Mayhem in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “Sorry, again,” Skip said. “But I just caught a murder.”

  I let out a long breath. “In Lincoln Point?”

  Where else? I thought belatedly. What I really wanted to know was, “Who’s been killed and why in my town?” Lincoln Point had already suffered two murders this year, including that of a longtime businessman, and I didn’t look forward to the new issue of a rising crime rate. Not to mention, it was a small town and I might know the victim.

  “Can’t say right now, and not just because I’m out the door.”

  “And you can’t even check to see if anyone is looking for Sofia Muniz?”

  “You know, Aunt Gerry, with three . . . uh, retirement homes in town, we get calls like this almost every day.”

  “Not from me.” I was sounding like a whiny old aunt. I’d have to examine this trend, I told myself. How could I expect Skip to drop everything and do my bidding? “Get going, Skip. Don’t mind me. I’m just concerned for an old friend.”

  “No, no, you’re right. No one is unimportant. I’ll check it out, I promise. Maybe we can make a deal. You go out with Nick Marcus as I’ve been suggesting, and I’ll—”

  “Don’t go there, Skip.”

  “Okay, but just let me know when you’re ready to brave the dating world. We could double.”

  Clearly the police were not very busy today, even with the latest homicide, and could easily patrol the streets for a missing citizen. “Right now, I’m going to cruise Lincoln Point with Dolores and try to find Sofia Muniz.”

  I hung up before Skip could rattle me even more.

  No way was I going on a date with Skip’s mentor on the force. Or anyone, for that matter. My decision had nothing to do with Nick—I’d heard great things about him from Beverly, who worked with him on her volunteer projects. But I’d struck it rich with Ken Porter, who’d died two years ago. He was the most wonderful husband anyone could ask for. I doubted there was another man like him out in Skip’s “dating world,” and I didn’t have the time or interest to find out.

  My next call, at the Hanks Road stop sign, was to the Mary Todd Home.

  “May I speak to Sofia Muniz?” I asked a female operator. Just checking.

  “One moment please,” and then, a long wait later, “Mrs. Muniz is not available right now.”

  “Has she left the residence?” Now moving past Sadie’s Ice Cream Shop on my right. Too early, though I considered a chocolate shake a nutritious midmorning snack.

  “I’m afraid I can’t give you that information.” I knew that, but took a chance on catching her off guard. “Would you like to leave a message for her?”

  “No message, but I’d like to speak to Linda Reed, one of your nurses.”

  “She’s not on break yet.” And how do you know that so quickly? I wondered.

  I hung up, no wiser. But, nothing ventured . . .

  I pulled up to the Lincoln Point City Hall, an imposing white building at the heart of our civic center. To the right was our library, to the left the police department. I imagined Skip looking out the window of his office (except he’d left, and, besides that, he was still housed in a windowless cubicle), scratching his head, certain of the futility of what I was about to do.

  Dolores was on the long, wide steps, talking to a well-dressed man who was about her age and height. Looking more closely, I saw that it was Steve Talley, a colleague of hers whom I’d met a few times. From their postures, I sensed it was not a friendly conversation. Dolores’s arms were folded across her chest; Steve’s hands were in his pockets. They took turns leaning into each other in an almost threatening way.

  I gave a slight tap on my horn. Dolores turned away from Steve and started down the steps without a “good-bye” that I could detect. He stood there for a moment, frowning, then walked away.

  “You wouldn’t believe what some people will do to get ahead,” Dolores said, right after, “Thanks so much for coming, Geraldine.”

  “A disagreement among colleagues, I take it?”

  “That’s putting it mildly. Once again Steve has tried to undermine me.” She buckled herself and her rich-looking coat into my Ion, which seemed shabbier than ever from the contrast. “He removed my name from an interoffice distribution list, so I don’t get updates on time.”

  I shook my head in sympathy. “How petty.”

  I was sure the high school faculty politics I’d endured had been tame compared to what must go on in city government.

  “ ‘Petty’ barely covers what Steve Talley is up to. But never mind him. Let’s go. I need to focus on finding Sofia.”

