The Dollmaker's Daughters (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Five) Read online

  Malcolm. Bo stared as a breeze from the opening door ruffled the doll's hair, creating the illusion of movement. It almost seemed as if the doll had nodded, and then abruptly returned to its inanimate state. Abruptly became nothing more than a doll in a crowded and too brightly lit shop. The lights were giving Bo a headache.

  It was always just a doll, Bradley. You're tired. Go home, take your meds, call your shrink. Don't think about the name Malcolm. Don't think about Janny's doll. Just take your Barbie and run.

  Safely inside her car, Bo turned the radio to a Country and Western station and sang "Desperado" at the top of her lungs until she reached the little duplex where there was now a hole in the living room wall.

  "Feliz Navidad," she said to the grandmother, extending the brightly wrapped package and then leaving quickly.

  There was nothing more she could do for that child, nothing more she could do for any of them. Like every child abuse worker, she knew better than to try. But Janny Malcolm's case was different. Janny Malcolm's case was unlike anything she'd seen before.

  Heading west into the sun toward home, Bo decided to call Eva and then spend the rest of the afternoon making her own Christmas cards as an economy measure. It would be fun, she thought. If only she could get the image of an empty, waiting subway station out of her mind.

  Chapter 6

  At home Bo gathered Molly from her caretaker and took the little dog for a walk along the beach. Then she curled comfortably around Molly atop her rumpled bed and drifted near sleep. The sound of canine teeth gnawing on a rawhide pretzel was comforting. The soft crunching provided a barrier against eerie dreams.

  Two hours later she awoke refreshed and took stock of her life. It appeared to be working. As long as she could have stretches of time like this, time absolutely alone, her life would work. As long as she could take naps or stay up until three a.m. painting, as long as people weren't standing around expecting her to be polite or even to talk, as long as she didn't have to conform to any reality but her own, she could make it through anything. On the beige Formica kitchen counter her answering machine flashed the usual threat to her composure. Its tiny red light was blinking furiously, a record of the calls Bo hadn't heard because she'd turned the ringer and voice monitor off. Carefully folding a terrycloth dish-towel into a thick square, she placed it over the blinking light. Then she took a carrot from the refrigerator and rummaged through her utility closet for art supplies. The card stock was a little bent, but it would do. And the carrot's shape was perfect.

  In minutes she'd cut the heavy white paper into postcard-sized rectangles with an X-Acto knife. After painting each card in swirls of blue acrylic with a band of black at the top, she sliced the carrot in half lengthwise and cut a raised design into it using a single-edge razor blade broken into pieces. The design was of a rough pier, its perspective stretched to the artist's "vanishing point" by the shape of the vegetable. After rubbing white acrylic on the design with her thumb, she pressed the carrot diagonally against each painted card. What emerged was a white pier stretching from an invisible shore to a night horizon obscured in darkness. A style somewhere between Munch and de Chirico, she decided. The only light seemed to emanate from the pier itself.

  "Joy in your journey," she penned in white ink across the lower right expanse of blue. "Bo."

  Fifty hand-painted Christmas cards for the price of a carrot. And she could send them at postcard rate. Feeling righteously frugal, Bo dried the cards briefly in the oven and then sprayed them with a clear varnish that would keep the paint from chipping in the mail. She wasn't sure she actually knew fifty people, but the cards were too interesting not to send. Maybe she'd just go through the phone book and mail the extras out at random. Total strangers would spend the rest of their lives wondering who "Bo" was. The thought was intriguing. She wasn't absolutely sure who Bo was, either.

  "Eva," she said without preamble when the psychiatrist answered Bo's call on the second ring, "I had a dream last night that wasn't mine. And I'm afraid it's got something to do with a new case involving a teenager who carries a doll. Her name's Janny Malcolm, and apparently there's a famous dollmaker in San Diego who's also named Malcolm. And I'm sure Madge is hiding something about the case. Are you busy?"

