Malice in Miniature

The Lincoln Point jail was in the basement of the police department building, at the east end of the civic center complex. I’d been to the facility only once before today and didn’t look forward to this visit any more than I had the last one.

To prepare for the dank, clammy hallways under the old building, I treated myself to a double latte and a brownie at the coffee shop on the corner of Hanks and Springfield, across the street from the Rutledge Center. It was ten o’clock, legitimate break time for a working woman.

The day was perfect for walking. If I were ambitious, I’d have walked the mile or so down Springfield Boulevard to the jail. But fortunately today, as nearly every other day, I had an excuse not to. This morning it was my shoes, dressy flats that were a little uncomfortable around the instep. Another time it would be a tight deadline or a case of the sniffles. Anything could keep me from exercise.

Quite the opposite with my hobby. Very seldom did anything keep me from working on a miniature scene or a dollhouse project. I once got up from a sickbed in the middle of the night to glue a tiny lamp onto a desk. I’d awakened with the fear that a breeze from the open window would blow it away and I’d never find it.

I retrieved my car from the television studio side of the complex and now I drove down Springfield toward the civic center, another complex of buildings, but far different from the Rutledge Center complex. This one comprised stately white buildings that had “government” written all over them. As I approached the set of buildings, one of which was the police department, it was hard to ignore Skip’s voice in my head. It seemed strange to be this close to his office and not stop in, but I didn’t want him to discourage me from visiting Zoe.

An unusually large number of men milled around city hall, the building in the center of the complex. Tryouts for the roles of Lincoln and Douglas, I guessed. The tradition every year was to try to keep the winners a secret from all but the actors themselves. Thus, when the actors entered the stage on the night of the performance, the oohs and aahs of the audience would be all the more passionate and genuine expressions of excitement.

Mingled with the actors-to-be were a few more informal entertainers, many of whom were fixtures in town. One old man had been fiddling at the northwest corner of the city hall lot for years, his battered instrument case at his feet, ready for donations. An older woman, supposedly an artist at one time, worked her talent in chalk on the sidewalk, drawing nature scenes of rivers, mountains, flowers, and trees. Every evening the maintenance crew would wash down her masterpiece, and the next day she’d be there again, with her scraps of colored chalk.

I looked for Ryan Colson in the crowd as I made my way slowly around the circle, but all the short Stephen Douglas candidates were overpowered by the tall would-be Abraham Lincolns. I’d wanted to ask my nagging question, but not in the presence of Stephanie or Ed: was Ryan on duty the night Zoe did her damage? Had he seen her in person as opposed to on video? I hoped the opportunity would present itself before too long.

I parked facing away from the buildings and entered the police station by a door that led directly from the street level to the basement. Maddie wouldn’t have let me do this—she loved climbing the majestic front steps up to the office level. One more reason I was glad she was in school right now. The police station, the oldest building in town, dated back to days when public buildings were models of architecture and design. Most of us laypeople loved the structure, but my architect husband had called it Neo-Renaissance, which to him meant “nothing special.”

On the downside of “old and classic” was the fact that the building was falling apart and nowhere was that more apparent than in the basement.

I looked past the peeling paint and littered corners in the lower foyer (Ken would have called it a mudroom) and was relieved and delighted to see a friendly face. Drew Blackstone, a student of mine in the nineties, was on duty.

“Hey, Mrs. Porter,” Drew said in the cheeriest, most non-threatening voice I’d heard all day. A large man, he lumbered up from a chair behind a desk that was as battered as the walls, the floor, and the ceiling of his workstation. I admired that he could be so jovial in these surroundings. This couldn’t have been a plum assignment and I hoped it was rotated through the department.

“Nice to see you, Drew,” I said, thinking what a lucky break that I wouldn’t need to go through a tortuous ID procedure and a long story about why I wanted to visit a prisoner. The bad news was that he might mention the occasion to Skip.

“What brings you down to these depths? Doing penance?” Drew threw his head back and laughed. “Remember when you taught us parts of The Divine Comedy? Well, I think this is, like, a circle of hell.”

