Dolled Up for Murder (4 page)

“Come on, Josie,” Gretchen said, and I let myself be led away from the bloody, deadly scene.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, wearing a Prescott's T-shirt and the spare pants I keep in my office since my slacks always seem to get dirty crawling under furniture or traipsing through dusty attics, I sat on my yellow love seat. Ellis sat across from me in one of the wing chairs sipping coffee. I held a cup of tea, grateful for the warmth.

In response to his questions, I told him what little I knew about the shooting.

“How would you describe Alice's mood?” he asked.

“She seemed remarkably even-keeled about her legal troubles. Way more calm than I would have been.”

“What did she say about the situation?”

“She was upset, thinking she was about to be arrested and that Penn was going to talk about it on air.”

“How long have you known her?” he asked after I'd repeated as much of our conversation as I could recall.

“For years. She was a good customer. She bought five rare dolls at various auctions over the last six years. One from Frisco's in New York. That's my old firm. She had me bid on her behalf.”

“How come?”

“Bidding with the big boys is a major league sport. It's easy to get caught up in the moment. You don't want to end up paying more than you have to, but you can't delay bidding or you'll miss out. It's tense when you're playing with real money.”

Ellis nodded. “Sounds like she was a serious collector.”

“That's a fair assessment,” I said. “We appraised her dolls for insurance purposes about a year ago. The collection is comprised of twenty-five dolls and was valued at nearly four hundred thousand dollars.”

He whistled, low and long.

“The most valuable one was the doll we acquired from Frisco's. A French Triste Bébé, which is a nineteenth-century doll with a sad expression. It's in near-perfect condition and included several pieces of original clothing and a human hair wig. We valued it at about thirty thousand dollars.”

“Thirty thousand dollars for one doll.”

“The doll and all the bits and pieces, and everything in excellent condition, yes.” I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked out the window, past my old maple toward the church. “Alice gave us a deposit check today. She intended to buy all of Selma Farmington's dolls.”

“How much will the collection sell for?”

“I won't know until the appraisal is complete. It looks like Selma chose her dolls because she loved them, not for the investment.” I explained how chipped paint, broken limbs, cracks, breaks, mars, flawed repairs, missing garments, and uncertain provenance reduced value.

He jotted a note. “Why do you think Alice was killed?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“Why here? Today? On your property?”

I drank some tea, then looked at him. “If Penn was right and she was about to be arrested, maybe someone decided to kill her rather than risk the chance that she'd talk to get herself a deal.”

“So maybe she had a partner?”

“I don't know, Ellis. I just can't believe the Ponzi scheme charges are true. Alice wasn't a fly-by-night sort of gal. She grew up around here. She was everyone's first call when you needed someone to lend her name to your charity or to donate money. She was, as my mom might have put it, good people.”

“What do you know about her business?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Almost nothing. Did you see Wes's article in today's paper?”

“Sure. She denied everything very neatly.”

Ellis was right—Alice flatly denied personal culpability—but he was wrong, too. She didn't deny that something was wrong. Wes quoted her as saying that she'd had no choice but to fire her chief operating officer, Lenny Einsohn. “If a Ponzi scheme was being run out of my office, Lenny has to be behind it. In a business that bears my name, even the tiniest whiff of impropriety is unacceptable. I wish Lenny all the best, but I need to think about my company's clients. I can't worry about one employee who either took his hand off the wheel or worse.” From the timeline Wes had included in a sidebar, Lenny must have got whiplash, he'd been in such a hurry to sue Alice for character defamation and libel. Now there was a jumble of lawsuits and on-the-record allegations and off-the-record implications. It was a mess.

Wes quoted Ian Landers, too. I didn't know Ian to talk to, but I knew his wife, Martha. Ian was some kind of day trader; Martha was the manager of the best day spa in town and collected eighteenth-century British sterling silver salt spoons. She'd bought several spoons from me, and I'd spent many relaxing hours at her spa. Martha and I had tried to get together for lunch a couple of times, but it hadn't worked out. We were two busy people who'd wanted to explore whether our friendly acquaintanceship could blossom into genuine friendship, but so far, we hadn't found the time.

