by Wyborn Senna
Tonight, she was probably looking better than she felt. She had bothered to wear a dress, a blue and white floral affair with a wide skirt and capped sleeves. Applebee’s was packed and the Cal Poly crowd was having a good time. She loved the noisy atmosphere, colorful decor, and heaping plates of food. She hoped the surroundings would compensate for her lack of enthusiasm.
They ordered an appetizer plate that included mozzarella sticks, Buffalo wings, and potato skins, followed by heart-clogging helpings of shrimp Alfredo. Since Caresse was subdued, Carl stepped it up a bit and asked her about herself. She told him she was a mom, a County Times writer, and a Barbie magazine staff writer. Astonishingly, he picked Barbie as the topic du jour.
“How the heck did you get interested in Barbies?”
Caresse smiled and repositioned herself closer to the table. There was nothing offensive in asking a collector about their passion; it was non-controversial hobby talk. Like Todd, he was probably choosing that subject because he knew she would feel at home discussing it. Unlike Todd, however, there was no subtext to the chitchat, no smoldering chemistry, no hint of romance.
They sat on high stools at a round-topped table piled high with their feast.
“I was in New York at a wedding when I saw the very first Barbie book I’d ever seen. It was the history of Barbie’s first thirty years, and designers had created costumes for her. As I flipped through the pages and saw everything I’d inherited from my older sister, I said, ‘Hey, I still like this stuff.’ I was only nineteen and had stored my childhood playthings by then. I went back to my undergrad college in New York and found myself buying Barbies again. It was rather humiliating. I hid them in my desk because I didn’t know anyone else in college who bought dolls. I didn’t think there was necessarily anything wrong with me, but I felt the compulsion to keep buying the doll I loved as a child.”
She stopped, took a breath, and picked up a chicken wing dripping with hot sauce.
“Had you ever collected anything else before?”
“Never.”
“So you don’t collect anything and all of a sudden, Barbies? When you were a child, were you into Barbies a lot?”
She washed her bite of wing down with ice water. “Very much so. It’s hard to say Barbies meant more to me than to any other little girl. It wasn’t so much a matter of just dressing her up and admiring the way she looked. I got into creating situations and dramas, creating stories and falling into a world where everything was an adventure.”
Carl wiped his mustache and smiled. “Yeah. And since you’ve gotten involved in collecting, I’m going to assume you’ve found other people who share your passion?”
“Oh, sure.”
“How widespread is this?”
She thought about his question. “I would think there are probably half a million adult collectors in the United States and abroad, and what I think is primarily responsible for all of us networking the way we have is Barbie International Magazine. When it came out, it was well publicized, ’cause it came out in her thirtieth anniversary year and the L.A. Times covered its debut. Once I got my hands on it, I knew I could pair my love of writing with my love for Barbies. I became a staff writer, and I was on my way. Basically, what that magazine provides is a way for people to connect about conventions and Barbie clubs, or just make friends with the same interests. We’ve even got a Central Coast Barbie Club that meets once in a while.”
As long as he asked questions, she would talk. There was no way she was leaving before she finished her last forkful of creamy Alfredo.
“Is it a strong chapter?”
“Well, twenty-five members. I think that’s just about all we would want so we can meet comfortably at people’s homes.” She paused, took a breath. “Are you really interested in this?”
“Sure, why not?”
She frowned, realizing she should probably think of some questions involving real estate appraisals, but she had never owned a home and didn’t know squat about property values and assessments. He seemed to sense as much and continued to talk about Barbies.
“Is she still as popular today? Are kids still getting Barbies?”
The waitress came over and refilled their coffee cups, not interrupting, but making eye contact to see if they were doing all right. Caresse nodded and Carl gave her a broad grin.
“More than ever. World awareness is estimated at 95 percent. Most girls back in the ’60s had maybe one or two or three Barbies. The average girl today has about ten or eleven.”
“That many?”
“Yeah.”
“How many do you have?”
