Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  She placed the basket case doll on the worktable and picked up Charlie’s penny doll. She had used small stringing elastic and her tiniest stringing hook to attach a new arm. It looked good as new.

  Gretchen tackled the German dolly face doll, which needed an eye repair. This one had glass sleep eyes with hair eyelashes. When Gretchen laid the doll on its back, the eyes remained open instead of closing as they should. She removed the head from the body, lifted the wig, then washed the doll’s head and cleaned the eye-rocker unit. Time seemed to stand still while she immersed herself in her work.

  The doorbell rang, bringing Gretchen back to the present. She glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that over an hour had gone by since Nina had left for Charlie’s shop.

  Nimrod flew out of his bed and shot for the door, barking a shrill warning.

  “I heard it, too,” Gretchen called out to him. “You’re supposed to warn me before the fact, not after.”

  As she walked down the hall, Wobbles slid around the corner, intently watching the commotion.

  “Bernard Waites,” said an old man when Gretchen opened the door. He looked vaguely familiar. He held out a small paper bag. “You left this at Mini Maize on Saturday.”

  She took the offered bag and used her foot to gently keep Nimrod from bolting through the opening in the door. She edged out, closing the door behind her, and looked inside the bag. “My checkbook,” she said. “Where did you find it?”

  “Right by the entrance. You must have dropped it when you left.”

  She remembered digging through her purse before she left the Scottsdale shop. It must have fallen out, and she hadn’t noticed. “Please come in.” Gretchen moved to open the door.

  “No, I don’t want to come in,” he said, gruffly. “I need to get going.”

  “You can tell how much money I have in my account by the fact that I haven’t even missed my checkbook in the last four days,” Gretchen said, realizing he must have seen her balance. She would have peeked if she had found a lost checkbook. Her bank balance wasn’t much to look at, slightly embarrassing.

  Bernard gave her a hint of a smile, like he wasn’t listening. “I found your address on the checks,” he said.

  The old man wasn’t any too steady on his feet. Brown suspenders, a full head of white hair, and a long white mustache. He looked kindly but crotchety. “Shame about Charlie,” he said.

  “I saw you at the shop on Saturday. You were the one who opened the door and let everyone in.”

  “The police didn’t like that one bit.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I made all the dollhouses in that shop,” he said. “Last year I won Phoenix’s Best Dollhouse Design award for the Victorian dollhouse on the shelf above the counter. It’s not for sale, only for show. I’m keeping it.”

  “That’s wonderful, a very prestigious award. I’ll have to take a look at it when I go back to the shop.”

  His car was parked in the driveway, a white Ford pickup truck. Worn out, like the man before her. Bent and dented, the outer layer of paint peeling away, lumber in the back of the bed, poking over the top of the tailgate.

  “What will happen to Mini Maize now?” Gretchen asked. “With Charlie and her sister dead, will the shop close up for good?”

  “It could continue on,” Bernard said. “Sara used to make most of the miniature dolls in the shop. When she passed, Britt Gleeland picked up the slack. Life goes on no matter what. Everybody thinks they’re indispensable, but no one really is.” He turned his head and looked out at the street. “I’ve been thinking about taking it over myself. Half of the stuff in there belongs to me anyway.”

  How old was this guy? At least eighty, maybe older. Gretchen had to admire him for his ambition. Of course, the opportunity to own the shop could also be a motive for murder, couldn’t it?

  “I hear you’re working in Charlie’s shop,” Bernard said, leaning against the door frame for support, a slight tremble in both hands. “What’s going on?” His eyes were watchful.

  “We’re repairing Charlie’s last display in her honor, the room boxes she was going to present the day she died.”

  “Funny that,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Charlie always asks me to make the display cases and room boxes for her, then she decorates them up. This time…funny…she did one of them herself. This is a first for her.” He used the present tense like Charlie was still alive.

  Bernard must be talking about the room box they had decided wasn’t part of the display.

  “Thanks for returning my checkbook,” Gretchen said.