  "In a broad sense, yes," Eva Broussard answered, her Canadian French accent lending a sense of drama to the ordinary words. "There are some developments in my research that are rather exciting, but nothing imminent. I'm glad you called. Mrs. Aldenhoven contacted me earlier. She seemed to feel that you were under a great deal of stress due to a shooting incident this morning. You didn't mention that."

  Bo knit her reddish eyebrows into a rumpled line she could feel at the top of her nose. Any contact with other people invariably brought this exhausting web of complexity and manipulation. Being a hermit was so much easier.

  "Eva, Madge hasn't cared if I lived or died since I took that job. Now suddenly she's calling my shrink to express her concern? Give me a break. She's setting it up to get me off this case by documenting a call to my psychiatrist about my job-related stress."

  "I suspected it was something like that," Eva Broussard noted dismissively. "Of course I told her I wasn't at liberty to discuss any of my clients or, indeed, to verify my professional relationship with any individual. But I am interested in your dream and the doll, not to mention the shooting. Are you feeling all right?"

  "I took a nap," Bo nodded at the phone. "Then I made Christmas cards. I feel fine, except there's something about that dream..."

  "How about dinner?" the psychiatrist suggested. "We could meet at a little Italian restaurant down the hill from here in La Mesa. It's in a shopping center off Avocado. Donato's. My treat"

  "Let me check something," Bo said, stretching the phone cord to grab Janny Malcolm's case file from the recliner in the apartment's small living room. The foster parents' address was in Lemon Grove, a community west of Eva's high desert compound in Jamul and adjacent to La Mesa. "I'll meet you there at six-thirty," she agreed.

  The foster mother, Beverly Schroder, answered the phone immediately and said she'd welcome a visit from Bo. Janny, she said, had been crying for no apparent reason since they'd brought her home from the hospital. It had something to do with an old doll the girl brought with her when she arrived from another foster home two years ago.

  "I thought when she dug out that doll that it was, you know, part of her Goth costume," the woman told Bo. "The kids like to look bizarre, and the doll definitely helped with that. But it's more. It's become sick. She's obsessed with the thing, keeps carrying it around the house and laying it down on the couch or in a bookcase. A while ago I found it in the oven. I should never have allowed her to go to that Goblin place."

  "Is the oven gas or electric?" Bo asked before she could stop herself.

  "Electric. Why?"

  Bo chose not to share her thoughts about why a disturbed and terrified youngster might place a symbolic object in a gas chamber.

  "Um, it's just so unusual to find homes with gas stoves in San Diego," she dithered. "I've been thinking of moving and I was curious. Do you happen to have the name and phone number of Janny's friend Bran? I may need to speak with him as well."

  Beverly Schroder's tone was hesitant.

  "His name is Scott Bierbrauer and he still lives with his parents three blocks from here. We've known Scott and his family for years. We go to the same church, St. Olaf’s Lutheran. That's why we let Janny go out with him even though he's five years older than she is. He's a nice kid, has a good job with a computer company even though he dropped out of college after a year. I'm sure Scott doesn't have anything to do with whatever is bothering Janny."

  We'll see about that, Mrs. Schroder.

  "Perhaps you could give me his work and home phone numbers while I'm there," Bo insisted. "And in the meantime try asking Janny to recite the state capitals."

  "What?"

  "I told Janny at the hospital to try reciting something boring when she's fe
eling scared and nervous," Bo explained.

  "My husband will be home in about an hour," Bev Schroder stated in a voice that suggested she would not welcome Bo until then.

  "I look forward to meeting him," Bo answered. "I'll be there in an hour."

  The Schroders were going to be humorless and defensive. Bo rummaged through her closet for something which might reassure Lutherans, who in her view could be forgiven anything because in 1700 their denominational ancestors had admitted to the chorus of the Lüneberg, Germany, church a fifteen-year-old apprentice named Johann Sebastian Bach. A world without the Brandenburg Concertos was a world Bo did not care to contemplate.

  "Yes!" she said to a gray silk dress Estrella's sister had given Bo after wearing it once to a funeral. Under a black wool blazer the dress would whisper things about common sense and sane living. From a rack of earrings on her dresser Bo chose filigreed silver teardrops that had belonged to her mother. There was nothing to be done about her hair, which was already growing out in curly wisps from a short style chosen only three months ago. In subdued lighting, Bo decided, she'd look like an Irish farm girl on her way to enter a convent.

