Murder in Miniature (14 page)

Skip nodded, his eyes opened wide, focused on the sparkling gemstone.

“Maybe we should let your mom and Maddie know—”

“Just talk, please. I’m sure Mom will come up with a cover story.”

Skip was right. Beverly had surely picked up on the ruse to get Skip and me together, alone, and would invent a story so Maddie wouldn’t worry.

I spilled out the events in order, starting with seeing Just Eddie’s truck on the videotape from Bird’s Storage (making it clear that it was Maddie who ID’d it first). I told Skip Linda’s story—how she found the very pricey sapphire in her Governor Winthrop desk, and dumped it into my tote to avoid giving it to Just Eddie, who then “kidnapped” her.

“That’s how she got to that phone booth,” Skip said.

“Right. And she did all this to protect Jason. What I don’t know is whether Jason did anything wrong in the first place, or whether he’s been framed.” My mouth was as dry and irritated as if I’d sat all day in a field of South Bay pollen. “I want you to know I didn’t realize the stone was in my possession.” My voice was probably as weak as that of his most guilty suspect.

“Until when?”

“Just a couple of hours ago.” At least, I didn’t have to say, “Twenty-four hours ago.” For all Skip knew, I was on my way to show him the gem when he showed up. In truth, all I’d done since finding the sapphire was take a nap and order pizza. “This may be too little, too late, but I really was going to contact you tomorrow. I was giving Linda a day to straighten things out with Jason.”

I dug a bag of cough drops out of my purse and offered one to Skip.

He laughed and relaxed his shoulders. “No, thanks. I’m more used to this kind of”—he made quotation marks in the air—“conversation than you are, Aunt Gerry. Sorry if I came on too strong, but I was feeling that Linda had the upper hand in the intimidation department, and I had to get it back.”

He was right. I’d been letting Linda call all the shots. I was impressed at Skip’s insight. Police training? Or simply the culture of young people today, almost every one of whom either had or was in therapy?

In my day (which was receding rapidly into history) “therapy” meant someone was severely maladjusted, even mentally ill. Now it was part of the education and maturation process from an early age. Skip went to a therapist at age eleven, when his father died, and it occurred to me that he might still have regular sessions, just as a part of getting along in the world and dealing with life.

I remembered a recent crafts club meeting at my house. Thirtysomething Karen Striker was trying to get old Mabel Quinlan to commit to a certain number of items for a Mother’s Day display. Mabel told her she’d be sure to bring “enough.”

“How many?” Karen asked.

“Enough so we won’t run out,” Mabel said.

Finally, exasperated, Karen said, “You need to work on your definitives, Mabel.”

We all gave her a questioning look. Karen explained that it was a therapy term for
be specific
.

During my mental wandering, Skip had rewrapped the gemstone. “I’m sure there are so many overlapping sets of fingerprints on this by now that nothing will be useful, but we’ll give it a try.”

I gave him a sheepish look. I hadn’t exactly protected the stone while it was in my custody. I felt a surge of annoyance at the way Linda had dragged me into her out-of-control life. At the same time I worried for her, about how it all looked to the police, especially the fact that her desk was found in Dudley Crane’s hand.

It was out before I knew it. “Are you going to arrest Linda?”

“I was thinking of arresting you.”

I searched my nephew’s face for a sign of humor. He kept me waiting at least three seconds before giving me a token grin and head shake. “Just to be thorough, here—technically all you had was a guess, about Eddie’s truck, from the detective work of a ten-year-old. And you had a gem that no one has reported stolen. Jason could have found it walking by the railroad tracks.”

“And I didn’t know about Dudley Crane’s murder.” Just to keep the good spin going.

“Right. But don’t ever do this again. Okay?”

“Okay.”
Whew
.

I was relieved, and maybe had learned a lesson, but I wasn’t ready to completely abandon the case to Skip and the LPPD.

“What reason could Linda possibly have to murder Dudley?” I asked. “Chuck, maybe. Peter, maybe. Even the vice principal of the high school and a few nursing home administrators. But Dudley Crane? Unless Dudley also threatened to expose Jason, which would mean Dudley knew who committed the robbery, in which case, why wouldn’t he just go to the police?”

