Blessed with a photographic memory, Marjorie required no pictures of babies to provide her with inspiration. She knew what appealed to mothers the most—big blue eyes, cherubic lips, masses of silken hair. So she created baby dolls that were so impossibly beautiful that women were driven almost delirious when they saw them.
Now, as she labored over her latest creation in her workroom, Marjorie gently placed the doll in a silk-lined holder and wheeled her chair sideways. She pulled open a plastic drawer that contained bags of fox fur in dozens of brown, auburn, and red tones. This baby boy she was working on had chestnut hair with a few auburn highlights, so she needed just the right color for his eyelashes. She inspected one of her plastic bags. It wasn’t quite right. She tried another bag. Finally, she found just the perfect color. She took a small bit, just what she needed, and sealed the bag up tight again, rolled back to her workbench.
Wearing a pair of Bausch & Lomb magnifier glasses, Marjorie leaned in close and began the painstaking process of inserting each individual strand of fox hair. She worked steadily, humming as she went, and was halfway through the second eye when she was interrupted by a loud pounding on her door. She ignored it.
The pounding came again, this time more insistent.
“Go away,” she called. It had to be Ronnie.
“Ma!” he shouted. “Ya gotta come see this!”
“What?”
“Ma! Come quick!” He pulled open the door, his face a mask of excitement and concern.
“Okay, hold your water, hold your water,” Marjorie said. She got up from her chair and followed Ronnie into the living room, where the TV set was blaring.
Ronnie gestured frantically at the television. “It’s that lady,” he cried. “The same one who organized the doll show last Saturday. She’s on TV!”
“Shit.” Marjorie sat down hard in one of the chairs.
They both watched, a little stunned, as Portia Bourgoyne posed with Muriel Pink in the woman’s neat-as-a-pin kitchen in Hudson, Wisconsin.
Portia was doing a quick recap: “Mrs. Pink is the woman who organized the doll show where Susan Darden supposedly met the vendor who is suspected of abducting little Elizabeth Ann Darden.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Marjorie said.
Portia peppered Pink with questions, and as the interview progressed, Pink seemed to remember more and more. She even seemed to be intimating that she definitely did remember seeing Molly, the doll lady, who was the prime suspect in the Darden baby kidnapping.
Ronnie thrust out his chin. “This ain’t good, Ma. You really screwed up.”
Marjorie held up a hand. “Shut up.” She wanted to hear the rest of the interview.
The Pink woman blathered on as Marjorie watched with growing rage and ever-narrowing eyes. This woman could be trouble, she thought to herself. If the police come back and question this woman, it could be the end for us. For me anyway.
“Ma, don’t ya think . . .” Ronnie started.
Marjorie tuned him out as the camera moved in close on Portia Bourgoyne. “Here at Newswatch 7,” Portia said, looking smug, as if she’d already scored a network anchor job, “we feel this information will be critical in helping solve such a horrific crime.”
“That’s what you think,” Marjorie said to the TV.
The TV cut back to the anchor desk, where a blow-combed anchorman gazed steadily into the camera and said, “On a related note, the baby found in the woods outside of Cannon Falls . . .”
Marjorie’s heart was jolted for the second time in two minutes. “What!” she exploded. “What did I just hear?”
Ronnie frowned as Marjorie extended a hand toward the television set and listened to the story. When it was over, she grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on—an amber glass ashtray with a Budweiser logo—and hurled it at Ronnie’s head. Cigarette butts exploded everywhere as it caught him squarely in the right temple.
“Ma!” he yelped.
“You left that baby in the woods near Cannon Falls?” Marjorie shrieked. She was on her feet and screaming, hopping up and down like a crazy person. “What the hell were you thinking? You were supposed to bury it!”
Ronnie held up a hand. “I can explain everything.”
She folded her arms across her scrawny chest. “This better be good.”
“Do you remember when I went to pick up that bobcat carcass from that hunter down in Red Wing?”
“Not really, but go on. I want to hear your whole stupid story.”
“It was just a couple of months ago, right after that other baby died. You wanted me to bury her, but it was too cold. We had that early ice storm and the ground was already frozen. Even the pickax would just, like, bounce back at me.”
“Lazy,” Marjorie said. “You stupid lazy boy. So you’re telling me you took the kid along with you? To Red Wing?”
Ronnie was nodding now. “I thought I was just being, you know, practical. But Red Wing is kind of . . . populated. More populated than here anyway. So I drove farther west, until I came across this woodlot. How was I supposed to know that a couple of dumb-ass hunters would stumble upon the thing? I couldn’t, right? I mean, I couldn’t know that.”