Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  “Let’s get started,” Gretchen said since she couldn’t do anything about the dog situation. “We’re going to canvass the neighborhood. With any luck, we’ll find someone who has lived in this area for a long time, long enough to know the Swilling’s family history and give us some background.”

  Caroline handed each of them a notebook. “Jot down the addresses you visit and the results. We don’t want to waste time by repeating the same houses later. Make notes if you discover anything that could be relevant.”

  The women teamed up under Gretchen’s direction. She watched her mother and April knock at their first house before she crossed to the other side of the street with Nina.

  Six homes later, after four unanswered knocks and two occupied by owners too recent to be helpful, Nina started complaining about her feet, then about the task at hand. Gretchen glanced at her aunt’s gold heels but didn’t say anything.

  “Phoenix, in case you haven’t noticed,” her aunt said grumpily, “is a transient city. Everyone living in the Valley of the Sun is from someplace else these days. We’re wasting our time on a wild-goose chase.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I could be spending the day with Brandon.”

  “Under the hood of your car? That sounds like a good time.”

  “You have a point.”

  Nina remained on the sidewalk holding her shoes and wiggling her bare feet while Gretchen knocked on house number seven. Again, there was no response.

  From what Gretchen could tell, Caroline and April were having more luck getting doors to open but the same rate of failure finding longtime residents. April called over, “Nothing yet,” she said. “We’re turning the corner up ahead.”

  “Whose big idea was this anyway?” Nina wanted to know after putting her heels back on.

  Gretchen couldn’t tell Nina that she’d talked to her aunt Gertie. Something about her other aunt’s name brought out the very worst in Nina. And she was crabby already. “We have to at least try,” she said. “We’ll finish what we started by circling the block.”

  “Wait,” Nina screeched. “Don’t tell me.” Her eyes became narrow, knowing slits. “You’ve been taking advice from that woman again?”

  Nina’s intuition was sharpening, but Gretchen wished she would use it for a higher purpose than arguing with her. Why couldn’t she use it to identify the killer?

  “Aunt Gertie made a few suggestions,” Gretchen admitted. “They seemed reasonable.”

  “There isn’t anything reasonable about her. She’s dangerous. Practically everyone around her gets shot to death.”

  Gretchen couldn’t help letting out a small chortle. Nina was close to the mark. Aunt Gertie didn’t always think before she acted, sometimes creating more problems than she started with. But she always solved her cases. For her, the end justified the means. “You’re exaggerating, Nina,” she said.

  They stood in front of a house set slightly farther back from the street than the other homes. Gretchen thought it had an unoccupied look to it. Not exactly that its exterior hadn’t been maintained, though it appeared neglected when compared to the others. She walked past it.

  “Where are you going?” Nina asked from the sidewalk that led to the house. “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “No one lives here.” Gretchen stopped and turned around.

  “Really,” Nina said.

  “I don’t think so, but I suppose we should make sure.”

  Nina had another “incoming message” expression on her face when Gretchen passed her and started up the walkway. “Someone’s inside,” her aunt informed her.

  Gretchen was on the porch about to ring the doorbell.

  “Don’t!” Nina shouted. “I have a bad feeling!”

  What was the matter with Nina? At this rate, they’d be on this block for the rest of the day. Gretchen pressed the button and heard the chime inside the house. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked her aunt.

  Before Nina could reply, the door creaked opened.

  A large woman loomed in the doorway, staring at Gretchen.

  “I’m searching for information on a neighborhood family,” Gretchen said.

  “Come in,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Chapter 32

  Terry Vascar and Matt Albright watch the start of the excavation while the noon sun beats down on their unprotected heads. Standing beside them is John Meyer, a forensic anthropologist, and Frances Castillo, medical examiner. Two professionals considered the best in their respective fields. They are also good friends, having shared more than a few drinks over discussions concerning unusual cases.

  Terry swipes at a trickle of sweat running along the side of his face.

  He feels adrenaline shooting through his veins and a growing impatience with the time it has taken to arrange the equipment and workers. Matt looks as frustrated as he is.

  All worth it.

  He fervently hopes.

  Ground-penetrating radar, aka GPR, has detected an object under the surface of the Swilling’s family plot. That in itself isn’t notable, considering that this is a cemetery, after all. What makes this discovery unique, though, is that this object is near the foot of a buried coffin. It should be a patch of desert dirt through and through. No record exists inside the cemetery office of anything beneath this piece of ground. In fact, no records are available for this entire section of the cemetery.

  Terry and Matt have finished watching the technician radiate high frequency waves into the ground. They have received lessons in electromagnetic energy and geophysics when variations are reflected in the return signal, more technical jargon than either needs or wants.

  Their main focus is on the final results from the radar.

  The buried object.

  A man in grass-stained pants hurries toward them. The caretaker.

  “See right here,” he says, pointing, tapping the earth with the toe of his boot. “The ground’s been disturbed. I knew I should report it after what happened the other night. The dead woman and all.”

  This red Arizonian dirt is brighter than it would be if it had remained untouched. Sun and air pales exposed earth. Someone dug in this spot recently. And their equipment proves that an object is below. Could it be the murder weapon?

