Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  Gretchen did as he asked. He stared at her for a minute then studied her license. “Yours, too,” he said to April.

  “I’m calling my attorney,” April replied.

  “Call whoever you want,” he said. “After you show me some identification.”

  “I don’t have any,” April said.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  “Auras don’t lie,” Nina called out the window. “You’ll see.”

  “What are you doing?” April said to Nina. “Stop with that mumbo jumbo, or he’ll lock us away.”

  “Or worse,” Gretchen said. “He’ll think you’re drunk.”

  “Should we tell him we’re undercover?” April said. “Charlie’s Angels don’t get tickets.”

  Nina tittered, and that started April off. Hee-hee. Haw-haw.

  “This isn’t funny,” Gretchen said. “Why did he want my license?”

  “And what’s this attorney thing?” Nina said to April. “You don’t have a lawyer.”

  “I wanted to intimidate him.”

  “Shhh, here he comes.”

  “Your brake light isn’t working,” he said. “Step out of the car, please. You, too.” He looked at Gretchen.

  “How about me?” April said. “Should I come?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And take the dogs with you, especially that one.” He looked at Enrico. “Leave your purses where they are.”

  Another squad car with lights flashing and siren wailing pulled in ahead of Nina’s Impala. The women stepped out, Gretchen carrying Nimrod and Nina clutching Tutu and Enrico. April had her cell phone pressed to her ear before the car doors slammed shut. Another squad car arrived.

  “This isn’t good,” Gretchen said. “Something’s seriously wrong.”

  April gave someone on the phone their location. “Hurry,” she said before hanging up.

  “Come with me,” the first Phoenix police officer said.

  He walked them to his car and opened the back door. “You can wait in here.”

  They crawled in, first Gretchen, then April. Nina squeezed in. The cop slammed the door and walked away. Gretchen tried to open the door on her side. “It’s locked,” she said.

  “We’re trapped,” Nina said, holding Tutu and Enrico on her lap.

  “We weren’t going to make a run for it, anyway,” April said. “This is unnecessary brutality. Look! They’ve left the windows open an inch. How nice. They’re treating us like animals.”

  “Who did you call?” Gretchen asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Gretchen fought against a wave of claustrophobia. The women looked through the cage separating the front from the back of the squad car and watched what was happening.

  Two officers were searching Nina’s car. They opened the trunk, moved seats, checked the glove compartment, the engine. Another went through their purses, examining each item. Nina’s bag interested the officer the most. He pulled out several wee-wee pads that she carried for doggy potty stops and began ripping them apart, studying the contents.

  “What in the world…,” Nina said from the far side of April.

  One of them slid under the Chevy.

  “What on earth are they doing?” Nina said, no longer kidding around.

  “Searching for something,” Gretchen said. “They aren’t going to find anything, are they, Nina?”

  “Other than a lot of dog paraphernalia? No.”

  “I don’t think that’s the kind of paraphernalia they’re looking for,” Gretchen said.

  “Well, mumbo jumbo queen,” April said to Nina. “You tell us what’s going on.”

  “The police officers’ auras are all orange. I’m pretty sure that means they don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “You’re pretty sure?” April groaned. “You don’t even know what the different colors mean.”

  “Sure I do. Most of the time. These are unusual circumstances.”

  “How long can this take?” Gretchen said, careful not to whine. She wasn’t a Charlie’s Angel. The Angels would have found a way out of this situation before they were locked up inside a squad car.

  Being stuffed in a back seat with April, Nina, and three dogs wasn’t her idea of a fun time. She watched the officers continue to search the Chevy. A blue car pulled up on the other side of the street, made a U-turn, and parked in front of the growing line of vehicles. Gretchen groaned. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I called him,” April said with a big grin. “Would you look at those biceps? He can be my Charlie any day.”

  Gretchen tried to slink down in the seat. Matt strolled to the front of the squad car where they were imprisoned. Hands on hips, he shook his head. April gave him a wave and a giggle.

