Murder In Miniature Read online

  “Oh, I get it. San Francisco. Franciscan.”

  Apparently, clear enough.

  A few minutes later, I sent Maddie off with a group who came to the door. I felt sure she’d enjoy the special kids’ program, which started with an evening of swimming in the hotel pool, more than a cocktail party with middle-aged men and women and their teachers.

  “Here it is,” Rosie said, still concentrating on her outfit. “The final touch.”

  She’d added the pièce de résistance-the sparkling (allegedly) emerald and diamond bracelet that (also allegedly) David had sent. Why was I being such a skeptic? I wondered, and chided myself at my lack of romantic spirit. I needed to bolster my friend.

  “You look lovely, Rosie,” I said, reinforcing my earlier compliment. “And the bracelet is gorgeous.”

  That wasn’t so hard.

  One last tug on her dress, a puff up of her chestnut bob, and Rosie and I left the room. I felt as nervous as she did, hoping the evening wouldn’t end in disaster for my friend.

  We might have been in an elegant San Francisco hotel, but the decorations at the cocktail party were 100 percent Lincoln Point. We could have been entering the Abraham Lincoln High School gym-the official maroon-and-gold school banner was draped above the portable bar of the converted meeting room; small gold napkins with a maroon silhouette of Honest Abe lay on the high tables.

  We picked up our name badges, entered the room, and walked along the edges, where several large easels held poster-size collages of photos of the reunion class. The snapshots were interspersed with ALHS pennants, ticket stubs, and graduation tassels. Here and there on narrow pedestals were large sports trophies that on every other day resided in cases in the halls of ALHS.

  Rosie quickly found the one with David Bridges’s name on it. I could barely distinguish the football statuettes from those with hockey or bowling stances, let alone determine which position the figures represented, but Rosie knew exactly what was depicted in bronze on David’s trophy.

  “It’s a well-known quarterback pose,” she said.

  I knew for a fact that Rosie hadn’t been to or watched a football game of any kind since she cheered for David on the ALHS field.

  As a miniaturist and former teacher, I suffered from two occupational hazards: giving close scrutiny to even the most casual crafts project, and forgetting that I was no longer responsible for giving grades. This evening, though no one asked, I assigned no more than a C-plus to the decorations. The posters especially were crudely done, with evidence of a bad glue job congealed around the sides of the objects, which in their turn were affixed to the cheapest cardboard sold at a crafts store.

  My judgmental attitude came to a halt when I found myself in front of a memorial board with yearbook photographs of the nine class members who had died in the intervening years. I looked at each face and saw a lively teenager cut short in life’s journey. Just as parents didn’t expect to outlive their children, teachers assumed their students would carry what they learned long into the future.

  I took a breath and focused on the center of the room, alive with blaring seventies music and loud chatter.

  I was getting used to having all the professionals in my life, like doctors and repairmen, being younger than me. But seeing a large group of my former students with wrinkles around their eyes and gray at the temples was almost overwhelming. It had been many years since I’d been to one of my own school reunions. I decided to skip all such gatherings in the future.

  I took my cue from Rosie and crept along the walls of the room while she surveyed the crowd without reserve. She frowned and screwed up her nose the way Maddie did when she was concentrating on her homework. Finally, we’d made a full circle, back to the entrance. I made a move to go to a table a few feet in when I spied a student I recognized, but Rosie pulled me along with her.

  “Stay with me, okay? I’m nervous.”

  Surely we weren’t going to circle the room again. “Why don’t you just try to find someone you know and-”

  “I know lots of people here, Gerry. But I don’t need to visit with the ones who still live in Lincoln Point. They’re my customers. I see them all the time.”

  I saw her point. Sort of.

  Unfortunately for Rosie, one of my students found me before Rosie found David.

  Frank Thayer, newly appointed principal of ALHS, and one of the brightest lights in my special Steinbeck seminar, introduced me to his wife, Paula. “This is the best English teacher I ever had,” he told her, making it well worth the trip for me already. The fact that the loud chatter and ear-splitting music (“Margaritaville” at the moment) caused him to shout out the compliment made it even better.

