Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  The drive seemed to take forever. She watched through her rearview mirror for the other car. The street numbers descended until she crossed Central Avenue, then the numbers began to ascend again as avenues.

  This wasn’t so hard. And she didn’t even need the map.

  She turned onto Forty-third Avenue and parked along the street to get her bearings. She found an address on a carpet store across the street. Her address was in the next block up. She drove a little further, parked, and stuffed Nimrod into her already crammed purse.

  Walking along, Gretchen noted that the block was mostly commercial buildings. In fact, they all were.

  Not one single-family residence. No apartment buildings. No condos.

  But this time, at least the address she had written down existed.

  Gretchen entered a tattoo shop, pretty sure she wouldn’t find Duanne Wilson inside.

  Her developing psychic intuition was correct.

  They’d never heard of him.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The party was picking up speed when Gretchen arrived with Nimrod in tow. He joined his own party of miniature dogs in the back entryway. A baby gate kept the canine revelers from joining the human throng.

  People from all aspects of the doll business jammed the open, rounded rooms of Bonnie’s modest Arizona-style home.

  The club president’s dolls had their very own separate display room off the entryway - in consideration of her son’s severe phobia, Gretchen assumed. Pine curio cabinets housed Bonnie’s collection of fragile and expensive Kewpie dolls. Cloth and hard plastic Kewpies adorned the chairs and tables, and Kewpie plates and cups lined ledges along the walls.

  Nina met Gretchen at the doggy gate with Sophie, her current Yorkie trainee. “Sophie’s family wants her socialized, so I’m keeping her a few extra days. This certainly is the place to acclimate her to her own kind.”

  “Are all these dogs past clients of yours?”

  Nina, decked out in a vibrant orange pantsuit, nodded proudly, sipping a martini from a large glass hand-painted with colorful swirls. “Business has been good. Doll collectors love purse dogs. Who knew? I only started the training program last year, and I can hardly keep up with the demand.” She pointed. “There’s Rosebud; you remember her.”

  Gretchen grinned at the little Maltese.

  “And Enrico.” Nina pointed at a Chihuahua.

  “I can’t believe it,” Gretchen said, remembering him as a pint-sized Tasmanian devil. “Enrico’s behaving himself.”

  “He comes to visit me frequently for a refresher course in social skills.”

  Nina led the way to a cocktail bar in the corner of the crowded living room. Gretchen chose red wine and then scanned the room. She recognized most of the people in the room from the doll show. Eric Huntington waved, and Nina scurried off his way.

  “So sorry to hear about your Steve,” Bonnie said over her left shoulder.

  “I thought that was confidential,” Gretchen said.

  Bonnie swept her hands across the room. Gretchen followed her hand and saw Matt chatting with Howie Howard. “I overhead Matty talking on the phone.”

  Just great. If Bonnie knew, the entire Valley of the Sun knew. Bonnie was like an old-fashioned bullhorn, trumpeting news more effectively than the late Ronny Beam’s Phoenix Exposed. And about as accurate.

  “I wonder how long he’ll get for killing Ronny?” Bonnie said.

  “He hasn’t been charged, as far as I know.”

  “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “If that happens, he’ll have a trial, Bonnie. A jury has to prove him guilty.”

  “He did it. Matty’s good at his job. He wouldn’t arrest the wrong person.”

  Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Once suspicion fell on someone, people automatically assumed the worst.

  Guilty until proven innocent seemed the new American philosophy.

  Gretchen felt compelled to help Steve.

  Her aunt Gertie’s advice resonated. Search Ronnie’s house and watch your back. She should have followed her aunt’s direction.

  Tomorrow, at the first light of day, she would start her quest for the real killer. Now that the doll show was over, she could put all her effort into it.

  She made her way across the room to join Howie and Matt. The auctioneer wore a ten-gallon cowboy hat that took up most of the alcove where the two men stood. It would have been easier navigating around an open umbrella.