  Dolores was bundled up more than the weather called for, in my opinion. She was a Southern California native, I remembered, who thought it was not an exaggeration to call fifty degrees, no wind or precipitation, “winter weather.” Or maybe her long, black wool coat was simply a fashion statement. If so, it worked. Dolores was tall and thin—so was I, but I could still never pull off the elegant look, not even when I was her age, about twenty years ago. It might have been her excellent posture, which commanded the attention she needed to do her job well. It was hard to imagine a slouching city hall office manager. In the elegant department, I was also sure that in my outfit today—corduroy slacks and leather belt, cotton turtleneck, and brown tweed blazer—I looked like Dolores’s poor cousin.

  “We’ll find her, Dolores,” I said, because I felt it was my duty to offer hope, possibly to make up for my low-end car. I headed back down Springfield Boulevard in the direction of the Mary Todd. I assumed we’d start there, but I could tell Dolores had already begun her search. Even as she talked to me she peered out the window, now and then stretching her neck to look around me at the other side of the street.

  “When did you find out Sofia wasn’t at home?” I asked her.

  “I call her every morning at seven o’clock to remind her to take her medications and do her exercises. Really just to touch base, you know. This morning her phone rang and rang, and then the desk picked up. They told me she must still be asleep. I tried for almost an hour and I know she doesn’t sleep that late, so I decided to pop over and check on her. That’s when they admitted to me they couldn’t find her. I looked around a little, but then I had to be in my office for an important meeting, and now . . .”

  Dolores paused in her rapid-fire summary to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Her makeup still looked perfect, her shoulder-length black hair coiffed for a modern, professional image.

  “Do you know when she was last seen by a member of the staff?” I asked her.

  Dolores’s “no” sounded more like a wail. I hoped it wasn’t because my question, once I heard it myself, sounded too much like part of a missing persons interrogation. “I should never have sent her there. I should have kept her in my home. Our home.”

  I reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “It’s normal to feel that way, Dolores, but we know that at a certain point, that’s not realistic. She was ready for professional care. What are the staff at the Mary Todd doing to find Sofia?”

  “Nothing that I can see. They say people leave all the time. But not my grandmother. At least I hope not. Sure, she had some memory loss. Ha, so do I. Sometimes she claims they don’t give her her meds. So I check and the pharmacy at the home says, yes, they gave them to her. But those are little slips. All in all, she’s”—Dolores snapped her fingers— “right there, you know. Does the crossword puzzle every day. And she loves your class, Geraldine. She’s making something for Ernestine, my daughter.”

  Dolores was rambling, veering off track, but I couldn’t blame her. “Did the home send out their van, or anything like that?”

  “Yeah, they said someone was out looking for her, but who knows? I keep calling back and they haven’t found her.” Dolores pulled her fashionable multicolored scarf, mostly red, tighter around her neck. “It’s freezing out, too. What if she’s out there in her nightgown?”

  I could have pointed out that temperatures in the low fifties hardly constituted f
reezing, but I understood Dolores’s worry and frustration, beyond the actual data. Also, today was overcast and, for some Californians who worshiped the sun, that alone was enough to bring on a shiver.

  “Sometimes old people wander back to where they used to live,” I said. “Did you check around your home?”

  She nodded, and buried herself deeper into her scarf, still surveying the streets as we drove north. Sadie’s Ice Cream Shop was now open and I promised myself a shake as soon as we found Sofia tucked in her Mary Todd bed with a puzzle magazine, wondering what all the fuss was about.

  If I needed one, I had a good excuse to indulge, since Susan Giles, one of the crafters in our group, had left the miniature Victorian soda fountain she’d made for Sadie’s window in my possession. It was my job to deliver it to Sadie’s since Susan was on her way to a Christmas reunion with her family in Tennessee (Tin-essee, was how Susan pronounced it).

