7 Madness in Miniature (4 page)

“Whoa,” Maddie said, and dropped again anyway.

Henry and I stood under the doorframe for a minute, just in case. “Once again, I think we’re okay,” Henry said, then shouted in mock–SWAT-team mode, “Clear!”

The standard post-earthquake drill began, the “Recover” phase, after “Prepare” and “Survive,” the steps in the manual every Californian had read, in one form or another. Henry instructed us to stay put while he inspected the house. He clicked a number on his phone while he walked and I knew he’d be calling home.

From the noises I’d heard in my home, I expected a few pieces of broken pottery, but no fallen bookcases or large objects. My late husband, an architect, had been religious about earthquake safety. Our bookcases were bolted to the walls; major appliances and the water heater were strapped to studs; our smaller collectibles, potential projectiles, were secured with earthquake putty or gel. Ken knew what he was doing.

Henry returned from his house tour reporting good news, except for two casualties, a vase that was part of my collection on a table in my atrium, and a large serving bowl on a shelf in my kitchen, both now smashed to smithereens.

The news would travel fast and I figured I’d be contacted by friends and relatives from near and far. Maddie had already received an “Everything okay?” text from her mother, who was in Los Angeles for an exhibit of her paintings, followed by a phone call from her father, from his office at Stanford Medical; Beverly and Nick, who were at a criminal justice workshop in San Francisco, called with “No movement here for a change”; Henry’s daughter, Kay, the mother of the out-of-favor Taylor, assured him, “We’re okay here”; and several friends on the East Coast, who I know pictured a giant crevasse in our living room floor, suggested, “Come back. At least hurricanes give you warning.” I was constantly telling my Bronx peeps, as Skip called them, that our quakes were of the ground-rumbling kind, not the movie kind where the earth cracks open and swallows up a semi-truck and a family of six in an SUV.

“Must be a slow news night all over the country,” Henry said. “They’re making a big deal out of a very small quake.” We both noted that years ago, before instant networking and the means to tell the world what we ate for breakfast, news of a small quake wouldn’t even have made it as far as the border between California and Oregon.

We reassembled in the living room, silently declaring the dinner party aborted since a topping of dust from the swinging chandelier now covered the pizza. I wondered if our new SuperKrafts store survived, but didn’t care enough to make the calls necessary to find out. I hoped that didn’t make me a bad person.

“Mom says her paintings are on the good wall at the show,” Maddie said, explaining the way seismic waves traveled. We noted that the two items that toppled in my house were on the same side, the west wall of each room, though the atrium and kitchen were overlapping, side by side and shifted with respect to each other. Objects that were hung or shelved on the other walls were undisturbed. Maddie made it clearer than my science teachers in the Bronx those many years ago. But then, the Bronx wasn’t known for its earthquakes.

When the calls and texts died down, we finally turned our chairs to face the TV and clicked on the news, where already facts and figures were scrolling across the lower edge of the screen. An estimated half million detectable earthquakes occur in the world each year. The largest recorded earthquake in the world was of magnitude nine-point-five in Chile in 1960, when two million people were left homeless. The famous San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was of magnitude seven-point-eight with an epicenter two miles off shore. Moonquakes occur less frequently but at greater depth, on the moon.

“Fascinating,” I said.

“What about today’s magnitude?” asked Maddie, not a big fan of history. “Who won the prize?”

“How do they compile the data so quickly?” I wondered aloud.

“They probably have it all ready for when the Big One comes,” Henry offered.

Maddie and I shivered at the thought, but reports of local accidents were barely worth a bandage. A man in nearby Sunnyvale had an injury to his toes when his toaster oven fell from the counter, and a retired teacher in Los Altos was hurt when she lost her balance and her arm banged against a file cabinet. I was impressed that the young woman reporting was able to contain herself and kept her smile in check.

“I hope my teacher is okay,” Maddie said.

Henry grabbed the remote. “Here it comes.”

Back at the anchor desk, a middle-aged man with curly locks and glasses informed us that “Today’s earthquake in the South Bay had an epicenter in Cupertino. At six thirty-two this evening, it weighed in at a magnitude of three-point-one.”

Maddie gasped. “That was exactly Grandma’s guess,” she said, doing a heroic job at being happy for me. “I can’t believe it.”

I couldn’t believe it either. I remembered a favorite expression of Ken’s: “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”

“Didn’t we say the one who was farthest off would win the prize?” Henry said.

