Monster in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “You stopped the suicide filing?”

  “Maybe.”

  It seemed too good to have hoped for, that Skip had actually investigated Oliver’s death, whether because of my earlier insistence or not. My nephew had done what I hadn’t had the energy to do and essentially kept my promise to Susan. I smiled at the thought—the cop was doing the investigating in this case, instead of his retired aunt who made miniature scenes. What a concept.

  I allowed myself a flicker of cheer that I was now off the hook with Susan. I doubted she’d be too happy about the side effects of bringing up his sullied past, but not everything in this world was as rosy as we’d like it to be. A fact that was becoming entirely too clear to me and seemed to apply even to things I thought were rosy in my own life.

  I remembered Susan’s insistence that Oliver didn’t own a gun and, in fact, hated them. “Whose gun was it, by the way?” I asked, not long after I considered myself off the hook. I had to admit that I was looking for ways to stay off a more delicate subject.

  Skip shook his head. “Unmarked. Oliver never had a registered gun. It was a small factor in the decision to look further.” He paused. “Can we go back to Uncle Ken for a minute?” Skip asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Buzzz.

  I jumped, then took a long breath and settled down. The doorbell ring was a single, short burst, leading me to the good guess that it was Beverly, who knew Maddie would be sleeping nearby and wouldn’t want to disturb her.

  Skip let his mother in. “Join the party,” he said. Decidedly not the term I would have chosen.

  Beverly’s chatter, usually most welcome, started immediately. “I just dropped Nick off at the airport, and I drove by on the off chance that you were up, and what do you know, the lights were on, and you’re up. Plus, even though I’m now without my boyfriend—what do I call him, anyway? The retired cop—I can still have the companionship of my son, the cop, besides that of my best friend.” By now she had reached the living room and embraced me. “I think I told you Nick was going to Seattle for a family thing. I didn’t go because I needed some quality time with my own family.”

  Beverly finished her entrance in the kitchen where she took a bottled water from the fridge. It was true that we hadn’t spent as much time together as usual this fall since she and Nick had taken a couple of weeklong vacations to visit Nick’s far-flung relatives, but on my better days I felt nothing but delight that she and Nick had found each other.

  Tonight was the first time since I’d met Beverly, when she was a teenager getting ready for college, that I felt awkward around her. I dreaded telling her (or not) about Ken. The two had doted on each other all their lives. Beverly was born with a heart defect, causing her big brother to be even more solicitous of her. Ken’s prestige in his profession was a source of great pride for his sister; his death was a great loss to her. His good name was as important to her as it was to me.

  The same was true for the other brother-sister pair who came to mind. Oliver Halbert and Susan Giles. I wondered if Susan had been told the status of her brother’s case—and that of his good name.

  I tuned in to my present-day living room in time to hear Beverly’s question to Skip.

  “Are you here on business?” she asked him.

  He pointed to his plate, now a collection of cracker and cookie crumbs mixed with the peels from his orange and traces of its juice. “I came to eat.”

  For a dizzy moment, I saw the curvy orange peels as the face of a pumpkin, the scattered seeds located where eyes should be, the clear juice its blood. I shook my head and shuddered.

  To my dismay, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Beverly had caught the moment.

  “Okay,” she said, opening her palms in surrender. She heaved a loud sigh. “Am I missing something here? I know I didn’t talk to you much this week, but how much could have happened in a couple of days?”

  I knew Beverly was also aware that I’d never answered her question at dinner: was something wrong? I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to respond, unless it was when I could say with certainty, “No, everything’s fine.”

  That moment wasn’t now, for sure.

  Skip stood up, pushed his sleeve back, and tapped his watch. “This is no time for a party, I guess. I’m out of here. Come on, Mom. I’ll escort you to your car and even follow you home with lights and siren.”

  Beverly looked at me. “Gerry?”

  “Skip’s right. It’s time for bed,” I said. I yawned and hoped it looked real.

