Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

Since learning he can’t trust his mother to keep a secret, Gretchen thought.

“What I want to know,” Nina said, “is whose grave was she visiting after dark?”

All eyes turned to Gretchen, who shrugged.

“Gretchen doesn’t know,” Nina said, still testy. “Right there at the scene of the crime and she doesn’t notice the engraving on the headstone.”

“She must have been very upset,” Julie said in Gretchen’s defense.

“It was pitch-black,” Gretchen said. “And, yes, I was upset.” When was the last time you stood beside a murdered woman? “The woman had crawled from one location to another. I really don’t know the answer, but that’s a very good question.”

“Fine,” Nina snapped. “A killer is on the loose, killing doll collectors, which all of you happen to be, and you didn’t notice. Fine. Just fine.”

What is the difference between antique dolls and vintage dolls?

Dates!

Dolls produced prior to 1930 are considered antiques. Most antique dolls came from European countries, especially France and Germany. The dolls were clothed in Victorian and Edwardian fashions. Today they serve as delightful historical artifacts.

Vintage dolls were designed between 1930 and 1980, and were produced by doll manufacturers such as the Alexander Doll Company, Ideal Toy and Novelty Company, and Mattel, among others.

– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

Caroline unpacks boxes in the museum’s upstairs storage room, the same room in which her sister claimed she’d witnessed the presence of an apparition. Nina has made her aware of every creak and groan from the old home, thanks to her talk of otherworldly creatures. Nina has always been very different from Caroline, searching for answers best left unfound, those that defy human logic.

Caroline has never been able to decide if Nina is right or wrong. Strange things do happen when she is around. Unexplainable things. But Caroline is more comfortable with her black-and-white view of the world. Why complicate it any more than it already is by throwing in beings from other worlds and other dimensions?

She glances at her watch. Ten o’clock a.m., still enough time to look through one more box of dolls before heading home to meet with a customer. The cast of Ding Dong Dead should be at the banquet hall deep into rehearsal. Caroline is very glad she opted out of that fiasco, preferring to work quietly and at her own pace at the museum. She’s also glad that she didn’t let the other members talk her into trying to open the museum this month. She needs three, four, maybe five months, hopefully less once the luncheon and play are over, when the others can devote more time to help prepare the museum’s displays.

She withdraws dolls from storage containers, one at a time, unwraps them, examining each to determine if it needs repair. Some are antiques, some vintage. Most of the dolls have been preserved well, packed away with expert care. Little is required other than smoothing a wrinkled costume here and there, recurling a lock of hair, wiping a smudge away, finding the proper stand. She has a few of her supplies at hand for the most simple repairs.

The next item that she unwraps is a metal doll head. The doll head has yellow painted hair, red lips, enormous blue painted eyes. The face paint is chipped away in spots, leaving marks like white chicken pox. Caroline isn’t surprised to be holding a head without a body. Many of the metal-head dolls were sold that way, and the new owner would then find a suitable body. She wonders about the body this one might have had. Metal, wooden, kid leather, cloth? She works her way through the rest of the container’s contents without finding an unattached body.

The paint she needs to restore the doll face is at home in her repair workshop. She’ll take the head with her when she leaves, find time when it becomes available. There is no rush. One doll head won’t be missed. The collection is enormous, and this isn’t even one of the most rare or valuable types of metal heads.

Caroline rewraps it in the original packing paper, puts it into a white plastic bag, and places it in a shopping bag with several other dolls needing work. Then she locks the museum’s door and drives toward home, thinking of the customer she’s about to meet.

The call came from a man who has never used her service before, but is excessively demanding, wanting a rapid repair in spite of his tenuous position as a first-time client. She should have refused, but he pressed hard and the financial reward offered for quick service was too high to turn down.

She weaves through the gridlock traffic. It’s always rush hour in Phoenix, too many people, too few lanes, the new highway systems becoming jammed as soon as they are built. Camelback Mountain is in sight and beckons to her as always, a calming natural force in the mass of humanity.

The traffic frees, and she quickens her pace.

A white van pulls up alongside her at a red light, blocking her view on the right side. Again. She notices it because it seems to pace her; whether she speeds up or slows down, the van is right there at her side. It’s beat-up, junky, most of the side panel damaged, dented and rusty. The vehicle’s windows are heavily tinted, privacy windows.

She has room ahead to speed up and rid herself of the van. She does, but the van does the same.

Jerk! She hates driving in the city, the rudeness and unpredictability. The games of chicken. Look at me, I’m king of the road. Everybody driving massive SUVs, one-upping each other in size and power.

The white van is almost in her lane, veering over the line, forcing her closer to the center where cars rush at her from the opposite direction. A horn blares. An oncoming car swerves. She weaves, then returns to her lane.

What a close call!

“Take it easy. Get in your own lane!” she shouts out loud even though the van driver can’t possibly hear her. Her heart is thumping.

The van still paces her. Either the van driver is drunk or distracted by a phone call or something equally inattentive and dangerous. She glances over to see the side of the van within inches of striking her car. Now it is her turn to lay on the horn, a shrill plea to the other driver to pay attention, the flat of her hand hitting the horn hard.

Instead of moving off, the van lurches at her, sharply, a wrenching at her as though they are playing roller derby and are adversaries. A solid hit.

She feels the impact and grips the wheel with both hands, struggling to control the car, intuitively knowing that her efforts are wasted. She uses every muscle in her body, focuses with all the power in her being, but still the car swerves beneath her, heading the wrong way.

Then another impact that should have been head-on, but her car has a life of its own and is turned sideways when the collision occurs. She sees the woman’s face up close, too close, horrified, mouth open in alarm as she plows into the passenger side of Caroline’s car.

Oncoming cars are running into the other woman’s car from behind, sending them both spinning. Glass breaks. The sound is loud, louder than she could ever have imagined. Her neck is wrenched. She feels a sharp pain, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters at the moment, because time is suspended. It has ceased to exist.

Caroline closes her eyes. There’s nothing more she can do to save herself. She feels her world turn upside down.

Gretchen watched Matt get out of his car holding a bouquet of flowers. He sprinted into the banquet hall without seeing her approaching from the coffee shop down the street. Some detective, she thought with a smile. Coffee in hand, she perched on the front of his car and waited for him to come back out, not wanting to share him with the others.