From behind the wall, Gretchen removed a package wrapped in fabric the size of the doll she sought, along with another parcel, smaller and denser.
Gretchen had found the French fashion doll.
The landing gear whined into place as the plane rapidly descended over the familiar desert landscape. Caroline braced herself and waited for the plane to touch down. Finding a flight home had been more difficult than she’d anticipated. The first flights she checked were filled to capacity. In July, she thought. Who flies willingly into Phoenix in July, where the day’s temperature, according to the pilot, hovered around one hundred and seventeen degrees?
Her plan was simple. A cab ride home, since she assumed her car had been properly disposed of. She would remove the hastily fashioned wall containing the French fashion doll and the accompanying pictures and inventory. Those items and the information stored on her computer were the only things she needed.
The Inspector had been caught unaware, and the end was near.
26
I hope I have managed to remove some of the mystery from the expansive world of doll collection. You can decide for yourself what level of participation you want to actively pursue. Many of you won’t start out with the ferocity and intense focus of the truly addicted collector. But mark my words; eventually you will become caught up in the pageantry and intrigue. With this book I have given you the tools you need, and so my job here is done. May your dolls bring you years of boundless joy.
The End
– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch
The picture hadn’t done her justice. A photograph, in Gretchen’s mind, was never able to re-create the splendor and beauty the photographer hoped to capture.
The doll’s delicate bisque features, unflawed in any way, shone with charm, her green cascading costume sumptuous and accurately portraying the dress fashion of her historical era. A circle and dot on the back of her neck established her Bru heritage. Gretchen marveled at the craftsmanship and at this rare opportunity to hold the doll in her hands.
Nina unwrapped the second package, and photographs spilled out onto the kitchen table.
Gretchen carefully laid the French fashion doll down on the sofa and picked up a sheet of paper. “Look,” she said. “Martha’s old inventory of dolls. And pictures of each.” She shuffled through the photographs, noting bisque dolls from various French and German makers, several fashion dolls, Bébés, character dolls, dolly-faced dolls, cloth dolls, wooden dolls. Gretchen was stunned by the number of quality dolls in the collection. Reading the inventory days ago didn’t have the same impact that viewing the pictures did.
She turned over a photograph. The doll’s written description, transposed from the inventory list, was scrawled across the back of the picture. Gretchen studied the date stamp on the back, the same as the date stamp on the back of the French fashion doll photograph. Picking up the inventory list, she scanned it, running her index finger along the entries. She stopped at a listing.
“Nina,” she said, breathlessly. “This inventory list is different from the one the police found in the workshop.”
“How do you know?” Nina asked. “What’s different?”
“Well, to begin with, the Bru French fashion doll is listed right here.” She dragged the paper across the table, careful to keep her finger placed next to the appropriate listing. “It wasn’t part of the other inventory. I remember commenting on that at the time. We thought Martha must have forgotten to update the list.”
While Nina looked it over, she hurried to her mother’s bedroom and returned with her copy of the inventory. A cross-comparison of the two lists exposed several inconsistencies, aside from a difference in the font used to print the lists. The list found in the cabana appeared to have been composed on an old-fashioned typewriter; the one found in the workshop was laser-printed from a computer word processor.
The fashion doll wasn’t the only doll excluded from the first list. “A china Madame Rohmer wearing a cream dress with blue feathers is also missing,” Gretchen said. “And a French Jumeau Bébé holding a Steiff monkey.” Gretchen continued along the list. “Here’s the Kewpie that Joseph said he purchased through an estate sale.”
Nina shuffled through the photographs. “I found pictures of those three,” she said, holding up the pictures.
“But why aren’t they included in the list from the workshop?” Gretchen said, confused. “Why two different lists?”
“Maybe the second list is a more current inventory,” Nina suggested.
Gretchen shook her head. “If that were true, the dolls’ descriptions missing from the first list would be entered together at the end of the second list. They aren’t. The list is in order by dates of purchase. The French fashion doll was purchased early in her collection. She wouldn’t have forgotten it.” Gretchen laid the two lists side by side. “No. Someone tampered with the first list, the one the police found in the workshop.”
Nina picked up the fashion doll and gently touched the white daisies on her straw hat.
Gretchen found another conflicting entry. “Here’s another one that didn’t appear on the first list. She read the entry out loud.“Jumeau Triste doll, circa. 1875, composition and jointed wood body, real hair wig, thirty-three inches.” She shuffled through the pictures, checking the back of each until she found the matching description. The dark-haired doll with the thick eyebrows must be worth a nice sum, she thought.
“Let’s assume that Nacho planted the parian doll and the inventory list to throw suspicion on my mother,” Gretchen said to Nina. “For some reason he wanted the police to view her as the prime suspect, so he hid the dolls and made an anonymous call to the police.”
“There isn’t any other explanation, since we know she’s innocent,” Nina said.
“Right,” Gretchen said. “And let’s assume that Martha Williams saved her entire collection after all.”
“That’s a stretch,” Nina said. “Look at how she lived. She wouldn’t have lived that way if she had thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of dolls.”
“She would have lived that way if she was emotionally disturbed, and the indications are pretty strong that she had emotional issues. She also had a drinking problem. And she was obsessed with her dolls.”
“Okay, let’s pretend that she managed to keep her dolls when she lost her house. Then what?”
“Nacho knew she had them and wanted to steal them,” Gretchen said. “She was killed for her dolls, not for a bottle of whisky, as he said. And he wanted to frame my mother for Martha’s murder.”
“And the reason for two different lists?”
Gretchen frowned as she stared at one picture after another. The explanation had to be in her hand.
“Because he didn’t want anyone to know about those five dolls.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does. I’m not an appraiser, though. We need to get April over here, but I’m guessing that the dolls excluded from the first list are the most valuable dolls in the collection. Only he doesn’t have those dolls for some reason. Otherwise he’d be gone instead of breaking into collector’s homes. Those dolls are missing. And those are the ones that matter to him. He doesn’t want anyone to know they exist.”
“So Nacho was searching for the French fashion doll and these other dolls you just mentioned.”
“Correct,” Gretchen said. “Is my theory holding together so far?”
Nina nodded, lost in thought.
“Nacho turned himself in for the murder,” Gretchen said. “And since we’re assuming, let’s assume that he did kill Martha. His motive is much greater than he’d like us to believe, but why continue to hide information after he admitted that he killed her? To tell you the truth, even with a recorded confession, I have a hard time accepting his guilt.”