Amber Dee's Missing Toe

by Matt Ferraz

  “You don’t suspect me, do you?” asked Winifred.

  “Oh, no. It’s not that at all,” Grandma Bertha said. “Let’s think back. Do you remember the letters you found in Amber’s room?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was wondering who they were to. Maybe we could find out by looking through Amber’s things.”

  “Do you want to go back to her apartment?” asked Winifred.

  “I was thinking you could go,” said Grandma Bertha. “It would save us time. I need to talk to Inspector Shaw and see if he can help me with a couple of things.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Winifred asked. “I’m not sure Amber’s mother will let me go through her daughter’s stuff.”

  Grandma Bertha smiled. “Remember lesson number one?” she asked. “Detectives deal with human beings. Dana saw you with me the other day. Be sweet to her. People say a lot of things when they know someone’s really listening.”

  Winifred smiled back. “I’ll do my best. What do you want me to find?”

  “A phone or address book would be ideal,” said Grandma Bertha. “I believe now that Amber was in contact with the person who killed her, and she was sending letters to them. Now we have to find out which letter was for them: the friendly one or the threatening one.”

  “Can’t you tell me anything else?” asked Winifred. “How does all this relate to me?”

  Grandma Bertha finished her coffee. “I’m afraid I like to give things a dramatic touch. It’s a weakness of mine. Revealing everything at once, in the end, is one of the most exciting things in life. Please forgive me, Winifred. There’s something diabolical about this murderer, and I want to catch him more than any other criminal I’ve ever faced. Amber Dee was a good girl. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”

  Instead of asking more questions, Winifred drove the van to Dana Dee’s place while Grandma Bertha took a cab to the police station. They agreed to meet back at the apartment and share the information they had found out. Winifred felt a little apprehensive, but she promised herself that she would make Grandma Bertha proud.

  Chapter Eleven

  Everything Changes

  Winifred took a deep breath before buzzing Dana Dee. Was this going to work without Grandma Bertha by her side? The old lady had a talent for making people open up and tell her their deepest secrets, with apparently no effort on her part. She was like everyone’s grandmother, and that was a talent Winifred didn’t have.

  She buzzed again, and it took a while before there was an answer. “Hello?” said the unfamiliar voice of a woman.

  “Good afternoon,” Winifred answered. “I must have buzzed the wrong apartment. I’m looking for Dana Dee.”

  A moment of silence. “Who is this?”

  “Winifred Compson. I’m an associate of Grandma Bertha, the … detective who visited Dana yesterday. I’m sorry, I can come back later.”

  “No!” the woman yelled. “Please come in. Dana will talk to you.”

  The front door opened and Winifred entered. A voice in her head was telling her that something wasn’t quite right, but she walked upstairs anyway. The door was the first one in the hallway. A big woman waited for her there, a smile on her face.

  “Hello!” said the woman. “Please come in.”

  Winifred took a second to examine her. She was tall and strong, and her square jaw made her smile look a bit intimidating. Her clothes were a little too fancy, like she wasn’t used to dressing for that specific occasion, whatever it may be, and had got it slightly wrong. She put her hand on Winifred’s shoulder, and Winifred saw she was wearing rubber washing-up gloves. They were dry, and there was something strange about the pinkie finger on her left hand. It seemed almost too large to fit in the glove.

  “I think I should come back another time,” said Winifred.

  “Nonsense!” said the woman, pulling Winifred inside. Everything seemed to be in the right place, but Dana was nowhere to be seen. “I’m Jeannie, Dana’s friend. She asked me to watch the apartment while she’s out taking care of things. Sit down, sit down. You’re some sort of detective, then?”

  “Yes,” said Winifred.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Jeannie, walking into the kitchen. “I’ve just made some.”

  “Oh, no thanks,” said Winifred. “This is just a quick visit. I’m only here to let Dana know that we haven’t found any clues yet.”

  Jeannie came back from the kitchen, holding a cup but no saucer. “That’s so sad! Here’s your tea.”