“That’s how I remember it,” I said.

With not a trace of embarrassment, Maddie held her hands out, ready to accept a prize for coming up with the number that was most off the mark. Henry flipped a dollar bill into her open palms.

Maddie skipped around with glee. Not a single “Nyah.” So what if it had taken an earthquake to brighten her mood?

* * *

“Maybe
I should sleep with you tonight,” Maddie said at bedtime. “In case, you know, something happens, and then we’d be together to help each other.”

No argument from me, as I tucked her into one side of my queen-size bed. She settled on the pillow. “What’s the biggest earthquake you were ever in?” she asked.

I told her, with some hyperbole, where I was and what I felt during the six-point-nine Loma Prieta earthquake, which famously interrupted the World Series in 1989. That quake, with an epicenter south of San Francisco, lasted fifteen to twenty seconds and was felt as far away as San Diego, five hundred miles south.

“Wow,” she said. “Did anyone die?”

“Sadly, yes. Somewhere between sixty and seventy people, but thousands were injured or left homeless.”

“That part’s very sad,” Maddie said, by which I assumed she meant that all other aspects of earthquakes were kind of fun.

“What’s this about wishing you had a swimming pool? And that no one likes you?” I asked, hoping to catch her off guard in this special quiet time.

Smarter than me by far, Maddie stretched her long arms above her head and came out with a wide and loud yawn. “I’m really sleepy, Grandma. G’night.”

“Sure you are,” I said, and tickled her where I knew it would count. Then I left her alone. We’d both had enough for one day.

* * *

A quick
buzz, buzz.

My doorbell. Just when I thought the day was over. I should have known better, since my atrium lights, visible from the street, were still on. I clattered to the front door in my noisy clogs. I checked the peephole but I’d already guessed who’d be cruising about for coffee or tea and my special ginger cookies at eleven o’clock at night. My nephew Skip, another fun-loving Porter family redhead. And I would never shut him out, no matter what the hour.

“Hey, Aunt Gerry.”

I looked at Skip’s attire—khakis, a light blue shirt, and a windbreaker, about halfway between “on the job” and “officially off duty.” “Hey, yourself,” I said. “Are you on earthquake patrol?”

“You could say that. Such a small one, there’s not much damage anywhere, just a lot of spilled drinks and crooked pictures. And false alarms everywhere, like in a bad comedy. It’s almost a joke on Facebook, too. Someone posted a photo of a tipped-over lawn chair, with a caption, ‘We will never forget the Lincoln Point 3.1.’ Like that.”

“I’d think they’d be counting their blessings.”

“Not so much. Not my Facebook friends anyway.” Skip had already located the cookies and munched away while he helped me set up and then pour from a pitcher of iced tea. “But you never know about that one little thing, or big thing, that falls over that might be hazardous, and no one is around to check it. So the brass like us to go to selected locales and informally inspect. We look in on empty public buildings, houses where people are on vacation, closed shops, folks who live alone, that kind of thing.”

“You mean old folks,” I said, exaggerating the motion of my atrium rocking chair.

Skip smiled. “Sort of.”

“And even big-shot detectives like my favorite nephew get to help out.”

“Your only nephew, and it’s better than sitting with my feet up on my desk.”

“So this is an official earthquake call for your report?”

“Could be, if I need the points.”

I smiled. “How comforting. Did you find anything interesting in your rounds?”

“Not so far. Like I said, unless you count spilled coffee.”

To illustrate, and to make me nervous, Skip tipped his glass so the tea nearly ran out onto my new area rug. Too bad Maddie wasn’t awake to laugh. In fact, I was surprised the doorbell hadn’t awakened her; usually even her sleeping radar was tuned to the arrival of her first cousin once removed, aka Uncle Skip, day or night.

We’d hardly had time to catch up on his mother’s wedding plans (Skip’s sixth stint as best man, he informed me) and on his own love life (currently uncommitted after a recent breakup with my lovely next-door neighbor), when his cell phone rang. I heard one side of a familiar conversation.

“Uh-huh.” Pause. “Where?” Pause. I handed Skip a small notebook and pen I kept handy for such occasions. He nodded thanks. “Uh-huh. Name?” Pause. “Tonight, huh?” Pause. “On my way.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “It’s ‘gotta go’ time.”