  “I thought we needed help,” she said.

  “Do we ever,” Nina agreed.

  One of the officers approached Matt, and they went into a huddle. Matt looked surprised when he turned and stared at them. Then he made a phone call and paced back and forth in front of the Impala.

  “What’s he doing?” Nina asked.

  “Arranging for jail cells?” Gretchen suggested.

  “Oh, get outta here,” April said. “He’s our protector. They can’t arrest us.”

  “Here he comes,” Nina said.

  The back door swung open. “I have to search all of you,” Matt said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Then you’re free to go.”

  “Me first,” April said, giggling. “You’re so naughty.” Nina practically fell out of the car as April scooted toward her.

  Gretchen rose from the squad car last. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  “What?” He grinned. “You think I did this?”

  The officer who had stopped Nina’s car walked over with their driver’s licenses. “I’m letting you go this time,” he said to Nina. “You’re not getting a ticket, but get that brake light fixed.” He nodded to Matt. “We’ll be going.”

  Matt nodded back.

  The cop’s eyes shifted to Gretchen. “I’d watch this one,” he said. “Yesterday we had a formal complaint filed against her. She had an altercation with a passerby not too far from here.”

  “Makes it hard for her to have been in Mexico, doesn’t it?” Matt commented.

  “We’ll be going,” the cop managed to say after mulling over the time line.

  Nobody said anything until the squad cars edged back into traffic.

  “They can’t stop us and search Nina’s car without reasonable cause,” Gretchen said.

  “Yah,” April said

  “They had a tip,” Matt said. “A car matching this description with three women inside was suspected of being on a drug run from the Mexican border.”

  “What?” Gretchen couldn’t believe it.

  “Rocky Point, to be exact,” he said. “Did you snorkel in the Sea of Cortez while you were there? That’s my favorite thing to do.”

  Gretchen stared. “Very funny.” What was he, the class clown? She’d been smashed in the back of a squad car while all her personal belongings were searched. And he was making jokes?

  “There aren’t that many red vintage Impalas running around the city,” Matt explained. “You weren’t hard to find. The broken brake light gave them a legal reason to stop you and search the car.”

  “That’s outrageous,” Nina chimed in. “Where did this supposed tip come from?”

  Matt shrugged, and from the firm set to the detective’s jaw and his penchant for secrecy, Gretchen knew he wouldn’t tell them if he knew. “You’re free to go.” He held the front passenger door of the Impala open for April. But his eyes never left Gretchen.

  “Did you see him checking you out?” April said when they were back on the road. “He has the hots for you bad.”

  “Who knew all three of us were together?” Gretchen said, ignoring her friend’s comment. “We didn’t know until the last minute which car we were taking from the shop.”

  “The cops picked the wrong car,” Nina said, smugly. “I told
you they were confused.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “I don’t think it was a case of mistaken identity. Someone’s been watching us,” she said. It was the only logical conclusion.

  By the silence in the car, Gretchen knew her friends were thinking over her last comment. They rode the rest of the way to Joseph’s without speaking. All Gretchen could hear was the sound of dogs panting.

  She wiped gooey drool from her leg.

  Chapter 16

  Instead of the pink shirt and yellow shorts he had been wearing at the parade, today Joseph wore a purple polo shirt and khaki shorts. A pair of pink Crocs adorned his feet, and diamond studs glistened from both ears.

  Nina and her canine entourage disappeared down the street under the guise of doggy exercise. Gretchen knew Nina really wanted to partake in her favorite pastime: window shopping.

  “Miniature dolls are against the back wall,” Joseph called to April when he saw her wandering around. With a backward wave, she hustled off in search of tantalizing little gems to lust over.

  Gretchen couldn’t believe the two Charlie’s Angel investigators had abandoned her in pursuit of pleasure. She sighed. “Can we talk privately?” she asked Joseph.

