Dolly Departed (20 page)

Gretchen stood up on the boulder, hopped down, and began the steepest part of the ascent to the mountain's peak. The trail fell away. She gripped red boulders and continued up, keeping a sharp eye out for a new bird to add to her life list.

What was Joseph's story? He was a flamboyant alcoholic who claimed that he couldn't remember anything about the night preceding Charlie's death, or anything about the next morning when Gretchen spotted him at the parade. Was he telling the truth? Or was he hiding a sinister secret?

She grabbed a firm hold in the rocks and continued her climb. Birds chattered around her, and she saw several cactus wrens in a mesquite bush. One of the main reasons Gretchen chose early mornings to hike her favorite mountain was to avoid rattlesnakes and other poisonous creatures. She'd had enough uncomfortable encounters with creatures in the past. The February air at this time of day was cool enough to keep them in their holes.

Arizona's list of creepy crawlers was endless: snakes, scorpions, Gila monsters, black widows, tarantulas, lizards. And the larger varieties: coyotes, mountain lions, and javelinas, the wild pigs with razor-sharp tusks. Gretchen paused to catch her breath and take in the scenery. A chipmunk munched on the buds of a barrel cactus below and to her right. She'd heard that barrel cacti always leaned to the southwest, something to remember if she was ever lost in the desert.

She continued up until she stood at the very summit of Camelback Mountain. The air seemed clearer, affecting her entire view of the world. She sat down and felt her heart pounding from the exertion of the steep climb. She told herself that once she started the trek back down the mountain, she wouldn't think of anything but the wonder of life. Maybe she would spot a hummingbird, her favorite bird. Hummingbirds were the gold medalists of the bird world, able to hover motionless in midair. They could stop faster and perform more acrobatics than any other bird.

Yes, she thought as she sat at the top of Camelback Mountain, on the way back, she'd research life. But for now she'd study death.

What about Britt Gleeland and her daughter, Melany?

Gretchen hadn't spent much time with Britt, but in the short amount of time she had, she didn't really like her. Was her inability to warm up to the doll maker a jealous reaction to Nina's friendship with her?

What a mess. Not to mention her personal life and the sexy but still
married
detective she was dodging. She had ignored two calls from him yesterday, listening to his voice messages urging her to return his calls. Gretchen didn't have to have a degree in psychology to suspect that she was running away more from her mixed-up feelings than from him.

One last look out over the city she called home, and she started her descent. Usually the mountain gave her a positive outlook on life, but this time when she put it all together it didn't seem like such a great morning after all. On the way down, even the birds eluded her.

Her mother hadn't forgotten about her offer to introduce Gretchen to Evie Rosemont. She announced the plans when Gretchen walked in the door.

"Get ready," she said. "We're going calling."

Evie Rosemont's home was painted bright and bold. Splashes of red, green, and yellow popped from the small ranch.

Caroline watched Gretchen's face when they parked in the driveway. "Wait until you see the inside," she said. Evie was short and squat and greeted them wearing a purple dressing robe and a matching beret with sequins and beads. Treating them as though they were long-lost friends, she proceeded to carry on a one-sided conversation that never ceased.

"Come in, come in. I have tea brewing. Girls, you must see my remodeled hat room. Come this way. I couldn't fit everything into the room anymore, so I redid this and redid that, decorating skills from my dear departed Nana. ."

Evie rattled on while Gretchen and Caroline followed her down a narrow orange hallway.

Pictures of Evie at different stages in her life lined the hallway. She wore a hat in every photograph, starting with a black-and-white photo of her as a baby in a bonnet and ending with a current shot of Evie wearing a gold hat with purple and yellow feathers jutting from the top like waterworks.

"This one is from my days in New York, high society you know, and this one is me, and this one. . Here we are. Wait until you see. Hats make the person, don't you think?" Evie ran on, addressing her hatless guests. "You can tell everything, simply everything, by a woman's collection of hats."

They trailed Evie into a fuchsia room. It was filled with antique hats and shoes: black lace vintage bonnets, Victorian cream leather boots with lace closures, an orange feather hat. The hats were displayed on hooks, the shoes on numerous small platforms mounted on all four walls.

