Mix-up in Miniature (4 page)

She pushed up the long sleeves of her bejeweled T-shirt, nearly identical to Taylor’s, and mopped the last of the gravy on her plate with a small, deftly managed piece of biscuit.

Henry’s turn for attention came when his daughter began a round of compliments. “I’ve made this recipe, Dad, but it never tastes as good,” Kay said.

“That was the best chicken ever,” according to Taylor.

Strange coming from her, since she’d eaten only a smidgen of meat while putting away three large dumplings. The same was true for Maddie, for whom a gourmet meal was pizza followed by ice cream followed by more ice cream. Though my plain brown hair was in stark contrast to Maddie’s splendid red locks, the sweets gene was one she did inherit from me.

Henry was by far a better cook than I was. My specialty was baking, which was a lot more fun and smelled better. I wished I’d thought ahead of time to load my car with samples of my latest output of sweet things—chocolate pecan pie from a new recipe, and my special frosted triple-ginger cookies for which I humbly accepted prizes at bake-offs. I apologized to the group for showing up empty-handed.

“What? No dessert? I guess we’ll all have to go to Sadie’s.” This from Maddie, the problem-solver, and the most loyal customer of Sadie’s Ice Cream Shop.

“Or to my house,” I offered.

“Your grandma always has tons of ice cream,” Taylor mentioned, giving Henry and Kay a hint-hint look.

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

My cell phone, the ring tone of which was regularly reprogrammed by Maddie, who refused to clue me in on how it was done. The current lively marching tune was the result of her being enthralled by the school band in her hometown as they practiced for a parade. I could think of many less agreeable tunes I’d had to live through.

I was tempted to let it ring through to voicemail, but saw that it was Skip. Probably June was working and he was calling around to find a good meal. Nothing would have pleased Maddie more than having her “uncle,” technically her cousin-once-removed, join the dinner party. Skip teased her that as soon as he turned thirty, she’d lose interest.

“Hey, Aunt Gerry,” he said. Not in a happy mood, I could tell. In fact, a very serious mood.

My throat tightened. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“How do you always know?”

“Just tell me it’s not your mom.”

“It’s not Mom. She’s totally over the episode from last week, good as new. She just called me from her assignment as a fake cop.”

I breathed out and relaxed. Beverly’s chronic heart problem was at bay for now. I rushed to her defense on other grounds. “Don’t disparage your splendid corps of civilian volunteers.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“So, then what is wrong?”

“It’s about someone else’s mom. It’s Alexandra Rockwell.”

It took a moment to reconnect the name Alexandra Rockwell with my new friend, Varena Young. “What’s happened?” My head was dizzy with this convoluted loop, taking me back to the starting point.

“She’s been murdered.” Skip paused to let it sink in. “We took the call and got up here to Robert Todd Heights about an hour ago.”

“Did you say, ‘murdered’?”

My vision blurred for a moment. My cell phone seemed to be gaining weight as the seconds ticked by, as if the inanimate object had partaken of too many helpings of Henry’s chicken and dumplings.

“Murdered?”

Why had I said the terrible word out loud? Twice. With my granddaughter and Henry’s granddaughter present. I looked around at my table companions, all of whom had stopped eating and talking, their eyes widening.

I wished I could shrink my nearly six-foot frame into six inches and crawl into a dollhouse.

I left the
table before I further traumatized my family and friends and moved into the den, resigned to real life and Skip’s awful news.

“Ms. Rockwell’s—Young’s—assistant found her in a room with this huge, I mean, huge dollhouse. I’m standing right outside the door of the room it’s in. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen, Aunt Gerry.”

If Skip was trying to sidetrack me into discussing the merits of a dollhouse, albeit a magnificent one, it wasn’t going to work this time. “Varena was in with Lord and Lady Morley?” I asked.

“Who are the Morleys? That name hasn’t come up yet.” Skip sounded understandably confused.

“That huge dollhouse. Morley’s the name”—I almost said, “of the people who live there”—but switched in time to “the name of her largest dollhouse.”

