Dead Past

accustomed to the darkened interior, she spotted Juliet and her grandmother getting up from the booth. She walked over to them.
    “Juliet, why don’t you and your grandmother sit down a moment.”
    Diane drew up a chair from another table and sat down at the end of their booth. Where do I start? she asked herself.
    “Someone just stole the doll,” said Diane.
    “What?” said Juliet. “Stole the doll? Why?”
    “I told you to hang on to it,” said Mrs. Torkel. “Someone tried to get it from me when we were helping Juliet, and I had to elbow them out of the way.”
    “You mean someone besides the security guard?” asked Diane.
    “Yes. When we were helping Juliet into the back room,” said Mrs. Torkel. “Did they snatch it from you? You should have given them a good elbow.”
    “No, I was taking it to Laura Hillard and a man pulled a gun on me,” said Diane.
    Both of them looked at Diane with open mouths.
    “A gun?” said Juliet. “Here in the museum?”
    “In the parking lot,” said Diane.
    “What’s the world coming to?” exclaimed her grandmother.
    “Don’t worry about the doll,” said Juliet.
    “It’s not the doll that I’m worried about,” said Diane.
    She took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.
    “Juliet, I want you and your grandmother to stay in a hotel. The museum will pay for it.”
    “Why?” Juliet looked alarmed.
    “Because of the doll?” said Mrs. Torkel. “It was just a doll.”
    “Juliet, I’m trying very hard not to alarm you.”
    “I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of it,” said Mrs. Torkel.
    “Gramma!” said Juliet.
    “It’s OK,” said Diane. “She’s right. Juliet, you know someone was murdered in your apartment building.”
    “Oh, goodness gracious,” said Mrs. Torkel.
    “Yes. They had an address similar to mine and it frightened me.”
    “I know. Did you know the murdered woman?” asked Diane.
    “No,” said Juliet, “I never met her.”
    “Joana Cipriano, the murdered girl, didn’t look like you, but her general physical description was the same—blond hair, blue eyes—living in your apartment building. Someone who hadn’t seen you for a long time or perhaps had an old picture might mistake one of you for the other,” said Diane. “We have reason to believe that her murderer drove a blue Chevrolet Impala. The man who stole the doll also drove a blue Chevrolet Impala.”
    “Oh,” said Juliet. She drew a deep breath. “I’m not crazy, am I?”
    “No,” said Diane. “You are definitely not crazy.”
    “I’ve always been afraid that someone was after me, even though I couldn’t remember the kidnapping. But still, why would he come back after all these years?”
    “Juliet, when you played with your dolls, did you ever hide messages inside them?”
    Juliet looked at Diane with a blank stare. So did her grandmother.
    “Why in the world would she do that?” said Mrs. Torkel.
    “Just for fun,” said Diane, hoping not to have to explain her own childhood play.
    “No,” said Juliet. “You mean like cut them open? I’d have to tear up the doll to do that.”
    “Not really. They can be put back together fairly easily—most of the time.” Diane paused a moment.
    Juliet and her grandmother looked at her as if they were beginning to doubt her sanity.
    “Your grandmother said you told her that the doll had a secret,” she continued.
    Juliet shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
    “That’s what you told me, dear,” said her grandmother.
    “To me that meant one thing,” said Diane. “There might be a message inside the doll.”
    “Well, how the heck did you get here from there?” said her grandmother.
    “It was the way I played with my dolls. I won’t get into that now, but I found that your doll had been restitched at the arm . . . so I took it apart.”
    “Took it apart?” said Ruby Torkel.
    “I put it back together,” said Diane. “It’s as good as new.”
    “Did you find anything?” asked Juliet.
    She was wide-eyed at this point. Diane didn’t know if it was from Diane’s effrontery, the odd way she played with dolls as a child, or the fact that there might have been a message hidden in the stolen doll.
    “Yes, I did,” said Diane. “There was a roll of paper inside with some kind of code written on it. I asked if you hid messages in your dolls because I wanted to know if it might have been something that you left, and not be of any importance to recent events. But since someone