Death by Killer Mop Doll (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery)

by Lois Winston

  She took the pill without question. After a few sips of water she heaved a deep sigh and turned to me. “Everything’s ruined, Anastasia. For me. For you. The boys. Lou was the answer to our prayers.”

  She hiccupped a sob. “A man to take care of us. No more money worries.”

  “Are you telling me you planned to marry Lou for his money? That you didn’t love him?”

  “I was doing it for us, dear. Lou had more money than he knew what to do with. What’s so wrong with helping him spread the wealth a bit? And I was fond of him. Besides, look where marrying for love has gotten me? Five dead husbands and hardly two nickels to rub together. I thought I’d try something different this time around.” She heaved another sigh, held her hand at arm’s length, and inspected the Cleveland-sized chunk of ice on her third finger. “Do you think Tiffany’s will give me a refund on my ring?”

  Great. Mama, the Queen of Romance, had become Goldie the gold digger in her dotage.

  The police kept us for hours as two homicide detectives questioned all of us one at a time. I don’t know what Mama told them when it was her turn, but she was with them a good deal longer than anyone else. And when they escorted her from the office they’d commandeered for interviews, they looked like they’d been the ones to undergo the grilling.

  Mama, on the other hand, had resorted to her natural busybody self, all signs of her emotional breakdown gone. Whether it was the effect of the happy pill or her own stoic resilience, I couldn’t say, but she did have more than her share of experience dealing with death.

  “Now, you dear boys will keep me informed about your progress in capturing my poor Lou’s killer, won’t you?” She craned her neck to face the two men who were both well over six feet tall.

  “Of course, ma’am,” said one.

  Mama patted his arm. “If you need any help, you be sure to give me a call. I started watching CSI and Law & Order after that nasty business I told you about. Believe me, getting tied up with a Ruskie in a bathtub for hours certainly changed my perspective on life, not to mention my television viewing choices. I could be a big help to you boys.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Apparently Mama had regaled them with her tale of how Ricardo the Loan Shark broke into my house three months ago, hogtied her to Lucille, and dumped them in the bathtub. I don’t know how the detectives managed to remain straight-faced. I reached for Mama’s arm and nudged her along. “Come on, Mama. We need to let these gentlemen continue with their investigation.” I turned to them. “We can go?”

  They nodded. “For now,” said one of them.

  Mama and I had only taken a few steps down the hall when she stopped short and turned back to them. “And you won’t forget what I told you about you-know-who,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper that could be heard halfway down the corridor.

  “No, ma’am. We’ll check into it,” said the detective standing to the left.

  “What was that all about?” I asked as we stepped into the elevator.

  “What was what, dear?”

  I eyed Mama with skepticism, not about to fall for her Miss Innocent act. “Who’s you-know-who and what did you tell the detectives?”

  “I told them the truth, of course.”

  I silently counted to ten on a swiftly exhaled rush of exasperation and balled my fists, fighting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shake. “The truth about what?”

  The elevator came to a stop, and we stepped out into the street level lobby. Turning to face me, Mama exhaled her own breath of annoyance before answering in a tight, clipped voice. “I told them all about that nasty Sheri and how she tried to steal my idea. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the prime suspect. She had motive, opportunity, and method.”

  Who said network television isn’t educational? Thanks to her nightly diet of police dramas, Mama had police jargon down pat. I resisted the urge to say, “Ten-four, good buddy,” but since she seemed to be challenging me, I decided to play along. As we exited the building and headed down the street, I asked, “And exactly what was Sheri’s motive, Detective Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O’Keefe?”

  Mama stopped in the middle of the crowded sidewalk and turned to face me. As pedestrians darted around us, she lifted her chin and puffed out her chest. “Jealousy, of course.”

  I raised both eyebrows. “If that’s the case, why didn’t she kill you?”

  With a roll of her eyes, a click of her tongue, and a shake of her head Mama said, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Anastasia. Why would anyone want to kill me?”

