Bury Me With Barbie (22 page)

He didn’t leave her desk for forty-five minutes. It was friends at first sight for both of them. Ann, meanwhile, was mulling over the fact that Rowell and Carter from Walnut Creek had asked for Caresse’s input on the Nancy Roth murder investigation.

“Are they going to send you photos of the crime scene?” she asked.

“Why would they?”

Ann was clearly exasperated, but still managed to look too beautiful for work. She had taken time to curl her dark hair so it framed her face perfectly and barely touched her shoulders. Her dark green blouse had an embroidered breast pocket with a swirl of tiny flowers on it. She had definitely lunched with her SLOPD pals.

“Look at it this way,” Ann said. “They have everything you got—all the pictures Nancy sent you—as well as your story.
You’ve
only got one-half the puzzle. If you saw what they had, maybe something would come to light. You would notice something and—”

“I get it,” Caresse said. “But I don’t feel comfortable asking them for anything that’s in their files. I’m new to this, you know?”

“Leave it to me then,” Ann said. She stopped for a moment, looked thoughtful, and then dove beneath her desk to retrieve her purse.

“You’re seeing Chazzie today, right?”

“You bet,” Caresse said. “Leaving right now to go pick him up from preschool.”

Ann pulled a small blue box out of her purse and handed it to her. “For his ever-growing Lego collection,” she said.

Caresse smiled and was filled with warmth. What a pal Ann was.

Outside the
County Times’
huge glass windows, it was raining steadily.

“What are you guys gonna do?” Ann asked.

“We love it when it rains,” Caresse assured her. “We’ve got umbrellas and raincoats. We’re gonna walk around downtown and then go home and take really hot baths, make cocoa, and have a really healthy dinner.”

“You’re a good mom,” Ann said.

“Thanks,” Caresse said. “I try, but you never know.”

P.J. was exhausted by the time she drove the U-Haul into Burbank Hills and pulled into her driveway. She had already thought about asking the staff to come out and help her bring everything inside, but that would raise too many questions. They were busy making sure deliveries of the March issue of
Barbie International
were reaching their destinations, so she decided it would be best to just unload everything into the ample three-car garage and then move everything into the exercise room when they were not around.

Into the garage the storage units went, one after the other, until the space next to her Miata was filled. While she was re-stacking the drawers in the order she wanted, she heard someone rolling the trash barrels up the driveway. She assumed it was Bob the gardener and that she would have to offer him some kind of excuse regarding the U-Haul and all the dolls.

But it was Darby.

He was sporting a periwinkle Izod shirt, which was as out of character for him as the Dockers and Ray-Bans he wore. He had forsaken his Lakers cap and had his hair combed neatly, parted on the left side. He had bothered to shave and smelled like Old Spice. He entered the garage and stood about twelve feet away.

P.J. tried to pick up a vibe from him. She didn’t know if she should be afraid. She knew he wasn’t as crazy as their cousin Lynne, but he might be capable of violence.

After a moment of silence, Darby said hello.

P.J. had vowed not to talk to him, so she glared at him and continued rearranging her storage drawers.

“I wanted to apologize for giving Jordanne one of your dolls.”

P.J. scowled. W
here is it then
?
If you were really sorry, you would have gotten it and brought it with you
.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me anymore or have anything to do with me.”

You got that right
.

Darby’s rage at P.J. for treating Jordanne poorly was barely contained. Until P.J. was genuinely sorry and apologized to Jordanne, she would not be getting her missing doll back.

He approached his half-sister and stood an arm’s length away. “I just wanted to say something that I think is important. At least for me, it is.

“There was a time I thought you cared about me, but it was more about what I could do for you than anything else. Now that I’ve become too much trouble for you, you have no problem putting me out of your mind. One of these days, you’re gonna wake up and realize something. You’re gonna realize that the only way to be happy is to open up, be real, look someone in the eye, love them, talk to them, and share what you’re feeling. Even the stuff that isn’t so wonderful.”

P.J. was angry. The tiny Jordanne had accomplished the impossible. She had opened Darby’s eyes to his own worth and potential. The tiny brat had changed him; he was a man in love.