  “Not many people like me left,” he said. “Doing good deeds.”

  Gretchen stood in the front yard while he slowly pulled himself into his truck cab and eased away from the house. Strange old man.

  She was just about to turn back into the house when a woman in trendy workout clothing strode briskly down the street toward her house. The walker wore a leopard print sport tank, matching shorts, and dainty white walking shoes. A matching choker clung to the woman’s long, slim neck.

  All she needed to complete the ensemble was a whip and a divorce decree. It was Matt Albright’s crazy, stalking, soon-to-be ex.

  Gretchen marched to the street, hoping she looked more ferocious than she felt. The woman was certifiable and had no business anywhere near Gretchen’s home.

  “What are you doing here?” Gretchen demanded.

  Kayla Albright came to an abrupt halt.

  “Exercising. Something you could use a little of.” The Wife closed a cell phone and tucked it in a fanny pack around her waist. The fanny pack was made of matching leopard print material. “No law against keeping fit,” she said, tilting up her perky little nose.

  “Stay away from my house.”

  “Stay away from my husband.”

  The women faced off. They both took a step closer.

  “You slashed my tire,” Gretchen said.

  “You stole my husband.”

  “So you admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “That you slashed my tire.”

  “I don’t know anything about your tire.”

  “The police are dusting for fingerprints,” Gretchen said. What a stupid thing to say. As far as she knew, a tire had never been checked for fingerprints. Ever.

  “That’s ridiculous.” The Wife snickered. Okay, she was smarter than Gretchen assumed. Crazy and smart and beautiful.

  Gretchen looked down at her own rumpled T-shirt. Nail polish peeled from her toenails and stubble sprouted all over her legs. She felt like a tarantula.

  Leopard Lady was absolutely perfect. She looked like a blonde Barbie doll: an impossibly shaped 39-18-33. At the moment, Gretchen hated her and every single sleek and trim Arizona woman. “Get off my property,” she said.

  “You don’t own the street.”

  They glared at each other

  A siren wailed in the distance. It grew louder. Kayla smiled a nasty, cold smile. A police car turned the corner and stopped in front of Gretchen’s house.

  A Phoenix police officer rose slowly from his squad car and hitched his pants. “What’s the problem? I got a call for a disturbance at this address.”

  Gretchen’s mouth fell open in surprise when she saw the smirk on her adversary’s face. Kayla had called the police herself. The call she was finishing when Gretchen spotted her! What nerve!

  “That’s right, officer,” The Wicked Witch Wife said, adjusting her face from smirk to faux fear. “I was walking along and this woman…” She pointed at Gretchen. “…ran out of this house….” Another point. “…and started saying the most awful things to me. Crude and vulgar language like I’ve never heard before. There must be a law against verbally assaulting helpless women.”

  Helpless!

  Where was Matt Albright when she really needed him? Where was a good man when she needed one? The male standing right in front of her was smiling at hotsy Kayla.
His shoulders straightened when The Wife gave him the helpless routine. He sucked in his gut.

  After tearing his gaze away from her, he bent into the interior of his car and pulled out a clipboard. “Okay,” he said, flicking open a pen. “Let’s get started.”

  He smiled again at the curvy Barbie doll, a big, toothy, drooling grin.

  Chapter 10

  “I don’t believe it,” Gretchen said to the teacup poodle riding inside her purse. She stood on the sidewalk looking through the window of Mini Maize. Nimrod peeked into the shop from the purse, ears perked as though he understood her mutterings.

  Inside, Britt Gleeland and Nina were huddled together behind the counter, giggling like schoolgirls.

  From her position on the street, Gretchen saw no sign that anything productive had been accomplished in the last two hours. The same piles of mismatched dollhouse furniture still cluttered the counter tops in the same haphazard, unsorted mess. Except for a space in front of the happy duo that had been cleared away to make room for Nina’s latest hobby. Instead of digging in and working, Nina had her tarot cards scattered on the counter where the work in progress should have been.

