Malice in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  I didn’t know. “Good friends?” I said.

  Stephanie winked.

  I was sure that Ryan had mentioned a wife when I met him in the civic center. Was Ryan the mysterious shadow? Did it matter?

  I wondered what size cummerbund Ryan wore.

  Chapter 14

  On the way home, Maddie’s chatter was peppered with terms like “wide shot,” “zoom in,” and “post- (pos-) production.” She held on to the DVD as if it were a treasure. Or an audition to solicit greater exposure, I mused. I was pleased to see her so happy and hoped she’d garner a lot of mileage out of the experience to make some new friends at Angelican Hills.

  My cell phone rang and Maddie answered. “Uncle Skip! We were just on TV,” she said, wiggling her legs on the front seat, now her established perch. She turned to me. “He saw us. He saw us.”

  “Great, great,” I said.

  By the time Maddie finished basking in her uncle’s praise and handed me the phone, Skip was ready for more important matters.

  “Remember the . . . uh . . . message left in June’s trash?”

  “Yes, I remember.” I tried to keep my voice steady, as if Maddie’s Uncle Skip had asked if I remembered how to make birthday cakes.

  “There’s nothing to report, really, but I wanted you to know there were no fingerprints on the knife, and nothing unusual.”

  “Wasn’t that unusual enough?” To put raisins in a birthday cake, in case Maddie asked.

  “Have you seen June?” he asked. “I can’t find her.”

  Now where had I heard that tone before? I wanted to ask him if he and his girlfriend were playing some sort of unfunny game of hide-and-seek, with me at the center, as “it.”

  “Did you call all her numbers?” I asked my homicide detective nephew, realizing too late that I made the question sound like a brilliant idea on my part.

  Skip spared me the obvious, waiting a few seconds before speaking. “I thought she might have gotten in touch with you.”

  “Not since Wednesday at Willie’s.” When you barged in on our meeting. “Do you want me to call her? Maybe she’s screening her calls and will talk only to females.” My poor attempt at humor brought another pause.

  “Could you? Call her?”

  “Of course. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  I hung up, not optimistic about my chances, female or not, of reaching June. Her last words to us as she roared out of Willie’s came back to me. “Apparently, I have to do this on my own.”

  “I know where she is,” I said half aloud. Maddie was plugged into her iPod and didn’t hear me. Otherwise, I was sure I’d have had some explaining to do.

  Saturday was booked—an all-girls day, featuring a miniatures and dollhouse show, one of the biggest of the year, in San Jose.

  I had an important phone call to make before we left, however. So far, things were working in my favor. I had the advantage of the time difference between Lincoln Point, California, and Chicago, Illinois, and could make the call at seven o’clock Pacific standard time, before anyone else in my house was up.

  I sat at one of my crafts tables, in the bedroom I was using while my family was here. I took a breath, rehearsed my story for the eighth time, and dialed June’s parents in Chicago. I’d found their phone number last night, grateful to the gods of listed numbers, and finally thought of a way to ask if June was there without alarming them.

  June’s birthday was in April. My story was that, although it was early, I wanted to get started on a miniature scene I was making for her. I needed to know what her favorite toys were as a child, what her room looked like, what kind of furniture she had, and so on. I thought it was a brilliant idea.

  “What a surprise,” said June’s mother, Emily Chinn.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No, not at all. How is everything there? We still remember the lovely dinner party you had for us on our last visit.”

  We spent a few minutes discussing how cold Chicago was at this time of year and how next winter Emily and her husband were going to plan a trip to California for February. If only they could predict when the worst of the snow would be.

  I was about to launch into my birthday present fable when Emily said, “Oh, you probably called for June.”

  “Uh . . .” I wasn’t prepared for an easy time of it.

  “She’s still in bed. We were so delighted to see her. I guess she just needed a break from all the stress at work.”

  “Yes, she’s been under a lot of strain. It’s nice that you’re there for her.”

