Margaret Grace - Murder In Miniature

The bank record was the only lead I had left, if it could even be called that, and Skip needed to see it. “I have something to show you,” I said. I reached back into my shoulder tote and found the folder by feel, my normal way of digging things out of the long-handled, oversize bag. I opened the folder and found… nothing. No sheet of paper with possibly incriminating bank records, just the blank neutral folder stock.

I removed the bag from my shoulder and sorted through its contents, looking for the sheet, thinking it slipped out of its folder. I fingered a thick wad of scrap fabric, meant to be left at the Mary Todd for my crafts students; a new pair of scissors, still in its shrink-wrap package; and a paperback copy of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, for discussion at a book club I’d joined recently. I also saw my wallet, brush, and general purse items. No eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper of any color.

“Are you looking for cookies or something to do with the case?” Skip asked.

“I had a piece of paper in this folder. I know I had it in the building because I showed it to Larry Esterman downstairs.”

Skip picked up his cubicle phone and punched a button. “Hey, Drew, did my aunt Gerry leave a piece of paper or something down there?” Skip held the receiver to his chest. “He’s going to look.”

I motioned to take the phone from Skip and waited until Drew came on the line again. I had another idea about the record.

“Nothing here, Skip,” Drew said.

“It’s Mrs. Porter, Drew. Did you by any chance see the folder I was showing to Mr. Esterman?”

“Yeah, I saw you guys looking at it. You know, I think I saw him put something in his pocket, something white, like a sheet of paper. I figured you gave it to him. Shall I put out an APB?” Drew laughed, but I didn’t think it was such a bad idea.

“Thanks, anyway,” I said.

Larry Esterman didn’t have a briefcase or any other kind of container with him, nothing into which a sheet of paper could have fallen accidentally. There was no way he mistakenly walked off with it.

Larry Esterman rushed his daughter out of the building for a reason-he’d confiscated my record. Easy come, easy go, I thought, remembering how the record had fallen into my lap, or one seat over.

A sneaky move on the part of Rosie’s father.

Larry Esterman was a man after my own heart.

With nothing much to talk about and no desire to explain my day to Skip, I left the police station and headed for Rosie’s house. On the way I called Maddie, who’d been at Linda’s for the better part of an hour.

“I just wanted you to know I’ll be there soon, sweetheart.”

“Okay, Grandma. Don’t worry about me. Mrs. Reed let me help her make some leaves and now I’m doing my programming homework for tomorrow.”

Huh? No nagging or whining about being left out of my errands?

Not one to question my good fortune, I clicked off and pulled into Rosie’s driveway. I was reminded how close her home was to the Joshua Speed Woods. I felt a shiver through my body. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Ben Dobson strolling down the quiet street, but it was merely a gardener wearing the same color jumpsuit I’d first seen Ben wearing.

I rang Rosie’s doorbell, listening for movement inside the small ranch-style home. I was fully aware that I might be waking Rosie up or interrupting a much-deserved bath. We had serious business, however, and any misunderstandings between us had to be cleared up immediately.

I waited and rang again, waited and rang again. Still no action. I sat on the front steps, happily in the shade. One of the benefits of older Lincoln Point neighborhoods was their tree-lined streets, typically large silver maples interspersed with smaller Modesto ash. I didn’t think I could live where the trees looked more like miniatures, still tied to what looked like birthing posts.

I didn’t have a plan for how long I’d wait in front of Rosie’s house, but for now, this was as good a place as any to mope about the case and about how different the weekend had turned out from what I’d expected.

My stay in a luxury hotel had turned sour quickly, starting with David’s brush-off of Rosie at the cocktail party. Now one former student was dead and another was accused of his murder. I’d been accosted, robbed, and accosted again. I’d done my share of accosting, also. Of innocent people it seemed. I’d somehow lost Rosie’s confidence, abandoned my granddaughter, and made myself scarce to a potential new friend.

I thought about Henry Baker. Now that I’d been reconnected with Rosie’s father (resulting in a second robbery, I noted), I didn’t need Henry’s input on Callahan and Savage. It would have been nice to have his friendship, however, and I guessed he’d decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

I looked at the enormous fruitless mulberry tree in Rosie’s side yard and suspected he was right.

It wasn’t my style to mope for too long. Now at four o’clock on a hot afternoon, I felt my waiting time was up. The one positive, useful thing I could do was retrieve my granddaughter from Linda’s house. We could work on our room boxes at home, and I’d cook her a proper dinner, preferably including a glass of milk and something that wasn’t pizza. I got up, brushed tree droppings from my slacks, and started down the stairs.

That seemed to be the cue for Rosie’s front door to open.

“Gerry?”

I turned to see Rosie, freshly showered it appeared, in a deep blue chenille bathrobe that added beads of perspiration to my forehead just looking at it. She held it close around her body and I suspected it was her spirit that was chilled in spite of the high-nineties temperature. We hugged, shoulder to shoulder since I stood one step below her. She smelled of something fresh and fruity, which told me she’d bothered to treat herself to a special soak or shower gel, a good sign.

“I’m glad to see you, Rosie,” I said, as we pulled away and entered the air-conditioned house.

Rosie wasn’t the neatest person-she claimed that you couldn’t really enjoy books if they were all lined up properly and dusted. I’d never seen her living room this disheveled, however. Her suitcases were spread on the floor, half empty, laundry in mesh bags sharing space with shoes and cosmetics. I wondered if there were an emerald and diamond bracelet buried in the wreckage.

I moved a map of downtown San Francisco, with a photograph of the Transamerica building on the front, from an easy chair to a cluttered end table and sat down.

Rosie settled on her couch, upholstered in a light beige leafy design. She was still wrapped in her robe. “I know you had good intentions, Gerry, but I was so mad that I had to miss the special service for David.”

“I never intended for that to happen. I thought I was helping you, easing the way for you to go to the police and get started on clearing yourself in this awful case.”

“I see that now. I was crazy to hide out as long as I did. I didn’t kill David so why am I acting as though I’m guilty?”

“I don’t know, Rosie, but the important thing is that you talked to the police and they trust you to stay around in case they need you. You can go back to your normal life.”

I wished I believed it. I had an unnerving suspicion that whoever killed David Bridges was not through trying to pin it on Rosie. From the look on Rosie’s face, I could tell she didn’t see normalcy any time soon, either.

“Who do you think did it, Gerry?”

It was the first time Rosie, or anyone, had asked me that and her question reminded me that I hadn’t really settled on one person. Maybe this was like that old Agatha Christie novel where everyone did it. I thought of the mystery play Rosie’s class had put on one year. I couldn’t remember the name but I’d enjoyed the tricky plot where everyone voted by a show of hands for who they thought committed the murder. The cast took a count and then acted out the rest of the play according to the majority vote. Case closed. They had an ending for every possible voting result. It was a nice fantasy.