Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  Once she decided to join the dark side, she did it up big. Breaking into Ronny’s trailer today, withholding evidence in a murder investigation yesterday. She thought about the messages in the Kewpie dolls. Was that evidence? She didn’t know yet.

  Matt Albright could eat bat guano for all she cared. The man popped into her mind when she least expected him to. Quit thinking about him. The very last thing she wanted to do was get involved with a married cop.

  She whizzed down Twenty-fourth Street, watching for unwelcome company in her rearview mirror. The encounter with the rattlesnake had frightened her. Live large, she thought. Life could end sooner than you think.

  The sign facing the street read The Palm Tree Mobile Home Community and announced several homes for sale in the “Exclusive Community that draws a Rich Tapestry of Backgrounds.”

  Whatever that meant.

  Gretchen pulled in, proud of herself for finding the address without having to ask for directions. She passed by several mobile homes and found the address she had looked up in the Phoenix telephone directory the night before. No private, unlisted number for a man who welcomed gossipy snitches and colorful fabricators into his singular life.

  She parked next to his carport and got out. “Nimrod, stay,” she said. No sense incriminating both of them.

  Would a credit card inserted next to the door lock work? She’d seen that on television. She should have updated her sleuth skills to include the latest technological advances. Something from her doll repair kit would have to do.

  A man in a sleeveless undershirt opened the door of the mobile home next door. In the distant past, the undershirt had been white, although it had probably never quite fit him. An enormous potbelly spilled out from the bottom of it. “What you doin’ over there?” he shouted.

  This wasn’t the best time to flash her toolbox and master her lock-picking skills. Rule number one for future reference: attempt break-ins only after dark.

  “You deaf or sometin?” His screen door slammed behind him. “I said, what you doing?”

  Rule number two: learn to lie well.

  “I’m…uh…Ronny’s girlfriend. I want to pick up some of my things.”

  “Like what?” By now he’d shot off his one-step porch and aimed his belly toward her with the precision of a steamroller. His personal appearance didn’t improve up close and personal. Were those boxer shorts?

  “Uh…personal effects,” she stammered. “I can come back later if this isn’t a good time.”

  He studied her openly with bloodshot eyes. “You know Ronny kicked the can?”

  Gretchen nodded and managed to tear up. “I heard.”

  “Didn’t know Ronny had a girlfriend. How about that? Keepin’ you under wraps so the rest of us can’t get a chance.” He stroked his exposed midsection. “How about that?”

  Was it something in the trailer park’s drinking water that produced the Neanderthal effect in its male residents?

  “I’ll come back later.” Gretchen stepped backward toward the Echo, keeping a sharp eye on him in case he tried to grab her hair and drag her off.

  He waved a hand. “No, no, help yourself. Nothing left to steal, I suspect. The cops woulda taken anything worth sometin. You got a key?”

  Gretchen shook her head. “He never gave me one.”

  The beady red eyes drilled into Gretchen’s cleavage, then drifted up to meet her eyes. He grinned. “Must be your lucky day, cuz I got one.” He held up a key chain brimming with keys. “I’m manager of this exclusive community.”

  That worked well, Gretchen thought while he fiddled with the door.

  The hardest part of her charade was convincing him that she didn’t need his help.

  “Take your time,” he said, eventually giving up. “I’m sure you must be all broke up about losing your boyfriend. If you need a shoulder to cry on, I’m available.”

  “You’ll be the first one I think of,” Gretchen said. How lucky could she get? Meeting one of Phoenix’s most eligible bachelors.

  The inside of Ronny’s trailer smelled like a mélange of dirty socks and rotting garbage. Considering that only forty-eight hours had elapsed since Ronny’s death, Gretchen had to assume the offensive odors weren’t the consequence of his absence but native to his habitat.

  Feature articles from Phoenix Exposed had been ripped from the newspaper and taped on kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator, like displays of children’s artwork. The infamous article denouncing Nina as the leader of the alien dog world hung from a cabinet door directly in front of Gretchen.