  As a base of operations, I wanted to say. For finding Rhonda Edgerton Goodman, was my guess. I wasn’t surprised that June hadn’t been completely open with her parents. I wondered if they even knew about Zoe’s predicament.

  “Shall I wake her up?” Emily asked. “Is it something urgent?”

  “No, no, just a neighbor-to-neighbor question about the . . . uh . . . garbage pickup.” (How come I thought of that?) “Please tell her I called and she can call me on my cell phone anytime.”

  “I’ll do that. Nice to talk to you.”

  Then I had a better idea. “Oh, and can you tell her also that the . . . uh . . . consultant she asked me about, Ms. Edgerton, is now here in town?”

  “I surely can.”

  “Good, that might relieve some of her stress.”

  The call certainly relieved mine.

  While Mary Lou and Maddie were dressing for our excursion to San Jose, I made up two roast beef sandwiches and arranged crudités on a tray for Richard. I didn’t fool myself into thinking this would keep him from reaching for the potato chips and the cookie jar, but I wanted to leave him some options.

  “You spoil him, Mom,” Mary Lou said when she saw me at the counter spreading butter and Dijon mustard on dark pumpernickel bread.

  “She spoils everyone,” Maddie said.

  I heard Ken’s voice in both of them and knew they were all correct. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  At nine in the morning (California time) we left Richard on the couch with his newspapers and remote controls and piled into the dark green Porter SUV, our vehicle of choice for the day.

  “The better to carry our purchases,” Mary Lou had said.

  “They’re miniatures, right?” Richard had asked. “How big a trunk do you need?”

  I smiled. “It’s a miniatures and dollhouse show.” Enough said.

  I had three goals for the day, the first being to enjoy my daughter-in-law and only grandchild. I’d been selfishly relieved when Linda said she couldn’t join us because she had to take Jason shopping for a uniform (soccer? basketball? track? I’d pretended to know when Linda talked about it). This was part of their family bonding program, wherein Linda promised to support her sometimes troubled teen if Jason made the effort to join a team and play nice.

  My second goal was to find a few minutes alone with Mary Lou to brainstorm with her. I wanted to know if she’d seen or heard anything interesting or useful in the work area of the Rutledge Center these last couple of days. I planned to tell her where June was and have her help me figure out how to approach her when and if she called me back.

  Enjoying the show was third on my list, but, as usual, taking delight in my hobby rose to the top when I entered the cavernous exhibit hall.

  Front and center was an enormous Victorian home, its exterior painted in layers that were many shades of pink. The wallpaper designs in the bedrooms, parlors, and hallways were flocked, striped, or gilded throughout. The style would have been too flamboyant for Ken, representing the other end of the spectrum from the simple lines and flat roof of our home.

  I had the same taste as my late husband’s in life-size abodes, but found it exciting to see this example of nineteenth-century rebellion against classic order and symmetry in miniature. The one-inch-to-one-foot-scale house in front of us had an array of tall, steep-pitched roofs, seven gables, a wraparound porch, and lovely gingerbread trim that accented
the eaves.

  Before the ink was dry on the tiny red dollhouse stamp on my hand, I’d bought a set of embroidered linens with the initial R, as a present for Linda Reed, for a bathroom scene that she was working on (and because I felt guilty feeling glad she wasn’t with us); a tiny antique, wooden wagon for my Lincoln-Douglas debate scene; and a half-inch box camera on a tripod for the same scene.

  Maddie was still busy on the interior side of the Victorian, counting the number of rooms (twelve), fireplaces (five), and stairways (six).

  “No, seven,” Maddie corrected herself. “Seven stairways, if you count the one to the basement. Wow, wow.”

  When Maddie started counting the number of windows, the draperies, and the place settings on the elaborate dining-room table, Mary Lou and I tuned out and leaned into each other like a couple of femmes fatales with a secret mission. Except that the little tote bag holding my purchases had pink lettering with “Minis 4 All,” detracting from the covert look.

  “Anything new at Rutledge Center?” I asked Mary Lou.

