Dolled Up for Murder - By Deb Baker Page 0,74

find, their worth increased by volumes, and the bidding for the French Jumeau Bébé proved it.

The bidding war that Caroline had hoped to avoid had begun. The current bid flashed across the screen for the doll with the unique eyebrows designed by the world-famous French designer: $12,000.

Every doll collector yearned for at least one Jumeau, but few could afford to purchase a doll selling for thousands. At this price, how many different collectors were actually bidding? Two? Four? Certainly no more than ten.

Caroline wondered how long the seller would risk exposure. A stolen doll. A murdered collector. The seller must be motivated by uncontrollable greed or bold arrogance. Or desperation.

Using both hands she pulled her silver hair away from her face and neck and twirled it on her head. She gazed outside. Soon the planes overhead would cease flying for the night, only to start up again a few hours later at sunrise. Orange lighting from the parking lot shone into the drab room, and she could hear a television playing in the room next to hers.

Caroline rose and closed the heavy, smoke-laden drapes. She felt a small shiver of excitement, tasted the thrill of the auction on her tongue. She welcomed these new emotions, which until now had been masked under her own sense of desperation. Refreshing after days of extended panic. Pretend you’re in Vegas, she thought, where time is meaningless. Where light and dark merge into an insignificant gray.

Good and evil. Light and dark. Were these and concepts such as justice and retribution subjective in nature? Caroline had always been able to see both sides of an issue, empathize with each point of view, rarely taking a firm stance. Everything a hazy shade of melded colors. Until now.

“Play to win,” she whispered aloud. “At closing time, you must be the highest bidder.”

The motel phone rang shrilly, the harsh and unexpected sound startling her, and, after a pause to still her pounding heart, she picked up the receiver.

A voice spoke soothingly to her in flawless French, and she smiled.

“You know I don’t speak French,” she said.

“Take a small break and eat something, cherie. What can I do for you?”

“Stall,” Caroline said. “I need more time.”

22

A new hobbyist interested in collecting dolls should start out by joining a local doll club. There are as many types of clubs as there are different dolls. You can join a Barbie club or an antique doll club, but a general doll club that welcomes all types of collectors will present the most variety. Clubs offer educational opportunities as well as experienced advice and an appreciative audience to share new acquisitions with. Active doll club members develop durable bonds and consider themselves part of a large extended family.

—From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

Bonnie Albright sat at her kitchen table combing out her red wig and looking nothing like the presiding president of the Phoenix Dollers club. The small table overflowed with hair rollers in various sizes, bobby pins, a pile of brushes and combs, and a can of heavy-duty hair spray.

Gretchen tried not to stare at the mass of tangled red hair sitting on its wig stand or at the tight red wig cap covering Bonnie’s head. She tried not to stare at her eyebrows, or rather her lack of eyebrows, since the penciled lines had been scrubbed away.

Nina’s mouth hung open. “I never guessed you wore a wig. All these years . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“You should have called first,” Bonnie said, annoyed, tufts of steel gray poking out from the wig cap, lips thin and pale without lipstick.

She spritzed the inside of the wig with Lysol, and Gretchen looked away.

Kewpie dolls lined a shelf in the dining room. Classic Kewpies, Action Kewpies waving and crawling, one of Kewpie’s companion dogs—Doodle Dog—a Kewpie bank, and two Kewpie Thinker paperweights.

Teddy bears in every imaginable pose overflowed from bookcases in the adjacent living room. Nina had been right about teddy bear collectors. The bears resembled Bonnie with their big red bows and colorful faces.

“We were in the neighborhood and need to talk to you,” Nina said, struggling to compose her facial features and avoid hurting Bonnie’s feelings. “We had a break-in tonight, and someone hung one of Caroline’s Shirley Temple dolls with a noose and poured red paint over it to look like blood.”

“Oh my,” Bonnie said, her hand slowing as it worked the rat-tail comb through the wig, picking out tangles.

“We need to know who else knew that we had