The Dollmaker

strawberry birthmark on her left arm….”

Lily’s voice faded and everything inside Claire stilled as her mind slipped back in time. She could see Ruby so clearly. The two of them were sitting on the porch swing, waiting for Dave to come home.

“Why do I have this red bump on my arm, Mama?”

“It’s a birthmark, Ruby. You were born with it.”

“Maw-Maw says it’s where an angel kissed me. But Daddy has one just like it. Does that mean an angel kissed him, too?”

“Somehow I kind of doubt that, honey.”

Claire’s chest tightened, and for the longest time, she could hardly breathe.

Nineteen

The crime scene was crawling with cops. Uniformed officers were stationed at the front and rear entrances of the shop in order to limit access, and another half-dozen or so milled around in the showroom and on the street outside the front door.

John Gilby, the heavyset coroner’s investigator, squatted near the body, while Patrice Petty, the crime scene investigator, collected and bagged forensic samples. She wore faded jeans and paper covers over her sneakers, and her red hair was pulled back into a tight, sleek ponytail that glistened like copper. She and Alex Girard had worked together on dozens of crime scenes, and when she caught his eye, she gave him a smile and a slight nod. They’d had a flirtation going for years, and had even gone out a few times after he and Claire first split up. But nothing had come of it. Alex had told Patrice that he wasn’t ready for anything serious, and that was the truth. He also didn’t see any reason to complicate a working relationship that could be advantageous for both of them.

Two homicide detectives had been sent over by the division commander, and they stood directly across from Alex, both staring down at the body. Tony Maddox had his hands shoved deep into his pockets, jangling his keys as he rocked back and forth on his heels. He was a few years younger than Alex, maybe thirty-one or thirty-two, with dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes. He was a good detective, but there had always been something about him that rubbed Alex the wrong way. Sometimes his intensity and his dogged approach to an investigation reminded Alex a little too much of Dave Creasy.

Tony’s partner, Remi Broussard, was the exact opposite, a good-natured Cajun with thick, black hair he kept clipped close to his scalp, and a brush mustache that hid the scar over his lip where a suspect had sliced him open one night during an arrest.

Like Alex, both men were dressed in lightweight summer suits that were already rumpled from the heat. Maddox had gum in his mouth, and his jaw worked fiercely as he watched the coroner’s investigator finish his examination.

Alex’s gaze moved to the open refrigerator. The wire shelves that had been removed to accommodate the body had been slid behind the refrigerator, against the wall. Unnoticeable, unless you were looking for them. If the woman’s dress hadn’t been caught in the door, compromising the seal and allowing the smell to seep out, it might have been days before anyone found her.

Good idea, but sloppy execution, Alex thought. Especially from a killer who’d gone out of his way to keep the crime scene immaculate. Something or someone must have spooked him in the act, and Alex’s mind went back to Friday morning, when Claire had insisted that she’d seen someone inside the shop.

He’d dismissed the claim as her imagination, and when he’d had a look around the shop and alley to appease her, he hadn’t been as thorough or concerned as he should have. But he also knew that if the fabric had been visible then, he would have seen it. Which suggested to him that Mignon Bujold had either been killed at a later time or in a different location, her body then brought back to the collectibles shop and stuffed inside the appliance.

Or a third possibility. The killer had gone back to the body for some reason after Alex and Claire had left the shop.

Logical explanations aside, Alex could too easily imagine how all that would play out in the press, a body going undiscovered by a seasoned detective. The last thing he needed was to come off looking incompetent—or worse, a laughingstock—when his career was finally gathering some steam.

John Gilby rose with a grunt, hitched up his pants and mopped his face with a white cotton handkerchief. It was as cold as a meat locker inside the shop, but his shirt was stained underneath his arms and the bald spot at the back of his head glistened with sweat. As always, he looked a mess. His ill-fitting brown trousers were threadbare at the knees and seat, and his shirttail hung out in the back. He had on a tie, but it was loosely knotted around his neck and fell several inches short of his burgeoning waistline.

“What’s the word, Gilby?” Maddox asked impatiently, his jaw still working the gum. “Can you give us time of death?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Gilby peeled off his latex gloves and tossed them aside. “We won’t know anything until she’s opened up and we get a look at the stomach and bowels. Maybe not even then.”

“What about cause?” Remi asked.

“’Fraid I can’t help you boys out much there, either. I can tell you this, though. She’s got no visible wounds on the body that I could see, and she doesn’t appear to have been sexually assaulted. The only thing I did find was a small mark at the side of her neck.”

Alex glanced up. “Stun gun?”

“Looks like a needle track. We’ll have to order a full toxicology screen with the postmortem.” He mopped his face again, then returned the crumpled handkerchief to his pocket. “I’m done with her. Y’ all can have ’em take her out whenever you’re ready.”

Alex nodded absently as he snapped on a pair of gloves and knelt beside the body. Turning the victim’s head slightly, he moved in closer to get a look at the tiny puncture wound at the side of her neck. It was barely visible. Anyone else might have overlooked it, but Gilby was a lot more astute than his slovenly appearance suggested.

So who killed you? Alex wondered as he stared down at the body. And why?

Maddox squatted on the other side of the corpse and rubbed a thumb across his bottom lip. “Looks like the son of a bitch must have shot her up with something to incapacitate her, then stuffed her in the icebox so she wouldn’t be found for a while. He knew she wouldn’t last long in this heat.”

“Motive?”

Maddox shrugged. “An old woman alone in a shop isn’t exactly an unusual target in New Orleans. Some crunkhead strolls by, spots her through the front window and decides right then and there to knock over the place.”

He and Alex both straightened as Remi Broussard said in his deep, quiet voice, “I’m not so sure I buy that explanation. Don’t make sense a junkie taking the time to hide the body when he won’t care who finds her or when, so long as he gets his fix. And he’s not going to leave a nice ring like that on her finger, either, or cash in the register. Not when he’s got a mess of spiders crawling around inside his head.”

He was right, Alex thought. Someone else had wanted Mignon Bujold dead, and as much as he didn’t want to go there, he couldn’t stop thinking about that missing doll.

He left Remi and Maddox with the body and walked into the other room to glance out the window. He couldn’t see Claire in the restaurant across the street, but knew she was still there, waiting for him to come and tell her what he’d found.

Alex wished to hell she’d never spotted that damn doll, because he had a bad feeling now that Pandora’s box was about to be opened.

“Hey, Lieutenant, you got a minute?”

He turned as the crime scene investigator approached him. “What’s up, Patty? You find something?”

“Oh, I found plenty. We got prints and fibers all over the damn place, but the question is, do any of them belong to the killer?”

“You tell me.”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about. You running this thing or am I going to have deal with that asshole,