7 Madness in Miniature (19 page)

“And I assume you accepted her apology?”

“Yeah, and I was thinking that instead of being mad at her, I should have been happy that she was having a good time in the pool and all. Like a grown-up would.”

I hesitated to tell her how few grown-ups would have responded differently.

* * *

Tired
as she was from what must have taken an emotional toll on her, Maddie convinced me to read from one of her favorite kids’ books. I had the feeling she was seeking comfort by revisiting a simpler time, and I thought how tempting it was to wish we could keep her trouble-free for at least a few decades. When she finally dozed off, I went to the atrium to make my own call to Mary Lou who, I knew, was a night owl.

“Hey, Mom,” she said, in a soft voice.

Uh-oh. I’d forgotten that Richard had flown to LA to join her on Sunday for his own medical convention. She’d now be in a hotel room with my son, decidedly not a night owl. More like the man who is early to bed, early to rise. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t wake Richard.”

“No, I’m just a little hoarse today. Too much sales pitching to get people to appreciate, that is, buy, the gallery’s pieces. Believe it or not, Richard’s actually downstairs now schmoozing with his bosses.”

“I thought he was the boss.”

“There’s always another boss.”

“Good point. I’ll bet he’s having a great time with hail-fellow-well-met.”

“Oh, yeah, you know how he loves to do that.” She paused. “Not. But he has to meet and socialize with the funding agencies and all the people who support the hospital.”

“I know Maddie called you. I’m sure you’re relieved.”

“No kidding. Thanks for facilitating that. Whatever you did worked.”

“I can’t take credit. Skip spent the day with her. And she didn’t just mope. She took some action to help her own cause by sending Taylor a letter—contents unknown, but it worked.”

“Whatever. I’m still calling you for the next crisis.”

I could hardly wait.

Eleven-thirty
seemed to come too soon, but that’s what happened when a long nap and a very late dinner took over a good part of the evening. I began to wonder if Skip was going to come back as he’d threatened. I had the new, updated chart ready for him, as well as a fresh batch of larger-than-usual ginger cookies.

I needn’t have worried. I heard his car pull up shortly after I set glasses out and made sure the pitcher of iced tea in the fridge was full enough to get through the night. I opened the door for him, preempting his knocking or ringing the doorbell. I credited my next-door neighbor for the spring that was back in his step.

He scraped his shoes on my welcome mat, as he always did, as if he, too, had once lived through messy rain and snow in the Bronx. My nephew glanced at the atrium table and studied the two places set with glasses of ice and copies of The Chart, plus an extra sheet at my place with a list of agenda items.

“I think those months of SuperKrafts meetings have turned you into a top-ranking administrative assistant,” he said.

“I don’t want to forget anything,” I said, taking my seat across from him. I lowered my voice, in case there was a sleepwalker sneaking out of her room. “First, thanks for whatever part you played in Maddie’s rehabilitation.”

Skip shrugged. “Once I figured out that it was a swimming pool and not a young buck at the center of their struggle, it was easy. I just told her about the time my best buddy in sixth grade dumped me for a new kid whose family took him and a few other kids to Tahoe skiing, and left me behind. And then when the letter to Taylor worked, well, everything was good.”

With June it was a pony; with Skip a ski trip to Tahoe; with Maddie a swimming pool. Was I the only one without a story of abandonment at an early age? “Is that a true story? You got left behind?”

“Yeah. You don’t remember? Uncle Ken’s the one who sat me down and put it in perspective. Plus, he bought me my own plane.” When my eyes got wide, Skip explained that he was referring to the kind of plane that smooths wood.

I had to restrain myself from calling Richard immediately and asking if he’d ever been left behind because a new kid had something he didn’t have. I was glad it hadn’t fallen only on me to notice such traumas.

It was time to move on to matters of life and death. I reached for my copy of The Chart and directed Skip to do the same.

“Wow, this must be the squirt…oops, I better stop using that even when she’s not listening…this must be Maddie’s doing.”

“What makes you say that? I could do charts.” We both knew how far off that idea was.

I explained the significance of the
W
s in the DIRECTION column and did my best to explain the east/west wall rule of earthquakes. “You know how earthquakes come in a certain direction and affect things on one wall but not the one across from it?” I asked, as if I knew what I was talking about.

“Always?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Don’t you have a seismologist on staff?”

“I guess we should.”

While we were waiting for the final word from a scientist, I pointed out the consistency of the reports of games (from Jeff), and coffee filters (from Jeanine) falling from a west wall, and Catherine’s claim that her alarm clock at the inn slid.