  “Nothing substantial. But I’m so curious. I’m alert for any scrap of gossip. Is that bad?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Everyone’s trying to get back to normal. We have a guy who says he’s going to come up with a replacement Harriet Lane.”

  “Ed Villard?”

  Mary Lou grinned. “You do get around, Mom. Yeah, Ed thinks he’s an artist by birthright. He even wears the same mustache and beard as the famous Vuillard. What’s funny is that I loved the real Edouard Vuillard.” Mary Lou spelled it for me and placed him for me as a Postimpressionist. “When I was in college, I had a print of Annette Roussel with a Broken Chair. Then I saw the original when it was on tour in Washington, D.C., and realized it’s kind of a sad painting. This little girl kneeling on the floor . . . what could I have been thinking?”

  “Our tastes change over the years, don’t they? What do you think about our present-day Ed as an artist? I know Stephanie doesn’t have a very high opinion of his work.”

  “She’s not exactly a critic, but in this case she’s right. He’s tried every year, I heard, to have a showpiece, like Brad’s Buchanan and Harriet portraits, but he’s mediocre and gets relegated to the mural. It doesn’t help that a lot of the younger artists make fun of him, saying he’s not much better than the homeless lady who draws in chalk in front of city hall.”

  “That’s pretty brutal.”

  “Uh-huh. Probably because he doesn’t have what they think of as a true artist’s vision. He’s trying too hard to be someone else.”

  “The”—I drew quotation marks in the air—“real Vuillard?”

  “Exactly. I understand he lives with his mother just as the real one did until her death. He’s supposedly quite wealthy, so he’s not after riches, just fame. Ed’s good for some of the younger artists, though. From what I gather, he’s mentored a lot of them. And he’s more practical and down-to-business. Even about this murder, he’s almost blasé about it.”

  “That fits with what I observed in our brief encounters.”

  “It helps to have someone who’s grounded. Some of the mural workers won’t even come to the studio since the murder, and the rest are looking over their shoulders every minute and jumping if someone drops a brush.”

  I remembered Stephanie’s concern when she took custody of Mary Lou’s painting from me, but it hadn’t sunk in that my daughter-in-law might be in danger. “Do you really think there’s a chance that someone is after the local artists?”

  “We’re all a little concerned, you know. I understand that you want to clear June’s friend, but I have to admit it feels better thinking that she did it—I mean Zoe, not June—because then it’s personal and not some serial killer who’s after all Lincoln Point artists.”

  “Oh,” I said, groaning inside. Just what I needed, something else to worry about. It was always unnerving when a violent crime occurred in our little town, but the fact that this might be related to someone in my family made it harder to bear. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t given more thought to that possibility. Once again I felt admiration for Skip and police detectives everywhere. They didn’t have the luxury of forming an opinion with very little to go on, ignoring countless equally plausible theories.

  Mary Lou poked me in the arm. “Hey, Mom? I don’t want to worry you, or Richard, with that crazy idea,” she said.

  Too late. I mentally tacked another concern onto my list, but casually moved on to the next booth where a crafter was working on a Shaker-style rocker. Just what I needed to calm my nerves. The simplicity of the Shaker furniture, quilts, and home accessories were in stark contrast to the ornate chairs and yards of cloth draped throughout the Victorian next door. In many ways, I knew, reproducing an authentic, silky-wood Shaker kitchen was more difficult than filling in every corner with a knickknack or artifact.

  “Why would anyone want to kill Lincoln Point artists?” I asked, unable to let go of the idea.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time artists have been a target. More than once in L.A. galleries there have been incidents—though, granted, not murder. Like one time someone painted a nude all over with black paint, symbolically clothing the naked lady, I guess. And another time someone ruined a painting that was almost ready for submission for an exhibit. The artist came in one morning and found his sky had been painted over with ugly clouds and obscene graffiti. And guess what? Another artist in the group who’d been rejected just happened to have something ready for the exhibit. No one could ever prove he’d done it, but . . .”