“Only a couple dozen. I’m space-challenged, so I just get ones that really speak to me.” That was her standard answer. The footnote, which she wasn’t going to delve into on a first (and only) date, was that she didn’t believe a collection needed to include a large number, and she didn’t believe in the materialistic tendency toward acquiring more and more. She didn’t need her dolls; she simply liked them, like she enjoyed the pictures on her walls and the interesting pottery in her cupboards. She didn’t envy those who had more. Material goods would always be transient.
“How much are Barbies worth as collectors’ items?” Carl was perking up. “If I wanted to buy one, am I talking a couple bucks, or a couple hundred bucks?”
Caresse shifted on her stool, straightened the hemline of her dress, and picked up her fork to stab the lone potato skin remaining on the appetizer platter.
“Are you talking about buying something that’s old?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you were to find an absolutely gorgeous number one in the box with the stand, you’d probably have to pay about $4,000 for her. About ten years ago, you’d have paid twice that.”
Carl almost dropped the ketchup bottle. “$4,000?”
“Yeah.”
“$4,000?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a doll.”
“It’s a doll, but the number one—especially the number one brunette—is just that scarce, as are some of the earlier outfits.”
“And what makes them so expensive?” Carl put the lid back on the ketchup bottle and finished the last mozzarella stick. His pasta bowl had been scraped clean.
“Right. Common outfits, even from the ’60s, can go for twenty or thirty bucks if they’re still relatively plentiful. But better outfits, if they were more expensive at the time, are harder to find now and pricier. Even accessories can command a bundle if they’re rare.”
“What were some of her more popular accessories?”
Caresse was certain he was just messing with her now. He couldn’t possibly care about Barbie’s trappings. Nevertheless, she obliged him. “If you go back to the ’60s, she had everything from purses and princess phones to pots and pans. She had a Dream House, an Austin Healy, and a Little Theatre. Everyone talks about the stuff she has now, but she had even cooler stuff back then. A lot of accessories that are hard to find today include key chains, pearl necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. And you know what I’d like to do? If I could find a garbage dump that just had vacuum cleaner bags from the ’60s—”
“Yeah?”
“I’d like to go in there with a protective suit on, gather up all the old vacuum cleaner bags, open them, and find out what people Hoovered up.”
Carl looked thoughtful. “It’s probably there.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s all there.”
28
As soon as P.J. recovered from the shock of being in a doorless room, she studied the walls. Near the floor on the wall of photos, she noticed a sliding track and realized it was a false wall. She approached it and started rolling it back from the corner of the room where a narrow piece of metal extended, serving as a handle.
What she found behind the wall astounded her. She was in a small, rectangular enclosure with a door leading out into the hallway. Before her, stacked randomly on shelves, were firearms, including a scoped rifle, two shotguns,
three pistols, a chain gun, armfuls of submachine guns, an assortment of silencers and ammunition, and classic machine guns her half-brother Darby would later identify as an M1941 Johnson, an M2 Browning, a Colt CMG-1, and a SIG MG 710-3.
P.J. looked down. Her gloved hands were shaking, and so were her knees. Sweat began to trickle from her underarms down to her ribcage. She walked over to a large metal box and cracked it open. It was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.
I’ll be back here later, she told herself. I have work to do.
She focused her thoughts and tiptoed, one barefoot step at a time, to the door. Watching where she walked, she noticed that she needed to repaint her toenails, preferably in vermilion.
Turning the door handle, she stole a look into the empty, rose-colored hallway. It was dimly lit by a series of sconces. Step, step, step, and step.
She was at the doorway to Rick’s music room, her duffel left behind in the hidden room. She had what she needed in her pockets. Pressing the door inward, it opened without a creak. Down on her hands and knees now, she moved across the rug and positioned herself behind the wide chair.
Rick reached for another sip of his drink and took another forkful of ravioli, guffawing at the movie even though it hadn’t reached a particularly humorous scene.
P.J. realized Rick’s drink was beyond her reach, even though the table was to the side and back a bit. She could try to reach it, but if he was not absolutely in the moment with the movie, he might catch her movement out of the corner of his eye, turn, and find her there.