  Gretchen had been fending off an insane, evil woman and a love-struck, Barbie-admiring cop, and here sat Nina, doing nothing. Tarot cards. Jeez.

  Calm down, Gretchen told herself, taking a deep breath. You’re just a little stressed from your brush with Arizona’s legal system. At least the smitten cop had been more interested in Kayla’s address and her leopard halter top than in taking any real action against Gretchen or following up on the alleged assault. His eyes had never left The Wife’s ample chest.

  Gretchen needed to clean up her act. Dress better, slim down, figure out how to manage her unruly hair. Sleek. That’s what she wanted. To become a true Arizona woman. A little suntan wouldn’t hurt, either. Her skin looked like a polar bear’s. White as Elmer’s glue.

  “Yoo-hoo.” Gretchen turned to see April getting out of her car, arms filled with submarine sandwich bags and a large bottle of soda.

  “It’s not my day,” April huffed, laboring onto the curb. “I had a doll appraisal way over in Glendale and after that I had another fender-bender.”

  April was prone to frequent, but minor, accidents.

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “Naw.”

  Gretchen glanced at April’s car. Her old Buick’s bumpers, front and back, were crumpled like accordions. “Looks the same as always to me.”

  April nodded in agreement just as Caroline walked briskly past April’s car. “Sorry I’m late. The traffic was awful. What’s new?”

  “As far as I can tell, no progress at all inside the shop,” Gretchen said, “but it’s my fault for coming so late. I had a confrontation this morning right outside our house, and you’ll never guess with who.”

  “Tell us.” Caroline said, moving aside to let pedestrians pass.

  “Matt Albright’s wife.”

  “Whoo-wee!” April screeched. “That must have been something.”

  “It sure was.”

  Gretchen gave them the sordid details. April almost dropped her bags when Gretchen told them how Kayla had called the cops. Caroline had her hand over her mouth, speechless.

  “I wish I had been there.” April shifted her bags. “I would have fixed her wagon.”

  “Not only that, the cop gave me a warning.”

  “Let’s ask Matt to step in,” Caroline said. “She’s going too far.”

  Right. Let Matt step in and rescue her. And prove how helpless she is.

  April snorted. “No kidding, she’s going too far. Boy, she’s slick. Crazies usually are.”

  “I don’t want this to get back to Matt or the Curves group,” Gretchen said. “If Bonnie finds out, she’d tell Matt, and I just want to forget it ever happened.”

  “I’d watch my back if I were you,” April warned. “That woman is loony.” She hefted the bags in her arms. “I brought lunch.”

  “I ate before I came. Thanks, though,” Caroline said. Then, “Why are we standing on the sidewalk?”

  “I can’t eat another submarine sandwich,” Gretchen said, opening the shop door. “Don’t buy them for me anymore.”

  “You only had one for lunch yesterday, and you’re done already?” April said. “You should be me. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the snacks in between. I’m really sick of them.”

  “King of pentacles,” Nina said to Britt as they entered. She had the tarot cards’ instructions open on her lap and read a passage from the booklet. “A successful leader with business sense, strong character, intelligent, a loyal friend.”

  Britt clapped her hands together. “And you’re my new friend. Wait until you see how loyal I can be.”

  They both giggled. Gretchen found it amazing that a woman dressed as severely as Britt could even accomplish a giggle. She wore another stiff-collared blouse, and every hair in her French twist was tucked where it should be.

  Gretchen started to speak, but Nina held up a finger to stop her. “I’m almost done,” she said, picking up another card. Gretchen looked over her aunt’s shoulder. The picture on the card depicted an angel with red wings pouring water between two challises.

  “Temperance,” Nina read from her book. “Accomplishment through self-control, patience, bringing together into perfect harmony.”

  “I love that one,” Britt said.

  Finished, the two gypsy women finally looked up. Britt leveled a withering stare at Gretchen; the incident at the shop last night hadn’t made them best buds. But for Nina’s sake, Gretchen had to make an effort. “Let’s start over,” she said to Britt. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Of course,” Britt said, but her body language remained tense.

