Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  It turned out to be a little of each.

  “This case has more twists and turns than a desert dust storm,” Matt said as soon as she walked onto the patio. He poured two glasses of white wine and handed one to Gretchen.

  “Off duty?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I need a break. I’ve been working this case every waking hour. After I leave you, I’m getting some sleep.”

  She sat down on the chair next to him. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”

  Matt sighed. “Joseph Reiner came in today accompanied by his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. He had a troubling setback in his recovery program last Friday night. He doesn’t remember anything about the evening. And he didn’t remember a thing about the next day until you told him you saw him at the parade. Seems you prompted a return to reality for him, but before that…” Matt shook his head in disbelief. “Nothing. Or so he claims.”

  “Interesting,” Gretchen said.

  Matt scowled at her. “You should have told me you saw him at the parade.”

  She shrugged an apology. “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “You’d never accept that excuse from me?”

  True. But Gretchen wasn’t about to admit it. “Joseph really didn’t remember until I reminded him?” she asked.

  “A total blackout.”

  “Did you arrest him?”

  “I can’t book a man for murder simply because he can’t remember where he was.”

  “I thought you brute cops were all-powerful and could do anything you wanted.”

  “Ah, but we’re confined by foolishness like laws, rules and regulations.”

  “I might have evidence you can use.”

  “Tell me.”

  Gretchen took a sip of wine before answering. “Joseph was chewing nicotine gum the last time I saw him.”

  Matt stared at her. “Well,” he said very slowly. “That’s certainly the worst circumstantial evidence I’ve ever heard.” He grinned.

  Gretchen giggled. “You’re right. It is.” Quit acting like a teenager, you dope. She tried to straighten her expression—more serious, more professional, more adult-like—but it was hard. The night lights, the wine, relief that she and the others were still alive and unharmed made her giddy.

  Nimrod scampered down from Matt’s lap, dove into the pool, paddled around, jumped out, and shook himself dry in his favorite spot—right next to Gretchen.

  Matt laughed while wiping water from his legs. Tan, muscular legs, Gretchen noticed. He had a smile like a strong magnetic force. It pulled her in.

  “Do you have a suspect in the attack on us?” Gretchen asked. She really hoped it wasn’t Ryan.

  “We’ve eliminated Bernard Waites, as much as you’d like to see him behind bars,” Matt said, not exactly answering her question. “He’s still in the hospital.”

  “Maybe he snuck out when no one was looking, threw the bomb, and ran back to the hospital before the nursing staff missed him.”

  Matt raised a brow. “Nice try. You really dislike that guy, don’t you?”

  “He stole from me. And he has creepy eyes.”

  “Creepy eyes, huh. Another bit of evidence to explore, another break in the case.” Matt leaned over and slid his hand under her chin. He turned her head toward the light. “You have abrasions on your cheek.”

  “A little shattered window pane, is all,” Gretchen said, like glass in her face was an everyday occurrence. “It’ll heal.”

  He released her and leaned back. “You could have been killed today. Personally, I’m relieved your work at the shop is over. Although I would have preferred that you go out with less of a bang.”

  “We had finished the room boxes. In the end, the scenes weren’t anything we’d want to show at Charlie’s funeral. We did get pictures for her brother before the blast destroyed them.

  “Did you find any connection to Charlie’s murder in your work?”

  “That’s an odd question.” Gretchen glanced at him quickly but his face was in shadow.

  “I’m a detective; it’s my job to ask questions.”

  “We found bloodstains painted in two of the boxes and discovered tiny weapons. We realized that one of the street signs was a replica of Lizzie Borden’s home, where she was accused of axing her parents to death. And today we found mutilated dolls in a desk drawer.”

  Matt sipped his wine. “We found the blood, the weapons, and the dolls, but we haven’t been able to put them together in any cohesive line of reasoning. Now you tell me one of the rooms was about Lizzie Borden. So far, it only proves Charlie had a few emotional issues.”