He flipped the notebook shut and stuck it in his pocket. I didn’t ask for it back. “There’s an earthquake casualty after all,” he said.

I pulled a plastic bag from a cabinet in the kitchen and filled it with cookies to go. “Something serious?”

“Uh-huh. We spoke too soon about the benevolent quake. A guy was killed when a large knickknack or some heavy object fell on his head.”

“How awful. Is it anyone we know?”

“You’re asking, is he a former student of yours? Not this time,” he said, on his way out the door. “He works for that big new store downtown. Poor guy just flew in today from New York.” Skip kissed my cheek. “This is one case you won’t have a connection to.”

Don’t be so sure
, I said under my breath.

I stood with
my back to the closed door, listening to Skip’s car drive off. I could hardly forget his short visit and go to bed. As I made my way back to the atrium chair, I reviewed the conversation I’d heard. There was only one “big new store downtown” as far as I knew. SuperKrafts. And how many guys who worked for them had flown in from New York today? It had to be Craig Palmer. Catherine’s boss and ex-boyfriend was killed in a tiny temblor. What were the odds? Would any New Yorker ever come to California again? How would Catherine get through this disastrous turn?

I couldn’t erase the image of the strong, in-charge leader as he was earlier today in Sadie’s Ice Cream Shop, now lying limp on the floor of his newest project.

On a more personal level, I regretted every bad thought I’d had about Palmer during the few minutes I’d known him. I thought how this might have been his first trip to the West Coast. He’d probably survived all manner of snowstorms on the East Coast, perhaps even a blizzard or two, only to die in a quake that hardly disturbed the teacups in my dining room hutch.

I had my hand on my phone to call Catherine before I realized there was a possibility that I was way off. I’d heard only a quick summary from Skip as he’d run out the door and that was hearsay from someone on the phone. That’s how rumors got started and stories got twisted, I reminded myself. It wasn’t such a leap backward to think that each fact had become convoluted in the telling, and the unfortunate victim was instead a woman from New Jersey or New Mexico who’d flown in last week and worked for any of the giant chain stores between San Jose and Palo Alto, making a stop in Lincoln Point for a quick bite at the fast food restaurant next to SuperKrafts.

As Ken always told me, my imagination was suited for fiction, or miniatures, which were a kind of fiction themselves. What dollhouse decorator didn’t think of herself as lounging in the elaborate Victorian living room she’d created, reading from a richly bound book, listening to lovely music from the ornate harp in the corner? That was the romantic fiction. The truth was that the sofa was made from a wooden block, the leather volume was a piece of Styrofoam that didn’t open, and the harp strings were dental floss, but that didn’t stop a miniaturist from seeing luxury and comfort, and hearing beautiful sounds.

I turned on the TV news, at low volume so as not to wake Maddie, but the earthquake had already receded into history and there was no mention yet of an out-of-town victim in Lincoln Point.

I wandered back to my bedroom and squeezed in beside Maddie, who’d be sorry she’d missed her Uncle Skip and a lot of speculating.

* * *

When
my phone rang at one-fifteen in the morning, I had the feeling I’d soon have the answer to which of my speculations held merit. I picked up quickly and carried the phone into the atrium, hoping Maddie, who’d jolted up at the sound, would fall back on her pillow and continue a sweet dream.

“Mrs. Porter…Gerry…you’ll never believe this,” Catherine said. She spoke in halting phrases. “Craig…Craig Palmer, my…my boss…he’s dead. The earthquake.” Catherine seemed oblivious to the fact that she’d awakened me, with no clue that it wasn’t the middle of the day. “Something in the store fell on him. I’m not sure what, but it must have been heavy…something from high up, I guess…I don’t know. I just know he’s dead.”

My hopes that I’d misinterpreted Skip’s summons dashed, I walked to the kitchen and put on the kettle. It might be a long night. “I’m so sorry, Catherine.”

If I was worried about finding the right words to say, I needn’t have. Catherine hadn’t called to listen. She continued on her own. “Megan and I left him in the store going over some books with Leo. He wasn’t very happy about some of the perks we’ve been handing out and I can’t believe we actually fought over stupid things like whether the store would be open or closed on Labor Day, and all the while…”

I heard an opening and was about to offer to go to her hotel if she wanted to talk. I was in my “cookies cure everything” mode, packing a few treats for her in my mind. No one should be in mourning in a bare, foodless hotel room. Then I remembered Maddie. As much as she’d insist that she was old enough to be left alone, I wouldn’t leave her, especially after the traumatic shaking—of the house and her body—that had gone on this evening. I explained it all to Catherine.

