Deb Baker - Dolled Up For Murder

“I never saw a cat with three legs before,” Larry said. “But he seems to get around fine.”

“He’s amazing,” Gretchen agreed. She nibbled at the bagel. It tasted wonderful.

“I think we should check your mother’s business line and listen to her messages.” Larry wrapped the leftovers and stored them in the refrigerator.

Of course, he would want to check her messages. Was his request a sincere offer of help or a devious way to gain a client list? She studied his features, hoping for a clue to his motives. Reluctantly, she nodded and led the way.

Gretchen experienced a sense of loss when she entered her mother’s workshop, the same sense of emptiness she had felt the day before. It is so easy to forget how much you love someone, she thought, until you realize that you might lose them.

Gretchen and Larry listened to twelve messages, each caller inquiring about the progress on various doll repairs. Several expressed concern about their dolls being ready at a specific time, and all wanted return phone calls. None gave Gretchen the impression they knew that Caroline was unavailable.

“This is hopeless,” Gretchen said. “What am I going to do?”

Gretchen hadn’t worked on a doll since college, when she’d spent summers in her mother’s workshop performing the simpler repairs. She could disassemble, clean, and re-string an antique doll, but her mother was the expert when it came to restoring eyes, refurbishing wigs, and sealing cracks. Not only did Gretchen lack the expertise to satisfy these customers, she didn’t have the time.

“You are going to let me handle it,” Larry said firmly. “I’ll work on the most immediate problems and delay the rest.”

Gretchen wondered what her mother would say if she knew her competition had access to her workshop, but his offer would free her mind and would keep the customers happy. If he ended up stealing customers, it was a small price to pay. “I couldn’t possibly impose…”

“This won’t be entirely free,” he said, clinching the deal. “I’ll expect to be paid for my services.”

Larry was returning phone calls before Gretchen left the room. She showered and dressed, and looked around for her mother’s cancer awareness bracelet. She found it on top of the dresser and frowned. Hadn’t she placed it in the bathroom next to her own last night? Well, she had been exhausted and under pressure yesterday. Gretchen slid her mother’s bracelet on her wrist next to her own bracelet, vowing to wear it until she personally handed it back to its owner.

The doorbell rang as she finished, and she opened it to see Matt Albright standing on the porch with two uniformed police officers behind him. “Search warrant,” he said, waving a document and handing it to her.

“That was fast.” Bravado, Gretchen. Face your adversary with confidence.

“I had it earlier, but I decided that I needed backup. You looked scary.”

“Is that what they taught you in detective school? How to be as annoying as possible?”

Gretchen examined the warrant. Her words were light, but she swallowed through an enormous lump in her throat. She felt sure that they wouldn’t find anything incriminating in their search, because her mother hadn’t done anything wrong.

“May I ask what you are looking for?”

Matt slid past her and gestured to the officers to follow him. “You may, but I can’t tell you. Where does your mother repair dolls?”

“Through there.” Gretchen pointed to the back of the house, and her uninvited guests thundered off in that direction. She walked into the kitchen and sat down hard, her heart skipping.

From her vantage point in the kitchen she saw the two cops stride into the workshop, the detective watching them from the hallway. Gretchen heard Larry’s voice, questioning and bewildered. Then he joined her in the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “They’re tearing everything apart.”

Gretchen shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know.” She slumped deeper into the chair and waited. Larry paced in front of her.

Fifteen minutes later, Detective Albright entered the room, and Gretchen noticed that he’d lost his authoritative pose. Instead, he was several shades paler than earlier. The officer behind him held an antique doll in one latex-gloved hand and a sheet of paper in the other. “Put them on the table,” the detective said to the cop. “Check the bedrooms next.”

“You’re going to search the entire house?” Gretchen knew something was seriously awry when she saw the doll on the table.

“It’s covered in the warrant,” he answered, a professional tone in his voice much different from the casual banter of earlier. More abrupt. “Do you know anything about these?”

He motioned to the doll on the table and took a step back, and Gretchen reached to pick it up.

“Don’t touch that,” he bellowed. Gretchen jerked her hand away.

Gretchen, hands in her lap and a sick feeling in her stomach, leaned forward to observe the doll. It was an excellent white-faced parian, sixteen inches high, with a beige dress and leather shoes. “My mother restores dolls professionally,” she said. “She has many dolls in her care.”

“How about the document?”

Gretchen stood up and leaned forward to scrutinize the paper, while Larry read over her shoulder. Its contents shocked her. “It’s ah… it looks like an inventory of Martha Williams’s doll collection. At least that’s what it says.”

“And this,” Detective Albright said, pointing to the doll, “is one of the dolls on that list. We found the doll and list buried together deep in a supply cabinet. The clothing on the doll matches the description. Don’t you agree?”

“But Martha Williams lost her doll collection years ago. At least that’s what Nina said.”

Larry pulled off his sunglasses and blinked rapidly, “That’s right. She didn’t have a single doll. She lived on the street. The inventory is clearly an old, invalid list.”

The detective’s shiny smile was missing. “How much is this doll worth?”

“We aren’t appraisers,” Gretchen said, coldly, understanding the implications of the question.

“April Lehman will answer that for me,” Detective Albright said.

“You can’t take the doll,” Gretchen insisted.

“Oh, but I can.” The detective suddenly noticed Larry squinting and blinking. “Something in your eye?”

“No,” Larry said. “A nervous twitch. It comes and goes.” He put the sunglasses back on.

Gretchen again surveyed the list of dolls. It was an impressive inventory of antiques, although not particularly large for a serious collector. Poured wax dolls, bisque dolls, wooden dolls, china dolls. Each, she guessed, worth a dollar figure well into the thousands.

The parian doll found in the cabinet matched the one on the list. But Gretchen didn’t find an entry for a French fashion doll.

And no doll trunk.

“I’d like a copy of this list,” Gretchen said. “And a picture of the doll before you take it.”

Detective Albright nodded and stepped away, clasping his hands behind his back. “That’s a reasonable request.” He motioned to one of the officers. “I noticed a copy machine attached to the computer printer in the workshop,” he said as the officer approached. “Get a copy, and be careful.”

Gretchen looked at the doll on the table, then at the detective. She watched a thin line of moisture gather above the detective’s brow as the other officer moved past him, snapped a picture, and took the doll. In fact, Albright flattened against the wall, allowing the officer more room to maneuver than he actually needed.

The officers found nothing else out of the ordinary. The rest of the search seemed perfunctory and ended abruptly, as though the parian doll and the inventory list had been the true purpose of their mission all along.