Dolled Up for Murder (9 page)

I met his eyes. “Or he forced Eric to tell him.”

Fred's lips thinned. “What can we do?”

“Examine the rest of the dolls.”

Using hair-thin needle probes designed for the purpose, Fred and I pierced each limb, section of torso, and head, seeking out resistance. Our probes penetrated the cloth and leather easily, without causing any damage and without running into any obstacles. We angled our probes up into the bisque and papier-mâché heads through the neck openings. All the heads were hollow, no surprise. Hollow-headed dolls were lighter weight and easier to sew or glue to torsos.

“The heads would be perfect places to store contraband,” I said. “It's possible we're looking for something as small as a jewel glued to an inside edge.”

Hollow-headed dolls had been used for smuggling for centuries. I'd recently read about a Civil War–era doll named Nina who, it seemed, had come from Europe with her papier-mâché head filled with morphine and quinine, an effort orchestrated by Southern sympathizers to get medical supplies past the Union blockade and into the hands of sick Confederate soldiers.

One by one, Fred and I examined all the dolls, gently shaking the wooden one, listening for the telltale rattle of contraband or hidden treasure; separating the nesting dolls, ensuring there were no unusual thick or rolled edges that could secrete a document of some sort; and removing the Dutch doll's clogs to see if her feet had plugs or seals that might reveal a hidden space running the length of her wooden legs.

I leaned back, disappointed and frustrated. “I'm thinking we need to X-ray them.”

The doorbell sounded, and I looked up, startled. Ellis stood under the overhang holding a pizza box. I searched his eyes for clues about whether he had news. As always, his expression revealed nothing.

“Anything?” I asked, braced to hear the worst.

He shook his head. “The tracker says there's no evidence that Eric was taken out through the woods, but we didn't think he had been, so it's not really news.”

“Are you saying he was taken away in a car?”

“Or a truck. Or a van.” He placed the box on the guest table. “We drove the perimeter of the woods circling your property and didn't find any sign of whoever it was who opened the loading dock door.”

“No surprise. I don't think they'll find out anything from the photos, either.”

Ellis shot me a look. “Time for a pizza break,” he said.

“I'm not hungry,” I said. “Did you find out anything about the man Eric told Grace about? The one who wanted in?”

“No, not yet.”

“How about the neighbor with the casserole?” I asked.

“She remembered the incident but can't tell us much. She didn't recognize him and can't really describe him.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“A lack of interest in strangers combined with bad eyes. We found another witness, a woman driving along Garry who saw a white car parked in front of your van. Unfortunately, she didn't notice anything else. It seems her baby was screaming nonstop and she was completely frazzled.”

“Another dead end. It's so frustrating!”

“I'm going to reheat the pizza,” Ellis said. “You've got to eat. Me, too.”

I shut my eyes and heard the microwave whir to life.

A minute later, Ellis said, “Here.”

I opened my eyes as he slid a paper plate in front of me. “Thanks,” I said.

Steam rose from the pizza, plain cheese. I took a bite, and as I chewed I thought about dolls and hiding places. When I was done with the slice, he offered another, but I declined. Instead, I filled him in.

“I have an idea,” I told him. “It seems obvious that since only the dolls, not the other collections, were destroyed, it's dolls the would-be thief was after. Fred and I have just tried everything we have available to discover whether some contraband is hidden inside any of them. We didn't find anything, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything to find. We need to commandeer a medical office so we can X-ray them.”

“Interesting,” Ellis said. “Will it work, do you think?”

“I know it will. Last fall, a woman brought in a mahogany writing box that had been in her family for generations. It had all sorts of hidden compartments. Her grandfather had told her that he'd seen a huge emerald and gold brooch in one of the secret cubbies when he was a kid, but he couldn't for the life of him remember which one or how it was accessed. We examined that box inch by inch and found two additional hiding places she'd never seen before, but they all were empty. Finally we went to a medical testing facility over in Portsmouth and had it X-rayed, and guess what? No brooch. Either Granddad remembered wrong, or someone found it and pocketed it. The point is, the owner of the facility was very helpful. He thought it was fun. I'm sure he'd open up for us so we could X-ray the dolls now. Tonight.”