Ian told Wes that they'd lost most of their retirement savings investing with Alice's company and it was all Alice's fault—he and Martha, he explained, had been good friends with Alice, and she'd betrayed their trust. When Wes asked Alice to respond, she'd said that while she couldn't comment on individual clients, some people make risky investment decisions and then, when the risk doesn't pay off, cry foul. According to Wes, Ian called Alice a blight on the community that needed to be squashed like a bug. Ouch.

Ellis was looking at me, waiting for me to respond to his comment about Wes's article. He seemed to have all the time in the world.

“I don't have a clue about anything, Ellis, not a clue.”

“You're not an ADM Financial client?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My dad was a very conservative investor. He taught me to keep most of my savings in government-backed securities, I-Bonds and the like. That approach suits me, too.”

Ellis nodded. He finished his coffee and placed his cup on the butler's table. “Did Alice mention any trouble she was having with anyone?”

“She called her daughter-in-law, Ms. Attila the Hun.” I shook my head.

“You said she got the news she was about to be arrested from Pennington Moreau, the TV lawyer. Do you know him?”

“I met him for the first time today. I know his reports. I like them.”

Ellis shifted position. “I hate to ask you to relive the shooting, Josie, but I need to take you through it one step at a time. Some new memory may come to you. Start when you stepped outside.”

I felt my muscles tighten and raised and lowered my shoulders, hoping to ease the discomfort, then took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought back. Vivid memories came to me. As soon as I'd opened the outside door I'd smelled the moist sweet aroma of fresh-cut grass. Fluffy clouds dotted the baby blue sky. The sun warmed my skin.

“Okay,” I said, opening my eyes. I slid my cup onto the butler's table and stared at a spot on the Oriental carpet, a beige dot near the gold fringe, and reported. I didn't remember anything new.

When I finished, I raised my eyes and glanced around. There was my rooster collection in the corner cabinet. There was my desk and the window that gave me the view of the old maple tree. I touched the damask fabric on the love seat. Everything was familiar, yet it all looked and felt different, as if I'd been away for a long, long time. It was discombobulating. I rubbed my arms as if I were cold.

“Thank you, Josie,” Ellis said. He paused, then asked, “Are you going to keep the business open today?”

I glanced at my grandfather clock, a Daniel Chessman original. It was after three. “I don't know. When I'm upset, my inclination is always to work. Although I gotta say a hot bath and a Blue Martini sound pretty good right about now.”

“Before you head home, I'm going to need you to come to the station and give a statement.”

I leaned back. “I really cared about Alice, Ellis. No joke. If I could help you find her killer, I would, but I don't know anything else.”

“It won't take long, Josie, but it's got to happen. I need the formal record. On our way, I'm going to ask Doc Volmer to give you a once-over, to check you out for shock and scrapes and bruises and the like.”

I shook my head. “I don't need a doctor. I'm fine. I'm shook up and sad, but overall, I'm fine.”

He nodded. “We can skip the doctor, although I don't recommend it, but we can't skip the statement. Sorry, Josie.”

I recognized a losing battle when I saw one. Protocols were protocols and that was that.

“Okay,” I said.

“I need to talk to your staff for a minute.”

“Fred is at the design museum doing some research, and Eric is at the Farmingtons' packing up some things. Everyone else should be here.”

I walked him downstairs and into the front office. As we passed through the warehouse I looked to the left, toward the spacious quarters that Hank, Prescott's Maine Coon cat, called home. I wanted a little cuddle, but that would have to wait. Per my insurance company's regulations, unless you were a bonded employee, you couldn't be anywhere inside my building unaccompanied, not even if you were a police chief on official business. I pushed open the heavy door that led from the warehouse into the main office.

“You're back,” I said, spotting Fred, Prescott's second-in-command appraiser, seated at his desk. “Did you have trouble getting past the police line?”

