Bury Me With Barbie (23 page)

Checkouts four, five, six, and eight were vacant. At the seventh checkout, an authoritative-looking man in his mid-forties was sorting through slips of paper.

P.J. approached checkout seven.

“Hi,” she said, reading the man’s tag. He was
William, Day Manager
.

“Hi,” he said, looking P.J. in the eye before his gaze slid to her breasts.

She couldn’t fault him. She was wearing a sexy, skin-tight paisley top with a tiny bow at the neckline.

William turned red and forced himself to face her squarely, refusing to allow his gaze to drift downward. “What can I do for you?”

“Jordanne’s not in today?” she asked.

“Monday through Friday,” he said. “Two to ten.”

Second shift
.

“That’s right,” P.J. said. “She has weekends off. How’d she swing that, by the way?”

The manager turned red again. “We rotate quarterly.”

P.J. smiled benignly. “I’ll bet you do.”

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

She relished his discomfort.

“No,” she dismissed him, setting the frozen yogurt on the counter. “Just this.”

The manager rang her up, and she paid cash.

It was only on the way out that she realized she needed a plastic spoon.

Vala Bronauer met her at the door. “You’re Caresse Redd, right?”

Vala seemed as small and fragile as the dolls she collected. Her dark hair, approximately the same shade as Caresse’s, was worn short.

“Absolutely,” Caresse told her.

A tall man appeared at her side. “Arnolt Bronauer,” he said, introducing himself. He was dressed casually but smartly in a striped dress shirt and V-neck sweater. Like his wife, he exuded extreme intelligence and charm.

Vala was dressed in white, like an angel, wearing white linen pants, a white cotton sweater, and a white scarf that kept her dark bangs off her forehead. She belonged on a greeting card where everything is black and white except for a spot of color, which in this case would be the subject’s cheeks and lips, blushed a warm rose.

“You’re here to interview us?” She sounded neutral on the subject, but not bored by the prospect. It was as if she had never initiated the idea of being the focus of a feature for
Barbie International
.

Arnolt interrupted his wife gently. “Not
us
, dear heart. I need to go down to the office for a few hours.”

Vala looked alarmed. She was obviously dependent on him and wanted him around for emotional support.

“All right.” She sounded reluctant.

“This doll stuff,” he said, throwing up his hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s really your thing anyway.”

“Well, come in then,” Vala told her, and Arnolt and Caresse both crossed the threshold simultaneously, going opposite directions.

“Wait,” Caresse said, remembering the camera and tripod still in her trusty Honda. “I need to get my camera. I’ll be right back.”

She ran to her car and glanced back at the house. It was a fabulous Pismo Beach estate, set close to other homes in prime real estate two blocks from the ocean.

Arnolt startled her by appearing at her side.

“One moment of your time, if I may,” he said, lowering his voice lest it carry toward the house.

“Yes?”

“She doesn’t like me to worry,” he said in a low voice, taking her elbow and walking her farther away from his residence.

Arnolt’s demeanor suggested he didn’t have an ounce of worry in him. He looked as though he had stepped from the pages of an executive issue of
GQ
and exuded confidence. Caresse tried not to look at the somewhat rough toupee covering his dome, focusing instead on his twilight-blue eyes.

“I’m not worried about you being the killer. I’ve already had you checked out.”

“You—what?”

“I’ve been advised I can trust you,” he told her.

“By whom?”

Arnolt shook his head as if her question was unimportant. “These women who are collectors, they’re getting killed and their dolls are being taken. You saw the recent report in the news, right?”

“About the Vegas murders, yes—I mean, no, but I know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe you can talk to her,” he said, glancing back toward the house quickly as though he’d suddenly noticed Vala in his peripheral vision.

Caresse was puzzled. “About what?”

“Suggest we get a security guard or even a large dog. You would think she would listen to me after all these years, but my voice has become like constant, running water to her. She tunes me out.” He grabbed her sleeve. “But she listens to strangers, new acquaintances, and friends. She takes everything they have to say very seriously.”

“What do her friends say?”

