"Okay, I'm color-blind, but it's no big deal. I forget about it all the time."
"So… do you confuse all the colors?"
Albert shrugged. "What's this about?"
"I'm curious. For example, if I see blue, what color do you see?"
"What is this, some kind of test?" Albert frowned at her.
"Humor me, okay? What color would you see?"
"Daisy tells me I see purple."
"What color would be blue?"
"What?"
Gretchen wasn't communicating well. She knew it.
"You see blue, I see…"
She waited.
"I see blue," Albert said. "You see green."
Gretchen stared at him. According to Nacho, Albert had seen someone get out of a blue truck and push Brett into the street.
But Albert hadn't seen a blue truck. He'd seen a green one.
37
A green truck.
Gretchen had watched Howie get into a blue truck and drive off after the auction, after Brett had been killed. Albert had seen a man get out of a truck that, it turns out, was actually green.
Gretchen blanched.
The cop at her house. Her neighbor said the police officer who had been at her home, looking for her, was driving a green truck.
A cop had beaten Albert, and, judging by Albert's physical condition, the attacker meant business. Why would she be a target? She didn't have the Ginny dolls, and she didn't know anything significant about hidden treasures or murder victims. Wait a minute.
She knew plenty.
Was someone really after her?
Far-fetched, Gretchen reminded herself as she picked up her cell phone.
She still had Chiggy's broken Kewpie dolls in her trunk. To her, they weren't worth two bucks, but they were the only things that connected her to whatever was going on. She had to ditch the dolls as fast as possible and get out of this circle of murdering thieves.
Howie Howard's answering machine turned on after the sixth unanswered ring.
"It's Tuesday at five o'clock," Gretchen informed the recording. "When I spoke to you last, you offered to take the box of Kewpie dolls and find the owner. I assume that offer still stands. If anyone's been inquiring about them, please let them know that I'll be returning them to you tonight at Brett's memorial service. Getting the box of Ginny dolls back is no longer important to me." She stressed the next sentence. "I'm returning the box. No questions asked. See you then."
Gretchen hung up, threw the cell phone on the passenger seat, and headed home. She had a few hours before the service, an event she was dreading but knew she had to attend. As the broad side of Camelback Mountain came into view, her mother called.
"What's new?" Caroline said, unsuspecting in her cheerfulness.
"Not much," Gretchen said, keeping her eye out for a green truck.
If only her mother knew! But it was too late to hit her with all Gretchen's problems.
What had she gotten herself into?
"I need you to look at something," Gretchen said, when Janice Schmidt opened her front door. "It's in my workshop."
"I'm making dinner right now," Janice said. "I'd be happy to come over afterward."
"It's kind of important," Gretchen insisted.
Janice hesitated. She must have seen the seriousness on Gretchen's face because she said, "Let me turn the stove off and get the kids."
"Don't bother knocking," Gretchen said, walking away.
"Come right in when you get there."
"Give me five minutes."
Gretchen was cautious about approaching her mother's house, careful to make sure the doors and windows hadn't been wrenched open. She walked around to the back of the house and opened the gate leading to the pool. Nothing seemed tampered with, at least on first sight. She hoped she was astute enough to detect sights of forced entry. As she opened the front door, Nimrod perked up, and his tail thumped against her side. Gretchen relaxed. He might be pint-sized, but he was street smart. If danger was close by, he'd be the first to announce it. He'd be the first to know.
The second to know, actually. Wobbles had intuitive skills Nimrod could never touch, but Wobbles wouldn't even think of Gretchen. He'd protect his own feline skin by slinking into a private hole someplace safe and leaving her to fend for herself.
She relaxed further when Wobbles greeted her at the door.
After letting herself in, she turned on lights, greeted her two favorite animals, and started the computer in the workshop, shoving piles of doll clothing and paperwork to the side to make room.
Glancing up at Camelback Mountain through the workshop window, she saw twilight approaching. Shadows fell across the face of the mountain as the last stragglers made their way down to the trailhead. They looked like small, black spiders from this distance.
Gretchen shuddered, remembering the scorpion found in Nimrod's traveling purse and her own close escape from the dreaded arachnid.
By the time the computer booted, Janice and her kids had shown up in the workshop. The boys, still too young to understand their stereotyped future of imposed roleplaying in society, lit up at the sight of all the dolls. Gretchen settled them at a table with dolls and clothes and left them to dress and undress them at will.
They promptly took all the clothes off every doll.
"What a fascinating room," Janice said, wandering from corner to corner, picking through the open bins and handling some of the dolls and their accessories. "It must be a treat to go to work every day."
Gretchen laughed. "It's like working in a candy store but without the temptation and added calories. I was a graphic designer when I lived in Boston. This is my mother's profession. I'm helping her now that the business has taken off. It worked out well for both of us."
Janice held up a Barbie doll that needed a new leg. The toes of the damaged leg had been chewed off. "Pet problems?" she said.
"Happens all the time. Dogs love to chew on plastic dolls."
Gretchen sat down at the computer. "Come and look at these pictures," she said. "I'd like to know if any of the people in these pictures are familiar to you."
Janice sat down at the chair in front of the computer screen and glanced at the display of one of Peter's photographs. After a puzzled glance at Gretchen and scrolling through some of the pictures, she looked up.
"This must be about the cop yesterday. The one who was at your house, talking to Lilly Beth."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because…" Janice pointed at the screen. "That might be him."
Janice went home to finish making dinner, dragging two boys who wouldn't leave until Gretchen gave each of them an old doll that she had been saving for parts. It was a small price to pay for the valuable information she had received from Janice. Gretchen turned off the overhead lights to reduce any glare on the screen and stared at the photograph. The cop was out of focus, on the periphery of the action that Peter was intent on capturing. The officer must have realized that the photographer was shooting toward him because he had turned his face away. His movement blurred part of his body and he had one arm raised as if to ward off a blow.
Or that could be Gretchen's imagination.
Something about the man seemed familiar to her now that she was really studying him. The way he stood, the tilt of his head… think.
Imagine him without the uniform.
Gretchen put her hand up to the screen and covered his body so only the back of his head was exposed. Nina had accused her of inflexibility, insinuating that she couldn't see auras because of her inability to let go of what she thought reality should be.
Feeling slightly ridiculous, she found her purse and put on the aura glasses. Returning to the computer, she saw nothing different except for a change in the colors created by the indigo lenses.