“I can’t give you a motive right now.” Skip scratched his head. “They disagreed about growth/no-growth, didn’t they?”

“Yes, but Linda wasn’t as vocal or as powerful in the community as even Postmaster Cooney, for example, and certainly not as much as Jack Wilson, who’s running against Dudley. Linda wasn’t that political outside her own little interest in keeping Lincoln Point cozy.”

I thought about the day Maddie and I dropped into Crane’s Jewelers. I was sure Maddie would always remember being able to see Dudley’s vault, and perhaps the lollipop he gave her also. I remembered one more thing. “In fact, the last person I noticed having issues with Dudley was Just Eddie.”

“What issues, do you know?”

I tried to remember Just Eddie’s words. “He was looking for something, demanding that Dudley tell him where he put it.” I snapped my fingers. “I’ll bet he was talking about this sapphire.”

I had to admit that the idea of Just Eddie as a murderer didn’t strike me as too fanciful, and the idea of him in prison would not make me weep.

“You might be right about the sapphire, but why are we talking about this, Aunt Gerry? You are not a cop. You do not need to know or figure out anything more.”

“Just tell me this. Is there a report of a stolen sapphire of this description? There was nothing in the newspaper, but Linda says it’s worth about fifty thousand dollars.”

Skip gave a low whistle. In his younger, pre-cop day he would have made a remark about how that would go a long way toward getting him a hot date.

“Not everything went out to the paper, but I can tell you nothing like this is on the official record of the stolen inventory.”

“Was any other store robbed recently? In a nearby city?”

Skip shook his head. “Could be, I suppose. We’re always on the lookout for stuff like that. Robberies with the same MO, known associates, that kind of thing. But nothing jumps out at me.”

I was stuck.

Skip, the professional, wasn’t. “My best guess about this is that the last owner wasn’t supposed to have it. It was stolen from him, or her, and couldn’t be reported because it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Then it could have been from Crane’s private collection, so to speak. He does estate sales. Maybe he skimmed off the top of an estate inventory. I know he handled Gail’s mother’s estate—that would be Jack Wilson’s mother, too, of course. Can I have a list of all the estates he’s handled in the last—?”

“It’s been nice chatting with you, Aunt Gerry,” Skip said, turning the key in the ignition, for our long, two-block ride home.

“Okay, that’s your job. I get it.” For whatever reason, the image of a murdered stranger came to me. A woman who apparently had no one to grieve over her death. “One more thing, Skip, and then I’ll quit. What about Tippi Wyatt? Do have anything new on that case?”

Skip put the sedan in gear and made a U-turn, heading back toward Rutledge. “Nothing’s turned up. Still on hold. Doesn’t seem to be connected to anything at the moment.”

I had no reason to think the two murders were connected except for Just Eddie and his truck. And Linda at the phone booth. In other words, nothing.

“Well, I guess I’m through for now.”

“You’re through, period. This is a police investigation, a homicide, and I want you to back off. I know Linda’s your friend. I know you have a curious mind and that your granddaughter is just like you. But, really, I don’t want to see you or Maddie anywhere near this case. It could be very, very dangerous. Don’t you have dollhouses to decorate?”

“Will you at least thank Maddie for noticing Just Eddie’s truck? She wants desperately to impress you.”

“If it was his truck.”

“It was. There was this refrigerator box—”

“So you said. It’s not exactly unique, Aunt Gerry. A large box on the bed of a pickup.”

I saw his point.

Skip parked in front of my house. He turned to me. “Before we go in, is there anything else I should know?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“You’re not hiding a fugitive in that pretty blue house, are you?”

I laughed. “Of course not.”

“No little side trips? No other confessions from your friend?”

“None.”

“No other stolen goods?”

I shook my head vigorously. “None.”

Not that I knew of, anyway.

Maddie was not a happy little girl when Skip and I returned.

Her skinny legs were moving as fast as I’d ever seen them go, under the atrium table. She put down her glass of milk (thank you, Beverly) and greeted us with, “The pizza’s cold.”