“These Barbie people, they’re obsessive. They don’t forgive or forget any opposition or contrary opinion. Vala’s got a collection of dolls that must be worth a half a mil by now. They’re jealous.”

“And you think one of them might be jealous enough to kill her and steal her dolls?”

“I’m sure more than a few wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her and take her prized possessions.”

Caresse sighed. “Then what the heck are you doing, having an interviewer from
Barbie International
here, doing a story on what she owns? It’ll be a six page advertisement inviting trouble, like a banner over your house saying, ‘Vala lives here, so come on in!’”

Arnolt’s mouth formed a tight, impenetrable line. His eyes glinted with anger.

Caresse waited him out.

Finally, he spoke. “The story will serve to foster interest in the sale of the collection. Once the dolls are gone, she’ll be safe. If I can keep her alive the next eight weeks, we can put to rest that she might ever become a target.”

It all made sense now. “So you’re looking for the story to whet the appetite of interested buyers. Sell the dolls, and you don’t have to worry about anyone coming to get them
or
your wife.”

Sadness flashed across his face. “I’m sorry she has to give them up, but it’s the only way to keep her safe. She’s the only thing that’s important to me. She is the love of my life.”

Caresse touched his arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it a great feature.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And now I must go, because she’s going to wonder what took you so long to get your gear.”

He looked down at Caresse’s camera and tripod and smiled before turning on his heel and heading toward his garage. The wind rustled through the trees as she watched him go. She didn’t know what to make of the man. He seemed to genuinely love Vala, but using this article to broadcast her doll collection, even for the purpose of selling it, was still dangerous.

Caresse met Vala again at her open doorway and struggled to manage her purse, tripod, and camera without dropping anything.

“Can I help you?” Vala asked, making no move to do so.

“No, I’ve got it,” she said, following her inside.

Vala’s home was the most beautiful residence she had ever seen in San Luis Obispo County. It was a virtual museum, with glass-fronted cabinets stretching the entire length of several rooms. But the most magnificent thing of all was that the rooms formed a box around an indoor pool that sat square in the home’s center, almost out of view beyond the hallway they now stood in.

Caresse exhaled audibly.

Vala’s smile was glorious, her teeth as white as her sweater. “You like it?”

Caresse was drawn to the center of the house, where turquoise water beckoned. All four sides of the pool were screened but there were wide entrances. She walked in and took a lounge chair without being asked. She needed to put her things down and couldn’t wait for the invitation. “This is breathtaking.”

Vala pressed a call button beneath the patio table and took the opposite lounge chair, kicking off her sandals, flexing her bare toes on the Mediterranean tiles.

When a young woman appeared, she waited to be introduced.

Vala smiled warmly. “Caresse, meet Becca.”

Becca nodded hello. Despite her golden tresses, she was much plainer than one might suspect at a distance.

“Diet Pepsis,” Vala told Becca, electing not to offer a selection of beverages to her guest.

When Becca left, Vala spoke again. “She goes to Cuesta College. She needs extra money, and we need help. It works out fine.”

Caresse nodded, noticing a bracelet on Vala’s left wrist as it slid out from underneath the cuff of her sweater. Charms encased in clear cubes caught her eye, and she recalled her brother mentioning having met a braceleted woman named Devvon on the Greyhound to Vegas. Vala’s bracelet consisted of charms that seemed to be small doll accessories. The links and clasps appeared to be solid gold.

Vala noticed her interest and extended her wrist in her direction. The car keys to Ken’s Rally Day, a gold cork wedge sandal, a princess telephone, a lei, the crystal snake bracelet to Commuter Set, the gold-tone charm bracelet to Resort Set, the wax fish belonging to Picnic Set, a brass alarm clock, the scissors to Sweater Girl, and the hot water bottle for Registered Nurse floated before her eyes.

“All of these Barbie accessories are prototypes,” she explained.

Caresse turned the circle around and examined the items inside the tiny Plexiglas cubes. Each one was similar to those she had seen or owned, but each bore distinct differences. The car keys were double in number, the wedge sandal had a scalloped strap, the princess telephone had a different dial, the snake bracelet had more coils, the charm bracelet had additional charms, the fish was more orange than bluish-gray, the time on the alarm clock read eight instead of ten, the scissors had black handles, and the hot water bottle was corked.

