Dolly Departed

'I'd like to inquire after your health. It appears to be in constant jeopardy.'

Gretchen gave him a weak smile and introduced him to Nina.

Other emergency workers converged on the window, and Gretchen looked at the opening.

The detective followed her gaze, and his face hardened.

'Not a rifle shot from the street,' he observed.

'No.' Gretchen had already deduced as much. Whatever had blown through the shop window cast a wider path of destruction than a rifle would. She studied the ruin that had once been a display case. Burned up. The room boxes were charred beyond recognition.

'A jar of gasoline?' she asked. 'Or two? There were two explosions.'

'We'll find out.'

Red tape, yellow tape, crime scene experts, reports, interviews. The next hour was lost in speculation and repeating details of the blast. Matt arrived, striding quickly through the debris. 'Did anyone call for an ambulance?' he asked the technicians working the scene.

'We aren't injured,' Gretchen answered for them, hiding the cuts on her arms by crossing them.

'I want to make sure,' he insisted. 'You should be examined.'

April grinned widely behind him, smudges of soot on her round face. Gretchen could almost hear her offering to go first, but she remained silent. In a less stressful situation, she wouldn't have missed that opportunity.

'I'll refuse to get into the ambulance,' Gretchen said firmly. 'I really am fine.'

'How about everyone else?'

'We're fine,' Gretchen insisted. The other women nodded. Matt opened his mouth to argue but must have decided it was a hopeless cause, because he walked away to confer with the firefighters instead. Gretchen noticed that he avoided looking directly at any of the doll cases. Every few minutes Nina checked on Tutu and Nimrod, then nervously paced on the sidewalk outside the shop.

'Enrico!' she shouted. 'Come to Momma.'

Detective Kline walked over to the open window where Gretchen was standing. 'You can go now,' he said. 'We'll let you know what we find.'

'You must have suspicions,' Gretchen said. 'What caused this?'

He ran a finger over the black substance on the windowsill that Gretchen noticed earlier. 'Poor man's hand grenades.' When he saw the questioning look on her face, he explained. 'This is tar, one of the ingredients sometimes used in a Molotov cocktail. Tar causes the gasoline to stick to whatever it hits. Then the effect is broader when it ignites. Someone filled bottles with gasoline and tar, made crude wicks out of rags, lit them, and threw them at the window.'

'Do you have a witness?' Gretchen remembered the discussion on the street. The bomber had worn a do-rag on his head.

He nodded. 'And a potential suspect.'

'You work fast.'

'Just doing my job as quickly as possible.'

She watched him approach a weeping Nina, place a hand on her shoulder, and lean in to listen. Matt was consulting with the other professionals on the scene, seeming to have forgotten her for the moment.

She went in search of her purse.

Now where did I leave it?

'I think I saw it under one of the dollhouse displays,'

April said when Gretchen asked her to join in the search.

'Not under that freakish Victorian. Look by the English Tudor. You need to keep better track of your things, girl.'

Gretchen spotted her white cotton bag under a table, leaned down, and pulled it out.

Nina was still moping. 'Do you think Enrico is dead?'

she sniffed. 'We can't leave without knowing what happened to him.'

Gretchen straightened up and checked the contents of her purse. She felt tears forming in her eyes, the first since the attack. 'I know for a fact the little devil is just fine.'

A warning snarl erupted from the depths of her purse.

20

Frozen Charlotte has a fascinating and mysterious history. Her story was immortalized in a poem by Seba Smith, then set to music in a folk ballad that spread far and wide. A beautiful young woman and her lover set out on a sleigh to attend a ball miles away from home. Her mother warned her to wrap up in a blanket, for it was a bitterly cold night. But the young woman refused the cover, and away they went. During their jour- ney, Charlotte complained only once about the extreme cold. Then she fell silent. When the sleigh arrived at the ball, her lover held out his hand to help her down. But all that was left of Charlotte was a frozen corpse.

In remembrance of Charlotte's folly, dolls were produced in Germany and called Frozen Charlottes. Some were bath toys, others were bits of doll-shaped porcelain that were baked into cakes. The lucky recipient of the piece of cake containing the doll received a special prize.

– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch Once home, Caroline clattered over Gretchen like a mother roadrunner, as though just recovering from the shock of the explosions. She brushed shards of glass from Gretchen's hair.

Gretchen picked up a six-inch naked porcelain doll and noted the doll's painted black hair and white body. 'A Frozen Charlotte,' she said.

'Poor, vain Charlotte. If only she'd listened to her mother's warning and wrapped herself in the blanket.'

Caroline examined Gretchen's shoulders and arms.

'If you're comparing me to Charlotte,' Gretchen said.

'I'd like to remind you whose idea this was in the first place.'

'I know. I regret ever suggesting that we restore Charlie's display. Do you think her son threw the bomb?' Caroline's face was a study in sorrow.

'Stranger things have happened.' Gretchen remembered Ryan's remote eyes and the way he'd struck out at her.

'Into the shower with you,' her mother said, breaking into her thoughts.

Every bone in Gretchen's body ached. She stood under the hot water for a long time. 'You have a visitor,' her mother said when she came out of the bathroom toweling her hair.

'He's on the patio. I set out two glasses and a bottle of wine.'

Wine?

Gretchen peeked through the window. Matt Albright sat by the pool with Nimrod on his lap. Dusk settled over the desert. Camelback Mountain was a dark outline in the sky. The lights around the patio lit up.

'I hope you don't mind that I let him stay,' Caroline said, whisking away without waiting for a response. Gretchen stroked Wobbles, who sat on the window ledge next to her. 'What do you think?' she said to the tomcat. 'Is this business or pleasure?' Wobbles rumbled a deep purr and licked her finger. Gretchen pressed her head against his side to listen to his soothing inner machinery, keeping one eye on the unaware detective. 'We think alike,' she told Wobbles. 'I agree. It's business.'

It turned out to be a little of each.

'This case has more twists and turns than a desert dust storm,' Matt said as soon as she walked onto the patio. He poured two glasses of white wine.

Gretchen glanced at the glass in his hand. 'Off duty?'

He nodded. 'I need a break. I've been working this case every waking hour. After I leave you, I'm getting some sleep.'

She sat down on the chair next to him and ran her fingers through her wet hair. 'Tell me what you've learned.'