Ding Dong Dead Part 26

Another glance between the two men. Richard wants to rip off the polygraph equipment and run away. They aren't believing his story. He never should have come here.

"Explain," Albright says.

"Rachel isn't really dead. I'm telling you the truth. She's simply taken on a different personality."

"And what would that personality be?"

Richard leans in closer.

"She's become someone else, one of our relatives," he says. "And she will kill again, if we don't stop her."

"Give me a name to go on."

"Julie Wicker," Richard says.

51.

Gretchen unlocked the museum door, disappointed that the police weren't there to greet them. "I'm going to wait outside," she said, watching Julie pull a large tote out of the backseat and walk up the sidewalk toward her. The woman carried a ton of stuff. Not that Gretchen should talk. She usually had Nimrod and all his supplies with her.

She felt a pang of loneliness, missing her lovable creatures. Wobbles and Nimrod. What a pair.

"The police told us to wait inside," Julie said.

"I need fresh air. Don't worry about me. I'll stay close by the door."

"Call me when the police arrive," Julie said. "I've been so busy with the play, I haven't had time to go through the museum."

"Sure. Take your time, but watch out for the ghost." Gretchen tried to make light.

"Ghost?" Julie stopped. "I forgot that the house is supposed to be haunted."

Gretchen grinned. "That's what Nina thinks. Remember? She insists that Flora's spirit is trapped between two worlds, that she has unfinished business on earth and that her spirit needs to be reconnected somehow."

Reconnected to her head, Gretchen thought, but that's morbid and Julie seems nervous as it is. but that's morbid and Julie seems nervous as it is.

Gretchen didn't tell Julie that she believed right along with Nina that the house was haunted. Hadn't strange noises alerted them to the contents of the armoire? And later hadn't chimes warned of Jerome's presence? If not for the intervention of the ghost, they may have been killed.

She wasn't ready, though, to announce it to the world.

"Maybe I won't go inside after all."

"No, really, it's nothing to be afraid of," Gretchen said. "If the house has a ghost, I'm sure it's a benevolent ghost. I'll come inside, turn on lights for you, and we'll prove that the building is safe."

"Okay. Let's do it."

Julie stepped over the threshold.

So did Gretchen.

52.

"Last year," Richard says after Detective Albright refills their coffee cups, "she gave me my father's rock collection." The technician is done. Richard's fingers are free. "I was so grateful. Finally, a piece of family history, a small treasure, for myself. But then I couldn't help thinking that she had a motive for that generosity."

The detective seems to perk up at the reference to rocks and asks Richard about his father's work, which Richard expands on. "He traveled most of the time, one geological dig after another."

"And the equipment? What happened to his tools?"

"I don't know. Maybe she has them, or they still could be in the house. Nothing was ever thrown out." That's the truth. All those dolls and the same furnishings. The secrets are still there, too.

"I'd like permission to search your home," the detective says. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No," Richard says. "All I had to hide was my inst.i.tutional history and my insane sister, and even that's out in the open now."

Richard is left alone while the search is arranged. The lock on the interrogation room clicks into place, trapping him. He wonders how long Rachel has been a member of the doll club, masquerading as Julie Wicker. Just like Rachel to gravitate to a bunch of doll enthusiasts.

He has nothing left to hide from the police, his soul has been stripped bare, but he's worried anyway. What if they find something inside his house that they can use against him?

Stranger things have happened.

Paranoid tendencies, that's what the doc said. Richard's never been able to trust anybody. How can he start now?

"Richard," Albright says from the doorway, "I'd like you to come along with us."

"Of course." Be agreeable Be agreeable.

Richard sits in the backseat of a squad car. A uniformed police officer is driving. Albright gets into the pa.s.senger seat. Richard thinks of another story to tell on the way over to search his house. One he's been saving for last. This will seal the deal. They have to believe him now.

"One of those doll women came to the hall early this morning," he says. "I saw her go in from my window. Then, a little while later, Rachel showed up."

"She did? No kidding."

"I thought I'd spotted her on the street outside the hall the day before, walking with some of the others, but I wasn't certain. She'd changed her appearance. It was the eyes that gave her away. She has my mother's eyes, the shape, the color, everything the same. But Rachel's dead But Rachel's dead, I said to myself. I didn't want to face the truth."

"That must have been a shock."

You bet it was. "I knew she was up to no good, either following the other woman or after me for something." He laughs a sad sound. "With all my talk, you must think I'm paranoid." "I knew she was up to no good, either following the other woman or after me for something." He laughs a sad sound. "With all my talk, you must think I'm paranoid."

