Free Ding Dong Dead by Deb Baker Page A

artist.”
    “My mother knew her,” Gretchen said quietly. “They were old friends but had lost touch over the years.”
    “What was Allison doing in the cemetery?” Nina asked. Gretchen took it as a good sign that the intrigue was winning her aunt over enough that she hadn’t even commented on Caroline’s connection to the dead woman.
    “No one knows,” Bonnie said. “Or if they do, they aren’t saying. I’m going to keep at Matty, but my son has tight lips.”
    Since learning he can’t trust his mother to keep a secret, Gretchen thought.
    “What I want to know,” Nina said, “is whose grave was she visiting after dark?”
    All eyes turned to Gretchen, who shrugged.
    “Gretchen doesn’t know,” Nina said, still testy. “Right there at the scene of the crime and she doesn’t notice the engraving on the headstone.”
    “She must have been very upset,” Julie said in Gretchen’s defense.
    “It was pitch-black,” Gretchen said. “And, yes, I was upset.” When was the last time you stood beside a murdered woman? “The woman had crawled from one location to another. I really don’t know the answer, but that’s a very good question.”
    “Fine,” Nina snapped. “A killer is on the loose, killing doll collectors, which all of you happen to be, and you didn’t notice. Fine. Just fine.”

13
    What is the difference between antique dolls and vintage dolls?
    Dates!
    Dolls produced prior to 1930 are considered antiques. Most antique dolls came from European countries, especially France and Germany. The dolls were clothed in Victorian and Edwardian fashions. Today they serve as delightful historical artifacts.
    Vintage dolls were designed between 1930 and 1980, and were produced by doll manufacturers such as the Alexander Doll Company, Ideal Toy and Novelty Company, and Mattel, among others.
    —From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch
     
     
     
    Caroline unpacks boxes in the museum’s upstairs storage room, the same room in which her sister claimed she’d witnessed the presence of an apparition. Nina has made her aware of every creak and groan from the old home, thanks to her talk of otherworldly creatures. Nina has always been very different from Caroline, searching for answers best left unfound, those that defy human logic.
    Caroline has never been able to decide if Nina is right or wrong. Strange things do happen when she is around. Unexplainable things. But Caroline is more comfortable with her black-and-white view of the world. Why complicate it any more than it already is by throwing in beings from other worlds and other dimensions?
    She glances at her watch. Ten o’clock a.m., still enough time to look through one more box of dolls before heading home to meet with a customer. The cast of Ding Dong Dead should be at the banquet hall deep into rehearsal. Caroline is very glad she opted out of that fiasco, preferring to work quietly and at her own pace at the museum. She’s also glad that she didn’t let the other members talk her into trying to open the museum this month. She needs three, four, maybe five months, hopefully less once the luncheon and play are over, when the others can devote more time to help prepare the museum’s displays.
    She withdraws dolls from storage containers, one at a time, unwraps them, examining each to determine if it needs repair. Some are antiques, some vintage. Most of the dolls have been preserved well, packed away with expert care. Little is required other than smoothing a wrinkled costume here and there, recurling a lock of hair, wiping a smudge away, finding the proper stand. She has a few of her supplies at hand for the most simple repairs.
    The next item that she unwraps is a metal doll head. The doll head has yellow painted hair, red lips, enormous blue painted eyes. The face paint is chipped away in spots, leaving marks like white chicken pox. Caroline isn’t surprised to be holding a head without a body. Many of the metal-head dolls were sold that way,