Dolly Departed - By Deb Baker Page 0,23

the stuff in there belongs to me anyway."

How old was this guy? At least eighty, maybe older. Gretchen had to admire him for his ambition. Of course, the opportunity to own the shop could also be a motive for murder, couldn't it?

"I hear you're working in Charlie's shop," Bernard said, leaning against the door frame for support, a slight tremble in both hands. "What's going on?" His eyes were watchful.

"We're repairing Charlie's last display in her honor, the room boxes she was going to present the day she died."

"Funny that," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Charlie always asks me to make the display cases and room boxes for her, then she decorates them up. This time . . . funny . . . she did one of them herself. This is a first for her." He used the present tense like Charlie was still alive.

Bernard must be talking about the room box they had decided wasn't part of the display.

"Thanks for returning my checkbook," Gretchen said.

"Not many people like me left," he said. "Doing good deeds."

Gretchen stood in the front yard while he slowly pulled himself into his truck cab and eased away from the house. Strange old man.

She was just about to turn back into the house when a woman in trendy workout clothing strode briskly down the street toward her house. The walker wore a leopard print sport tank, matching shorts, and dainty white walking shoes. A matching choker clung to the woman's long, slim neck. All she needed to complete the ensemble was a whip and a divorce decree. It was Matt Albright's crazy, stalking, soon-to-be ex.

Gretchen marched to the street, hoping she looked more ferocious than she felt. The woman was certifiable and had no business anywhere near Gretchen's home.

"What are you doing here?" Gretchen demanded. Kayla Albright came to an abrupt halt.

"Exercising. Something you could use a little of." The Wife closed a cell phone and tucked it in a fanny pack around her waist. The fanny pack was made of matching leopard print material. "No law against keeping fit," she said, tilting up her perky little nose.

"Stay away from my house."

"Stay away from my husband."

The women faced off. They both took a step closer.

"You slashed my tire," Gretchen said.

"You stole my husband."

"So you admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That you slashed my tire."

"I don't know anything about your tire."

"The police are dusting for fingerprints," Gretchen said. What a stupid thing to say. As far as she knew, a tire had never been checked for fingerprints. Ever.

"That's ridiculous." The Wife snickered. Okay, she was smarter than Gretchen assumed. Crazy and smart and beautiful. Gretchen looked down at her own rumpled T-shirt. Nail polish peeled from her toenails, and stubble sprouted all over her legs. She felt like a tarantula.

Leopard Lady was absolutely perfect. She looked like a blonde Barbie doll: an impossibly shaped thirty-nine-eighteen-thirty-three. At the moment, Gretchen hated her and every single sleek and trim Arizona woman. "Get off my property," she said.

"You don't own the street."

They glared at each other.

A siren wailed in the distance. It grew louder. Kayla smiled a nasty, cold smile. A police car turned the corner and stopped in front of Gretchen's house.

A Phoenix police officer rose slowly from his squad car and hitched his pants. "What's the problem? I got a call for a disturbance at this address."

Gretchen's mouth fell open in surprise when she saw the smirk on her adversary's face. Kayla had called the police herself. The call she was finishing when Gretchen spotted her! What nerve!

"That's right, officer," the Wicked Witch Wife said, adjusting her face from smirk to faux fear. "I was walking along, and this woman . . . "--she pointed at Gretchen--

" . . . ran out of this house . . . "--another point--" . . . and started saying the most awful things to me. Crude and vulgar language like I've never heard before. There must be a law against verbally assaulting helpless women."

Helpless!

Where was Matt Albright when she really needed him?

Where was a good man when she needed one? The male standing right in front of her was smiling at hotsy Kayla. His shoulders straightened when the Wife gave him the helpless routine. He sucked in his gut.

After tearing his gaze away from her, he bent into the interior of his car and pulled out a clipboard. "Okay," he said, flicking open a pen. "Let's get started."

He smiled again at the curvy Barbie doll, a big, toothy, drooling grin.

* 10 *

"I don't believe