“Not really. They had me park on the street and walked me in along the perimeter.”

“Has someone filled you in?”

He nodded but didn't specify who or what. I looked around, gauging everyone's reaction. Cara sat with her hands laced together in a tight little knot. Her eyes were moist. Gretchen was rubbing the knuckles of her right hand with the fingers of her left. Her normally sparkling eyes were clouded. Sasha twirled a strand of her shoulder-length hair into a tight thin twist. Fred leaned back in his chair, sucking on the earpiece of his cool-kid square black glasses, attentive and observant. Everyone was watching me, waiting for me to speak.

“You all know Chief Hunter,” I said. “He has a few questions.”

Ellis asked who'd heard what, whether they'd seen anything, and if they had any information that might help the police identify the shooter. Except for Fred, who'd just returned, they'd all heard the shots. No one had seen anything. No one knew anything. Six minutes after Ellis began questioning them, he finished. He handed out business cards in case they thought of anything later, told us he'd instruct the officers stationed outside to allow us to drive our cars out of the lot, added that he'd meet me at the station house in twenty minutes, and left.

I stood by the window and watched him stride across the lot. Griff, a uniformed officer close to retirement, stood talking to a young woman with short brown hair wheeling a rolling black pilot case, a crime scene technician, I guessed. Another uniformed officer, a woman I'd never seen before, was stretching yellow and black tape around orange traffic cones, cordoning off the asphalt area where Alice had died. A tow truck idled off to the side, ready to remove her car.

I wanted to talk to Ty, Ty Alverez, my boyfriend, to hear his words of comfort, to feel his strength. Before I could, I knew I needed to say something to my staff about the murder. I wanted to go home, crawl under the covers, and wait for summer, but I couldn't. I had a responsibility, as Prescott's owner, as their boss. I made a mental note to call Eric, then took in a deep breath and looked at each of them in turn.

“Alice Michaels was more than a good customer,” I began. “She was a friend. I know you are all aware that she's been under investigation for mismanaging her clients' money. I don't know anything about that. All I know is that her dealings with Prescott's have always been aboveboard. I tell you this because I want you to know what I told the police and what I'll tell any reporters who ask. That to my direct knowledge she was a proud member of the Rocky Point community and a loyal supporter of Prescott's. Period.” I paused, pleased to see that Sasha had stopped twirling her hair and Gretchen had stopped worrying her hands. “If you have any factual information that can help the police catch her killer, it's your duty to share it with them. If you don't, if all you have is opinions, then probably you should keep them to yourself, but that's up to you. As to the media, they're going to be on this like white on rice, and it's solely your decision what, if anything, you tell them. If you talk to them, remember to stress that you do not speak for Prescott's. You may not talk to reporters on company time or on company phones. You may not e-mail reporters using company computers. Reporters are not allowed on Prescott's property without my permission. Any questions?”

No one spoke.

“Okay, then. Out of respect for the tragic death that just occurred, and to give us all time to process the event, Prescott's is officially closed for the day. If you need to take tomorrow off, that's fine. Cara, please set the phone to the standard night message. I have a couple of calls to make, then I'll lock up. Go home, everyone.”

Fred, a New York City transplant who'd brought his big-city style to laid-back New Hampshire, slipped his glasses on and loosened his skinny black tie. “Do we have to go?” he asked. Fred, a night owl, often started his workday close to noon and stayed on into the evening. “It's better for me to work.”

“Me, too,” Gretchen said. “I mean, I liked Alice, too, but I have things to get ready for the tag sale setup.”

I nodded. “Right—and Eric told me we have two temps coming in tomorrow morning to help. You're welcome to stay. Or not. Business can take a backseat for a day. Don't feel any pressure.” I looked around. “I don't mean to dictate to anyone one way or the other. If you want to work, carry on. If you need some time to yourselves, feel free to call it a day—and to take tomorrow off. Personally, I'm going to make my calls and pack it in. I'll probably be in tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises.”