Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4) Read online

  What The Critics Are Saying

  "A trio of smart, independent women...the peek into this world is fascinating" ~ Romantic Times

  "Quick-paced...engaging characters" ~ Armchair Interviews

  "A puzzling mystery filled with charm as well as suspense" ~ Who Dunnit

  "Sharp and entertaining" ~ Curled Up With a Good Book

  “Fun, frantic and thoroughly engaging” ~ Sandra Balzo, author of Brewed Crude Tattooed

  DOLLED UP FOR MURDER

  GOODBYE DOLLY

  DOLLY DEPARTED

  GUISE AND DOLLS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY DEB

  DOLLED UP FOR MURDER

  (A Gretchen Birch Murder Mystery)

  by

  Deb Baker

  Chapter 1

  Head buried under a mound of pillows, Gretchen Birch struggled to ignore the phone’s incessant ringing. She had stopped answering the phone at midnight, and it had rung every hour on the hour since. Gretchen lifted a corner of the pillow and squinted at the clock on the nightstand. Three in the morning. The answering machine would pick up after one more ring, and Nina’s urgent message, the same hour after hour, would reverberate in her head until the woman called again at four.

  What was the use? She wasn’t sleeping anyway.

  Gretchen fumbled in the dark for the phone and knocked it to the floor. Tangled in a sheet, she yanked herself free and lunged for the phone.

  “What now?” she said. “Don’t you ever give up?”

  “You have to come to Phoenix,” Aunt Nina, her mother’s sister. Bold, bigger-than-life Nina. The dramatist. “Martha Williams is dead, and your mother is missing.”

  Gretchen rubbed her red, sleep-deprived eyes. “Drunken Martha tripped and fell from a mountain ledge. That’s what you told me when you called the first time. Again, I extend my sympathies to you, even though you said you hardly knew her.”

  “Your mother is missing.” Nina’s husky voice strained upward, hitting a high soprano note. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “According to you, she’s been missing…” Gretchen checked the clock again. “…approximately fifteen hours. That isn’t missing. That’s out power shopping or taking a personal day to recharge. Knowing her, she’s probably in Vegas, finishing up at the blackjack table as we speak.”

  “She didn’t take her lucky bracelet. She would never go without it. And she wouldn’t leave without telling me.”

  Gretchen’s cat, Wobbles, brushed against her bare toes, demanding attention. The stray’s leg had been smashed in a hit-and-run outside Gretchen’s apartment two years earlier. She witnessed the accident as she stood waiting for the traffic light to change; the car traveling too fast on the winding street, the cat lying at her feet. Shocked and outraged, she scooped the injured stray into her coat, ignoring the blood soaking her clothes, and rushed to the vet. Too late to save his back leg, but a partnership developed between them. Wobbles, the three-legged cat, had stayed.

  Gretchen ran her hand along the cat’s silky black fur. She sighed and tried another tactic. “I lost my job last week. Downsizing, remember? I was terminated without warning along with several other startled, soon-to-be starving souls. I don’t even have the money for rent, much less airfare.”

  Not to mention that July in Phoenix is like the inside of a blast furnace. You cook from the inside out. Roasting, suffocating, charring heat. But Boston, home sweet home, is at its peak. Green, leafy trees, breathable salty air, foghorns calling in the harbor.

  “A ticket is waiting for you at the airport,” Nina replied. “You have to get moving. Check in by seven, or you’ll lose your seat.”

  Gretchen shot upright, startling Wobbles. “I need more time to think about this. If I decide to come, I need to make arrangements for Wobbles’s care, and I need to pack. I need to stop the paper for a few days and water the plants.” A to-do list formed in Gretchen’s head. “Impossible. I can’t come tonight. Tomorrow. I’ll come tomorrow. Maybe.”

  Nina’s voice was tense. “Not seven P.M., Gretchen. Seven A.M. your time. You have four hours. Throw a few things together and dig out the pet carrier I sent you for Christmas.”

  “But, but….” Gretchen searched her repertoire of excuses for the perfect response, but Nina had disconnected.

  “I have to look for a new job,” Gretchen said aloud to no one in particular. What day of the week was it, anyway? Friday. With luck, she’d be back in Boston by Monday, following more weak leads to full-time employment.

