Monster in Miniature (18 page)

I blew out a breath, keeping my cheeks puffed for a few seconds first.

Such simple questions I had.

 

 

“We’re home. We’re home,” Maddie said, sounding as
she did at the beginning of a long break from school. She ran down the entryway, through the atrium and gave me a hug that nearly knocked me over. I was glad she wasn’t tall enough to reach the spot on my head that was still tender from its interaction with Oliver’s brick doorstop.

“We had a great time,” Beverly said, rolling her eyes. She dropped her purse and bundles on the chair in the family room, just off the atrium.

Maddie ran to her bedroom to change from San Francisco clothes (I’d convinced her to wear nice pants and a warm jacket) to her Lincoln Point fall uniform (jeans and a sweatshirt).

“I hope she didn’t drive you crazy,” I said to Beverly.

“Not at all. But I knew she’d rather have been here snooping around with you. She reminds me so much of Skip.”

“Uh-oh,” we said, almost in unison. Meaning, did we really want another cop in the family?

Thus began a series of reminiscences.

“Remember the time Skip staked out Mrs. Granzow’s house to see if he could catch whoever was taking her newspapers and returning them later, obviously having been read?” Beverly had a broad smile on her face, as if she could see Skip at Maddie’s age, standing in front of her.

I saw the image myself.

“Ah, yes. Poor old Mr. James, just trying to save a few pennies, never thinking anyone would be up early enough to catch him. And what about the time our little Skip wanted to interview all the shop owners on the street after his best friend’s dad’s car was towed?”

“He was looking for witnesses who might have seen the tow-truck driver dent the door. Maybe cops are born, not made, do you think?” Beverly asked.

We laughed, the way close friends do who have a long history together. It was beyond me why I hadn’t felt that I could take my questions about Ken to Beverly. There was a good chance she’d know the context of the photographs and maybe even the pink layette. The only reason I could think of for keeping her in the dark was that I didn’t want to be embarrassed at the answers. I was Ken’s wife; I shouldn’t have to ask anyone else about his life, not even his sister.

Yet, I was willing to talk to Artie? What was that about? It couldn’t be sillier.

Beverly had selected a plastic bag from the bundles on the chair and had pulled out a T-shirt.

“I probably should wait for Maddie,” she said. “She’ll want to see your face. I’ll just have this little present ready.”

“Beverly, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Her face turned somber, as I supposed mine was. “Of course. What is it, Gerry? You know, I thought something was wrong, and I’ve just been hoping that eventually you’d—”

Maddie made her typical noisy arrival. “You didn’t show it to her, did you?” she asked Beverly, her arms akimbo, her tiny brow scrunched in a frown.

“Of course not.” Beverly swung the T-shirt behind her back and tossed it over to Maddie. I thought there might be a basketball term to describe the move. “She never saw it.”

“Good,” Maddie said, “ ’Cause I want to see her face.”

Did we know our little girl or what?

Maddie unfurled the T-shirt and held it up to her scrawny chest, lettering facing out.

A red T-shirt with black letters:
Inch by Inch, It’s a Cinch
, it read.

“Isn’t that wicked, Grandma? Aunt Beverly says it means you can do anything at all if you do it in little pieces at a time.”

Advice from a T-shirt. It seemed there was no end to the sources of wisdom in this world.

The moment for talking to Beverly had passed, but we
made a quick deal before she left, mostly nonverbally, to talk later.

“Taylor is back from her party and wants to go for ice cream,” Maddie said.

“Didn’t you have lunch with your aunt in San Francisco? Was she so mean to you that she let you starve?” I tickled the places where hunger might be felt.

When her giggles were over, Maddie explained. “Aunt Beverly wanted to take me to a nice restaurant, with cloth napkins and all. It was okay, but the portions weren’t that big.”

“I see. And Taylor didn’t have enough cake and ice cream at the birthday party, so she’s hungry, too?”

“She said the cake was from the supermarket and not very good.”

I gave an understanding nod. “I see.” It was hard to keep track of this generation’s taste: no fancy décor, but no low-end food, either.

“Not like the yummy ones you make.”

Flattery never hurt a case.

“If you’re really hungry, I have some spinach salad left over from last night.”

I just wanted to see her screw up her nose. I wasn’t disappointed.

 

 

On Sunday afternoon, Sadie’s Ice Cream Shop was as
crowded as Seward’s Folly had been in the morning. I was glad Lincoln Point’s independent businesses were thriving, even though it meant that we’d had to wait awhile at the doorway for a table for four.

We were seated now, decadent sundaes all around. Henry, who was very good at kid-friendly chatting, got us started on each girl’s book report. Maddie had finished a biography of Benjamin Franklin; Taylor was in the middle of Louisa May Alcott’s life.

“Mrs. Berry makes us use these lame forms,” Taylor said. “We have to fill in ‘paragraph one’ and ‘paragraph two’ and say how many characters there are and describe them. And then write ‘the rising action’ ”—she drew her third set of quotation marks in the air—“and the ‘climax.’ I’d rather just write what I learned, all by myself.”

I was on Taylor’s side this time, but held my tongue. Far be it for me to criticize a teacher managing thirty bright, strong-willed children like Taylor and Maddie.

“I’m so glad we’re off school tomorrow,” said Maddie, who usually liked her classes. I figured the idea of hanging around Lincoln Point where there was a case to solve was more appealing to her this week.

“I think they should give us a day off for everybody’s birthday,” Taylor said. She crowned her statement by sucking on an overflowing spoonful of chocolate ice cream and marshmallow topping.