“Mmm, I love cold pizza,” Skip said, downing half a slice in one bite.

“There’s lemonade in the fridge, in case you want to know.”

“And I’ve been dying for that lemonade. Can you pour a glass for me?”

“I guess.” Maddie walked to the refrigerator, frowning. Playing hard to get, for sure. “I know what you were doing. You were talking about the murder case, and you didn’t want me to hear.”

“We were actually talking about you. Grandma told me how you picked out that truck on the videotape, Maddie, and that was very good work.”

A little brightness. “Thanks.”

“But from here on, it’s too dangerous for you or Grandma to do any more work, and that’s what Grandma and I had to discuss. How I would take over from here.”

I knew the speech was as much for me as for Maddie.

“It’s going to be tough without your help,” Skip said, ruffling Maddie’s curls.

“Nuts,” Maddie said.

I felt that way myself.

By Wednesday morning, I longed for a normal day. No
strange rescue calls, no secrets from the police, no items of questionable provenance in my possession, no news of murder. I didn’t ask much.

I hadn’t spoken to Linda since I promised to keep quiet about the sapphire. I wondered how things were with Jason, whether she was any closer to knowing what her son was up to. The last word (which we managed to tease out of Skip, once Maddie went to bed and his mother and I could gang up on him) was that Linda would be brought in for questioning. Not arrested. At least, not right now.

I knew in my heart that Linda had not murdered Dudley. I was fairly certain Linda didn’t even have a gun, and there were any number of reasons for her desk’s being in Dudley’s cold hand. (Well, I could certainly think of one—Just Eddie, whom I now thought of as The Great Framer, could have planted it.)

It was a good thing I didn’t have to worry about any of it. Skip was on the case and I was off. I should be able to trust the fate of my friend to my very capable nephew. Another very good reason for my giving up any involvement was Maddie—she would be leaving on Friday, and I wanted to make the rest of her time with me as happy as possible. I’d told her this morning, briefly, that the nice man who gave her the lollipop had a bad accident.

I had a ten o’clock appointment with my literacy student, which I thought would help get me back on a normal track. I’d been working with Angela Agusta for nearly a year, and she was closing in on taking her GED exam. Angela’s story was inspiring: After she’d helped put her three children through college, she decided she wanted her high school equivalency diploma, before she turned fifty. She worked part-time in the library and studied harder than any teenager I’d taught at Abraham Lincoln High School during my entire career.

My role in Angela’s education was to tutor her in three of the five areas necessary for the high-school equivalency diploma—reading, writing, and social studies. I left mathematics and science to those more inclined. Looking at the study guides for those topics, I felt certain I would never pass either one if I had to take the test this year.

Maddie was in shorts and yet another sports team T (periwinkle blue with a yellow ball, the team name worn off ), ready to leave by nine thirty. She seemed to have recovered fully from the disappointment of last night. A forgiving little girl, all she’d required was a Popsicle and an extra chapter of a Ramona book at bedtime.

Now she dragged her backpack, filled with books, toward the door to the garage.

“We’re going to the library, you know. There will be books there,” I teased.

“I might not like any of them.”

We were almost out the door when the phone rang.

I stopped in my tracks, car keys ready, and looked at Maddie. “Should we or shouldn’t we?” I asked with raised eyebrows and a tilt of my head toward the phone.

Maddie dropped her backpack and skirted around me. “It might be Uncle Skip. Maybe there’s some news on the investigation.”

What had we created here?

“Hi, Dad. Yeah, everything’s fine.” I hoped Richard didn’t sense that his daughter had been hoping for another caller. I supposed he’d better get used to it, come to think of it. Maddie-the-teenager was just around the corner. “I made a new friend at the pool yesterday. His name is Scoop.” A pause. “No, not Skip. Scoop. Like ice cream scoop. And Uncle Skip says I can’t help him anymore with police work. Do you think I could help the police in Los Angeles, Dad?” Another pause. “Sure, she’s right here.”

Uh-oh
. “Good morning, Richard.”

I spent the next five minutes convincing Richard that Maddie was quite safe (he’d already read about the Crane murder on the Internet) and that all we’d done was watch a videotape in the safety of the Lincoln Point Police Station. For better or worse, my son trusted me, and we moved on to another topic.

