Name Games (22 page)

These ruminations were distracted, though, by the tavern that stood near us on the corner. The neon signs flashing in its windows, specifically the one flickering
MILLER BEER
, reminded me that I had overheard Carrol Cantrell speak of the legal standard by which obscenity is judged. Was it mere coincidence? Did it have any bearing on his murder? Was it linked to the blackmail note?

The light changed, and I dismissed these thoughts as we crossed the street. Passing by the storefront, I noticed that Neil’s pace slowed and his head turned. Perhaps he could imagine, hanging near the door, the same tasteful, discreet sign that I had visualized.

A few moments later, we reached Neil’s car, and he offered to drive Glee to The Nook with him, saving her the trek to my car. I agreed to meet them.

When I had pulled my own car from the
Register
’s reserved lot, turning onto First Avenue, I wondered whether the street scene in front of Grace Lord’s shop would be more active than it had been the previous afternoon, when Pierce met me there to disclose the discovery of the extortion note. Turning off Park Street, heading for The Nook, I found things to be equally quiet now—the only car in sight was Neil’s, parked at the curb near the shop. With the rainy spell ended, I also noticed that the trees lining the street were starting to turn golden. Right on cue, a few leaves dropped from high branches and fluttered earthward, a vanguard of the masses that would follow.

Glee and Neil got out of his car, waiting for me on the sidewalk as I parked. They were chatting away about something (dishes, drapes, dresses—who knows?), obviously enjoying each other’s company. Leaving my car, crossing the street toward them, I asked, “Everyone ready for a round of hard-hitting journalism?” Saying this, I checked for my notebook and pen.

“Do we have to?” whined Neil. “After that potpie, I’m ready for a nap.”

Glee cast him a visual jab. “Come on, kiddo. These tiny interiors will goose your energy level.” And she slung an arm through his, marching him toward the entrance to The Nook. I followed, marveling at the apparent silliness of this expedition, but reminding myself that our mission couldn’t have been more serious—we were hunting a killer.

Inside the shop, all was quiet, in stark contrast to the near pandemonium of the weekend. The taciturn lady with the clipboard hovered about, checking shelves for inventory. When she saw me, I didn’t need to ask about Grace Lord’s whereabouts—she simply jerked her head toward the back hall.

Leading the others through the connecting door to the old drugstore, I explained to Neil, “Lord’s Rexall was never intended to serve as a convention hall, I’m sure, but the space is surprisingly well suited for the exhibition of miniatures. Just
look
at this”—and I waved my arm as we entered the main room, a gesture that encompassed the aisles of exhibits, the workshop areas, the gallery for the roombox competition.

Clearly, Neil hadn’t anticipated such an expansive display of wares. His eyes bugged at the sight of it, unable to take it all in—the kid in a candy shop.

“Ma-aark,” a voice singsonged. It was Grace Lord. “Over here.”

We turned and saw Grace waving us toward the competition area at the far end of the hall. Walking the main aisle in her direction, I noticed no one else in the room. I called to her, “You haven’t been abandoned, have you?”

“Hardly,” she said with a laugh as we approached. “The others will be back later in the week for final preparations before opening. Everything’s in pretty good shape already.”

Glee asked, “Are you putting the finishing touches on your roombox?”

“Exactly,” she answered as she began ushering us toward her miniature Rexall, but then she stopped. Eyeing Neil, she said, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Sorry,” I told both of them. “Grace, this is Neil Waite. We lived together in Chicago, and now Neil’s spending some time in Dumont while he’s working on the plant expansion out at Quatro Press—he’s an architect, and a budding miniatures fan, I suspect.”

With a beaming smile, Grace extended her hand, telling him, “Welcome to ‘our little world,’ Neil. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you, Grace. The pleasure’s mine.”

Grace greeted Glee as well, commenting, “You folks always look so spiffed and proper—and me looking like hell again.” She laughed while self-consciously primping her hairdo, which looked a bit tired, perhaps, but perfectly presentable. “Care to see the reincarnation of Lord’s Rexall?”

“Of course,” we gushed. “That’s why we’re here.”

That was not, in fact, the point of our visit—Glee had come to question Grace about the impact of Carrol’s death upon the miniatures community—but there was no point in rushing into maudlin territory, which would surely dampen Grace’s mood. It was good to see her acting more like her sprightly old self again; it seemed she was beginning to shake the shock of the weekend’s tragic events.

