by Lois Winston
“I may just do that,” shouted Sheri.
Monica’s face lit up in a smug grin. “Be my guest. Fire me. I still get paid, and I won’t have to put up with any more of this shit.” She swept her arm across the counter, brushing one very sad looking, half-finished mop doll and an assortment of supplies to the floor.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said Sheri. “Well, forget it, honey.” She bent down, scooped up the mess and plopped everything back down in front of Monica. “If I’m stuck paying you, you’re going to work for every dime of that exorbitant contract you wheedled out of Lou.”
“Maybe we should take a break,” suggested Naomi.
“No breaks,” said Sheri. “Not until we’ve wrapped this segment. We’re too far behind schedule.”
So I took a deep breath and tried for the fifth—or was it the fiftieth?—time to show Monica, a woman whose ten digits seemed to be comprised of all thumbs, how to plait a braid.
“Maybe we could have the camera cut to a finished braid after she separates the strands into three sections,” I suggested, convinced that Monica was either incapable or disinclined to master the simplest of skills. Her fidgeting fingers couldn’t even count out three equal groups of mop strands.
“No.” Sheri flailed her arms. “The whole point of these crafts is that anyone can do them.” She pointed a chubby index finger at Monica. “Even someone as inept as you.”
Monica stood. “I refuse to sit here and be insulted by you.”
“So quit,” said Sheri. “I only have to pay out your contract if I fire you or the show gets canceled.”
“That’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it?” Monica climbed back onto her stool, nearly tipping it in the process. Then, as she glowered at Sheri, she grabbed a handful of mop strands and sorted them into three unequal sections. “Guess again, Little Miss Napoleon.”
Sheri’s jaw dropped, but before she could respond, Vince stormed into the studio. “Heads are going to roll when I find out who planted that e-mail,” he screamed, spittle flying in Monica’s direction.
She dropped the mop strands, jumped off the stool, threw her hands onto her hips, and glared at him. “Are you accusing me of making the whole thing up?”
Vince laughed. “Hardly. Whoever tried to frame me has to know his way around computers. You can’t find the ON switch without help.”
“What makes you think someone tried to frame you?” asked Sheri.
Vince spun to face her, his upper lip skewed into one of his classic sneers. “Because I didn’t send that e-mail.”
“And the police are supposed to take your word against the evidence on Monica’s computer?” She chuckled as she shook her head. “Not likely.”
“They will when they trace back the e-mail to the perpetrator’s computer and not mine.”
“What if the sender used your computer?” I asked.
Vince’s expression grew cocky, his speech condescending. “Impossible. My computer is password protected. Besides, I keep it locked in my desk when I’m not using it.”
“Even when you go to the little boy’s room?” I asked.
“Even when I go to the little boy’s room,” he mimicked.
“That wouldn’t stop a determined hacker,” said Naomi. “Those e-mails could have been sent from your computer without the perpetrator having physical access to your computer.”
Both the color and cockiness drained from his face. For a split second I thought I caught a glimpse of fear in Vince’s eyes, but he quickly recovered.
Monica crossed her arms over her chest. Two large patches of white lint remained on either side of her waist. Her right foot had once again begun tapping a frenzied staccato. “So the cops released you? With the fuss you put up earlier, you’re lucky they didn’t lock you up and throw away the key.”
Vince stepped closer to her, leaving only inches between his face and hers. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart? Think it would solve your problems? Don’t bet on it. Maybe you paid someone to hack into my computer.”
Monica took a step back and answered with nothing more than a smirk.
Vince turned to Sheri. “I’m out on bail. But you’ve made my lawyer’s day. My legal fees over this will buy him that new Lamborghini he’s been eyeing.” He stomped out of the studio without another word. I guess he already knew how to plait a braid, since he didn’t bother to hang around for rehearsal, much less the taping.
“Murderers usually don’t get released on bail,” I said, staring at the studio door swinging on its hinges. “Or it’s set so high that they can’t raise the money.”