“But if you can get yourself here, we can have some tea,” I added.

“Oh, really, Mrs. Porter? That would be so great. I need to get out of this room. If you’re sure it won’t be too much of an imposition.”

“Not at all.”

My new plan for the night, rather than sleeping, was to change out of my nightclothes into something more suitable for company, and arrange cookies on a plate. What else did one serve a guest who was expected at nearly two in the morning? Cheese and crackers? A ham sandwich? I’d have to be ready for anything.

* * *

Catherine
had the presence of mind to remember Maddie and knock on my door instead of ringing the bell. She was also well put together for someone who’d been in such a state over the phone. She wore loose pants, a short top, and a dark shawl against the cool night air. I figured the act of dressing and having somewhere to go had distracted her and calmed her down, which was part of the reason I’d invited her over, the other part being to console a woman who had been my student, and then a colleague of sorts.

Catherine fell onto my shoulder, a little tricky, given my extra inches in height. I did my best to hunch over to make it easier for her. I felt rather than heard her sobs. When she pulled away, she reached into her large tote and pulled out a bottle of wine. Apparently she was concerned that I had only tea in the house. Not far from the truth, though there was probably a bottle of wine somewhere in my cupboard, brought by a guest during the last holiday season.

“Put this away for the next time I visit,” she said, handing me the bottle. “Or for yourself. I realize I shouldn’t drink any alcohol tonight. Do you have something cold?”

“Iced tea coming up,” I said, following her wise instruction to stash the wine for now. “Can I get you anything else? A sandwich? Fruit?” She blotted her face with a tissue and shook her head. While I prepared my second after-hours tea service, Catherine talked about her own late-night phone call.

“Leo phoned me. He said the police found Craig around eleven o’clock. They were patrolling downtown and the store was on their beat. They went in to make sure everything was okay, just routine, and they found him.” She paused for a breath. “They called Leo and…” Her sobs took over.

Leo, the temporary (he hoped) manager, the large, vocal man who’d only recently joined the team at joint meetings between SuperKrafts and town reps. In spite of reported enmity between Craig and Leo (as there seemed to be among all the store’s New York crew), he must have been stunned by the news.

Catherine’s sobbing ceased; she took a deep breath, which ended in a moan. I wished I could do something to comfort her. For now, refilling her glass, pushing the plate of cookies toward her, and letting her talk would have to do.

“Leo got the call from the police, maybe because the manager’s name is on some list? I don’t know how they figure these things out. And Leo called me,” she repeated. She looked up with a sharp movement. “Megan,” she said. “Someone needs to call Megan. Craig’s admin. I can’t believe I walked right out of the hotel, not even thinking of Megan. She got in last night. You met her today. I need to call her.” Catherine had gone into harried mode, as I suspected was normal for her in the halls of her New York office building.

“Let’s not worry about Megan right now,” I said. “I’ll bet Leo already called her.”

“I don’t know. They were pretty mad at each other at the end.”

“Leo and Megan were angry with each other?” I was having trouble following Catherine’s pronouns. I blamed the late hour for my foggy brain.

“Craig, too. It was Craig and Megan against Leo. It was awful, and now he’s dead. Craig’s dead.”

“What was the argument about?” I asked, wondering how long we should continue on the topic of Craig and his death. Maybe instead I should be asking Catherine questions about her parents, her life in New York, what was new on Broadway these days.

“Leo is anxious to get home to New York and Craig was pushing for him to stay here until the end of the year. Craig isn’t Leo’s boss, not technically, and that’s been a problem in itself. And Megan was on Craig’s side because, you know, she’s his admin.”

“Six more months? Why?” I thought of the promise SuperKrafts management had made, that a Lincoln Point resident would be put in Leo’s job very soon. No specific date was given, but we town reps assumed “very soon” meant three or four weeks at most.

“Are you asking me why Leo wants to go home?” Catherine asked.

“No, why did Craig want him to stay?” I wasn’t ready to hear how Leo wanted to leave Lincoln Point because the town was a cultural wasteland and he missed the Carnegie Deli, MOMA, the New York Philharmonic (though the ALHS orchestra wasn’t that bad, which was how people characterized most amateur performances), and perhaps his family.

