Cut, Crop & Die (12 page)

I thought my list of concerns exhaustive, but I was in for a surprise the next morning when I pulled into the Time in a Bottle parking lot. A big red swastika dripped its way down the side of our store. Written in the frayed lettering of spray paint, the words, “Die Jews! Die!” were scrawled below the symbol. I staggered out of my car like I’d been punched in the gut. A wave of nausea roiled over me.

Thank goodness dogs can’t read. They simply stood beside me, wagging their tails and wondering why we weren’t going inside. I fumbled around in my bag and hit the speed dial for Detweiler, turning quickly to see Dodie drive her big black Expedition up the alley and park beside me. It wasn’t until she climbed down from the driver’s seat that she noticed the graffiti.

“It’s okay,” I stepped between her and the ugly epithet. “I called Detweiler—”

She stuck out her neck to see around me, pushed me gently aside, and moaned. Her normally ruddy complexion turned ghastly pale before she ran for the bushes, making horrible retching noises.

I was stunned. My poor boss had been physically sickened by the paint smears on the building.

I tied the dogs’ leashes to my car door and hurried to her aid. Puking preferences are highly individualistic. I always feel like I can’t breathe and even though it embarrasses me, I like to have someone nearby. George used to lock himself in the bathroom, refusing all help or attention. Anya wants someone to hold her lightly around the waist so she doesn’t tip into the toilet.

I had no way of knowing how to help Dodie, or if I should, so I stood a respectful distance—until she sagged like a marionette whose handler had dropped the strings. Kneeling beside her, I put my arm around her big shoulders to keep her steady and called Horace, her husband.

“
Oy vey
,” he moaned. “My poor, poor
farmutshet
darling. My own
sheyna ponim
! Her parents, you know, they survived the Holocaust. My poor darling. Please say I am coming to her. You’re a good friend to my
kallehniu
.”

Only later did I learn he’d said Dodie was “exhausted,” calling her by his pet nickname “pretty face,” and thanking me for being a good friend to his “little bride.” Horace’s switch to Yiddish signaled the depth of his despair. With her family history, I could understand why the vandalism hit her so hard.

And on top of all her other problems? No wonder she had headed for the shrubs.

No matter how I tried to rationalize, her recent behavior was out of character. Meanwhile, I patted her back softly and told her Horace was on his way.

“It’s just paint,” I spoke to that big bush of gray hair. “Silly old paint. We’ll get it off as soon as Detweiler checks it out.”

The detective and Horace arrived simultaneously. They made an odd pair, Detweiler being well over six feet and Horace barely topping five. I relinquished my spot beside Dodie to her husband. The gentle way he slipped his arm around his wife reminded me how comforting it was to be married. Dodie rose tiredly and rested against the little man, the way Tiny Tim relied on a crutch.

I told her, “I’ll take care of the store. Go on home, Dodie. Put your feet up and take a break, okay?”

Detweiler reached over to squeeze Dodie’s shoulder. “Mrs. Goldfader, the crime scene people are on the way. They’ll see what clues they can uncover. Have you had any threats at home? On your phone?”

Dodie shook her head. “No. None. Just here. I’ve been getting mail addressed to me with … images.”

I was shocked. She’d never mentioned any problems to me. Turning bleary eyes toward the building, she added, “I suppose this is about Yvonne Gaynor, right? We had all those calls yesterday …”

I was glad I hadn’t told her about the threats on the machine. “It wasn’t as bad as we expected. Really, it wasn’t. Vanessa Johnson even called to say she and our other regulars sent kind thoughts. Try not to stress out about this, Dodie. Sure, a few people have wanted refunds, but you know scrappers. They were just being practical.”

Detweiler added, “A police department clerk called your customers yesterday and told them we’d finished looking over their cameras. We’ve made arrangements for them to be returned. The women acted pleased. None of them seemed rude or angry.” He paused. “I realize this has been tough on you and your business. Try not to worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this, Mrs. Goldfader.”

