Part 4 (1/2)

A direct shot at Gretchen's lack of organization skills. Wait until Nina found out that Gretchen had locked her keys in her car. She'd discovered the lockout when she tried to get in to retrieve her toolbox. Peering through the tinted window, she had seen her keys hanging in the ignition. If there was any way of keeping Gretchen's mistake from her aunt, she'd try it. At least they had all arrived in separate cars. She'd call for help later.

”Why don't you take the dogs for another walk?” April suggested to Nina from the floor.

”I just got back. Why would I . . . Wait a minute . . . Is that sarcasm I hear in your voice?”

”If you can't find anything to do, go outside and practice your hocus-pocus,” April retorted. ”Why stick around if you aren't going to help?”

”I'm giving valuable advice.”

”Will you two quit crabbing at each other?” Gretchen said, taking Nina by the arm and leading her to the counter.

”See all these accessories and accents?”

Nina looked at the things Gretchen had scooped from the floor: tiny lamps, pictures, and knickknacks.

”You're our interior decorator,” Gretchen said. ”Your job is to help figure out which ones go together in the same room boxes.”

”How am I supposed to do that?”

”We're partners, remember? Your skill, you said, was in decorating and deciding where all the pieces should go.”

”I don't remember saying that.”

”I recall it as though it just sprang from your perky lips.”

”I thought I'd take care of the dogs while you worked.”

Gretchen frowned at her aunt. Why did Nina offer to come if she wasn't going to pitch in? Ah . . . she got it. Gretchen's cunning, calculating aunt didn't want her spending time alone with April. Gretchen had to find a way to stop this childish rivalry. ”See what you can do,” she said, leaving Nina alone at the counter.

”There are some creepy miniatures scatter--” April began to say.

”Here comes Caroline,” Nina announced, cutting her off. Gretchen's mother walked in wearing sungla.s.ses. When she didn't remove them, Gretchen guessed that she was hiding red-rimmed eyes behind the shades. Throughout the night, Gretchen had heard her mother crying over the loss of her friend.

”Just in time,” Gretchen said, giving her a hug. ”You're the expert. We await your orders.”

”First, we'll pick up all the scattered pieces.” Caroline said, digging right in by walking to one corner of the shop and searching the floor.

Gretchen retrieved an empty room box, admiring its tiny painted walls. A rendition of a church loomed in the background. Charlie had captured the essence of it in her painting: the stonework, stained gla.s.s, and a slender tower with a cross at the top.

Gretchen slid the room box into a display case part.i.tion along with the one she had placed there when she met Britt Gleeland. This one must be a bedroom, she guessed, based on the floral pattern of the wallpaper.

Gretchen's practiced eye scanned the boxes. A standard one-inch scale equaled one real foot, so she estimated the room it represented at about fourteen feet by twelve feet. She bent down to pick up another box that had landed facedown. Gretchen turned it over and gasped.

”What happened?” April sprang from the floor.

”I'm not sure what this scene is supposed to represent, but that looks like blood all over the ground,” Gretchen said, picking up the room box in her arms and turning it so April and Nina could see it. A wooden structure towered behind a high wooden fence, Charlie's brushstrokes barely visible. The base of the room box was painted brown with small worn tufts of gra.s.s jutting along the sides of the fence. ”Not real blood, of course, but I'm sure that's what it's meant to be.”

”A courtyard?” April said. ”Covered with blood?”

”Some courtyard,” Nina said. ”It looks slummy to me.”

Caroline joined them and studied the box. ”Well, I think it's a backyard.”

”Here's a street sign,” April said, shuffling through a pile of items. The little green street sign mounted on a green post reminded Gretchen of a signpost from the Department 56 d.i.c.kens Village that she and her mother a.s.sembled every Christmas.

”Hanbury Street,” Gretchen read.

Caroline placed the room box on the counter. She squinted to read the small numbers that Charlie had painted on the street sign. ”Twenty-nine Hanbury Street.”

Gretchen searched through the growing pile of miniature furniture and accents on the counter. ”I saw a b.l.o.o.d.y miniature axe on the floor right after we found Charlie. I wonder where it went.”

”What?” Nina said. ”An axe?”

It wasn't on the counter. Gretchen bent down, peeringaround the area where she had seen the axe when she had left the shop. An object had been shoved under a display case. She knelt down and pulled it out. ”Here it is.”

”One item now in its proper home,” Nina said, taking the tiny axe and placing it next to the painted blood in the backyard scene.

”Creepy,” April said. ”Why would Charlie create a gruesome room box? There's nothing cute about the background scenery, nothing charming about an ax with red paint all over the blade. What was wrong with her?”

”It's probably my fault.” Caroline leaned against the counter, removed her sungla.s.ses, and rubbed teary eyes.

”Charlie was totally obsessed with Sara's death. She talked about it incessantly. I suggested she instead focus on creating some room boxes, to give her something to do besides grieve for her sister. I never imagined this.”

”The other room boxes are fine,” Gretchen said. ”One is set in a meadow with a church in the background. And this one . . .” Gretchen lifted another room box. ”. . . is a Victorian dressing room or something like that. Maybe Charlie had a bad week or two and decided to express herself in a more base way with the axe scene.”

Nina picked up the last room box. ”This one looks unfinished,” she announced. ”It can't be part of the same grouping. But, no blood.”

The room box Nina held was shabby next to the others, like it had been constructed hastily. The sides didn't fit together properly, and the walls were bare except for an uneven piece of full-sized wallpaper glued to the back of it and a rough sketch that resembled a sink.

”Am I doing the right thing,” Caroline said, ”by insisting that we restore Charlie's last project?”

”Absolutely,” Gretchen said, realizing her mother needed to do this.

”We're wasting time standing around hypothesizing,”

April said. ”Each of us needs to go to a corner of the shop and work outward. Let's gather every single item before we start guessing what Charlie had in mind.”

The team paused for a lunch of submarine sandwiches, which April insisted was the answer to her years of obesity. She remained convinced that her new diet plan would transform her into a s.e.xy, curvy sh.e.l.l of her present self. Nina refused to cooperate, stomping down the street in search of ”real food.” She returned with a salad.

”Detective Albright should be back soon,” April said, munching on a foot-long sandwich while she looked out the window.

”Fat chance,” Gretchen replied.

”I completely understand his phobia.” April placed a few tiny articles of doll clothing into one of the bins. ”I have my own fears, you know.”

”We know,” Nina said with a hint of distaste. ”Clowns.”