notebook and started writing. "Name,"
he said.
"Gretchen Birch."
"Driver's license." She handed it over.
"Well, Gretchen Birch, you're in the thick of it now."
Officer Kline returned her license before handing her a clipboard with a form attached to it and a pen. "Fill this out and stay right here. Since you're the expert, I may need you."
She stared at him. "I don't think I can be of any help."
"Well, I don't know a damn thing about dolls. And you do," he said, catching her look of dismay. "Stay put," he warned her before heading back inside.
Gretchen sighed. She was smack-dab in the middle of a police investigation. She glanced at her watch. High noon.
* 2 *
Bernard Waites can't pull his eyes from the fallen woman. How many years has he known her? Twenty? Fifteen, at least. They are . . . were a team. He built dollhouses to perfect scale, and Charlie designed the miniature furniture and room details.
They are . . . were a good team.
His eyes swing to the dollhouses displayed on shelves along the far wall. He'd built every one of them with his own hands and his own tools. He lifts a veined and knarled hand and studies the back of it. It shakes slightly. Bernard is proud of his craftsmanship. His favorites are the American farmhouse, a Victorian cottage, the English Tudor, and especially, the Queen Anne mansion. He looks at the dollhouse pieces lying on the floor, furniture catapulted everywhere. His eyes shift back to Charlie's body. Two EMTs are loading her onto a stretcher.
"Careful," one of them warns the other.
The one doing the cautioning is a female, as are several of the cops in the room. In his day women didn't do this kind of work. They knew their place just like the men knew theirs. The world is a changed place, and Bernard isn't sure he likes it.
Will they cover Charlie's face before carrying her past the gawkers outside the shop? Look at them out there, straining to see through the window from their positions on the other side of a line of cops, all hoping for a good view of something horrible. Anything will do.
And the ones inside don't give a hoot about Charlie Maize. Nosy gossips, the bunch of them. If they craned their necks any farther, they'd look like geese. Bernard watches the EMTs prepare Charlie for the ambulance, strapping her in. Once, long ago, Bernard had been an emergency medical technician himself, back before all the governmental licensing requirements and insurance restrictions. He knows what death looks like. He knows it in all its forms. Grow as old as he is, and you watch friends and family drop one by one. The curse of old age. All his friends gone and not much family left either. The two EMTs heave Charlie up between them and carry her out. It was hard to see what was happening before, such a cluster of people swarming around her and him forced back into a corner with the rest, like a herd of cattle. Yellow tape used as fencing strung everywhere. Camera flashes going off. Someone is making one of those newfangled movies of the shop. Not good. Several more cops arrive. They begin interrogating everyone inside the shop. Let them. His turn is coming, and he is more than ready. The key weighs heavy in his pants pocket. Bernard is puzzled by one of the boxes on the floor. Why did she build a room box herself? Why didn't she ask me to do it?
Bernard knows Charlie must have made it herself, because it isn't exactly perfect. Not even close. The edges are rough, the sides don't fit together like they should. A craftsman would have done much better. This one was amateurish. Looks like she used a jigsaw and fiberboard to construct it. He glances around and sees the ones he made. His practiced eye skillfully measures each one, calculates the dimensions: nineteen inches by twenty-six inches by fourteen. Large room boxes, crafted to Charlie's specifications. He wants to pick up the one she made and study it, but the cops are attentive, watchful of the so-called "witnesses," treating them more like suspects than concerned friends of Charlie's.
"Are you the one who unlocked the door?" a cop asks him. Bernard stares at his badge.
"Yes, Officer Kline. I have a key." He keeps his voice low and respectful.
"What are you doing with a key?"
"I've had one since the day Charlie opened the shop. She