  She ripped it down, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into a heap of folded paper bags in the corner. Ronny could have opened his own grocery store with the number of bags he collected.

  The bathroom seemed the simplest place to start and the least likely to produce any worthwhile information. Hemorrhoid treatment, hair pomade, and a messy assortment of uncapped toothpastes and shampoo bottles.

  As Nina would say, “Zilch.”

  Gretchen had started on the living room when her cell phone rang.

  “Hey,” Nina said on the other end. “What’s your plan for today?”

  Gretchen picked up a pile of porno magazines from a marred coffee table and dropped them on the floor in disgust. “You’re up early.”

  “I have coffee in my hand and the world at my fingertips. I wanted to catch you before you started working away in your little beehive. Want to have lunch and discuss today’s plans?”

  “I don’t know. I’m pretty busy right now,” Gretchen said, looking at unidentifiable goo on Ronny’s coffee table and wishing she’d brought latex gloves. Rule number three: wear gloves, for a variety of reasons. Gloves protect against the mismanagement of fingerprints as well as against diseases.

  “What are you doing today? Restringing all those dolls from the show?”

  “That, and a few other things.”

  “Well, call me if you break free.”

  Gretchen wanted to break free all right, from this sorry excuse for human existence. The stench alone might force her to burst from the trailer to fill her lungs with fresh air. She methodically finished searching the living room and tiny kitchen.

  Next, the bedroom.

  Gretchen was beginning to doubt Aunt Gertie’s ability to make sound investigative decisions. This was fast becoming a really bad idea. Cavemen lurking outside and germ warfare inside.

  The bedroom was indescribably dirty and the source of most of the odor. Ronny, it appeared, liked to eat in bed and use the floor as his landfill for leftovers.

  She tiptoed through the unidentifiable waste to the closet and flipped the light switch next to it.

  Aha. Ronny’s office. File boxes were stacked on the floor, three deep. Papers were strewn across the tops of the boxes, and Gretchen stared at the mess with dismay. No way could she wade through that much paper in the time she had.

  What would her Aunt Gertie do?

  She keyed in Gertie’s home number and crossed her fingers. Please be home.

  Gertie answered on the third ring.

  “Good job,” Gertie said when she heard about the closet. “Keep this up, and there’s a job waiting for you here in the beautiful Upper Peninsula. I could use a smart investigator like you.”

  Snow nine months of the year, summer bugs the size of radishes, and wild bears in the backyard. No thanks. That was one job Gretchen didn’t intend on applying for.

  “You should come and visit me sometime,” Gretchen said, remembering her manners.

  “Not in this lifetime, Honey. Too hot and too many weird critters. Scorpions, black widows.” Aunt Gertie clicked her tongue. “Don’t think so.”

  “I don’t have much time,” Gretchen said, encouraged to refocus when she looked out the grimy bedroom window and saw the friendly neighbor walk past, not two feet from the side of Ronny’s trailer.

  “Yes, well, you’re looking at his filing system. That’s where stuff goes when he’s through working it. Find hi
s current files.”

  “But where? This place is a dump.”

  “You just have no experience with men, especially eccentric, single men.”

  “You got that right. But what does that have to do with finding files?”

  “His current files are in one of three places. Either under the bed…”

  Gretchen grimaced. Anything and everything could be under Ronny’s bed.

  “…on top of the refrigerator, or in the bathroom.”

  “I already checked the bathroom.”

  “Most men like something to read while they’re going about their morning business. The bathroom would have been my best guess. Since you started there, you and I must be nuts right off the same tree.”

  Aunt Gertie probably had that nut thing right.

  Gretchen thanked her and hung up as the community manager walked back again the way he’d come, his eyes riveted on Ronny’s trailer.

  She quickly crouched beside the bed until he walked away.

  That’s where she found his working papers, under the bed, just as Aunt Gertie predicted.