“I'm convinced,” Ellis said. “Let's do it.”

I turned to Fred. “Would you look up the number for that X-ray place we went to last year? I'm sure they have an emergency number.”

Ellis finished his slice and brushed crumbs from his fingers. “Let me,” he said. “I can claim police business.”

“Good idea,” I agreed.

Two minutes later, Dale Reich, the doctor owner of Portsmouth Diagnostic Imaging, agreed to meet us at his facility in half an hour.

*   *   *

When Ellis and I reached the facility, we found the lights on and Dale Reich leaning against the stone portico, waiting for us. Dr. Reich was about ten years older than me and short for a man. He was almost completely bald, with blue eyes and an appealing habit of nodding as he listened.

His building shared a parking lot with a strip mall on Route One not far from Portsmouth Circle. As we pulled up, I scanned the empty lot and the row of shops. Everything else was closed. Nancy's Nails. Fritz's, a Swiss restaurant Ty and I ate at sometimes. Franklin Insurance. Ellis parked near the front and reached in the back for the bin containing the dolls. Dale straightened up as we approached.

“I've got everything fired up and ready,” Dale said.

Ellis thanked him for opening up so late and with no notice.

“Anything to help get Eric back. Any news?”

I shook my head. He made a sad clucking noise as he held open the door.

Ellis and I followed him down a short hallway. We turned left into a small examination room. A table sat in the center, and an off-white multiarmed behemoth of an X-ray machine loomed overhead. Off to one side, a glass partition separated the control panel from the rest of the room. There were three framed van Gogh prints on the walls.

“Before we get started,” Ellis said, “I need your assurance that our visit here is confidential. It's not overreaching to tell you that Eric's life might depend on you keeping quiet.”

“I'm a doctor,” Dale said. “Keeping confidences is second nature to me.”

“Thank you,” Ellis said. He nodded at me, and I opened the bin.

I carefully unwrapped each doll. First up was one of the Brus. I positioned her on the table, Dale lined up the swinging arm of the X-ray machine, and then we all stepped behind the protective divider.

“We probably don't need front and back images,” Dale said as he turned a dial. “The X-ray penetrates all the way through, but just in case someone inserted a barrier of some sort, we might as well err on the side of taking extra shots.”

Dale pushed a button, and when the click came, indicating the machine had taken the picture, I stepped out and rearranged the doll. One by one, each doll's front and back were X-rayed. After we were done, Dale took us into his office and turned his computer monitor so we could all see it.

“We just switched to an all-digital system,” he explained. “No more film.”

He clicked through, staring with educated eyes at one image after another. When he got to the X-ray of the back view of a nineteenth-century European doll, the one wearing the plaid jumper, he leaned forward, his attention riveted. He right-clicked his mouse to enlarge the image.

Dale took a thin metal pointer from his desk and tapped her head. “Look here,” he said.

Ellis and I stepped closer. A half-inch-thick wad of paper curled around the inside of her head.

“That looks like money,” Ellis said.

“That's what I think,” Dale said.

Ellis handed me a pair of plastic gloves, and I felt a stab of guilt.

“Fred and I didn't use gloves before,” I confessed.

“You had no reason to,” Ellis said. “Now we do.”

I nodded, relieved, and snapped them on. I extracted the doll from the bin, spread the protective flannel across Dale's desk to serve as a work surface, and moved her under the desk lamp.

Her head was stitched on. Without chemical analysis and carbon dating, there was no way to tell when the head had been attached to the neck, but I could look for clues. The thread color matched the blouse, white, but closer to linen in hue, maybe because it had yellowed from age, or possibly because someone who had stitched her up recently had matched the color well.

“Can you tell anything about it from the stitching?” Ellis asked.

“Not in terms of when it was sewn, but I can say that whoever set these stitches was patient and meticulous and had the right tools. It's not easy sewing leather, yet the stitches are small and neat and flawlessly aligned.” I looked up. “I hate to cut the thread, but I think we have to.”