  With a three-way standoff, there was nothing to do but say good night.

  I’d been in bed only a few minutes when my phone rang. I picked it up quickly, since there would be an extension ringing also in Maddie’s room.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all day, Gerry.” Susan’s normal voice was back, with its pleasant southern lilt. I appreciated it less at this hour. “Did you hear the news about Oliver? I’m so relieved.”

  It was a sad commentary on recent affairs—learning that Oliver had been murdered was what it had taken to give Susan some relief. I was sure her satisfaction had to do with her desire for justice for her brother. It also said a lot to me about how we viewed our loved ones and how we wanted others to view them. That Oliver was a victim was more acceptable to his sister than thinking he’d given up on life—on her.

  “I’m glad the police came through for you, Susan.”

  “Me, too. And I’m sure you had something to do with it.”

  “Not really.”

  “I just wanted to be sure you know that I still want you on the case,” she said, not acknowledging my confession.

  Wasn’t the term “on the case” reserved for sworn officers of the law? Susan and Maddie needed a lesson or two in the way the criminal justice system worked. Detective Skip Gowen would be happy to enlighten them.

  “I don’t think it’s either necessary or wise for me to do anything about the investigation,” I said, though I realized my half-asleep monotone couldn’t be too convincing.

  I had no intention of bringing up her brother’s less noble pursuits, recently come to my attention, and was surprised when Susan introduced the subject herself.

  “Is it because of what they’re saying? My brother was not a criminal, Gerry.”

  Was Susan referring to Oliver’s DUI, the insurance fraud charges against him that were dismissed, or the way he’d gained his city inspector job?

  “Some of it seems to go back a long way, Susan.”

  “I know. I probably should have told you, but I figured if I did, you wouldn’t bother with his case.”

  “It’s hard to work without all the facts,” I said. Susan didn’t have to know that I hadn’t spent as much as five minutes with the facts (and a key that would open doors) that I did have.

  Before she let me try to sleep, Susan extracted a promise that I would at least go to Oliver’s apartment, reclaim the room box, and look about, as she put it.

  I turned over and wondered how long I’d be “looking about” at the clock on my nightstand.

  Lying in bed early Sunday morning, I tried to come up with a plan to make the day constructive in some way.

  I heard Maddie shuffling around in the kitchen. I pictured her in her mottled brown T. rex slippers with their large open-jawed heads, long tails, and short arms. They barely fit her anymore unless she crushed the back with the heels of her adult-size feet, but she’d rescued them from the trash more than once when Mary Lou tried to get rid of them. To keep them safe, she left them at my house, where she knew her grandmother would never do anything to make her unhappy.

  Except for today, when I had to dispose of her in some way so that I could do my clandestine police work. I didn’t feel I could impose on Henry two days in a row. Besides, Taylor had mentioned going to a birthday party today for someone in her class. Maddie, whose school life was ten miles away, not surprisingly hadn’t been invited. I thought of calling my crafter friend, Linda Reed, but I
knew Maddie would be bored since Linda was very fussy about who touched her miniature projects.

  “Dollhouses are not for kids,” she’d famously said at one of our meetings.

  Rrring. Rrring.

  I’d lost track of the number of times a phone call had come to my rescue this week. Here was one more to add to the total.

  “I have an idea,” Beverly said. I marveled at her generosity, that she didn’t hold a grudge after last night’s near snub. “I think what we all need is a day of fun. We could go to a museum or a dollhouse store.”

  Beverly wasn’t that much into miniatures, notwithstanding the fact that she always oohed and aahed at the right times when Maddie and I showed her the fruits of our labor. I was touched that she was bending over backward to get things back to normal.

  “Well—”

  “Before you say no, let me remind you about the Rachel Whiteread show in San Francisco. Wouldn’t that be great to see? Huh?”