Had Varena gone looking for me? I wondered. If she were hurrying, she might have tripped on that beautiful long dress.

“Oh,” Skip said, sounding still a bit confused, probably wondering why the name of a dollhouse mattered.

I guessed I hadn’t trained him as well as I’d thought in miniature homes. But then, my dollhouses, the only ones he knew, weren’t grand enough to need a name, especially not a noble one.

A tug at my shirt distracted me.

“Grandma? Grandma, is that Uncle Skip? Tell him I can help if he has a new case or anything.”

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. “In a little while, Maddie. We’re busy right now. Why don’t you and Taylor serve dessert?”

“There isn’t any.”

Of course not. Hadn’t we just figured that out?

Happily, Henry came into the den at that moment and picked her up, something I could no longer do. Her gangly body pretended to resist, her arms and legs flailing as he threw her over his shoulder. She couldn’t contain the charming grin that said she was delighted at the game.

Taylor, who was letting her blond pixie cut grow out to Maddie’s length, stood by in admiration at her “older” friend’s boldness. I was glad to see Henry scoop his granddaughter up with his other arm, holding both girls for all of two seconds before letting them go. Still impressive for someone in his retirement years.

Back to my call. “How do you know Varena was killed, Skip? Couldn’t she have fallen? That happens a lot at a certain age, you know.”

Polite as he was, Skip didn’t jump at the chance to remind me that he’d been a homicide detective for a few years now and could tell a murder from a non-murder, and that I should stick to baking and crafting.

“I’m here, Aunt Gerry, and I’ve seen the victim. I have to tell you it’s pretty clear that she was murdered.” He spoke without rebuke, in a slow, gentle tone that I appreciated.

“How…?”

I heard his familiar hesitation cough, signaling reluctance to share details. “Someone used a heavy object to…uh…kill her.”

My arms had already turned weak; now I was in danger of dropping my newly burdensome phone on the floor. I looked out into Henry’s dining room where the remnants of my dinner were visible. Bad idea. The chicken gravy had congealed in the shape of a brain, or a liver, or some other internal organ. Nothing that should see the light of day.

Varena. Heavy object. The juxtaposition was unthinkable. It was about time I stopped asking questions I didn’t want the answers to.

I turned my head away, fighting back nausea, and met Henry’s eyes. He put his hand on my elbow and all but sat me in one of the easy chairs. I wondered briefly if I’d have had such an intense reaction if I’d heard simply that Varena had died. What if I read a newspaper report in the next couple of days, or heard on the local news, that famous novelist and Lincoln Point resident Alexandra Rockwell, aka Varena Young, had succumbed to a heart attack or cancer, or had died of an undisclosed disease that she’d been suffering from for many years. I’d have been sad, surely, but not shocked or outraged, as if I myself had been attacked in front of Lord and Lady Morley’s mansion.

Henry made a gesture that served to relay a message to Kay and the girls that they should start clearing the dishes from the table. That is, distract themselves for the time being.

This was a Henry moment, as I’d come to think of the times when he came through in a critical situation. Henry had the ability—talent?—to take control without being pushy or patronizing, to offer support in exactly the right measure while everyone else was dumbstruck.

I shifted in the soft leather chair, my eyes burning from holding back tears, my fingers sore from clutching the phone. How could the loss of someone I knew so briefly be affecting me this way? It must have been the dizzying speed of it all—I’d never gone so quickly from making a new friend to losing her.

“Aunt Gerry?” Skip’s voice came from another world, perhaps the one inhabited by Lord and Lady Morley.

It occurred to me that if Varena had died of what we called natural causes, not only would I not be outraged, but I wouldn’t be on the other end of a special phone call from my nephew, representing the Lincoln Point Police Department. And even with a determination of murder, I still wouldn’t rate early notification. Unless there was another factor.

Why had Skip made this call to me directly from the crime scene? If he arrived only an hour ago, I must be one of the first to be notified of Varena’s murder, outside of her own family and staff, I presumed.

