Murder in Miniature by Margaret Grace

small table. I’d thrown a light robe over my mismatched cotton pajamas. Linda, who’d spent most of the evening at the police station, was in her crafts fair sweats, dusty rose this time. Her face was splotchy, her blue mascara streaked, and her hair limp. Nothing worse than a limp upsweep, but I didn’t tell her that.
    She’d briefed me on Jason’s grueling experience “under the lights,” as she called the interview.
    “They treated my son like a criminal,” she said in summary. “All they have is that he skipped school that morning and the newsstand guy—Armando or Alonzo or something—may have seen him near Crane’s. Someone who doesn’t even speak English right, Gerry. The police don’t like Jason much.”
    “He has kept the police busy, with—”
    “With what? You know he didn’t do half the things he’s accused of. Sometimes he falls in with the wrong crowd. He’s a very impressionable boy.”
    The inconsistencies made my late-night head spin. He didn’t do it, but if he did, it wasn’t his fault. There wasn’t a witness, but if there was, English was not his first language. It sounded like lawyer talk, which also made my head spin.
    “I understand,” I said.
    “I think Chuck is involved. The police said he had a solid alibi for last Tuesday, the day of the robbery. But get this: evidently he started drinking early that day and was playing pool with his buddies. The bartender—you know, that loser Tom Baker—and four other upstanding citizens of Lincoln Point vouched for him.” Linda took a cookie from the plate between us. “Yeah, right. A tight alibi. Anyway, Jason’s fine for right now, until they decide they have something else on him, I guess.” She took a breath. “But I’m all stressed out, and there was just no one else for me to turn to.”
    “Turn to for what, Linda? You’re not exactly opening up to me.” The delicate sounds from the waterdrop fountain in the corner of the atrium reminded me to breathe, to calm myself. Water poured from the uppermost vessel down to each of three others, in the aqueduct style that Ken loved, and cycled back to the top. I focused on lowering my voice—Maddie was only one room away. “What happened last night?” I whispered.
    Linda folded her arms and blew out a breath, as if she’d just taken a drag on a cigarette, which would have been the case not too many years ago. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, Gerry. Just be patient with me. I think it’s all going to be over soon.”
    “And what might it be?” I asked.
    Linda glared at me, as she often did when I pressed her for what she didn’t want to give up. But this was my home, my coffee, and my sleep time that was dwindling away. I picked up my mug, nearly full, and carried it to the kitchen. I slammed the mug into the sink, making as much noise as I could without breaking it.
    “I just wanted to see a friendly face, Gerry. Which I’m not getting. I guess I’d better go,” Linda said. Her voice was huffy, which aggravated me more.
    “I guess so.”
    Linda threw her purse over her shoulder and headed for door. She left her mug on the table.
    I should have been relieved, but the feeling was more complicated than that. I thought of myself as a good friend. Maybe really good friends don’t ask questions. Maybe the trendy, “I’m here for you,” is what I should be willing to give, no matter how little I got in return.
    It was too late and I was too tired to decide. In just a few hours I’d see Linda at the fair and apologize for essentially kicking her out of my house.
    I locked the front door after her and stopped by Maddie’s room. She was sprawled on her stomach, covers on the floor. Her left hand clutched something I couldn’t make out. I moved closer and strained to see it by the moonlight streaming through the window.
    She was holding two small pieces of foam board, the raw materials I’d pointed out to her for a bookcase in the Bronx apartment dollhouse.