The Dollhouse Murders (5 page)

For a second the intruders stared, bright-eyed and terrified, through their dark, furry masks. Then the bigger one scrambled up and raced into the darkness behind the garage. The can tipped over, and the smaller partner somersaulted to the ground. With an outraged squeal, it ran off, too.

Aunt Clare laughed gleefully. “We gave them a little of their own medicine!” she exclaimed. “Maybe they'll leave us alone for a few nights—though I doubt it.” She swung the light back toward the girls and grinned at their expressions. “Ellen, how do you like country life now?”

“I still love it,” Ellen replied at once. “I just can't stop shaking, that's all.”

“Amy, how about you?”

“My mom would have called the police if she'd heard a noise in the dark like that. She'd never have gone out by herself. I guess I wouldn't have, either—but it was fun!”

“Your mother and I react differently to a number of things,” Aunt Clare said, leading the way back to the house. “When you've lived alone, you get used to solving your problems by yourself. You can't always wait for help.”

Later, after they'd driven Ellen and her bike home in the car, Aunt Clare said, “I hope you don't think I was criticizing your mother, Amy,” she said. “I know I'm too blunt. The thing is, it never occurred to me to be afraid. Tonight I wanted you and Ellen to see the raccoons—if I'd thought it was a burglar, I wouldn't have let you come with me.”

“I didn't think you were criticizing,” Amy said. “I know my mom worries about things a lot. She can't help it.” She remembered how daring she'd felt, walking through the darkness toward the unknown. “I really like solving problems myself. Being independent.”

Still later, as Aunt Clare rinsed the supper plates and wiped the vinyl tablecloth, she said, “Your sister must learn to be independent, too. She has to become her own person.”

“Oh, no.” Amy was shocked. “Louann's like a little kid. She'll always be that way. The doctor said so.”

“I know.” Aunt Clare rinsed the dishcloth and draped it over a faucet to dry. “But, even little kids can learn to help themselves, and they're happier because of it.” She turned and smiled at Amy. “I've enjoyed having you and Ellen here today,” she said. “You've made me feel about twelve years old myself. And speaking of ripe old ages, don't you have a birthday coming up soon?”

“Next Friday. Ellen's is the week after.”

Aunt Clare clapped her hands. “How about a party?” she asked. “A birthday party for both of you. Maybe—a pizza party! You and Ellen can invite some friends.”

Amy could hardly believe her ears. A double birthday party—exactly what she'd suggested to Ellen yesterday.

“We'll make the pizza ourselves. I'm the best pizza lady you'll ever meet.” Aunt Clare gave Amy a quick hug. “I want this to be a visit you'll remember.”

Curled up in her high, rather lumpy bed that night, Amy wondered if every day with Aunt Clare would be as exciting as this one. Yesterday she'd been miserable. Today she had all kinds of things to think about. Ellen's friendship. The birthday party. Aunt Clare herself—wise, brave, unpredictable. The dollhouse.

Amy's eyes closed, and at once, in the darkness behind her eyelids, the dollhouse appeared, as vividly as if it were there in the bedroom.
It's waiting
, Amy thought hazily. But waiting for what? She sank into uneasy sleep.

Most of the time, Amy enjoyed her vacation from sister- sitting. No one begged her to play baby games. No one insisted on going along every time she went out. No one hung around listening, asking questions, interrupting when Ellen came over after school. No one turned the television on full blast and then wandered away, or complained if Amy curled up with a book for hours.

Planning the double birthday party was a special treat. “Ellen and I've invited four girls to the party,” Amy reported to Aunt Clare at dinner Tuesday evening. “There were a couple of others we wanted, but they're busy.”

“Four is fine.” Her aunt poured extra sauce on Amy's spaghetti and passed her a wicker basket filled with garlic bread. “I'll do the shopping Thursday. I'll get
Italian sausage and pepperoni and mozzarella cheese and mushrooms. . . .”