“I’m here,” I said finally. “Thanks for letting me know, Skip. What else can you tell me? Why would anyone want to murder Varena Young? She seemed charming to me.”

“Is this gigantic dollhouse I’m standing in front of the one you wanted her to donate to the library auction?”

Even in my deteriorating state, I recognized Skip’s tactic of answering a question with one of his own. I’d learned to acquiesce. “No. Well, yes, but we knew that was out of the question,” I said. “It’s probably insured for way more than we could get for it at a Lincoln Point event. We would have been happy to have any of the houses in her collection, and”—I wondered if I were about to jinx the deal—“she offered us a midsize Tudor. I think.”

“You think?”

“She did. She definitely did offer a Tudor, but she was called away before I could see it. When did this happen, Skip?”

“Not very long ago according to the M.E. Rough guess, a couple of hours, maybe less.”

I looked at the tall mahogany grandfather clock in Henry’s den, one he’d made in his own shop, of course. Six-fifteen. Varena might have been killed as early as four-fifteen? Had I narrowly missed running into a killer in the richest neighborhood in town?

“But that’s very close to the time I left her home,” I said. “I was there today. I left around three forty-five.” I felt a chill all through my body. What if I’d been there? Could I have saved her? Would I have been a second victim?

“I know when you were here,” Skip said.

“I don’t remember telling you I was going to Robert Todd Heights today. I didn’t make the call until after you left my house this morning.”

“You didn’t tell me. Ms. Rockwell’s staff did. In fact, outside of the staff, you were the last person to see her alive.”

I swallowed hard. I remembered the contentious loud voices, two definitely male, coming from the upper level of Varena’s home.

“She left me for a meeting with her brother.”

A pause. “Not possible. She doesn’t have a brother. She has two children, a son and a daughter, both divorced. Alicia, the daughter, is a fashion designer; she’s here now. We’re tracking her son down. He’s flying in from Washington, D.C. or someplace back east. There are also a couple of exes for the victim. But that goes way back and neither one is alive. No brother.”

“She has a brother, Skip. Corazón, her maid or housekeeper, came to the Lord and Lady Morley room while Varena and I were talking. She interrupted us to tell Varena that her
brother
was upstairs.” I made sure to emphasize the word.

I heard paper rustling and pictured Skip flipping through his spiral notebook. He preferred the old-fashioned kind that we used to call a stenographer’s pad. I’d taken it upon myself to stay on the lookout for the outdated green lined pads and keep him supplied. I thought that I wouldn’t like what he’d written on the pages this evening.

“Let’s see. Corazón Cruz?” he asked. “She identified herself as part of the household staff. I spoke with her, and you know, I had a little trouble understanding her. She has a pretty heavy accent.”

I got the message and I didn’t like it.

“Her accent isn’t that heavy, Skip. But I guess you did misunderstand her. I, on the other hand, am pretty used to Hispanic accents.”

I knew my voice had risen. I’d come perilously close to scolding my nephew, as if he were eleven years old again and had skipped school to wander through Joshua Speed Woods. It was a good thing Henry had joined Kay and the girls, clanging away in the kitchen—to give me privacy, I knew.

Did I now have to remind this grown-up Skip that I’d been an ESL tutor since before he was born? Or that at least a third of the hundreds and hundreds of Abraham Lincoln High students I’d taught during my twenty-seven-year tenure had Spanish-speaking parents?

There was no way I’d misunderstood Corazón Cruz.

“Maybe she said something else,” Skip said, still not hearing me. “Like, maybe another staff member, a guy, wanted to see the victim.” More flipping sounds. “Laura Overbee, her personal assistant, and Paige Taggart, her research assistant, were both here all afternoon. Oh, and an old guy, probably close to the victim’s age, who’s her financial manager arrived around three-thirty. Quentin Charles. Or Charles Quentin, I’m not sure, the way the first officer on the scene wrote it. Maybe one of these staff people sent Corazón to get Ms. Young and she got mixed up.”

