I held out my hand and she shook it firmly with a hand laden with silver rings and leather and braid bracelets. No limp fish there, I noted with approval. So many women didn’t know how to shake hands properly.
“PJ Avery. Reporter for the Sheepville Times.”
She swayed slightly from the ball of one foot to the other as if she were preparing to take a jump shot. It was tough to say how old she was. From her slight figure and the way she dressed, she could be a high school kid, or anywhere into her late twenties.
“Heard about the break-in. Where’s the dollhouse now?” she demanded, in a clipped tone.
“At the repair shop,” I answered in the same abrupt way, frowning at her. Why was she so interested in it?
A very tall blonde in a red halter dress that showed off her toned shoulders and legs strode by. It would have been hard to miss the look of disdain she shot in our direction.
“That’s Mac. The chick who makes the furniture.” PJ shoved her hands in the pockets of her pants. “She’s pissed at me because of all the business she has now from the article I wrote. Go figure.”
I shook my head, even as I kept massaging my back. “You know—um—PJ—I have to confess I’m a little confused by that. Isn’t more business a good thing?”
She shrugged her frail shoulders. “You know. Artists. They’re so temperamental.”
A microphone crackled as one of the show organizers stepped up to announce the winner of the dollhouse competition. “Please join me in congratulating the winner of this year’s show. Ardine Smalls.”
“First time she ever won,” PJ muttered as a woman hurried to the front of the crowd.
Ardine was probably in her late forties. She had shoulder-length dark hair with wiry gray strands poking through the surface. The kind of hair that had never been colored or straightened. She wore a black-and-white polka-dot dress with padded shoulders and an electric blue belt.
Her face was alight with triumph. I could see this was a Big Deal for her.
“You know, I never realized that dollhouse collecting was such a big business,” I said to PJ under cover of the applause. “And people are so competitive. The world of sewing notions seems pretty tame in comparison.”
She snorted. “You have no idea what these women are like. They’re obsessed.”
Ardine Smalls was gesturing for her fellow competitors to come together for a group shot. She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, with her eyes darting from side to side. Two of the women stayed, but the rest drifted away. My heart ached as Ardine’s wide smile drooped.
PJ rolled her eyes. “Oh, crap. I gotta cover this. Get some kind of brain-dead quote from her. Hold on a minute.”
She pulled a camera with a huge lens out of a tote bag on her shoulder.
A minute later she was back. “Guess I felt like being nice today. I didn’t take a shot of the shoes.”
I glanced at Ardine’s scuffed, down-at-heel white pumps and stifled a chuckle. Although PJ didn’t have much room to talk. She wasn’t exactly a fashion maven herself.
She clicked off a couple more photos of the crowd. “Yeah, so, like, I’m doing a series of articles on collectors. I interviewed Harriet Kunes on Wednesday. Thought it was good prep cuz she was pegged to be the winner.” She chuckled without humor. “That was a waste of time.”
“What did you think of her?” I held my breath.
She lowered the camera and stared at me with eyes that were almost purple, but again, not the kind of color to be found in nature.