  _____

  We didn’t arrive home until after seven. Lights blazed from every window of the house even though we were well into Daylight Savings Time, and the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky. Time for another mom lecture on how pennies saved on electricity grew into dollars for college.

  As I opened the front door, classic rock assaulted my ears. Across the living room, Catherine the Great leaped from her throne atop the sofa and sauntered over to greet Mama with a loud purr and a rubbing of fur against stockinged legs.

  Mama stooped to pick up her oversized Persian and hugged the white fur ball to her chest. “I’m afraid there won’t be any caviar for you now,” she said, nuzzling her face into Catherine the Great’s long-haired coat. After some cooing and cuddling, Mama lifted her head to speak to me. “Lou promised nothing but the best for my Catherine the Great.”

  Caviar for a cat? I eyed the corpulent feline in my mother’s arms and wondered about the witchcrafting skills Mama must have acquired during her Caribbean cruise. She’d certainly cast a spell over the recently departed Lou Beaumont. “She’ll survive.”

  Mama sighed. Her shoulders sagged. I wasn’t certain whether from the weight of her emotions or her cat. “As will we all, I suppose.”

  I draped my arm around her shoulders and pecked her cheek. Poor Mama. She’d had the best of intentions, and as badly as she felt now, I was glad she wasn’t marrying Lou. Not that I wanted him dead, but I hated to think Mama the romantic had planned to marry a man she didn’t love in order to provide financial security for herself and her family.

  She slipped out from under my arm and began walking toward the bedroom she shared with Lucille. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need to rest a bit from all the excitement of the day. Be a dear and call me when dinner’s ready.”

  “Sure, Mama.”

  Dinner. I sniffed. The pungent aroma of herbs and spices assailing my olfactory glands told me someone had beaten me to that task. Surely not Lucille. She never lifted a finger in the kitchen. And Nick and Alex limited themselves to nuking leftovers in the microwave. I followed the tantalizing scent in search of the Dinner Fairy and found my too-sexy-for-his-own-good tenant standing at the kitchen sink. His arms were submerged to the elbows in sudsy water, my emerald green Kiss the Cook apron looped over his neck but left untied at the waist. Black jeans cupped a pair of steel buns that swayed to the sounds of the Rolling Stones coming from the boom box on top of the refrigerator as Zack sang along about getting no satisfaction.

  I sucked in my lips, stifling the groan that had skyrocketed from an area south of my belly into the back of my throat. Propriety, Anastasia. Propriety. You’re supposed to be in mourning. But mourning a louse wasn’t easy, especially when an Adonis was scouring my frying pan. Besides, my resistance was down. Stumbling over dead bodies tends to do that to me.

  Zack’s deep baritone shifted to singing about being on a losing streak.

  Story of my life lately.

  And as if that weren’t enough, the Adonis, who must also be a reincarnation of the magical Merlin, had somehow cast a spell over my sons. Both sang backup while Alex loaded the dishwasher and Nick swept the floor. Ralph held court on top of the boom box, bobbing his beak from side to side like a feathery metronome.

  Oh, no, no, no.

  Hey, hey, hey.

  Nick spied me first. “Hi, Mom! We were too hungry to wait, so Zack made
dinner.”

  The cook in question turned at the sound of his name. “Hope you don’t mind. There’s leftover beef stir-fry and couscous with roasted pine nuts in the microwave for you and Flora.”

  Mind? Why should I mind my very own personal chef-hunk? I collapsed into a chair and waved away his concern. “Hey, feel free to take over KP any time.” As long as he didn’t demand a rent reduction. I needed every penny of that monthly rent check he wrote me.

  Alex removed a still-steaming plate of food from the microwave and set it in front of me. Nick brought me a napkin and silverware. “Time to hit the books,” said Alex with a wink to his brother before the two of them dashed from the kitchen. Subtle my sons are not.

  “Tell Grandma Flora dinner’s ready,” I called to their departing backs.

  After lowering the volume on the boom box, Zack poured two glasses of wine from a half-empty bottle of Merlot sitting on the kitchen counter. I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t been able to afford wine in months, and Zack wasn’t irresponsible enough to have served Nick and Alex.

