Deb Baker - Dolled Up For Murder

“Yes, the note,” April agreed. “It does beg an explanation.”

“Does everyone know about the note?” Gretchen demanded.

“News travels fast when it’s riding Bonnie’s lips,” Nina said.

“That’s the truth,” April said.

Gretchen checked her watch and left the two women chatting in the workshop. Six o’clock in Boston. Steve would probably still be at the office, even though it was Friday and most Bostonians would be on their way to happy hour.

From her mother’s bedroom, she dialed his business number. While the phone rang, she studied a Shirley Temple doll posed on the nightstand and ran her fingers across its white taffeta skirt. A receptionist answered and mechanically informed her that Steve was in a meeting and unavailable. Her harried voice reminded Gretchen that Steve’s commitment to the firm took other prisoners as well, some not nearly as well compensated.

“Would you like to leave a message?” the receptionist asked.

“No. No message.” Gretchen hung up and tried his cell phone. No answer. She left a voice message saying she had arrived safely, her mother was still missing, and she would call later.

The bed looked inviting, but Gretchen knew she’d have trouble getting up again if she gave in to its beckoning comfort. She must look a fright by this time. Long ago, a few doll collectors had compared her features to the Shirley Temple doll next to her. Right now she was sure she looked more like a freaky Chucky doll.

Nina appeared behind her.

“Let’s go,” Nina said. “The day’s still young.”

Gretchen wondered at her aunt’s stamina. Neither of them had gotten much sleep the night before, thanks to Nina’s persistence. Gretchen felt weary, her body still on Boston time. She ran her hands through her unruly brown hair in a futile attempt to restore order.

“Food,” Nina said. “You need some fuel. Let’s go out and get something to eat. April can follow in her car, and we’ll drop off my purse trainee on the way.”

“Where is the doll shawl? We can’t just leave it on the workbench.”

“I’ve wrapped it up in a wee-wee pad along with the picture, and I’ll stow it in the trunk of my car until we find out who owns them. The Impala trunk is more secure than a safe-deposit box.” She laughed. “You’d need more than a crowbar to break into it.”

Nina had wrapped it in a wee-wee pad?

“I can find something more appropriate,” Gretchen said, heading for the workshop. She transferred the shawl and photograph to a long sheet of bubble wrap and rolled it up, securing it with packing tape and placing it inside a small box.

“Ready?” Her aunt said, and Gretchen picked up the box and nodded.

Nina drove like a woman possessed by flying demons. April’s white Buick, which was noticeably dented on both the front and back bumper, fell behind and disappeared altogether when Nina gunned the Impala through a yellow light.

“We’ve lost April,” Gretchen said, looking back.

“She knows where we’re going. Let’s hope she makes it there without an accident. You saw the condition of her car. She’s crash prone,” Nina said. “Don’t worry about her. Worry instead…” she ground through the gears, “… about Wobbles and Tutu alone in the same house. I can’t believe restaurants won’t allow dogs. In France everyone dines with their dogs.”

“Paris streets are also dotted with clumps of doggy doo-doo. It’s everywhere like goose crap around a pond.”

“That’s why we have to introduce the French to wee-wee pads. A fortune could be awaiting us.” Nina peeled into a driveway and deposited Rosebud with the pup’s anxious owner.

When they arrived at Richardson’s Restaurant and entered the cool and dimly lit interior of the restaurant, they found that April had already made herself comfortable in a deep-seated booth. They sipped margaritas and ordered tomatillo toast and green chile stew.

Gretchen dug in her purse for her cell phone. She checked for voice messages, hoping for word soon from Steve or her mother. Nothing.

“Nina tells me Caroline is missing,” April said through a mouthful of tortilla chips.

“I really expected a call from her by now,” Gretchen muttered, absently playing with her mother’s bracelet on her wrist.

“Call your answering machine in Boston,” Nina suggested. “Maybe she’s trying to reach you. She couldn’t know you’re in Phoenix.”

Gretchen called her apartment to check for messages. Nothing. She hid her disappointment. She was on the verge of a full-scale search for her mother, and her mother’s silence wasn’t making her choices easy. She keyed in her mother’s cell phone number and left a message on her voice mail asking her to call back immediately.

“I’ve been leaving messages all day,” Nina said.

“Maybe you should file a missing person report,” April suggested.

Gretchen had considered going to the police but quickly rejected the idea. What if Caroline didn’t want to be found? That thought and its implications had played through Gretchen’s mind most of the day.

Apparently Nina had been thinking the same thing. “No,” she said. “It’s too soon. We’ll ask around on our own. Someone has to know where she is.”

“The police must already know that she’s gone,” Gretchen said. “Haven’t they been to the house?”

“I don’t know,” Nina said, shrugging. “I’m avoiding getting involved with the police and their barrage of annoying questions. They’re always trying to blame the first person they stumble across.”

“Try the China Doll Shop,” April suggested. “Julia and Larry hear a lot of scuttlebutt at the shop.”

“We’re headed there next,” Nina said.

Steaming bowls of stew arrived filled with green chiles, chunks of tenderloin, potatoes, cheese, and a rich and flavorful sauce. Gretchen ate with renewed appreciation for Southwestern cuisine. She had forgotten how wonderful the exotic flavors could be.

After dinner April left with a promise to make discreet inquiries about the assortment of doll paraphernalia found with Martha, and Nina wandered off to the ladies’ room. Gretchen walked outside into the early evening heat and stood on the curb.

She smelled him before she saw him. The same odor of unwashed clothing that she remembered from working in homeless shelters during summer breaks from school. The memory of that smell of human decay and rancid hopeless-ness never left her.

He must have been lurking on the side of the restaurant. When Gretchen whirled, she stared directly into his blood-shot eyes. Saw his scruffy beard and dark patches of dirt ground into his face. She wasn’t afraid. From her experience, she knew most of the homeless were harmless, tortured souls who shunned the responsibility of their existence, preferring isolation. Their only wish was to be left alone.

Gretchen moved aside to let him pass, but he stood motionless and stared at her. She could smell alcohol on his breath, and she noticed he clutched a filled garbage bag. All his belongings carried in his arms.

He staggered forward a step and spoke, so low Gretchen almost missed what he said. “Get out,” he hissed. “Right now. While you still can.”

Gretchen watched in astonishment as he trotted away with his bundle, casting one last menacing look back at her.

Caroline made her way through O’Hare’s crowded terminal. Herded along toward baggage, she warily studied the travelers around her. No one looked familiar. She clutched her laptop securely against her chest and turned on her cell phone with one hand, hearing its reassuring beep.

She stopped at a vacant gate, sat down in a quiet corner, and dialed a number she had committed to memory. After four rings, a voice answered.