Chapter 24
DeeAnn’s day began the same as any other day since she’d hurt her back—except that she left the house. She visited the doctor, who said she needed to start physical therapy.
She was able to get around with a walker and sit up. The doctor gave her different pain medication that worked with a lower dosage. She didn’t feel as high from them.
The week dragged on with visits from Karen, Bea, and Sheila. Paige was exhausted from all of the testing going on at the school, but she texted DeeAnn every day.
Saturday night, the crop had once again been moved to DeeAnn’s place and she sat propped up on the recliner in a much better frame of mind—except for the one thing everybody was worried about, that everybody had been talking about. The murder of the sisters.
“Something odd going on there,” DeeAnn said. “Why are all these women who worked at the Pie Palace getting killed?”
“Marina’s sister didn’t work there,” Annie pointed out.
“I agree with DeeAnn,” Vera said as she turned the page on her scrapbook and looked over a fresh, blank spread of paper. “I love Pamela’s pie, but I’ve always found her a bit off-putting and now all this. I wonder what’s going on.”
“Why do you find her off-putting?” Cookie asked.
“The way she dresses for one thing,” Vera said. “Like she’s a showgirl instead of a restaurateur.”
“She has her own style, that’s for sure,” Randy said.
“But you know there’s something else. Mama has been trying to reach the Martelinos’ parents to send her condolences. She has yet to be able to do that. I think she’s just about given up. But I don’t understand what the big deal is,” Vera said.
“What do you mean?” DeeAnn asked.
“She’s talked with Pamela. She’s called the employment agency. No luck,” Vera said. “It’s like these women have no ties. I find that hard to believe.”
“Maybe that’s the way they wanted it. Maybe they never wanted to go back.” Cookie said it quietly, but the words had weight, coming from her. She was still working on remembering. Still in therapy.
DeeAnn had considered on more than one occasion that maybe Cookie didn’t want to remember.
“Why?” Sheila spoke up. “I’m sure they have family.”
“Maybe not,” Cookie persisted. “Life in some of those countries is difficult. Their parents might not be alive. There may not be anybody.”
“That’s true,” Annie said after a few minutes of silence, save for the sounds of paper being shuffled and scissors snipping. “I have a few calls in to Immigration. It may be awhile for them to get back to me. But I haven’t really found Pamela helpful, either. She claims she doesn’t know much about them.”
“That’s probably true,” Randy said. “I like Pamela. She’s a pro, very polite, very friendly. But she’s not one you can easily warm up to if you know what I mean. Now, what do I do with this?” He held up a piece of blue netting.
Sheila rose from her place at the card table and went over to where he was. “Pull it, then place the sticky-side down on the page.”
“Very cool,” said Randy as he attached the netting.
“Now you can place paper or a photo on top of that. What a great picture,” she said.
DeeAnn saw that it was a photo of him and his dad at Halloween. How about that? It inspired her to see Randy at the scrapbooking table and to know that he and his father were getting closer. That surprised her. She knew that Paige was thrilled with the way things were working out.
“Have you found a house yet?” DeeAnn asked him.
“Not yet. I’m not in a hurry. I want it to be the perfect situation. I love living at the B and B. Elsie is such a character.”
“Elsie!” Annie said. “You know, I hadn’t remembered until right now that she employed Marina’s sister. I should talk with her.”
“Good idea,” DeeAnn said, feeling a slight pinching in her back. Should she take another pill? It was almost time—so she’d go ahead and take one.
“Let’s see how you’re doing,” Sheila said to Vera and Annie, who were seated next to one another because they were working on the same project—Halloween scrapbooks. The holiday was in a few weeks and Annie, Sheila, and Vera were the only three who had kids that still celebrated. They were working on mini-scrapbooks in preparation for their celebrations. Blank spaces for pictures and journaling, already embellished and so on. It was a clever and efficient way to scrapbook that worked out most of the time.
“I love working this way,” Vera said.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Annie said. “I just don’t know how it’s going to work. I guess I normally take all of my design clues from photos, so I’m a little unsettled.”
“It will work out. You’ll see,” Sheila said.
“What is that?” DeeAnn said, noticing a colorful paper sticking out from under Sheila’s laptop.
“What? Oh, that’s a paper dress,” Sheila said, holding it up.
“I can see that,” DeeAnn said. “Like for a paper doll?”
Sheila nodded and sat down, then dug around in her bag and pulled out an envelope. “Donna and I have been making paper dolls.”
DeeAnn’s heart nearly burst. Paper dolls! She was transported to her childhood when she had spent hours playing with paper dolls. In fact, she still had some of them. Her hand went to her ample bosom and tears stung her eyes.
“DeeAnn?” Paige said. “What is it?”
“The dolls are so charming.” DeeAnn watched Sheila spread them out on the table. “I remember my mom and I cutting them out. The stories we would tell with them. . . .” She started to cr y—not sweet little nostalgic tears, but huge, ugly sobs. Oh time, what have you done to me?
“DeeAnn?” Randy said, handing her some tissue. “Are you all right?”
She pointed to the dolls and tried to gather herself.
“Good Lord, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Sheila said and began to gather up the dolls and their paper clothes.
“Leave them!” DeeAnn said. “I want to see them.”
“I agree,” Paige said, her face flushed with excitement. “They’re delightful.”
“Not just delightful . . . but remarkable,” Randy said in a hushed tone.
A silence came over the group as they pored over the homemade paper dolls. Tiny paper girls and women of all shapes and sizes with long, red hair, short, black hair, and many shades of brown. Paper dresses and shirts, skirts, and pants—blue, orange, red, all colors. But what made them extraordinary, DeeAnn thought as she ran her fingers over the smooth paper, were the details so meticulously drawn on. The lace collars, the colorful buttons, the floral prints.
“My goodness,” Sheila said. “They are just simple paper dolls. It’s something Donna and I have made together since she was a girl. It’s become a habit. And now that she’s home . . . well . . . we’ve started doing it again. This time, with a little more flair, I suppose.”
“You should show these to your boss,” Randy said.
“What? Whatever for?” Sheila said.
Randy shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they could start an upscale paper dolls line.”
“Nobody plays with paper dolls anymore,” Paige said. “It’s all about electronics these days.”
DeeAnn drew in a breath and hoped she was wrong. Oh the hours she spent with her paper dolls as a girl. She and her sister Diane wiled away the hours with them.
The doorbell sounded. They all wondered who it could be. Everybody, except Beatrice was already assembled.
Randy answered the door. “Detective Bryant. Please come in.”