". . is my latest acquisition, found, if you can believe it, in a dusty old attic when I visited poor Mama when she was on her deathbed. Mama had quite a few lifethreatening health problems throughout her brief time on this earth. First there was her female trouble when she was only twenty-five, then. ."

When Gretchen had seen Evie Rosemont at Mini Maize she had been wearing a large straw hat with sunflowers. Gretchen had heard Evie address Bernard right before he had opened the door. A bad heart, she'd said at the time, thinking Charlie might've suffered a heart attack. "I was at Charlie's shop the day she died," Gretchen said.

Evie's round, dimpled face turned to Gretchen. "Quite a series of unfortunate events. Where did I hear that expression before? No matter. Anyway, it all happened so fast, you know, Charlie had to watch it because of her heart, that's what I thought it was all along, but then those two detectives started digging deeper. Do you know anything more? The police won't say a thing, but why else would they be holding poor Charlie's body without a funeral? I hope you know why, because we can't let this go away, not if it really was foul play. I remember back about ten years ago when. ." The woman chattered on.

Evie Rosemont, Gretchen decided, could benefit from medication.

". . and Sara's death, bless her heart, almost destroyed Charlie. Did I mention that Charlie was like a sister to me. ."

They were back in the hallway, heading for the last room on the left.

". . and was it just yesterday I said to Carla, Carla's my neighbor, I said. ."

Caroline gave Gretchen a look over the top of Evie's head and stood back to let Gretchen follow Evie in. "Wait until you see this," Evie said. "I painted my home, inside and out, to reflect the contents of this room. Here we go. ."

Gretchen inched in behind her and clapped her hands in delight. Trolls, trolls, everywhere trolls. Evie had a special room totally dedicated to the grinning, impish dolls. Gretchen picked up one of the miniature trolls. The Dam marking was stamped into the underside of the troll's plump bare foot.

Evie stopped talking long enough to allow Gretchen to examine the doll. A brief moment of silence, then she started in again. "That's a baby boy in a Halloween costume.

This one is a caveman, this is a man in a suit. I've collected Thomas Dam Trolls for thirty years. I attend every doll show within driving distance looking just for them."

Gretchen returned the mini to its designated place in the display. Her eyes lit on two familiar trolls. A wedding couple. The groom had purple hair and a black tux, the bride had pink hair and a white wedding dress with a veil. Gretchen peeked under the bride's dress. "She's even wearing a little blue garter."

"Oh, my, yes. Aren't they darling little things?"

"I had this same pair when I was growing up," Gretchen said, looking at her mother. "Whatever happened to them?"

"They're in a box with your other childhood dolls," Caroline said, beaming. "I thought you'd never ask. I hoped one day you'd want them."

"Tea time," Evie called, fluttering from the room. "Do you take sugar? I like mine the European way with lots of cream. I remember when. ."

Evie served tea on a patio in a small courtyard. Gretchen helped her carry things out from a brightly painted yellow kitchen, not a hint of wallpaper anywhere. No apples or teapots on Evie's walls.

"We put some of Charlie's room boxes together," Caroline said. "They turned out to be murder scenes."

"Charlie said to me, 'Evie,' she said. 'I'm working on horrible murders. It's therapeutic,' she said, if you can believe that. 'I think I'll show them at my party,' she said. I tried to talk her out of it, but her mind was made up, and it's her shop after all, she can do what she pleases. Charlie showed them to me the afternoon before it happened."

"Did others see them ahead of time?" Gretchen asked.

"I assume so, what with well-wishers in and out. She had plans for dinner with Britt, and she was expecting Melany to drop off tiny flower arrangements. Deliveries, customers, and whatnot."

Evie paused for a sip of tea, holding the cup with both hands. Gretchen noticed the cup was shaking slightly. "I did the books for Charlie," Evie said. "But you must know that."

Evie was nervous. The endless chatter and shaking hands gave her away. Gretchen was starting to suspect that she had something to hide. "How was the shop doing?"