  “Follow me.” He led her through the shop, offered her a seat in his office, and sat down beside her. “Wasn’t it awful about Charlie?” he said. “I heard you were at Mini Maize when it happened, and I’d hoped to talk to you when I stopped by. Please tell me what you know.”

  Gretchen told him how the group of partygoers had discovered Charlie’s body on the shop floor and the ensuing rush inside.

  “Your mother told me your family is reorganizing her last room boxes,” he said when she finished.

  “The room boxes are ready.”

  She pulled out her camera phone. “There are four of them.”

  “The doll community has lost some real talent,” He said wistfully. Joseph reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out a piece of square plastic, peeled the plastic apart, and popped something into his mouth, and chewed.

  Gretchen looked at the piece of plastic on the desk.

  “Nicotine gum,” he explained when he saw her watching. “I’m trying to quit smoking. Time number six.”

  Nicotine! Was nicotine gum potent enough to kill a human? Possibly. But how much? Could Joseph have known about its potential to kill? And if so, how would he have concentrated enough nicotine from gum to make it lethal? He couldn’t have just plopped a wad of gum in her coffee. Common sense told her it was impossible.

  “Let me see those pictures.” He took the phone from her and hunched over it, chewing his gum and clicking through the photographs. “What’s this?” He held it out so she could see the crudely constructed fifth room box.

  “It was on the floor, along with the other room boxes.”

  April joined them, taking a look at the picture, then sitting on the corner of the desk. “We don’t have any furniture or furnishings left to fill another room box. Looks like this one was barely started.”

  Gretchen had to force herself to concentrate on the conversation. She would worry about Joseph’s nicotine addiction later. He wasn’t the only person in Phoenix using the antismoking medication.

  “It’s the beginning of a kitchen.” Joseph rubbed his goatee.

  “A kitchen?” said Gretchen and April simultaneously.

  “Don’t you women cook?” Joseph said. “You know what a kitchen is? One of those places where meals are prepared and eaten?”

  “It does have a rather flowery border,” April said.

  Gretchen looked closely at the room box photo. “Those are little apples and teapots bordering the ceiling.”

  April adjusted her reading glasses on the tip of her nose. “They are! Definitely kitchen wallpaper.”

  “The sink sketch would have tipped me off first thing,” Joseph said, enjoying himself.

  “Charlie was designing a kitchen?” Gretchen remembered the miniature peanut butter jar found under her body. A common kitchen staple, but a deadly kitchen staple if you happened to have a severe peanut allergy. It didn’t make sense. What had Charlie been up to? “Did you see a miniature refrigerator or stove when we were gathering things up?” Gretchen asked April.

  “Nothing even close.”

  “Would you know what kitchen appliances looked like if you saw them?” quipped Joseph, the comedian.

  “Very funny, wise guy,” April said. “We would have figured it out eventually.”

  Nina reappeared with dogs and shopping bags just as Gretchen remembered the street signs and hauled them out of her purse.

  “We found four street signs on the floor,” she said, handing them to Joseph. “There’s no way of knowing which one goes with which box. We’ll have to guess. Unless you’ve heard of them.”

  “You found these on Charlie’s floor?”

  Gretchen nodded.

  “I know one of the addresses.”

  “Which one?” Gretchen asked.

  Joseph held up the sign that read Number ninety-two Second Street. “Is this a joke?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll never forget this street number, even though it’s been years. I did a paper on it in high school. Are you sure you found this at Charlie’s?”

  “Yes,” Gretchen said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Number ninety-two Second Street is in Massachusetts. And I can even tell you that it belongs with the Victorian bedroom setting, the one with the mohair sofa.”

  “Spill it, Joseph,” April said.

  “That’s the address,” he said, “where Lizzie Borden allegedly used a hatchet on her parents. You remember the little ditty. ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.’”

