The Doll Maker (22 page)

Byrne suddenly got interested in an item on the shelf, a strange-looking board game called
Oh, Gnome You Don’t
. He couldn’t look at his partner.

‘The other guy is in Laurel Hill,’ Jessica said.

Laurel Hill was one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in Philadelphia. Flannel shirt got the message.

‘Awesome,’ he said.

Jessica noted his nametag.
Florian
.

‘What can I show you?’ Florian asked.

Jessica produced her ID. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

The look on Florian’s face said small-time pot bust. The look Jessica returned said not to worry.

Yet.

Florian gestured to the counter at the rear of the store. ‘Right this way,’ he said.

On the way back, Jessica took note of the inventory on the shelves of The Toy Chest – Winnie-the-Pooh, Raggedy Ann, Curious George and Kewpie dolls, as well as Sesame Street characters, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fancy Nancy. There were also craft kits, costumes, castles, trains, rockets, even old-fashioned paper dolls.

Jessica made a mental note to never bring Sophie here. She had enough money troubles. This place would bankrupt her.

Florian walked around, behind the counter, folded his hands, looked up, clearly not knowing what to expect.

Byrne took out a photograph of the doll found at the Gillen crime scene. ‘We’re trying to determine where this doll was purchased.’

Florian took the photo, looked closely at it, clearly a concerned citizen. ‘This is pricey.’

‘You’ve seen it before?’ Byrne asked.

‘Not this particular doll, but I go to all the shows.’ He gestured to the store. ‘Most of my inventory is newer, but I’m always looking. I do a little eBay on the side.’

‘Why do you say this is pricey?’

‘There’s a lot of money in dolls, collectible dolls that is. This is probably an antique. It looks like bisque.’

‘Not sure what that is,’ Jessica said. ‘I know what the soup is, but not the doll.’

‘Okay, well, bisque is a type of porcelain. Unglazed, I think. It’s what a lot of the older dolls are made of.’

Jessica made the note. ‘You mentioned that there is a lot of money in collecting dolls.’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘How much is a lot?’

‘As you can see, we don’t specialize, but I get all the trade magazines, too. Barbie is always hot. You’d be amazed how many editions of Barbie are out there. The folks at Mattel are smart.’

‘How much would a rare Barbie go for?’ Byrne asked.

Florian reached behind the counter, sorted through a stack of magazines. He found what he was looking for, riffled through it, set it on the counter, turned it to face the two detectives. On one page was a picture of a Barbie wearing a little black dress, with a necklace clearly made of precious stones. To the right was an article.

‘This is the Canturi Barbie,’ Florian said. ‘One of a kind.’

Jessica scanned the article, found the price. ‘Seriously? Five hundred thousand dollars?’

‘And change,’ Florian said. ‘Now, if you took away the diamonds, of course, she’d be just another Barbie. As far as the doll itself goes, an original, unadorned Barbie – as in Barbie Number One – goes for around eight grand.’

‘A bargain,’ Byrne said.

‘Modern boy dolls go for a lot less. An original G.I. Joe – sealed in the package – might fetch eight hundred or so. They took it off the market around 1978.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘But when they discontinued it the figure measured around eleven inches tall. When they brought it back in 1983 it was around three-and-a-half. I wish I had a box of the originals, I can tell you that much. But those are VHTF.’

Jessica stopped writing. ‘I’m sorry?’ she asked. ‘VHTF?’

‘That means—’

‘Very Hard To Find,’ Byrne said. ‘Can you think of a place in Philly that might specialize in this sort of thing?’

Clearly Byrne had had enough of driving around Philly looking for doll data.

Florian once again picked up the photo, scrutinized it, his small pot stash perhaps energizing him to cooperate fully and quickly with police.

Jessica took the opportunity to catch Byrne’s eye and mouth the words,
Very Hard To Find?

Byrne smiled, shrugged.

The man turned back to them. ‘I don’t know of anywhere in Philly. You might have to go to New York for this.’ He handed back the photo. ‘There’s always the internet. Check eBay.’

As a homicide detective, Jessica had many times tried to track a sale across the World Wide Web. The effort to get the warrants needed to compel an online merchant to turn over records made her feel exhausted just thinking about it.

