Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

One sweet kiss and he was off, leaving Gretchen frustrated and pretty sure that he’d just told her to mind her own business.

The woman at the front door is like an all-terrain vehicle, solid, strong, rugged, in high gear as though she’s had too much coffee. She’s wearing a tentlike yellow top and matching cotton pants and white crew socks with leather sandals. He’s annoyed by her presence this early in the day, having expected an opportunity to check out the hall before anyone arrived. He wants to shout out loud to blow off his building tension, but he’s too smart for that. He holds it in.

“You just saved the show,” she says all enthusiastic, reaching into his personal space. At first, he thinks she is going to bear-hug him, she’s so excited. So he steps back, dodging, but she’s only extending her hand. He doesn’t want to touch her, but he needs to fit in. They shake. “I’m April,” she says. “And you say you have experience with lighting?”

He gives her a short nod, and she claps her hands together, like her prayers have been answered.

“That guy said you were looking for someone,” he says, swinging his head toward the man standing at the street corner. The big guy doesn’t cross the road in either direction. Instead he lights a pipe and loiters at the crosswalk. Who smokes a pipe these days?

“That’s Mr. B. He owns this banquet hall,” she says, squinting toward the pipe smoker over the top of her reading glasses, the sun hot and bright on her round face. “He lives upstairs. Good thing I mentioned to Mr. B. that we needed someone to do our lights, otherwise he wouldn’t have passed it on to you. What a break for us.”

“I was an electrician before I retired,” he says. Yeah, right.

“What’s your name?”

“Jerome.” He doesn’t try to think of an alias. It doesn’t matter now and it won’t matter later. He smells pipe tobacco, a light aroma of cherries, coming from Mr. B., who is greeting a woman walking by. He should get inside before the man decides to join them and says something to make this April woman suspicious.

“Why are we still standing here?” she says as though plucking his thoughts from his brain. “Come on in.”

They enter the building and go down a hall to a banquet room, their footsteps echoing like thunder in a canyon. Dolls and teddy bears are in display cases on a stage; a heap of pink material is on a sewing machine. No one else around but the woman. And a small, nasty creature like a rat, that barrels at him. It snarls.

If it keeps coming, he’ll kick it. The woman must sense his intention because she grabs it when it rushes by her to attack him.

“A local theater group is letting us use their stuff,” she says, tucking the animal under an arm and leading him to a corner where lighting equipment is boxed, the flaps open like they looked inside but realized right away that this job was beyond them. One long black cord hangs out of a cardboard box.

“I better get busy stringing lights and running power.” He doesn’t have a clue how to start, but it can’t be that hard. Hang them over the stage-the hooks are already in place he sees-focus the beams, flick them on and off at the right times. Not rocket science, and he’s a smart guy.

“Where’s the script?” At least he knows to ask. He should study it.

“I suppose that would help,” she says digging through papers on a small table, finding what she’s looking for, unbelievable considering the mess. “The director will be here soon. She can answer any questions you have. I made a pot of coffee if you want some.”

She’s at the sewing machine, making room among the folds of fabric to find her chair, muttering to the dog, tucking it into a bag hanging from the chair, picking up a pair of scissors. “Here,” she says, coming at him with the scissors pointed right at him. “Let me take care of that for you.” Right then he thinks he will have to hurt her. He doesn’t have much time to consider his options. Before he pulls out his own weapon, she says, “I do that all the time. Leave tags on new clothes. Let me snip it off.”

Jerome relaxes slightly, hand still stuffed in his pocket, gripping his switchblade just in case. He is taking a chance, letting someone get behind his back. She’s quick. Holds the price tag up so he can see. Goes back to her machine.

That was close.

He helps himself to a cup of coffee before tackling the boxes of equipment. His first captured bird pops in his head, just like that, for no reason. When he was a kid he liked to sneak up on birds. He’d wait patiently, motionless, then strike like lightning. The first time, he took the bird home in his backpack, proud of his accomplishment. His mother wigged out, made him release it.

“That’s not normal behavior,” she said. “You should be playing ball with the rest of the kids.”

But birds, he discovered, were much better companions than people.

He gulps the last dregs of coffee, wipes his mouth, and gets to work.

The majority of metal-head dolls were made in Germany, although some came from the United States and France. Metal heads were primarily produced from 1861 to the mid-1920s. Materials ranged from copper and zinc to brass, pewter, tin, lead, and aluminum. Gold and silver were used in rare and valuable cases. The heads were nearly indestructible. Metal doll heads could be purchased through Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Montgomery Ward until the early 1930s.

– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

Thursday morning Gretchen was on her first round of exercises on the Curves circuit when the subject of the haunted house came up, thanks to Nina, who couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

And Gretchen had thought her aunt’s fascination with tarot cards had been intense!

“April’s not here,” Nina pointed out unnecessarily, suspiciously. “She isn’t at the museum, is she? I don’t want anyone over there. I made it quite clear.”

Bonnie glanced up from the abductor machine. “She’s at the banquet hall finishing up her sewing project.”

Aside from Gretchen, her aunt, and Matt’s mother, the only other women in Curves at the moment were Julie and Ora, the manager. The doll collectors had studied the crowd patterns and had picked a time to exercise when they had more space and privacy.

“What a relief,” Nina said. “Thank goodness we aren’t planning to open the museum to the public soon. I don’t want anyone near the place until I get to the bottom of our problem.”

“April thinks your ghost is really a genie,” Bonnie said. “She wants to rub the travel trunk to see what happens.”

Nina frowned. “She’s still on that kick? I can’t decide if she’s making fun of me or not. April doesn’t have any experience with ghosts. She isn’t qualified to make a statement like that. Genies! That’s ridiculous.”

Gretchen could have mentioned that April had as many credentials as Nina, which were none at all. Nor was she going to tell Nina that Caroline had left before sunrise to work at the very place that Nina was warning them to avoid. Bonnie and Julie knew, too, but were sworn to secrecy.

“An apparition is a very serious phenomenon,” Nina said, running in place on a mat. “It’s the disfranchised body of a displaced person, stuck between this plane and another one. We have to help her get unstuck so she can finish her journey.”

“How did you actually see a ghost?” Ora called from the front desk. “Aren’t they supposed to be invisible?”

Bonnie nodded her bewigged head. “I’m wondering the same thing.”

“I thought I heard a sound coming from the vicinity of the trunk,” Nina said, continuing on to the next machine. “Once I opened the lid, something swished past. I felt it touch my cheek on the flyby. It was very cold and silver. Yes, it absolutely, positively was silver.”