  "Come on, Molly," she called. "We're going to have Italian!"

  The Schroders' house was a two-story Craftsman, its stucco painted a fading pink. The street-level garage had been converted to a flat, probably for rental income. Bo sat with a sleeping Molly for a while in the Pathfinder as a damp wind blew through the yellowing sycamores and liquidambars of the old neighborhood. If the family needed income enough to rent out the ground floor of their home, she pondered, then what was their motivation for taking in a foster child? The county paid about $450 a month for the care of a child Janny's age. Were the Schroders fostering just for the income? And even if they were, did it matter as long as they were doing a good job?

  Bev Schroder met Bo at the door in crisp black slacks and a sweater knit in Christmas designs. She was almost as tall as Bo and her thick ash-blond hair was short and swept back over earrings shaped like holly leaves.

  "Thank you for coming," she said, showing Bo into a living room furnished predominantly in maple with an artificial Christmas tree in the front window. "This is my husband, Howard."

  Bo shook hands with a slightly paunchy middle-aged man in jeans and a red cotton crewneck sweater over a starched plaid shirt. His brown hair was gray at the temples and thinning over a pink scalp, but his blue eyes seemed young.

  Acutely aware that things are never what they seem, Bo was surprised when she discerned no hidden blips or distortions concerning the Schroders on her personal radar. Here, apparently, things actually were what they seemed. A nice middle-aged couple who liked "Early American" furniture and took in foster children. With a rush of gratitude she noticed that their Christmas tree lights didn't blink.

  "How is Janny?" she asked after settling into a ruffled navy gingham couch.

  "We let her go out for a hamburger with the Bierbrauer boy," Howard Schroder said as Bev went to get coffee. "That way we could talk to you alone. They'll be back in fifteen minutes or so."

  "Okay," Bo agreed, watching as he straightened a cuff of his immaculately pressed jeans. Then he traced the edge of his chair's armrest with the little finger of his right hand. The blue eyes had stopped meeting Bo's.

  "We're, ah, pretty sure it's not a good idea for Janny to stay here any longer," he said to the beige shag carpet at his feet "Bev didn't know how bad off Janny was when she brought her home from the hospital. And it's getting worse. Frankly, I'm afraid she might hurt somebody."

  The last statement was punctuated by the arrival of Bev, burdened with an aluminum tray of coffee in cups shaped like the head of Santa Claus. The sugar cubes were red, and the cream pitcher was a cow with a red bow at its neck. Bo dropped red sugar cubes into the open skull of a Santa Claus and wondered at the exquisite choreography of married couples. Had they rehearsed this, or was their timing merely natural?

  "Your husband has just explained that you have some concerns about Janny," she recapped Howard's announcement. Then she waited.

  "Um," Bev replied, pouring cream from the cow's mouth with a trembling hand, "there's really something the matter with her. I mean, ah, well, we don't know anything about this child's background, about her parents. But I've heard it can happen like this. That one day somebody can be just fine, and the next day they're not... right. And they can become violent, you know?"

  Bo felt an invisible hurricane envelop her in the warm, coffee-scented room.

  Breathe from the diaphragm, Bradley, you idiot. You should have known this was coming. Don't overreact and don't tell them you're one of the "they" they're talking about.

  "I can certainly understand your concern," Bo exhaled. "Has Janny exhibited violent behavior in the past?"

  "Oh, no," Howard answered. "She likes to get herself up in these creepy old-fashioned clothes, and the music these kids listen to is pretty awful, but Janny's never even raised her voice around here, has she, Bev?"

  "Of course not," his wife agreed. "But now it seems like she's, well, mentally ill."

  The woman had whispered the words "mentally ill" as though the neighbors might be listening. Bo merely nodded expectantly, as though she were awaiting the conclusion of their train of thought.