Before they left the store her phone rang, and Peter Giovanni’s daughter Jessica had her belief in shoe-leather police work once again renewed.

Jessica met Bethany Quinn at the door to her house. Somehow, the young woman looked even more pregnant than the last time Jessica had seen her.

‘We found this in my grandfather’s steamer trunk,’ she said.

‘In the attic?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You didn’t go up there yourself, did you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I made my husband do it.’

‘They do come in handy sometimes.’

‘He knew about you coming over, of course. When I mentioned your father’s name, he was up there in a flash. Your dad’s kind of a legend on the force.’

‘Please, don’t tell him that.’

Bethany smiled, zipped her lips.

Jessica glanced at the card. It was oversized, filigreed, quite fancy as business cards go, definitely from another era.

The address was in West Philly. The name of the shop was The Secret World
.

‘Do you know if they’re still around?’ Jessica asked.

‘No idea,’ Bethany said. ‘But my husband saw some old sales receipts from there in the trunk. So, I’m pretty sure my grandfather bought some of his dolls from them.’

Jessica held up the card. ‘This was very kind of you.’

‘Oh, no problem.’

‘Best of luck.’

The woman winced, put a hand on her lower back. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘By the way, as you know, my husband is PPD.’

‘Yes,’ Jessica said. ‘Tell him thanks, too.’

‘He said to mention that his dream is to one day work in the homicide unit.’

Jessica smiled. In her mind she heard the sound of one hand washing the other. She envied this woman her youth, her faith. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Danny,’ she said. ‘P/O Daniel Joseph Quinn. He’s in the Third District.’

‘I’ll remember,’ Jessica said.

On the way back to the car Jessica called the number on the business card. She got a voicemail greeting that told her that the shop was open Monday, Thursday and Saturday from two p.m. to eight p.m.

She looked at her watch. It was ten to two on a Thursday.

They drove to West Philly.

The address on Lancaster Avenue, in the Spruce Hill section of West Philadelphia, was between a number of buildings either in repair, or in dire need. The doll shop was fairly well preserved. It reminded Jessica of stores in her South Philly neighborhood when she was growing up – hobby shops, model shops, variety stores. A few still remained.

As they approached The Secret World Jessica took in the window display. It was like nothing she’d ever seen. There were dolls in chairs, dolls sitting on small dressers, dolls at a table, dolls at a picnic. There was one doll, still in its box, wearing an elaborate satin ball gown.

The entire display window was a cutaway version of a doll house, with pink doors on each side that swung wide.

When they entered, a bell over the door chimed. Jessica noted that the doll house motif continued inside the shop. The space was long and narrow, with a glass counter to the left, shelves floor to ceiling on the right. On them were dolls of every color, every ethnicity. There were baby dolls, child dolls, fashion dolls, boudoir dolls, dolls of every profession – teachers, nurses, ballerinas.

At the back of the shop, over the counter, was an old weathered sign:
E. Rose, Prop.

Jessica found it a bit disconcerting that she could enter this shop, any shop in her city, be inside for thirty seconds or so, and no one came out of the back room. She wondered if something was wrong.

She decided to give it a little more time. She looked at some of the larger dolls on the rear wall; some were the size of life-size children, some even larger. After a few moments, one of them moved.

Startled, Jessica realized that one of the life-size dolls was really a petite older woman. She had been standing there the whole time, letting Jessica and Byrne browse.

The woman looked to be in her late seventies or early eighties. She had cloud white hair and wore a beautiful lemon yellow cardigan over a white blouse. She wore a sapphire brooch pinned to her collar.

‘Are you E. Rose?’ Byrne asked the woman.

‘I am,’ the woman said.

‘Would that be
Mrs
or
Ms
Rose?’

The woman took a moment, studying Byrne, considering his question. It appeared as if she might not have heard the query, or felt the answer was beneath her dignity.

‘It would be
Mrs
Rose,’ she said. She had a slight accent, but Jessica could not immediately place it. It certainly wasn’t eastern Pennsylvania, and definitely not West Philly. The woman continued. ‘I was married at one time, of course, and for years I took my husband’s last name – I keep it still – as was the custom. And, in my opinion, should be now. But with my beloved now these many years in the ground, I haven’t seen the need or purpose of calling myself
Mrs
Rose.’