Dodie’s mouth quivered. “You even suspect me! You asked me to come to the station the night before last, after the store closed.”

Shock number two. I mean, I should have known. Hadn’t he said he wasn’t ruling out anybody? Geez. And he’d told me they talked! Right. He fussed at me about keeping secrets when he’d omitted hauling my boss in for questioning.

“It’s my job to investigate every possibility. You know that.” He glanced my way. “Even Kiki is under suspicion.”

Despite my irritation, I gave Dodie a little wave, a flutter of my fingers and a “yep, me too” nod of the head.

From under one of Dodie’s tree limb-like arms, Horace’s lively eyes studied the bigger man. An almost imperceptible movement of his eyebrows acknowledged his understanding of Detweiler’s difficult position. He turned his wife toward his car. “Let’s go home, my love. Don’t worry about your car. I can drop you back at the store if you decide to return later.”

“Horace, is there anything I can do to help?” I asked after he’d closed the passenger door with Dodie safely inside.

He turned to the heavens. “God gives troubles, and shoulders.” He smiled a sad smile. “If I think of anything, I’ll call you.”

People could say what they wanted about how mismatched they were physically, but Dodie and Horace were
the
perfect couple. They depended on each other, turned to each other for consultation and comfort, and most of all, respected each other. That old fashioned word “helpmeet” came to mind. Dodie once told me, “I can’t understand people being rude to their spouses. Your husband or wife should be the one person in the world you treat with loving patience. He or she chose you above all others—for a lifetime! And yet I see women who are nicer to their girlfriends, and men who are more thoughtful toward their employees. That’s
meshuganeh
. Friends come and go. Employees move on. Your partner is there for the long haul. He deserves your best every day of your life.”

It was a comment I took to heart. I only prayed that one day I would have another chance to put her advice into practice.

It was weird. I was fine while I concentrated on Dodie, but the minute I was alone in the store, I started to shake like a sapling in a tornado. Stop it, I told myself. I didn’t have the luxury of going to pieces. Graffiti or no graffiti, I needed a fun project to go with the “subtitle within a title” technique for our regular crop.

I decided to experiment with paper bag albums. True, the bags aren’t archivally safe, but they make a fun base for collecting memorabilia after a trip or special event. As a cheap project, they were unbeatable. I whipped up one or two in no time. While I stood back to critically assess my results, Nettie and Rena walked in. Luckily by then, the clean-up crew had removed all traces of the ugly message from our wall.

“I know, I know,” Nettie said to me. “You’ve never seen me this late in the day. I’m usually such an early bird. But Rena wanted to stop by, and I needed more patterned paper.”

“Actually, I’m glad to see both of you. I was thinking of sending you both a note. I am so sorry about Yvonne. My sympathy goes to you both, as well as her family. I know you three were close. I recall she rode with you to the crop. That must have been hard—going home without her.”

Despite Detweiler’s warning about meddling, or perhaps because of it, I was determined to move this investigation along. The fact he’d fingered both of my friends as suspects added to the urgency.

“That’s right,” said Rena. “I drove. Yvonne was so excited about the contest she chattered the whole way there. I was nearly deaf from all her jabbering. And Yvonne made Nettie sit in the back with our supplies because she’s started smoking again. That’s so gross. Stinks up everything.”

Nettie shrugged off the aspersion and added, “She called us the day she got the news. Couldn’t wait to brag about winning. Have you seen her pages on the website?”

No, I admitted I hadn’t.

Nettie snorted.

I filed that away.

Both women stared at me expectantly. They’d lobbed the conversational badminton over the net and expected me to return it. But I was not on my game. “I’m sure I’ll be surprised. To be frank, I hadn’t realized Yvonne’s skills were so … advanced.”

Nettie’s face twisted. “They weren’t.”

Rena cut in. “Her death is devastating to her family. Really. Why poor Perry, her husband, is going to need a lot of TLC to get through this.”

