Monster in Miniature (32 page)

“Well, thanks, Artie. It was nice of you to call.”

“Come and visit sometime. Ruth would love to see you.”

I took down Artie and Ruth’s new numbers and promised to check my calendar for a time to drive up the coast.

I couldn’t put my finger on the reason, but I knew I’d never visit Artie. And I had a feeling he knew it, too.

 

 

Henry seemed happier than I was that the files on the
flash drive cleared Ken’s name.

“Isn’t that terrific news,” he said. Not a question, so I didn’t feel I needed to answer. He paused and I saw that he was studying my face.

“I should let Maddie know in general terms what a great help she was.” I checked my watch. “It will be a while before she’s home from school.”

“You shouldn’t expect to be able to rejoice right away, Gerry,” Henry said. “You’ve had a lot to process today.”

How transparent was I that everyone could tell my mood?

“I’m very relieved,” I said. “I thought it would be obvious.”

“Okay.” I wouldn’t have blamed Henry if he yelled, “Grouch,” and left, but he didn’t, for which I was very grateful. “Does all this mean that Lynch or Crowley killed Oliver?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Skip didn’t mention that, just that they’re all suspects now.”

“And the fire?”

“I don’t know about that, either.”

A little selfish, I thought, just because my two big questions had been answered, I seemed to be tuning out of the investigation. I hadn’t been in contact with Susan at a time when I could have given her some comfort. And there was still a killer loose in Lincoln Point.

“What are your plans for today?” Henry asked.

I hadn’t looked much further than getting through the day. Now I decided I’d spent enough time being glum.

“Halloween,” I said. “I’m way behind. I need to make Maddie’s costume and finish a haunted house.”

“Can I help?”

“Do you know where I can get eye of newt?”

 

 

I couldn’t have asked for a better distraction—spending
the afternoon doing crafts with Henry in his workshop. He’d convinced me that he had better supplies for the projects we needed to finish.

As if we were two mates in preschool, Henry and I made costumes for our granddaughters. Taylor had decided she could have the same costume as Maddie, since they attended different schools. Thus, their grandparents were busy making newts out of pieces of rubber and forming eyes (of frog) out of resin.

If Maddie hadn’t been playing police computer tech all weekend, she might have been able to finish her costume herself. But Taylor had sewn her own pinafore and helped Maddie with hers, so they’d at least participated.

“Do you think the girls would get as much of a kick out of this as we are?” Henry asked, attaching an amazing orange light over the outside door of my haunted dollhouse.

“Impossible,” I said.

Henry had prepared a resin mold for tongue of dog and blindworms. My job was to add the appropriate colors and cut wiggly shapes. I’d trade that for expert wiring any day.

Henry peered over my shoulder as I stirred a sickly pink color meant for the slippery tongues of dog I was creating. “Do you think this is what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote the witches’ speeches?” Henry asked.

“No, but he’d be delighted,” I said. “I wish I’d thought of getting my students involved this way.”

“You could have sent them to my shop.”

I saw Skip’s caller ID, usually one of my favorite sights, either because I was expecting an update on an investigation or just because I loved him. But at the moment, seeing his phone number meant I had to leave the sphere of springy miniatures of “adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing” and pay attention to the often nasty life-size world.

“It’s a great day for criminal justice,” Skip said.

I was glad the men in my life had a positive outlook while I was in my moody phase. “You figured out who killed Oliver Halbert?”

“Not quite that, but we finally have closure on the fire at the E&E Parts factory. Would you believe that all the sprinklers in the work area of the factory were fake? Now Lynch and the twins are duking it out over whose idea it was to pull that trick. They just stuck the little gizmos on the ceiling, but they weren’t hooked up.”

“Why would anyone do that? Weren’t the Fergusons putting their own property at risk?”

“Greedy people can be shortsighted.”

I was dumbfounded. “You’re saying that if the sprinklers had been working, it wouldn’t have mattered how the fire got started. It might have been drowned out quickly.”

“Exactly. All they cared about was money and time, just getting the building past inspection. Maybe they planned to go back and put in real ones later, but with Crowley at the desk, they could get approval with the fake ones.”

“And it cost a man’s life.”

“That’s the awful part.”

“Was the whole family involved?” I pictured foxy old Lillian signing off on orders and never mailing them.

“Hard to say. One thing for sure, Lillian did everything to protect her boys from suspicion, including giving them false alibis for the day of the murder.

“Did Oliver know all this, by the way? About the sprinklers?”

“Uh-huh. The files are on his flash drive. Memos back and forth, work orders, you name it. The guy was one sharp investigator. We could have used him on the LPPD.”

“The LPPD has you.”

“Thanks, Aunt Gerry. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

I was embarrassed that my distress over personal issues had caused my loved ones to be concerned about me and had blinded me temporarily to the real problems my friends and neighbors were facing.

I resolved to spend not another minute in resentment over the past.

“I need to bake some cookies,” I told Henry when I clicked off. “I should take a package over to Susan.”

He smiled. “And some for me?” he asked, now hunched over an electrical gadget that was going to revolutionize the lighting in my dollhouse, he’d boasted.

“For you, a double batch.”

Then, to my utter amazement, I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

My kitchen smelled of warm ginger. All my Halloween
decorations and projects were complete. Three of the four major puzzles that had consumed the last few days had been solved, with reasonably acceptable results. Ken’s reputation was intact and some or all of the consortium of Lynch, Crowley, Ferguson, and Ferguson would pay for the fatal fire that resulted from their greed.

The rogue cop who was Lynch’s inside man—no one I knew, I was happy to hear—had been suspended, pending investigation.