  “An unfinished room box appears to be a kitchen.”

  “So when you consider the miniature peanut butter jar.” Matt paused to sip his wine. “Things begin to add up.”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned forward, piercing her soul with his vivid eyes.

  She took a sip of wine and turned away, focusing on what she wanted to tell him. “I think Charlie planned to reveal her sister’s killer when she unveiled the display. I believe the incomplete room box scene could be a replica of the killer’s kitchen where the poisons were concocted. That particular room box’s walls were hastily wallpapered with full-sized paper, not a miniature rendition, like it was assembled in a big hurry.”

  Matt didn’t look convinced.

  Gretchen continued. “I think all five room boxes were ready for the showing. After poisoning Charlie, the killer must have tried to rip apart the fifth room box, then picked up the incriminating pieces.”

  “But overlooked the jar because it was under Charlie’s body,” Matt finished.

  “Exactly. All we have to do is find a room with the same wallpaper, and we have the killer.”

  “Except the kitchen room box went up in flames.”

  Gretchen struggled to keep her mind on the case instead of the man seated next to her. His body was emitting some sort of sexual energy, and it was affecting her. She wondered if he felt it, too.

  Matt poured more wine for her. “The destroyed evidence presents a problem,” he said, handing her the glass.

  “Not as much of a problem as you might think,” Gretchen answered, taking a small sip. “You see,” she leaned closer, “I took a picture of that room box—”

  Matt slid his chair closer and leaned in as though he was having trouble hearing her. “—with my phone,” she croaked. That was really a sexy voice. He was still moving toward her. Slowly. Closer. Coming into her personal space.

  His lips met hers.

  Just then, Gretchen knocked over her wine glass.

  “You did that on purpose.” Matt whispered, his lips close to hers.

  “I…really…didn’t…mean,” Gretchen stammered, sitting upright and realizing she’d spilled the wine into his lap. She reached for a beach towel on the back of a lounge chair, stood up, and leaned over to blot the front of his shorts. She stopped just in time.

  You almost stuck your hand in his crotch. Jeez. Gretchen blushed, grateful that the darkness concealed her discomfort.

  He laughed and took the towel from her hand. “I won’t need a cold shower now,” he said.

  “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Come here,” he said, taking her arm and pulling her down. “Make it up to me.”

  “How?” But she knew the answer. Wasn’t she a member of a well-established psychic family?

  She pressed against him. Her lips found his.

  Chapter 21

  Daisy, future Hollywood star and current member of the Red Hat Society, trudges along the edges of crumbling adobe walls, pushing her shopping cart filled with all her worldly possessions: sleeping bag, bits of food, knickknacks picked out of trash bins, clothes.

  Graffiti and iron grates scar what’s left of this once flourishing side of the city. The street lights flick on.

  From the shadows, she looks both ways before turning sharply and slipping down an alleyway. The smell of rotting garbage doesn’t bother he
r a bit. Why should it? She’s seen and smelled far worse things than decaying waste.

  Like that transient last month, new to the streets, beaten until every rib was shattered, blood seeping everywhere. She smelled fear while she watched him die. That smell is worse than a few whiffs of garbage…Well, she doesn’t allow herself to think of things like that for too very long.

  It can drive you insane, thinking too much.

  Once the talent scouts find her, she’s out of Phoenix but fast.

  Daisy misses Nacho, her lover and friend. Has he abandoned her to San Francisco streets or will he return to the desert? Her life is like a soap opera. He’ll come back: he always does. At least he found her a safe place to stay while he’s away. An old storage shed behind an abandoned building. Nacho even installed a lock inside the shed so she’d be protected from the elements. The human elements, that is.

  The young druggies are the worst. They are far more dangerous than anything Mother Nature can throw her way. Ready to beat you and stick you in the heart with knives just to steal the smallest bit of spare change. Anything for the next fix. So many threats on the streets: gangs, crazies, cops, druggies.