  And the top manila folder had Percy O’Connor’s name scribbled across it in large, red letters.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “I can’t believe you went on a spy mission without me,” Nina whined from a stool at her kitchen counter while popping liver treats to the dogs. “Someone must have put you up to it.” Her eyes narrowed in dawning comprehension. “Gertie! You’ve been asking that Gertie Johnson for advice. She’s nothing but trouble, and you know it.”

  “She’s also my aunt, and she has her own investigation business. Why wouldn’t I consult her?”

  “I know all about Gertie’s so-called “business.” Your mother talked me into going with her to Michigan once. Gertie has a ratty old pickup truck with Trouble Busters handwritten on the side of it, and she lives in a town with a total of twelve residents.”

  “That’s an exaggeration.” Gretchen said. She helped herself to a cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant. She bit into the pastry. Pure heaven. “Besides, if I remember correctly, you liked the idea a few days ago.”

  “That was when I thought I was included in the mission.” Nina’s jealousy settled into a pout.

  “I didn’t want you along with me this morning. What if I had been caught? I’d need someone on the outside to bail me out of jail.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Tutu, Nimrod, and Sophie skidded off in a whirl of flying playfulness. Toenails clicked across the tiled floor. Nina jumped up and let them out into the gated backyard. When she came back, she eyed the folder on the counter.

  “Have you looked inside yet?” she asked.

  “Nope. I was waiting for you.” Gretchen licked chocolate from her fingers. “Let’s get started.” She opened the folder and found scraps of paper with scribbled notes tossed in haphazardly. She picked up the top sheet.

  “It looks like an early draft for one of his stupid articles,” Nina observed. “You can’t trust anything that goof wrote.”

  “Shhh, I’m reading.” Gretchen skimmed over numerous misspellings and red-lined markings. The article was in the early stages of development and didn’t flow in a coherent manner. Not that much about Ronny had been coherent anyway.

  She handed the paper to Nina and scanned another.

  “Tell me, tell me,” Nina said, not bothering to look at it.

  “Read it yourself.” Gretchen slid the second sheet toward her.

  “The pages are all marked up, and parts are crossed out. Just tell me.”

  “Okay, according to Ronny’s notes- and we should reserve judgment based on the source - Percy O’Connor’s father, William, was a profiteer during World War Two.”

  Nina frowned. “A profiteer, like Rhett Butler?”

  “You’re thinking of the Civil War, Nina. But I suppose the fictional Rhett Butler was a profiteer, since he was a blockade runner and his motives weren’t always honorable. But William O’Connor was a black marketeer during the Second World War. Remember your history? Remember rationing? People couldn’t get basic supplies like gasoline and sugar.”

  “Right.” Nina nodded studiously. “My mother, your grandmother, lived through it.”

  “According to Ronny, William O’Connor dealt in food - steaks and other meats that were impossible to buy in America at the time. He made a fortune in the 1940s, but he had to hide the money from the tax collectors, so he converted the cash to diamonds.”

  Nina slapped her hands together. “I told you we were onto something big like smuggling, didn’t I?”

  “You did.”

  “Imagine making a fortune selling steaks.” Nina sipped her coffee with a dreamy look on her face.

  “Anyway, local gossip - that’s Boston gossip, because that’s where this is supposed to have taken place - believed he had hidden the diamonds in dolls. Kewpie dolls, to be specific.”

  Nina’s eyes grew wider. “Eric said a Blunderboo Kewpie was found smashed on the floor when the body was discovered. Percy O’Connor was killed for his diamonds!”

  “And it accounts for his family’s rapid rise into a high social economic class.”

  “But you can’t trust anything penned by Ronny Beam.”

  “Nina, I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Gretchen said. “But I think Ronny’s allegations might be correct. It explains why Percy was murdered. It even goes a long way in establishing a motive for killing Ronny. He was planning to expose Percy’s family history, and someone didn’t want that to happen.”

  “But what about Brett? How would his death tie in to the diamond theory?”