  “We’ve met before,” Caroline said to her. “You were one of Charlie’s dearest friends. I’m so sorry about what happened.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And this is April,” Caroline said when Nina remained silent, refusing to be the one to bring April into the conversation.

  Gretchen cleared her throat and addressed her aunt. “How are the room boxes coming along?”

  Nina shuffled the cards in her hands. “I was going to start without you,” she said. “Honestly I was, but Britt came along, and we really hit it off.” She bent down to pick up a card that had fallen to the floor.

  “That’s a weird card,” April said.

  “The hanged man,” Nina said. “See how he’s hanging upside down. And he fell right by your feet, April.”

  April snorted. “Hogwash, I don’t believe in that stuff. I suppose you’re going to tell me that I’ll end up hanging from my toes.”

  Nina consulted her instructions. “The Hanged Man means it’s time for rest and reflection. You should stay at home more.” She picked up the remaining cards from the table and flashed the same card she had read earlier. “King of pentacles is a great card, Britt.”

  “We need to get back to business,” Caroline reminded her sister.

  “Do any of the pieces on the counter look familiar to you?” Gretchen asked Britt.

  Britt stood up and wandered along the counter, picking up pieces here and there.

  She shook her head. “Not really,” she said, one hand fluttering to check her French twist, tucking an imaginary stray hair back into the tightly wound locks. She rearranged her bangs.

  April’s thick fingers combed through the piles. “It’s a strange brew,” she said, holding up a Victorian dresser. She picked up another object with the other hand. “Here’s another street sign. And another.”

  Gretchen took the signs from April. None of the street names were familiar to her.

  “A broken-down wooden bench,” Nina said, joining in the inventory. “A mahogany wall mirror. How do all of these fit together?”

  “They don’t,” Caroline said. “Each box is very unique. The differences in time periods and social settings will make putting them together easy.”


  Britt still fidgeted with her hair. “Bernard made the room boxes.”

  Gretchen glanced up at the shelves lining the upper part of the wall. Bernard’s dollhouses. And the Victorian he had mentioned. She stepped closer.

  When Bernard had said he’d designed a Victorian, Gretchen had assumed it would be an English Victorian with dormer windows and window boxes filled with petunias and ivy. Her second guess would have been a Victorian farmhouse with a wraparound porch. Instead, she faced an enormous three-foot-high French Victorian with two sloped roofs, wrought-iron balconies, and molded cornices. The steep vertical slopes to the roofs and the heavy faux stonework gave it a sinister undertone.

  April came up beside Gretchen. “It looks like a haunted house,” she said.

  “It sure isn’t a painted lady,” Gretchen agreed. “No vibrant colors and trendy painted trim work on this Victorian.”

  “It won an award,” April pointed out, reading from a mounted plaque next to the dollhouse. “Designed and built by Bernard Waites. Kind of scary-looking, but the details are amazing.”

  “Bernard looks like a cuddly teddy bear,” Britt called from the other side of the room, “but he has a dark side.”

  “What do you mean?” Gretchen asked.

  “Bernard is always in the background like he’s waiting for an opportunity to seize control,” Britt said. “He’s been hanging around Charlie ever since she retired last year.”

  “It looks like he contributed quite a lot to the shop.” Gretchen selected a miniature blue velvet hat from one of the piles.

  “He built the dollhouses mounted on the walls. But what about everything else you see?” Britt grabbed a container. She had a firm set to her jaw. Determination. Gretchen recognized the box as one that Britt had been packing up when they had met at the shop. She’d forgotten all about it.

  Britt opened it up. “Come over here. Feast your eyes on my contribution, and then tell me if you think that old man has done the most work.”

  All four women leaned in.

  The box was filled with the smallest miniature dolls Gretchen had ever seen. Britt picked one up with the tips of two fingers and held it out for everyone to admire.