“I thought you young ladies liked school,” Henry said, digging into what I considered a strange combination of coffee ice cream and caramel sauce.

“Sometimes school’s boring, Grandpa,” Taylor said.

“Man, you got that right.” A deep voice, not one of us. A tall, middle-aged man had pulled a chair up to the corner of our table between Maddie and me.

Emory Ferguson. Or was it Eliot? It had been Eliot whom I’d had in class, but that had been a long time ago and if I had a special way to discriminate between them, I’d forgotten what it was, unless they were walking, one with the limp, the other without.

“Hey, there, Eliot,” Henry said, sounding sure of himself. Since Abraham Lincoln High School had only one shop teacher, Henry had had both twins in class. I’d have to ask him later what his secret was to tell the boys apart with such certainty when they were seated.

Henry introduced Eliot to Maddie and Taylor and made him feel more welcome than I was prepared to do. I had no doubt why Eliot had chosen this day to visit my table at Sadie’s.

After one or two more gestures to the girls, telling them how lucky they were to be in school (though it hadn’t been a priority for him, I recalled) and how good their sundaes looked, Eliot Ferguson got around to what I knew was his mission.

“So, I noticed you paid a call on my mom this morning, Geraldine. I just wanted to apologize for the way I ran out of the house. I was late for a meeting.”

“It’s still Mrs. Porter, to you,” I wanted to say but didn’t. And what kind of business meeting was held on Sunday?

I wasn’t usually crotchety when someone invited himself to join my friends and me when we were in a public place. Lincoln Point was a small town and we all tried to keep everything on a friendly basis. I was annoyed today because I felt that Eliot was taking undue advantage of the fact that we were both at Sadie’s.

“I was in the neighborhood,” I said, with a smile.

“Mom and Dad are both great, you know, but they’re getting up there.”

I assumed he meant in age and not on a ladder. Why did Eliot think I cared, unless it was to make certain I didn’t get the wrong (right?) idea about his alibi? I thought back to my tea with Lillian. I was fairly sure that Eliot was the twin Lillian mentioned as having left the factory for sandwiches on the day Oliver was murdered.

Tired of the game we were playing, I decided to take the lead. Irritated or not, I needed to take advantage of this conversation with Eliot to further my pseudo investigation.

“You live with your parents now, I understand.”

“Yeah, it’s a win-win, you know. They can use someone around the house for this and that, you know, and I’m just as happy not to be paying rent somewheres else.”

More than one somewhere, I noted, and adjusted my mental grade for him from B-minus to C-plus. The free-rent arrangement was what Maddie or Skip would call “a nobrainer.” I had to watch myself. If I weren’t careful, the vocabulary and phraseology of the next generations would take over my verbal communication. Their speech patterns were already crowding my mind.

“How’s your brother?” Henry asked.

A good question, and so much less intimidating when Henry asked it. I dipped my spoon deep into my sundae, scraping the side of the dish, foraging for hot fudge, and waited for Eliot’s response.

“Great. Emory’s great. Yeah, we all work at the factory, you know. Mom and Dad, too.”

“And you were all there on Friday, I understand, except for your trip to get sandwiches,” I said.

“That’s right,” Eliot said. His face took on a wary expression, as if he heard incredulity in my voice.

“And was it you or Emory who had lunch with Oliver that day, the day he was murdered?”

I hadn’t planned to hear my voice echo throughout Sadie’s. Nearly all of her customers had apparently chosen that moment to stop talking and sip their malts or chew on their waffle cones. Heads turned in the direction of our table. Maddie and Taylor took a moment from their intense bowl-scraping and giggled when they realized we’d attracted the attention of the masses. I hoped none of Taylor’s classmates were present. I didn’t want to be responsible for any embarrassing moments in school.

Henry gave me a look as if to ask, “Where’s the real Geraldine Porter?”

Eliot looked taken back, as I’d intended. I’d had enough experience scoping out lies told to me by adolescents, but I’d lost my touch with the practice and had to rely on shock value.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Geraldine. As I said, we never left the neighborhood around the old airport grounds. I bought subs for lunch and took them back to my family.”

Eliot, having had the advantage of knowing everyone was attentive to us, had kept his voice to a whisper. In other words, I was still the only loudmouth in the group.

A young waitress I didn’t know came to the table and addressed Eliot.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked him, pad and pencil in hand.

Maybe she thought I’d made all the fuss just to get service for the latecomer to our party. Or perhaps she was sent to be sure there was no danger that a riot would break out.

“I’m good,” Eliot said to her. He turned back to me, “You must be thinking about someone else, Geraldine.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, waving my hand. “I’m sure the police will straighten it all out soon anyway.”

Eliot got up from his metal chair and whipped it back to its original place at another table. The customer there flinched and thrust his arm out to protect his children. Fortunately, the chair never left the floor.

“Enjoy your ice cream,” Eliot said to us, and was gone.

I mentally lost track of my companions for a moment while I tried to figure out what the encounter with Eliot meant. I could only conclude that Lillian had told him about the alibi she’d given him and his brother, and he’d felt the need to check out exactly what I’d taken away from the meeting.

I was glad I could give him even more to think about: the scoop from the lovely young Kayla, the Seward’s Folly barista he probably wouldn’t be able to pick out of a crowd.

When I finally checked in with my tablemates, I noticed questioning looks on all of them, as if they were waiting for an explanation. I had none, except to borrow another popular expression.

I took a long breath, and smiled. “That went well,” I said.

 

 

“Pot roast takes hours,” I’d told him. “You’d have to give me more notice.”

“Okay, then meatloaf, meatballs, cheeseburger. Anything like that.”