He pronounced the housekeeper’s name as an American would:
Core
-a-zon. I wanted desperately to correct him: Cor-a-
son
. If he couldn’t say Corazón’s name properly, with the accent on the last syllable and the
z
pronounced close to an
s
, how could he understand her? But I knew it wasn’t a good idea to antagonize my nephew while he was in detective mode.

I couldn’t contain a long, frustrated breath, however. Skip had heard them often over the years. “May I please speak to Corazón?” I asked, pronouncing her name like a native. “I’m sure that if I could just have a minute with her, she’ll remember me and we can clear this up.”

Skip caught himself, but I heard the beginnings of a laugh. When you’ve helped raise a boy, you recognized his every sound and tic.

Skip’s father never returned from the first Gulf War. His Uncle Ken and I stepped in to help Beverly at a time when she was often too devastated to take care of herself, let alone an energetic eleven-year-old boy. Skip grew up with our son, Richard, as much in our home as his own.

Now that little redheaded boy was on the other end of the line telling me I didn’t hear what I knew I heard, that my ability to understand a Hispanic accent was less than perfect.

Skip cleared his throat and apparently swallowed his laugh. “Aunt Gerry, why don’t we talk about this in person? We’d like you to come downtown anyway, since you were the last—”

“One of the last,” I said, thinking of the killer.

“One of the last people to see the victim. We’ll need a formal statement for the record.”

“You sound as though I’m a suspect.”

“You know the drill as well as I do, right?”

“Sure.” I didn’t intend to sound convincing.

“I’m leaving now and I need to make a couple of stops before I go back to the station. I’ll meet you there at, say, eight or so. Can you do that?”

I grunted. “Of course, Detective Gowen.”

I hung up and mentally canceled my plan to make an extra pecan pie, his favorite, for him before Thanksgiving dinner. If I kept that resolve to punish my nephew, it would be the first time.

—

Henry
joined me in the den carrying a cup of tea for me and a mug of coffee for himself.

“Perfect timing,” he said, setting the drinks down. “Kay took the girls to Sadie’s for ice cream to-go. They just left, so we have some time.”

Another good Henry move. I stood and all but fainted into his arms, my head on his chest, not crying, not knowing exactly what I felt except that I was sad and confused. I felt a great loss at Varena’s death and anger at the violence she suffered. Added to that, my frustration at Skip’s denseness grew as I recalled our unsatisfactory conversation.

I tried to sink into Henry’s comfortable embrace and believe everything would soon be clear.

After a few moments we settled on the couch. I took a sip of chamomile and gave Henry the short version of Skip’s message.

“Strange,” Henry said. “Was her English that bad?”

I bristled. “Not you, too.”

“I’m kidding.”

“Sorry. Maybe I am wound up.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” he said. “Do you know how hard it was to get your granddaughter out of here?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy. Did you have to promise to remember every word I tell you about the call from Skip?”

“Uh-huh. And it wasn’t cheap, either—you’re to persuade her father to get her a few million more RAMs, or whatever, of memory for her computer.”

I laughed, picturing my granddaughter doing her best to cooperate, all the while negotiating and wanting to stay where the action was. “She has no idea what’s going on, but she can smell a case from a mile away. I’m sure she offered her computer skills already.”

Henry nodded, a grandfatherly grin on his face. “Do you think she’s seriously headed for a career in investigative work? You’ve said she’s been in this phase for quite a while.”

“If so, hopefully it will be something that keeps her at a desk and not running around with a gun on her hip. It’s bad enough that my only nephew does that for a living.” My thick-headed nephew, I added to myself.

“Let me drive you to the station later. I don’t like to see you driving alone when you’re upset.”

“I’m calmed down now,” I said, only half-truthfully.

“You just found out someone you’d created a bond with was murdered, and you nearly witnessed it. It’s dark and you don’t know how close to the station you’ll be able to park. Do you need any more reasons?” He took my hand. “Here’s another. I’d feel much better driving you.”