Mix-up in Miniature (13 page)

“I think I’d better handle this alone first.”

“Let’s get you to your car, then.” Henry lent his arm as I lumbered up from the chair, a testimony to how pathetic I must have looked. “It might not be as bad as you think,” he said. “By the time you get home, I’ll bet it will be all cleared up.”

That was my fondest wish.

—

When
I pulled up to a spot in front of Maddie’s school, I saw her sitting on a bench, by herself, hugging her neon green backpack to her chest. Not business as usual, when she’d be surrounded by her friends, chatting and laughing, until she’d bound over to my car. Today she seemed as heavy as I was, pushing herself off the bench and making her way to the curb.

She got into my car and we leaned toward each other for a kiss. At least that part of the ritual was intact. While I drove off, still pondering the appropriate greeting, Maddie extracted a book from her backpack and dropped the pack to the floor.

“Look, Grandma, I got a book on dollhouses from the library,” she said, her voice strained in an effort to sound normal. “I found some in the kids’ section.”

Not her section now that she was eleven, she meant, but the section she’d used when she was younger.

“Did you find anything on secret rooms?” I was no more eager than she was to discuss the elephant in the car.

“Uh-uh.” Maddie flipped through the oversize book on her lap. “But there’s a picture of this really cool house. You can’t look now, but you’ll see later. The building is called a vacation home and most of it sticks out over this hill. It looks like it’s going to take off and fly over the ocean right across the street from it. We used to see a lot of these along the beaches in Los Angeles, but this one is a dollhouse. I guess the ocean is fake. Isn’t that cool?”

“Very cool, sweetheart.”

“I think I might want to be an architect like Grandpa and build cool houses like this.”

Maddie knew this would be thrilling news to me. Not only had she abandoned dreams of wearing a uniform with a gun on her belt, but she wanted to follow in Ken’s footsteps. I had a feeling this was Maddie the politician softening up dumb old Grandma before she had to face the music.

“Would you rather talk about your parents’ phone call now or when we get home?” I asked her. Not so dumb after all.

Maddie’s knobby knees, in jeans, came together. Her shoes slapped against each other in a sideways motion. “Did you talk to my mom?”

“No, not yet. I promised I wouldn’t.”

“You figured it out, didn’t you?”

“I think so, but why don’t you tell me?”

Instead of launching into her typical articulate narration, Maddie let loose with a flood of tears. She sobbed softly, but nearly uncontrollably. I had the feeling that she’d been needing to do that for as long as she’d been engaged in an activity she knew to be wrong. My heart was breaking for her.

Between gasps, I heard the word “sorry” many times, often preceded by “very, very.” It was all I could do not to cry with her.

I realized I had no plan for what to do once we started down this road. I regretted now that I hadn’t called her parents immediately, no matter how much Maddie pleaded otherwise. We would have already put this issue behind us and would have been working out a solution.

I hadn’t reached the freeway yet, so it was easy to find a strip mall and pull in. As luck would have it, the first parking spot I came upon was in front of a chain ice cream shop.

If I were going to punish my granddaughter, there would have to be a treat included.

Once we were
settled in the pink-and-brown ice cream shop with a hot fudge sundae for Maddie and a chocolate soda for me, we’d both calmed down. Two spoonfuls in, and Maddie confessed.

“I used Mom’s credit card,” she said almost matter-of-factly. She looked at me, lips tight, chin up, ready to face the music.

I smoothed back a recalcitrant red curl from her forehead. “I know,” I said.

“I know it was wrong, wrong, Grandma. But it was like I talked myself into it anyway.” I didn’t want to break the news that it wouldn’t be the last time she’d make a decision under those conditions. “Dad freaked out on the phone last night. He was going to get on a plane and come and get me. But Mom just said, for now, no more computers, until we could talk.”

I imagined my son beating himself up, thinking he’d done something wrong and created a potential lifer, while Mary Lou would research reasons why children steal and how to deal with it.

“Can you tell me why you did it?”

“I don’t know. Except, all my friends have money of their own and I don’t have any. They buy me things, like from the vending machine, or on a holiday sometimes they buy me a card. And I can never do anything back.”

“You make wonderful cards for everyone on your computer. I’ve gotten many of them.”

“It’s not the same.”

I didn’t think Maddie would appreciate a lecture on how much better a handmade card was than one bought in a mall shop. No matter how much parents and grandparents lectured, peers were peers.

“What about your allowance? Isn’t it enough?”

“I don’t get one.” Maddie shouted this out, then noticed we weren’t the only patrons in the small shop. She lowered her voice. “Dad says I don’t need any money because I have everything I need. I have a phone for if I get in trouble and I know how to call emergency and I take my lunch and they give me money when the school needs it, like for trips, and he thinks that’s all that counts.”

As I listened to Maddie’s rant, I became more and more sympathetic. No surprise, since I was always irresistibly drawn to take her side. That aside, I thought she had a point. I’d assumed all kids by this age received some amount of discretionary money. I tried to keep out of business matters like that in the life of my son’s family, focusing on spoiling his daughter on my own terms.

