Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

Gretchen had done her Internet homework. “And schizophrenia.”

Nina chimed in. “Anybody with emotional problems in those days was labeled schizophrenic.”

“That’s correct,” Caroline said. “The label was overused. But as far as electroshock goes, we learned at the library that over a million people each year still receive it. Of course, now the procedure is voluntary.”

“Who would do that?” April said. “How creepy.”

Gretchen was overwhelmed by the amount of information they’d discovered. “I think everything we’ve discussed tonight should remain between us.”

“What happens in the banquet hall,” April said with a grin, “stays in the banquet hall.”

“Seriously,” Caroline said. “Very soon, we’ll go to the police.”

“Where do we go from here?” Nina said.

Gretchen looked over at her mother. She didn’t like the plan they had concocted on the way over in the cab. It had been her mother’s idea, and Gretchen couldn’t really see the point, but she didn’t have a better idea.

“Here’s our idea,” she said, jumping into what she was sure would be extremely hot water.

When the women leave the banquet hall, Jerome rises up from behind the stage curtain and stretches out his cramped muscles. Lucky for him, he heard them fumbling around with the lock and whispering. If they’d found him asleep in a stage chair, he’d have been screwed. In the nick of time, he took a dive behind the stage and didn’t move a single muscle.

They stayed long enough to worry him, his body complaining like all get-out, but he remained in a frozen position. How much longer could he do it?

As long as it takes, he said in his head more than once.

He sure heard an earful, though. Man! Craziness, he thinks, is in the eye of the beholder. It’s shifty. Who gets to decide? Other crazies?

He heard the whole thing from beginning to end, and now he’s in the driver’s seat again. He is back on track, just like the strip of lighting he installed over the stage.

For a time there, he’d lost their trail. But Jerome’s a smart guy. He knew they’d show up at the building eventually. He’s good at waiting, like when he’s after a bird. Cats are the same way, although he hates cats, for what they do to birds. But he’s an observer of behavior, and cats know how to get what they want.

It’s only a matter of who has the most patience.

He rummages through the garbage in the break room, pulling out the burger bags and eating what he can find, pieces of bun, a little hamburger meat, bits of lettuce. Finished with the scraps, he wipes his hands on the gray overalls. He decides right on the spot that he likes to wear this one-piece outfit. The pockets are wide and deep, perfect to fit a bird inside.

Weapons and birds are his fields of expertise.

Everybody’s special in some way, if you just take time to find it and accept it. You don’t have any control over some things, so go with the flow, he always says, and make use of your skills.

The women left some coffee in the pot, lukewarm, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

He pours a little for himself, using the same cup that Gretchen Birch drank from, the one with her name on it and little dolls dancing around the rim. He can smell her scent right along with the coffee smell, and it is as rich as cream.

Jerome inhales, enjoying himself immensely, satisfied with life.

He isn’t in any kind of hurry.

Because he knows exactly where they are going.

April and Nina, along with their canine entourage that included Nimrod, would spend the night at Brandon’s house. Under different circumstances, Gretchen would have found humor in the situation. Brandon Kline hadn’t known what he was getting into when he began dating Nina. This family came with a lot of baggage, most of it living and breathing, and Nina was throwing all her curveballs at him at once.

Her aunt drove the few blocks to World of Dolls in silence. Mentally exhausted like the rest of us, Gretchen thought. And angry. They’d had a heated debate over the wisdom of Gretchen and Caroline’s choice of accommodations and were barely speaking to each other.

Nina had continued to disagree with them even as they were leaving the banquet hall. “You’re fulfilling your destiny. You can’t seem to wait for your share of misery and disaster. Check into a hotel. I’ll pay.”

“Nina,” Gretchen had replied, “we want to stay there, so leave it alone. Join us if you’d like.”

“I’m giving up. This is so foolish,” Nina had shot back. “Like one of those old slasher movies where the woman just has to go down into the basement, knowing that the killer is in the house. How stupid is that?”

“I love scary movies,” April had said as Gretchen inserted her key into the keyhole and opened the door leading into the World of Dolls Museum.

Now, as Gretchen made her way up the spiral staircase, she wondered again what they hoped to learn from the house and its ghostly occupant. A hotel would have been simpler, safer, and less nerve-wracking. Every creak in the floorboards frightened her. The small protection she carried in the form of a lipstick-shaped cylinder of pepper spray didn’t reassure her much. She wished it were a semiautomatic weapon.

Aunt Gertie, where are you when I need you?

And where was her other aunt when she needed her? It was uncharacteristic of Nina to turn down an opportunity for adventure. Nina had claimed that she refused to accompany them because of the danger of inciting wrath in a ghost whose remains had been improperly removed from its domain. “The bones might be gone from the house,” she had said, “but the ghost has been left behind, and it will be angry.”

“Ghosts must have their own personalities,” April had said. “Like people. You can’t predict their moods. You’re thinking up excuses.”

Gretchen silently agreed.

What Nina really wanted was to be with her man. Who could blame her?

Soon, if all went well, Gretchen would be wrapped in strong, manly arms of her own. Matt Albright would be all hers.

With her mother beside her, she paused to listen at the upstairs landing.

Not a sound.

The light of the moon had guided them through the lower level of the house, past the doll displays arranged in more easygoing days. It seemed so long ago. One of the dolls appeared to move, causing Gretchen’s throat to constrict and her heart to beat wildly. Then she realized it was only a cloud passing across the moon, creating patterns of dark and light inside the old house, giving inanimate objects a sense of motion.

To make matters even more difficult, they couldn’t risk any artificial lighting, not so much as the smallest flashlight beam as they found their way along the upstairs hall and into the master bedroom where the armoire had revealed its long-kept secret.

“This is it then,” Gretchen whispered. “We might as well get settled.”

“Why are we tiptoeing and whispering?” Caroline said, whispering back.

“I don’t know,” Gretchen said, speaking at her normal volume but finding it shockingly loud. “If a ghost is around, it knows it has company. No amount of sneaking is going to help us hide from it. I’ll be right back.”

“No, we have to stay together.”

“I’m only going to the next room. Relax.”

Using the wall for support and guidance, Gretchen moved through the rooms and returned moments later, carrying the doll trunk.

She sat down on the bed next to her mother. “Nina’s right,” she said. “What do we hope to accomplish by spending the night in this creepy place?”

“We have the same stubborn streak,” her mother said. “We’re doing it because no one else wants us to.”