  Handing me a nearly full glass, he answered my silent question. “Nick said he found it hidden in the back of his closet while searching for a missing sneaker.”

  I should have known. “Lucille. No wonder she’s always tripping over her cane or walker. She’s not supposed to mix alcohol with her medication.” Not that Lucille has ever followed orders from any authority figure. My mother-in-law answers to no man. Or woman. I paused for a moment and listened to the relative quiet of the house. No senior citizen bickering coming from the bedroom wing. “By the way, where is our resident Comrade in Arms?”

  “Haven’t seen her.”

  I shrugged. “Out fomenting revolution, no doubt. If she winds up in jail this time, she’s out of luck. I no longer have the money to bail her out, and the house is mortgaged up the wazoo.”

  Nick darted through the kitchen on his way to the basement. “Grandma says she’s too tired to eat. Have you seen my cleats, Mom?”

  I quoted my standard response. “They’re wherever you last left them,” then added, “I thought you had homework.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  I had no idea what kind of homework required cleats, but I was too tired to don my Grand Inquisitor’s hat.

  Zack took the seat opposite me. “Lucille’s done time? Tell me you’re kidding.”

  Nick bounded up the basement stairs, cleats in hand. “Found ’em.” As he raced out of the room, he said, “Yeah, and every time she gets locked up, Alex and I get stuck taking care of Demon Dog.”

  I shook my head. “She’s slowed down a bit since her accident. Inciting political upheaval is physically challenging when you’re an arthritic eighty year old who’s recently undergone hip replacement surgery.”

  “Eighty? Then she was barely out of her teens back in the early fifties.”

  “So?”

  “The heyday of communism in this country was in the thirties, and most of the people enamored of it back then grew disillusioned with it well before the fifties and the McCarthy hearings. How’d she become such a die-hard Commie?”

  “You’d have to ask her. But don’t hold your breath. Lucille isn’t very forthcoming about her past. Even Karl knew nothing. Or so he claimed.” I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, and savored the wine. “I needed this.”

  “Rough rehearsal?” Zack had ridden into the city on the same train as Mama and I that morning. Between what the boys told him and Mama’s nonstop prattle on the ride from Westfield to Manhattan, Zack knew as much about my life as I did. Maybe more.

  “We never got around to rehearsal.”

  “More vandalism?”

  I shook my head. “Worse. Murder.”

  “Jeez!” Zack finished his wine in one gulp. “Who?”

  I told him about Poor Lou. Poor dead Lou.

  “That makes you two for two,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two Trimedia murders. And you discovered them both.”

  I winced. He had a point. How many other women’s magazine editors find themselves in the middle of not one but two company murders? “And both times the killers have implicated me. First with my glue gun, now with my mop dolls.” Not a pattern I wanted repeated.

  “Murder! Murder!” squawked Ralph, still atop his perch on the boom box. “You have done well, that men must lay their murders on your neck. Othello. Act Five, Scene Two.”

  I scowled. “You call one step ahead of the bill collectors doing well?” I asked the buttinsky parrot.

  Zack refilled his wine glass and topped off mine. “You know, I’m no expert on the subject, but maybe you should consider a safer line of work. I know Navy SEALs who don’t stumble across dead bodies as often as you do.”

  “And how many Navy SEALs do you know?” Before he could answer, the phone rang. Zack grabbed the handset and handed it to me.

  “Hello?”

  “Anastasia, this is Naomi. I have some news.”

  Six

  I leaped up, nearly toppling my chair to the floor. “The police caught Lou’s killer? Is it Ray?” During my interview with the detectives I’d told them about the incident I’d observed at the press conference and my conversation with Lou the day before his death.

  “No, they haven’t. This isn’t exactly good news.”

  Unlike some editorial directors, Naomi respected her editors’ private lives and wasn’t in the habit of calling us at home. The downy hairs on my arm stood at attention; my stomach executed a triple flip-flop. “Then what?”