  “Careful,” Matt warns. “We don’t want it damaged.”

  Per Matt’s orders, the team is digging wider and deeper than the GPR expert recommended. Better safe. Whoever placed the object at the base of the grave site wanted to keep it from discovery.

  The cemetery is busy with visitors today, a typical Saturday. Those tending the graves are fulfilling their obligations to the deceased. A few curious spectators have stopped to watch them work.

  “Got something,” one of the men says, digging his shovel in to the mound of earth and bending down.

  They all gather closer, anxiously waiting as precautions are taken, police procedures are followed to a T, not a single deviation permissible under the detectives’ watchful eyes.

  Terry stares at what the digger has unearthed. It’s a human skull.

  John and Frances go to work on it while the diggers continue to seek the metal object.

  “Violent death,” John the forensic pathologist mutters, confirming Terry’s suspicions.

  “Any guesses?” Matt asks the ME.

  “It’s possible,” Frances says. “I won’t know until I get it in and compare it to the other victim, but it could be from the skeleton, and killed by the same murder weapon.” She studies the cranial material. Even Terry can see where the blows have crushed the skull.

  John rises from his task. “Skull hasn’t been in this shallow grave for long,” he says.

  Terry nods his understanding. Matt glances at him. “We found somebody’s buried treasure,” he says.

  “Some treasure,” Terry replies.

  Frances had already informed them that the remains in the armoire had been in that location for years. “We can a
ssume that she was killed in the house,” she had said. “And hidden inside the wardrobe.”

  “It appears possible,” Frances says now, cautiously, always hesitant to make statements prior to full investigation, “that we’ve got a match.”

  “So,” Matt says, “at some point recently the killer moved the head, hid it here.”

  A van filled with a television news crew pulls up as close as possible considering the number of visitors’ cars parked in the area.

  “Trouble,” Terry says.

  “Like bloodhounds,” Matt agrees. “If they make a connection between the two murders, they’ll be screaming serial killer.” He stalks off in their direction. Terry is confident that the team of media clowns won’t get near them.

  What kind of person did this? A sociopath, Terry thinks. Superficially, sociopaths are charming, pleasant, easy to like. But covertly they are hostile and cunning. Lies roll easily, smoothly enough to even pass lie detector tests. Terry sifts through knowledge stored in his brain. Sociopaths harbor deep-seated rage, an inability to feel remorse, a view that other people are nothing but targets.

  Terry would rather deal with a rabid dog. At least he’d know what he was facing.

  The news crew is setting up near their van. Matt returns to the group, stands with his back to them, concealing as much as possible from the camera lens. Terry does the same.

  “There’s more,” a digger says, exposing a white plastic bag.

  Gloves, bags, pictures. Minutes elapse before the plastic bag is opened and the contents exposed.

  Not a hammer, but oddly, a metal doll’s head. The head is old, with painted yellow hair and blue eyes, chipped and fading.

  Before the doll’s head is completely revealed, Terry senses that Matt isn’t next to him any longer. He is some distance away, talking on his phone. Terry approaches, notes that his friend has lost his composure. He is pale, shaky. Terry’s never seen him this way.

  “They’re out of town,” Matt says, ending the call, his voice ragged likes he’s just run a five-kilometer race in record time. “They’re safe.”

  “Who?”

  “Gretchen and her mother. I just talked to Caroline. They’re not in Phoenix.”

  Terry’s aware of Matt’s feelings for Gretchen. He knows about some of their personal conflicts, about the Birch connection to this case.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Terry asks, seeing that his friend is extremely agitated, pacing, sweating.

  “I recognize the doll’s head,” Matt says. “It was in Caroline’s car. After the accident, I pulled it out and gave it to Gretchen. Which means that whoever buried the skull and doll head was inside the Birch house yesterday.”

  “Are you sure?”

  But Matt isn’t listening. He’s making another call.

  “Send a car over to the Birch house,” Matt barks into the cell phone. “I want twenty-four-hour surveillance. Stop anybody going in or coming out.”

  Matt is on a roll now, he has his composure back, but he’s reactive rather than proactive, never the best place to be. Terry doesn’t like defense, preferring to play his games offensively. Matt’s the same way.

  “We have to step up the search for Anthony Thomasia,” Terry says.

  Matt agrees. “We also need to find the missing son,” he adds. “Richard Berringer better surface soon, either as a live body or on a death certificate.”

  “We’ll get them.”

  “Damn. The nerve to break into Gretchen’s home and take the head.”

  Terry glances toward their team. “A doll head buried in a grave and a doll body in a wardrobe inside the Swilling house. Bet they’re a match.”

  Yes, this killer fits another classic sociopath characteristic.

  They like to live on the edge.

  Terry runs his eyes over the gravestones, suspicious of everyone, all the people coming and going, visiting the dead. He stares at the handful of spectators.

  “If he touches her,” Matt says under his breath. “I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”

  Chapter 33

  Gretchen and Nina slid through the door into the dilapidated house.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” the woman had said. What was that all about?