  My sister-in-law and best friend knew my weak spot, all right. I’d been talking about Whiteread, the British artist, ever since I’d read about her exhibit, Place, consisting of nearly two hundred handmade dollhouses arranged to replicate a hillside village. I’d heard from people who’d seen it, however, not to expect a sweet country scene. The dollhouses were empty and run down, lit with bare bulbs in some cases, red lamps in others, leaving the viewer with the experience of having visited a haunted, abandoned village.

  It sounded perfect for my current mood.

  Too bad I hadn’t thought of doing something like that for Halloween, instead of building just one ordinary haunted house.

  “I definitely want to see the exhibit before it goes on the road again, Beverly. But you know what would work better for me today?”

  “What?” she asked, followed by a pause too short for me to answer. Then, “Say no more. What time shall I pick up the little princess?”

  Clearly Beverly was open to doing anything for the sake of family unity. No wonder I loved her. No wonder it was tearing me up to keep things from her.

  When I was finally brave enough to go into the kitchen to give Maddie the news about her day, she’d already poured out her cold cereal and had taken the orange juice out for me.

  “I can make you some oatmeal, Grandma,” she said, making me feel even more guilty about what I had to tell her.

  I kissed her head, then pulled my robe tight around my body. “That would be nice, sweetheart. I love oatmeal on chilly mornings.”

  “I know.”

  She measured out two helpings of oats and water and went to work. I watched her movements, T. rex’s jaw flopping as she went from the counter to the stove. My granddaughter was grown-up enough to be trusted around a gas flame, but still wore the slippers from her sixth birthday.

  “Did you have a good sleep?” I asked her. Small talk before the big announcement.

  “Uh-huh. Uncle Skip was here last night, wasn’t he?”

  Her comment took me by surprise. I’d thought I was home free. “What makes you think so?”

  “I saw his car when I got up to go to the bathroom.”

  “Do you always look out the window when you get up for the bathroom?”

  “I do when I’m here.” Point taken. “I wanted to come out, but I was so tired I just flopped back into bed.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Did he know about Mr. Halbert being a jailbird?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Nuts.” She ground the spatula into the pan and then whipped the oatmeal into obedience. “I’ll have to find out something else. What are we doing today?”

  “I need to talk to you about that.”

  Then I ducked.

  Beverly came and whisked Maddie away. She’d been as grumpy a little princess as I expected when she received the news in my kitchen, but I knew she loved Beverly and would never let on that she didn’t want to go with her aunt to San Francisco where she’d be entertained by sea lions and street performers.

  I noticed she took her laptop with her.

  Chapter 8

  Sundays were limited. Factories weren’t open, so I couldn’t visit the Ferguson twins’ place of business; construction sites were abandoned, so talking to Patrick Lynch was out of the question. The key to the late Oliver Halbert’s apartment rattled around in my head. Did I dare enter Oliver’s home in broad daylight? He’d lived in an old complex on Hanks Road, only a few hundred yards from where he was found dead on the Fergusons’ porch. I thought it better to wait until dark when I’d attract less attention. I didn’t know his neighbors or how interested they were in the comings and goings in their building, even by someone with a key.

  What was left? Where could I go on my day free of worry about Maddie?

  An image flitted by. The crime scene. I’d meant to ask Skip if Oliver had indeed been killed on the stoop or placed there later. In any case, a visit to the Fergusons’ home was the best idea I could come up with.

  When I finally got back to thinking beyond what had been occupying my mind for the last two days—that my husband may have kept secrets from me—I realized I had no idea where the Fergusons had been during the murder, or what they knew about it. I hadn’t asked Skip nor tracked it down in any way. I’d been selfishly turned inward, to what affected me most.

  It was time to reach out.

  I decided to take a gift to Lillian Ferguson. I’d make something special and also search my supply drawers and put together a collection of miniature accessories suitable for the Victorian-style dollhouse she’d bought at one of our crafts fairs.