  She has flyers in her shopping cart, pictures of the most deadly ones, circulated by the homeless, for the homeless. Stay away from that one, the posters say: like wanted posters, only these people aren’t wanted by Daisy and the others.

  Daisy is at the hub of the action, as always. She knows everything that happens on the street and she’s extremely wary. That’s why she’s still alive while most of her old friends are dead.

  Maybe it’s time to pay her good friend Gretchen a visit, clean up, sleep in a real bed, get the jitters under control. The doll repairer was a real find, her and her aunt, and all those little doggies.

  But what about her career as a Hollywood star? The street is where it’s happening.

  Glad it isn’t July. How many of her kind died last summer from exposure to extreme heat? No water, the pavement steaming at one hundred and thirty degrees, burning her feet right through her shoes. She swam in the irrigation canals to survive.

  Daisy jerks her head around at a sound behind her.

  A moan. Coming from the Dumpster, or behind the Dumpster.

  Get inside the shed and bolt the door. She hears this in her head and knows its for what it is: good advice.

  But…what if? What if it’s someone in distress?

  It’s only the sound of despair. You hear it every day.

  But…what if it’s Nacho?

  Daisy pulls an aerosol can from her pocket. Pepper spray. She refuses to carry a concealed gun or knife. Wouldn’t the cops love that? They’re more interested in finding an excuse to arrest the victims than in solving all the homeless murders.

  Another moan.

  Leaving her shopping cart by the side of the shed, she edges along, flattened to the walls, always in the darkness, hiding from the streetlights and the rising moon.

  She hears another sound, but it’s only a coyote in the distance.

  A dark shape on the ground behind the Dumpster shifts slightly, and Daisy catches the movement. She has night eyes, cat eyes, she likes to think. Another reason she beats the odds.

  The pepper spray acts as a buffer between Daisy and whoever is crumpled on the ground. She already knows it isn’t Nacho.

  “Help me.” The whisper is so low and weak she almost misses the words.

  A hand reaches out for her, and she sees who it is.

  The man writhing in pain is Ryan Maize.

  Chapter 22

  Gretchen overslept and almost missed her workout group at Curves. She rushed through the house, throwing on exercise garb as she went. “I fed Wobbles and Nimrod,” her mother said, ready to go and holding out Gretchen’s purse and a cup of coffee. “You needed the extra sleep.”

  When Gretchen and her mother arrived at Curves, most of the doll club members were in full throttle on the machines. “He’s missing,” Bonnie said in a stage whisper when Gretchen jumped onto the Abductor. “Born To Be Wild” boomed from an overhead speaker.

  “Who’s missing?” Gretchen asked.

  “Ryan Maize, that’s who.” Bonnie’s feet did a tiny tap dance on the platform. Her red wig had extra starch today, every hair shellacked into place. “Matty knows Charlie’s son tried to blow up you girls. Witnesses identified Ryan from pictures, but the police can’t find him. He’s not at that drug house.”

  “The do-rag did him in,” April said, stomping up and down on the stepper. “He should have disguised himself better if he was going to pull a stunt like that. He could have killed us. Then it would have been murder one instead of attempted murder.”

  “Matty will get him, don’t you worry.”

  “That poor drugged-out kid,” Gretchen said, shaking her head.

  April grunted. “First he knocks you out,” she gasped, sweating profusely. “Then he tries to blow us up. And you feel sorry for him? I don’t. If I get my hands on that little punk, I’ll squeeze his scrawny neck until his eyes pop. He made me ruin my best dress.”

  “Change stations now,” a preprogrammed voice announced. The circle of flab-fighters moved to the left.

  “You’re lucky that’s all he ruined,” Caroline said. “It could have been so much worse.”

  “He demolished Charlie’s shop,” April said. “It’s a mess.”