“Prototypes?”

“Different than what the items turned out to be when they were mass-manufactured,” Vala confirmed. “First attempts, as it were.”

Caresse struggled to comprehend how Vala could have something so rare.

“This bracelet is virtually priceless to a true Barbie collector.”

Indeed
, she thought.

“Want to see the
coup de grâce
?” Vala didn’t wait for an answer. She reached down into the v-neckline of her snow-white sweater and pulled out a long gold chain strung with brass Barbie compacts, each as small as a baby’s thumbnail.

“These are the first thirty compacts from a trial batch Mattel ran back in 1959 before producing Roman Holiday, one of Barbie’s earliest outfits.”

Caresse knew Roman Holiday. It had always reminded her of an outfit Barbie might wear to an upscale Fourth of July party.

“The reason these thirty are rare is because Mattel actually engraved all three of Barbie’s initials, bRm, on them before considering that they were too small to read clearly. Ultimately, they went with only the letter B.”

Caresse smiled, remembering how difficult it had been to pry the compact open when she was little.

“The one on my bracelet, though, is actually rarer,” Vala continued, extending her left hand again, this time with her wrist up.

There was a charm Caresse hadn’t noticed because it was smaller and placed close to the clasp.

“It’s engraved bRm on the outside, has a real mirror on the inside, and beneath the powder puff, it’s engraved XO, KC.”

Kiss, hug, Ken Carson. Barbie’s boyfriend
. Holy guacamole and a basketful of chips.

Vala withdrew her hand and tucked her necklace back down the front of her sweater.

“Why embed them in Plexiglas? Doesn’t that ruin the items?”

“Each of the items needs to be preserved, and this seemed to be the best way to do it,” Vala said. “My jewelry’s not for sale anyway. Just the other things I’ll be showing you today. No true collector would ever sell a prototype.”

“The other things you’ll be showing me. Your collection at large…”

“Yes?”

“When are you planning to sell?”

“In May at the latest. Arnolt needs to infuse the money back into his business to open a second office. I reluctantly agreed. He is, after all, the breadwinner here.”

Caresse smiled. So he gave her the story that he needed the money. With the interview running in the April issue of
Barbie International
, the collection would be out of the house before Mother’s Day, and Arnolt would be able to rest easy, knowing his wife wouldn’t be murdered for her dolls.

Vala fetched the necklace from her cleavage again, as gracefully as anyone might manage it, and actually took it off. Caresse watched as she slid a single compact off the chain.

Vala extended it toward Caresse, who accepted and examined it. The compacts on the necklace were not encased in Plexiglas, but were instead coated with some indelible, clear substance that preserved them.

“Look at the detail that went into that,” Vala whispered in a tone bordering on reverence.

After examining the compact, Caresse closed her hand, savoring the warmth of the brass as though it were a precious pebble in her palm.

She finally laid it on the table, and Vala took it, clasped it back onto the necklace, and refastened the chain around her neck. She was clearly proud of what she had, and she had every right to be.

Becca returned with the Diet Pepsis, placing them on the patio table and vanishing as quietly as she’d arrived. Vala took a small sip of her drink, watching the dark liquid travel up the clear straw in her glass. Caresse took a sip of hers and a faint whiff of chlorine hit her nostrils. She turned to stare into the placid expanse of crystal-clear water that filled the pool. It was mesmerizing.

“You’re welcome to come swim anytime,” Vala said.

“I couldn’t just drop by,” Caresse protested.

“You could call and invite yourself over, and if we weren’t busy, I would like nothing better than to have you come for a swim.”

“Thank you.” She believed Vala was sincere in her offer, and she felt honored. She pictured how much fun Chaz might have in the heated pool in the dead of winter.

“So, grab that camera of yours and let me show you what I’ve got.”

Caresse stood up.

“And bring your drink,” Vala advised. “Once you see how large my mod collection is, you’ll wish Becca had spiked it.”