Mourning In Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  Nothing to do now but listen to my messages.

  There were three from the crafters, about this evening’s meeting. Linda wanted to know if she could use some pages of my large stack book instead of lugging hers to my house. Mabel needed a ride to my house since Jim was not feeling well. Susan alerted me to the fact that she would be bringing a sweet potato pie from her grandmother’s recipe, so I didn’t need to bake.

  The fourth message was from Rosie. “Gerry, I tried your cell but can’t reach you.” Uh-oh. I realized I’d turned the phone off while I was in the library with Lourdes, and hadn’t turned it back on. “Now they have my father, Gerry. He went over to Barry Cannon’s house and a fight started, and the police have him in custody. Can you come to the police station? Call me. Please. This is Rosie.”

  I wondered if Larry Esterman had been caught with a bank record clutched in his fist.

  I left quick messages to say “yes” to Linda and “thanks” to Susan and asked Susan to pick up Mabel, in case I was busy till the last minute. Instead of calling Rosie, I grabbed my keys and rushed to my car.

  I had no choice. I had to go to the LPPD, Maddie or no Maddie.

  This time Rosie was in the waiting area, and her father was inside the confines of the LPPD.

  Rosie sat in an uncomfortable police department chair, her hands in her lap, her eyes staring straight ahead. Anyone who didn’t know better would think she was relaxed. But it seemed a long time since I’d seen Rosie at ease or in good humor—behind the counter of her shop, bent over a new box of books, or scanning a bookshelf for a title. Now she was as tight as the bolts that held her bookcases to the wall for earthquake safety.

  I looked around the large room. Drew Blackstone was on duty. Did the man never get a day off, or did he show up just to accommodate me? I resolved to bring him a tin of cookies soon. For the first time in a while, I hoped I wouldn’t run into Skip.

  Rosie stood up when she saw me. “Gerry, where have you been?”

  When this was all over I was going to have to sit Rosie and Linda down and explain that I wasn’t required to be on call twenty-four/seven. They should have known that most of the time when they couldn’t get hold of me this past week, I was investigating a murder case, trying to clear Rosie, and that I had a life. Maybe not that last one.

  “Do you know what this is all about?” I asked Rosie.

  “As I told you in my message, the police are holding him for assault.”

  “On Barry Cannon? Barry must be thirty years younger. What was your dad thinking?”

  “He, uh, took a weapon with him.”

  I was stunned. Mild-mannered Larry Esterman with what? A gun? A knife? Another trophy?

  “A gun,” Rosie said, before I asked. “I didn’t even know he had one, but I guess he got it when his business was robbed a couple of times years ago. Some kids broke into his warehouse and took a lot of inventory. I’m sure he’d never use it. He just wanted to scare him.”

  I couldn’t tell whether Rosie was talking about the kids of long ago or the kid Barry Cannon, of the present. Probably both.

  As Rosie and I took seats, Drew and I exchanged waves and smiles across the wide room. I figured he was wondering when I was going to saunter over and ask for a favor.

  “Have you heard anything about what’s going on in there?” I asked Rosie, pointing past Drew to the innards of the police station.

  Rosie shook her head and sniffed. “No one’s come out to talk to me.”

  “Where did they pick him up?”

  “At my house. He didn’t do anything to Barry except wave the gun and yell at him. Then he came to my house. Barry must have called the police after he left. My dad’s gun is registered, Gerry.”

  “I’m sure they’ll take that into account.”

  Why was I saying something I didn’t believe in? Did we want everyone in town with a registered gun waving it in our faces when they wanted to settle a feud or make a point?

  The bigger question was, why hadn’t I been a better friend to Rosie? If I’d been stronger and not so afraid of alienating her, I might have helped her to be more realistic about the reunion in the first place. Then David wouldn’t have had the chance to rebuff her and Larry wouldn’t have been forced to relive a thirty-year-old humiliation. For all I knew, David would still be alive, though that connection wasn’t as clear to me.

  “Just before they took him away . . .” Rosie broke down, reacting as if she’d never see her father again. She pulled a wrinkled, folded piece of paper from her purse. “He handed this to me. He said you gave it to him?”

  I could tell immediately that it was the bank record he’d taken from my folder. I started to clarify for Rosie the manner by which Larry Esterman had acquired the page, but she didn’t need any more grief. (There it was again, that fear of bringing displeasure to anyone I cared about.)

  I unfolded the sheet. Larry had written all over it, in bold, possibly angry strokes. He’d circled a row of numbers on the top right of the page and written off-shore; he’d drawn a box around an alphanumeric code on the top left and written Cannon. A yellow highlighter marked large dollar amounts in the middle column.

  Apparently, Larry had done some research and had determined that not only David but Barry Cannon was also profiting from the fraudulent scheme.

  He could have just asked me, instead of stealing my property. Then he might not be in police custody.

  It must have galled Larry that the ringleaders of the terrible stunt his daughter had suffered from were raking in money, profiting from an illegal scheme that also caused his own employer to lose contracts. If David Bridges had been shot instead of bludgeoned to death, Larry would probably have been arrested instead of simply brought in for questioning.