  Winifred picked up the cup, wondering why Jeannie hadn’t asked if she wanted sugar or milk. “These things take time,” she said. “We may never catch her.”

  “Her?” asked Jeannie.

  Winifred was glad there was no saucer under her cup, or else the woman who called herself Jeannie would hear the cup clinking against the saucer, her hand was so shaky. “We think the killer is a woman,” she said. “Have you known Dana for long?”

  “A long time, yes,” Jeannie said, her smile gradually fading. “I was the first person she called when she heard about the murder. Aren’t you going to drink your tea?”

  Winifred brought the cup closer to her lips, without letting it touch them. “You must’ve known Amber, then,” she said, lowering the cup again. “What was she like?”

  “A lovely girl,” said Jeannie. “Truly lovely. I have no complaints about her.”

  Winifred put the tea cup on the table in front of her. “It’s getting late, and I need to talk to Dana. Maybe if you could give me her mobile phone number…”

  “Dana doesn’t have a mobile phone,” said Jeannie, picking up her cup with a sigh. Winifred couldn’t help looking at that strange bloated finger.

  “I’ll come back another time,” said Winifred, looking back at Jeannie’s face. Jeannie wasn’t smiling any more.

  “You don’t seem to like my tea,” said the big woman. “Well, that’s all right.” Jeannie ran back into the kitchen, threw the tea into the sink and picked out the biggest knife she could find in the drawer. She ran into the living room, ready to finish Winifred off, but the room was empty. Jeannie tried the apartment door. It was locked, and the key was still in her pocket. Where had she gone?

  She looked in the bathroom first. It contained a laundry basket, a medicine cabinet, the toilet and the bath, which had a shower curtain. Jeannie pulled it back. Nobody there. The next room was Amber’s. Jeannie turned the knob and burst inside. Winifred wasn’t there either, or inside the closet or under the bed.

  There was one last room to search.

  Her rubber gloves squeaked as she gripped the knife handle. The door to the last room was already open, and she knew what she would find there: Dana Dee lying dead on the floor. She checked under the bed. Nothing. There was just the wardrobe to search now. She opened one wardrobe door. Pillows and blankets. Another door. Coats and dresses. The girl had to be behind the third door.

  Jeannie opened it and stabbed the knife in. There was nobody there. She turned around, ready to search again. Then a jet of spray hit her in the face. She staggered backwards, trying to breathe.

  Winifred stood there, holding a can of fly spray. Jeannie was on the floor, stabbing around blindly and yelling, “Where were you? Where were you?”

  “Next time, check under the dirty laundry,” said Winifred. She dropped the can and looked around for the phone. Then she remembered something. The investigation wasn’t over yet. Jeannie might not be the one who had killed Amber. Grandma Bertha would want her to complete her mission.

  Winifred searched through Amber’s stuff, looking for a phone book. There was no reason to be subtle now that she had someone else to blame for the mess. She found it in a drawer by the bed.

  “Gotcha!” she said, pleased. Grandma Bertha would be proud! But when she went back to the bedroom, Jeannie was no longer there. Winifred followed the tracks she had left. A butcher knife in the hallway. The left glove – the one that had looked odd – in the living room. The
right glove on the stairs.

  Jeannie had escaped, and it was all Winifred’s fault.

  Chapter Twelve

  Pieces that Fit Together

  The clock struck eleven as Winifred and Grandma Bertha arrived home after spending the day in the police station, where Winifred had told and retold detectives about her encounter with Jeannie. Grandma Bertha picked up the dogs from Mr Hanks’ apartment and promised she would bake him a cake someday. Only then were they able to discuss everything in detail.

  “This was all my fault,” said Grandma Bertha, putting the kettle on. “I should never have sent you there alone.”

  “No – if you had been there, it would’ve been a bloodbath,” said Winifred, sitting on the couch and taking off her shoes. “We would both be dead now. You wouldn’t have been able to hide or fight that woman.”