  Gretchen thought about the auction and the mixed-up boxes. Again she saw Brett selecting dolls and boxes and handing them to Howie Howard, his longtime business associate and best friend.

  “Either the killer didn’t find the diamonds in Percy’s home, or too many people knew about it.” She spoke slowly, thoughts churning in her head. “Somehow, some way, Brett crossed the wrong person’s path, or got himself mixed up in the diamond theft, and for whatever reason, was eliminated.”

  “Lots of whatevers and somehows in our theory,” Nina said. “Maybe the killer didn’t want to share the loot and offed Brett.”

  “You’re starting to sound like a gangsta,” Gretchen said.

  “It’s all coming together in a circle.” For dramatic effect, Nina drew a large circle in the air with her arms. “What did Ronny Beam, Brett Wesley, and Percy O’Connor all have in common?” Nina didn’t wait for an answer. “Dolls, that’s what. Maybe Ronny didn’t collect dolls - ”

  “I can vouch for that,” Gretchen said, remembering his trailer’s collectibles were of the kind most people disposed of.

  “But he was murdered at a doll show, and that’s significant.”

  Gretchen went back to the open folder and spread out two more sheets of paper.

  One was a copy of an article torn from the Boston Globe.

  “He copied most of his material verbatim,” Nina said after reading the piece. “What a louse.”

  “Quit speaking ill of the dead, Nina.”

  “I spoke ill of him while he was alive. Why do I have to clam up just because he’s dead?”

  Gretchen tuned Nina out and focused on the file. The Boston Globe had printed the story on August 6 of the previous year. She vaguely remembered seeing it when she lived there. “This article doesn’t name names,” Gretchen said. “It’s a piece on the effects of the black market during the war. William O’Connor’s name doesn’t appear. It’s a very general outline of profiteering activities. Ronny must have discovered additional information.”

  “Or made it up,” Nina said.

  Gretchen set the copy of the article aside and picked up the last item in the folder. “A letter,” she announced to Nina, holding it up.

  “ ‘Dearest Florence’,” Gretchen read aloud. “ ‘Your willingness to assist me in my quest for my well-deserved and long-awaited fortune tugs at my h
eartstrings. Family must always stick together. Just don’t plan on double-crossing me, or you’ll go the way of all other flightless birds. Another meal for a hungry predator. Keep casting molds. Eventually you’ll get it right’.” Gretchen looked up at Nina. “No signature.”

  “Give me that,” Nina tugged it out of Gretchen’s hands and read it herself. “Jeez,” she said.

  “Who’s Florence?”

  “Florence,” Nina said with flourish, “is Chiggy Kent’s real name.”

  Howie Howard’s comment the night before at Bonnie’s party popped into Gretchen’s head: “Brett caught the little weasel inside the house going through some of Chiggy’s personal things and escorted him off the property.” Ronny must have taken the letter and the Boston Globe article from Chiggy’s house on Wednesday.

  So far, she could attribute several deaths to the hunt for hidden treasure, starting with Percy O’Connor’s in Boston. Then a cross-continental trek to Arizona and two more murders: a doll auctioneer’s assistant and a second-rate reporter trying to legitimize his work with a real story instead of his usual trashy tales.

  Gretchen had wandered into the middle of the mystery because of a mistaken box of Kewpie dolls. But how did that box fit in? She and Nina and April had searched every Kewpie in the box without finding a single clue to the dolls’ significance.

  Gretchen knew one thing for sure. She better get rid of Chiggy’s broken Kewpies as fast as possible.

  _____________________________

  “You have enough to go to the police,” Nina said.

  “No, I don’t,” Gretchen argued.

  “This is too scary.”

  Gretchen’s cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number showing on caller ID. When she answered, she heard Steve’s voice.

  “Well, I can kiss that sweet partnership deal good-bye,” he said curtly. “I’m sure I’ll be charged with first-degree murder anytime now.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Tucked away where they can watch every move I make.”

  “I’ll help you find a criminal attorney,” she offered. “You’ll beat this.”