  “This is the perdy lady in person,” Howie said after Matt introduced her. “Find your Ginny dolls yet?”

  “Still looking.”

  “They’ll turn up,” Matt said.

  “Unless you have information I don’t, they’re gone.”

  Matt grinned at her. “I’ll see what I can do. You never know.”

  “You just keep busy trying to find Ronny’s real killer,” Gretchen said icily.

  “That was one little jerk of a guy,” Howie said. “He had me so mad, I almost hog-tied him inside my truck.”

  Gretchen looked at him sharply. “Was Ronny at the auction on Thursday?”

  “Didn’t see him on Thursday, which was lucky for him, but he showed for the estate sale on Wednesday.”

  “I didn’t know anything about an estate sale,” Gretchen said.

  “We auctioned off the household goods, furniture, dishes, appliances, that sort of thing. Brett caught the little weasel inside the house going through some of Chiggy’s personal things and escorted him off the property. If he’da showed up Thursday, I really would have tied him up and left him to squeal.” Howie stopped to take a drink from the bottle of beer in his hand. “Ronny Beam had a snake tongue that a rattler would have been jealous of.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about Brett,” Matt said. “Tough break. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “The best,” Howie agreed.

  “Any evidence of foul play?” Gretchen threw it out there to see what developed.

  “Foul play?” Howie said. “Whatever gave you an idea like that?”

  Both men stared at her.

  Gretchen concentrated on running her finger around the rim of the wine glass. “Speculating, is all.”

  “Do you really think that little lady driver planned to run over Brett?” Howie said. “I’ve known him for years, all the ins and outs of his life, all the people he knew, and I never saw her before the accident.”

  “Maybe someone pushed him,” Gretchen suggested. She wanted to mention the blue truck to gauge Howie’s reaction but decided against it.

  Howie tipped the brim of his Stetson hat. “No disrespect intended, but they grow large imaginations in your family. I know your mother, and you’re the spittin’ image.”

  Gretchen chose to take that as a compliment. She noted that Matt watched her closely, amusement playing on his lips.

  “Detective Albright,” Gretchen said, “What do you think?”

  “I’m glad you asked. I want to know how someone who talks as slow and relaxed as Howie Howard can become an auctioneer.”

  Howie chuckled. “You have to learn to chant in rhythm and practice tongue twisters. Here’s one for you. A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk. Go ahead and try it.”

  Gretchen knew that Matt had intentionally redirected the conversation. What kind of detective would rather thunk skunks than solve crimes? She gave Matt a withering glance, which he didn’t notice, and walked away.

  She smiled with satisfaction when she realized that something really important had occurred: she had connected the two dead men. On Wednesday, one day before Brett died and two days before Ronny was killed, they had been together in Chiggy Kent’s house.

  ______________________

  “That was quite a bombshell you dropped on Howie,” Matt said to her when their paths crossed shortly after in the kitchen. “He’s grieving for Brett and doesn’t need that kind of speculation right now.”

  “You changed the subject
to protect Howie’s feelings?”

  “Least I could do.”

  “I have information that Brett was pushed in front of that car,” Gretchen said.

  “Tell me about your source. According to the responding officer’s report, not a single eyewitness came forward. Everyone’s attention was on the auction.”

  Gretchen felt her face flush and tried to stop it from deepening. “I’d rather not.”

  “Are you withholding important information in an ongoing investigation?”

  “Ongoing? Did you say ongoing?”

  “Police business. My mouth is sealed. Now tell me who your source is.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  Matt rolled his eyes, good-naturedly. “Oh, please. How about if I promise not to tell anyone else? Would that help?”

  “Only if you cross your heart.”

  “You believe that Brett was a murder victim.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Here’s your chance to prove it.”

  “Even though you’re going to laugh, somehow I’m involved in all this,” she said. “I didn’t imagine the scorpion at the doll show, and I didn’t imagine the black Jetta. They were real.”