“I want you to think about coming to LA in the fall, Mom.”

That again. Richard and Mary Lou were on a personal mission to get me to visit their Los Angeles home. I hadn’t been there since Ken and I made the trip together every month or so.

“You know, we were just leaving for the library, Richard.”

“A likely story. No pun intended.”

“Really—”

“Listen, Maddie’s class is going to produce a play this year.
Hansel and Gretel
. Wouldn’t you love to see it? If you come early enough, you can help us with the publicity.”

Then Mary Lou’s voice, on the extension. “I was thinking you could make a miniature stage set and we could raffle it off,” said my conniving daughter-in-law.

“See why I married her? Brilliant idea, Mary Lou,” Richard said.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, trying not to be lured by an enticing project. I could take apart a broom to construct a thatched roof, for example.

“You haven’t been on a plane in three years.” Richard was referring to the year that Ken was sick, plus the two years since his death.

“Is there some rule about that? So many plane trips per year?” I tried to lighten things up, and change the subject.

“I’m just saying—you need to move on.”

Another popular therapy term. Someone should come up with a glossary. At least he hadn’t told me to get on with my life. “I assure you I’m busy enough, Richard. Is there some reason you’re picking this particular moment to bring this up, because we really are out the door. I have a literacy student waiting. It’s one of many things that keep me busy these days.”

I didn’t quite hang up on my son, but I knew I’d have to apologize later.

“They just want you to visit, like you used to, Grandma,” said Maddie, the eyes and ears of the world (now, there was a meaningful expression from the old days).

“I know, sweetheart.” I picked her up—a few inches off the floor, with my arms around her waist, was all I could manage lately. “We’re going to be late. Let’s move!”

I couldn’t explain my issue with flying, not to Richard and Mary Lou, not to myself. It wasn’t as if Ken had died in a plane crash. Maybe I didn’t want to have too much fun without him.

Maybe I needed some therapy.

While Maddie listened to her iPod tunes in the car, I allowed
myself to draw up a mental list of suspects in the Dudley Crane murder. No harm in that; there would be no paper trail; it was all in my head. In spite of Skip’s admonition, I couldn’t give up the idea of helping to clear Linda. I felt I owed her that much after breaking my promise of a twenty-four-hour reprieve on the sapphire.

My favorite candidate for the killer was Just Eddie. Chances were excellent that he was behind the robbery, with or without Jason. Say, Crane stole the sapphire from an estate he handled, Just Eddie found it when he was robbing the jewelry store. He noticed that Crane didn’t claim it, and then…what? This was a great scenario for Crane’s killing Just Eddie, but not vice versa.

I turned down Rutledge and made my way to Gettysburg Boulevard. No marchers today, and no litter, either, making me proud of the city’s cleanup crews.

Maddie tapped her knees and nodded her head rapidly—I had to assume that her iPod tunes had been vetted by her parents. Maybe this was a good day to check out some audiobooks from the library.

Next to Just Eddie on my list was Postmaster Brian Cooney (one of the dullest personalities I’d ever met, and obsessed with the importance of his job), who had two motives. He was fiercely opposed to Crane’s growth platform and had implied that Crane had somehow cheated him on his mother’s estate. Could a boring, fifty-year-old man, who lived with his mother until her recent death, be a murderer? I supposed no particular personality type could be ruled out.

I moved on to Jack Wilson, Gail Musgrave’s brother. Not only was he running opposite Crane as candidate for a spot on the city council (I wondered if he were now running unopposed), but in Crane’s plan, the county would be able to buy certain lots of land for much less than market value. Wilson stood to lose millions of dollars if the proposal went through.

I knew Gail pretty well from the crafting community. I admired her energy and constant striving to better herself—she’d started taking classes to get her real estate broker’s license. I’d met Jack Wilson only in large groups. I tried to picture him—a tall, well-built man who lived on a ranch with his family and loved his horses—wielding a gun. It wasn’t that far off that he’d own a gun, but I saw him more as shooting critters, not humans.