“The King of Drama,” scoffed Sheri. “He was arrested for impeding an investigation and resisting arrest. If he hadn’t put up such a fuss when the cops demanded his computer, he never would have been arrested. That’ll buy his lawyer a used Chevy. Maybe.”
I wondered when Sheri last hired an attorney. My legal fees from Karl’s death came close to the GNP of Western Samoa. And that was with Mama’s second cousin Horace Sudberry cutting me a break.
“I wonder what he’s hiding,” I said.
“What do you mean?” asked Sheri.
“Why would Vince put up such a fuss if he didn’t have something on his computer he didn’t want the cops to find?”
“Like a certain e-mail,” said Monica.
“But at the time it never occurred to Vince that the e-mail could have been sent from his computer,” Naomi reminded her. Monica had the memory retention of a flea.
“And he certainly doesn’t strike me as a First Amendment zealot,” added Naomi.
“So he did send the e-mail,” said Monica. “I knew it!”
“Not necessarily,” said Sheri.
“But she just said—”
“What I’m saying,” I said, “is there must be something on that computer Vince didn’t want the police to see.”
Unfortunately, we’d probably never learn Vince’s secret because sometime after midnight Sunday evening he was found in a Hell’s Kitchen alley. Alongside his battered and bloody body the police found an Easter bunny mop doll sitting on a bloody brick.
Eleven
Only it wasn’t my Easter bunny mop doll. Which I pointed out to Detective Marlowe when he and a uniformed officer arrived at my front door hours before daybreak and hauled my less-than-awake, sweats-clad tush across the Hudson River for a round of idiotic questioning.
“How do I know this isn’t your doll?” asked Marlowe, pointing a mustard-stained index finger at a paraplegic, follicly challenged Easter bunny who looked like he’d indulged in one too many mugs of spiked carrot juice. Ears of two different lengths were precariously attached to a head devoid of hair. The eyes, one glued an inch higher than the other, were too large for the face. Only one arm was braided; the other hung in hacked, loose strands, hence the paraplegic affect.
I pulled my attention from the doll and studied Marlowe. A minute spec of Gulden’s kissed the corner of his mouth. A matching blob had found its way onto the loosened royal blue-and—
burgundy striped tie that hung from the collar of his wrinkled and stained white shirt. He wore the same suit he’d worn when arresting Vince, only on Thursday he’d worn it well. Right now it looked like he’d slept in the navy gabardine every night since Thursday. On a park bench. In the rain.
He looked the way I felt. And whose fault was that? He’d dragged me out of bed. Not to mention yanking me out of the most erotic dream I’d had in decades. I couldn’t remember most of it now except that Satisfaction had been playing in the background, and I was finally getting some. By a hunk in tight black jeans. Only he had discarded the jeans. In a heap. On my kitchen floor.
“Mrs. Pollack? I asked you a question.”
Yikes! Was I desperate or what? I’m being questioned about a murder, and I’m fantasizing about sex with my tenant. I shook the image and the cobwebs from my brain.
Marlowe repeated his question. Before answering, I yawned, then drained the cup of
sludge he’d poured me. My eye caught the clock mounted on the wall opposite the door—4:45 in the morning. Morning? As far as I was concerned, anything earlier than 6:30 fell into the realm of middle of the night. However, considering the circumstances and wanting to avoid a forced vacation in the slammer, I swallowed my Inner Bitch and reined in the acid remark straining to leap from my lips.
Offering Marlowe a bitch-free smile, I said, “Detective, if I produced such shoddy workmanship, I’d be out of a job. Whoever crafted that doll is either trying to frame me or send you on a wild goose chase.”
He scrubbed his chin and flashed a grin, exposing a set of coffee-stained, less-than-pearly whites. “Yeah, we sort of figured that one out on our own.”
“So I’m not a suspect?”
“Everyone’s a suspect until we find our killer.”
“I have no motive.”
Marlowe cocked his head, narrowed his gaze, and frowned. “By your own admission you were forced to take on work you weren’t getting paid for. To some that’s motivation enough to kill.”