“Terrific! I called Mom and told her about the party. I said it was just going to be a few kids from our class. She'll make a birthday cake.” There was no use mentioning how coolly her mother had taken the news of the party. “I'll bake a cake after Louann goes to bed,” was what she'd said. “Her feelings would be hurt if she knew.”

Amy wound long strands of spaghetti around her fork. “It's really nice of you to have this party,” she said. “Ellen thinks so, too.”

“Nonsense.” There were tired lines around Aunt Clare's eyes that vanished when she smiled. “You're doing me a favor,” she said. “I told your father the truth when I said I needed company for a while.”

“Did you ever want to get married and have kids?” Aunt Clare would have been a great mother.

Amy was sorry at once that she'd asked. The tired lines came back, and for a moment her aunt looked old. “Most women want that at some time in their lives,” she said shortly. “I'm no different.”

“But you decided to have an exciting career instead,” Amy suggested.

“When Grandma and Grandpa Treloar were—when they died, I went to work,” Aunt Clare said. “I didn't have much choice. If I'd met the right person, I might have married and had a family, and a career, too. But I didn't.”

Amy decided to change the subject. “Did Grandma
and Grandpa die in a car crash?”

But that, too, was the wrong question. “It's all in the past, Amy,” Aunt Clare said. She stared at the remaining spaghetti on her plate as if she couldn't remember what it was. “Obviously your father hasn't talked to you about your grandparents, and, frankly, I don't want to. That whole scene is something I'd like to forget. If possible.” She crumpled her napkin beside her plate. “Have you had enough to eat? I think I'll just rinse the dishes and turn in early, if you don't mind. I've been cleaning and sorting all day—I'm exhausted.”

Amy jumped up. “I'll wash the dishes,” she offered. “You go to bed.”

For the rest of the evening, while Amy washed the dishes, did her homework, and watched a sitcom on television, Aunt Clare's suddenly taut, unhappy face was there in front of her. Why should Aunt Clare refuse to talk about how Grandma and Grandpa Treloar died?

Amy decided to find out, one way or another.

“Ask your father and mother,” Ellen said the next afternoon after school. “They'd know.”

“Of course they would,” Amy replied. She and Ellen were wheeling their bikes up the steep hill beyond the junior high school. “But they won't tell me. They've always changed the subject when I've mentioned Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa. Something bad must have happened to them—I'm sure of it. You should have seen Aunt Clare's face when I asked her.”

“Still, if you asked your father. . . .”

Amy shook her head. “I'm going to play detective and find out for myself. I know the year they died—1952—and I'm going to go through the obituaries in the
Claiborne News
for that year and see what I can learn. If it was an unusual accident, maybe there'll be a news article about it, too. Want to help me look?”

Ellen made a face. “That'll take hours, Amy,” she said. “Going through stacks of old newspapers. Reading about dead people. Ugh!”

Amy admitted she had a point. “Go with me to the library just this once,” she suggested. “Just today. We'll look for one hour—and if we don't find anything, I'll look by myself some other time.”

“Well, okay,” Ellen gave in.

The girls left their bikes at the rack in front of the library and made their way through the reading room to the information desk. Amy explained that she wanted to look at the 1952 issues of the
Claiborne News
.

“The films, you mean.” Miss Tatlock, the assistant librarian, acted as if the request were a routine one. “Have you used a viewer before?”

“No.” Amy rolled her eyes at Ellen. What were they getting into? She'd expected to sit down with a stack of newspapers and start paging through them.

“Come along, then, I'll show you. This way—the audiovisual materials are in the back room.” She led the way around the reference area, and soon Amy was seated in front of a screen about the size of the television screen at home. Ellen sat beside her, with her chair pulled up as close as possible.

Miss Tatlock went to a file cabinet and pulled out four small cardboard cartons. She opened one and took out a spool of film.

“Now,” she said, “all of the January 1952
Claiborne News
is on this spool. You thread it through the machine, like this. You move it ahead fast with this knob, or rewind it with this one. Use the knob at the side to move ahead one page at a time. What are you looking for, exactly?”

Amy gulped. “Obituaries.”