“It’s almost finished,” she told us while fiddling with some electrical cords, plugging one in. As she did so, her model drugstore came to life. Ceiling fans paddled slowly overhead; marquee-style lights raced around a mirror behind the soda fountain; backlit apothecary jars, flanking the prescription desk, glowed green and red; two signs,
LORD’S
and
DRUGS
, shone backwards in the display windows on either side of the entrance. And all this was contained in a box about a foot high, some three feet wide.

“It’s sensational,” Neil told Grace.

“Fabulous,” agreed Glee while making notes on her steno pad.

Neil continued, “And the
detail
—just look at all the products on the shelves.”

I told him, “Look closer. Everything has authentic labels.”

“Jeez.” He peered deeply into the roombox, his nose crossing the imaginary fourth wall—Grace had removed the front panel of glass to work on her project. Neil told us, “Even the medicines and the prescription bins are labeled—which is Greek to me, or more likely Latin.” We laughed at this comment as he withdrew from the room-box, saying to Grace, “I assume the medical stuff took lots of research. Or did you just fake it?”

“Heavens, no!” She raised her hands in mock horror, as if flabbergasted by the suggestion. With a laugh, she explained, “No, the drug names are authentic, and I didn’t need to look ’em up either.” She puffed herself, mocking conceit, a foible unnatural to her. “People forget—I was trained in pharmacy—it’s the Lord heritage.”

Still eyeing the roombox, Neil concluded, “You’ve brought it all together beautifully. Congratulations, Grace.”

I added, “It looks like a winner to me.”

“Tut-tut.” Wagging a finger, Grace reminded me, “My entry is ‘for show’ only, which is sort of a nice position to be in—the
others
can scrap for the prizes.”

Glee cleared her throat. “I hate to bring this up, Grace, but now that Carrol Cantrell is…out of the picture, who’ll judge the competition?”

She wagged her head. “I admit, I was worried about that. It was bad enough, what happened to Carrol, but the thing is, it put me in a real pickle.” Her features brightened. “As luck would have it—and I apologize for even mentioning luck in a situation like this—Bruno agreed to step in and take over the judging. He
used
to be the second-biggest name in miniatures, you know.”

“And now he’s number one,” I observed wryly.

“That he is. So you see, Mark, I’d be back in a pickle if Sheriff Pierce
arrested
Bruno. Besides,
he
wouldn’t kill Carrol. I know, I know—they were serious rivals. But the truth is, they depended on each other for their success.”

We all fell quiet while considering Grace’s words, and I recognized that she’d made a valid point. Carrol had been responsible for promoting and marketing Bruno’s work to the American market, and in turn, Bruno had supplied Carrol with the exquisite miniatures that established Carrol’s reputation as retail king of the mini world; their relationship was symbiotic, if not cordial. Nonetheless, I could not forget that Bruno had angrily stated his intentions to sever his dealings with Carrol, whom he called a “parasite”—and two days later, Carrol was dead. So even though Grace could dismiss her suspicions of Bruno, I could not.

She added, “If anything, the stir surrounding all this has only heightened people’s interest in the competition.”

Glee asked, “May I quote that? It’s an interesting aspect of the whole story.”

“Sure,” Grace replied with a why-not shrug, “anything to promote the show. In fact, you can mention that we’ve gotten additional entries, due to all the publicity.”

I told her, “I
thought
the collection had grown some since yesterday.” The roomboxes had now been arranged in two rows, whereas the day before, they were aligned in a single, longer row.

Neil asked, “Can we get a preview tour of the exhibit, Grace?”

Glee added, “We’d really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” replied Grace, already fiddling with a tangle of electrical cords that hung below the double row of roomboxes. The cords were plugged into a power strip, the sort used for computers, and with the flick of a single switch, the collection of shadow boxes was illuminated.

Though the exhibit space itself was not darkened, the little rooms glowed with intensity. Displayed before us was the finest work of many serious amateurs, depicting a variety of rooms that ranged from cutesy to sophisticated, from whimsical flights of fancy to exacting reproductions of historical styles. It was impossible to absorb it all in one eyeful; we three visitors gawked and cooed, spinning our heads in search of a starting point.