“Not for me. Besides, if I did kill Lou and Vince—which I didn’t—do you think I’d be stupid enough to leave such obvious clues leading right back to me?”
“Probably not, but maybe you left them for just that reason. And maybe you deliberately crafted a doll that would look like someone else made it.”
“Detective, you need to catch a few z’s. You’re not making any sense.” I pointed an accusing finger at the mop doll. “You just said you knew I didn’t make that piece of crap.”
“Doesn’t matter. I still needed to question you about the doll.”
I slapped my palms on the table and leaned forward. My Inner Bitch burst free with a menacing growl. “You couldn’t have waited until morning?”
He hauled his rumpled body out of the metal chair, strode to the coffee pot at the far corner of the room, and poured himself another cup of sludge. “Refill? Sounds like you could use one.”
“No thanks.” I pitched my empty Styrofoam cup at an overflowing waste basket. It fell three feet short. Even I, the Caffeine Queen of Westfield, didn’t have the cast-iron stomach for more than one cup of the acidic mud the NYPD passed off as coffee.
Marlowe returned the pot to the burner, scooped up my cup and deposited it in the can before settling back into the seat opposite me. “Time is of the essence in a murder investigation. We don’t have the luxury of working nine-to-five. Clues disappear; leads dry up.”
The man looked beyond haggard. Stubble covered his face. Mud splattered his rumpled shirt. Or maybe it was blood. I shuddered and softened my tone. “Am I free to leave?” By the time I arrived back in Westfield, I’d have just enough time to shower, dress, and make it to the office without accumulating another demerit from the Human Resources Attendance Nazi. If I were lucky. Not that luck had deigned to grace my path in several months.
He shook his head. “I’ve got two related cases. Two dolls. We know you made the first one. I was hoping you’d have some idea as to who constructed this one. Might give us the lead we need.”
The Easter Bunny Mop Doll from Hell sat at the far end of the battered wood table. I held out my hand. “May I?”
He stretched one beefy arm down the length of the table, retrieved the doll, and handed it to me.
I inspected Bugs from all angles, turning him upside-down and nearly inside-out, but a closer examination revealed nothing in the way of a clue. “You weren’t able to find anything?”
“Like?”
I scowled at him. “I don’t know. You’re the cop. Fingerprints. A stray hair. The CSI thing.”
He rose and paced the small space between the table and door. One hand combed through his salt and pepper crew cut; the other jingled the change in his pants pocket. “Yeah, forensics did their thing. Came up with nothing. That’s why I thought maybe you could help.”
I sighed as I set Bugs back on the table. “Sorry.”
Marlowe returned to the table and dropped back into his chair. “Were you looking for anything special?”
“No, but thanks to Monica’s lack of cooperation, we went through several mop dolls during rehearsals. We weren’t making bunnies, but this could have been one of the early rejects that wound up in the trash. The killer may have taken it and added the ears. Only I don’t see anything that would tell us one way or the other whether this is one of the rehearsal dolls.”
Marlowe picked up on the lack of cooperation comment. “Want to explain that?”
I filled him in on the back-stabbing soap opera antics of Morning Makeovers and ended by saying, “Didn’t anyone mention this when you questioned us after Lou’s death?”
He nodded. “Just wanted to hear your take.”
His bleary-eyed stare held mine for a moment as if waiting for me to pull some important tidbit out of the dark recesses of my brain, but I had nothing more to add. “You’ve heard it. Now can I please go home?”
Marlowe nodded. “I’ll have a uniformed drive you back to Westfield.”
Had I been more awake, I might have asked him what he found on Vince’s computer, but I didn’t think of that until I was standing under a stream of steamy water an hour later. Not that he would have satisfied my curiosity. From my experience of a few months back, cops ask the questions and expect you to cough up the answers. It doesn’t work the other way around.
Bunny Mop Doll
Turn a basic mop doll into a bunny with these simple additions.
Materials (in addition to materials used for Basic Mop Doll): one white and one pink felt square (9½” x 12”), fusible web, two 1½” white pompoms, one 1” pink pompom, two 12mm pink oval wiggle eyes, water-soluble fabric marker, iron and ironing board; six straight pins.
