Bury Me With Barbie (17 page)

Darby’s last words had stung. “And you call Lynne a brat.”

The Noxema mask began to harden on P.J.’s face.

“I’m taking my childhood back,” she said aloud, in a moment of clarity. “I get to redo it my way, and no one can stop me.”

P.J. knew happiness meant having options, and she simply hadn’t had any in her entire life before she met Heath. Then, when he finally arrived, she asked for the moon and he reached up, grabbed it for her, pulled it down and hung it in their backyard amidst the spans of Japanese party lanterns. What was missing? Nothing.

Those of you who think you have control over your lives, what you collect, what you do every day, have a lesson to learn, and it’s coming from me
, she thought.

She would continue to steal their best Barbie doll treasures and then take the ultimate valuable: their lives. Only then would she be better than they were. She would have the best doll collection in the world, and she wouldn’t have any competition. She would be the Barbie doll goddess, the queen, the expert, and the one who not only knew it all but had it all.

“Just like Barbie doll,” P.J. told Chao, heading out of the vanity.

She swept down her staircase to her magazine office on the south side of the house. Heath would be coming home on Monday for a week of rest and relaxation. She had just enough time for a weekend doll spree, but she had to find a victim who lived close enough that she could get there and back in less than forty-eight hours.

P.J.’s
Barbie International
offices consisted of four rooms, the best of which was a converted sun porch filled with lounge chairs and potted plants. It was here that staff meetings were held at the start of each new week. It was here that P.J. reviewed the upcoming issue on a large table in the center of the room. It was here that P.J. felt relaxed and strong, gazing at framed shots of the magazine’s cover art lining the perimeter of the room, starting at the doorway and running from left to right. When one row was complete, another tier began.

She took the high stool near the large table and studied the layouts for the eighty-page issue due to ship in two weeks. The March issue consisted of P.J.’s monthly editorial on all that was happening in the world of Barbie doll; a feature on pink-dressed boxed dolls, an identification guide to the many different shades of Barbie doll’s closed-toed pumps; an article on Bild Lilli doll, Barbie’s predecessor; a review on a book about Barbie doll structures and furniture; a guide to hair colors for Twist ’N Turn Barbie doll; a look at Barbie doll bidding on eBay; and a feature on Barbie doll’s vinyl cases by Caresse Redd.

Darby had checked P.J.’s subscription database and determined why the surname Krieger had sounded familiar when she’d met the man on the Greyhound. In Redd’s earliest articles, she used her maiden name as a middle name. The byline Caresse Krieger Redd from P.J.’s back issues had stuck in her mind and Darby, as usual, was able to help his half-sister make the connection.

So I probably met Caresse’s brother
, P.J. mused, glancing through the six-page spread covering Nancy Roth’s vinyl treasures.

P.J. walked over to her locked filing cabinet and took off the necklace she wore at home, which included a tiny key to access her drawers of paperwork.

She’d had a run-in with Nancy Roth, aka NANCY_PANTS, about a year before when she had PayPaled her for a Swing-A-Ling Tutti Round Train Case and had not received it. She had filed for her money back from PayPal, but Nancy had countered by providing a delivery confirmation receipt, reassuring them that the package had been delivered. What P.J. had received in the mail was a box with old, scrapped pieces of cardboard, newspaper, and Styrofoam peanuts. The case, which was small and would have weighed less than six ounces, was accounted for in weight by random packing materials.

P.J. reached for a folder in the bottom drawer, where she kept files on everyone she hated. She found the one marked ROTH, NANCY. Inside, there were notes covering the PayPal dispute, as well as private emails and board postings printed out to keep on hand.

Several Best Barbie Board members had leapt to Nancy’s defense. P.J.’s protests were steamrolled, doubted and dismissed.

P.J. let her full anger rise. What did she want that Nancy had? Well, she was partial to her smaller vinyl pieces—the train cases, the wallets, the pencil cases, and the smallest doll cases for Tutti and Todd and their friends. Tutti and Todd were pretty much neglected as Barbie’s siblings, having enjoyed only the shortest of runs in America from the mid-’60s to the early ’70s, but P.J. knew Nancy had branched out from gathering only vinyl to include the actual dolls in her collection.