  The image of Dana’s dead body would not leave Winifred’s mind. According to the coroner, Dana had been dead for less than half an hour when Winifred had arrived. The woman who had called herself Jeannie must have been looking for something and hadn’t wanted to be interrupted.

  The police had showed Winifred dozens of mug shots at the police station, but none of them looked like Jeannie. Dana’s neighbours didn’t know her either. Two of them had seen her running from the building, screaming in pain. She wouldn’t have been able to get far that way. Somebody must have picked her up.

  “You were brave,” said the old lady, serving Winifred tea.

  “I’m bad luck,” the girl replied, noticing Grandma Bertha hadn’t poured herself a cup. “This is the second member of Amber’s family that I have found dead. Aren’t you having a tea?”

  “I need a cold one,” said Grandma Bertha, taking a beer can from the fridge. “And how are your nerves?”

  Winifred considered the question. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I keep seeing that woman’s face. And her hand. There was something really strange about her hand.”

  “What?” asked Grandma Bertha, opening her beer.

  “Her pinkie finger on her left hand was too big,” she replied.

  “That’s interesting,” said Grandma Bertha, sitting down. The dogs arranged themselves around her feet. She took a big sip before continuing. “The tea she offered you had poison in it. Plain rat poison that you can buy at any hardware store – and that’s what she used to kill Dana Dee. Now, think. Jeannie – let’s keep calling her that – comes to Dana’s house, and Dana makes her tea. At some point Dana leaves the room, and Jeannie adds the poison to her tea. Dana drops down dead. Jeannie goes to the kitchen and puts on Dana’s washing-up gloves. Then she drags Dana to her room…”

  “She was very strong,” said Winifred. “That wouldn’t have been hard for her.”

  “But why?” asked Grandma Bertha. “Why bother to move the body? Here’s my guess: she suspected someone would visit the apartment.”

  “But who?” asked Winifred.

  Grandma Bertha jumped off the couch, almost spilling her beer. “Dr Balsam!” she said. “We need to tell the police.”

  She grabbed the phone and dialled Inspector Shaw’s number. “Inspector! Grandma Bertha here. Listen, you have to arrange for an officer to protect Dr Balsam. The Dees’ physician. Here’s what I think happened: Jeannie moved Dana’s body to the bedroom because she was planning to call Dr Balsam and ask him to come quickly, because Dana was having a seizure. Or something. The body couldn’t be in the living room. Jeannie would say she was a friend of Dana’s and tell him to go to the bedroom, where Dana was. Then, as soon as he turned his back on her… Yup! Well, are you going to do something about it? Of course I have no evidence! But have I been wrong before? All right. Thank you. That could save his life.”

  She hung up and sat back on the couch.

  “What was all that?” asked Winifred.

  “This Jeannie is trying to silence people,” said Grandma Bertha, raising her index finger. “I had that impression from the beginning. These criminals have a dirty secret in their past. It’s related to the way in which Amber lost her toe when she was a baby. Years pass and she meets someone who recognizes her from her babyhood. They start exchanging letters, until this person has had enough and kills her. But now there are two other people who know about her past. Her adoptive mother, of course, and the doctor who arranged the adoption.”

  “But they always knew about it!” said Winifred. “Why is it only a problem now?”

  “Now she knows the secret too,” said Grandma Bertha.

  “Do you know what the secret is?”

  Grandma Bertha nodded. “I have an idea, and I’m starting to believe it. Maybe my déjà vu means something. But this is serious, Winifred, and I need to be sure before I tell anyone. By the way, I talked to the inspector, and there’s something you need to know. They’ve done an autopsy on Amber. At the time she was stabbed, she had taken a strong dose of tranquillizers.”

  “Tranquillizers?” asked Winifred. “Did the killer drug her?”

  “No,” said Grandma Bertha. “She took the pills for anxiety. One a day, usually. But the autopsy showed she had taken at least eight, right before the stabbing.”

  Winifred was perplexed. “But why? Why would she take all those pills when she was working?”