  “What black Jetta?”

  “The one that’s been following me. The first time it pulled up next to my car and a woman threatened me. She said I would pay.”

  “Did you get a good look at her?”

  Gretchen shook her head. “It was dark, and she had privacy windows.”

  “You said ‘the first time.’ What happened the second time?”

  “The same car followed me tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  For a moment Matt looked thoughtful. Then his professional mask descended, and he gave her an inscrutable look. “Tell me the rest.”

  So she tried. She told him what Daisy and Nacho had told her. About the man who shoved Brett into the street’s traffic, about the blue truck, and about Howie leaving the auction in a blue truck.”

  “You know how rumors start and spread,” Matt said. “Still...” He looked thoughtful. “I need the name of the witness who allegedly saw Brett being pushed.”

  “I don’t exactly have a name.”

  “What do you have exactly?”

  “A description.”

  “Okay, let’s start with that.”

  “The man who saw Brett pushed into the street was sitting on the curb.”

  “What was he doing on the curb?”

  Gretchen paused. “You aren’t going to think he’s credible.”

  “Try me.”

  “He’s homeless.”

  Matt smacked his head with an open palm. “Jeez, Gretchen, that isn’t what I wanted to hear. You know indigents are the worst possible witnesses? First of all, he probably won’t even talk to a cop. If he does talk to me, he’ll change his story. And a jury…well, I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear this, but they won’t believe him. Next I suppose you’re going to tell me he was drunk. Gretchen, wait, where are you going?”

  Gretchen marched off and joined a group of collectors standing by the makeshift bar. She saw several women encircle the handsome detective as he tried to follow her.

  Matt Albright was infuriating. Bullheaded, self-absorbed, cynical, narrow-minded.

  She had almost shared the cryptic Kewpie doll messages with him. Imagine his response if he’d heard about “Wag, the Dog.”

  From now on, she’d manage just fine without his help.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Daisy pushes her shopping cart filled with all her earthly possessions, and turns toward the viaduct where Nacho usually sleeps. It’s dark now, and so she hurries.

  Another fruitless day on the hot streets, waiting for a talent scout to pick her out of the crowd. Even her new getup, purple flowered sundress and feathered wide-brimmed red hat, like those Red Hat Society ladies wear, hasn’t attracted any Hollywood-style attention.

  And the cart! She doesn’t need any more weight to push around, what with her back about to break, but tell that to a man. Work, work, work, while they sit around drinking cheap whiskey and telling outrageous lies to each other, leaving her alone to guard the treasures in her cart.

  She struggles along, the beams of light from the overhead streetlights casting a false sense of safety. But she isn’t fooled. More than ever before, she needs Nacho’s protection through the long moonless night ahead.

  Poor Albert Thoreau had been beaten up pretty badly, she’s heard. Both eyes swollen and punched black, nose flat and repositioned to the left of center, lips puffed, he laid motionless in the alleyway surrounded by fellow outcasts. Only the sound of irregular and ragged breathing proved that he had not departed for hobo heaven.

  Lucky he isn’t dead, they say.

  And if he has told, she will be next.

  Has he?

  “Cops! Don’t trust them,” someone in the group had said, disgust apparent in the wad of spit aimed at the ground. “Here’s your proof. What did Thoreau ever do to anybody?”

  Daisy has her suspicions about Thoreau’s current condition. She hasn’t lasted this long on the wild streets of Phoenix without her innate sense of imminent danger.

  The darkness of the viaduct’s underbelly looms before her. Cars roar overhead even at this late hour. The shopping cart’s wheels squeal as they jerk forward, and Daisy makes a mental note to find a little oil tomorrow and lubricate them.

  She squints into the gloom as a form materializes from behind one of the viaduct’s steel girders, striding toward her, arms swinging lazily, an unlit flashlight clutched in a muscular hand.