“Catherine had the right wall,” I explained. “The ‘maybe’ in her entry is due to the presence of rubber feet that would have made it harder for the clock to slide. But I’ve been thinking, and it’s possible that the housekeepers polished the table that morning and even got some polish on the feet of the clock, so it slid easily. I can check that with Loretta. Whereas, Megan’s report is all off. Amelia, the head of housekeeping at the inn, says there has been no broken glass in any of the rooms.”

“You’re saying that because Catherine’s clock is on the west wall and Megan may have lied for dramatic effect, we now know that Catherine is innocent and Megan is guilty?”

Was it that obvious that I wanted my friend Catherine to be innocent?

“Of course not,” I said. “We still don’t have Bebe’s alibi or Maisie’s. Do we?”

“There’s that ‘we’ that I love to hear.” If Skip weren’t eating my cookies with a happy grin, I’d have thought he was being sarcastic. “In fact, we have Bebe buying bagels to go at Willie’s and Maisie calling her daughter in Los Angeles from her landline minutes after the earthquake. Neither of them could have made it to SuperKrafts to fit the timeline. And by the way, thanks to you, Jeff Slattery came in and helped us confirm what we thought about the time of death.”

“Thanks for sharing. I’m sure you’ve considered how unlikely it would be that Catherine took a piece of the murder weapon back to the hotel with her?”

“It might have gotten stuck to her clothing or something.”

“To her sundress? It doesn’t make sense. Someone framed her.”

I seemed to have made this determination on the spot. I remembered clearly a time when I’d been somewhat relieved to hear that the LPPD had finally arrested Craig Palmer’s killer, with hard evidence to back it up. Whatever was churning in the back of my brain to change my mind hadn’t fully revealed itself yet.

Skip pointed to the second sheet of paper on my side of the table.

“Anything else?”

I scanned my list. “One other thing. Loretta mentioned that Megan is going to check out tomorrow and head back to New York. Isn’t she supposed to stay around until the case is closed?”

“There’s no reason to ask her to.”

“Given that you have the killer.”

“Given that it’s likely, yes. We can’t keep people here if we’re not charging them.”

I was frustrated, but I saw no use in going forward with Case talk until I could figure out what was bothering me, other than what I’d already expressed, all of which Skip was able to wave away.

We turned to talk of The Wedding, which I thought deserved an initial-caps designation as much as The Case did. Skip was resigned to wearing a tux and had even been talked into a lavender pocket square to match June’s dress.

“What are you wearing?” Skip asked.

“It’s a secret.”

“You don’t have it yet.”

“That’s the secret.”

“I can’t wait for the day.”

“Really?” It was too late at night, actually too early in the morning, for me to discern truth from tongue-in-cheek.

“No kidding. I mean, not that I like all the fanfare, but I’m blown away by the fact that those two found each other. My mom so deserves a guy like Nick.”

“Have you told her that?”

“She knows how I feel.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to remind her.”

“You think?”

“It would be the best present you could give her.”

Tap, tap. Tap, tap.

Someone knocking on my door at twelve-thirty in the morning? Not that it was unheard of. Skip gave me a questioning look. Was I expecting another guest? I shook my head, no. He got up and checked the peephole, which seemed a strange thing for an armed man to do. He opened the door to Megan Sutley, in a navy linen pants outfit, who looked as surprised as I did.

“I saw your lights on,” she said. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here. Good evening, Detective Gowen.”

“G’morning,” he said, stifling a yawn. For real or to make a point, I couldn’t tell.

“Come in,” I said. And while she was getting her bearings, presumably adjusting to Skip’s presence, I offered her a glass of iced tea.

“Oh, no, I just…well, Jeanine said you might have something that belongs to me.”

“The crystal?”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you. I can come back another time.”

“No problem,” I said, walking to the table that was against the wall. “It’s right here.” I looked into the small bowl where I dropped my keys and small odds and ends that I don’t want to lose, or that I’m too lazy to return to their proper place. I wiggled my fingers through the contents—keys, mints, paper clips, a mini-coffeepot that was part of a tiny metal camping set. I jiggled things around again. More clips, and a hat pin. In what decade had I worn a hat pin last?

Megan had crept up and peered over my shoulder. “Did you find it?”

“It’s not here. I can’t imagine what happened to it. I saw it earlier today when I put my keys down.” I lifted the edges of the cloth under the bowl and shook it. Nothing fell out. I looked on the floor under the table. Nothing. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe in the light of day, it will show up.”

Megan folded her arms across her chest and chewed her lip. She gave me a strange look, as if she didn’t believe me, as if I had the crystal and planned to keep it for myself. She glanced at Skip. I had the feeling she’d have railed at me if he wasn’t standing there, observing. “Well, I’ll get out of your way for now. If you do find it, you can just bring it to the store tomorrow.” She walked toward the door and Skip let her out.