Helping us focus, Grace suggested, “I really like this one, a new entry from a man in Kenosha, a relative newcomer to the mini scene. He calls it ‘Cabot Cove Summer,’ and it’s just for fun. It’s his idea of what Jessica Fletcher’s vacation house would look like—if she had one.”

It
was
fun. The miniaturist had constructed the parlor and hallway of a New England summerhouse, all decorated in cool shades of creamy off-white. The parlor also served as work space for television’s fictitious mystery writer, with a large desk moved into the light of a cheery bay window. Word processor, coffee mug, dictionary, and a stack of reference books were arrayed close at hand. A fireplace, Windsor chairs, pewter candlesticks, and tieback curtains helped reinforce the room’s heritage. Front and center sat a lacquered oriental chest, conveniently coffin-sized,
perfect
for displaying a grim collection of daggers, a mace, noose, and other devices of mayhem, intended for the author’s research.

“I
love
it,” gushed Glee, recording details of the room in her notes.

“It’s certainly no ‘dollhouse,’” said Neil. “Everything is perfectly proportioned, obviously the work of a designer’s eye.”

“You’ll like this one too,” said Grace, directing our attention to another roombox. “It has a Chicago locale, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate. It’s called ‘East Lake Shore Drive.’”

I told her, “That’s the short stretch of the Outer Drive that curves around the Drake Hotel—one of the best addresses in town.”

While the first roombox had been infused with a capricious sense of humor, this one was an example of dead-serious decorating. Created in miniature was an elegant double-doored bedroom, big enough to function as a comfortable sitting room as well.

As if thinking aloud, Neil offered Glee a knowledgeable commentary on some of its particulars: “There’s an astute mix of furniture styles, including Louis Quinze and Seize, Biedermeier, and contemporary. Above a glazed wainscot, the walls are upholstered in quilted, honey-colored silk—the palette of the entire room is soft and rosy. Framed original paintings glow beneath miniature art lights. And the tabletop accessories are remarkable—antique ivory pieces, bouillotte lamps, mantel clock, desk set, even a perfume-bottle collection.” As a finishing touch, a brass telescope, mounted on a mahogany tripod, was aimed out the invisible fourth wall toward the viewer, implying that the room enjoyed an expansive view of Lake Michigan and other high-rises. Neil summed up his judgment in a single word: “Stunning.”

“
I’ll
say,” Glee agreed, making note of Neil’s description. She asked Grace, “The furniture—all these flawless pieces—the room-box designer doesn’t actually
make
everything, correct?”

“That’s right,” Grace told her. “The furnishings are collected from many sources. Some are commercially mass-produced; others are individually crafted by artisans like Bruno Hérisson, who’s considered the very best.”

Neil asked, “Are any of his pieces here?” As he said this, I recalled that his purpose in joining us that afternoon was to see one of Bruno’s miniature desks.

“You bet,” Grace answered. “Bruno has a large display of his own, like many other exhibitors, but I’m afraid his inventory is locked away right now. It’s far too valuable to leave sitting out. However”—she whisked along the row of roomboxes in the competition gallery, stopping at one of them, pointing—“you’re in luck. This entry contains several of his pieces.”

We gathered round. The roombox, titled “Quai Saint Bernard,” depicted an apartment in Paris overlooking the Seine. Through tall French doors, the river could be glimpsed as a backdrop beyond a balcony. The ornate style of decorating contained many visual delights, as well as a lavish assemblage of furniture, but Neil lingered over none of this, zeroing in on the object he’d come to see.

“There it is,” he declared, “the cylinder-top desk, Louis Quinze.”

The palm-sized piece of furniture matched Glee’s earlier description: a rolltop desk, crafted of inlaid hardwood, with an intricate cover that was a solid cylinder instead of slatted. It was lovely, of course, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand all the fuss, let alone the fifteen-thousand-dollar price tag.

“Incredible,” said Neil.

“Absolutely nonpareil,” Glee whispered, holding her glasses an inch beyond her nose to boost their power.

“Would you like a closer look?” asked Grace. To my amazement, she opened the front glass wall of the roombox, reached inside, and plucked up the desk—seemingly with no more trepidation than if it were a pack of cigarettes, which would be roughly the same size. “Here,” she said, offering it to Neil.