She took one of the needles out of her pocket and tapped it. A drop of cloudy liquid fell from its tip like a single tear. The movie played on.
Slowly, she rose behind the chair and looked down at Rick’s thick black hair. It had a beautiful shine to it.
Silently, she reached over and cupped his chin in her left hand. He gave a jolt. Surprised, he glanced up, perhaps expecting to find his wife looking for a quick kiss. With her right hand, P.J. jabbed the needle into the right side of his neck, plugging the full dose of Dormicum into his bloodstream.
Rick shot out of his chair, clawing at the long needle. The empty hypodermic glistened in the glow of the TV screen.
He did not scream or shout. He stared at P.J. and tried to place the blond, ponytailed young woman in the plaid flannel shirt. Maybe if he thought hard enough, he could figure out where he knew her from, find her somewhere in his past. But he could not. He did not. His mouth gaped wide and he stumbled, hitting the small table his food was on, sending it crashing to the rug in a flurry of plates, congealed sauce, and splashed soda. He kicked the Captain Morgan bottle and went down on one knee as he pulled the needle out of his neck. His eyes bulged, his face awash with sweat.
Finally, he was on his back, his eyes glassy, his breathing ragged. He struggled against the drugs, but P.J. knew he wouldn’t be able to continue the fight. He would go under.
She stood there, waiting as the minutes passed. It took eleven minutes, and then he lay still. She suspected he was dead, but she was fearful of taking his pulse. She had administered enough Dormicum to wipe out Jim Jones and his entire posse of Kool-Aid kids. She kicked him with her bare foot. Rick was limp, out of it. She gingerly lifted the edge of his Lil Beef t-shirt and stared at his hairy belly. Then she took the second hypodermic full of Dormicum and pushed it into the fat near his navel. This would double the dose of poison in his system.
P.J. took the spare vials from her breast pocket and filled both hypodermics in case she needed them for Zivia.
She left Rick dead on the floor of his music room and made her way upstairs.
29
Caresse was in no mood for Thursday’s lunch date with an older guy named Al who wanted to take her to a café in Port San Luis. That was where the boating crowd hung out and she knew that, with a jacket, they could enjoy the fresh air and views, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was getting itchy to write her article and be done with the spate of dating. Aside from Todd, she was striking out at every turn and wasn’t having much fun. And Todd hadn’t called.
She had scheduled her next date as an eight o’clock breakfast at Sunshine Doughnuts, and she had to be at the County Times between eight-thirty and nine.
Two radio rock song later, she pulled into the parking lot. Zac was inside, wearing the black button-down shirt he told Caresse to look for. With hair graying at the temples and hazel eyes, he was boyishly handsome. It was only when he stood up that she realized he was six inches shorter than she was and cringed. She’d always felt self-conscious around guys shorter than 5′6″. They made her feel huge. And judging by the napkins laden with buttermilk and lemon doughnuts piled on the laminate table, she was about to feel huger.
Zac was an electrical contractor—a stretch for her conversationally—but she found out he had two kids, ages eleven and nine, so they talked about parenthood for a while. Within half an hour, they were both glad the date had been just a before-work doughnut stop. Outside, they shook hands, wished each other well, and never promised to call.
She got to her desk and checked in at the Best Barbie Board first thing. Sally had written to let everyone know the Oak Harbor detectives had finally asked her to accompany them through Time’s house so she could assess what—if anything—was missing. She also addressed the subject of how Time died.
CASEY_LUV: Dear Sabeana, you asked how Time died. Well, it’s a bit complicated, but her death is listed as poisoning. No, not your old-school arsenic in the tea. This poison was delivered via—oh, God, how do I explain it? Only some Hannibal Lecter with a MacGyver brain could think of it. Stuff flew at her and stuck in her skin and it had the poison on it, so the poison got in her system. Sorry I don’t have a better way of putting it.