‘What shall I call you?’ Byrne asked.

‘Please call me Miss Emmaline.’

‘Miss Emmaline it is,’ he said. ‘My name is Kevin Byrne, and this is my partner, Jessica Balzano. We’re with the Philadelphia Police Department.’

‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said. ‘Welcome to The Secret World.’

‘Do you own this shop?’ Byrne asked.

‘Oh, yes. I’ve been here since 1958.’

Byrne held up the card they had gotten from Bethany Quinn. ‘We got this from the granddaughter of a man named Carl Krause.’

‘Oh, my,’ she said. ‘I remember Carl.
Very
intense young man. Liked to work with miniatures. Not much call for them anymore.’

Jessica wanted to interject that the ‘young man’ had passed away more than a decade earlier, but felt it was not relevant. If the woman asked, she would tell her. Miss Emmaline did not ask.

‘May I show you a photograph?’ Byrne asked.

‘You may.’

Byrne reached into his bag, took out a pair of pictures. One photograph showed the doll they had found at the Gillen crime scene in its entirety, a ruler lying next to it for scale. The other photograph was a close-up of the doll’s face. Neither picture provided any context to either the victims or the crime scene itself. Byrne put them on the counter, turned them toward Miss Emmaline.

The woman lifted her glasses – held on a lanyard around her neck – and peered through them. She scanned both photographs carefully.

‘What can you tell us, if anything, about this doll?’ Byrne asked.

‘Perhaps a great deal, young man,’ she said. ‘But first there is something I’d like you to do for me.’

‘Of course,’ Byrne said. ‘What is it?’

‘I need to sit down,’ she said. She gestured over her left shoulder to a curtained doorway at the back of the shop. ‘My parlor is just through there. Can you help me? I seem to have misplaced my walking stick.’

‘It would be an honor.’ Byrne walked around the counter, offered his arm. Miss Emmaline took it.

‘Would you like me to lock the front door?’ Jessica asked.

The woman looked at Jessica. ‘Not to worry, my dear. There is a bell overhead, and my hearing is as good as it was when I was a little girl in Metairie, Louisiana, more than eighty years ago.’

A few moments later they stepped through the curtain into the small parlor, into Miss Emmaline’s past, into another era. The walls were draped in silk tapestries. The air smelled of lemon oil and mint tea.

And then there were the dolls. Exquisite dolls. All four walls held display cases. If the front window had been like nothing Jessica had ever seen, this was like nothing she could ever imagine.

There were three chairs; two on one side of the room, on either side of a small table; one nearer the curtain. Jessica took the one by the opening, positioned her chair so that she could see through the small gap in the velvet curtains, into the shop. A bell over the door was one thing. A Glock 17 was quite another.

They may have voyaged into the early twentieth century, but this was still West Philadelphia.

‘Back when we lived in Plaquemines Parish, my father was a merchant seaman,’ Miss Emmaline said. ‘He was a big man, you see, well over six feet tall, and he had enormous hands. But still he could thread the finest needle for my mother when she made school outfits for my sisters and me. My mother was a treasured seamstress, known far and wide throughout the parish for her delicate work.’

The woman pointed to a doll sitting in a glass case to her left, a small porcelain figure that looked to be a contemporary of Marie Antoinette. ‘Mama sewed this brocade,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

Jessica marveled at the workmanship. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘Were you always interested in dolls?’ Byrne asked.

Miss Emmaline sipped her tea. ‘Some, but not more than most girls of an age,’ she said. ‘My grandfather was a minister, and this was a time when, if you appeared to live above your means, and you were of the cloth, the people of your parish might look upon this as an extravagance, a reason to withhold their coins from the collection basket. Dolls back then were expensive things, long before they were made of plastic. Dolls were a luxury item in my parish, and a little girl with a collection? Well,
cher
, that would surely have caused a scandal.’

‘When did you start collecting?’ Byrne asked.

‘I think I became interested first in all things old, not just antique dolls,’ she said. She stopped, again sipped her tea. ‘Now that
I’m
old I find the notion so terribly quaint.’