The Doll Maker (27 page)

The manager of the Loss Prevention office at Home Depot was Tony Walton. African American, in his mid-fifties, Walton was a gregarious man in a job that would surely chew up and spit out anyone who thought they would eliminate the petty theft at a store with over ten thousand items on its shelves, a lot of it able to fit in a pocket.

Gregarious, however, did not mean he was an easy mark. Even in the short time they spoke, Byrne could see that nothing slipped by Tony Walton.

They met in the cluttered security room, where there were a half-dozen monitors, showing two dozen vantage points in and around the busy store.

Walton offered coffee; Byrne accepted. It was surprisingly good for hardware store java. They sat in front of one of the monitors. Walton took out a book of discs, pulled one that had the date in question written on it in black felt tip pen.

As he slipped it into the optical drive of the desktop computer under the table, Byrne asked, ‘Were you ever on the job?’

Walton nodded. ‘I was,’ he said.

‘Here in Philly?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I was in Pittsburgh.’

‘What squads did you work?’

‘I was a detective in Zone Three.’

‘Do you miss it?’ Byrne asked.

‘Only every day.’

The two men kicked around the vagaries of the job, the life. Then it was time for business.

‘I pulled this from the time frame that the paint you were asking about was mixed,’ Walton said. ‘The time stamp on this video is for three minutes after the paint was mixed.’

‘Are we sure that this subject is buying the Candlelight paint?’

‘We are not,’ Walton said. ‘But I ran the register receipts starting at the same moment the paint was mixed, and moving forward for the next thirty minutes. There were only eight cans of paint purchased in that time, only four of them were gallons. Two of those customers bought a number of other things – plywood, drywall, one bought a space heater. Of the remaining two, only one bought only the paint.’

Byrne took this all in. He was grateful for the work Walton had done, the thought he’d put into this. Once a cop, right?

‘Now this might lead to nothing, but if this is your guy, this will be your guy.’

‘Okay,’ Byrne said.

Donte Williams sauntered into the room.

‘Thanks for finding the time,’ Walton said.

‘Huh?’

Walton turned to Byrne. ‘Ready?’

‘I am.’

‘Here we go.’

Walton hit a key on the computer keyboard, and an image came onto the monitor. The angle was from above and to the left of the checkout line, the one closest to the north exit doors. This was one of the two open lines.

The first man in line had what appeared to be a half-dozen lengths of PVC electrical conduit, along with a Home Depot plastic bucket. Byrne knew that, for some odd reason, Home Depot did not offer its customers handheld shopping baskets. Either they thought baskets were a little too fey for their testosterone-heavy clientele, or they wanted their clientele to accidentally buy an orange bucket on every visit.

The guy with the conduit wasn’t fooled. He looked like a tradesman. He dumped the contents of the bucket on the counter, and put the bucket underneath.

Byrne watched this with casual interest. His focus was on the next man in line. He felt that familiar feeling, that low level electrical current begin to pass through him, that feeling that he might be laying eyes on a suspect for a very first time.

Byrne tapped the monitor. ‘That’s him?’

‘That’s him,’ Walton said.

Byrne turned to Donte. ‘Do you think this might be the guy you mixed the gallon of Candlelight for?’

Donte leaned in, squinted at the monitor. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I mix a lot of paint, yo.’

On screen, from above and behind, the man with the paint appeared to be young – early twenties perhaps. He had dark hair, swept back from his forehead. He wore a well-tailored dark overcoat.

When the man with the conduit was finished, the man behind him stepped forward. He put the gallon can of paint on the counter. The young lady behind the counter took it, and swiped her handheld scanner across the bar code on the can’s lid. She didn’t put it in a bag, but instead put on a PAID sticker.

As the man reached into his coat pocket – Byrne noted immediately he did not retrieve his wallet from his pants pocket, but rather from an inside pocket of his coat or suit – he said something to the checkout girl, something that made her smile. Byrne noted that the girl curled one foot behind the other leg, a rather obvious sign that she was being flirted with, or charmed at the very least.

This was the first moment where there might have been a breakthrough. If the man paid for the purchase by credit card, they would have a substantial lead. But there was no such luck.

The man handed her cash, then returned his billfold to his inner coat pocket.