Anyway, on to what is missing. Yes, Time’s dolls have been cherry-picked. Time had a curio cabinet displaying dolls from Barbie’s earliest years to about the standard 1972 vintage cut-off point. Earlier dolls were chosen over later ones: her number one and two ponytails were, of course, stolen, as were half a dozen number threes. About half her TNTs are gone, as are half her American Girls and bubble cuts. Time didn’t keep a list like Gayle and Megan did. But the whole cabinet arrangement looks different, spread out. The unit is mostly glass, and I noticed immediately how much light was passing through it, whereas before, it was dense with dolls. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but you’ve gotten the gist of it.
The detectives made note of what I said. We’ll see what happens from here on out. RIP, Time. I will miss you most of all.
Caresse found it strange the killer would want Time’s bubble cuts in light of the fact that he or she didn’t take any of Hailey’s, but nothing about this murderer wasn’t strange.
Sabeana Moss once again followed up with a reply on the group’s behalf.
SMOSS: Dearest Sally, thank you for sharing that news. I am so sorry about what happened to Time. My heart goes out to you. It is heartbreaking to know we’ve lost her, and the BBB will feel her absence for years to come. It sounds like the killer has not slowed down. Though it’s been said here before, everyone, please be careful. The cops need to catch this person and do it soon.
Caresse thought, Amen to that.
30
P.J. walked past room after room of exquisitely appointed furnishings and decor, knowing that if her home was fabulous, this home was positively ferosh. She passed the doll room, pausing momentarily to catch her breath before heading to the bathroom, where Zivia was now singing.
She listened to Zivia’s voice through the thick shower curtain. She had good pitch and a sweet quality to her voice, plaintive without any vibrato. Placed in small glass holders around the room, candles flickered and created a tranquil atmosphere.
Zivia stopped singing. P.J. heard a hollow thud and knew Zivia had dropped a bar of soap. She heard the woman grunt as she picked it up. The rest of the shower went by silently, the water like rain battering a windowpane as it pounded the bottom of the tub. P.J. readied th
e first needle, flicking it with her gloved index finger.
The sole of Zivia’s pivoting foot squeaked on the porcelain as she took her first tentative step out of the shower and onto a plush yellow rug. Her black hair was a mass of splendiferous ringlets dripping onto her flawless ebony shoulders and ample breasts. She was reaching for a towel on the bar nearest her when she saw P.J. standing there. Her hand stopped and rested on the towel bar.
She had one leg in the tub and one leg out when P.J. rushed at her and pushed her down, causing her to hit the small of her back on the tub’s edge.
Zivia shouted in pain and then called for her husband.
P.J. jabbed the needle into her upper arm and held on. Zivia screamed and fought, then faded into unconsciousness.
Now it would be easier. P.J. grasped Zivia by the ankles and pulled her away from the tub, across the scatter rugs, toward the sink and vanity. Bending over the woman’s naked body, P.J. shoved the second hypodermic into the soft skin above Zivia’s left breast, beneath her collarbone, almost catching her in the armpit.
Now it was done. She debated whether to throw a towel over Zivia’s face and torso before worrying what psychologists might say about the action. She certainly had no need to distance herself from her victim, so she left Zivia as she was, naked, flat on the floor.
As a final gesture, P.J. blew out the candles and closed the bathroom door behind her before heading down the hallway to the doll room.
The room was painted fuchsia with white stripes running horizontally around the room near the wall plates. Plastic-covered cases were stacked checkerboard-style along every wall, each lit from the interior with tiny white lights that resembled dripping strands of illuminated pearls. The bottom-most row caught P.J.’s eye first. Starting at the left-hand side, the first three dolls, all Japanese side-part American Girls, had silver ash blond, frosted blond, and midnight tresses. Sold only in Japan, these beauties were made of a pinker vinyl and had straight, standard Barbie legs. The trio was dressed in complementary kimonos sold only in Japan; one was silver and featured a labyrinth pattern, the second was a silver cherry blossom print, and the third was charcoal gray and silver.