  "I mean, you read about these things in the papers every day," Bev went on. "Things where some mentally ill person just goes berserk and kills everybody in a restaurant. We just can't take the chance. So would you take care of the arrangements?"

  "Foster parents can take a child to the receiving home at any time," Bo answered quietly. "But of course you know that from your training. If you feel that Janny represents a danger to you, then it would be appropriate for you to take her there. I have the phone number—"

  "We thought you'd be able to take care of it," Howard said, again to the rug.

  "I'm not a foster care worker, and I have another appointment after I leave here," Bo said. "But perhaps I can help you work out an alternate solution. Did the hospital staff offer any suggestions when you went to get Janny?"

  "They gave me some pills for her," Bev answered. "I think they're tranquilizers. They said to give her one every four hours if she got upset again, and to make an appointment for her to see a psychologist."

  "That seems reasonable," Bo said softly as black amoebas of anger exploded in ugly colors behind her eyes. "Has Janny had one of the pills yet?"

  "Well, no," Bev answered. "It just seemed like buying into this silly behavior she's doing, giving her tranquilizers. We didn't want to encourage her. We've never had tranquilizers in this house. We feel that people should learn to control themselves instead of taking pills. That is, unless they actually have a disease of some kind. Don't you agree?"

  Bo smiled thoughtfully at her purse atop Janny's case file on the maple coffee table. Inside were three plastic cylinders containing her twice-daily mood stabilizer, a mild sedative for emergencies, and an antispasmodic to control the intestinal cramps she sometimes got as a side effect of the first one. It was tempting to explain to the Schroders what would happen to her, sooner or later, without those medications. It was also tempting to pick up the coffee table and throw it through the window, followed by the Christmas tree. A satisfying fantasy.

  "Oh, I think we all can be helped by medications at various times," she said in the voice with which she imagined Mother Teresa might have spoken to dying lepers. "And it certainly presents a solution for all of you tonight. Janny will sleep. And then tomorrow you can discuss her future with your foster care worker. In the meantime I just need to ask if you know of anything which may have upset or frightened Janny. Something in the last day or two."

  "I never should have allowed her to go to that Goth club," Beverly Schroder answered. "But it was a reward for getting good grades. Janny's been there four or five times. Scott goes, you see, and he reassured us it was safe. But I'm sure that's what's done this to her. Nonsense about vampires and 'the dark side.' I'm never goin
g to let her go there again."

  Bo didn't press the obvious discrepancy between ejecting the girl from their home and resolving to curb her activities in the future. But the ambivalence was a good sign. Maybe Janny Malcolm wouldn't lose her home after all.

  "I think time will help us solve the puzzle of what's happened to Janny," she said in the nun voice. "It's clear that you've provided an excellent home for her."

  Both Schroders smiled weakly as a car door slammed outside, followed by the entrance of Janny Malcolm and a blond boy with long hair and a sparse goatee.

  Seeing Bo, Janny smiled and said, "New York?"

  "Albany," Bo replied. "I'm from Boston. The East Coast ones are easy. How about Michigan?"

  "Lansing."

  "Wow. Does it help?"

  "A little," the girl answered. "But I can't get this thing about the doll out of my head. I'm afraid of the dark. It's like something's after me. Can Bran stay with me tonight, Bev? I feel safer with a friend around, and it's not like we're, you know, going to have sex or anything."

  Howard Schroder rose to the moment majestically, Bo thought.

  "How about one of those pills from the hospital tonight?" he suggested. "And you can sleep out here on the couch so I can stay with you right here in this chair. You're not going to be alone tonight. I'll be right here. Scott can come by tomorrow."

  "Okay," Janny said, relieved. "I'm really scared."

  Bo noticed the battered doll tucked under the girl's arm, but said nothing. Questions about Jasper Malcolm and his expensive creations could wait.

  "I'll walk out with you," she said, smiling at the boy named Bierbrauer.

  The chilly air outside reminded Bo that she'd been sweating profusely in her successful attempt to impersonate a social worker. The gray silk dress was drenched beneath her blazer.

  "By the way, who lives in the Schroders' downstairs flat?" she asked the boy.