  No wonder I’ve been craving a shake, I thought, I’ve been living with tubs of ice cream, thimble-size though they were, for several days. Susan had prepared two rows of flavors for her tiny freezer case. Whereas she’d been meticulous in modeling Victorian tables and chairs (white wrought iron), and signage (hearts, flowers, and cherubs) for the shop, she’d taken liberties with the ice cream flavors. Some were as simple as strawberry and chocolate; others more modern and elaborate, like German chocolate cake and mint-chip cookie dough with nuts. She’d also modeled one of Sadie’s holiday specials: a vanilla ice cream “snowball” covered with coconut and topped with a tiny candle and a sprig of holly. A little silver scoop sat on top of the counter, and I could swear I smelled freshly baked cones every time I passed by.

  Dolores had been talking while I’d been salivating over what was in reality nothing more than modeling clay (ah, the power of miniatures). I hoped I hadn’t missed anything critical.

  “I called the people next door to me to check. My grandmother isn’t anywhere in my neighborhood,” Dolores was saying. “And anyway, it’s a gated community, so the guard would have seen her go in. My grandmother lived there with me until a couple of years ago when I put her in the Mary Todd.” In her distraught, guilt-ridden state, Dolores was able to make “Mary Todd” sound like “San Quentin.” She dabbed at her eye makeup. “It was always the three of us—me, Sofia, and Ernestine.”

  “I remember Ernestine in school. She’s a good student.” Something to brighten a needy mother’s day, even if the girl wasn’t among the best I’d taught at Abraham Lincoln High School. “I can’t believe she’s in college already. Where is she, again?” Get the mother talking about her pride and joy.

  “UC Irvine. She’s doing really well, a junior already. She’s majoring in communications.”

  “You and Sofia must be very proud.”

  “We are. She’s the first in the family to go to college, you know, but once she left, my grandmother was alone all the time. I work late a lot, and even on some weekends. I thought it would be better for her to have company, you know, be around other people, play some games, take some classes. And Mary Todd is supposed to be the best.”

  My friend Linda, one of its finest nurses (I was sure), would agree. And so did I, having had some experience of different care facilities myself. I was a regular on the arts and crafts circuit, working with senior residents at all three of Lincoln Point’s facilities. Handling tiny pieces was beyond the physical capability of many old people, and I focused on what they could do, such as painting larger pieces, or working with fabric. A surprising number of women in the homes knitted or crocheted, telling me it was therapy for their arthritis. They loved making tiny blankets and rugs for children’s dollhouses.

  Sofia, I remembered, had been working on an outfit for a statue in a miniature church. She carefully explained to me how the statues of certain saints in Catholic churches wore real clothes. The Infant Jesus of Prague, she pointed out, had the most elaborate wardrobe of all.

  As we passed Hanks Road, Dolores sat up in her seat. “Wait, Geraldine. Could that be her? I think I saw her down there on the right. Turn around!”

  I made a U-turn at Gettysburg Boulevard and turned left on Hanks. “Where exactly?” I asked, seeing no one on the street except a mailman and a multidog walker.

  Dolores sank back. “I don’t see her now. It was probably someone retrieving their newspaper. Wishful thinking, I guess.”

  She looked so despondent, I didn’t correct her grammar, but instead came up with another platitude. “We’re almost at the Mary Todd, Dolores, and I’ll bet while we’ve been driving around, Sofia has been playing Scrabble with her friends.”

  Dolores gave me a wan smile. I knew she wanted to believe that even more than I did.

  I thought about my own parents, who had died relatively young. Hard as it had been to deal with at the time, I’d long since become thankful that I’d been spared this kind of worry. I hoped my son would be spared it, too, but that was a road I was definitely not ready to go down.

  A tune I couldn’t place rang through my car. Dolores’s cell phone. She pulled it out of her pocket (unlike me, who always had to dig in my tote) and clicked it open.

  “Dolores Muniz,” she said. A pause. A few “uh-huhs,” then, “I’ll see what I can do, but I might not be in the rest of the morning. I’m picking up some brochures at the printer’s.”