  Nina had hung back, concerned about entering. She’d sputtered about the bad aura permeating the building, but followed Gretchen inside after calling Caroline on her cell to let her know where they were.

  The other part of their team would continue with the search and meet them back at the museum in approximately one hour.

  The living room smelled of talcum powder and mothballs.

  “I’m Nora Wade,” the woman said, showing them to a flowered sofa covered in yellowed plastic. “This is my mother, Bea.”

  Most of the mothball smell seemed to be coming from an old shriveled woman sitting in a matching upholstered chair in a corner of the small room. Heavy drapes on the windows were pulled shut. A lamp on an end table supplied the only light.

  Gretchen gave Nora her warmest smile before she said, “Our doll club is renovating the Swilling home, and we’re searching for history on the house and the Swilling family members. We are looking for neighbors who may have known them.”

  A knowing look passed between the other two women.

  An affirmation that they knew the family? “Did you know them?”

  Another look at each other before Nora nodded.

  Wonderful. They’d found someone from the old days who might be able to help.

  “Would you like some tea?” the mother, Bea, asked. Her voice was so low that Gretchen had to strain to hear her.

  Gretchen shook her head.

  “No, but thank you,” Nina said.

  “What did you mean,” Gretchen asked, “when you said that you had been waiting for us?”

  Nora sat down on the edge of the sofa close to Gretchen. The heavy fragrance of talcum power came from her. “We weren’t waiting specifically for you, but it was only a matter of time before people started wondering about that family and the house. You couldn’t have been inquiring about any other. Besides, we’ve seen you in the neighborhood. We know you’re restoring the Swilling house.”

  “Please tell us what you know.”

  As it turned out, Nora Wade’s mother had lived her entire life in the home they were in at the moment. Gretchen didn’t think a single piece of furniture had been replaced during the years in between. And the drapes must have been drawn to keep natural light from exposing layers of grime and the sorry condition of the furnishings. Dust danced in the lamp light.

  “I remember when Flora disappeared,” Bea said, speaking slowly and softly. “The family had so many tragedies, one right after another. You’ve known families like that, I’m sure, where everything goes wrong for them.”

  “Yes, I have,” Gretchen said.

  “The family had a long history of mental issues, but Richard had the most serious of the lot. Rachel was one year younger than Richard, and he hated her from the day she was born. He was a willful, jealous child, and when Rachel was ten, he tried to smother her with a pillow.”

  “Shocking,” Nina said.

  Gretchen and Nina exchanged concerned glances. If psychic ability ran in families as Nina believed, then Gretchen had a little of her own and was feeling it now. It wasn’t warm and fuzzy. She felt as cold as one of Aunt Gertie’s Michigan winters, as if her veins had turned to ice and slowly began freezing her arms and legs.

  “His mother stopped him in time,” Nora said. “But he became more and more dangerous as he grew. Richard started along his violent path in the same way many people with mental problems begin. He was horribly cruel to animals. His poor sister would tell the most awful stories about him.”

  “A lot of whispering went on in the neighborhood,” Bea said. “I tried to tell Flora about the danger, since we were friends, but she wouldn’t listen. The entire community was afraid of him. Finally when he was a teenager, the family sent him to a special place
for people like him. What a relief for the entire neighborhood’s sake.”

  “Did he ever return?” Gretchen asked.

  Bea shook her frail head. “No. Rumors came and went about what happened to him. Some said he existed in a vegetable state after a botched lobotomy. Others thought they spotted him on the streets of Phoenix periodically. I always suspected he was dead. Then that woman from California showed up here looking for Rachel and strange things began to happen.”

  Gretchen sat up straight. “Did you meet Allison Thomasia? Did you speak with her?”

  “My mother didn’t,” Nora said. “But I met her while I was out on one of my daily walks. She was standing in front of the Swilling house, staring at it. I asked her if she had a special interest.”

  “When was this?”

  “A few months ago. When was it, Mother?”

  “About then.”

  A few months ago? Had Allison been in Phoenix all that time? Or had she made two trips?

  “She was tracing her family history,” Nora said. “She said she was related to the Swilling branch. I gave her as many details as I could, like I’m doing now. Recently that young woman was found dead in the cemetery.”

  “Yes, we know,” Gretchen said. “She designed dolls.”

  “She had a nice doll with her. Kind of strange for my taste, but you could tell she had talent even if it wasn’t my cup of tea.”

  Gretchen asked Nora to describe the doll. Flowing hair, fairy wings, ivy on the doll’s leg. It was the same one found in the cemetery.

  “She said she was going to give the doll to the next relative she met,” Nora said. “She liked to do that, give away dolls, she said. The dear never had a chance.”

  Gretchen was pretty sure Allison had found her next of kin. But the doll had been discarded along with the dollmaker’s body. “Do you know why Rachel didn’t live in the house anymore?”

  “Too much misery,” Bea said. “Flora’s daughter had mental problems of her own.”

  “Well,” Nora said. “We don’t know that for a fact. But she had more than one side to her, that’s for sure. Not that I’d speak ill of the dead.”