  “That explains the miniature axe,” Nina said with a little shiver. “We put it in the wrong room box.”

  “The reality was,” Joseph continued, “that her mother had been struck eighteen or nineteen times and her father eleven.”

  “You can’t tell from the photographs, but there are blood spots on the sofa and on the wall,” April added.

  “I have a feeling,” Nina said, using a dramatic tone, “that the discoveries here today are very important.”

  “Not one of your feelings again!” April said.

  Nina’s chin came up a few inches, a sure sign that she’d taken April’s comment to heart. “The room box where the Borden’s were murdered and the unfinished kitchen are clues. You have to believe me.” She frowned at April.

  “Thanks for the information,” Gretchen said to Joseph, taking back the signs. “I’m not sure why Charlie would make such a morbid scene.”

  “We’ll never know now,” Joseph said.

  Nina was pulling away from the shop when Gretchen remembered what she wanted to ask Joseph. “Wait, Nina,” she said quickly. Nina hit the brake. Gretchen rolled down the window, catching him about to reenter the shop. “I forgot to ask,” she called out. “Were you at Charlie’s shop Saturday morning right before she died?”

  “No,” Joseph said. “Last time I saw her was early last week. What makes you think that?”

  “Weren’t you invited to her party last Saturday?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t make it, which I’m glad about considering what happened. Seeing her like that would have been devastating for me.”

  “I thought I saw you at the parade,” Gretchen pressed on.

  Joseph shook his head. “No,” he said, firmly. “I wasn’t there.”

  “Break in traffic,” Nina chimed in. “Got to go.”

  “Toodles!” April called as they cut into traffic.

  Gretchen rolled up the window and felt the chill of the Impala’s air conditioning already kicking in. Or maybe the goose bumps on her arms were caused by something else. “He was lying,” she said as they left Joseph’s Dream Dolls behind.

  “It really is a kitchen,” April protested on his behalf, mi
sunderstanding Gretchen. “Once he pointed it out, I could tell. It’s definitely a kitchen.”

  “Gretchen’s talking about the street sign,” Nina said. “Why would he say it was the Lizzie Borden murder scene if it wasn’t?”

  Gretchen tried to clarify her statement about Joseph’s lie. “That’s not—

  What was the use? Nina was only interested in mothering dogs and reading tarot cards. April’s main ambition in life was blowing one diet after another and gossiping with the doll club members.

  “There’s a sub shop,” April shouted, pointing to the left, her finger almost in Nina’s face. “Stop.”

  Gretchen’s aunt blasted right by, pretending not to hear.

  Chapter 17

  Joseph enters the church and crosses the lobby, hoping the meeting is almost over. He considers going in and joining them. What if he shared his problem with the entire group?

  Too dangerous.

  Joseph dips two fingers into holy water and crosses himself.

  He’s a wreck.

  Gretchen Birch saw him! She can place him at the parade, within several blocks of Charlie’s shop. He can’t think of anything else.

  What a fool he is. In more ways than one.

  Charlie had it right all along. You can’t fight your genetic makeup. Bad blood, she said, the outcome is inevitable. You’ll self-destruct.

  Thanks for the encouragement, friend.

  He remembers the anger churning inside of him like a whirl of dust. “Look at you,” Charlie had said as she watched him suck his life out through a menthol cigarette. “You have an addictive personality. Face it. You can’t change. You can’t stop the motion.”

  He still feels the hurt.

  Tough as nails, the brassy broad had lost her perspective on humanity. She’d lost her compassion, and she’d given up on people after Sara died. That crackhead son of hers didn’t help her view any, either.

  Joseph enters the church interior, bends a knee, makes the sign of the cross, and slides into a pew.

  A derelict from the street is the only other worshipper in this house of the Lord.

  The church is soundless. The air smells like the bum two pews ahead of him.

  Joseph tries to pray but can’t. He kneels on the riser, folds his hands, and squeezes his eyes shut. Nothing.