Malice in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “Can you get someone over here to see if there are fingerprints on the door and the steering wheel?” I asked. “Other than yours and mine, I mean?”

  “What are you thinking, Aunt Gerry? That someone stole your car and drove it home?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Now, please, just humor me and get this printed.” I turned on my heels. “I’m going to make some tea. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “Don’t you think you should just go in and get some rest?” June asked.

  “No, I do not,” I called over my shoulder.

  It was my turn to storm out of a room. A driveway, that is.

  I tiptoed (the storming attitude had been simply for the benefit of Skip and June) into the foyer and crossed the atrium to the middle bedroom, which I’d been using while my family lived with me. I was glad to note there was no sign that Maddie had heard the commotion. Her room was close to the driveway and I’d thought the light or noise might have awakened her. Possibly my keeping her up and busy until she was exhausted had helped in that regard.

  I skipped the tea idea, since it was clear that Skip and June had refused my invitation. I went to bed and tossed around for a long time. I had fitful dreams in which my car was repossessed, since I’d proven myself unable to take care of it properly.

  In another particularly clear image, a squad of crime-scene technicians crawled all over my driveway in search of a clue to the alleged crime. I joined them in my rose flannel nightgown and found a crate of fruit under the back bumper.

  More than once I got out of bed (this part was not a dream), made my way to the crafts room between Maddie’s bedroom and the foyer, and peered out the window, to be sure my car was still in my driveway.

  It was. At least I thought it was.

  Chapter 23

  I looked in turn at Richard, Mary Lou, and Maddie, around the breakfast table with me on Monday morning. None of them, as far as I knew, was aware of the events of only a few hours ago. Unless Skip had called to alert them as to my mental state. In the back of my mind, I knew I should be grateful for all his and June’s solicitousness, but in fact I was still a bit annoyed.

  Between snatches of dream sequences and peeks out the window last night, I’d tried to think of ways to investigate what had happened to my car. I planned to check on any security cameras in the hospital parking lot, for one thing. Surely they’d aim one at the helicopter-landing pad. I wracked my brain to remember if I’d seen or said hello to anyone while I was near my car in the lot. No one came to mind.

  I considered Brad Goodman’s killer, whoever he or she may have been, to be the prime suspect in the auto theft. I came up with three motives. First, to drive me crazy slowly, using the Gaslight technique. Second, to make me appear untrustworthy mentally, therefore undermining my credibility with my nephew and the rest of the LPPD. Third, he did it just because he could.

  I drank my cranberry juice and tried to focus on the wonderful family around me.

  “I wish I had a holiday today,” Richard said, lifting his heft from the table with great drama and a heavy sigh. “But some of us have to work.”

  Though all the important women in his life knew that Richard loved his profession and relished this new job, we humored him with a chorus of “poor Dad” in one variation or another.

  “What are you guys going to do today?” Mary Lou asked as soon as Richard headed out.

  “Finish the Lincoln-Douglas room box, for one thing,” I said. “You?”

  “I have to pick up my painting at Rutledge, then deliver it to city hall. Too bad we can’t combine errands, but I have to leave in a few minutes.”

  It definitely was too bad, since I would have preferred not to drive my car today, for no reason that made sense.

  “I wish we had school today,” Maddie said.

  “What?” Mary Lou asked. (I was too stunned to respond to Maddie.)

  “It’s Share Day on Mondays and I was going to play my DVD of me and Grandma on television. I hope they have it tomorrow and not wait until next Monday.”

  This was breaking news. Her parents and I had been assuming that since Lincoln Point had no school tomorrow (never on Abe’s very birthday, no matter what day of the week it fell on) Maddie would resent having to go to her school in Palo Alto.

  “Is Share Day what you used to call Show and Tell?” I asked.

  “That’s what the little kids still call it. We have Share Day.”

  “I see,” Mary Lou said.

  “I told Kyra and some other kids that I was going to show my DVD. Kyra and Danielle both have dollhouses, and I told them maybe I could stay later some day and go home with one of them and show them how to make some stuff for it. You know, like we do, Grandma.”

  I hardly dared acknowledge it—like a dream come true. Not only had Maddie made friends in her new school, but she’d done it through a shared interest in dollhouses.

  I thought back. Kyra was the “not exactly” friend I’d seen Maddie with a couple of times when I picked her up. But Maddie hadn’t been at school since Thursday afternoon, and she didn’t know until Thursday night that she’d be on television. She’d missed school on Friday to do the show.

  “When did you tell Kyra and the other kids about the show?” I asked her.

  “I called them on my new cell phone yesterday. Did I tell you I was the last one to get a cell phone?”

  Mary Lou and I looked at each other and probably had similar thoughts. Mine was—if we’d only known that one of the keys to Maddie’s assimilation in her new school was a little red cell phone.

  As much as I wanted to pursue the incident of the stolen (I had no doubt) car, I shifted my focus to the debate scene.

  Except to make one phone call to the hospital before Maddie was ready to join me in the crafts room.

  “Do you have a security system in the parking lot?” I asked the young-sounding woman who answered the phone.

  “I’m not sure I can answer that question,” she said.