“Weird,” he said. I agreed. “What was that about?”

I gave him a brief account of finding the crystal, hearing about it from Jeanine, and now losing it.

Skip got down on his hands and knees and gave the floor a more thorough going-over. Nothing.

I convinced him to let it go and get some sleep. The plastic bag of cookies-to-go was an incentive and he left.

I went to bed, wondering where the bead was and why I cared, and hoping the supine position would help my brain sort things out before it was too late to get Catherine out of jail.

* * *

I spent
about fifteen minutes on my hands and knees on Wednesday morning, and another few looking at eye level for the accursed bead. No luck. I decided I’d buy Megan another cell phone case if that’s what it took to get the bead problem out of my life.

Henry and Taylor arrived on the dot of nine-thirty. The new plan was that Henry would return home and I’d take the girls to SuperKrafts with me. After that we’d make a girls-only trip to San Jose. The second shopping day in a row for me. My head was spinning. And we’d agreed that the trip wouldn’t end until all three of us had wedding outfits. I had permission from the mothers of both girls to use my judgment in making the final decision on their outfits. The responsibility weighed heavily.

“Good thing my old suit is still in style,” Henry said.

“Hmm,” I uttered.

“Oh, no,” Henry said. Pretending to block his ears, he rushed out the door, leaving three females laughing.

* * *

SuperKrafts
sales were in full swing. I’d have sworn that every woman I’d ever seen at a crafts fair was in the store, and a few men besides. There were sale signs, red tags, and one-time-only special deals on all the aisles. I wondered what was left for Saturday, other than balloons and cake.

I’d decided to play anonymous shopper today and not go near the back room, lest I be dragged into one last meeting concerning nothing I cared about. We began by roaming the scrapbooking aisles since both Maddie and Taylor wanted to make books for their parents’ anniversaries, Maddie’s in August and Taylor’s in September. We checked out the plain burlap books that were held together by binder rings and ready for markers and stickers, and also the shiny cover stock useful for starting from scratch. Maddie was collecting things for a Los Angeles page, since Richard and Mary Lou were married there; Taylor had found a Scales of Justice page for her two-lawyer family.

Halfway through the sticker aisle, Megan showed up. She looked better than I did for having stayed up late, or maybe it was only an aura given off by her short, crisp dress and sparkly purse in matching dark blue. I was ready for a reprimand since I’d lost her precious bead, but she presented a friendly front, chatting with the girls, telling them she used to do scrapbooking herself. I had my doubts that she even knew what glue dots looked like.

“I looked all around the atrium again and I’m sorry I didn’t find your bead,” I said.

Megan waved away my concern. “Don’t give it another thought. There are a million beads in the universe. One little crystal more or less won’t make a difference.”

I heard a gasp from a few feet down the aisle. “I have it,” Maddie said. She and Taylor approached us.

“You have what?” I asked.

Maddie reached into the back pocket of her white shorts. “I took it to show Taylor and—”

“We wanted to buy more of them, so we brought it to the store to make a match,” Taylor said.

It had never occurred to me to ask Maddie about the bead, though in retrospect, it would have been a smart thing to do. Who else was living with me at the moment? Who was attracted to shiny things and missed nothing, ever? Who talked about beads at the table yesterday? It was what Skip would have called a “duh moment.”

“I’m sorry, Grandma.”

“Me, too, Aunt Gerry. We thought it was yours and you were, like, getting rid of it. That’s where my mom puts things she eventually throws out.”

“I’m just glad we found it. Right, Megan?”

“You bet,” she said, as she took the bead from Maddie. She pulled out her cell phone and showed us the empty spot where the bead belonged.

The girls were wide-eyed at the dazzling case. They trotted over to the bead section, but I had the feeling nothing in the SuperKrafts aisles would measure up to Megan’s crystal.

“I hear you’re leaving today. Going back to New York,” I said, pleased to chat with Megan now that another crisis had been averted.

“Yes, things are going smoothly and there’s no reason for me to stay. In fact I need to run an errand in town before my trip and I wanted to ask you for a favor. Is there any chance you’re going to be around here for about an hour, in case Jeanine needs help? Leo’s back there, but he’s useless.” She pointed to the girls, who’d moved down the aisle. “There’s punch and cookies up front in case they get hungry.”

“Sure, we’re just getting started. Just call my cell when you get back.”

Megan went off, full of gratitude, trailing her lavender scent, and I continued down the aisle, filling my basket as I went.

The girls came back to the sticker aisle, studying each different theme for possible use in their projects for their parents—puffy stickers for the fifty states, flat stickers for the Fourth of July, 3-D stickers for Halloween, rolls of stickers with images for the seasons, animals, and sports—so I knew we weren’t going anywhere fast.