Nettie snorted. “Pollen count is up. Sorry.” She covered her nose and mouth with a grubby handkerchief and blew hard. A whiff of stale tobacco floated my way. I couldn’t help but think that smoking and allergies were a bad combination.

Nettie was tall and large-boned with a disappointed and tired face. “So are we, but life goes on, right? Rena and I thought we’d make a memorial album for the family. Or we could do a group project. We figured you’d want to contribute.”

“Of course. What did you have in mind?”

“We’d considered making pages for the kids to fill in as the years go on. Leaving blanks for birthdays and holidays and such. What do you think?” Rena asked.

“They’re already making a tribute album covering Yvonne’s life over at Memories First,” Nettie said. A certain sourness colored her voice. “Excuse me, I need a ciggie. Do you have any more cola?”

I volunteered to get another couple of drinks from the back. “Don’t mind her.” Rena noted me watching the front door. She fiddled with a combination of ribbons and tags. “You do know about Nettie, right?”

“Um, know what?”

Rena leaned close to speak to me just under her breath. “She’s suffering a psychological problem related to getting Lyme disease from a tick bite. It causes really big mood swings. She’s had seizures and now brain lesions. Medication can keep it in check, but still … she has her ups and downs.” Rena shook her head and continued. “I guess Nettie hates how the drugs make her feel. Her husband left her. Once her kids were old enough, they all moved out of the area. She’s lost contact with them.”

“Wow.” That hit me like a blow to the solar plexus. I’d almost lost Anya in a custody battle, and the memory felt raw as an open sore. My heart went out to Nettie. Suddenly, I put her sharp comments and her angry manner in another light: the woman was hurting.

“All she has is her scrapbooking,” whispered Rena as we heard Nettie’s footsteps. “It’s her whole life.”

Nettie was heading back toward us. Rena changed the subject and began to speak loudly. “Ellen is putting pages up on the store website as quickly as they come in. But they aren’t doing it because they care about Yvonne. Ellen Harmon is a publicity hound, through and through. And under most circumstances, she wouldn’t even let kids into her store. Now she wants to make the Gaynor kids the centerpiece of her event!”

“The carpet mishap right?”

Nettie nodded as she took her seat.

This was legend in our scrapbooking community. In a store newsletter Ellen published a close-up photo of saltine crackers ground into her rug. Underneath she put the headline: Vandalism! The article was a rant about how unsupervised children—indeed, all children—were no longer welcome in her store.

The article appeared right before Christmas. Dodie and I had read it in stunned silence. Here’s the $64,000 question: Who did she think her customers were?

Duh. Women with kids?

Ding-ding-ding! You win the prize!

Rena nodded. “The carpet incident. After that, kids were
verboten
.”

Nettie said nothing. The part down the center of her dark hair served to emphasize her broad and freckled forehead. I thought about what Rena said. I’d often thought Nettie was distracted or shy. Now I knew better. Probably she was just heavily medicated.

Rena interrupted my reverie with, “Trust Ellen to capitalize on a tragedy. Her store’s so full of customers, you can’t walk around. I hate that she’s benefited from Yvonne’s death.”

“I agree totally,” said Nettie. “She should be shot.”

I curbed my tongue. This was getting interesting. I wanted desperately to keep the women talking. “Look, why don’t we make a list of special occasions you’d like layouts for? I’ll photocopy them for you. We can coordinate papers—patterns and solids—and suggest folks use them so the album has a good flow. You can tell me more about Yvonne. I didn’t know her very well.” I cleared a workspace for the women and went to the back to grab a couple of colas.

The women were eager to chat. At one time, they had all been neighbors. When Yvonne’s husband, Perry, was promoted to IT department manager at RXAid, Inc., a drug manufacturing company, the Gaynors traded up to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood. The family enrolled their children in private schools and upgraded every portion of their lives. Soon Yvonne was bragging about their vacations to Los Cabos and Cancun. She joined Weight Watchers and lost forty pounds. Bit by bit, she also shed her old friends.