Deb Baker - Dolly Departed

"Let me see those pictures." He took the phone from her and hunched over it, chewing his gum and clicking through the photographs. "What's this?" He held it out so she could see the crudely constructed fifth room box.

"It was on the floor, along with the other room boxes."

April joined them, taking a look at the picture, then sitting on the corner of the desk. "We don't have any furniture or furnishings left to fill another room box. Looks like this one was barely started."

Gretchen had to force herself to concentrate on the conversation. She would worry about Joseph's nicotine addiction later. He wasn't the only person in Phoenix using the antismoking medication.

"It's the beginning of a kitchen." Joseph rubbed his goatee.

"A kitchen?" said Gretchen and April simultaneously.

"Don't you women cook?" Joseph said. "You know what a kitchen is? One of those places where meals are prepared and eaten?"

"It does have a rather flowery border," April said. Gretchen looked closely at the room box photo. "Those are little apples and teapots bordering the ceiling."

April adjusted her reading glasses on the tip of her nose.

"They are! Definitely kitchen wallpaper."

"The sink sketch would have tipped me off first thing,"

Joseph said, enjoying himself.

"Charlie was designing a kitchen?" Gretchen remembered the miniature peanut butter jar found under her body. A common kitchen staple, but a deadly one if you happened to have a severe peanut allergy. It didn't make sense. What had Charlie been up to? "Did you see a miniature refrigerator or stove when we were gathering things up?" Gretchen asked April.

"Nothing even close."

"Would you know what kitchen appliances looked like if you saw them?" quipped Joseph, the comedian.

"Very funny, wise guy," April said. "We would have figured it out eventually."

Nina reappeared with dogs and shopping bags just as Gretchen remembered the street signs and hauled them out of her purse.

"We found four street signs on the floor," she said, handing them to Joseph. "There's no way of knowing which one goes with which box. We'll have to guess. Unless you've heard of them."

"You found these on Charlie's floor?"

Gretchen nodded.

"I know one of the addresses."

"Which one?" Gretchen asked.

Joseph held up the sign that read Number ninety-two Second Street. "Is this a joke?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'll never forget this street number, even though it's been years. I did a paper on it in high school. Are you sure you found this at Charlie's?"

"Yes," Gretchen said. "What's wrong?"

"Number ninety-two Second Street is in Massachusetts. And I can even tell you that it belongs with the Victorian bedroom setting, the one with the mohair sofa."

"Spill it, Joseph," April said.

"That's the address," he said, "where Lizzie Borden allegedly used a hatchet on her parents. You remember the little ditty. It was a jump rope rhyme. 'Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.' "

"That explains the miniature axe," Nina said with a little shiver. "We put it in the wrong room box."

"The reality was," Joseph continued, "that her mother had been struck eighteen or nineteen times and her father eleven."

"You can't tell from the photographs, but there are blood spots on the sofa and on the wall," April added.

"I have a feeling," Nina said, using a dramatic tone,

"that the discoveries here today are very important."

"Not one of your feelings again!" April said. Nina's chin came up a few inches, a sure sign that she'd taken April's comment to heart. "The room box where the Bordens were murdered and the unfinished kitchen are clues. You have to believe me." She frowned at April.

"Thanks for the information," Gretchen said to Joseph, taking back the signs. "I'm not sure why Charlie would make such a morbid scene."

"We'll never know now," Joseph said.

Nina was pulling away from the shop when Gretchen remembered what she wanted to ask Joseph. "Wait, Nina," she said quickly. Nina hit the brakes. Gretchen rolled down the window, catching him about to reenter the shop. "I forgot to ask," she called out. "Were you at Charlie's shop Saturday morning?"

"No," Joseph said. "Last time I saw her was early last week. What makes you think that?"

"Weren't you invited to her party last Saturday?"

"Yes, but I couldn't make it, which I'm glad about, considering what happened. Seeing her like that would have been devastating for me."

"I thought I saw you at the parade," Gretchen pressed on. Joseph shook his head. "No," he said, firmly. "I wasn't there."

"Break in traffic," Nina chimed in. "Got to go."

"Toodles!" April called as they cut into traffic. Gretchen rolled up the window and felt the chill of the Impala's air-conditioning already kicking in. Or maybe the goose bumps on her arms were caused by something else.

"He was lying," she said as they left Joseph's Dream Dolls behind.

"It really is a kitchen," April protested on his behalf, misunderstanding Gretchen. "Once he pointed it out, I could tell. It's definitely a kitchen."

"Gretchen's talking about the street sign," Nina said.

"Why would he say it was the Lizzie Borden murder scene if it wasn't?"

Gretchen tried to clarify her statement about Joseph's lie. "That's not-"

What was the use? Nina was only interested in mothering dogs and reading tarot cards. April's main ambition in life was blowing one diet after another and gossiping with the doll club members.

"There's a sub shop," April shouted, pointing to the left, her finger almost in Nina's face. "Stop."

Gretchen's aunt blasted right by, pretending not to hear.

Joseph enters the church and crosses the lobby, hoping the meeting is almost over. He considers going in and joining them. What if he shared his problem with the entire group?

Too dangerous.

Joseph dips two fingers into holy water and crosses himself.

He's a wreck.

Gretchen Birch saw him! She can place him at the parade, within several blocks of Charlie's shop. He can't think of anything else.

What a fool he is. In more ways than one.

Charlie had it right all along. You can't fight your genetic makeup. Bad blood, she said, the outcome is inevitable. You'll self-destruct.

Thanks for the encouragement, friend.

He remembers the anger churning inside of him like a whirl of dust. "Look at you," Charlie had said as she watched him suck his life out through a menthol cigarette. "You have an addictive personality. Face it. You can't change. You can't stop the motion."

He still feels the hurt.

Tough as nails, the brassy broad had lost her perspective on humanity. She'd lost her compassion, and she'd given up on people after Sara died. That crackhead son of hers didn't help her view any, either.

Joseph enters the church interior, bends a knee, makes the sign of the cross, and slides into a pew. A derelict from the street is the only other worshipper in this house of the Lord.

The church is soundless. The air smells like the bum two pews ahead of him.

Joseph tries to pray but can't. He kneels on the riser, folds his hands, and squeezes his eyes shut. Nothing. He has dressed carefully to come here, curbing his appetite for attention. He's wearing all brown. Different shades. The same khaki pants from earlier today, a shirt the color of Phoenix gravel, brown sandals. His propensity for loudness is what got him into this mess. Those big, look-atme colors. Here I come, he likes to say without words. You can't help what you are.

Stop with the excuses. Isn't that part of recovery? No more excuses?