  “Because you don’t know or because you’re not supposed to?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  I pictured a nervous candy striper.

  “I just need to know if there’s a camera in the parking lot by the helicopter-landing pad. I lost my purse there last night. (This device had failed me with the janitor at the Rutledge Center, but it was worth one more try.)

  “I can transfer you to Lost and Found.”

  “No, I tried them. I need to see if the purse was there when I left last night, so if I could see any video that you have, that would be best.” (I really needed a new bag of tricks.)

  “Maybe you can come in and look?”

  “Thanks,” I said and hung up.

  I’d have to give it more thought and come up with some other ruse. I should have called myself a consultant with the police or a major donor to the hospital’s fund-raising efforts. I hadn’t heard from Skip and doubted very much that he would be sympathetic to pursuing the matter.

  “I’m ready. I’m ready,” Maddie said, skipping into the crafts room.

  I was glad one of us was.

  We finished the room box in record time, adding bits of trash on the grass and a tiny, red knitted scarf over a chair on the platform, along with the famous stovepipe hat that had been featured on television recently.

  “It’s great,” Maddie said, snapping a photograph of the completed scene. “I’m going to show Kyra and the kids tomorrow. I can hardly wait.”

  “What if you had to wait until you finished a roll of film with, say, thirty-six pictures, then had to take it to the drugstore, fill out a form, and finally pick up your photos a week or ten days later?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” It was nice to have something to smile about.

  The crafts area where we’d worked was in the room with the window onto my driveway. I peeked out twice during our session. My car was there, its headlights reflecting the sun, seeming to mock me.

  Wit
h Maddie’s help getting tissue paper of the right colors, I packed the scene in one of the shipping boxes I kept on hand for such deliveries. We filled my tote with snacks in case we ended up in a desert with no food or water. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I had to get in my car again and drive it.

  But not without cleaning it first. There was no chance it would be printed, I knew. I could hear Skip in my mind, reminding me how long it would take to get results because of the backup at the lab, and how unlikely there would be any prints of value in the first place.

  I took a spray container of cleaning solution and an old terrycloth rag to the driveway and wiped down the front doors and the handles of my car, plus the steering wheel, dashboard, and instrument panels.

  “How come you’re cleaning the car, Grandma?”

  The real reasons weren’t fit for a child’s ears. Because I felt my car had been violated—I had been violated. The steering wheel was sticky; the gearshift clammy. The seats seemed contaminated with an eerie, unknown substance.

  “Because you don’t want our little room box to get dirty?” Maddie asked.

  “You’ve got it exactly right,” I said.

  I was a tentative driver at first. I could have sworn my accelerator had a different feel, and the seat belt (I’d forgotten to clean it) seemed to have been stretched too far the last time it was used. But the lemony scent of my cleaning solution gave the car a whole new smell and I could pretend the vehicle had never been out of my control.

  Not only that, I sat up straighter, with new confidence. If it was this easy to get my car back, I could get hold of the case and get our lives back, also.

  Maddie was always the perfect driving companion, distracting me from what was stressing me out. Today, as we drove down Springfield Boulevard, she gave a standard running commentary. “The shoe repair shop is having a sale on slippers,” she said, followed immediately by, “Sadie’s is just opening up. Yum, yum,” and, “Look at the cute Abraham Lincoln bobble-heads in the Toy Box window.”

  I thought she’d make a great DJ; but, then, I thought she’d make a great anything.

  “We should be through with this errand by noon,” I said. “Shall we make a Sadie’s stop then?”

  “Yum, yum,” she said again, which I took as a “yes.”

  “I tried to find that Debra Ketough again this morning,” Maddie said.

  In the busyness of Sunday night, I’d forgotten about Zoe Howard’s mysterious bail-poster. Today, a holiday, would probably be as difficult a day as Sunday as far as Zoe’s getting any information out of the justice system. Maybe Maddie did better.

  “Any luck?” I asked her.

  “Nuh-uh. Where can she be living? It’s like this lady doesn’t have an address.”

  Doesn’t have an address? A light went on, fortunately not the dome light of my car, on its own—I was having enough trouble adjusting to its personality since it had been stolen.

  Maybe Debra Ketough was a lady who didn’t have an address. What if someone with a sinister motive, like framing Zoe for attacking Rhonda, enlisted a homeless person to post bail? All he or she would have to do is provide some fake ID (which, according to Skip was easy to do) and give the indigent person cash for the bond, plus some incentive. He could, therefore, time both Zoe’s release and Rhonda’s attack.

  A prosecutor could make the case that Zoe killed Brad and then attacked his ex-wife, all over a painting that provoked her rage.

  “Maddie, you’re a genius.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. She paused. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her quizzical expression. “What did I do?”

  I blew her a kiss and pulled over in front of the high school. “I have to call Uncle Skip,” I said.

  He picked up right away. “Is this about your car, Aunt Gerry? We’re short-staffed today so it’s unlikely anything will get done on it.”

  “Too many actors in the crew?”

  “What makes you say that?” Skip seemed to be reacting to what he perceived as an insult.

  “I meant that so many of our male population are trying out for Lincoln or Douglas.”