  She took a deep breath and expelled it with a rush. “Trimedia has decided to go ahead with the show. Once the police finish going over the crime scene, we’re all to report back to the studio.”

  “But how—?”

  “Corporate handed full responsibility for the program over to Sheri. I wanted to give you enough warning because you’ll have to make another Valentine mop doll. The police will hold onto the original as evidence.”

  As well as the knitting needle. And they could keep it. That was one tool I never wanted to see again. As a matter of fact, I was seriously considering tossing out all the knitting needles I owned. I’d buy some dowel rods the next time I needed to make curly doll hair. I even contemplated calling Goodwill to pick up all my knitted sweaters and scarves. I wanted nothing that could remind me of poor Lou impaled by a Susan Bates size 11 aluminum needle.

  “When do you think they’ll let us back in the studio?” I asked, glancing at Zack. His eyebrows raised in question.

  “Sheri seems to think within a day or two.”

  “Before Lou’s even buried?”

  Naomi’s voice took on a bitter edge. “Business is business, and the show must go on.”

  I hung up from Naomi and filled Zack in on the part of the conversation he hadn’t overheard. “So if the killer knocked off Lou to get the show cancelled, he hasn’t succeeded.”

  “Which also means the killer might strike again.”

  And that meant none of us was safe. Not Mama. Not the American Woman editors. Not even Sheri. Who knew to what lengths the killer would go? With shaky hands, I reached for my wine glass and chugged the remainder of the Merlot. “Someone has to find Lou’s killer before he strikes again.”

  Zack’s lips tightened as he stared at me for a minute without saying anything. When he finally spoke, he sounded more like a father reprimanding an errant teenager than my tenant. “You’d better leave that to the police. The way I hear it, only dumb luck kept you from getting killed last time you played Sherlock Holmes.”

  Dumb luck, an X-Acto knife, and a cell phone, actually. But I like to think that I learn from my experiences, and being locked in the trunk of a killer’s Mercedes was certainly an experience I’ll never forget.

  This time I’d be more careful. No need to tell Zack, though. After all, steel buns to drool over or not, he was still only my tenant. Not my husband. Not my boyfriend. Hardly more than an acquaintance, real
ly. What right did he have to lecture me and order me around?

  I tamped down the urge to bristle. “You’re right. This time the case is in the hands of New York’s finest, not some inexperienced rural county detectives. I’m sure they’ll have the killer locked up before we go back to the studio for rehearsals and taping.”

  Curly Doll Hair Directions

  You can create curly doll hair for any size handmade doll, not just mop dolls. Choose a yarn, crochet cotton, or embroidery floss that suits your doll. Bulky yarns work best for bigger dolls; worsted weights for medium sized dolls; and finer yarns, crochet cottons, and floss for small dolls.

  Tie the yarn to the end of a knitting needle and wrap tightly, tying off the yarn at the opposite end of the needle. The smaller the knitting needle, the tighter the curls. You can also use shish kabob skewers or dowel rods of varying diameters.

  Soak the wrapped needles in hot water, then remove and use a towel to blot up the excess water. Allow the yarn to air dry thoroughly before removing from the needles. You can also place the needles on a cookie sheet and heat in a 225 degree oven to speed up the drying process.

  When the yarn is dry, carefully remove it from the needles. Cut into pieces twice the desired length. Apply to doll’s head in the same manner described in the basic mop doll directions.

  A hot hunk in tight-fitting black jeans had me in his arms. We were dancing a barefoot samba on the pink sands of Bermuda. He drew me closer and whispered in my ear, “Anastasia?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Anastasia! Wake up!”

  Poof ! My eyes sprang open. Good-bye hot hunk. Hello Mama. She stood over me, shaking my arm.

  “Mama, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  “Only if heartsick counts.” She nudged me over and plopped down on the edge of the bed. Catherine the Great bounded up after her and with a purr of contentment, settled herself onto my pillow, her tail across my face.

  “We need to talk,” said Mama.