As he walked out of the top of the frame, heading for the exit, he paused for a moment. He set down the can of paint, buttoned his coat, reached into a side pocket and retrieved a pair of gloves. He slipped them on, then once more picked up the can.

At the top of the frame, at the upper left-hand corner, a woman approached him. Byrne could barely see anything, other than she wore a knee-length overcoat, and wore low heels.

The two hesitated a moment, then they were gone.

Walton stopped the recording.

‘Do we have video of them leaving the store?’ Byrne asked.

Walton shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We have cameras on the parking lot, but they only fire when we need them. Keeping video of the lot 24/7 is expensive. This is all we have, I’m afraid.’

He rewound the recording, let it play again. There was no mistake. The man waited for a moment until he was joined by a woman.

Byrne wondered:
Wife? Girlfriend? Sister?

The two did not appear to join hands, so it really could be any of the above.

Walton ran the recording one more time, stopped it just as the man crossed the end of the checkout lane. For an instant the man turned to his left, and they saw a very fuzzy profile. The subject was white, no older than twenty-five, well dressed. Although they couldn’t be certain, he appeared to be wearing a white shirt and dark tie.

‘What do you think, Donte?’ Walton asked.

Byrne turned to look at Donte. The kid was checking his Twitter feed on his phone. Byrne wanted to give Donte a few hours in the basement of the Roundhouse, just to give him an idea of the importance of this. He decided to let it go for now.

‘Go mix some paint,’ Walton said.

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

Donte sniffed, slow-rolled out of the office.

When he was gone Byrne asked: ‘Can I get a printout of that frame?’

‘You got it.’ Walton hit a few keys. Seconds later the laser printer on the floor beneath the desk came to life. Walton grabbed the printout and handed it to Byrne.

Byrne thanked the man. They made their parting remarks.

At the door Byrne asked: ‘Can I ask a personal question?’

‘Are you really a cop?’

‘I am.’

Walton smiled. ‘Then there’s no such thing as personal.’

‘May I ask how old you are?’

Walton told him. He was younger than Byrne had originally thought. Just a few years older than Byrne, actually.

‘How do you like this job?’ Byrne asked.

Walton shrugged. ‘I’d rather be chasing brown women around Bimini, but it pays the bills. Some of them anyway.’ He fixed Byrne in a knowing look. ‘You want to know what you’re going to do when you take your twenty.’

‘Thirty, actually.’

Walton looked impressed. ‘To tell the truth, I never thought I’d be doing this. What I mean is, you have no idea the volume of theft from a store like this. You learn really quickly what matters here and what doesn’t. I didn’t like being a housecat at first, but the job grows on you.’

On the way out of the store, as Byrne stood at the Pro Desk, paying for his own paint purchase, he glanced up, at the smoked glass dome cameras hanging from the ceiling, wondering if Tony Walton was watching. He also observed the checkout lane where his subject had paid for the Candlelight paint, as well as the door the young man had exited, but not before meeting up with his companion.

Shut the door
, the woman said on the piano recording
.

Were they looking for a man
and
a woman?

Byrne had the afternoon off, but his mind would not leave the image of the man and woman on the surveillance tape.

It was with that image that he stood in his driveway, measured the small flower beds. He hadn’t even considered the landscaping costs.

Before he could write down the dimension he heard a soft thump. Then a second thump, which was a bit louder than the first.

Then he heard a baby cry. Or was it?

He stepped into the driveway, trying to determine where the cry came from when heard another thump – this time quite loud. And it was accompanied by a louder cry.

He stepped into the flower bed next to the house.

There, in the bushes, just a few feet away, was a cat. Or, more accurately – at least from his perspective – a former cat. The cat was stretched out on the mulch below the spirea, a fallen brick on its head.

Bricks that would almost certainly be on top of Byrne’s head if he had not stepped into the driveway. He stepped back just as another few bricks tumbled off the roof, a safe distance away.

The chimney was crumbling.

He stepped back to the cat, gently removed the brick. The cat was dead.

‘Ah, shit.’

Byrne looked around for something with which to cover the animal. He retrieved a small tarp he kept in the trunk of his car. When he tried to put it over the cat, the cat opened its eyes, and extended all four paws, claws out, ready to rumble.