  “Yeah, well, with one thing and another, we don’t have the manpower to get your car printed.”

  “Never mind. I cleaned it up anyway. That’s not why I called.”

  I detected a worried gasp. Not audible, except to aunts. “Shoot,” he said.

  “I had a thought about the woman who posted Zoe’s bail.” I felt Maddie tug at my pants. I looked up and found her wide-eyed, pointing to her own chest. “After stellar research on the part of your youngest cousin.”

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “What if she’s a homeless person and that’s why you don’t have an address?”

  “And why would a homeless woman bail out a stranger?”

  I told Skip my theory of a double frame for Zoe, first for Brad Goodman’s murder, and then to finish up loose ends, for the attack on her rival, Brad’s ex-wife.

  “Interesting.”

  I loved that word—one of my favorites from my nephew, since it always meant that he really was interested, unlike Richard who used the word to indicate that he was bored.

  “Can you look into homeless shelters?” I asked him.

  “Not easy to do. They’re a transient population. And that might not even be her name.”

  “Do you have a better lead?”

  “No,” he said in a near whisper.

  “What was that?”

  “No, Aunt Gerry.” Louder this time. “Okay, I’ll get back to you.”

  “Did I help? Did I help?” Maddie asked.

  “You certainly did. I never would have thought of looking for a person without an address if it weren’t for you.”

  Maddie kicked her feet in front of her, her “delighted” tell.

  Some days I had to remind myself to enjoy these moments with her and not get too wrapped up in the fact that eventually she’d be crossing her legs in a ladylike manner, taking a long time to get ready for an outing, and changing her socks without coaxing.

  I loved her this way, and I was sure I’d love her at every phase.

  The civic center was sparsely populated today. Mr. Fiddler was playing to the mostly deserted steps. The tune was something patriotic that I couldn’t identify—a Sousa march? Our artist, wearing an attractive scarf and a warmer coat than usual, I was glad to see, was redrawing Abraham Lincoln on the first wide step. The mime was absent today, perhaps out getting some exercise. I gave Maddie change for the two receptacles and waited while she talked a bit to each entertainer. I noticed she pulled extra coins from her own pocket.

  I made a note to talk to her parents about an increase in her allowance. What made me think I had to worry about her compassion for people who were less fortunate than she was?

  Inside the city hall foyer, Maddie saw the mural and her mother’s painting in place for the first time.

  “Wow, wow,” she said, to the delight of Mary Lou who came out from the doors to the assembly hall in front of us.

  “You like?” she asked her daughter and was rewarded with a big hug.

  As an extra thrill, I saw that a special place had been reserved for the room box Maddie and I (and, okay, my crafter friend, Linda Reed) had worked on. Our outdoor debate scene would be on a stand next to Mary Lou’s painting of the Galesburg site.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Another artist heard from—Ed Villard. “You must come inside and see my Harriet Lane portrait,” he said, in the most pleasantly animated tone I’d ever heard from him. I noticed that he didn’t mention Brad Goodman’s painting of James Buchanan, however.

  “Speaking of the portraits and their artists,” I said, “I was surprised to learn that you and Brad Goodman go back a few years.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I must have misunderstood when you said you met him only when he came to Lincoln Point.”

  “We may have traveled the same circuits, but”—he gestured behind me—“a
h, here’s your sweet granddaughter.”

  Smooth move, I thought, making a note to ask Nan Browne the same question and compare reactions.

  Maddie had stretched her neck as far back as possible to get a good view of the mural. “Wow, this is cool. Where’s your part, Mr. Villard?”

  Ed picked her up in a swooping motion that startled me, though Maddie seemed unperturbed. “Way up there on the left,” he said.

  “It’s very nice. Thanks,” she said, slipping to the floor.

  I wasn’t enough of an art critic to know how good Ed’s section of the mural was, compared to those of the younger artists. I’d have to ask Mary Lou about it later, if it still mattered to me.

  “Do you know the lady who draws on the steps?” Maddie asked Ed.

  The old—older, that is—artist stiffened. “What makes you ask that?”

  Maddie shrugged. “ ’Cause she’s an artist like you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ed said in a mocking tone. “A has-been, if anything.”

  I wondered why he seemed insulted and what had happened to his good mood. Maybe we didn’t respond with enough enthusiasm to his invitation to see his Harriet Lane.

  “I’ve heard the guys talk about the woman with the chalk,” Mary Lou said. “The word is that she used to be a working artist but fell on hard times.”

  “Translation: booze and drugs,” Ed said.

  “It can happen to anyone,” Mary Lou said. I pictured her organizing a march for down-and-out artists very soon.

  “Tomorrow is her last day here,” Maddie said.

  “Whose?” I asked.

  “The lady with the chalk.”

  “How do you know that?” Ed asked, beating me to the punch.

  “She told me just now when I was talking to her. She wants to stay for the debate tomorrow night but then she’s going back to live in Europe where she used to be famous.”

  “Poor thing. In her dreams,” Mary Lou said.

  A strange look came over Ed’s face, as if he was envious of the attention being paid to an artist of less worth than him.