Dolly Departed

her eyes that put the fear of death into Gretchen. The woman waved the cleaver with menace.

'We're coming as fast as we can.' Someone shouted from a nearby house.

Would Gretchen be hacked to death by a gang of blockwatchers? She eyed up one of the tallest woodpiles. If she could get a running start, she might make it. Bernard's wife marched at her, raising the cleaver. Gretchen took off as fast as she could and ran up the pile. A loose board underfoot almost tripped her up, but she maintained her balance and hurtled at the wall, digging her fingers into the top of it. Raising herself up through sheer desperation and fear, she launched over the wall to freedom. Gretchen ran in a crouch to the side of the house, staying behind the straggly Arizona shrubbery. Two women stomped past, headed for Bernard's front door. Each carried a baseball bat. For the first time, Gretchen noticed a warning sign with an enormous watchful eye posted in Bernard's yard.

When the two gang members disappeared through the front door, Gretchen ran to the car. 'Get down. Now,' she croaked, gasping for breath. Several houses ahead of the Impala, another woman carrying a baseball bat hiked across the street. Gretchen could see the lines of determination in her face, and the excitement. This group had been waiting for an opportunity like this to wield their clubs of justice.

'Was it the room box kitchen?' Nina asked, ducking low. Gretchen chanced a glance at the house from her slunkdown position in the seat. 'No, it's not the one,' she answered. 'But please get this car moving.'

Nina pulled out more slowly than Gretchen would have liked. She watched Bernard's house, expecting the women to rush out and attack Nina's car at any moment.

'See,' her aunt said, not the least bit ruffled. 'That wasn't so hard, was it?'

24

Trolls: Thomas Dam, a poor Danish woodworker, carved the first Troll doll in the 1950s. They were an instant success. As the doll's popularity continued to increase, Thomas began making them from rubber filled with wood shavings. A family business was born. Sales continued to grow through the 1960s, when rubber was replaced with vinyl. Other companies copied Thomas Dam's Trolls, producing cheap imitations that never met the fine crafts- manship of the Dane's dolls.

Trolls are said to have magical powers. Bug-eyed and grinning with long, wild manes of hair in every color of the rainbow, they bring luck to their owners. But trolls are only lucky if they are the original, classic Thomas Dam Trolls.

– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch Early Saturday morning, long before the tourists and snowbirds descended on the popular hiking mountain, Gretchen climbed Camelback Mountain.

It had been over a week since the Scottsdale parade and the death of the miniature doll shop owner. Gretchen had very little to show for all her efforts and misadventures: a bombed-out doll shop and a tiny lead on a kitchen, which might not even be a real connection.

She climbed easily to an enormous boulder overlooking Phoenix to watch the sun rise over the Valley of the Sun

Later in the day, tourists would be perched on this same boulder with cameras and binoculars, but for now she had it all to herself. She sat down, tucked her feet against her body, and cradled her legs between her arms, thinking of her growing obsession with the case of the dead doll maker and the seemingly endless lineup of potential suspects. Charlie's drugged-out, missing son was as good a place to start as any. An alleged bomber, suspected of trying to blow up his mother's shop while people were inside where they could have been seriously injured, if not killed. What was his motive? Drug-induced psychosis? Gretchen still couldn't imagine that he would've killed his own mother. Next suspect: Charlie's thieving business associate. Bernard's cleaver-crazy wife was as disagreeable as her husband and had probably tampered with his bug juice after a domestic argument. The woman was a militant vigilante with a bad temper. And to think, she'd mistaken Gretchen for. . um. . for an intruder. Okay, not really a mistake on her part, but her reaction was definitely excessive. What could have been Bernard Waite's motive for murdering a business associate? Did he want Charlie's store desperately enough to kill for it?

Gretchen stood up on the boulder, hopped down, and began the steepest part of the ascent to the mountain's peak. The trail fell away. She gripped red boulders and continued up, keeping a sharp eye out for a new bird to add to her life list.

What was Joseph's story? He was a flamboyant alcoholic who claimed that he couldn't remember anything about the night preceding Charlie's death, or anything about the next morning when Gretchen spotted him at the parade. Was he telling the truth? Or was he hiding a sinister secret?

She grabbed a firm hold in the rocks and continued her climb. Birds chattered around her, and she saw several cactus wrens in a mesquite bush. One of the main reasons Gretchen chose early mornings to hike her favorite mountain was to avoid rattlesnakes and other poisonous creatures. She'd had enough uncomfortable encounters with creatures in the past. The February air at this time of day was cool enough to keep them in their holes.

Arizona's list of creepy crawlers was endless: snakes, scorpions, Gila monsters, black widows, tarantulas, lizards. And the larger varieties: coyotes, mountain lions, and javelinas, the wild pigs with razor-sharp tusks. Gretchen paused to catch her breath and take in the scenery. A chipmunk munched on the buds of a barrel cactus below and to her right. She'd heard that barrel cacti always leaned to the southwest, something to remember if she was ever lost in the desert.

She continued up until she stood at the very summit of Camelback Mountain. The air seemed clearer, affecting her entire view of the world. She sat down and felt her heart pounding from the exertion of the steep climb. She told herself that once she started the trek back down the mountain, she wouldn't think of anything but the wonder of life. Maybe she would spot a hummingbird, her favorite bird. Hummingbirds were the gold medalists of the bird world, able to hover motionless in midair. They could stop faster and perform more acrobatics than any other bird.

Yes, she thought as she sat at the top of Camelback Mountain, on the way back, she'd research life. But for now she'd study death.

What about Britt Gleeland and her daughter, Melany?

Gretchen hadn't spent much time with Britt, but in the short amount of time she had, she didn't really like her. Was her inability to warm up to the doll maker a jealous reaction to Nina's friendship with her?

What a mess. Not to mention her personal life and the sexy but still married detective she was dodging. She had ignored two calls from him yesterday, listening to his voice messages urging her to return his calls. Gretchen didn't have to have a degree in psychology to suspect that she was running away more from her mixed-up feelings than from him.

One last look out over the city she called home, and she started her descent. Usually the mountain gave her a positive outlook on life, but this time when she put it all together it didn't seem like such a great morning after all. On the way down, even the birds eluded her.

Her mother hadn't forgotten about her offer to introduce Gretchen to Evie Rosemont. She announced the plans when Gretchen walked in the door.

'Get ready,' she said. 'We're going calling.'

Evie Rosemont's home was painted bright and bold. Splashes of red, green, and yellow popped from the small ranch.

Caroline watched Gretchen's face when they parked in the driveway. 'Wait until you see the inside,' she said. Evie was short and squat and greeted them wearing a purple dressing robe and a matching beret with sequins and beads. Treating them as though they were long-lost friends, she proceeded to carry on a one-sided conversation that never ceased.

'Come in, come in. I have tea brewing. Girls, you must see my remodeled hat room. Come this way. I couldn't fit everything into the room anymore, so I redid this and redid that, decorating skills from my dear departed Nana. .'

Evie rattled on while Gretchen and Caroline followed her down a narrow orange hallway.

Pictures of Evie at different stages in her life lined the hallway. She wore a hat in every photograph, starting with a black-and-white photo of her as a baby in a bonnet and ending with a current shot of Evie wearing a gold hat