Directions: Cut the white felt in half to 6” x 9½”. Following manufacturer’s directions for the fusible web, fuse the pieces together. Cut two pieces, each 6” x 2¼”. Mark the centers of the sides, top, and bottom with the water-soluble fabric marker. For each ear, at the bottom edge measure out from either side of the center ⅝”. Draw a curved line from the center side markings to the ⅝” markings. Then draw a curved line from the center side markings to the top center, rounding the point where the two lines meet. Cut out both ears. Remove the pen markings with a spritz of water.
Following the manufacturer’s directions, apply fusible web to the pink felt. Using the white ears as a pattern, cut two pink inner ears. Trim the inner ears ¼” around the sides and top edges. Fuse a pink inner ear to each white ear.
Apply a drop of glue to the bottom center of each ear. Fold the ears in half to form a dart. Allow the glue to dry. (Hint: hold the ears together with a spring type clothespin while the glue dries.)
Before applying 3” lengths of the mop strands to the doll head, glue the ears in place on either side of the head. For additional security, dip straight pins in glue and pin through the felt into the head at bottom edges of the ears. Apply mop doll hair as directed in Basic Mop Doll directions, omitting the pigtails.
Glue a pink pompom to the center of the face for the bunny’s nose. Glue white pompoms horizontally centered under the pink pompom to form a muzzle. Glue the eyes in place.
After the murder and mayhem of the past few weeks at the television studio, the normal insanity of magazine publishing and my own cubicle of an office came as a welcome relief that Monday morning.
“Done with your taping?” asked Cloris, popping in from her own cubicle across the hall.
I collapsed into my chair. “We finished Friday. One fifteen minute segment wound up taking more than a day to shoot. I don’t envy the segment editor.”
“Let me guess. Monica?”
I nodded. “The woman acts incapable of mastering the most basic of skills. Emphasis on acts.” I mentioned my epiphany regarding the reruns I’d watched. “I’ll bet if she’d been cast in the title role of The Life of Martha Stewart, we’d all marvel at her crafting skills.”
“I don’t see how Sheri’
s going to pull this off,” said Cloris.
“I know. Seems to me she’d be better off firing Monica, even if Trimedia has to pay out her contract. Unless Sheri’s aiming to create The Gong Show of morning television.”
Cloris crossed the hall and offered me a chocolate chip muffin. Cloris never comes empty-handed, and for that fact alone she’s earned her place in Heaven. “Let me know what you think of this,” she said. “It’s a reader’s recipe I’m thinking of featuring in the next issue.”
I inhaled half the muffin in one bite. “Hmm,” I said over the mouthful. I closed my eyes and savored the fudgy cake. My stomach growled as it received the first offering in over twelve hours. NYPD sludge didn’t count.
“No time for breakfast this morning?” she asked, eyeing my hastily assembled, mismatched outfit and my in-need-of-a-good-washing, limp hair.
“Or much of anything else.” My weekends consisted of forty-eight hours of nonstop parenting, errands, and chores. When Mama offered to take care of the laundry, I gladly accepted. When would I learn? Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O’Keefe might have the best of intentions, but intentions don’t wash, dry, and fold. This morning I discovered a mountain of dirty laundry in the basement and my clean wardrobe reduced to a pair of olive drab Dockers and a slate blue, scooped-neck T-shirt with a bleach spot that drew attention to my left boob.
“Good thing you’re not the Fashion Editor,” said Cloris, pointing to the amorphous-shaped white dribble.
I grabbed my smock off a hook and stuffed my arms into the sleeves, buttoning the front up to my chin.
“So I guess you didn’t catch the morning news,” she said.
“About Vince Alto? Firsthand from Detective Marlowe about five hours ago.”
Cloris nearly choked on a bite of her muffin. “Dish!”
So I dished. When I finished catching her up, she said, “I’ll bet it was Monica’s husband.”
“That’s what I thought at first, given that he accused Monica of having affairs with both Lou and Vince.”