  “Wow,” I said, borrowing a term from Maddie. I had certainly read of similar incidents but was unaware that my daughter-in-law had been close to any of the scenes or that they would be commonplace. “I wouldn’t have thought artists would be so competitive—to the extent of being nasty.”

  “We’re no different from anyone else who thinks the only way to get ahead is to trample on the person in front of us.”

  Food for thought. Mary Lou’s comment reminded me of something related to Brad’s murder, but before I could connect the dots, Maddie came by, begging for spending money. She’d spotted the refreshment stand.

  “Can I get some popcorn?”

  Mary Lou and I vied for who could get to her wallet first. It’s a wonder Maddie didn’t notice how eager we both were to get her out of earshot.

  “Does anyone at the Rutledge Center have an opinion about who killed Brad?”

  Mary Lou shook her head. “I’m afraid we’re all too busy thinking, ‘what if it had been me working late?’ Remember, some of the paintings that were slashed belonged to other people than Brad. Not mine, thank God, because mine are all over your dining room.” Mary Lou chuckled. A moment of nervous relief. “We’re all trying to convince ourselves that that part was a mistake, that Zoe—I mean, whoever—thought they were all Brad’s paintings.”

  I felt like Mary Lou’s comments set me, and the case, back to the beginning. I wondered if the police had considered this aspect—that Brad was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, dying, in a sense, because he was a conscientious artist working late, not because he was Zoe’s boyfriend or Rhonda’s ex-husband. This would mean that Zoe slashed Brad’s painting (if I trusted the accuracy of the video) and some random killer came along soon after and killed him.

  Ask Skip, I told myself, suppressing a shiver. How would he ever do his job without me? I mused.

  While we were still two adults unaccompanied by a minor, we stopped to admire the miniature brothel that was one of the highlights every year. The small window-like opening to the room box was suitably high so only adults would be at eye level. Mary Lou had never seen it. She looked in and started to laugh, as we all did the first time we saw the very red room, with clothes (red lingerie included) scattered everywhere, and the bare, upper torso of a doll sitting on the bed, discreetly facing away from the viewing window.

  “This scene reminds me of another little tidbit of gossip,” Mar
y Lou said. “Completely unrelated to Brad’s murder.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ryan Colson, the guard, and Nan Browne, the TV studio talent,” she said, raising her eyebrows and using the same universal crossed-finger gesture that Stephanie Cameron had used.

  “I knew that,” I said, disappointing both of us.

  “I should have known you’d pick up on that, but did you know she’s roaring mad at him at the moment?”

  “Since when?” I asked, remembering the man-in-the-shadows incident just a few days ago and the suggestive cummerbund.

  “This was just yesterday. All we heard was, ‘How could you have done that? I can’t believe you thought that was a good idea,’ et cetera, et cetera. We joked that Nan was accusing Ryan of sleeping with his wife.” Mary Lou covered her mouth. “I guess that’s not very nice, but there it is. I think there was also something like, ‘I’ll be visiting you in prison.’ ”

  It was hard to come up with a motive for Ryan to kill Brad, so what was it that he shouldn’t have done? That might land him in prison, no less?

  Maddie descended on us, putting a stop to thoughts and talk of crime. “Look, look. It’s chocolate cinnamon popcorn,” she said, offering us a chance to dig into her bag. We passed.

  I’d saved one vendor’s booth for last, knowing Mary Lou would love it and would want to linger. This year a fine-arts crafter I’d met at shows over the years had reproduced Vermeer’s A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window . The scene was in the standard full- (one inch equals one foot) scale, in a portrait setup, about ten inches tall.

  I could tell Mary Lou found it as breathtaking as I did. The crafter had managed to orient the box so that it caught the beams of a convention center floodlight through its stained-glass window. The rich red curtain hanging at an angle over the window, the woman/doll with a pensive look on her face, the tapestry bedspread, and the washed-out green curtain—all were positioned in a way that duplicated the shadows in the original Vermeer painting.