With a visible effort, he reined in his emotions and closed the door on his daughter’s room, then showed us into Candace’s immaculate and blatantly feminine office—frothy white sheers under rose damask drapes, a floral- patterned area rug atop the white Berber carpet.
Like the rest of the house, there were no books on these shelves either. Instead, they held numerous brightly colored porcelain flowers, the kind of “collectible” sold to people with more money than taste.
“The SBI agents took her computer and most of the file folders from the cabinet there,” said Bradshaw. “And that’s the dollhouse. She loved it so much that Dee wanted to keep it. I just hope that some scared little girls can lose themselves in it, too.”
The dollhouse was at least three feet tall and looked like Tara. It sat on a wooden base that had been painted green and decorated to look like a lawn with flowering shrubs and pots of flowers on the porch. Beneath were casters that let the whole house be easily moved. Some tiny pots and pans lay on the floor next to a shoebox, along with a kitchen butcher’s block and some bar stools, all to the same scale. I assumed Dee had begun to take the house apart in preparation for its move.
Will taped together some small cartons and handed me a thick stack of tissue paper and a handful of pint-sized plastic zip bags. I was given instructions to wrap the delicate furniture and carefully place the items in the boxes so they wouldn’t smash. I meekly agreed, but as soon as he and Bradshaw left to look at the rest of the house, I was right over to the file cabinet, where I paused to look at the silver-framed photographs on top of it. All of them seemed to feature Candace looking up adoringly to whichever man of power stood next to her—the movers and shakers of the region and, as Jamie Jacobson had pointed out, no women. I was amused to see that she had her hand on G. Hooks Talbert’s as they cut the ribbon to open the Grayson Village Inn.
Unfortunately though, the SBI agents had been way too thorough. Anything of interest once held by those four drawers must now be at the SBI headquarters in Garner. Ditto the desk.
There was nothing for it but to dismantle the three-story dollhouse. I knelt down on the rose-patterned rug that overlay the white carpet and began with the nursery on the top floor. A spindly rocking chair, a crib with a tiny baby doll inside, a high chair—each piece was soon nested into its own cocoon of tissue. The child’s bedroom followed, then the master bedroom. I was amazed to see that the lamps even had tiny wires and realized that there was a small transformer that stepped down regular house current so that the lamps and chandeliers in the dollhouse could actually light up. I couldn’t resist rolling it over to a nearby socket and plugging it in. Some of the furnishings were truly exquisite: there was a mahogany grandfather clock that showed the correct time, ticking away with the help of a watch battery. A gilded birdcage held a pair of lovebirds and a silver tea service sat on the dining room buffet.
Amazing.
A whole lifestyle in miniature.
I never had a dollhouse. Never wanted one. But kneeling there beside that one, for the first time, I could understand the allure, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was an appropriate gift for a battered women’s shelter. These delicate pieces would be destroyed within weeks by the traumatized toddlers and children who cycle in and out of the place with their mothers. Bradshaw’s call, of course, even though it seemed a waste.
By now, I had finished packing up all the rooms except the kitchen, which was the least interesting to me.
While most of the dollhouse was furnished in contemporary modern, the kitchen on the bottom level was almost like a space-age laboratory. Stainless steel refrigerator, range, and dishwasher. Stainless steel cabinets above the range and—
Huh?
I looked closer at the object my groping fingers had found at the rear of the kitchen. What appeared to be a stainless steel cabinet resting atop the side-by-side refrigerator and Sub-Zero freezer was actually an aluminum- clad flash drive.
CHAPTER 21
I know, I know. I should have left that flash drive exactly where I found it and immediately called Dwight.
I should not have turned it over and over in my hand while I considered all the possibilities.
And for damn sure, I should never have slid it into my purse and then gone back to packing up the dollhouse furniture as if nothing had happened.
On the other hand, if Candace Bradshaw had somehow found out why our Republican governor had appointed me to the bench, I wanted to be the first to know it.
“
“
When Will and Cameron Bradshaw returned, Will had a signed authorization in his hand to inventory and remove the saleable items in the house.
“Mr. Bradshaw,” I said. “It’s none of my business, but this is a very valuable dollhouse full of delicate and fragile collectibles. It’s really an adult’s toy, not a child’s, and I’m sure my brother could get top dollar for it, right, Will?”
