Free Monster in Miniature by Margaret Grace

connection that mattered.
    “What do I think I’m doing?” I asked Henry and myself.
    Henry gave me a warm smile. “Did you agree to help Susan?”
    I felt the large key in my purse. “Apparently I did.”
    “What’s holding you back?”
    I averted his gaze at first, then met his eyes. “Excuse me?”
    “Well, it doesn’t seem that tough. You’ve done this before.” I was beginning to like his grin, now spreading across his face as he walked the fingers of one hand across the palm of the other. “Gone snooping.”
    “I guess I have.”
    “So, what’s different about this case?”
    Thud.
    A loud noise came from the side door to Henry’s workshop. The answer to Henry’s question would have to wait. A good thing, since I wasn’t ready to share it.
    “I knew it. I knew it,” Maddie said, stepping over the backpack she’d just dropped (thrown). “You’re talking about The Case.” She put her hands on her skinny hips, and Taylor followed suit. I wondered if Taylor knew why the gesture was important: Maddie staking her claim to a place on the investigative team.
    “Did you show Mrs. Porter the new dollhouse, Grandpa?” Taylor asked.
    “I forgot,” Henry said.
    “I thought you were busy sewing,” I said, taking the coward’s way out and focusing on Taylor.
    “We were, but then we needed some snacks from Maddie’s backpack and the zipper got stuck, so we came for help,” Taylor said.
    “Let’s see that zipper,” Henry said.
    “How come you’re letting Mr. Baker help with The Case, but not me?” Maddie asked.
    Henry worked on the zipper, head down, leaving me to answer. I’d wait until bedtime to suggest that Maddie be a little less petulant now that she was old enough to sit in the front seat of a car. “Mr. Baker and I were having a conversation, sweetheart,” I said.
    “It’s not polite to eavesdrop, especially on adults,” Taylor said.
    Maddie shot her a look. I thought I noticed a tinge of defeat in her eyes. That was twice in one day that my granddaughter suffered a loss, and this time at the hands of a little girl with a blond pixie cut, four months younger than she was.
    I knew that eventually someone would have to pay.
    The plastic bag of ginger cookies that Henry rescued from Maddie’s backpack would be enough to keep her happy for now.
     
     
    Thanks to the arrival of Taylor’s parents, who had assumed day-care duties, I found myself at Bagels by Willie (named after Abe’s young son, of course) for an early lunch with Henry.
    “You two go and have grown-up food and talk and we’ll fix something for us and the girls,” Henry’s daughter, Kay, had said.
    When I hesitated, her husband, Bill, had added, “Really, we hardly ever get to do lunch with our daughter, and it will be fun to have Maddie with us.”
    I dared not look at the fun girl, Maddie, left behind as I walked to Henry’s car.
    Thinking of Kay and Bill, it occurred to me that now there might be two more people rooting for Henry and me to become BFFs.
    Willie’s was always among the first to promote the spirit of the season with bowls of Halloween candy on the table. I helped myself to a miniature (loosely speaking) candy bar and bit into layers of chocolate, marshmallow, and caramel. Things could be worse.
    “You were about to tell me what’s different about this case,” Henry said, pretending to look around—for Maddie, I knew.
    Then I remembered that things actually were worse.
    “It’s about my husband.”
     
     
    After the fact, I realized I’d gone on far too long about how Ken’s name had appeared on Halbert’s “most wanted” list and how Ken would never, ever have been involved in anything the slightest bit questionable.
    Henry had managed to finish off two cinnamon bagels and several pieces of orange- and black-wrapped taffy and still listen attentively.
    “Since it seems Halbert’s death will probably be ruled a suicide, do you think the police will even bother to look into any of those