‘How is it?’

Byrne had made a call to a friend in the Animal Protective Services, and found the nearest vet.

The vet gave him a sideways glance. ‘It?’

‘Well, yeah,’ Byrne said. ‘The cat. How is it?’

‘Not your cat then, I take it?’

‘No.’ Byrne decided against telling the doctor how he and the cat met.

‘Well, the cat – it’s a he, by the way – is just fine. Just a concussion.’

Byrne had not had a pet of any kind since he was a child. Although it made perfect sense, he had not considered that cats could suffer a concussion. Of course they could. Cats and dogs had brains. Where there are brains, there are concussions.

‘Great,’ Byrne said. ‘So he’s going to be okay?’

‘He is.’

Byrne pulled into the driveway, looked over at the cat. He still looked a little groggy, maybe wondering who threw the brick at him.

‘It wasn’t me, buddy.’

Byrne opened the car door, the cat leapt out, followed him. He went in the house, grabbed a couple of small Dixie Cups and a bottle of Jameson. He stepped back onto the porch, tore off the top of one of the cups, poured a half-inch of whiskey into it. The cat, who had been lying on the porch, perked. He struggled to his feet, sniffing the air. Byrne pushed the cup closer.

‘This is probably wrong on so many levels, but if anybody has earned a thimbleful of Irish today, it’s you.’

Byrne poured himself a shot, tapped his cup against the cat’s cup. They both took a sip. The cat looked at him. No reaction at all. No cat-grimace. Byrne wondered if he’d done this before.

A few minutes later Byrne stepped back into the driveway, looked at the chimney. The mortar that had at one time been tuck-pointed between the courses of bricks – the tuck pointing that had disintegrated to the point where the bricks came loose – was scattered along the shingles. He picked up the cat, pointed to the chimney, by way of explanation. The cat wasn’t interested.

‘On the outside chance that you and I meet up again, I’m going to call you Tuck.’ He put Tuck down in pretty much the same place he had found him. The cat struggled to maintain his legs, but soon found them. He glanced up at Byrne and then, with a speed and strength Byrne would not have thought possible – considering the brick concussion and the shot of Irish – took off like a rocket.

‘Tuck,’ Byrne said. ‘Nice to have met you. Next round is on you.’

When Jessica and Sophie entered the shop, Jessica immediately smelled the scent of lavender.

She scanned the room, did not immediately see Miss Emmaline. Instead she saw that there were two teenaged girls dusting the shelves.

‘Hi, ladies,’ one of them said. She had short blond hair, and wore a U Penn sweatshirt. ‘Welcome to The Secret World!’

‘Hi,’ Sophie said.

‘Is Miss Emmaline around?’ Jessica asked.

‘Sure,’ the girl said. ‘She’s in the back. Do you want me to get her?’

‘Maybe you could just tell her I’m here, and ask if it’s okay if I come back to her sitting room. My name is Jessica. She’s expecting me.’

‘Sure thing.’

The other girl – taller, with deep auburn hair – slipped on her coat and gloves. ‘Got to catch my bus,’ she said. ‘See you next week.’ A few moments later she left the shop.

The blond girl got down from her step stool, crossed the shop. ‘I’ll tell Miss Emmaline you’re here.’ She parted the curtains that led to Miss Emmaline’s parlor.

Before Jessica stepped through she looked at her daughter.

Sophie was starstruck. She’d had a few dolls when she was younger, but it was never anything like an obsession. As far as Jessica knew, none of her dolls had been off the shelves in her bedroom for a few years.

When Jessica turned in the doorway, and saw the look on Sophie’s face as she talked to the other girl, it looked like all of that was about to change.

Jessica hoped not. Swimming was a lot less expensive than collecting antique dolls.

The blond girl stepped back into the shop.

‘Miss Emmaline said to just come on back.’

‘Thanks,’ Jessica said. ‘Is it okay if my daughter looks around? She won’t be a bother.’

‘Of course!’ she said. ‘She’ll be fine.’

‘I won’t be long, sweetie,’ Jessica said to Sophie.

No answer. Sophie’s mouth was open, but she didn’t make a sound.