“Are there any more pairs like this?” my voice carried an excitement that I know pleased Maddie.
“I don’t know yet. Let’s look.”
We created a most interesting time line, with three more cases of an RFP going out after Mellace was notified of the winning bid. I hoped what we’d put together constituted the kind of proof Larry Esterman had talked about, the kind that could put someone in jail, the kind that someone might kill for.
Walter Mellace moved up a notch on my list of suspects. All the nice things Barry and Rosie had said and thought about David Bridges were taking their toll, and I envisioned David’s deciding to play it straight, something Mellace would not be happy about. I was sure the LPPD would be eager to know my conclusions.
After I left a message at all of Skip’s numbers, Maddie and I sat across from each other over a steaming tuna casserole.
Maddie was beside herself with agitation, trying to talk with large mouthfuls of noodles. “I can’t wait to tell Uncle Skip,” she said, though I know she had only the vaguest notion of the meaning of what she’d uncovered and understood only a fraction of the concept of fraud, as perpetrated by Mellace Construction and their coconspirators.
“I’ll make sure Uncle Skip knows who the detective was this evening,” I said.
Maddie shrugged. “We’re a good team, right?”
I gave her my biggest smile. “The best.”
A callback from Skip came about halfway through the second helping for each of us.
“I hope your news is better than mine,” he said.
My first thought was that Rosie skipped town; my second, that there was more evidence against her. My second thought was correct.
“Let me talk to him, let me talk to him,” Maddie said, nearly choking. She’d come to my side and was leaning in, trying to speak into the phone. I still had a height advantage, so I stood up and held the phone out of reach, almost knocking over my coffee mug. What was this? A spiraling back to an impatient toddler? Eleven was a tricky age.
“It’s about something else,” I told her.
“We got another call,” Skip said.
“About that other call-” I wanted to rush in and tell him what I’d learned about the last anonymous tip he’d gotten-about the convenient location of Rosie’s locker room box, right at the crime scene. There I was spiraling back from middle age to impatient youth.
Skip talked over me. “Someone who was staying across the hall on the eleventh floor of the Duns Scotus saw the whole scene that night.”
“Friday night?”
“Yeah, he says he needed ice, but he checked the peephole first because he was trying to avoid someone. He’d heard the voices, and then when he looked he saw and heard the exchange on the threshold of Bridges’s room. He said Rosie looked furious.”
“He could tell what her expression was through a peephole?”
“That’s what he says.”
“And he called Rosie by name?”
“Not exactly. He said ‘one of the two women outside Bridges’s door’ and I figured it wasn’t you.”
“What’s this man’s name?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Was he from the reunion class?” Silence, which I took for “yes.” “Was he on the football team?” More silence, therefore, another “yes.” “Well, can you at least check to see whether he’s one of the gang who hung out with David and Barry?”
“I can do that.”
“Does this new alleged tip mean that you’re bringing Rosie back in?”
“None of this is anything but circumstantial. Unless we can put her in the woods at the time of the murder, we can’t arrest her. Too bad those trees don’t have cameras. I mean, to catch whoever did it.”
“I know a lot of parents who would like that idea.”
“I just remembered, you left me a message everywhere. What’s up?”
“I have a couple of ”-a poke from Maddie made me wince-“Maddie and I have some information for you. Can you stop by?”
“Not till a lot later. We have some visiting politicians coming in this week and they’re making us rehearse a show-and-tell for them. You know, I’d rather ride my bike to your house.”
“You hate to ride your bike.”
“That’s my point. If you come by here, I’ll squeeze you in.”
It was already after nine o’clock, and a school night of sorts. I’d had a late night with Barry, and a long day, with stressful driving to and from San Francisco. I had to decide whether presenting the evidence we’d dug up was urgent. I thought not. The police already had Barry. Our little revelation was just icing on the cake, more a thrill for Maddie than something that would be a breakthrough in proving fraud, but nothing to clinch the murder case.
I felt another trick coming on, on Maddie, who, I knew, could be in the car and buckled up in a matter of seconds.
“That’s too bad, Skip. We’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. Maddie was hanging on my every word, so I made a sad face for show.
“You don’t want to give the little redhead a vote, do you?” Skip asked.
“Uh-huh, thanks. You have a good night, too.”
Maddie had returned to the last of her tuna casserole. She drained her glass of milk and heaved a big sigh for a little girl. “We have to wait, huh?” It pained me to have deliberately kept her away from her big moment. “It’s a good thing I have a lot of homework to keep me busy tonight,” she said.
In an unusual turn of events, Maddie told me she wanted to do some computer work early this evening. It seemed too much to hope that an interesting school project had balanced out the disappointment of a delayed meeting with the police.
“Are you late turning in an assignment?” I asked, though she’d never been one to cram at the last minute.
“No, I’m just excited about the programming and I’m almost finished.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
We cleared off the last of dinner dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.
“It’s nothing. You’d be bored.”
“I might be able to learn.”
“Okay, I need to fix some things on my avatar.”
“Never mind.”
“I’ll show you later.”
“Let me know when you’re ready to say good night.”
Maddie was at the door to her room. “Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Digital.”
“You mean digital your mother you flunked math? Or digital your father you lost the game? Or-”
“Okay, okay.” She entered her room and closed the door.
Tomorrow I’d confess that we were telling that one before she was born. Except we were referring to our fingers.
I’d already started Maddie’s Christmas present and was glad to have a chance to work on it without prying eyes. My idea was to replicate her father’s old bedroom, which was now essentially Maddie’s room.
Maddie’s things had been slowly crowding out Richard’s, but she seemed reluctant to do this and often said she missed his baseball mitt, now stored in Richard’s attic, or some other object that had been prominent in the room. I had enough photographs (and a good memory) of Richard’s room the way he left it, and I thought it would be a nice surprise to give Maddie a miniature version. Then she’d be free to decorate the life-size room any way she wanted.
One of the hardest items to reproduce in miniature was Richard’s baseball bedding. The ball and bat patterns on novelty fabric were usually large, with each graphic several inches in width or length-not suitable for a bed that was itself only six inches long.
Thanks to the younger members in my crafters group, who kept up with modern technology, I now had a solution to the problem. I was able to purchase a package of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheets that were a combination of plastic on one side and fabric on the other and would go through my printer. I’d simply have to scan a photo of Richard’s comforter, size it as I wished, print it on the sheet, and remove the plastic backing. Voila, I’d have the exact fabric I wanted.