Murder in Miniature Read Online Free Page A

carpet to the stage while the men fought.
    My focus returned to Beverly, whose response to sending her cop son to Linda’s house was still less than enthusiastic. She gave me a look, raising her perfectly shaped reddish eyebrows. I knew what was coming and realized how foolish I sounded.
    “Remember Easter…was it ’81, ’82?”
    “When Linda skipped our brunch to meet ex number one, Peter…excuse me, Dr . Balandin …thinking they might get back together?”
    Beverly nodded, her fingers in position to tick off other instances of Linda’s delinquency. “Without ever letting us know. And then during that big rainstorm one winter…let’s see, it was—”
    “Valentine’s Day, around ’85, when Pete married his young student. Linda took a hotel room in Palo Alto and didn’t show up until noon the next day. Zoning out, she called it.”
    “Exactly. This is Linda being Linda,” Beverly said, pointing to the empty chairs behind Linda’s table.
    “You’re right.”
    We didn’t have to catalog all the other times Linda had “disappeared” during our lives together. She had a way of taking off when she felt she couldn’t handle a situation. More than once, after looking all day for her, we’d found Linda in a movie theater or sitting on a bench at the Stanford shopping mall, reading a book, as if she hadn’t put all her friends through trauma by not showing up where she was expected. Once she pulled into her driveway at three in the morning, to find Beverly, me, and a Lincoln Point black-and-white all pooling resources to search for her. She didn’t understand what the fuss was about.
    Beverly was right. This was another in a long list of Linda’s dramatic performances. It just wasn’t clear what the current impetus was for her bailing out. Something serious, I decided, like Jason and the robbery, to take her away from her precious crafts, but still, Linda being Linda. “Never mind,” I said to Beverly.
    Beverly rubbed my shoulders, and I leaned back into the welcome touch. “Why don’t I have a seat and take care of her table for a while,” she said. “Maddie seems to be doing well with Puppeteer Postmaster Cooney over there. I’m sure Linda will be back before our little girl gets bored.”
    “I think Maddie’s the only one who gets along with the old curmudgeon,” I said.
    “Have you noticed—some people get along better with children than adults?” Beverly rubbed her palms together. “Now, let’s sell some miniatures.”
    The voice of reason, and a helping hand. “Good idea. Thanks.”
    Beverly gave me a final pat and settled her lean body onto Linda’s chair. I pictured Linda’s returning momentarily, with a scowl at Beverly for moving her chair or wrinkling her tablecloth. I felt better already.
    Even so, when Just Eddie came by, I gave him a questioning look. He seemed to understand what I was asking—he frowned and gave me a “who cares” shrug.
    Our newspaper advertising and posters paid off and business was good, a peak coming just after the dinner hour, about seven thirty. Many newcomers to the hobby this year, I noted. Fortunately, I never tired of explaining the different scales to novices, especially children.
    “We call it full-scale when one inch equals one foot,” I explained to a little girl, about Maddie’s age, but wearing an adorable pastel yellow shirt with embroidered flowers (something Maddie would wad up and use to wipe down her bike). I used my arms and fingers to demonstrate the scales. “The sofa in your living room is probably about seven feet long, so a ‘full-scale miniature’ would be seven inches long.” I took out a ruler so the child could measure one of my sofas. I demonstrated half-scale from Linda’s table. Much of her work was in half-scale, where each foot converts to only a half inch, so her sofas were only three or four inches long.
    “These are cuter,” said the little girl, not intending to insult me, I was sure. I agreed. Half-scale