Darby continued, “You have to commit to the closeness. Not be afraid to let someone in, even if they might not be around tomorrow. Not be afraid to love, lose, pick yourself up, and try again. You’re gonna have to learn how to need someone, want someone in your life, and not just because they pay the bills. It’s not about dolls. They’re plastic. They can fill your shelves and you can adore them, but they can’t fill the place in your heart another human being can when you’re open, vulnerable, and truly intimate.”

Shut up
, P.J. thought.
Just shut up
.

“You run around doing whatever you want, but you’re lacking something critical in your life, and that’s why you’re empty. Feeling entitled is deeming yourself more important than those around you. Until you realize that you’re no better or worse than anyone else and that we’re all in this together, until you open up and start to care, really care, about someone, your life is worthless.”

P.J. stepped back.

Darby stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at his feet. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

P.J. hated him now, absolutely and unequivocally. Who did he think he was, preaching to her? He had fucked up his life beyond belief and now lived in a crappy apartment. He had nothing, not even a job. He might believe love had saved him and that love could change his life. He might even believe he could become the man Jordanne saw when she looked at him, someone to be proud of, with a job, with a life, but he would never amount to anything. He would always be nothing. She turned on her heel, walked to the U-Haul, and waited for him to exit the garage.

When he came out, she lowered the garage door, got into the U-Haul, and backed out of the driveway.

She glanced backward only once. He was getting on his scooter, preparing to leave.

I shouldn’t have tried to be nice to him
, she thought.
He was a complete waste of my time. Fuck him. Fuck Heath. Fuck everybody
.

An hour and a half later, Chaz and Caresse were marching through puddles on their way to Monya’s Antiques.

The skinny guy with jet-black hair and
Blues Brothers
shades was skulking in the shadows, standing in front of the curtain that covered the entrance to the back room. Chaz and Caresse took off their raincoats and shook them, leaving them by the front door. Then they collapsed their umbrellas, shook them out, and placed them with their coats.

“Is Monya here today?” Caresse asked, approaching the counter.

Chaz zoomed off to the area of the shop where toys were piled high.

“She’s in the—” he began.

A toilet flushed a room or two away, and they both smiled. No need to finish the sentence.

Monya entered the room and filled it with her presence. She wore a bird of paradise print muumuu today, and her lips were pumpkin to complement her safety-orange nails. Her copper red hair was dazzling. Caresse wondered if there was a posse that showed up regularly just to check out what plumage she might wear next.

She approached the main counter, smiling. “Remember me?”

Monya extended both her hands, taking both of Caresse’s smaller, plainer ones in hers and holding them for a prolonged moment.

Finally Caresse broke the ice bluntly. “Did you know Nancy Roth?”

Monya looked blank for a moment and then said, “No.”

“She collected mostly vinyl Barbie cases, and she lived up in Walnut Creek. Someone killed her and raided her Barbie collection. It’s just like what happened to Gayle.”

Monya paled visibly, and her hand went to her throat, where an elaborate pearl choker was wrapped loosely around her wattle. “Gayle and Mike Grace in upstate New York, Zivia and Rick Uzamba in Vegas, Time Taylor in Washington, that poor little schoolteacher in Tucson, and now another one?”

“I’ve only heard a little about the Vegas murder,” Caresse said. “What happened there?”

Monya led her to a set of upholstered chairs and plopped down in the larger one. Caresse removed boxes from the one next to it and sat beside her.

“Killer came in, murdered the husband by injecting him with some kind of drug, and then went upstairs and did the same thing to Zivia.” She paused for dramatic effect. “She was in the shower.”

Caresse shivered. “Did she have a lot of dolls?”

“So many that the killer was going to make two trips, but she was spotted by someone, so she never returned for the other bags she packed. I saw the whole house on the news. Even after it was trashed, that doll room was to die for.”

“Literally,” Caresse said, thinking hard. “You say she was spotted?”