  Strange. I wondered why Dolores would lie. I could understand not wanting her office staff to know details of her personal life, but this seemed an occasion when she’d want all the help she could muster. And it certainly was nothing to be ashamed of.

  Dolores looked over at me. She smiled weakly and shrugged her shoulders. I took the gesture as an “excuse me for lying” of sorts but not an offer to explain. I smiled back and kept driving, meaning, “Don’t mind me, I’m just the driver.”

  Chapter 3

  A few blocks later, the sprawling Mary Todd Home loomed in front of us.

  Ken, an architect for all his working life, was always put off by the style (styles, he would say) of the home. “It’s part Spanish—see the creamy stucco and the red-tiled roof? Part timbered—which could be either German or English, for heaven’s sake. Part Tuscan—would you look at that balcony.” He’d throw up his hands. “What were they thinking?”

  “I like it,” I’d say, just to tease. And he’d start again, this time pointing out the influence of Scottish Jacobean in the round turret, or the peaks of a Cape Dutch in the back.

  How I missed his intelligence, his wit. Him.

  Dolores hardly waited for me to set my car in park before she was unbuckled and on her way up the long driveway to the glass-paneled double door. I caught up with her at the front desk (copiously draped in a garland of holly), from which we got no satisfaction, other than, “We’re doing all we can to find your grandmother,” and, “Can I get you some coffee?” Finally, I persuaded the woman closest to the telephone to page Linda Reed.

  “Let’s look in Sofia’s room while we’re waiting for Linda,” I said to Dolores. “It might give us a clue about where she went.”

  Dolores nodded absently. “Follow me,” she said. Her expression told me that her mind was filled with unpleasant imaginings of her grandmother’s current plight.

  As we stepped into an elevator, I was greeted by two women from my crafts class, passengers from the basement, I imagined. They came forth with a duet of “Hi, Mrs. Porter.”

  “I bought some new paint for next Tuesday’s class,” Emma (or was it Lizzie?) said.

  “It’s Wednesday, not Tuesday,” said Lizzie (or was it Emma?).

  The debate went on to the second floor, where Emma and Lizzie got off, happily before I was forced to tell them they were both wrong.

  Dolores and I exited the elevator on the fourth floor and headed for Sofia’s quarters. We passed lovely reading corners with a bright and attractive décor that included small bookcases and colorful lamps. The arrangements were near windows with views of nearby hills. Most of the readers were engross
ed enough (or napping?) to be oblivious of Dolores and me, but a few looked up and smiled a hello, including Gertie, a particularly talented knitter, and Mr. Mooney, an excellent woodworker.

  Until today, I’d seen only the main floor of the home, where the entryway and community rooms were located. Lavish as the first floor was, with enormous flower arrangements and comfortable groupings of furniture in the lobby, I had no idea the elegance and luxury carried through to the residence floors.

  “You’ve certainly done well by your grandmother, Dolores. This looks more like a fine hotel than a senior residence.” (Ken’s architectural judgment notwithstanding, I said to myself.)

  Signs directed us to a spa, a pharmacy, a fitness center, and a grand ballroom. I stopped to peer into a theater—a dark room with stadium seating, currently empty except for one old man asleep in the front row, obviously determined to capture a good seat. A program at the door listed the movies scheduled for the week, a mixture of classics and newer films, probably just out on DVD. We both inhaled deeply at the smell of buttery popcorn from a machine in the corner.

  “I thought I was doing the right thing for Sofia,” Dolores said. “The best thing was that she’d never have to move again. This is one of those ‘continuing care communities,’ they’re called, with a care center on site.”

  I knew as much from Linda, who divided her time between a la carte nursing services at the home’s wellness center and the more intensive care (not technically, of course) in its care-center wing.

  Sofia’s suite was beautifully appointed and larger than the Bronx apartment Ken and I shared when we were first married. I was sure Dolores had applied her own impeccable taste to the décor: simple lines but comfortable and inviting, in several shades of blue. A small Christmas tree with permanently attached tiny red, green, and gold balls stood on a table beside the couch. Two large, festive gift bags nearly blocked the entry to the patio.