“I remember a lot from your class. I was thinking of you the other night when I was reading to my kid. You know you always told us to start early when we were parents and all. And little Davey, he loves books.”

It was always gratifying to hear that I’d influenced my students for the good, though I knew there were just as many whose memories of Mrs. Porter were not so positive.

I felt I owed Drew another few minutes of chat and inquired after his wife, also a former student (sadly, Amy lost her mother last month). We covered the weather (we sure needed that rain yesterday), the upcoming debate reenactment (not Drew’s cup of tea, thanks anyway), and the new popcorn store in town (twenty-three flavors, I was able to inform him) before I finally said, “I was wondering if I could see Zoe Howard?”

“Right, no homegrown murderers in Lincoln Point, huh? Well, let me call back and see if she’s finished with her facial and pedicure.” My confusion must have shown. Drew followed up with, “Sorry. Jailhouse humor. We’re not always, uh, sensitive.”

After a minute or so of phone talk that was filled with police jargon, Drew hung up. He removed his cap, scratched his head, and opened a large logbook. “I think Miss Howard still has a visitor.” He ran his finger down a column of names. Was the Lincoln Point jail that busy, or did the logbook go back a few years? “Yup. Here it is. Visitor’s still there. George came on while I was on break, so I wasn’t sure.”

No need to decide since, at that moment, the door to the hallway, where the cells and visiting rooms were located, opened and closed again with two loud clangs. Out walked a young woman in an expensive-looking suit. Zoe’s lawyer I guessed. She had a sharp chin, among her other striking features. She wore her pale blond hair pulled back, and looked vaguely familiar. There weren’t that many lawyers in Lincoln Point, and I spent enough time around the civic center, between the library and the police station, that I probably saw this woman among the general law enforcement population. She gave Drew a charming smile, me a disdainful look (was it my outfit?), collected her briefcase, and signed out without a word.

“We got one drunk who’s out like a light. That’s it, plus Miss Howard. There’ll be more DUIs over the weekend if you want to come back and visit them.”

He blushed. “You can go back. Lois will take you to Miss Howard and she’ll be right there if you need her.” Drew put his hand to his mouth for the next remark, as if he were sharing a secret in a crowded room. “The prisoner is a cutup, you know.”

“The cute, young Miss Howard has a temper. She gets angry, you don’t know what she’s going to toss at you—her shoes, her dinner plate—I was lucky I just got a pillow in my face when I told her she couldn’t have her laptop.”

I had second thoughts as I deposited my purse on the shelf behind Drew (student-to-teacher privilege went only so far). I was now unarmed against an apparently all-too-possible assault by the prisoner.

One quick search of my person and one metal detector later I was walking down a dark, smelly hallway, wondering why I had given up my sunny morning to visit someone who might throw her chair at me.

The nearest I could come to the exact words being shouted was, “That was her! That was her! Why doesn’t anyone believe me?” Then, “She’s the one, not me. Don’t let her get away.” These exclamations were punctuated with sounds of crashing, banging, and grunting. Except that Officer Lois was large and armed, I’d have turned back.

Officer Lois Rosen, whose thick face belied her sweet name, put her arm across my chest, hindering me from further travel down the hallway. I didn’t resist. We stood there for what seemed a life sentence until the clamor stopped.

We continued our journey and by the time my escort and I reached the small visiting room, Zoe had calmed down. I wondered if she’d had help from pharmaceuticals.

Zoe’s face, paler even than TV star Nan Browne’s, showed no signs of the temper tantrum that had assaulted my ears from a distance. She sat with her head in her hands at a small table. Officer Lois, who’d said nothing on our trip down the hallway, directed me to a chair opposite Zoe. She then took up a spot in a corner and folded her arms across her chest. I knew I would be discouraged from an outburst in the presence of such a force, and hoped Zoe would be also.