  Rosie was itchy while we reminisced about the miniature project we’d worked on for the Steinbeck class-a replica of Steinbeck’s home in Salinas, California. Frank was a wonderful woodworker and had contributed his skills to the enterprise. He told us he and his family had recently celebrated a birthday lunch at the old Victorian home, which now included a restaurant and gift shop.

  If I didn’t like her so much as a friend, I’d have said Rosie was rude as she paid little attention to the conversation, though she’d also been involved in the Steinbeck seminar. She’d written an outstanding report on East of Eden, if I remembered correctly. And when it came to English term papers, I usually did.

  “Didn’t you make a set of miniature books for that project?” Frank asked Rosie. “Sort of presaging your future career as a bookshop owner.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, her eyes roaming the room for David. “There he is,” she whispered to me, her breath catching. “Two tables over, near the doorway. In the beautiful navy suit and yellow tie. His hair is still thick and dark.”

  I thought I heard her sigh, and hoped I was wrong. Was it a coincidence that “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” was now playing?

  I turned to see an older David Bridges, still looking quite fit, arguing with a man in a gray jumpsuit. A maintenance person, I thought.

  “They don’t look happy,” I told her, noticing somewhat antagonistic gestures on the part of the stocky man in the hotel uniform.

  “Remember I told you David’s in charge of the maintenance crew here at the hotel. That must be a whiny employee. You’d think the guy would leave poor David alone to celebrate for one night.”

  “We have empty seats at our table,” Frank said, commanding our attention again. I wasn’t surprised that the new principal didn’t isolate himself at a head table, in spite of his position. He pointed to a set of six bar stools and a high table not far from where we stood. “Henry Baker and his granddaughter are there. Remember him? He taught shop.”

  “Of course, he was a great help with a lot of our miniature building projects.”

  “Come and sit with us,” Paula said.

  Rosie shook her head, but too late. Frank took our drink orders and insisted on treating us.

  I felt more than saw Rosie’s glare as we made our way to the table to the tune of “Muskrat Love.” But I was more intrigued by a little girl of Maddie’s age sitting next to Henry. Either Henry didn’t know about the special kids’ program or he wanted his granddaughter by his side. I couldn’t imagine the other alternative-that a nine- or ten-year-old might insist on attending a function like this.

  I felt a bump on my right hip. “Oops, sorry,” said a booming voice behind me. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Porter,” the man added. “I didn’t mean to run into you like that.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s rather tight in here, isn’t it?” I said, not knowing exactly to whom in the crowded space.

  Rosie drew in her breath. I turned to see what had caused the reaction. It had been David Bridges, now free of his unhappy employee, who had bumped into me. No spills or dire consequences, except for Rosie, who stuttered, “D-David!”

  “Hey,” David said, steadying his drink. “Rosie Esterman, right?”

  Rosie’s face reddened, visible even in the dim light. I could have sw
orn she lowered her eyelids, coy and flirty. “Yes, David.”

  I took a seat on one of the stools at the table, to give Rosie clear access to David.

  The employee in the jumpsuit wasn’t through with his boss, however. He’d followed David through the spaces between the high tables, looking out of place among the dress suits and fancy (except for mine) outfits in the ballroom. “This isn’t over, Bridges,” he said. “I can burn you.”

  “Look, Ben, you’re out of line, here. Let’s take it up next week.”

  The irascible Ben locked eyes with David. “It might be too late by then,” he said and rushed out, knocking into my stool as he passed.

  This repartee was in low voices and thus caused only the slightest stir among the closest revelers.

  David turned to Rosie and me and transitioned to the broad smile that made him Most Popular Boy thirty years ago. “Don’t mind Ben. He didn’t get the raise he hoped for and he’s a little out of sorts right now. I’ll take care of him on Monday.”