Miss Tatlock gave her a puzzled look. “Well, they're on the second-to-last page of the paper now, and I bet they were there thirty years ago, too,” she said. “Let's find out.” She turned the knob at the side of the viewer five times in quick succession, and whole pages of the paper slid by on the screen. “There,” she said. “Just as I thought. Very little changes in the
News
except the headlines. Now, just look over the page, and keep turning till you find what you want. If you don't find it in the first four films—”she paused, but Amy kept her eyes on the screen—“just call me and I'll get the films for the rest of the year.”

“Okay,” Amy said. “Thanks a lot.”

She waited until Miss Tatlock had gone back to her desk, then began turning the side knob furiously. Pages of the second January edition flashed by until she came again to the small print of the obituaries. There were no Treloars mentioned.

“This isn't going to take long,” Amy said. She skipped through January, removed the film, and rethreaded
the machine. February and March went by in quick succession.

“Hey, turn back to that first page,” Ellen said, halfway through April. “Look at that headline: ‘Flash Flood Sweeps Away Birthday Celebration.' Let's read about that.”

The story told of a flood that had covered the west side of Claiborne with five feet of water. It had come so suddenly that people were barely able to escape. Marilyn Thompson's guests at her tenth birthday party had had to run for their lives, and her gifts had been carried away or ruined before she had a chance to open the packages.

“Poor kid,” Ellen said. “I bet she feels—felt—terrible.”

“She'd be forty years old now,” Amy said. It was an amazing thought . . . as if they'd peeked into another world that no longer existed.

“Spooky,” Ellen commented. “I'll go out and ask the librarian for the rest of 1952. You can keep on looking.”

She started toward the reference area but stopped when Amy gasped.

“What is it? Did you find something?”

Amy nodded. With a trembling finger she pointed at the screen. “Another front-page story,” she said thickly. “Oh, Ellen, look.”

Ellen hurried back and leaned over Amy's shoulder, her eyes widening. “ ‘Prominent Couple Murdered in Their Home,' ” she read aloud. “ ‘Five-year-old Grandson Found Hidden and Asleep in Closet.' ” She stopped
reading and stared at Amy. “Were those your great-grandparents? They were
murdered?
”

“And that's my father,” Amy said, her voice quivering. “No wonder he never talks about how they died. My very own father was the five-year-old boy who was in the closet while his grandparents were being killed.”

The story was terse and ugly. The Treloars' granddaughter Clare had discovered the body of Margaret Treloar in the parlor when she returned home after attending a motion picture with friends. Police were called, and they found James Treloar, fatally shot, on his bed in the couple's upstairs bedroom. The Treloars' little grandson, Paul, was at first believed to have been kidnapped, but when the police searched the house, they found him curled up fast asleep in a small wood-storage closet next to the fireplace in the parlor. There were no suspects.

“How terrible for Aunt Clare!” Amy exclaimed. “Think what it would be like, Ellen, coming home and finding them like that. . . .”

Stunned, she turned to the next day's paper. There
were interviews with the chief of police, the cleaning woman who came in three days a week to help the Treloars, and the handyman who took care of the yard and some of the household chores. The police chief said the search for clues was continuing. The Treloars' house was under guard, and the grandchildren were staying with relatives while funeral arrangements were made.

The murders were still front-page news on the third day. “ ‘Victims' Granddaughter in Shock,' ” Amy read. “Ellen, listen to this. ‘Clare Treloar, 18, is under a doctor's care after being told last evening that her friend Thomas Keaton was killed in a one-car accident on highway 131 the night of her grandparents' murder. Keaton, who moved to Claiborne a year ago, was identified by a friend. His car was traveling north at a high rate of speed when it left the highway and hit a tree. The accident was discovered by passersby early yesterday morning.' ”

“That's terrible,” Ellen breathed. “Her boyfriend and her grandparents killed in one night!”

Amy's eyes were wet. “And guess who keeps asking her dumb questions about it. Me! Oh, Ellen!” She was remembering the conversation at the dinner table the night before. “I even asked her why she didn't get married and have children of her own. How could I do that?”