“June said you’d come,” she wailed. She stood to reach out to me but the long arm of Officer Lois intervened. I could tell that Zoe wanted to throw herself into my arms, a measure of her desperateness, since we hardly knew each other. I wished I could accommodate her.

I looked for a smile on the tall, unattractive police officer’s face, but saw none. Too old to have been my student (which was saying a lot), Lois looked like she’d come with the building. I felt very sorry for Zoe.

With Officer Lois back against the wall, Zoe took deep breaths, her only visible struggle now adjusting the neck of her shirt, which was several sizes too big for her. “This is so horrible, Geraldine,” she said. “I didn’t do anything.”

She nodded. “You know what? I hope they tape these visits because that woman, the one who just left here, threatened me.” Zoe’s voice rose with every word, causing Officer Lois to make slow movements toward us. Zoe looked in the corners of the room as if she were trying to spot a bug or a camera. “If I do get out on bail, she might really kill me.”

I must have heard wrong. The woman who just left? Was that what Zoe had been shouting about as I approached? “Your lawyer wants to kill you?” I asked, remembering the woman with the pointy chin who had given me the cold shoulder as she signed out.

“My lawyer? No, she claimed to be my lawyer because she knew I’d never have agreed to see her. That last visitor was Rhonda Edgerton—she still calls herself Rhonda Goodman.”

So much for my educated guess about running into a Lincoln Point lawyer whom I’d seen around the civic center. “That was Brad’s ex-wife? I thought she was in Chicago?”

“Well, she’s not.” Zoe’s voice rose a notch. “She was right here in the Lincoln Point lockup a minute ago and she threatened me outright, like, ‘I’ll kill you for what you did to my husband.’ I’m almost scared to leave here.” She buried her head in her hands for a moment, then jerked it up. “As if I could.”

“Yeah, but not this Amazon. And Rhonda kept a smile on her face the whole time she was whispering these threats to me. She’s a real piece of work. She writes letters and leaves messages on Brad’s phone saying, ‘From your loving wife, Rhonda.’ She calls me and tells me to leave her husband alone. She won’t take any money from selling the house they owned in Chicago because that would be acknowledging the divorce and she says they’re still married in the eyes of God. Brad had to get a special court paper, like some kind of a waiver for when people won’t sign what they’re supposed to.”

Too easy. I used my lie-detector training (that is, my experience searching the eyes of teenagers for twenty-seven years) and decided there was more to it.

I offered Zoe a much-needed tissue, then glanced over my shoulder, half expecting the one-woman SWAT team to come down on us, but Officer Lois kept a silent vigil.

I was sorry to hear this. Zoe flunked my test. I took a long breath and said good-bye to her alibi. While June had rehearsed “watching a bunch of Sex and the City reruns,” she’d neglected to train Zoe to stick to the story. I supposed it said something that Zoe wasn’t so hardened a criminal that she knew how to keep an alibi straight.

She sank back in the hard metal chair. I barely heard her “yes.” Then, “They’re doctored. They can do anything these days.” She banged on the table. I flinched, not too noticeably, I hoped. “Hey, I can do anything if you give me a tape and some decent software.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Where did I get the nerve to imply that I would be able to do something for her, if only she didn’t lie to me? Was I a cop now? Apparently I thought so, because I then used a trick I learned from Skip, from one of his many dinner-table anecdotes about interview techniques.

Zoe looked panicked. “Wait, wait. Don’t go, Geraldine.” She got up, nearly tripping over the hems of her ugly green pants. Officer Lois was on her in a flash, pushed her back down onto the chair, and returned to her corner, looking confident that she’d made her point.

“I was mad, okay. And I wanted to talk some sense into him. So I went to the work area but he wasn’t there. I swear. Why would I cut up his paintings? Why would I kill Brad? I loved him and I wanted him back.”

“I went to the building, okay? I’d gotten yet another phone call from Rhonda that afternoon telling me to back off or she’d make sure I never stole anyone else’s husband. I wanted to have it out with Brad. He needed to take a stand and tell her to stop or she never would. He wasn’t answering his cell, so I drove over.”