  Rosie had been watching me as I perused the sheet of paper and speculated on its meaning.

  “Does it mean anything to you?” she asked me.

  “Not really,” I said.

  I’d given some thought in the past couple of days to the folder that had landed on the seat of my car. I was convinced that Ben Dobson, the ambitious Duns Scotus supervisor who worked for the late David Bridges, had put it there. I figured that even though his boss was dead by then, Ben had wanted to bring down everyone connected to the scheme, without having to get involved directly. I wondered who his Maddie-like hacker was. I wished I could contact him to tell him his work was likely the last straw of evidence needed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

  And to ask him what he was doing in the Joshua Speed Woods after David’s memorial service. Maybe he was looking for more evidence of the fraud. Or maybe he hadn’t lied to me after all, about answering nature’s call.

  Chapter 24

  My cell phone rang, showing Skip’s caller ID. I didn’t think Rosie needed to hear even my side of the conversation, so I stepped outside to answer.

  A majestic set of steps led from the sidewalk to the plaza level of the police department building. From this vantage point, I could see the entire main shopping district of our town, and as far as Rutledge Center where I could picture Maddie working furiously on her project and looking forward to being where I was now.

  Fortunately, according to the oversize digital display in front of the civic center buildings, the temperature had dropped to a mere eighty-two degrees and I wasn’t too uncomfortable.

  “How come you’re being patient there in the waiting area and not beating down my door?” Skip asked.

  “How come you know where I am?” Or at least, where I’d been when he rang.

  “Duh,” he said, echoing Maddie. I needed to break down and adopt that handy syllable (I couldn’t call it a word) myself.

  “What can you tell me about Larry Esterman?” I asked.

  “He’s on his way downstairs now, but he’s wearing an ankle bracelet while we figure it all out.”

  “You think he’s a flight risk? I doubt the man has been out of town for decades.”

  “He did attempt to assault
a man.”

  “Uh-huh. And with a deadly weapon, right?”

  “Not if it wasn’t loaded.”

  “What?”

  “Esterman claims the gun wasn’t loaded, that he doesn’t even own any bullets. In fact, we searched both his and Rosie’s houses and found no ammunition, or even a record that he’d ever bought any.”

  “He owned a gun but never loaded it?”

  “It appears that way. As I said, we’re sorting things out.”

  “So, you don’t think he killed David?” I whispered, though there was no one within earshot. The only people in the vicinity were three smokers who stood on the lower steps of the building in a tiny spot of shade that spilled over from a tree on the sidewalk.

  “You said you have a couple of things to share with me?” Skip said, leaving me hanging as to whether Larry was considered a suspect by the LPPD.

  Larry had dropped off my own private list. What killer marches over to confront another potential victim with an unloaded gun? Strangely, even before I knew the gun wasn’t loaded, I’d lost interest in Larry as a suspect—he seemed more like a desperate old man with the means and the motive, but not the will to do anything as horrible as commit murder.

  I imagined Larry devising a con, much like the one perpetrated on his daughter thirty years ago—let Barry think he was about to be shot, then say something like, “April Fool,” and walk away. Too bad Barry didn’t appreciate the turnabout.

  Now I was faced with a decision about talking to Skip without Maddie.

  He’d called me; he’d asked me to share. I ran through my defense to my granddaughter, who’d be getting out of class in a half hour.

  “I’ll be right up,” I said.

  I reentered the building by the side door on the east end of the plaza, to avoid Rosie and/or her father. I expected to hear repercussions later.

  On the way to Skip’s office, I called Beverly and asked if she could pick up Maddie at the Rutledge Center and bring her to the police station.

  “Absolutely,” she said, with more gusto than usual. I knew she’d been feeling bad that she’d let me down by not showing up for late night atrium visits. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her that for two nights in a row she’d been replaced by murder suspects.

  Skip was waiting for me at the head of the interior stairs and escorted me back to his cubicle.

  “No cookies, I suppose,” he said. I shot him a “naughty boy” look. “We need to get this case over with so you can get back on schedule.” I knew he was aware that his grin would soften me.

  “Your mom will be bringing Maddie by in about a half hour,” I said. “Your cousin once removed has some things she wants to tell you herself.”

  “No problem. And I have a big surprise for her. Lavana is going to give her a special tour of the building. How’s that?”

  “She’ll love it.”

  “So, just tell me everything and I’ll act surprised later, okay?”

  How could I do that to my granddaughter?

  Easily, it turned out.

  After Skip made a very brief trip to the cold-drink machine for both of us, I started my report on the interview with our Duns Scotus housekeeper, Marina. Maddie hadn’t been too involved in that aspect of my snooping, except to translate my overblown language into ordinary English.

  “You just happened to stop by a hotel in San Francisco two days after you’d checked out?”

  “We missed it. But, the point is, isn’t Cheryl’s story revealing?”

  “It is.”

  “And you’ll file it under ‘things that tend to clear Rosie Norman’?”

  “I will. What else?”

  I felt underappreciated. I’d uncovered the mystery of the anonymous caller who directed the police to the location of Rosie’s trashed scene. I expected more. But I wasn’t eleven years old, so I moved on.