I realized I had no idea if Maddie did chores at home, for example, except that I knew Richard kept after her about maintaining neatness in her room. The strange thing was that as a kid Richard kept his room in perfect order, as if he were practicing for the operating room even at eleven years old. I hope he didn’t expect that of her.

Maddie spooned another mouthful of sundae. She had a special knack of getting a bit of everything—two flavors of ice cream, fudge sauce, whipped cream, and nuts—in each spoonful. She finished her reasonable defense with “Just once I wanted to buy everyone something.”

“Everyone?”

“Rochelle and Shauna, my two best friends at school. And Taylor and Uncle Henry.”

“Don’t forget Aunt Kay. And me.” I paused. “And nothing for yourself?”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head and gave me a look that said she’d never thought of doing that. I wasn’t surprised.

“I’ll bet you gave Aunt Beverly and Uncle Skip a present, too.”

Maddie finally gave me a smile, albeit a pouty one. “I was just getting to them when I got caught.”

“Too bad for them,” I said, happy my son wasn’t around to hear my amusement over a serious matter. But I was so relieved that things weren’t worse. No one had a life-threatening illness, for example.

“I guess Mom saw her bill online yesterday and some of the charges were on it. She called me at your house, then she called you.”

“Several times. She must be wondering why I haven’t gotten back to her all this time.”

“She probably knows what’s going on.”

“Probably,” I said.

“I did a really bad thing, didn’t I, Grandma?”

I missed the easy questions I used to get from my granddaughter. Like, why is the sky blue and how do magnets work, in which cases I went immediately to the children’s encyclopedia for answers.

“You made a pretty big mistake, Maddie. I’m sure you know the right thing to do is to talk to your parents about your feelings and ask them to think about an allowance. You’re the best negotiator I know.”

“Yeah. I tried, but my dad is so…so…”

“A little thick-headed maybe?” I offered.

“Totally.”

Dum, ta da dum, ta da dum, ta da dum.

Maddie smiled when she heard the marching band on my cell phone.

“It’s Uncle Skip. I’d better take it.”

Maddie’s eyes lit up, then the light faded when she realized she was shut out of any “case” she might be salivating over. I’d have to remind her of her plans for a future in architecture as soon as we got over this crisis.

“Hey, Aunt Gerry.” A pause. “Everything okay with, you know?” Skip asked, by which I figured he meant between us.

“Everything’s absolutely okay,” I said, more relieved than he might guess. I loved make-ups that didn’t involve a lot of words and rehashing. A therapist might have disagreed, but long, drawn-out explanations and apologies were not for me. I hardly remembered what our tiff was about and I didn’t care.

“I thought you might want to know. We’re holding Ms. Taggart, your friend’s research assistant.”

“Paige? When did that happen? I just saw her this afternoon.”

“I know and apparently she thinks you’re her advocate.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either, but she wants to talk to you and she has that right. She says you have something that will clear her.”

“I can’t imagine what it is.”

“Only one way to find out, if you’re willing to come down.”

“Of course, but why is she there in the first place, Skip? Is there some evidence that points to her?”

“How soon can you be here?”

“I’m eating ice cream in Palo Alto. I’ll be on my way in a minute.”

“So the squirt is with you. Don’t tell her I still call her that. Give her a kiss for me.”

“Gladly.”

Maddie, who had been following my side of the conversation intently, clapped and gave me a big smile. She was happy to receive a kiss from her uncle and me. I felt the relief in her body as she held onto my embrace, not an easy thing to do across a pink table, small as it was. Like a good girl, she cleared off our table and we headed out the door.

For now, vicarious involvement in her uncle’s case seemed enough for her.

—

As
eager as I was to find out why the police had pulled Paige Taggart in, I still needed to take care of unfinished business with Maddie. I was ready and willing to forgive and forget. But I realized that wasn’t the best solution for the long term. There was a lot more talking to be done first, especially with her parents.

Maddie seemed to agree, but her plan was different from mine. “Can you talk to Mom and Dad, Grandma?” she asked, as soon as were safely merged into freeway traffic going south on Route 101.

“I will, but you should know that whatever your parents decide I’m going to support them.”

“I know, I know, I know. But maybe you can explain what it’s like to be a kid these days.”

I was immensely flattered until I sneaked a look and saw Maddie’s wide grin and smug “almost gotcha” look.

—

The
police station was its busy self on a Tuesday afternoon. I greeted officers I knew from having them in class at ALHS or from my frequent visits to Skip. I hoped I wouldn’t run into Detective Rutherford, for no other reason than I didn’t particularly care for her style.

Two female officers who had designs on Skip fawned over his little cousin-once-removed and I left Maddie in their care. I’d rather have left her in a drafting workshop or history of architecture class, but that wasn’t an option.

Before she followed the officers, Maddie made one last attempt to work her plan. “Do you think I could go down to the jail with you when you go to see the lady, Grandma?” she asked.

“The lady is not in jail”—yet, I added silently—“and no, anyway.” It was rapidly sinking in that Maddie’s recent interest in architecture was targeted to soften up her grandmother in preparation for diving into the petty theft issue.