“Two friends came to visit when the husband didn’t answer his pager. They were on the porch, ringing the doorbell and getting no answer, when they spotted a blond woman holding duffel bags, standing at the foot of the driveway. There were two duffel bags left upstairs packed with dolls she was clearly gonna come back for. But after they saw her, she split.”

“Do they have a sketch of this woman?”

“The Vegas PD does. They showed it on the news. Google it—they should have a picture of her online. How did the woman in Walnut Creek die?”

“She was shot.”

“Might be a whole ’nother deal going on there. None of the others died from gunshot wounds, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Caresse said. “But I think stealing the dolls ties them all together. I’ll bet the killer is just varying her M.O. to throw off the police.”

“That’s smart,” Monya said.

Chaz approached their chairs, holding a small action ficture.

“What is this?” Caresse asked when he handed it to her for inspection.

“It’s a Zbot,” Monya answered for him. “They were invented by a group of scientists to protect the world from evil. They were popular in the early ’90s.”

Caresse studied the little yellow and blue guy as she was informed he was a Robochamp named Zentor.

“They’re pretty small,” Caresse said.

Chaz nodded eagerly. “There’s a whole box full of them.”

“Where’s your new Lego?”

Chaz pointed to the deep front pocket of his jeans.

“Let me see the box.”

Chaz ran off, and Monya and Caresse exchanged smiles.

“So the police want me to help out with the Nancy Roth murder investigation. Meaning, they want me to try and figure out why someone would be doing this and maybe put out feelers inside the collecting community to see what’s up.”

“The Best Barbie Board is the right place,” Monya said. “Maybe I can join you in reading through the chat threads to hopefully pick up on something. You never know.”

“Thanks,” Caresse said, and meant it.

Chaz returned and nearly stumbled over the corner of an Oriental runner. The box of Zbots landed in Monya’s lap, and she laughed.

Chaz looked embarrassed but recovered quickly.

“How much for the whole box?” Caresse asked Monya.

“The whole box, twenty bucks.”

Caresse stood up. “You drive a hard bargain,” she said, giving her a warm smile.

The box was no bigger than a shoebox, but it was crammed full.

Caresse slid Monya a twenty-dollar bill and gave her a hearty hug.

“You don’t have a valuable collection the killer might want, do you?” Monya asked, as though the thought had just occurred to her.

“No. My doll collection is small, mostly repros,” Caresse assured her. “And I guess I should be glad.”

Monya looked relieved. She watched as Chaz and Caresse donned their raincoats and started to open their umbrellas.

“Don’t open them in here,” she admonished. “It’s bad luck.”

Chaz looked up at his mother, questioningly.

“She’s kind of right, Chaz,” Caresse said, stepping outside, giving Monya a wave before the door closed.

Once they were outside, she clarified it for him. “If you’re superstitious, there are certain things you do or don’t do to make sure luck stays with you.”

“I’m very lucky,” Chaz assured her.

She rubbed his raincoat-hooded head. “You sure are. You’ve got a mom who loves toys.”

He hugged his shoebox as they walked toward Mitchell Park. “And you know what?”

“What?”

“I think I might like these as much as you like Barbie.”

P.J. parked in the lot next to the Glendale Market on Sunday, March 2, close to 2 p.m., and watched for signs of Darby’s girlfriend Jordanne.

If she worked the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift, she would be leaving soon.

P.J. waited until 2:30, grew impatient, and then realized she should call Darby’s apartment and find out if Jordanne was even working that day. If she wasn’t, she would likely be with him. The phone rang eight times before the call kicked over to the answering machine. P.J. hung up without leaving a message.

Restless, she got out of her car and went into the market, making a beeline toward the back of the store to avoid scrutiny by management up front. She poked around in the frozen food section for a while and finally decided to buy a pint of frozen raspberry yogurt.

There were eight checkout stands flanked by magazine racks and the usual impulse-buy assortment of gum and candy. The first checkout was being handled by a dark-haired man, the second by a middle-aged woman wearing glasses, and the third by a blond-haired woman who looked like a taller version of Jordanne, sans her annoyingly cute snub nose.