  “There’s the matter of the RFP material and contract awards.” I told Skip what Maddie had uncovered, how David had been granting Mellace an award on one day, and asking for competitive bids the day after. “You may not even need all this if Barry has spelled it all out for you.”

  “Not true. We need something solid like this. Barry clammed up. My guess is that he thinks he can contain what he told you.”

  I didn’t mention Cheryl’s visit to my house. I did produce the folded sheet Larry Esterman had marked up, however, and wished him luck putting the whole case together.

  Not that we were any closer to determining who killed David Bridges. For that, I was hoping this evening with my crafters would settle the matter and we could put everything to rest by morning.

  Maddie bounded into Skip’s cubicle, nearly knocking over the partition. Behind her was Beverly, and behind her their escort, Officer Lavana Rollins, taller even than Beverly.

  Maddie gave me a suspicious look. “How long have you been here?”

  Skip spared me and took over. “Your grandmother has done nothing but go on and on about the cool work you did on this case,” he said, waiting for the beaming smile that followed. “She wanted to wait but I browbeat her”—he held his fists up, boxer style—“until she cracked.” He threw punches into the air and did surprisingly fancy footwork in the cramped quarters. “Bam, bam. Bam, bam.”

  Maddie laughed when the last “bam” landed on her nose. I doubted I’d have been able to smooth things over as easily.

  More kudos to Maddie as Skip spelled out how because of her work, a judge might now allow them to dig even deeper into all the finances of the bad guys. “If you hadn’t noticed that your grandmother Googled Callahan and Savage”—he threw up his hands—“I don’t know where we’d be.”

  Skip let Maddie explain how she kept digging into Callahan and Savage and then went on to a state business site and finally put everything together in order to construct the time line. She elaborated on how she quickly noticed the dates were off. Maddie’s story was somewhat embellished and quite creative in parts, but no one critiqued it out loud.

  Her summary was brilliant: “I’m sure I could do even better next time if I knew a little more about how a police department works.”

  “Let me think about it,” Skip said. He rose from the chair and snapped his fingers. “I’ve made my decision. Officer Rollins, would you be so kind as to take Ms. Porter on an insider’s tour of the building?”

  Beverly and I stood by. I knew she was marveling as I was, at the performance of the two best negotiators in the family.

  Officer Rollins saluted, for probably the first time since her induction.

  “The jail, too,” Maddie said.

  “The jail, too, Ms. Porter,” Lavana Rollins said, scaring me. “Of course, it’s illegal for anyone under eighteen to be within the confines of the jail, but you’re eighteen, right?”

  Maddie screwed up her nose. “Not today,” she said.

  I didn’t care whether Lavana was stretching the truth, or outright lying, for that matter, as long as Maddie saw nothing that might give her nightmares.

  Back home, Maddie couldn’t stop talking about her tour. She told me about the fax machines, the meeting rooms, the records storage area, and the copiers. (ALHS had all of these, also, but I doubted she’d have been as impressed to see them in a school setting.)

  Not available at ALHS were many other highlights, however. “Officer Lavana has the coolest job, Grandma. She works with judges and lawyers and dogs,” she said.

  Officer Lavana had showed her the dispatch center with its enormous map of the city, the booking area, and the two kinds of interview rooms, one for suspects and one for witnesses.

  I took it all in, nodding pleasantly and uttering words and syllables of interest—uh-huh, hmmm, oh—having resolved not to pass judgment. The last thing I wanted was for Maddie to choose a career just because it wasn’t what her grandmother had in mind for her.

  “They took my picture,” she said, producing mug shots of her adorable face.

  She showed me the set: one in profile and on
e face front, a placard around her neck. I doubted any criminal who’d been photographed by the LPPD had such a wide smile for the camera. The sign around her neck had LINCOLN POINT POLICE DEPARTMENT in caps, today’s date, and a long string of numbers, not unlike that of a Swiss bank account. I hoped the number on the card was a made-up one and wouldn’t be entered into the system by mistake.

  Maddie placed the two mug-shot views on the table in the atrium where everyone who came into the house would see them. I tried to remember if she’d been this excited when she’d had her photograph taken with all the animals at Disneyland.

  I thought not.

  We had time for a crafts fix before dinner. I’d been eager to try something recommended by a woman I met at a dollhouse show last month. She’d taken seeds from a green bell pepper and dried them, simply by leaving them on a paper towel for a few days. She’d piled the seeds into a tiny wooden bowl, available in quantity at any crafts store, and, lo and behold, she had a bowl of potato chips. I’d put some seeds out a couple of days ago and Maddie and I finished the project this evening.

  “Do you think Mrs. Reed will like this, or would she want us to carve the chips out of real potatoes?”

  “Good one,” I said.

  My granddaughter had told a miniature joke, of sorts, giving me my thrill of the day.

  “That reminds me, we need to have a lunch or something with Taylor and her grandfather, so we can finish the witch joke. Remember: why does a witch need a computer?”

  “We’ll try to get together soon,” I said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “We’ll see. Don’t you have some homework to get done before the crafts group gets here?”

  “Yeah, I do. I have to fix my avatar. It has a wobbly head.”

  “I hope it doesn’t leave a scar.”