"Small businesses really struggle, especially doll shops," Caroline said. "But Charlie was a shrewd businesswoman. She must have been in the black."

"That's right," Evie agreed, setting the cup down and hiding her hands under the table. "She watched the cash register and never bought anything unless it was a super good deal. That's why I couldn't believe she'd cover up the way she did. It wasn't my fault. I can't be held accountable."

"We've been friends a long time, Evie," Caroline said.

"What's bothering you?"

Evie's eyes grew wider. She began to wring her hands.

"I knew it was a mistake to go along with it. I should have resigned on the spot, the minute I found out, but I didn't think it was my business. After all, I warned Charlie, held the spreadsheet with the proof right under her nose. Pointed right at it, even had his signature on the checks. He didn't even try to forge her name. The oaf used his own. But she already knew. Like I said, she watched the cash register, added things up, corrected my numbers once in a while. She could do the math in her head, while I needed a calculator."

"Evie," Caroline said. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"The first time, I thought I had made the mistake," Evie said, distraught. "I spent all day trying to figure out why the numbers didn't work. Then I realized that someone was stealing money from the shop. I took it to Charlie right away, but she told me to ignore it. Can you believe that?

'Look the other way,' she said. 'Fix it any way you like, but don't say a word.' She let the man keep doing it, and I'm telling you, the numbers were off every single month."

"Bernard," Gretchen guessed. She already knew that he had a bad habit of taking money that didn't belong to him.

"But why? He has a comfortable home in a nice neighborhood."

"Charlie said he can't help himself."

Evie resumed her nervous chatter. "Charlie said he was getting professional counseling for it, so I went along. Last week, I finally gave him an earful, told him he should apologize to Charlie for taking advantage of her. I remember a time when something like this wouldn't happen. I used to work for. ." And away she went.

When she stopped for breath, Gretchen clicked through the pictures on her camera phone until she came to the unfinished room box. "Does this look familiar?" she asked. Evie barely glanced at it. "No, why should it?"

"Look again," Gretchen urged, putting the phone in her hand. "Was this part of Charlie's display?"

"What horrible construction. Charlie was better than that, much better. I've never seen that room box-if you can call it a room box-in my life."

At an appropriate gap in the conversation, Caroline said, "We should go. Work's waiting."

Gretchen practically ran for the quiet of her car.

"Please, don't say a single word," Gretchen pleaded with her mother before she pulled out of the driveway. "I need a moment of silence."

That glorious moment was interrupted by an urgent phone call from Nina.

"Daisy's missing," Nina said.

"Daisy's always missing," Gretchen reassured her aunt.

"I have a bad feeling this time," Nina said. "Get in."

Gretchen boldly removed bewigged Tutu from the passenger seat of the Impala and climbed in. The pampered pet, wearing her Barky Braids, snorted at Gretchen from the backseat and turned her head away in disapproval.

"Tutu's miffed," Nina said, driving off. "Why can't you simply share the seat with her?"

Gretchen gave her aunt a withering glare. "You should know the rules better than I do." Gretchen began to tick the points off on her fingers. "Don't feed your dog before you feed yourself. Don't let the dog sleep with its head on the pillow next to you. Don't treat the dog like a supreme being."

"Okay, okay, already. Of course, I know that. I'm a dog trainer. It's just hard for me to apply the same set of rules to Tutu. After all, she was a rescue dog, the poor baby."

Gretchen glanced at Poor Baby and thought she saw the schnoodle grinning smugly back at her. Nimrod wagged his tail, perfectly happy to ride in the back.

"Tutu's spoiled rotten," Gretchen said.

"I know you don't mean that," Nina said, handling the car like a woman who loved to drive. "You're just crabby today."

"Where's Enrico?"

"He's been accepted into a temporary home to see how it works out."

Wonderful!
No more snarling and growling from the pint-sized handful every time he didn't like something, which was pretty much all the time. Someone else could deal with his unruly, challenging behavior for a change. Hurray. Nina glanced over. Too late to appear compassionate.