To top it all, Henry and I had plans for dinner later this evening. Things were looking up.

To add to the sunny mood, my ringing landline showed that I had a call from Maddie from Palo Alto.

“Are you home from school already?”

“I’m in the car. Mom picked me up. She says I can’t go to Lincoln Point tomorrow afternoon because I might be getting a cold. Nuts.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Are you feeling bad?”

“I’m just stuffy and my throat itches a little, but it might be better by tomorrow.”

“I think you should stay there, sweetheart, and get some extra rest. You don’t want to be sick for the Halloween party. Mr. Baker and I finished your costume today.”

“Taylor’s, too?”

“Taylor’s, too, plus the haunted dollhouse.”

“Can we go to the party at the Fergusons’ factory this year, too?”

“We’ll see.” I was sure Maddie had a good idea this meant “no,” as it usually did for generations of parents and grandparents. “But definitely I’ll be there for your school party.”

“I made enough witches and ghosts for the factory party, too. Can you take them over?”

“I can do that. Now, I have some good news for you.”

I told Maddie how her magic computer skills helped the LPPD find out about a lot of dishonesty that was going around in Lincoln Point. I kept it as general as I could.

“They cracked the password? How? How? Did they use that special software my teacher talks about? Will they show me how to do it?” I pictured her kicking her feet in the front seat of the Porters’ SUV.

“We’ll have to ask Uncle Skip, but I’ll bet he can arrange a tutorial for you.”

“Really? Wicked. Grandma, wait till you see this one street in Palo Alto. Everyone must have worked on the weekend because it’s all decorated, but not as good as Sangamon River Road. One house has a scarecrow that jumps around, though. You know, like the one Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson used to have?”

I remembered; I was sorry Maddie did. But I heard only good spirits in my granddaughter’s voice.

“You take care of yourself, sweetheart. I’ll miss you.”

I didn’t dare mention that I was glad she wouldn’t be back to Lincoln Point until Friday at the earliest, thus giving her uncle Skip another few days to discover who killed Oliver Halbert.

“I’ll miss you, too. Mom wants to talk to you.”

Mary Lou had been tuned in through a contraption on the visor of her car and now took over.

“Nice that all that stuff about the corrupt city inspections has been settled.”

If you only knew,
I thought.

Mary Lou and I made plans for my trip to Palo Alto for the Angelican Hills Halloween party, where Maddie would appear as “eye of newt” and so on.

My daughter-in-law offered to cook dinner for all of us.

“That would be wonderful.”

“Henry, too, of course,” she said.

“I’ll see if he’s free that day.”

Mary Lou howled. I couldn’t imagine why.

 

 

Was I back in junior year of high school? I had a big
problem with what to wear to dinner on Tuesday night. It would be the first time Henry and I would be meeting without an excuse. We’d be getting together not because our granddaughters wanted to play, or because we had a wood-working or miniatures project to complete, or because I needed some brawn to help me in the garage. It would be just us, adults having dinner, “at a restaurant with cloth napkins” was all Henry would say.

I looked through the section of my closet that did not consist of clothing I could wear to do my gardening. There were beige slacks, cream-colored tops, an off-white sweater set, a brown tweed jacket, and more of the same. Was I really this colorless? Apparently I’d been putting all my color energy into dollhouses and room boxes.

I kept clothes I hardly wore at the back of an antique armoire. I opened a side drawer in the giant piece of furniture and found a royal blue silk shell. It was a start.

Henry had seen me in layers of mismatched sweaters and socks; he’d heard me cry and witnessed my worst moods. I didn’t need to worry about what I wore tonight. Henry had invited a colorless grandmother and crafter to dinner.

It still took me a half hour to decide.

 

 

Later, in an elegant restaurant in San Francisco’s
Embarcadero Center, I sat across from Henry, who was wearing a royal blue silk tie and a brown tweed jacket. We shared “this old thing?” stories and had a good laugh.

We ended the evening with some coffee back at my house.

Things were looking up more than I’d hoped for.

 

 

My plan was to take Maddie’s felt witches and glue
ghosts, with a note, to the Fergusons on Wednesday afternoon. If no one was home (or if the whole family was already in jail, I mused), I’d leave the package at the door. I wasn’t anxious to see any of the E&E Parts owners, except possibly mild-mannered Sam, too soon.

I rummaged through the Halloween items and supplies on my crafts table to find Maddie’s creations amid the rubble of half-finished items, scraps that hadn’t been swept into the wastebasket yet, and oddments that needed to be sorted and put into the proper bins. The life of a crafter.

Maddie and Taylor had been busier than I thought. Besides the witches and ghosts, they’d finished several miniature masks and a couple of scarecrows.

I picked up one of the scarecrows. About five inches long, with a tiny plaid shirt and a red felt smile, it would be perfect for a miniature fall centerpiece. I rolled the scarecrow between my fingers, checking the glue job Maddie had done. She was getting better at not overgluing, one of the giveaways of an amateur crafter.

Something struck a chord. The figure looked like most traditional scarecrows. Like the one the Fergusons set on their porch every year. Like the one that must have been on the porch before it was replaced by Oliver Halbert’s lifeless body.

Where was that scarecrow now?

Had the killer taken it with him? I pictured him running down the street, a floppy, life-size scarecrow over his shoulder. Not likely. Had he broken in to the Fergusons’ house and dumped it in the hallway? The police had searched the immediate area while I’d been there with Maddie and the teenagers. If they’d found the scarecrow on the grounds, they would have taken it as evidence, I’d think. It might have Oliver’s blood on it. I would have remembered if they’d carried out a scarecrow.