“Do it,” Ellis said.

Dale handed me a pair of surgical scissors he found after rustling through his desk drawer. I snipped the thread.

Ellis pulled a small flashlight from his side pocket and aimed it into the hollow head. Unfamiliar-looking currency had been laid flat around the inside of the doll's head. Using tweezers Dale provided, I worked slowly, gently lifting the currency away from the head. I laid the pile on the flannel and studied the top one.

“Do either of you recognize it?” I asked.

Dale shook his head.

Ellis said, “No.”

Engraved decorative scrolls and a pleasant-looking man wearing a formal suit adorned the front. The number 63518 was stamped in red at the top. On the reverse side a central circle with a fancy green border contained the words “This note is a Legal Tender for all debts public and private except duties on imports and interest on the public debt; and is receivable in payment of all loans made to the United States.” On either side of the circle the numeral 1 and the word “ONE” were printed. Most of the remaining surface was covered by a green curly flourish. From even an arm's length away, the decorative scrollwork was so ornate it appeared to be solid green. A scalloped, star-studded white chain wended its way through the green embellishment.

“It looks to be the same shade of green that's on currency now,” Ellis commented.

“Greenbacks,” Dale said. “Isn't that what they call money?”

“We need a numismatist,” I said.

“Do you know someone?” Ellis asked, looking at me.

“Yes,” I said. I called New York City information and asked for Barry Simpson's number, but the operator couldn't help me. There were more than a hundred Barry Simpsons, and I didn't know where he lived and couldn't recall his business's name. There was no listing for a numismatist shop named Simpson's. “I need to get to my office.”

Ellis transferred the currency to an evidence bag as I packed up the doll and head. Ellis took the bin and went for the car while I thanked Dale again for his help.

*   *   *

Ellis's dash clock read 9:51. I leaned back in the seat, exhausted. I'd been on the move since six thirty in the morning, and I was cooked.

“We need to X-ray the doll parts that were left in the van,” I said.

“Yeah. I'll get the techs on it.”

A big pickup truck was parked near Griff's patrol car. Two men wearing blue overalls were stacking the orange cones the police had placed earlier in the day in the back of the truck.

“You're removing things already?” I asked.

“Yeah. The crime scene folks gave the all clear, so there's no reason to stay.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I'm so focused on Eric I haven't even asked if you have news about Alice. Do you?”

“We're pursuing several viable leads,” he said, which could mean anything or nothing at all.

I led the way inside. Fred sat behind his computer. He leaned back and pushed up his glasses, asking a question with his eyes.

“Wait 'til you see what we found,” I told him.

When I showed him the currency, the right side of his mouth shot up, a cocky expression of shared delight.

“I don't recognize it,” he said. “Do you?”

“No.”

“Now what?”

“Now I call Barry Simpson, numismatist to the stars.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I knew Barry Simpson from my days working in New York City at Frisco's, the venerable New York City antiques auction house where I'd gotten my start. He knew more about coins and bills than anyone else I'd ever met or heard of, and he had a spotless reputation. Barry could and would tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which is more than you could say for a lot of people. I looked up his phone number, but all I had was the number of his shop, which was called Madison Avenue Coins. The phone went to an answering machine. I thought for a moment.
Shelley!
If anyone would know how to reach him after hours, it would be her.

Shelley and I had started at Frisco's the same summer, freshly minted college grads thrilled to have made the cut. Shelley is one of those people everyone warms to. She listens well, smiles a lot, and never has a bad word to say about anyone or anything. Even after I blew the whistle on my boss's price-fixing scheme and became a pariah at the company, hounded by the press, shunned by my colleagues, and eventually chased out by a weenie of an acting director, Shelley stayed neutral. Lots of other so-called friends said they admired what I'd done, but their words were empty. They stopped returning my calls, and invitations to parties dried up. Shelley was different. She was one of the few people I'd been able to count on not to act as if I had a contagious and dread disease. We were mostly professional friends, but our affection for one another ran deeper than that. I liked her through and through.