Dolly Departed - By Deb Baker Page 0,56

stomped past, headed for Bernard's front door. Each carried a baseball bat. For the first time, Gretchen noticed a warning sign with an enormous watchful eye posted in Bernard's yard.

When the two gang members disappeared through the front door, Gretchen ran to the car. "Get down. Now," she croaked, gasping for breath. Several houses ahead of the Impala, another woman carrying a baseball bat hiked across the street. Gretchen could see the lines of determination in her face, and the excitement. This group had been waiting for an opportunity like this to wield their clubs of justice.

"Was it the room box kitchen?" Nina asked, ducking low. Gretchen chanced a glance at the house from her slunkdown position in the seat. "No, it's not the one," she answered. "But please get this car moving."

Nina pulled out more slowly than Gretchen would have liked. She watched Bernard's house, expecting the women to rush out and attack Nina's car at any moment.

"See," her aunt said, not the least bit ruffled. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

* 24 *

Trolls: Thomas Dam, a poor Danish woodworker, carved the first Troll doll in the 1950s. They were an instant success. As the doll's popularity continued to increase, Thomas began making them from rubber filled with wood shavings. A family business was born. Sales continued to grow through the 1960s, when rubber was replaced with vinyl. Other companies copied Thomas Dam's Trolls, producing cheap imitations that never met the fine crafts- manship of the Dane's dolls.

Trolls are said to have magical powers. Bug-eyed and grin- ning with long, wild manes of hair in every color of the rainbow, they bring luck to their owners. But trolls are only lucky if they are the original, classic Thomas Dam Trolls.

--From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch Early Saturday morning, long before the tourists and snowbirds descended on the popular hiking mountain, Gretchen climbed Camelback Mountain.

It had been over a week since the Scottsdale parade and the death of the miniature doll shop owner. Gretchen had very little to show for all her efforts and misadventures: a bombed-out doll shop and a tiny lead on a kitchen, which might not even be a real connection.

She climbed easily to an enormous boulder overlooking Phoenix to watch the sun rise over the Valley of the Sun

Later in the day, tourists would be perched on this same boulder with cameras and binoculars, but for now she had it all to herself. She sat down, tucked her feet against her body, and cradled her legs between her arms, thinking of her growing obsession with the case of the dead doll maker and the seemingly endless lineup of potential suspects. Charlie's drugged-out, missing son was as good a place to start as any. An alleged bomber, suspected of trying to blow up his mother's shop while people were inside where they could have been seriously injured, if not killed. What was his motive? Drug-induced psychosis? Gretchen still couldn't imagine that he would've killed his own mother. Next suspect: Charlie's thieving business associate. Bernard's cleaver-crazy wife was as disagreeable as her husband and had probably tampered with his bug juice after a domestic argument. The woman was a militant vigilante with a bad temper. And to think, she'd mistaken Gretchen for . . . um . . . for an intruder. Okay, not really a mistake on her part, but her reaction was definitely excessive. What could have been Bernard Waite's motive for murdering a business associate? Did he want Charlie's store desperately enough to kill for it?

Gretchen stood up on the boulder, hopped down, and began the steepest part of the ascent to the mountain's peak. The trail fell away. She gripped red boulders and continued up, keeping a sharp eye out for a new bird to add to her life list.

What was Joseph's story? He was a flamboyant alcoholic who claimed that he couldn't remember anything about the night preceding Charlie's death, or anything about the next morning when Gretchen spotted him at the parade. Was he telling the truth? Or was he hiding a sinister secret?

She grabbed a firm hold in the rocks and continued her climb. Birds chattered around her, and she saw several cactus wrens in a mesquite bush. One of the main reasons Gretchen chose early mornings to hike her favorite mountain was to avoid rattlesnakes and other poisonous creatures. She'd had enough uncomfortable encounters with creatures in the past. The February air at this time of day was cool