There was something to be said about moving smaller vinyl pieces and dolls, too.

It certainly shouldn’t prove as cumbersome as the Vegas haul
, she thought.

P.J. walked over to the layout table and looked at Caresse’s article again. There were at least two-dozen pictures included in the feature, and one showed a black patent 1962 Mattel wallet. There were graphics of a blond bubble cut dressed in Enchanted Evening on the right, a sweep of stardust across the center, and then another blond bubble wearing a red version of Friday Night Date on the left.

Want that
.

Another photo of a wallet, this one in light blue vinyl, showed graphics of a blond bubble’s face on the left and a body shot of a brunette bubble wearing Dinner at Eight on the right.

Want that
.

There were photos of Ponytail pencil cases, including one in black vinyl with 1961 graphics. A blond bubble cut dressed in pink and a pink ponytail wearing turquoise were positioned alongside the words “Barbie Pencil Case,” with graphics of a pencil and a pad of paper in the center. A fabulous blond ponytail profile sketch covered the right-hand side.

Want that
.

Next came photos of the small Tutti play cases. P.J. particularly liked the ones that had transparent windows so you could see the dolls when they were packed away. There was an orange one covered with daisies, a pink one with beach graphics, a rose one with winter and summer scenes, and a yellow one with Tutti and her gal pal Chris on the front.

Want them
.

P.J. backed away from the layout table and started to pace the room. Caresse had written that Nancy lived in Walnut Creek, California.

Walking over to her computer and taking a seat in her black leather office chair, P.J. called up the
Barbie International
subscriber database and got Nancy’s address—an approximate drive time of five hours and twenty-seven minutes, and an estimated distance of 353.62 miles.

She glanced at the Fossil Barbie watch she wore at home and decided to take it off. She put it in her top desk drawer.

Next, she took off her Barbie necklace, which included tiny keys and actual Barbie accessories, and put it with the watch.

Lastly, she took off her Barbie bracelet, the one who could be Caresse’s brother had noticed.

She had argued with Darby.

“Krieger isn’t a very common name,” she said.

“How many men named Krieger have sisters who are so into Barbie they wear Barbie bracelets as adults?” Darby retorted.

“I don’t even know if Caresse wears a Barbie bracelet,” P.J. said.

Darby thought about it. “You identified yourself as Devvon. How would anyone be able to associate a Devvon West taking a Greyhound to Las Vegas with a Barbie theft and double homicide taking place that weekend in Vegas?”

“It’s just a creepy coincidence,” P.J. concluded.

Darby agreed. “No doubt.”

“But it doesn’t mean she’s not on my radar now,” P.J. added.

“You’ve always been a bit paranoid,” Darby laughed.

They had left it at that.

Today, P.J. was feeling brazen. Fuck Amtrak. Fuck Greyhound. Neither of them would get her up to Walnut Creek much before midnight, and then she’d have to struggle to coordinate things to get herself back to Burbank tomorrow.

I’m taking the Miata
, she thought.
I’ll be there in five and a half hours, and it’ll still be daylight
.

Caresse’s article had mentioned that Nancy’s husband Ward sold used cars and that Nancy’s paralegal work kept her knee-deep in files each weekend.

Weekend sales were notoriously critical for used car salesmen. Ward would be at work, and Nancy would be at home.

P.J. questioned how many breaks Nancy needed to take from proofing legalese, because it seemed like she compulsively popped up to post comments on the Best Barbie Board every hour on the hour from sun-up to sundown every Saturday and Sunday. P.J. pictured Nancy reading boring casework for an hour, breaking down and logging on to the BBB to chat, and then logging off so she could return to reading briefs.

Something interesting to keep her awake
, P.J. thought.

She had read media coverage of the homicides in Oswego, most of it involving Gayle’s loudmouthed sister-in-law Megan, but if anything had been mentioned in the national news about the murders in Tucson, Oak Harbor, or Vegas, she had missed it.