Zoe wet her lips. I wished I could at least get her a bottled water, but I was sure that wasn’t allowed. Neither Drew nor Officer Lois had told me how long I’d be able to stay and I wanted to make the most of the time, so I filled in while she worked her jaw. “So you went to Rutledge Center to confront him?”

Zoe nodded. “I figured he was working late as usual and had shut off his cell. But I couldn’t get in through the door to the artists’ work area, so I drove around and finally saw the janitor come out the door to the TV studio. He propped the door open, so I sneaked in while he was emptying the trash.”

She hesitated, then went on. “Yeah, they are if you know your way around. Brad wasn’t there, though. He wasn’t anywhere in the center that I could see, so I left.”

I couldn’t blame Zoe for her halting speech. Not only had she confessed to breaking and entering, but the small visiting room was suffocating. The walls seemed to oscillate, an optical illusion spawned by the lack of any decoration to break up their grayness. And Officer Lois seemed to grow fatter, until she became like a party balloon cop.

I gave Zoe a minute. I needed one myself, as I worked on the timeline and spatial relations in the artists’ work area. If Zoe wandered around the area looking for Brad but didn’t go near where the paintings were stacked, she wouldn’t have been caught on camera at ten o’clock. “You didn’t see his paintings and you didn’t slash them.”

Zoe’s head was on the table by now. I didn’t think it was a great idea for her to have her skin make contact with the ugly stains, but that was the least of her worries.

She looked at me, eyes teary and pleading. “I didn’t kill him, Geraldine. I never laid eyes on him that night. And now he’s gone and the last time I saw him, we fought.”

I was sure it was a terrible state, to have an argument with a loved one be your last encounter. But I had an uneasy feeling about a couple of things Zoe said. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what, but I felt sure she was still holding back. On the whole, though, I did believe she wasn’t a murderer.

In a way I wished I didn’t believe her. Then I could tell June I’d kept my promise. I’d explain how I’d visited Zoe and that I’d be around if June wanted me to bake cookies for her friend, but that would be it. Instead, I felt compelled to help Zoe get out of this dismal place. I also felt helpless to accomplish it.

“I was wondering if you could tell me the name of Zoe Howard’s last visitor?” I asked him as he retrieved my purse from a rusty metal rack behind him.

I wasn’t surprised that a head scratch preceded his answer. “Why not, Mrs. Porter? It’s not a state secret or anything.” Drew turned the logbook so I could read it. Maybe he thought he was keeping the letter of the law. This way, no one could accuse him of telling me out loud who the visitor was.

“I don’t think you would have had her in class. The lady showed me an Arizona license. I remember because it had those pretty red mesas in the background. I wish California had something special like that, don’t you?”

“I sure do.” Probably Drew was thinking of something different from what I had in mind: a row of San Francisco “Painted Lady” dollhouses, representing its Victorian houses.

I came back to Rita Gold. So much for Zoe’s screaming that Rhonda had visited her. I knew it wasn’t impossible to get fake IDs, but why would Rhonda bother? She wasn’t wanted for a crime and she had every right to visit California.

“Not right now, Drew.” I turned the book back to face him and gave him a wide smile and a nod. A verbal “thank you” would have been acknowledging that he might have broken a rule for his old teacher.

I retraced my steps and walked back toward the complex of buildings. The parking lot still had many Lincolns and Douglases, headed to or away from city hall, which stood at the center of Civic Drive. As I walked back toward the police building, I heard evidence of their rehearsing.

From a would-be Stephen Douglas, under his breath: “That I am not now nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” I had a new understanding of the plight of actors who had to deliver an opinion with great passion, whether they believed it or not, even if they might find that sentiment odious in their real-life personas.

A Lincoln candidate had a better deal. A tall young man passed me, seeming unaware of my presence, delivering his lines to an imaginary audience: “I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence.”

This time I entered the police department by the front steps and headed for Skip’s cubicle, toward the back of the great room. I tried to keep Rita E. Gold’s face at the front of my mind.