  “Good evening,” Daisy says, fighting the fear. “What brings you all the way down here?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Gretchen rose before dawn, fed Nimrod and Wobbles, donned hiking attire, and headed briskly toward Camelback Mountain. Early morning was the only time of day to climb the mountain in relative peace.

  Gretchen prided herself on her ability to tackle the most strenuous trails, so she struck out boldly for the extreme tip of Summit Trail. A quarter mile in, she passed a steep northeast-facing cliff and spotted creosote and brittle bushes clinging to the side. Only a few flowers came into bloom in October, but she did see scattered desert lavenders and yellow blossoms on a sweet bush.

  A Harris antelope squirrel scurried across the trail, its tail long and bushy, a white stripe along its flank. It stopped at a safe distance and scolded Gretchen as she marched upward.

  Monday morning. Back to work for millions of Phoenix residents. Soon, downtown traffic would be in gridlock, and sidewalks would crowd with bustling workers clutching coffee cups and newspapers.

  Except for Brett and Ronny. Ronny had written his last inflammatory news article, and Brett had worked his final auction. What secret did they stumble upon?

  The groomed trail ended abruptly, and the only way up now was over rough rock. Gretchen dug into the red rocks with hands and feet, her mind on the two men. The place to start would be where their paths had converged.

  How did their deaths link to a murder in Boston? Percy O’Connor’s unsolved murder must be connected in some way. She thought of the resplendent group of Kewpie doll collectors visiting from Boston. Helen Huntington and her son, Eric. Margaret Turner and Milt Wood.

  And Steve. Hapless pursuer of unrequited love? Or impulsive killer?

  Gretchen stopped abruptly as she was about to grab a handhold on a large rock ahead of her. She heard the ominous rattle before she saw the snake. A rattlesnake. She froze and eyed the tiny newborn, its single rattle threatening her from two feet away. Gretchen knew better than to underestimate it because of its small size.

  In autumn, rattlesnakes congregated in crevices. She had read about them when she first arrived in Phoenix, educating herself about all the poisonous critters in the American Southwest. Gila monsters, tarantulas, black widows, scorpions, and rattlers. She’d hoped never to encounter any of them.

  T
he snake must be migrating along scent trails left by its mother and would winter with hundreds of others coiled for warmth in snake dens.

  Find the nearest hospital within two hours if bitten, the literature read. She’d also read that most people were bitten because they tried to run away.

  She slowly pulled her hand back, shut her eyes, and willed herself to remain motionless.

  When she opened her eyes again, the snake had resumed its journey, slithering steadily through the rocks.

  Gretchen shivered, although the October dawn was already radiating increasing heat into the Valley of the Sun. Today the temperature was expected to again pass the one hundred degree mark.

  She stood tall and watched the snake vanish. What course would she choose now? To continue her trek, risking another encounter until she reached the apex, or retreat in fear and admit defeat?

  Yesterday, she might have scrambled back down the mountain, vowing to hug the more civilized paths in the future.

  Today, with Steve still in jail and herself inexplicably drawn into the bloody puzzle, she set her sights on the tip of the mountain and continued her ascent.

  She’d passed the point of no return.

  ___________________

  Gretchen headed for the Palm Tree Trailer Park with a fresh cup of coffee but no plan on how to break into Ronny’s trailer. She brought her doll repair toolbox just in case she needed mechanical assistance, and she brought Nimrod for…what? Company? Certainly not for protection.

  She glanced in the passenger seat at the happy, bouncing puppy. She’d asked Wobbles to join them as they prepared to leave, but he’d answered with a loud, sharp-incisored meow and narrowed eyes, signs of an unequivocal no.

  Her increasing conversations with her pets was a sure sign she was losing her mind.

  What if Ronny’s trailer didn’t produce anything helpful? What if she was arrested for breaking and entering? She didn’t even have bail money now that she’d lost three hundred bucks and the profits she would have made from the dolls.