Lurking on the Best Barbie Board had brought only a few things to light.

Megan Dailon posted a list of Gayle’s dolls and asked collectors to be on the lookout for them on the secondary market. So far, no one had seen any of them, and it amused P.J. to imagine them scouring eBay listings in vain.

Even though theft hadn’t been ruled out as a motive thanks to Beth’s assessment of Hailey’s room, the Raphael homicide case might be motivationally muddied if law enforcement officers were focusing attention on the young schoolteacher’s boyfriends.

Another case two degrees shy of cold was the Time Taylor murder investigation. Since cash and drugs had been on the scene before Time’s father went to jail, detectives were undoubtedly following up leads involving revenge or the quest for the hidden money or illegal substances Time’s father had bragged the cops hadn’t found at the time of his arrest.

Lastly, there was the Vegas murder, the one P.J. had botched. No one had said boo about it yet, even though she had left dolls behind, packed to go. Intuition told her the police would pin it on some kind of Lil Beef drama and that a rival music group would be blamed. To P.J.’s way of thinking, rappers and hip-hop artists were nothing more than thugs who created music. If someone wanted to kill Lil Beef’s bodyguard and his wife at home, there were at least a dozen rival recording artists and their entourages eager to see it happen.

Six murders, and the K9s were quiet. Could she risk driving her own car up north for the next kill?

The way she felt today, she was certain she could.

At 7 p.m. on Sunday, Caresse was on her way to The Graduate restaurant and nightclub in San Luis Obispo for Jenna’s going-away party. It was windy outside, and she was dressed in powder pink from the peak of her hooded sweatshirt to the tips of her pink, vintage Pappagallo flats.

In addition to celebrating Jenna’s departure from the
County Times
, she was ready to commemorate being done with the personal ads dating scene with one last tall, tart drink. The article would be done in thirty-six hours, and then she could get some much-needed rest. Prepared for another disaster, she had packed a legal pad and a few Sharpies in her oversized pink bag in case her arranged date with Nick was a bust.

Sunday evening was the right time to hold a gathering at The Grad. It was a huge establishment typically packed with Cal Poly kids moshing in the center of the planked, wooden, football field-sized dance floor. A bank of flat screen TVs, a bar (complete with boisterous bartenders), and food service windows lent a college bar appeal. The lighting, as always, was low. Tonight, in honor of Jenna, they were playing her favorite movie,
Legally Blonde
, on the big screen.

The bar area was packed when Caresse walked in, so she headed in that direction. She stopped beside Seth, who was rubbing his round-lensed glasses with a napkin while arguing with Pressroom Skip.

“Listen,” Seth was saying, “You can’t vilify them for laying off 40,000 employees. There’s nothing wrong with streamlining a corporation to make it more efficient and competitive.”

“You’re an idiot, Tanner!” Skip exploded, sloshing beer in Caresse’s direction. He noticed her and his mood changed. “Oh, hi, Todd magnet.”

Caresse was ready to open her mouth, but Skip flip-flopped back to being angry with Seth. “Think it’s efficient when one man ends up doing four men’s work and two-thirds of it doesn’t get done?”

Caresse leaned between them and called to the bartender. “Tom Collins.”

Seth was smug. “Hire the right person who can do four men’s work. That’s the answer.”

Skip was sarcastic. “Right.”

They agreed to disagree. Seth turned his back, and they watched as he wove through the throng in the direction of the men’s room.

Skip moved up to the bar with Caresse and put his beer down. The bartender hadn’t asked for money, but she threw a few bucks down on the glossy bar anyway. Her drink had arrived, complete with cherry, and Skip smiled at it. He was old school all the way, in his late fifties, and everyone’s favorite cigarette-break sage. Tonight he wore a green plaid flannel shirt he’d made an effort to iron. It rose over his belly and hung down past his belt.

Caresse checked out his cowboy boots, which had been buffed to a shine.

She was feeling brave. “So tell me everything you know about Todd.”

Skip smiled mischievously and sipped his beer. Women on fishing expeditions always amused him. “He’s married. I know that much.”

Oh, God
, she thought.