“Leo says it’s because he’s up for a promotion above Craig, and the longer he’s away the more likely it is that Craig would be promoted to that job instead. They’ve always been competitive like that. And Megan would probably get a promotion either way, so I don’t know why she was so much on Craig’s side, except, like I said, she sort of has to be.”

Office politics. Henry and I, two retirees from ALHS, talked about it sometimes, how neither of us could abide all the machinations and jockeying for position that went on in our little corner of academe. I could only guess how much more brutal things would get when the stakes were high, as they must be in the corporate world of New York. It was a strange juxtaposition at SuperKrafts: bickering and infighting among those who provided the materials for hobbies that were meant to be soothing, community building, and—in the case of miniatures—adorable.

Catherine closed her eyes. Coming to terms with Craig’s death? “Well, Leo won’t be getting any competition from Craig,” she said, through tears. “Not anymore.” She drew in her breath. “And me and Craig, too. We fought so much when we broke up and I thought it was cooling down, but yesterday he started in on me again, wanting to give us another chance, and I blew him off. I mean, not that I’d want this for him anyway, but it feels so…”

“It’s awful,” I agreed, reaching over to put my hand on hers. We’d taken seats in my atrium, across from each other at a small table. I’d thought it would help to be in an open area, with my grand ficus and my skylight window to the stars. Maybe there were some happy memories to unleash. Now I had the thought that the living room might have been better, in case she wanted to lean back and fall asleep on my couch.

“Do you know Craig’s family?” I asked.

“His parents live in Manhattan. I’ve met them a couple of times. They travel in different circles from my mom and dad. And he doesn’t have any siblings. He really is a good guy, you know.” She paused. “I mean he was. He could be tough but that’s because he wanted the best for the company, and for us. When he had to, he could mellow out.”

It was hard to picture a mellowed-out Craig Palmer, but I’d had only the slimmest of interactions with him.

Tap, tap. Tap, tap.

Another thoughtful guest. As I got up to check, the door opened slowly. I’d forgotten to lock it after Catherine released me from our hug. Catherine tensed now at the sound of someone entering, but as I expected, it was Skip who poked his head in.

“I saw the light on. Everything okay?”

“Do all Lincoln Point citizens get this treatment, or am I special?” I asked.

“Both,” he said, with a teasing smile. “But there’s more attention when there are cookies involved.”

As much as she’d heard about Skip, I didn’t think Catherine had met him. I introduced him as LPPD’s star homicide detective, and Catherine as a former LP native who was now a successful businesswoman in New York City. A round of small talk revealed that the two young people, the same age, plus or minus a few years, had just missed each other at ALHS.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Skip said, when I mentioned Catherine’s connection to our earthquake casualty. “It must be quite a shock, but you’ve come to the right place for comfort.” Skip had poured himself a glass of tea and pulled up a chair. “I hope the earthquake itself didn’t spook you.”

“Not really. As Gerry says, I grew up here. I was almost eighteen when I left, so I’ve been through a few quakes,” Catherine said.

“Where were you when it hit today?”

“In my hotel room. I felt it, and the alarm clock on the night table shook and sort of slid for a sec, but nothing was damaged.”

“That must make it seem all the more strange that your friend was killed.”

Where was Skip going with this? I knew my nephew and this wasn’t his usual line of social interaction, especially when meeting someone for the first time. Someone who was grieving the loss of a friend.

“Yes, it seems incredibly strange,” Catherine said. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Say, Catherine, I know it’s late, but if you could answer some questions regarding your association with Craig Palmer”—Skip made this seem casual, an off-the-wall thought—“it would be a big help to us, filling out our reports for the bosses and all. While things are fresh in your mind.”

“Of course, but I don’t really know anything. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“Did you see Mr. Palmer today?” Skip asked.

Catherine closed her eyes, perhaps to hold back tears, perhaps to check a mental clock to help her answer the question. “Yes, we had a meeting in the back room, what will be the employee’s lounge, at SuperKrafts.”

“It would help if I could get a few details. Nothing proprietary, of course, just what was the agenda, who was there, when did the meeting start, when did it end? Like that.”

Catherine took a deep breath. “There was Craig, Megan, who’s his admin, and Leo, our manager. And me.” She looked at me. “We started soon after the gathering at Sadie’s, Gerry. Around three o’clock?”