Chuck Reed was always a good scapegoat. A loser, in Linda’s words, and for valid reasons. Try as I might, however, I had no way to connect him with Dudley Crane in a way that might motivate him to commit murder.

I recalled all the loud arguments that had broken out at the fair: Just Eddie vs. Postmaster Cooney; Cooney vs. Dudley Crane; Reed vs. Reed; Dudley Crane vs. Jack Wilson and Gail Musgrave. Now that I thought of it, the fair had been more of a war zone than I realized at the time.

I felt I’d covered all bases for suspects, and the only other possibility was that some drifter—perhaps the same one who killed Tippi Wyatt—had decided to rob Crane’s store on his way out of town and ended up getting caught and shooting Crane.

Why Crane would be found grabbing hold of Linda’s Governor Winthrop desk in any of these scenarios was beyond me.

I wondered if the police had compared the bullets used in the two murders. And what would they do with the sapphire? Dust it for fingerprints? Mine were on it, and also on file with the school district, so technically I could pop up as a suspect.

I wished I had some answers. How ironic that with my intimate connection to the LPPD, I didn’t know some basic facts of these investigations. My only nephew was a cop, and my sister-in-law a civilian volunteer for the police department. (Beverly was off today, resting for her Thursday morning job of tagging abandoned vehicles along the streets of Lincoln Point.) Maybe I’d chosen the wrong hobby.

It had been an unproductive drive except to get us here to the converted railroad station that served as the LPL. The library loomed in front of me, in the civic-center complex that included the police station and the senior center.

Today, I knew that Angela, with her enthusiasm and positive outlook, would be as much help to me as I’d be to her.

With Maddie settled in the children’s room (story hour
was about to begin), Angela and I headed off to a storeroom behind the information desk. I was sure this room had once been a tiny ticket office. Now it held a card table with two folding chairs, and a garage-style metal shelf with office and restroom supplies. Unopened cartons under the table left little room for my long legs, but did provide pint-sized Angela with a footrest.

It was slightly cooler outside, decent enough inside the library, but sweltering in the storeroom (we needed a city council, whoever might be on it, that would give us a new library).

Angela didn’t seem to mind the cramped, airless conditions; she had news that made her spirits soar.

“Guess what, Mrs. Porter? They tell me…” A pause. “They
told
me when I am a high-school graduate, I can start to take classes at Foothill and Mrs. Schafer says she’ll let me help at the reference desk. And also, Carlos, my oldest, will pay for my tuition.”

I was thrilled that Angela was thinking ahead to a community college. I reached over and gave her a hug. “That’s wonderful, Angela. You must be very proud of your son, too.” I knew Carlos, a business major, had earned an internship at a major financial center in Palo Alto.

Angela grinned broadly, then turned serious. With the four fingers of her right hand, all of which had silver rings, she tapped the stack of GED guidebooks on the table between us. “First, I have to pass this test, though.”

“I have no doubt you’ll pass if you keep at it the way you have been.”

Bad sentence. I was always more conscious of my own grammar around Angela, not wanting to give her bad habits. As a result, I often sounded stilted.

Angela’s current library job entailed routine tasks like shelving books, mailing overdue notices, filing and duplicating, and (her favorite, she said) retrieving reference books from stacks that were not accessible to regular patrons. Her goal of helping at the main reference desk (definitely attainable in a small-town library) seemed modest to me, but to her it was a life’s dream.

I thought about how lucky I had been, taking college for granted. Not that my family was among the superrich, but there was never a doubt that my parents would be able to help me with college. Maddie was even more fortunate, with more affluent parents, private school, informed counselors, and all the extracurricular advantages she could stand.

The young Angela, on the other hand, had had no one to guide her. It gave me pleasure to be part of the support group she had now.

Today’s lesson was in advanced reading and comprehension. Angela would read an essay out loud, and then answer multiple-choice questions. I admired how Angela didn’t seem to mind going through texts obviously meant for younger students.

“The first potatoes were grown by the Incas of South America, more than four hundred years ago,” she read, sounding as if the information really mattered to her quality of life. She answered all the questions correctly, and moved on to the next passage.