Margaret Grace - Murder In Miniature

Rosie looked confused. “It looks like one from the set I used in my room box, for the locker doors. But I swear I don’t know how this mirror got in David’s room, Gerry. I was never in there, just at the doorway, with you.”

And lurking in the hallway, I added, but not out loud. “You did take the scene to the hallway while you were waiting, though.”

“I told you, I thought it might take him back to high school, to those old hallway lockers, in a good way. Remember I told you how it was in front of the lockers when he kissed me and asked me out that one time? But, I never got to show it to him on Friday night.” She looked at the mirror again, as if in wonder. “The only time I actually laid eyes on David that night I was with you. Where would I have put the room box then? I had that tiny evening purse.”

“With a big buckle,” Linda said, reminding us she was there, with a slightly wrong-time, wrong-place joke. She cupped her hand over her mouth. Linda couldn’t know how relieved I was that she wasn’t still gasping in terror over the possibility of being arrested herself for her Good Samaritan gesture.

“One more thing, Rosie.” I took my time describing how the scene was trashed. I wrote out the words in the air between us: I hate David . I could tell from Rosie’s expression that she herself was the vandal. “Remember, no skirting the truth,” I reminded her.

“I trashed it. I was so angry, Gerry. I was in our room after you and Maddie left on Saturday morning. I’d shoved it in a drawer the night before. It was already broken in a lot of places. Everything was loose. I started to put the scene back into its carrier while I was packing up and I went nuts. I shaved a point on my lipstick and used it to write that graffiti and then I had this thought of making a bottle of poison. That part calmed me down in a strange way.”

It was not a pretty sight-Rosie madly writing her hate message on the miniature lockers, then, with great concentration, gathering materials from hotel supplies and fashioning the tiny bottle.

“Then you-what?-threw it away?” I was still trying to figure out how the police got hold of it. Rosie blew her nose and nodded at the same time. “I was on my way out and I started to feel so angry again. I just shoved it in the wastebasket in the room. Who needed it? I’m surprised it survived at all.”

“Good glue comes through again, huh?” I said, wondering at what point the police got hold of it.

A brief, thin, but welcome smile crept over Rosie’s face at my glue comment.

Linda kept extra clothes in her locker at the Mary Todd, a storage place much more elegant than the rusted old gray ones that ALHS provided its students. Rosie was invited to borrow any of Linda’s pants and shirts, and she started to clean herself up. The easiest logistics would have been for Rosie to show up at the police station soon after I’d had a chance to talk to Skip.

“If you leave here an hour after I do, that should do it,” I said.

“Don’t let me go alone, Gerry,” Rosie said, reminding me of her plea before heading for David’s fictitious private party. “I’m not sure I’d be able to get there.”

This time I held firm. I needed to reclaim my family life and spend some time with Maddie and Beverly. (Oh, and Nick.)

“I’d rather not come all the way back here to get you. It might be good if you drive your own car to the station,” I said, thinking, It’s the grown-up thing to do.

Rosie didn’t look happy about that arrangement but before she could speak, Linda rescued her. “I’ll take her,” she said.

Usually moody and often disgruntled, Linda came through big-time when anyone appeared ill or needing help. I learned that firsthand when she dropped all extraneous life tasks and helped me care for Ken during the last weeks of his life.

I gave Linda a smile that she probably thought was for only her present kindnesses.

I had one more question for Rosie, a speciously easy one. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your dad,” I said. “How’s he taking this?”

“I haven’t talked to him. Isn’t that awful. But he never liked David back then because of, you know, the date.”

“The date gone bad.” I had no idea exactly what had gone wrong but now was not the time to ask.

Rosie took a seat on the bed. She had a pair of Linda’s elastic waist pants in her hands. If she tried to hang her head any lower, she’d have swept the floor with her hair. “Uh-huh.”

“Your dad still works, I understand. For Callahan and Savage?” Just evaluating Henry Baker as a possible future source of information.

“He consults for them, mostly. He prepares bids, things like that.”

“Why are you asking about him now?” Linda asked. I knew she meant “on my time.”

I patted Rosie’s head. “I’m just trying to get Rosie back to normal and remind her that many people love her.”

Not bad for a quick cover story.

Linda walked me to the front door, leaving Rosie to finish dressing in her clothes. Once we entered the main wing of the home, we ran into a few people I knew, mostly seniors who were enrolled in my crafts classes. We got away with a quick wave at Emma and Lizzie, veritable twins they were such close friends, and one of the best woodworkers I’d ever met, Mr. Mooney.

Seeing the old man in his trim cardigan reminded me of Henry, my newest woodworker friend. I found myself planning a way to initiate another visit to his shop. So that I could see the apartment complex he’d built for his granddaughter, and so that Maddie and Taylor could play together. There was also that unresolved computer joke begun at brunch this morning in San Francisco: why did the witch need a computer? I was eager for the punch line.

Those were the only reasons I could think of for contacting Henry Baker.

“I have news from the front,” Linda said, sounding like a war correspondent from the forties. “I was chatting around while I was on the floor and found out the memorial service for David will be next Saturday at St. Bridget’s. Kind of funny, huh? I mean Bridges and Bridget?” Linda’s nervous laugh trailed off for lack of company. “What is it with me today, Gerry? You know me, I never make this kind of joke.”

“We’re all a little off this weekend,” I said.

“But there’s more,” Linda said. “His classmates have decided to have a memorial service tomorrow morning so people who came from a distance would have a chance to participate. They won’t have the… uh… deceased, of course, but his friends will be able to say good-bye. The announcement made the local news.”

“It sounds like something not to be missed.”

Linda put her hand on my shoulder to slow me down to her walking pace. “I’m not through. I heard that the Mellaces-really Cheryl, because Walter didn’t go to ALHS-are paying for everything.”

“Nice of them.”

“Plus they’re making a second donation to the new athletic field for a special plaque with David’s name.”

Linda had truly become the eyes and ears of the world.

“They already had a little program for David at the banquet and special mention of him at the groundbreaking,” I told her.

She shrugged. “I guess when you’re a VIP in the class, you get as much attention when you’re dead as when you were alive.” Linda’s hand went to her mouth to stifle another shaky laugh. “Sorry,” she said.

I patted her shoulder. “Rosie will be out of here soon,” I promised.

Skip wasted no time getting the upper hand at our meeting. He slid a multipage printout across the newly polished table. The police building had only a skeleton crew on Sunday afternoon, so we appropriated the conference room for our tête-à-tête. Not that it was much more attractive than Skip’s cubicle. The no-frills space, with room for about eight people around the table, had the same muddy colors on its walls as the cubicles’ partitions. The big luxury was that the room had four walls and a door, and a working air-conditioning unit. Skip had also managed to have cans of ice tea available. Not as good as Linda’s concoction, but refreshing nonetheless.