  “It doesn’t add up, does it?” Grandma Bertha said. “Could it be a suicide attempt? But why then, and why that way? Something terrible must have happened. They were strong anxiety pills, powerful enough to knock her down. She was used to taking them, and knew what they could do.”

  “So do you think she was trying to commit suicide?” asked Winifred.

  “I don’t know,” replied Grandma Bertha. “We must find out if the killer was with her when she took the pills – whether or not the killer is Jeannie. If my theory is right, there are two ways this could have happened. One: the killer is someone Amber trusted. The person she wrote the friendly letter to. Maybe Jeannie, maybe someone else. They are alone in the shop and Amber puts the closed sign on the door so they can talk in private. They have a conversation and the killer asks Amber to turn up the heating. During that conversation, something comes up – something that upsets Amber enough that she has to take her pills. She is dazed. The door glass is steamed up enough that the killer isn’t afraid of being seen. The murder happens, the killer turns the sign back to open and leaves. But what if the killer was someone else? The person that Amber sent the threatening letters to? Amber wouldn’t chance taking the pills and putting herself in danger in the presence of the killer, would she?”

  “She could have taken the pills earlier,” said Winifred. “The killer enters, finds her in that state and stabs her.”

  “What would be the point of turning up the heat then?” asked Grandma Bertha, raising her index finger. “The whole point of doing that was to steam up the windows so the murder could take place. But if the killer came from outside, the cold air would demist the windows.”

  She went on. “This is bothering me a lot. I wish I could stop thinking about the heating, but it keeps coming back to me. That had to be done on purpose, for a reason. Imagine this: the killer comes in saying he (assuming it could still be a he) doesn’t have a warm coat, and is freezing. He asks Amber to turn up the heating while he looks for a coat. But was she numb by that point? Had she taken the pills? Why would she have done that while there was a customer in the shop? Why didn’t she notice him turning over the sign?”

  Grandma Bertha drank the rest of her beer in silence. Winifred watched her, amazed as always at the way the old lady’s brain worked.

  “I’m very tired,” said Winifred. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”

  “You’re right. Maybe tomorrow—” Bertha jumped up from the couch again. “Selfies! People would be taking selfies outside the shop. Everybody does that, especially at Christmas time! If we have access to people’s selfies, we might be able to find out if there was someone in the lane with a thin coat or no coat at all. That’s his excuse for
asking her to turn up the heating.”

  Grandma Bertha picked up the phone and called Inspector Shaw. Winifred got up and put the kettle on again. This was going to be a long night, she thought.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grandma Bertha has a Theory

  “Wait a second there,” said Inspector Shaw, standing in the small living room of Grandma Bertha’s apartment. The dogs jumped around him, wanting his attention, while he tried to make a point. “I’ve sent one of my men to watch over Dr Balsam, based on one of your hunches. But this is too much.”

  “It’s not just a hunch, Inspector,” said Grandma Bertha, already on her fifth can of beer. Winifred had never seen her drink so much at once, but it was impossible to control Grandma Bertha when she was in the midst of her detective euphoria. “You need to go through people’s selfies to find the person with no coat.”

  Shaw looked at Winifred, who shrugged. “I tried,” she said.

  “This is too much,” said Inspector Shaw. “No one in the police force appreciates your insights more than I do, Bertha. Some people treat me as a joke because of that, but I know how much you have to offer.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But that doesn’t give you any authority,” explained Shaw. “Think of yourself as a consultant. We ask your advice in certain matters, and that’s it.”

  Winifred intervened. “I’ve been trying to tell her that she doesn’t need the police to check people’s selfies. You could go through social media and have the same result in a couple of hours.”

  “People take twenty pictures and post one or two,” argued Grandma Bertha. “We need more than that.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start,” said Shaw. “This will take a lot of effort, and I’m not convinced it’s worth it.”

  But Grandma Bertha wasn’t satisfied. “I think you’ll change your mind once you hear my theories,” she said. “I was planning to save them for the end, or at least until I’ve had the chance to ask Dr Balsam a few more questions.”