  David gave each of us a perfunctory hug-still very muscular, I noted-while an attractive, slight brunette approached. She looped her arm around David’s and pulled on him. I recognized the head cheerleader, Cheryl (nee Carroll) Mellace. C-minus on her As You Like It paper, I remembered. She’d changed less than any of us, looking like she could still pull off her youthful acrobatics and climb onto the shoulders of the girls in her squad.

  “I’ll see you all later,” David said, seeming to enjoy the tension on his arm from the lovely Cheryl.

  “Around ten thirty, right?” Rosie said.

  “Uh, I guess?” David seemed to be asking a question, perhaps because he was in transit from Cheryl’s pull and her high-pitched, “C’mon, Davi-i-id.”

  “What room…?” Rosie’s question trailed off as David and Cheryl strolled out of earshot. Rosie looked at me. I was happy no one else seemed to notice what I’d have called a brush-off. “Well, I think the room number is on one of his gift cards,” she said. “I’m sure he expects me to know it.”

  I looked at her hands, clutching the silver chain of her purse. She’d twisted it into a tangled mess.

  Trying to make up for a distracted Rosie, I talked more than I usually do at such events. My task was made easier by Taylor, ten years old, who told us about the new dollhouse her grandfather, Henry Baker, ALHS’s former shop teacher, was building for her. My kind of family.

  “Oh? What scale is it?” I asked, feeling more and more at home at the table. Leave it to a child to provide the only cocktail (ginger ale in my case) party conversation I’d ever enjoyed. “Rosie and I are miniaturists, too,” I offered. I doubted Rosie heard me.

  “It’s regular one-twelfth scale, but it’s really an apartment complex,” Taylor explained. Using hand gestures generously, she described the three floors, the winding outside stairway, and how each apartment had a balcony. “It’s so cool,” she added, but I was already convinced.

  I heard myself gasping at this new take on dollhouses. “What a wonderful idea,” I said.

  “One balcony has a small barbeque with a really cute set of tools, and another one has a little garden, and-”

  Henry put his hand on Taylor’s arm to interrupt her.

  “They’re only one-bedroom apartments, with one bath and small kitchens.” Henry seemed apologetic about his creation.

  “I have to see it,” I said, before I realized the implication.

  “That can be arranged,” Henry said. “If you’ll show me yours.”

  It was my turn to blush. And was Henry’s face red, too?

  Chapter 3

  As cocktail parties went, this one wasn’t too bad. Class President Barry Cannon kept his remarks short, thanking the committee who put the weekend together. I noted that gratitude for the decorations went to Cheryl Mellace. If I were the kind of teacher who let personal feelings influence grades, I might have changed the C-plus I’d given the decorations to a D, based on her rudeness toward Rosie.

  Taylor’s presence added to the fun as she told us tales of school and her Girl Scout adventures. I hoped she and Maddie (and, yes, the grandparents) would be able to sit together at tomorrow night’s banquet. One problem with venues like this was that you could hardly hear anyone other than the people on your immediate right and left, and it was nice to know ahead of time who would occupy those slots.

  At one point, Barry Cannon visited our table and directed most of his conversation to Rosie. I thought back to the young Barry-front row seat and a solid B-plus on his Dickens paper. The math- and chess-club type rather than a sports hero. I couldn’t hear them, but Rosie seemed at times pleased and at times confused, and all of the time distracted. I guessed Barry wasn’t measuring up to David, or at least not to her fantasy of him.

  The party at our table broke up at about quarter to ten. The Thayers invited us all to join them for a late dinner at a San Francisco restaurant with a long Italian name.

  “I’m pretty full myself, but this finger food doesn’t do it for Frank,” his wife said. “We’ve scouted out a place in North Beach that stays open very late.”

  “Thank you, but I have another engagement,” Rosie said and left. To re-primp for David’s gathering, I assumed.

  I was never one for late dinners, not even in San Francisco’s highly regarded Italian neighborhood, and also declined the invitation. “I have to pick up my granddaughter at the pool,” I said. “The lifeguard goes off duty at ten.”

  “The pool’s open? We thought it closed early,” Taylor said, screwing up her nose much the same way Maddie did.