  Gretchen flung aside the covers and began throwing cosmetics into her travel case. Three fifteen in the morning. What was she thinking? She was as crazy as her aunt Nina and, for that matter, her mother. All three were wildly impulsive and disorganized. Gretchen secretly attributed the anomaly to a renegade gene passed down through generations of Birch women. A strong matriarchal line with a few crossed wires.

  I have to learn to say no, Gretchen thought, considering another genome gone askew, afflicting her but having passed up her mother and Nina. Skipping generations, like twins. She could think no, shake her head back and forth no, and shout no in her head, but when it came to forming the word with her lips and emitting the actual sound, she froze. This inability to refuse a request had landed her in many murky situations. This one, for example.

  She threw shorts and tank tops into a suitcase and sorted through a pile of laundry in her closet. Nearly all her clothes needed washing, but she tossed in the cleanest of the dirty clothes. She could wash them at her mother’s house. Before she closed the suitcase, she remembered one other essential item: her hiking boots. With her passion for hiking, how could she forget her gear?

  Phoenix had few redeeming qualities in mid-July, but it did have Camelback Mountain, and its most challenging series of steep inclines, Summit Trail, was Gretchen’s favorite. Before closing the suitcase, she added a Western state’s bird book and a pair of binoculars. Traveling to Arizona in July was on a par with arriving in northern Michigan in January, but she planned on making the most of it.

  The first call from Nina flashed into Gretchen’s mind. Martha, a casual acquaintance of her mother, had fallen from Camelback Mountain. Found by a group of hikers. Broken. Dead. A destitute alcoholic with the bad judgment to leave the trails and wander along the rock outcroppings.

  What could you expect from a crazy, onetime doll collector who roamed the streets and lived inside a bottle? Certainly not a gentle passing.

  Gretchen struggled to remember more, but she’d been too tired at the time to listen to the details. Nina sounded concerned about her mother, but Nina tended to overreact to everything.

  Gretchen, loaded down with luggage and a drowsy, medicated Wobbles, entered a taxi. While the cabby expertly maneuvered through winding streets and roared toward Callahan Tunnel headed toward Logan Airport, Gretchen called Steve on her cell phone and explained the events of the last few hours.

  She tried to keep her voice even, hiding the hurt she felt at his recent betrayal.

  “We had dinner reservations for tonight,” Steve said when she finished, sounding groggy and confused.

  The taxi flew into the tunnel, and reception on the cell phone began to break up.

  Steve’s voice cracked. “This is sudden. And early. What time is it?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Gretchen said, watching the tunnel walls, listening to the rapid clack-clack of the tires on the pavement. “I wanted to catch you before I boarded. It’s only for a few days. Nina’s concerned about my mother, but she’ll turn up soon. She might reappear before my plane even lands.”

  “How is your mother connected with that woman’s death?”


  “She’s not. Nina should be in theatre. Mom’s off someplace, and Nina’s doing her sixth-sense routine. No two events can be coincidence according to her. The universe flows into and onto itself.”

  “Your family is too weird,” Steve said.

  Too weird for what?

  Gretchen felt impatient with Steve, a gathering cloud of annoyance. Just nerves, she thought. And lack of sleep. She was about to lighten the moment by asking him what was so weird about a mother who restores dolls and an aunt who trains purse dogs, but the cell phone beeped and displayed the message Call Lost. She flipped it closed and tossed it into her purse just as the cab burst through the tunnel into the early morning sunlight.

  Gretchen stood on the curb for a moment before entering the terminal, hoping to breathe the crisp Atlantic Ocean air. One last cleansing breath. But all she could smell was auto exhaust from the heavy traffic jamming the lanes leading to check-in. She considered calling Steve again but decided against it. Later, when she felt more rested, she’d call from Phoenix.

  She knew she would sleep on the plane, catch up after last night’s lost battle of wills with Nina. She’d have to find a special therapy group when she returned to Boston for people like herself, people who couldn’t say no.

  As the plane backed away from the gate, her thoughts turned to Steve. After seven years of dating, their relationship operated more by rote than by reckless abandon. Seven years without progress, without commitment. Gretchen brushed away feelings of rejection.

