He looked kindly but crotchety. 'Shame about Charlie,' he said.
'I saw you at the shop on Saturday. You were the one who opened the door and let everyone in.'
'The police didn't like that one bit.'
'Yes, I know.'
'I made all the dollhouses in that shop,' he said. 'Last year I won Phoenix's Best Dollhouse Design award for the Victorian dollhouse on the shelf above the counter. It's not for sale, only for show. I'm keeping it.'
'That's wonderful, a very prestigious award. I'll have to take a look at it when I go back to the shop.'
His car was parked in the driveway, a white Ford pickup truck. Worn out, like the man before her. Bent and dented, the outer layer of paint peeling away, lumber in the back of the bed, poking over the top of the tailgate.
'What will happen to Mini Maize now?' Gretchen asked. 'With Charlie and her sister dead, will the shop close up for good?'
'It could continue on,' Bernard said. 'Sara used to make most of the miniature dolls in the shop. When she passed, Britt Gleeland picked up the slack. Life goes on no matter what. Everybody thinks they're indispensable, but no one really is.' He turned his head and looked out at the street. 'I've been thinking about taking it over myself. Half of the stuff in there belongs to me anyway.'
How old was this guy? At least eighty, maybe older. Gretchen had to admire him for his ambition. Of course, the opportunity to own the shop could also be a motive for murder, couldn't it?
'I hear you're working in Charlie's shop,' Bernard said, leaning against the door frame for support, a slight tremble in both hands. 'What's going on?' His eyes were watchful.
'We're repairing Charlie's last display in her honor, the room boxes she was going to present the day she died.'
'Funny that,' he said.
'What do you mean?'
'Charlie always asks me to make the display cases and room boxes for her, then she decorates them up. This time. . funny. . she did one of them herself. This is a first for her.' He used the present tense like Charlie was still alive.
Bernard must be talking about the room box they had decided wasn't part of the display.
'Thanks for returning my checkbook,' Gretchen said.
'Not many people like me left,' he said. 'Doing good deeds.'
Gretchen stood in the front yard while he slowly pulled himself into his truck cab and eased away from the house. Strange old man.
She was just about to turn back into the house when a woman in trendy workout clothing strode briskly down the street toward her house. The walker wore a leopard print sport tank, matching shorts, and dainty white walking shoes. A matching choker clung to the woman's long, slim neck. All she needed to complete the ensemble was a whip and a divorce decree. It was Matt Albright's crazy, stalking, soon-to-be ex.
Gretchen marched to the street, hoping she looked more ferocious than she felt. The woman was certifiable and had no business anywhere near Gretchen's home.
'What are you doing here?' Gretchen demanded. Kayla Albright came to an abrupt halt.
'Exercising. Something you could use a little of.' The Wife closed a cell phone and tucked it in a fanny pack around her waist. The fanny pack was made of matching leopard print material. 'No law against keeping fit,' she said, tilting up her perky little nose.
'Stay away from my house.'
'Stay away from my husband.'
The women faced off. They both took a step closer.
'You slashed my tire,' Gretchen said.
'You stole my husband.'
'So you admit it.'
'Admit what?'
'That you slashed my tire.'
'I don't know anything about your tire.'
'The police are dusting for fingerprints,' Gretchen said. What a stupid thing to say. As far as she knew, a tire had
'That's ridiculous.' The Wife snickered. Okay, she was smarter than Gretchen assumed. Crazy and smart and beautiful. Gretchen looked down at her own rumpled T-shirt. Nail polish peeled from her toenails, and stubble sprouted all over her legs. She felt like a tarantula.
Leopard Lady was absolutely perfect. She looked like a blonde Barbie doll: an impossibly shaped thirty-nine- eighteen-thirty-three. At the moment, Gretchen hated her and every single sleek and trim Arizona woman. 'Get off my property,' she said.
'You don't own the street.'
They glared at each other.
A siren wailed in the distance. It grew louder. Kayla smiled a nasty, cold smile. A police car turned the corner and stopped in front of Gretchen's house.
A Phoenix police officer rose slowly from his squad car and hitched his pants. 'What's the problem? I got a call for a disturbance at this address.'
Gretchen's mouth fell open in surprise when she saw the smirk on her adversary's face. Kayla had called the police herself. The call she was finishing when Gretchen spotted her! What nerve!
'That's right, officer,' the Wicked Witch Wife said, adjusting her face from smirk to faux fear. 'I was walking along, and this woman. . '-she pointed at Gretchen-
'. . ran out of this house. . '-another point-'. . and started saying the most awful things to me. Crude and vulgar language like I've never heard before. There must be a law against verbally assaulting helpless women.'
Where was Matt Albright when she really needed him?
Where was a good man when she needed one? The male standing right in front of her was smiling at hotsy Kayla. His shoulders straightened when the Wife gave him the helpless routine. He sucked in his gut.
After tearing his gaze away from her, he bent into the interior of his car and pulled out a clipboard. 'Okay,' he said, flicking open a pen. 'Let's get started.'
He smiled again at the curvy Barbie doll, a big, toothy, drooling grin.
10
'I don't believe it,' Gretchen said to the teacup poodle inside her purse. She stood on the sidewalk looking through the window of Mini Maize. Nimrod peeked into the shop from the purse, ears perked as though he understood her mutterings.
Inside, Britt Gleeland and Nina were huddled together behind the counter, giggling like schoolgirls. From her position on the street, Gretchen saw no sign that anything productive had been accomplished in the last two hours. The same piles of mismatched dollhouse furniture still cluttered the countertops in the same haphazard, unsorted mess. Except for a space in front of the happy duo that had been cleared away to make room for Nina's latest hobby. Instead of digging in and working, Nina had her tarot cards scattered on the counter where the work in progress should have been.
Gretchen had been fending off an insane, evil woman and a love-struck, Barbie-admiring cop, and here sat Nina, doing nothing. Tarot cards. Geez.
Gretchen needed to clean up her act. Dress better, slim down, figure out how to manage her unruly hair.