  “There’s a special kids’ program this weekend,” I said. “They’ve matched the pool schedule to the events of our reunion.”

  I saw a little frown, as if Taylor regretted having spent an evening with us when she could have been frolicking with her peers, but she was too polite to let it show much.

  “Let’s go check it out now.” Henry turned to me. “Do you mind if we go with you, Gerry?”

  “Not at all.” Why was I blushing again?

  I learned a lot about Henry Baker in the short trip to the swimming pool, two floors down from the reunion room. We’d been on the same faculty for many years, but other than two or three sessions together with students for the Steinbeck project, Henry and I saw each other rarely, in the cafeteria or at the occasional faculty meeting. Now it seemed we had so much in common, I thought Henry was making it up. He retired the year after I did, and for the same reason: to take care of a terminally ill spouse. He lived only a few streets north of me in Lincoln Point and now spent his time with his granddaughter and doing woodworking projects for various crafts fairs and charities. It was a wonder I hadn’t remet him before tonight.

  “I was still teaching, so I heard about Ken,” he told me. “I’m sorry I didn’t send my condolences, but it was all I could do at the time to keep things going with my classes and taking Virginia back and forth to the hospital until I was able to retire.”

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  Maddie had charmed the lifeguard into opening the diving section so she could practice her cannonball. We watched two performances before she reluctantly left the pool, her red curls plastered to her head.

  After introductions all around we headed for our rooms. Maddie and Taylor seemed to connect immediately with a discussion of a certain diving maneuver that was particularly difficult.

  “We’ll be at the high school tomorrow. Grandpa says it’s a groundbreaking, whatever that is. Will you be there?” Taylor asked us.

  “Yeah, it’s a date,” Maddie said.

  Enough said.

  Rosie opened the door to our room for us, her other hand holding an assortment of makeup tools. “I was sipping and noshing all evening, so I had to reapply here and there,” she explained.

  Maddie dug out her pajamas and toothbrush. I moved a few totes off the easy chair and plopped into it. Cocktail parties take a lot out of me. For one thing, I was hoarse from trying to carry on a con
versation at full volume. For another, considering David Bridges’s lukewarm attitude toward Rosie and Cheryl Mellace’s appropriation of his arm, I was tense about Rosie’s social prospects this evening.

  “Can you get my nightgown from the top drawer, sweetheart?” I asked Maddie. “And the sandwiches from the cooler?”

  “Cool,” Maddie said. “Supper in bed.”

  “What do you mean?” Rosie asked, flustered. “We have to go to David’s room, Gerry. It’s almost ten thirty.”

  “I thought you might have changed your mind and preferred to go alone, Rosie.”

  “No, no. It’s not like that. It’s supposed to be for a few special people.” She took a note from her everyday purse, perched on her luggage, and unfolded it. “See? It says, Join me as a few special people come back to my room. We can bring a guest, like the person we’re rooming with, I’m sure.”

  I couldn’t believe Rosie had carried the note from Lincoln Point. But then, she’d carried the entire ALHS hallway of lockers.

  “You seemed to hit it off with Barry Cannon tonight. He and David were good friends in school and I’ll bet he’ll be there.”

  Rosie waved her hand. “Barry. He and David went to grade school together, too, otherwise do you think they’d have been hanging around in the same crowd in high school?”

  “Didn’t David like smart guys?”

  “That’s not what I meant, but you know how it always was at ALHS. The jocks hung out on one side of the quad and the nerds on the other. Anyway, that was a strange conversation Barry and I had tonight. He kept asking me about my father.”

  “Do they know each other?”

  Another wave. “Apparently. They’ve had some business dealings.”

  “Your father is retired, isn’t he? I forget exactly what kind of business-”

  Rosie huffed a long breath. “Gerry, we have to go,” she said.

  I looked at the narrow but inviting bed with its three plumped pillows plus a matching blue-and-mauve bolster and the soft, lightweight comforter. Maddie was arranging sandwiches and chips on paper plates left over from the last birthday party at my house.