Goodbye Dolly

'What brings you two to the doll show?' Gretchen asked.

'Looking for you,' Daisy said. 'I knew you'd be here. We have news you might be interested in.'

'Street talk?'

Daisy nodded somberly.

The network among the homeless was a far-reaching cache of information. The latest Internet technology had nothing on the street people's information highway. Gretchen could only marvel at it.

'Tell me,' she said.

'Word on the street is that Brett Wesley was murdered.'

'Brett accidentally walked in front of a car,' Gretchen said. 'I was there.'

Nacho shook his head. 'He was pushed.'

Pushed! The word from the napkin found in her purse at Garcia's.

'It was you,' she said. 'You put the napkin in my purse.'

Nacho looked at her like she was crazy. 'Didn't you hear what I said? He was pushed.'

Gretchen blinked and shook her head hard. 'I don't think so.'

Daisy shrugged as if it didn't matter to her one way or another whether Gretchen believed them.

'Someone saw it happen,' Nacho said. 'We have a witness.'

'Who?'

'I can't tell you that,' he said. 'You'll have to take my word for it and work with what I'm offering.'

Nacho's word carried weight with Gretchen. He'd been right in the past. She trusted him. 'Tell me more.'

Nacho leaned against the shopping cart. 'Brett Wesley was agitated, pacing, behind the truck. All of a sudden, he walks to the curb and looks down the street. Another guy, who's sitting in a parked truck, gets out and walks up behind him. They argue. Then the other guy practically picks Brett up and throws him into the moving traffic.'

'Why didn't anyone else see this happen?' Gretchen pictured the scene, and the large crowd. A thin line of perspiration inched down the side of her face and she wiped it away. Heat? Or fear?

'Maybe the truck blocked the view,' Nacho said. 'Who knows?'

'What did the guy who pushed him look like?' Gretchen asked.

Daisy cooed to Nimrod, paying little attention to the conversation going on.

'Don't know. The person who saw it happen was sitting on the curb and couldn't see behind Brett. Also, he was a little… uh… incapacitated.'

Great. Gretchen's 'reliable' source of information was a lush.

'That doesn't help much,' she said. 'Could your witness remember anything significant?'

'The guy who pushed him got out of a blue truck. That's all we have.'

Gretchen looked up, thinking.

'Why are you telling me all this?' she said.

'You were at the auction.'

'Along with a lot of other people. Shouldn't you go to the police?'

'Yeah right.' Nacho snorted. 'Very funny. I'm telling you as a friend. If you bring cops around, we'll deny it. And you'll lose my trust.'

Gretchen's eyes narrowed. 'Wait a minute. How do you know I was even there?'

A slight grin flickered across his face. 'Talk on the street.'

'Good to know I'm thought of among your friends. But…' She hesitated and looked at Nacho. 'Something you said.'

'I said talk on the street.'

'No, not that. What color did you say the truck was?'

Gretchen had watched Howie Howard get into a truck after the accident.

'Blue,' Nacho said. 'The truck was blue.'

'Yes,' Gretchen said, feeling feverish. 'It was, wasn't it?'

16

The Kewpie characters have delightful personalities, and all of them play an important part in their make-believe community. The cook, the carpenter, and the intellectual Kewpie make living in Kewpieville a wonderful experience, while the soldier with his rifle protects them from fears and tears. Other adorable collectibles include Always Wears Overshoes, Kuddle Kewpie, Blunderboo, a Kewpie dog, and Chief Wag, their fearless leader.

– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch

'You can't be taking this seriously,' Nina exclaimed from the next table. 'They're homeless for a reason, Gretchen.'

She tapped a ringed hand against the side of her head.

'I thought you were working on compassion,' Gretchen said. 'And on accepting those who are different from you.'

'Compassion I can do, not gullibility.'

'I believe him.' Gretchen scooped a doll from her to-do pile and began to restring it.

'You think Brett was pushed in front of a car and that Howie had something to do with it?'

Susie Hocker turned her head and stared at Nina from her Madame Alexander table across the aisle.

'Shhh,' Gretchen said. 'Keep your voice down. I don't know about Howie. He and Brett go way back. And what about the napkin? Someone had to have slipped it into my purse.'

'Why would anyone do that?'

Gretchen looked up from the elastic in her hand. 'I don't know.'

'Next you'll be saying Ronny Beam's murder had something to do with Brett's death.'

'The connect-the-dot lines are very short, Nina.'

'They are, aren't they?' Nina moved over and sat down next to Gretchen with a thump. Sophie, the Yorkie, bounced on her lap.

'Two doll events back-to-back and a death at each of those events? Something's not right,' Gretchen said.

'Was Ronny at the doll auction?'

'I didn't notice him there, but I hadn't met him in person yet and might not have recognized him. I didn't have that wonderful pleasure until the day after, when we went to Curves.' Gretchen hooked a piece of elastic through the doll's neck. 'Help me with this, Nina.'

Her aunt put Sophie on the table and held the doll's head with both hands. Gretchen used the hook to work it through an elastic loop held by a stick.

'Thanks,' Gretchen said, easing the head into place. 'I was so nervous about bidding at my first auction that I didn't notice much going on around me. I suppose Ronny could have been there.'

'Have you been practicing with your aura glasses?'

Gretchen threw Nina a quizzical look and searched quickly for a good excuse. 'Have I had any time?' Or de- sire? she thought.

'Those glasses are important. They can help you solve crimes.'

'I don't see how.'

'You'd understand how if you were practicing.'

'You have the gift without the glasses. Why don't you solve the murder-or, if Nacho is right, murders?'

Nina shifted uncomfortably. 'I told you. I can't see men's auras, and my sixth sense tells me that men are at the bottom of this. Now where are they?'

'Where are who?'

'The glasses.'