Margaret Grace - Murder In Miniature

Once in a while during my waiting time I treated myself to a few minutes of classical music on my radio. I didn’t know enough about car batteries to risk it full time. In spite of my rolling down all my windows to catch the slight breeze, I was beginning to wilt as the sun hit my side of the car. I switched to a “traffic and weather together” station and heard that today’s temperature wasn’t as high as Saturday’s. Maybe not in the weather studio. I knew it wasn’t smart to be sitting in a car on asphalt.

I hadn’t been in Joshua Speed Woods lately, but I remembered English department picnics there while I was teaching. I pictured the other end of the woods. There was no other trail out that I knew of, besides the trail into the woods, which I’d been watching. The wooded area dead-ended in marshland that filled a large area on the west side of Lincoln Point.

It was nearing one o’clock; I was supposed to pick up Maddie at the Rutledge Center, about five minutes away, at one thirty. I’d hoped to have time to see Rosie at the police station before collecting my granddaughter, but it seemed I’d frittered away the better part of an hour in a fruitless stakeout. On the other hand, maybe it was important to have discovered that Ben Dobson paid a visit to a crime scene in a neighborhood he was obviously unfamiliar with.

In other circumstances, I’d have called Rosie to watch Maddie while I did an errand connected to a police investigation. Rosie’s situation came into stark relief now that she was the errand.

By one fifteen, Ben still hadn’t emerged from the woods. Why hadn’t it crossed my mind before now that he might be a second victim? I hated to think that Joshua Speed Woods, named after a nineteenth-century gentleman who was Abraham Lincoln’s best friend, had turned into a killing field.

I talked myself out of making a call that would dispatch an emergency vehicle into the woods. It was more likely that Ben was in there destroying evidence that might incriminate him.

Or was he, like me, unable to leave the investigation of his boss’s murder to law enforcement?

I took out my phone to call Linda. I needed a status report on Rosie. Usually I’d worry about waking Linda up, since Monday was her day to sleep in when she’d been on call all weekend. I decided to risk Linda’s wrath if she’d gone back to bed after phoning to alert me about Rosie’s unwelcome trip to the station.

“Have you heard from Rosie?” I asked, tense about Linda’s sleepy voice.

“Aren’t you there yet?” she asked, annoyed.

“Not yet.”

“Poor Rosie.”

“Linda, I’m doing my best for Rosie. It’s not as if I went to the movies.” Or to lunch with a friend who makes dollhouses, I added silently.

“Oh, then you’re investigating?” she said, sounding like Maddie. “I’m worried. I could go down there myself, but really you’re better at that kind of thing.”

“I can go to the station now if you’ll pick up Maddie at the Rutledge Center. Her class is over at one thirty, but she’s usually late anyway.”

“I can do it. I actually got some sleep last night. The natives weren’t as restless as they usually are Sunday evenings.”

“They have preferred times of restlessness?”

I shouldn’t have asked. Linda loved an opportunity to vent about the families of her patients. About anything, now that I thought of it.

“All the dutiful sons and daughters visit on Sundays for a couple of hours and they get the residents all worked up. They bring their little kids who run around, and they give the patients candy and junk food, which is not good for them. Then, of course, the relatives go home and we’re left to calm everybody down. Sometimes I think it would be better if we didn’t allow visitors.”

“I don’t blame you for getting upset at inconsiderate visitors,” I said, hoping to move on soon. I was getting hotter by the second, looking around the inside of my car for something that might serve as a fan. I’d already shed my seersucker jacket, leaving me in a sleeveless white blouse. I stretched across the seat and pulled out a map of the San Francisco Bay Area from the glove compartment. I unfolded and refolded it to work as a fan. It would have to do.

“I’m not complaining. You know I love my work, but some of the relatives really tick me off.”

“I don’t blame you,” I repeated, whipping the map in front of my face. “So can you pick up Maddie? If you can do that, I’ll go to the station and see what’s up with Rosie.”

“Done,” she said.

I considered calling Maddie to tell her that Mrs. Reed would be taking her home with her for a short while. I knew Maddie would be put out and easily divine what was going on. I planned to get back in her good graces with a waiver of her vegetable requirement at dinner and an extra shake of Parmesan on her popcorn tonight.

If only I could take care of my abandonment of Henry as easily. After rejecting his offer to carpool and running off without explanation when he said he’d wait for me to join him at the reception, I wouldn’t blame him if he crossed me off his list of possible new friends. I hoped Maddie and Taylor wouldn’t have to break up (so to speak) also.

I decided not to call Skip, either. My “aunt magic” worked better impromptu and in person. I hoped he was tied up as the one interviewing Rosie, anyway.

Time to call an end to the stakeout. Besides my other discomforts, I was starving. I considered going to Sadie’s for a malt to go before heading to the police department. I adjusted myself in the seat and prepared to turn the key in the ignition. If I turned the key, it meant Skip’s; if I got out of the car, it meant Sadie’s, only a short walk away. Wasn’t there a child’s game with rules like that?

“Something I can do for you?”

I heard a deep voice and saw a sweaty arm on my window ledge.

I jumped and bumped my elbow on my horn, making a noise that caused me to jump again.

Ben Dobson leaned in on my window. His breath was foul, from a cigar I thought, and his face weathered. He wasn’t a big man, but he had a powerful presence.

I surveyed the parking lot. I saw no one entering or exiting a car nearby. My remote control had a panic button. I could push it now, but my experience with false alarms told me that no one paid attention to a blaring horn and flashing lights. I had no reason to think anyone would come to my rescue now. It might simply annoy Ben and provoke him to an unpleasant action.

“I… I was just leaving.”

“I hear you want to talk to me.” Ben couldn’t miss my surprise. “Word gets around. I still have buddies at the Scotus. And who else would be following me?”

Mike the electrician came to mind.

I looked around, thinking he might have brought Mike as backup or to help carry me into the woods.

I felt faint, from the heat, from hunger, and from what I sensed as danger.

Ben took advantage of my glaring discomfort and momentary paralysis to come around to the passenger side and get in my car, knocking on my hood on the way. It sounded like a “this is my lucky day” knock, which might have meant the opposite for me. He made himself comfortable, sitting partly on my jacket, facing me, his left hand on the back of the seat. I was grateful for the apparent absence of a weapon.

“I’m here. Talk to me,” he said, in an almost casual tone, showing me his palms. It was obvious that he knew how intimidating he was; he didn’t need threatening language.

Wasn’t this what I wanted, after all? A chance to talk to the employee who’d argued with David on the night of his murder. The trouble was, it might be my last interview.

Might as well get it started.

“You followed your boss into our reunion cocktail party the other night. What were you fighting over?”