what life is all about, Haley." Tedd's grin was infectious.

  I smiled back in spite of myself.

  "Think about it," she added. "I'm sure that, as a preacher's kid, you're familiar with Scripture. The one that comes to mind right now is the one that speaks about keeping our minds on what is worthy, beautiful, etc. Those of us who can do that after something as repulsive as rape are the ones who survive."

  Of course I knew Philippians 4:8-one of Dad's favorites. "Let me ask you something, and I really want an answer."

  "I'll see what I can do," Tedd replied, serious now.

  "Why do you guys always bring it back to the God stuff? I don't get it. How can you still have faith when he left you out to hang? He didn't stop that monster from doing what he wanted."

  "God could have stopped the rapes, yours and mine. But would I have become the woman I am today without it? I doubt it. Once upon a time, the only thing in my mind was to sing my way to the top of the charts. And I wasn't singing God's praises either. Now I can serve him and his children in need. You tell me what's better."

  "You're telling me I should be glad Paul raped me because it's going to make me a better person?"