"Not at all." But he hears the agreement in the detective's voice. "What happened next?"

"I opened the window and told Rachel to get back in her car and get away from my building. I told her I'd call the cops. That's when I knew for certain it was her under the dyed black hair and different clothes. She said she knew I didn't have a phone, which was true. Hate the things. Salespeople and political calls. Who needs it? I held up my television remote and told her I had bought one. She thought it was a phone in the dark and left real quick."

"What morning was this?"

"This morning."

"This morning?" The detective swings his head to the backseat. "Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I remember when it happened? I'm telling you it was today. That's why I came here. We have to stop her."

It has taken a whole lot of work to get a reaction from the detective. Finally he has one. Albright is paying attention.

"What about the woman who went inside?" he asks Richard. "Who was she?"

"Don't know. They all look the same to me."

"What did she look like? Tall? Short? Heavy? Come on."

Richard describes the early-morning visitor. "Young, thirtyish. She's the one directing the play for that bunch of doll collectors."

"Gretchen."

"You know her?"

"Speed it up," the detective says to the driver.

At last! Richard thinks. Richard thinks. Action! Action!

53.

Julie placed her tote on the museum counter and looked around at the doll displays. "Caroline really does great work," she said. "With one of the largest collections in Phoenix, this will be a wonderful museum."

Gretchen turned on more lights. Her eyes shifted automatically to the staircase where she'd last seen Jerome. She didn't want to remember last night, the sheer terror as she and her mother had waited for the intruder to climb the steps.

"Let's go upstairs," Julie said.

"We better wait by the door. The police will be here soon." Gretchen had had enough of the upstairs. A skeleton found in the closet and a scuffle with an intruder were plenty for her.

"Oh come on."

"No, really."

Julie looked up the spiral staircase. "I'm not going up alone if there's a ghost around. From what I've read, they like to roam on second stories near bedrooms."

Gretchen had heard that, too. And the ghostly sounds had occurred upstairs, so there must be some truth to it.

"Most of the finished work is in the rooms down here anyway," she pointed out to Julie. "Contemporaries are down the hall to the left, antiques to the right. But you know that."

"Yes." Julie smiled. "I helped April for a few hours, but I'd like to see them again. If you hear me scream, come and save me."

Gretchen grinned. "Take your time."

While Julie explored the house, Gretchen sat down on a stool by the counter. Shouldn't she hear ambulance sirens by now? How long had it been? It felt like hours, but had probably only been a few minutes.

Julie's cell phone was on the counter next to the tote. She picked it up and checked the time. Almost eleven. She was impatient to put this all behind her. And to get some sleep.

She checked the cell's call log to get the specific time of both calls, the one requesting an ambulance for Andy and the second call requesting police protection at the museum.

That's odd, she thought. The calls weren't logged. The calls weren't logged.

But Gretchen had heard Julie's end of the conversations.

Had she been pretending to make the calls?

Gretchen glanced down the hall. "Aren't they wonderful?" she called out to get a sense of Julie's location.

"Yes." Julie's voice came from one of the far rooms.

"Take your time. The police certainly are."

Julie hadn't called for help. Why?

Then she realized that Julie had understood exactly what Gretchen meant when they met at the banquet hall and she told Julie that she'd found Richard and the rock collection. Hadn't Julie been in Tucson when they had canva.s.sed the neighborhood and discovered personal information about Richard and Rachel? April and Nina had agreed to keep their findings a secret.

Then how did Julie know she should be afraid of Richard? How did she know about John Swilling's collection?

Although Julie had been researching on her own. That's why she had wanted to meet them at the banquet hall, to share information. What had kept her away? What did she know?

Gretchen heard footsteps coming back down the hall. She hastily put down the phone. Julie slung the tote over her shoulder, put the phone in her pocket, and headed for the stairs. "Let's go visit a ghost," she said. "I can't resist."

"I thought you were afraid to go up there."

"I am, but curious as well. What if the spirit is Rachel's? Wouldn't that be something? To speak with her?"

"How do you know that Rachel is dead?"

"I looked it up. That's part of what we need to talk about. But right now, let's visit the upstairs."

"I'll wait here."

Gretchen watched her make her way up the staircase. What was the woman up to? Was she going to steal something? She better not take the travel trunk. Instinct told Gretchen to be careful, that the woman knew more than she was letting on. Gretchen had to try to find out what she was hiding.