  Gretchen decided to pursue the idea she had explored with Matt. That’s not all we explored, she thought with a hidden grin before saying, “The walls of one of the room boxes were covered with wallpaper. If I describe the design to you, maybe one of you will know who it belongs to.”

  “Is this a clue to the killer?” Rita, the Barbie collector, asked.

  “Maybe.” Gretchen ran in place while she considered how much to share with the group.

  “Tell us, tell us,” Bonnie said, licking her lips in anticipation.

  “The wallpaper was tan, and it had an apple and teapot border.”

  Bonnie looked thoughtful. Her penciled brows edged closer together, and her red lips puckered.

  As she often did when spending time with Bonnie, Gretchen tried hard to find any family resemblance between the woman next to her and the hunky police detective, but she couldn’t find a trace of physical evidence that established their genome connection.

  “I don’t know anyone with wallpaper like that,” Rita said.

  “We’ll keep an eye out,” Bonnie said with a crafty expression. The doll club president was a woman on a new mission.

  Gretchen would take any help she could get. She was determined to find that kitchen. Someone had tried to hurt her and her friends. What was that person planning next? Gretchen’s life, or someone’s close to her, might depend on moving quickly.

  “Where’s Nina?” Gretchen asked after watching the door for her aunt’s arrival.

  “She came in early and left already,” Ora, the manager, called out. “Something about breakfast with a new friend.”

  “Britt,” Gretchen and April said simultaneously.

  “She thinks you’re crowding her out,” Rita said to Gretchen.

  “Out of what?” April asked.

  “Change stations now.” Everyone moved in unison.

  “The threesome,” Bonnie said. “Threes don’t work. Everybody knows that.”

  Gretchen didn’t have to pretend to be confused. “What?”

  “I get it,” April said, looking at Gretchen. “She thought of you as her best friend. Then I came along. She feels displaced.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Gretchen said. “She’s my aunt, and I love her.”

  “Maybe you should tell her that,” Susie of the Madame Alexander collection said.

  “I will. But I thought everything was back to normal.”

  “Apparently not in Nina’s eyes,” Caroline said. “I haven’t been around much to give her attention. She counts on you.”

  “Change stations now.”

  “How’s your submarine s
andwich diet going?” Rita asked April from the abductor.

  April beamed. “I was measured this morning, and I lost three inches.”

  Ora piped up, “That diet will kill you.”

  April twisted from side to side on a platform, swinging her arms like clubs. “To tell you the truth, I can’t stand the thought of eating another sub.”

  “See,” Ora scolded. “Next you’ll starve to death. What kind of a diet is that! You should get into my diet class. Curves teaches you to eat small portions of a lot of different things.”

  “We’ll see,” April said, but Gretchen thought her resolve was slipping. Ora might win.

  “Tell us about that one room box,” Bonnie said. “April said it was the Lizzie Borden murders.”

  “I researched the murders on the Internet this morning,” Caroline said. “It’s called parricide when parents are murdered by a child. Except Lizzie was tried and acquitted. Her father was sleeping on a sofa, and her mother was found on the floor in the guest bedroom. Each had sustained multiple blows to the head with a hatchetlike instrument. After viewing photographs on multiple Web sites, I can tell you Charlie replicated the scene right down to the color of the mohair sofa.”

  “And we found dolls,” April said, “that looked like murder victims.”

  “Gretchen brought the dolls home,” Caroline added. “One of the male dolls wore a morning coat like the man in the online photographs. One of the female dolls wore a white dress, exactly like the dead Borden woman.”

  “And,” Gretchen added, recalling the smashed-up dolls, “both dolls had bashed-in heads.

  ****

  After Gretchen showered, she found Nina and Caroline in the doll repair workshop showing Britt Gleeland some of the work in progress.

  Britt greeted her more warmly than she had in the past. Gretchen still had her own reservations about the miniature doll maker. First impressions really were hard to change if they started out wrong.

  Nina motioned toward the kitchen, and while Caroline and Britt talked shop, Gretchen followed her aunt.