  Miniaturists always knew the style of dollhouse their friends and neighbors owned, just as Henry could tell me what kind of wood was used for the banisters in his friends’ homes, and my nephew knew what kind of car everyone drove.

  Taken as a group, my crafter friends and I would likely be able to rattle off all the dollhouses that populated Lincoln Point: Carolyn, the hairdresser, had a brown-and-cream Tudor, made from a kit she’d bought online; Isabelle, who worked in a supermarket one town over, had built a lovely Cape Cod from scratch; Patricia, a real estate agent in Gail’s firm, was decorating a French peasant farmhouse handed down from her great aunt. We could go on.

  My crafts table was a refuge in times of stress. During Ken’s long struggle to stay alive, whenever I wasn’t by his side at the hospital, I was here, making tiny things that gave me great pleasure. Focusing on the construction of miniature books and lamps gave me direction when I was at loose ends, searching for meaning in horrible life-size events.

  I reached for a new Flower Soft kit I’d bought for making tiny stalks of flowers. I spread butcher paper on my table and laid out the materials: three plastic pots with colored foam bits, one yellow, one pink, and one lavender; strips of narrow, flexible wire; a container of high-tack glue. Fifteen minutes later, I had my special item for Lillian: a spray of variegated pink flowers wrapped in tissue and tied with a tiny pink bow.

  I rummaged around and found a small box with varying lengths of trim and fringe that I’d torn off a swatch book. An interior design store on Springfield Boulevard had gone out of business and thrown away large books of samples for draperies, valances, cords, and other trimmings. It must have been a strange sight for anyone watching Maddie and me as we came upon the pile of books next to the store’s trash bins and lunged for them.

  I prepared a small (but not miniature) basket with the newly made flowers, plus trims, beads, and laces to take to Lillian. Just a friendly gesture from a concerned neighbor who heard about the terrible incident at their home. If further talk of Oliver Halbert’s murder followed, so be it.

  As I rounded the corner from Gettysburg Boulevard to Sangamon River Road, I half expected that Sangamon would be clear of Halloween decorations, in deference to the awful event of this weekend. I noticed that the Fergusons’ home and environs were bare. The front lawn was clear—gone were the skulls, critters, and RIP headstones we’d seen on Friday. But on the rest
of the street there seemed to be even more orange, black, and neon green paraphernalia than ever, perhaps inspired by the real-life spookiness that had visited them.

  It was a little before ten o’clock in the morning when I parked in front of the Fergusons’ house. I sat in my car and gazed at the porch, now looking clean and safe in the bright October sun. The shadows cast on the lawn seemed light and nonthreatening; the breezes that lifted fallen leaves had a benign rhythm to them. It was hard to imagine that a lifeless Oliver Halbert had dominated the scene only two days ago, and that now his personal life and his secrets, and that of many others, would be exposed in all their nastiness for everyone to see and talk about.

  I tried to remember why I’d thought it would be a good idea to come here. My recollection of the last time I was here brought on a chill and the sense of darkness on the street. How quickly my mood could change. Was I here only for Susan? So that I’d be able to give her some kind of report? Or did I have my own secret need to explore the mystery?

  I’d seen official Lincoln Point police reports through the years since Skip had been a cop. In his early years, he’d ask me to look them over for grammar before he submitted them. I never asked if that practice was sanctioned, but I’d taken it upon myself to simply be sure his tenses were consistent and that he had no spelling or grammatical errors. I kept whatever I read confidential.

  If I wrote up a report on my activities this morning, what would I say? At ten hundred hours I was dispatched to Number Three-six-four-six Sangamon River Road in search of information regarding . . .

  I was reluctant to fill in the blank—that I was here as much for Ken and Beverly as for Susan and Oliver. The cases seemed to intersect at the Fergusons’—at Sam and Lillian’s home and at Eliot and Emory’s factory—making this visit as good a place to start as any.

  End of narrative, as the police reports always said in closing.