With permission from the desk sergeant—Jimmy Summers, a B student from the class of nineteen ninety-nine—I walked back to Skip’s cubicle.

I wished I had a sweet offering for Jimmy and a peace offering for Skip, but there hadn’t been time to go home first and bake a couple of batches of cookies. One of these days I was going to be charged with bribing a whole department of police officers, I just knew.

I stepped behind one of the fabric-covered partitions that made up Skip’s office space, checking that June’s photo was still on his desk. I’d be sure to tell her, in case that made a difference. Skip came up behind me and gave me a welcoming hug that felt like his own peace offering. I hugged him back.

That didn’t mean he didn’t have a warning for me, however.

“I’m not happy about your being this directly involved in an ongoing murder investigation, but I’m not about to refuse this request. I don’t see Paige Taggart as a hardened killer who’s going to take you hostage.”

“That’s comforting.”

I wondered if my being hired by the victim’s daughter counted as being “directly involved in an ongoing murder investigation.” I decided not to worry Skip about it at the moment.

—

Paige
Taggart, Varena Young’s unthreatening research assistant, now an official person of interest in her murder, presented a sad picture in the very interview room I’d sat in last night. She was wearing the same oversize sweater she’d had on when she visited me a few hours ago at my home, except that the sweater looked dingier under the crackling overhead lights and even less as though it belonged to her.

Paige stood and I received my second police-station hug of the day, this one tearful. “Mrs. Porter, thank you sooo much for coming.” Her voice cracked. “They think I killed Varena.”

I gave her a motherly pat and we both took seats at the table, with me on the detective’s side this time. The room was no more pleasant with a view of the opposite wall, and in addition, I detected a foul smell.

“Why do they think that, Paige?”

“The cops searched my room at school and found the handle of the sword the killer used. Like I’d leave it there.”

This was the first confirmation I had that the heavy object Skip referred to as the murder weapon was one of the life-size swords from the set on the wall in the Morley room. Being good at imagining dramatic, old-fashioned scenarios of murder and mayhem had served me well as a teacher of Shakespeare, but tormented me now. I blocked out the colorful images in my mind and returned to Paige.

I wondered if her automatic reference to a third person spoke to her innocence. On the other hand, she’d all but accused Laura Overbee a couple of hours ago.

Where was the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit when you needed them?

Paige continued, her voice breaking as she gave me details. It occurred to me that that was why Skip hadn’t told me what evidence he had. He and Detective Rutherford were probably standing on the other side of the two-way glass, tuned in, wanting to hear how Paige would answer my genuine questions. I looked around the room for the technology that would allow them to eavesdrop. Nothing clearly visible, but they weren’t fooling me.

I brought my attention back to Paige.

“The police found the sword handle in my closet, right next to my shoe boxes.” Paige threw up her hands. “But I never even went back to my dorm room until after I left your house today, so how could I have put it there? And why would I keep a murder weapon, anyway? Someone’s trying to frame me, Mrs. Porter. Isn’t it, like, crystal clear?”

I hoped Paige would eventually drop the
like
s, which I heard as unbecoming a college student with aspirations for a career in writing. But how did I know which styles would survive the twenty-first-century-makeover of the English language?

“Can you help me figure it out, Paige?” I asked, thinking the best tactic was to let her believe I was convinced of her innocence. As I assumed the role of interviewer in a police station, I felt like an applicant to the police academy. I knew my methods were being observed and evaluated by the team on the other side of the glass.

“Well, yeah, but how am I supposed to figure it out? Aren’t the police supposed to do that? Are they holding anyone else from the Heights? What about Laura Overbee?”

“Who else has access to your dorm room?” I asked. Not for nothing had I observed Skip’s practice of answering a question with a more difficult question of his own choosing.

“My roommate, Tanya, but she went home to Oregon this week because her mom is really sick. And I guess, school security could get in, but that’s all. I didn’t give anyone a key and I’m sure Tanya didn’t. But it’s just a flimsy doorknob lock, you know. Anyone could get in if they really wanted to.”

“Do you stay at the dorm every night?”

“No, that’s just it. Laura and I both have rooms at the estate, for when we work late.” Paige smiled, her eyes looking far away. “Mine is the Lady Bunting Suite. Varena named all the bedrooms after her protagonists.”

How sweet, I thought. Paige continued, her expression still focused on a memory.

“Sometimes Varena starts late in the evening and dictates for hours and she wants one or all of us there. ‘The muse is visiting me,’ she’ll say, and we all know we’re in for a long night.” Paige’s eyes widened, her expression changing to a look of realization, as if she’d been editing a manuscript and suddenly become aware that she needed to switch to past tense.

“Take a breath,” I said. Softly, lest my evaluators take my consideration of the suspect as a sign of weakness.

“I’m okay,” Paige said. Unconvincing. “Last night Laura went home, but I stayed. I was all wound up and I didn’t feel like driving back to an empty dorm room. When I finally got back there this afternoon, it looked like the whole Lincoln Point Police Department was in my little room, searching anything and everything, turning things inside out. And the next thing I know, here I am.”