  She thought Steve had been preoccupied with the law firm. He would make partner this year, and that involved a deep commitment to the firm, leaving little emotional energy for a commitment to her. She had tried to remain supportive in spite of a growing sense of resentment and unease.

  Then an anonymous phone call had revealed the real cause of his distraction: another woman. It only happened one time, he explained when she confronted him. No, he didn’t know the woman’s name, he said. And it didn’t matter because it would never happen again. He loved Gretchen and would do anything to make it up to her, he said. Anything.

  Gretchen felt a sharp pain in her chest every time she thought about it.

  Well, others had made it through rough times, so could they.

  A few days apart might do them some good.

  __________

  Caroline Birch was in trouble. Every nerve ending shouted Warning! Warning! The Phoenix airport terminal’s harsh lights and mechanical sounds felt surreal to her; intense, irrational, the day like a long, complex bad dream. She rushed now, holding her laptop close to her chest, frequently looking behind her, afraid she might be followed.

  She knew that the note found in Martha’s hand could be her death sentence. What a foolish thing to overlook, considering the seriousness of the circumstances. If Martha had trusted her with more information, she would possess a name and know what her next move should be. But her enemy was cloaked in obscurity. Invisible and, therefore, deadly.

  Instead of standing her ground, the author of World of Dolls was racing across the country chasing one, betting her life that the doll would give her the answers she needed. A risky gamble.

  Whatever it took she had to get her hands on that doll.

  A disembodied voice announced final boarding, and Caroline broke into a run, gasping for air but reaching the gate in time. Not a runner. Usually. But running now. Boarding pass checked, gates closed, cell phone turned off, she sighed in relief as the plane rolled from the terminal and gained speed, lifting into the air.

  When the seat belt sign blinked off, Caroline stumbled down the aisle to the rear of the plane and entered a lavatory, clutching her laptop, her lifeline. She splashed cold water on her face and pressed her wet hands softly against her tired eyes. A few wisps of hair had come free from her cap, hanging across her bent face. She straightened and dried her hand then removed the baseball cap, releasing her shoulder-length silver hair. “Foxy hair” her sister called it, her trademark. A distinguishing, telling feature, when Caroline needed more than anything to blend in. She ran her fingers roughly through her hair, coiled it on top of her head, replaced the cap, and returned to her seat.

  Chapter 2

  The July heat scorched the desert landscape. Gretchen could feel its heavy grip weighing on her body. She could smell the dust. Nina had picked her up at baggage and now drove through Phoenix traffic, weaving in and out of lanes in her red vintage Chevy Impala. Wobbles was stowed in his carrier on the floor in the backseat, relatively calm thanks to the continuing effect of the tranquilizer. Nina’s dog, Tutu, was wrestling with Gretchen for the front seat while keeping one beady eye on the travel carrier.

  “Tell me about Tutu,” Gretchen said.

  “A rescue dog. I saw her picture on the Internet and couldn’t resist. She’s absolutely perfectly behaved. I can’t imagine what sort of person would abandon such a wonderful pet.”

  Gretchen tried to pry herself free from Perfectly Behaved without success.

  “How’s Steve?” Nina asked, ramming through gears like a NASCAR driver. “Has he proposed yet?

  Gretchen, unwilling to ponder Nina’s question, dug sunglasses out of her purse, quite a feat with the miniature schnoodle jumping on her lap. She locked eyes with the comical experiment in dog breed crossings. Schnauzer and poodle, minis at that. What would inventive breeders think of next? Pitt Bulls and corgis could be called piggis or pittis or corbulls or….

  Gretchen stomped on her imaginary brake as Nina raced up to a red light, slowing at the last moment.

  “Well,” Nina insisted. “Has he popped the question?”

  “We’ve discussed it,” Gretchen said evasively.

  “Discussed it?” Nina shrieked. “It’s been seven years. One of you has a commitment problem. Or maybe both of you do. Living together yet?”

  “No. We’re comfortable the way things are.” Talking about Steve and their stalled forward progress made Gretchen uncomfortable. Lately she’d been hearing her internal clock ticking louder than it once had. Ticking clocks, even those firmly attached to the wall, made her nervous.

  The desperation she’d been feeling recently didn’t thrill her either. She hated paging through the wedding announcements in the Boston Globe. Pages and pages adnauseum.

  One month and three days until she turned thirty. Chances of wearing an engagement ring were growing slim since her latest discovery.

  “Humph,” Nina snorted. “I’d give him an ultimatum in spite of his good looks. Pop the question or hit the road. That tactic works, you know. At least there would be some kind of action.”

  Gretchen couldn’t imagine Steve’s reaction to that sort of pressure. His imported Italian shoes would curl up at the toes.

  Nina turned right onto Lincoln and sped toward Camelback Mountain, its prominent humps towering over the city. Caroline’s home, their destination, nestled at its base.

  Gretchen felt a familiar sense of wonder as she absorbed the mass of the mountain and the scope of the city. The dry, enormous clumps of reddish rock were visible throughout Phoenix and the surrounding suburbs of Paradise Valley and Scottsdale.

  For all Phoenix’s exotic beauty and its reputation as a haven in the winter months, it turned forbidding and hostile in July.

  She had dozed fitfully on the plane. Thoughts of her mother had been disjointed and intrusive, allowing her only a light, uneasy sleep. Now she bounced new ideas off Nina. “Maybe she heard about a great estate sale and she’s on a doll-buying spree.”

  “Must be in Timbuktu,” Nina replied, refusing to catch the ball. “She would be back by now.”

  “Maybe she’s mixing business and pleasure. She’s probably sightseeing at the same time. No car in the carport, you said. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we know she has it with her. And does this dog have to be on my lap?” Gretchen was annoyed with the schnoodle digging her sharp back nails into Gretchen’s legs while planting groomed front paws on the
side window, her nose leaving gooey streaks on the glass. Tutu wore a red lacy collar the size of a neck brace. Having sensed competition for Nina’s attention the moment Gretchen opened the car door, the schnoodle insisted on the seat of command, which was exactly where Gretchen thought she should sit.

  “You’re in her spot,” Nina said, sliding into Caroline’s driveway and turning off the ignition. “You have to learn to share. See how nicely Tutu shares. Good Tutu.”

  Tutu wagged her tail and barked, a shrill, nerve-piercing sound.

  Gretchen’s opinion of dogs - groveling, dependent creatures with lofty attitudes and bad manners - hadn’t changed upon meeting Tutu. Wobbles, like most cats, had a superiority complex, but at least he could clean himself. And he was quiet. Yapping dogs drove her crazy.

  Nina produced a key to the door of Caroline’s adobe-style home and stood back with Tutu to allow Gretchen to enter. “After you,” she said with a sweeping gesture.

  Standing in the doorway holding Wobbles’s carrier, Gretchen felt like an intruder. The house was too quiet, disconcertingly vacant. It smelled, not fragrant and earthy like her mother, but like a closed-up, abandoned space. Her mother’s spirit, which usually infused a room, was gone.

  Dishes from a morning breakfast were scattered on the counter, and a newspaper lay open on the table. A box of maple buckwheat flakes had fallen next to the paper, the top left open. A few pieces of cereal had spilled from the box.

  Her mother, in spite of her lack of organizational skills, was meticulous about keeping her kitchen clean, fanatical almost. She wouldn’t have left the table like this unless something unforeseen had happened.

  For the first time since Nina began calling yesterday, Gretchen believed it might be possible that her mother really was missing.

  “See her bracelet.” Nina pointed to a pink band lying on the counter. “She always wears it.”

  Gretchen picked up the bracelet designed to support cancer research and fingered the engraving, Share Beauty Spread Hope. The bracelet matched the one on her own wrist. Their common bond was her mother’s triumph over breast cancer, her mother, a five-year survivor: sickened by chemotherapy, bald, her once dark brown hair growing back a monochromatic silver. Their bond continued to strengthen through her long, frightening recovery and the sudden death of Gretchen’s father in an automobile accident. Then came her mother’s compelling need for a new life, ripping up established roots, the move to Phoenix to be near her sister, abandoning her life in Boston. And Gretchen.